Question: Who was barbarossa?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What does it mean to be Shanghaied?
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History for 6/9/2010
Birthdays: Ernesto "Che" Guevara, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Cole Porter, John Bartlett of Bartletts Familiar Quotations, Boy George O’Dowd, Les Paul, Burl Ives, Lash LaRue, Happy Rockefeller, Robert MacNamara, Major Bowes, Carl Neilsen, Donald Trump, Jerzy Kosinski, Pierre Salinger, Steffy Graff, Marvin Kalb, Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, physicist who formulated Coulomb's Law, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, Aaron Sorkin, Michael J. Fox is 49, Johnny Depp is 47, Natalie Portman is 29

Today is the Feast Day of St Columba, and St. Maximian of Syracuse.

68 AD- Roman Emperor Nero commits suicide. Nero saw the jig was up when the Roman people welcomed the Spanish Legions of Servius Galba into the city, shouting "Death to the Incendiary! Death to RedBeard!” a nickname implying his fatherhood may not have been pure Latin. He took his life on the anniversary of the murder of his wife, whom he had kicked to death while she was pregnant. He had his servant Epaphroditus push a knife into his throat. Nero died saying "Oh, what an artist dies in me!” Nero was descended from Augustus on his father’s side, and on the other side from Marc Anthony. His death ended the direct bloodline of Julius Caesar's family. For the next few months four generals would turn their armies homeward to fight for power. The Roman called this period "The Long Year".

1358- The Massacre of Meaux. In a France already ravaged by the Black Death and the Hundred Years War, a violent peasant revolt broke out called the Jacquerie -Poor Jacques. On this day two top knights, one from the English side and one from the French- Gaston Phoebus and the Captal De Buch, took time out from their war to join forces and chop up dozens of rebellious peasants in the town of Meaux. Phoebus later became a character in Hugo's novel the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

1732- James Oglethorpe, a British Parliamentarian, was granted a charter by King George II to found a penal colony south of the Carolinas. He would call it Georgia in honor of the king.

1798- Napoleon's fleet, on the way to Egypt, stops to attack the strategic island of Malta. The keepers of the Island fortress, the once valiant Knights of Malta, had become so stodgy and decrepit that the French easily burst in. When Napoleon inspected the massive defense works, capable of holding an attacker at bay for months, he said: " This conquest is embarrassing." After the Napoleonic Wars Britain took over Malta until the 1950's. The Knights went from an order of warrior-monks, to a jet-set club, with members like Prince Rainier and Sir Frank Sinatra and charity work like Saint John's Ambulance.

1817- A defective boiler destroyed the experimental riverboat Washington. Despite this unfortunate occurrence, the S.S. Washington was the prototype of Mississippi riverboats- a flat bottomed side wheeler with the engine machinery above the waterline instead of down in a deep hold like Robert Fulton’s model.

1834 – Brass helmet deep-sea diving suit was patented by African-American inventor Leonard Norcross of Dixfield, Maine. The design remained unchanged for 100 years.

1834 - Sandpaper patented by Isaac Fischer Jr., Springfield, Vermont

1839 – The first Henley Regatta held

1847 - Robert von Bunsen invents the Bunsen burner.

1860- DIME NOVELS & PULP FICTION. Mr. Erastus Beadle (don’t you love 19th century names?) published the first dime novel, Maleska, Indian Wife of the White Hunter by Anna Stephens. Sometimes called the Penny Dreadfulls, pocket-sized stories printed on cheap pulp paper became popular reading. They fantasized the West, extolling two-gun chivalry and virtuous maidens, roaring desperadoes and wild savages. This early form of mass media made celebrities out of fringe yahoos like Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill Hickok, Billy the Kid and Belle Starr.

1863- BRANDY STATION-The largest cavalry battle of the Civil War- Union cavalry caught Jeb Stuart's reb cavalry in camp. Stuart's horses and men were spent because they had spent the previous day holding a pageant showing off for the ladies. A huge confused swirl of horse flesh, sabers and guns ensued. The rebs eventually drove off the Yankees, but Stuart looked pretty dumb being surprised so badly. Yankee cavalry finally proved that under tough new leadership like Sheridan and Custer they could hold their own with the excellent Southern gentlemen horsemen.

1902- Woodrow Wilson was named President of Princeton University. One of the Board of Trustees that selected the future US President, was the former US President, Grover Cleveland.

1918- Louella Parsons began her Hollywood Gossip column. Louella became one of the most powerful and widely read columnists in Hollywood’s golden age. Stories say Louella got as much pull as she did in the Hearst newspaper empire for helping cover up the killing of director Thomas Ince and also trying to stifle the release of Orson Welles’ film Citizen Kane.

1920- King George V dedicated the new Imperial War Museum, comprising artifacts from the recently concluded Great War. In 1936, the War museum moved to its present home in the former building of the infamous mental asylum, Bedlam.

1930- Chicago Tribune reporter Jack Lingle was shot and killed by Al Capone’s hoods. The hit was done right in broad daylight on Michigan Ave and Randolph St at the Illinois Central underpass at the height of rush hour. It was first thought that Lingle was going to do some kind of courageous crusading journalist expose, but Big Al had him rubbed out because he welched on a $100,000 gambling debt.

1934- Happy Birthday Donald Duck! Walt Disney's short cartoon"The Little Wise Hen".

1934- The film the Thin Man with William Powell. Myrna Loy and Asta the dog premiered.

1938 - Chlorophyl isolated by Benjamin Grushkin

1938 - Dorothy Lathrop wins the 1st Caldecott Medal for outstanding childrens books.

1941- First day shooting on the film, the Maltese Falcon. It was John Huston’s first directorial effort and Humphrey Bogart had to provide his own wardrobe.

1942 - The1st bazooka- shoulder held rocket launcher, produced in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The name Bazooka was from a Fred Allen and Allen’s Alley radio show name for a home-made musical instrument made from a stove pipe. Bazookas became vital in the US infantry’s ability to stop tanks and other obstacles. Chicago writer Mike Royko once noted that in 1967 Congress passed a law forbidding private citizens from owning bazookas at home for recreation, which probably annoys some NRA-Second Amendment advocates.

1942- LBJ in the USN- Young, Texas Congressman Lyndon Baines Johnson spent 1941 loudly declaring if war came, he’d be the first in the trenches. After Pearl Harbor, he joined the US Naval Reserve and was made a lieutenant-commander. He spent the next few months inspecting naval facilities in Hollywood and Squaw Valley, Idaho while partying hard. Finally, friends warned he better go to the battlefront before too much talk hurt him politically. He flew as an observer on one mission of B-26 bombers over the Japanese held island of Leii, New Guinea. To his credit, he reacted coolly as Japanese Zeroes attacked. The original plane he was supposed to be on got shot down over shark-infested waters. After the mission, General MacArthur gave him a Silver Star, whose ribbon he wore proudly for the rest of his life. After 13 minutes in actual combat, the next day he was on a plane Stateside. By July 18th he had resigned his commission (by Presidential Order he added), and was back at his desk in Washington. Presidential aide Harry Hopkins quipped:” Lyndon Johnson is back from his politically expedient dip in the Pacific.”

1942 - Anne Frank began her diary.

1943- The Internal Revenue Service introduced the Pay-As-You-Go system of tax collection, or today we know it as tax withholding from your paycheck.

1945- First heavy B-29 Superfortress bombers leave Tinian and Saipan to attack Tokyo.

1950- After all appeals fail, the first of the Hollywood Ten, screenwriters Dalton Trumbo, Philip Dunne, Alvah Bessie, Waldo Salt, Edward Dymtytrk, David Ogden Stewart, Ring Lardner and John Howard Lawson are sentenced to prison. In the L.A. Municipal Jail one felon greeted the leftist writers with a smile and said: "Hi Ya, Hollywood Kids!”

1953 - Elvis Presley graduates from L.C. Humes High School in Memphis, Tennessee.

1972- Rapid City, South Dakota destroyed by a flash flood. 280 died.

1973- The thoroughbred horse Secretariat ridden by Ron Turcott won the Belmont Stakes, taking the first Triple Crown since Citation did it in 1948. He won it by an amazing 31 lengths! Secretariat was sired by Bold Ruler, the 1957 Preakness winner. The Triple Crown is three high stakes races each progressively of greater length than the previous-The Kentucky Derby 1+1/8th miles, The Preakness 1+1/4 miles and the Belmont Stakes 1+1/2. Secretariat becomes the only non-human to appear on Greatest Sports Legends of the Twentieth Century lists.

1976 – Chuck Barris’ the" Gong Show" premiered. Where’s Jean-Jean the Dancing Machine?

1989 - Queen Elizabeth II knighted Ronald Reagan.

1992- Congress passed the Internet Communications Act, opening up the Internet to the public. At this time, when only defense contractors used it, the Internet had 50 websites; by 2000, it had 77 million websites, now in the hundreds of millions.

2002 –The Canadian Supreme Court lifted the ban on Gay marriages as unconstitutional; the first couple in Ontario was legally married.

2160 - Montgomery Edward Scott, called Scotty or Mr. Scott, born in Aberdeen, Scotland, the engineer of the Starship Enterprise in Star Trek. “ Cap’n, Ah dunno know how much more the engines can take!”
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean to be Shanghaied?

Answer: In Gold Rush San Francisco, shipmasters had a problem finding enough men to take a ship out, since all their crews had run off to prospect for gold. So ship owners paid innkeepers to get sailors by drugging & kidnapping them, When asked about a missing man’s whereabouts, the innkeeper said ” He shipped off to Shanghai”. The furthest place he could think of.

Quiz: What does it mean to be Shanghaied?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Of all the characters in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, only one was an actual living historical figure. Who was it?
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History for 6/8/2010
Birthdays: Robert Schumann, Frank Lloyd Wright, Barbara Bush, Admiral David Dixon Porter, Leroy Neiman, Emmanuel Ax, Alexis Smith, Nancy Sinatra, Boz Scaggs, Jerry Stiller is 83, Dana Wynter, British cricketeer Ray Illingsworth, Juliana Margulies, Joan Rivers is 77, Keenan Ivory Wayans is 52, Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) is 52. Gary Trousdale is 49, Kanye West is 33

452AD- Attila the Hun invaded Italy.

1786- A New York newspaper advertised that a Mr. Hall was now selling the Italian confection called Iced Cream. First reference to Ice Cream in the United States.

1809- American Revolutionary writer Thomas Paine died. When his chubby doctor said: " Your belly diminishes." Paine smiled and replied: "And yours augments."

1845- Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson died. His last words to his friends and servants was:” Goodbye, I hope to meet you all again in Heaven, both Black and White.” After, someone asked Jackson’s manservant” Do you think Jackson is in Heaven?” The man replied:” If General Jackson decides he wants to go to heaven, Who can stop him?”

1867- Two years after the Civil War ended former Confederate General James Longstreet, the right hand of Robert E. Lee, published a newspaper article encouraging Southerners to forget their anger and work with the U.S. Government. He even declared his intention to join Abe Lincoln’s party, the Republicans! He saw his actions as the only practical course. But embittered rebels vilified him as a traitor. This letter was the reason the name Longstreet is not today as fondly remembered as Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee or Jeb Stuart, even though his record was their equal. His old friends even blamed him for losing the Battle of Gettysburg!

1869- Chicago native Mr. Ives McGaffey was given a patent for a “sweeping machine that utilizes the power of air suction” the Vacuum cleaner.

1871- 70-year-old Kiowa warchief Satanka or Setangya was being transported in an army wagon, handcuffed, to prison. He said to some Indians along the road:" Go tell my people to come and get my body here, because I'm gonna go die now." As he spoke he slowly worked his hands out of the handcuffs, taking the flesh off in the process. He then sprang on the surprised soldiers and fought until they killed him. They dumped his body on the roadside where the Kiowa found him later.

1886- King Ludwig II, ruler of the second largest independent German State, Bavaria, was declared legally insane by his cabinet and put under arrest. Ludwig the Mad bankrupted his treasury building wild anachronistic castles like Neuschwanstein and the Blue Grotto and Richard Wagner’s concert hall at Bayreuth. Ironically, today, these buildings are among the main tourist attractions in Germany.

1889 –The Red Car cable car began service in LA.

1889 - Start of the Sherlock Holmes Adventure "Boscombe Valley Mystery"

1892- Bob Ford, the man who killed Jesse James ten years earlier, was running a saloon in the Colorado silver mining country. A man named Ed Kelly came up behind him and said: "Oh, Bob?" As Ford turned around, Kelly let loose with both barrels of his shotgun.
Ford had just come from a Church where he donated money to bury a local saloon girl. He had written on his donation " Charity Covereth Up a Multitude of Sins..."

1900 - Start of Sherlock Holmes story the "Adventure of 6 Napoleons"

1912- Carl Laemmle forms Universal Pictures Studio.

1942 - Bing Crosby records "Silent Night".

1942-In a private meeting at the White House President Franklin Roosevelt asked movie mogul Jack Warner to make a movie showing our new ally the Soviet Union to the American people in a positive light. The movie “ MISSION TO MOSCOW” starring Walter Huston put a rosy spin on Stalin’s regime and even made excuses for his genocidal political purges. After the war and FDR’s death, angry conservative politicians conducting the House un-American Activities Committee went after Warner Bros over MISSION TO MOSCOW. Everyone who worked on the film got in trouble and had to apologize.

1945- In Tokyo, at a meeting of the cabinet attended by Emperor Hirohito, the Japanese decide that despite the defeat of Germany, they “ would prosecute the war to the bitter end.”

1946- Bob Clampett's cartoon 'Kitty Kornered' , the first Sylvester the Cat cartoon ,debuted.

1948 - "Milton Berle Show" Uncle Miltie- premiered on NBC TV.

1950- Universal pictures released 'Winchester '73', the first film in which the star James Stewart negotiated for a back end percentage of the profits. Stewart's agent was Lew Wasserman, the head of MCA and mentor of Steven Speilberg.

1954- During the Army-McCarthy Anti-Communist hearings, in front of a live television audience, attorney Joseph Walsh takes apart Senator Joseph McCarthy for stooping to accuse a junior law partner in Walsh’s office for once belonging to a socialist organization. Walsh’s dramatic cry gained national prominence “ Finally Senator, have you no shred of decency?” McCarthy was censured by Congress, stripped of his chairmanships, and was politically finished.

1962- Twentieth Century Fox fired Marilyn Monroe for her erratic druggy behavior on the set of “Something’s Got to Give”and canceled the picture. Monroe went into a tailspin that would lead to her suicide four weeks later. Even after her death Fox then sued her estate for $80,000.

1968 - Rolling Stones release "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

1967- During the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War Jewish paratroops retook the Old City of Jerusalem, lost during the war of 1948. Battle toughened soldiers wept like children being able to pray once more at the Wailing Wall.

1969 - "Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour," last airs. The show was canceled by CBS, not for bad ratings, but because its format highlighted liberal and anti-Vietnam War performers like Buffy Saint-Marie, Bob Dylan and Pete Seeger. Producer Tommy Smothers was constantly battling nervous network executives to let Seeger sing songs like “Big Muddy” a direct criticism of U.S. war policy. Finally when former President Lyndon Johnson personally called CBS chief Bill Paley to complain, the show was yanked. When writer/singer Mason Williams learned the Smothers Brothers Show was canceled, he planned to make an enormous pie to throw at the eye logo on the CBS building, but they threatened to sue him for trespassing if he actually staged the stunt...

1981- Former UN General Secretary Dr Kurt Waldheim was elected President of Austria despite revelations about his once being an officer in the Nazi army.

1983 – The films "Trading Places," & "Gremlins," premiered.

1984-Ivan Reitmans’ film "Ghostbusters" premiered. In 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, West German politicians tried to get the wildly partying crowd to sing the national anthem Deutschlandlied. But they got drowned out by the crowd happily singing “Who Ya Gonna Call? GHOST-BUSTERS!!”

1984- Donald Duck officially became a member of the Screen Actors Guild- SAG.

1986- NBC was bought by General Electric. David Letterman joked about now having to interview toaster ovens on his show.

1998- the President of Nigeria, General Sani Abacha, died during a Viagra reinforced assignation with three prostitutes.

1999-The nation of Columbia announced it would now factor in its drug exports when calculating the nations GNP or Gross National Product.

2002- Forest Service ranger Terri Barton was trying to burn a letter from her estranged husband. The blaze she started became the Haywood Fire, the worst forest fire in Colorado history. The fire destroyed 103,000 acres and almost burned down the city of Denver.
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Yesterday’s Question: Of all the characters in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, only one was an actual living historical figure. Who was it?

Answer: The Hogwarts students discussed the ancient alchemist Nicholas Flamel, who actually lived (1330-1418), and legend said did discover how to turn lead into gold.

Question: Of all the characters in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, only one was an actual living historical figure. Who was it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi…?
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History for 6/7/2010
Birthdays: Pope Gregory XIII, Beau Brummel, Paul Gauguin, Chick Corea, George Szell, Watergate congressman Peter Rodino, Tom Jones, Jessica Tandy, James Ivory, Virginia McKenna, Liam Neeson is 58, Prince is 52

1099- After three years of marching and fighting, the massed hordes of the First Crusade finally sight the Holy City of Jerusalem.

1191- Richard the Lionheart arrived in the Holy Land for the Third Crusade, he went by ship via Sicily and Cyprus- the easy way. The Crusaders met him on the beach with an old song that today is "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow".

1520-THE FIELD OF THE CLOTH OF GOLD- A Renaissance international summit organized by Cardinal Woolsey. King Henry VIII of England, King Francois Le Bel of France and Emperor Karl of Germany, all pitched their expensive gold cloth tents together, and held feasts, revels and tournaments while discussing politics.

1594- All during Queen Elizabeth Ist reign there were plots and attempts on her life. This day the Queens Spanish-Jewish doctor Rodrigo Lopez was executed on suspicion of his attempting to poison the Queen. The evidence was circumstantial and Elizabeth took several weeks to decide to sign the death warrant. When the news got out there was a wave of Anti-Semitic feeling among the English populace, even though most Jews had been banned from England since 1388. This is seen as the time when William Shakespeare got the inspiration to create Shylock the wicked Jewish money lender in his play the Merchant of Venice.

1769- Frontiersman Daniel Boone reached Kentucky by charting a way through the Cumberland Gap. Though they seem quaint hills today in Colonial times the Allegheny Mountains presented an insurmountable barrier preventing further movement west from the colonies of the Atlantic coast. Boone’s achievement was the first penetration of this wall. Daniel Boone was once asked if he ever got lost. “ Nope” he said: “But I was bewildered once.”

1776- In the Continental Congress representative Richard Henry Lee stands up and proposes a resolution calling for American Independence. " Be it Resolved that these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States." This began the fateful debate that lasted until July 2nd. John Adams calculated that at this time only one third of the American public was for full independence, one third was for reconciliation with Britain and one third was fence sitting.

1856-CONGRESSIONAL SLUGFEST- During an angry debate on the slavery issue South Carolina Congressman Preston Brooks attacks and beat unconscious Massachusetts Representative Charles Sumner right on the floor of the House of Representatives.
"I wore out my cane on his head!” Brooks boasted. Admirers sent Brooks more canes. The slavery argument had become so ugly Congressman took to carrying concealed pistols and daggers to Capitol Hill. The news outraged abolitionists. In far away Kansas territory it affected preacher John Brown. "Dad went a little crazy when he got the news."-his son admitted. Brown would break into slave owners homes in the dead of night and announcing he was the Avenging Angel of the Lord, behead them with an antique broadsword.

1860- Workmen in San Francisco began laying track on Market Street for a light rail system, the famous Cable Cars.

1882- The electric iron was invented by Henry Seely of New York City. This event was pretty far sighted because not many homes were equipped with electricity yet.

1893- Young Indian lawyer Mohandas K. Gandhi was practicing in South Africa. This day he committed his first ever act of Civil Disobedience by refusing to comply with the racial segregation laws on a train out of Pietermaritzburg, Gandhi would win equality for so-called “coloreds “, meaning Indian and Asian citizens. Later Ghandi moved to India to become the Mahatma, or the Great Soul.

1924- This day marked the last known contact with the George Mallory Expedition. He was the first mountain climber to attempt to reach the summit of Mount Everest. They disappeared shortly after. Mallory’s bones were finally discovered in 1999. We all know that Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenjin Norgai conquered Everest in 1953, but Mallory reach the top first ? Unlike Scott of the Antarctic he left no diary or logbook so we may never know.

1932- During the Great Depression about one third of the independent banks in the U.S. failed. On this day Hollywood was affected because the First Bank of Beverly Hills went under, erasing the assets of many important Hollywood figures.
Greta Garbo lost one million dollars overnight. Louis B. Mayer, ever one to capitalize on a situation, offered her an advance if she would sign an exclusive 7 year contract with MGM. Garbo's back was to the wall so she signed, but then got her revenge in her own way- namely she immediately went on a 6 month vacation to Europe and took a lesbian lover named Mercedes DeAcosta whom she tongue-kissed in public.

1954- Scientist Alan Turing who helped break the German Enigma Code, was considered one of the fathers of the computer. Early computers were called Turing Machines. He predicted one day computers would be able to think like humans, and one day we would play games on our computers. But when Turing was revealed to be gay, he had to chose jail or medical treatment in a mental hospital. Alan Turing was a fan of the Disney film Snow White. This day he laced an apple with cyanide and bit into it. He was 42.

1955- The t.v. quiz show The $64,000 Question premiered.

1959- Boss of the Chicago Mafia Sam Momo Giancana testified to the Senate McClellan Committee on racketeering in the U.S. . While he was being grilled by chief prosecutor Robert Kennedy Giancana had a strange grin on his face. Bobby Kennedy lashed out:”Why are you giggling Mr. Giancana? Don’t only little girls giggle?”What Bobby didn’t know was Giancana was being courted by his own father Joe Kennedy Sr to help with money and support in the upcoming Presidential Election of his brother Jack.
Giancana’s support of the Kennedy’s and later disappointment when there was no let up in the rackets probes after the election is a main feeder to the conspiracy theory that John F. Kennedy was killed by the mob. In 1975 the day before he was to testify to the Frank Church Senate Committee on Assassinations, Sam Giancana was murdered.

1975- Happy Birthday VCR’s ! This day Sony announced the first home videotape playing system, the Betamax. They were about $25,000 each, but we were promised as they became more popular the price would come down.

1993- Rockstar Prince celebrated his birthday by changing his name to that funny symbol no keyboard can reproduce and no one can say. In 2000 he switched back to Prince.
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Yesterday’s question: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi…?

Answer: Latin for “ And so passes the glory of the world.” Originally a phrase used during the coronation of a pope. Lately it’s more generally used as an epitaph. It means that all worldly things are fleeting.

Quiz: Sic Transit Gloria Mundi…?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is the origin of the phrase” He blowed up good. He blowed up real good!”
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History for 6/6/2010
Birthdays: Diego Velasquez, Pierre Corneille. Alexandre Pushkin, Nathan Hale, John Trumbull, Thomas Mann, The Dalai Lama, Klaus Tennestedt, Bjorn Borg, Richard Crane, Harvey Fierstein is 58, Dr. Karl Braun, Walter Chrysler, Isaiah Berlin, Aram Kharachaturian, Jason Issacs, Sandra Bernhard is 55, Paul Giamatti is 43

1536- The Spanish Inquisition sets up shop in Mexico.

1654- Queen Christina of Sweden, daughter of the Protestant war hero King Gustavus Adolphus, abdicated her throne to turn Catholic and live at the Vatican. She could ride and shoot like a man and was learned enough in philosophy to debate some of the great minds of Europe.

In the 1930’s Greta Garbo made a movie of her life. My favorite comment of hers was when one scientist declared that the Human Body was a machine, she countered:" If that is so, then why can’t my clock give birth to little baby watches?"

1683- The worlds first public museum , the Ashmolean, was opened. English archaeologist Elias Ashmole donated his collection of curiosities to Oxford University for the students to study. A building was commissioned from Christopher Wren and the museum opened to the public this day.

1727- BATTLE OF THE DIVAS- In Old London at this time the rage was for Italian Operas. Many international musicians made lucrative livings singing for Britons. Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni was the reigning star but a rival arrived in town named Faustina Bodoni. This night at His Majesty’s Theatre Covent Garden with the Princess of Wales in attendance as Bodoni tried to sing Astianatte, Cuzzoni fans booed, hissed and shouted so much a fight broke out. Soon the two rival singers were up on stage tearing each others hair out, fistfights in the pit and scenery being pulled down. Composer George Frederich Handel laughingly accompanied the mayhem with an impromptu solo on kettledrums.

1740- Prussian King Frederick the Great instituted a new medal. Originally called the Order of Generosity, Frederick called the little blue Maltese cross Order Pour Le Merite fur Offizeren. Frederick liked to say things in French. The medal became famous as the Blue Max, coveted by World War I flying aces.
Baron Von Richtofen in 1918 wearing his Blue Max medal.

1797- The Lake Poets meet. In the Coxwolds region of England Samuel Taylor Colderidge walked across a field and visited William Wordsworth in his cottage. This began one of the great collaborations in literature. Coleridge had just finished the Rubiyat of Omar Khayam. The married Mr Colderidge even had a platonic affair with Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy and later Wordsworth’s sister-in-law Susan Hutchinson.

1833- President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train.

1844 –George Williams formed the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London, for lonely young men working in the new urban factories to have an alternative to pubs and dance halls.

1857- THE SIEGE & MASSACRE OF KANPUR- The most infamous episode of the Indian Sepoy Rebellion against the British. The Hindu Maharrata of India and the Moslem Moghul Emperor Bajadur had thrown their support behind the Sepoys, the rebellious Indian troops attacking British posts throughout India. At Kanpur the rebels surrounded a garrison of British troops with their wives and children in a little hospital compound. After a two weeks of fighting and starving in100 degree heat the British surrendered on a promise of safe conduct. After giving up their weapons the Indians murdered them all, using professional butchers to chop up the captive women and children and fill a dry well with their body parts. 600 died. The incident horrified Victorian society, which adopted a harder attitude towards their Indian subjects. Captured Sepoys were tied across the mouths of cannon and blown to bits.

1867- THE KA-KA COMPROMISE- The Austrian Empire quiets its nationalist Hungarian subjects by turning their country into a dual monarchy. Hapsburg Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elizabeth go to Budapest and are crowned King and Queen of Hungary. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was called in German `Kaiserlich-Koniglich' or K.K. The regime's opponents called it KaKa, and they had understood the pun just as we do.

1918- BATTLE of the BELLEAU WOOD- In World War One as the first U.S. Marine units arrive in the Western Front, Marshal Foch threw them in front of a major German attack. They stopped the Germans only 37 miles from Paris. When the Yanks arrived in the trenches, the French commander announced the entire Allied line was retreating. Marine Major Taylor replied: " Retreat ? Hell, we just got here !" and they went into action. Later in the fighting the same major was heard bellowing to his men:" Come on' you sons a' b-tches! Do you wanna live forever?!"

1925 - Walter Percy Chrysler founded Chrysler Corp.

1933-The first Drive In movie opens in Camden, New Jersey.

1934- President Roosevelt signed the Securities and Exchange Act, which set up a regulatory commission to rein in the under the table shenanigans of brokers and financiers that had caused the Great Depression. The chairman of the SEC was Joseph Kennedy Sr.

1939- Playright Eugene O’Neill had hit a dry spell of no writing and fears of impending Parkinsons disease. This day he got the inspiration to sketch out two outlines for two potential plays- The Iceman Cometh, and Long Days Journey into Night.

1941- Actor George Raft wrote a memo to studio head Jack Warner reminding him of his contractual commitment to send Raft only good quality scripts. The latest he got: " The Maltese Falcon" he thought was a lousy substandard idea that has no chance." Humphrey Bogart did the film instead.

1942- Two days after the Battle of Midway the abandoned burning wreck of the carrier USS Yorktown was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-162. In 1997 the Yorktown was found on the bottom of the Pacific by Dr. Robert Ballard, the same scientist who found the Titanic. To give you an idea of the depth of the Pacific compared to the Atlantic, Ballard said it took 1 1/2 hours for his submersible to descend to the Titanic, but it took three full hours one way to visit the Yorktown.

1942 – Adeline Grey does the first nylon parachute jump in Hartford Conn.

1944-D-DAY, the NORMANDY INVASION- General Dwight Eisenhower launched 4,000 ships, 11,000 planes and 150,000 troops on the shores of Nazi occupied France with the order: "Okay. Let's go.". In Moscow where the Soviets had been begging for a second front, there was wild celebrations and Radio Moscow played "Yankee-Doodle" all day. Eisenhower had planned that green troops be used in the first wave. "If they knew what was waiting for them like the veterans know, they wouldn't go." Many technological innovations were tried including floating pre-fabricated harbors "mullberries" and amphibious vehicles. Some were duds like the "swimming tanks" Sherman tanks with a large rubber donut around them. 36 tanks were launched into the waves and 32 sank almost immediately.
The German High command was taken completely by surprise. When the invasion happened many officers were coming home from a weekend seminar on how to fight an invasion, and Hitler had taken a sleeping pill and left orders not to be disturbed.

1949-Comic strip character Joe Palooka gets married to Ann Howe.

1949-BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING- George Orwell's book about technological tyranny -1984 was first published. Orwell's working title was "The Last Free Man", but the publisher thought it too depressing to sell. So Orwell picked the date 1984, who's only significance was that it was the year he was writing 1948- reversed

1955 - Bill Haley & Comets, "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1.

1972 - David Bowie releases "Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust"

1976- The Glendale Galleria shopping mall in Glendale Cal. opened.

1978- Proposition 13 property tax cut approved by California voters.

1982- 29 year old Russian Alexi Pajitnov invented the computer game Tetrus.

1985- The body of Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele is located and exhumed near Sao Paolo, Brazil. Mengele was the Nazi Angel of Death, who conducted experiments on inmates of the concentration camps. The elderly nazi had a heart attack while swimming.

1991 - NBC announced Jay Leno would replace retiring Johnny Carson, winning out over David Letterman. Letterman proceeded moved to CBS.

2007- The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim California, named for a Disney movie, win the Stanley Cup after defeating the Ottawa Senators. It is the first Stanley Cup won by a west coast team since 1925.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase” He blowed up good. He blowed up real good!”

Answer: A popular skit on the Canadian comedy show SCTV was called Farm Film Report. It featured two red necks named Big Jim McBob (Joe Flaherty) and Billy Sol Hurok ( John Candy). They interviewed celebrities like Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman, and ultimately encouraged them to explode. Then they reacted by creating the catch-phrase "blow'd up good, blow'd up real good!".

Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase” He blowed up good. He blowed up real good!”

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does the acronym AIDS actually stand for?
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History for 6/5/2010
Birthdays: Socrates, Pancho Villa, Thomas Chippendale -furniture maker, not male strip club owner, Igor Stravinsky, Archduchess Anastasia Romanov, Frederico Garcia Lorca, Dean Acheson, Bill Moyers is 76, Hopalong Cassidy, Tony Richardson, Kenny G., Lancelot Ware the founder of Mensa, Spaulding Gray, Ron Livingston is 43, Mark Wahlberg is 39

221BC - The Chinese poet Chu Yuan drowned himself as a protest of an unjust Emperor. His memory is remembered by the annual Dragon Boat Festival. People decorate boats like dragons and created dumplings to drop into the river to dissuade fish from eating the remains of the poet.

1098- After the Crusaders starve the city of Antioch into surrender, an even bigger Saracen army led by Kerbogha the Emir of Roum trapped the Crusaders inside. Things looked real desperate boys and girls, luckily the Crusaders discovered the Holy Nail. But that's for a future story....

1305-"The BABYLONIAN CAPTIVITY"- King Phillip the Fair of France makes a deal with a cardinal to help him become elected as Pope Clement V. The cost is Clement has to move the entire Vatican from Rome to Avignon in French territory. The Holy See stayed in France about 150 years.

1455- Poet Francois Villon gets thrown out of Paris again, this time for stabbing a priest in a bar fight. Gotta watch out for priests in bars....

1502- LEONARDO GETS A JOB- This day Leonardo Da Vinci was hired by Caesare Borgia as a military engineer. Borgia was the son of Pope Alexander VI and wanted to conquer Italy for the Church. The artist-scientist Leonardo had promised Borgia he could design horrific war making devices like tanks, flame-throwers and poison gas. Most of these things were impractical for the Renaissance but Borgia used him to map the topography of the lands he intended to conquer. After a few months Pope Alexander died, and the new Pope Julius exiled Caesare Borgia. Leonardo went on Renaissance Craigslist again.

1568- The Spanish Governor of the Netherlands the Duke of Alba invited the Dutch independence leaders to come and discuss their grievances with him. The leaders Egmont and Van Horn showed up, then Alba promptly had them executed. The other leader William of Orange escaped to lead the Dutch resistance.

1605-Battle of Fontaine Francaise- French King Henry IV defeats an entire invading Spanish Army with just 300 horsemen. One of France's most beloved kings, instead of staying in the rear of his army he always galloped into the center of a fight. He had a huge white plume in his helmet. On this day when asked what was his strategy for the battle he replied: "Just follow the white plume!"

1661- Isaac Newton admitted as a student at Trinity College Cambridge.

1805- The first tornado seen by white men in Tornado Alley, Southern Illinois.

1816- The Year Without a Summer- Volcanic explosions in Indonesia and the Caribbean threw so much ash into the atmosphere that large parts of the U.S. recorded winter temperatures throughout the summer months. This day in New England it was 83 degrees, then it plunged to 42, then the following day saw ten inches of snow. Still, Currier and Ives had more time to paint those cutesy sleigh ride scenes...

1854- The US Know-Nothing Party established. It's goal being the restriction of the immigration, especially Irish Catholics. Former President Millard Fillmore became one of their adherents.

1863- It was an open secret that Union commander General Ulysses Grant was a habitual alcoholic. His loyal aide Colonel Rawlins was determined to cure him because he had lost his own father to drink. On this day when Rawlins smashed an entire case of wine given him as a gift, Grant reacted by jumping on a steamboat and going on a two day drinking binge, a nervous correspondent named Sylvanus Cadwallader in tow trying to keep him out of trouble. After two days Grant steps nonchalantly off the boat and soberly resumes the siege of Vicksburg.

1876- At the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, Americans first discovered an exotic new food- Bananas.

1915- Britain’s greatest general Earl Horatio Kitchener the Sirdar of Omderman drowned when the HMS Hampshire was sunk by a German mine in the English Channel. The British recruiting poster with the image of Kitchener pointing at you with fierce eyes fixed saying I WANT YOU! was later copied by American James Montgomery Flagg, substituting Uncle Sam for the general. Kitchner was Secretary for War but by this time had lost much of his influence in government. P.M. Lord Asquith was moved to comment "the man makes a better poster than a leader". Traveling with Kitchener and sharing his watery grave was his personal aide Col. Oscar Fitzgerald. Earl Kitchener was not fond of ladies and there was talk that he and Fitzgerald were for nine years… well... let’s just say Don’t Ask and Don’t Tell.

1916- Grand Sherif Hussein of Mecca launched the Great Arab Revolt against the Turkish Empire. We in the west don’t remember Hussein as much as his British military advisor, a moody young man named T.E. Lawrence or Lawrence of Arabia.

1940- The synthetic rubber tire invented.

1944-In London General Eisenhower received reports that the storm system over Europe would lighten slightly. If he postponed the Normandy invasion any further he risked losing the favorable tide conditions until September. Ike launched the largest amphibious invasion in history with the words: " I don't like it, but I don't see any other way.- Okay, let's go."

1963- BRITAIN ENTERS THE 60'S, BABY...The Profumo Scandal. Sir John Profumo was defense minister, protege of Prime Minister Harold MacMillan and a rising star in Tory politics. This day Profumo resigned in disgrace and brought down the government, when it came out he was keeping a 19-year-old `party-girl' named Christine Keilor as his mistress. She was not only sleeping with married Sir John but was also dating a known Russian spy.

1964 - Davie Jones & King Bees debut "I Can't Help Thinking About Me," The group disbanded but Davie Jones went on to success after changing his name to David Bowie.

1967- The Arab-Israeli SIX-DAY WAR began. Egypt’s President Gamal Nasser sent tanks into the United Nations mandated Sinai Peninsula and cut off Israeli shipping in the Gulf of Tyran. Israel knew the coming war with its four neighbors was imminent. This day without waiting, Israel launched it’s own preemptive strike. Leaving only twelve jets to protect the entire country, at dawn they sent out their entire 300 plane air force to attack the Egyptian, Syrian and Jordanian air forces on the ground. 400 planes were destroyed in two hours. Israeli commander Ytschak Rabin said by then, the war was already over. The Israeli tank division Ugdah Peled rolled into the West Bank and attacked Jordanian armor near Jenin.

1968- SENATOR ROBERT F. KENNEDY ASSASSINATED at 12:15 AM in the kitchen area of the Ambassador hotel in LA after winning the California Presidential primary. Depressed by the slaying of Martin Luther King in April, Bobby Kennedy had said: "The only thing between me and the Presidency is a gun." The assassin was a Palestinian waiter named Sirhan Sirhan. He picked the one-year anniversary of the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War to do the deed. "Kennedy you son of a bitch!" he shouted as he fired two shots into the back of his skull. RFK lingered for a day. He was 42. His eldest son watched his father get shot on live television and never got over it. He died of a drug/alcohol abuse several years later. Sirhan Sirhan is still in jail today and the Ambassador Hotel has been bulldozed for a High School.

1976- In a wine competition outside Paris, California wines won for the first time. Santa Maddelena Chardonnay for whites and Stags Leap Cabernet for the red. It marks the moment when the dominance of French wines was broken, and California wines went from being a joke to world class status.

1981- The U.S. Center for Disease Control published the findings of scientist Michael Gottlieb on the pneumonia’s of six L.A. patients to be something new called Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome or AIDS. Cases had been reported as early as 1975 and there is an ongoing argument whether Gottlieb or a French team at the Pasteur Institute discovered the disease first.

1998- Reuters and ABC News erroneously reported the death of 96 year old Bob Hope. Arizona Congressman Robert Stump announced the comedian’s death on the floor of the House, to the great surprise of Bob Hope who was eating breakfast while watching TV at the time. Bob Hope lived four more years, dying at age 100.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does the acronym AIDS actually stand for?

Answer: Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. See above, 1981.