Question: What is the difference between a question and a rhetorical question?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean to be didactic? To speak didactically.
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History for 7/16/2023
Birthdays: Andrea Del Sarto, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ginger Rogers, Pinchas Zukerman,
Orville Redenbacher, Roald Amundsen, Sunny Tufts, Barbera Stanwyck, Reuben Blades, Mary Baker-Eddy the founder of Christian Science, Phoebe Cates, Will Farrell is 57

1054 –The GREAT SCHISM- Eastern Greek Orthodox and Latin Roman Catholic Churches split. The Patriarch of Constantinople Michael I Cerularius and Pope Leo IX mutually excommunicate one another. When Catholic Crusaders sacked Constantinople in 1209 they put a prostitute on the Orthodox Patriarch's throne just for laughs. The Greek Patriarch referred to the Vatican in Rome as a "Synagogue of Satan!"
Historian Ernle Bradford stated that his event marked the moment when Christianity ceased to be a supra-national force for unity in Europe the way Islam was in the Arab world. Europeans would now turn to nationalism as their identifying creed and Christianity took a backseat.

1099- JERUSALEM FELL TO THE CRUSADERS- The knights of the First Crusade broke into the city and committed horrible massacres of the population. The rampaging knights even cut down Armenian & Syrian Christians, because they looked dark and were dressed like Arabs. In an ironic twist of history, the Jewish population fought shoulder to shoulder alongside their Arab cousins. When the massacre started they withdrew to a central synagogue where the Christians barred he doors and set fire to the building, burned them to death.
The Crusaders then declared the Holy City free, and warlord Geoffrey de Boullion declared himself "Protector of the Holy Sepulcher" instead of king, since in his opinion "There is no King here but Christ". After he died his younger brother Baldwin made himself King of Jerusalem. The Crusaders held Jerusalem for about a hundred years.

1212- BATTLE OF LAS NAVAS DE TOLOSA (Al Uqab) Christian Kings of Spain defeated the Moors and began the "Reconquista", the gradual winning back of the Iberian peninsula lasting until 1492. King Pedro of Aragon was nicknamed Pedro the Lecher, because of his sexual appetite. Legend has him having to be helped into the saddle after taking on 100 women in one night!

1439 - Kissing is banned in England to stop diseases from spreading. I wonder if they knew about fist-bumping?

1690- After the collapse of his cause in the Battle of the Boyne, King James II Stuart fled Ireland for exile.

1721- Guilliame DuBois, archbishop of Cambrai was ordained a Cardinal. The Bishop was one of the most sexually promiscuous men in France, outdone only by his master Phillipe D’Orleans, Regent for the boy King Louis XV. The memoirist Madame De Sainte Simon wrote “His Eminence, the Cardinal had a face like a ferret, and was a Cloaca Maxima of depravity.” named for Rome’s largest sewer. Yet despite his sexual reputation, he ran Frances’ foreign policy almost as well as Cardinal Richelieu did a century earlier. France was at peace for 27 years. His only fear as Cardinal was that his wife would renege on the blackmail money, he paid her and go public.

1769- Fra Junipero Serra founded his first Mission settlement in California- San Diego de Alcala, now the City of San Diego. The master plan was to create a string of missions from San Diego to San Francisco one day’s ride apart- San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, Santa Anna, San Gabriel, Santa Maria Reina de Los Angeles, etc.

1777- I WILL FIND YOU! -In frontier Kentucky outside of Boones borough Jemima Boone and her girlfriend are set upon by a Shawnee Indian war party and kidnapped. Her daddy Daniel Boone with seven men tracked the war party. This day after a sharp fight they freed the women. Despite killing the son of the Shawnee chief, Boone was later adopted into the tribe in his place. This incident was widely reported in the colonies and was the basis for James Fenimore Cooper’s novel The Last of the Mohicans.

1779- American colonial General "Mad" Anthony Wayne attacks the British garrison at Stony Point, New York.

1862- In Paris the French Emperor Napoleon III received John Slidell, the ambassador of the Confederate States. But France declined to intervene in the American Civil War.

1877- THE GREAT UPHEAVAL- The B&O Railroad cuts their workers wages 10% for the second time that year. (there had been a recession raging in the U.S. economy since 1873). Workers and engineers at Martinsburg Virginia went out on strike and started sabotaging trains. The strike soon spread coast to coast and became America's first nationwide strike. The laws protecting workers union rights were still far in the future so strikes were put down by troops randomly shooting into crowds, mass firings and vigilante murder of union leaders.
The violence shocked the rest of the world. Karl Marx wrote Engels "did you hear what is happening in America?” He always thought industrialized countries like America and England would go communist long before Russia and China.

1918- CZAR NICHOLAS ROMANOV AND FAMILY MURDERED. After abdicating the Czar's family was imprisoned in a house in Siberia. The anti-Communist While armies were about to capture the area. So from Moscow Vladimir Lenin sent orders that they all be killed. In the middle of the night commissar Yakov Sverdlov told the Czar they were to be moved and were ordered to wait in a basement room of their house. Outside Red guards revved a truck motor to mask the sound of the guns. Then a group of soldiers came in the room pulled out their pistols. Nicholas’ last word before the guns went off was "Schto? " What the-? They even shot the family doctor, the boy’s sailor bodyguard and the family dog a cocker spaniel named Jimmy.
The anti-Communist forces captured the area two weeks later and told the world about the crime. Seeing what happened to the Russian Czar may be part of the reason the Kaiser and Austrian Emperor went quietly into exile after losing the Great War. Bones weren't discovered until 1988 and in 1993 DNA testing proved them to be the true remains of the Czar and his family. DNA Testing on the remains of a woman who died in 1984 named Anna Andersen, who claimed to be the child Duchess Anastasia were negative.

The reason the children's remains weren't in with the others was because the Bolsheviks first tried destroying their remains with sulfuric acid but found it took too long, so they cremated the rest. Czar Nicholas II and his family were made saints of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1994.

1932- Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudette Colbert took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath and that by the second day the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day. DeMille always got away with sexy semi-nude scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a morality tale from the Good Book?

1935- The first parking meter set up in Oklahoma City.

1936 - 1st x-ray photo of arterial circulation, Rochester, NY

1945-THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB EXPLODED at Alamagordo New Mexico (site code name was "Trinity'). Called at first the Super Cosmic Bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget". The Manhattan Project scientists weren't sure that once you started the chain reaction when it would stop, if ever. Physicists Richard Fenyman and Enrico Fermi wagered a case of beer that they would incinerate the state of New Mexico. (Funny guys). They were led by General Leslie Groves, a by-the-book army engineer who supervised the construction of the Pentagon, and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist and Berkeley radical who read Sanskrit to relax. When he saw the force of the blast, Oppenheimer recalled the Hindu verse: "Now have I become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."

1951- J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" published.

1953- The story begins of a murder confessed by insurance investigator Walter Neff into a Dictaphone in the 1944 movie Double Indemnity.

1954- Groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

1956 –The Last time Ringling Bros, Barnum & Bailey Circus performed under a canvas circus tent.

1963- Cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space aboard Vostok 6.

1964- Conservative Republican Senator Barry Goldwater was nominated to run against Lyndon Johnson for president. Goldwater set the tone by his speech:" Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." LBJ’s campaign portrayed him as a dangerous warmonger and he lost in a landslide. In later years Goldwater’s conservative views were eclipsed by the even more conservative Reagan and Bush.

1966- Mao Zedong went for a swim in the Yangtzse River and gave permission for his young Red Guards to begin The Cultural Revolution.

1969- Congress passed Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations. It makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.

1969- Apollo 11 blasted off for the Moon.

1973- WHO HAS THE TAPES! Presidential attorney Alexander Butterfield admitted to the Senate Watergate Committee that President Richard Nixon had bugged the Oval Office and had recorded tapes of all of his conversations. The tape system was actually installed by Lyndon Johnson. When Nixon took office, he was going to have it all removed. But his aides convinced him to keep the system to document his place in history. Why Nixon never destroyed these tapes that brought him down remains one of the mysteries of history.

1994- Comet Schoendacher-Levy 6 impacted with the Planet Jupiter, giving scientists a spectacular ringside seat to the processes of the creation of the Universe.

1988- Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic film Akira premiered in Tokyo. It opened in America a year later. It was the first Japanese Anime film to go beyond the domestic and its niche fan base, to appeal to a global audience.

1999- JOHN-JOHN -Thirty years after the death of his father and uncle, 38 year old John Kennedy Jr. fell victim to the Kennedy curse when his small plane crashed on the way to a wedding in Martha’s Vineyard. His wife had delayed having a pedicure, so he had to take off at dusk. He was too inexperienced to fly on instruments at dusk in fog and he lost his bearings, hitting the water at 150 miles per hour. The Kennedy’s had a history of bad luck with planes- Kathleen Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy’s parents and JFK’s older brother Joe Kennedy all died in small plane crashes. Senator Ted Kennedy barely survived a crash. Teddy refused to ever fly with John Jr., so he died of old age in 2009.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean to be didactic? To speak didactically.

Answer: Speaking in such a way as intending to teach. Usually used in a negative context, meaning the person speaking didactically assumes an authority and talks down to others. Condescending. A close analogy would be “mansplaining”.

Quiz: What does it mean to be didactic? To speak didactically.

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: The Pennine Mountains are in what country?
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History for 7/15/2023
Birthdays: Rembrandt van Rijn, Inigo Jones, Sir Thomas Bullfinch, Mother Cabrini, Rev. Clemont Moore, Julian Bream, Linda Rondstadt is 77, Alex Karras, Jan Michael Vincent, Lola Davidovich, Forrest Whitaker is 62, Brigette Neilsen, Jesse Ventura, Terry O’ Quinn is 71
St. Swithun's Day in England. St. Swithun was Bishop of Winchester from his consecration on 30 October 852 until his death on 2 July 863. Swithun is regarded as one of the saints to whom one should pray in the event of drought. He is a patron saint of Umbrella makers.
Feast of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain.

765 A.D.- Mayan Scientists hold a conference at Copan to discuss astronomy and adjust their calendar. By 1492, the Mayan civilization was already 2,000 years old. Their calendar was so perfect, the difference between it and our modern atomic clocks calculation of a lunar month was just 24 seconds! They used hieroglyphic writing but also a system of numbers including zero, which the Greeks and Romans never figured out. Among their surviving documents are calculations on the orbit of Venus.
Tikal, one of their cities, covered 23 square miles (Rome of the Caesars covered 8) and had a temple that was the tallest structure in America until the completion of the U.S. Capitol dome in 1863.

1205- Pope Innocent III declared that because they have rejected Christ, the Jewish people must be subjected to perpetual servitude and subjugation. It took several more centuries of oppression and a holocaust for the Vatican to officially "forgive" Judaism in 1947. Pope John Paul II apologized in 2000.

1410- Battle of Grunwald, King Jagiello of Poland, Witold Wytautas of Lithuania and their Tartar allies defeated the Prussian Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Sword Brothers under Grand Master Ulrich Von Junnigen.

1685- James the Duke of Monmouth was executed. Monmouth was the bastard son of King Charles II and tried to overthrow his step-uncle James II in Monmouth’s Rebellion.
Monmouth New Jersey had been named for him.

1780- American Colonial General Benedict Arnold snuck a coded message to British Commander Sir Henry Clinton in occupied New York. In it, he offered to betray the fortress of West Point to the British for 20,000 English pounds. Arnold wasn’t even West Point’s commander yet, but he expected Gen. George Washington to confirm him in the job any day. The only person who warned that Gen. Arnold might be up to something, was a female spy planted in British Headquarters. Her cover was kept so complete, that her name is lost to history. We only know her as agent “355”.

1789- The day after the Bastille was stormed, the Revolution proclaimed Astronomer Jean Sylvain Bailly as first mayor of Paris. Since Medieval days when the hero Mayor Etienne Marcel had defied the King, Paris had no mayor but was under direct royal control through an appointed prefect. Bailly served as mayor for three years, then was guillotined. Today the mayor of Paris is such an important position it is considered the steppingstone to the Presidency of the Republic.

1795 - "Le Marseillaise" became officially the French national anthem.

1806- American captain Zebulon Pike set off on his trek of discovery through the new Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado territory. Near Santa Fe New Mexico he was apprehended by Spanish Authorities for trespassing and put on a boat back home. In Colorado, Pike discovered the mountain named for him- Pike’s Peak.

1815- Napoleon boarded HMS Bellerophon for the trip to St. Helena. On the trip he learned English, and made friends with the British sailors to such an extent that their officers reprimand them. He said to his Irish doctor, O'Meara:" So you are a doctor and I am a general. How many men have you killed? I'll wager more than me!"

1861- During the Civil War, a beautiful Washington D.C. socialite named Rose Greenhow moved in the highest circles of government and was personal friends with top Congressmen and Generals. But Rose was also a Southern spy. This day she got out a message to Confederate General Beauregard that the main Union army would commence their march on Richmond that week. This bit of espionage would contribute to the great Union defeat at Bull Run. Rose Greenhow was later arrested, and her home turned into a women’s prison.

1862- THE WILD RIDE OF THE C.S.S. ARKANSAS- Union Admiral David Farragut (the 'Damn the Torpedoes!' guy) had moved his big fleet up the Mississippi above the Confederate fortress town of Vicksburg and was preparing to bombard the town. Southern Captain Issac Brown was told he would take command of an ironclad called the Arkansas, and sailed it right into the middle of the Union navy, firing on all sides. One iron ship attacked 34 wooden warships! At one point Capt. Brown was knocked senseless by some shrapnel and when he woke up, he had been laid out on a pile of dead corpses.
Farragut was taking a nap and was so surprised he fought the battle in his nightshirt. Although pounded by dozens of heavy cannonballs Brown's homemade ironclad not only held up but she inflicted so much damage on Farragut's wooden ships he was forced to leave Vicksburg and withdraw to the Gulf.. No further attempts to attack Vicksburg occurred until the end of that year. One ship had defeated a fleet.

1863- Yankee leaders were so frustrated by the actions of Confederate guerrillas in Missouri and Kansas that they resorted to a controversial solution. They began arresting the wives, sisters and girlfriends of the guerrillas and lodged them in Kansas City. They hoped to ship them to rebel held Arkansas, thinking this would draw off their menfolk. But on this day an unforeseen tragedy struck. The old Grand St Hotel they were in collapsed, killing many of the innocent women. The country was shocked and the rebels vowed revenge. Cole Younger lost his mother and two sisters. He never believed the collapse was an accident. Bloody Bill Anderson rode into battle tearfully shouting his baby sister’s name.

1870 -The Hudson's Bay Company sold Prince Rupertland to Canada, which was the entire Canadian west from the Ontario border to the Pacific and from the Montana border up to the Arctic Circle. Up to then it had been a corporate businessman's dream, the largest land mass ever managed by a board of directors, almost as large as the United States. The Hudson's Bay CEO, Sir Roger Simpson had been called the 'Emperor Simpson' by his detractors. Canada suddenly became bi-coastal. But the French-Indian fur trappers called the Metiz understood the threat Anglo town settlers would bring to their way of life and rose in revolt under their leader Louis Riel.

1882- In Springfield Illinois, “The Crazy Old Lady” who lived alone in the big house with the curtains always drawn finally died. Mary Todd Lincoln, the widow of Abraham Lincoln, had always been emotionally high strung and a little paranoid. Now, her spirit was broken by her husband’s murder and all of her children dying except her eldest son Robert. And he kept trying to get her committed to a lunatic asylum before she wasted all of their family fortune. Mary wore nothing but black, constantly wept, packed and unpacked trunks all day, and lived on chloral hydrate, opium and other narcotics. This day after eighteen years she finally got her fondest wish, to join her husband in death.

1915- A Secret Service agent was presented with a suitcase left by a German diplomat on a New York City subway seat. In the satchel was a complete list of known German spies and saboteurs working in the U.S., a nation still officially neutral in the war between Britain, France and Germany.

1916- The Boeing Aircraft Corporation (originally Pacific Aero) formed in Seattle by William Boeing.

1928- The first Enigma Machine for decryption invented.

1938- Max Fleischer Popeye cartoon "With the Jeep" introduced Eugene the Jeep. The character was created in the Thimble Theater comic strip two years earlier. The funny little character later gave its name to the army’s new General Purpose Vehicle, the G.P. or Jeep.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt sent federal mediator Stanley White to try and solve the labor strike between Walt Disney and his cartoonists.

1945- President Truman was shown intercepted communiqués from Japanese military command saying that all that was left of the Japanese army was massing on the Southern beaches of Kyushu preparing to meet the expected American amphibious landings.

1951-A Syrian nationalist shot and killed the Lebanese Prime Minister Riyadh Bey-Ehrsault in Beirut.

1953- English serial killer Jack Christie was executed. In his home at Number 10 Rillington Place police found the bodies of several women buried in the garden. Two bodies weren’t even Christies, they were credited to an abortionist who was a previous tenant who had botched two and they died of internal bleeding.

1953- The film Gentlemen Prefer Blondes premiered starring Marylyn Monroe and Jane Russell.

1971- President Nixon announced he had accepted an invitation to visit Red China.

1971- Producer Steve Krantz announced the production of the first X-rated cartoon, Fritz the Cat, based on the popular underground comic by Robert Crumb. It would be directed by Ralph Bakshi.

1979- THE OIL CRISIS- Lines at gas pumps stretch for blocks, and President Jimmy Carter was scheduled to address the nation. But when he canceled at the last minute and disappeared from the public eye, rumors spread of a health problem or, even worse. After a few days, he reemerged with a speech In the address, President Jimmy Carter laid out the oil/gas crisis. He stated flatly that the U.S. and the world was trapped in an increasing dependence on diminishing stocks of foreign oil. We need to move to develop solar and other alternative fuels immediately. “ When we import oil, we import rising prices and unemployment." He said we should establish a Solar Bank to eventually take on 20% of the nations energy needs.
But the media instead focused on his negative tone, his speaking of a “ crisis of confidence” They labelled it the “National Malaise” speech, even though he never said that.
The next President, Ronald Reagan, ignored all of Jimmy Carter’s initiatives and tore off the solar panels from the roof of the White House. The cost of gas then was .86 cents a gallon.

1982-Coca-Cola introduced Diet Coke. Coke officials are proud of the fact that within a year it's sales top that of Tab, but Tab was owned by Coke as well. (duh..?)

1994- James Cameron’s movie True Lies opens. With Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis.

1996- MSNBC channel went on the air. It struggled to find an identity early on, until host Keith Olbermann in 2005 proved there was a huge underserved audience of politically liberal viewers who craved an alternative to Fox News blatant right wing partisanship. Even after Olbermann left in 2011, MSNBC kept up its progressive credentials with hosts like Rachel Maddow and Joy Reid.

1997- Famed clothing designer Gianni Versace was murdered outside his Miami mansion by a deranged serial killer on a spree since leaving Minnesota. The killer, Andrew Cunanan, was later found in a houseboat with a self-inflicted bullet in his head.

2011- Disney’s last hand-drawn feature film Winnie the Pooh, and short the Ballad of Nessie opened in theaters. Two years later CEO Bob Iger said there were no more 2-D projects in development and laid off most remaining traditional artists.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: The Pennine Mountains are in what country?
Answer: Northern England at the Scottish border. The Apennine Mountains are in Italy.

Quiz: The Pennine Mountains are in what country?

Yesterday’s Quiz: It’s been revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas was recently admitted to a secret society of ultra-rich and famous people called the Horatio Alger Society. Who was Horatio Alger?
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History for 7/14/2023
Birthdays: Issac Bashevis Singer, Frederick Maytag, inventor of the electronic washing machine-1857, Emiline Pankhurst, Woody Guthrie, Gerald Ford, Ingmar Bergman, Jerry Rubin, Scott Rudin, Rosie Grier, Harry Dean Stanton, Polly Bergen, Gustav Klimt, Terry Thomas, Jimmy Hoffa, Dave Fleischer, Bill Hanna, Walt Stanchfield, Joel Silver, Vincent (Big Pussy) Pastore

Happy Tape Measure Day.

1415- Joanna II, the Queen of Naples called Joanna la Loca (Crazy Joanie), allows the prostitutes of Avignon to form their own guild. Solidarity Forever.

1690- King William III of Orange landed in Ireland near Carrickfergus with a large Anglo-Dutch Army to confront James II Stuart.

1756- In one of the opening moves of the Seven Years War, the French crossed Lake Ontario and captured Fort Oswego. The French commander Vaudreuil wrote: The howling of our Canadians and Indians soon convinced the defenders to surrender."

1789- BASTILLE DAY-THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. In France the anger of the common people over economic hardship and arrogant indifference of the King and nobility finally exploded in mass violence. The focus of the people’s hate was the Bastille, a huge fortress- prison that towered over Paris rooftops, her cannon aimed at the people in the streets. The Parisians got guns and stormed the prison. Ironically, the royal government was intending to phase out the prison anyway.
When the gates were forced opened only a handful of petty thieves came out, including a lunatic who shouted:" I am God! " But the symbolism was what counted.
Miles away at Versailles, King Louis XVI had just written in his hunting diary- July 14th 1789-" Rien- Nothing" when he heard the commotion. He said:" What is that? A revolt?" The Duke de la Rochfoucauld said:" No Sire, a revolution!"

1790- On the first anniversary of the French Revolution, the U.S. Congress voted a celebration in solidarity with a fellow republic.

1791- The Irish rebel Wolftone stands on the heights above Dublin and swears eternal opposition to the English. This is considered the legendary birth of the IRA.

1793- Charlotte Corday stabbed French Revolutionary leader Jean Paul Marat in his bathtub. Marat had to receive callers in his tub because of a skin affliction. He was known for sayings like "If we cut off a thousand heads today, it saves us cutting off ten thousand tomorrow!" and:" We'll strangle the last king, with the guts of the last priest!" Corday was the daughter of one of his victims, a moderate politician called a Girondist. Young artist Madame Tussaud was allowed to make a death mask of Marat while still in the tub and David's painting shows him expiring with a Christ-like calm.

1798- President John Adams signed the ALIEN AND SEDITION ACTS, which stated you could be jailed, and if an immigrant deported, for saying anything critical of the U.S. government. Outraged Thomas Jefferson said he was afraid to write down his views anymore in the face of such a law. Despite the obvious conflict with basic Constitutional rights, the Alien and Sedition Acts were never successfully challenged in court. In 1801 the time limit on the Acts were allowed to elapse without renewal and incoming President Jefferson pardoned all those jailed under them.
The Acts come up every now and again when politicians need a legal precedent for jailing someone, like during the McCarthy period of the 1950’s. In 1998 they were alluded to when Judge Kenneth Starr wanted to jail people who wouldn’t cooperate in his Monica Lewinsky scandal probe, and in 2003 in the Patriot Acts.

1850 - 1st public demonstration of ice made by refrigeration

1853 – In emulation of the London World Exposition at the Crystal Palace, the 1st US World's fair opens at the Crystal Palace NY.

1862- Every old sailors worst nightmare came true. This day the US Navy did away with the daily rum ration, in effect outlawing all alcohol on a ship except for medicinal purposes.

1863- After their defeat at Gettysburg Robert E. Lee's Confederate army finally crossed the Potomac back to the safety of Virginia. Abe Lincoln was furious that his victorious General George Meade wouldn't pursue the defeated rebels and finish them off before they could escape, maybe shortening the Civil War by a year. But the cautious General Meade thought his own army too exhausted and didn’t want to press his luck. Meade then angered Lincoln further by issuing a public thanks to his army for" Driving the Enemy off our soil." Lincoln responded:" Pennsylvania is our soil, but so is Virginia! They are not a foreign army!" Lincoln superseded Meade in authority with Grant who kept him in a secondary role.

1868- Seward's Folly- Congress authorized the purchase of Alaska from Russia.

1882- BILLY THE KID SHOT- Fort Sumner New Mexico sheriff Pat Garrett hid in a closet in the Kid's hotel room and shot him in the back as he was sitting on the bed, taking his boots off. Billy's last words were:" Who's there?" Backshooting was how Billy killed most of his victims. Billy was 21. After blasting away, Pat Garret panicked and scrambled out into the street without waiting to see if his shots had their effect.
Billy had such a lethal reputation that a small crowd stood in fear outside his room for nearly an hour until they were sure the Kid wasn't just playing possum but was really dead. Even though Garrett was practically illiterate, he wrote several best-selling books on the incident, heavily embellished by pulp ghostwriter Ned Buntline. Eventually Pat Garrett too was shot in the back, this time in an argument over ownership of some goats.

1882- Gunfighter Johnny Ringo found dead in Turkey Canyon Arizona. Ringo was not part of the Gunfight at the OK Corral but he later called out Doc Holliday. Wyatt Earp claimed he had hunted down Ringo and killed him, but the court ruled it a suicide.

1892- Civil War veterans who were wounded in service were awarded an additional $50 pension by the government. Female nurses of that conflict were awarded a $12 pension. Political satirist and combat veteran Ambrose Bierce returned the money with the note" Thank you, but this was not part of the original contract when I signed on to become an assassin for my Country."

1908- The Adventures of Dollie premiered, the first movie of D.W. Griffith.

1914 - 1st patent for liquid-fueled rocket design granted to Dr. Robert Goddard. Goddard did some schooling at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester, MA, until he blew up the chemistry building and they kicked him out. He then went down the road to a field in the town of Auburn to fire off that first successful liquid-fueled rocket.
After he became famous, WPI named the new building after him. The air pressure inside that building is kept lower than the outside pressure via a large pump in the basement... so that if the building were ever exploded again, it would implode and reduce collateral damage. It makes the outside doors really tough to open!
In l939 when the US government decided to take over the Guggenheim financed rocket experiments at Cal Tech and form the Jet Propulsion Labs they invited Goddard to join them. But Goddard didn’t want to lose his special status in his own labs by becoming a government scientist so he declined the offer.

1917- Buster Keaton made his film debut in the Fatty Arbuckle comedy The Butcher Boy.

1918- Quentin Roosevelt, the youngest son of Teddy Roosevelt became a fighter pilot in World War I. On this day in aerial combat he was shot down and killed. Teddy Roosevelt loved to brag about the manly virtues of war and as President continually rattled his saber at the world. But his own baby boy's death “Quinty-Que”, broke his spirit. Teddy was never the same again and died within a year.

1921-Sacco & Vancetti convicted. These men were Italian immigrants and socialists who were accused of the murder of a Massachusetts storeowner. The evidence was slight, but hey, they were foreign immigrants, and lefties. Despite protests around the world from folks like Picasso, George Bernard Shaw and Helen Keller, they were electrocuted. Folksinger Woody Guthrie wrote a dozen ballads in tribute to Sacco & Vancetti." Let me sing you a ballad of Sacco-Vancetti, pour me some wine and eat some spaghetti..."

90th Anniversary 1933- Well Blow Me Down!- Max Fleischer's first "Popeye the Sailor" cartoon debuted. The character was first created by Elzie Segar for his Thimble Theater comic strip. Based on a eccentric old neighbor who smoked a pipe and liked to get into fights. Vaudevillian Red Pepper Sam provided his salty mumbles throughout the post-sync track. Fleischer soon realized the improvised mumbling was funnier than the written dialogue. When Sam asked for more money than Max Fleischer thought he was worth, he replaced him with assistant animator Jack Mercer, who remained his voice until his death in 1984.

1944- T.S. Elliott, then working for the London publisher Faber & Faber, wrote George Orwell a letter rejecting the manuscript of his book “Animal Farm” for publication. He said although the writing style was good and the most intriguing use of allegory since Swift’s Gulliver, its politics were too Trotskyite to be representative of their company. Orwell found another publisher.

1946 – Dr. Benjamin Spock's "Common Sense Book of Baby & Child Care" published

1948- The Israeli Army captured Nazareth.

1951 - 1st color telecast of a sporting event (CBS-horse race)

1951 –Triple Crown Winner Citation becomes 1st horse to win $1,000,000 in races.

1955- The Kaarman Ghia debuted. Volkswagen wanted an "image car" to compete with the sleek American designs like the Corvette and Thunderbird. So they subcontracted the Kaarman motorbus company who engaged an Italian design firm named Ghia and the distinctive little coupe was born.

1958- The last King of Iraq, Feisal II was overthrown and killed by a coup of army officers led by General Kassim. Feisals family was Jordanian, they were placed in Iraq by the British in the 1920’s to make up for losing the Hejaz (Saudi Arabia) to the house of Ibn Saud.

1967 - The new band called The Who began a US tour as the opening act for Herman’s Hermits.

1969- El Salvador and Nicaragua go to war over a soccer match.

1969- The movie Easy Rider premiered.

1978- Lee Iacocca, exec in charge of the invention of the Ford Mustang, was fired by Ford Motor Co. Henry Ford III said: "I just don’t like the man." Iacocca went on to resurrecting the Chrysler Corporation and run KookARoo Chicken restaurants.

1980- The Republican Convention nominated former California Governor, actor and SAG president Ronald Reagan. The GOP under Robert Strauss & Lee Atwater completed restructuring itself after the disaster of Watergate by creating a new-conservative alliance of Sunbelt Evangelicals and Southern Dixiecrats.
Regular Republican stalwarts who disagreed with their agenda- Rockefeller, Goldwater, Nixon were out. At 69, Reagan was the oldest man to ever run for the presidency until McCain in 2008, then Trump and Biden in 2020. Reagan said of the convention:" It’s the first time in a long while I saw myself on television in prime time."

1997- Johnny Bravo premiered on TV.

2015- After a nine-year voyage, the space probe New Horizon made a closer flyby of the planet Pluto than any spacecraft had ever done. Scientists has dismissed Pluto as a shapeless rock asteroid. Horizon showed Pluto was perfectly round, had an ice cap, and even a slightly blue atmosphere.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: It’s been revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas was recently admitted to a secret society of ultra-rich and famous people called the Horatio Alger Society. Who was Horatio Alger?

Answer: Horatio Alger (1832-1899) was an immensely popular author of juvenile novels written during the last half of the 19th century. These books always featured a young, impoverished boy who, by his high moral character and heroic deeds, rises from his humble beginnings to success and a happy life. Self-made capitalists like Carnegie, Ford and Disney pointed to the Horatio Alger stories as their inspiration. (Thanks FG)

Quiz: It’s been revealed that Justice Clarence Thomas was recently admitted to a secret society of ultra-rich and famous people called the Horatio Alger Society. Who was Horatio Alger?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was a potlatch ceremony and who did them?
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History for 7/13/2023
Birthdays: French Admiral Bailly de Suffren, Cheech Marin, Father Flannagan, Bob Crane, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka, Dave Garroway, Chef Paul Prudhomme, Michael Spinks, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Patrick Stewart is 83, Harrison Ford is 81, Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob Squarepants is 62, Mike Ploog is 81, Computer artist Lillian Schwartz is 96

1174- The Battle of Alnwick, in which Scottish King William I "the Lion" was
captured during a raid in Northumberland. He was held hostage by King Henry II until he recognized England's authority over Scotland.

1568 - Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfected a way to bottle beer. What ever the process was it had to wait three hundred more years to be put to use.

1704- BLENHEIM-the great battle in Bavaria where the Duke of Marlborough destroyed the French army of Louis XIV. In the three centuries since Agincourt, the reputation of English arms had faded in Continental Europe, preoccupied as they were by their internal Wars of the Roses and English Civil Wars. While the British Navy's reputation was growing, on land King William III trusted his Dutch generals more than his British. Blenheim changed all that. In one day Britain became the dominant powerbroker in Europe. John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough was the great ancestor of Winston Churchill.

1787-THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE PASSED- This unprecedented plan masterminded by Tom Jefferson stipulated that as new territory passed into the United States, their population could organize their own local government and enter the American union as a state, an equal of the original 13 states. So, Utah would have as much political power as Pennsylvania. Nothing like this had ever been imagined, much less implemented.
Before The Northwest Ordinance, the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania were claiming all the land west of them to the Mississippi as their territory. Virginia even claimed the jurisdiction of Bermuda and Nassau in the Caribbean!

1798- Poet William Wordsworth visited Tinturn Abbey and was inspired to write his famous elegy on the ruins.

1832- Geologist Henry Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca, Minnesota.

1865- P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City burned down in a spectacular fire. Barnum rebuilt, but after that one burned as well, he got the idea of getting into the circus business. In his American Museum, more a sitting menagerie and sideshow, than a museum as we know, Barnum invented the idea of advanced hype and created kiddie matinees.

1868 - Oscar J Dunn, a former slave, was installed as the first African American governor of a state. Louisiana’s post Civil War elections were supervised by the occupying Union army and it ordered that no citizens who took up arms against the United States could vote. Since that was most of the white male population, the newly freed black population dominated the voting. But in ten years whites had reversed that situation and implemented Jim Crow laws to cheat black people out of political power until the Civil Rights movements of the twentieth Century.

1898- Giuseppe Marconi patented wireless transmissions, the Radio. Marconi believed that sound never dies, it just grows fainter. In his old age he was trying to invent a machine that could pick up the traces of the voice of Jesus.

1923- While digging in the Gobi Desert, paleontologist George Olsen discovered the first fossilized dinosaur eggs.

1925- Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists.

1930- Six thousand people in formal evening wear crowded into London’s Albert Hall to hear a special message from Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. It was extra special, because everyone knew Conan-Doyle had died just five days ago. Arthur Conan-Doyle was an advocate of spiritualism. He declared if anyone could get a message through from beyond the grave, he would. An empty chair was placed on stage in hopes of his apparition would take a seat. Hymns were sung and after long embarrassing silences, a clairvoyant medium cried out that she could see Sir Arthur. Most saw nothing and thought it was all a big humbug.

1930 – David Sarnoff the head of the NBC radio network said in the NY Times," The new invention of Television would be a theater in every home". Sounded crazy back then. Critics said it would require one room of the house be darkened, and they doubted people would just sit still that long.

1939- Frank Sinatra recorded his first album, this one with the Harry James Orchestra.

1939. Pete Pantos was an Italian immigrant and fearless crusader for longshoremen’s rights. He spoke openly against the Mob stranglehold on New York waterfront unions led by Murder Inc. hitman Al Anastasia and his brother Tough Tony. On this day Pantos went to a secret meeting and never returned. A mob informer identified his body in a lime pit one year later. Graffiti covered the docks for weeks- WHERE’S PETE PANTOS? The mobs’ power on the docks was mostly broken up by in the 1960’s.

1949- Hollywood Studio exec David O. Selznick left his first wife Esther, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, to marry actress Jennifer Jones.

1950- General Walton “Bulldog” Walker was sent by MacArthur to assume overall command of all US and South Korean forces fleeing the North Korean invasion in the Pusan Perimeter. He stiffened the defense so MacArthur could launch his counterattack at Inchon. Bulldog Walker was one of George Patton’s top tank men and adopted Patton’s style of leadership. He once flew dangerously low over the battlefield in a small plane waving his generals three star ensign at his retreating troops and bellowing at them:” Turn around and fight, ya yellow sons of bitches!!” Ironically, like Patton, he was also killed in a car accident.

1953- Chuck Jones first day at the Disney Studio. Warner Bros laid him off with most of the animation staff when they attempted to go into all 3D production. Walt Disney hired Jones and this day showed him around the studio. Walt asked him, “ Well, where do you see yourself fitting in?” Chuck replied, “Well to be honest, the only job here I would really like is yours.” Walt laughed,” Well, that’s taken.” Chuck worked in story for 4 months, then returned to Warners when they realized their mistake and reconstituted their team.

1960- Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts nominated for President by the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. The day continued with rounds of fierce backroom deals to decide the running mate. Although the Kennedys wanted Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri, it finally was decided to go with Lyndon Johnson. He was the powerful Senate leader from Texas.
Johnson had asked his Texas mentor John Nance Garner if he should accept the job. Cactus Jack was Franklin Roosevelt’s Veep for his first two terms. The 90 year old Garner told him:” Lyndon, the Vice Presidency tain’t worth a bucket a warm spit!”
Bobby Kennedy considered offering Lyndon the VP as a token gesture to mollify his anger at losing the nomination. But he was surprised when Johnson accepted. Before going to Ciro’s on Wilshire with Frank Sinatra to celebrate the nomination, Presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell recalled JFK making the best of it:” The Vice Presidency doesn’t mean anything. I’m forty three and I don’t plan to die in office….”

1964- At the Republican Convention, the delegates cheered far right-wing candidate Barry Goldwater, then booed Nelson Rockefeller for denouncing right wing extremism in their party.

1966- In Chicago, psycho killer Richard Speck broke into a woman’s dormitory hotel where he raped and murdered 8 nurses as they came home from work. He spent the rest of his life in prison. Richard Speck became a posterboy for the death penalty. On a smuggled video recorder he bragged about how much fun he was having in prison at public expense, getting all the sex and drugs he wanted. Just before his death in 1999 he was asked if he had any remorse about the horrible things he did. All he would say was, “I guess it wasn’t their night.”

1977- The Great New York City Blackout of '77. For the second time in 20 years the whole power grid broke down. Unlike the 1964 or 2003 Blackouts, it was much longer, much hotter and humid, and there was no full moon to illuminate the city. There was some urban looting, and serial killer Son of Sam was on the loose. No wonder they called New York “Fun City”.

1981- Terry Gilliam’s Time Bandits opened.

1984- The film The Last Starfighter with Robert Preston opened. Pitched as, “ The Music Man in Outer Space” because it was Robert Preston’s last film. The first movie where all the spaceships and effects were done with CGI, instead of miniatures and models. Their computers had a combined memory of 25 MGB.

1985- Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldorf organized a massive live concert called LIVE AID. Televised and seen by 1.5 billion people, it raised money for African famine relief. Madonna, Santanna, Paul McCartney, The Beach Boys and reunions of Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who and Led Zeppelin.

1985- A cancerous growth was removed from President Ronald Reagan’s colon. Comic Paul Rodriguez said:” Reagan is amazing: He got cancer in his nose, he got cancer in his butt, he got shot full of bullets- he’s like the Terminator President.”

2016- In the wake of the Brexit Debacle, Theresa May became the second female Prime Minister of Great Britain. She resigned three years later when she could not figure out the Brexit mess either. She was succeeded by Boris Johnson who also lasted only three years.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was a potlatch ceremony and who did them?

Answer: The potlatch is a ceremony practiced among indigenous tribes of Northwest Canada and the United States in which families come together to celebrate births, give names, conduct marriages, mourn the loss of a loved one, or pass rights from a Chief to his eldest son. It involved gift giving and feasting. The Canadian gov’t banned it from 1885-1951 because they felt it was a vestige of old preventing native peoples from assimilating into mainstream (white) society.

Quiz: Among medieval peddlers at your door, what was a rag & bone man?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Has director Martin Scorcese ever done a voice in an animated film?
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History for 7/11/2023
Birthdays: Robert the Bruce, John Quincy Adams, Sir Thomas Bowdler, E.B. White, Yul Brynner, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Leon Spinks, Tab Hunter, Giorgio Armani and Martin Scocese are both 80, Sela Ward, Kimberly “Little Kim’ Jones, Stephen Lang is 71

480 AD- Today is the Feast of SAINT BENEDICT, the monk who established the first rules for monks, convents and abbeys. Before this people who wished to express Christian zeal renounced the world and ran off into the hills to become hermits. Benedict said, “Idleness is the Enemy of the Soul” and encouraged his followers to serve the community- make jam, milk goats, whatever, just do something useful. He ordered that monks wear the same uniform cowl and do not eat animal flesh. In the same year the last Pagan schools of philosophy were being closed down, he established the first great monastery of Monte Cassino on the site of an old temple to Apollo.

1302-"Battle of the Golden Spurs" Battle of Courtai. In an unusual turn for the Middle Ages, French peasants defeated an army of noble knights and hung their golden spurs up in church.

1533- Pope Clement VII denounced King Henry VIII’s divorce, excommunicated him and pronounced his new marriage to Anne Boleyn null, and any offspring illegitimate.

1573- While plundering the Gulf Coast of Panama, Sir Francis Drake was taken by a friendly Cimaroon native to a large tree from whose top he could simultaneously view the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. Drake swears an oath to one day navigate the Pacific, the first Englishman to dare violate the Spaniards private sea.

1573- After a long siege, the Dutch city of Haarlem fell to Spanish armies.

1708- The Battle of Oudenarde- Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the French under Marshall Villeroi. The battle climaxed with one of the largest cavalry melees ever seen- 40,000 horsemen swirling, shooting, and chopping at each other.
The French were so fixated on Marlborough the bogeyman that they made up a song about him "Marlbroucke se va' ton Guerre" -So 'Marlborough wants to fight?'. The melody was an old Crusader song Richard the Lionheart was familiar with, and has come down to us as “For he's a Jolly good fellow.” It was a very popular tune in France. Napoleon was known to whistle it in the midst of battle.

1798- The birthday of the U.S. Marine Band. Called the 'President's Own" it achieved world fame in 1881 playing the marches of its director John Philip Sousa.

1804. THE HAMILTON-BURR DUEL- Vice President Aaron Burr shot and killed the former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Aaron Burr was a lieutenant under Hamilton during the Revolution. Later in politics they became bitter foes. No one was sure what one word or incident sparked this duel, but they spent years ruining each others political schemes: Hamilton withheld support from Burr in the presidential election of 1800 even though they were in the same party. Burr arranged Hamilton would lose the race for governor of New York.

Finally they couldn't stand each other any more. They rowed across the Hudson to have the duel in Weehawken New Jersey, this way the winner would only be wanted for murder in one state. The site was the same field that Hamilton's son had died in a duel three years earlier. Friends of Hamilton insist he left behind a note that said he deliberately planned to shoot wide as a gesture. Burr said baloney, he was just nervous. Burr’s shot hit Hamilton near the groin. Hamilton was carried back to Manhattan in great pain where he died the next day.

Amazingly, Burr was allowed to finish his term as Vice President, because there weren't any laws on what to do with a Vice President who kills somebody. He continued to preside over Congress and even had dinner with President Jefferson – Old Tom didn't like Hamilton either. Aaron Burr never went to trial, but his political career was effectively finished.

1812- U.S. armies invade Canada- again.

1848 - London's Waterloo Station opened.

1855- An earthquake knocked down Los Angeles -again.

1906- Nordisk Films in Copenhagen founded.

1910- As the ship Montrose docked in Canada authorities arrested Mr H.H. Crippen for the murder of his wife back in Britain. Also arrested was his mistress Ethel disguised as a boy. It was the first time a wireless transatlantic message was used to catch a criminal.

1921- British Prime Minster David Lloyd George and Irish Republican leader Eamon De Valera announced a truce in the guerrilla war ravaging Ireland and the beginnings of peace talks.

1922- The first regular concert at the Hollywood Bowl. The natural amphitheater in Bolton Canyon called Daisy Dell, had been used for Easter morning services and some concerts before, but now on a regular basis. Dr. Alfred Hertz conducted several symphonies, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks and Rudolph Valentino were in the audience. It was then a wooden stage at the bottom of a grassy knoll. Frank Lloyd Wright’s bandshell was built in 1927.

1936- The Triboro Bridge project opened in New York City. A massive WPA project to link the various boroughs of New York by highways, it was begun in 1933 but delayed for years by corruption, and the fact that Franklin Roosevelt personally despised its chief architect, Robert Moses. Moses had referred to the handicapped Roosevelt as a "gimp" and "half-man". FDR denied any federal money for the project until Moses was fired. Mayor Fiorello Laguardia used all of his personal charisma and friendship with FDR to keep the project moving. Robert Moses was not only retained but created other engineering marvels like Jones Beach and the World's Fairs of 1939 and 1964. The first Disney animatronic Mr. Lincoln, for a demonstration was programmed to say "How do you do, Mr. Moses."

1937- George Gershwin died of a brain tumor at age 38.

1938- The radio show The Mercury Theater of the Air with Orson Welles and John Houseman premiered.

1942- First phase or the Battle of El-Alamein ends with Rommel’s Afrika Korps stalled just outside Cairo and the Suez Canal.

1943- "DEATH RIDE OF THE FOUTH PANZER ARMY" Climax of the Battle of Kursk. Tens of thousands of heavy tanks swirling around blowing each other up on the Ukranian steppeland. The Russians regard the Battle of Kursk as the real turning point of World War II, because it was when the Red army took the full brunt of a Nazi "blitzkrieg" offensive and stopped it. The Nazis understood thereafter that they could no longer hope to win.

1943- OPERATION HUSKY-One of the biggest boondoggles of WWII. During the invasion of Sicily, American strategists decided to drop parachute troops behind German forces to trap them before they could withdraw to Italy. The first drop was successful, the second less so and today’s was a complete disaster. For some reason ships of the U.S. Navy mistook the flying transports for the enemy and began shooting them down. Planes full of paratroops of the 82nd Airborne crashed and burned, and prematurely cut gliders that smashed into the ocean. Afterward, there was a news blackout. From then on Allied planes wings were painted with three broad white 'invasion stripes' to prevent similar accidents. The secret was so well kept, it is still not mentioned in many popular histories of World War II.
One C-47 transport that peeled off and ran for base, avoiding the carnage, contained Tech Sergeant George Sito, who survived the war to sire me, your author.

1944- General Teddy Roosevelt Jr, the son of the old president, was the only general to go ashore with the first wave on D-Day. This day he died of a heart attack while on campaign in France.

1944- Despite being ill and frail, Franklin Roosevelt announced he would be a candidate for an unprecedented 4th term in office as President. After his death the Congress passed the 22nd amendment forbidding any other President to have more than two terms.

1945- Napalm first used on Japanese positions in Luzon in the Philippines.

1952- The Republican Convention nominated Gen. Dwight Eisenhower to be their candidate for President. Nobody was sure until then what Eisenhower’s political affiliation was. Harry Truman wanted Ike to run as his Democrat VP in 1948. The nomination came as a great shock to the ambitions of the other republican World War II hero, General Douglas MacArthur. He said of Ike: “He was the best damn orderly I ever had!”

1952- LA’s Randy’s Donuts, with its iconic giant donut sign on its roof, opened.

1962-The Tellstar I satellite transmitted the first television images from France to USA.

1969 – The Rolling Stones release "Honky Tonk Woman".

1970- “Mama Told Me Not to Come” by Three Dog Night hits #1 in the pop charts. The song was written by young composer Randy Newman.

1972- Beautiful actress and peace activist Jane Fonda toured Hanoi, North Vietnam. At one point she was photographed seated at an anti-aircraft gun. The same kind used to shoot down US planes. For that she was labeled “Hanoi Jane” and condemned by veterans’ groups for the rest of her life, even into her 80s. She said, “That was the worst decision of my life”.

1975- Chinese archaeologists excavating at the ancient site of XIAN discover an entire army of 6,000 terra cotta statues buried in formation with their chariots and cavalry. Each life-sized statue was an individual portrait. They were buried in 221 BC to protect the tomb of China's first emperor Qin Shiwang, whose name is where the name China came from.

1979- The world held its breath and covered their heads as the first U.S. space station SKYLAB fell back to earth. 77 tons of space debris in 500 pieces falling around Australia and the Indian Ocean. Luckily it didn’t hit anyone, although chunks were imbedded in an office building in Perth.

1990- THE OKA INDIAN UPRISING- Mohawk Indians living in Quebec fight with police when Quebec authorities try to extend a golf course from 9 to 18 holes over their ancestral burial grounds. AK-47s, overturned cars, helicopter gunships and tear gas abound. One Quebec constable, a corporal Lemay was killed.

1991- Disney announced it would enter into a deal with a bay area digital offshoot of Lucasfilm named PIXAR. Hit films including Toy Story, Monsters Inc. Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, and Coco were the result.

1997- A lunatic named Jonathan Norman was arrested for trying to break into Steven Spielberg’s home. He believed Spielberg “wanted to be raped”, and had on him chloroform, duct tape and S&M paraphernalia.

2016- Nintendo released the Pokemon Go app for smart phones and it caused a sensation.

2021- Richard Branson, billionaire CEO of Virgin Airlines, went up in space, just shy of orbit, in a privately made rocket plane. Amazon head Jeff Bezos followed shortly after. This initiated a new fashion for Space tourism, by the Beautiful People set.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Has director Martin Scorcese ever done a voice in an animated film?

Answer: Yes, Sykes in Dreamwork’s Sharktale.