Question: Why do forks always have four points?

Quiz: Who is quoted as saying “ God is Dead.”?
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History for 10/15/2011
Birthdays: Quintus Virgilius-Virgil 70 BC, Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great 1542, Oscar Wilde, Fredrich Nietszche, Mikail Lermontov, John L. Sullivan, Burt Gillett, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Trout, Klaus Barbie the Nazi Butcher of Lyon, P.G. Wodehouse, Penny Marshall, Mario Puzo, 'Sarah Ferguson-Fergie' the former Duchess of York is 51, Chef Emeril LeGasse, Chuck Berry is 85

Ancient Roman Festival of the Ides, a chariot race where the winning team of horses was sacrificed to Mars the Avenger.

1564- Great doctor and medical scholar Andreas Vesalius died of exposure after his ship was wrecked off the coast of Zante Greece. Vesalius specialty was anatomy, he described the lobes of the liver, the bones of the jaw and finally got modern medicine to stop following the conclusions of the Roman doctor Galen on faith, and go experiment for themselves. Vesalius was so passionate about anatomical dissection that he would sneak out to the hangmans’s tree outside town and pull the bodies down for study.

1582- THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR took effect- Julius Caesar’s 366 day calendar was losing 11 minutes every year since 45 BC. Medieval scientists like Dennis Exiguus ( the man responsible for B.C.-A.D. counting) and Roger Bacon in the 1200’s noticed something was wrong. By 1582 the calendar was 11 days off the solar year. Pope Gregory XI had scientist Dionysius Ingratius revise the calendar of Julius Caesar by using a 400 year cycle of 365 days with a leap day every four years and no leap year when it occurred every fourth century. So 2000 was a leap year while 1900,1800 and 1700 were not.

On this day people had gone to sleep on Oct. 5th and woke up on Oct.15th !
The calendar at first wasn't accepted universally. At first only Italy, Spain, Portugal and Poland changed over. France and the Protestant countries took 70-100 years to change and England not until 1752! China adopted the western calendar in 1949. Because a lot of history happened during the interim, sloppy historians can confuse the 11 day difference in the calendars (so if you disagree with any of my dates, That's My Excuse, Hah Harr!!) For instance we celebrate Columbus Day on the 12th of October when Columbus himself thought he had landed on the 22nd Old Style.

1757- Prussian King Frederick the Great took time out from fighting wars with most of Europe to try and convince German poet Johann Gottsched to stop trying to write poetry in German. “So many guttural explosions, so many consonants- Klop, Knap, Krotz, Krok how could you make melody in such a language?.” Frederick spoke French exclusively and switched to German only to address servants and soldiers. Ironically, despite Frederick, the fame of his court sparked a renaissance of music, poetry and philosophy- all in German.

1764- While wandering through the ruins of ancient Rome, British writer Edward Gibbon is inspired to write "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". After 20 years labor and thousands of pages he finished. When he gave the first copy bound in gold to mad King George III, the king said to him: " What's this? Another big damned black book, eh, Mr. Gibbon? Scribble, scribble!"

1781- Climactic actions of the Siege of Yorktown when Franco-American assault teams in the dead of night stormed three important British strong points. This allowed Washington and Rochambeau’s heavy guns to be brought close enough to bombard the center of Yorktown and hastened Lord Cornwallis’ surrender.

The American assault teams were personally led by Marquis de Lafayette and Alexander Hamilton, who threw a childish temper tantrum when at first Washington refused to risk a good staff officer in such a dangerous assignment. The attack troops were not allowed to waste time loading and firing, they just had to run in the dark and win using the cold bayonet. In the troop on the French side was a young captain Berthier, who would one day be Napoleon’s chief of staff.

1794-The First silver dollars minted by the U.S. Government. Before that individual states printed money. British pounds, wampum, old colonial script called Continental Eagles, Spanish pieces of Eight and whiskey all had circulated as currency.

1796- Napoleon wins a battle at the bridge of Arcola, grabbing a flag and leading the final charge himself. In twenty years of constant war he was only hurt once, a slight graze in the foot. At Arcola he was even temporarily immobilized when he got stuck in mud under heavy fire but still no one could hit him.

1806 -German philosopher Hegel met Napoleon on the street. Hegel was going to his publisher to publish his "Phremonology", Napoleon was on his way to take Berlin. Hegel later referred to Napoleon as “The Universal Soul.”

1858- The last Lincoln- Douglas debate. Lincoln scored major moral points on the slavery issue but Douglas "the Little Giant" won the election to Congress anyway. After the Civil War began although Douglas was a Democrat he was a very strong Lincoln supporter and pro-union man. Douglas had also once dated Mary Lincoln before she married old Abe.

1880-Victorio, a leader of the Chiracua Apaches as famous as Geronimo, was finally hunted down and killed south of El Paso by a combined force of US and Mexican Army troops.

1905- First Little Nemo comic strip by Winsor McCay premiered.

1905- Premiere of Claude Debussy’s tone poem La Mer- the Sea.

1917- MATA HARI- 41 year old beautiful erotic dancer and German spy H21, was shot by firing squad. Her real name was Gertrude Zelle from Holland, she made up a new identity as an Indian princess with the name Mata Hari- The Light of Day in Malay. She would use her sexual charms to seduce top enemy officers and pass information on to German High Command. But she was finally caught, tried and shot at the Chateau Vincennes outside Paris. She refused to wear a blindfold and blew a kiss at the French firing squad. She still elicited enough sympathy, that out of a 12 soldier squad only four bullets were found in her body.

1927- Iraq strikes it's first gusher of oil. The gusher was so large it took 8 days to bring under control.

1929- The Canadian Parliament passed a resolution declaring women to be persons too.

1930- Duke Ellington first recorded Mood Indigo.

1934- THE LONG MARCH- During the Chinese civil war Mao Tse Tung’s Communist forces broke out of a ring of encircling Kuomintang (Nationalist) armies and began an epic 6,000 mile march to the safety of Shenxi and Yenan in Northwest China. 100,000 people fought battles, internal divisions, starved and marched until in October 1935 only 8,000 survivors reached their destination. Mao’s two children and younger brother died but he emerged as the overall leader of the Chinese Communists. Their example inspired thousands of young men to enlist in their cause. In 1993 Premier Ly Pung succeeded Deng Zhao Ping, one of the last veterans of the Long March.

1940- Charlie Chaplin’s film The Great Dictator premiered.

1942- The Nazi-dominated Vichy Government of France declared a ban on the importation of all American and British movies.

1946-HERMANN GORING CHEATED THE HANGMAN On the day before he was to hang for war crimes, Nazi Reichmarshall Herman Goring bit on a glass potassium-cyanide capsule. ( it didn't give him bad breath, it killed him). Goring was convinced that the Allies would need him to control postwar Germany that he was surprised and indignant at the death sentence. The condemned prisoners were closely watched by guards so suicides couldn't happen. Even the furniture in their cells were made rickety so you couldn't stand upon it to hang yourself and guards looked in on you through a peephole every hour.

1950- THE WAKE ISLAND CONFERENCE- President Harry Truman flew to Wake Island to confer with General Douglas MacArthur about the Korean War. There was a story that MacArthur kept Truman waiting at the airport. This is incorrect, but he was disrespectful to his commander in chief in other ways, like neglecting to salute him and brushing off the President’s invitation to lunch.

When Truman asked MacArthur if there was any chance of the Red Chinese joining in the war, MacArthur assured him there was no possibility. This same day in Beijing Mao Tse Tung was ordering General Lin Piao to move 300,000 troops to Korea. At one point Truman and MacArthur joked about Dwight Eisenhower thinking he could run for president. Truman said Ike didn’t know anything about politics and his administration would be more corrupt than Ulysses Grants’. Eisenhower did win election and his two terms were well run and scandal free.

1951- THE FIRST I LOVE LUCY SHOW- The most successful family sitcom in history began its pilot episode this night. CBS and Phillip Morris had wanted Lucille Ball to transfer her popular radio show-“My Favorite Husband” to television. The story of the family life of Ricky Ricardo, a Cuban immigrant nightclub band leader, his daffy wife Lucy and their landlord friends Fred and Ethel Murtz became an overnight sensation.

The show was shot on film instead of live TV and it was produced in Los Angeles instead of New York City because Lucy and Dezi Arnez refused to relocate back east. The show also pioneered the three camera shooting system still used to day. When Lucille Ball was off being pregnant, the show proved re-runs could be just as popular as first time showings. The January 1953 episode of little Ricky’s birth drew more viewers than the inauguration of President Eisenhower.

1965- The first large scale peace protests over U.S. involvement in Vietnam began in Oakland California. David Miller is the first young man to burn his draft card, followed by many others. Chants of “One, Two, Three, Four, We don’t want your F**king War! Uncle Sam, Drop the Bomb! We Don’t Wanna Go to Nam!”

1970- Height of the Canadian October Crisis. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau sent in army troops into Quebec to quell separatist riots and arrest terrorists of the FLQ.

1976-What’s Love got to do with it?- Ike and Tina Turner break up.

1989- Wayne Gretsky surpassed Gordie Howe’s all time record of scored points in hockey-1,850. The Great One went on to set a new record of 2,837 points before his retirement.

1991- CLARENCE THOMAS- After weeks of bitter hearings Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court to take the seat of Civil Rights pioneer Thurgood Marshall. The Anti-Affirmative Action Black Republican’s appointment was challenged by allegations that he sexually harassed one of his female staff, a Professor named Anita Hill.

Thomas dramatically proclaimed he was being morally lynched. At an important moment in the debate an Anita Hill bio was published that claimed she was a manipulative paranoid slut even though she was a scholar and graduate of a prestigious Christian University. In 2001 when the statute of limitations, ran out the author David Brock admitted he was paid by rich neoconservatives to invent the story. He called his confession-book “Blinded by the Right.”

2003- On the anniversary of the Long March, Wang Lee Wei became the first Chinese astronaut to go into space.
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Yesterday’s question: Who is quoted as saying “ God is Dead.”?

Answer: Philosopher Frederich Nietzsche.

Quiz: Who is quoted as saying “ God is Dead.”?

Yesterday’s Answer below What is Stockholm Syndrome?
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History for 10/14/2010
B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e.cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everet Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Ralph Lauren- real name Ralph Lifshitz is 72, Roger Moore is 84. Mia Wasikowska is 22.

Feast of St Theresa of Avila

1066-WHEN WILLIAM ROSE AND HAROLD FELL- BATTLE OF HASTINGS- The Norman army of William the Bastard defeats and kills King Harold Godwinson of the Anglo-Saxons. The occupation and settlement of Norman French into England had a dramatic effect on the language ensuring the language you are now speaking would become English, instead of something between Dutch and Danish. Duke William, who was never fond of the title 'Bastard", became instead King William the Conqueror.

1492- Columbus and his men left San Salvador to continue west and look for Cipango- their name for Japan.

1529- WESTERN EUROPE DISCOVERS COFFEE- The first Turkish Siege of Vienna ends. Despite the oath of Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent, who told his troops that if they didn't win he would fill the Danube with their genitals, the Turkish army lifts the siege and retreats back into Hungary. As the Viennese went through the Turkish camp they found large quantities of black beans that tasted awful. the ancient Egyptians mashed coffee beans into cakes and ate them. A Polish mercenary named Adam Kolschitsky had lived in Turkey and knew what to do with the bitter beans. He opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the KolschitskyDom. He is also credited with inventing the coffee filter, which made the strong Turkish java palatable to Europeans. The Viennese commemorated their victory with a pastry shaped like the Turkish battle ensign, the crescent, or the Croissant. History however is silent about who first uttered the awesome command DOUBLE-DOUBLE-ICE-MOCHA-NON-FAT-LATTE !

1670-At a performance before King Louis XIV the Sun King at the Chateau of Chambord Moliere’s satire “Le Bourgeouis Gentilhomme” premiered. Lully wrote the music.

1806- BATTLE OF JENA- Napoleon's army destroyed the Prussian (German) army and occupies Berlin in only six weeks. The Prussian army had been considered the finest in the world but by this time the legendary regiments of Frederick the Great were led by old men and a timid king. The average age of the sergeants was 50 and the generals 75! The night before the battle the Prussians gave up the strategic high ground to the French because it was too chilly for most of the old men to sleep in the open. Also they had built their camp facing in the opposite direction from the enemy to be out of the wind. Shortly before they were hit from the fire of three hundred cannons Prince Hohenlohe was telling his outposts to get some more sleep as there probably would be no battle that day. One other psychological tactic Napoleon used was he lined up 250 regimental bands so their combined musical power would augment the cannon in blowing the Germans out of their beds. A contemporary German analyst said; "The Prussian Army had to be very clever to lose that badly, for it had all the advantages." The embarrassing campaign caused major reform in the army and for the remainder of the 1800's Europe would fear French Militarism, not German.

1873-MY NAME IS MUYBRIDGE. One night a carriage drove up from San Francisco to the Yellow Jacket Mine near Calistoga in the north Napa Valley. A man asked for the foreman Major Harry Larkyns. When Larkyns answered the door the man quietly said to him:”Good Evening, Major. My name is Muybridge. Here is the answer to the message you sent my wife earlier. “ He pulled out a pistol and shot Larkyns through the heart, killing him instantly.
The killer was the famous Photographer and Motion Picture Pioneer Edweard Muybridge. Muybridges’ young wife Flora had been having an affair with Larkyns while he was working on his Motion Studies Series in Palo Alto. Muybridge discovered the son she bore him was not his. They were even calling him Little Harry behind his back. The jury that convened in Napa did not hang the artist-inventor. In the Code of the Old West proven adultery was considered a justifiable homicide. Muybridge was acquitted. Flora Muybridge divorced him in 1875 and after her early death two years later, he gave Little Harry to a San Francisco Orphans Asylum and refused to pay for his upkeep.

1908- The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Lions for their first, and so far only, World Series championship. The next time they got to the series was 1945.

1912- While going to give a political speech in Milwaukee, a lunatic named William Shrenck shot Teddy Roosevelt in the chest. The bullet was slowed down tearing through his clothes, speech notes and eyeglasses case and just missed any important organs. Bleeding from his side Teddy spat in his hand to see if there was blood in his spittle, which would mean internal damage. Seeing there was none he went ahead and gave his 90 minute speech before going to a hospital. -Bully!

1926- Happy Birthday Winnie the Pooh! A.A. Milne’s first book of Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuted this day.

1934- The Lux Radio Theater premiered.

1943- The Sobibor Uprising. At the Sobibor Concentration Camp the Jewish inmates launch a surprise attack on their guards. They were led by several Jews who were Red Army POW’s and understood the use of weapons. After killing 16 SS guards 365 escaped into the countryside. Most were hunted down and killed but 47 survived.


1944- Field Marshal Ervin Rommel, the "Desert Fox", is forced by the Nazis to take poison. He had been a leader in the July Generals Plot to overthrow and assassinate Hitler, take over Germany and stop the war. At first Rommel demanded a public trial, but reluctantly accepted the quiet way in exchange for the Nazi's promise not to hurt his family. This way Berlin could claim Germany's greatest soldier succumbed to his war wounds instead of trying to revolt. Winston Churchill paid an unusual tribute in the House of Commons to the Nazi general for trying to overthrow Hitler-" In the somber wars of modern democracy, there is little room for Chivalry."

1944- British Paratroops liberated the city of Athens from the Nazis.

1947- Chuck Yeager in the X-1 “Glamorous Glennis” first breaks the Sound Barrier.

1954- First day of shooting on Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of the Ten Commandments staring Charlton Heston out in the Egyptian desert.

1959- Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Exhausted by overindulgence in his favorite vices, doctors said the 50 year old movie star had the body of a 70 year old. A descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers, the Tasmanian born actor's last film was ' Cuban Rebel Girls'.

1962- THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS BEGAN- President John F. Kennedy was shown top secret U-2 photos of Russian nuclear missile pads being constructed 90 miles away in Cuba. This meant instead of a 30 minute warning time a Soviet H-Bomb could hit New York or Washington in 7-10 minutes. Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked CIA operative Richard Helms: “Dick, is it true there are Russian missiles in Cuba?” When Helms replied there were, the erudite RFK reacted: “ OH, SH*T!!” For the next 14 days the world came close to nuclear Armageddon.

1964- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr won the Nobel Peace Prize.

1964-IT’S FUN TO PLAY AT THE Y-M-C-A! Just three weeks before the presidential election Lyndon Baines Johnson’s re-election was almost derailed by a gay sex scandal. One of LBJ’s closest friends Walter Jenkins, whom LBJ called My Vice President of Almost Everything, was busted by DC police for having gay sex with a Turkish diplomat in the YMCA locker room! He had been arrested for the same thing five years before.

This day Walter Jenkins announced his resignation from the Johnson White House and was sent to a mental hospital, Lyndon Johnson distanced himself from Jenkins and the press was strong-armed to hold the story until after the election. Republican challenger Barry Goldwater was warned by the FBI that if he tried to use this story they had plenty of info on the Arizona senator patronizing prostitutes. The story never effected the election. Goldwater remarked:” Communists and c*cksuckers, what a way to win an election!”

1968- French Canadians who wanted independence from Canada form a political party called the Parti-Quebecois.

1972- Joe Cocker and his backup band were busted in Australia for drug possession.

1973- The Yom Kippur War between Arabs and Israelis almost drag the superpowers in as well. Russia had been supplying Egypt and Syria with their latest weapons. When Israeli tanks approached Damsacus the Soviets warned Israel that if they attacked the Syrian capitol they would intervene with two Red Army airborne divisions. Israeli diplomat Yigail Allon said “From the way the Russians reacted you’d think they were protecting Stalingrad rather than Damascus!”

Prior to this time Israel would buy weapons on the international market, paying cash, but now the US refitted the Israeli military directly. This day President Nixon warned Moscow that any attempt to intervene in the Middle East would be matched by American ground forces. Both sides cooled off and the superpower confrontation was kept a secret until the 1990s. Ironically the early founders of Israel were Socialists.

1978- Lover Scott Thorsten “outs” pianist Liberace by filing a palimony suit.

1979- Wayne Gretsky scored his first goal.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is Stockholm Syndrome?

Answer: When the victim of a kidnapper comes to sympathize with his captors.

Question: What is Stockholm Syndrome? A craving for Swedish Meatballs?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who invented Octoberfest?
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History for 10/13/2011
Birthdays: Revolutionary War heroine Mary Ludwig nicknamed Molly Pitcher, Paul Simon is 66, Lily Langtry-the Jersey Lilly, Lenny Bruce, Larraine Day, Nipsy Russell, Cornel Wilde, Margaret Thatcher, Herblock, Yves Montand, Nancy Kerrigan, Sammy Hagar, Marie Osmond, Kelly Preston, Chris Carter, Sascha Baron-Cohen is 40

539BC- The Persian armies of Cyrus the Great captured the city of Babylon, beginning the great Persian Empire which would last for a thousand years. Cyrus also allowed the Israelites to return home, ending their Babylonian Captivity.

54AD- Elderly Roman Emperor Claudius died from eating poisoned mushrooms served to him by his wife Agrippina. Another account has him vomiting the mushrooms but Agrippina administered to him an herbal enema which she also poisoned. This way she ensured her boy Nero would be emperor before Claudius could come to his senses about making that fat little maniac his heir. Later as emperor Nero had his mom killed.

Robert Graves wrote that Claudius feigned simple-mindedness but many Romans felt it wasn’t an act. It was the custom when a Roman emperor died to deify him, make him a god. The writer Seneca thought it would be embarrassing for the gods to have a dolt like Claudius in their company. He wrote an epic poem on the subject called the 'Pumpkinification of Claudius".

1269-Henry III's rebuilding of Westminster Abbey completed and the bones of St. Edward the Confessor re-interred. 1307- MASSACRE of the TEMPLARS- The Knights Templar were a holy order of warrior monks named for their Crusader base at he site of the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem. After the Crusades while the Knights of St John continued to fight Moslems in Greece and Malta the Templars settled back in Europe and went into banking. They amassed great wealth all tax-free because it was Church property. This annoyed kings like Brtiain’s Edward Ist and France’s Phillip the Fair.

So this day Phillip bribed the Pope to declare the entire Templar Order heretics and burned at the stake. Myths abound about the Templars having bizarre rituals and the secrets like the location of the Holy Grail, but most of it was made up by the Inquisitors to frame them. But one neat idea they brought back from the Middle East was the personal check. This way a Templar Knight could cross international borders without carrying heavy bags of gold, then go to the nearest Templar castle and redeem a note with his signet on it for money. I wonder if their notes had pretty sunsets painted on them...

1590- Chief Powhatan, head of a confederation of Algonguian tribes in the Cheasapeake Bay area, wiped out a Spanish Jesuit colony attempting to set up on his beach. He had heard from the Seminoles in Florida what these metal clad palefaces were capable of. Nineteen years later in 1607 another annoying bunch of English palefaces landed on his beach, but this time Powhatan was curious about these ones, especially when one started dating his daughter Pocahontas.

1670- The Virginia Colony passed a law that Negroes brought from Africa who proved to be Christians could not be kept as slaves. The law was repealed in 1682.

1685- In 1610 King Henry IV of France had ended a long period of religious wars by granting total freedom of worship with his Edict of Nantes. King Louis XIV later decided Henry was a knucklehead and all Frenchmen should be Catholic, so he revoked the Edict of Nantes and drove the French Protestants (Huguenots) to Canada, England, Maryland and South Carolina.

1768- THE BIRTH OF YANKEE DOODLE- The first written evidence of the song being played, this day by a British army band at a harvest festival in the Hudson Valley. The song means Yankee Doodle -Stupid American... “ stuck a feather in his cap and called it macaroni" A macaroni was English slang for someone dressed in the latest Italian fashions, hence a dandy. That just because the stupid Yankee sticks a feather in his hat he thinks he is a gentleman. Later in the Revolution the song meant to lampoon Americans was adopted by the rebels and played to the British while they were laying down their arms at Yorktown and Saratoga.

1792- Cornerstone of the White House set. First called the President’s Palace, later the Executive Mansion, it was modeled by James Hoban after the Irish estate house of the Duke of Leinster. Instead of a chaplain President George Washington had Masters of the Masonic Rite sanctify the building with their secret rituals. The mansion took 8 years to build. Constant problems halted construction like when the workers went on strike when the government closed down their on-site bordello. A compromise was made to move it off site.

When President John Adams moved in in 1800 it still wasn't finished, plus Washington took all his furniture with him. Abigail Adams hung her wash in the East Room because of the nice breeze. It wasn't until after the British torched the place in 1814 did it receive it's first coat of whitewash. The Oval Office wasn't built until Truman's time in 1947.

1813- Battle of Queenstown Heights. It costs the life of the brilliant young British General Issac Brock, but he defeats the enemy and saves Canada from the clutches of the invading United States.

1815- Joachim Murat shot by firing squad. Marshal Murat was France's bravest cavalry leader. A wild bon-vivant, he would "ride to the sound of the guns" dressed in peacock feathers and pink uniforms but was amazingly never harmed. Even in Russia he walked out in front of Russian cannons but wasn't even scratched. Trying to regain the throne Napoleon gave him in Naples, his luck finally gave out when the Neapolitans put him up against the wall. His last words were:" AIM FOR THE HEART! DON'T TOUCH MY FACE!!"

1843- Bnai’ Brith , the oldest Jewish benevolent organization, was founded in New York by Henry Jones. It means “Sons of the Covenant”. 1845- Texans vote to accept annexation into the United States.

1857- Wall Street has yet another financial panic and crash.

1903- Victor Herbert’s operetta Babes in Toyland premiered.

1904- Sigmund Freud's book 'The Interpretation of Dreams" first published.

1918- BATTLE OF THE COTES DU CHATILLON- At the height of the American effort to break the German lines in World War One. The Cotes Du Chatillon was a hillside studded with impregnable German fortifications, machine gun nests and barbed wire fields up to 25 feet wide. General Pershing called his cocky young “Boy Colonel” Douglas MacArthur and said “MacArthur! Take the Cotes Du Chatillon or hand me a list of 5,000 casualties!” MacArthur answered:” I’ll take the hill or my name shall top the list!”

The next day MacArthur personally led his Rainbow Division over the top without a gun or helmet, just a riding crop and his West Point varsity sweater. His doughboys captured the hill, but at such a frightful cost that MacArthur for years could not speak of it without tears. In his campaigns in World War Two he became skillful at outmaneuvering enemy strong points to avoid high casualties.

1938- RKO Pictures was having a salary dispute with their singing cowboy Gene Autry. So they cast around for another handsome cowpoke. Today they signed a would-be dentist from a vocal group called the Sons of the Pioneers named Leonard Slye. He became a star with the film “Under Western Skies” under his new name- Roy Rogers.

1947- Kukla, Fran & Ollie debuted on television. Burt Tillstrom was the creator and puppeteer and Fran was his wife.

1964- Mary Pinchot Mayer was a Washington DC socialite, conceptual artist and the sister-in-law to Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee. On this day she was shot and killed while strolling a Georgetown footpath at noon. A black vagrant was accused of the murder but later acquitted. Her sister took her diary to the CIA office of counter-intelligence. It was said her diary admitted a long hot & heavy affair with President John Kennedy and claimed that she and JFK smoked pot in the White House on two occasions.

At this time Robert Kennedy was still Attorney General. The diary was never seen again. Was it an FBI, CIA hit? Many women claimed President Kennedy as a lover. Judith Cambell-Exner claimed to be schtupping the Prez and the head of the Chicago Mafia at the same time, yet she lived to a ripe old age. Mary Pinchot Mayer’s killer has never been found.

1970- Black activist Angela Davis was arrested on suspicion she smuggled guns to a Black Panther group so they could stage a shootout with California police. The evidence was thin and it was more about the Berkeley professor’s radical political philosophy that got her arrested. But you need more than suspicion to lock somebody up in the Good Old US of A so Angela Davis was acquitted after a long very public trial.

1973- During the Yom Kippur War between Israel and Egypt, this day saw the largest tank battle since World War Two. Egyptian SAM anti-aircraft missiles kept away the Israeli air force, two thousand tanks, more than was at the Battle of the Bulge, twisted and blasted each other in the Sinai Desert. They didn’t have to aim, they could look out their gun barrel and see their adversary as close as 100 yards apart.

1978- Mickey Mouse gets his star on Hollywood Blvd Walk of Fame.

1982- The computer spreadsheet program Lotus 1-2-3 introduced.

1988- Scientists declare the Shroud of Turin a high quality medieval forgery. Even the Vatican was curious whether the thing was real or not. This year another group also concluded it was a forgery. But many still believe that the piece of cloth could be the real burial cloth of Jesus, with an imprint of his body created almost photographically by the heat of the Resurrection.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who invented Octoberfest?

Answer: In 1810, Bavarian Crown Prince Ludwig 1st invited the people of Munich to celebrate his marriage to Princess Theresa von Sachsen-Hildeburghausen. Big tables were set up outside the city gates, horse races held and beer flowed freely for days. The custom was too good to do only once, so every year the Octoberfest occurs in Therese’s Fields- Thereseweisen, or simply Weis’n. Ein Prozit!

Question: Why does Medieval Irish Saint Brendan have a connection with Columbus Day?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is the difference between a bee and a hornet? Or is there one?
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History for 10/11/2011
Birthdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Heinz the Ketchup king, Jerome Robbins, Carl Hubbard, Ron Leibman, John Candy, Omar Shariff is 78, Ben Vereen, Art Blakey, Luke Perry, Joan Cusak, Sig Ruman– the fat actor with the goatee and the over-the-top German accent in the Marx Brothers comedies, Ninotchka and Stalag 17

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Bruno of Cologne, the son of Saint Matilda and King Henry the Fowler.

1303- Pope Boniface VIII died. He was the Pope who first proclaimed Papal dominance in the bull Unam Sanctam ( even when I'm wrong I'm still right because I'm the Pope and you're not ), and who used to declare Crusades against Italian families he didn't like. He died a raving lunatic in the dungeons of San Angelo eating the flesh off of his own arms. Dante hated him so much, in his poem "The Inferno" he has two devils stirring a boiling cauldron of lead and calling up to the world above:" Hey Boniface! When are you coming down? It's almost ready!"

1424- Czech general John of Ziska died of plague. He had never been defeated in the Hussite Wars and led battles even when almost blind. When dying, he requested that his body be skinned and the skin used to make a drum for his army.

1492- As the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria continue sailing west, Christopher Columbus' fear crazed men began to see signs that land was close at hand: floating driftwood, a carved stick, moths, a seabird.

1531- Battle of Kappell- Civil war broke out between the Swiss cantons that were Catholic and the Protestant ones. In this battle the Catholics won. Among the killed was Ulrich Zwingli, the great Protestant Reformer.

1649- Oliver Cromwell ravaged rebellious Ireland with fire and sword. Today his Ironside army captured the Irish town of Wexford and massacred the inhabitants. A month earlier when the town of Drogheda was stormed, many thought the massacre was due to the stubbornness of its defense. But the slaying of the defenders of little Wexford showed that Cromwell intended to use terror as a weapon to pacify Ireland. No pity would be shown to anyone against English rule.

1737- A huge earthquake in Bejing China killed 300,000. 1776- The Battle of Valcour Island- American patriot Benedict Arnold builds a little navy on Lake Champlain and lets himself get shot up to stall a huge British invasion force under Canadian Governor-General Sir Guy Carleton. Because of Arnold's delaying tactics it became too late in the year to cut off Washington's army retreating from New York and crush the Revolution in it's first year. Sir Guy Carleton's force had to return to Canada and wait until the Spring thaw. Valcour Island sometimes is called the first action of the U.S. Navy. Amazingly one of Arnold's little boats was recently brought up from the lake and is now in the Smithsonian.

1779-Battle of Savannah- Polish immigrant Count Casimir Pulaski was killed leading an American cavalry attack against British positions in Georgia. He had been involved in a plot to kidnap the King of Poland, was a lover of Catherine the Great, and was in debtor's prison in Marseilles before running into Ben Franklin who sent him to America. “Have I got a revolution for You !”He was the only officer to ever hold the rank in the U.S. Army of Master of Horse.

1800- The remaining French army trapped in Egypt and abandoned by Napoleon, made a deal with the Egyptians and their English allies to get evacuated back to France. One of the things that had to give up to the Brits was the Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering Ancient Hieroglyphics. Another thing the French troops brought back to Europe was marijuana, easily purchased in Egyptian bazaars. The old soldiers said the weed didn’t give you a hangover like drinking brandy did and made recovering from wounds easier.

1809- MERIWETHER LEWIS’ SUICIDE- Colonel Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, shot himself -twice. He wounded himself in the head the first time. He was 35. Meriwether Lewis was governor of Upper Louisiana (Missouri, Wisconsin, Montana, Illinois) and was the personal protege of Presidents Jefferson and Monroe. It’s not inconceivable to assume that he would have been president one day.

Some contend that Lewis didn't commit suicide but was murdered, because it was at a small tavern on the Natchez Trace, he had been arguing with some men along the road, and he was found with two head wounds, and his belly slashed with a bowie knife. Another scholar recently theorized Lewis was suffering from delirium caused by advanced syphilis, which he may have contracted from a Shoshone woman while on the great trek over the Rockies.

His friends Jefferson and Captain Clark maintained Lewis was emotionally overwrought and was drinking too much. What an important United States Governor was doing riding all alone with no staff on a country road is still a mystery.

1867- General George Armstrong Custer was courts-martialed for leaving his post without permission to see his wife Libby, ordering his men to shoot deserters and marching his troops too excessively. He was found guilty but only given a years suspension of pay.

1868- Telegraph operator Thomas Edison patented his first invention. It was a device that recorded the votes of legislators automatically. It proved unpopular with politicians because it eliminated their ability to rig votes and filibuster.

1890- The Daughters of the American Revolution ( DAR ) formed. 1899- THE BOER WAR BEGINS. Ever since the British took over South Africa they had to contend with the fiercely independent German Dutch settlers called Afrikaners or Boers. Warfare flared up in 1886 but was settled temporarily.

Now egged on by the German Kaiser, and threatened by the nationalistic pressures of English speaking immigrants (Uitlanders) President Kruger of the Transvaal ("Oom Paul" -Uncle Paul) invaded the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony to throw off British domination. The Boers were defeated after three bloody years which saw the development of military barbed wire, khaki uniforms (from the Persian word for dust, advocated by Arthur Conan-Doyle) and concentration camps. Twenty five thousand Boers died, of them only five thousand were soldiers, the rest were uprooted civilians stuffed into camps with inadequate sanitary conditions.

Despite his belligerent talk, the Kaiser begged off sending any aid, despite pleas from the Queen of Holland. When German-Americans asked Vice Presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt to condemn British actions, Teddy replied: " It is right and natural that stronger nations should gobble up weaker ones!”

1906- The San Francisco Board of Education ordered children of Chinese and Japanese ancestry placed in segregated schools. This act caused great popular resentment back in Japan who thought the Americans were their friends after helping settle their war with Russia. President Teddy Roosevelt intervened and forced Frisco to rescind the law.

1910- Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first U. S. President to fly in an airplane.

1939- Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the feasibility of atomic weapons and urging the US begin such a program before Hitler creates an A-Bomb. Years later with atomic weapons a reality he said his letter of Oct.11th “was the biggest mistake of my life.”

1942- As the Russian Army continued to collapse before the Nazi invasion, dictator Josef Stalin reacted in the best way he knew- an act of terror. This day he signed Order # 227. It ordered no further retreat and the penalty of death for cowardice. The Russian Secret Police NKVD planted troops behind the combat soldiers called blockers who machine-gunned anyone falling back. They also set up Penal Battalions of solders arrested for cowardice. The only way out of these suicide squads was to show a wound got in battle, in which case your record would read” Atoned with his own blood”.

1944-“ To Have and to Have Not,” written by Ernest Hemingway premiered. The movie paired Humphrey Bogart with a sultry Harpers model turned actress named Betty Persky, now changed to Lauren Bacall. Bacall originally had a higher voice but director Howard Hawks told her to go behind the soundstage and scream for an hour every day to bring her voice down to a dusky, sexy alto. It worked on Bogart, who fell in love and married her despite his being 44 and she 20 years old. The nicknamed each other Slim and Steve after the characters in the film.“If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

1960- The Bugs Bunny Show premiered on TV. “Overture, hit the lights! This is it, we’ll hit the heights, and oh what heights we’ll hit…..etc..”

1962- Pope John XXIII convened the 2Nd Ecumenical Council. Nicknamed Vatican II, it instituted major reforms in the Catholic Church including ordering the Mass said in the vernacular instead of Latin , and toleration of Judaism and other faiths. Many conservative Catholic splinter groups including the one Mel Gibson belongs to reject Vatican II.

1967-The NY Times printed an image of a female nude by Bell Lab scientist Ken Knowlton. It was done on a computer as a digital mosaic of thousands of numbers. It was a breakthrough image in CGI.

1968- Apollo 7 blasted off.

1975- NBC needed a Saturday replacement for Best Of Carson reruns, so Lorne Michaels’ TV show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE premiered. Featuring the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players: John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, Garret Morris, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Mike O’Donaghue. First guest host George Carlin did his opening monologue while high.
Albert Brooks did a short film and Andy Kaufman did his Mighty Mouse lip sync routine. Paul Shaefer conducted the music and the show was held in NBC’s Studio 8H, which was built originally for Maestro Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony of the Air. At the last moment a sketch by young Billy Crystal was cut from the show. The show also revived the career of announcer Don Pardo, who had trouble finding work since the original Jeopardy Show was canceled.

1975- Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham.

1976- After the death of Chairman Mao, Chinese authorities arrest his widow Chiang Ching and three followers and accuse them of plotting a coup- the Gang of Four.

1978- Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Sid was too stoned to adequately explain why he killed the love of his life. It’s assumed they had a suicide pact. Vicious died of a drug overdose before his trial.

2001- V.S. Naipul won the Nobel Prize for literature.

2005- Andrea Merkel named Chancellor of Germany. She is the first woman to lead Germany and the first head of state from the former East Germany.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the difference between a bee and a hornet? Or is there one?

Answer: They are separate species, hornets are more closely related to wasps and yellowjackets than bees. All the average person knows is they have yellow stripes and they also sting you.

Quiz: What is the difference between a bee and a hornet? Or is there one?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who sits on the Peacock Throne?
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History for 10/10/2010

Birthdays: Martin Luther, Giuseppe Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, LaVerne Harding, Boer President Paul Kruger, Alberto Giacometti Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson the Little Mermaid, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 51, Sharon Osbourne is 56.

1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1492-According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost broke out into open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back.

1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice and encouraging moderation to all.
The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested.

1770- At Mission San Gabriel in Old California a Spanish soldier killed a Chumash Indian chief who sought revenge for the rape of his wife. An uprising is put down and the Church responds with a period of forced baptisms.

1794 Battle of Mazowzse -Gen.Thaddeus Kosciuszko's attempt to bring what he learned from the American Revolution home to Poland, doesn't work against the Russian army.

1842- King Frederich Wilhelm IV issued a new style of headgear to the Prussian Army, a pressed leather and metal helmet with a distinctive spike on top. The spiked helmet became famous and was called the Pickelhaube, or Pickle Sticker. It lasted until World War One in 1918.

1845- The US Naval Academy at Annapolis opened.

1846- Neptune’s moon Triton discovered by William Lassell.

1886- The first Tuxedo jacket worn at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales. Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off.

1911- Ten-Ten National Day- Chinese demanding a republic seize the city of Wuhan and begin to march to Beijing. Their leader Dr. Sun Yat Sen was at this time in Denver soliciting funds for their cause. The Wuhan Uprising is the beginning of the final overthrow of the Manchu Emperors. One of the revolutionaries first recruits was a young Hunan man named Mao Tse Tung,.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their t.v. screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V. -?

1957- RKO Studios, who produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, was sold to Desilu- the television production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.


1957- President Eisenhower had to apologize to Komla Gbdemah, a diplomat from Ghana, after he was refused service at a segregated restaurant in Dover, Delaware.

1962- The BBC banned on air play of a novelty record The Monster Mash, by Bobby Picket. For some reason they considered it offensive.

1968- Jane Fonda does her zero-gravity striptease and runs into a kinky organist, the film Barbarella premiered.

1971- The reconstructed London Bridge dedicated at Lake Havasu City Arizona. Moving London Bridge from the Thames to the American Southwest was the brainchild of Kirk McCullough, the chainsaw tycoon. After winning the auction of the bridge as he flew home he filled out the little customs declaration card- "Amount of goods you are bringing into the country, not to exeed $400. McCullough wrote-" One Bridge. $2,500,000.00. Antique, therefore – TARIFF EXEMPT."

1973- Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. He was under indictment for accepting bribes and pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion. Until Nixon picked House Minority leader Gerald Ford for veep there was a lively discussion over who would be president if Nixon fell. The House Speaker (3rd in line) was also facing charges. Lots of jokes about the under secretary of game and fisheries, etc. Lyndon Johnson had said of Jerry Ford: "Jerry's a good senator, but sometimes I think he played too much football with his helmet off."

1979-The Panama Canal Zone returned to Panamanian sovereignty.

1980- Actor William 'Billy" Thomas, also known in the Our Gang kiddie comedies as Buckwheat, died at 49. His last words weren't "O' Taayy !"

1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit, supposedly leaving one lit cigarette in every room of his house as he paced around thinking. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."

2002- Intimidated into believing Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons, the U.S. Congress voted to grant overwhelming war-making powers to President George W. Bush. The U.S. invasion of Iraq began the following March.

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Yesterday’s Question: Who sits on the Peacock Throne?

Answer: The Shah of Iran until the Iranian Revolution of 1979.