Quiz: People of the Mormon faith are sometimes also referred to as LDS, for Church of Later Day Saints. What faith was once called Russelites?

Answer to Yesterdays Question below: Who explained his reason for retiring from films this way: “ Today’s movies are all just bluejeans, dope and The Method.”
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History for 2/3/2008
Birthdays- French King Charles VI the Mad –1380, Felix Mendelson-Bartoldy, Horace Greely, Gideon Mantell 1790-pioneer British fossil hunter that named the Iguanadon, Pretty Boy Floyd, Gertrude Stein*, Norman Rockwell, James A. Michener, Joey Bishop, Shelley Berman, Bob Griese, Fran Tarkenton, Victor Buono, Blythe Danner, Morgan Fairchild is 58, Nathan Lane is 52

* About Gertrude Stein- Heiress of the company that had the monopoly on making mass transit system for San Francisco and Oakland. Stein and Alice B. Toklas lived most of their lives in Paris collecting modernist paintings when most thought they were junk. A favorite piece of doggerel she kept was a lampoon of her artistic tastes from a Chicago newspaper:
ODE TO A CUBIST
I called my painting "Cow with Cud"
and hung it upon the line;
Though to me it seemed as thick as Mud
'Twas Clear to Gertrude Stein.”

Today is the Feast of St. Blaise, patron saint of sore throats and sick cattle.

Happy Super Bowl Day, in the US the equivalent of a Holy Day of Obligation.

1780- EARLY AMERICAN SERIAL KILLERS- For those who think this kind of crime is a symptom of our sick Secular-Humanist modern society: In rural Connecticut Revolutionary War veteran Barnett Davenport was rooming at the farm of Mr. Caleb Mallory. This day for no apparent reason Davenport murdered Mr Mallory, his wife, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren using his rifle and farm tools. The incident was widely reported in the young nations press and was quite sensationalized.
At about the same time the Harpe Brothers went about the hills of Kentucky nabbing hapless travelers & farmers. Their favorite prank was to torture their victim with pig sticks, then disembowel the unfortunate, fill the hole with stones & chuck the corpse into the nearest watercourse. Finally the community raised a posse and chased the brothers to some remote place. One of them escaped while a musket ball split the spine of the other, unhorsing him. As he fell to the ground, one of the pursuers leapt onto him and began to saw at the Harpe's neck with his hunting knife; “ you're a damned rough butcher, but cut on and be damned” cried Mr. Harpe. The hunter “wrung off his head as one would a hog”. They put the head in a bag & set off for home, but it was now winter & as hunger set in, they cooked & ate it, nailing the bleached skull to a tree, from where it grinned down on frightened travelers for years after. Our Forefathers.

1862- President Lincoln received a message from the King of Siam offering him Siamese war elephants to help him win the Civil War. He politely passed on the offer.

1863- MARK TWAIN- It was a long custom in American newspapers for columnists and critics to publish under pseudonyms. Author, riverboat pilot and ex-Confederate militiaman Samuel Clemens invents for himself the pseudonym for which he would become famous. This day in the Virginia City Territorial Register newspaper was an article authored by someone calling himself - 'Mark Twain'. Mark Twain was the Mississippi River pilot's term for when a steamboat is in two fathoms of water or more, in other words, safely enough away from shallows to proceed full speed.

1889-THE BANDIT QUEEN- Today outlaw Belle Starr was shotgunned out of the saddle by an old boyfriend. She usually shot them first. Originally named Myra Belle Shirley, she pursued a career as an outlaw and had two children, one by Cole Younger, another by a member of the James Gang. Rustler, gunfighter, prostitute, sideshow performer-she said: "Let's just say I'm a woman who's seen a lot of the world."

1912- The rules governing U.S. football are revised. The playing field was shortened to 100 yards; a touchdown counted as six points instead of five; four downs are allowed instead of three and the kickoff point was moved from midfield to the 40 yd. line.

1913- Federal Income Tax Amendment ratified.

1920- The play Beyond the Horizon premiered. The first hit of a young man who tried to drink himself to death, but instead became a playwright- Eugene O’Neill.

1930- Roy Disney signed a deal with M. George Borgfeldt Co. of New York to sell figurines of Mickey and Minnie Mouse. Disney merchandising is born!

1945- Walt Disney’s the Three Caballeros premiered.

1948- The first Cadillac’s with big rear tail fins were produced.

1953- Jacques Cousteau, inventor of the Aqua Lung published the Silent World, and later made a film version of the book with Louis Malle.

1959-"The Day the Music Died" The first Rock & Roll tragedy. Top pop stars Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. "Big Bopper" Richardson died in plane crash. They were on tour and Holly chartered the small plane so they could get to Fargo, North Dakota in time to get his shirts cleaned. Waylon Jennings was supposed to join them but he gave up his seat to Richardson because Richardson was running a fever and didn’t want a long cold bus ride. As they left Richardson teased Jennings:” Hope your bus doesn’t freeze.” And Jennings joked:” Hope your plane doesn’t crash.” The plane was called the American Pie, which inspired a Don McClean’s hit song “Bye, Bye Miss American Pie.”

1962- John F. Kennedy signed the trade embargo act against Cuba, banning all trade with Fidel Castro’s regime. White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger recalled how the night before JFK had him go around Washington DC and buy up all the Havana cigars (Monte Cristos) he could for the White House humidor. It’s still in effect today.

1973- Richard Nixon, the last liberal US President (?), signed the Endangered Species Act into law.

1989- Swiss firm L'Oreal/Nestle bought animation studio Filmation from Westinghouse and shut it down laying off 229 artists the day before a new federal regulation requiring a company give it's employees 60 day notice before closing went into effect.

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Yesterdays Question: Who explained his reason for retiring from films this way: “ Today’s movies are all just bluejeans, dope and The Method.”

Answer: Cary Grant. 1904-1986. He retired around 1966.
Although one reader reminded me of Bill Wilder’s description of modern films. “Today in the movies everybody is the boy next door. If I want to see the boy next door, I'll go next door!"



.

Quiz: Who explained his reason for retiring from films this way: “ Today’s movies are all just bluejeans, dope and The Method.”

Yesterdays question answered below: Why were American army soldiers called G.I.s?
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History for 2/2/2008
Birthdays: Tallyrand, Charlie Halas a co-founder of the NFL, James Joyce, Ayn Rand, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifitz, Abba Eban, Farrah Fawcett, Garth Brooks, Christie Brinkley, Tommy Smothers, Stan Getz, James Dickey, Liz Smith, Elaine Stritch, Brent Spinner, Shakira

Happy Groundhog Day. This morning if Paxatawney Phil sees his shadow it means 6 more weeks of winter.

In ancient Rome it was the day for the lesser Eleusinian Mysteries. Part of the ceremony was you were given a bowl of wine with certain herbs in it. After drinking it you saw the gods. It was experimenting to find the nature of these ancient herbs in 1946 that led Dr. Albert Hoffman to invent LSD.

1565- CZAR IVAN THE TERRIBLE exhibited the first signs of mental unbalance. Without warning, he abandoned his capitol Moscow in December. It took several weeks for the Russian court to find him at a little village named Alexandrov, 350 miles away. A procession waving incense and icons came out to beg him to return. He said he would return only if he were allowed to deal with his enemies ruthlessly. This day he returned to the Kremlin with a private army called the Oprichina, 6000 criminals and peasants dressed as monks to help Ivan torture and murder people. When once asked if a group of Jews from Lithuanian could settle in Muscovite lands Ivan explained his opposition: “ Jews would bring strange herbs into our realm and lead astray Russians from Christianity.” So all you Jews carrying strange herbs please identify yourselves.

1709- William Dampier was a reformed buccaneer who wrote books about his travels. This day while cruising the South Seas he rescued a man named Sir William Selkirk, who had been marooned on an otherwise uninhabited island for two years. It seems Selkirk had gotten into an argument with the captain of a Chilean schooner who left him there. Upon returning to London Capt.Dampier mentioned the incident to his friend writer Daniel DeFoe, who used it to create his most memorable novel- Robinson Crusoe.

1852- London’s first public toilet was dedicated- near 95 Fleet St.

1870- Samuel Clemens also known as Mark Twain, married Olivia Langdon or Livy.

1910- D.W. Griffith's' In Old California', sometimes called the first Hollywood film.

1912- New York’s Grand Central Station opened.

1922- the novel "Ulysses" is published. James Joyce had finished the book months earlier but delayed publishing until his birthday, when it would be 2/2/22, which he considered lucky.

1922-Twenty one year old Walt Disney founds Newman's Laff-O-Grams in Kansas City.

1925- IDITEROD- THE SERUM RUN COMPLETED- Nome Alaska at this time was a town totally depended upon supplies from the outside world traveling in by sled dog teams. When a serious epidemic of diptheria threatened the population the call went to the ‘Outside” as Alaskans called the rest of the world, for help. It normally took a musher 18-20 days to cover the 650 miles from the coast to Nome, now a relay of 20 teams in short sprints would attempt to do it in 5 days in the depth of winter. One musher reported blizzard conditions so bad he couldn’t see the end of his team. While the press kept the world waiting breathlessly on this day Charlie Evans and his malamute team led by his lead dog Balto got into Nome with the serum in a metal cylinder wrapped in fur. At one point two of his dogs froze to death in harness and Evans took up their place himself and ran alongside the dogs the balance of the trip. It took 5 days and 7 hours. The epidemic was limited to five deaths. The 20 men and their teams were hailed as heroes. Although the dog Balto got most of the credit and has a statue and a movie about him, experts say a 48 pound Siberian husky named Togo did the greatest exertion, going 200 miles in the first leg. The Iditerod sled race is today run in commemoration of this event. The last surviving musher of the original race, Edgar Nollner, died in 1999 at 94 years old

1940- Soviet dictator Stalin had famed futurist theater director Vselevod Meyerhold shot.
At the time of his arrest Meyerhold’s wife Zinaida was stabbed to death. Neighbors who heard her screams assumed they were rehearsing a new play.

1957- Elizabeth Taylor married producer Mike Todd. Todd was killed in a plane crash a year later. Despite her famous association with Richard Burton, Taylor later said Mike Todd was the only one she ever truly loved.

1961- In a little Greenwich Village nightclub called the Blue Angel a young stand up comic got his first debut. His name was Woody Allen

1963- In England singer Helen Schapiro was on tour. On the lower end of her program card was a new band called the Beatles.

1966- Woody Allen married Louise Lasser.

1971- After a coup toppled legal President Milton Obote former British colonial sergeant Idi Amin was inaugurated as president in Uganda. Before being driven out in 1979 by the Tanzanian army Dr.Idi Amin Dada was one of the more colorful mad dictators of post colonial Africa. He declared himself Conquerer of the British Empire, led his pitiful little army in mock invasions of Israel even though it was thousands of miles away and he was surrounded by hostile nations. He played drums in his own rock band, wrestled crocodiles, and once reputedly killed and ate one of his sons.

1979- Lead singer for the punk band Sid Vicious found dead of a drug overdose. The 21 year old was awaiting trial for the stabbing death of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen.

1985- O.J. Simpson married Nicole Brown Simpson.

1997- Nationally known sportscaster Marv Albert allegedly had an evening of sex and porno movies with a prostitute. At one point he bit the lady on the back. He was tried for lewd behavior.

2006-The Cartoon Riots. A Danish newspaper printed a political cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed with his turban shaped like a bomb. This so offended the Moslem world that rioting broke out in Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jakharta and European capitols. Grenades were thrown at Danish embassies and Danish nationals made to flee.
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Yesterdays question: Why were American soldiers called G.I.s?

Answer: Government Issue is the accepted origin of the name. I heard also that when the peacetime draft was imposed in 1940, the regular old time army men referred to the new draftees as GI's as a derisive name- General Inductee, or Government Issue soldier. As the army became ten times it's original size to win World War Two, soon the name applied to everyone. That’s also why it's not used today, because we have an all-volunteer force....for now.

Quiz: Why were American troops called G.I.’s?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why is a self propelled sentient automaton called a Robot?
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History for 2/1/2008
Birthdays: Victor Herbert, Langston Hughes, Renata Tebaldi, Clark Gable, John Ford, George Pal, Terry Jones, Jim Thorpe, Sherman Helmsley, Lisa Marie Presley, Garrett Morris, Boris Yeltsin, Pauly Shore, Sherilyn Fenn

Welcome to February from Februarius, named for Februus, a Sabine god of the underworld called the Purifier. Another theory is this month is named for Febis, the Latin for fever, this being a time in the Roman climate when fevers were most common.

570 AD- Today is the Feast Day of Saint Brigid, an Irish saint who gave beer to the poor.

1733- Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland died. Described as Half-Bull- Half Cock, he could break horseshoes with his bare hands and drink anyone under the table. He wasted his kingdom’s treasury indulging his vices and filling his palace at Dresden with bejeweled treasures and porcelains, which make it such a cool tourist destination today. One of the horniest monarchs of Europe, his reputation for fornication would be unbelievable had he not left behind regiments of bastard children. His dying words were “My entire life has been one long act of Sin.”

1887- California land Developer Harvey Wilcox takes out a county deed for a new ranch he calls 'Hollywoodland' after the name of an estate his wife admired back in Connecticut. It gave its name to the new Los Angeles town- Hollywood.

1893- In New Jersey Thomas Edison and his engineer W. K. Dickson build the FIRST MOTION PICTURE STUDIO in New Jersey. It was covered with black tar paper and nicknamed"The Black Mariah" because that was the nickname of police paddy wagons that it resembled. It's debatable how much of the inventing effort was more Dickson than Edison. Edison was only marginally interested in the movies. He was more concerned with how to extract New Jersey iron ore from rocks using magnets. Dickson worked himself into the hospital to make the studio work, and resenting Edison’s apathy started experimenting on his own. When Edison found out he fired him.

1896- Puccini's opera "La Boheme" debuts in Turin. It was based on Prosper Merimee’s popular book Bohemian Sketches. Puccini's old roommate Piero Mascagni (Cavaleria Rusticana) with whom Puccini and he once lived like Bohemian artists, tried to sue because he was writing a Boheme' also. The suit failed and Mascagni released his rival version but it didn't hold up in comparison with Puccini's.

1901- Outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with prostitute Hedda Place, sometimes referred to as Mrs. Sundance, escape the law back in Wyoming and arrive in New York City to relax. After a month of sightseeing they take a ship to Bolivia.

1915-The Fox Film Company formed (Later Twentieth Century Fox).

1943- At his headquarters at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, Adolf Hitler received the news of the Nazi army surrender at Stalingrad. Hitler was furious. Not that he lost 250,000 of his best men but that their commander Field Marshal Von Paulus surrendered instead of committing suicide.” This hurts me so much that the heroism of so many soldiers was nullified by one single characterless weakling.” Then Hitler said in a foreshadowing of his own fate:” When the nerves break down, there is nothing left but to admit one can’t handle the situation and to shoot oneself.”

1960- Four Negro college freshmen sit down at a "whites-only" lunch counter at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina. When they left or were arrested four more sat down. Then four more. The Civil Rights sit-in campaigns begin.

1964- Indiana Governor Matthew Walsh declares that the Rock & Roll song “Louie-Louie” by the Kingsmen was pornographic and should be banned. The FCC investigated and their conclusion was that the “lyrics are unintelligible at any speed”. The song remained a major hit. In the 1980’s several schools in Northern Cal held Louie-Louie Marathons-96 straight hours of Louie-Louie played by Punk bands, polka bands, string quartets, folk trios and marching bands. Whoah whoah, Me gotta go-yo,yo yo yo.

1968- During the Vietnamese Tet Lunar Offensive-as cameras rolled South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan put a snub nosed pistol to the head of a Vietcong prisoner and pulled the trigger. The photo of the young mans death grimace became one of the more disturbing images of the 1960’s.

1990- Siegfried & Roy open their exclusive show at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas. They and their white tigers have performed for Hollywood stars, presidents and Pope John Paul II. One Vegas columnist notes: “When Elvis performed in Vegas there were some empty seats. But there are nothing but full houses when Siegfreid & Roy perform.” The act was finally ended by Roy’s being wounded by a tiger in 2003.

2003-“ Columbia this is Houston on UHF, Houston, Columbia on UHF…” NASA’s first spaceshuttle- the Columbia, broke up and disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven astronauts were killed. The Columbia had flown 26 missions since 1981. On board was the first woman astronaut born in India and the first Israeli in Space, Col. Llan Ramon.

2004- At a Superbowl live halftime show pop star Justin Timberlake pulled the bra cup off of singer Janet Jackson exposing her right breast with a starburst stud on it . Named “the Wardrobe Malfunction”, the incident sent America into another one of its periodic paroxysms of Puritan censorship.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Why is a self propelled automaton called a Robot?

Answer: In the 1920s Czech author Karel Capek wrote a play about the future called RUR. In it he had mechanical people who did things for people. He named them Robots, from the Slavic word Roboti, or worker.