Quiz: In a famous Shakespeare play one character says ” This royal throne of kings, this sceptered isle,….This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England.” Who says it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below Years ago cities had cars called Checkers. What were they mostly used for?
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History for 6/18/2014
Birthdays: M C Escher, Charles Gounod, James Montgomery Flagg, Kay Kayser, William Lassell 1799- English astronomer who discovered Neptune's moon Triton, Richard Boone, Jeanette MacDonald, Key Luke, Isabella Rosselini, E.G. Marshall, Roger Ebert, Eduard Daladier, Carol Kane, Sammy Kahn, The Quay Brothers, Paul McCartney is 73

1178- According to the chronicler Gervase of Canterbury, on this evening five monks sitting near the town witnessed a "flaming torch" spring up from the moon - it has been theorized that this was a lunar meteor impact; explosion on moon. Or maybe, an interplanetary visitor?

1574- Henry III de Valois was the younger son of the King of France. Being third in line for the succession he accepted the throne of Poland as better than nothing. In Krakow after his coronation and betrothal to a Polish Princess he learned his two older brothers had died and he was now king of France! Without pausing to consider the strategic advantages of a dual monarchy on either side of Germany, the spoiled young man just desired to go home immediately. He abandoned the Polish throne and galloped for the border with his court and fiance’ in hot pursuit.

1583 - Richard Martin of London takes out the first life insurance policy on his friend William Gibbons. The premium was 383 pounds.

1682 – Quaker leader William Penn founded Philadelphia.

1757-Battle of Koln- A rare time when Frederick the Great was defeated in battle by the Austrian army under Archduke Daun. Frederick in frustration shouted at his fleeing cavalry- " What? Do you want to live forever?"

1778- The British army evacuated the American Capitol of Philadelphia. The reason General Clinton pulled back his redcoats was because of his learning of the French entry into the war. London didn’t want him to be stranded in the American interior should the French fleet attack the coast. Clinton offered protection to any Philadelphia loyalists who were afraid of Yankee revenge. Six thousand American loyalists abandoned the city with the troops, many pulling their furniture laden wagons by hand because of the scarcity of horses and oxen.
By 3:00PM the British columns were gone. Then the first elements of the U.S. Army marched into the silent city down Second St. to William Penn’s mansion. They were led by the newly appointed military governor- General Benedict Arnold.

1815- WATERLOO- One of the battles that changed history. 145,000 men in brightly colored uniforms with 400 cannons blew each other to pieces for 9 hours at a road intersection about three miles square. Many factors affected Wellington's defeat of Napoleon: The previous nights rains delayed the battle until 11:00 A.M. Napoleon had a bout of stomach cramps and while he rested his subordinates wasted troops in fruitless assaults.

The Prussian army everyone thought was running to Berlin boiled into the French right just when it seemed that the French were winning. Wellington in private admitted, "It had been a very close run thing."

-My favorite anecdote is about General Cambronne, leader of the French elite' Old Guard. He formed up an infantry square to take a last stand to cover the French retreat. His small band is surrounded by the victorious Anglo-Dutch German army and called upon to surrender. Cambronne had time for a one word reply before all the guns go off-" MERDE!" This is a favorite French epithete meaning "sh*t!" The writer Chateaubriand later said that he cried"The Guard dies but never Surrenders!" But we all know what he really said. To this day in France if you’re too polite to use an expletive you can say: A' la mode de Cambronne!"

1817- With the Iron Duke (Wellington), himself in attendance London opened a new bridge across the Thames, named the Waterloo Bridge. Later the guests sat down at the traditional Waterloo banquet and were served- you guessed it.....Beef Wellington. No crème napoleons for desert, through.

1879 - W H Richardson, an African American inventor, patents the baby buggy or perambulator.

1892 - Macademia nuts first planted in Hawaii

1898 - 1st amusement pier opens in Atlantic City, NJ

1900- The Dowager Empress of China Zhou Zsi calls for the killing of all foreigners during the Boxer Rebellion. She commits the Chinese Imperial Army to the expulsion of all the European colonialist powers. Empress Zhou Zsi was the first person westerners called the Dragon Lady, later used by Milt Caniff in his comic strip Terry & the Pirates.

1903 - 1st transcontinental auto trip begins in SF; arrives NY 3-mo later

1913- composer Cole Porter graduated from Yale.

1916- German Max Immelman, the first true fighter ace, died when the synchronizing mechanism that enabled his machine gun to fire through his propeller blades failed and he shot his own propeller off. Ach, Himmel! To take your plane in a large loop-de-loop around someone else is still called an Immelman Turn.

1923- The first Checker Cab was manufactured in Chicago. The big boxy durable Checkers were the most famous city taxicabs until dying out in the 1980s.

1927- The last radio transmission of the flying boat carrying famous arctic explorer Roald Ammundsen to the arctic circle. Norwegian Ammundsen had conquered the South Pole and flew over the North Pole. He was now called out of retirement to lead an international effort to save Italian Polar explorer General Nobile , who’s zeppelin had crashed on the arctic ice. Ironically Ammundsen disliked Nobile personally. Nobile and his men were rescued but Ammundsen and his plane were never found.

1931- The Metropolitan Museum of NY had in its collection a little blue statue of a Hippo from the tomb of the Egyptian Steward Senbi from the Twelfth Dynasty. People nicknamed it Willie and this day an article about it with a color picture appeared in Punch Magazine. Soon museum craftsmen made little replicas of Willie that they gave as gifts to donors and eventually started selling to the public. The massive retail business in museum reproductions and merchandise began with little Willie the Hippo.

1940- As the shattered French armies fall back from the Nazis onslaught Marshal Petain telephoned the German High Command and requested an armistice. Meanwhile across the Channel an obscure French colonel made a dramatic radio broadcast from London calling for Free French Resistance. Charles DeGaulle's career begins.

1945- During the battle raging for Okinawa the US Army commander General Simon Bolivar Buckner went up to the front to see better and was killed by a Japanese tank shell. At the same time the Japanese commander committed hari-kari. Okinawa was one of those rare battles like Quebec in 1759 where both commanding generals died. General Buckner’s father was a Confederate General in the Civil War who had fought Gen Douglas MacArthur's father.

1953- Dr Martin Luther King married Corretta Scott.

1959 - 1st telecast transmitted from England to US.

1959- Earl Long the Governor of Louisiana was ordered confined to a State Mental Hospital for his erratic behavior. Earl’s response was to arrange for the director of the hospital to be fired and replaced with another who declared him perfectly sane.

1967- At the Monterey Pop Rock festival Jimi Hendrix electrified the audience then finished his set by burning and smashing his guitar on stage. Until then musicians didn’t behave in such a way towards their instruments. Ravi Shankar was particularly shocked.

1980 –"We are on a mission from God." John Landis movie " The Blues Brothers" with Dan Ackroyd & John Belushi premiered.

1983- Sally Ride becomes the first U.S. woman in Space. Russian Valentina Tereshkova had gone up in 1963.

2002- President George W. Bush said:” When we talk about war, we are really talking about peace.”

2010- Pixar’s Toy Story III premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: Years ago cities had cars called Checkers. What were they mostly used for?

Answer: The big boxy cars were the quintessential taxicab.

Question: Years ago cities had cars called Checkers. What were they mostly used for?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Did the events dramatized in the film The Dirty Dozen really happen?
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History for 6/17/2014
Birthdays: King Edward Ist "Longshanks", John Wesley the founder of the Methodists, , Wally Wood, Ralph Bellamy, Dean Martin, Barry Manilow, Joe Piscopo is 64, Newt Gingrich, Martin Bormann, Jason Patric, Ken Loach, Greg Kinnear is 51, Venus Williams, Thomas Haden Church is 54, Will Forte is 44

431BC- Battle of Mt. Algidus. Roman general Aulus Postumus Tubertus defeated two Etruscan tribes, the Aeguians and the Volscians.

1745- During one of the periodic wars between England and France, a force of New England colonists captured the fortress of Louisburg, the largest French bastion on the Atlantic coast. It cost 100 colonists’ lives and 900 more during the occupation but, amazingly, England gave the fortress back to France in exchange for a fortress in Madras, India. This was another reason Americans were pissed off about being a colony.

1775-THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. British troops surrounded in Boston, crossed the harbor to attack an entrenched rebel position on Breeds Hill (the names got confused.). It took the Redcoats three grand assaults until they took the hill, but the rebel farmers, instead of fleeing like rabbits, shot them to pieces. Captain Israel Putnam advised his men,” Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes, then aim low.” The minutemen only retreated when their ammunition ran low.

The battle exacted such a huge cost in soldiers’ lives that the British public was shocked (1,000 casualties out of 2,040 men). Based on America's lukewarm participation in the French and Indian War a decade past, had not the great General Wolf of Quebec labeled the American the "Worst Soldier in the Universe"? and General Gage once told his friend, George Washington," New Englanders are big boasters and worst soldiers. I never saw any as infamously bad." The English generals consoled themselves with the thought that it couldn't have been the Yankees that fought so well, but all the Irish and Scottish immigrants that had arrived recently.

Lexington and Concord could be dismissed as an extended civilian disturbance, but Bunker Hill convinced London that it now had a full-scale war to fight 3,000 ocean miles away.

1789- French King Louis XVI had convened an Estates General to solve the bankrupt economy. The body consisted of three branches- the First Estate-Nobility, 2nd – Clergy and Third Estate the common people- about 99% of the country. This day after much debate the Third Estate voted to declare itself the real representative will of the French people and as such they should legislate for them, King or no.

They renamed themselves the National Assembly. Two days later most of the poor clergy and some nobles like Lafayette voted to join them and when the King ordered them to disband on June 20th they moved to the tennis court. This was the political beginning of the French Revolution.

1815- Heavy Spring rains cancel any actions as the British and French armies converge on a little village outside Brussels called Waterloo. Thunder and lightning drowned out the sound of cannon. The English were optimistic because by coincidence every major victory of the Duke of Wellington was preceded by a strong thunderstorm.

The Prussian (German) army, beaten and driven off yesterday, regroups and turns around to join the English. Its commander was eccentric, 72-year-old Marshal Blucher. In the previous day's battle Blucher had a horse collapse on top of him and was trampled by French cavalry. But after bathing his limbs in brandy and swallowing a large schnapps he was back at the head of his troops bellowing: “Vowarts Mein Kinder! Vowarts Mein Leiber!”

1823- Charles MacKintosh patents the waterproof rubberized raincoat. In England, a raincoat is still called a MacKintosh.

1863 - Travelers Insurance Co of Hartford chartered (1st accident insurer)

1876- Battle of the Little Rosebud- The Ogalala Sioux under Crazy Horse repulsed U.S. cavalry and allied Crow warriors under George Crook. Crazy Horse amazed the white generals who claimed he maneuvered his warriors around the field like elite European light cavalry. They started calling him the Napoleon of the Plains. Crazy Horse then moved the Ogalala to the Little Big Horn to meet Sitting Bull, and fight Custer. Even though he was not badly beaten, Gen. Crook suspended his campaign and went fishing, and was no help to Custer.

1873- Women’s Rights leader Susan B. Anthony went on trial for attempting to vote.
She was found guilty by an all-male jury and fined $100, which she refused to pay.

1885- The pieces of the Statue of Liberty arrive from France. Some assembly required...

1893- Cracker Jacks invented by RW Reuckheim. Their name came from Teddy Roosevelt sampling the caramel corn, and exclaimed “These are Crackerjack!”- popular slang back then for something very good.

1893- The last Queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, is overthrown by a junta of American plantation owners led by Sanford Dole. The US apologized in 1992.

1917- The Republic of Finland is declared.

1919 - "Barney Google" cartoon strip, by Billy De Beck, premiered.

1930- Using 6 solid gold pens President Herbert Hoover signed the Harley-Smoot Act slapping huge trade tariffs on imports from overseas. Britain and France and their overseas colonies retaliated with tariffs on American exports. The American stock market had collapsed 6 months before; now this shortsighted act sparked a trade war with the ruined economies of postwar Europe. It all but ensured that the Great Depression would spiral out of control, hitting rock bottom in 1932.

1940- The Nazis had taken Paris and the French were asking for surrender terms. An invasion of Great Britain seemed imminent. Today on the BBC radio, Prime Minister Winston Churchill inspired Britons with his famous speech:”We shall fight them on the beaches, we shall fight them in the hills and in the towns… we shall defend our island home. We shall Never Surrender!”

1946- The first mobile telephone was installed in an automobile in St. Louis, Missouri.

1950-Future attorney general and Senator Robert Kennedy married heiress Ethel Scheckter.

1952- Jack Parsons died in a massive explosion in his Pasadena kitchen. Parsons was a founder of the Jet Propulsion Lab and the Aerojet Corporation. One of the nations top rocket scientists, his research into fuels powered everything from world war two bazooka shells to the Space Shuttle booster engines.

But Parsons also had a strange second life in the occult. He was a follower of Alastair Crowley, sometimes signed his name as AntiChrist and once tried to raise a demon in a white-magic ceremony. His close friends included writer Robert Heinlein and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard. His mother committed suicide soon after the explosion.

No one is sure what caused the explosion that killed him, but he was cavalier in his use of dangerous materials “

1964- The first Universal Studios tram car tour. Carl Laemmle had been inviting tourists in for a nickel to watch movies be filmed as early as 1915.

1968- Ohio Express’ single “Yummy, Yummy, Yummy I got love in my Tummy” went gold.

1972- THE WATERGATE BREAK IN- President Richard Nixon's staff, trying to gain an edge on an upcoming election, hire men to break into Democratic National Committee's offices in the Watergate Hotel to steal election strategy documents. They had already broken in once before but the batteries on the wiretap they planted were defective so they wanted to replace them and copy some more documents. Hotel security guards caught three Cubans and a man named Frank Sturgis. One Cuban had, in his pocket, a check made out by a White House employee named E. Howard Hunt.

This "Third-Rate Burglary" and subsequent cover-up ulcerated into a major scandal that eventually forced the first ever resignation of a US president. President Lyndon Johnson had bugged the Republicans in 1967 and President Kennedy used the IRS to audit politicians he didn’t like, but the general public didn’t know that yet. President Nixon said: "nobody's gonna make a big deal that a Republican President broke into Democratic headquarters."

1976- The Soweto Uprising. A march turned into a running battle as thousands of South African black protestors battled police in their poor townships.

1990- The Battle of Century City- Police attacked 500 striking building maintenance workers and janitors, mostly Central American immigrants, for trying to form a union.

1994- THE WHITE BRONCO CHASE- Movie actor and Hall of Fame football player O.J. Simpson was wanted for questioning about the grisly murder of his second wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman. This day OJ tried to escape. He and his football friend Al Cowlings led police on a strange slow-speed pursuit for two hours around the freeways of Los Angeles as the world watched amazed on live television. He eventually was convinced to surrender. OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder in a controversial trial, but found guilty in a civil wrongful death suit.
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Yesterday’s question: Did the events dramatized in the film The Dirty Dozen really happen?

Answer: No. There were special commando missions, including a British attempt to kill Rommel, and an American squadron that killed Yamamoto. The Russians and Germans had Penal Battalions, made up of convicts. But nothing like the movie ever actually happened.

Question: Did the events dramatized in the film The Dirty Dozen really happen?

Yesterdays Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase- “At the drop of a hat”?
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History for 6/16/2014
Birthdays: Stan Laurel, Willy Boskovsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson Doubleday, Brian Eno, animator Pete Burness, Martha Graham, Erich Segal, Jack Albertson, Helen Traubel, Ron LeFlore, Laurie Metcalf, Sonia Braga is 64, John Cho is 42.

Today is the Feast Days of Saints Tychon and Saint Luthgard

1686 BC- King Hammurabi the Lawgiver died in Babylon. He was succeeded by his son Samsu-iluna.

391 A.D.- Roman Emperor Theodosius I sent the Praefect of Egypt orders to close the pagan temples and forbid the any further practice of the worship of Isis, Serapis and Amon-Ra. It was Theodosius' policy to purge the now Christian Empire of the last vestiges of the old pagan religions. Theodosius closed Plato's Academy, silenced the Oracle of Delphi, burned the Sybilline Books and stopped the Olympic Games.

1497- Amerigo Vespucci reached the mainland of South America.

1549- Catherine de Medici entered Paris as the bride of King Henry II of France. Many French noblemen objected to the “That Florentine shopkeepers daughter and her gang of corrupt Italians” but she dominated French politics for decades the way Elizabeth Ist dominated England. She inspired the Saint Batholemew’s Day Massacre which is why there are few French Protestants today. She also brought a brilliant retinue of Italian cooks using new foods like artichokes and parsley. Modern scholars say Catherines influences helped French cuisine break out of the medieval rut and begin it’s ascendancy to Haute Cuisine.

1657- First recorded mention in London of chocolate for sale. Xocoaltl was served to Hernando Cortez by Montezuma in 1517 but it was pretty bitter stuff. The Maya also gave Europeans the first Vanilla beans. They tamed Chocolate with sugar and kept the formula a secret for 100 years. The Dutch figured it out and added milk for Milk Chocolate. Sir John Sloan the British chemist invented a formula as well.

1779- Spain joined France and Holland in declaring war on Britain over the American Revolution.

1788- The Virginia Convention met to bring together the opponents of the new US Constitution. Led by Patrick Henry, after several weeks’ discussion they adjourned without coming up with any serious alternative to the Constitution.

1815-BATTLES OF QUATRE BRAS (Four Corners) & LIGNY- Napoleon's last victory. Napoleon slipped his army into Belgium in between Wellington's and his Prussian (German) allies then split his own army in three. While one part stalled the English, Napoleon defeated the Prussian army and sends it running. The engagement might have been more decisive if the flying reserve under General D’Erlon hadn't gotten conflicting instructions. They spent the entire day marching back and forth between the two battles. The Prussian's recovered and Wellington fell back on a little intersection outside of Brussels called Waterloo.

1857-WAR OF THE POLICE DEPARTMENTS-One of the strangest incidents in law enforcement history. The New York City Police Dept. under Mayor Fernando Wood was so unbelievably corrupt that Governor Samuel Tilden built a second police force called the Metropolitan Police Force and ordered it to take over the city and arrest the Mayor. They were stopped on the steps of City Hall by the original NYPD and a fight broke out. While citizens and criminals alike looked on in amazement as hundreds of blue-coated policemen clubbed, battered and shot each other in the street. Washington D.C. negotiated a settlement that if the state police force would disband Mayor Wood would resign. He ran for mayor again and was elected 5 years later in time to start the New York City Draft Riots of 1863.

1858- Abe Lincoln says in a speech “ A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

1884 - On Coney Island Amusement Pier the Switchback Railway, the first roller coaster began operating.

1897- Congress approves the treaty to annex the Kingdom of Hawaii.

1902- A musical play of L Frank Baum’s fantasy story the Wizard of Oz premiered at Chicago’s Grand Opera House. When Baum was writing down the stories at one point he was stuck for a name for the magical kingdom. He looked down at his desk files that were labeled A-N and O-Z.

1903 – The Pepsi Cola Company formed.

1903-. As Henry Ford filed papers of incorporation of his Ford Automobile Company the first Ford automobiles go on sale at the Tenvoorde sales lot in Minnesota. The Tenvoorde is the oldest Ford dealership in the world and is still in business today, still run by the Tenvoorde Family.

1904- "Blume's Day" all the actions in James Joyce's "Ulysses" takes place on this one day in Dublin. This day Dubliners dress up as characters from the book and do readings.

1920- International Telephone and Telegraph incorporates- ITT.

1932- Broadway star Mae West heads west for Hollywood to make movies.

1933-Franklin Roosevelt signs the National Recovery Act (NRA) and the Glass-Steagel Act, which orders big banks to separate commercial bond business from private savings and loans. This way big banks that ruined themselves in the Stock Market Crash couldn’t destroy the savings of average people who never saw a stock or bond. A heavy publicity campaign encouraged Americans to rally under the blue eagle symbol of the NRA.

The NRA was struck down as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1937 but Glass-Steagel stayed in effect, much to the chagrin of banking corporations. It was finally rescinded by supposedly liberal President Bill Clinton in 1999, creating the financial collapses we have now.

1939- Bandleader Chick Webb died at age 30. Webb was an unlikely pop star, a hunchbacked, tuberculant little person who played drums, but his band the Chick Webb Orchestra pioneered the new Jazz form called Swing Music and inspired the Big Band Sound. One of Webb’s last actions before succumbing to his debilitating health problems was to make a star out of 19-year-old street singer named Ella Fitzgerald.

1940- As the Nazi tanks continue to roll deeper into France, French Premier Paul Reynaud resigned, and elderly Great War hero Marshal Phillipe Petain formed a new government and asked the Germans for terms of surrender.

1941-Operation Battle Axe- In the Sahara Desert, Rommel the Desert Fox defeated the British Army under Sir Archibald Wavell.

1941- President Franklin Roosevelt ordered Nazi Germany and Italy to close their diplomatic consulates and leave the country.

1943- 54 year old actor Charlie Chaplin married his fourth wife, 18 year old Oona O’Neill. In Hollywood Chaplin’s nickname was “Chickenhawk Charlie” for his fondness for women of barely legal age. Oona did remain his wife until the end of his life in 1971.

1947 –The 1st regular broadcast network news show began-Dumont's "News from Washington".

1952- The CBS television comedy My Little Margie premiered. It starred Gale Storm and Charlie Farrell.

1955- Disney’s Lady and the Tramp premiered.

1958-Imre Nagy, who led Hungarys ill-fated uprising against Communist domination in 1956, was hanged by the Soviets.

1959- Actor George Reeves, who played the 1950s television Superman, went upstairs during a dinner party and shot himself with a Luger pistol. Actor Gig Young, who was a friend of Reeves, said the actor 's career was going well and his love life was fine. He never believed the actor would shoot himself. Gig Young shot himself in 1981.

Many of Reeves friends also wonder if it was a suicide because Reeves had been dating a socialite named Toni Mannix who’s husband Eddie Mannix of MGM had mob connections. The bullet entrance wound didn’t have the customary powder burns of a suicide and there were other bullet holes in the floor and ceiling. Also the gun in Reeves hands had been wiped clean of fingerprints.

1960- Alfred Hitchcock's thriller "Psycho" premiered.

1963- Cosmonaut Valentina Tereschkova was the first woman to go into space.

1963- David Ben-Gurion, who directed the Jewish Zionist independence movement since 1936 and was Israel’s first Prime Minister, stunned the young nation by announcing his retirement. He declared he was worn out by the strain of power. He lived quietly in a Kibbutz in the Negev Desert, occasionally coming out to give a speech.

In 1968 he was invited to visit South Africa at the height of its racist apartheid laws. At dinner Ben-Gurion turned to the Calvinist Afrikanz bishops and asked:” And how do you explain to your flock that Moses married a black woman?”

1966-YOU HAVE THE RIGHT TO REMAIN SILENT… The Supreme Court handed down the ruling Miranda vs. Arizona, overturning the conviction of an Ernesto Miranda, who was jailed after he was tricked into confessing an assault of a Phoenix woman. This ruling established the famous Miranda Rights, read to every suspect upon arrest. Ernesto Miranda was retired and convicted again and was stabbed in a bar fight in 1972.

1967- The film “The Dirty Dozen” debuted.

1987- Italian porno star Ciccolina announced that since all politicians were whores and she was a whore she would run for office. This made sense to Italians who this day elected her overwhelmingly to a seat in Parliament.
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Yesterdays Question: What is the origin of the phrase- “At the drop of a hat”?

Answer: In XIX Century style horse races, the get ready signal was signaled by a judge standing on a barrel or box who held his hat aloft. Then “go” was signaled by dropping his hat. So you have to be prepared to go “at the drop of a hat”.

Question: What is the origin of the phrase- “At the drop of a hat”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean to be phlegmatic?
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History for 6/15/2014
Birthdays: Edward the Black Prince of England, Rachael Donelson Jackson- Andy Jackson’s First Lady, Edvard Grieg, Saul Steinburg, Mario Cuomo, Jim Varney, Wade Boggs, Waylon Jennings, Xaviera Hollander the Happy Hooker, Jim Belushi, Ice Cube is 45, Neil Patrick Harris is 41, Courtenay Cox is 50, Helen Hunt is 51

Happy St. Vitas Day ! "If St. Vitas Day be rainy weather, twill rain for thirty days together. "St.Vitus was the patron of epilepsy, and some extreme forms of spasmic seizure (chorea) was called "St. Vitus Dance".

1215- The MAGNA CARTA or the Great Charter SIGNED. On the field of Runymede. The rebellious English barons force King John Lackland ( also called John Soft Sword, John the Total Loser, etc. ) to sign a document granting basic rights such as trial by a jury of peers, Habeas Corpus, etc. It basically said for the first time that even a King was not above the law of the land.

After King John agreed he crossed the Channel where he paid off the Pope to absolve him of his oath and then he returned with an army of mercenaries to put down his barons. Even though he hired rogues like Victor the Villain and Mauger the Murderer, King John still lost. Magna Carta became the basis of English Law.

John wasn’t a totally terrible king. He built the first British navy yards at Portsmouth and Southhampton and unlike his older brother Richard Lionheart, John actually preferred speaking English over Norman French.

1300- Poet Dante Alighieri got a job as one of the governing priors of Florence, sort of a city council. We don’t know if it says something about his abilities at municipal governing, but he was run out of town in 1302.

1762 – The Austrian Empire becomes the first to issue paper currency.

1775 - The Continental Congress appointed Mr. George Washington, Esq. of Virginia to be commanding general of the new colonial army forming around Boston. John Adams urged Congress to pick a southerner to command the mostly New Englander farmers in the interest of colonial unity. The fact that he was one of the richest men in America didn't hurt either.

Plus the 6’ 2 plantation owner dropped hints he was interested in the job, like being the only delegate to attend congress squeezed into his 20 year old militia uniform. They afterwards bought him dinner at Peg Mullen's Beefsteak House. During the meal he turned to Patrick Henry and said with the appropriate 18th Century modesty: " From the date I enter into command of America's Armies, I date the fall and ruin of my reputation!"

1776- William Franklin, the pro-British governor of New Jersey is arrested by the Yankee rebels and thrown into a dungeon. He was the illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin and his cook Deborah Regan, whom Franklin had married out of sympathy for the boy. William had assisted his dad with his flying kite experiment years ago. The New Jersey delegates told Dr. Franklin while the Independence Declaration was being debated and he was 'unmoved'.

Truth be told the two men couldn't stand one another. They said they reconciled after the Revolution but that may have been more for public record than reality. When he died Ben Franklin did not leave his son a penny in his will, bitterly stating it's only what William would have left him had the positions been reversed.

1800- US Congress ordered the disbanding of the US Army as a waste of money.

1815-THE WATERLOO BALL- In Brussels Belgium, the Duchess of Richmond hosts a ball for the officers of Wellington’s army before they go to stop Napoleon. Many of the dancers will be dead at Waterloo three days later. The event is dramatized in "Vanity Fair" and" Becky Sharp." While this ball is taking place Napoleon crossed his army into Belgium and placed it inbetween the British and Prussians on the road to Brussels. Napoleon correctly guessed it would take some time for the enemy nations like Russia and Austria to mobilize armies (their target date was July 17) so instead of waiting for the inevitable invasion of France he would attack first, win a big victory then hopefully negotiate a peace from strength.

1836- Arkansas becomes a state.

1844- Mr. Charles Goodyear invents the vulcanization process, that keeps rubber from getting sticky in warm weather and brittle in the cold.

1846-The Oregon Treaty. The United States and Great Britain settle a dispute over exactly where the northwest border was between the U.S. and Canada. Despite President Polk’s belligerent campaign slogan “Fifty-Four Forty or Fight!” a peaceful compromise was reached on the 49th parallel.

1849-Three months after leaving office President James K. Polk died. The President who fought the War with Mexico to get California and the southwest was a lifelong teetotaler and died of cholera from drinking bad water. Sam Houston, who was one of the great alcoholics of American history, reacted “That’s the natural end of all Water-Drinkers!"

1888 -Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes leader of Germany after the death of his father Frederich III, who died of throat cancer after reigning only 100 days. Kaiser Frederich was mild, liberal and had an English wife. He hated German powermongers and abhorred the cruel reputation Germany was getting for militarism. He was determined to alter these policies. The modern world would have been amazingly different had Frederich lived to see 1914 as Kaiser instead of his emotionally disturbed son " Willy ".

The first thing Wilhelm did was have troops break into his mother's office and seize some confidential papers in her desk. He and his mother were hardly on speaking terms and he referred to her as "That English Princess who is my mother.." Once when Wilhelm had a nosebleed he refused to stop it because" Now maybe all the English blood will drain out of me !"

1896- GERMANY BUILDS A NAVY. Kaiser Wilhelm approved the plan of Admiral Von Tirpitz to create a huge battleship fleet. This act is seen as a direct threat to British seapower and for the first time Von Tirpitz implicitly named England as an enemy. Germany and England until then had never fought a war and were usually allies. Queen Victoria spoke fluent German and her grandson the Kaiser was fluent in English. The Kaiser’s desk in his office was made from the wood of Admiral Nelson’s flagship HMS Victory. But building a navy meant Germany was directly challenging England for domination of the High Seas..

1932-The Bonus Marchers, twenty thousands of Depression-unemployed veterans, encamp around Capitol Hill and begin a silent barefoot protest march around Congress. Unlike the army and Government of the time they vote to abolish Jim Crow and completely integrate their ranks.

1938-Tha Fair Labor Standards Act passed.

1945- Judy Garland married director Vincente Minnelli. Lisa Minnelli was one result.

1951- Comedian Lenny Bruce married a stripper named Honey Stuart.

1955- DUCK & COVER. The US Government held Operation OPAL, the first nationwide Civil Defense alert drills. Not only did millions of school children have to jump under their desks to avoid imaginary Russian nukes, but plans were made for commandos to grab the President, Congressional leaders, Supreme Court and even grab the Declaration of Independence and other valuable documents and whisk them out to underground bunkers in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Russian spies said they learned a great deal about US intentions from observing these silly drills. President Eisenhower got a good laugh when the motorcade speeding him through the Virginia countryside was blocked by a heard of pigs. “Well, I guess that means we’re all dead boys!” The president joked.

1969- The country music comedy TV show Hee-Haw premiered as a summer replacement for the Smothers Brothers Hour. Hee Haw ran for two years with high ratings but CBS cancelled the show anyway. This was because CBS chief Bill Paley disliked country music. CBS had so many shows like Mayberry RFD, Beverly Hillbillies and Hee Haw, that insiders joked that CBS stood for the Country Broadcasting System. Hee Haw had the last laugh, going on to a successful syndication run until 1997.

1977- Everybody Disco! KC and the Sunshine band release “I’m your Boogie Man”.

1992- The US Supreme Court ruled that it was okay for American law agencies to kidnap suspects being given asylum in foreign countries and bring them to the US for trial, just no one better try kidnapping anybody outta da Good Old U-S of A!

1994- Twenty Years Ago- Walt Disney’s The Lion King opened.

1999- In San Diego, Nicholas Vitalich was arrested for slapping his wife with a large tuna.

2001- Disney’s Atlantis premiered.

2002- Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was knighted.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to be phlegmatic?

Answer: To be without emotion or passionate display. Very low key.

Question: What does it mean to be phlegmatic?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who were known to be the worst cooks in the Ancient World?
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History for 6/14/2014
Birthdays: Tomaso Albinioni, Progressive congressman Fighting Bob LaFollette, Margaret Bourke-White, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Sam Wanamaker, Cliff Edwards the voice of Jiminy Cricket, Dorothy McGuire, Burl Ives, Gene Barry, Jerzy Kosinski, Diablo Cody is 36, Donald Trump is 68.

451 A.D. Battle of Orleans- Attila the Hun was defeated by the combined armies of Theodoric the Visigoth and the Roman general Aetius. Attila was told by his shamans that a great king would die that day. But even though Attila lost, it was Theodoric who fell. Attila was not killed in battle like that Jack Palance-Jeff Chandler movie but died on his wedding night years later with wife #20. He was 45, she was 16. He was dead by morning.

1497- Giovanni Borgia, son of Pope Alexander VI and brother to Caesar Borgia, had dinner with his family then disappeared on the way home. Next day his body was found in the Tiber River with nine stab wounds in it. No one ever found the murderer. Suspects included everyone from scholar Pico Della Mirandola to his own brother Cesare Borgia. Heart-broken dad Pope Alexander told his cardinals "This is God’s punishment for our sins, I hereby promise to renounce Nepotism and Simony and reform the Church." But Alexander soon got over it and resumed his corrupt ways.

1645- Battle of Naseby- Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army defeated King Charles Ist's army in the decisive battle of the English Civil War. After this the King never again could field a large army. Charles Ist had as one of his generals his German nephew Prince Rupert of the Rhine. Rupert rode into battle with a white poodle under his arm named Bobbie. He made insensitive declarations like: "We will strew the field with English dead !" Considering it was a civil war, that fact seemed all but certain.

1658- Battle of the Dunes- Cromwell's Ironside English cavalry help the French fight the Spaniards in Belgium. Cromwell was born during the reign of Queen Elizabeth when Spain was England's chief enemy, but by this time his generals were much more worried about the rise of Louis XIV's France. They felt they were helping the wrong side, but the Old Lord Protector (Cromwell) overruled them.

1718- The later years of Czar Peter the Great’s rule were clouded by a feud with his son and heir Alexis. While Peter was dragging Russia forcibly out of medieval backwardness his son was educated by priests to hate his fathers new ideas. Alexis pledged to undo all his father’s reforms when he became Czar. At one point Alexis fled to Italy to escape his father’s anger but returned when promised amnesty. This day Peter went back on his pledge and had Alexis arrested. In the Saint Peter & Paul fortress dungeons Alexis was beaten to death with whips. Papa himself administered the first blows.

1727- George II of England told by Sir Robert Walpole that his august father George Ist had died and he was now king. At first George thought it was one of his dad's cruel jokes, and said" Dat izt von big lie!"( they had German accents remember). He always resented his dad’s cruel treatment of his mom, like having her lover murdered while he himself kept a regular mistress. George Ist didn’t trust his English subjects and was always homesick for his birthplace in Hanover Germany. He was always visiting. So when he died and was buried over there truth be said nobody in England really missed him. While his grandson King George III’s death was cause for national mourning, George I’s death was only casually mentioned in the society newspapers.

Happy Flag Day -in 1777 The Continental Congress orders the Stars and Stripes flag to be the official U.S. flag. It replaced the Cambridge Flag (The Tree and Stripes) and the Snake and Stripes and all those other things silly things and stripes.

1789- Capt. Bligh reached East Timor after floating 4,000 miles in an open boat. He and his followers were cast adrift by the Bounty Mutineers.

1800- Battle of Marengo- Napoleon defeats the Austrian army and conquers most of Italy. At first he was losing and his men were fighting so furiously against high odds that some could be seen urinating into their rifle barrels to cool them off. Just when things seemed lost his regimental commander General Desaix, arrived in the nick of time, won the battle, and was conveniently killed in action so Napoleon didn’t have to share any of the credit. This led Napoleon to observe "The difference between victory and defeat can be 15 minutes."

1801- Old Revolutionary War traitor Benedict Arnold died in London of dropsy. He was living on a major generals half pay but was shunned by polite British society as he was hated by Americans. Tradition has it that in his last days he had his wife Peggy help him back into his old Colonial Generals uniform:" My country’s uniform, woe to me that I ever put on another!" After his death The London Post wrote: Poor General Arnold departed this life, unmourned and without notice. A sorry reflection for other turncoats."

1807- Battle of Friedland -Napoleon does it again, this time to a Russian army.

1816- Writers Shelley, Lord Byron and Mary Shelley were spending the summer at the Villa Deodati on Lake Geneva. This day among the revels, drinking, partner swapping and opium taking, Byron suggested they all write a ghost story. They all tried but failed except for 19 year old Mary who invented the tale of a Swiss scientist who created an artificial man. She called it Frankenstein.

1822- Charles Babbage presented a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society in London proposing to build a "Difference Engine" a machine that could calculate equations and print the results-i.e. a computer. His early machine required 8,000 moving parts. After ten years and a small fortune it never quite comes off, but today it is considered the ancestor of the computer.

1832- A large French invasion force landed in Algiers. The Barbary Corsairs were so annoyed they took the French ambassador and fired him out of a large mortar. It was tough being a diplomat in those days. The French colonize Algeria until 1962.

1834- Isaac Fischer Jr. of Vermont invented sandpaper.

1846-THE GREAT BEAR REBELLION- U.S. citizens living in Spanish California led by a school teacher named William Ide and Ezekiel Merritt declared themselves an independent country, not knowing that back east the U.S. government had already declared war on Mexico and annexed California to the U.S.. Remember information took months to get back East across Indian territory and burning deserts. The Anglo-Californians seized a Sonoma military post and arrested the owner of the largest hacienda in the area, a retired Mexican General named Mariano Vallejo. Ironically Senor Vallejo himself desired AltaCalifornia to have independence from Mexico City.
They chose as their flag for the new republic the grizzly bear and the polar star, which is now the state flag. It wasn’t well drawn and a Mexican noblewoman watching the events thought the flag looked like a large towel with a pig painted on it. US Col. John Freemont took over the Great Bear settlers and raised the US flag over the Presidio in San Francisco July 1st.

1865- A group of Englishmen climb the Materhorn Mountain in Switzerland, inventing the sport of mountain climbing. Why? Because it’s there.

1934- Hitler meets Mussolini for the first time for a conference in the city of Padua. They didn't trust any interpreters and neither could speak the others language, so it wasn't much of a meeting. Il Duce's first impression of the German Chancellor wasn't impressive. He called Adolf " A comical little monkey."

1940- The German Army goose-stepped down the Champs Elysees into Paris. The Nazi propaganda that night broadcast from Berlin declared" The decadent, democratic Paris of Jews and Negroes is gone never to rise again!!" Not quite, Adolf.

1941- President Roosevelt ordered all German and Italian assets in the U.S. frozen.

1942- A secret coded message sent by Moscow's intelligence service to all their agents in Germany, England and the U.S.A. showed that Russia was aware of these countries attempts to build an atomic bomb, and that Soviet agents should use all means to secure information about these programs.

1951- Univac I, built by Dr John W, Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert Jr. of the Remington Rand Company to be the first U.S. commercial built electronic computer, went on line for the census bureau in Philadelphia.

1954- The Eisenhower Administration ordered the adding of the words "Under God" to the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance.

1957- Nelson Mandela married Winnie Mandela.

1959- Three new rides are debuted at Disneyland in Anaheim. The first monorail the Disneyland-Alweg Monorail System, Matterhorn Mountain and the Submarine Voyage, today called the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. Back then the submarines were named and painted to be the USN nuclear submarines Nautilus, Triton, Skipjack, Skate, Patrick Henry, Sea Wolf, George Washington and Ethan Allen. The ride took visitors for an adventure under the North Pole, an achievement which the real USN Nautilus had just done the previous year. The subs were repainted the more pacific yellow color after the Vietnam era.

1962- The Boston Strangler killed his first victim.

1964- THE FIRST HIPPY BUS- Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, bought an old school bus, painted it psychedelic colors, took of troupe of 14 fellow free spirits called the Merry Pranksters and spent the next few months driving across the country taking LSD and staging Happenings in various cities and towns.

The Bus’s name was Further and its driver was Neil Cassidy, friend of Beatnik author Jack Kerouac. A book documenting the escapades of the "hippy bus" was "The Electric Koolaid Acid Test.". Kesey became interested in LSD when he volunteered for a college program to experiment with the drug, secretly funded by the CIA. The Merry Pranksters were invited in 1969 to be the security for the Woodstock Rock Festival.

1966- The Vatican officially abolished the Index of Forbidden Books.

1977- Skinny Carnaby Street fashion model Twiggy got married to Michael Whitney.

1983- The Pioneer 10 space probe left it’s orbit around Jupiter and headed off into deep space. NASA lost all contact in 1997. Pioneer 10 is expected to reach the solar system of the star Ross 246 in the Constellation Taurus in the year 34,600 AD.

1989- Elderly actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was arrested for slapping a Beverly Hills policeman who was writing her a traffic ticket.

1995, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MP3. The researchers at Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits decided to use "mp3" as the file name extension for their new audio coding technology. Development on this technology started in 1987. By 1992 it was considered far ahead of its times. MP3 became the generally accepted acronym as the popular standard for digital music on the on the Internet.

2001- The Oxford English Dictionary admitted the slang expletive of Homer Simpson "DOH!" into its august pages.

2002- An asteroid the size of a football field bypassed the Earth by just 75,000 miles, about one fifth the distance to our moon. If it had hit us, the cataclysm might have rivaled the one that eliminated the Dinosaurs. Little was said about it in the media because it came from the direction of the Sun and was undetectable until almost on top of us. So sleep well tonight, modern science is on guard! Nyaaahhhh!!
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Yesterday’s Question: Who were known to be the worst cooks in the Ancient World?

Answer: According to the Greek traveler Pausanias and Roman writer Strabo, the city of Sparta was known to have the worst cuisine in the ancient world. The warriors ate nothing by Spartan Black Broth, that was known to be so awful, the men would rather seek death on the battlefield than go home for dinner.