Question: Among great American inventors, what did William Kennedy-Laurie Dickson do?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is philately?
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History for 8/30/2023
Birthdays: Mary Shelley, Jacques Louis David, Huey Long, Fred MacMurray, Raymond Massey, Ted Williams, John Blondell, Nancy Kulp, Timothy Bottoms, Jean-Claude Killy, Shirley Booth, John Landis, Tug McGraw, Stephen Silver, R. Crumb is 80, Lewis Black is 75, Cameron Diaz is 51

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Fiacre, the Patron Saint of Gardeners.

30 BC- Cleopatra Philopator committed suicide at age 39. Some accounts have her allowing herself to be bitten by a poison asp concealed in a basket, another said she took poison concealed on a hairpin. It was said she killed herself to join her lover Marc Anthony, more likely it was because the victorious Augustus planned to have her dragged through the streets of Rome in a cage while the mob laughed and threw trash at her, then quietly strangled. The snakebite was thought by Egyptians to bestow immortality.
After Julius Caesar's murder, Marc Anthony and Augustus had divided up the Roman Empire east and west. Cleopatra fell in love with Anthony and governed with him from 41 to 31BC. Augustus defeated them in the naval battle of Actium. Octavian Augustus was only Julius Caesar's nephew. Cleopatra had borne Caesar a natural son, Caesarion. Augustus discovered the boy during this turmoil and had him quietly killed. Octavia, Anthony’s jilted wife, took Cleo’s two other children by Anthony and raised them as her own.

304AD- Today is the feast of Saints Felix and Adauctus. Felix was sentenced to be beheaded when a voice in the crowd called out: "I too believe in what this man confesses! Take me too!" The Romans beheaded both of them, but forgot to get the other guy's name. So, it's Saint Felix and Saint What’s-His-Name.

1483- French King Louis XI, “the Spider King” died.

1721- The Treaty of Nystad ending the Great Northern War. The twenty-year struggle ended Sweden’s status as a butt kicking world power and the coming of Russia as a major player. The aging Czar Peter returned to his new capitol Saint Petersburg to cries of Mir Mir!- Peace! He was being called Pyotr Vyelke- Peter the Great.

1784- The Empress of China, a fast-sailing American clipper ship established trade between New England and China. Far East trade had been cut off by the British since the Revolution broke out.

1813- The Fort Mims Massacre- Red Eagle and his Creek warriors kill and scalp 500 whites. This was the pretext for the U.S. army driving the Creek Nation out of Alabama and Mississippi. Red Eagle eventually was defeated by Andy Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. He changed his name to William Weatherford and became a Methodist.

1850- Honolulu became a city.

1861- Western explorer John C. Freemont was given the Civil War command of the department of the west. This included the embattled states of Missouri and Kansas. The Missouri Governor and most of the legislature were pro-Southern. Many city dwellers were pro-abolition, particularly the German and Scandinavian immigrants. They thought the Declaration of Independence was supposed to be taken literally- “All Men Are Created Equal.” Not the local’s interpretation that it doesn’t include black people. Freemont declared that all slaves that fell into his hands would be set free and all citizens caught in arms against the United States would be executed. President Lincoln made him rescind these orders. He was not ready to free the slaves…not yet.

1873- The Royal Canadian Mounted Police- The Mounties formed.

1867- At the University of Göttingen, Albert Niemann isolated the chemical elements of the Columbian coca plant and named the powdery substance Cocaine.

1880- Diablo, chief of the Cibecue Apache, was killed fighting the White Mountain Apache.

1919- THE RED TERROR- Think of the famous assassins of history- Brutus, John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, Fanny Kaplan…..Fanny Kaplan? Yep, on this day in Moscow, Socialist Fanya Kaplan fired several bullets into Lenin. Several hours before this attack the head of the Saint Petersburg secret police Moishe Uritsky was assassinated. Uritsky was from an Orthodox Jewish family but joined the Communists like many Jews who hated the Anti-Semitic regime of the Czar.
Lenin survived, Fanny was shot, and the police destroyed all remaining critics of the Bolshevik Revolution. Founder of the Communist Secret police, Felix Derzhinsky, said: Our purpose is not to find justice, but to mete out retribution!”
In twenty months, they jailed and executed more Russians than the Tsar’s police did in the entire Nineteenth Century.
A defining moment in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was when Russians pulled down the huge statue of Derzhinsky in front of KGB headquarters.

1932- DID CHURCHILL EVER MEET HITLER? In 1932, Winston Churchill was out of government, and travelling in Bavaria to research his biography of the Duke of Marlborough. While in Munich, a mutual friend Ernst “Putzi” Hafstaengl suggested a meeting with the up and coming German politician named Adolf Hitler. This day they were supposed to meet for coffee. But Hitler stood Winston up. “Herr Hitler’ Hanfstaengl said, ‘don’t you realize the Churchills are sitting in the restaurant? They are expecting you for coffee and will think this a deliberate insult.’ Hitler replied, “It is of no consequence. He is out of power. What on earth would I talk to him about?” So they never did meet face to face.

1935- “Top Hat” starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers premiered.

1936- First newspaper comic strip entirely devoted to Donald Duck.

1939- The last peacetime voyage of the HMS Queen Mary left Southampton evacuating Americans fleeing the impending war in Europe. Among the crowd was a large contingent of Hollywood stars like Robert Montgomery, Loretta Young, Bob Hope and Jack Warner who planned to attend the first Cannes Film Festival (postponed until 1946).
The Queen Mary kept radio silence across the ocean to hide from U-Boats. This was wise because her sister ship HMS Athenia was torpedoed.

1939- The first Marvel comic book went on sale. Marvel comic #1, introducing The Human Torch and the Submariner.

1942- Cartoonist Al Kapp premiered his comic strip “Fearless Fosdick”, a spoof of Dick Tracy detective stories.

1945- THE AMERICAN SHOGUN- Gen. Douglas MacArthur landed on mainland Japan as their military governor.
After the ceasefire was announced, there still was a lot of distrust on both sides, and in the streets of Japan gangs of outraged youths and kamikaze pilots fought loyal troops trying to restart the war. Into this turmoil General MacArthur and his staff flew in alone ahead of any other allied occupying troops. He even ordered his staff to leave their pistols behind to show their fearlessness to the Japanese. He also wanted to get there before Admiral Nimitz and the Navy got there first and stole his spotlight.
In a sight that alarmed his staff as MacArthur drove to Yokohama the road was lined on both sides with 30,000 crack Japanese troops standing silent with fixed bayonets.
They were not threatening but saluting their new Shogun. They even faced backwards from the road not looking at MacArthur, a gesture of respect reserved only for the Emperor.
While the still new Truman administration focused on Europe, MacArthur was left with a free hand to reshape Japanese society as he saw fit. He used the power of unquestioning Japanese social discipline to give women the vote, form labor unions and rewrite their constitution, setting the basis of Japanese democracy.

1963- The HOT LINE is set up between the White House and the Kremlin.
It was never really a red telephone, more a coded teletype machine. It was to prevent misunderstandings like the Cuban Missile Crisis the previous year. In 1986 they became a fax machine, and since 2008 a secure e-mail link.
We know now that in 1973 Nixon had put U.S. forces on red alert war footing to prevent the Soviets from intervening in the Arab-Israeli Yom Kippur War. In 1980 the Fail Safe system failed and reported 12,000 Soviet missiles were coming at us over the North Pole. Jimmy Carter had just 5 minutes to decide whether it was a mistake or the dreaded first strike warranting our full retaliation. We're all still here, so I guess you know how Carter chose.

1968- The first 7-11 store opened in Palmdale California. Have a Slurpee!

1975- Ralph Bakshi's film "Coonskin". Bad boy Bakshi's portrayal of African American urban violence was deemed so offensive that it caused the first ever riot at the Museum of Modern Art, and it died at the box office. The film was retitled on video "Streetfight". When Ralph resurfaced, he turned his attention to Sword & Fantasy films.

1979- President Jimmy Carter claimed that while boating on vacation in Georgia he was attacked by an enraged rabbit.

1980- Willie Nelson released his hit song “On the Road Again.”

1983- Lt. Guion Bluford, the first African American in Space, went up on the Challenger space shuttle.

1992- Astronomers Jane Luu and David Jewitt discovered the Kuiper Belt. That out at the edge of our Solar System, where Pluto is, is a second asteroid belt of even more particles and debris.

1993- The David Letterman Show premiered on CBS. Letterman was wooed away from NBC for $42 million bucks.

2012- At the Republican Presidential convention, venerable 80 year old filmmaker Clint Eastwood made a fool out of himself by improvising a rambling dialogue with an empty chair that he meant to be the absent Pres. Barack Obama. Eastwood was supposed to introduce candidate Mitt Romney’s acceptance speech, but his bizarre performance upstaged anything Romney said. This followed the keynote speech by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, who talked only about himself for 16 minutes before he ever mentioned Romney. For this and many other reasons, Romney lost in a landslide.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is philately?

Answer: Stamp-collecting.

Question: What is the capitol of Australia?

Yesterday’s Answer Below: Who was the first Pope born in the Western Hemisphere?
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History for 8/28/2023
Birthdays: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Leo Tolstoy, Jack "King" Kirby. George Villiers the Duke of Buckingham- minister of James I, Sean O'Flagherty, Donald O'Connor, Charles Boyer, Karl Boehm, Bruno Bettleheim, Disney designer Ferdinand Horvath, Ben Gazzara, Janet Evans, Ron 'Louisiana Lightning' Guidry, Nancy Kulp, Daniel Stern, Shania Twain, anim historian Charles Solomon, Jack Black is 54, Rita Coolidge is 62.

In Hong Kong, today is the Festival is the Festival of Hungry Ghosts.

29BC- In ancient Rome, dedication of the altar to Victory.

79AD- POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM DESTROYED-The great volcano Vesuvius erupted, burying the two Roman cities. The Emperor Titus rushed a fleet commanded by the scientist Pliny to rescue as many as he could. Pliny was overcome by the sulphureous fumes and died. His son, Pliny the Younger, eye-witnessed it all and wrote a moving account of the tragedy in his 'letters'. Scientists have been digging at the site of Pompeii-Herculaneum since it's rediscovery in 1726, but estimates are there's as many as 10,000 skeletons are still buried. Recently archaeologists may have identified Pliny the Elder’s remains. Near an evacuation beach they found a skeleton of a 45 year old man with golden insignia on his clothing and a sword in a gold sheath.

390AD-This was the Feast of Saint Augustine of Hippo. He was the Saint who tried every weird cult he could find before converting to Christianity, He drove his mother Saint Monica crazy, but his experiences helped him develop an answer to every anti-Christian argument. His famous book was "the City of God". For a Saint he could have done stand-up. He was famous for one liners like when someone asked him "What did God do before he created the world?" Augustine answered: "He made a hell for people who ask stupid questions!" He once half-jokingly suggested that in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall, Adam's penis was a voluntary organ. When he wanted it up, it was up, when he wanted it down, it was down. But, after the Fall, one of God's punishments was to make Adam's penis an involuntary organ. Which is why Adam and all his descendants have felt the need to cover their shame at having lost control of it. St. Augustine’s motto was "Lord, Make me Chaste- but not just yet..."

476AD- The Last Roman Emperor of the West, the boy Romulus Augustulus, was deposed. It was done by his counselor and actual power behind the throne, the barbarian warlord named Odoacer. Odoacer sent the Imperial diadem and insignia to the Zeno the Emperor of the East in Constantinople and declared himself King of the Germans in Italy. The Roman Senate continued on for another hundred years, but more as a municipal administrator.

1296- The Ragman Roll- English King Edward I “Longshanks” dropped his pretense of protection of the Scottish crown and instead went for direct annexation to England. He had the Stone of Destiny, called the Stone of Scone removed to London. Then this day Scottish nobles in Parliament from King John Balliol were called upon one by one to pledge allegiance to King Edward, or else. The only resistance came from peasant born leader William Wallace. The ceremony went on for so long such it coined a term for long inane formalities- Rigamarole.

1526- Battle of Mohacs. The Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent defeated the Hungarian army of Jan Hunyadi the "White Knight of Christendom". This victory pushed the borders of the Muslim world right up to the gates of Vienna Austria.

1565 - Oldest city in the US, St Augustine Fla, established.

1609- Henry Hudson explored Delaware Bay.

1678- THE POPISH PLOT- A man named Titus Oates came before King Charles II and the Parliament and declared he had uncovered a plot by English Catholics, Jesuits, the Bishop of Armaugh, and the Pope to kill King Charles, enthrone his Catholic brother James, burn London and land an army of mercenaries to force the English people back into Roman Church by force! Odds Fish! King Charles laughed it off but the public took him seriously.
There may have been one or two forlorn Catholic schemes but nothing on the scale Oates described, yet England went crazy for the next several months executing anybody accused. Titus Oates became very rich, but he finally was caught in his lies and sent to prison. When a mob of anti-Catholic Londoners attacked the carriage of the kings mistress Nell Gywnn thinking it was one of Charles’ French tootsies, Nell poked her head out of the carriage and cried: ” Peace be with you Good Citizens! I am the PROTESTANT Whore!” the mob then cheered.

1776 – The day after George Washington’s Army was defeated by the British in Brooklyn this day heavy rain and fog canceled any actions. After the battle the British pushed the colonials up against the East River and could have brought their fleet up from Staten Island, captured Washington’s army, and destroyed the Revolution while the ink was still wet on the Declaration of Independence.
But they hesitated. Why? Was it contrary winds in New York Harbor? Was it British memories of Bunker Hill preventing them from assaulting fixed colonial positions? Maybe it was because the English commanders Lord William Howe and his brother Admiral “Black Dick" Howe were Whigs in political opposition to the Tories in London. They saw a decisive military victory in America as a justification of the Lord North Government's policies.
So, Howe hesitated finishing off the rebels and requested peace talks. If he could succeed in pacifying the colonies, he would have the credit to run for Prime Minister. Washington stalled him and while they exchanged polite notes, the rebels slowly escaped by boat across the East River to fight on.

1830 - 1st locomotive in US, "Tom Thumb," runs from Baltimore to Ellicotts Mill.
.By 1835, the B &O became an exclusively a steam affair.

1837 - Pharmacists John Leah & William Perrin invented Worcestershire Sauce. A gentleman returning from the Raj asked them to recreate a favorite Indian condiment from a recipe he gave them. The initial result proved inedible. The bottles lay forgotten in their cellar for a few years. Upon rediscovery, it proved to have matured into the wonderful comestible that we enjoy today.

1850- Lohengrin, the first opera written by Richard Wagner, premiered in Weimar. The Third Act chorus “Treulich Gefuhrt” became famous for weddings as “Here Comes the Bride, All Dressed in White”. Wagner asked his friend Franz Liszt to produce the opera because he was in exile for his political views. Wagner himself did not see Lohengrin performed until 1861.

1859-In Titusville Pennsylvania, the first U.S. oil well struck oil. Before the industrial revolution crude oil or coal tar was considered a smelly nuisance. It was called Indian-Oil because Indians wore it as black warpaint, it was great for tarring and feathering rapscallions. Some entrepreneurs even tried to bottle it as health tonic. By this era it was refined into kerosene which was seen as a cheap plentiful substitute for whale-oil lamps. Unemployed railroad conductor Edwin Drake built the first oil well drilling apparatus out of components of a steam engine. By 1939 America exported 80% of the world’s crude oil.

1867- The U.S. Navy annexed Midway Island out in the Pacific.

1907- UPS small package delivery service started in Seattle.

1922- The first broadcast commercial on radio. It was for a real estate firm Queensboro Realty lasting ten minutes, and cost $100 dollars. The firm selling suburban homes in Queens NY immediately did $100,000 worth of business. The business world took note of this new method of advertising.

1934- Writer Upton Sinclair was nominated for Governor of California on the Democratic ticket by over half a million votes. This shocked the California power-elite because Sinclair was a radical whose grass roots organization EPIC (End Poverty in California) advocated socialist solutions to the Depression. Even FDR kept his distance from Sinclair.
Powerful forces enlisted Louis B. Mayer, Irving Thalberg and other Hollywood conservatives to ensure Sinclair's defeat by creating the first modern negative media campaign. This included phony newsreels of actors dressed as hobos saying how they're going to California to sponge off the taxpayers. Walt Disney's lawyer, Gunther Lessing, demanded Ward Kimball take the "Sinclair for Governor" sign off his car window.
Governor Frank Merriam who earlier that year had ordered troops to shoot down striking San Francisco longshoremen and their families won re-election.

1937- The Nazis began mass arrests of Jehovah's Witnesses.

1938- Northwestern University conferred an honorary degree upon the ventriloquist puppet Charlie McCarthy- Edgar Bergen’s famed ventriloquist dummy. The Dean of the School of Speech conferred a Master of Innuendo and Snappy Comeback upon the wooden celebrity.

1941- Rudolf Lichtenburg, pastor of St. Hedwig's Church the largest Lutheran congregation in Berlin, attacked the Nazi regime in an open letter to Dr. Leonardo Conti, Chief Reich Physician: "As a Human Being, As a Christian, a priest and a German I demand you answer for your crimes, which will call forth the Judgement of God upon the heads of the German People!" He was arrested by the Gestapo and died in Dachau.

1945- Chinese Communist Mao Zedong, conferred with Generalissimo Chiang Kai Chek over how to keep the Civil War from starting up again now that the War with Japan was over. The meeting was arranged by American Ambassador Patrick Hurley, an Oklahoma senator who greeted Mao and the Chiang with a loud Indian war whoop. We don’t know what Mao and Chiang thought of this curious form of welcome, but they couldn’t stand one another. Almost as soon as their conference was over the Chinese Civil War began again. Mao defeated Chiang and drove him to Taiwan in 1949.

1951- Robert Walker was a boyishly handsome actor who had played in a number of successful Hollywood movies like The Clock, Bataan, See Here Private Hargrove and Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. This day a combination of amobarbital and alcohol caused him to suddenly collapse and stop breathing. He was 32. Accounts differ as to his mental state at the time, and whether his psychiatrist compelled him to take the injection of the sedative that brought about his seizure. His son Robert Walker Jr went on to a successful acting career on things like Star Trek. He died in 2019 of natural causes.

1953- Between the Israeli War of Independence and the Suez War guerrilla violence raged in small border settlements with terrorism killing innocent civilians. The Israeli Army tried forming a secret commando team called Unit 101 to stop Arab attacks on Israeli settlers by committing their own acts of terror “an-eye-for-an-eye”. After one raid this day Unit 101 went into action, shooting up a Palestinian refugee camp in Egyptian Gaza, and killed a number of women and children. The attack was so cold-blooded that the unit was soon disbanded by an embarrassed government. The young officer in command of Unit 101 was future Prime Minister Arial Sharon.

1955- Emmet Till was a 14 year old black child in Mississippi who was beaten and lynched by white vigilantes because a white woman said he “looked” at her in an inappropriate manner. His mother asked his funeral be public, and his casket open so people could see what brutality was committed on him. Even in 2018, plaques set up in his memory have been shot up by white supremacists.

60th Anniv 1963- Dr. Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial at the climax of the first ' Poor People's March 'on Washington”. Organizer A. Phillip Randolph conceived a poor people’s march taking weeks not unlike the Bonus Marchers of 1929. The sympathetic John F. Kennedy administration prevailed upon them to keep it to one day to reduce the chance of violence and maximize media exposure. They had planned for 100,000 but they got 400,000. Movie stars like Sidney Poitier, Marlon Brando, James Garner, Paul Newman and Charlton Heston attended.

1968- THE CHICAGO DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION- While thousands of anti-war hippie and yippie protestors battled the Chicago Police in Grant Park, the Democrats nominated Hubert Horatio Humphrey, the "Happy Warrior" their candidate to replace the assassinated Bobby Kennedy. Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, the Yippie and SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) leaders tried to get a live 100 pound pig into the convention and get it nominated for President. The Chairman of the DNC decried Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's "Gestapo Tactics" from the rostrum. Ironically Boss Daley opposed the Vietnam War, but he would not tolerate kids making him look bad on national TV.
Newsman Dan Rather was gut-punched by a Chicago cop on camera on the convention floor. My friend animation writer John Culhane was clubbed down by police despite wearing all his press credentials and a baby blue army helmet with Newsweek painted on it. While the police and demonstrators battled, poet Alan Ginsburg and Timothy Leary grabbed a loudspeaker and chanted the Buddhist "Ohhhmmmmm" to calm people down. The student leaders -the Chicago 7 in reality 8, were put on trial for incitement to riot but after a yearlong media circus all the charges were overturned. Republican Richard Nixon won the election. The Democrats wouldn't go near Chicago again for thirty years.

1990- Computer pioneer Sandy Lerner was fired from the company she founded- Cisco Systems.

1996- The Prince and Princess of Wales Charles & Diana got divorced. This was the first Royal divorce since Henry VIII annulled Anne of Cleves in the 1530's, not counting George IV's secret marriage to Mrs. Fitzherbert, which was hushed up, and his later cavorting with Lady Cunningham who was nicknamed "the Vice-Queen", and Edward VII's chasing every woman in Europe but his wife, etc.

2007- Conservative “Family Values” Senator Larry Craig of Idaho was arrested for soliciting gay sex in a men’s room in the Minneapolis Airport. Craig vigorously maintained that he had a wide stance in his stall, but older gay men said “toe-tapping” was a well-known method then to signal interest in a liaison. Larry Craig soon resigned from the Senate.

2020- Actor Chadwick Boseman, who played T’Chala in The Black Panther, died of colon cancer at age 43.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was the first Pope born in the Western Hemisphere?

Answer: The current Pope Francis I was born in Argentina.
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Quiz: Who was the first Pope born in the Western Hemisphere?

Question: What town is considered the capitol of Sicily?
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HISTORY FOR 8/27/2023
Birthdays: Man Ray, Martha Ray, LBJ (Lyndon Baines Johnson), Hegel, C.S. Forester, Hannibal Hamlin- Abe Lincolns first term vice president, Barbara Bach, Theodore Dreiser, Lady Antonia Fraser, Tommy Sands, Tuesday Weld is 80, Mangesuthu Buthelezi, Paul Rubens-aka Pee Wee Herman, Wayner Shorter

1506- Pope Julius II “Il Papa Terrible” attacked Perugia and Bologna for Holy Mother Church. After their conquest, Julius had Michelangelo cast a nine-foot statue of him to remind the Perugians who kicked their butts. Michelangelo created his largest free-standing bronze caste, but we don't have it anymore. In 1512 Julius's enemies liberated Perugia, and the happy people melted down the statue and cast it into a big cannon they called: "La Julia".

1660- Poet John Milton's books were publicly burned on Tyburn hill. It wasn't because of any great suppression of humanist ideas. Milton was an outspoken supporter of Oliver Cromwell and the Puritan regime that had governed England. But now the King was back on the throne and unimpressed with his writings.

1664- NIEUW AMSTERDAAM BECOMES NEW YORK. The English had disputed Holland's stake in America based on the early exploration of John Cabot. Now with the growth of the New England and Virginia colonies, and the English Civil War over, England sent a large battle fleet under Colonel Rollins to New Amsterdam to demand the surrender of the colony.
The Dutch governor was an old one-legged mercenary named Peter Stuyvesant. He wanted to make a fight of it and had even set up a battery of cannon on -where else? the Battery. However, his city council were men of commerce, not soldiers. They told him if he wanted to fight, he should do it himself because they were surrendering. Even his own son was against fighting. Stuyvesant in a rage shouted at them:" Keep to your shovels and barrows!" The governor hobbled up to the cannon pointed at the British fleet and lit a match to fire the first shot. He paused and noticed the cold, silent stares of all those around him. The chaplain of the colony, Dominie Megapolensis, silently took Stuyvesant by the hand down from the fort. Stuyvesant signed the surrender.
He was allowed to keep his large farm, or in Dutch, his Bouwerie -the Bowery. Five years later the English named renamed the city after King Charles II's brother the Duke of York for his birthday. The Duke of York's protection kept Long Island from being made part of Connecticut. The first English colony planted after the conquest was named for the only part of Britain to remain loyal to King Charles during the Cromwell period, the Isle of Jersey (New Jersey). Charles main supporter was James Leslie, Baron Newark. (Newark N.J.) and his illegitimate son the Duke of Monmouth. Still the old Dutch roots were deep and even in George Washington's time Dutch was the predominant language on New York's streets. In 1832 Martin Van Buren became our first knickerbocker President.

1665- What is considered the first documented and advertised staging of an English-language play in the North American British colonies, “Ye Beare and Ye Cubb” (“The Bear and the Cub”) was presented to an audience at a tavern just north of present day Pungoteague, Virginia.

1667- The first record in English of a Hurricane, this one striking near Jamestown Virginia. Of course, the Spanish in the Caribbean had been seeing hurricanes since Columbus’s third voyage in 1503.

1776- THE BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND, also called the Battle of Brooklyn Heights. British regiments destroyed George Washington’s army in Brooklyn while he was still in Manhattan waiting for the main attack. Washington sent two generals to command, Generals Sullivan and William Alexander, who insisted everyone call him Lord Stirling, in memory of some Scottish inheritance he claimed he was cheated out of.
The British General Henry Clinton marched down the Kings Highway to Jamaica then found a secret path behind Yankee lines, guarded by only 5 militiamen. Clinton had walked these paths when he was a young officer stationed in NY. His superior Lord William Howe at first refused the idea- he said it smacked of the German School of Tactics. He felt the Americans were too stupid to panic when they saw their flank was turned. But the Yankees did panic, and Lord Howe won a great victory.
The British had gotten over their shock of the American’s Indian style of guerrilla fighting. They countered by using German jaeger battalions, professional hunters turned soldier who were accustomed to shooting from behind rocks and trees. Generals Sullivan and Lord Stirling were forced to surrender after furious fighting around the Cortelyou House. One redcoat officer wrote: “Multitudes of retreating Americans who attempted to escape across the Gowanus River were drowned or suffocated in the morasses- a proper punishment for Rebels!”

1789- The French Revolutionaries publish THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN. They wanted the American ambassador Thomas Jefferson to help them write it, but he worried it would compromise his diplomatic immunity. So, he agreed to look over their shoulder during revisions. Most foreign ambassadors had fled Paris. But the French revolutionaires considered America a fellow Republic.

1813- BATTLE OF DRESDEN. After the retreat from Moscow the previous year, Napoleon is attacked by Austria, Russia, Sweden, Prussia, and just about everybody else in Europe but the Spice Girls. In reorganizing his army Napoleon ordered a stripped down staff and no more dessert served at the dinner table. War is Hell.
Napoleon whupped the Allies in this first battle at Dresden, and a famous French turncoat general named Moreau was killed by a cannonball. Moreau had been counseling the Russians on how best to kill his countrymen. His death was seen as a sign of Divine Justice by both sides. During a temporary truce Napoleon was offered by the Allies the chance to negotiate a peace. World history would have been different, but he refused. When he asked Polish Prince Poniatowski what he would do, the Prince replied: 'I would make peace now, to wage war better later.' But Napoleon countered: "I'd rather make war now to win a better peace." He lost.

1814- President James Madison and the remains of the U.S. Government came out of hiding in the forests of Arlington and re-entered the burned out remains of Washington D.C.. It had been left by the British Army after being put to the torch. Looters scampered over the smoldering remains of the White House and Capitol Hill. Secretary of War Armstrong, who inadequately defended the capitol, resigned after blaming everyone but himself. Mayor Blakes’ biggest fear upon his return was of a slave insurrection, so he armed every available white male for police duty. Meanwhile the exhausted inhabitants of Washington could hear the British cross the Potomac loot and burn the town of Alexandria, given up without a fight.

1814- As the British invaders roamed the Maryland countryside an elderly Scottish immigrant doctor named Beanes was dragged out of his house by Royal Marines and packed off to the flagship offshore. He was accused of mistreating captured British soldiers. Since he was born in Scotland, he could face a charge of treason. When local residents’ petitions to have Dr Beanes released were refused, an appeal was made to a respected Georgetown attorney named Francis Scott Key to go try and win his release. Key showed up at the ship with written affidavits from the incarcerated British wounded attesting to Dr. Beanes innocence. Admiral Cockburn agreed to release them both, but only after their big assault on Baltimore. This is why lawyer Key was on the British warship in time to watch the Rockets Red Glare, the Bombs Bursting in Air, etc.

1814- Meanwhile in England, poet Percy Shelley eloped with Mary, the only daughter of John Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft. Godwin had objected to Shelley’s proposal for his daughter’s hand because he was an opium addict, a sexual libertine, an atheist and already married with a baby daughter! Yeah, but besides all THAT, what’s your objection? They ran off followed by Mary’s stepsister Claire who began sleeping with Lord Byron. Mary of course was the author of Frankenstein. If I knew all this maybe I would have paid more attention in English Lit 101.

1910- The first radio message sent from an airplane.

1912- Edgar Rice Burroughs first published Tarzan of the Apes in The All-Story magazine.

1915- Italy declared war on Germany and Austria and entered World War I.

1917- Straight Shooting, the first film directed by John Ford released.

1927- Warner Bros began recording the soundtrack for Al Jolson in The Jazz Singer.

1930- Lon Chaney Sr. died at 47 of bronchial lung cancer. It was claimed then that during filming of a remake of The Unholy Three a wind machine blew an artificial gypsum snowflake into Chaney's mouth - it caused an irritation that became a tumor.

1941- Japan’s Prime Minister Prince Konoye requested a summit meeting with President Franklin Roosevelt to try and avoid war. Konoye was an anti-fascist and foresaw the coming holocaust but he couldn’t control Japan’s military. Ironically when the war ended in 1945 Prince Konoye was arrested by US authorities for war crimes. The anti-war statesman committed hari-kiri.

1942- Stalin called Marshal Zhukov, the hero of Leningrad, to go to Stalingrad and assume command there before the Nazis captured the city.

1955- The first Guinness Book of World Records published.

1950- NBC and General Foods abruptly canceled the second season of the television show “the Aldrich Family” when a publication called Red Channels accused Jean Muir, one of the show’s stars, of being a communist. It seems that studio execs hated her for being one of the founding members of SAG and being a member of The Congress of American Women. This signaled that the Hollywood Blacklist was now turning its attention eastward towards NY theater and television. Jean Muir’s career (1937 Midsummer Nights Dream) never fully recovered.

1953- The film Roman Holiday introduced a new young actress from Holland named Audrey Hepburn.

1964- The movie version of Mary Poppins premiered.

1967- The Beatles first manager Brian Epstein overdosed on sleeping pills.

1979- Retired Lord Louis Mountbatten was killed by the IRA, with a bomb on board his yacht.

1968- Former master animator Bill Tytla's request to return to Disney was turned down. The artist who animated Grumpy the Dwarf, Dumbo and the Devil on Bald Mountain even offered to do a free "trial animation test" to show he still had it. Disney exec W.H. Anderson wrote him:" We really have only enough animation for our present staff." Tytla died soon after.

1990- Guitar great Stevie Ray Vaughan was killed in a helicopter crash outside Alpine Valley Wisconsin, after an "All Stars of the Blues" show. Stevie Ray took the last remaining seat on the helicopter, after Eric Clapton got off, claiming he'd rather take a limo back to Chicago, which was about an hour away.

2008- Barack Obama nominated for President of the United States. The first African American candidate from a major party.

2022- George Jetson of The Jetson’s was born today. The show takes place in 2062 when he was 40, and Jane was 33.
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Yesterday’s Question: What town is considered the capitol of Sicily?

Answer: Palermo.

Question: What town is considered the capitol of Sicily?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Julius Caesar invaded Britain, but he did not stay. Who was emperor when the Romans colonized Britain and founded cities like London and Colchester?
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History for 8/26/2023
Birthdays: Sir Robert Walpole the first British Prime Minister, Mother Theresa, Albert the Prince Consort, John Wilkes Booth, Guilliame Appollinaire who coined the term Surrealism, General Maxwell Taylor, Christopher Isherwood, McCauley Culkin is 43, Geraldine Ferarro, Dr. Lee DeForrest, Ben Bradlee, Barbet Schroeder, Branford Marsalis, Chris Pine is 43, Melissa McCarthy is 53

480 BC- The Persian Army of Xerxes the Great King marched into Athens. They found an empty city. Athenian leader Themistocles had ordered the population to evacuate to the small island of Salamis. Themistocles defeated Xerxes later in an epic naval battle.

55 B.C.- JULIUS CAESAR LANDED IN ENGLAND- Caesar paused from his conquest of Gaul to check out the British Isles. He didn't stay long because Channel storms were playing havoc with his supply ships. Just long enough to fight some Celts under their chief Cassilvelaunus, collect some tribute, and add a chapter to his memoirs.
The Romans returned in A.D. 61 under instructions from Claudius to conquer and colonize. London, Colchester and York were founded originally Roman army camps. The Romans stayed until 401AD, when the legions were withdrawn to protect Italy.

580AD- An ancient Chinese inventory of the household of a nobleman made the first recorded reference to toilet paper. Meanwhile in Europe, the ancient Romans used a sponge tied to a small stick. You were expected to rinse it out afterwards for use by the next person.

217AD- Today is the Feast of St. Zephyrinus, who didn't die violently but he is still counted as a Martyr because he had a lot of stress. (?) He was supposedly so charitable, that Saint Hippolytus found him annoying.

1346-Battle of Crecy – The English beat the French in the Hundred Years War., The Welsh longbows rained powerful armor piercing arrows on the French knights from long range. The King of Frances’ friend King John of Bohemia rode into the thick of the battle, despite his being elderly and completely blind. His horse’s reins were held by retainers galloping alongside him. When Edward the Black Prince of Wales discovered the king's dead body after the battle, he plucked three white plumes from his helmet and assumed his motto "Ich Dein" or "How's dat, ye blind old bugger !" They became the symbols of the Prince of Wales. Also appearing at this battle for the first time were the big rock throwing fire pipes they called Bombardons, but we call cannon.

1498- Michelangelo gets a job. The big Florentine stonecutter was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI Borgia to carve the Pieta, Mary lamenting over the body of Jesus.

1572- In Paris four days after the Great Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, someone noticed the hawthorns were flowering out of season in the little cemetery of the Holy Innocents. The Bishop of Paris thought this was a divine sign, and ordered the church bells to ring. But when the dumbass people heard the bells they thought it was a signal to resume the massacre, so everyone ran out and started killing each other again.

1576- The artist Titian died at age 88. He outlived all the artists of the Renaissance, worked every day of his life, and might have gone on had he not caught a touch of plague.

1648- French peasant uprising known as La Fronde. The Fronde was a reaction to the king's government being controlled by scheming cardinals like Richelieu and his protege, Cardinal Mazarin. Had the movement more legal structure to their demands, France might have developed an English style representative government. The English were in the middle of their Civil War over the same issues at the same time. But the Fronde was more about blind class rage, and after it was crushed it left a deep impression on the mind of child King Louis XIV. He concluded that giving the common people any voice or power was a bad idea.

1790- THE KINGDOM OF YAZOO- Before the Louisiana Purchase the area around Spanish Mississippi territory and American Tennessee was a no man’s land of swamps Creek Indians. An Irish adventurer named O’Fanlon with a group of leathershirts and yahoos tried to declare themselves an independent nation -named for the Yazoo River.

1814- After completing their work of burning Washington D.C. to the ground, the British redcoats under Admiral Cockburn marched away in good order back to their ships. One old grandfather yelled at the British:" If General Washington had been alive you would not have gotten off so easily!" Admiral Cockburn reigned in his horse and replied -"Sir, if General Washington had still been President, we should never have thought of coming here."

1838- American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson met English writer Thomas Carlyle.

1846- W.A. Bartlet became first American mayor of Yerba Buena, in 1850 renamed San Francisco.

1868- First practical typewriter patented by Christopher Scholes. The Remington Company who were famous for making firearms took up the typewriter and mass produced it. In 1874 Mark Twain admitted to a friend that he preferred writing on it.

1914- During World War I, the German artillery bombarded the Belgian city of Louvain, destroying it’s 600 year old medieval library. It was considered the first great cultural crime of the 20th Century, but alas, not the last.

1918- 17 year old Walt Disney dropped out of high school and faked his birthdate in order to enlist to fight in World War I. Turned down for his age, he volunteered for the Red Cross. Assigned to the ambulance corps, he arrived in Europe just as the war was ending.

1929- The giant German dirigible Graf Zeppelin landed in Los Angeles at a remote place called Mines Fields, that would one day become Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). In ten years the Graf Zeppelin made 590 flights around the world without a single problem. It had a perfect safety record. Back then, lighter than air ships were considered much safer than airplanes.

1939- In preparation for the impending war with Germany, the Tower of London was closed to tourists and the English Crown Jewels smuggled out and hidden.

1944- Charles DeGaulle walked in triumph down the Champs Elysee among thousands as Parisians celebrates their liberation after four years of Nazi occupation.

1946 - George Orwell published "Animal Farm". Orwell said he conceived the idea for the novel while watching out his window a small boy driving a huge draft horse. The horse could have easily crushed the boy had it the free will, but instead patiently endured the boys taunts and flicks with a small switch.

1946- First day of shooting on Jean Cocteau’s film Belle et le Bete, Beauty & the Beast.

1958- First day of shooting on the Alfred Hitchcock film North By Northwest. Conceived as a story that ended in a chase across the stone faces of Mt. Rushmore. The original title of Ernst Lehman’s script was The Man Who Hung from Lincoln’s Nose.

1961- The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto dedicated.

1964- The Tokyo subway system opens.

1967 – The Beatles, Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

1970- Tens of thousands of women across North America march in The Women’s Strike for Equality. It was led by Betty Friedan of NOW, the National Organization for Women.

1971- The New York Giants announced they would move from Yankee Stadium to a new complex being built in the Meadowlands of Rutherford, New Jersey.

1980- Director Tex Avery died after collapsing in the parking lot of Hanna-Barbera. He was 72. Two weeks before he was asked by a friend why he was working in Hanna & Barbera, Tex laughed:" Hey, Don’t you know? this is where all the elephants come to die!"

1985- The first Yugo economy car arrived in the US. From Yugoslavia.

1997- Special effects house Boss Studios, closed.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Julius Caesar invaded Britain, but he did not stay. Who was emperor when the Romans colonized Britain and founded cities like London and Colchester?

Answer: The Emperor Claudius about 80 years after Caesar.

Quiz: Julius Caesar invaded Britain, but he did not stay. Who was emperor when the Romans colonized Britain and founded cities like London and Colchester?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What is a vole?
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History for 8/25/2023
Birthdays: King Ludwig II the Mad of Bavaria, Walt Kelly, Bret Hart, Lola Montez (flamenco dancing mistress of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria), Alan Pinkerton, Clara Bow, Ruby Keeler, Monty Hall, Van Johnson, Willis Reed, Frederick Forsythe, Wayne Shorter, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dr. Bruno Bettleheim, Leonard Bernstein, Sean Connery, Gene Simmons, Anne Archer, Elvis Costello is 68, Tim Burton is 64, Claudia Schiffer is 52

Opiconsiva- Ancient Roman festival of the first harvest.

1127- Princess Matilda, granddaughter of William the Conqueror, married Geoffrey of Anjou, a powerful noble family in central France. After the Conqueror’s sons died, England went through a confusing period of dynastic struggle that only ended when Matilda and Geoffrey's son Henry becomes King Henry II of England. Geoff D’Anjou was a zitty little nonentity, who, other than producing the great English royal line of Richard the LionHeart and Henry V was also known for putting a little flower in his hat. In Latin a planta-genesta. His family name was called Plantagenet.

1688- Pirate Captain Sir Henry Morgan died of the various excesses of pirate life. He was 53. Morgan the Pirate was the only top pirate who ever really got away with it and lived a rich old salt as Royal governor of Port Royal. A few years after his death Port Royal was destroyed by an earthquake and Sir Henry’s last resting place slipped under the waves with most of the city.

1814- The British Army occupying Washington D.C. continued their work of burning the city- The State Department, War Office, Library of Congress, The Treasury Building and more were torched. British Admiral Cockburn made a point of destroying the offices of the National Intelligencer, a newspaper run by an English immigrant named Joseph Gales who loved writing insulting editorials about him. An early morning summer thunderstorm doused some fires but added to the misery of Washingtonians cowering in the forests of Arlington.
President James Madison spent most of the night in the saddle looking for his wife Dolly and trying to rally his scattered government. He was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Dolly Madison with a carriage full of the furniture from the White House tried to enter an inn called Wiley’s Tavern. But the owner’s wife threw the First Lady out: “You can leave Mrs. Madison! Thanks to your husband, mine is out fighting in the war! Damn You!”

1829- The Mexican Government refused US President Andrew Jackson’s offer to purchase Texas. Jackson then explored other means. Sam Houston, first President of Texas, and its first governor under the US flag was a protégé of Jackson.

1830- Brabant Rebellion, Belgium separated from Holland.

1830- This is the day of the legendary race between the locomotive the Tom Thumb and a horse and buggy outside of Baltimore. The Tom Thumb weighing in at about a ton and developing a whopping one-horsepower. The boiler driven fan broke down near the end, so the horse won. Still, the train’s performance was so impressive that the first U.S. railroad, the Baltimore & Ohio, shifted from horse drawn to steam railroad.

1835- Joseph Pulitzer’s New York Sun newspaper ran a story that British astronomer Sir William Herschel, the discoverer of Neptune, had observed little men living on the surface of the Moon! The story proved false, but it really boosted the sales of the paper.

1875- Matthew Webb became the first person to successfully swim the English Channel.

1893- Colored People’s Day at the Columbia Exhibition in Chicago. How thoughtful!

1896- The Journal Examiner's Yellow-Fellow Transcontinental Bicycle Relay race.

1900- Is God dead? No, just Fredrich Nietzsche, this day

1912- In Shanghai, Dr. Sun Yat Sen formed the Kuomintang or Chinese Nationalist Party. (KMT)

1916- President Woodrow Wilson created the National Parks Service out of 35 separate departments.

100 Years Ago- 1923 Young filmmaker Walt Disney wrote to NY Producer M.J. Winkler, that he was no longer affiliated with The Laugh-O-Grams company in Kansas City.” I am establishing a studio in Los Angeles for the purpose of producing the new and novel series of cartoons I have previously written to you about.” This will become the Alice in Cartoonland series.

1928- Commander Byrd set off to explore the Antarctic.

1942- King George VI youngest brother George the Duke of Kent, was killed in a military plane crash in Scotland. He became the first member of the English royal family to die in uniform in 450 years.

1944- PARIS LIBERATED. Adolf Hitler had ordered the Germans to dynamite all the major landmarks: Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame etc, But when the time came, the German commander Gen. Deitrich von Choltitz refused to do it. There was street fighting, but the heavier German tank units had voluntarily evacuated the city. On Aug 20 the French Resistance (Les Maquis), rose and seized key points. This day Free French units under General LeClerc led the allied columns into the City of Lights.
Ernest Hemingway and a few paratroops liberated the Ritz Hotel's wine cellar and Shakespeare & Company bookstore. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas were discovered by CBS correspondent Eric Severaid living unharmed outside of town.

1945- In an incident in postwar China, U.S. troops scuffled with Communist Chinese soldiers and a Capt. John Birch was killed. In the growing Cold War hysteria, Capt. Birch was lauded as the first martyr in the Crusade against Communism, and an organization in his name was formed. In 1958, Robert Welch, who had become rich from inventing the Sugar Daddy candy bar, formed The John Birch Society. Birchers became a force for extreme right wing politics in the 60's. Another one of their founders was Fred Koch, the father of the modern Koch Bros, who used their oil money to start the Tea Party in the U.S.

1967 – In Mississippi George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of American Nazi Party, was blown off the speaker’s platform by a shotgun. Although not as significant as the Martin Luther King or the Kennedy’s assassinations, it was another incident in the violent 1960’s. George Lincoln Rockwell was also a distant cousin of Norman Rockwell, although the famed artist was embarrassed to admit it.

1970- A young singer named Elton John did his first US tour, opening at the Troubadour in LA.

1972- Blacula, starring William Marshall opened in theaters.

1980- The premiere of the Broadway musical version of the classic movie musical 42nd Street. In a moment of Broadway drama, producer David Merrick came out on stage and startled the cast and audience by announcing that the director of the play Gower Champion had died that very day. 42nd Street went on to be a smash hit. The play itself is about a Broadway director who works himself to death creating a hit musical.

1989- Congressman Barney Frank confirmed that he had paid for the services of a gay male prostitute named Stephan Gobie. The unrepentant Frank continued to serve in Congress another twenty-five years.

1989- The Voyager 2 probe left Neptune and shot off into deep space, completing its mission, a reconnaissance of the outer planets of our solar system. It discovered the rings of Jupiter and Neptune, the additional moons of these planets, and the volcanoes of the Jovian moon Io, and the ice of Europa. Today, you have ten times more computing power in your phone than in the Voyager spacecraft, yet all these years later it continues to transmit signals back to Earth. By 2012 Voyager I and Voyager 2 have both left the Heliosheath, the outer perimeter of our suns’ gravity field, and today are deep in interstellar space. Voyager 1 with its Chuck Berry recording, should reach the next neighboring solar system in about 40,000 years.
http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/where/

1991- At the Emmy ceremony, comic Gilbert Gottfried upset the audience with a flood of masturbation jokes about Pee Wee Herman. Fox Network apologized the next day.

2001-Beautiful 22 year old R&B singer Alleiya was killed, when her overloaded chartered plane crashed on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a vole?

Answer: A small rodent similar to a field mouse.