Quiz: What does it mean to be “ long in tooth”…?
Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Putting on the Ritz! Which hotel is older, the Hotel Ritz in Paris or the one in London? And just what does Ritz mean, anyway?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/6/2015 Birthdays: Marquis De Lafayette, Max Schreck (Nosferatu), Joseph Kennedy Sr., Felix Salten- the author of Bambi, Buddy Holly, Jane Curtin, Sergio Aragones, Swoozie Kurtz, Jo Ann Worley, Rosie Perez is 51, Billy Rose, Ernest Tubb, Justin Whalin, Anika Noni-Rose, Idris Elba is 43.

338BC- Five days after Athens was conquered by Phillip of Macedon, the Greek philosopher Isocrates died. It was said the 98 year old was depressed by world events and old age. So he simply stopped eating. Isocrates created the first literary criticism essays.

394AD- Roman Emperor Theodosius defeated his rival Eugenius at the Battle of Frigidus.

1298- Battle of Curzola- One of the perennial battles between Venice and the Pisa, only distinguished by the fact that Marco Polo was captured. The first thing the globe trotting merchant did upon getting home from China was get drafted. While a P.O.W. in a Pisan prison he wrote his accounts: " My Travels". He actually dictated them to another prisoner because he may have been illiterate or simply had bad eyes. Recently scholars challenged just how much of China he actually saw, because he made no mention of The Great Wall or chopsticks.

1522- A ship reached Spain manned by only a dozen or more skeletal sailors. They were all that was left of Fernand de Magellans fleet of five ships and 260 men that set out one year ago to reach the Indies. Magellan was killed and eaten by cannibals in the Philippines, Magellan had beheaded three of his captains in Argentina and most of the crew was dead. The last leg of the trip the men sailed up the coast of Africa without stopping for food or water for fear of falling into the hands of their Portuguese enemies. But they had achieved the dream of the great Columbus, they reached the Indies by sailing west. In fact they had circumnavigated the globe, forever proved the world was round.

1566- Elderly Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent died while besieging the Hungarian castle of Szigetvar. His vezirs worried that the news of his death would panic the troops and leave them open for attack. So they kept it a secret and marched back to Istanbul with Sulieman’s body propped up and held down by wires on his throne in his rolling pavilion. Censers of perfumed incense were waved to cover the fact that the Sultan was starting to smell nasty..

1642- The English Civil War just declared, Parliament issued a declaration that all Englishmen who weren't on their side would be declared 'delinquent' and subject to having their lands and properties seized. Unfortunately his edict had the reverse effect than intended because the threat of losing their fortunes pushed many fence-sitters over to the King's side for protection. King Charles could barely manage to raise one thousand sulky soldiers on Sept. Ist before the edict, afterwards his ranks swelled to the tens of thousands.

1696- William Kidd set sail from Portsmouth with a heavily armed ship named the Adventure. Captain Kidd’s orders were to clear the Indian Ocean of pirates, but instead, he became a pirate himself.

1782- Patsy Jefferson, the wife of Thomas Jefferson died. Jefferson promised her on her deathbed that he would never marry again, and was so distraught he refused to leave their bedroom. He finally emerged after three weeks. They spent her last hours writing out their favorite passages from Tristram Shandy together. Jefferson kept the little folded up piece of paper on him the rest of his life.

1791- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s opera La Celemenza de Tito premiered in Prague.

1812- At Borodino the Russian army prepared to fight Napoleon’s Army before the entrance to Holy Moscow. This night the Orthodox Metropolitan in procession carried through the camp the icon of the Black Virgin of Smolensk. Thousands of soldiers kneeled, crossed themselves and whispered Gospodi Pomilui- Lord Have Mercy. During the Napoleonic Wars Russian officers began the curious custom of making sure that they went into battle wearing clean underwear- no gentleman wanted to his body to be found with dirty undies!

1821- Jacob Fowler with 21 frontiersmen left Arkansas for Santa Fe New Mexico to see if the local government was more amenable to Americans now that Mexico had won their independence from Spain. They were welcomed and began to hunt and trap.

1847- After living in a shack on Walden Pond for two years, Henry David Thoreau moved in with Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family in Concord Mass.

1862- During the Civil War an incident occurred when Stonewall Jackson’s Confederate brigades moved through the pro-Union town of Frederick, Maryland. All civilians kept indoors and waved white flags from their homes. But elderly widow Barbara Fritchie flew a bigass Stars & Stripes from her window and dared anyone to do anything about it. General Jackson just smiled and tipped his hat as he rode by. Years later a famous poem was written about the incident, The Ballad of Barbara Fritchie:” Shoot if You Must, This Old Grey Head, But Spare your Countries’ Flag, She Said!”

1901-PRESIDENT WILLIAM McKINLEY ASSASSINATED- The President was visiting the Temple of Music at the World Exposition in Buffalo when anarchist Leon Czogolsz shot him with a pistol hidden in his bandaged hand. Czogolsz was such an emotionally unstable character, that even other anarchists avoided him. He said he was inspired by the political speeches of Socialist Emma Goldman, which soured many mainstream Americans to radical Socialism. McKinley lingered for two weeks while doctors were afraid to probe for the bullet. Ironically he had just inspected a new-fangled X-Ray machine at the science pavilion that could have saved his life but doctors said: " This is too serious a time for toys!" He died and Teddy Roosevelt became President. Roosevelt was a maverick Republican that McKinley reluctantly chose as his running mate because he was a hero in the recent Spanish-American War. When Tammany boss Paul Crocker heard about Roosevelt being made V.P. he shouted;" Don't you realize that now there's only one heartbeat between that nut and the Presidency-?!" Republican Senate Majority Leader Marc Hanna was also annoyed: ” Oh, no! Now that crazy cowboy is President!”

1910- Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughn-Williams premiered at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester Cathedral. Vaughn Williams had not attempted sacred music yet, but was inspired by a melody written by Tallis in 1567.

1914- As World War I raged all across Europe the country that started it all, Serbia, had a curious campaign. It was expected that the mighty Austro-Hungarian Empire would quickly crush this little country. But under the leadership of their resident military genius, Marshal Radomir Putnik, the Serbs drove out the invading Austrian army and this day even had the cheek to invade Austria! The Austrians pushed them out, tried another invasion, then forgot about them for the rest 1914 and all of 1915.

1945- Four days after the Japanese surrender ending World War II, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover sent a cranky memo to Attorney General Tom Clark complaining about General Donovan. Wild Bill Donovan had led the wartime espionage agency the OSS. Now he was proposing a continuation of intelligence gathering in the US as well as overseas. Hoover considered this a direct challenge to his authority. Donovans’ group was reborn as the CIA in 1947. And relations with the FBI have remained cool ever since. Before the 9-11 attack, the FBI and CIA could not directly e-mail one another.

1954- Groundbreaking for the first nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania.

1958- The Spunky and Tadpole show debuts!

1966- Dr. Hendryk Verwoerd, the South African Prime Minister most responsible for the institutionalizing of racial segregation called Apartheid, was assassinated by a demented aide.

1968- Many momentous events occurred in 1968: assassinations, riots, the Vietnamese Tet offensive, the Soviet Invasion of Czechoslovakia, Easy Rider, 2001 a Space Odyssey, Sergeant Pepper. But that’s nothing compared to the television premiere of H.R. PUFNSTUF this day! Witchipoo, Orson and the Vroom Broom. Whether or not Sid and Marty Kroffts strange kiddie show was a code for drug use -HR meaning Hand-Rolled Puffing Stuff, is a matter for scholastic conjecture.

1969- DePatie-Freleng's the Pink Panther TV Show premiered.

1971-Happy Birthday Pampers! Scientists at Proctor & Gamble invent the disposable diaper.

1972 - John Lennon & Yoko Ono appeared on Jerry Lewis' Muscular Dystrophy Telethon.

1997- The great Funeral of Princess Diana of Wales brought England to a halt and was televised around the world. There was a last minute fuss over the fact that Buckingham Palace refused to lower the Royal Standard to half-mast, customary for a death in the Royal Family, because technically Diana was divorced and no longer part of that family. The tabloid press jumped on this as a way to divert public attention from the discussion that their hounding Diana was what caused the fatal car accident. As this day began the flag came down at the urging of the elderly Queen Mum.

2000- The United Nations called a Millennial Summit. 150 presidents, kings, princes and prime ministers convened in New York City, the largest international conference ever held. Nothing important was decided and New Yorkers grumbled about the traffic. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Yesterday’s Question: Putting on the Ritz! Which hotel is older, the Hotel Ritz in Paris or the one in London? And just what does Ritz mean, anyway?

Answer: Cesar Ritz was a Swiss hotelier who opened the first Ritz Hotel in Paris in 1898, then the London Ritz in 1906. They featured ultra modern conveniences like a private indoor toilet per suite, telephones and electric lights.

Quiz: Putting on the Ritz! Which hotel is older, the Hotel Ritz in Paris or the one in London? And just what does Ritz mean, anyway?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: When a cowboy greets you with “ Why you old polecat!” What is a polecat?
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History for 9/5/2015
Birthdays: Louis XIV The Sun King, Jesse James, Cardinal Richelieu, Johann Christian Bach, Jacopo Meyerbeer, John Cage, Quentin de la Tour, Darryl F. Zanuck, Jack Valenti, Bob Newhart is 86, George Lazenby, Raquel Welch is 75, Kathy Guisewhite, Dweezil Zappa, Werner Herzog is 75, Michael Keaton is 64, Rose McGowan is 43

1499- Former Columbus captain Alonso De Hojeda arrived in the New World on his own expedition. Along with him as pilot (navigator) was a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci made several more trips to the alien land and published a book about his adventures, leaving out mentioning Hojeda. His publishers spiced up his accounts with naked brown native women with lascivious morals throwing themselves on the Europeans. It was quite popular reading.

In 1538 when Columbus was dead and forgotten German mapmakers Martin Waldseemuller & Gerhardus Mercator published the first mass printed maps of the known world. They drew on Vespucci's books and called the new hemisphere "America". I guess that's better than the United States of Hojeda.

1536- Protestant Reformer John Calvin was put in charge of the religious life of the city of Geneva. His ideas were so err…Puritan, that within two years he was kicked out.

1654-FIRST JEWS IN AMERICA- The first boatload of Jewish families arrived in America at what would one day be New York City- then Nieu Amsterdaam. They were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition that was being set up in Brazil. They had to auction their furniture to pay off their French pirate captain, Jean De La Monthe, but Asher Levy and his family where here to stay.
Puritan Dutch Governor Peter Stuyversant immediately complained to the Hague that Jews not be allowed to settle in New Amsterdam. The Dutch East India Company told him to mind his own business and apologize. He was reminded he was running a business, not a religious colony. Anyone who wanted to work and raise a family was welcome.

1698 - Russia's Peter the Great was determined to drag his kingdom into the modern world. Since the fashion in Europe at this time was clean-shaven, he imposed a tax on beards. When Czar Peter spotted a boyar at his court who refused to comply, he personally jumped the old man with a pair of shears.

1725- King Louis XV of France married Marie Leszcynska, daughter of the last King of Poland. Their grandson Louis XVI was the one guillotined in the Revolution.

1774- The first Continental Congress assembled in Philadelphia to come up with a group response to the worsening political climate with mother England. It is the first time all the American colonies had ever gathered together. British held Florida and Nova Scotia were invited but refused to attend. Ben Franklin was in London at the time and frankly doubted New Englanders, Southerners, city folk and frontiersmen could ever be persuaded to act together. Peyton Randolph was elected first president of Congress.

1781- BATTLE OF THE VIRGINIA CAPES- Arguably the real battle that won the American Revolution. French Admiral DeGrasse' navy drives off the English fleet attempting to save Lord Cornwallis's army trapped inside the port of Yorktown by Washington and Rocheambeau. For command of the vital mission the British admiralty had passed over a more aggressive fighting admiral named Rodney in favor of a semi-retired fossil named Graves.

Graves caught the French fleet dispersed unloading troops and supplies, but instead of attacking, he waited for three hours while the enemy formed in line. He then raised confusing signals – flags for “Attack” and “Maintain Position” being raised simultaneously. The inability of the British navy to rescue Cornwallis sealed his defeat. If the British had won this battle, scholars agree the French were tired of propping up the bankrupt American raggedy-ass rebels.

1812- The vanguard of Napoleon’s Grand Army came up upon a little hill outside the town of Borodino. They strained to see if they had reached Moscow. But instead they saw something else- the main Russian army preparing to stand and fight. Napoleons plan was to invade a country, destroy their army, occupy their capitol, then sign a peace treaty. But these Russians weren't playing by the rules. For months after retreating across thousands of miles of Russian soil, Napoleon would finally get the big battle he desired.

1836- Sam Houston was elected President of the Republic of Texas.

1867- After the Civil War, the US experienced a beef shortage. This was answered by herding Texas longhorn cattle up to where they could be put on trains to Chicago and eastern meat markets. This day the first herd of Longhorns made it up the Chisholm Trail to the train depot of Abilene Kansas. A rancher who bought a thousand head of cattle at $4 a head could sell them here for $40 a head. One cattle drive could net up to $100,000, well worth fighting Indians, rustlers and floods. This created cattlebarons and a new kind of hero in the public's mind, the Cowboy.

1870-Now that Napoleon III had been defeated and deposed and German Chancellor Bismarck had achieved all his political goals. So he proposed immediate peace talks to end the Franco Prussian War with a minimum of fuss. He had knocked off Austria the same way in the Seven Week's War of 1866. But this time Bismarck was overruled by his master King William I and the German generals, who wanted to march to Paris. Bismarck warned that humiliating the French would accomplish nothing, except creating a desire for revenge. He was overruled and the revenge happened in 1914-18 and 1939-45.

1882- The first Labor Day parade occurred when 10,000 union workers marched in Union Square New York.

1885 - 1st gasoline pump is delivered to a gasoline dealer (Ft Wayne, Ind)

1917- The U.S. Government made nationwide police raids to close down the offices of the IWW (The International Workers of the World- or The Wobblies). They were a folk-song-singing radical labor union who came out against U.S. participation in World War One, ."The Master Class has always declared the wars, the Working Class must fight the battles"- Eugene Debs. Their apologists point out that while the Great War cost 166,000 U.S. casualties it made 200 new millionaires and if you had stock in petrochemicals like Dupont you made 400% profit.

1929- Wall Street stocks soared to unprecedented heights throughout 1929. Starting today they began to taper off and slide. Economist Roger Babson, the Sage of Wellesley , warned of an impending Stock Market crash, but people laughed him off. They called his warnings "Babson-Mindedness". The market would continue to move downwards for the next several weeks climaxing Black Tuesday, the great crash of October 29th and the Depression.

1921: THE WILD PARTY. After completing three feature films simultaneously, comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle rented three rooms in San Francisco's St. Francis Hotel for a big party. One attendee, Actress Virginia Rappe, died of peritonitis a few days afterward. Maude Delmont, a professional blackmailer who also attended, spread the story that Arbuckle had raped the actress. She never testified in court.

The Hearst Press took up the story and sensationalized it as an example of Hollywood depravity. Fatty Arbuckle was found innocent after three sensational trials (the last jury actually apologized to him). The Motion Picture Production Code was formed as a direct result. Its first action was to ban Arbuckle from the screen. Fatty Arbuckle directed comedy for ten years under the pseudonym Will B. Good, and appeared in a successful series of short sound films in 1932, but died the same day that Warner Brothers signed him for a feature.

1932- Paul Bern, the studio executive husband of sexy starlet Jean Harlow, was found lying naked on his bathroom floor with a bullet in his head. He had committed suicide and left a note apologizing to Harlow. Harlow called the studio and her agent before calling the police. Bern’s brother revealed that Paul Bern had another wife he was hiding. All jumped to hush up the scandal.

1935- At a giant Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg Adolph Hitler told the world “We want Peace. Germany has no interest in harming her European neighbors .” uh-huh..

1935- Tumbling Tumbleweeds premiered, the film that made a star out of Gene Autry, the Singing Cowboy.

1939- The British Empire had restructured in 1867 as a commonwealth of dominions which some it's larger colonies had self rule. But to the outside world it still looked like everything from Hong Kong to Ottawa to Capetown was run on orders from London. Three days after British Prime Minister Chamberlain declared war on Nazi Germany, U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull telephoned Ottawa to ask if that meant Canada was going to fight too?

1943- Young British cartoonist Ronald Searle is captured by the Japanese in Burma. He spent his time as a P.O.W. working on the infamous Bridge on the River Kwai and making sketches of the nightmarish conditions of his fellow prisoners.

1957- Jacques Kerouac’s ode to the beat life ON THE ROAD, first published. Kerouac wrote it in a white heat using one large roll of white paper stuffed into his typewriter instead of individual sheets. When the editor got the novel it had no paragraph breaks of chapter breaks. Another young writer of the time, Truman Capote, was unimpressed. “That’s not writing, it’s typing.”

1958 The novel DR ZHIVAGO by Boris Pasternak published in US. It was banned in Russia until the collapse of Communism.

1964- Buffalo NY cook Angela Bellissima took some chicken wings, threw them into a deep fryer with spices and invented Buffalo Wings.

1965- CBS television network headquarters are moved into a sleek building on 6th Ave. in Manhattan. Because of it's black granite and smoke tinted window's it's nicknamed "Black Rock". NBC's headquarters in Rockefeller Center are called "30 Rock". ABC's, owing to their status as the third network, called their headquarters "Little Rock".

1972- Palestinian Black September terrorists attack Munich's Olympic Village during the Summer Games. There they murder 11 Israeli athletes of their national team.

1975 –Manson Family cult member Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme attempted to assassinate President Gerald Ford. She was released from jail in 2009.

1980 - World's longest auto tunnel, St Gotthard in Swiss Alps, opened.

1989- President George Bush Sr, does a major speech highlighting his war on drugs. He brandishes a bag of crack-cocaine. He declares it was purchased across the street from the White House in Lafayette Park. Later the truth came out that no crack cocaine is sold in Lafayette Park, the DEA agents had to talk a crack dealer into coming to the park. They even had to give him directions, because he never visited the White House area before.

1994- Patrick McDonnell started drawing the comic strip MUTTS.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When a cowboy greets you with “ Why you old polecat!” What is a polecat?

Answer: In Europe it was a small weasel of the mink family, but in America it was slang for a skunk.

Quiz: When a cowboy greets you with “ Why you old polecat!” What is a polecat?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: : “Oh Tempora, Oh mores!”
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History for 9/4/2015
Birthdays: Marcus Whitman the missionary who led US settlement of Oregon, Howard Morris, Darius Mihlaud, Anton Bruckner, Chateaubriand, Craig Claiborne, Dick York, Richard Wright, Mary Renault, Mitzi Gaynor, Computer AI pioneer John McCarthy, Damon Wayans is 55, Paul Harvey, Beyonce’ Knowles is 34

218BC- Hannibal’s army with his elephants reached the summit of the Alps.

Today is the feast of St. Rosalia who lived in a cave at Mount Pelligrino in Sicily. Five centuries after her death, her bones miraculously saved Palermo from the plague.

1698- THE MASSACRE OF THE STRELTZY- Czar Peter the Great returned to Moscow after traveling Europe for the last 18 months. And boy, was he pissed off! It seems he had to cut his travels short because he heard that back home his bodyguards- the Streltzy, plotted a coup and conspired with Peters older step-sister Sophia. Peter was so mad he had dozens of Streltzy leaders tortured and 1,100 executed. Peter swung an axe and beheaded five himself. After wiping them out, Czar Peter laid the foundation for a new Russian Army based on the modern western model.

1781- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOS ANGELES. Royal Governor of New Spain Felipe de Neve and Franciscan monk Fra Junipero Serra with twelve soldiers, some free black families and Indians, about 44 in all, dedicated a new town, one days ride from of San Gabriel. The 63 year old Serra had been stung by a scorpion but ignored it, so he hobbled around dragging his swollen leg. Fra Serra named the town after St. Francis of Assisi's first church in Italy- St. Mary of the Angels, Ciudad de la Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles sobra la Porziuncola de Asís.

1781- Benedict Arnold, the American Colonial general turned traitor, led a force of British redcoats to burn his own hometown of New London, Connecticut.

1821- Russian Czar Nicolas I issued an Imperial Ukase- edict restating Russia's claim to all of the North American Pacific coastline from Alaska to Northern California. The United States rejected this claim and threatened war, which is interesting considering they didn't own any of it at the time. Ya see, they had plans.

1833 –The New York Sun hired young boys to sell their papers on street corners. The first newsboy was ten-year old Barney Flaugherty. Now go peddle your papers, kid.

1839- The Opium Wars began between Britain and China. U.S. Ambassador John Quincy Adams called it "the Kow-Tow Wars" because he felt the real issue was the British Consul refused to lie prostrate on his face before the Chinese Emperor as was the local custom.
The Chinese had never smoked Opium until it was introduced by Britain from Pakistan.

1870-After the news of the spectacular defeat and capture of the Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan reached Paris, street rioting breaks out. Empress Eugenie fled taking the Bonaparte family into exile in England. The French Assembly National declared Napoleon III deposed and proclaimed the Third republic.

1877- Chief Crazy Horse, the "Napoleon of the Plains" was murdered. He had surrendered his weapons on a promise of fair treatment , then was suddenly arrested and bayoneted in the back while resisting attempts to push him into a jail cell. His dying words to his tribe were "Tell the people it is no use to depend on me anymore." Indians enjoy a legend today that Crazy Horse's secret burial place is on the top of Mt. Rushmore.

1884-Thomas Edison proves he could replace gas streetlights with electricity by illuminating one square New York City block (around Pearl St.) with his new dynamo. J.P. Morgan's bank on the corner of Wall and Broad streets is the first private business to be lit solely by electricity.

1888-George Eastman patents the roll film camera. The word "Kodak" is supposedly the sound the shutter made. Another story on the origin of the word was that George wanted a word pronounced the same in all known dialects. So after some research (Rochester lore has it that he did all of this himself) he concluded that only k and x qualified as sounds uttered the same way in all languages. Thus Eastman Kodak.

1893- Writer and illustrator Beatrix Potter sent a letter to a sick child: " I don't know what to write you, so I shall tell you the story of four little rabbits. Their names were Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter." The Peter Cottontail stories born.

1904 – The Dali Lama signed the first treaty allowing British commerce in Tibet. Tibet had been a closed society forbidding any contact with the outside world.

1914-The Miracle of the Marne- In World War I the main German advance smashed down into France and after 5 weeks were approaching Paris. But Von Kluck's grey clad soldiers were stopped at the river Marne. It was the first battle where telephones played an important role and at one point General Gallieni rushed French reserves up to the front in Parisian taxicabs. The commander of the defense of Paris was Albert Dreyfus, the Jewish officer of the famous scandal of the 1890's now fully exonerated.

1918- Young substitute letter carrier Walt Disney narrowly escaped a bomb explosion in the post office of the Chicago Federal Building. The bomb was first thought to have been, planted by radical unionists or German saboteurs, but it turned out to be from a local gangster. It killed four and injured 75. Walt later said, “ I missed it by three minutes. “

1934- Young filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl was contracted by the German Propaganda Ministry to film the 1934 Nazis Party Congress to be held in Nuremburg. While they were expecting a routine documentary, Reifenstahl instead created the film The Triumph of the Will, who’s darkly hypnotic images made film history.

1940- The Columbia Broadcast Service or CBS network started up their first television station.

1949- THE PEEKSKILL RIOTS. Singer Paul Robeson was a renaissance man who embraced controversy. An athlete, opera singer and actor he was also a passionate Black Civil Rights champion who expressed open admiration for the Soviet Union and Maoist China. This did not win him any friends in the segregated, paranoid America of the post war era.

This day when Robeson and fellow activist folksinger Pete Seeger gave a concert in Peekskill New York their cars were pelted with stones by screaming white rioters, all with the blessing of the local police. Robeson’s person was shielded by a bodyguard of union men. Fifty years later the town of Peekskill officially apologized to Paul Robeson Jr. Pete Seeger saved some of the stones to fix his chimney.

1957-Ford Motor Company introduced the Edsel, named for Henry Ford's son. Touted as "the dream car of the decade". Ford spent more to promote it than any other car in history up to that time. Only 200,000 were sold and after complaints like the steering and brakes failing and dashboards unexpectedly bursting into flame. The model was discontinued after Ford lost $250 million. Edsel became a synonym for corporate failure.

1957- Defying direct orders from the Federal Government, Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to prevent any black students from attending classes at Little Rock High School. President Eisenhower took over direct control of the Guard and sent in the bayonet wielding 101st Airborne to ensure his orders were followed.

1972- American swimmer Mark Spitz won his 7th gold medal in Olympic competition in Munich. He also spawned a cottage industry selling the poster of him wearing his medals, tiny Speedos and that’s about it. This image and the swimsuit poster of Farrah Fawcett, were two of the more famous images of the 1970’s. Spitz held the record until Michael Phelps in 2008.

1976- College party boy George W. Bush was arrested for drunk-driving close to his family home in Kennebunkport, Maine. He later applied for a brand new Texas State driver’s license, which came with a clean record with no report of the arrest. As President delivering the commencement at Harvard in 2002, he joked:” In the motorcade, seeing all those police cars behind me with their lights flashing… kinda brings me back to my college days…”

1982- the single “Valley Girl” by Frank Zappas daughter Moon Unit Zappa became a hit.

1985- Australian press baron Rupert Murdoch became a U.S. citizen so he could build the Fox television and movie networks. US regulations forbade foreign ownership of broadcasting stations so Rupert didn’t fuss about what country he was a citizen of.

1993- Herb Villechaise, the little person who began the show Fantasy Island with the announcement: ”Da PLANE! Da PLANE!’ committed suicide with a shotgun.

2002- Kelly Clarkson won the first American Idol contest.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: “Oh Tempora, Oh mores!”

Answer: “ Oh the Times! Oh the customs!” A comment by Roman statesman Marcus Cicero on the corrupt age he lived in.

Quiz: “Oh Tempora, Oh mores!”

Yesterday’s question answered below: When people compliment your tonsorial splendor, what are they looking at?
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History for 9/3/2015
Birthdays: Alan Ladd, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, Irene Papas, Memphis Slim, Eddie Brat Stanky, Mort Walker creator of Beetle Bailey, Eric Larson, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Tyler, Eileen Brennan, Phil Stern- former WWII Darby’s Ranger and personal photographer for Louis B. Mayer of MGM, Valerie Perrine is 72, Charlie Sheen is 50

401BC- THE MARCH OF TEN THOUSAND- Cyrus the Younger had begun a civil war to overthrow his brother the Persian Great King Artaxerxes The Mindful. In Prince Cyrus’ army was ten thousand Greek mercenaries led by several generals including Xenophon, a writer who was once a student of Socrates. Today at a Babylonian town called Cunaxa, Cyrus’s force defeated the Persian Royal Army, but Cyrus was killed.

Without an employer and a thousand miles from home in a hostile country. These ten thousand Greeks were really screwed. But they got themselves together and in an epic march they fought their way through hostile armies from the Euphrates (Iraq) to the Greek colonies on the Black Sea (Northern Turkey). After 5 months their cry "Thalassa! Thalassa!" The Sea! Which meant they were at last safe and could get a ship home. They dedicated a monument which was discovered by archaeologists near Trapizond Turkey in 1997. Xenophon wrote a book about this adventure called Anabasis.

1189- King Richard the Lion-Heart crowned at Westminster. He declared his desire to fulfill his father Henry II’s vow to go on Crusade. Richard spoke French and only visited England twice more in his ten years as king. The Anglo-Saxon tongue would not become the official language of England until the 14th century. We don't know Richard's full opinion of London but he allegedly once told his minister William Longchamps:" I'd sell the whole place if they'd let me.." The people celebrate their new king by killing all the Jews they can find, including a mass burning in York. That didn’t stop good King Richard from keeping a Jewish man as his personal doctor.

1260- Battle of Ayn Jalut- Hulugau & the Mongol horde are turned back from Egypt by the Mamaluke army of Sultan Baibars. The Mongols had been in the saddle since China. They had already ravaged Baghdad, Moscow and the Holyland. The Mamelukes were originally an elite guard of slaves handpicked as children to be brought up as fanatical fighting machines. They eventually seized power and ran Egypt until 1798.
When emissaries from the Caliph of Baghdad asked the Mameluke Sultan who was his family and by what right did he rule, the Sultan shook his scimitar in their faces and declared "This is by what right I rule!' Throwing some gold coins on the floor and watching the slaves and eunuchs scamper for them he said "And That is my family!!'

1592- Retired London actor Richard Green wrote a pamphlet to his fellow actors complaining of an actor becoming popular in their midst "A new upstart crow filled with Bombast" - William Shakespeare.

1651-Battle of Worcester. Puritan Oliver Cromwell destroyed in battle the resurgent Royalists. Young King Charles II hid in an oak tree, forever called the Royal Oak. He then slipped out of the country in disguise as a chimney sweep. This is why a fair number of English pubs along the track bear the curious name "The Black Boy".

1657-Battle of Dunbar- Cromwell defeats the Irish.

1658- Oliver Cromwell doesn't defeat Death. As you can see Cromwell the Lord Protector liked things on lucky days. Even though he was a religious Puritan he believed in astrology and would send money to German astronomer Johannes Kepler to cast his horoscope. Kepler was the father of modern astronomy but it was horoscopes that paid the bills.

1697 - King William's War in America ends with Treaty of Ryswick.

1777- In a small skirmish with British redcoats near Cooch Maryland the American rebels raise their new Stars & Stripes banner for the first time in battle. They lost.

1792- Enraged French Revolutionaries broke into the jail cell of the Princess de Lamballe, a confidente of Queen Marie Antoinette. She was gang raped in a kennel, beheaded and mutilated. One revolutionary pulled her heart out and bit it, another shot her legs out of a cannon. Finally they put her head on a spear and danced with it under the Queen’s window demanding she give her old friend a kiss.

1833- The New York Sun began publication, the first American mass circulation newspaper.

1838- Writer Frederick Douglas escaped slavery by boarding a northern bound train disguised as a sailor. Later when he was making a living as a writer he returned to his former master enough money to compensate his loss. Southerners doubted anyone as intelligent and well read as Douglas could have really ever been a slave, but Douglas liked to remind them he "stole himself out of slavery."

1864- Confederate cavalry leader John Hunt Morgan was killed during a raid. He encouraged his raiders to disdain sabers as outmoded antiques and equipped them instead with rapid firing carbines and six-shooters. Once when attacked by union cavalry with drawn sabers, Morgan cried:" Hah, the fools! Mow ‘em down boys!"

1870- Napoleon III surrenders himself to Bismarck and the Kaiser after losing the Battle of Sedan. Louis Napoleon was suffering so from kidney stones that he was wearing rouge and lipstick to give color to his grey face.

1886- Geronimo gives up to the U.S. Army for the fourth and last time. He and his Chiracaua Apaches were promised no retribution would befall them. After they were disarmed they were packed up into railroad cars and shipped to prison in Ft. Myers, Florida to die in the malaria infested swamps. Geronimo in his time had as many Apache enemies as white men. The White Mountain Apaches helped guide the US cavalry in their pursuit. After Geronimo's Chiracaua's were exiled, the White Mountain Apache were rewarded by also being shipped to the everglades. Geronimo survived it all. After his release he retired to Santa Fe, where he died in 1910.

1895 - 1st pro football game played, Latrobe beats Jeanette 12-0 (Penn)

1898- After destroying the Mahdi army in battle, Lord Kitchener and the Anglo-Egyptian army re-entered the destroyed Sudanese capitol of Khartoum. Kitchener in a spotless white uniform held an Anglican memorial mass at the site of General Charles Gordon’s headquarters where he was killed. Thousands of recoat white pith-helmeted troops sang Gordon Pasha’s favorite hymn " Abide With Me ", to massed bugles. Meanwhile, the Moslem inhabitants looked on with curiosity.

1902- In Pittsfield Massachusetts, a trolley car crashed into the carriage carrying President Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy was hurled from the wreck and landed on his face. A Secret Serviceman was killed. But Teddy survived.

1912- Los Angeles attraction Frazier's Million Dollar Pier destroyed by fire.

1930- The first issue of the Hollywood Reporter.

1937- Orson Welles Mercury Theater of the air produced its first play on nationwide radio- an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.

1939- Britain and France declare war on Nazi Germany over the invasion of Poland, World War Two results.

1939- British Prime Minister Chamberlain's war announcement interrupts a Disney Cartoon "Mickey's Gala Premiere" showing on the nascent BBC television service. Television shuts down for the duration.

1940 -Adolph Hitler sets the invasion of England for Sept 21st. Operation-Sea Lion after Goering’s Luftwaffe would destroy the Royal Air Force, which they never did.

1941-1st use of Zyclon-B gas in Auschwitz, on Russian prisoners of war.

1944- During the World War II U.S. pilots shot down by the Japanese were rescued by submarines. The submariners called the pilots Zoomies. This day off the coast of Ichi Jima, the submarine USS Tampico plucked out of the ocean a Zoomie who would one day be President of the United States. Second Lieutenant George H. W. Bush Sr.

1946- After the War, the BBC television service resumes and an announcer says:" Well now, where were we?" They continue the Mickey cartoon from where it was interrupted in 1939. World War II probably held back for a decade the development of television.

1950- Mort Walker's "Beetle Bailey" comic strip first appeared.

1960- The Hanna-Barbera show 'Lippy the Lion and Hardy-Harr-Harr" premiered.

1967- Sweden officially switched from driving on the left side of the street (UK style) to driving on the right, with the expected traffic confusion.

1970 - Al Wilson, "Blind Owl", guitarist/vocalist (Canned Heat), died at age 27.

1970 - Jochen Rindt, German race car driver, died in a car crash. He was 28.

1971- The offices of the psychiatrist of Defense Department attorney Daniel Ellsberg were burglarized by agents of the Nixon White House, to look for incriminating dirt on Ellsberg. They hoped to stop him from publishing the Pentagon Papers by resorting to blackmail. Chief White House counsel John Dean noted that agent G. Gordon Liddy was such a loose cannon that as he stood watch outside the offices he invited a friend to take a photo of him! A true Kodak moment!

2003- Two crooks in Detroit hijacked a Krispy Kreme truck and tried to hold three thousand donuts hostage.

2004- Cheychen separatists attacked a primary school in Beslan, Russia. After a three day siege the Russian authorities stormed the school after first pumping as into it. 331 died, mostly little children.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When people compliment your tonsorial splendor, what are they looking at?

Answer: Your hair. Tonsor was ancient Roman for barber.

Quiz: When people compliment your tonsorial splendor, what are they looking at?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What does it mean to Deep Six something?
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History for 9/2/2015
Birthdays: The last monarch of Hawaii Queen Lydia Liliuokalani, Yang Tsu Ching leader of the Taiping Rebellion, Cleveland Amory, Alfred Spaulding 1850, founder of Spaulding sports equipment, Martha Mitchell, Mark Harmon is 64, Marge Champion is 96, Terry Bradshaw, Chrysta McAuliffe, Jimmy Connors, Norm Ferguson, Selma Hayek is 48, Keanu Reeves is 51

44BC- In the Roman senate, Marcus Cicero delivered the first of his speeches condemning Mark Anthony. He called them his Philippics, because they were modeled on Demosthenes speeches against Phillip of Macedon.

31 BC- The Battle of Actium- Large naval battle near Corfu that decided that Augustus and not Anthony & Cleopatra would be the master of Rome. Legend has it that before a battle the priests spread out sacred chicken feed and could predict victory or defeat based on how the sacred chickens would peck. This time the chicken wouldn't peck. Anthony said:" If the chickens won't peck, then let them drink!" And had them all thrown overboard. He lost the battle. Don't mess with the sacred chickens!

1191-Richard the Lionheart and Sultan Saladin made peace. Contrary to legend and Hollywood movies, Richard and Saladin never met face to face. Saladin couldn't defeat Richard in open battle but knew the English king's time in the Holy Land was limited, because he had to get back to fight his brother Prince John.
Richard knew Saladin was old, his Jihad was worn out and Richard fully expected to return by 1196 and finally take Jerusalem. So he made peace for now and got for Christians freedom to worship at the Holy Sepulcher, which they always had before the Crusades anyway. Richard even offered his sister in marriage to Saladin’s brother. Saladin died the following year but Richard never return to Palestine. He died in 1199 from a gangrenous arrow-scratch while attacking a little castle in France named Chalus.

1415- Czech theologian Jan Huss had traveled to a Church conference in Constance to explain why the Church needed to be reformed. The Church elders burned him as a heretic, despite a promise of safety. This day 500 Czech leaders signed a note to the Vatican stating Hus was a good Catholic, they denounced his burning and declared they would fight to the last drop of blood for his doctrines. The Hussite Wars Began.

1609- HAPPY BIRTHDAY NEW YORK CITY. Henry Hudson and his Dutch ship "Half Moon" entered New York Harbor. Twenty canoes of Indians rowed out to welcome the strange looking craft. The French under Cartier and English under Cabot had cruised by decades earlier, but had not bothered to settle there.
Hudson sailed 100 miles up the Hudson looking for China, but found just more river and forest. He reported home about this "Great River not unlike the Rhine and this Great Natural Bay Wherein a Thousand Ships may Ride tranquilly in Harbor." New Yorkers like to point out that while other cities like Boston and Philadelphia were founded as great experiments in religious living the Dutch founded New York to make a buck and its been that way ever since.

1666- THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON- started in the bakery shop of Thomas Farynor on Pudding Lane. The Lord Mayor was woken up at 3:00AM. At first he was not impressed.:"Tosh, an old woman might piss it out!" Actually it burned down the city, including Old St. Paul's Cathedral. 200,000 Londoners were left homeless. King Charles and his brother James (James II) pitched in personally as firefighters.
After several days struggle it was finally put out. Samuel Pepys climbed up the steeple of Old St.Brides and recorded his eyewitness account in his diary. It was a tough time to be a Londoner, because shortly before the Great Fire was the Great Plague. But the great architect Christopher Wren rebuilt St. Pauls and other London monuments into the beautiful images we know today.

1752 - Last Julian or Old Style calendar day in Britain and her colonies, including the
US and Canada. You went to sleep the evening of Sept. 2nd and awoke the morning of Sept. 14th. The Gregorian Calendar had been promulgated in Rome in 1582, but it took this long for the Protestant countries to get on board with the new system.

1772- The FIRST PARTITION OF the POLAND. Russia, Austria and Prussia start to digest Poland, the Ukraine, Bylorus ( then called the Voivode of Ruthenia), Moldova and the Baltic States. These nations disappear in 1794 not to reappear until 1919 (and later until 1991). English statesman William Pitt called it "One of the great political crimes of our Century." This gives folks like Frederic Chopin, Josef Conrad, Madame Curie and Pulaski an opportunity to chalk up a lot of travel miles in exile.

1775- The U.S. Navy is born. George Washington gave a commission to the U.S.S. Hannah. Most of the infant navy were privately funded pirate ships, given the nice label "commissioned privateer". The British refused to give Americans the status of foreign belligerents so they referred to any sea-going Yankees as Pirates.

1784- Thomas Coke was named the first Bishop of the Methodist rite, by founder John Wesley.

1792- The September Massacres- When the French Revolution seized power the mob locked up pro French royalists, noblemen and priests. They were confused about just how far to go with trying them. But this day after radical publisher Jean Paul Marat called for death to all traitors because they were plotting with the German invaders to destroy the Revolution, mobs broke into the various prisons around Paris. They murdered the inmates by the thousands with swords, clubs and lynching from streetlights. "A’ la Lantern!" meant hang people from a lamppost. The massacres continued until Sept. 6th but the real Reign of Terror was just starting.

1795- Happy Birthday Cleveland. A group of Connecticut businessmen buy a tract of land on Lake Erie and lay out a new settlement. Their agent and project supervisor Moses Cleveland, names the place for himself.

1814- A landing party from the British warship HMS Hermes visited the Louisiana pirate Jean Lafitte in his lair at Barataria Island in the swamps near the Bayou St. Jean. They offered him a captaincy in the Royal Navy and $30,000 dollars in gold if he would aide the British in capturing New Orleans. Lafitte dismissed them with a promise to think about it, then passed on all he knew to Louisiana Governor Claiborne and the American authorities. It was the first warning the Americans had that the British planned to invade in force at the mouth of the Mississippi.

1864- "Luki Lock the Door! The Yankees are coming!" Sherman’s army entered Atlanta.

1897 - "McCall-magazine 1st published

1898-BATTLE OF OMDURMAN Lord Herbert Kitchener the Sirdar turned heavy cannon and machine guns on attacking Sudannese tribesmen. Kitchener later revealed his cruel side by refusing any medical aid for the enemy wounded and letting hundreds of them die slowly where they fell. 20,000 Sudanese fell to 48 British casualties. Standing in the field of corpses Kitchener said he had given the enemy a "Thoroughly Good Dusting." Kipling writes some neat poems, young Winston Churchill gets decorated and Kitchener breaks open the tomb of the Dervish religious messiah El Mahdi and has his skull made into a drinking cup. Prime Minister Gladestone told him this is not a terribly civilized thing to do so he got rid of it.

1901- In a speech Teddy Roosevelt said the U.S. should " Speak softly and carry a big stick!"

1909- On the three hundredth anniversary of Henry Hudson’s discovery New York City held a grand birthday party. Hundreds of ships and public spectacles capped off with Wilbur Wright flying his new aeroplane around the Statue of Liberty. Thomas Edison illuminating the entire skyline with the new electric bulbs- the first time a city was illuminated at night by electricity.

1917- Baron on Richtofen the Red Baron on his first mission with his new all red Fokker triplane forced down an English Sopwith fighter plane intact. The rotary engine plane had a design flaw that made it buck sharply to the right whenever you let up on the rudder bar. Richtofen would let an enemy get behind him, then he would lift his foot from the bar. The plane would jerk quickly to the right and he would zip behind his opponent. Then with a cheerful wave he'd shoot them down.

1922 -Weimar President Fritz Ebert declares "Deutschland uber Alles" as the German national anthem . The song was written in the 1770’s by Franz Josef Haydn, who had heard God Save the King while touring in London and decided his Kaiser needed an anthem. It was originally named Gott Enhalte Kaiser Franz.

1924- Harold Lloyd’s comedy short "Why Worry?" released.

1925- French and Spanish troops attacked the Moroccan coastline under Abdl el Krim to re-establish their colonial interests. The first Spanish troops landing at Alhucemas Bay were led by a Colonel Francisco Franco, later dictator of Spain.

1930 - 1st non-stop airplane flight from Europe to US –only 37 hrs.

1931-Young new singer Bing Crosby sang for the first time on CBS radio.

1935- A huge hurricane submerged the Florida Keys, killing 443. They did not name them yet.

1945- WORLD WAR II OFFICIALLY ENDED. The Grand Surrender ceremony in Tokyo Bay on board the U.S.S. Missouri. The Imperial Japanese forces sign the surrender documents before the representatives of the great powers. General Douglas MacArthur presided. His normally pretentious Victorian speaking style seemed appropriate for this dramatic moment:" These proceedings are now concluded. The most tragic era in human history has drawn to a close. We hope that future generations will not resort to war to resolve their problems."

The only glitch in the ceremony was the Canadian representative signed the surrender in the space reserved for the Japanese ambassador, and MacArthur brought his own pens which he then took back for himself for souvenirs. General Claire Chennault, the leader of the Flying Tigers had an ego almost as big as MacArthur's. He was the American general most under enemy fire, but he was not invited to the ceremony because the top brass considered him a pain in the ass.

1946- "The Iceman Cometh" by Eugene O’Neill premiered at the Martin Beck Theater on Broadway.

1963 - CBS & NBC expand network news from 15 to 30 minutes. CBS names a new reporter to star in their broadcast with the title "news anchor"- Walter Cronkite.

1964- Ten months after his brother’s assassination, Robert Kennedy resigned his post as attorney general of the United States to run for Senator of New York. Bobbie Kennedy and new president Lyndon Johnson hated one another. Johnson said he felt snubbed by that "Pipsqueak and his Massachusetts Mafia." Bobbie Kennedy referred to the President and First Lady as "Colonel Cornpone and the Little Piggy". Johnson’s decision not to run for re-election in 1968 in part was because he felt he would have to put his popularity up against Bobby Kennedy’s, the first politician to flash a two fingered peace sign credibly.

1969- The first ATM opened at a branch of Chemical Bank at Rockville Center, NY.

1973- J.R.R. Tolkein died at age 81. He once said of his trilogy The Lord of the Rings- I should have written more.

1985- A team of French and American oceanographers led by Dr. Robert Ballard discovered the final resting place of the HMS Titanic, which sank in 1912. Ballard would go on to discover the German battleship Bismarck, the WWII carrier Yorktown and JFK’s torpedo boat, the P.T. 109.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What does it mean to Deep Six something?

Answer: A founding of six fathoms of water was considered deep water in the ocean. So to deep six something meant to sink it out of sight.