Quiz: What is a vole?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: ”In ancient Rome, what was a hypocaust?
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History for 8/24/2023
Birthdays: Jorge Luis Borges, William Wilberforce, Marlee Matlin, Yasir Arafat, Max Beerbom, Cal Ripken Jr, Joshua Lionel Cowan the inventor of Lionel toy electric trains, Kenny Baker-C3PO in Star Wars, Stephen Fry is 67, Durward Kirby- 1960s T.V. announcer, Duke Kahanamoku-1890- Olympic champion who popularized Surfing, Kirk Wise, Dave Chappelle is 51, Steve Guttenberg is 66

410 A.D. ROME FELL TO THE BARBARIANS- Alaric the Visigoth marched a horde of Goths, Vandals and Huns to the gates of Rome. At midnight, escaped Goth slaves opened the Salarian Gate to them. Romans awoke next morning to the sound of barbarian horns. The Goths plundered the capitol of the Roman Empire for three days. The emperor’s sister Galla Placidia was dragged off in chains and given in marriage to Alaric’s brother. Roman Emperor Honorius had moved his Imperial Court to Milan, and there was an Eastern Emperor in Constantinople.
The Roman Senate continued to meet until 578 AD. The last Emperor was deposed in 476. But the symbolic significance of The Roman Empire losing Rome was devastating. Even though the Empire staggered along for a few more years, this event marks the end of the Ancient World and the beginning of the Dark Ages. In Tunisia, St. Jerome wrote:” It is the end of the world, I cannot write for the tears.”

1215 – After getting a hefty “donation” from English King John Lackland, Pope Innocent III declared the Magna Carta invalid. Luckily for future democracies, the English lords ignored him.

1217-THE BATTLE OF SANDWICH (or Dover): FIRST VICTORY OF THE BRITISH NAVY- King John Lackland was a pretty lousy king, but he did understand that an island nation needs a kickass navy. So, he ordered land be purchased at Plymouth and Portsmouth and Greenwich for royal dockyards. This legacy didn't bear fruit until shortly after his death. A large French invasion fleet was defeated in the Channel by English ships lead by Sir Hugh de Bourg. The French didn't really have a navy yet either, these ships were hired freelancers led by a mad pirate named Eustace the Monk.
After the battle the victorious English found Eustace hiding in the bilge of his flagship. They sailed with his severed head decorating the top of their mainmast. This victory forced the French king to make peace and withdraw his occupying troops from London.

1227- GENGHIS KHAN DIED. The man named Temujin united a few small nomadic tribes into one of the greatest empires in history. He was called the Prince of Conquerors or the Genghis Khan. He was around 65. How he died is a mystery. The Mongols kept almost no records and all accounts are second and third hand. One said the old conqueror had died of a fever, another in battle, Marco Polo heard he was shot in the knee with a poisoned arrow. My favorite is a captive Queen of the Tanguts concealed a piece of metal in her naughty bits and he lacerated his willy when ...you know... and he bled to death.
Part of Genghis’ funeral cortege was a riderless horse with boots reversed, a symbol of a fallen leader handed down to the funerals of Lincoln, JFK and Ronald Reagan. He was buried in a secret place on the Burkhan Kaldun, the Mountain of Power. I’ve read some articles that claimed to have discovered it, but so far, I’m not convinced.

1632- Battle of Alte Feste (the other castle). Archduke Wallenstein and his Catholic army stalled Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus and his Protestants outside Nuremburg.
1662 - Act of Uniformity required all English subjects to accept Book of Common Prayer, or else!

1800- Alexander Hamilton ruined President John Adams chances of re-election by today publishing a pamphlet accusing Adams of incompetence “On the Presidency of John Adams, Esq.” Hamilton was a member of Adams Federalist Party. Hamilton wasn’t a fan of Tom Jefferson either, but he hated Adams even more. In the final vote tabulation the incumbent President ran a distant fourth.

1814- BRITISH TROOPS BURN WASHINGTON D.C.- A large British task force filled with veteran redcoats fresh from defeating Napoleon, came up from Chesapeake Bay. With most of the US Army trying to invade Canada or on the Western frontier the only defense of America’s capitol was some scanty Maryland militia and a few beached Marines.
Generals, the Secretary of War, President Madison and Secretary of State James Monroe all galloped about in confusion barking orders. At noon at Bladensburg Maryland, the American force exchanged some gunfire with the British, panicked and ran away. The U.S. Army and government ran so fast that the incident was nicknamed "The Bladensburg Races". President James Madison had to leave in such a hurry that his evening dinner was still on the table. British Admiral Cockburn said he: "mightily enjoyed Master Jimmy 's sherry."
First Lady Dolly Madison fled the White House but saved Gilbert Stuart's painting of George Washington, cut out of its frame with a penknife by her butler French John –Jean Pierre Sioussat. The Declaration of Independence was hidden under a front porch in Baltimore and the US Treasury hidden in a wagon at a solitary Maryland farm.
At 9:00PM Admiral George Cockburn, sat in the speakers chair in Congress and said to his laughing troops:" Well lads, what shall we do with this vile nest of Yankee democracy ?" "Burn it!" they cried. The redcoats set fire to Congress, the Presidents Mansion, the Navy Yard and marched 6 abreast in good order down Pennsylvania Ave. Around 11:30 PM Cockburn and his staff entered Mrs Sutters Boarding House on 15th & Pennsylvania Ave. for a late supper. Cockburn blew out the candles on the dinner table, leaving the room illuminated by the bright glow of the burning city. He joked” THIS, is the light by which I prefer to eat.”
The humiliation unified American anger not unlike Pearl Harbor centuries later. It was no longer "Mr. Madison's War." On a Hudson riverboat author Washington Irving punched a man in the mouth he saw laughing over the President's flight." The National Honor must be Avenged!" After the British troops withdrew the President's burned out mansion was hastily covered over with the paint that was most in supply, white. The White House it was known thereafter.

1832- In a little London flat in the dead of night top Tory party leaders led by the Duke of Wellington executed a strange task. They huddled around a coal stove burning love letters. What made it unusual was they were the love letters of King George IV to his secret first wife, Irish-Catholic wife Fitzherbert. In 1788 While Prince Regent George had secretly married her but it was quickly hushed up, leaving him officially free to marry Princess Caroline of Brunswick.
Sir Charles Fox had declared on the floor of Parliament that the rumors were false and the Prince was not married. Mrs. Fitzherbert was paid to keep quiet even after George IV had died. By this late date old Wellington wanted to be sure before she died that her secret would never come out.

1847 - Charlotte Bronte finished the manuscript of her novel "Jane Eyre".

1853 – Saratoga Springs hotel resort chef George Crum invented Potato Chips, or crisps.

1887- The US set up a weather station in Greenland.

1913- Congress okayed the creation of the Parcel Post system- UPS.

1939- Mr. Leslie Mitchell became the first British Television announcer.

1940- In Milan the first successful jet flight- the Italian Camponi CC-2.

1942- Walt Disney’s film Saludos Amigos received its world premiere in Rio De Janiero.

1944-The French Resistance in Paris with most of the police Gendarmes rose up to seize key points in the city as the Allied armies drew near. Gen. DeGaulle convinced General Eisenhower that Free-French units should be first to enter the city.

1951- Akira Kurosawa’s film Rashomon premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. The film won the Grand Prize and first showed the world that Japanese Cinema was a new creative force in the film world.

1958- The United States threatened to drop atomic bombs on China over two little islands called Quemoy and Matsu. Some of Chiang Kai Shek’s Nationalist armies had taken refuge there after being defeated by Mao. The islands were close enough to the mainland to be shelled by Red Chinese artillery. This caused Pres. Eisenhower to threaten them with the A-Bomb if they didn’t knock it off.

1966- The effects fantasy Fantastic Voyage directed by Richard Fleischer opened. The submarine in the film was designed by Harper Goff, who designed the Nautilus for Walt Disney’s Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea, also directed by Richard Fleischer, the son of Max Fleischer.

1973- One month after Bruce Lee’s death, his last film Enter The Dragon opened in the US to wild acclaim. It cost $800,000 to make and grossed over $140 million. It renewed interest in the late star and helped spawn the Chinese Martial Arts craze in the US.

1992- HURRICANE ANDREW tore through southern Florida. One a scale of one to five Andrew was a force 5 hurricane. One meteorologist watched his wind velocity measuring device rip off his roof and dance down the street.

1993- LAPD announced an investigation of pop star Michael Jackson for possible child molestation. The investigation never led to any indictments, but the publicity tarnished his image. Equally damaging to his public image were revelations of his eccentric lifestyle, like his keeping chimps and mannequins around the house to talk to, and all the tap water and showers of his mansion spouting Evian water. Jackson was tried and acquitted of all charges in 2005.

1995- Microsoft's Windows 95 introduced.

1997- According to the 1984 James Cameron film The Terminator this was the day the Skynet computer system became self aware, and began the War of the Day of Judgement.

2004- Swiss scientist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, who wrote the Five Stages of Dying, died. She was 78. The day before she told a local newsperson, “When I meet God I will tell him he is a damned procrastinator!”

2011- Washington D.C. and much of the east coast U.S. was shaken by an earthquake. The first one in 121 years. Californians were told not to laugh too hard.

2011- Steve Jobs announced he was stepping down from all his positions at Apple, Pixar and Disney due to his failing health.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: ”In ancient Rome, what was a hypocaust?

Answer: A hypocaust was a system of central heating in a building that produced and circulated hot air below the floor of a room, and may also warm the walls with a series of pipes through which the hot air passes. Originally created for public baths, wealthy romans had them installed in their private homes.

Quiz: ”In ancient Rome, what was a hypocaust?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Is the Baja Peninsula part of Mexico or the USA?
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History for 8/23/2023
Birthdays: French King Louis XVI, Gene Kelly, Keith Moon, Rick Springfield, Sonny Jurgensen, Alphonse Mucha, River Phoenix, Queen Noor of Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Ed Benedict the designer of Yogi Bear and the Flintstones, Barbara Eden is 92, Vera Miles is 94, Shelley Long is 73, Nik Ranieri, Oscar Grillo

Roman Festival Vulcanalia, to pray to Vulcan to prevent fires.

In Kyoto Japan, this is the first day of the Fire Festival, when candles are placed at each statue in the Temple of the Eight Thousand Buddhas

In Swaziland, Happy Umhlanga Day!

408 AD- Roman Emperor Honorius killed his last competent General, Flavius Stilicho. It was rumored that Stilicho allowed a huge horde of barbarians cross the Rhine frontier last Christmas as part of a plot. But more likely Honorius was afraid Stilicho might try to overthrow him. The barbarians sacked Rome shortly after.

1305- In London, the great Scottish rebel William Wallace was hanged, then cut down while still alive and drawn and quartered. His head was stuck on a spike on London Bridge and his pieces were sent to be displayed in various parts of Scotland. But the Scots instead of being cowed, got even angrier. In 1314 won independence under their King Robert the Bruce.

1499- Christopher Columbus was fired as Governor of the Indies and sent back to Spain in chains. He was a great visionary but a lousy governor.

1524- A large armada of warships from Spain, Portugal, Genoa and the Vatican were sent to Algiers to deal once and for all with the Barbary Corsairs. These North African raiders terrorized the waters of the western Mediterranean under their bold captains like Kehir el Din "Barbarossa", Dragut and a mysterious man known only as The Jew of Smyrna. But when the Christian fleet arrived in the Bay of Algiers a large storm battered their ships and threw them on the shore. The survivors were slain or enslaved as they staggered up on the beach. The Barbary Pirates would continue to be a headache for Christian Europe sea travel for another 300 years.

1572-THE ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S DAY MASSACRE- The reason there are so few Protestants in France. Emotionally unstable King Charles IX and his domineering mother Catherine DeMedicis had been trying to cope with the growing hatred between Catholics and Protestants, called Huguenots. After several civil wars and several treaties Catherine tried to cement a permanent peace by marrying the Kings sister Margot to the Prince of the Protestants Henry of Navarre. Catholic Paris was filled with Huguenots for the wedding.
Then the night before Catholic extremists murdered the Huguenot leader Gaspar Coligny. When faced with this event King Charles blurted out,” Then slay them all, so none dare live to accuse me!” As the bells of Saint Margaret rang, a general massacre began throughout Paris. Protestants were put to the sword and the streets ran with blood. The massacre became so general that anybody who was mad at anybody declared them a Huguenot and they were promptly butchered. The Seine River flow turned red because it was choked up with corpses.
The Pope congratulated the French queen for ridding her land of heretics and ordered thanksgiving celebrations throughout Catholic Europe. In Spain, dour King Phillip II smiled for one of the few times in his life. Protestant countries were outraged and Britain’s Queen Elizabeth put her court in mourning. Even the Spanish Duke of Alba, who was burning dozens of Dutch Calvinists a day, thought this was “a base way to make war.” Protestant Prince Henry of Navarre under the Queens protection escaped and would eventually become king as Henry IV, first of the house of Bourbon. Within a year Charles IX died of tuberculosis, wracked with remorse:” What have I done? All that blood! I am damned!”

1617- The invention of the One-Way Street (London).
1628- The Duke of Buckingham was a favorite of King James I. After James’s death the Duke continued to hold great influence over his son Charles I. Many people blamed Buckingham for England’s problems, and for reversing James’s peace policy and dragging England into the disastrous Thirty Years War that was destroying Europe. Parliament loudly demanded the duke’s imprisonment while Charles stood by his father’s old confident. This day a lunatic solved the problem by buying a kitchen knife, hiking sixty miles to London and plunging it into the Duke of Buckingham’s chest, killing him in front of his wife and family. It was one but not the only argument Charles would have with his parliament.

1634- Spain’s greatest playwright Lope De Vega wrote his last poem “El Siglo de Oro” – the Golden Age. He died the next day at age 73. A duelist and sailor on the Spanish Armada, Voltaire ranked him alongside Shakespeare. His work was so popular, the Holy Office of the Inquisition got angry when people sang a blasphemous doggerel that began “We believe in One Lope, the Poet Almighty…”

1750- 37-year-old Swiss writer Jean Jacques Rousseau published his first mature work- Discourse on the Arts & Sciences. In it he breaks with the other French philosophers like Voltaire and Diderot and began his theory of the Noble Savage- that Civilization is the problem, and we were all a lot happier when we were primitives. Voltaire laughed “the pamphlet made me want to get down on all fours and live among the bears of Canada!”

1775- KING GEORGE III ISSUED A PROCLAMATION DECLARING HIS AMERICAN COLONIES IN A STATE OF REBELLION. Many English politicians like Charles Fox and John Wilkes felt the American colonists had some legitimate grievances that could have been peacefully addressed. Lord Chatham (Pitt the Elder) had gone as far to say in the House of Lords "The Englishmen on the other side of the Atlantic are only fighting for what the Englishmen at home should be fighting for, namely their rights!" He suggested several seats in Parliament be set aside for British North America.
But King George rejected all further debate and refused the "Olive Branch Petition", a final plea to avert war brought by the loyalist Governor of Pennsylvania William Penn III. "They must decide now whether they are our subjects or our enemies." -The King stated flatly.

The King's proclamation was that now the only solution would be by force of arms. Pardons would be given to those Americans who returned to their loyalty to the Crown, but British generals were given a secret list of ringleaders to be brought to London for trial like John Adams and Ben Franklin. Up to this point many Americans, even George Washington, felt complete independence was going too far and compromise with the motherland might still be possible. But after news of this Royal Proclamation reached America in October most then felt there was now no turning back.

1784- Frontiersmen west of the Alleghenies tried to found the independent state of Franklin. It later entered the union in 1796 as the state of Tennessee.

1864- Abe Lincoln was in despair. After four years of Civil War all the Northern armies were bogged down or defeated, the Confederacy showed no sign of collapse, and a popular General George McClellan announced he would run against Lincoln in the fall elections as a peace candidate. On this day Lincoln made all his cabinet sign a secret Presidential memo: " Seeing that it becoming more apparent that this Administration shall not continue in office, we pledge to work with the next President to save the Union between the election and the inauguration, because the next administration by its very nature shall be unable to accomplish this." In several days Sherman's capture of Atlanta and Sheridan's victories in the Shenandoah Valley would reverse public opinion and Lincoln would win re-election.

1872- The first commercial ship ever sent from Japan arrived in San Francisco carrying tea.

1914- Japan declared war on Germany. World War I, not two. The Japanese wanted to attack and capture the German held Chinese province of Tsingtao, where their big brewery was.

1922- Leader of the Irish IRA, Michael Collins was ambushed and killed by other Irish guerrillas while driving through his home county of Cork.

1926- Screen idol Rudolph Valentino died in a New York hospital of an infection due to a burst appendix and bleeding ulcer. He was only 30. Today his condition could be controlled by antibiotics, but they weren’t invented yet. Women around the world went mad with grief. From L.A. to Budapest, women committed suicide before his picture. In Japan two women jumped into a volcano shouting his name.

1937- At the urging of the Stanford Dean of engineering Fred Terman, graduate Bill Hewlett had his first meeting with David Packard. They called their company started out of their Palo Alto garage the Engineering Service Company. The Hewlett-Packard Company would one day be one of the biggest names in computers and their garage hailed as the birthplace of Silicon Valley.

1939-THE NAZIS-SOVIET PACT. Nazi minister Von Ribbentrop flew to Moscow and signed the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact. This cleared the way for Hitler's attack on Poland. Many in the west saw this as Stalin's untrustworthiness, but the Russians said they were reacting to the lack of enthusiasm shown by the Western Democracies in stopping Fascism. This was evident in Ethiopia, Czechoslovakia and particularly evident in Spain, where the Soviets backed the anti-Fascists to the hilt, with no help at all from the democracies.
But Stalin was genuinely duped by Hitler; maybe through the political rhetoric Stalin imagined he saw a fellow opportunist demagogue. It was obvious to Uncle Joe that the strategy of the West was to try and push Germany and Russia into war, so why would Hitler be stupid enough to do it? Even two days before the Nazis Invasion of Russia Stalin refused to believe the reports of his spies that Hitler was going to betray him.
Josef Stalin’s action for temporary tactical advantage destroyed the intellectual justification for Russia’s leadership of Global Communism. All though the 1920’s and 30’s Communism seemed to some the best hope of the Left for stopping the Fascist dictators and winning Civil and Labor rights. But when Moscow ordered all good Communists to stop criticizing Hitler, they lost the sympathies of many progressives. Americans, Britons and Zionist Jews began to leave the party in droves.

1939-The Meeker St Bridge between Brooklyn and Queens completed. It was renamed the Kosciusko Bridge in honor of the Polish patriot who fought in the American Revolution. In George Washington’s time no one knew how to say his name either. They called him Colonel Koz. The bridge was rebuilt in 2017.

1942-THE BATTLE OF STALINGRAD BEGAN. As clouds of Nazi planes bombed the city to flaming rubble, the tanks of the Nazi 16th Panzer Division reached the Volga River and began to fight their way into the northern suburbs of the City of Stalingrad. The 16th’s General was one-armed Hans Huber, whom his men nicknamed Die Mensch- The Man!
The Germans were met by elements of the Red Army mixed with marines and civilians driving new unpainted T-34 tanks fresh from their factory assembly line. An estimated 40,000 civilians died just in this first attack, as many people as had died at Waterloo, and the battle just beginning. The German 6th Army attack stalled in the city center and the fighting went on until next February.

1942- Fascist Italian troops were aiding their Nazi allies in the invasion of Russia. At Izbushensky near the Don River a regiment of Savoy cavalry charged Soviet troops with drawn sabers. It was called the last cavalry charge with drawn sabers in history.

1944- Romania was declared liberated from the Nazis by the Red Army.

1947-President Truman’s daughter Margaret gave her first public singing concert. President Truman spent the following day personally telephoning music critics and threatening any who dared to give her harsh reviews. Paul Hume, the Washington Post’s music critic, wrote that Margaret Truman “cannot sing very well. She is flat most of the time.” The furious father dashed off a letter to Hume, warning that if they ever meet, “You’ll need a new nose, and plenty of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”
1948- The World Council of Churches set up.

1953- David Mullany of Shelton Conn. invented the Whiffle Ball. He did it to help his son who was lousy at throwing a curve ball.

1964- Twist and Shout! The Beatles played the Hollywood Bowl.

1967- The record album “Are You Experienced” the debut album by Jimmy Hendrix and the Jimmy Hendrix Experience first went on sale. With songs like “Purple Haze, Hey Joe, and Foxy Lady “, it became one of the top albums of the year.

1996- In Afghanistan, an obscure terrorist group called Al Qaeda led by some guy named Osama bin Laden held a press conference where they actually declared holy war (Jihad) on the United States. Five years before the 9-11 attacks.

2007- Open-source advocate Paul Messina created the hashtag for Twitter.
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Yesterday’s Question: Is the Baja Peninsula part of Mexico or the USA?

Answer: It is called Baja California, but it is actually a state of Mexico.

Question: Is the Baja Peninsula part of Mexico or the USA?

Yesterday’s Quiz: In history, who was The Young Pretender. Hint: The son of the Old Pretender.
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History for 8/22/2023
Birthdays: George Herriman the creator of Krazy Kat, Dorothy Parker, Claude DeBussy, Johnny Lee Hooker, Denis Papin 1647 inventor of the Pressure Cooker, Leni Reifenstahl, General Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, Paul Molitor, Bill Parcells, Max Vilander, Carl “Big Yaz” Yazstremski, Dyanna Nyad, Deng Xiao Ping, Henry Cartier Bresson, Valerie Harper, Ray Bradbury, Cindy Williams, Kristen Wiig is 50

In Britain it is National Slacker Day: Stand Up for your Right to Sit Back Down!

565AD – St. Columba reported seeing a sea monster in Loch Ness.

1485-"A Horse! A Horse! My Kingdom for a Horse!!" Battle of Bosworth Field. Welsh prince Henry Tudor defeated and killed King Richard III and became King Henry VII, first of the Tudor Dynasty. Henry Tudor was married to Elizabeth Rivers, the daughter of Richards dead brother King Edward IV, further strengthening his claim to the throne. Shakespeare made Richard out to be a usurper and child murderer, but couldn’t hide the fact that he died well. Whatever the truth, he went down sword in hand, fighting like a true descendant of Richard Lionheart. Recently Richard’s skeleton was found under a parking lot, and he did indeed have a misshapen spine and club foot.

1558- When Antonio Carafa became Pope Paul IV. Former head of the Inquisition, he blamed the loss of half of Europe to Protestantism to the corruption in the Catholic Church. He attacked the dry rot with zeal. He started with a warning to all monks away from their monasteries without permission to return at once. This day he ordered the gates of Rome closed. All deadbeat monks still AWOL to be rounded up and sentenced to be galley slaves. He’s the Pope who created the Index of Forbidden Books and ordered little cloths painted on Michelangelo’s nude Christ in the Last Judgment.

1572- Admiral Gaspar Coligny, was leader of the French Huguenots –Protestants, and was one of the most powerful men in France. This night he was recovering from an earlier assassination attempt, when agents of the Duke du Guise rushed into his room and stabbed him to death. They hurled his body out a window to smash on the pavement stones at the Dukes feet. When it was pointed out to the king that the French Protestants may not like this, the emotionally unstable King Charles IX shouted:" Then slay them all, so none shall remain to accuse me!" The Great Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre was the result.

1611- Galileo made a group of Venetian senators climb to the top of Saint Marks Basilica in Venice with him to demonstrate to them his new invention, the telescope.

1715 – Handel’s "Watermusic" premiered on the Thames River to mark celebrations of the Peace ending the 15 year long War of Spanish Succession.

1776- The Long Island Campaign began. British General Lord Howe and his brother Admiral Richard, called “Black Dick”, commanded the largest invasion force ever sent by England. Today they began ferrying their army from tory-loyalist Staten Island across the Straights of Verrazano for the march towards the village of Breuklyn. -Brooklyn. Their Hessian mercenaries, to show off their discipline, stood at rigid attention as the flatboats bobbed in the choppy water. Now that the British fleet were anchored inside New York Harbor, George Washington agreed that New York City was as already lost. He contemplated burning the town to keep it from being used by the enemy as a base. But Congress couldn't let him give up America’s largest city without a fight.

1791-THE NIGHT OF FIRE- Haitian slaves, after decades of oppression were organized by a voodoo priest named Boumann. This night they set fire to plantations, crops and massacred 300 white settlers. This began the great Haitian Revolution which will rage until 1811 and make Haiti the second republic in the New World.

1806- elderly French painter Jean Fragonard died of a cerebral seizure after eating a large fruit ice on a hot day.

1848- Ulysses Grant married Julia Dent. One of the only things Grant did well other than win the Civil War was his long and happy marriage to his Julia.

1849- The first aerial bomb attack. Austrian General Von Wintzingerode was at a loss at how to get at the besieged Italian city of Venice. The Venetian lagoon was too deep to wade across but was too shallow for battleships. Finally, a Swiss mercenary suggested filling hot air balloons with troops and flying them over the city to drop explosives. A dozen pilotless balloons filled with grenadiers were launched aloft, and one or two did drop some grenades, but soon a stiff breeze blew them all to Croatia. Doh!

1851- The schooner America defeated the British yacht Aurora to win the trophy called the Hundred Guinea Cup that would in time be called the America's Cup. It was the first win for the US in an international sports competition. American yachts continued to win it for the next 150 years until Australia II took it in 1984.

1860- Italian nationalist leader Giuseppe Garibaldi with his 'redshirts' crossed the Straights of Messina from Sicily and invaded the boot of Italy.

1882- American showman P.T. Barnum bought the largest elephant in the London Zoo. He created a new name for the beast- he called it JUMBO. It was the highlight of his circus for years. After Jumbo was hit by a freight train and died, PT Barnum had its bones bleached and charged people admission to come look at its skeleton.

1901-The Cadillac Automobile Company formed. Named for the French explorer who founded Detroit, William De La Mothe-Cadillac.

1902- Teddy Roosevelt became the first president to ride in an automobile.

1906 - 1st Victor Victrola manufactured, using Emile Berliners flat record turntable system. The Victrola was so cheap and easy to use it became standard in many homes and finished off any competition from Thomas Edison’s rival talking cylinder system.

1910- Despite a pledge after the Russo-Japanese War that they would bestow “complete freedom” on the Korean people, this day Japan’s military occupied Korea and annexed it to the Japanese Empire.

1914- The Angel of Mons. British forces stalled the German advance towards Paris with a fighting retreat, and in so doing helped the main French army to win at the Marne. In a proclamation to his generals Kaiser Wilhelm stated, “Roll over this contemptible little British Army!” The term appealed to the Tommies, and they nicknamed themselves “The Old Contemptibles”. At this time newspapers reported that soldiers claimed they saw ghosts in shining armor aiding the British army. "those who could see said they saw 'a row of shining beings' between the two armies.”
The German field general was General Von Kluck, whose name rhymed with the Britons favorite expletive. As the marched through Belgian streets, the soldiers sang “We don’t give a F*CK about old Von KLUCK, an iz whole F*CKING ARMY!”

1922- After World War I, Lawrence of Arabia wrote home from Baghdad about the Postwar British occupation of Iraq:” The Public had been led into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with honor. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. The Baghdad communiques have been belated, insincere and incomplete. Things have been far worse here than we have been told.”

1927- Walt Disney’s last Alice in Cartoonland short, Alice in The Big Leagues released.

1927- 200,000 people protest in Hyde Park London and around the world for clemency for convicted Italian immigrants Nicolo Sacco and Bartolomeo Vancetti. They were socialists who were convicted of murdering a store clerk in Massachusetts and became a radical cause-celebre. Letters demanding mercy came in from George Bernard Shaw, Helen Keller, Picasso, the Pope and more. Woody Guthrie wrote folk songs in praise of Sacco & Vancetti. The next day the State of Massachusetts electrocuted them anyway.

1929- Walt Disney’s Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance premiered. The tight dancing synch inspired a generation of animators. The idea of skeletons was suggested by composer Carl Stalling, a Kansas City movie theater organist that Walt befriended.

1935- Father Charles Coughlin, “the Radio Priest” addressed ten thousand in Madison Square Gardens. At the height of his popularity almost one third the American public tuned into his weekly radio address. But as his influence waned after the 1936 presidential elections he turned increasingly to racist Anti-Semitism. He even tried to make excuses for Kristallnacht. In 1942 with America in the war, his archbishop with permission from the Vatican ordered him to shut up, on pain of being defrocked. He retired from public life.

1939- The first aerosol spray can.

1942- Brazil declared war on the Axis powers. She was the only Latin American country to send troops to Europe to fight in World War II.

1942- Tex Avery’s first cartoon for MGM, The Blitz Wolf.

1945- This was the date Stalin scheduled for the Soviet invasion of Hokaido, in North Japan. The American attack, in the event the atomic bombs didn't work, was not scheduled until November 1st. With all of the remaining Japanese army concentrated on the southern beaches awaiting the American landings, if the Russian invasion in the north had come off as scheduled, they would have been able to overrun Northern Japan quite easily. The world might have had to settle for a divided Japan resembling Korea. History however, turned out differently.

1953- The French government closed the Devil's Island prison colony.

1962- Rogue French army officers, angry at France’s yielding independence to Algeria, try to assassinate Pres. Charles DeGaulle. Near Orly Airport, they opened up with machine guns on the presidential motorcade. They killed two police motorcyclists, but DeGaulle’s peppy Citroen DS sped away and escaped the gunfire. For that, DeGaulle made sure Citroen would never go bankrupt. The incident was the basis for the novel and film The Day of the Jackal.

1976- The protest at the Seabrook Nuclear Plant in New Hampshire. The birth of the U.S. anti-nuclear movement.

1984 – The last Volkswagen Rabbit produced.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In history, who was The Young Pretender?

Answer: When the Scots dynasty of King James II was driven from the English throne by William and Mary in 1688, they lived in exile in Rome. There they plotted and planned to some day return to power. After old King James II died, his son James Stuart (1688-1766) was called The Old Pretender, and his son Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788), was called The Young Pretender, aka Bonnie Prince Charlie. Pretender meant if the people of Great Britain ever tired of their current dynasty, they were ready and willing to come back.

Quiz: In history, who was The Young Pretender? Hint: The son of the Old Pretender.

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: In the 1930s Jazz musicians referred to all black venues as The Chittlin Circuit. Because at times the owner paid the musicians in chittlins. What are chittlins?
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History for 8/21/2023
Birthdays: Christopher Robin Milne-1920, King Phillip II Augustus of France- 1165, King William IV of England- 1765, Aubrey Beardsley, Count Basie*, Wilt (Wilt the Stilt) Chamberlain, Friz Freleng, Kenny Rogers, Princess Margaret, Matthew Broderick, Vance Gerry, Basil Poliodouris, Steve Hillenberg the creator of Spongebob Squarepants, Peter Weir is 79, Kim Catrall is 67, Carrie Anne Moss is 56

*Count Basie's first name was William. When working in a swing band he'd often get to work late. This would make the band's director ask, “Where is that no-account Basie? “Which in his colloquial slang came out: "Where dat no' Count Basie!?" Hence the nickname.

Consualia- Roman Festival of the first Harvest

1560 –Danish scientist Tycho Brahe wrote that he had become interested in astronomy.

1561- Queen Catherine de Medici attempts to solve the bitter wrangling over Protestants and Catholics dividing France by convening a grand Estates General at Fontainbleau. Huguenot leader Admiral Gaspar Coligny presented the Petition of the Huguenots. By then 20% of the French population were Protestant (Huguenots). They declared loyalty to the crown while asking that all men be allowed to worship as they pleased. It didn’t work. Soon Catholics and Huguenots were killing each other in the streets. Coligny was murdered in the Great Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre.

1810- After the Swedish Royal family, the Vasas, died out, the Swedish Diet with major arm twisting by Napoleon, voted to have French General Bernadotte, married to the daughter of one of Nappy's old girlfriends Desiree' Clary, become the new King and Queen. Napoleon saw this move as adding Sweden to his continental empire but Bernadotte later changed sides and joined the allies. At the end of the Napoleonic wars Bernadotte hoped the Russian Czar would reward him with the throne of France but he let him keep Norway to add to his kingdom. Two centuries later Napoleon and the Czar’s families have lost their thrones, but Bernadotte’s descendants still rule Sweden today.

1820- After Argentina and Chile had been liberated from Spain, the army of Jose San Martin embarked from Valparaiso to invade Peru.

1858- The first Lincoln-Douglas debates. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas squared off in a series of open air debates for a congressional seat for Illinois. But the main subject was the slavery issue. Douglas, the 'Little Giant" won the congressional seat, but the debates brought national attention to Lincoln. Douglas had even courted Lincoln's wife Mary before they were married. After Lincoln was in the White House, Douglas became his strong supporter.

1863- THE LAWRENCE KANSAS MASSACRE – In the Western Border States the town of Lawrence Kansas was the center of pro-Union partisans. Locals called it YankeeTown. Early in the morning this day Confederate guerrilla leader William Clark Quantrill led 450 hard-riding Missouri raiders flying black flags into town.
As the wild horsemen galloped up Massachusetts Avenue burning and looting, Quantrill stood up in his saddle and shouted “Kill! Kill! Kill all the n-loving Yankees!” There was no regular army there. They murdered 200 civilians, mostly old men and boys. A guerrilla named Rev Larkin Skaggs tore down the Stars & Stripes and dragged it behind his horse in the mud to the laughter of the troops. There were some regular Confederate officers present who were appalled at the carnage. They later showed their unfired weapons to survivors to witness that they did not take part in the crimes.
Rev. Skaggs was shot down by a Delaware Indian as he tried to ride out of town. The citizens dragged his scalped corpse up and down the main street shooting it and pelting it with stones. It was later tossed into a ravine for wild dogs to eat. Many people never recovered from the nightmare. In 1865 at the end of the Civil War, William Quantrill was brought down in a hail of bullets. Quantrill's Raiders included young pups like 17-year-old Jesse James, Frank James and Cole Younger.

1878 - American Bar Association was organized at Saratoga, NY.

1887- Mighty (Dan) Casey struck out at his last at bat with the NY Giants. The poem by Ernest Lawrence Thayer was written many years later.

1888- William S. Burroughs of St Louis patented the first modern adding machine, not counting the abacus.

1897- Ransom Eli Olds opened the Olds Auto Works in Detroit. The produced a new horseless carriage he called the Oldsmobile.

1911- Café waiter Vincenzo Perugia walked into the Louvre and stole the Mona Lisa. Paris Police arrested Surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire, thinking the theft was some kind of statement by modernist movement artists. For two years Vincenzo Perugia tried to fence the painting with no luck. Finally while trying to claim a ransom for it, he was arrested and the painting recovered.

1912- Arthur Eldred of Oceanside New York became the first Eagle scout.

1921- On his first birthday, Christopher Robin Milne was given a Farrell teddy bear from Harrods. His parents first called it Edward, but when he could speak Christopher Robin named it Winnie, after Winnipeg, his favorite bear he saw at the zoo. The child would also mention the name of a swan there he liked named Pooh. This gave his dad A.A. Milne a neat idea for a new book.

1929- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo marry.

1931- Pardon Us, the first feature length film starring Laurel & Hardy. In 1926, Hal Roach Studio director Leo McCarey noticed the Briton Stan Laurel and Georgia-born singer Oliver Hardy looked funny together. He put them in a series of shorts starting with Putting Pants on Phillip (1927). Pardon Us was their first Sound film. Laurel & Hardy became one of the iconic comedy teams in film history.

1935- Big band leader Benny Goodman was having a tough time. His band lost its radio gig when the show Let’s Dance was canceled. So, he and his musicians drove across the country in a small caravan of cars playing various venues on the road. They were told in small towns to stop playing that newfangled Swing music and stick to old standards. One manager in Denver told him:” Don’t you guys know any waltzes? ” By the time they arrived in Los Angeles this day they were thoroughly demoralized. But today when they set up in the Palomar Ballroom in Hollywood the crowd was immense! And these kids wanted to jitterbug to the new Swing music! So hit it, Jackson, Awl Reet, Awl Reet!

1941- Nazi forces cut off the supplies and began the 800 day Siege of Leningrad. A directive from Berlin announced, “The Fuehrer has decided to have St. Petersburg wiped off the face of the earth.” The epic siege would earn Leningrad the title of Hero-City. Dmitri Shostakovitch wrote and debuted his Leningrad symphony (#7) even as the Nazi Stukas reigned bombs down from above. He would have to take periodic breaks from composing to serve in the city fire brigade. Leningrad’s stand probably saved Moscow because it tied down troops the Germans needed for the final drive on the Russian Capitol. After Communism’s collapse in 1991 Leningrad regained its original name of St. Petersburg.

1944- Movie star James Cagney, star of Yankee Doodle Dandy, was cleared of charges of Communism. The accusations probably had less to do with Cagney's politics and more to do with his actors union activism, and his fighting in court the restrictive personal service contracts studios put their stars under.

1959- Hawaii became the 50th state.

1961- The British colonial authorities release Kenyan nationalist leader Njomo Kenyatta from prison.

1967 –New York Mets second baseman Ken Harrelson became the first baseball free agent.

1968- RUSSIAN TANKS CRUSH THE "PRAGUE SPRING' -Soviet forces destroyed Alexander Dubchek's experiment of "Socialism with a Human Face." 650.000 Soviet and Warsaw Pact troops moved on the small country from three sides. Some of the Red Army soldiers marching into Prague were from Siberia and had never seen a western city before. Carlos Casteneda, who was there for a socialist progressive conference, recalled seeing a Soviet tank crash right through a department store glass window. The driver had never seen a glass window that large and didn't think anything was there. A Czech put a sign over the window frame: "NOTHING CAN STOP THE INVINCIBLE RED ARMY!"

1972 - Grace Slick was sprayed with mace by police after one of her band called the cops pigs.

1981- John Landis’ “American Werewolf in London” opened.

1983- Benino Aquino, chief political opponent of Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos, was promised no reprisals if he returned from exile in Hawaii. Stepping off the plane in Manila, an assassin immediately shot him dead. His wife Cory Aquino took over, and led the "people power" revolution that toppled Marcos.

1987- The movie Dirty Dancing opened.

1989- The Voyager II space probe flew by the planet Neptune. It was discovered Neptune had a faint ring like Saturn and rotated on its side- south-north instead of west to east. Scientists speculated the atmospheric pressure to be so great that it could actually rain diamonds.

1995- Bill Gates announced Microsoft Windows 95.

2003- A two-week heatwave in Europe killed 17,000 in France. 13,000 people dead in Germany, Italy 12,000. Most were elderly people sitting in their locked apartments without air conditioning while their families went on their august holidays. It was probably the largest heat wave death in modern times, since it took place in only a few days.

2011- Anti Khaddafi rebels stormed the Libyan capital Tripoli, ending the dictator’s reign.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In the 1930s Jazz musicians referred to all black venues as The Chittlin Circuit. Because at times the owner paid the musicians in chittlins. What are chittlins?.

Answer: Fried stuffed pig intestines.

Quiz: In the 1930s Jazz musicians referred to all black venues as The Chittlin Circuit. Because at times the owner paid the musicians in chittlins. What are chittlins?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: June Foray (1917-2017) was a famous voice actress who voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel for Jay Ward and Witchy Hazel for Chuck Jones. But she did a voice in a Disney film as well. What was it?
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History for 8/20/2023
Birthdays: President Benjamin Harrison, Sukenoba Nishikawa, Bernardo O’Higgins, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, H.P. Lovecraft, Art Tatum, Issac Hayes, Connie Chung, Jacqueline Susanne, Rajiv Ghandi, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin, Joan Allen is 67, Fred Durst, Alan Reed -the original voice of Fred Flintstone, Slobodan Milosovic’, Amy Adams is 49

Feast day of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

480 B.C. -THE THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS- When Persian King Xerxes invaded Greece the King of Sparta Leonidas decided the best place to try and stop him was in the narrow pass of Thermopylae. But the Spartan senate and other allied Greek states refused to send troops until they completed the Olympiad festival. It was forbidden for Greeks to wage war during the Games. So. Leonidas went with the 300 Spartans of his bodyguard, and a thousand more allied troops, to try and stall ten times their number. After repulsing several attacks a traitor showed Xerxes a goat path around the Spartan position. Leonidas could still have retreated but he, his three hundred and some other Greek allies decided to stand and fight to the last man. They were wiped out, but they bought enough time for the Greeks eventual victory.

Later a monument was erected over their bones: O xein angellin Lakdaimoniois hoti tede keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi- which means "Go Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that True to their Command, Here We Lie."

636 A.D. Battle of Yarmouk- The Arab armies led by their General Khalid bin Walid defeated the Byzantines and captured Palestine and Jerusalem. Caliph Omar received the defeated Byzantine Emperor Romanus Diogenes with a cup of fruit flavored ice called sherbat or sorbet. The custom was for high-born prisoners like an emperor to be ransomed back. But the Byzantine court was so angry, they said keep him!

1191- At the siege of Acre, Richard Lionheart had 3,000 Arab people and their families slaughtered in front of Saladin just to piss him off.

1619- A Dutch ship anchored at the English colony at Jamestown Virginia and landed the first African slaves. Twenty people. By the American Revolution, three million African people had been forcibly brought to America. There was slavery of the Indians and white slavery as well in the form of indentured servitude, but that had mostly died out by the American Revolution. In 1809 when an international treaty was signed to outlaw the overseas slave trade, even though despots like the Czar of Russia signed it, the only nation that refused was the United States.

1648- Battle of Lens, the last battle of the Thirty Years War. Archduke Leopold defeated somebody or other. The Thirty Years war went on so long that all those who started the war in 1618 had died and by 1648 nobody remembered how the whole damn mess got started in the first place.

1672- THE DAY THE DUTCH ATE THEIR PRIME MINISTER. Jan DeWitt had governed the Netherlands as Grand Pensioner of the Republic for four terms. But by now many Dutch hated him for his weak handling of wars with England and France. They wanted the more resolute leadership of young William III of Orange. Jan De Witt resigned his offices and when his brother Cornelius was imprisoned, Jan went to his aid. A mob broke into the Gevangenpoort jail. As unsympathetic guards looked on they beat Jan and Cornelius to death and hung their bodies from a lamp-post. Some reports say the mob tore strips of flesh from their bodies and ate them.

1741-VITUS BERING DISCOVERED ALASKA and helps colonize California. Well, he didn't actually help, but for 200 years Spain had ignored it's Southwest colonies because there were no more gold-rich Inca empires there. But when Berring opened the Pacific coast to Russian colonization, the King of Spain freaked and ordered towns and missions built up the California coast. Britain also rushed its’ claims to Washington State and British Columbia. This is why Juan De Cabrillo explored the California coast in 1542, but cities like L.A. and San Francisco weren't founded until 1776.
Bering was a reluctant explorer. The Dane had heard Czar Peter the Great was giving cushy salaries to skilled European sailors. But when Bering arrived in Russia the Czar ordered him to travel 3,700 miles to Siberia, build a fleet and explore the arctic because the Czar had always wondered if America and Russia are connected. He went off and fooled around in the Arctic Sea for awhile, then went back and said it wasn't. The Czars scientists said that wasn't good enough, go back and do it again! Finally, he discovered his Bering Straights, but died of scurvy in the Aleutians before he ever got paid.

1794- Napoleon Bonaparte was released from prison at Caps d’Antibe. He was arrested with the leading Jacobins when Robespierre was overthrown. Nappy was friends with Robespierre’s brother.

1794- BATTLE OF FALLEN TIMBERS, American General Mad Anthony Wayne defeated the Shawnee and Miami Indians under Chief Blue Jacket and Little Turtle. By treaty signed after the victory, the Indians agreed to withdraw to the West, opening up the Ohio Valley to white settlement.

1862- SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN or MANASSAS. Robert E. Lee maneuvered the larger Union army of General George Pope back onto the old Bull Run battlefield and smashed it, sending thousands of bluecoats running back to Washington, -again. Pope considered himself a man of action and bragged "From now on my headquarters are in the saddle!" To which one wag wrote :"It's not the first time that a general had his Headquarters where his Hindquarters should be!' Confederate General James Longstreet was nursing a foot wound so he directed the decisive attack wearing bedroom slippers instead of boots.

After three spectacular Yankee defeats in just two months, the Confederate cause was looking pretty good. In London, Prime Minister Palmerston wrote Lord Liverpool the foreign secretary that Washington or Baltimore would soon fall into rebel hands and a special steamboat was kept waiting at the navy docks to rush President Lincoln and his cabinet to safety when the capitol fell. The time may have arrived for England to offer her mediation to negotiate a ceasefire. Emperor Napoleon III of France was also offering Paris as the site of an international peace conference to oversee the final separation of North and South.

1866- One year after the Civil War ended President Andrew Johnson declared the great insurrection officially over and rescinded all remaining wartime regulations and edicts, reinstating Habeas Corpus, etc.

1882 -Peter Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" premiered in Moscow. The composer said of all his works the two pieces he liked the least were the 1812 Overture and the Nutcracker Suite. Overture 1812 was Richard Nixon’s favorite classical piece.

1896 – The Dial telephone patented. It was nicknamed the Gravediggers Dial because it was invented by funeral director Almon Stroweger. His inspiration to create the automated switching system was the local telephone operator was the wife of his competitor in the funeral business. She kept sending all inquiries for an undertaker to her husband. The rotary dial and Strowger switching system was the world standard until replaced by the touchtone button system in the 1980s. Even though the dial phone is a memory, the words remain when we speak of dialing a phone number.

1913- The first successful parachute jump. French balloonists experimented with parachutes in the 1790's but this is the first practical one.

1940- In Mexico City exiled Russian leader Leon Trotsky was assassinated. While writing at his desk he was hacked in the skull with a mountain-climbers pick. His murderer Ramon Mercador- alias Jules Antoine, alias Jackson, was paid by Stalin's agents. He got into Trotsky's household by dating one of the maids. It was rumored that part of the Stalinist cell in Mexico was famed painter David Siqueiros. Trotsky was having an affair with painter Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky predicted Stalin would try to get him while the world's attention was distracted by the Hitler War in Europe. When Mercador was released from a Mexican prison, Stalin presented him with a medal, the Order of Lenin.

1940- In a radio speech Winston Churchill praised the efforts of the Royal Air Force in fighting Hitler's bombers-"Never have so Many, owed so Much, to so Few.'

1953- The Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in Women first published. Alfred & Clara Kinsey’s study proved to the conservative American public that 50% of women had premarital sex, liked sex for more than just procreation, and 25% had an extramarital affair. This document following their 1948 report on sexual behavior of men revolutionized social attitudes towards sex and feminism.

1954- President Eisenhower’s intelligence chief Allan Foster Dulles presented a paper on Far East Policy in which he urged that the US support be given to the post-colonial government of South Vietnam in opposition to communist Ho Chi Minh.

1971. FBI documents prove this day the Nixon White House began to covertly investigate journalist Daniel Schorr because of his anti-war editorials. President Richard Nixon kept an enemies list of people he imagined to be opponents to his administration. It began with obvious liberals like George McGovern and Ted Kennedy, then expanded as far as June Foray the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

1972- Top Hollywood directors Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich and William Friedkin announced a partnership in a new production company called "The Director's Company". Youngsters Martin Scorsese, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were also signatories. The partnership lasted two years then collapsed.

1982- Ralph Bakshi's film Hey Good Lookin'.

1982- President Reagan sent the Marines into civil war torn Beirut Lebanon.

1985- Israel shipped 96 American-made shoulder held missiles to the radical Ayatollahs of Iran. This was part of the Iran-Contra scheme. When Congress had forbidden the Ronald Reagan White House to send any money to Anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan’s people cooked up this scheme to sell the Iranians weapons for covert funds for the Nicaraguan Contras.

1989- George Adamson, who with his wife Joy were the naturalists who inspired the book Born Free, was murdered with machetes by Somali poachers in Kampi Ya Simba Game Preserve.

1994- Studio head Jeffrey Katzenberg resigned from the Walt Disney Company.

1998- THE WAG THE DOG ATTACKS- After the Al Qaeda terrorist organization bombed US embassies in Africa, the Clinton Administration looked for an opportunity to hit back. This day the CIA got word that senior Al Qaeda leaders including Osama bin Laden were gathered in a remote Afghan camp for a meeting. President Clinton ordered a spread of cruise missiles launched to kill them. The missiles hit their target, but Osama got away. In Washington, the hostile Conservative press had a field day accusing Clinton of making the strikes only to distract public attention from the Monica Lewinsky Sex Scandal. It alluded to a popular movie out at the time called Wag the Dog, where a scandal ridden president rigs a phony crisis to distract public attention. Bill Clinton was stymied in any further efforts, and Osama bin Laden lived on to plan 9-11.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: June Foray (1917-2017) was a famous voice actress who voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel for Jay Ward and Witchy Hazel for Chuck Jones. But she did a voice in a Disney film as well. What was it?

Answer: She voiced Lucifer the Cat in Cinderella, an old Indian woman in Peter Pan as well as a Mermaid, and Lena Hyena in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.