Quiz: What is a roofie?

Yesterday’s question answered below: There is evidence, then there is empirical evidence. What is the difference?
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History for 4/26/2023
Birthdays: Marcus Aurelius, French Queen Marie De Medicis, Pasquale Paoli, John James Audubon, Frederick Law Olmstead, Eugene Delacroix, Syngman Rhee, Dr. Lee DeForrest, John Grierson founder of the National Film Board of Canada, Rudolf Hess, Bobby Rydell, Anita Loos, I. M. Pei, Carol Burnett is 90, Eyvind Earle, Giancarlo Esposito is 67, Kevin James, Amos Otis, Joan Chen is 61, Jimmy Giuffre, Rocker Duane Eddy- 83, Jet Li- born Li Lian jie is 60, Victor Perrin 1916, voice actor who did the Control Voice in The Outer Limits. He also was Dr Zin in Johnny Quest., Melania Trump is 53

1478- THE PAZZI CONSPIRACY- Pope Sixtus planned to take over Florence by arranging a hit on Duke Lorenzo de Medici "The Magnificent". Francesco Pazzi and Bernardo Bandini attacked the Duke in church just as the consecrated Host was being raised. Lorenzo escaped harm but his brother Giuliano was cut down.
Furious Florentines fell on the felons (repeat three times fast) and nailed their smoking hearts to the door of the cathedral. People blamed Archbishop Salviati for being part of the plot. The mob chased the archbishop up the bell tower, wrapped the bell chords around his neck and tossed him out to ring the bells for awhile. The people shouted "Long Live the Balls!" for the six gold balls that were the heraldic emblem of the Medici Family Bank. This emblem of three gold balls has come down to us as the universal sign for pawnbrokers.
Michelangelo created a beautiful tomb for murdered Giuliano de Medici. Duke Lorenzo ordered artists to paint the portraits of the murderers’ corpses. Giuliano’s illegitimate son later became Pope Clement VII.

1607-THE ENGLISH LAND AT JAMESTOWN. First permanent English colony in America. The good ship Susan Constant and two small pinnaces landed 150 men. These men were mostly professional adventurers and gentlemen. Capt. Martin and Capt. Archer served with Sir Francis Drake. Of the 150, only 12 men actually could do a trade other than fighting. Their goal was to find another Aztec Empire like the Spaniards found in Mexico, defeat it, and send the gold back home. In a years time all but 50 of them would be dead from fever and cholera. And they never found any gold. Until John Rolfe began growing tobacco there, the Virginia colony was seen as a failure.
Oh yeah, there was that John Smith guy too. He wouldn’t meet Pocahontas until around Christmas.

1777- Sybil Luddington, the female Paul Revere. Pro-British Governor Tryon launched punitive raids from occupied New York across Long Island Sound to the Connecticut coast. When one such raid threatened Danbury, colonial colonel Luddington’s 16-year-old daughter Sybil leapt on a horse and rode 45 miles through the townships rousing the minutemen. Sybil survived the Revolutionary War, married, and lived to be 89.

1846- Since annexing Texas, the U.S. and Mexico disagreed over where the border was. Mexico said it was the Nueces River, while the U.S. said it was the Rio Grande. President James K. Polk ordered an army into a disputed border area, in the hope Mexico would attack them. Then Washington could declare war with a clear conscience. This day, outside Matamoros, Mexican General Arrista ordered his men to fire on some Yankee woodcutters. When Gen. Zachary Taylor sent a Captain Thornton with some dragoons to investigate, they were attacked as well. Taylor wrote to Washington " Hostilities have commenced" Pres. Polk addressed Congress, “The cup of forbearance had been exhausted even before the recent information from the frontier of the Del Norte [Rio Grande]. But now, after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil! She has proclaimed that hostilities have commenced, and that the two nations are now at war.” The War with Mexico was on.

1865- Near Bowling Green Virginia, President Abe Lincoln’s assassin John Wilkes Booth was cornered in the barn of Garretts tobacco farm. The troopers set fire to the barn, and as Booth emerged he was shot by Sgt. Boston Corbett. Booth died looking at his hands muttering "Useless, useless..."Corbett was a religious fanatic who had castrated himself with a bayonet to be free of sin. Years after killing Booth, Corbett committed suicide.

1877- The people of Minnesota held a state-wide day of prayer to ask the Almighty to deliver them from a plague of grasshoppers infesting their farmland. It must have worked because they were gone by the end of the summer.

1878- The Oxford dons who oversaw the Oxford University Press charged Scottish scholar James Murray with completing the first complete Oxford Dictionary of the English Language. This would be the first comprehensive dictionary of the King’s English since Dr Johnson’s in 1755. The project had been started by the son of the poet Samuel Coleridge but he died of consumption. James Murray was a self taught scholar who as a boy tried to teach his cows to respond to commands in Latin.

1926- The British General Strikes- Unions across Great Britain joins in sympathy with miners to paralyze the nation. Troops and tanks are stationed in WhiteHall for fear of a Bolshevik-style rising. The horrible poverty resulting from defeating the strikers accelerate the Depression already gripping postwar Europe.
When the Prince of Wales (future Edward VIII) was shown the medieval squalor the Midlands miners lived in, he was deeply shocked, but eyewitnesses said after returning to Kensington Palace for a bath and a whiskey & soda, he had quite forgotten about it.

1928- Los Angeles City Hall dedicated.

1933- The Nazi government formed an internal police force called the Gehime Staatspolitzei- aka the Gestapo.

1937- GUERNICA- In Spain the Stuka bombers of the German Condor Legion, Nazi subcontractors for Franco, bombed an innocent Basque village, killing 5,000 and provoking an international outcry and a painting by Picasso. Attacking at the height of the market time, for three hours the planes bombed and strafed the helpless civilians with no military target in sight. Combatants in WWI tried to avoid harming civilians, but this act and the simultaneous Japanese attacks in China signaled a new tactic, sowing terror by treating civilians as targets.

1941- An organ is played for the first time at a baseball game in Chicago.

1942- The last Little Orphan Annie radio program ran on WGN Chicago. After 12 years, Ovaltine replaced it with Captain Midnight.

1945- The War Department in their new headquarters in the Pentagon issued orders to General Eisenhower in Europe to begin Operation Paperclip- "to preserve from destruction and take under your control records, plans, documents files and other information and data belonging to German organizations engaged in military research." Included in the haul were dozens of German rocket scientists who regardless of their political sympathies were spirited away for the burgeoning US missile program.

1965- Fred Smith, a student at Yale, got his economics paper back with a "c'" and a note stating the idea he espoused was impractical. The idea was an overnight air-freight service which he founded six years later as Federal Express.

1969- PAUL IS DEAD. The height of a strange rumor that excited the rock & roll world that Paul McCartney of the Beatles had died, and the news was being kept a secret. Evidence was presented in the cryptic lyrics of "I am the Walrus", songs played backwards and the record album photo where Paul is the only figure with his back to the camera.
A TV special hosted by celebrity attorney F. Lee Bailey explored the controversy. Finally, this day Paul and Linda McCartney held a news conference and declared he was very much alive and what on Earth was everyone on about?

1977- In New York City, Studio 54, the mecca of 70’s Disco culture opened.

1982- Argentina gave in to Britain's demands ending the Falklands War. The military junta ruling in Buenos Aires fell a year later.

1986- CHERNOBYL- The Chernobyl nuclear reactor explodes. While the Soviet Government acknowledged 400 deaths, accounts put it as high as 9,000. 100,000 square miles of the Ukraine was contaminated, and tainted food shipped to 65 million people. Historian Igor Medvedev (who died from radiation induced cancer) reported on the bizarre fumbling at the beginning of the crisis.
When one engineer entered the reactor core, he saw the devastation of the explosion while absorbing the radiation equivalent of 23 Hiroshima atomic bombs. He went out and told his supervisor: "Reactor Number Three has exploded." His supervisor told him: "That’s impossible! Go back and look again." So, he dutifully re-entered the reactor core, absorbing another 23 atomic bombs worth of radiation and came out and said:" Yes, it’s true, it’s really blown up." And he died shortly afterward.

1986- Arnold Schwarzenegger aka Conan the Republican, married Maria Shriver, the niece of John F. Kennedy.

1993- NBC announced former Simpsons and Saturday Night Live comedy writer Conan O’Brien would take David Letterman’s old Late Show spot. After a few years he moved on to replace the retiring the retiring Jay Leno on the Tonight Show. But soon Leno decided he did not want to retire just yet and bounced Conan.

2004- Michael Eisner of Disney named to Forbes list of the Worst CEOs in America.
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Yesterday’s question: There is evidence, then there is empirical evidence. What is the difference?

Answer: Evidence can be circumstantial. He-said, she-said. Piecing together clues. Empirical evidence is a fancy way of saying hard, physical evidence or direct observation. A recovered murder weapon, etc.

Quiz: There was a famous ancient statue called Laocoon that was discovered during the Renaissance. Who was Laocoon?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: What is the current name for the Indian city once known as Bombay?
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History for 4/24/2023
Birthdays: Daniel Defoe, William de Kooning, St. Vincent de Paul, Morgan Earp, Jack E. Leonard, Dame Ethel Smyth, Jill Ireland, Eric Bogosian, Sue Grafton, Robert Penn Warren, Barbara Streisand is 81, Cedric the Entertainer is 59, Shirley MacLaine is 88

1184 B.C. (est.) TROY FALLS TO THE GREEKS- Despite the warnings of the seers Cassandra and Laocoon, the Trojans brought Ulysses' great wooden horse into the city, and at night the Greeks climbed out and opened the city gates to destruction. The reason we have any date for this was this day the Romans celebrated a festival commemorating the event, and they invented our calendar.
The Romans liked the story that they were descended from the Trojan survivors led to Italy by the hero Aeneas. This seemed way more cool than being a little Latin tribe who got their act together before their neighbors.
They loved this myth so much that in 190B.C. when the legions of Publius Scipio Asiaticus marched into Turkey to make war on Antiochus the Greek king of Syria, they paused first to go to the plains of Illium (the field where Troy once stood).
The writer Livy wrote" There the grim warriors embraced and wept aloud like babes, for after countless generations, the children of Troy had come home at last." (Livy, History: Book XXXVII: 35)

1584- Japanese Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi asked the Heii Shrine in Edo (Tokyo) to dedicate a new heraldic design - the red disc Asahi - Rising Sun flag is created.

1800- The U.S. Congress set up the Library of Congress. By 1814 it had three thousand volumes, but they were destroyed when a British Army burned Washington. Thomas Jefferson then donated his own private library to restart the collection. Today it numbers in the millions of volumes.

1833- The Soda Fountain was patented.

1861- The minister of the independent German city-state of Bremen, Johann Schlieben, offered his services to Abraham Lincoln to open shuttle diplomacy with the rebellious Confederate States. He carried a message or two between Washington and Richmond. Eventually Lincoln told him thanks but no thanks. Blood had been shed and the flag insulted; it was too late for talk. Similar offers of mediation by a delegation of Virginia moderates led by former President John Tyler were also refused.

1874- Jesse James married his cousin Miss Zerelda Mimms, who he called Z.

1901-The First American League baseball game. The Cleveland Blues vs. the Chicago White Stockings.

1913- The Woolworth Building was dedicated in lower New York. It’s cornices decorated like the campanile of Saint Marks in Venice. At the time it was the tallest skyscraper in the world. President Woodrow Wilson illuminated its electric lights by flipping a switch long distance in the White House. One person upon taking the elevator to the top floor, said “ Is God in..?”

1915- THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE- The Ottoman Turkish Empire had always been an amalgamation of ethnic peoples. As their Empire aged and became the 'Sick Man of Europe', one by one these subject peoples- Greeks, Serbs, Egyptians, asserted their independence and broke away.
When the Armenians also demanded autonomy, the Sultan Abdul Hamid IV came up with a bloodthirsty solution. After a Turkish offensive into Russia was defeated, this day the first 200 Armenian elders of a village were shot, signaling a general nationwide pogrom that would eventually kill over 1.5 million people. The first person to bring the massacre story to the world was a German, Dr. Armen Wegner. On the scene for the Red Cross he complained to the Kaiser and the Berlin press. The refusal to even discuss this event is a sore point dividing the nations to this day.
Supposedly when a top Nazi suggested to Adolf Hitler that his plans for the Jews would bring down on Germany the condemnation of the world, Hitler replied “…and who remembers the Armenians?”

1916- THE IRISH EASTER SUNDAY UPRISING -Patrick Pearse, James Connolly, Michael Collins, Eamon De Valera and followers seize the O'Connell Street post office in downtown Dublin and proclaim the Irish Republic. After furious streetbattles with British troops diverted from the World War I battlefields, the rebellion is put down. All the ringleaders were executed. Connolly was so badly wounded that they had to prop up his stretcher before the firing squad and pinch his cheeks so he'd be awake for his own death. Eamon De Valera used his U.S. citizenship to avoid execution. Initially the Irish people hadn't wholly supported the futile rising, but the fierce police crackdown had the effect of arousing sympathy. It sparked the major IRA campaigns in the 1920's and eventual Independence.

1933- Ub Iwerk's "Fiddlesticks" the first Flip the Frog cartoon, done in a simple two-color process. Iwerks was the first designer and animator of Mickey Mouse, who had left Walt Disney to open his own studio.

1944- Film Noir classic film Double Indemnity premiered.

1945- As the Russian Army fought their way into the center of Berlin, Adolf Hitler gathered his remaining staff in his bunker deep under the Reich Chancellery. He told his people that all was lost and that they should escape the city as best they could. Most decided to stay and discussed how best to commit suicide. The Fuehrer himself lapsed into apathy. His secretary recalled seeing Hitler sitting quietly in a hallway, cradling a puppy in his lap, rocking back and forth, staring off, hollow-eyed.

1949- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed.

1948- The Chinese Communists under Mao Zedong and their generals Chu Teh and Lin Piao began their final campaign to unite all of China under their rule.

1954- Handsome English actor Peter Lawford married John F. Kennedy’s sister Patricia Kennedy. This union would give JFK his link to Hollywood, Frank Sinatra and the RatPack.

1961- First day of shooting on the film King of Kings, the Christ story starring Jeffrey Hunter. Called by one critic” I was a Teenage Jesus” In 1966 Jeffrey Hunter turned down a TV series after doing the pilot episode. His wife worried that he’d be typecast. The role of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk went instead went to William Shatner.

1967- Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first acknowledged fatality in the conquest of Space, when the parachute of his re-entering capsule got snarled and he fell four miles to Earth.

1979- Paul McCartney happened to be in New York City and dropped in on his old mate John Lennon. They spent the day together and at one point mediated visiting the set of Saturday Night Live but changed their minds at the last minute. Paul McCarthy left in the wee hours. It was the last time he ever saw John Lennon alive.

1980- After months of fruitless negotiations to get the U.S. hostages held in the American Embassy in Teheran freed, President Jimmy Carter tried force. A Delta Force of eight helicopters met at their staging area in the Iranian desert. Once there it was discovered three of the helicopters had mechanical problems and they had fallen badly behind schedule so the mission was scrapped. As they were leaving one of the helicopters crashed into a transport plane killing 8 soldiers. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned in protest. No more military adventures were planned and the Iran Hostage Crisis dragged on throughout 1980. The hostages were released in exchange for arms in January 1981 shortly after Ronald Reagan’s inauguration.

1981- Small companies like Apple and Commodore had dominated the personal computer market while giants like IBM stuck with large business systems. Now IBM weighed in with The IBM PC –personal computer, with basic software language DOS provided by Microsoft. It soon came to dominate the market.

1983- THE HITLER DIARIES HOAX- Gerd Heideman, a top correspondent for Germany’s top magazine Die Stern was contacted by a mysterious Professor Fischer that he had in his possession the long lost personal diary of Adolph Hitler. Heidemann was an eccentric who collected fascist memorabilia like Herman Goerings yacht and a pair of Idi Amin’s underwear. Fischer sold him the Hitler diary manuscripts for $4 million.
After Heidemann got British Historian Sir Hugh Trevor Roper and several handwriting analysts to declare them genuine, the Hitler Diaries went public in Die Stern and Rupert Murdoch’s London Times. When Sir Hugh began to express doubts over the authenticity of the diary, Rupert Murdoch reacted in typical fashion: ”F**k him. I’m in the entertainment business!”
This day a Bonn laboratory declared the diaries high quality but completely phony. Professor Fischer was actually an art forger named Konrad Kujau who knew suckers when he saw them. He had an expensive girlfriend and wife to keep so he was writing the diaries in his garage on 1940’s vintage paper and ink. Careers were ruined and everyone looked pretty stupid. Even when they were all in jail, Gerd Heidemann refused to believe the truth. Konrad Kujau sent him a letter in Hitler’s handwriting admitting he did the forgery.

1984- David Kennedy, the eldest son of Robert F. Kennedy, was found dead in his hotel room of a drug overdose. As a child he had watched his father assassinated on live television and had never gotten over it. He was a drug addict by 15 and dead by 28.

1990- The Hubble Space Telescope was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Challenger.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the current name for the Indian city once known as Bombay?

Answer: Mumbai.

Question: What is the current name for the Indian city once known as Bombay?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What was Bachmann-Turner Overdrive?
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History for 4/23/2023
Birthdays: William Shakespeare, James Buchanan, John Muir, Sergei Prokoviev, J.M.W. Turner, Vladimir Nabokov, Senator Stephen Douglas the Little Giant, Shirley Temple, Roy Orbison, Halston, Sandra Dee, Valerie Bertinelli, Lee Majors is 83, Judy Davis, Simone Simon, Michael Sporn, Tony Esposito, Michael Moore is 69, Herve Villechaise.

This was the ancient Roman Feast of the Vinalia, the feast of the first grapevine plantings.

301AD- This is the Feast of St. George. George of Nicomedia was a native of Illyria (Croatia) and a member of the Praetorian Guards, who went up to the Emperor Diocletian’s palace and tore up his edict banning Christianity. Then Diocletian had George torn up. And what about St. George fighting the dragon? In the old tradition of borrowing from pagan myths, the Coptic Christian monks took from the Ancient Egyptian religion the famous battle between Horus and his evil uncle Seth, God of Sandstorms, often represented in temple art as a dragon-like animal.

1014- BATTLE OF CLONTARF- Irish High King Brian Boru defeated the Vikings led by Sigurd Silkbeard and drove them from Ireland. At 73, Boru himself was too elderly to fight, so he was praying in a church when a renegade group of vikings surrounded the church and set it on fire. Another account has him being slain while in his tent. Oh well, at least he won...

1348- The Order of the Garter created in England by King Edward III. Today it is the world’s oldest surviving chivalric order.

1349- King Edward III had the first pageant of the Order of the Garter at Windsor Castle. He wanted to recreate the grandeur of King Arthurs knights of the Round Table. Even though the Black Plague kept most people away, the event was a great success.

1374- The King of England granted a pension to the writer Geoffrey Chaucer that includes a pot of wine every day for the rest of his life. Chaucer lived near Westminster Abbey, and when he died in 1400, he was buried there. This began the tradition of 'sections"-the poet’s corner at Westminster Abbey.

1500- Explorer Pedro Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal.

1538- Protestant theologian John Calvin was asked to leave his ministry in Geneva for being, uhh, well.. too Puritan. Geneva went party wild. Two years later the city fathers called Calvin back to clean up the town.

1616- After a night out partying with Ben Johnson, John Draydon and other old buddies from Ye Old Mermaid Tavern, William Shakespeare caught a fever and died on his fifty third birthday.

“Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?”
1661- King Charles II, crowned at Westminster Abbey. The current English Crown Jewels date from this time, since Oliver Cromwell had the ancient crown jewels of Anglo-Norman times destroyed.

1746- THE GLASS HARMONICON- German composer Johann Christoph Witobald Gluck had premiered his first opera La Caduta de Giganti in London to weak box office . Today he hit it rich by playing an entire concerto on twenty-six drinking glasses with water raised to different levels to effect the pitch. He played it by rubbing his fingers along the rims. The crowd went wild. Another triumph of musical taste.

1784- Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s plan to extend government to territories west of the Appalachian Mountains, the Old Northwest. They reject his suggestion that ten states be organized with classical names like Metropotamia and Polypotamia. Some of his suggestions for Indian names like Michigania and Illinoia sounded better.

1789- On St George’s Day, Britons celebrated a solemn mass of thanksgiving at St. Pauls that the mental illness of King George III had been cured. King George himself attended the service and received the cheers of the crowd. A few years later George lapsed back into madness and remained that way for the final decade of his reign.

1789- President-elect George Washington and Martha move into their temporary U.S. capitol of New York City. Traveling from Virginia up to New York every town he passed through greeted him with huge parades and celebrations. When moving through Philadelphia the artist John Singleton Copley had designed a triumphal arch that as Washington moved under it sprang a strange mechanical device that plopped a gold laurel wreath on his head. Annoyed, the startled statesman tore it off.
Once set up as President, Washington realized that the first Presidential residence 1 Cherry St, Osgood House had no furniture, and Congress was broke. He had to pay out of his own pocket for all the furnishings and dinnerware, large enough for state dinners of thirty or more. When he left office in 1796, he offered to John Adams to sell him his furniture. When the frugal New Englander balked at the price, Washington left the new President of the United States an empty mansion with a few candle sticks and one crystal punch bowl. Today the site is one of the pediments for the Brooklyn Bridge.

1809- Napoleons army captured Ratisbon (Regensburg ) from the Austrians and Robert Browning did a nice poem about it.

1867- William Lincoln patented the zoetrope, an optical toy predating motion pictures..

1896- THE FIRST PROJECTED MOVIES IN THE U.S.- The first projection of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope film by means of Thomas Armat’s Vitascope at Koster & Bials Music Hall on 28th street and Broadway in New York City. Edison had to be nagged into this by his engineer W.K.L. Dickson. Edison thought projecting movies like the Lumiere Brothers were doing in Paris would never catch on, and the future of film was in nickelodeon machines. The movie show featured the sultry Annabella the Dancer and a boxing match, but the real hit of the evening was footage of Waves Hitting the Rocks on Shore, which made people instinctively duck to keep from getting wet.

1900- A celebration held in Russian Georgia was addressed by a young revolutionary who had been expelled from the Tiflis Theological Seminary where he was studying to become a priest. Josef Dzugashvili was encouraged by other revolutionaries to change his name so the Czar’s police wouldn’t pick up his family. He changed his name to Steel- Stalin.

1903- The first game of the New York Highlanders (later Yankees) baseball team. They defeated the Washington Senators, 7-2.

1914- Chicago’s Wrigley Field opened.

1942-The Baedecker Raids- In reprisal for an allied bombing raid on Lubeck, the German Luftwaffe began bombing medieval English cities like Norwich and Canterbury based on their rating in the Baedecker Tourist guidebooks. If a place got three or more stars it was hit.

1945- As the Red Army was fighting in the suburbs of Berlin, S.S. Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler quietly contacted Swedish diplomat Count Bernadotte and requests peace terms with the Allies. From his hiding place in Bavaria Hermann Goring was also trying to make peace as well. When Hitler found out from Martin Borman, he was furious and ordered both of them placed under house arrest.

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for a stunt where he dressed as a priest and solicited funds in a leper colony.

1968- Anti Vietnam War student protesters seized the administrative offices of Columbia University. They occupied it for a week until driven out by police.

1970- Grace Slick of the Jefferson Airplane was inadvertently invited to a tea party at the White House by Pres. Nixon’s daughter Trisha. She had invited Slick because under her maiden name Grace Ward she was a fellow alumni of Finch College. Grace Slick and her escort Abbie Hoffman were in line to get into the event, when at the last minute White House security recognized them and turned them away. It was too bad, because she had a plan to slip LSD into President Nixon’s tea.

1971- Vietnam veterans protest the continued U.S. presence in the war by ceremoniously returning their medals, in some cases tossing them over the White House fence. One angry combat veteran who tossed his medals was future Senator John Kerry. Meanwhile, Lt. George W. Bush was in the Texas Air Guard, tossing his cookies.

1985- Coca Cola introduces New Coke. They decided to make the basic formula slightly sweeter to appeal to younger people. Its reception by the public was so overwhelmingly bad that the company returned to the original formula 90 days later. The chairman of rival Pepsi Cola exulted: " We've been eye to eye for decades and I think the other guys just blinked! New Coke became a symbol for large-scale executive incompetence,

1998- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates introduced Windows 98 to 4,000 industry leaders. When he ceremonially opened the first window, the system crashed- Doh!

2003- Boston area Catholic priests began to get busted for child molestation and the cover up by the Archdiocese was exposed by the Boston Globe. One priest, a Father Shayne, was an openly registered member of the Man-Boy Love Society (NAMBLA). Outraged parishioners demanded the resignation of their Cardinal Bernard Law. Instead, Cardinal Law was recalled to Rome where he was made pastor of the Church of Maria Maggiore.

2005- The first You-Tube video was uploaded- Me at the Zoo.

2020- Vice President Mike Pence, the leader of President Trumps Covid Task Force, said in a statement that “the Coronavirus Pandemic will be behind us by Memorial Day”. It wasn’t. It was raged just as badly for two more years..
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Yesterday’s question answered below: What was Bachmann-Turner Overdrive?

Answer: A 1970s rock & roll band.

Quiz: What was Bachman-Turner Overdrive?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a pom-pom gun?
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History for 4/22/2023
Birthdays: Queen Isabella I of Castille, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Immanuel Kant, Madame De Stael, Alexander Kerensky, Aaron Spelling, Eddie Albert, Glen Cambell, Betty Page would be 100, Marilyn Chambers, Rondo Hatton, Charlie Mingus, Peter Frampton, John Waters is 77, Jack Nicholson is 86

Happy Earth Day (see below- 1970)

753 B.C.- The Founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. The reason we know this date was because the Romans celebrated a festival about it on this date. Romans counted time from this date. So 1 AD to them was 754 AUC or Anno Urbis Conditae- from “The Founding of the City". So today, April 22, 2023, to a Roman is the second day of the nones of Aprilis, 2,779 Ab Urbis.

1370- Beginning of construction on the castle/prison in Paris called La Bastille. The Bastille was leveled by angry revolutionaries in 1789.

1567- Dutch protestant leader William of Orange was such a shrewd leader and diplomat his nickname was William the Silent. This day as the persecutions of Dutch Protestants by Catholic Spanish Inquisitors increased William resigned all his offices and fled to Germany to raise an army to fight for Dutch Independence. He was eventually assassinated but not before he had united the Dutch provinces under his leadership. His family still rules Holland today.

1621- FRANCIS BACON -Philosopher and writer Sir Francis Bacon had become the first judge and minister in the England through hard work and furious ass-kissing. He was so unscrupulous he prosecuted to death his first benefactor the Earl of Essex. But King James 1st trusted him to run England whenever he was away. Finally, the pushy Parliament brought Bacon up on charges of bribery and corruption.
This day Bacon pled guilty to all charges and left his public offices. The King waived his fines and imprisonment. Francis Bacon on his estate free of his addiction to power could now focus on his true love, philosophy and science. He became one of the greatest minds in Western thought, to be ranked with Aristotle and Descartes. He published the Great Renewal and Res Atlantica, two works that revolutionized the study of philosophy and science.
Historian Will Durant called Francis Bacon the finest mind of his time after Shakespeare.

1642- Danish settler Jonas Bronck came out from Amsterdam to settle in the New World. On this day he signed a deal with the local Indians to buy 680 acres of land north of the Harlem River. The price was two guns, two kettles, a shirt, a barrel of cider and some coins. His farm was called the Broncksland and later Bronxland. Finally people would say,” I’m going up to visit The Bronx’” It did not officially become part of Greater New York until 1895.

1741- Georg Frederich Handel dipped his quill into ink and began to write the Messiah.

1769- Madame DuBarry officially presented at the French Court. King Louis XV’s earlier mistresses like Madame La Pompadour were women of breeding and culture. But DuBarry was a saucy little trollop who had already slept with most of the men of the court. When the Duc d’ Richelieu asked Louis what he saw in this vulgar new toy, His Majesty replied:" She makes me forget that I shall soon be sixty."

1778- THE CONWAY CABAL- During the American Revolution, a conspiracy (or cabal) of colonial officers led by a Major Conway, and former Washington aide Thomas Mifflin plotted behind George Washington's back to get Congress to replace him for incompetence. Their choice for command of the American army was General Gage, whose career was undistinguished other than the Battle of Saratoga. The plot was exposed and Conway made to resign. Washington stayed the symbol of the American war effort even though he lost more battles than won.

1793- THE UNITED STATES DECLARED IT'S NEUTRALITY IN THE NAPOLEONIC WARS. This decision caused the split in American opinion that formed our two party system and soured the last years of George Washington’s presidency. The France that helped us win the Revolution was Louis XVI's Royal France, but she had now become a people’s republic like ours, the only other in the world. The French Revolutionary Convention had a Stars and Stripes flag hanging proudly in its hall. Americans danced in the streets when the Bastille fell and started calling each other "citizen".
Thomas Jefferson’s followers felt we owed it to France to support a fellow people’s republic against the European autocrats. The more conservative Federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams were afraid of guillotines and anarchy and openly wanted Mother Britain to win. Jefferson called them Monocrats, they called his side Democrats. Europeans tried to push America into choosing a side: America almost declared war on France in 1797,1804 and 1808, and almost declared war on Britain in 1800 and finally did in 1812. Napoleon had hoped America would then send over her navy to ferry his army across the Channel to get at England. Small wonder George Washington’s advice upon retirement was "Avoid entangling foreign alliances."

1811- Last of the Parthenon Marbles pried off their walls in Greece and sent back to England on a British frigate. Lord Byron was on board and called Lord Elgin, the supervisor of this act, "The Spoiler". Today the Elgin marbles are still at the British Museum and the Greeks are still mad about it.

1836- GENERAL SANTA ANNA the Dictator of Mexico was captured after the Battle of San Jacinto and brought to Texas Gen. Sam Houston. Santa Anna was disguised in peasants clothes, but when brought into the Anglo camp the Mexican prisoners gave him away by cheering El Presidente! Santa Anna was suffering from nervous exhaustion so Houston offered him some of his opium. Houston was an alcoholic nursing a shattered ankle.
As they sat under a tree Santa Anna said to Houston: " Great is the destiny of the man who can defeat the Napoleon of the West!" Everyone (including many Mexicans) wanted to kill the man who massacred the Alamo, but Houston used him as a hostage to draw off the six remaining Mexican armies still in Texas. Not only did Santa Anna get released unhurt, but ten years later the U.S. Government even covertly helped him regain power in Mexico. He was turned out yet again and lived in retirement in Staten Island.

1876- Composer Peter Tchaikovsky completed his score for the ballet Swan Lake.

1889- At noon on the signal of a cannon shot The Great Oklahoma Land Rush began. The town of Oklahoma City was set up in one day-population 10,000. The settlers who slipped in early were nicknamed Sooners and Oklahoma became known as the Sooner State. This eats up the remaining land of the Cherokee Nation, who once owned all of Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. The Cherokee kept their land communally, which to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was their downfall: "The Cherokee possess many fine attributes except Greed, which we all know is the basis for Civilization."

1898- Teddy Roosevelt formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry, called the Rough Riders. It was a curious mix of Teddys' personal tastes- Harvard bluebloods and polo champions mixed with rough western cowboys and rodeo stars.

1906- In earthquake-destroyed San Francisco, one day after the last of the fires were declared officially out, the Market Street cable car began running once more.

1915- Second Battle of Ypres- First use of poison gas WWI. German Jewish Dr. Fritz Hauber was a friend of Albert Einstein. He was convinced his experiments to create poison gas would win wars. He ran from battlefield to battlefield ensuring it was being used correctly. Albert Einstein thought he was a fool. Hauber’s wife committed suicide. The chlorine clouds did cause a huge panic in the British ranks, that opened the way to Paris, but the German generals were too cautious to follow up their surprise and the Canadians fought fiercely to close the gap. Although they had no gas masks, a quick thinking Canadian doctor ordered his men to urinate into their own handkerchiefs, then tie them around their faces. Although exceedingly gross, the ammonia counteracted the gas enabling them to survive.

1922- Albert the Duke of York married Scottish socialite Lady Elizabeth Beaux-Lyons. Bertie was shy and had a speech impediment and it took him three proposals before she said yes. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to allow a live radio broadcast of the marriage ceremony for fear it would be broadcast in pubs, where uncouth men would not doff their hats.
What Bertie and Elizabeth couldn’t know would be in 1936 Bertie’s older brother Edward VIII would abdicate and they become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. After her husband died in 1952 and her daughter Elizabeth II ascended the throne, Elizabeth the Queen Mum lived on, dying at age 101 in 2002.

1934- In Little Bohemia Hunting Lodge in Wisconsin, Public Enemy No.1 John Dillinger shot his way out of a FBI ambush. The FBI not only failed to stop Dillinger, they shot an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

1940- Writer Ernest Hemingway cabled his editor Max Perkins from Havana about a new novel he was writing.-" Title is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from passage John Donne Oxford Book of English bottom page seventy one STOP Please register immediately."

1942- Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Saboteur” premiered in Washington.

1945- While the Red Army was attacking the outskirts of Berlin, Adolph Hitler sent away to the south his personal files and belongings in a last Luftwaffe flight of ten planes. One plane that was shot down that carried some of his most private possessions. When Hitler heard the news, he called it a catastrophe. What was in that plane that he valued so much? The wreckage was never found. It’s a mystery to this day.

1952- The first nuclear bomb test shown on network TV -Tommy Turtle says duck and cover!

1954- THE ARMY–McCARTHY HEARINGS on live nationwide TV began. Senator Joe McCarthy’s Senate committee chasing communists finally bit off more than it could chew when it took on the U.S. Army. Sparked by the drafting of Private G. David Shine, a young crony of chief counsel Roy Cohn, a hearing was held to investigate charges that the Army Secretary and several other top Pentagon officers were Russian spies.

The hearing soon devolved from an indictment of the army into a probe of Senator McCarthy’s red baiting tactics. It lasted for three months and held the nation spellbound. At one point Senator McCarthy submitted a note that the television cameras be turned off for a minute so he could wipe his nose. After one heated session, Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy had to be separated before a fistfight broke out. Finally under the withering condemnation of Joseph Walsh "Senator, have you no shred of decency?!" McCarthy’s power was broken.

1954- The U.S. Congress added the phrase "In God We Trust" on to US money.

1961- THE PARATROOP COUP- The decision of whether to give up Algeria, the colony they owned since 1832 agonized the French nation. It was further complicated by a large population of Algerian-born French people, the "Pied-noirs". They felt they were being sold out to terrorist guerillas. The Foreign Legion's headquarters was at Sidde Abbes, and for generations their blood had spilled into the Sahara's sands to keep Algeria French. On this night French generals and the Legion plotted to stop President Charles DeGaulle from granting Algerian independence. They planned a night parachute jump over downtown Paris to seize the government.
After the rebels grabbed the governor of Algeria and a few key posts, President Degaulle went on nationwide TV and exposed the plot, calling upon all Frenchmen to defend the nation. The conspirators lost their nerve and melted away. The Paris jump never occurred. The trials afterwards saw strange scenes like Croatian and Thai legionnaires falling before firing squads, shouting "Vive La France!!"

1964- The opening day of the New York World’s Fair. It was in Flushing Meadow Park in Queens, built on the site of the 1939 World’s Fair.

1970- The first Earth Day. The idea was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin "The objective was to get a nationwide demonstration of concern for the environment so large that it would shake the political establishment out of its lethargy," Senator Nelson said, "and, finally, force this issue permanently onto the national political agenda."

1972- Magnavox announced the Magnavox Odyssey. Created by Ralph Baer in his spare time, it was the first mass retail home videogame console.

1978- Comic actors Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi debut two new characters on the Saturday Night Live TV show, Joliet Jake and Ellwood Blues. The Blues Brothers are born. On that same broadcast, host Steve Martin did his King Tut Song. “Now when I die, now don’t think I’m a nut. Don’t want no fancy funeral, just one like Old King Tut.”

1996- Christopher Robin Milne died at age 75. The young boy whose fascination with a bear in the London Zoo called Winnie inspired his father A.A. Milne to write the Winne the Pooh stories. Christopher Robin wasn’t always appreciative of all the attention. He said of his father: "Someday I’ll write some verses about him and see how He likes it!"

2000- The estranged wife of Mr. Juan Gonzales of Cuba had grabbed their son Elian and tried to escape by boat to the United States. The wife and her lover drowned in the attempt, but little 6 year old Elian survived. He became a star to the Cuban exile community in Miami. But Mr. Gonzales had come from Havana to get his son back. Back in Cuba, Fidel Castro had a ball making political hay out of the Yankee Imperialistas stealing children from their parents. Finally, after months of media circus, Attorney General Janet Reno ordered federal marshals to forcibly remove Elian Gonzales from his uncles home, and give him back to his father. His father pledged:" I want no one to ever stick a camera in my son’s face again!"

2001- Dreamwork’s Shrek opened in theaters. I’m making waffles!

2004- Pat Tillman was a football star who was moved by the 9-11 attacks to sacrifice a multimillion-dollar contract in the NFL to join the army and fight for his country. This day Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. He was 27 and left a wife and two children. The Pentagon played up his heroism, while lying to his grieving family and burning his diary and uniform. At the funeral, when presented with the casket’s flag, Tillman’s father snapped “ Keep your f*cking flag!” Pat Tillman was an atheist and it further annoyed his family to hear conservative politicians and pundits go on about him in Heaven among the warriors of Christ. After several hearings a general was reprimanded for the poor handling of the affair.

2021- The Mars Perseverance probe successfully collected oxygen from the Martian atmosphere.
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Yesterday¹s Question: What is a pom-pom gun?

Answer: In World War II, a double-barreled anti-aircraft gun, usually on ships, that fired in intervals that made a distinctive “pom-pom” sound.

Quiz: What is a pom-pom gun?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was the first digitally projected movie to win the Best Picture Oscar?
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History for 4/21/2023
Birthdays: Queen Elizabeth II, Edwin S. Porter, Charlotte Bronte', John Muir, Freiderich Froebel the inventor of kindergarten-1782, Anthony Quinn, Patti Lupone, Charles Grodin, Anna Magnani, Andie MacDowell is 64, Tony Danza, Elaine May, Iggy Pop is 76, James McAvoy is 44, Rob Riggle is 53

Happy Palilia- Roman festival of the rustic god "Pales" for whom the Palatine Hill in Rome was named.

43BC- Battle of Mutina (Modena), One year after the assassination of Julius Caesar, his heirs’ squabbled. Legions sent by Octavian defeated Mark Anthony and drove him into the mountains. Ten years later, Octavian defeated Anthony for good at Actium.

1526- The First Battle of Panipat. Mogul Emperor Baibur defeated the Indian army of Ibrahim Lodi and captured Delhi. This established the Moghul Empire in India. Babur’s army fought with Mongol bows, elephants, and cannon.

1831- NAT TURNER'S REBELLION- The most serious slave revolt in the South before the Civil War. Using an eclipse as a sign from heaven, Turner and 75 other slaves turned on their masters, and went on a rampage through Virginia. It took 3,000 troops to crush them. Turner was taken and hanged, defiant to the end. Nat Turner’s Rebellion hardened opinions of both pro and anti-slavery groups in the U.S. and accelerated the slide towards civil war.

1836- BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO-. After chasing Sam Houston’s men across Texas almost to the Louisiana border, General Santa Anna thought so little of these rag-tag gringo rebels that he no longer bothered to post sentries. When the Texans attacked at 1:00PM, most of the Mexican army was having an afternoon siesta. General Santa Anna was bedded down with his mistress he called his Yellow Rose, the origin of the song Yellow Rose of Texas.
Suddenly Houston's wild frontiersmen, filled with rage over the massacres of the Alamo and Goliad, rushed into the Mexican camp and routed them. After the battle Houston couldn't restrain the Texans from killing running fugitives, and even scalping some. Santa Anna was captured and forced to sign a peace.

1847- The 4th rescue team removed the last survivors of the Donner Party wagon train from their snowed in camp on Lake Truckee in the Sierras down to the settlement on the Sacramento River. A furious winter trapped the Donners in the mountains last Oct 31st with almost no food. Of 86 pioneers 41 died and the others ate their corpses to survive. Louis Kesesburg, the only settler who spoke openly of eating human flesh and was called a ghoul, moved to Sacramento and opened a restaurant.

1865- UNCLE BILLY’S POLITICAL LESSON. In North Carolina, General William T. Sherman had offered Confederate Joe Johnston’s army the same terms for surrender that Grant had given Robert E Lee. But Johnston handed Sherman new terms rewritten by crafty Confederate President Jefferson Davis. It asked for political and property amnesty for all Confederate leaders; that the US Government would leave all Southern state officials at their posts.
This went much further than one army surrendering to another, it was in effect a deal that no one would be punished for the Civil War. But Sherman didn’t seem to see the fine print. He thought that was what Abe Lincoln had wanted before he was killed. So, he signed it and passed it on to Washington.
When new President Andrew Johnson and General Grant read the terms, they were thunderstruck. They ordered Sherman to tear that treaty up and offer nothing but unconditional surrender. Hotheaded Secretary of War Stanton denounced Sherman in the newspapers as a traitor. Sherman the Hero of Atlanta was furious at being made a fool of. He resolved the rest of his life to have nothing more to do with politics, which is probably why we never had a President William T. Sherman.

1865- President Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington DC for the long trip back to Springfield Ill.

1911- LENIN WANTS A LIBRARY CARD. Russian communist revolutionary Nikolai Lenin was living secretly in exile in London. In a letter dated this day he applied to the British Museum Library collection to study its documents. His letter was in perfect English and he signed his name as Jacob Richter.

1910- Mark Twain died of congenital heart failure at 75 as Haley's comet appeared overhead. He once wrote: " When arriving in Heaven feel free to ask all the questions you want of Saint Peter. You may ask for his autograph, however don’t take any Kodak photos or bring your dog. Admittance to Heaven is based on favor, not merit, else the dog would be allowed to go in and you kept out."

1918- THE RED BARON SHOT DOWN- In the air duels above the World War I trenches, Baron Manfred Von Richthofen was the best. The Red Baron had shot down more planes than anyone -80 confirmed kills. (two more claimed but unconfirmed)
On this day, von Richthofen got onto the tail of a plane and was about to add #81, when Canadian Roy Brown got behind him and filled the back of his plane with machine gun bullets. Other experts claim The Red Baron was hit by Australian ground fire. Mortally wounded, von Richthofen still managed to land his red Fokker triplane before slumping over dead. Manfred von Richthofen was 26. Soldiers tore the plane to pieces for souvenirs.
Capt. Roy Brown later wrote of seeing the body of his enemy.
. “…the sight of Richthofen as I walked closer gave me a start. He appeared so small to me, so delicate. He looked so friendly. Blond, silk-soft hair, like that of a child, Suddenly I felt miserable, desperately unhappy, as if I had committed an injustice. I could no longer look him in the face. I went away. I did not feel like a victor. There was a lump in my throat. If he had been my dearest friend, I could not have felt greater sorrow.”
Roy Brown left the service after the war and became an accountant. He died of a heart attack in 1944.

1921- The Coconut Grove nightclub opened in Hollywood.

1933- The Nazis ban kosher meat processing in Germany.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

1944- During WWII, the French Committee of National Liberation (in exile in London) voted to give the women of France the right to vote. The first election French women could vote in would be the following Spring, after the liberation.

1948- HAIFA- As the British occupying troops were being withdrawn from Palestine’s second largest city, they had given up trying to keep Arabs and Jews from fighting. This day the British commander of Haifa informed city leaders that he was withdrawing his garrison. The British commander wagered a friend a bottle of whisky that neither side would have control of Haifa for weeks. The Jewish militia the Hagannah secured control of the city in 48 hours. The Arab population began a mass evacuation of the city,

1960- Brazil moved its capital from Rio De Janiero to Brasilia, a modern architects fantasy built in the middle of the jungle.

1961- Two British teenage rock bands meet each other for the first time- The Beatles met the Rolling Stones. They partied together often, and wrote songs for each other.

1964- British TV viewers double their pleasure- BBC 2 goes on the air. Their first program is Play School.

1973- The pop song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Old Oak Tree” by Tony Orlando and Dawn became a number one hit on the US, Canadian and UK pop charts. The song spawned the custom of a yellow ribbon as a symbol of remembering a soldier overseas, which reached its’ peak during the Iran Hostage Crisis. That in turn spawned variations like the red AIDS ribbon, the pink breast cancer ribbon, and so on.

1975- As North Vietnamese armies roll towards his capitol, South Vietnamese President Nygun Van Thieu resigned and went into exile. The Roman Catholic French-educated Thieu tearfully blamed America for the defeat. Vice President Nygun Kao Key moved to Orange County Cal with much of the exile community.

1986- Reporter Geraldo Rivera hosted a live primetime TV special in an old Chicago Hotel that was once a headquarters for gangster Al Capone. Called THE MYSTERY OF AL CAPONE’S SECRET VAULT. After wasting two hours speculating on discovering buried treasure or mobster skeletons, they broke into a room, sealed since 1932. All they found were some old dusty bottles, trash and a few dollar bills.

1989- Oil executive George W. Bush became part of an ownership consortium that bought the last place baseball team the Texas Rangers." As soon as I knew they were for sale I went after them like a pit bull on a pants leg…. It doesn’t get much better than this…"

1997-The first Intergalactic Funeral. The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960's LSD guru Dr. Timothy Leary were shot into space.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was the first digitally projected movie to win the Best Picture Oscar?

Answer: Slumdog Millionaire 2007. George Lucas had advocating digital replace celluloid as early as 1997. He shot Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace digitally in 1999. But many theaters resisted the expensive retooling cots. Slumdog’s success helped accelerate the change. By 2013, 93% of movie theaters had converted to digital projection.