Question: Which is not a Marvel character? Spiderman, Antman, Hulk, Aquaman, Green Goblin.

Yesterdays’ question answered below: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were knighted, but we couldn’t call them Sir Ted and Sir Ronnie. If you’re an American citizen and you inherit a dukedom, can you be called Duke or Duchess?

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History for 3/23/2022
Birthdays: US Vice President Schuyler Colfax, Akira Kurosawa, Joan Crawford, Dr. Werner Von Braun, Juan Gris, Chaka Khan, Paul Grimault, Sidney Hillman, Jack Ruby, Joan Collins, Eric Fromm, Fanny Farmer, Catherine Keener is 63, Hope Davis is 58

In ancient Rome today was the Tubilustrum, the Festival of the Sacred Trumpets of Minerva. Yes, the word is the origin of the word Tuba, although the modern tuba wasn’t invented until 1835.

Today is the Feast day of the Irish Saint Gwinear. Gwinear loved animals so much that once when he was thirsty he struck the ground with his staff to make a clear pool appear, then again to make another one for his dog and horse.

1721- Johann Sebastian Bach sent the first copy of his Brandenburg Concertos to his patron the Margrave of Brandenburg. When the Margrave died, an inventory was made of his holdings in Berlin, the value placed on each concerto was six groschen, or about $5 each.

1775- During the debate in the Virginia House of Burgesses, Patrick Henry
said the only way to deal with England was :"I KNOW NOT WHAT COURSE OTHERS MAY FOLLOW, BUT FOR ME -GIVE ME LIBERTY, OR GIVE ME DEATH !" Henry became Gov. of Virginia, but later he was forgotten in the formation of the new nation, especially after he declared publicly that the Constitution was a big mistake, and Tom Jefferson was an incompetent coward.

1806-After exploring the Pacific coast around the mouth of the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark start back for home.

1857- Stewart's department store in New York installs the first of Mr. Elisha Otis's new invention, the elevator. There were earlier steam elevators, but the danger of falling frightened off customers. Mr. Otis’ system of brakes and cut offs in the event of a cable failure made elevators popular and made the age of skyscrapers possible.

1877- Mormon elder John D. Lee was convicted of the murder of 120 settlers when he ordered his men to attack a pioneer wagon train as it passed through Utah in 1857, the infamous Mountain Meadow Massacre. On this day John D. Lee was marched to the massacre site, stood beside his own coffin and shot by firing squad.

1877- the first telephones installed in the White House.

1894- Sherlock Holmes creator Arthur Conan-Doyle was in Davo Switzerland helping his wife recover from tuberculosis at a spa in the Alps. While there, the Swiss introduced him to a new sport that he quickly took to. This day he wrote to London enthusiastically about Ski-Running, or Skiing. Conan-Doyle predicted in the Strand Magazine “Within a generation, thousands of English people will be coming to the Alps to ski.” Today there is a statue of Sir Arthur in Davo, Switzerland.

1903- Orville and Wilbur Wright kept looking for someone to build them a motor light enough to power their airplane design. Finding no taker, they built the thing themselves, and the propeller and this day took out an U.S. patent on The Airplane. They didn’t actually fly in it until nine months later.

1909- Two weeks after leaving the presidency, Teddy Roosevelt disembarked from New York, bound for a big game hunt in Africa. Banker J.P. Morgan said,” Every American hopes the African lions will do their duty.”

1918- In a final attempt to break French defenses during World War I, the Germans begin firing their giant "Big Bertha" cannon at Paris. The shells fly 77 miles and took three minutes to reach their targets. The first shell hit Place De La Republique. A gunner said the discharge of the cannon sounded like, “an enormous vomiting dachshund'.

1919- Benito Mussolini founded the Parti Fasci di Combatimento or Fascist Party in Italy. He started his career as a socialist union leader but swung to the other side later (better benefits?) He named his ultra-right group after the wrapped bundle of sticks with an axe sticking out that was carried before ancient Roman consuls, the fasces, it symbolized Roman power. In a previous generation Garabaldi's men were called Red-Shirts so Mussolini adopted the Black-Shirts. Later Hitler made his storm troopers Brown-Shirts.

1936- Ollie Johnston got his first job at the Walt Disney Studio, as Fred Moore’s assistant.

1945- THE FIRST JET FIGHTER ATTACK- In a last-ditch attempt to stop the allied armies entering Germany, the Luftwaffe mounted an attack on two captured Rhine river bridges by fifty jet fighters. The Messerschmidt ME-262 Schwalbe (Swallows).
Half never get off the ground, others get lost and the rest don't accomplish anything. The Luftwaffe aces like Adolph Galland thought the jets were ideal for shooting down big B-17 bombers, but Hitler insisted they carried bomb loads, which slowed them down enough for propeller planes to hit them. The experimental jet fuel was so unstable that it had to be mixed by a chemist as it was being poured into the gas tank. If the mixing was done improperly the whole thing could explode on the runway.

1945- Later that day General George Patton led a group of journalists and photographers out to the center of the Rhine bridgehead. One journalist asked his thoughts now that he was breaching Hitler’s vaunted Siegfried Line and daring to go where no foreign soldier had stepped since Napoleon.
As cameras clicked the Patton undid his fly and took a long healthy pee in the Rhine River. “I waited all morning to do that! Yessir, the pause that refreshes!” My father remembered signal corps photo lab assistants made a brisk business selling copies of the famous incident on left over scraps of enlargement paper. That photo was taken by Tech Sgt. Paul Dougherty of the 737 Tank Battalion.

1957- Art Clokey's Gumby Show. Clokey created the green clay fellow for his USC college thesis film Gumbasia.

1971- US Congress lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

1973-White House attorney John Dean tells President Nixon:" There's a cancer on the Presidency...."

1976- Panamanian middleweight Roberto Duran was being honored in Havana. Fidel Castro casually remarked to Duran “Hey, what do you think would happen if my fighter Teofilo Stevenson met Muhammad Ali?” Duran laughed,” Him? Ali would kill him!” Duran was on a plane home that night.

1977- The first Richard Nixon-David Frost interview.

1983- STAR WARS- President Ronald Reagan announced in a nationwide speech the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed the Star Wars Program. He said US scientists were going to create a protective umbrella of laser satellites in orbit that would shoot down hostile nuclear missiles.
This program would cost trillions and even if it worked it could never stop all the missiles launched in a Soviet first strike. Conservative apologists said that the re-escalation of the cold war arms race drove the Soviets crazy and their inability to keep up with arms spending sped their economic collapse. Star Wars wasted billions of U.S taxpayer dollars before it was stopped.
On the day of the 9-11 World Trade Center Attack National Security Advisor Dr Condoleeza Rice was scheduled to make a major speech announcing the Bush White House resuming of the Star Wars program. To this date, we still do not have satellites shooting other satellites with lasers.

1987- After meeting creator Matt Groening, animators David Silverman, Wes Archer and Bill Kopp began animating the very first Simpson’s short for the Tracy Ullmann Show.

1989- COLD FUSION- Two physicists named Ponds & Fleischman make incredible claims that they had discovered a way to make electric power from Cold Fusion. This would mean limitless cheap power that left little waste. It could even use nuclear waste as a fuel. After a lot of excitement, upon closer scrutiny it was discovered it didn’t really work. Oh well.

1990- President George Bush Sr. banned broccoli from the White House.
He joked; "Read My Lips ! I hate Broccoli !"

2003- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film, Beating out Lilo & Stitch and Treasure Planet.
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Yesterday’s Question: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were knighted, but we couldn’t call them Sir Ted and Sir Ronnie. If you’re an American citizen and you inherit a dukedom, can you be called Duke or Duchess?

Answer: One of the earliest laws passed by the American Congress was that American citizens cannot hold or pass on titles of nobility. When Princess Grace Kelly and Queen Noor of Jordan became royalty, they had to give up their US citizenship.

Quiz: Ted Kennedy and Ronald Reagan were knighted, but we couldn’t call them Sir Ted and Sir Ronnie. If you’re an American citizen and you inherit a dukedom, can you be called Duke or Duchess?

Quiz: See you in the Funny Papers. What were the funny papers?
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History for 3/22/2023
Birthdays: Anthony Van Dyck, Marcel Marceau, Stephen Sondheim, Karl Malden, Werner Klemperer- Colonel Klink in Hogan’s Heroes, George Benson, James Gavin, Allen Neuharth, Milt Kahl, Mort Drucker, Fanny Ardant is 74, Lena Olin is 68, Bruno Ganz, Reese Witherspoon is 47, Keegan Michael-Key is 52, William Shatner is 92.

In ancient Rome, this day was the Festival of the Entry of the Tree- when the priestesses of Cybele, Goddess of the Harvest, would lead a procession through the streets carrying pine or palm branches. In later times the Christians took this and called it Palm Sunday.

1622- POWHATAN INDIANS SUPRISE ATTACK JAMESTOWN- While the Pilgrims were still thinking of coming to America and Plymouth Rock was just another rock, Jamestown Virginia was the only English settlement in North America.
After the deaths of Pocahontas and Powhatan, Opescanacough- pronounced Opee-cantanoo, became Mamanatowick- overall chief of the Virginia Powhatan Confederation. He hated the English since the days of John Smith. So, he resolved to rid his land of the white men once and for all with a simultaneous assault on them from all sides on the same day.
The settlers were taken completely by surprise, many while tending their fields. 300 were killed, among them John Rolfe, the husband of the late princess Pocahontas.
Despite such heavy losses, the English recovered and in a slow war of attrition eventually killed Opescanocough and wiped out the Powhatan people.

1687- Jean Francois Lully was court composer to Louis XIV the "Sun King”. In an age when the baton had not come into use for conductors, Lully conducted his orchestra by beating a large pole on the ground to the tempo of the music. One day during a performance he poked a hole in his own foot with the pole and died of blood poisoning.
On his deathbed he asked a priest for Last Rites but the priest refused unless he burned his latest opera "Atys" which the church considered blasphemous. Lully admitted his sins and burned the manuscript of ATYS in front of the priest, who then gave him the sacrament. A friend came in afterward and said:" How could you burn your work?" Lully replied:" Don't worry. I have another copy of it here in my desk. "

1719- King Frederick Wilhelm I announced the end of serfdom in Prussia-Germany.

1820 - Commodore Stephen Decatur was killed in pistol duel with Commodore James Baron outside Wash. D.C. Stephen Decatur was a colorful naval hero of the War with Tripoli and War of 1812 who said "My Country Right or Wrong" .

1882- Congress outlawed polygamy.

1894- First Stanley Cup Game- Montreal 3, Ottawa I.

1901- Japan announces that Russia better keep their hands off Korea.

1905-WELTSMACHT (world power) Kaiser Wilhelm in a speech for a dedication ceremony in Bremen tells the Germans that it is their natural right to dominate the world. It was another of his emotionally rash statements that sent chills through an already tense world situation.
We sometimes think German officials all were like the Nazis, robotic and fanatical. But in the Kaiser’s time many of his officials were just as cynical as you or me. German diplomats despaired whenever Wilhelm put his foot in his mouth. One attaché tried to release an edited text to the press. The Kaiser complained: “Bauer, you left out all the good parts!”
Another time after the Kaiser did an interview for the London Globe & Mail where he called the English people a "Race of Mad Bulls." This caused the German ambassador in London to say to a colleague "Oh Well, we might as well start packing right now..."
Another diplomat said,” The Kaiser’s speeches have the same effect as when first viewing a dead octopus. First shock, then revulsion, then amusement.”

1913- Jack London (White Fang, The Call of the Wild) wrote fellow writers HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Winston Churchill, and asked them how much do they get paid? He was unsure what to charge.

1933- The first SS run concentration camp Dachau opened.

1935- Walt Disney Silly Symphony “ The Golden Touch”.

1935- TV SHOWS-The first regular electronic television service began in Berlin as Deutscher Fernseh Rundfunk. Broadcasting from the Fernsehsender Paul Nipkow, it used a 180-line system, and was on air for 90 minutes, three times a week. Very few receivers were ever privately owned, and viewers went instead to Fernsehstuben (television parlors). During the 1936 Summer Olympics, broadcasts, up to eight hours a day, took place in Berlin and Hamburg.

1944- When the evidence became overwhelming, President Franklin Roosevelt in a national radio address first told the American people of Hitler’s holocaust of the Jews. He warned that all persons aiding in these war crimes would be hunted down. Still no attempt was ever made to bomb Auschwitz, Dachau or even the railroad links to them. US Immigration quotas had been tightened since 1938. Although Jewish groups had complained for years, the US public never really grasped the full horror of the death camps, until the film footage returned from the land armies a full year later.

1945- Several Arab nations including Syria, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Egypt form the Arab League. Their goal is the eventual unity of all Arab peoples from the Atlantic to the Persian Gulf, but about the only thing they all agreed on was hostility to a Jewish state in Israel. Recently the Arab League tried to stop the fighting in Syria without much luck.

1947- President Truman signed an Executive Order # 9835 ordering background checks of all government employees to see if they were commies, and to take an Oath of Loyalty to the United States. Two million took the oath, only 129 were sacked for refusing.

1958- Hollywood producer Mike Todd was killed in a small plane crash. He produced hit movies like Around the World in 80 Days and romanced starlets like Gypsy Rose Lee and Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor and Todd had been married for one year and she was devastated by the accident. Years and many marriages later Taylor said Mike Todd was the only man she ever really loved.

1960- Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes patented the laser beam. Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation or LASER. Pussycats rejoice!

1970- The Beatles broke up. Paul McCartney filed papers in a London court for a formal dissolving of the Fab Fours partnership.

1972- Concluding a five-year study, the National Commission on Drug Abuse recommended ending all penalties and laws prohibiting marijuana. No one in authority listened to them.

1972- Congress passed the ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, forbidding any discrimination by sex. The ERA was first proposed by women’s rights groups in 1923. With the heady atmosphere of Women’s Liberation in the early 70s the amendment seemed a no-brainer, even Ronald Reagan supported it. However the Conservative backlash led by anti-feminists like Phyllis Schlafly slowly stunted its ability to win over states for ratification. The ERA died unratified in 1982.

1976- In Tunisia, George Lucas’ first day filming Star Wars.

1978- Karl Wallenda, 73 year old scion of the daredevil family the Flying Wallendas, fell to his death from a tightrope between two resort hotels in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

1991- Ivana Trump divorced Donald Trump. A celebrated court case ensued to see how the huge Trump fortune would be divided up. Newspapers cried, Ivanna More Money!

1995- First day of shooting on that utterly classic film- Dinosaur Valley Girls!

2004- Israeli missiles blew up Sheik Ahmed Yasin, the quadriplegic founder of the Palestinian group Hamas.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: See you in the Funny Papers. What were the funny papers?

Answer: Mid twentieth century it was the nickname for the separate pullout comic strip section that was included in the newspaper Sunday editions. There was also a sports section, a travel section, classifieds, etc.

Todays Question: See you in the Funny Papers. What were the funny papers?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: In a symphony orchestra, only one instrument is permitted to give the tuning note “A” all the other instruments tune to. What is it?
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History for 3/21/2023
Birthdays: Plato, Johann Sebastian Bach, Benito Juarez, Modest Mussorgsky, Fats Waller, Josef Pulitzer, Florenz Ziegfeld, Bronco Billy Anderson, Rev Ralph Abernathy, Armand Hammer, Harold Robbins, Matthew Broderick is 59, Gary Oldman is 63, James Coco, Timothy Dalton is 75, Rosie O’Donnell is 59, animator Kathy Zielinski.

Today in Switzerland this is the Feast of St. Nicholas Von Flue, who was married, had ten children, and made war. In 1481 when the Swiss Confederation was in danger of breaking apart Swiss leaders came to his monk's cell to seek his advice. Though he could neither read nor write, he worked out the Compromise of Stans, which saved peace and Swiss unity forevermore.

717 A.D. Battle of Vinciacus- Charles Martel, aka Charles the Hammer", defeated Ragenfridus and the Merovingian pretenders to assure the Carolingian line on the throne of the Franks, aka the French. Charles Martel’s grandson was Charlemagne. His great-grandson Pippin was made into a musical by Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwarz in the 1970's. A musical called "Ragenfridus!" just doesn't have the same ring.

1617-Pocahontas, now called Lady Rebecca Rolfe, died at Gravesend, England after being taken off her homeward bound ship, too ill with smallpox to continue. She was 21. Her children with John Rolfe became the beginnings of one of the largest families in Virginia, with many scions of the Old Dominion tracing their ancestry to Pocahontas.

1740- Composer Antonio Vivaldi - Il Prete Rosso- the Red Priest, conducted his last concert at the Ospedale Della Pietra in Venice. It was a home for orphaned girls so it was an all-girl orchestra. The 64 year old Vivaldi went to Vienna to see if he could get any commissions from the Austrian Emperor, but caught an illness on the way and died.

1804- The Duc D'Enghein shot by firing squad. The Bourbon nobleman was setting up a conspiracy just beyond the French border in Germany to overthrow the French Republic and re-establish the king. Napoleon sent a covert strike force of fast riding cavalry across the border to kidnap him and bring him back. Napoleon prided himself on not executing political dissenters like the masses that were guillotined in the Revolution. But this Duke was too dangerous to keep alive. Still, the cold-bloodedness of this action bothered Napoleon, and he referred to it often with regret.

1804-THE CODE NAPOLEON- That same day the French Assembly gave final approval to Napoleon’s revising the legal system. The French civil law courts had been in a hopeless muddle with 368 separate regional law codes some dating back to the Middle Ages. Nappy tackled the problem like he did a battle. He presided over 35 of 87 all day meetings of the jurists- once waking up the drowsy legislators with the cry “Come Gentlemen, Let us Earn our Salaries!” The CODE NAPOLEON became the basis for all French civil property rights and family law and is still in use in Louisiana and Quebec Canada today. Napoleon said: ” When the memory of my forty battlefield victories have faded, what will live forever is my Civil Code.”

1829- The British Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had to work hard to get a Bill of Catholic Emancipation through Parliament. This day he had to fight a duel with an opposition MP, a Lord Winchelsea. They popped away at each other without doing any harm, and that seemed to satisfy everyone’s honor.

1859- The first public zoo opened in the U.S.

1864- Nevada statehood. Lincoln at this time was pushing several territories into statehood early so he could get emancipation and Civil rights legislation through congress with a majority against the rebellious Southern States.

1871- William Stanley set out to find Dr. David Livingstone. Livingstone was an explorer –missionary who had disappeared into the African jungle. No one had heard from for two years. Stanley, an illegitimate Welshman, had been a soldier in the American Civil War and fought on both sides. He undertook this African expedition financed by the New York Herald. His Swahili name was “Bula Matari” the Breaker of Rocks.

1871- German Chancellor Bismarck convened the first Reischtag (parliament) of the unified Germany.

1915- President Woodrow Wilson hosted a private screening of D.W. Griffith’s film “The Birth of a Nation” at the White House.

1917- Buster Keaton first stepped in front of a movie camera.

1918- The Ludendorf Offensive (second battle of the Somme) begins. When Lenin took over Russia he immediately made peace with the Germans to end the Great War in the East. This freed up one million troops for the Western Front. German strategist Erich Von Ludendorf hurled them into one last attack to win the war before the American armies could arrive in significant numbers. Ludendorf (who was such a stiff Prussian it was said he made love with his monocle on.) called the action "Kaiserschlacht" (Kaiser's Battle") and he promised the Kaiser that he would be in Paris by April 1st. When this attack was stopped by the fresh American forces, the German High Command realized their chances of winning World War I were now kaput.

1921- Chicago mobster Big Jim Colosimo was murdered by a new face in gangsterdom, a hitman for Johnny Torrio named Alfonso “Scarface” Capone. When Al Capone became famous, he showed his appreciation to Torrio by killing him, too.

1921- Russian Communist leader Nicholai Lenin announced at a party conference the New Economic Policy. Russian state controls applied too quickly combined with the hardships of a civil war had destroyed the Russian economic infrastructure. A terrible famine raged. The New Economic Policy allowed for a certain amount of capitalism and free trade to occur until Russia could get back on her feet again. Stalin replaced the NEP with the first Five Year Plan in 1928.

1930- Col. Lyman Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken.

1933- On the anniversary of Bismarck's parliament the Nazis dominated Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, giving newly elected Chancellor Adolph Hitler complete dictatorial powers to combat anarchy and terrorism. Hitler kept elderly President Hindenburg around for image sake until his death a year later. The Weimar Republic ended and the Third Reich began. Also passed today was an edict called the Heimtuckegesetz, or Malicious Practices Law, which made it a crime to criticize the Nazis.

1935- Persia renamed Iran and Mesopotamia renamed Iraq.

1951- HOLLYWOOD COMMIES- House UnAmerican Acitivities Commitee (HUAC) under Judge J. Parnell Thomas left Washington and set up in Hollywood to continue rooting out Communist subversion in the movies. They began in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and later move to the federal building downtown.
Out of 15,000 people who made a living in the movies and television, only 295 were ever proven or confessed communists. It was an open secret that for $5,000 delivered to the right committee member, your dossier would be moved to the bottom of the pile. The hearings stopped in 1956, the blacklist was broken in 1960 and Judge J. Parnell Thomas went to jail himself for embezzlement.

1952- DJ Alan Freed put on an event of the new pop music in Cleveland Ohio. Called the MoonDog Coronation Ball, it was the very first Rock Concert.

1960- THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE- White South African police confronting a peaceful demonstration in the black township of Sharpeville open fire with machine guns into the crowd, killing 69 and injuring hundreds. Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress leaders abandon for a time peaceful protest and form a militant wing of their movement- Spear of the Nation.

1961- The Beatles first performed at the Cavern Club in Hamburg Germany.

1961- based on the success of the first Playboy Club in Chicago, Playboy Clubs with their Bunny waitresses opened in New York, Miami and LA.

1963- On orders from Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Alcatraz Prison was closed.

1963- Barbara Streisand married Elliot Gould.

1965- Rev Dr. Martin Luther King’s civil rights marchers reached Montgomery from Selma.

1976- ASPEN MURDER- Jet setter Claudine Longet, a model who was formerly married to singer Andy Williams, shot and killed her lover Spider Sabich, an Olympic skiing champion. Even though their relationship was foundering she said it was an accident, that the Luger went off in his abdomen when he was showing her how to use it. In the bathroom. Uh Huh. Imagine being in the bathroom shaving and your girlfriend pops in “Honey, I’m having problems with the safety on my luger. Here darling I’ll just –oops!”
She spent 30 days in jail for negligent manslaughter, then married her defense attorney.

1980- Mafia capo Angelo Bruno received a shotgun blast to the head while he sat in his car after dinner. The Genovese family had his former capo Phil "Chicken Man" Testa take over rackets in Atlantic City.

1988- the Screen Actor's Guild hits the bricks for the fourth time in twenty years, this time striking Hollywood for residuals for cable and videocassette income.

2006- The first Tweet sent on the new format Twitter. Scientist Jack Dorsey tweeted his friends “Setting up my twttr…” Twitter went public that July.

2010- Pres Obama signed the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) into law.
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Yesterday’s Question: In a symphony orchestra, only one instrument is permitted to give the tuning note “A” all the other instruments tune to. What is it?

Answer: The oboe.

Question: In a symphony orchestra, only one instrument is permitted to give the tuning note “A” all the other instruments tune to. What is it?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What U.S. state has a town called Kissimmee?
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History for 3/20/2023
Birthday: Roman poet Ovid 43BC, Napoleon’s son Napoleon II "l'Aiglon" The eaglet, Henryk Ibsen, Lauritz Melchior, Ray Goulding, Mr. Rogers, Bobby Orr, B.F. Skinner, Pat Riley, Sir Michael Redgrave, Edgar Buchanan, Holly Hunter is 67, William Hurt, Sheldon "Spike" Lee is 66, Carl Reiner, David Thewlis, Chris Wedge is 66

Happy Saint Cuthbert's Day !

44BC- The Great Funeral of Gaius Julius Caesar. The spot in the Forum where the common people tearfully cremated Caesar’s body is still there today. Caesars lieutenant Marc Anthony won the Roman populace over by appealing to their love of Caesar.” Friends Romans Countrymen Lend me your Ears!” as Shakespeare wrote. At a key moment Anthony revealed Caesar’s bloody toga. The assassins Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus thought the people would proclaim them heroes for saving the democracy. But they committed a fatal error by staying out of sight during this ceremony. They lost public sympathy, and soon fled Rome.

269AD- Roman emperor Gallienus was assassinated while conducting a siege of the city of Mediolanum (Milan).

1345- Noted scholars and scientists assembled at the University of Paris to debate the origin of the Black Plague then decimating Europe. “Hmm.., is it witchcraft, or the Jews? “

1413- Prince Hal ascended the throne of England as King Henry V. He spent most of his reign trying to conquer France and won the stunning victory at Agincourt. If he hadn’t died of dysentery at age 35, he might have united the kingdoms of France and England. Once more into the breach my friends!

1549- Thomas Seymour the Lord High Admiral of England was beheaded for treason. In the unstable regency following King Henry VIII’s death Seymour tried for the top job by wooing Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary and stockpiled secret stores of arms and ammunition. This execution weakened the political status of his brother the Earl of Somerset who was running the kingdom. Somerset eventually lost his head too.

1760- The Great Fire of Boston.

1777- Benjamin Franklin was officially presented at the court of Versailles to meet King Louis XVI. Spain, Russia and Sweden withheld their ambassadors, both not wishing to cause a rift with England. His eyes teared up when he was introduced, not as representing rebellious English colonies, but as “DR. FRANKLIN, CONSUL FROM THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA!” This is the beginning of U.S. foreign policy.

1782-British Prime Minister Lord North resigned his government after thirteen years in power. Lord North was infamous for doing King George’s bidding almost exclusively and bungling the American War of Independence. After the big defeat at Yorktown, he was the target of the first ever Vote of No Confidence in Parliament. Lord North resigned before Parliament could vote on a resolution ordering unilateral withdrawal from America.

1800- Alessandro Volta announced he had invented the electric battery.

1815- Napoleon Bonaparte was borne on the shoulders of a cheering Parisian mob back into the Tuileries palace as fat King Louis XVIII hightailed it to England. From this day to Nappy's abdication after Waterloo is referred to as the Hundred Days.

1841- Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder's in the Rue Morgue first published in Graham’s Magazine. Called the first true detective novel. Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".
Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin was inspired by a real French sleuth named Jules Vinquoc who used disguises and scientific technique to solve crimes the Paris police could not solve. Dupin was the inspiration for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.

1852- Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" first published. It sold one million copies within six months. Based on the story of escaped slave Josiah Henson, the book was the first to treat the horrors of slavery directly. It portrayed slave families not as dumb brutes or happy minstrels, but victimized human beings. Because of this book, Yankee soldiers referred to Southerners as women-whippers, and baby sellers. Mrs. Stowe said modestly: “I didn’t write it, God did. I just took dictation.” When she visited the White House President Lincoln met her with, ”So here’s the little lady who started the big war.”

1899- In Sing-Sing prison Martha Place becomes the first woman in the U.S. to be electrocuted. She had killed her stepdaughter. Because Sing-Sing Prison in Ossining New York was situated up the Hudson River from New York City, the phrase to be” sent up the River” as meaning going to jail, became popular.

1903- Henri Matisse first exhibited at the Salon des Independents in Paris.

1931- Cantors Kosher deli opened in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles.

1932- The German airship Graff Zeppelin began a regular passenger service between -Cologne Germany to Buenos Aires Argentina.

1940- KATYN- When the Nazi blitzkrieg crushed Poland, the remains of the Polish Army and government fled East only to fall into the hands of Stalin. Stalin didn’t want this group to form the nucleus of a revived Polish state after the war. In an order signed this day Stalin ordered the execution of 14,000 Polish officers and a further 10,000 Polish government workers. When the Nazis invaded Russia the following year they uncovered the mass graves at Katyn, the Hill of Goats. All the bodies had the NKVD signature- one bullet hole in the back of the head. Strange, Nazis denouncing a mass murder. Stalin claimed the Germans did it, and the news of Katyn was forgotten in the larger scale of the Holocaust. In 1991 Russia officially apologized.

1942- After a harrowing escape from the Philippines through Japanese lines by PT boat, submarine and plane, General MacArthur arrived at the Australian town of Darwin. His first radio message was to tell the occupied Philippine people “ I Shall Return!” The U.S. State Department later asked MacArthur to amend his message to the more democratic We Shall Return, but the imperious general refused.

1943-Battle of Mersa Martruh, Rommel vs. Montgomery in the Egyptian desert.

1943-MGM's "Dumb Hounded" the first Droopy Cartoon.

1956- Habib Bourghiba and Prime Minister Mollet of France conclude talks for the independence of Tunisia.

1965- After the confrontation on the Edmund Pettis Bridge President Lyndon Johnson ordered 4,000 US troops to protect the Civil Rights protestors led by Martin Luther King marching from Selma to Montgomery. Alabama Governor George Wallace had sent attack dogs and police on the marchers after promising the President not to. Johnson referred to Gov. Wallace as “a treacherous, lying SOB!”

1969-John Lennon married Yoko Ono on the Rock of Gibraltar.

1976- Heiress Patty Hearst, aka Tanya, convicted of bank robbery. How she could be tried for bank robbery and her Symbionese Liberation Army captors, simultaneously tried for kidnapping her, is one of the riddles of American jurisprudence. She was finally pardoned by Bill Clinton in one of those last day in office pardons.

1985- Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the Alaskan Iditarod dog-sled race. She would win it a total of four times.

1987- The U.S. food and drug administration finally approved AZT for use in treating the effects of AIDS.

1991- In 1955 Walt Disney recorded Peggy Lee to sing “He’s a Tramp” for the film Lady and the Tramp. For that she was paid $3,500. In 1991, a judge ordered The Walt Disney Company to pay Peggy Lee $3.8 million for the songs she wrote and performed in the film. This additional income was from videocassette sales for a re-issue of the soundtrack.

1992- Basic Instinct opened. Noir thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Sharon Stone, and Michael Douglas.

1995-A Japanese doomsday cult called Aum Shinrikio released a deadly nerve gas called Sarin into the Tokyo subway system. It killed 13 and sickened 5,500. The cult had tried on several occasions to release anthrax and other germs into the air to kill millions but their attempts always failed. Their philosophy Poa stated the soul’s salvation could be achieved through mass-murder. Two days later Tokyo police raided Aum Shinrikio headquarters and arrested their leader Matsumoto Chuizo.

1999- After years of attempts and failures involving millionaires like Richard Branson, Rocky Aoki and Malcolm Forbes, Dr Bertrand Picard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of the UK became the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a balloon. It was named the Breitling Orbiter 3. Dr Picard said: “I am with the Angels and completely happy.” Mr Jones said: First thing I’ll do is phone my wife, then like a good Englishman I’ll have a cup of tea.”

1999- Legoland opened in Carlsbad Cal.
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Yesterdays’ question: What U.S. state has a town called Kissimmee?

Answer: Florida. It’s near Orlando.

Question: What U.S. state has a town called Kissimmee?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean to remain taciturn?
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History for 3/19/2023
Birthdays: George De La Tour, Wyatt Earp, Dr. David Livingston, William Jennings Bryan, Sir Richard Burton (The African explorer), Charles M. Russell, Jacky Moms Mabley, Adolf Eichmann, Phillip Roth, Adolf Galland, Ursula Andress, Patrick McGoohan, Ornette Coleman, Holly Hunter, Richard Williams, Bruce Willis is 68, Glenn Close is 76

Roman Festival ANCILIA when the Salii, the Leaping Priests of Mars, take the Sacred Shields of Mars the Avenger, that dropped down from Heaven for Romulus, and do the leaping dance of Mars. A ceremony to mark the beginning of campaigning season.

Today is Saint Joseph’s Day, when the swallows come back to Capistrano.

1330- Edmund the Earl of Kent was beheaded by order of his mother. Who’s a naughty boy?

1611- The first Burning of Moscow. During the period called the Time of Troubles, a Polish army captured the Kremlin and tried to get the son of the Polish King Wladyslaw IVmade Czar. The Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow, Hermogenes, forbade any good Russian from swearing allegiance to the Roman Catholic Ladislas. So the Poles threw the Patriarch in a dungeon where he soon died. This day a rebel army organized by a Prince Troubetzkoy and peasant butcher Kosma Minin attacked the foreign occupiers and in the ensuing conflict, the city caught fire.

1628- A group called Puritans, differing from the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony, were granted a Royal Charter to set up their own colony in Massachusetts. Oliver Cromwell once considered immigrating to this colony, but ultimately opted to stay in England.

1644- Si Sang, the last emperor of China's Ming Dynasty, committed suicide.

1687- French explorer Sieur de LaSalle was killed by his own men on the shores of the Mississippi in an argument over scarce food rations. He was 43.

1799- Franz Josef Haydn’s oratorio The Creation premiered. Haydn was inspired when he heard Handel’s The Messiah in London.

1812- When Napoleon’s armies occupied Spain in 1808 the Spanish people formed independent bands and fought on in the hills as "guerrillas"- "Little Wars". These militias sent delegates to a free, independent parliament in Cadiz called the Supreme Cortes. This day they declared a constitution for Spain, acknowledging exiled King Ferdinand, abolishing torture and the Inquisition, but keeping the Catholic Church. These men were first called by the term Free Men, Liberales or Liberals.

1831- The First U.S. Bank Robbery. English immigrant Edward Smith alias Edward Honeywell made a duplicate set of keys and robbed the City Bank of New York of $245,000 bucks. He did ten years in Sing Sing, but only half the money was ever found.

1847- THE MORMON BATALLION reached Los Angeles. Brigham Young, in order to quiet Federal suspicions that his Utah commune didn't want to be loyal to the U.S., formed a volunteer battalion to aid in the War with Mexico. This troop makes one of the longest infantry marches in U.S. history, across the arid desert, and arrived in El Pueblo de Los Angeles in time to interrupt a fiesta. They tell the startled locals that they were now Americans, whether they liked it or not!

1853- Charles Dicken’s novel Bleak House first appeared in magazine installments. It is the first novel to ever mention dinosaurs-" It would be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill…"

1859- Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust" premiered. It was so popular that after a while in New York wags nicknamed the Metropolitan Opera the "Faustspeilhaus" ( it's a pun on Wagner's theater in Bayreuth being called a Festspeilhaus, so Faustspeilhaus..heh-heh,.get it ?....look, don't blame me...its a Gilded Age opera joke....)

1874- Mexican-Californio bandido Tirbucio Vasquez was hanged. His last words were “Pronto!” The wild hills north of Newhall California where he hid out are today named in his honor-Vasquez Rocks. They are the site of numerous film shoots like original Star Trek episodes.

1875- Mark Twain admitted in a letter to a friend that he now likes to use a typewriter, a new technology accused of ruining the art of writing.

1866- H.M.S. MONARCH OF THE SEAS left Liverpool with 2,000 tons, 700
immigrants, and freight, bound for New York. and disappeared forever. No wreckage, no survivors, no distress signals. One of the Mysteries of the Deep...

1895- The Lumiere Brothers filmed their first movie, employees leaving their dad’s factory.

1914- A fire in the negative vaults of the Eclair Studios in New Jersey destroyed forever all the American work of pioneer French animator Emile Cohl. He had come to the U.S. to animate the first cartoon series, George McManus’ "The Newlyweds" later to be renamed in comic strip form "Life With Father".

1916- The first mission of the U.S. Airforce. The First U.S. Aero Squadron flew reconnaissance missions this day to aid General Pershing’s pursuit of Pancho Villa.

1918- As a wartime measure, the Congress created Daylight Savings Time separate from Standard Time.

1920- U.S. Congress rejects U.S. admission into the League of Nations. The refusal of the worlds largest economy who's President (Wilson) was the architect of the plan as well as the refusal to admit Soviet Russia doomed the League to impotence. Wilson ruined his health crossing the country lobbying for support for the League, and was heartbroken at its failure. In 1945 after another horrible war, the world would try again with the United Nations.

1928- the Amos & Andy radio show debuted. NBC Blue Network, WMAQ in Chicago.

1931- Nevada legalized gambling.

1935- Harlem riots. When the rumor spread that a young shoplifter had been beaten to death by police in the basement of a Kress department store, 10,000 Harlem residents rioted in the streets and burned shops. Two people were killed. The child made an appearance and in fact had never been harmed.

1942- St. Joseph’s Hospital in Burbank, across the street from the Disney Studio, was dedicated.
Walt Disney owned the land and gave it to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the Sisters of Providence. It would be the place where Walt, Roy, and many other a Disney employee would end their life’s journey.

1945- THE NERO ORDER- While allied armies pour into Germany, Adolph Hitler in his bunker issued an order to destroy all bridges, water and telephone systems, dams, schools, anything that could be of any use after the war is over." The Allies will have conquered nothing by ashes!" An immolation worthy of Wagner's Gotterdammerung.
Despite some Nazis fanatical wish to fight to the end, most rational Germans including Albert Speer completely ignored this order. And Hitler down in his bunker didn't know one way or another. German generals started to refer to the Fuhrer's strange mood swings with a German word: VookenCuckooshein- that translates as "Cloud-Cuckoo-Land".

1953- First T.V. broadcast of the Oscar ceremony broadcast simultaneously from LA and NY. That utterly memorable circus film "The Greatest Show on Earth" won best picture, beating out High Noon, Moulin Rouge, The Quiet Man and Ivanhoe. It was Cecil B. DeMille’s only Oscar of his career. Gary Cooper won best actor and Shirley Booth best actress. Before TV, the Oscars ceremony included a dinner and an hour of dancing before the awards were presented.

1954- On a desert freeway, singer Sammy Davis Jr. lost an eye in an auto accident. He was left lying bleeding unattended in a hallway in Riverside County Hospital. This was because he was black and it was a segregated facility. Finally, actor Jeff Chandler found him and forced the doctors to treat him. Friend Frank Sinatra urged Davis out of his depression and got him out on stage again. That first night at Ciro’s nightclub the entire Ratpack- Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford each preformed on stage wearing a black eye patch similar to Davis’.

1957- Elvis Presley purchased an estate outside Memphis Tennessee called Graceland from Ruth Moore for $100,000.

1957- Skiing aficionado Pete Seibert was wounded in both legs during World War II, and it was feared he would never walk again. He not only walked, but he got back on skis and by 1950 made the US Olympic skiing team. This day, he hiked with a friend up to an isolated Valley in Colorado named Vail. He exclaimed:" My God Earl, we’ve climbed all the way to Heaven!” Pete Seibert built Vail into a world-class ski resort and town.

1959- North Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared a war of unification against the Republic of South Vietnam.

1959- Disney released The Shaggy Dog, their low budget live action comedy hit.

1962- Vasily Stalin, near-do-well son of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, died of acute alcoholism at age 40. After his father died, he was imprisoned in Siberia, but in 1958 he was allowed to retire to obscurity with a small pension.

1962- The first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial.

1964- IBM gave the green light to plans for the 360 series. The first compatible computers.

1964- First day shooting on the James Bond film Goldfinger.

1973- During the Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon's lawyer John Dean tells him "There is a cancer on the Presidency."

1974- The band Jefferson Airplane changed its name to Jefferson Starship.

1979- C-Span cable channel started broadcasting live from the floor of Congress. The first Congressman to speak on camera was Al Gore.

1982- Randy Rhoads, the lead guitarist for Ozzy Ozbourne died when he playfully flew his plane buzzing the bands traveling bus and smacked into a farmhouse.

1984- I’LL BE BACK- James Cameron began shooting the film the Terminator. He first considered casting O.J. Simpson for the cyborg killer before settling on Austrian weightlifter Arnold Schwarzenegger.

1987- Reverend Jim Baker resigned as head of the PTL Ministries. The Televangelist had been accused of hanky-panky with secretary Jessica Hahn and defrauding his parishioners of millions to put air conditioning in his dog’s house, and build a Christian Theme Park named Heritage USA. Evangelist turned comedian Sam Kinison joked:
"I imagine up in Heaven Jesus must be flipping through the New Testament saying "Hey, where did I say anything about a Water Slide?!" Today he has rebuilt his ministry, is rich again, and supports Pres. Trump in the press.

1993- Monkey-cam debuted on the David Letterman Show.

20th Anniversary 2003- SHOCK AND AWE, THE WAR IN IRAQ BEGAN- The United States, Britain and a loose coalition of small states manipulated public outrage over the 9-11 attacks to invaded Saddam Husseins’ Iraq, and marched on Baghdad. This while still bogged down in a war in Afghanistan.
Although Iraq had never bothered the US directly, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney declared they had solid evidence that Saddam had the ability to attack America with nuclear weapons in 45 minutes. By 2008 all their claims proved to be lies. Bush and Cheney blamed it on the bad intelligence, after giving their CIA chief George Tenent the Medal of Freedom. 5,000 American dead, ten thousand Americans mutilated or disabled, 106,000 Iraqi dead.

2004- Brian Maxwell, the inventor of the Power Bar nutrition snack, died of a heart attack at age 51.

2004- The Florida unit of Walt Disney Feature Animation was shut down. Originally set up as an attraction at Walt Disney World theme park, they grew into a viable studio in their own right. They created hits like Trail Mixup, Mulan, Lilo & Stitch, and Brother Bear.

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Yesterdays’ question: What does it mean to remain taciturn?

Answer: Stubbornly quiet, recalcitrant, withdrawn, unresponsive