Question: The North African coastline used to be called The Barbary Coast, for the Barbary Corsairs, Muslim pirates who raided European shipping. But there was also a Barbary Coast in America. Where was it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean when you describe someone as being droll?
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History for 10/24/2023
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Domitian, Bob Kane the creator of Batman, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek- the founder of Microbiology, Moss Hart, Merrian Cooper, Jiles Perry Richardson better known as the Big Bopper, F. Murray Abrahams is 85, Enkwase Mfume, Y.A. Tittle, Sara Josepha Hale 1788- who wrote the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb", animator Preston Blair, Kevin Kline is 76

3018 BCT- Frodo the Hobbit awoke safely in Lord Elrond’s palace in Rivendell, after escaping The Ring Wraiths.

439- The barbarian horde called the Vandals crossed from Spain into North Africa and captured the Roman colony of Carthage, built on the site of Hannibal’s old city. When the Romans had destroyed Carthage in 146BC they put a curse on the land. But the cities’ strategic location and great harbor proved too useful, so a colony was soon set up. Ironically, or perhaps the curse working, in 455AD Geneseric the Vandal launched an attack from Carthage that sacked Rome.

1537- After giving King Henry VIII his only son, Henry’s 3rd wife Jane Seymour died of childbed sepsis. She was 29.

1648 –THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA- After four years of negotiations Europe ended its last great religious war, the Thirty Years War. The good thing was nobody disputed Dutch or Swiss independence or the anybody’s right to be Protestant anymore, the bad part was Germany was devastated. Germany lost almost half her population. It wouldn't really get it's act together again until 1870. France replaced Spain as the dominant power on the continent. And because the Pope refused any peace signed with heretics, the exhausted European kings began to simply ignore him.

1781- British General Sir Henry Clinton arrived at Yorktown Virginia with a rescue force to learn that Lord Cornwallis had already surrendered to George Washington a week ago.

1800- Three weeks before a presidential election an October Surprise. Alexander Hamilton published ON THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN ADAMS ESQ, a 58-page attack on the incumbent Presidents’ character and record. Though they were of the same party, the two men loathed one another. Hamilton had almost challenged the President to a duel. Finally, Hamilton decided he would rather see the opposition party win than Adams re-elected. His persuasive pamphlet not only ruined any chance John Adams had of re-election, it was a grenade lobbed into the midst of his own Federalist Party. President Adams placed fourth in the election, but Alexander Hamilton’s party disloyalty lost him most of his political influence.

1812- BATTLE OF MALOYAROSLAVETS (say that three times fast). Contrary to traditional perception, Napoleon wasn't stupid enough to think he could retreat from Moscow through Russia in the dead of winter. His first idea was to retreat south to the Ukraine where it was warmer, the food abundant and the people anti-Russian. The Russian General Kutusov guessed this and moved his troops south to cut him off at a junction called Maloyaroslavets. There was a bloody battle and Napoleon was successfully blocked. This forced him to retreat north along the stripped and ravaged Smolensk Road from whence he came.

1836- Mr. Alonzo D. Phillips of Springfield, Mass. received a patent for the first book of matches in the U.S. However the laboratory of the English scientist Robert Farraday had invented matches in 1829.

1861-The Last Pony Express ride. The idea was romantic, but a financial dud and only operated about two years before being replaced by stagecoach, rail and telegraph.

1901- Anne Taylor became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live to talk about it. She attempted the stunt for a cash prize she used to get a loan to buy a ranch in Texas.

1902- Author Arthur Conan-Doyle was knighted by King Edward VII. He received the honor not for his literary accomplishments but for his volunteer service as a doctor during the just concluded Boer War. It was also said the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was one of the few books King Edward ever managed to read from cover to cover.

1907- President Teddy Roosevelt called for a grand conference of government and business leaders to discuss a strategy for the conservation of America’s natural resources. For the first time, Conservation was made an issue of national policy. “ I have seen the last fluttering of bird species that once blackened the skies...”

1917- THE BATTLE OF CAPORETTO - The crumbling Austrian army was bolstered by some big German battalions defeated the Italian army, pushing them from the Alps practically down to Milan, erasing all the territorial gains the Italian army had made the last three years. Italian Commander General Cadorna was taken completely by surprise. Up to then he had been spending most of his energies replacing officers who didn’t agree with him.
Ironically the defeat was seen by scholars as being more beneficial to the future of Italy than a victory. This was because the insult and sacrifice welded Italian popular opinion into a national unity to defend their motherland, a spirit never seen during this unpopular war. The event was immortalized in Ernest Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms".

1918- As the German front crumbled, the Kaiser’s government requested preliminary talks for a cease fire to end the Great War. This day, hotheaded General Eric Ludendorf tried to derail the talks by publishing a manifesto in German newspapers. Last week he was urging the Kaiser to negotiate, but he suddenly changed his mind. He denounced American President Wilson’s Fourteen Points peace proposal and declared the German Army would fight on. He had no authority to publish such a rash statement and it got him fired.

1918- Battle of the Vitorio Veneto. This day Italy launched one final attack across the Piave and reached Austrian territory.

1929- BLACK THURSDAY- THE PRELUDE TO THE GREAT CRASH- The Bear Stock Market that had seen prices dropping steadily since September 5th turned into a panic as dependable stocks prices like General Motors dropped through the floor. $11.5 billion dollars was lost in one day. Vacationing Winston Churchill picked that day to visit the Stock Exchange and later saw a banker jump to his death past his Waldorf Astoria window.
Basically what happened was people had bought stock on Margin, which meant you could buy ten thousand dollar’s worth of stock with just one thousand dollars. As the collapse occurred your broker would call you and demand the other nine thousand immediately or he would sell off everything you had. So, in minutes you were broke.
It took every major banker and financier on Wall Street together dumping millions of dollars of emergency funds to stop the slide. Ironically that night in a Broadway show the new song "Happy Days are Here Again' had it's debut. When the stage manager thought it inappropriate, the show's director snapped: "Play it for the Corpses!"
It was the worst day in American financial history, but it turned out to be just a gentle prelude to Black Tuesday coming the following week.

1936- The first appearance in the Thimble Theater comic of Popeye’s father Poopdeck Pappy.

1937- At Piping Springs NY, composer Cole Porter suffered a spill while horseback riding that broke both his legs. Even after 26 operations he never regained their full use. One leg was amputated in 1958. He died in 1964 at age 73 of kidney failure.

1938- The Fair Labor Standards Act established the 40 hour workweek as the law of the land. The 40 hour week, that thing few of us see nowadays.

1942- During the Battle of Guadalcanal, Marine Sgt John Basilone and his machine gun squad held off a heavy Japanese attack on their airfield. Basilone fought on until his guns were disabled and he held them off with a pistol and a machete. He won the Medal of Honor for this action.

1945 the United Nations Charter ratified.

1945- Vikdun Quisling was shot by firing squad. Quisling was a Nazi sympathizer who governed occupied Norway for Hitler. His name Quisling became synonymous with traitor like Benedict Arnold.

1946- Before NASA was created, the U.S. Army took a captured German V-2 rocket to White Sands New Mexico, and shot it up into the stratosphere. It had a camera in it, and recorded the first ever footage of the earth taken from almost-space. The U.S. Space Program had begun.

1946- KUSC, Southern California’s classical music station, started up.

1947- Walt Disney testified to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) as a friendly witness. He accused leaders of the Cartoonists Guild and the League of Women Voters –which he mistakenly called the League of Women Shoppers, as being infiltrated by Communists "Seeking to subvert the Spirit of Mickey Mouse”.

1948- Bernard Baruch while testifying to Congress about the worsening relations between the US and Russia coined the term "cold war". "Although the war is over we are in the midst of a cold war, and it is getting hotter."

1956- Cartoonist Jules Feiffer had been working for Terrytoons writing Tom Terrific. This day he began moonlighting a simple one panel strip for The Village Voice. It became an institution that ran for decades, until 1997.

1959- The TV program Playboy’s Penthouse premiered. Hugh Hefner hosted a variety show designed to look like a cocktail party in a swinging bachelor’s pad. It was a success despite many stations in the South refusing to show it. That was because they dared to have black celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone, and Nat King Cole laughing and partying alongside white ones like Tony Bennett and Lennie Bruce.

1960- At the Baykonur space center in Russia an R-16 ballistic missile exploded on the launch pad. The blast incinerated 165 people. This was all kept secret until the 1990s. Included among the dead is Marshal Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death was covered up as having occurred in a plane crash. He is the highest ranking person to ever die in the Space Program.

1962- During the Cuban Missile Crisis the U.S. Naval blockade closed around Cuba to prevent any more Russian missiles coming in. For one of the few times in its history Strategic Air Command went from Defensive Condition (DEFCON)3, to DEFCON2 -full war imminent.
An American destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine. The enraged captain ordered a nuclear tipped torpedo loaded into its tube, but was talked out of firing it.

1962- UPA’s Gay Puree, animated film starring Judy Garland and Robert Goulet, and directed by Abe Levitow.

1969- Godfather Producer Robert Evans married young actress Ali McGraw.

1970- Chile elected Salvador Allende president. The US State Department went nuts because Allende was a lefty and began plans to have him overthrown.

1975- The musical play A Chorus Line opened.

1975- 90% of the women of Iceland went out on strike to demand equal rights and equal pay. They paralyzed the country. They won their fight and five years later they elected their first female president.

1994- Disney TV series Gargoyles premiered.

2003- Walt Disney’s Brother Bear, directed by Aaron Blaise and Robert Walker opened in wide release.

2008- Oprah Winfrey hosted an internationally famous talk show. She promoted literacy and called herself, “The Queen of Reading.” This day she declared her new favorite thing in the world to be the Kindle from Amazon. This plug helped launch the era of e-books.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when you describe someone as being droll?

Answer: It meant to possess a low-key, dry wit.

Question: What does it mean when you describe someone as being droll?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is meant by “a flash in the pan”?
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History for 10/23/2023
Birthdays; Johnny Carson, Adlai Stevenson, Pele, Zioniev, Weird Al Yankovic, Dwight Yoakham, Michael Crichton, Chi-Chi Rodriquez, Phillip Kaufman, porn star Jasmine St. Claire, Gummo Marx, Ang Lee is 69, Ryan Reynolds is 47, Sam Raimi is 64

42 BC- Battle of Phillipi- The forces of Marc Anthony and Octavian defeated the legions of Brutus and Cassius in Greece. Both assassins of Julius Caesar, Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus, were killed.

524 AD- BOETHIUS- After the Fall of the Roman Empire in 476, for awhile the Roman Senate answered to Theodoric the King of the Goths in Italy, the way they once answered to the emperor. The Christian Senator Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius had risen to be chief counselor to Theodoric. But the old barbarian became increasing suspicious of plots around him.
Boethius was falsely accused of plotting against the king’s life and this day Theodoric had him executed. Goths tied a rope around his temples and twisted it until his eyes popped out, then he was beaten to death with clubs. According to the chronicle, as soon as Boethius was dead Theodoric felt sorry and wept for his friend.
The reason we remember this story was while Boethius was in prison awaiting death he wrote one of the great works of western philosophy- THE CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY. It was one of the first great works of Christian thinking since the Gospels and bridged the transition from pagan philosophy to Christian.

1642- The Battle of Edgehill- First battle of the English Civil War, King Charles Cavaliers-1, Roundheads-0. Even though the Parliamentary forces were defeated, the King hesitated when his impulsive cavalry general Prince Rupert wanted to pursue the enemy to London. It was the best chance King Charles ever had to crush the rebellion at one grand blow, but Charles delayed and let the opportunity slip away. The Parliamentary Army was under the command of the Earl of Essex, who traveled around with a coffin and burial shroud among his personal baggage. An ancestor of Walt Disney fought there for the king. The Edgehill Battlefield is considered one of the most haunted areas in Britain. It is actually listed as such in the British Office of Public Records.

1812- THE MALET PLOT-While Napoleon was retreating from Moscow, thousands of miles away all France waited anxiously for news. This day an escaped lunatic general named Malet convinced everyone that Napoleon was dead in Russia. In the ensuing panic, Malet actually succeeded in taking over the government for a few days.
Eventually, everything was straightened out and Malet imprisoned. But it was terribly discouraging to Napoleon; he had hoped to build a dynasty to last generations. But it took just one nut and some fake news to show how shallow support for his regime was.

1917- In a secret meeting in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) all the various left wing Russian political parties: Mensheviks, Anarchists, Utopian Socialists and Narodniks agreed to unite under Lenin’s Bolshevik Party and adopt their plan to violently seize power. After seizing power, Lenin had them all suppressed. The assassin who shot and wounded him in 1921 was an angry Socialist.

1923- The German postwar economy collapsed. Raging inflation makes it 6 billion Deutschmarks to one U.S. dollar. The few workers who had jobs are paid every other day and it takes a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. The major industrial region of the Ruhr was under foreign occupation. These conditions made the rise of Adolf Hitler possible. The creeping depression afflicting the war-ruined European economies would help collapse the American banking system in 1929.

1927- Charles Lindbergh finally returned to Roosevelt Field Long Island. It was his starting point of an epic tour around the U.S. to celebrate his successful solo crossing of the Atlantic. For the last several months Lindbergh toured 80 U.S. cities, much of it flying town-to-town in his little plane The Spirit of St Louis. In so doing, Lindbergh taught Americans that travel by air was a safe, easy alternative to railroads.

1928- A financial consortium led by Wall St. banker-bootlegger Joseph Kennedy Sr. bought the Keith Albee theater circuit and merged it with the Radio Company and the Orpheum theaters to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum or RKO pictures. After Joe Kennedy met with the other Hollywood moguls he told a friend: ”They’re all a bunch of Austrian Pants Pressers! I can take their businesses away from them!” Kennedy made a quick killing then got out of the picture business in 1930, just before the Depression dropped his studios stock value. RKO made films like King Kong, Fort Apache, Snow White and Citizen Kane before merging into Desilu in 1957.

1930- The first Miniature Golf tournament held in Chattanooga Tenn.

1931- Chicago gangster Al Capone sentenced to 11 years in Alcatraz for federal income tax evasion.

1935- New York gangster Dutch Schultz was rubbed out. The erratic Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer) had announced to the other mob bosses that Federal prosecutor Thomas Dewey was getting too close, so he would kill him. To the syndicate, killing such a high profile fed was going too far and would bring the wrath of Washington down on them, so Lucky Luciano decided it was easier to take care of the Dutchman instead.
Schultz was having dinner at the Bob Treat Porkchop House in Newark with his crooked accountant "Abadaba" (a corruption of Abracadabra ) when he excused himself to go to the men’s room. Hitmen followed him in and shot him six times while at the urinal. Gee, I hope he zipped up.....

1940- HITLER MET FRANCO- Hitler and Mussolini spent large sums of men and material to help Franco win the Spanish Civil War. Now they wanted payback in form of an alliance. However, they could not strike a bargain and Franco declared Spain neutral in the World War. After the talks Hitler says of his negotiations with Franco:" I'd rather have 3 or 4 teeth extracted than go through that again!"

1940- Shooting on the film Citizen Kane wrapped.

1941- Walt Disney’s Dumbo premiered.

1942- EL ALAMEIN- Montgomery's British 8th Army threw 2,500 new American-made Sherman and Grant tanks against Rommel's Afrika Korps threatening Cairo and the Suez Canal. Rommel the Desert Fox was on sick leave in Germany with diphtheria and Rommels' replacement, General Stumme, dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of the battle. Rommel flew back to try and stop the British attack, but by Nov.4th he had to accept defeat and abandon his Egyptian positions. Hitler had made Rommel a field marshal “ I wish he had given me another Panzer division instead” was his reply.

1955-Vietnamese Emperor Bao Dai abdicated to a South Vietnamese Republic set up outside of and ignoring Ho Chi Minh’s Viet Minh communists.

1956- The Hungarian Rising of Inver Nagy. Inspired by the seeming liberalism Nikita Khrushchev was bringing to Moscow, thousands marched to the statue of the poet Petofi to read his poem "Arise, Hungarians!" and burn newspaper torches. It turned out Khrushchev wasn't as liberal as they thought, a month later hundreds of Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest to crush them.

1968-THE FIRST OCTOBER SURPRISE- Pres. Johnson was pushing secret peace talks to end the Vietnam War before he left office. Secret messages from South Vietnamese ambassador Bo Diem to the Saigon government confirmed that the Republican leaders like Richard Nixon were assuring the South Vietnamese that if they didn’t make peace before the American elections, Nixon would support them. On Nov 2nd, President Nguyen Van Thieu withdrew from the peace table and talks collapsed. Richard Nixon won election and the war went on 7 more bloody years and double the casualties.

1971-Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida opened.

1973- President Richard Nixon ordered a worldwide red alert of our strategic nuclear forces to warn the Soviets not to take advantage of U.S. domestic turmoil over Watergate. Soviet ambassador Andrei Dobrynin wrote in his memoirs that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger telephoned and apologized to him for the alert. He said that it was only done to distract the U.S. media and public from the festering Watergate scandal.

1983- Jessica Savitch was one of the first women journalists to break the barrier for women getting the top anchor jobs in network news broadcasting. This day she died in a car accident.

1983- President Ronald Reagan had sent U.S. Marines into civil war torn Beirut to achieve peace. This day a suicide bomber drove a truck full of dynamite into the Marines barracks, killing 241 men in their sleep. Reagan then withdrew the remaining Marines. Their whole intervention in Beirut accomplished nothing.

1987- Judge Robert Bork was defeated in his bid for a seat on the Supreme Court. Besides offending Liberals by being a longtime Conservative stalwart, he offended Conservatives by admitting under oath he smoked marijuana.

2001- Apple Computers launched the ipod. Once you could collect all your favorite songs in a little device, it sealed the doom of the record industry. Ipods were made obsolete by iphones in 2007.

2007- Massive brush fires north of San Diego California displaced one million people, the largest number of U.S. refugees since The Civil War.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is meant by “ A flash in the pan”?

Answer: In old fashioned muskets the place where the hammer flint struck the gunpowder to fire the bullet was called the pan. Sometimes if a proper amount of gunpowder was not in the pan it ignited but failed to fire the charge. That was called a flash in the pan. Today it has come to mean someone or something that draws a lot of attention for a moment, but it means nothing and is quickly forgotten.

Question: What is meant by “ A flash in the pan”?




Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is meant by saying something is kismet?

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History for 10/22/2023

Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt, Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd is 85, Annette Funicello, Brian Boitano, Jerry “Curly” Howard of the Three Stooges, Catherine Deneuve is 80, Spike Jonze is 55. Jeff Goldblum is 71.




1641- The Irish rose in revolt against England, this time hoping that the Brits would be too busy in their own Civil War to care about them. By 1649 Oliver Cromwell came over and dealt with them so harshly his depredations are still remembered today.




1660- Edward Hyde the Earl of Clarendon was an adviser to King Charles II. This day, upon learning that his daughter Anne had been made pregnant by James the Duke of York, The earl asked the King to please cut his daughters head off! Odds Fish! King Charles II dismissed his request as a personal matter more than an affair of state.




1746- The Royal College of New Jersey chartered. After the American Revolution, it was renamed Princeton University.




1797- Andre Garnerin did the first successful parachute jump over Paris. He conceived the idea while imprisoned by the Austrians in a Hungarian castle during the French Revolution. He read about Leonardo da Vinci theorizing its possibility. He first took his dog and threw him out of a hydrogen balloon, then he jumped himself at 2,300 feet in the air and sprained his ankle. In 1799 his wife Jean Genevieve became the first woman to parachute jump.  Andre Garnerin died in a balloon accident in 1823 while testing a new design, and his experiments were forgotten. The practical modern parachute was not invented until 1910.




1805-After the naval Battle of Trafalgar, the shot-up English and French fleets were scattered by an ocean storm. Admiral Nelson's dead body had been sealed in an upright barrel of brandy for the trip back to London.  After four days his body released some pent up gasses that suddenly popped the lid off the barrel. Must have scared the hell out of the honor guard on duty.




1843- THE GREAT DISSAPPOINTMENT- American preacher William Miller working with the books of Daniel and Revelations in the Bible calculated the exact date of the Second Coming and the End of the World to be Oct. 21, 1843. A highly publicized newspaper and lecture campaign got the American public so worked up that many didn’t bother to plant crops. Banks noticed businessmen returning monies they swindled from former partners. On the appointed day, Miller and thousands of followers withdrew to pitched tents outside Rochester New York to await the Rapture. They waited all day and all night staring up into the sky. By dawn, most went home disappointed and feeling a bit foolish.




1883- First performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It was Gounod’s Faust with soprano Christine Nillson and tenor Italo Campanini. 




1892-The SWAHILI WAR began. African ivory merchants Tippu Tip and Sefu began a revolution to drive the hated Belgian colonizers out of the Congo. This war has been forgotten in Europe in the light of how Belgium suffered under German occupations in the World Wars. But the Belgians proved they could be just as brutal in annihilating these native peoples as other European nations.




1900- Two Ohio bicycle repairmen named Orville and Wilbur Wright built a large glider and flew it. They choose the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina to test their glider because the winds were strong, and they would crash in something soft. The airplane was still three years in the future, but this was their first test of their prototype double winged plane design.




1903- Tom Horn, considered the Last of the Western Outlaws, was hanged in Wyoming for the murder of Willie Nickel. He supposedly adjusted the noose around his neck himself. The era of the gunslinger officially ends with him.




1923- THE TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL hearings began. By World War I the U.S. Navy had refitted its battleships from coal to diesel fuel engines, so maintaining a strategic petroleum reserve became as serious as nuclear stockpiles are today. The Secretary of the Interior Albert Ball arranged for some reserved oil rich areas of Teapot Dome Oklahoma and California transferred from the Navy Department's jurisdiction to his department of the Interior, so he could 'lease them' to oil magnates James Doheny of Doheny Drive fame, and Harry Sinclair. They in turn gave him a fortune in stock and other monetary kickbacks.

Albert Ball became the first senior cabinet officer to go to jail.  It took years for the scandal to wind through the courts and blackened the last days of President Warren Harding's administration.




1934- The comic strip Terry and the Pirates by Milt Caniff first appeared in newspapers.




 1934- Bank Robber James" Pretty Boy" Floyd killed in a furious gun battle with the F.B.I.  He had told his father months before:" Pa, when I go, I’m gonna go down in lead!" Floyd was called the, "dust bowl robin hood" for leaving food and money on doorsteps of destitute farmers. One story had him steal a pie cooling on a windowsill, then replacing it with a $50 bill. In Woody Guthrie's "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" He says:" You may call me an outlaw, but one thing that I have known. I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home."   




1938-THE BIRTHDAY OF THE XEROX COPY- Chester Carlson working with an amateur chemistry set behind a beauty parlor in Astoria Queens, created the first photo copy. He took his invention to Edison, G.E., RCA and IBM who all rejected it. Finally a little firm that produced photographic paper for Kodak called the Haloid Company bought it. They later changed their named to Xerox, Greek for “Dry-Writing”. 




1939-The first televised football game-The Brooklyn Dodger's 23 Philadelphia Eagles 14.




75th Anniv 1948- The first In-N-Out Burger stand opened in Baldwin Park, a suburb of Los Angeles. Created by Harry & Esther Snyder as the first drive through hamburger stand. It is still in business today, selling only burgers, shakes, and fries, pretty much like they did back then. Their granddaughter Lynsi Snyder is CEO.  It was Bob Hope’s favorite burger place. Hollywood types learned to stock up there before the drive to Palm Springs.




1962- Twentieth Century Fox chief Daryl Zanuck fired long suffering director Joe Mankiewicz off of the editing of the spectacle Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had shot a 6 hour movie he wanted shown as two films. Zanuck wanted one big movie at half that size. After a lot of embarrassing feuding in the press, Zanuck rehired Mankiewicz and he recut Cleopatra, When Elizabeth Taylor saw the finished film, she threw up. Cleopatra became one of the biggest flops in Hollywood History and forced Fox to sell off most of their studio back lot.  It became Century City shopping mall.




1962- After it looked like a news leak would make the news public anyway, President John Kennedy went on national television and told the American public about the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. 54 B-52 bombers with 4 Hydrogen bombs each took off to fly within two hours of their Soviet targets. 134 Titan nuclear missiles were armed.

Both sides wrestled with the temptation to do a 'First-Strike', meaning the side that hit first without warning just might knock out enough of the enemies’ nukes to limit the number of “megadeaths” to his own side.  Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled: "I'd wake up in the morning and the first thing I'd think was, I'm alive, Khrushchev didn't do it today." In Moscow, Khruschev grimly joked:" With the time difference, Kennedy works while I sleep and I work while he sleeps. Hmph, maybe soon we'll both be sleeping..."




1962- At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a stand up comic named Vaughn Meador recorded a comedy album called The First Family. It made lighthearted fun of John F. Kennedy and his White House. The record became the fastest selling hit of the pre-Beatles era, 7.5 million copies. Jackie called Meador a rat, but JFK thought it was funny and gave out copies as Christmas presents. Kennedy said Meador’s impersonation sounded more like his brother Teddy than him.




1966- In Oakland black militants Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and H. Rap Brown formed the Black Panther Party of Self Defense.

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Yesterday’s Question: What is meant by saying something is kismet?




Answer: From the Turkish word for “It’s fate.”

Question: What is meant by saying something is kismet?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What are The Cinque Ports?
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History for 10/21/2023
Birthdays: Dizzy Gillespie, Whitey Ford, Alfred Nobel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Mary Blair, Carrie Fisher, Patty Davis (Reagan's daughter), Benjamin Netanyahu, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Manfred Mann, Sir Georg Solti, Angus McFadyen, Ken Watanabe is 64, Kim Kardashian is 43.

Today is the FEAST OF SAINT URSULA AND THE ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS, one of the sillier medieval legends. Supposedly on the way back from a pilgrimage to Rome the saintly daughter of a Mercian (English) king had spurned the attentions of the King of the Huns. So he had her and all eleven thousand of her handmaids executed. Earliest accounts of the incident said she had only eleven servants and no one was killed.

1492- San Salvador. Christopher Columbus writes on this day in his diary about the new land he is exploring: " We must have found Eden. I think men shall never see this place again as we have seen it." Within 50 years of Columbus's discovery, the indigenous tribe that welcomed him on the beach, the Taino, were all but extinct.

1520- Fernand de Magellan sailed around the bottom of South America and made it into to the Pacific.

1600- BATTLE OF SEKIGEHARA The final battle of Japan's feudal civil wars- Warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa defeated the Toyotomi clan and became paramount leader under the Emperor, called the Shogun. Ieyasu later died from eating too much tempura, but the Tokugawa clan closed off Japan from all contact with foreigners and missionaries and ruled as Shoguns until 1868.

1639- Battle of the Downs- Dutch Admiral Van Tromp destroyed a new Spanish Armada forming in the English Channel. The Dutch fleet sank or captured 70 out of 77 ships.

1797- The 44 gun frigate USS Constitution launched. Nicknamed Old Ironsides, it is the oldest commissioned warship in the US Navy. It saw active service until 1861, remained a training vessel and is still entertaining tourists in Boston Harbor today. In 2016 it took a spin around the harbor to show it still had what it takes.

1805- TRAFALGAR- Admiral Nelson destroyed Napoleon's naval power in one huge battle off the southwestern coast of Spain. Trafalgar is a vulgarization of the Arabic " Al-Taraff Al-Agharr" or " The Fair Point.” Nelson began the day raising the signal flags "England expects every man to do his duty." One of Nelson's toughest captains, Sir John Collingwood said: "What the devil is Nelson about? We already know that!"

In the heat of the battle the one-eyed, one armed Lord Nelson strode up and down his poop deck in his full dress uniform to inspire his men. He loved medals, he even had one that spun around. He not only inspired the English Tars but also the French sharpshooters who targeted him. Nelson was felled by a shot through his spine. He received the news of the victory as he lay dying and said:" The day is ours, kiss me Hardy." Hardy was captain of the flagship HMS Victory. Another version was he said “kismet.” Turkish for fate.
French admiral Villeneuve, whom Napoleon goaded into fighting by threatening to courts-martial him as a 'Coward, Idiot and Traitor" left the service and later committed suicide. When they took Nelson's body back to England they bent it into a brandy barrel for preservation, which has been incorrectly called a rum barrel. Which is why today rum is known as "Nelson's Blood".

1837- The Second Seminole War ended. The US government waged three long wars to remove the Seminole Indian Nation from their Florida homelands. The most famous Seminole leader was Osceola, who ran a guerrilla campaign for 7 years in the Florida swamps that frustrated American leaders like Andrew Jackson, Winfield Scott and Zachary Taylor. Finally treachery was used to get him. General Jessup invited Osceola to come to a conference under a white flag of truce. When the chief appeared, Jessup had him imprisoned. Despite claimed “good treatment” Osceola was dead by January, they said he “willed” himself to death. Seminole resistance continued under his allied chiefs Alligator and Billy Bowlegs until 1842.

1861- Battle of Balls Bluff. The only thing remembered about this early Civil War skirmish was the death of President Lincoln's family friend Edward Baker. Another man wounded was a young lieutenant who would one day become a great writer and father of a Supreme Court Justice- Oliver Wendell Holmes. Holmes later wrote- 'sitting under a tree with two bullet wounds pouring out blood, I decided to pass the time while waiting for the ambulance by beginning a debate in my mind about the existence or non-existence of the Afterlife. My final decision was……Damned if I Know!" In later years Holmes called war an “ Organized Bore.”

1879- Thomas Edison announced the invention of the Light Bulb. After experimenting with dozens of different type filaments in a vacuum, Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb with carbonized cotton. He and his crew stared at the glowing bulb for 40 hours to make sure it was really worked.

1932- The film Red Dust premiered. It made stars out of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

1937- A cough medicine called Elixir Sulfalinamide sold in stores poisoned hundreds and killed 200 in 15 states, mostly children. It was found to have the same ingredients as antifreeze. The scandal led to the passage of the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which increased FDA's authority to regulate drugs.

1939- Turkey enraged Hitler and Mussolini when contrary to their participation in World War I, they opted to remain neutral in World War II.

1939- Walt Disney sent a confidential memo to his legal team: “Everything we do in the future should include television rights. There might be a big angle on television for the shorts we have already produced.” At this time, television was still mostly experimental.
It would be 15 years until Disney had a television show, and he was considered an early pioneer.

1941- WONDER WOMAN, Elizabeth Holloway Marston was a niece of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger. She married psychologist William Moulton Marston who was an educational consultant for Detective Comics, Inc. (DC Comics). Elizabeth noticed the DC line was filled with images of super men like Green Lantern, Batman, Superman. She wondered why there was not a female hero? On her urging, Dr. Marston brought this up to DC head Max Gaines. Gaines was intrigued by the concept and told Marston that he should create a female hero – at first “Amazon Woman”, then "Wonder Woman." Marston's 'good and beautiful woman' made her debut in All Star Comics #8.

1944- BLOODY AACHEN- Aachen didn’t have much strategic value, but it was the first major German city to come under allied ground attack. It was the ancient home of Charlemagne and the first German emperors. The US First Army quickly surrounded the city, but the Germans dug in and held. For 39 days the US First Division the Big Red One did the bulk of the fighting- house-to-house, room by room. Finally on this day German Commander Gerhard von Wilke surrendered, even though he had been told by Hitler that the Gestapo would shoot his wife and children if he did.

1956- The last trolley cars in Flatbush Brooklyn shut down.

1959- Six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright his last creation the Guggenheim Museum in New York City opened.

1967- THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON- 100,000 anti-Vietnam War protestors surrounded the Pentagon in Washington and tried to do an “exorcism “ and levitate the building. This was the day of the famous images of Hippies putting flowers in the gun barrels of the National Guard troops.

1969- Beat Generation author of On the Road- Jacques Kerouac died of alcoholism and stomach bleeding, a pencil and pad on his lap. He grew bitter about how his call for youth rebellion had been reinterpreted by the 60's generation as hippies and flower power. When he came upon a gathering of kids at an anti-war rally distributing American flags to burn, Kerouac collected them all and folded them neatly.

1972- Curtis Mayfield’s theme to the movie “Superfly” debuted at Number #1 in the Billboard charts.

1975- The Cincinnati-Boston World Series-Carleton Fisk's 12th inning homer keeps the Boston Red Sox hopes alive against Johnny Bench and the 'Big Red Machine".

2003- The Great California Brush Fires. Hot dry wind and a lost hunter ignited the worst brush fires in California history. Ten fires from Ventura County north of Los Angeles to Tijuana Mexico burned hundreds of thousands of acres for two weeks, destroyed 3000 homes and killed 20. The smoke clouds were visible from space.

2015- According to Robert Zemeckis 1989 film Back to the Future II, all the events Marty McFly and Doc Brown experience in the future occur on this date. Did you ever get your hoverboard?
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Yesterday’s Question: What is The Cinque Ports?

Answer: It is an old medieval designation of five towns on the southeast coast of England that the crown considered important to the defense of the realm.

Question: What are The Cinque Ports?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Where is the Hindu Kush?
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History for 10/20/2023
Birthdays: Sir Christopher Wren, Bela Lugosi (born Bela Blasgow from Lugosz), Charles Ives, Arthur Rimbaud, Daniel Sickles, Black Panther Bobby Seale, Juan Marechal, Tom Petty, Art Buchwald, Arlene Francis, Grandpa Jones, Mickey Mantle, Frank Churchill, Thomas Newman, Jerry Orbach, Rex Ingram, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Michael Dunn, Snoop Dogg (born Calvin Broadus Jr) is 52, Danny Boyle is 67, Viggo Mortensen is 65

1740- The Austrian Emperor Charles VI died. He leaves his daughter Maria Theresa sole heir. Maria was such a tough monarch that even when giving birth to Marie Antoinette ( just one of her 18 children ) she refused to go into confinement, but sat propped up in an easy chair writing orders between contractions.

1805- NELSON'S LAST DISPATCH- Once Admiral Horatio Nelson learned that Napoleon’s Franco-Spanish Fleet had come out of Cadiz harbor he headed them off at Cape Trafalgar. Knowing the big battle would be fought on the morrow, he wrote his last log entries and letters. In one of them he begs the Admiralty to 'take care of My Poor Emma', meaning his beautiful mistress Lady Hamilton. He wrote nothing about his wife and son. Nelson was killed in the battle and lionized as the hero of the nation, but Lady Hamilton was shunned as a homebreaker, and died a lonely old souse in Calais.

1813- An incident during Napoleon’s retreat from Germany after the defeat at Leipzig. The retreating Neuchatel regiment were being harassed by pursuing Russian Cossack cavalry. Seeing a women camp follower or vivandiere, straggling behind the column, a Cossack charged her, lance in hand. It was not sure whether he wanted to kill or rape her in full view of the army. The vivandiere who’s name was Rosalie, calmly put down her bundle, pulled out a pair of pistols and shot the man out of his saddle. She then proceeded to steal his horse, and galloped back to the column to the cheers of the troops.

1818- America and Britain fix the western border between the US and Canada at the 49th parallel latitude.

1827- Battle of Navarino- France, England and Russia sent large fleets to the Bay of Navarino (Pylos) to arbitrate the dispute between Turkey and the Greek revolutionaries. Not that anyone asked them to, but they were terribly moved by Byron's and Shelley's poems and after all, that's what Imperialist powers DID in those days. The Admiral of the British fleet was Admiral Codrington, who was one of Nelson’s old captains. The Allied fleet were under strict orders not to fire unless attacked, so when a Turkish gunner shot at a messenger under a white flag, BOOM, BOOM! Greek Independence (achieved 5 years later).

1862- While the Civil War raged back east, Col. Patrick Connor and two regiments of US Cavalry (The California Blues) were sent to occupy Salt Lake City. His ostensible mission was to protect the overland stage and wagon trail routes through Utah, but also he was to keep an eye on Brigham Young and his Mormon Community. Connor was not the most diplomatic choice. He called Mormons “traitors and whores” and set up his camp overlooking the town with large cannon pointed down at them. He named his army camp Fort Douglas after the late Senator Stephen Douglas who had referred to Mormonism as a “disgusting cancer”.
Brigham Young had to use all his diplomatic tact and patience to deal with this hotheaded soldier. The Mormons formed a volunteer unit called the Navoo Legion to work with the army fighting hostile Shoshone and Paiute bands. Eventually everyone got along, although Connor and other federal authorities encouraged non-Mormon settlers in Utah hoping to overwhelm their community. Connor not only reconciled with his Mormon neighbors, he stayed the rest of his life in Salt Lake City, dying in the 1890s.

1890- Retired explorer Sir Richard Burton died at 69. Burton was the first Christian to enter Mecca, he went up the Nile and the Amazon, fought Indians with Kit Carson and did the first modern translation of the Arabian Nights, introducing the western world to Aladdin, Scheherazade and Sinbad the Sailor. Wherever he went in his world travels he collected pornography and erotic poems, documenting of the sexual habits of various cultures. After his death his wife burned all this anthropological material in their backyard. She feared for his soul. It is considered one of the great literary crimes of the century.

1912- The First Balkan War.

1921- Rudolf Valentino starred in The Sheik, which premiered today.

1939- Frank Capra’s film “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” opened.

1940-:” Fuehrer, we are on the march!” Mussolini told Hitler as Italy invaded Greece from Italian occupied Albania. The Greeks not only defeated his armies and drove them away, they even invaded Albania forcing Hitler to send German reinforcements. Hitler was angry at Il Duce’s move because it pulled on reinforcements he intended for the North African drive on the Middle Eastern oilfields.

1944- In Cleveland, liquid natural gas from storage tanks leaks into storm sewers and the streets, then explodes. The explosion and fire leveled 30 blocks of the city, killing 130.

1944-"I HAVE RETURNED'- Douglas MacArthur and the President Quezon of the Philippines led the invasion of Japanese held Luzon. The U.S. military wanted to pass by the Philippines to head straight for Japan, but MacArthur couldn't bear to go back on his pledge. MacArthur did the stepping off of the landing craft on to the beach twice, once for the moment and a second time for the newsreel cameras. Some insiders said the scowl on his face was not just his grim determination to get at the Japanese, but because the landing craft had left him in water deeper than expected and got cold sea water up to his nads. MacArthur joked,” Well, at lease now people will see I can’t walk on water.”

1945- Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon form the Arab League.

1947- 'ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN...' Judge J. Parnell Thomas banged the gavel opening the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigation into Communist infiltration into the Motion Picture Business. HUAC was set up in 1938 as The Dies Committee to keep an eye on pro-Nazis groups operating in German and Italian immigrant organizations, but by 1944 its emphasis had switched to Communist espionage.
Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney were the first in line to name names. Lucille Ball, Sterling Hayden, Zero Mostel, Ginger Rogers, Ed Wynn, Howard da Silva, and Lloyd Bridges admitted they had once held communist party memberships. Bogart wrote a friend,” The whole town is running for cover.” The anti-commie hysteria turned Hollywood inside out and the bitter feelings remained for the rest of their lives.

1951- the CBS Eye logo made its debut. Creative director Bill Golden was inspired when he drove through Pennsylvania Dutch country. He became intrigued by the hex symbols resembling the human eye that were painted on Shaker barns. In show biz slang CBS is still referred to as The Eye.

1955- Harry Belafonte recorded the Banana Boat Song, that made him a star. “ Come Mister Tally-Man, tally me bananas…Dayo!”

1955- J.R.R. Tolkein’s 3rd book of the Lord of the Rings published. The Return of the King.

1963- Diana Churchill, the eldest daughter of Winston Churchill, had two failed marriages and several nervous breakdowns. Today she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She was 52.

1968- Former First Lady Jackie Bouvier Kennedy shocked American society when a few months after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination when she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on his private island of Skorpios. “They’ll knock you off your pedestal” Truman Capote warned her. But she was determined to get her children away from the violence engulfing the U.S. in the 60’s. Onassis’ employees nicknamed her “Supertanker” because they felt he spent the equivalent price of one of those ships to win her hand.

50th Anniv 1973- The Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors premiered.

50th Anniv 1973- THE SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRE- when special prosecutor Archibald Cox got too close to implicating President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal Nixon fired him without comment or explanation. Attorney General Elliot Richardson, rather than execute the order to fire Cox, himself resigned. When deputy Attorney Gen. Donald Ruckleshaus was told to, he resigned as well. They eventually found someone in the Justice Dept. willing to fire Cox. It was Robert Bork. Nixon sent FBI agents to immediately secure their files and records. Because of this overt act of presidential arrogance, the first calls for impeachment of the President were heard, even from members of his own Republican party.

50th Anniv 1973- Sidney Australia’s Opera House was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II.

1977- Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines died when their plane crashed into a swamp while en route to a concert at Louisiana University.

1991- The Oakland California Firestorm. Drought and diablo wind conditions fanned a blaze in the East Bay hills that destroyed 3,000 buildings and killed 25 people.

1994- President Clinton opened up the first Presidential web site and set up an office of Director of Electronic Mail. To e-mail the President you use President@whitehouse.gov or First.Lady@whitehouse.gov This may be poetic justice, but if you used www.whitehouse.com you got a porn site. One of the first acts of incoming President George W. Bush was to close the site down, but President Obama restored it.

2011- Libyan rebels killed dictator Col Mohammar Khaddafi. The man who had ruled Libya since 1967 was found hiding in a storm drain. He was dragged out, beaten bloody, rammed a broomstick up his butt, and shot him in the head six times.

2013- Saving Mr. Banks with Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: Where is the Hindu Kush?

Answer: The Hindu Kush is a mountain range, adjacent to the Himalayans. (thanks, FG)