Quiz: What is the Urban Legend about Neil Armstrong on the Moon talking about Mr. Gorski?

Yesteraday’ Quiz Answered below: In honor of Diana Riggs’ Birthday, how did her character in the Avengers TV Show, Emma Peel, get her name?
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History for 7/21/2009
Birthdays: Ernest Hemingway, Issac Stern, Marshal McCluhan, , Norman Jewison is 83, Don Knots, Janet Reno, Jon Lovitz is 52, Gary Trudeau, Ernst Shuftan- inventor of the "Shuftan Effect", a cheap way of combining actors with miniatures by shooting through mirrors. All those "Lost World" Cesar Romero fighting the giant Iguanas were done that way. Tony Scott, Edward Herman, Robin Williams is 58, Josh Harnett is 31

Happy National Zippo Lighter Day. Smoking is bad but Zippos are cool- another one of life’s mysteries.

365AD- The Egyptian city of Alexandria was devastated by an earthquake. The tremor may have toppled the famous Pharos lighthouse. The quake caused the waters of the harbor to recede then return with tsunami force.

1588-the Spanish Armada set sail from Lisbon, Seville, Corunna and Cadiz to attack England. One of the sailors was playwright and poet Lope De Vega.

1605- The false Dmitri crowned Czar in Moscow. Dmitri was a Lithuanian priest named Grishka who claimed to be the dead child of Ivan the Terrible come back to life. His claim was backed up with a powerful Polish magnate's private army, the Mniszechs. He captured Moscow as Czar Boris Gudunov died but couldn't hold it long.

1784- Abigail Adams went by coach from the English Channel via Canterbury to London to join her husband John Adams. Adams was to assume his post as first ambassador to the Court of Saint James from the new nation of the United States. Abigail wrote of her coach journey how when they passed the area called Blackheath there was fear of robbers and highwaymen. She saw one robber captured, and shuddered that he would soon be hanged. She wrote in her diary:” It is good that such terrible things do not happen in America!” Why, women alone travel the roads in perfect safety!” Hmm, I guess times have changed a bit since then…

1798- "Soldiers! Forty Centuries look down upon you! “The Battle of the Pyramids- Napoleon's cannon mowed down the Mamelukes, who had ruled Egypt since the Crusades. He was so impressed with their courage that he later enlisted a corps of them in his own army. It was speculated around this time the Sphinx lost it's nose. French troops used the Sphinx for target practice. The battle was actually fought a distance from the Pyramids, but Nappy disliked the title Battle of Embaba’s Melon Patch, so Battle of the Pyramids it was.

1821- George IV crowned King of England at Westminster Abbey, but without his Queen Caroline. They couldn't stand one another and he was trying to get a divorce. So when she showed up in her state carriage for the coronation, on the kings orders the Lords and Peers rushed to shut the cathedral doors, leaving her out in the crowd of spectators. A glimpse into his state of mind at the time was when courtiers brought him word of Napoleon’s death at Saint Helena. They said: "Sire, your greatest enemy lies dead!" To which George replied:" IS SHE? OH, THANK THE LORD!"

1861- BATTLE OF BULL RUN or FIRST MANASSAS- First major engagement of the Civil War. Irwin McDowell's Yankees and Pierre Beauregard's Confederates had unknowingly adopted the exact same battle plan, feint with right and strike around the left. They would have completely marched around each other if they hadn't blundered together. The North was so confident of victory Washington society turned out with picnic baskets to watch the fun. What they saw was a horrible Union defeat and they were caught in the mob of panicked soldiers running back to the Capitol called the Great Skeedadddle. Uniforms weren't standard yet and many states sent their men in colorful militia costumes. The union men from Wisconsin wore grey and the Rebels from Pensacola Florida wore blue. Both were shot at by their own sides. Rebel General Thomas Jackson was holding off union assaults when a dying general shouted : "Look, there stands Jackson like a stone wall!" The nickname stuck. Stonewall Jackson had told his men:" When you charge, howl like furies." For the first time the famous Rebel Yell was heard. Confederate President Jefferson Davis was so nervous he rushed to the battlefield in a locomotive. When he arrived on the scene he tried to make a speech to rally the spirits of some ragged soldiers he thought had fled. Turned out they were Stonewall Jackson's veterans, just resting after they won the battle for him.

Bull Run could have been an American Waterloo, because the Yankee army was completely destroyed, and nothing stood between the southerners and the White House, only 40 miles away. But the greybacks were also disorganized and exhausted, so the pursuit was called off. The Civil War would not be won in one big battle, but would drag on for four bloody years.

1884- In one of the dirtiest elections in U.S. history, the New York Post broke the story of Democratic candidate Grover Cleveland fathering a child out of wedlock and abandoning the mother. Cleveland admitted paternity but won election anyway, because the Republican James G. Blaine was even worse. Just as Cleveland pioneered the Democratic preoccupation with sex scandals, Blaine pioneered the cozy relationship between the Republican Party and big business. He had taken so many kickbacks, his nickname was the Tatooed Man. A leading Protestant divine stood with Blaine and accused the Democratic Party of being the 'party of Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." Every Irishman in the country immediately voted for Cleveland. (around forty per cent of the population of New York, alone, was Irish at the time). Republicans chanted "Ma, Ma! Where’s My Pa!- Dems countered" He’s Going to the White House, Ha Ha Ha!" another ditty was: "Mary is healthy and so is the Kid, We Voted for Cleveland and we’re damn glad we did!" Aren’t you glad we don’t have name-calling negative election campaigns like that today, boys & girls?

1917-Ford introduces their first truck, the Model TT. It weighed one ton and had a new innovation not in regular automobiles, a reverse gear.

1936- Republican Spanish troops besiege the Fascist fortress of ALCAZAR. They maintained a telephone hookup with the commander, Colonel Moscardo, to try and convince him to surrender. At one point they told him they were going to shoot his son if he didn't give up. The colonel said: " Put my son on the phone!" Hello son?" Put your faith in God, shout Viva Espana, and Die like a Man!" Moscardo never surrendered and the siege was broken.

1944- Democratic Presidential Convention nominates Sen. Harry Truman of Missouri to be Franklin Roosevelt's Vice President on the second ballot. As early as December 1943 the Democratic party knew FDR was a dying man. Whoever was his running mate would in all likelyhood become President. With World War Two not finished and the United Nations to create, this was a pretty important choice. The incumbent Vice President was Henry Wallace, an eccentric who had a guru, sent field scientists to China and India to look for traces of teenage Jesus, and who believed Joe Stalin's Russia was the perfect model for the American economy to pull out of the Depression. Democratic Party Chairman Robert Haneghan pulled every string he had to get Wallace off the ticket and Truman on. Truman himself didn't want the job and Roosevelt was promising it to everyone he met.
At last Truman agreed, and Hanaghan barred a pro-Wallace demonstration. He even sent a man with an ax upstairs to threaten the convention organist to stop playing "The Corn Grows High in IOWA" (Wallace's home state). Truman talked to Roosevelt only once or twice before FDR died and Truman had to decide whether to drop the A-Bomb and form the post-war world. Wallace tried a third party presidential run with Chet "the Singing Cowboy" Taylor as running mate in 1948. Robert Haneghan said-"The only epitaph I want on my tombstone is: AT LEAST HE PREVENTED HENRY WALLACE FROM BECOMING PRESIDENT!"

1959- Judge Frederick van Pelt-Bryan ruled that Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence was not pornography and therefore could be sent through the postal system. What do you think of that, John Thomas?

1970- In Egypt the Aswan High Dam completed, finally controlling the annual summer flooding of the Nile.

1974- Constantin Karamanlis returned to Greece from exile to signal the restoration of Greek democracy after the rule of the Colonels Junta fell.

1980- SAG went on strike for actor's residuals from video cassette and cable t.v. sales. The actors hit the bricks twice more, in 1988 and 2000.
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Yesterday’s Question: In honor of Diana Riggs’ Birthday, how did her character in the Avengers TV Show, Emma Peel, get her name?

Answer: The writers wanted the female agent to appeal to men, so they listed the potential auditions like Ms Rigg under No Appeal, Some Appeal, or M Appeal.
So she became Emma Peel.

..beep...Tranquility Base here, the Eagle has Landed... Happy 40th Anniv to the Moonlanding.
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Quiz: In honor of Diana Rigg’s Birthday, how did her character in the Avengers TV Show, Emma Peel, get her name?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who were Murrow’s Boys?
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history for 7/20/2009
Birthdays: Petrarch, Sir Edmund Hilary, Lord Elgin, Anne Hutchinson, Diana Rigg is 70, Natalie Wood, Theda Bara the Vamp, Carlos Santana, 1889- John, Lord Reith, the first Director General of the BBC. Giselle Bunchen is 29, Sandra Oh is 38

A YouTube homage to Diana Rigg on her Birthday-
http://www.facebook.com/ext/share.php?sid=121180313632&h=dRXcJ&u=pZ74w&ref=nf

1420- Czech leader John Ziska led the Hussite rebels to defeat the German Emperor Sigismund at Witkowo Hill, freeing the besieged capitol Prague. Ziska led armies in battle despite losing both eyes in fighting. When he finally died, he left instructions to have his body skinned and the skin stretched onto a war drum.

1773-The Vatican outlaws the Society of Jesus aka the Jesuits. The pope had gotten tired of all their intrigues and foreign entanglements. They went into hiding but were reformed in 1820. I noticed that at this time all their missionaries were withdrawn from the New World and replaced with Franciscans like Fra Junipero Serra. I wonder if a Jesuit had founded Los Angeles he might have named it "Ignatius Loyola" and we'd all have to sing:" I Love I.L. !"

1858 - Fee 1st charged to see a baseball game, 50 cents. NY beat Brooklyn 22-18.

1868 - 1st use of tax stamps on cigarettes.

1869- Mark Twain’s The Innocents Abroad and in the Holy Land first published. If you ever wondered what was the most popular book in America during the 19th Century, it was not Moby Dick, War & Peace, Jane Eyre or David Copperfield. The all time best selling book in America during the Victorian Era was a now forgotten sappy travel diary" Tent Life in the Holy Land "by a now forgotten author William Prime. Twain had taken the Grand Tour abroad that was fashionable with the new American wealthy classes and thought he’d have some fun recounting his own recollections” To cross the Sea of Galilee by boat, a big local Arab demanded eight dollars for use of his miserable conveyance. No wonder Christ preferred to walk.”

1881- Sitting Bull returned to U.S. territory and surrendered. He and his people had been residing in Canada since the Little Big Horn. When Canadian officials first challenged them being in Canada, Bull produced out of his medicine bag old treaty medals stamped with King George III on them. He said "We also are the children of the Great Redcoat Mother."

1919- Pancho Villa assassinated while driving in his new Dodge. Even with 16 bullets in him he still managed to kill one of his attackers. Three years later someone broke into his grave and stole his head.

1920- On the last day of testimony at the Scopes Monkey Trial defense attorney Clarence Darrow surprised everyone by calling prosecuting attorney William Jennings Bryan to the witness stand. In a dramatic all day debate Darrow and Bryan grappled over the validity of the Bible vs, Charles Darwin’s theory. The confrontation was dramatized in Stanley Kramer’s 1965 film “Inherit the Wind”.

1941-Bob Clampett's cartoon"the Great Piggy Bank Robbery" with Daffy Duck as Duck Tracy. "i'm gonna rrrrrrrrrrrubbb ya out, see !"

1944- VALKYRIE, THE GENERALS PLOT- German generals plot to kill Adolf Hitler, take over the Third Reich and declare a ceasefire with the Allies. During a conference at Hitlers strategic HQ at Rastenberg Prussia one-eyed Count von Stauffenburg planted a suitcase-bomb next to Hitler's feet and excused himself. But someone bumped against it and moved it out of the way. After watching the massive explosion Stauffenburg then relayed the code word "Valkyrie". This meant the plotters could begin to arrest key Nazis, disarm the SS and form a provisional government with Field Marshal Erwin Rommel as President. In the explosion many were killed but amazingly Hitler only suffered a punctured eardrum and a stiff left arm. He went on nationwide radio to announce he was all right, and even read the weather in day's newspaper to prove it was not pre-recorded. The coup plotters were rounded up and executed, some hung with piano wire. Their deaths were filmed for Hitler's amusement at home. Rommel the Desert Fox was forced to commit suicide. After 5000 arrests the purge was halted only when an allied bombing hit the courtroom, and blew up the judge.

1964 - 1st surfin' record to go #1-Jan & Dean's "Surf City"

1968 - Iron Butterfly's "In-a-Gadda-da-Vida" becomes the first heavy metal song to
hit charts, it comes in at #117 The song got it’s unique name because frontman Doug Ingle wrote it as “In the Garden of Eden” but was so drunk and stoned that all that came out was “Inagaddadavida” The album sold millions, was the first to win the new Platinum record and stayed in the top 100 for four years.

1969-FORTY YEARS AGO. Tranquility Base- The Eagle has Landed. Apollo 11’s Lunar Module the LEM first landed humans on the Moon. The astronauts spent a night’s sleep, then prepared to step out on the Lunar surface the next day.

1973- Bruce Lee died of cerebral endema one month before his last film Enter the Dragon premiered. The handsome martial arts movie star single-handedly made Kung Fu a national craze and the Chop-Socky genre film a regular in world movie theaters. He was buried in his Enter The Dragon Chinese outfit. Bruce Lee was 33.

1976-Warner\Lambert, makers of Trident sugarless gum, comes out with their famous slogan "Sugarless gum is recommended by four out of five dentists who chew gum". When people asked what gum did the fifth dentist recommend, they were brushed.

1976- The Viking I probe successfully landed on Mars.

1984 - Jim Fixx, creator of the Jogging craze through his hit book Running, died at 52 of a heart attack. Apologists for a health advocate dying so young, say Fixx would have died even younger without his physical routine. The creator of PowerBars also died in his fifties. Pass me another donut.

1994 - OJ Simpson offers $500,000 reward for evidence of ex-wife Nicole’s klller. No clues or suspects other than himself ever appeared. As David Letterman later said" OJ began to vigorously search for the real killer on all the major golf courses of the nation."
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who were Murrow’s Boys?

Answer: Top CBS war correspondent Edgar R. Murrow organized a tight group of protégé’s around him to report on WWII. William Shirer, Howard K. Smith, Charles Collingwood, Eric Severaid, Daniel Schorr. They all moved with Murrow to TV, and became major figures in broadcast journalism. Walter Cronkite was a protégé of Murrows, but is not considered one of the Murrow Boys.

Quiz: Who were Murrow’s Boys?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What does the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony have to do with winning World War Two?
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History for 7/19/2009
Birthdays: Edgar Degas, Col. Samuel Colt, Charles Mayo of the Mayo Clinic, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vicki Carr, Max Fleischer, Lizzie Borden, Ille Nastase, George McGovern, Brian Harold May of Queen, Atom Egoyan, Anthony Edwards, Campbell Scott

64 A.D. THE BURNING OF ROME- As the city burned, Mad emperor Nero was inspired to run up to an observation platform and sing an elegy on the destruction of Troy while accompanying himself on the lyre. Romans later became suspicious when the areas most affected by the fire on the Palatine Hill were expropriated by the Emperor to build his palace, the Golden House.

The fire had started to die out after six days, but flared up again on the grounds of the estate of Tigellinus, an aide to Nero. The fire burned for nine days total and destroyed two thirds of the city, including a temple built by Romulus the Founder and the shrine of the Vestal Virgins.

711 A.D. Battle of Medina-Sidonia- The Moors conquered most of Spain. When he first landed, the Moorish commander Tarik Bin Ziyad ordered his landing ships burned. He addressed his warriors: " ...The enemy is in front of you and the sea behind you... You have no choice but victory!” Christian Spain was reduced to a thin strip up against the Pyrenees Mountains and in Galicia. The Moors weren’t driven out until 1492. Until then the Emirs of Granada and Cordoba set up lavish courts where great sums were spent on poets, artists, mathematicians and scientists.

1629- Communications between Europe and America in the colonial period were always spotty and confused. The fastest news could travel across the Atlantic was two months. On this day an English expedition attacked the French settlement of Quebec and captured Governor Samuel Champlain. Shortly afterwards a message came from London saying the war had been over for two months and they should let him go and apologize.

1717- George Frederich Handel premiered his suite the Water Music for a procession of King George II on pleasure boats from Whitehall to Lambeth Palace.

1799- THE ROSETTA STONE DISCOVERED. During Napoleons campaign in Egypt several soldiers digging a latrine uncover a black basalt slab with several forms of writing all over it. In 1821 Francois Champolion figured it out. The stone was the key to translating Egyptian hieroglyphics, sort of an ancient Berlitz Guide. The document in honor of Cleopatra and her brother Ptolemy is written three times in Hieroglyphs (sacred letters of Ancient Egypt), in Hieratic (governmental cursive type, a simpler form of Hieroglyphs used for texts unrelated to the Temple and Religion) and in Coptic, the same Egyptian language written in Greek letters. Since Champolion knew Greek, and had contacts with Egyptian Christian priests who spoke Coptic... The rest was the proverbial piece of cake...

Before the Rosetta Stone people thought Egyptian hieroglyphics were just magical symbols, but after the stones discovery the long mute voice of Ancient Egyptian civilization was heard again. Prayers, Literature and Poetry could now be understood. It was like the discovery of a long dead world.

1848- THE SENECA FALLS DECLARATION- The Birth of the American Woman's Rights Movement. In a Wesleyan Chapel 200 women delegates heard Lucretzia Mott and Elizabeth Cady-Stanton explained the case for women to be treated as equal citizens under the law. Frederick Douglas attended and admitted that at first he was a skeptic, but he left convinced.

1878- In New Mexico Territory the climax of the Lincoln County Wars, a feud between cattle barons and smaller independent ranchers. John Tunstall's attorney Big Jim McSween and his men including outlaw Billy the Kid were surrounded by a large force of rancher Murphy’s men backed up by militia with a Gatling gun and a howitzer. The Murphy men set the house on fire and shot the defenders as they rushed out. Billy the Kid blasted his way out to freedom. Big Jim McSween tried to surrender but was shot down.

1879- Doc Holiday had opened a saloon with a partner in Las Vegas, New Mexico. An army scout named Mike Gordon got mad at one of his dance hall girls, went out into the street and started firing wildly into the saloon. Doc Holiday came out, shot Gordon dead with one bullet, went back in and calmly resumed his poker game.

1913 - Billboard Magazine publishes earliest known "Last Week's 10 Best Sellers among
Popular Songs". Malinda's Wedding Day is the first #1.

1934- In an affidavit dated this day an old blacksmith from Pittsburgh named Louis Davarich claimed in 1899 he flew in a flying machine before the Wright Brothers. The inventor was a German immigrant named Gustav Whitehead and he designed a monoplane powered by a small steam engine. If true this would predate the Wright Brothers by 5 years, but Whitehead never documented nor published his discoveries, did not apply for a patent and died poor and forgotten in 1927. Is it true? Believe it or not!

1941 - British PM Winston Churchill launched his "V for Victory" campaign. By coincidence the letter "V" in morse code corresponded with the opening notes of Beethoven ‘s 5th symphony "Dit-Dit-Dit Daaah."making it the musical theme of the BBC overseas radio service war news.

If you ever lived in England you would know that reversing the two fingers sign is an insult akin to flashing someone the middle finger.

1957- That great movie I WAS A TEENAGE WEREWOLF starring Michael Landon premiered.

1966- 50 year old Frank Sinatra married 21 year old Mia Farrow. Frankie’s ex Ava Gardner commented:” Hah! I always knew Frank would one day wind up in bed with a little boy. “ Two years later when Mia Farrow was offered the lead role in Roman Polanski’s film “Rosemary’s Baby” Frank gave her an ultimatum "Baby, it's either me or your career”. She took the part and he sent her a divorce notice on the set. Mia got an Oscar nomination and Frank recorded “Strangers in the Night”.

1990- The Richard Nixon Library dedicated in Yorba Linda California. Nixon's Western White House of San Clemente first refused the honor of being the site as well as his real birthplace town of Whittier . The little wood frame house where he was born was moved to the Yorba Linda site. At the dedication the five living Presidents were present. Senator Bob Dole pointed at former Presidents Ford, Reagan and Nixon and joked to a friend: "Look, there’s Hear no Evil, See No Evil, and- Evil.”

1993- President Clinton launched his Gays in the military initiative called "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell." It caused a storm of controversy, and probably rooted more gay men and women out of their military careers than if nothing was done. The concept that homosexuality or bisexuality and the profession of arms are incompatible does not stand up to the historical record: Richard the Lionheart, Frederick the Great, Alexander the Great, Kitchener of Omdurman, The Sacred Band of Thebes, Shaka Zulu, Nicholson the Tiger of the Punjab and most of the Roman Emperors were gay or bisexual.
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Yesterday’s quiz: What does the opening notes of Beethovens Fifth Symphony have to do with winning World War Two?

Answer : The Morse Code for the letter V for Victory, was dit-dit-dit Daaahhh. Which is the opening notes of Beethovens’ 5th Symphony, known as Fate calling. It seemed an appropriate slogan for the homefront victory campaign.

Quiz: What do the opening notes of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony have to do with winning World War Two?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In theater, what is known as The Scottish Play?
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History for 7/18/2009
Birthdays: William Makepeace Thackeray, Chill Wills, Nelson Mandela is 91, James Brolin, Elizabeth McGovern, Screaming Jay Hawkins, Hume Cronyn, Red Skelton, Hunter H. Thompson, Clifford Odets, Paul Verhoeven, John Glenn is 88, Vin Diesel is 42.

Happy Ancient Egyptian New Year! The day when Cirius the Dog Star is seen in the Southern skies, it heralds the coming of the Nile’s flood. In modern times we call it the Dog Days of Summer.

390 B.C.- THE GAULS SACK ROME.- Migrating tribes of Gauls crossed the Alps, defeated the young republic's legions and stormed into the city as the population fled. When Gauls beheld aging, white haired Roman senators at first they thought they were gods. But when a Gaul pulled one of their beards and the man clopped him on the head , they knew they were just old men and slew them. The Gauls took ransom and migrated back up to where France is today. The Romans would not meet them again until 300 years later when their empire expanded north. At one point the Romans holding out on the Capitoline Hill were alerted to a Gaulish surprise attack when the Sacred Geese of Juno started squawking. The Romans knew this must be the Goddess' intervention. St. Augustine, the Seinfeld of evangelists, when told this story, said: "Right..,so your geese were awake while your gods were asleep !

1870- The Vatican published the bull Pater Aeternus, that declared Papal Infallibility. That even when the Pope is wrong he is still right because he’s the Pope and you are not.,

1877- Thomas Edison recorded sound on tin foil cylinder `Mary Had a Little Lamb-'

1939-MGM tried a sneak preview of the film The Wizard of Oz. Afterwards they debated cutting the song Somewhere Over the Rainbow as slowing down the pace but finally decided to leave it in. The film debuted in August to wild success and acclaim.

1939- RKO pictures signed Orson Welles to direct movies in Hollywood. That Hollywood signed a 24 year old radio star who never directed a movie, and gave him final cut and complete freedom an amazing deal.

1969- Senator Ted Kennedy had been in a downward spiral of depression and drink since the assassinations of his brothers Bobby and Jack. This night Ted and a young campaign worker named Mary Joe Kopechne drove off the rural Dike bridge at a place near Martha's Vineyard called Chappaquiddick. Kennedy escaped the sinking car, but Kopechne drowned. Kennedy was never able to explain why he waited four hours to report the accident to the police. The incident destroyed Kennedy's chances of ever becoming President.

1981- John Henry Abbott was a murderer and bank robber doing hard time in prison. He started writing famous author Norman Mailor about life in prison, and it turned out he was a pretty good author himself. Through Mailors’ influence Random House published his book "In the Belly of the Beast" it got him released. Well, this day despite his literary celebrity status Abbott fell back into his bad habits and murdered another person- a Richard Adan at the Bonibon Café in New York. He was went back to prison for life and committed suicide in 2001. Norman Mailor refused to concede it may all have been a mistake- "Culture is worth a little risk."
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In theater, what is known as The Scottish Play?

Answer: Shakespeare’s MacBeth. For many years superstitious actors warned that it was bad luck to even say the name of the play. Some think the reason is Shakespeare put real spells in the dialogue of his witches.

Quiz: In theater, what is known as The Scottish Play?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?
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History for 7/17/2009
Birthdays: James Cagney, John Jacob Astor Ist, Hyacinth Rigaud, Bernice Abbott, Chill Wills, Brian Trottier, Phoebe Snow, Donald Sutherland is 74, Phyllis Diller, Daryl Lamonica, Prof. Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach, Earl Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason, David Hasslehoff is 57, Art Linkletter is 95

1429- Charles the Dauphin of France is crowned King Charles VII at Rheims thanks to the astounding military success of Joan of Arc.

1453 Battle of Chatillon. The last battle of the Hundred Years War. English knight Sir John Talbot was blown away by the French with their newfangled cannons. Other names for the cannon were bombardons, culverins, and a variation on the catapult name for rock thrower- Mangonnel, shortened to Gonne or Gun.

1647- A Neopolitan fishmonger named Maisaniello led 100,000 Italians in a revolt against high taxes and tariffs. Maisaniello held power in Naples for ten days until his was assassinated this day by agents of the Spanish Viceroy the Count de Orsuna. One of Maisaniellos more colorful ideas was he reduced the price of bread by half, and if a baker didn’t comply, he was roasted in his own oven.

1793- Charlotte Corday, the assassin of French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat, went to the guillotine. When her decapitated head was lifted out of the basket the executioner gave it a smack on her cheek for being a naughty little girl, to the laughter of the mob.

1803- James T. Calendar, editor of the Aurora newspaper, was among the worst scandal mongering journalists in early America. He broke the story of Alexander Hamilton’s extramarital affairs and Thomas Jefferson’s sleeping with his slaves. He called John Adams a "pernicious Hermaphrodite" and George Washington the "American Dali Lama". Everyone hated him. This night his body was found floating the James River. A court decided he fell in while drunk, but many wonder if he was not pushed.

1841 - British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published.

1879 - 1st railroad opens in Hawaii.

1893- Representatives of fourteen stage unions meet to form IATSE, the International Alliance of Theatrical & Screen Engineers of the U.S. & Canada.

1928- President of Mexico Alvaro Obregon was at a large banquet gathering of all former veterans of the Mexican Revolution. Part of the party was having an artist stroll about making caricatures of the guests of honor. Obregon said to cartoonist Leon Toral: "Make sure you make me look good." Toral responded "Oh, I will.." and pulled a gun and shot the President to death.

1935 - Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" meaning audiences in rural areas were not attending movies with a rustic theme.

1936-. The Spanish Civil War begins. A Spanish Fascist army led by Francisco Franco invaded Spain from North Africa. The first moves were to occupy the Canary Islands. The Fascists figured the takeover would only take a few days, but all over Spain the common workers, farmers, artists, even women and children took up guns to fight.

1937- the Nazis open an art exhibit of banned artworks and artists called Entartete Kunst- Degenerate Art.- Works of Dali and Duchamp, Grosz, Lippschitz, Kandinsky and Miro, with appropriate insults underneath. The next day Hitler dedicated the Great German Art Collection, having cleansed the German art world for National Socialist art, mostly bad deco-greco nudes and dumb Nordic medieval fantasy scenes.

1938- WRONG WAY CORRIGAN was the last of the pioneering aviators. A former mechanic for Lindbergh, Doug Corrigan bought a plane out of a junk heap and modified it for long distance travel. He asked permission from the Civil Aviation Authority to fly from New York City to Ireland. They denied his request, on the grounds that his plane was in poor condition. He seemed to accept the ruling, but when he took off for California, he banked sharply to the east and headed over the ocean. He landed in Ireland, and complained of a faulty compass. No one believed his excuse, and he lost his pilot's license, but he was greeted as a hero back in New York. Over a million people came out for a ticker-tape parade. Supposedly his first words to the locals upon landing were. "I’m Corrigan, Where am I?"

1944- Top German Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was strafed by an Allied fighter plane as his open car sped down a French country road. Germans nicknamed these roaming planes JABOS, jager-bomber or hunter bombers. By now Rommel was in the Generals Plot to overthrow Hitler. His last conversation was with an SS Panzer Division General named Sepp Deitrich. Rommel asked him cryptically": Would you obey an order from me, even if it ran counter to the wishes of the Fuehrer?" Deitrich said he would. But the plane attack cut short his career as a conspirator. When the General's Plot to kill Hitler went off in three days Rommel, who the conspirators planned to make President of the new Reich, was in a coma in the hospital.
Even though the bomb failed to kill Hitler, if a healthy Rommel, who's fame was second only to Hitler, went on nationwide radio and announced an army coup against the Nazis and an immediate unilateral peace, it's intriguing to think what might have happened.

1945-THE FIRST POTSDAM MEETING-New President Harry Truman met Stalin and Churchill in a suburb of war ravaged Berlin. Halfway through the talks Churchill learned that he was defeated in parliamentary elections and would be replaced by Clement Atlee. Truman told Stalin about the atomic bomb and was surprised that Stalin wasn’t surprised. Stalin already knew because of spies he had at Los Alamos. Stalin told Truman the Japanese government was requesting peace talks asking that Russia act as intermediary, which they had no intention of doing. Stalin called the Anglo-Americans his "soyuznicki" Little Allies. Truman called him "Uncle Joe". Paranoid Stalin disliked the name because he thought it was meant to be an insult.

1955 DISNEYLAND OPENED- Walt Disney's dream of a perfect family them park, called 'The Happiest Place on Earth" was declared open with movie celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the Mouseketeers in attendance. Walt Disney expected to get 10,000 visitors that first day. He got 100,000.

Facilities broke down from the huge crowds and the haste with which the park was built. Concrete pavement which was poured the night before was still soft under people's feet, there were no working water fountains and the car parking was a nightmare. To the Disneyland workers opening day was nicknamed 'Black Sunday". Despite all, Disneyland became a huge success.

1967 – The Monkees performed at Forest Hills NY, Jimi Hendrix was their opening act.

1968- In Iraq the Bath party seized power under President Ahmad Hussain Al-Bakr. His chief of police Saddam Hussein would seize the presidency the following year.

1968- The Beatles musical cartoon feature The Yellow Submarine premiered in London’s Piccadilly Circus. Look Out ! It’s the Blue Meanies!!


1975-The Apollo-Soyuz space linkup. A second linkup would not happen until 1995.

1988- A home video tape was released of actor Rob Lowe making whoopee with two underage girls in his hotel room.

1999- Happy Birthday Spongebob SquarePants! The show premiered this day.
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Yesterday’s Question: Is there really such a thing as the Twilight Zone?

Answer: Yes. For oceanographers the Twilight Zone is the area just below where sunlight mingles with the sea water, and a variety of unusual fish live. For pilots the Twilight Zone is the period at dusk just before the first stars come out, when haze make the horizon line and sky indistinguishable.