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July 5, 2018
July 5th, 2018

Quiz: Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

Quiz: Who first coined the phrase “ …by any means necessary”…?
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History for 7/05/2018
Birthdays: P.T. Barnum, Beatrix Potter, Mrs. Sarah Siddons, Jean Cocteau, Admiral David Farragut, Len Lye, George Pompidou, Shirley Knight, Huey Lewis is 68, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, Milburn Stone (Doc on Gunsmoke), Warren Oates, Henry Cabot Lodge IV, Eva Green is 39, Edie Falco is 56

1779- TRYON’S NEW HAVEN RAID- During the American Revolution, Royalist Governor William Tryon of New York thought a way to bring the American rebels back to their allegiance was to launch a raid across Long Island Sound to rebel strongholds in Connecticut the day after their Independence Day celebrations.
Forty boats of redcoats landed at New Haven and looted, burned and brutalized the inhabitants. Most of his soldiers were hoodlums who were given the choice of prison or the army. The elderly Dean of Yale University was beaten to death with rifle butts. Civilian homes were ransacked and several women gang raped in their own beds. The redcoats then burned Norwalk and Fairfield before returning back across the water to occupied New York.
Crown policy was that the majority of Americans are good subjects, just deluded by bad leaders. But Tryon was frustrated with the endless guerilla fighting. So he lashed out with a brutality that accomplished more outrage than good. Gov. Tryon was soon recalled to London. For some reason there is a park named for Tryon in Upper Manhattan near the George Washington Bridge.

1814- Battle of Chippewa- During the War of 1812 an American force turned back a British counteroffensive across the Canadian border.

1820- THE TRIAL OF QUEEN CAROLINE- This was the greatest marital scandal ever to hit the British Monarchy. George the Prince Regent had been estranged from his wife Caroline since 1796. She had been living a wild life in Italy while George chased skirts at court. When his elderly mad father George III finally died and 'Princee' became King George IV, nobody expected Caroline to suddenly show up in England and still want to be Queen.
On this day George forced a bill into the House of Lords to grant him a divorce so he could be free to marry his mistress Lady Cunningham nicknamed 'the Vice-Queen'. The evidence in the trial were juicy anecdotes of the Queen's own sexual shenanigans with a number of Italians. The whole sordid affair was terribly embarrassing and split the nation into factions. Some loyal to the King, others the Queen's defender's of Women's Rights and the Family. The King's public appearances were greeted with cries of 'Nero!" the Duke of Wellington was hissed and had rocks thrown at him and Prime Minister Lord Liverpool was so upset he could not address Parliament without a dose of ether first.

Eventually the divorce bill was dropped and the King crowned, with the Queen shut out of the cathedral. A popular doggerel in Punch made a joke of Christ's advice to the Adulteress-
" Most Gracious Queen we thee implore, to Go Away and Sin No More...
But if that effort Be too Great, Just Go Away at Any Rate.."

1830- The last Bey of Algiers was driven into exile by the invading French Army. This was the end of the Barbary Corsairs, active since 1517. Algeria would be a French colony until 1962. Part of the invading force was a new unit made up of Paris street riff-raff and foreign exiles called the French Foreign Legion.

1839- THE FLORA HASTINGS AFFAIR- The first great scandal of Queen Victoria's reign. After the escapades of her predecessors, the new 20 year old queen dwelt in a closed moral atmosphere. One day she noticed one of her ladies-in-waiting, a Lady Flora Hastings, had an enlarged belly, like she was pregnant. The idea that this unmarried grande dame may have been pregnant was made worse by the idea that the father may have been the detested lover of Victoria's mother, Sir John Conroy.

The tittering eventually accelerated into a full-fledged political scandal involving the Prime Minister and the entire government. The slandered Lady Hastings had to submit to a humiliating doctor's examination to prove she was still a virgin and even that didn't silence the gossip. Finally it came out that her belly swelling was caused by a large tumor on her liver, and had she paid more strict attention to it instead of the gossip she might have lived. This day she died and everyone blamed the young queen of persecuting Lady Hastings. Young Victoria was hissed in the streets for the remainder of the year.

1865- In London, William Booth formed the Salvation Army.

1865- After two days of torrential rain at Gettysburg, Robert E. Lee began withdrawing his broken Confederate army south to Virginia. He had enough ammunition for one more day's battle, and he was hoping the Yankees would destroy themselves assaulting his strong defensive works. But the Yankees, much to Lincoln's annoyance, remained quiet in camp. This is the reason you don’t hear of the name of the winning Yankee General, George Meade, as much as you heard of Grant and Sherman.

1892- THE HOMESTEAD MASSACRE- Jacob Frick, the business partner of steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, decided to solve the problem of uppity unions by surrounding his Homestead plant with barbed wire and guns then announcing to the astonished employees that they were getting a 20% pay cut. 3,000 workers fought with police and non-union replacements, 7 killed, the union leaders arrested for incitement to riot.

1910- Writer O. Henry died of cirrhosis and tuberculosis at 47. His last words were "Turn up the lights, I don't want to go home in the dark." He became a writer while serving a jail term for embezzlement.

1930- In West Texas, Bonnie met Clyde.

1933-The Germans began building the Autobahn, a system of highways that became the envy of the world. The Bauhaus designers of the autobahn invented the ideas we take for granted today- the Cloverleaf Exit, Blending Lanes and the central meridian.

1934- THE SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL STRIKE- A longshoreman strike had brought harbor traffic along the West Coast to a standstill. California Governor Frank Merriam decided to send in the National Guard. When the longshoremen picketline was rushed by armored trucks full of scab replacements, they rioted and the troops opened fire. Hundreds were hurt and two killed. Blood flowed on the Embarcadero. One policeman who killed a demonstrator later said: "The man was a Communist so my only regret was that I did not kill more!" Flowers, candles and memorials to the slain men were kicked over by the S.F. police.

As a spontaneous unorganized reaction to the violence 100,000 San Franciscans refused to go to work for 4 days. The third largest city in the U.S. was completely paralyzed. Governor Merriam declared martial law but the tanks in the street were helpless. The regiment of National Guardsmen from Berkeley declared they would refuse to aim weapons at their fellow workers. To a nation struggling in the Depression there was widespread fear that this incident was the beginning of a Soviet style revolution. The Russian Revolution had started with general strikes. Then, on the 5th day everyone went back to work.

1935- The Wagner Act passed congress, decreeing all American workers have the right to collective bargaining and to form unions.

1943- Betty Grable married bandleader Harry James.

1945- The First British General Election held in ten years. Winston Churchill and his Tories were turned out for Labor candidate Clement Atlee. When his aides accused the British voters of ingratitude, Churchill said they had been through a lot and wanted to move on. But Churchill called Clement Atlee "a Sheep in Sheep’s clothing."

1945- OPERATIONS OVERCAST and PAPERCLIP- Pres. Truman had passed a law forbidding visas for anyone with a Nazi past to emigrate. The U.S. Army intelligence arranged for top Nazi rocket Scientists to be brought to the U.S. for our future space program. But the War Dept Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency chief Bosquet Wev declared:" We’re not going to beat a dead Nazi Horse!" Experts doctored the dossiers on these scientists, and changed descriptions like: "Fanatical Unrepentant Nazi" to "Politically Neutral".
Head of the unit Dr. Werner Von Braun was the inventor of the clustered liquid fuel engine rockets which Hitler had named the Vengence-2 and fired at London. Dr. Arthur Rudolphe the designer of the Saturn-5 moon rocket was deported in 1984 when a British documentary exposed his running a slave labor camp in 1943. Dr. Herman Becker-Freysing, the man who built John Glenn's space suit, got his knowledge about the effects of atmospheric pressure and oxygen loss on humans from experiments he did on the inmates of Dachau.

1952- London Transport scrapped the last of their electric streetcars in favor of diesel polluting double-decker buses.

1954- Elvis Presley recorded "That’s All Right" at Sun Records in Memphis. Some call it the first true Rock & Roll song, but that is disputed by Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock, Ike Turners Delta 88 and many other R&B hits. “That’s All Right” was written by black bluesman Arthur Big-Boy Crudup, who never profited from the song’s success and died living in a shack.

1954- Tomoyuki Tanaka announced the beginning of production on the movie Godzilla.

1963- The Vatican finally says it’s okay for Catholics to be cremated, since the world is running out of land to make into cemeteries anyway.

1968- In Vietnam, after months of brutal fighting in a battle the mainstream media equated with Iwo Jima and Gettysburg, the US Marines were ordered to abandon their firebase at Que Sanh. Many Marines were outraged that they had to give up a place they had lost so many brothers over. But the Pentagon felt it was too vulnerable to enemy artillery. In Marine annals Que Sanh is still counted as a great victory. Any blame for the withdrawal put on General Westmoreland, who had just been replaced as overall commander in Vietnam. This frustrating misuse of soldier’s sacrifice typified the Vietnam experience.

1975-Tennis player Arthur Ashe becomes the first African-American to win Wimbledon.

1975- Independence of the Cape Verde Islands.

1989- White House aide Lt. Colonel Oliver North sentenced for his role in the Iran Contra Scandal. North spent his last evenings before testifying shredding incriminating documents. Colonel North appeared in court in his Marine uniform while being interrogated by Hawaii Senator Dan Inouye, a real combat war hero who lost an arm fighting in World War II. Pundits enjoyed the irony of one who could say "I bled for my Country," while the other "I Shred for My Country!"
His conviction was later overturned by a conservative judge on a technicality. Oliver North is today a conservative talk show host.

1989- The first episode of the TV sitcom Seinfeld.

2002- International Professional Women’s Tennis had become dominated by two amazing American sisters, Venus and Serena Williams. This day Serena defeated Venus to win Wimbledon. Of 17 Wimbledon Women’s singles between 1999 and 2016, the Williams sisters won 12 of them. They are still competing today.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who first coined the phrase “ …by any means necessary”…?

Answer: French writer Jean Paul Sartre first used the phrase in a play, but it was made a catch phrase by African American leader Malcom X. In 1965 Malcom declared he sought equal rights for his fellow black citizens, but he thought the cause needed more than Martin Luther Kings non-violent civil disobedience.

“ We declare our right on this earth to be a man, to be a human being, to be respected as a human being, to be given the rights of a human being in this society, on this earth, in this day, which we intend to bring into existence by any means necessary.” It was the beginning of the Black Power Movement. Today “by any means necessary” is considered an implied threat of force.


July 4, 2018
July 4th, 2018

Quiz: Who first coined the phrase “ …by any means necessary”…?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?
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History for 7/4/2018 U.S. Independence Day
Birthdays: Jean Pierre Blanchard the balloonist-1753, George M. Cohan, Stephen Foster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Calvin Coolidge, Rube Goldberg, Louis Armstrong*, Edward Walker the inventor of the Lava Lamp, Mayer Lansky, Tokyo Rose, Louis B. Mayer, George Murphy, Emerson Boozer, Neil Simon, Mitch Miller, Eve Marie Saint is 94, Gina Lollobrigida is 91, George Steinbrenner, Ann Landers, Ron Kovic, Geraldo Rivera, Victoria Abril is 59, Pam Shriver, Rene Laloux, Gloria Stuart, Malia Obama

• Louis Armstrong always claimed his birthday was July 4th 1900, although records show his birth was August 4th 1901.

1054- A supernova in the constellation Taurus created a star visible in the sky for 23 days. The residue of the blast is visible today as the Crab Nebula.
1187- BATTLE OF THE HORNS OF HATTIN- Sultan Saladin lured the Christian Crusader army out into the desert, far away from water. The Saracens started a brush fire to confuse the Crusader formations with choking smoke. Old Duke Raymond of Tripoli realized what was happening but was helpless to stop it. When he saw his knights turning to fight, he cried out:" We're lost! We are already dead men!"

In one big battle the entire hierarchy of Crusader Palestine or Outremer as they called it, was dead or taken. Saladin also captured Christian holy relics like the wood of the True Cross and Holy Lance, and sent them to the Caliph in Baghdad.

Saladin's sister had been captured while on the pilgrimage to Mecca and raped by a crusader named Raymond du Chatillion. Chatillion bragged that he planned next to march on Mecca and “piss on the grave of that lying old mule trader Mohammad!” Raymond was taken alive, so Saladin spent that evening torturing him to death. Hattin was the battle that decided that the Holy Land would not be part of Christian Europe. Raymond of Tripoli escaped back to his castle, to die of old age.
1630- Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus lands in Germany to help the Protestant side in the Thirty Years War. Nobody remembers now, but back then little Sweden was a butt-kicking berserk military power. She always had the problem of a small population of 4 million while she took on nations like France and Russia with tens of millions.

1636- The town of Providence Rhode Island founded.

1653-THE BAREBONES PARLIAMENT- Puritan General Oliver Cromwell had beheaded King Charles I and dispensed with Parliament. This day he tried a semblance of legality by naming a new parliament but with no royalists, Catholics or Presbyterians, in fact they were all his handpicked Puritan followers. It was nicknamed the Barebones Parliament because one it’s leaders was an itinerant Puritan preacher named PraiseGod Barebones. After a few months Cromwell dispensed with even this rubber stamp Parliament, and ruled directly as a dictator.

1712- A slave uprising in colonial New York City killed 9. 1744- Representatives of the Crown Colony of Pennsylvania negotiate a peace accord with the Iroquois Confederacy of the 5 Nations. The great Onondaga chief Canasatego lectured the white men : " Our wise forefathers established union and amity between the five tribes, it has made us formidable. We are a powerful confederacy and by following the same methods you too can acquire great powers." A secretary present named Benjamin Franklin took his advice to heart. Their symbol, five arrows tied together is still held in the claws of the eagle in the Great Seal of the United States. 1776- U.S. INDEPENDENCE DAY- The actual vote for independence was on July 2nd, two days were required for rewrites, but the 4th was the day of the vote to approve the amended Declaration and the official announcement. After 46 revisions and deletions Tom Jefferson showed the finished document to Ben Franklin, he smiled: ”Now we may proceed.” The 56 men who signed the document knew that this was their death warrant as they were committing high treason. Many of them had their personal fortunes ruined as a result.

1776- It took two months for the news to cross the Atlantic. In London King George III wrote in his diary for July 4th, 1776:" Nothing important happened today..."
1802-The Hudson River fortress of West Point is inaugurated as a military academy. 1804- Already pledged to fight a duel to the death in a week, Vice President Aaron Burr and former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton have to sit next to each other at an Independence Day dinner in New York City. 1826- John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Adams last words were: "Jefferson...Jefferson still lives...” . Jefferson breathed his last at 1:30PM at Monticello Virginia, Adams at 6:00PM at his home in Quincy Massachusetts. Adams left holdings amounting to $100,000, Jefferson left debts amounting to $100,000. Jefferson freed only six out of 200 slaves, all of the Hemmings Family but not Sally Hemmings his mistress for 38 years. Jefferson’s youngest daughter clandestinely freed her with a pension for her old age.

1831- former President James Monroe, veteran of Washington’s Army and called the Last Founding Father, also died on the 4th of July.

1848- The Communist Manifesto published by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels.
1850- President Zachary Taylor "Old Rough and Ready" gets sick from eating too many raw cherries and raw milk at a ceremony laying the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. He died 5 days later. Modern historians wondered if he was poisoned, being a Southern statesman who openly opposed slavery, but an examination of his exhumed remains in 1993 proved natural causes. 1855- Henry Davis Thoreau moved to Walden Pond. He was the first U.S. writer to espouse nature as a thing of beauty instead of a mortal enemy to be conquered. This date is considered the birth of the American Conservation Movement.

1855- Walt Whitman published his quarto of poems The Leaves of Grass. Many people were shocked at its frank description of sexual desire. Whitman’s mother said: ”Walt is a good boy, but strange.”

1862- Oxford mathematics professor Charles Dodgson rowed ten year old Alice Liddell and her sister up the Thames in a small punt. The little girls begged him for a story, so Dodgson made up fantastic tales of March Hares, Mad Hatters and the Queen of Hearts.
Dodgson later wrote them down and published them in 1865 as Alice in Wonderland. He used the penname Lewis Carroll, which was a joke on the fact that Renaissance scholars adopted big stuffy Latin names like Ludovicus Carolus Magnus. 1863- The day after the Battle of Gettysburg both armies sat motionless while a torrential rains pour down. Lee had no more reserves and was practically out of cannonballs, U.S. General Meade still had a third of his army untouched and ready to go. But Meade infuriated Lincoln because he refused to resume the attack.

1863-VICKSBURG- The Confederate fortress-city of Vicksburg surrendered to Union General Grant. Pennsylvania-born rebel General James Pemberton led 29,000 men into captivity. He said: " In know the Northerners. We can get better terms if we give up on the 4th of July than any other day." Grant was so confident he would win that while the battle was still going on he telegraphed the town's main hotel and booked a room reservation for July 4th.
This completed the Yankee control of the Mississippi from the north down through Memphis to New Orleans. It severed the jugular of the Confederacy for it cut her in half. Lincoln in his announcement said: "The Father of the Waters flows unvexed to the Sea." The citizens of Vicksburg would not celebrate the Fourth of July for eighty years, until 1945.

1863- In the far West, the town of Boise Idaho founded. 1879- Battle of Ulundi- After several Zulu victories earlier in the year, the full weight of the British Empire is brought in to crush the Zulu people. It was the first time the British used Canadian, Indian and Australian regiments outside of their own territories. A large Victorian monument to British dead in the battle was erected and only in 1989 was a monument allowed to the native Zulu people who died defending their homeland.

1883- Buffalo Bill staged his first Wild West Show in North Platte Nebraska. Bill and his partners took the show all over the US and played for the crowned heads of Europe until 1916.

1898- The US flag first raised over Wake Island in the Pacific.

1905- Los Angeles developer Abbott Kinney had broke with his partners over the Santa Monica Pleasure Pier. He moved down the coast to some marshy wetlands and built a new community with canals, lagoons and gondolas. The town of VENICE California was dedicated this day. In 1925, the City of LA got rid of most of the canals and gondolas. Venice went on to be a seaside mecca for Beatniks, Hippies and weightlifters like young Arnold Schwarzenegger.

1911- The first rollercoaster on the Pacific Coast opened on Santa Monica Pier.

1914- First day of filming on D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of a Nation.”

1915- Heavyweight Champion Jess Willard who had taken the championship from Jack Johnson was himself beaten by a new kid named Jack Dempsey, the Manassas Mauler. Dempsey chewed pine tar to make his jaw hard and washed his face in ocean brine to toughen his skin against cuts. Dempsey hit Willard so hard, he broke his jaw and knocked out six teeth by the fourth round. Jack Dempsey defended his title several more times and became a popular media figure by appearing with many Hollywood Movie stars. After he retired he opened a bar-restaurant in NY Times Square called Dempseys, the first sports-bar.

1917- The US First Division paraded through Paris in advance of the main American armies still to come. General Blackjack Pershing laid a wreath on the tomb of the Marquis de Lafayette and proclaimed:” Lafayette- nous voisci! Lafayette, we are here!” Jake Strauss the owner of Macy’s Department Store changed it to “Gallerie Lafayette, we are here!”

1917- The July Coup. Lenin and the Bolsheviks tried to overthrow the Russian Government early but were put down. They fled into exile, trying again in October.

1926- Hungarian film director Mikhaly Kertesz arrived in Hollywood. He changed his name to the more manageable Michael Curtiz and directed great classic films like Captain Blood and Casablanca.

1930- 1,300 delegates formed the National Unemployment Council. They agitate Washington to create national unemployment insurance.

1933- In San Francisco Bay, the work began on the Oakland Bay Bridge. 1943- Nazis panzer divisions began the Battle of KURSK. Thousands of tanks swirled around in the flat dusty Ukrainian steppe land and blew each other to pieces. The Russians considered Kursk the real turning point of World War II because they stopped a full on Nazi blitzkrieg. For the first time the Nazis began a retreat in the summer.

1946- The Independence of the Philippines is declared.

1947- THE WILD ONES- 400 motorcyclists converge on a small California town called Hollister to party hard. The local police arrest 49 and call for State reinforcements. The national media sensationalized the wild bikers terrorizing a small town, calling them "Hell's Angels" three years before the first chapter was formed. Truth be told many residents remember the incident fondly and said it livened things up.

Many of the bikers weren’t teenage delinquents but World War II veterans who used motorcycles to recapture the thrill and camaraderie of action. The Life Magazine that dramatized the Hollister incident had a cover photo showing a depraved biker swilling beer. The shot was staged and the man in the photo was actually a Hollister local who never went near a Harley. The Marlon Brando film 'The Wild One" was based on the Hollister incident.

1954- Dr. Sam Shepard returned to his suburban Cleveland home to find his wife beaten to death and a man fleeing the scene. Dr. Shepard himself was convicted of his wife’s murder in a controversial trial. People still argue today whether he was guilty or not.
In 1998 Dr. Shepards son got DNA evidence to prove there was another man at the scene the night of the murder, and in 2000 the court threw out his wrongful imprisonment suit. The TV show and film The Fugitive was based on Dr. Shepard.

1956- MIT’s TX-1 Whirlwind computer added an adapted typewriter keyboard to enter data. The first computer keyboard.

1966- President Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act.

50th Anniversary 1968- “The Green Berets” premiered. John Wayne financed and produced this attempt to counter the antiwar sentiment sweeping America by creating a pro-war WWII style movie about the Vietnam War.

1969-“ Give Peace a Chance.” released by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band.

1976- What’s Love Got to Do With It? Singer Tina Turner left Ike Turner.

1976- The first true Punk Band, The Ramones, arrived in England for a tour. They greatly inspired future bands like the Clash and the Sex Pistols. When playing at the Palladium the Sex Pistols said they couldn’t get tickets to get in so the Ramones pulled them in through the men’s room window. Hey, Ho, Lets Go!

1982- Jimmy Connors defeated John McEnroe for his final Wimbledon Championship.

1982- Ozzie Ozbourne married Sharon Ozbourne.

1984- First Lady Nancy Reagan began the campaign to combat drugs among kids by saying “Just Say No”. Two of her Secret Service bodyguards were cocaine snorters.

1990- 2 Live Crew released the song Banned in the USA.

1997- NASA landed Pathfinder on Mars and deployed Sojourner, the first ever autonomous robotic rover. Expected to function for only two months, the rover collected data on the Red Planet for the next ten years.

2003- Pres. George W. Bush rashly bragged to the Iraqi insurgents “ Bring it on!” Insurgent attacks on American forces immediately went up 300%.

2011- The London Guardian newspaper reported that reporters from Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper News of the World had hacked into the private phone records of Milly Dowler, a 13 year old girl who was raped and murdered in 2002.
The outrage against the Murdoch journalists shook Fox NewsCorp to its roots. One whistle blower committed suicide, The 166 year old newspaper News of the World was shut down, and the chiefs of London Police quit in disgrace.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

Answer: Niagara Falls. The rim is worn down about two and a half feet each year because of the millions of gallons of water that rush over it.


July 3, 2018
July 3rd, 2018

Quiz: What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who were the Plantagenets?
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History for 7/3/2018
Birthdaze: King Louis XI of France "the Spider King"1423, Franz Kafka, Mr. Preserved Fish -New York Congressman 1819, Dave Barry, Leos Janacek, John Singleton Copley, Ken Russell, Tom Stoppard, George Sanders, Peter Fountain, Tom Cruise is 56, Kevin Hart is 39

Today is the Feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle, “Doubting-Thomas,” the patron saint of architects.

1754- During the French & Indian War, young Virginia militia Captain George Washington surrendered his post, Fort Necessity, to the French. Up till now his major ambition in life was to be an officer in the British Army. Now his first command was a defeat, and to top it all off, because one of his allied Indians once tomahawked a surrendered French officer, he was almost arrested for war crimes. When Washington signed the surrender document, a murder confession was slipped into the terms. It was in French, so he didn’t understand it.

1826- Elderly, dying Thomas Jefferson was drifting in and out of consciousness at his home in Monticello, Virginia. He would be cognizant long enough to ask “ Is it the 4th of July yet?” The author of the Declaration of Independence was grimly hanging on, determined to see one more Independence Day. Far north in Quincy, Massachusetts, John Adams was doing the same thing.

1863-PICKET'S CHARGE-CLIMAX OF GETTYSBURG-Robert E. Lee launched his last fresh divisions in a grand frontal attack to win the Civil War. 15,000 troops walk across one mile of open ground, while being shot at from the whole Yankee Army. Even against such long odds they almost break the Union center. The entire attack took thirty minutes.
Picket’s division suffered 50% casualties including all his leading generals killed. General Lothario “Lo” Armistead put his hat on his sword point and shouted "Who will follow me?" Lo Armistead’s uncle had commanded Fort McHenry during the “Rockets Red Glare” British attack in 1814. Armistead reached the union artillery before he was shot down. When one North Carolina flagbearer survived murderous gunfire from all sides and lived to reach the union wall, the men in blue instead of killing him, shook his hand.
Finally the Southern assault spent itself and started to recede. Men retreated backwards because they didn’t want to be shot in the back. Lee rode out and told the survivors: “This is my fault. All of this..” That night he wrote his resignation to Richmond. But no fault would stick on their beloved old general.
After the Civil War George Pickett were ostracized by Southern society for daring to criticize Lee’s decision to attack. Pickett bitterly said:" That old man destroyed my division." Pickett was family friends with the Lincolns. When Picketts’ son was born, Yankee generals sent baby gifts with a white flag through the lines.

1863- Santee Sioux chief Little Crow had led a large uprising against the whites in Minnesota. This day near the town of Hutchinson he was picking berries with his son when he was ambushed and killed by settlers seeking the $25 dollar bounty on Indian scalps. His body was thrown on an offal pile at a cattle slaughterhouse, and later put on exhibit by the Minnesota Historical Society. Eventually both bones and scalp were returned to the Sioux for proper burial.

1866-Battle of Sadowa-Koniggratz- climax of the Seven Weeks War. It was also called the "BrudersKrieg" or "Brother's War", because Prussia fought the other German speaking nations Austria and Bavaria to see who would be the dominant power.
As a result of this fight, Berlin and not Vienna would become the eventual capitol of a united Germany.

1890- Idaho statehood.

1898-Battle of Santiago Harbor- U.S. fleet under Admiral Sampson defeated the Spanish in Cuba. The U.S fleet so heavily outgunned the Spanish ships that the Spanish admiral is remembered at home as a hero for even attempting the fight to keep up the national honor.

1915- An emotionally deranged German professor at Cornell named Eric Meunter sent a time bomb to the U.S. Senate, then went to Glen Cove New York where he tried to assassinate tycoon J.P. Morgan. He shot Morgan in the thigh before he was wrestled to the ground and knocked unconscious with a lump of coal. He committed suicide in jail two days later. The incident was played up in the press to show how hostile Germany was, to turn neutral America into getting into World War I.

1916-Hetty Green "the Witch of Wall Street" dies at 80. Her eccentric cheapness created the millionaire-bag lady myth. The richest woman in America, worth around $100 million, she lived in a dumpy apartment in Hoboken, refused to pay for a doctor when her son broke his leg, and stole bread off the tables at fashionable restaurants.

1931- The Cab Calloway Orchestra recorded 'The St. James Infirmary Blues."

1937- In California the Del Mar Racetrack opened. Owner Bing Crosby personally welcomed the first customers to his track.

1943- Chuck Jones short Wackiki Rabbit debuted.

1946- Millionaire aviator Howard Hughes crashed an experimental airplane into four homes in Beverly Hills. Hughes had crashed planes before without much injury, but this crash left him near death. His slow recuperation left him addicted to morphine and codeine.

1969- Brian Jones, having been kicked out of the Rolling Stones just days before -- drowned in his swimming pool. His home was once the estate of Winnie the Pooh author A.A. Milne.

1969- On the same day, John and Yoko Lennon were almost killed in a car crash, along with John's son Julian and Yoko's daughter Kyoko.

1971- The Doors lead singer Jim Morrison, was found dead of a heart attack in his bathtub in Paris. He was 28.

1971- In Sweden, the First laser eye surgery performed.

1985- Robert Zemeckis’ hit film Back to the Future opened.

1988- U.S.S. Vincennes accidentally shot down an Iranian passenger airliner killing three hundred civilians. They thought the Airbus commercial plane was an Iranian fighter jet sent to attack them.

2002- Powerpuff Girls the Movie, premiered.

2013- After the overthrow of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak in 2011, Mohamed Morsi of the Moslem Brotherhood was elected President. But this day he was overthrown and imprisoned by a military coup led by General Fatah al-Sisi.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who were the Plantagenets?

Answer: The Plantagenets were the original British Royal family, the line of Richard the Lionhearted, Henry V, and John Lackland. They began when Mathilda, the last surviving niece of William the Conqueror, married French Duke Geoffrey Plantagenet, also called Geoffrey of Anjou. The Plantagenet family died out with Richard III, killed by Henry VII Tudor.


July 2, 2018
July 2nd, 2018

Quiz: Who were the Plantangenets?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Was Adolf Hitler born Catholic or Protestant?
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History for 7/2/2018
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Valentinian III (419AD), Bishop Thomas Cranmer (1429) , Christoph Witobald Gluck, Herman Hesse, Medgar Evers, Patrice Lamumba, Thurgood Marshall, Andrez Kertesz, Richard Petty, Abe Levitow, Ahmad Jamal, Cheryl Ladd, Jose Canseco, Jerry Hall, Imelda Marcos, Ron Silver, Lindsay Lohan, Brock Peters, Larry David is 71

6BC- Feast of the Visitation- When the Virgin Mary visited Saint Elizabeth and confided in her that she was pregnant with baby Jesus. The Magnificat is Mary's reply to the Angel of the Annunciation--"Magnicifcat anima mea Dominum..." "My spirit doth magnify the Lord" Many great composers like Vivaldi and Bach wrote choral brilliant choral masses called Magnificats for this occasion.

64 AD.- Today is the feast day of Saints Processus and Martinian who supposedly were Saint Peter's jailors in the Mamertine Prison in Rome. They were converted by their victim and Peter struck stones of the floor with his staff and water squirted out so he could baptize them.

1296-Scottish King John Balliol indicates to English King Edward I Longshanks (Long-legs) that he is ready to give up. He is stripped of his titles and the Scots refer to him derisively as "Toom-Tabard" or "the bugger without any sleeves". Scottish resistance to English rule soon flares up under William Wallace. John Balliol founded a school at Oxford.

1644-Battle of Marston Moor (English Civil War) The army of Parliament inflicts a crushing defeat on King Charles Is’ army outside of York. The defeat meant most of Northern England was now lost to the Royalist cause. The battle is also remembered as the first time a self-taught roundhead colonel distinguished himself in the public eye- Oliver Cromwell. The Royalists had already nicknamed him Old Ironsides.

1650- The first daily newspaper is published in the city of Leipzig.

1723- Johann Sebastian Bach’s chorale Magnificat first performed in Leipzig.

1775- George Washington arrived in the camp at Cambridge Massachusetts to take over command of the colonial army surrounding Boston. A Virginia slaveholder, one of his first commands was to turn away all free African-American volunteers. But the New Englanders convinced him they were a vital part of their army, so he relented.
In the American Revolution, one minuteman in eight was black.

1776- AMERICAN CONTINENTAL CONGRESS VOTES FOR INDEPENDENCE- Deep into a hot rainy Philadelphia night the delegates finally voted the ultimate break with the mother country. At this time most Americans still referred to England as 'home'. No colony had ever broken away from their mother country and become an independent nation.

And as far as the document Thomas Jefferson had written, called the Declaration of Independence, there were 46 separate revisions. The Southern states would not vote until the anti-slavery clauses were dropped. A clause stating New England Protestants objecting to the tolerance of Roman Catholics was dropped. One cancer-wracked delegate Cesar Rodney, rode 80 miles just to be there to effect the vote. The final vote was 12 colonies yay, 0-nay and New York abstaining.

"The Business is Done." John Adams said.
When the Declaration was voted and agreed a day was given to cleanup the document, and it would be announced on July 4th. The famous printed page with John Hancock's big signature was not done until August 2nd.
John Adams always thought the great national celebration should be July 2nd, not the 4th, because to him, that was the day the important vote actually happened.

1787- Commanding General of the U.S. Army James Wilkinson arrived in New Orleans for an inspection tour. In reality he was there to offer his services to the Viceroy of Spain as a paid double agent. He is the highest-ranking traitor in U.S. history, and he was never caught. It was said of Wilkinson 'He never won a battle, nor lost a court martial. '

1789- Two weeks before the French Revolutionaries stormed the Bastille, the Marquis DeSade was transferred to another jail. This after he grabbed one old inmates ear trumpet and recited out the window some sexual jokes about the warden to the laughing crowd below.

1863-2nd Day Battle of Gettysburg. Yankees and Confederates fight each other all day with no result. Places like Little Round Top, Devils Den and The Peach Orchard become battlefields. This was the day Maine schoolteacher Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain successfully defended the Little Round Top, climaxing with a bayonet charge after his men had all but run out of ammunition. Gen. Dan Sickles had his leg blown off. He was carried from the field, cooly puffing a cigar. A wily Tamany Hall politician, Dan Sickles knew this wound meant votes back home. He was elected to Congress after the war. He donated his shattered leg to the Army Medical School and used to visit it in his old age.

1881-PRESIDENTIAL ASSASINATION. President James Garfield was shot by Charles Guiteau. Guiteau was a demented gov't worker who expected a job when Garfield was elected. He said he believed in "Bible-Communism" and that he worked for "Jesus & Company". When nobody took notice of him, Guiteau decided to kill the President, then ask the Vice President Chester Alan Arthur for a job. On a platform at Washington's Union Station, Charles Guiteau shot the President in the back, dropped his gun and announced:" I am the last Stalwart. Arthur is now President!"

Garfield lingered three months in great pain before he died. Chester Allen Arthur was a political hack, whose only job before being president was collector of tolls for the Port of New York. Woodrow Wilson called him" a nothing with whiskers". In fairness to Arthur he did help create civil-service qualifications and eliminate the corruptible spoils system. Standing next to Garfield when he was shot was Secretary of War Robert Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln. Convinced he was bad luck, Robert Lincoln never went near the White House again.

1890- The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed. This law forbids business monopolies. J.P. Morgan said: "Trying to break up trusts is like trying to unscramble eggs!" It was invoked to break up Standard Oil (Exxon), the Hollywood Studios in 1948, the ATT/Bell Telephone System in 1980, and in 2000 against Microsoft.

1900- THE FIRST MAN POWERED FLIGHT- No, not the Airplane, the Zeppelin. Count Von Zeppelin’s creation the LZ-1 made it’s first flight. The LZ-1 carries gently several passengers and mechanics 30 miles from Frederichshaven on Lake Constance to Immenstadt, making perfect time. By the time of the Hindenberg disaster there was a regular zeppelin service between Europe and Buenos Aires. For years and it considered much safer than airplanes. But after the Hindenburg disaster and the United States embargo of strategic helium, Herman Goring scraped what was left of the zeppelin fleet in 1939.

1901- The last train holdup in America by Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid and their Hole in the Wall Gang.

1912- The Democratic Presidential Convention in Baltimore had been deadlocked for over a week. Finally after 46 separate ballots New Jersey Governor Woodrow Wilson was nominated to run against Republican President Howard Taft and Progressive Teddy Roosevelt.

1912- The First Automat restaurant.

1914- Under interrogation the 3 other Bosnian-Serb conspirators to the Archduke Franz Ferdinand assassination in Sarajevo confessed that they were members of the Black Hand, a terrorist group organized and paid covertly by the chief of Serbian intelligence.
Scholars agree that if Austria had declared war on Serbia immediately no other nation would have intervened and World War I may not have had to happen. But because Austria prevaricated for weeks and insisted Germany had to help and provoke Russia (see below) they began the tumbling of the great house of cards that caused the global disaster killing 37 million and contributing to the Spanish flu epidemic that killed a further 21 million.

1914- THE GERMAN KAISER HAS LUNCH with the Austrian ambassador. Kaiser Wilhelm pledged to fully support Austria's move to strike Serbia over the assassination at Sarajevo, knowing it would probably annoy his cousins Nikky the Tsar of Russia and Georgie the King of England. Casually he pledged the lives and fortunes of his 30 million German subjects and the destruction of his family over poached eggs and champagne. He then went on a vacation cruise for the next three weeks and was unavailable during the frantic diplomatic negotiations trying to avoid world catastrophe.

1921- To prove what a neat new invention radio was, RCA chief David Sarnoff broadcast for free a live feed of the Jack Dempsey vs. George Carpentier championship prizefight. He had loud speakers set up in Times Square that attracted ten thousand listeners. As it happened, the live reports were a sham. An eyewitness to the fight relayed details via tickertape to a Manhattan studio where an announcer read them aloud as though he were there. No matter, the effect was electric and suddenly everyone wanted a radio.

1927- The film Flesh and the Devil established a new star named Greta Garbo.

1928- The day after the Democratic convention nominated New Yorker Al Smith for president, the Attorney General ordered major raids a dozen illegal speakeasies throughout New York City. Smith was a leading opponent of Prohibition, and the attorney general wanted to embarrass him.

1934- Twentieth Century Fox signed a movie contract with child star Shirley Temple.

1937-AMELIA EARHART DISSAPPEARED. Over the Pacific near Howland Island the Coast Guard cutter Ithaca received the last radio signals from aviatrix Amelia Earhart and her co-pilot Fred Noonan. …."One half-hour fuel and no landfall in sight. We are in position….." Then nothing. They disappeared never to be found. Recently investigators made a case that she was rescued by the Japanese and executed on Saipan. Nothing conclusive has ever been proven.

1940- Hitler held a giant victory celebration in Berlin. Thousands of steel helmeted troops goose-stepped though the Brandenburg Gate to celebrate their defeat of France, Belgium and the British Army.

1941- JAPAN OCCUPIED VIETNAM-When Germany conquered France, the French colony of Tonkin-Indochine (Vietnam) stood alone in confusion. Should they take orders from Vichy or the Free-French exile government? Ignoring the protests of Britain and the United States, the Japanese Army invaded and occupied Indochina. Japanese Admiral Yamamoto was a leader of the peace party with Prince Konoye trying to prevent the coming conflict. When he was told what the army had done without consulting the opposition parties, he just shrugged. He knew this would provoke America past the point of no return. Now he must start planning a war with America.

1942- The beginning of the Battle of El Alamein. Rommel the Desert Fox and his Afrika Corps had pushed he British 8th Army across the western desert into Egypt. Their goal was the cut the Suez Canal, occupy the Holy Land and link up with other Nazi units moving down from the Russian Caucasus into French Vichy controlled Syria. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haij Amin al Husseini promised a Palestinian Arab uprising to coincide with the Nazi’s arrival. But the British 8th Army dug in at this obscure Egyptian railroad station outside of Cairo called El Alamein and finally stalled Rommel’s advance.

1946-The Peace Treaty of Beverly Hills- SAG president Ronald Reagan brokered a labor settlement between the two rival Hollywood Unions, IATSE vs. CSU, temporarily ending a violent Hollywood strike. At this time Reagan went to work every day with a 32 cal. Smith & Wesson under his coat.

1955- The Lawrence Welk T.V. Show debuts. Wannaful, wannafull !

1961-On the porch of his home in Ketchum Idaho, Nobel Prize winning writer Ernest Hemingway put a shotgun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. He blew most of his head off just leaving his lower jaw and some cheek. Papa Hemingway was always haunted by the suicide of his father and he was receiving electro-shock treatments at the Mayo Clinic for depression and alcoholism. He lived for awhile in Cuba and his office in Cuba is still kept the way he left it, even protecting the hordes of cats sired by Hemingway's original pair. In 1996 his granddaughter Margaux Hemingway committed suicide almost to the day.

1980- the Abrahams-Zucker Bros comedy Airplane! Premiered.

1982- Don Bluth’s The Secret of Nimh premiered.

1986- Walt Disney’s The Great Mouse Detective released in theaters.

1992- THE GREAT FLYING LAWNCHAIR- San Pedro Cal resident Larry Walters strapped 45 helium weather balloons to his lawnchair and took along a sixpack of beer, a sandwich and a pellet gun. In his lawnchair he reached 16,000 feet. After two hours he got entangled in some power lines. He was fined by the FAA for violating LAX commercial airport airspace.

1994- During the World Cup Columbian soccer star Andres Escobar accidentally scored a goal for the opposing team causing Columbia’s elimination. They take their soccer pretty seriously in Columbia. This day Escobar was shot 12 times by an enraged fan.

1997- "KILL THIS STORY! DRIVE A STEAK THROUGH IT’S HEART AND BURY IT !" was the reaction of a top CNN news executive to the uproar caused by two journalists who broadcast a story that during the Vietnam War the U.S. military experimented with bombing enemy villages with chemical weapons. Among the villages targeted with Nerve Gas was one they knew harbored American deserters. The operation was code-named Tailwind.
CNN was immediately attacked by Veteran’s groups, Henry Kissinger and Gen. Colin Powell. So this day CNN retracted the story as being bad journalism and fired the reporters and producer of the show. Top CNN Gulf War correspondent Peter Arnett came out in support of the story and quit CNN. The journalists refused to recant their story and say the then commander of the joint chiefs of staff Admiral Sumner vouched for it’s validity. Others said Sumner was senile.

1998- In Paris, Mexican World Cup soccer fan Rodrigo Rafael Ortega was arrested for drunkenly urinating on the eternal flame in honor of Frances Great War dead. The eternal flame had burned continuously since 1921, even the Nazi occupation left it alone. Ortega was the first to ever put it out. Once again international football proves its abilities to bring peoples together.
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Yesterdays’ Quiz: Was Adolf Hitler born Catholic or Protestant?

Answer: He was born in Austria, and his mother had him baptized Roman Catholic. He personally expressed disdain for the religion.


July 1, 2018
July 1st, 2018

Quiz: Was Adolf Hitler born Catholic or Protestant?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Of what verb is wrought? (as in what hath God wrought or wrought iron)
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History for 7/1/2018
Birthdays: Louis Bleriot, Tommy Dorsey, George Sand, Charles Laughton, James Cagney, Diana Princess of Wales, Twyla Tharp, Carl Lewis, Jamie Farr, Sidney Pollack, Wally "Famous"Amos, Estee Lauder, Debbie Harry (Blondie), Genevieve Bujold, Karen Black, Dan Ackroyd. Andre Crouch, Pamela Anderson is 51, Liv Tyler is 41,
Olivia DeHavilland is 102!

Welcome to July named for Julius Caesar. Before that the Romans called it month number five- "Quintilicus". They had a ten month calendar and ran out of names after Juno (June). So thank Julius Caesar that you don't have to celebrate the Fourth of Quintilicus.

330BC- Alexander the Great comes upon the body of his enemy Darius IV, the Great King of Persia. Darius was assassinated by several noblemen who thought it would make Alexander stop pursuing them. Alexander caught the assassins and had them executed. Their leader Bessus the Satrap of Bactria had his nose and ears cut off, then was tied by the arms to two bent trees, that when released, pulled his body apart.

987 A.D. Hugh Capet becomes King of France, replacing the last of the family of Charlemagne.

1097-Battle of Dorylaeum. Crusaders defeat the Saracens.

1251- After a contentious election at the Grand Kurlutai (conference) of Karakorum, the Mongols elect Mangu as the next Great Khan. Despite the immense size of their empire -from Vietnam and Korea across Eurasia and India to Poland and Syria, the Mongols were still an overextended tribal system, where the council elders anoint the next prince. Mangu pledged to renew his grandfather Genghis Khan's plan for World Conquest. Fortunately for the world, he died shortly soon after.

1410 -at the crossroads of Czerwinsk, King Casimir II Jagiello of Poland unites his army with Witold Wytautas, the Grand Duke of Lithuania and a contingent of Crimean Tartars for the final showdown with the Teutonic Knights of Prussia.

1776- During a hot, humid day in Philadelphia the Continental Congress held the final crucial debate over whether to declare American Independence. No English colony had ever broken away from the British Empire by force. The conservative lawyer John Dickinson argued that the colonies indeed had grievances with England, but to declare independence was rash, "we would be embarking upon an ocean of storms in a skiff made of paper!" John Adams waited until he was finished, and then gave the greatest speech of his life. There is no record of what he said, because the debates were in secret and Adams didn’t work from notes. Jefferson said his passion swept the room. Yet despite it all, four colonies still were not sure they could vote for a final break with Mother England. Adams asked for a delay of one day, to await the New Jersey and South Carolina delegations to get their instructions.

1789- In Paris, revolutionary sentiment had been building since the Estates General declared itself the National Assembly and demanded King Louis XVI create a constitutional monarchy like Britain. King Louis this day listened to his conservative advisors that his French Royal Guards could not be trusted anymore. In an amazingly dumb move, King Louis XVI ordered several regiments of German and Swiss mercenaries into Paris restore order. The foreign troops made camp in the Champs de Mars, where the Eiffel Tower stands today. This all but ensured that a violent Revolution would soon break out.

1851- James MacNeil Whistler applied to West Point Military Academy. After failing entrance exams he washes out and concentrates on becoming one of the most celebrated painters of the century. He later joked:" If silicon was a gas, I’d be a major general by now!"

1858- Charles Darwin does a public reading of his theories on Evolution to the Linean Club in London.

1862-President Abraham Lincoln signed into law the Revenue Act, calling for a 3% tax on people for the duration of the Civil War. Real graduated income tax didn’t become permanent until 1913. One other institution Lincoln started from this act was the Internal Revenue Office

1863- GETTYSBURG- the most famous battle ever fought on U.S. soil.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee decided to invade north into Pennsylvania and hopefully by threatening Philadelphia and Washington force peace talks. Union General Meade shadowed his movements. With all their cavalry away chasing each other the two large armies groped around blindly through the backwoods of Lancaster County.

Rebel General Henry Heath stopped in the little crossroads town of Gettysburg to get shoes for his men. While there he ran into some blue uniforms up the street. "Go on boys, that's just some Pennsylvania militia." Heath said. Actually it turned out to be the Yankee's elite "Iron Brigade". A nasty firefight brewed up and both armies started to boil into each other like a slow motion trainwreck. Union General Winfield Scott Hancock drew up his cannon in a hilltop cemetery for defense. The battle would last three days and Lee's defeat would be the turning point of the Civil War.

Through the screams and gun smoke one could read a little sign on the Gettysburg Cemetery gate: " The Carrying or Discharge of Firearms on these Premises are strictly Prohibited".

1867-HAPPY CANADA DAY- By treaty Her Majesties North American Colonies of Upper and Lower Canada, Maritimes, Prince Rupert Land and diverse other holdings are incorporated as the Autonomous Dominion of Canada. This master plan to consolidate the British Empire's colonial administration was invented by Lord Caernarvon, who Queen Victoria nicknamed "Twitters."

1898- THE CHARGE UP SAN JUAN HILL. Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders take the Spanish fortifications on the two hilltops above the harbor of Cuba's second city, Santiago. His main attack was actually up Kettle Hill and the Rough Riders were on foot, and Teddy was not in charge, but it made great hardcopy. Roosevelt"s superior was elderly former Confederate General Fightin' Joe Wheeler, who occasionally mixed up calling the Spaniards-"Yankees". Teddy was so excited about being under fire that at one point he stopped before a trooper dying of a terrible abdominal wound, shook his hand and said: " Isn't this just a splendid day ?!"

1898- The Second Treaty of Peking- Britain leased Hong Kong from China for 99 years. Hong Kong was given back in 1997.

1902- The United States declared the Philippine Insurrection officially over.

1916- THE SOMME- During World War I while the French and Germans were stalemated at Verdun the British began the "Big Push" also known as the First Battle of the Somme. The British high command were so confident this attack would break open the stalemate and get them out of the trenches that they began training their men in open country tactics. But after four months of hell and one million casualties all they managed to do was move their trench line just 5 miles. Twenty thousand men fell in just one day. The descendant of one veteran of the battle recalled his grandfather reached the German trenches and saw a dead German machine gunner up to his knees in spent bullet cartridges.

Young Captain Robert Graves was sent back to England for an operation on his deviated septum. He missed the attack while his unit suffered 60% casualties. Graves survived to write books like " I Claudius". At one point he was in hospital with poet Wilfred Owen and A.A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh). Another lieutenant there named J.R.R. Tolkein was jotting down notes about Norse-Celtic warriors and wizards for a future story book. Historian John Keegan said in retrospect the English sense of naïve optimism from the Victorian Era turned cynical after the Somme.

1916- Dwight and Mamie Eisenhower married.

1925- THE KRUPP COMPANY PLANS FOR THE FUTURE- In Postwar Berlin, a small industrial design office is set up with a few designers and drafting tables. The company called itself Koch und Kinsell but the real owner was Krupp Armaments Company. While the main Krupp steelworks produced bottle openers and trash bins, in secret violation of the Versailles Treaty these men designed the weapons of mass destruction that would wreak havoc in World War Two: Panzer Tanks (code named "tractors"), 88mm guns, more lethal U-boats, bombs and torpedoes. At a time when no one had ever heard of Adolph Hitler, the Krupp engineers were drawing up blueprints with notes like: " Keep gage widths of tanks within the dimensions of French railroad rolling stock for rapid movements inside France and Belgium.”

1926- The Northern Expedition- After the fall of the Manchu Dynasty, China had broken up into provinces dominated by warlords with private armies and areas under foreign commercial control. Chiang Kai Shek and the Nationalist or Kuomintang government controlled most of the southern provinces. This day he launched five armies north to bring these provinces back into unified China.

1926- THE FIRST ANIMATED FEATURE. Lotte Reinnegers The Adventures of Prince Achmed premiered in Paris. Ten years before Walt Disney’s Snow White.

1933- Scarface Al Capone got his start in the crime from New York mobster Frankie Yale. But when Yale started to get inconvenient for Big Al, he didn’t have any problem with having him killed this day.

1933- Mickey’s Gala Premiere, Mickey short with Joe Grant’s caricatures of famous Hollywood celebrities.

1941- Animation director Tex Avery stormed out of the Looney Tunes Studio when Jack Warner ordered cuts in his Bugs Bunny cartoon, THE HECKLING HARE. 40 feet was trimmed from the end of the cartoon by Leon Schlesinger who agreed with Mr. Warner it had one too many endings, involving Bugs and the Dog falling through space endlessly. Leon put him on a four-week suspension without pay, but Avery had already lined up a directing gig at MGM.

1941- THE FIRST TV COMMERICAL -During the live coverage of a Brooklyn Dodgers-Philadelphia Phillies baseball game the first FCC sanctioned television commercial aired. It was for the Bulova Watch Company.

1945- Bill Mauldin's wartime comic strip "Willie and Joe' ends it's run along with the European front line edition of Stars and Stripes magazine. Charles Schulz of Peanuts fame said no one could draw mud like Bill Maudlin. Mauldin was once chewed out by General Blood & Guts Patton for making his GIs so slovenly and cynical. He felt it was a negative image of the American Fighting Man. Seesh...everybody’s a critic!

1945- NY Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia read the Sunday comics section over the radio because of a newspaper strike.

1946- The first peacetime A-Bomb detonated in the Bikini Islands. The army wanted to study the effects of the bomb so they parked old German warships, buildings and dummys around it, as well as chained down animals. They soldiers nicknamed the bomb 'Gilda' after the Rita Hayworth movie. When Ms. Hayworth heard her name was being used to incinerate 1,500 innocent sheep, horses and elephants, she collapsed in shock. The inhabitants of the island were removed, and to this day those islands are uninhabitable. A cloud of radiation also killed the crew of a Japanese fishing boat who strayed into the area. But the island's name gave a neat idea to French designer Jacques Clauzel what to call his daring new ladies’ two-piece swimsuit.

1956- The film Earth Vs. The Flying Saucers premiered. Effects by Ray Harryhausen.

1958- Does She or Doesn’t She? Clairol hair dye introduced.

1963- U.S. POST OFFICE introduced Zip Codes.

1966- The US Medicare Program began. The first Medicare card was given by LBJ to elderly former President Harry Truman. At the time it was felt there was no need to include prescription drugs in the program since their cost was so low. Since then while general inflation rate has been nil to 1%, prescription drugs average inflation rate is 400%.

1970- Hanna & Barberas attempt at a primetime animated series "Where’s Huddles?"

1970- The Xerox Company of Connecticut were convinced to open a new computer science lab on the west coast near Stanford University, It was called Palo Alto Research Center, or Xerox PARC. In 9 years, PARC will develop laser-printing, color graphics, GUI’s, Graphics User Interface, windows, cursor point and click, and Ethernet.

1972- Ms. Magazine started publication.

1981- The Wonderland Murders. Over-endowed porn star Johnny Holmes (aka Johnny Wadd) was implicated in a gang murder. This day four drug dealers were found beaten to death in his home, The Wonderland Gang. Holmes was picked up and tried as an accomplice but was acquitted. Johnny Holmes died in 1988, and his story became the basis for Marc Walberg’s character in Boogie Nights.

1996- the movie Dinosaur Valley Girls premiered.

1998- Barbara Streisand married James Brolin.
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Yesterday’s Question: Of what verb is wrought? (as in what hath God wrought or wrought iron)

Answer: it is older past participle of the word “work”.


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