Quiz: Why is a salute where we touch the extended fingertips of the right hand to our brow?

Yesterday’s questions answered below: Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.
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History for 7/6/2019
Birthdays: John Paul Jones, Czar Nicholas Ist, Frida Kahlo, Della Reese, Bill Haley,
Nancy Reagan, Sylvester Stallone is 73, Merv Griffin, Janet Leigh, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Sebastian Cabot, James Bodrero, The Dalai Lama, LaVerne Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Geoffrey Rush is 68, Ned Beatty, President George W. Bush is 73, Fifty Cent is 44, Jennifer Saunders is 61.

Happy St. Fermin's Day, the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, Spain. Remember when running the trick to it is keeping ones self directly in front of the bull’s head. This area between his eyes is his blind spot.

83 B.C.- Sulla stormed Rome and defeated the supporters of Marius. This first civil war amongst powerful Roman factions is known as “The Wars of Marius & Sulla" or “the Social Wars”. As dictator, Sulla published lists of hundreds of political enemies called the Proscribed. If you were on that list, anybody could kill you without trial. Sulla had on his staff a student intern who recently changed sides. His name was Julius Caesar.

1190- Death of Henry II, King of England and the Angevin Empire – he ruled a territory almost as great as Charlemagne but his reign was marred by the martyrdom of
Thomas à Becket and quarrels with his family. Henry had pledged to go on Crusade to liberate Jerusalem and after his death his Crusade was taken up by his son Richard the Lionhearted. In the end Henry was so disgusted by the feuds with his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and sons Richard, Geoffrey and John Lackland, that his dying breath was a curse on his own family.

1480- The hunchback Duke of Gloucester was crowned King Richard III. He is referred to as the Last Plantagenet, meaning the last of the bloodline of Geoffrey of Anjou and Richard the Lionhearted. He was defeated and killed by Henry VII of the House of Tudor. The recent discovery of his remains proved he really did have a spinal deformity. Whether he was the villain as Shakespeare and Hollingshed portrayed him, is a matter for scholars to argue over. Shakespeare was writing plays for the granddaughter of the man who killed him, so that would obviously color his interpretation of events.

1495-Battle of Fornovo- King Charles VIII of France begins a new round of European kings invading Italy by marching on Naples and defeating a combined army of the Italian city states. The warrior king Charles of France eventually died back home by banging his head on low doorway.

1560-The Treaty of Edinburgh- after a small war victorious Scottish Presbyterian rebels compel Mary Queen of Scots dismiss her French troops from Scotland and declare freedom to worship, which meant Scotland was going Protestant. Representatives of Queen Elizabeth of England also demanded Mary renounce forever her claim to the throne of England. Mary’s mother was King Henry VIII’s sister. Mary refused that.

1685- THE BATTLE OF SEDGEMOOR AND THE BLOODY ASSIZES.-The illegitimate son of King Charles II, the Duke of Monmouth, tried to overthrow his Catholic uncle King James II with the help of many old Roundheads, angry that the Catholic monarch was planning to subvert the liberties won by Cromwell in the English Civil War. This day Monmouth hightailed it for the hills while his army was cut to pieces in battle.
After the battle the punishment of the rebels under Judge Jefferies was so brutal it was nicknamed the Bloody Assizes. An assize was another name for circuit court. Hundreds were beheaded, tongues cut out, limbs branded with hot irons, then transported as slaves to the Bahamas and Barbados to cut sugar cane. White sugar was a new delicacy sweeping the nation. To this day many lighter skinned Bahamians can claim descendant from these condemned rebels. In the 1890s Rafael Sabatini wrote a novel about one slave who escaped to become a pirate named Captain Blood, later made into an Errol Flynn movie.

1809- THE IMMORTAL BELOVED LETTERS- Composer Ludwig van Beethoven never married, but not for want of trying. The bad tempered loner loved several women but never had a serious relationship beyond prostitutes. After his death, several love letters were found. The letters written this day were of a supremely passionate nature, where he begged some unknown woman to keep an appointment with him at some unstated rendezvous in Hungary. “Though still in bed my thoughts go out to you, My Immortal Beloved…” The letters were never sent and have no addresses or names. Who was this Immortal Beloved Beethoven yearns for?

1809-Battle of Wagram- Napoleon defeated the Austrian army of Archduke Charles. The Austrian soldiers wore white uniforms, so the French called them: "Soldats de la creme'". Napoleon planned this battle out so well that as soon as he was satisfied the enemy was toast, even though fighting still raged all around him, he took a nap on a leopard skin rug.

1853- In Ripon, Wisconsin Free-Soil Whigs and other lefty radicals form the new Republican Party. They were called the Anti-Nebraska Men, then Black-Republicans for awhile because of their strong anti-slavery stance.

1885- Louis Pasteur gave the first inoculation to cure rabies.

1886 - Horlick's of Wisconsin offers the first malted milk to public. It began as an attempt to create a new type of baby formula.

1895- A businessman named William Sydney Porter returned from Honduras where he had fled after being indicted for embezzlement. He had returned because he had learned of the illness of his wife. Porter was sent to prison, and while there began writing little stories which he later published under the name O. Henry.

1906- THE GREAT FUNERAL OF JOHN PAUL JONES- The heroic sea captain of the American Revolution died a bitter old man in Paris in 1792. Ill and forgotten, he had no friends. Writer Thomas Carlyle said Jones “resembled an empty wineskin.” The few mourners at the little Paris cemetery were he was interred were all admiring Frenchmen and children he had given coins to on the street during his walks through the Luxembourg Gardens. The American ambassador skipped his funeral because of a dinner party he didn’t want to miss. A Frenchman named Simonot had embalmed Jones in brandy in a lead sealed barrel because he figured the American government wanted to take him home. He was amazed when they were too cheap to even cover the transport fees. Jones’ sword and medals were pawned to pay for the funeral.

A century later America had become a great power. Scientists set about to look for John Paul Jones remains. They discovered the lead barrel in Paris’ Old Protestant Cemetery. The brandy embalming kept him so well preserved they could do an autopsy on the body. Jones had died of bronchial pneumonia and kidney failure at age 45. President Teddy Roosevelt shared Jones’ dream of a powerful US Navy. He used the occasion to stage a grand re-internment in Annapolis Naval Academy.

So on his birthday rows of battleships booming salutes and mile-long processions of marching US Marine and French honor guards gave John Paul Jones the grand funeral he always felt he deserved, just 113 years later.

1917 – As Lowell Thomas’ newsreel cameras rolled, Lawrence of Arabia and Bedouin Sheik Ouda Abu-Tai captures the Red Sea Port of Aqaba from Turkish troops. The battle was dramatized in the 1962 David Lean epic Lawrence of Arabia.

1925, A $400 deposit ($5750.00 in 2018) was placed on a lot located at 2719 Hyperion Avenue, in Los Angeles; by a pair of brothers named Disney.

1928- The film "The Lights of New York" premiered at the Strand theater on Broadway. 1927's the Jazz Singer popularized sound movies while still being half silent. This film was the first with an all dialogue track.

1938- THE EVIAN CONFERENCE- No, it wasn't about bottled water. Since 1933, the refugees fleeing the Hitler’s Third Reich grew to tens of thousands. President Franklin Roosevelt called for a summit of Western powers at Evian France to discuss the issue of the rising numbers asking asylum in the democracies. 32 nations participated. The conference turned into a parade of diplomats making excuses. It accomplished nothing. From 1938 to 1944 only half the quota for U.S. visas allowed were ever filled. The rest were held up by red tape while the Holocaust raged. Also the British Mandate authority bowed to Arab anger to restrict immigration to Palestine. Saudi Prince Ibn Saud said:” Why should we be punished for the sins of Europe?” The only nations on Earth who accepted unrestricted Jewish immigration from the Nazis were Holland and Denmark. Young delegate and future Israeli leader Golda Meir was asked what she hoped to get out of the conference. “All I want to see before I die is for my people to get something else beyond Expressions of Sympathy.”

1944- A fire broke out in the main tent of Ringling Bros Circus during a children’s matinee in Hartford Connecticut. The big top had been waterproofed with a paraffin solution thinned with gasoline and now that mixture engulfed the tent in flames. 168 died and 682 more were injured, mostly children. In 1950 a deranged arsonist named Robert Segee admitted setting the Hartford Circus Fire.

1957- Chuck Jones short "What’s Opera, Doc?" debuted. “Kill da wa-bitt, kill da wa-bitt..."

1957-16 year old John Lennon first met 15 year old Paul McCartney at a church picnic near Woolton, England. Lennon invited McCartney to join his first band called the Quarrymen, but McCartney missed their first engagement because of a boy scout trip.

1964 - Beatles' film "Hard Day's Night" premieres in London. The bands iconoclastic, antics portrayed by Richard Lester’s surreal free style direction set the style for the music videos of the future.

1965- TV sitcom F-Troop premiered. Shortly after the series began production it was learned that lead actress Melody Patterson (Wrangler Jane) fibbed on her paperwork and was actually underage, she was 15 years old. She kept the part, but the writers had to tone down any sexual innuendo in the scripts.

1965 - Rock group Jefferson Airplane formed.

1967- The state of Biafra tried to win its independence from Nigeria. In the Civil War that followed a million of its citizens died of malnutrition and the images shocked the world.

1974- The first broadcast of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keilor’s ode to small town life in Minnesota. Brought to you by Powdermilk Biscuits. His last broadcast was in 2016, and was forced to leave his company in 2017 due to Me-To allegations of sexual misconduct with his employees.

1996- Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump opened in theaters.

1998- French workers at Disneyland Paris theme park went on strike for better pay and not having to smile all the time like Americans do.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

Answer: Boxing.

Quiz: What name was actor James Cagney born with?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Which state was never part of the Confederate States of America? Florida, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas.
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History for 7/4/2019 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, Eva Marie Saint is 95, Gina Lollobrigida is 92, George Steinbrenner, Ann Landers, Ron Kovic, Geraldo Rivera, Victoria Abril is 60, 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 describe 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.

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.

Yesterday’s Quiz: Which state was never part of the Confederate States of America? Florida, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas.

Answer: Missouri. It was officially called neutral. Missouri broke apart in partisan fighting, and sent regiments to both sides.

Quiz: Which state was never part of the Confederate States of America? Florida, Missouri, Louisiana, Texas.

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who were Huntley & Brinkley?
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History for 7/3/2019
Birthdays: 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 57, 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 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 exact 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. Pickett bitterly said:" That old man destroyed my division." After the Civil War George Pickett were ostracized by Southern society for daring to criticize Robert E. Lee’s decision to attack. 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, also called the "BrudersKrieg" or "Brother's War" because in it Prussia fought the other German speaking nations Austria and Bavaria to see who would be the dominant power.
As a result of Koniggratz, Berlin and not Vienna would be the 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 out 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 with a lifetime addiction 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 was performed.

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

1988- U.S.S. Vincennes 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. In 2019 Morsi died in prison.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who were Huntley & Brinkley?

Answer: Chet Huntley (from NY) and David Brinkley (from Washington) were the newscasting anchor team for the NBC evening News, the Huntley-Brinkley report, for about 15 years, from the mid 1950’s through the 1960’s, giving CBS’s anchor, Walter Chronkite a run for his money. (thanks FG)

Quiz: Who were Huntley & Brinkley?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Was religion was Adolf Hitler born in? Catholic or Protestant?
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History for 7/2/2019
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 72

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 grand 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 indicated to English King Edward I Longshanks (Long-legs) that he is ready to give up. He was stripped of his titles and the Scots referred to him derisively as "Toom-Tabard" or "the bugger without any sleeves". Scottish resistance to English rule soon flared 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’ 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 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 an important 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 objected to 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. After the Declaration was voted on, 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- 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. In 1805 he conspired with Aaron Burr, and in 1812 he commanded America’s two bungled invasions of Canada. 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 for three months in great pain before he died. Chester Allen Arthur was a political hack, whose only previous 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 carried several passengers and mechanics gently into the air 30 miles from Frederichshaven on Lake Constance to Immenstadt, making perfect time. By the 1930s there was a regular zeppelin service between Europe and Buenos Aires. For years and it was considered much safer than airplanes. But after the Hindenburg disaster and the United States embargo of strategic helium, in 1939Herman Goring scraped what was left of the zeppelin fleet for spare parts.

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 3rd party candidate 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 peope 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 dynasty 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. Then an announcer read them aloud over the radio as though he were there. No matter, the effect was electric. Suddenly everyone wanted a radio set in their home.

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 uprising to coincide with the Nazi arrival. But the British 8th Army dug in at this obscure Egyptian railroad station outside of Cairo called El Alamein and finally stopped 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 said 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 France’s Great War dead. The eternal flame had burned continuously since 1921, even the Nazis 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.

Quiz: Was religion was Adolf Hitler born in? Catholic or Protestant?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: If you were in the US Navy, what kind of job was called SeaBees?
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History for 7/1/2019
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 52, Liv Tyler is 42,
Olivia DeHavilland is 103!

Welcome to July, named for Julius Caesar. Before that the Romans called it month number five- "Quintilicus Mensis". They had a ten month calendar and ran out of names after Juno (June). After Caesar’s assassination the Senate voted to change the name to the month of the Divine Julius. So thank 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 bad 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. Being pushed around by foreign troops on the street 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 the little town 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 & Barbera’s 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: If you were in the US Navy, what kind of job was called SeaBees?

Answer: Military engineers called Naval Construction-Battalion, or CB’s. These were the folks in charge of building on shore facilities for the Navy and Marines, and defending such facilities, during WWII. The SeaBees are still an active division of the U.S.Navy today.