Quiz: What are the sins of Absalom?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Who were the characters Horace Horsecollar an Clarabell Cow?
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History for 9/7/2020
Birthdays: Grandma Moses, Dame Edith Sitwell, Elia Kazan, Richard Roundtree, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Quayle. Peter Lawford, Senator Daniel Inouye, Susan Blakely, Shannon Elizabeth, Sonny Rawlins, Toby Jones is 53, Julie Kavner the voice of Marge Simpson, Disney animator Fred Moore. 605 B.C. Nebuchanesser II crowned king of Babylon. In 597 he destroyed Israel and began the Baylonian Captivity of the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic writings, but he also build the famed hanging Gardens of Babylon for his wife Amrytis.

1191- KING RICHARD VS. SALADIN-The Battle of Arsuf, the only major set battle between King Richard's Crusaders and Saladin’s Saracens. Saladin's men were driven back by the charging armored knights, but no final victory was achieved. Richard galloped about chopping at people so fiercely, that the Saracen warriors learned to ride around him and avoid contact. After such hot work in the desert Saladin sent his enemy Richard a cup of snow with rose water called Sherbat, which is the forerunner of modern Iced Sherbet.

1303- ATTACK ON THE POPE- Pope Boniface VIII considered his throne higher than all Royal crowns. He even had a big triple tiara crown made bigger than all royal crowns to prove it. He got into a fight over sovereignty with French King Phillip the Fair, excommunicating him and all France. Then Phillip had a French clerical assembly accuse Boniface of being a “murderer, false monk, sorcerer, embezzler, adulterer, sodomite, idolater and infidel”. But King Phillip could fight with more than words. This day he sent a hit squad of knights to attack the pope at his summer residence in Acangni. As the knights slew the Vatican guards and burst into the palace Boniface knew his hour had come. He put on his full pontifical robes and mounted his throne to await his end. The knights William of Nogaret and Sciarra Colonna marched up to the old man, held a knife over his head, and paused.” This is the message from my master, King Philip” Then they turned and walked away. The 70 year old Pope was rescued by the Orsini family three days later, but Boniface died mentally broken from his ordeal.

1776 -The FIRST SUBMARINE ATTACK-Yankee Ezra Lee pilots inventor David Bushnell's barrel shaped submersible "The Turtle" over to the British warship HMS Eagle. His attack consisted of an attempt to drill holes in her hull. But the ship was copper bottomed. D’oh!

1812- BATTLE OF BORODINO, or La Moskova. Napoleon's French army and the Russians pound each other to bits before Moscow in the great battle immortalized by Tolstoy in 'War and Peace'. As the French army marched to the attack, Russian Prince Bagration sat on horseback in front of his troops. Before opening fire he pulled out a silver flask and toasted his enemy,"Gentlemen of France, Bravo! C'est Superb!". He was killed later. The French capture all the strategic points and force General Kutusov to abandon Moscow, but while the Russians could make good their losses, La Grande Armee' was exhausted and thousands of miles from supplies and reinforcements. Napoleon was listless from a bad cold and hesitated sending in his Imperial Guard at a key moment to finish off the Russian army. Marshal Ney was enraged: ”Have we come so far merely to possess another battlefield? What is he doing, so far back? He is no longer a general, he is an Emperor. Let him sit home in the palace and leave the fighting to us!”

1822- Brazil declared its independence from Portugal.

1831- NICHOLAS I, the "Iron Czar" crushed the POLISH NOVEMBER UPRISING. Throughout the 1800's every young generation of Poles started a new uprising that the Russians, Germans and Austrians would have to stomp down. They went as far as to outlaw the Polish language, the Catholic religion and in the German controlled parts the Slavic suffix "-ski". Which is probably when Lech Waleski became Walesa and Sito was ..er.. always Sito. (?) In Jacksonian America the plight of the heroic Poles battling overwhelming odds was terribly inspiring to American Romantics like Longfellow, Hawthorne and Morse.

1857- THE MOUNTAIN MEADOWS MASSACRE- In 1857 President James Buchanan declared the Mormon community in Utah territory in a state of rebellion and sent an army to the Great Salt Lake. The Mormons were worked up by their memories of persecutions in Illinois and Missouri that had taken the life of their founder Joseph Smith. Leader Brigham Young had given orders that no U.S. troops or settlers were to be sold food or water. When a California bound wagon train from Arkansas tried to cross Utah territory it was attacked by Mormon allied Indians. Local Mormon leader John D. Lee told the embattled settlers that if they surrendered to him he would lead them to safety. They put down their weapons and he marched them to a meadow. On a given signal the Mormons opened fire on the settlers, mostly women and children, killing 120 and leaving their bones to rot in the weeds without burial. The surviving infants were taken to be raised by Mormon families. The Mormon colony was horrified by the massacre and gave up peacefully to U.S. authorities. Apologist historians even today say Brigham Young never gave orders for the massacre, but admitted he protected John D. Lee for 20 years. In 1877 Lee was finally convicted for the mass-murder and executed at the massacre site. He died declaring he was the sacrificial scapegoat for the entire commune.

1876- THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID- One old Hollywood myth is of the Western town cowering in fear while desperadoes shoot up the street whoopin’ and hollering. When the Jesse James & Cole Younger gang rode out of Missouri and tried to rob the Bank of Northfield Minnesota, they found a town full of old Civil War veterans, who hauled out their rifles and shot them to pieces from every window and doorway. Frank and Jesse are about the only ones who escaped. They laid low in Tennessee for three years until resuming their outlaw ways. Cole Younger was captured and did 25 years in prison. In 1903 Cole and Frank James went on tour with their own Wild West Show.

1880 - George Ligowsky patents device to throw clay pigeons for trapshooters

1888 - Edith Eleanor McLean is 1st baby placed in an incubator.

1892 - Gentleman Jim Corbett finally KOs John L. Sullivan after 21 rounds for heavyweight boxing title. Corbett was an advocate of the new Marquis of Queensbery rules and preferred using boxing gloves to bare knuckle fighting.

1907 - Sutro's ornate Cliff House in SF destroyed by fire.

1911- French avant-garde poet Guilliame Appollinaire was the man who coined the term “surrealism’. He was such an outspoken, radical guy, that Parisian authorities felt he must be up to something. So when the Mona Lisa was stolen out of the Louvre, Appollinaire was arrested. There was no evidence and he was released shortly after. The real thief was a disgruntled waiter who once worked as a security guard at the museum.

1916 - Workmen's Compensation Act passed by Congress.

1923 - Interpol was formed in Vienna

1936 - Boulder Dam (now Hoover Dam) began operation.

1940- Nazis bombers change their strategy of bombing RAF bases in southern England and instead concentrate on destroying London for psychological value. For the next 57 straight days London suffered under a rain of high explosives.

1956- US test pilot Iven Kincheloe flew his experimental Bell-X plane to the edge of the Stratosphere. While modern passenger planes fly at 46,000 feet, Kinchilo was 126,000 feet up, almost 26 miles. He could see the curve of the earth, the blue of the atmosphere turning ultramarine and the stars at the edge of space. He was weightless for a few seconds. Called the America’s First Spaceman, had Kincheloe not died in 1958 in an accident, he would have been a major figure in NASA’s manned space program.

1957- Actress Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini separate.

1961- MGM released Switchin Kittens, Tom & Jerry directed and animated by Gene Deitch in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

1963- Mushi productions cartoon series."Tetsuan Atom" debuts in the U.S as AstroBoy.

1968- Led Zeppelin (billed as The Yardbirds) made their live debut at the Teen Club Box 45 in Gladsaxe, Denmark.

1978 - Keith Moon, rock drummer of the Who, died of a drug overdose at 31. He actually overdosed the drug he was prescribed to treat his alcohol and drug abuse. In one night he took 22 tabs of choloromethiazole edysilate. He was staying in the very same London flat- #123 Curzon Place, the one that Mama Cass Elliot died in four years earlier.

1984-The Walt Disney Board formally fired Walt’s son-in-law CEO Ron Miller.

1986- Archbishop Desmond Tutu was installed as the first black leader of the Anglican Church in South Africa. His appointment signaled the beginning of the final campaign to overthrow the racist apartheid system. After Apartheid was overthrown and Nelson Mandela made President of South Africa Tutu and Mandela began a curious argument over men’s wear. Bishop Tutu criticized the President for his taste in loud print shirts as undignified. Mandela responded” I won’t be criticized by a man who wears a dress!”

1991- Walt Disney’s Darkwing Duck aired.

1996- Rap artist and actor Tupac Shakur was shot to death gangland style in Las Vegas Nevada. He was standing up in the open roof of a BMW 750 sedan talking to some girls when a Cadillac pulled along side and opened fire. In 2002 the LA Times concluded and investigation that rapper Biggie Smalls or Notorious B.I.G. hired the killer and provided the gun. Notorious B.I.G. was himself shot to death shortly after.

1998- Google started.

2000- Barely legal teen pop star Britney Spears shocked even the permissive MTV Music Video Awards crowd by singing her hit “Oops, I Did it Again” while stripping and grinding in a Las Vegas showgirl type sheer flesh-colored bikini.

2008- The Great Recession- Fannie Mae and Freddy Mac, the Federal National Mortgage Assoc., go into receivership after sinking under the weight of bad debt.
========================================================== Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were the characters Horace Horsecollar an Clarabell Cow?

Answer: Two of the Walt Disney characters in Mickey Mouse cartoons who never quite achieved the fame that Donald Duck and Goofy did.

Quiz: Who were the characters Horace Horsecollar an Clarabell Cow?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What does it mean when someone calls you a Methusaleh?
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History for 9/6/2020

Birthdays: Marquis De Lafayette, Max Schreck (Nosferatu), Joseph Kennedy Sr., Felix Salten- the author of Bambi, Buddy Holly, Jane Curtin, Sergio Aragones, Swoozie Kurtz, Jo Ann Worley, Rosie Perez is 56, Billy Rose, Ernest Tubb, Justin Whalin, Anika Noni-Rose, Idris Elba is 48, Anika Noni-Rose, animator Bruce Smith.

338BC- Five days after Athens was conquered by Phillip of Macedon, the Greek philosopher Isocrates died. It was said the 98 year old was depressed by world events and old age. So he simply stopped eating. Isocrates created the first literary criticism essays.

394AD- Roman Emperor Theodosius defeated his rival Eugenius at the Battle of Frigidus.

1298- Battle of Curzola- One of the perennial battles between Venice and the Pisa, only distinguished by the fact that Marco Polo was captured.
The first thing the globe trotting merchant did upon getting home from China was get drafted. While a P.O.W. in a Pisan prison he wrote his famous account: " My Travels".
He actually dictated them to another prisoner named Rustichello because he may have been illiterate, or simply developed weak eyes. Rustichello was already a writer of novels, so it was a good choice for a collaborator.
Recently scholars challenged just how much of China he may have actually saw, because he made no mention of The Great Wall or chopsticks.

1522- One ship reached Spain manned by only a dozen or more skeletal sailors. They were all that was left of Fernand de Magellan’s fleet of five ships and 260 men that set out one year ago to reach the Indies. Magellan was killed and eaten by cannibals in the Philippines, Magellan had beheaded three of his captains in Argentina and most of the crew was dead. The last leg of the trip the men sailed up the coast of Africa without stopping for food or water for fear of falling into the hands of their Portuguese enemies. But they had achieved the dream of the great Columbus, they reached the Indies by sailing west. In fact they had circumnavigated the globe, forever proved the world was round.

1566- Elderly Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent died while besieging the Hungarian castle of Szigetvar. His vezirs worried that the news of his death would panic the troops and leave them open for attack. So they kept it a secret and marched back to Istanbul with Sulieman’s body propped up and held down by wires on his throne in his rolling pavilion. Censers of perfumed incense were waved to cover the fact that the Sultan was starting to smell nasty.

1642- The English Civil War just starting, Parliament issued a declaration that all Englishmen who weren't on their side would be declared 'delinquent' and subject to having their lands and properties seized. Unfortunately, his edict had the reverse effect than intended, because the threat of losing their fortunes pushed many fence-sitters over to the King's side for protection. King Charles could barely manage to raise one thousand sulky soldiers on Sept. I before the edict, afterwards his ranks swelled to the tens of thousands.

1696- William Kidd set sail from Portsmouth with a heavily armed ship named the Adventure. Captain Kidd’s orders were to clear the Indian Ocean of pirates, but instead, he became one himself.

1782- Patsy Jefferson, the wife of Thomas Jefferson died at age 33. Jefferson promised her on her deathbed that he would never marry again, and was so distraught he refused to leave their bedroom. He finally emerged after three weeks. They spent her last hours writing out their favorite passages from Tristram Shandy together. Jefferson kept the little folded up piece of paper on him the rest of his life.

1791- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera La Celemenza de Tito premiered in Prague.

1812- At Borodino the Russian army prepared to fight Napoleon’s Army before the entrance to Holy Moscow. This night the Orthodox Metropolitan in procession carried through the camp the icon of the Black Virgin of Smolensk. Thousands of soldiers kneeled, crossed themselves and whispered Gospodi Pomilui- Lord Have Mercy. During the Napoleonic Wars Russian officers began the curious custom of making sure that they went into battle wearing clean underwear- no gentleman wanted to his body to be found with dirty undies!

1821- Jacob Fowler with 21 frontiersmen left Arkansas for Santa Fe New Mexico to see if the local government was more amenable to Americans now that Mexico had won their independence from Spain. They were welcomed and began to hunt and trap.

1847- After living in a shack on Walden Pond for two years, Henry David Thoreau moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord Mass.

1862- During the Civil War an incident occurred when Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate brigades moved through the pro-Union town of Frederick, Maryland. All civilians kept indoors and waved white flags from their homes. But elderly widow Barbara Fritchie flew a big ass Stars & Stripes from her window and dared anyone to do anything about it. General Jackson just smiled and tipped his hat as he rode by. Years later a famous poem was written about the incident, The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie:” Shoot if You Must, This Old Grey Head, But Spare your Countries’ Flag, She Said!”

1901-PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY ASSASSINATED- The President was visiting the Temple of Music at the World Exposition in Buffalo when anarchist Leon Czogolsz shot him with a pistol hidden in his bandaged hand. Czogolsz was such an emotionally unstable character, that even other anarchists avoided him. He said he was inspired by the political speeches of Socialist Emma Goldman, which soured many mainstream Americans to radical Socialism. McKinley lingered for two weeks while doctors were afraid to probe for the bullet. Ironically he had just inspected a new-fangled X-Ray machine at the science pavilion that could have saved his life but doctors said: " This is too serious a time for toys!" He died and Teddy Roosevelt became President. Roosevelt was a maverick Republican that McKinley reluctantly chose as his running mate because he was a hero in the recent Spanish-American War. When Tammany boss Paul Crocker heard about Roosevelt being made V.P. he shouted;" Don't you realize that now there's only one heartbeat between that nut and the Presidency-?!" Republican Senate Majority Leader Marc Hanna was also annoyed: ” Oh, no! Now that crazy cowboy is President!”

1910- Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughn-Williams premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral. Vaughn Williams had not attempted sacred music yet, but was inspired by a melody written by Tallis in 1567.

1914- As World War I raged all across Europe the country that started it all, Serbia, had a curious campaign. It was expected that the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire would quickly crush this little country. But under the leadership of their resident military genius, Marshal Radomir Putnik, the Serbs drove out the invading Austrian army and this day even had the cheek to invade Austria! The Austrians pushed them out, tried another invasion, then forgot about them for the rest 1914 and all of 1915.

1916- Piggly-Wiggly, the first true Supermarket, opened in Memphis Tenn.

1935- the musical Top Hat opened with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

1945- Four days after the Japanese surrender ending World War II, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sent a bitchy memo to Attorney General Tom Clark complaining about General Donovan. Wild Bill Donovan had led the wartime espionage agency the OSS. Now he was proposing a continuation of intelligence gathering in the US as well as overseas. Hoover considered this a direct challenge to his authority. Donovans group was reborn as the CIA in 1947. And relations with the FBI have remained cool ever since. Before the 9-11 attack in 2001, the FBI and CIA could not directly e-mail one another.

1954- Groundbreaking for the first nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania. 1958- The Spunky and Tadpole show debuts!

1966- Dr. Hendryk Verwoerd, the South African Prime Minister most responsible for the institutionalizing of racial segregation called Apartheid, was assassinated by a demented aide. 1968- Many momentous events occurred in

1968: assassinations, riots, the Vietnamese Tet offensive, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Easy Rider, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Sergeant Pepper. But that’s nothing compared to the television premiere of H.R. PUFNSTUF this day! Witchipoo, Orson and the Vroom Broom. Whether or not Sid and Marty Kroffts strange kiddie show was a code for drug use -HR meaning Hand-Rolled Puffing Stuff, is a matter for scholastic conjecture.

1969- DePatie-Freleng's The Pink Panther TV Show premiered.

1971-Happy Birthday Pampers. Scientists at Proctor & Gamble invent the disposable diaper.

1972 - John Lennon & Yoko Ono appeared on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

1997- The great Funeral of Princess Diana of Wales brought England to a halt and was televised around the world. There was a last minute fuss over the fact that Buckingham Palace refused to lower the Royal Standard to half-mast, customary for a death in the Royal Family, because technically Diana was divorced and no longer part of that family. The tabloid press jumped on this as a way to divert public attention from the discussion that their hounding Diana was what caused the fatal car accident. As this day began the flag came down at the urging of the elderly Queen Mum.

2000- The United Nations held a Millennial Summit. 150 presidents, kings, princes and prime ministers convened in New York City, the largest international conference ever held. Nothing important was decided and New Yorkers grumbled about the traffic. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when someone calls you a Methusaleh?

Answer: It means you are old. Methusaleh was the Old Testament judge who lived 900 years!

Quiz: What does it mean when someone calls you a Methusaleh?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Who was Zadok the Priest?

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History for 9/5/2020
Birthdays: Louis XIV The Sun King, Jesse James, Cardinal Richelieu, Johann Christian Bach, Jacopo Meyerbeer, John Cage, Quentin de la Tour, Darryl F. Zanuck, Jack Valenti, Bob Newhart, George Lazenby, Freddy Mercury, Raquel Welch, born Raquel Tejada is 80, Kathy Guisewhite, Dweezil Zappa, Werner Herzog is 80, Michael Keaton is 69, Rose McGowan is 48

1499- Former Columbus captain Alonso De Hojeda arrived in the New World on his own expedition. Along with him as pilot (navigator) was a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci made four more trips to the alien lands, and published books about his adventures, leaving out Hojeda. While Columbus was still insisting he had reached Asia, Vespucci argued this was in fact a New World. His publishers spiced up his written accounts with beautiful sexy naked brown women throwing themselves on the Europeans. Although mostly fiction, it made quite popular reading.
In 1507 when Columbus was ignored and forgotten, German mapmakers Martin Waldseemuller & Gerhardus Mercator published the first mass printed maps of the known world. They drew on Vespucci's books and called the new hemisphere "America". I guess that's better than the United States of Hojeda.

1536- Protestant Reformer John Calvin was put in charge of the religious life of the city of Geneva. His ideas were so err…Puritan, that within two years he was kicked out.

1654- FIRST JEWS IN NORTH AMERICA- The first boatload of Jewish families arrived in America at what would one day be New York City- then New Amsterdam. They were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition that was being set up in Brazil. They had to auction their furniture to pay off their French pirate captain, Jean De La Monthe, but Asher Levy and his family where here to stay.
Puritan Dutch Governor Peter Stuyvesant immediately complained to The Hague that Jews not be allowed to settle in New Amsterdam. The Dutch East India Company told him to mind his own business and apologize. He was reminded he was running a business, not a religious colony. Anyone who wanted to work and raise a family was welcome.

1698 – Czar Peter the Great was determined to drag Russia into the modern world one way or another. Since the fashion in Europe at this time was clean-shaven, he imposed a tax on beards. When Czar Peter spotted a boyar at his court who refused to comply, he personally jumped the old man with a pair of shears and shaved him.

1725- King Louis XV of France married Marie Leszcynska, daughter of the last King of Poland. Their grandson Louis XVI was the one guillotined in the Revolution.

1774- The first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia to come up with a group response to the worsening political climate with mother England. It is the first time all the American colonies had ever gathered together. British held Florida and Nova Scotia were invited but refused to attend. Ben Franklin was in London at the time and frankly doubted New Englanders, Southerners, city folk and frontiersmen could ever be persuaded to act together. Peyton Randolph was elected first president of Congress.

1781- BATTLE OF THE VIRGINIA CAPES also called The Battle of the Chesapeake- arguably the real battle that won the American Revolution.
French Admiral DeGrasse' fleet drives off the English fleet attempting to evacuate Lord Cornwallis’ army trapped inside the port of Yorktown by Washington and Rocheambeau.
For command of the vital mission the British admiralty had passed over a more aggressive admiral named Rodney in favor of a semi-retired fossil named Sir Thomas Graves. Admiral Graves caught the French fleet dispersed unloading troops and supplies, but instead of immediately attacking, he waited three hours while the enemy formed in line. He then raised confusing signal flags for “Attack” and “Maintain Position” simultaneously.
The inability of the British navy to rescue Cornwallis sealed his defeat. If the British had won this battle, scholars agree the French were growing tired of propping up Washington and his raggedy-ass rebels.

1812- The vanguard of Napoleon’s Grand Army came up upon a little hill outside the town of Borodino. They strained to see if they had reached Moscow. But instead they saw something else- the main Russian army preparing to stand and fight. Napoleons plan was to invade a country, destroy their army, occupy their capitol, then sign a peace treaty. But these Russians weren't playing by the rules. For months after retreating across thousands of miles of Russian soil, Napoleon would finally get the big battle he desired.

1836- Sam Houston was elected first, and only, President of the Republic of Texas.

1867- After the Civil War, with so many farms neglected or destroyed, the USA experienced a beef shortage. This was answered by herding Texas longhorn cattle up to where they could be put on trains to Chicago and eastern meat markets. This day the first herd of Longhorns made it up the Chisholm Trail to the train depot of Abilene Kansas. A rancher who bought a thousand head of cattle at $4 a head could sell them here for $40 a head. One cattle drive could net up to $100,000 dollars, well worth risking hostile Indians, rustlers and floods. This created cattlebarons and a new kind of hero in the public's mind, the Cowboy.

1870- Now that Napoleon III had been defeated and deposed, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck had achieved all his political goals. So he proposed immediate peace talks to end the Franco Prussian War with a minimum of fuss. He had knocked off Austria the same way in the Seven Week's War of 1866. But this time Bismarck was overruled by his master King William I and the German generals, who all wanted to march on Paris. Bismarck warned that humiliating the French would accomplish nothing, except creating their desire for revenge. He was overruled and the revenge happened in 1914-18 and 1939-45.

1882- The first Labor Day parade occurred when 10,000 union workers marched in Union Square New York.

1885 - 1st gasoline pump is delivered to a gasoline dealer (Ft Wayne, Ind)

1917- The U.S. Government made nationwide police raids to close down the offices of the IWW (The International Workers of the World- or The Wobblies). They were a folk-song-singing radical labor union who came out against U.S. participation in World War I "The Master Class has always declared the wars, the Working Class must fight the battles"- Eugene Debs. Their apologists point out that while the Great War cost 166,000 U.S. casualties it made 200 new millionaires and if you had stock in petrochemicals like Dupont you made 400% profit.

1929- Wall Street stocks soared to unprecedented heights throughout 1929. Starting today they began to taper off and slide. Economist Roger Babson, the Sage of Wellesley, warned of an impending Stock Market crash, but people laughed him off. They called his warnings "Babson-Mindedness". The market would continue to move downwards every day for the next several weeks climaxing Black Tuesday, the great crash of October 29th and the Great Depression.

1921- FATTY ARBUCKLE. After completing three feature films simultaneously, comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle rented three rooms in San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel for a big party. One attendee, Actress Virginia Rappe, died of peritonitis a few days afterward. Maude Delmont, a professional blackmailer who also attended, spread the story that Arbuckle had raped the actress. She never testified in court.
The Hearst Press took up the story and sensationalized it as an example of Hollywood depravity. Fatty Arbuckle was found innocent after three sensational trials (the last jury actually apologized to him). The Motion Picture Production Code was formed as a direct result. Its first action was to ban Arbuckle from the screen. Fatty Arbuckle directed comedy for ten years under the pseudonym Will B. Good, and appeared in a successful series of short sound films in 1932, but died the same day that Warner Brothers signed him for a feature.

1927- Walt Disney’s Trolley Troubles, the first Oswald the Lucky Rabbit. Walt losing the rights to this character a year later caused him to design Mickey Mouse.

1932- Paul Bern, the studio executive husband of sexy starlet Jean Harlow, was found lying naked on his bathroom floor with a bullet in his head. He had committed suicide and left a note apologizing to Harlow. Harlow called the studio and her agent before calling the police. Bern’s brother revealed that Paul Bern had another wife he was hiding. All jumped to hush up the scandal.

1935- At a giant Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg Adolph Hitler told the world “ We want Peace. Germany has no interest in harming her European neighbors .” uh-huh..

1935- Tumbling Tumbleweeds premiered, the film that made a star out of Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy.

1939- The British Empire had restructured in 1867 as a commonwealth of dominions which some it's larger colonies had self rule. But to the outside world it still looked like everything from Hong Kong to Ottawa to Capetown was run on orders from London. Three days after British Prime Minister Chamberlain declared war on Nazi Germany, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull telephoned Ottawa to ask if that meant Canada was going to fight too?

1943- Young British cartoonist Ronald Searle is captured by the Japanese in Burma. He spent his time as a P.O.W. working on the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai and making sketches of the nightmarish conditions of his fellow prisoners.

1957- Jacques Kerouac’s ode to the beat life ON THE ROAD, first published. Kerouac wrote it in a heat using one large roll of white paper stuffed into his typewriter instead of individual sheets. When the editor got the novel it had no paragraph breaks of chapter breaks. Another young writer of the time, Truman Capote, was unimpressed. “That’s not writing, it’s typing.”

1958- The novel DR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak published in US. It was banned in Russia until the collapse of Communism.

1964- Buffalo NY cook Angela Bellissima took some chicken wings, threw them into a deep fryer with spices and invented Buffalo Wings.

1965- CBS television network headquarters are moved into a sleek building on 6th Ave. in Manhattan. Because of its black granite and smoke tinted window's it's nicknamed "Black Rock". NBC's headquarters in Rockefeller Center are called "30 Rock". ABC's, owing to their status as the third network, called their headquarters "Little Rock".

1972- Palestinian Black September terrorists attack Munich's Olympic Village during the Summer Games. There they murder 11 Israeli athletes of their national team.

1975 –Manson Family cult member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. She was released from jail in 2009.

1977- NASA launched the Voyager 1 probe towards the outer planets of our solar system. Among the things Voyager discovered was that Jupiter had many more moons than previously thought and had a ring like Saturn. In 2012 it became the first man-made object to leave our solar system is currently in interstellar space.
Part of NASA's program was an explanatory simulation film done on computer by Jim Blinn. It was shown on local news programs in 1980 and 82. The animation was so smooth and the graphics so breathtaking it expanded the use of the CGI medium and inspired a new generation of digital artists.

1980 - World's longest auto tunnel, St Gotthard in Swiss Alps, opened.

1983- Filmation's "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe" premiered on TV. I Have The Powerrrrrr!!!

1989- President George H.W. Bush does a major speech highlighting his war on drugs. He brandishes a bag of crack-cocaine. He declares it was purchased across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. Later the truth came out that no crack cocaine is sold in Lafayette Park, the DEA agents had to talk a crack dealer into coming to the park. They even had to give him directions, because he never visited the White House area before.

1992- Bruce Tim’s Batman the animated series premiered.

1994- Patrick McDonnell started drawing the comic strip MUTTS.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was Zadok the Priest?

Answer: In the Old Testament he was the high priest, who anointed David and Solomon the King of Israel. He was descended from Eleazar the son of Aaron.
.

Quiz: Who was Zadok the Priest?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What classic movie has as its theme the Sarabande of Georg Friedrich Handel?
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History for 9/4/2020
Birthdays: Marcus Whitman the missionary who led US settlement of Oregon, Howard Morris, Darius Mihlaud, Anton Bruckner, Chateaubriand, Craig Claiborne, Dick York, Richard Wright, Mary Renault, Mitzi Gaynor, Computer AI pioneer John McCarthy, Damon Wayans is 60, Paul Harvey, Beyonce’ Knowles is 39

218BC- Hannibal’s army with his elephants reached the summit of the Alps.

Today is the feast of St. Rosalia who lived in a cave at Mount Pelligrino in Sicily. Five centuries after her death, her bones miraculously saved Palermo from the plague.

1698- THE MASSACRE OF THE STRELTZY- Czar Peter the Great returned to Moscow after traveling Europe for the last 18 months. And boy, was he pissed off! It seems he had to cut his travels short because he heard that back home his bodyguards- the Streltzy, plotted a coup and conspired with Peters older step-sister Sophia. Peter was so mad he had dozens of Streltzy leaders tortured and 1,100 executed. Peter swung an axe and beheaded five himself. After wiping them out, Czar Peter laid the foundation for a new Russian Army based on the modern western model.

1781- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOS ANGELES. Royal Governor of New Spain Felipe de Neve and Franciscan monk Fra Junipero Serra with twelve soldiers, some free black families and Indians, about 44 in all, dedicated a new town, one days ride from Mission San Gabriel. The 63 year old Fra Serra had been stung by a scorpion, but he ignored it, so he hobbled around dragging his swollen leg. Fra Serra named the town after St. Francis of Assisi's first church in Assisi - St. Mary of the Angels.
So LA’s official name is La Ciudad de la Iglesia de Nuestra Señora, Reina de Los Angeles sobra la Porziuncola de Asís.

1781- Benedict Arnold, the American Colonial general turned traitor, led a force of British redcoats to burn down his own hometown of New London, Connecticut.

1821- Russian Czar Nicolas I issued an Imperial Ukase- edict restating Russia's claim to all of the North American Pacific coastline from Alaska to Northern California. The United States rejected this claim and threatened war, which is interesting considering they didn't own any of it at the time. Ya see, they had plans.

1833 –The New York Sun hired young boys to sell their papers on street corners. The first newsboy was ten-year old Barney Flaugherty. Now go peddle your papers, kid.

1839- The Opium Wars began between Britain and China. U.S. Ambassador John Quincy Adams called it "the Kow-Tow Wars" because he felt the real issue was the British Consul refused to lie prostrate on his face before the Chinese Emperor, as was the local custom. The Chinese had never smoked Opium until it was introduced by Britain from Pakistan.

1870-After the news of the spectacular defeat and capture of the Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan reached Paris, street rioting breaks out. Empress Eugenie fled taking the Bonaparte family into exile in England. The French Assembly National declared Napoleon III deposed and proclaimed the Third republic.

1877- Chief Crazy Horse, the "Napoleon of the Plains" was murdered. He had surrendered his weapons on a promise of fair treatment, then was suddenly arrested and bayoneted in the back while resisting guards trying to push him into a jail cell. His dying words to his tribe were "Tell the people it is no use to depend on me anymore." Indians enjoy a legend today that Crazy Horse's secret burial place is on the top of Mt. Rushmore.

1884-Thomas Edison proves he could replace gas streetlights with electricity by illuminating one square New York City block (around Pearl St.) with his new dynamo. J.P. Morgan's bank on the corner of Wall and Broad streets is the first private business to be lit solely by electricity.

1888- George Eastman patents the roll film camera. The word "Kodak" is supposedly the sound the shutter made. Another story on the origin of the word was that George wanted a word pronounced the same in all known dialects. So after some research (Rochester lore has it that he did all of this himself) he concluded that only k and x qualified as sounds uttered the same way in all languages. Thus Eastman Kodak.

1893- Writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter sent a letter to a sick child: " I don't know what to write you, so I shall tell you the story of four little rabbits. Their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." The Peter Cottontail stories born.

1904 – The Dali Lama signed the first treaty allowing British commerce in Tibet. Tibet had been a closed society forbidding any contact with the outside world.

1914-The Miracle of the Marne- In World War I the main German advance smashed down into France and after 5 weeks were approaching Paris. But Von Kluck's grey clad soldiers were stopped at the river Marne. It was the first battle where telephones played an important role and at one point General Gallieni rushed French reserves up to the front in Parisian taxicabs. The commander of the defense of Paris was Albert Dreyfus, the Jewish officer of the famous scandal of the 1890's now fully exonerated.

1918- Someone threw a bomb into the Adams St Entrance of the Chicago Federal building. At first it was thought the bomber was a radical anarchist or German agent. But it turned out to be a local gangster. The blast killed 4 people and 75 were injured. One person who just missed the explosion was a part time mail carrier named Walt Disney. Walt later said, “I missed the explosion by three minutes. “

1934- Young actress-filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl was contracted by the German Propaganda Ministry to film the 1934 Nazis Party Congress to be held in Nuremburg. While they were expecting a routine documentary, Riefenstahl instead created the film The Triumph of the Will, who’s darkly hypnotic images made film history.

1936- The musical Swing Time opened. Considered by critics one of the best pairings of the dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

1940- The Columbia Broadcast Service or CBS network started up their first television station.

1949- THE PEEKSKILL RIOTS. Singer Paul Robeson was a renaissance man who embraced controversy. An athlete, opera singer and actor he was also a passionate Black Civil Rights champion who expressed open admiration for the Soviet Union and Maoist China. This did not win him any friends in the segregated, paranoid America of the post war era.
This day when Robeson and fellow activist folksinger Pete Seeger gave a concert in Peekskill New York, their cars were pelted with stones by screaming white rioters, all with the blessing of the local police. Robeson’s person was shielded by a bodyguard of union men. Fifty years later the town of Peekskill officially apologized to Paul Robeson Jr. Pete Seeger saved some of the stones to fix his chimney.

1957- Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, named for Henry Ford's son. Touted as "the dream car of the decade". Ford spent more to promote it than any other car up to that time. Only 200,000 were sold as opposed to 15 million Model T’s. After complaints like the steering and brakes failing, and dashboards unexpectedly bursting into flame, the Edsel was discontinued. Ford lost $250 million on it. Edsel became a synonym for corporate failure.

1957- Defying direct orders from the Federal Government, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent any black students from attending classes at Little Rock High School. President Eisenhower took over direct control of the Guard and sent in the bayonet wielding 101st Airborne to ensure his orders for integration were followed.

1972- American swimmer Mark Spitz won his 7th gold medal in Olympic competition in Munich. He also spawned a cottage industry selling the poster of him wearing his medals, tiny Speedos. This image and the swimsuit poster of Farrah Fawcett, were two of the more famous images of the 1970’s. Spitz’ record held until Michael Phelps in 2008.

1976- College party boy George W. Bush was arrested for drunk-driving close to his family home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He later applied for a brand new Texas State driver’s license, which came with a clean record with no report of the arrest. As President delivering the commencement at Harvard in 2002, he joked:” In the motorcade, seeing all those police cars behind me with their lights flashing… kinda brings me back to my college days…”

1982- the single “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappas daughter Moon Unit Zappa became a hit.

1985- Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch became a U.S. citizen so he could build the Fox television and movie networks. US regulations forbade foreign ownership of broadcasting stations so Rupert didn’t fuss about what country he was a citizen of.

1993- Herb Villechaise, the little person who began the show Fantasy Island with the announcement:” Da PLANE! Da PLANE!’ committed suicide with a shotgun.

2002- Kelly Clarkson won the first American Idol contest.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What classic movie has as its theme the Sarabande of Georg Friedrich Handel?

Answer: Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon

Quiz: What classic movie has as its opening theme the Sarabande of Georg Friedrich Handel?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Where is Bangalore?
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History for 9/3/2020
Birthdays: Alan Ladd, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, Irene Papas, Memphis Slim, Eddie Brat Stanky, Mort Walker, Eric Larson, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Tyler, Eileen Brennan, Phil Stern- former WWII Darby’s Ranger and personal photographer for Louis B. Mayer of MGM, Valerie Perrine, Charlie Sheen is 55

401BC- THE MARCH OF TEN THOUSAND- Prince of Persia Cyrus the Younger had begun a civil war to overthrow his brother the King Artaxerxes The Mindful. In Cyrus’ army was ten thousand Greek mercenaries led by several generals including Xenophon, a writer who was once a student of Socrates. Today at a Babylonian town called Cunaxa, Cyrus’s force defeated the Persian Royal Army, but Prince Cyrus was killed.
Without an employer and a thousand miles from home in a hostile country, these ten thousand Greeks were really in trouble. But they got themselves together, and in an epic march they fought their way up country through hostile armies from the Euphrates (Iraq) to the Greek colonies on the Black Sea (Northern Turkey). After 5 months their cry "Thalassa! The Sea! Which meant they were at last safe and could get a ship home. They dedicated a monument which was discovered by archaeologists near Trapizond Turkey in 1997. Xenophon wrote a book about this adventure called Anabasis or The March Up Country.

1189- King Richard the Lion-Heart crowned at Westminster. He declared his desire to fulfill his father Henry II’s vow to go on Crusade. Richard spoke French and only visited England twice more in his ten years as king. The Anglo-Saxon tongue would not become the official language of England until the 14th century. We don't know Richard's full opinion of London but he allegedly once told his minister William Longchamps:" I'd sell the whole place if they'd let me.." The people celebrate their new king by killing all the Jews they can find, including a mass burning in York. That didn’t stop good King Richard from keeping a Jewish man as his personal doctor.

1260- Battle of Ayn Jalut- Hulugau & the Mongol horde were turned back from Egypt by the Mamaluke army of Sultan Baibars. The Mongols had been in the saddle since China. They had already ravaged Baghdad, Moscow and the Holyland. The Mamelukes were originally an elite guard of slaves handpicked as children to be brought up as fanatical fighting machines. They eventually seized power and ran Egypt until 1798.
When emissaries from the Caliph of Baghdad asked the Mameluke Sultan who was his family and by what right did he rule, the Sultan shook his scimitar in their faces and declared "This is by what right I rule!' Throwing some gold coins on the floor and watching the slaves and eunuchs scamper for them, he said, "And That is my family!!'

1592- Retired London actor Richard Green wrote a pamphlet to his fellow actors complaining of an actor becoming popular in their midst "A new upstart crow filled with Bombast" - William Shakespeare.

1651-Battle of Worcester. Puritan Oliver Cromwell destroyed in battle the resurgent Royalists. Young King Charles II hid in an oak tree, forever called the Royal Oak. He then slipped out of the country in disguise as a chimney sweep. This is why a fair number of English pubs along the track bear the curious name "The Black Boy".

1657-Battle of Dunbar- Cromwell defeats the Irish.

1658- Oliver Cromwell doesn't defeat Death. As you can see Cromwell the Lord Protector liked things on lucky days. Even though he was a religious Puritan he believed in astrology and would send money to German astronomer Johannes Kepler to cast his horoscope. Kepler was the father of modern astronomy but it was horoscopes that paid the bills.

1697 - King William's War in America ends with Treaty of Ryswick.

1777- In a small skirmish with British redcoats near Cooch, Maryland, the American rebels raise their new Stars & Stripes flag for the first time. They lost.

1792- Enraged French revolutionaries broke into the jail cell of the Princess de Lamballe, a confidente of Queen Marie Antoinette. She was gang raped in a kennel, beheaded and the body torn to pieces. One revolutionary pulled her heart out and bit it, another shot her legs out of a cannon. Finally they put her head on a spear and danced with it under the Queen’s window demanding she give it a kiss.

1833- The New York Sun began publication, the first American mass circulation newspaper.

1838- Writer Frederick Douglas escaped slavery by boarding a northern bound train disguised as a sailor. Later when he was making a living as a writer he returned to his former master enough money to compensate his loss. Southerners doubted anyone as intelligent and well read as Douglas could have ever been a slave, but Douglas liked to remind them he "stole himself out of slavery."

1864- Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan was killed during a raid. He encouraged his raiders to disdain sabers as outmoded antiques and equipped them instead with rapid firing carbines and six-shooters. Once when attacked by union cavalry with drawn sabers, Morgan cried:" Hah, the fools! Mow ‘em down boys!"

1870- Napoleon III surrendered himself to Bismarck and the Kaiser after losing the Battle of Sedan. Louis Napoleon was suffering so from kidney stones that he was wearing rouge and lipstick to give color to his grey face.

1886- Geronimo gave up to the U.S. Army for the fourth and last time. He and his Chiracaua Apaches were promised no retribution would befall them. After they were disarmed they were packed up into railroad cars and shipped to prison in Ft. Myers, Florida to die in the malaria infested swamps. Geronimo in his time had as many Apache enemies as white men. The White Mountain Apaches helped guide the US cavalry in their pursuit. After Geronimo's Chiracaua's were exiled, the White Mountain Apache were rewarded by also being shipped to the everglades. Geronimo survived it all. After his release he retired to Santa Fe, where he died in 1910.

1895 - 1st pro football game played, Latrobe beats Jeanette 12-0 (Penn)

1903: Col. Griffith Jenkins Griffith shot his wife, Christina, in the head.
The shooting occurred at the Hotel Arcadia in Santa Monica, where the Griffiths and their 15-year-old son were spending the summer, The Times reported two days later.

"Mrs. Griffith was in the room packing the trunk preparatory to coming home to Los Angeles, when Griffith entered the room and pulled his revolver," the newspaper said, citing a relative who had heard the story from Mrs. Griffith "in moments of consciousness" at the hospital." He pointed it at Mrs. Griffith, and said: 'Get your prayer book and kneel down, and cover your eyes. I'm going to shoot you, and going to kill you.'
The bullet went through Mrs. Griffith's left eye, but she managed to escape by jumping out the window. She landed on a porch roof, fracturing her shoulder, The Times reported.
Griffith was convicted of attempted murder and spent more than a year at San Quentin. Col Griffith later gave the town of Los Angeles more than 3,000 acres of land to create the park that bears his name, Griffith Park. And his wife divorced him.

1898- After destroying the Mahdi army in battle, Lord Kitchener and the Anglo-Egyptian army re-entered the destroyed Sudanese capitol of Khartoum. Kitchener in a spotless white uniform held an Anglican memorial mass at the site of General Charles Gordon’s headquarters where he was killed. Thousands of recoat, white pith-helmeted troops sang Gordon Pasha’s favorite hymn " Abide With Me ", to massed bugles. Meanwhile, the Muslim inhabitants looked on with curiosity.

1902- In Pittsfield Massachusetts, a trolley car crashed into the carriage carrying President Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy was hurled from the wreck and landed on his face. A Secret Serviceman was killed. But Teddy survived.

1912- Los Angeles attraction Frazier's Million Dollar Pier destroyed by fire.

1930- The first issue of the Hollywood Reporter.

1937- Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the air produced its first play on nationwide radio- an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

1939- Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany over the invasion of Poland, World War II results.

1939- British Prime Minister Chamberlain's war announcement interrupts a Disney Cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premiere" showing on the nascent BBC television service. Television shuts down for the duration.

1940 -Adolf Hitler set the date for the invasion of England for Sept 21st. This after Goering’s Luftwaffe would destroy the Royal Air Force, which they never did.

1941-1st use of Zyclon-B gas in Auschwitz, on Russian prisoners of war.

1944- During the World War II U.S. pilots shot down by the Japanese were rescued by submarines. The submariners called the pilots Zoomies. This day off the coast of Ichi Jima, the submarine USS Tampico plucked out of the ocean a Zoomie who would one day be President of the United States. Second Lieutenant George H. W. Bush.

1950- Mort Walker's "Beetle Bailey" comic strip first appeared.

1960- The Hanna-Barbera show 'Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered.

1967- Sweden officially switched from driving on the left side of the street (UK style) to driving on the right, with the expected traffic confusion.

1970 - Al Wilson, "Blind Owl", guitarist/vocalist (Canned Heat), died at age 27.

1970 - Jochen Rindt, famed German racecar driver died in a car crash. He was 28.

1971- The offices of the psychiatrist of Defense Department attorney Daniel Ellsberg were burglarized by agents of the Nixon White House, to look for incriminating dirt on Ellsberg. They hoped to stop him from publishing the Pentagon Papers by resorting to blackmail. Chief White House counsel John Dean noted that agent G. Gordon Liddy was such a loose cannon, that as he stood watch outside the offices he invited a friend to take a photo of him! A true Kodak moment!

2003- Two crooks in Detroit hijacked a Krispy Kreme truck and tried to hold three thousand donuts hostage.

2004- Chechen separatists attacked a primary school in Beslan, Russia. After a three day siege the Russian authorities stormed the school after first pumping gas into it. 331 died, mostly little children.

2017- North Korea exploded its first hydrogen bomb.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Where is Bangalore?

Answer: It is a city in India. Also called Bengaluru.