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Feb 17, 2022
February 17th, 2022

Quiz: Who said, “We have heard the Chimes of Midnight.” ?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is a Grifter?
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History for 2/17/2022
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantine the Great, Montgomery Ward, Red Barber, Marian Anderson, C'haim Potok, Jim Brown, Rene Russo, Michael Bay, Jerry O’Connell, Cybil Shepard, Huey Newton, Lou Diamond Phillips is 60, Denise Richards is 50, Paris Hilton is 41, Michael Jordan is 59, Hal Holbrook, Joseph Gordon Levitt is 53

3,201BC- According to Sumerian records, from today in the month of Hilu to the month of Eshil-March 30th occurred the GREAT FLOOD, that the story of the flood of Noah in the Bible was based on. Several ancient cultures have flood stories. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1920’s theorized that the Great Flood was the tidal backwash caused by the sinking of the lost continent of Atlantis.

364 AD- Valentinian I proclaimed Emperor of Rome. Just to show you could "Be-All that You could Be.." in the Roman Army, Valentinian was born to an army family based in Pannonia (Hungary). He rose through the ranks and served in Africa (Tunisia), Persia (Iraq) and Gaul (France).

1673- MOLIERE DIED. The great playwright was suffering from tuberculosis and was in failing health, but he insisting on playing the lead in his final play "The Imaginary Illness". Tonight when asked to rest instead he responded" There are fifty workman here who won’t get paid if we don’t play". He played Argan, a hypochondriac who imagined himself dying.
In the final act he uttered the word "Juro I swear," and was seized with a violent coughing fit. He covered with a joke and finished the play, but later was carried home where he died. The local priest refused to give him Last Rights because his play Tartuffe made fun of priests. Moliere was one of the greatest playwrights and poets of the age, and French people equate him with Shakespeare.

1765- Leopold Mozart with his two gifted children Nannah and Wolfgang were touring in London, when Leopold became grievously ill with flu. While he was recovering, no noise, including music, was allowed in the house. So, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart decided to spend his time writing his first symphony. He was 8 years old. This day Mozart Symphony #1 premiered at the Haymarket Theatre.

1814-Battle of Villeneuve- Napoleon beat somebody else once again. France had been invaded by 5 armies simultaneously. When Napoleon beat one force, the four others kept marching towards Paris.

1817- Baltimore got the first city streets lit with gaslight.

1864-THE FIRST SUCCESSFUL SUBMARINE ATTACK-. The Confederate submarine Hunley, after testing that drowned 23 men including the inventor, sails, err, chugs it's way to Yankee ships blockading Charleston Harbor. It attached an underwater bomb called a david to the hull of the warship USS Housatonic. The david exploded sinking the Housatonic, but it also dragged down the Hunley to a watery grave.
In 1995 archaeologists raised the Hunley from the harbor. The found the submarine crew still seated at their stations uninterrupted. At first it was thought they drowned, but in 2017 scientists ascertained that the concussion from the blast killed them all instantly. The captain still had his lucky gold piece.
The first modern diesel/electric submarine was developed by John Holland of the Holland Electric Boat Company in 1894.

1865- Sherman burns Columbia, S.C. The POPULARITY OF THE CIGARETTE- Everyone knew the Civil War just about almost over, yet try and reason with Uncle Billy. Sherman's army fresh from burning Georgia spread a wide path of destruction through the Carolinas. When Sherman's men reached the capitol of South Carolina they took special pleasure in destroying the city where the first vote to secede took place. Yankee's sang "Hail Columbia, Happy Land; If I don't burn you I'll be damned!"
Cigarettes were gaining popularity in Spain and Latin America while in the U.S. tobacco was used chiefly in cigars, pipes and chaw. A South Carolina planter in Durham had just finished developing the perfect mild blend of cigarette tobaccos, Bull Durham, when Sherman's bluecoats arrived to loot the factory. Instead of tragedy, things worked out well for the fellow. After the Civil War, the Yankees went home to towns from Maine to California and talked of the good smoke they had in South Carolina. Soon cigarette smoking was a national passion.

1876- The invention of canned sardines.

1877- THE SATSUMA REBELLION- Ever wonder whatever happed to all those samurai warriors in the movies? Part of the modernizing of Japanese society after the Mejii Restoration of 1868 was the phasing out of the samurai class. They were told to give up their swords and get a real job. Some moved into the officer corps of the new western trained Japanese army. Some, rather than bear the shame of being demoted to peasant, emigrated to Hawaii with the invitation of King David Kalakaua IV.
But other samurai didn't go quietly. Led by Takamuri Saigo, this day the samurai revolted and had to be put down in several bloody battles, mowed down by modern artillery and Gatling guns. After losing the Battle of Shiroyama in Sept., Takamuri committed suicide. There is a statue of him today in Hokkaido.

1890- The Los Angeles City Council voted to change the name of their main street, called Fort Street because it led up to the old fort, to Broadway.

1906- In a White House wedding ceremony President Teddy Roosevelt saw his eldest daughter Alice married to Congressman Nicholas Longworth of Ohio. Alice was as free spirited as her father, Once, when confronted about her escapades, Teddy remarked " I can run the country or control Alice, but I cannot do both."

1911- General Motors installed in their Cadillacs the first automatic starters, replacing the hand crank. It was developed by Charles Kettering, the reason he did it was because a friend of his stopped to assist a young lady's who's engine had stalled. When he tried to get the engine started again using the hand crank, it kicked back and broke his jaw, causing gangrene, which eventually killed him.
Kettering spent many years at GM and started the Delco brand of auto parts. He also was responsible for fast drying paint which allowed a car to be painted in almost instantly on an assembly line instead of days. He sold the idea to an unbelieving client by having his car taken from the parking lot, painted and returned over a long lunch.

1912- THE NEW YORK ARMORY SHOW- Mabel Dodge and Gertrude Stein introduced the American public to modern art. The first showings of Picasso, Matisse, Duchamp and the Italian futurists in the USA. The show was denounced as a "chamber of horrors" and Matisse was burned in effigy in Chicago. Marcel Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" was described by an art critic as "an explosion in a shingle factory". Duchamp was highly gratified, I believe.

1925- First issue of Harold Ross’s The New Yorker magazine.

1933- comic strip character Blondie married Dagwood Bumstead.

1934- Pennsylvanian Amos Neyhardt started the first driver’s education course.

1942- Ernst Lubitsch’s classic comedy "To Be, Or Not To Be" with Jack Benny debuted. Adolf Hitler enters a room and after everyone "Sieg Heil" salutes him, he responds "Heil Myself!" But the comedy flopped, in part because beautiful co star Carole Lombard had died tragically in a plane crash a few weeks before the film opened.

1945- Nazi scientists abandoned the Pennemunde, the V-2 rocket testing site as Allied armies overran the area.

1958 – Johnny Hart’s comic strip "BC" 1st appears

1960- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr was arrested for leading the Alabama bus boycott.

1967 – The Beatles release "Penny Lane" & "Strawberry Fields".

1979- A Prairie Home Companion radio show starring Garrison Keilor was first broadcast nationally. It was a feature on Minnesota Public Radio since 1974. It ended when Garrison retired in 2016 and was accused of Me-Too sexual abuse shortly after.

1979- Barely four years after finishing the twenty-five year war with the United States and France to unify the country, The Communist government of Vietnam declared war on Communist Cambodia and picked a fight with Communist China, who invaded them. China called it the Pedagogical War.

1987- Soviet premiere Mikhail Gorbachev revealed President Ronald Reagan's preoccupation with space aliens: "At our meeting in Geneva, the U.S. President said that if the earth faced an invasion by hostile extraterrestrials, the United States and Russia could join forces to repel such an invasion. I shall not dispute the hypothesis, though I think it's early yet to worry about such an intrusion..."

1989- "Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure" premiered, starring the most excellent Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter. Whoah-Dude!

1992- Jeffrey Dahmer sentenced to life in prison without parole for drugging, torturing, murdering, cannibalizing 15 young men. Two years into his sentence, he was beaten to death in prison by another murderer who said God told him to.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a Grifter?

Answer: Another name for a cheat and con-man.


Feb. 16, 2022
February 16th, 2022

Quiz: What is a grifter?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Boba Fet refers to himself on Tatoinne as a “Daimyo”. That word is older than the TV series. What was a Daimyo?
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History for 2/16/2022
Birthdays: The Great Elector Frederick William of Brandenburg-Prussia, Henry Adams, Charles Taze Russell founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Edgar Bergen, James Baskett, Sonny Bono, John McEnroe, Frank Welker, John Schlesinger, Faith Hubley, Katherine Cornell, John Corligiano, Kim Jong Il, Levar Burton is 65, Ice-T is 64, Elizabeth Olsen (Wandavision)

In ancient Rome it was the Festival of Quirinalia- when Romulus the founder of Rome was taken up into the sky to become the god Quirinus.

304AD- Today is the feast of St. Juliana of Nicomedia, who was tortured by both her father AND her boyfriend. I know a lot of you ladies out there can relate. She also liked to wrestle winged devils in her spare time.

1804- To the shores of Tripoli....The U.S. Navy went to North Africa to try and get the Barbary Pirates to leave Yankee merchant ships alone. The Barbary Pirates had been extorting money from Mediterranean shipping for hundreds of years, but they weren’t a problem while American ships were under British Royal Navy protection. But now the little republic was on it’s own. When the Bey of Algiers demanded his usual payoff, the U.S. Congress said: "Millions for defense, but not one cent for Tribute!" So the US Navy was sent.
The frigate U.S.S. Philadelphia was sent to Tripoli harbor to threaten, but only managed to get stuck on a sand bar and her entire crew became hostages. On this day Captain Stephen Decatur sneaked into Tripoli harbor and burned the Philadelphia. British Admiral Nelson called it "one of the boldest actions of the age. "Actually more valuable was when Decatur landed a small force of U.S. Marines and Greek mercenaries who overland surprised the largest Algerian fortress at Dara and compelled the Bey of Algiers to make peace.

1808- Napoleon invaded Spain. After he defeated the Spanish Army and occupied Madrid, the Spanish people didn’t roll over quietly like other nations. They fought on as Guerrillas, little wars. The violence in what the French called the Spanish Ulcer raged unabated until they were driven out by Wellington in 1814.

1848- Frederic’ Chopin played his last concert in Paris. Slowly dying from incurable tuberculosis, the 38 year old retired to the isle of Majorca, and died a year later.

1860- British General Charles Gordon took command of the Ever-Victorious Army in China to combat the Taiping Rebellion. The Ever-Victorious was a force of mercenaries recruited by an American named Frederick Ward to help the Qing, Manchu Emperor defeat his enemies western style. The leader of the Taipings, Hong Xiuquan, had told his followers he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ come to Earth and called the territory he conquered around Nanjing, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom of Grand Peace. Gordon’s army helped destroy the Taipings, and Hong committed suicide by eating as much gold leaf as necessary.

1862- FORT HENRY & DONELSON. Confederate strongholds Fort Henry and Ft. Donelson surrendered to a new Yankee general named Ulysses S. Grant. Rebel cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest on his own initiative cut his way out of the encircling bluecoats rather than surrender. Southern commander Simon Bolivar Buckner was a personal friend of Sam Grant before the war and even lent Grant money when he was broke. Buckner now expected favorable terms, but Grant bluntly demanded Unconditional Surrender! The initials matched his name and the little cigar smoking souse became a hero to a demoralized North. But Simon Bolivar Buckner never forgave him and never spoke to him until Grant was on his deathbed in 1885.

1863- THE DRAFT- U.S. Congress passed the National Conscription Act. The Confederates had started drafting the year before. Riots broke out in Northern cities whenever the draft board set up. Rich men could buy their way out for $300. John Rockefeller, Grover Cleveland and Teddy Roosevelt’s father took that way out. There was a popular song of the era called "We are Coming Father Abraham, Three Hundred Thousand More" which was changed by wags to “We are Coming Father Abraham, Three Hundred Dollars More."

1923- Bessie Smith made her first recording-"Downhearted Blues".

1937- Chemist Wallace Caruthers working for the Dupont Company received the patent for Nylon. He was trying to find something to replace horsehair bristles for toothbrushes. What he got was a fabric that could replace expensive silk. By World War II nylon stockings for women were so popular that limited by shortages for parachutes, resourceful women would draw a seam in pencil down their bare leg to impersonate the effect.

1942- Operation Drumroll- Hitler sent a wolfpack of 5 large long-range U-Boat submarines to sink ships along the American east coast.

1959- Fidel Castro takes the oath as President of Cuba.

1978- The first computer bulletin board goes on live. Two guys from Chicago named Ward Christensen and Randy Seuss built a Computerized Bulletin Board System that was an S-100 motherboard and CP/M, and a Hayes 300 band modem. It still runs today, but the Internet has taken the place that BBS's used to have.

1982- In Houston, three friends from Texas Instruments, Rod Canion, Bill Murto, and Jim Harris got together and formed the company COMPAQ. They designed their first portable computer on a back of a House of Pies placemat. Made with off the shelf components, and compatible with all IBM programs, it was a tremendous success.

1987-"Family Dog" episode on Steven Spielberg’s Amazing Stories show. The first direction by Brad Bird.

1994- Apple announced the introduction of the Apple Quicktake digital camera, the first camera that needed no film but could load images directly into a computer. They added it to the iPhone in 2007. Within ten years Polaroid and Kodak were filing for bankruptcy.

2018- The Black Panther opened in theaters. Directed by Ryan Coogler, and starring Chadwick Boseman.
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Question: Boba Fet refers to himself on Tatoinne as a “Daimyo”. That word is older than the TV series. What was a Daimyo?

Answer: During the period of Japan’s feudal wars, a Daimyo was the title for a warlord leader of a clan. Daimyos included Shingen Takeda (Kagemusha), Nobunaga Oda and Tokugama Ieasyasu, who ultimately became Japan’s paramount leader, or Shogun.


February 15, 2022
February 15th, 2022

Question: Boba Fet refers to himself on Tatoinne as a “Daimyo”. That word is older than the TV series. What was a Daimyo?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: The Disney movie Frozen is based on what original story?
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History for 2/15/2022
Birthdays: Galileo, French King Louis XV, Michael Praetorius, Susan B. Anthony, Charles Tiffany, John Barrymore, Jane Seymour, Cesar Romero, Gale Sondergard, Melissa Manchester, Chris Farley, Claire Bloom, Chris MacDonald, Marissa Berenson is 75, Matt Groening is 68

980AD, Today is the Feast of Saint Sigfrid, an Englishman who became the patron saint of Sweden. At the invitation of Viking King Olaf Tryggvason, Sigfrid came north from Glastonbury and baptized Swedish King Olaf the White. Once when Sigfrid was away and his nephews minding his church, the pagans grabbed them and cut their heads off. Saint Sigfrid made the dismembered heads preach to the pagans about the coming Judgement Day. Musta scared the BeeJeezus out of them.

1720- Young Francois Voltaire had begun a career as a successful playwright with his first play Oedipe. But his second play Artemire was booed as loudly as his first play was cheered. The irate playwright ran up on stage and argued with the audience for over an hour, but the audience still thought the play sucked.

1764-The town of Saint Louis, Missouri was established by French fur trappers (les voyageurs) up from New Orleans, led by Pierre Laclede Ligueste.

1793- Revolutionary France adopts the Tricolor flag. After Waterloo, royalists tried to go back to the white with gold Fleur du Lys banner. But from 1848 on the Tricolor remained the national banner of the French nation.

1815- Things on the Island of Elba had gotten so quiet that the British officer in charge of Napoleon's exile, Sir Colin Campbell, informed his prisoner he was going on holiday to see his girlfriend in Italy. Napoleon asked, “Will you be back by the 28th? “Yes, why?” Oh, nothing. it's just my sister Princess Pauline is planning a party and we'd hate for you to miss it." In reality Napoleon plotting to escape to France and re-conquer Europe. Pauline had her party on the 25th. Sir Colin Campbell returned to find his prisoner, and his career in the army, had flown the coup.

1836- The Mexican Army of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande into the rebellious state of Texas. Santa Anna had mortgaged his own lands back home and put his field hands into uniform to bolster up the ranks of his army.

1861- When Texas joined the Confederacy, US frontier fort commanders worried about how to proceed. This day, without waiting for orders, General William Twiggs surrendered all his army posts and war material of the Department of Texas to the new Confederate Government. The rebels gained tons of munitions and guns, and even some Egyptian camels from a failed experiment to introduce them to American deserts. President Elect-Abe Lincoln called Twiggs a traitor, and Twiggs responded by trying to unsuccessfully challenge outgoing President Buchanan to a duel.

1862- Battle of Valverde New Mexico- Pro Confederate Texans fought Pro-Union Colorado and New Mexico militia in a sleepy adobe village. Texans captured 4 Yankee brass cannon and dragged them back to San Antonio. The Valverde Guns became a famous Texas unit.

1879- President Rutherford Hayes signed a bill allowing female attorneys to argue cases in U.S. law courts, even though they still were not allowed to vote.

1898- The U.S.S. Battleship MAINE EXPLODED in Havana Harbor, killing 252 sailors. The cause was never confirmed, it may have been a spontaneous igniting of fumes in the gunpowder magazine, but the American public was urged to blame Spanish sabotage.
The next day a motor launch out to the site of the disaster rescued the ships cat clinging to the mainmast protruding from the water. U.S. public opinion against Spain was pushed by "yellow journalists" like William Randolph Hearst and Josef Pulitzer. Hearst said “ The Maine is a wonderful thing.” When Pulitzer’s correspondent, artist Frederick Remington reported home, “There is no war down here.” Pulitzer responded, "You supply the pictures, I'll supply the war."
American expansionists had been planning a war with Spain since 1896 and had tried to pick a fight over Cuba in 1871 and 1874. President McKinley, who Teddy Roosevelt described as having:"no more backbone than a chocolate éclair" gave in and declared War on Spain to cries of "Remember the Maine!". More Americans were killed on the USS Maine than in the entire Spanish American War, which was fought and over by December of the same year. America emerged as a power player on the world stage.

1903- British Major General Hector MacDonald was one of the most famous soldiers of the Victorian Era. “Fighting Mac” had laughed in the face of fierce Afghan tribesmen, Boer bullets, and Dervish’s spears, and always triumphed.
But he had a secret. The Love that Dare Not Speak Its Name. He married young but abandoned his wife and son, and now sought only the company of men. This day while serving as military commander of Ceylon, a leading cleric and several boys accused General MacDonald of homosexuality. Gays in the British Empire were not uncommon- Gordon of Khartoum, Cecil Rhodes of South Africa, even Earl Kitchener of Omdurman were known to prefer men to women. But never in the open. MacDonald tried to flee to England on medical leave, but the General Staff ordered him to return and clear his name in a court martial. MacDonald instead went into his office and put his service revolver to his temple. All Edinburgh turned out for his funeral.
Still friends and admirers refused to admit he was gone. There was a rumor that a successful World War I German General von Mackensen was actually MacDonald under an alias, since von Mackensen stayed in the Balkans and never faced English troops in battle.

1933- ATTEMPTED ASSASINATION OF FDR- In Miami, unemployed anarchist Giuseppe Zangara shot a pistol at President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt at a rally in Chicago. He missed FDR but killed the Mayor of Chicago Anton Czermak. Giuseppe
Zangara was tried and sent to the electric chair the following month.

1942- Japanese troops captured Singapore. The British were confident the Japanese couldn't get an army through the thick Malaysian jungle, so they concentrated their heavy guns facing out to sea. Gen. Yamashita, the "Tiger of Malaya" put his army on bicycles and with light tanks burst through the cities defenses from the weaker land side. The “Gibraltar of the East’ fell with depressing speed – Prime Minister Winston Churchill admitted he was humiliated. He felt the defeat had shown the world just how old and brittle the British Empire had become.

1947- The British had administered the Palestinian territories like a colony of the Empire since the end of World War I. But faced with a shattered post World War 2 economy, fed up with Arab-Jewish terrorism and the mortification of having to put Jewish Holocaust survivors back into camps, this day the British Government announced it was going to leave the Palestine Mandate. The new United Nations could have the whole Arab-Israeli mess and bugger off!

1947- During the anti-Communist witch hunt, the FBI revoked the visa of famed documentary filmmaker and founder of the National Film Board of Canada, John Grierson because they thought his politics were too lefty.

1950- Walt Disney’s Cinderella opened in general theater release.

1954- Future President and b-movie star Ronald Reagan tried doing a stand-up act at the Las Vegas Ramona Room with the "Honey Brothers", a comedy troupe similar to Abbot & Costello.

1965- Canada first flew the Maple Leaf flag.

1984- Touchstone Pictures created, so the Walt Disney Company could do more adult PG movies. Their first film was Splash, starring a tastefully topless mermaid Darryl Hannah.

1989- The last Soviet troops left Afghanistan.

1991- In a speech, President George H. W. Bush invited dissidents in Iraq to rise up against Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He declared, ”The Day of the Dictator is Over!” Iraqi Kurds, Shiites and Marsh Arabs rose in revolt, confident the US would back them. The US instead ignored them and left them to be bombed and nerve-gassed by Saddam’s Republican Guard. Thousands died, and the dictator remained for another ten years.

1994- After months of insane bidding, Viacom’s Sumner Redstone beat out QVC’s Barry Diller to buy Paramount Pictures. The cost was $20 billion, although the studio’s net worth was estimated at $8 billion. When asked, Diller replied: “What’s done is done. Next.”

2002- Scientists announced the first discovery of fossilized dinosaur vomit.

2003- Millions of protesters march in cities from Hollywood to New York, Kiev to Capetown to Tokyo to protest US plans to attack Iraq. Nearly a million people marched in London alone. Bush invaded anyway.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: The Disney movie Frozen is based on what original story?

Answer: The Snow Queen, by Hans Christian Andersen.


Feb. 14, 2022
February 14th, 2022

Quiz: The Disney movie Frozen is based on what original story?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: What does it mean to be lachrymose?
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History for 2/14/2022
Birthdays: Joshua Norton aka Joshua Ist Emperor of the United States 1819, Jack Benny- real name Benjamin Koubielsky, Frederick Douglas, Christopher Latham Scholes- inventor of the typewriter, George Washington Ferris inventor of the Ferris Wheel, Pier Francesco Cavalli, Jimmy Hoffa, Vic Morrow, Skeezix Wallet (character in Gasoline Alley comic strip), Gregory Hines, Ignaz Friedman, Thelma Ritter, Carl Andersen, Hugh Downs, Jim Kelly, Florence Henderson, Meg Tilly, Alan Parker, Simon Pegg is 51,
Margaret Knight the inventor of the flat bottom paper bag. The character Lara Croft, is 54.

Happy Valentines Day!

This holiday was originally the Roman fertility festival LUPERCALIA, when the young men of Rome wearing nothing but olive oil, would run through the streets waving oak branches over the heads of young girls to inspire fertility. They also spanked each other with little leather whips. Then they would all go to the orgy.
Keeping with the custom of the early Church to sanctify pagan holidays with saints days, Pope Gelasius I decided to rename the holiday for St.Valentine, who was martyred by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus in 295 A.D.. The olive oil, whips and orgy were out, but tradition has it that Valentine in prison kept communicating with his flock by writing little notes and tossing them through the bars. The notes were written on little leaves (silphium) that are the familiar heart shape we use today (which looks nothing like an anatomical heart.). These notes or "Valentines" fused with the romance notion of the old Roman party and became a custom for lovers as early as the 14th century.

44BC- After years of Civil War Gaius Julius Caesar was now master of Rome. He kept most of the institutions of the Roman Republic but declared himself Dictator and Consul for life. He had been heard to say “the Republic is just a word, without real substance”. People wondered if he was out to make himself king. The concept of a King was hateful to most Romans, regardless of their political party.
This day at a Lupercalia celebration one of his biggest brown-nosing lieutenants, Marc Antony, publicly tried to put a crown on Caesar’s head. Caesar refused it twice. Instead of popular enthusiasm, this gesture alarmed many. A conspiracy formed to kill Caesar led by Marcus Brutus, a descendant of Junius Brutus the founder of the republic, and Gaius Cassius Longinus, who had fought for Pompey against Caesar.

Today in the Orthodox calendar is the Feast of Saint’s Cyril and Methodius, the “Apostles to the Slavs”, who created the Russian (Cyrillic) alphabet out of Greek and Hebrew characters.

1779- Captain James Cook was killed by angry Hawaiian natives after an argument over hostages. Despite heavy attack the shore party rallied and fought their way back to the longboats thanks to their second in command, ensign William Bligh, the future Captain Bligh of the Bounty.

1797- Battle of Cape St. Vincent. The British Navy under Admiral Jervis defeated a Spanish fleet off the coast of Portugal. Admiral Nelson was there in support.

1814- Battle of Vauchamps. Napoleon beats Marshal Blucher and his invading Prussian army. Blucher was called Old Fowvarts (Forward) because that was his favorite order.

1824- KING CAUCUS- Just in case you wished for a more innocent time in American politics, consider this election. A group of powerful Congressmen of the dominant Whig party tried to predetermine that the next president would be easy to control by nominating William Crawford, who was blind and paralyzed from a stoke. Remember in those days of poor communications most citizens would never even see a President except for an artist's picture in a newspaper.
The scheme was foiled and John Quincy Adams was elected president, even though more people voted for Andrew Jackson. This was done via another scheme hatched with Henry Clay that had manipulated entire states into his camp when not one soul had voted for him, then traded them to Adams for the Secretary of State job.
The later angry public outrage over "King Caucus" led to liberalization of the election process. Jackson easily defeated Adams re-election bid in 1828.

1848- President James Knox Polk is the first sitting president to sit for a photograph. The daguerreotype was taken by a young Matthew Brady. John Quincy Adams was the earliest former president to be photographed.

1859- Oregon became a state.

1870- The first elevated commuter railway was inaugurated in New York City at Greenwich and 9 Ave.

1876- THE TELEPHONE- One of the strangest coincidences in technology history was that two men invented the same device at almost the same moment.
Scotsman Alexander Graham Bell in Boston and Elijah Gray in Chicago were both working on a device to transmit human voices instantaneously over electric wires. Each knew of the others work and labored furiously to be the first. When Bell was able to get a weak sound of his voice over the wire his sponsor and future father in law Robert Hubbard wanted to file the patent. But Bell procrastinated until he felt it was perfect. Exasperated, Hubbard took the schematics and went himself to the office to file the patent. What he found out later, was he filed the patent barely two hours ahead of Gray in Chicago! Bell’s patent was granted on March 7.
Gray tried to challenge the patent. US courts decided that since Grays attorney had filed a “caveat” to a patent- which meant I’m working on an idea” while Hubbard & Bell filed a patent “I’ve invented the idea”, they awarded the patent to Bell. Elijah Gray still went on to invent more things, founded the Western Electric Company and grew very rich. But Alexander Graham Bell got the immortality as inventor of the telephone.

1884- 25 year old Teddy Roosevelt was an up and coming member of the New York State legislature. On this day he received a double shock - both his mother and young wife died on the same day. Shattered, he abandoned his political career and fled to the Badlands of North Dakota to be a rancher and deputy sheriff. He said the landscape was so bleak it "looked like the personification of a poem by Edgar Alan Poe." He became President at age 41.

1886- Los Angeles began to export its first trainload of oranges back east.

1887- Several leading French intellectuals including Guy De Maupassant, Honore’Balzac, and Charles Gounod published a letter to the President of the Republic begging him NOT to build the Eiffel Tower. "A Useless Monstrosity, which even America with it's crazed passion for commerce has the sense to reject! And what if it lasts 20 years?" There were plans to pull down the Eiffel tower 1907, but by then it had gained a new purpose as a radio antenna.
Novelist Guy de Maupassant, hated the tower but still went to its restaurant every day. When asked why, he said, "Because it is the only place in Paris where I cannot see it".

1907- Golden Books incorporated. One of their artists was Gustav Tennegren, who would become a key stylist of Walt Disney's Snow White and Pinocchio.

1917- I.A. Lilly became the first female N.Y. subway train conductor.

1919- THE SPARTACISTS- The government offices in Berlin are seized by Communists. Inspired by the Revolution in Russia they try to declare the Soviet Republic of Germany. They called themselves Spartacists after Spartacus the leader of the slave rebellion against ancient Rome. Right-wing paramilitary private militias called frei-korps led by former Imperial officers entered the city and battled the Bolsheviks for control of the streets. One of the reasons why businessmen in the west were later so cozy with Hitler was their relief that Germany didn’t turn into another Soviet Union.

1920- The League of Women Voters formed.

1927-Alfred Hitchcock’s first suspense film “The Lodger” opened in London.

1929- Dr. Fleming discovered penicillin.

1929- the ST. VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE- Scarface Al Capone's men dressed as Chicago police round up a bunch of Bugs Moran's hoods at the S.M.C. Cartage Company garage at 2122 North Clark Street and blow them away with tommy guns. Capone subcontracted the job to Detroit’s Purple Gang. Dr Reinhardt Schwimmer, one of the men killed, wasn’t even a mobster but an optometrist who liked to hang out with gangsters to experience life on the edge. The seven men had 200 bullets in them. They even shot their dog. When Bugs Moran was asked who he thought had done it, he replied: ”Only Capone kills like that.” Big Al himself was in Key Biscayne Florida having lunch with the Dade County District Attorney.
One of the triggermen was Machine-gun Jack McGurn, but when questioned by police his girlfriend testified he had been in bed with her all that day. Newspapers called her his 'Blonde-Alibi". Machine Gun McGurn was bumped off shortly after.
At the massacre site amazingly one gangster- Joe Duesenberg- lived long enough for police to question. But to the end he wouldn't spill the beans. When asked who shot him full of bullets, he replied:" Nobody!" and died.

1931- Tod Browning's film of the play Dracula, starring Hungarian actor's union organizer and recreational morphine addict Bela Lugosi, premiered.

1939- The German battleship Bismarck christened in Kiel harbor.

1942- Japanese forces attacked Sumatra.

1943- Battle of the Kasserine Pass began- Rommel the Desert Fox gave the U.S. Army in Africa it's baptism by ambushing it in the narrow Kasserine Pass. The only time in WW2 American troops broke and ran away in panic.

1946- John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert unveil the ENIAC, the first all electronic circuited computer, started up at the University of Pennsylvania. ENIAC stands for Electronic Numerical Integrator And Calculator.

1949- The United States charged that the Soviet Union had as many as 14 million people in prison camps in Siberia, called Gulags.

1962- First Lady Jackie Kennedy gave a tour to network television cameras of the private living quarters of the White House. It’s the first time most Americans had ever seen the inside of the Executive Mansion. She worked mostly without a script, adding her own details as she went along. The day after the broadcast, Pres. Kennedy called the FCC just to see how here Nielsen ratings were. They were much higher than his speeches ever were.

1965- The Detroit home of black activist Malcolm X was firebombed.

1967- Former kinky pinup model Betty Page married Harry Lear and became Christian.

1968- Part of the Vietnamese Tet Offensive was the Communists overrunning the old Imperial Capitol of Hue. This day US Marines finally recaptured the cities Imperial citadel after weeks of bitter street fighting. The Communist command center was set up in a throne room called the Place of Perpetual Peace.

1979- Digital music composer Walter Carlos, who scored the film A Clockwork Orange, announced he had undergone a sex change and was now Wendy Carlos.

1989- Iranian Imam Ayatollah Khomeni issued a 'fatwah' -death sentence against Pakistani born novelist Salman Rushdi because he considered parts of his book "The Satanic Verses" to an insult to the prophet Mohammed. The fatwah was finally revoked in 2000 by the Supreme Islamic Council (Iran's equivalent of the Supreme Court).

1990- As the Voyager 1 spacecraft was leaving our solar system, Dr. Carl Sagan had the spaceship look back and take a family photo of our planet system, 3.7 billion miles away. A few faint dots on a distant sunbeam.

1991-Meg Ryan married Dennis Quaid. The divorced a few years later.

2005- Steve Chen, Chad Harley and Jared Karan started You Tube.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be lachrymose?

Answer: It means to be somber, mournful, dismal, weepy.


Feb 12, 2022
February 12th, 2022

Quiz: Can you name a Walt Disney cartoon feature that was not first a fairy tale?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: In WWII slang, if you threw a pineapple at a German, and he threw a potato masher at you, what were you exchanging?
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History for 2/12/2022
BIRTHDAYS-Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin are born on the same day in 1809, although an ocean apart; Austrian Emperor Francis II, Tadeusz Kosciuszko, Joe Garagiola, Luigi Boccherini, John L. Lewis, Bill Russell, Franco Zeffirelli, Lorne Greene, Joe Don Baker, Arsenio Hall, Christina Ricci is 42, Josh Brolin is 54.

Today is the feast day of Saint Julian the Hospitaller- Julian was a nobleman who one day when arrived home to his castle, mistook his parents for intruders and killed them. He was so distraught he ran off into the woods and became a hermit, helping people across a wild river. One day he helped a leper across who turned out to be an angel. He said:" Julian. God has forgiven you." He is the patron saint of travelers and ferrymen.

1502- Ferdinand and Isabella had thrown all the Jews out of Spain, now what about the Muslims? This day all Muslims not accepting baptism were given until April 30th to leave the country. They complained that when the Moors ruled they tolerated all religions, but the Spanish monarchs were deaf to all entreaties. Up to 3 million Moors eventually left. A century later, French Cardinal Richelieu called the Edict of 1502 "the most barbarous act in history."

1554- Lady Jane Grey was beheaded after being queen of England for nine days. This poor 16 year old kid was a pawn in the power struggle after the death of Henry VIII's sickly son Edward. The Protestant court knew the real next in line was the Catholic Mary Tudor, and Princess Elizabeth wisely kept a low profile, for now. Archbishop Cranmer and the Seymour clan pushed forward this cousin as a serious claim to the throne. It didn't wash and Mary became queen and earned the name "Bloody Mary", not for her ability to mix a cocktail. Jane went to the block as did Cranmer, and many others.

1709- Sir Alexander Selkirk shipped out for the South Pacific on a Chilean schooner. During the voyage he got into an altercation with the eccentric captain who marooned him on a deserted island. That ship later sank and the crew imprisoned in Peru. Selkirk survived on his own for four years on goats until he was rescued by a passing British ship that saw his signal fire. His story became the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's book-"Robinson Crusoe".

1789- Ethan Allen, the frontiersman whose Green Mountain Boys were heroes of the American Revolution, died from injuries gotten from drunkenly falling out of a sleigh crossing frozen Lake Champlain. His last words were when someone said, "Ethan, the Angels await thee…." Allen replied:" They do? Well, goddamn 'em, let em wait!"

1790- In Philadelphia, a group of Pennsylvania Quakers presented a petition to the US Congress calling for the abolition of slavery. But the real sensation was that the bill was written and endorsed by Benjamin Franklin. The octogenarian patriot regretted sweeping the slavery issue under the rug in the past, and now at the end of his life he wanted to show where he stood. It was Franklin’s last public act. Three weeks later he died. The furious debate in Congress almost split the brand-new government. Finally, the Senate chose to do nothing, and let the issue pass for a future time.

1793- Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Law, making it a crime for anyone to help a slave trying to get away to freedom.

1797- First performance of the German national anthem. Composer Franz Josef Haydn was worried about the spirit of the French Revolution radicalizing the Austrian peoples. When in London he saw how the anthem God Save the King brought all Englishmen together in song. He thought his country could use a song, too. So with poet Leopold Hashka and an old Croat drinking song, Haydn composed GOTT ERHALTE FRANZ DER KAISER! God Bless Our Kaiser Francis. It was later reamed Deutschland Uber Alles and Deutschlandlied.

1798- LORD NELSON AND MRS. HAMILTON DO THE NASTY... Admiral Horatio Nelson had been increasingly shivering his timbers over his friend Sir William Hamilton's sexy young wife Emma. He was staying with the Hamiltons in their villa in Naples during his tour of duty in the Mediterranean. According to historians analyzing their love letters to each other, Emma and Nelson make specific references to the 'Delightful Twelfth of February", and Mrs. Hamilton bore a daughter nine months later she named Horatia. Their open love affair in the face of polite society was one of the scandals of the age.

1809 -Happy Lincoln's Birthday, Because of Richard Nixon’s law creating President’s Day in 1970, you do not have today off as a holiday. One of my favorite Lincoln quotes is:" If I'm supposed to be two-faced, why did I settle for this one?"

1814-Battle of Chateau-Thierry- Napoleon defeated somebody yet again.

1817- Battle of Chacabuco- Argentine leader Jose de San Martin defeated the Spanish Royalist Army.

1839- The Aroostook War- Maine and New Brunswick lumberjacks scuffle over their border. There was a lot of war talk but not much else happened.

1909- African American civil rights leaders like W.E.B. DuBois and Oswald Villard call for a new militant organization to combat the growing violence against blacks. the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People or NAACP is born.

1912- Following Dr Sun Yat Sen’s declaration of the Republic of China, the last Manchu Emperor, Henry Pu Yi abdicated his throne.

1924- RHAPSODY IN BLUE- Band leader Paul Whiteman had commissioned a rhapsody for Jazz Band from the famous composer George Gershwin. Tonight at a concert at the Aeolian Hall in New York City it premiered in a long bill of "Modern Music". Also on the bill was jazz interpretations of "Yes We have no Bananas" and "Kitten on the Keys." Sergei Rachmaninoff, Fritz Kriesler, Igor Stravinsky and Leopold Stokowski were in attendance.
Interestingly enough, Gershwin’s orchestrator was Ferde Grofe’, the composer famous for the Grand Canyon Suite. It was Grofes’ idea to bring in a jazzman named Ross Gorman to do the opening clarinet solo. While rehearsing the piece, Gorman took Gershwin’s opening 17 note ascent and ‘smeared’ the riff to the long high note, creating the famous opening. Gershwin liked it so much he told him to play it always that way.
Gershwin was originally going to call his piece Concert Rhapsody for Jazz Band & Piano or American Rhapsody. But his brother Ira Gershwin was inspired by some Whistler paintings he saw at a museum called Nocturne in Blue and Green and Harmony in Grey and Green. He suggested Rhapsody in Blue.

1941- General Irwin Rommel lands in North Africa to take over the Italian forces and his new Afrika Korps. Using lightning tactics and brilliant improvisation in the desert he became legendary as the "Desert Fox". He took over from an Italian general named Barbazioli, who because of his wild facial hair was nicknamed "Electric Whiskers".

1947- THE BIRTH OF THE 'NEW LOOK' The Paris fashion show where designer Christian Dior defined the look for women of the 1950s into the early 60's: Wasp waists, gloves and patent leather accessories, pleated mid length skirts.

1964- Miles Davis and his band played Carnegie Hall.

1967- London police arrest Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Marianne Faithful for doing drugs and doin’the nasty.

1976- actor Sal Mineo was killed outside his car port in West Hollywood. Marilyn Monroe and Shelley Winters once shared an apartment in the same building. Mineo's murder remained unsolved for many years and there were rumors that he was done in by a gay acquaintance, but the killer turned out to be a routine robber who wanted money.

1986- Since 1977 Soviet human rights activist Anatoly Scharansky was imprisoned for demanding the right for Russian Jews to emigrate to Israel. This day he was freed by Soviet Premier Mikail Gorbachov. Scharansky moved to Israel, changed his name to Natan, converted to a conservative branch of Judaism and got involved in Likud politics.

1994-"WHY ME! WHY ME?!" The Winter Olympics at Lillehammer began, which are remembered mainly for figure skater Tanya Harding hiring a hit man to break her rival Nancy Kerrigan's kneecaps with a steel pipe. Despite all the hub-bubb, the gold was won by Ukrainian skater Oksana Baiyul who was arrested a year later for drunk driving.

Nancy Kerrigan signed a multi-million dollar endorsement contract with Disney, which she succeeded in blowing within a month by making fun of Disneyworld during a parade. Within range of a microphone she whispered." This is all so corny! I can’t believe I’m doing this." When someone asked if Tanya Harding could get any commercial endorsements, it was pointed out that she was an asthmatic who smokes Marlboros.

1999- President Bill Clinton was acquitted in his Impeachment trial in the Senate stemming from his affair with young intern Monica Lewinsky. During the trial, word leaked out that several of the president’s chief critics like Representative Robert Livingston and Newt Gingrich also had extramarital affairs or sexually harassed their female employees. Chief Justice William Rheinquist, high on painkillers, presided over the trial with his dark Justices’ robes adorned with some gold stripes on the sleeves, the first time any Supreme Court Justice robes had any such adornment. He got the idea watching the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta Iolanthe.
The Parker Pen Company had created special monogrammed pens for the Senator’s use during the trial. But when the pens were used it was discovered they all had the name United States misspelled on them- they read the Untied States of America. Others said it was a fitting statement on the state of the government at the time.

2001- The Near Spacecraft landed on Eros, an orbiting asteroid. The first
landing on an asteroid.

2006- New York City has a record breaking snowfall of almost 27 inches.

2010- Happy Death Ray Day. A USAF high intensity laser beam shot down a missile in flight.
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Yesterdays Question: In WWII slang, if you threw a pineapple at a German, and he threw a potato masher at you, what were you exchanging?

Answer: They were both nicknames for hand grenades.


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