Question: Where is Tuvalu?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who coined the phrase, “ Tell it to the Marines!”
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History for 12/10/2023
Birthdays: English King Edward VII, Emile Dickinson, Ada Lovelace, E. H. Shepard the illustrator of Winnie the Pooh. Chet Huntley, Morton Gould, Victor McLaughlin, Dan Blocker, Tommy Kirk, Fionnula Flanagan, Kenneth Branaugh is 62, Dorothy Lamour, Susan Dey is 70, Michael Clarke Duncan

Happy World Freedom Day.

969AD- Byzantine Emperor Nicephorous II Phocas had no better administrator than John Tzimisces. But John was also the lover of Nicephorous’s wife Empress Theophano. This day she had Nicephorous assassinated. Theophano had earlier poisoned her own father-in-law Emperor Romanus II to help Nicephorous seize the throne. But now she was bored with him. To please the angry Greek Patriarch, John Tzmisces exiled Theophano to a convent and reigned as a pretty good emperor. But then he too was poisoned, by Basil II the Bulgar Slayer. Believe it or not, this was a happy period in Byzantine history.

1041- Byzantine Michael IV the Paphlagonian died. Before his death he had his sickbed moved to the Monastery of Saint Demetrios and changed his golden robes for monks rags.

1198-The death of the Moorish philosopher Averroes.

1508- Pope Julius II formed a grand alliance to crush the Republic of Venice. Called the League of Cambrai, the Vatican, France, The German Emperor, Spain and Naples all pledged to destroy the Most Surene Republic. The Venetians fought back valiantly, noblewomen patriotically pawning their jewels to pay the troops. After being attacked on all sides for 4 years, the League of Cambrai finally broke up when Pope Julius decided he’s rather have fellow Italians for neighbors rather than foreigners after all. The Republic of Venice survived, but her status as a world power was broken. She lapsed into an elegant, pleasure-loving decline until absorbed into Italy by Napoleon in 1796. They pioneered a new idea called tourism. That people would visit a place not to conquer it, or pray at shrines, but just to relax.

1513- Former Florentine politician Niccolo Machiavelli was living in a small town after being kicked out of government. He was even twisted a bit on a torture rack. Still missing his life in power, he declared this day to a friend he was writing a book on political theory to give to the Medici duke of Florence. He hoped by doing so he’d be called back to office. He also tried to dedicate it to Cesare Borgia. It didn’t get him a job, but his book THE PRINCE became one of the great works of political philosophy, the handbook of unscrupulous politicians ever since.

1518- Ulrich Zwingli was chosen to be the Gross Munster or chief vicar of the Swiss city of Zurich. Zwingli became a top leader of the Protestant Reformation like Martin Luther and John Calvin.

1520- Protestant reformer Martin Luther shows the Pope what he thinks of his Bull of Excommunication on him by burning it in public. Pope Leo’s command Exurge Domine went up in smoke along with the Canons of Roman Church Law to the cheers of students.

1577- The Union of Brussels- The 17 provinces of the Netherlands and Belgium formalized their union. This is why Holland is also known as the United Provinces.

1607- Captain John Smith left the Jamestown camp with two men to find food. They were captured by the Indians who killed the other men and dragged Smith before chief Powhatan. He ordered Smith’s head to be placed on a flat stone and bashed in with a war club. But Powhatan’s favorite daughter Pocahontas threw herself over Smith and protected him. Smith could speak no Algonquin and the Indians no English and neither could sing any Broadway tunes. Was this an execution prevented or a ritual of admission into the tribe? Powhatan was known to extend his rule through dynastic alliances with other tribal leaders, and he was well aware of the white strangers, wiping out a Spanish attempt to land on his beach in 1600. Maybe this was his way of wanting to bring the white man’s powers to his side.
No one knows for sure. John Smith is the only source for the story, and he didn’t write of this incident until back in England 14 years later.

1641- King Charles I issued a Royal Declaration ordering all Britons to conform to the practices of the Church of England, or else! The Declaration was King Charles’ defiant answer to a list of demands called the Great Remonstrance given him ten days earlier that accused him of undermining the Protestant faith. This was a poke at all the Puritans, Pilgrims, Levellers, Anabaptists who were complaining that the Anglican Church had gotten too Catholic-looking in its rituals.
Indeed, at the insistence of monarchs since Elizabeth, the reformed English service had re-introduced crucifixes, communion plate and surplice aprons for the priests. The declaration was one more provocation building the conflict that would soon break out as the English Civil War. When violence broke out the Puritans dragged out the Archbishop of Canterbury, Archbishop Laud and chopped his head off. Laud was seen as the instigator of this declaration and the Kings policy on religion and was branded as Laudism.

1672- New York colonies Royal Governor Sir Thomas Lovelace announced the establishment of a regular monthly mail delivery between New York and Boston.

1800- Congress debated a bill to build a mausoleum for George Washington to be placed in the center of the Congress. But Martha Washington cut off such efforts by citing George’s specific instructions that his remains are not turned into some kind of national shrine. He insisted on and still sleeps in his simple family tomb at Mt. Vernon.

1710-Battle of Villaviciosa- Phillip V of Spain defeated an Anglo-Portuguese invasion and assured the throne for the Bourbon family. His descendants are still on the throne today.

1817- Mississippi statehood.

1839- THE GREAT GAME- A large British army left India to invade Afghanistan. The 15,000 troops carried with them 38,000 camp followers, including camels laden with raspberry jam, cigars, cricket bats and fox hunting dogs. One British officer alone brought sixty servants. The British claimed they were invading to contain Russian expansionism. The duel between Britain and Russia for the Indian Northwest that lasted until 1947 was nicknamed The Great Game. By 1841 this army would all die in the terrible Retreat from Kabul and its sole survivor would be a doctor who got lost. The British officer who coined the term the Great Game was beheaded by the Emir of Bokhara and thrown into a pit of reptiles.

1864- Sherman’s army reached the sea at the Georgia coast near Savannah.

1877- Siege of Plevna ends. Russia and Austria force Turkey to grant independence to Serbia and Bosnia. Austria’s later efforts to swallow up Bosnia became the issue that sparked World War I.

1869- Wyoming Territory granted women the vote. The nation follows 58 years later (California in 1911).

1898- Spain and the U.S. make peace ending the Spanish American War. Secretary of State John Hay who was once Abe Lincoln’s secretary called it “A Splendid Little War.” Critics Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce called it the Yanko-Spanko War. The United States became a global power player with colonies in Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, Midway, Wake, and the Philippines.
The Filipinos, who were fighting for independence under their leaders like Aquinaldo, suddenly discover they were now American property. The U.S. declared they fought for their freedom from Spain yet never officially recognized their national independence movements. The Philippines gained its full independence in 1946 and the last American base, Subic Bay, wasn’t removed until the 1990s.

1899- Battle of Magersfontein (more Boer-Woer). Our post-Apartheid opinion of white South Africans was not very high, but in 1899 most of Europe and America sympathized with their fight against the awesome might of the British Empire. The Queen of Holland begged the German Kaiser to help them (the Boers were ethnically Dutch-German). Crowds in Paris and Brussels would jeer and boo at the visiting Prince of Wales with the cry "Vive les Boers!"

1901- The First Nobel Prize is given. Alfred Nobel made millions by inventing dynamite and nitroglycerine. But as much as his discoveries were used for constructive purposes, they also made it possible for armies to kill each other much more efficiently. He felt guilty and after an accident with the stuff killed his own brother, He resolved to create something positive from his fortune. Hence the Nobel Prize. Alfred Nobel died on Dec 10th, 1896, and the awards are given each year on the anniversary. President Teddy Roosevelt won the first Peace Prize in 1910 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. President Obama was the third U.S. President to receive the Peace Prize.

1905- O. Henry’s short story “A gift from the Magi” first published.

1915- President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt in a ceremony in the White House.

1938- To make the film "Gone With the Wind" Producer David Selznick and director Victor Fleming shot the massive "Burning of Atlanta" in Culver City, California. The sequence was storyboarded and designed by William Cameron-Menzies, who designed the sets for Intolerance for D.W. Griffith. Selznick used the opportunity to clean the studios backlot storage, burning sets from King Kong, Little Lord Fauntleroy and Last of the Mohicans in the inferno. They shot the scenes with three Rhett Butler stand-ins.

1941-The Hollywood Victory Committee formed. Top Hollywood agents like Abe Lastfogel, Lou Wasserman and Myron Selznick (David's brother) start signing up movie stars for bond drives and touring shows for the troops.
The committee later created the Hollywood Canteen, a nightclub for servicemen on Ivar near Sunset. A soldier or sailor could come in for a free meal served by Tyrone Power or Red Skelton and have a dance with celebrities like Rita Hayworth or Dina Shore. Walt Disney cartoonists painted the murals decorating the walls. The Hollywood Canteen was also the only completely integrated night club in LA then.
One animation painter who worked in the kitchen told me the only celebrity who would stay until closing, even mopping up, and washing dishes was Marlena Dietrich. While Janey Gaynor and Rhonda Fleming were working in the kitchen, Bette Davis would burst in and announce, “ Okay you Haus-Fraus! We need some glamour out front!”

1941-Japanese planes sank the battleships HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse in just 90 minutes. The prized British battleships had participated in the sinking of the German dreadnought Bismarck in the Atlantic a year earlier but had been transferred to the Pacific to boost the defenses of Singapore. The next day a lone Japanese plane dropped a wreath at the site of the sinking in tribute to the 884 British sailors who died there.

1941- A Japanese Army of 4,000 under General Homma landed on the Philippine Islands at Luzon and Vigan while a third force overran the U.S. outpost on Guam.

1941- The New York Metropolitan Opera announced that in light of the Pearl Harbor attack they were suspending any further performances of Madame Butterfly for the duration. Other opera companies also stopped doing Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado.

1942- OPERATION WINTERSTORM- General Von Manstein was ordered by Hitler to swing his panzers north and attempt to break through the Russian forces encircling the trapped German 6th Army at Stalingrad. But Von Manstein’s rescue mission was halted by Russian resistance and wintery conditions just 30 miles short of their goal. The 6th Army surrendered in February.

1948- The United Nations adopts Article XIX, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The committee, spending months drafting the resolution, was chaired by the Eleanor Roosevelt. By this act she debuted not just as a former first lady and widow of FDR but as a stateswoman and diplomat in her own right.

1949- After being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Communist forces, Kuomintang (KMT) Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek flew to Taiwan. Two and a half million ethnic Han Chinese evacuated to the island of Formosa-Taiwan, which continues today to call itself the ROC- The Republic of China. This ended the Chinese Civil War. Since 1924 China suffered 2 million deaths in its first civil war, 20 million in the Japanese invasion and World War II, and 5 million more killed in the final civil war.

1962- Happy Birthday Iron Man. The character Iron Man first appeared in the Marvel comic Tales of Suspense.

1966- The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” hit #1 in pop charts.

1967- R&B star Otis Redding and four of his band the Bar Kays were killed in a small plane crash near Madison Wisconsin. He was 26. Redding had recorded his hit “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” just three days earlier.

1969- Disney’s It’s Tough to be a Bird opened in theaters. Directed by Ward Kimball.

1974- Powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Congressman Wilbur Mills resigned in disgrace after being busted by the DC police for getting drunk with a stripper named Fannie Fox and taking her for a 2:00 AM skinny dip in the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. Fannie was later christened the “Tidal Basin Bombshell.”

1978- The world premiere of Richard Donner’s Superman, The Movie. The incomparable Christopher Reeve with Margot Kidder and Gene Hackman.

1994- The Unabomber sent an explosive device that killed Thomas J. Mosser, an advertising executive at Young & Rubicam who handled the public relations spin for Exxon after the Exxon Valdez oil spill disaster.

2013- Richard Williams unfinished epic animated film the Thief and the Cobbler: A moment in Time, received its premiere at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. It was begun 40 years earlier in 1972 and never completed.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who coined the phrase, “Tell it to the Marines!”

Answer: President Franklin Roosevelt said it in a speech shortly after the Pearl Harbor attack. “ Axis radio has declared that Americans are soft and decadent, that they cannot and will not unite and work and fight…. we have been described as a nation of weaklings... Well, tell that to General MacArthur and his men. Let them tell that to the sailors who today are hitting hard in the far waters of the Pacific….Tell that to the Marines!"[12]He may have got it from an humorous 1824 English novel, but after he said it, “Tell it to the Marines” became a popular slogan.

Question: Who coined the phrase, “Tell it to the Marines!”

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What planet is in between Mars and Jupiter?
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History for 12/9/2023
Birthdays: Sappho, John Milton, Jean De Brunhoff, Emil Waldteufel the composer of The Skaters Waltz, Admiral Grace Hopper who wrote the earliest computer language, Margraret Hamilton, Hermoinie Gingold, Dalton Trumbo, John Cassavettes, Broderick Crawford, Dick Butkus, Red Foxx, Cesar Franck, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Kirk Douglas, Buck Henry, Felicity Huffman, Mario Cantone, Alan Zaslove, John Malkovich is 70, Judy Dench is 89

536- The legions of Byzantine General Belisarius captured Rome from the Ostrogoths. This was part of Emperor Justinian’s unsuccessful plan to win back the western half of the old Roman Empire.

1641- Famed Flemish portrait artist Sir Anthony van Dyck died of a fever at his home in Blackfriars, London. He was 42.

1783- First executions began at England’s Newgate Prison, replacing the traditional public hanging, drawing, quartering, branding, beheading place of Tyburn Hill- approximately where London’s Marble Arch is today.

1803- Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment calling for the President and Vice President to be of the same party. Before this, the system was the Vice President was the loser of the presidential election, thus the people’s second choice. But trying to govern with your bitter political enemy standing right behind you proved impractical. The Amendment also defined the order of succession: President, Vice President, Secretary of State. Speaker of the House, Senate Leader Pro-Tem. In 1945 the 22nd Amendment excluded the Secretary of State, who was never an elected official.

1824- Battle of Ayacucho- Simon Bolivar defeated the last Royal Spanish Army in the Americas.

1825- THE LATIN AMERICAN BUBBLE- The London Stock Exchange crashed over rampant stock speculation in the potential wealth in the new emerging Latin American republics. Financier Nathan Rothschild became a national figure when he lent the Bank of England millions to stay solvent. Thanks to new communications and international investment for the first time the London panic reached across national borders and caused the U.S. Stock Exchange and the Paris Bourse to also crash. This kind of speculation in futures caused the South Sea Bubble in France and the Tulip craze a century earlier. We’ve seen it in our own times with the global credit crash of 2008 and the crypto-currency crash of 2022.

1835- First battle of San Antonio de Bexar. Angry Texas citizens forced Mexican
General Cos to abandon a post in an old mission called the Alamo and give up a store of valuable cannon. This was the incident that provoked President Santa
Anna into attacking San Antonio the following Spring.

1840- Dr. David Livingstone set sail for Africa to do missionary work. He met Stanley in 1871.

1854- Albert Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" published. The battle had been fought earlier that June.

1861- The first ever government oversight committee formed. The Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. It was created because Congressmen were afraid President Lincoln was a naïve hillbilly lawyer who was losing the Civil War. All they succeeded in doing was give Lincoln more stress and at one point they even accused First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln of being a Confederate spy.

1889- The Chicago Auditorium dedicated. The landmark building’s architect Louis Sullivan had hired a new assistant to help with the drawings-Frank Lloyd Wright.

1899- BLACK WEEK-Battle of Stormberg Junction. A series of small battles in which British forces were defeated by Boer guerrillas in South Africa.
The commanding British general Sir Redvers Buller was considered so slow moving that one wag suggested they periodically hold a mirror up to his nostrils to check for signs of life. He was later replaced with the more energetic Lord Roberts of Kandahar, “Old Bobs”.

1905- Richard Strauss’s opera Salome premiered in Dresden. The lead role demands a soprano with big Wagnerian lungs but also a flat stomach to do the strip tease The Dance of the Seven Veils. When the opera debuted in New York, prudish old millionaires like J.P. Morgan were shocked at its’ blatant sexuality. They threatened to cut off funding until Sal and her skimpy veils was banished from the schedule.

1907- the first Christmas Seals go on sale to fight tuberculosis.

1909- Mary Harris a.k.a. Mother Jones spoke at the Thalia Theater in support of
the "The Strike of the 20,000" Immigrant seamstresses in New York's garment
district. "Every strike I have ever been in has been won by women!"

1917- During World War I, Field Marshal Allenby and the British army entered Jerusalem while Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab forces marched on Damascus. To promote harmony between Arabs and Jews, Allenby ordered the building of a huge YMCA in the Old City. The people that schvitz together….

1931- Disney short Mickey’s Orphans debuted.

1936- The first cookery show appeared on British television.

1937- In the path of advancing Japanese armies, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and his government abandoned his capitol Nanking and moved to Chunking.

1946- Damon Runyon died, the writer whose characters the musical "Guys and
Dolls' are based. His philosophy: "All life is six to five against."

1948- Actor Ossie Davis married actress Ruby Dee.

1960- Coronation Street premiered on British ITV.

1964- John Coltrane recorded his landmark jazz album “A Love Supreme”. Late on foggy nights Trane liked to take his saxophone out onto the middle of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge in the night fog, and practice by himself.

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first half hour animated TV special featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi. Producer Lee Mendelson had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco. He never scored a film before:" How many yards of music do you want? At the preview screening for CBS executives, the show was met with deathly silence; when the show concluded, one executive said to the director Bill Melendez, "Well, you gave it a good try." CBS hated its religious message, the idea of actual kids voicing the characters, not having a laugh track and having jazz as the soundtrack. They only aired it out of obligation to the sponsor, Coca-Cola. It was not screened for any critics sans one Time Magazine critic (who gave it a positive review). Estimates are that 15,490,000 households and 36 million people watched Charlie Brown and his friends that night. A Charlie Brown Christmas won an Emmy and has been a holiday favorite every year since.

1967- At a Doors concert lead singer Jim Morrison was sprayed with mace and arrested by Miami police for “lewd behavior” on stage, but probably more for referring to the cops as pigs.

1968- The MOTHER OF ALL DEMOS- At the Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco, Dr Douglas Engelbart of Stanford demonstrated the first personal computer workstation. He showed how people would use hot keys, a printer and scanner, cut and paste text. And he had a real time internet hookup to another workstation at Palo Alto, 120 miles away. His student assistant was Stewart Brand, who would later create the Whole Earth Catalog. In the audience was student Andries van Dam, who would one day create SIGGRAPH. Its been called “The 21 Century dropped in on 1968”.

1967- Nicholas Ceaucescu became dictator of Communist Romania.

1992-Britains Prime Minister John Major announced the separation of Prince Charles and Princess Diana of Wales.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed by Robert Stern.

1994- The Surgeon-General of the United States, Dr Jocelyn Elders, was forced to step down after her statements that sex education in primary schools include masturbation outraged many conservatives.

2004- Mia Hamm and the stars of the Women’s National Soccer Team played their last game, defeating Mexico 5-0.

2008- Governor Rod Blagojevich of Illinois was arrested for corruption and having a really bad haircut.

2340- Mr Worf, the Klingon officer of Star Trek Next Generation was born.
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Yesterday’s Question: What planet is in between Mars and Jupiter?

Answer. There is no planet in between Mars and Jupiter. Just a large asteroid belt, which may be the remains of a disintegrated planet.

Question: What planet is in between Mars and Jupiter?

Yesterdays Question answered below: Which comedian was not born Jewish? Gary Shandling, Larry David, Danny Thomas, Woody Allen.
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History for 12/8/23
Birthdays: Horace (Quintus Horatius) 65BC, Mary Queen of Scots, Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina, Jean Sibelius, Camille Claudel, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects 1861, Elzie C. Segar (Popeye), Joel Chandler Harris (Uncle Remus), James Thurber, Richard Fleischer, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell, Flip Wilson, Sam Kinison, Teri Hatcher, Rick Baker, Sinead O’Connor, Kim Basinger is 70

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

1660- Mrs. Margaret “Peg” Hughes played Desdemona in Shakespeare’s Othello at the Vere St Theatre in London. Mrs. Hughes was the first woman to appear on an English stage. All during the Elizabethan Era, boys substituted for women on stage. Legend has it when a play which King Charles II was watching suddenly stopped. When he sent servants to see what the problem was, it was found that the man that was supposed to play one of the female parts was still shaving. Odds Fish! sayeth the King. And lo, the ban was lifted.

1776- George Washington’s exhausted soldiers were rowed across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, chased by a large British army. This marked the end of the hit & run pursuit across New York and New Jersey that had been going on since August 24.

1793- MADAME DUBARRY GUILLOTINED. During the French Revolution this day the old kings mistress Madame DuBarry was guillotined. She was originally of humble birth but lived in grand style and was very arrogant. She once dumped the contents of a chamber pot out of a palace window onto Princess Marie Antoinette for a laugh. "Garde du Lou!" Now on her way to the blade she screamed and wept aloud:" Save me good people, for I am one of you!" It didn't help, the executioner hurried his task to the laughter of the crowd. Her last words were "Just one more minute of life, executioner!" Her husband the Comte’ du Barry had not seen her since the day they were married in 1769 for the convenience of the King. Now upon learning the news of his wife’s death he immediately married his mistress.

1813- Beethoven met Ai. The most well received of all the musical pieces of Ludwig Van Beethoven was not his 5th Symphony or Moonlight Sonata, but a silly piece called the Overture to Wellington’s Victory which premiered this day in Vienna. A calliope designer named Wilhelm Dietzel commissioned the piece to show off his mechanical music machines that could recreate the sound of an orchestra. The music celebrated Wellington’s great victory in Spain over Napoleon’s forces. It had cannon shots and musket volleys written into the music score. This overture made Beethoven much more money than his Seventh Symphony, which debuted at the same concert.

1854- Pope Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. That the Virgin Mary stayed forever free of sin, even though Jesus had brothers and sisters.

1864- During General Sherman’s epic March through Georgia his bluecoats first encounter a new invention ominously familiar to our present day. Explosive charges buried under the ground that explode when a friction trigger was stepped on. They called them Land Torpedoes, but today we know them as LAND MINES. When a Yankee lieutenant lost his foot, the hot-tempered Sherman ordered all the Confederate prisoners driven to the front line and forced to dig them all up. When they protested this was inhumane, Sherman roared back:" Your people planted these cowardly things, so if some of you get blown up removing them it's no concern of mine!"

1868- According to Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tonight is the night Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine the Nautilus attacked and sank a US warship and captured Professor Aronax and harpooner Ned Land.

1881- RINGSTRASSE THEATER FIRE IN VIENNA. Two hundred people were killed when fire broke out during a performance of Offenbach's "Duchess du Gerolstein".

1886-The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed. The first president was former cigar maker Samuel Gompers.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible. He supposedly got the idea from a failed invention of Thomas Edison’s. It was an electric machine that tried to make several copies of a letter at once by pushing an ink filled needle through several pieces of paper.

1913- Ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

100 Years Ago-1923- Developer S.H. Woodruff flipped the switch to illuminate the completed Hollywood Sign. Originally Hollywoodland, the “land” fell off eventually, as did the light bulbs.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried.

1941- DAY OF INFAMY Aftermath- On the day after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, President Roosevelt did his famous "Day of Infamy" speech. Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war on Japan. Interestingly enough the U.S. did not declare war on Germany along with Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. four days later. The only vote against the war was Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who had also voted against the First World War in 1917.
With the American Fleet sunk or scattered, the US Pacific Coast braced for Japanese attack. After the war it was learned the Japanese military stretched their supply line to its limit just to reach Hawaii. Reaching America would be twice as far. But in California, that winter everyone expected to be bombed. Fourth interceptor Command reported two formations of enemy planes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They turned out to be seagulls. Another panicky report of an approaching Japanese task force turned out to be Monterey tuna boats. Blackouts began, as did mass arrests of Japanese-Americans. In Hollywood the Paramount Studio baseball team was allowed to finish it's game with the L.A. Nippons 6-3, after which the FBI arrested the entire team.
The civil defense command placed anti-aircraft guns on the Walt Disney Studio lot because of it's proximity to the aircraft plant of Lockheed. Walt Disney himself was turned away at the gate for not wearing his identity badge. That evening, an official at the Navy Dept telephoned Disney and offered him a commission for twenty short films on aircraft and warship identification.

1941- Following up on their successful attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, Japanese task forces attacked the Philippines, invaded Malaya and another force captured Bangkok.

1941- The gunboat USS GUAM was serving in Shanghai as a station ship for the US Consulate. Its skipper was Lt Commander Columbus Darwin Smith, an old China hand. Smith was onshore, at home, when he received a phone call in the wee hours announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. he put on his uniform, and went to the waterfront. Japanese soldiers had quickly occupied the International Settlement--but would not arrest Smith, who argued with them to let him aboard his ship.
The Japanese had already taken the USS Guam without much resistance. Capt. Smith later made a daring escape over 200 miles to Kumming in "free China" The USS Guam was the only US warship to be captured intact by the enemy in WWII.

1941- Russian immigrant inventor Igor Sikorsky demonstrated the first practical Helicopter. They were developed too late for use in World War II, but the "egg-beaters" or "flying windmills" played an important role in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts.

1949-After being defeated by Mao Zedong’s Red Chinese Army (PLA), Generalissimo Chiang Kai Chek’s Kuomintang government voted to relocate to the island of Taiwan-Formosa.

1953- Thurgood Marshal’s final arguments to the Supreme Court in the desegregation case Brown Vs. Board of Ed.

1953- The Atoms for Peace Speech. President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations that nuclear power be developed for peaceful purposes, and not just for bombs. The world builds civilian nuclear power plants, then makes bombs with them.

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1963- Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. After four tense days he was released unharmed. Oscar Levant quipped, “ It was probably done by music critics.”

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember when it played only classical concerts and ballets?

1980- JOHN LENNON MURDERED. As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City, Beatle-composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon 4 times in the back. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields.

1980- Berkeley Breathed’s comic strip Bloom County debuted.

1991- Steven Spielberg’s Hook premiered.

2000- Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, directed by Ang Lee, premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: Which comedian was not born Jewish? Gary Shandling, Larry David, Danny Thomas, Woody Allen.

Answer: Danny Thomas was born Lebanese Maronite Christian.

Question: Who were not a famous comedy team of the 1930s? The Marx Bros. Abbott and Costello, The Smothers Brothers, Olsen & Johnson.

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: A Christmas Carol commands, “Now bring us some figgy pudding...” What is figgy pudding?
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History for 12/6/2023
Birthdays: King Henry VI of England-1422, English Puritan General George Monck-1608, John Eberhard 1822, builder of the first large pencil factory in the US, John Singleton-Mosby the Grey Ghost, Henry Jarecki, Baby Face Nelson, William S. Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dave Brubeck, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Hulce is 70, Wally Cox the voice of Underdog, Lynn Fontaine, Steven Wright, JoBeth Williams, Judd Apatow is 55, Nick Park is 66

Dec 6,Today is the FEAST of SAINT NICHOLAS, the patron saint of sailors and children. In what is modern Turkey, in 350AD, Bishop Nicholas of Myra heard of a man so poor that he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Nicholas climbed into the man’s window and placed gold coins in the family socks drying by the fireplace. In some cities during the Middle Ages the custom was this day to elect a Boy Bishop who would reign in an honorary style until the Feast of the Holy Innocents December 28th.
In Northern Europe St. Nicholas was accompanied by the devil Krampus or Schwartz Piet (Black Pete), who beat the crap out of naughty kids. Small wonder when the custom came over to America they left out the demon part.

1196- The northern coast of Holland was flooded, the Saint Nicholas Flood.

1240- The Mongol horde of Batu Khan destroyed the City of Kiev (Kyiv). This ended the old kingdom of Kievan Russ.

1534- Spanish settlers in Ecuador found the city of Quito.

1648- PRIDE'S PURGE -The final move of the Cromwell’s Army to secure power in post-Civil War England. His army had occupied London after Parliament ordered them to disband. Soldiers led by Colonel Thomas Pride stood at the entrance to the House of Commons with a list and as the Parliament members walked in he pulled out 60 of them for arrest. Outraged politicians demanded to know what was his commission? Col. Pride sneered, " This sword point is my commission!"
Thus cowed, the truncated remainder was nicknamed The Rump Parliament. General Oliver Cromwell was discreetly out of town, but he was doubtless in on the planning of the purge. England was now a military dictatorship and would remain so for ten years until Cromwell's death, when General Monk summoned back the monarchy.

1757-Battle of Leuthen- Frederick the Great beats the Austrian Army outnumbering him three to one. Austrian commander Archduke Charles was contemptuous of the smaller Prussian army, calling them a “Berlin Watch Parade” i.e. a police patrol. But the Prussians defeated the Austrians badly, and sang their hymn Nun Danket Alle Gott on the blood soaked snow. Napoleon called Leuthen Frederick’s masterpiece.

1790- Congress moved from New York City back to Philadelphia to await construction of it’s final home in the new Federal City in Maryland, already being called by some Washington-City. George Washington himself would occasionally ride out from Mt Vernon and meet with Jefferson and Madison to inspect the construction site.

1825- In his first message to Congress, President John Quincy Adams called for increased funding for scientific research, the founding of a national university and a national observatory. His political enemies ridiculed his ideas as idiotic. They accused the president of wasting taxpayer money on depraved European luxuries like a billiard table. Adams also installed the first indoor toilets in the White House. People started calling the newfangled commodes a John Quincy, or simply a John.

1846- Battle of San Pasqual- A Mexican victory in the U.S.-Mexican War. The US Army was so sure that California was conquered that General Phil Kearny sent away half of his army to go join Zachary Taylor in Mexico while he pushed on to the Pacific Coast. Just outside of San Diego near Julian he was attacked by California Vaqueros, brandishing lances. The Yankee dragoons at first laughed at the silly “pig-stickers”, until they realized the previous nights rainstorm had made their gunpowder useless. Kearny’s force was routed. Only with great difficulty did they escape under Kit Carson’s guidance to the sheltering guns of the US Fleet in San Diego harbor.

1849- Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland and began her underground railroad to smuggle runaway slaves from the South up North. After the Fugitive Slave Act was passed she extended her route to Canada. At one point she wanted to join John Brown’s insurrection in Harpers Ferry but illness prevented her, and probably saved her life.

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

1882- English novelist Anthony Trollope was listening to his niece read aloud from a comic novel Visa-Versa by E.F. Asthley. Trollope laughed so hard he had a stroke and dropped dead. He was 67.

1915- MAX FLEISCHER PATENTED THE ROTOSCOPE- This system enabled you to film an actor then draw the cartoons over the still frames of the live action to achieve a realistic motion. (an early form of Motion Capture) Max would film his brother Dave in a clown suit then draw Koko the Clown over him. Dave had already owned the clown suit because he had been seriously considering a change in careers. Max invented the system while working for John Randolph Bray. Bray, usually quick to sue to enforce his copyrights, allowed Max and Dave to go off on their own with no problem. The Fleischer's New York studio would be Disney's chief rival for most of the 1920's-30's.

1921- Irish Home Rule- It had been an Irish dream since William Strongbow and the Norman English invaded in 1085. After decades of Parliamentary pressure from advocates like Charles Parnell and Daniel O'Connell, a long guerrilla war with the IRA and public exhaustion from the Great War, London was ready to talk terms. But the British Crown insisted on a compromise of letting the 6 Protestant Counties of Ulster remain under British rule and an oath of loyalty to the king. Prime Minister Lloyd George threatened a full war on Ireland with the full resources of the British Empire as the alternative.
Irish negotiators Michael Collins and Alexander Griffith knew this deal would cause resentment, but they felt it was the best they could get. In the following months both men would be dead and a civil war broke out. The loyalty oath was ignored and full Irish independence declared in 1946.

1929- Turkey under Kemal Ataturk gave women the right to vote.

1933- U.S. Federal Judge Woolsey decides James Joyce's "ULYSSES" is not a dirty book and can be published in the U.S by Viking Press. The book had been out in Europe since 1922.

1941- Admiral Nagumo turned his carriers into the wind and began to prepare to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor. Meanwhile in Washington DC, Colonel William Bratton of army intelligence decoded a message from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy telling them after their final message to destroy their cyphers and all top-secret documents. He ran all over D.C. trying to get someone to listen, but it was a quiet weekend like any other.
Early Sunday morning Mrs. Dorothy Edgers of the Navy cryptographic division translated long decoded instructions to the Japanese Consul Kita in Honolulu to provide up to date intelligence on Pearl Harbor's ship movements and armaments, then destroy his ciphers. When she showed this to her supervisor, he told her, “Well, umm….We'll get back to this on Monday."

1941- NY City Council voted to build a second municipal airport- Idylwild Airport, later renamed John F. Kennedy Airport.

1942- Val Lewton’s movie The Cat People with Simon-Simon premiered.

1957- In their initial reaction to the Russians launching sputnik, the US attempt to launch a satellite into space failed- the Vanguard I rocket blew up on the launch pad.

1960- Baseball’s American League granted an expansion franchise team to old cowboy singer Gene Autry, the California Angels.

1963- Soon after the assassination, Jackie Kennedy had writer T. H. White to the White House for an interview. She was already shaping how her husband’s presidency would be remembered. She mentioned his favorite album was the soundtrack of the musical Camelot. White took this and expanded the idea in the piece he wrote for Life Magazine, “For President Kennedy, An Epilogue” which came out on this day. The JFK era would forever after being known as Camelot.

1964- The first concert at the Los Angeles Music Center.

1964- Rankin Bass' TV special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast.

1969- The Rolling Stones do the last big rock festival of the 60s in Altamont California. The festival turned ugly when Hells Angels motorcyclists, hired to guard the stage, started fighting with fans. One man, Meredith Hunter, was killed.

1980- Reverend Jim Baker of the PTL ministry had sex in a motel room with church volunteer Jessica Hahn. His reasoning to her was “when you help the shepherd, you help the flock”. But later he paid her hush money. This indiscretion would help pull down his Church. Baker’s ministry included a lavish lifestyle, air-conditioned doghouse for his pets and a Christian theme park called Heritage USA. Ex-evangelist turned comedian Sam Kinison joked: I can imagine up in heaven, Jesus is thumbing through the New Testament saying” Hey, where the hell did I ever say anything thing about a water slide?”
In recent years, Jim Baker has made a comeback. He has another big church and is a loud supporter of former President Trump.

1994- Orange County California, one of the richest counties in the United States declared bankruptcy because an official gambled and lost the county's funds on speculative investments like junk-bonds. One billion dollars disappeared in less than a week of day trading.
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Yesterday’s Question: A Christmas Carol commands, “ Now bring us some figgy pudding..” What is figgy pudding?

Answer: 14th Century English pudding were small cakes made of pork suet, heavily laced with sweet figs and other dried fruits. For many average people it would be the only sweet confection they’d get all year.

Question: Why do we wink at one another?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is obsidian?
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History for 12/4/2023
Birthdays: Chief Crazy Horse, Samuel Butler*, Thomas Carlyle, Lillian Russell, Vasilly Kandinsky, Buck Jones, Wink Martindale, Max Baer Jr., Robert Vesco, Charles Keating, Wally George, Deanna Durbin, Pappy Boyington, Horst Bucholtz, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jeff Bridges is 74, Marisa Tomei is 59, Tyrah Banks is 50, Johnny Lyon of the band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Jay-Z is 54, Fred Armisen is 57

*"Life is one long process of getting tired."- Samuel Butler (1835-1902)

963AD- Pope John XII died. According to chronicler Luidprand of Cremona, his Holiness was beaten to death by the husband of a woman named Steffanetta he was sleeping with.

1154- Nicholas Breakspeare elected Pope Adrian IV, so far the only Englishman ever made pope of the Roman Catholic Church.

1534- Ottoman Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent occupied Baghdad.

1655- Jews had been expelled from England since 1291. This year Oliver Cromwell convened a conference at Whitehall to consider re-admittance of Jewish people. Cromwell’s Puritans hated Catholic Papists, but had great sympathy for “God’s Chosen People”. One legislator even proposed moving the Sabbath Day back to Saturday. But there was still too much anti-Semitic resistance to make the re-admittance official. Despite the failure of the government to make a decision, from this time on Jewish families began resettling in England. They were allowed their own Jewish Burial Ground in 1657. In 1715 Solomon Medina became the first Jewish person to receive a knighthood. In the 1800s, Lionel Rothschild joined the House of Lords.

1657- Old artist Rembrandt van Rijn was evicted from his home. He was kept out of debtor’s prison when his daughter and son-in-law auctioned off most of his possessions to pay his debts.

1777- In France, Ben Franklin and the American commissioners were in despair. Nothing but bad news about British victories, and the French government was complaining about American privateers attacking British ships in French waters. Even sympathetic French newspapers were saying the Americans revolution was probably lost.
This day, with playwright Pierre de Beaumarchais in attendance, a courier from across the sea arrived. Jonathan Austin delivered the news that at Saratoga, British General Burgoyne and his entire army were defeated and surrendered. Immediately the French, Dutch and Spanish governments were calling the Americans “our friends” and began discussing an alliance.

1783- WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL- The American Revolution now ended, George Washington bid farewell to his officers he shared 8 years of war with at a dinner at Fraunces Tavern in New York. Creole cook Samuel Fraunces "Black Sam' was later invited by Washington to become the first presidential chef. The tavern is still there today on the corner of Water & Pearl Streets, and still serves food and ale. It has a little Washington museum on the second floor.

1791- The London Observer, called the oldest continually published newspaper in the world, first published. True, the Times was begun in 1788 but it had a spotty release it’s first few years while its publisher would be thrown in prison for libel.

1829- The British in India abolished the custom of suttee- that a widow should throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre and die also.

1875- William Marcy “Boss Tweed” escaped Ludlow Street jail and fled to Cuba. He had been the corrupt boss of New York City politics throughout the 1860s and 70s. He was rearrested in Spain by a Spanish policeman who spoke no English. When asked by American diplomats why, the Spaniard said he saw a newspaper cartoon by Thomas Nast of Tweed in prison garb with his hands on two young boys. So, he thought he was a kidnapper! Tweed was brought to justice by the one crime he probably never did.

1881- First issue of the Los Angeles Times.

1909- The first Canadian Football League championship the Grey Cup, U of Toronto defeated Toronto Parkdale 26-6

1915- HENRY FORD'S PEACE SHIP-The great industrialist was a livelong pacifist and was horrified by the carnage of the World War I. On this day he equipped a large yacht with neutral diplomats and other famous personages like Thomas Edison and sailed to Europe. Pundits had fun mocking his homespun naiveté, and local lunatics like Urban Ledoux, aka Mr. Zero, jumped into New York Harbor and swarm alongside the ship "to ward off hostile torpedoes." Ford docked in a neutral harbor hoping to use his influence to get the Kaiser, Czar and the other crowned heads to a bargaining table like some kind of board of directors negotiation. Nobody would meet with him. Young N.Y. politician Fiorello LaGuardia noted: "The only boy he managed to save from the trenches was his own son!"

1918- President Woodrow Wilson left the US by battleship for Europe to help chair the Versailles Peace Conference ending the Great War. Once there he surprised people by refusing to visit the battlefields and tour the horror and devastation. He said:” They want me to see red as they do. But I feel at least one of us should remain impartial.”

1927- The Cotton Club opened as a speakeasy nightclub in Harlem. It was built on the site of a Club Deluxe, started by the old Boxing Champ Jack Johnson in 1909. New owners were New York gangsters Owney “The Killer” Madden and George “Big Frenchy” DeMange. Duke Ellington’s orchestra highlighted the opening night. When other gangsters tried to open a rival The Plantation Club, Owney had his hoods firebomb the place. The Cotton Club was one of the great centers of the Harlem Renaissance, but at first African Americans were banned from eating or drinking at the tables. Even W.C. Handy was turned away. The policy was changed in 1935 to allow all races in.
Max Fleischer’s brother Lou was a regular customer.There he befriended Cab Calloway, and convinced him to come downtown and lay down some tracks for Betty Boop cartoons.

1931- “ Its alive! Its alive!” James Whale’s macabre masterpiece “Frankenstein” opened at the Mayfair theater in NY. Universal Studios originally wanted Bela Lugosi to play the Monster, to follow up on his success as Dracula. But Lugosi loudly protested it wasn’t a good fit for him. Whale’s writing partner David Lewis just saw this British actor William Henry Pratt renamed Boris Karloff in a play called the Criminal Code, where he played a murderous convict. So they signed him to play the monster.

1932- “Good Evening Mr & Mrs. North and South America and All the Ships at Sea! Let’s Go To Press!” Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell began his famous radio broadcasts on the NBC Blue Network. Winchell became one of the most powerful voices in American society and politics for 23 years.

1941- As Admiral Nagumo's carriers approached Pearl Harbor, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox assured the press: "No matter what happens, the US Navy will not be caught napping !"

1941- The animated film “Hoppity Goes to Town" or Mr. Bug Goes to Town”-opened. Max Fleischer's last gamble to keep up with Walt Disney and keep his studio alive. Songs written by top pop song writer Hoagy Carmichael. However, the events of Pearl Harbor three days later not only sink the American Navy, but also Hoppity's box office and put Max out of a job.

1948- “Hey...Stella!! A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy.

1950- President Truman gives General MacArthur in Korea direct orders not to open his big mouth and make any more public statements about the conduct of the war, without checking with Washington first! MacArthur was used to being on his own during World War II and as proconsul of occupied Japan. He didn't fret about being his own diplomatic corps as well as general. But now everything Dugout Doug said got him into trouble. He had been making statements in press that the U.S. should expand the Korean War into Communist China and Russia, and he warned the Chinese that if they didn’t quit he planned to rain Atomic Fire upon their cities. No tweets then.

1954- Jim McLamore and Dave Edgerton attended a demonstration of fast-food serving techniques by two California brothers named MacDonald. This day in Miami, McLamore and Edgerton opened the first Insta-Burger, later renamed Burger King.

1955- French mime Marcel Marceau appeared on American TV for the first time.

1958- Cocoa Puffs cereal invented.

1961- Someone at the Museum of Modern Art in NY noticed that they had hung Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau upside down. It had been that way for two months, and up until now nobody had noticed.

1963- The first Instant Replay camera used at a football game. It was an Army-Navy game.

1965 - Jerry Garcia, Bob, Phil, Bill, and Pigpen first convened as the Grateful Dead to play as the house band for Ken Kesey and the Prankster's Acid Test in San Jose, California. The Dead went on to break records, bend minds, and build a community that continued on for many years.

1985- The first Cray X-MP Supercomputer booted up.

1985- Steven Spielberg’s production Young Sherlock Holmes, directed by Barry Levinson premiered. It featured the CG breakthrough Stain Glass Knight animated by John Lasseter. Despite this, the film failed, and its failure made Disney change its movie title Basil of Baker Street to The Great Mouse Detective.

1988- Actor Gary Busey almost died in a motorcycle accident on Olympic Blvd. In Los Angeles. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered massive head trauma. He later claimed to have an out-of-the-body experience at the scene.

1993- Rocker Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer at age 52.

2012-Walt Disney announced it made a deal to show its Disney, Pixar and Marvel movies on Netflix instead of Starz Channel. First major studio to switch from cable to streaming. A few years later it set up its own streaming channel, Disney+.
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Yesterday’s question: What is obsidian?

Answer: Obsidian is a volcanic igneous rock fired to the texture of glass. Its dark dramatic color makes it valuable in jewelry.