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One year ago, for a lark I threw in a trivia question or two with my history. When I stopped, I was surprised when I got a very strong response from readers around the world who wanted me to continue. Since then I asked everything from define the word Perjorative to Who was the voice of Elmer Fudd. I am very flattered that you all like the quiz questions, and you're having so much fun with them.

So Vox Populi- Let the Voice of the People be heard!

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Question: What is a G-Man..?

Yesterday’s Answer below: What was the Gilded Age?
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History for 10/3/2008
Birthdays: Gore Vidal is 83, Mikail Lermontov, Harvey Kurtzman, Chubby Checker, James Herriot, Eleanor Duse, Emily Post, Leo McCarey the director of the Marx Brothers Duck Soup and many Laurel & Hardy shorts, Steven Reich, Dave Winfield,Neve Cambell, Tommy Lee is 46, Clive Owen is 44

1226- Saint Francis of Asissi died at 44. He seldom bathed and he asked his followers to strip him naked so he could leave the world as he came in. They all sang his Canticle of the Animals, then he exclaimed 'Welcome, Sister Death." His gravesite was kept secret until 1818.

1855- American James McNeill Whistler arrived in Paris to study painting. He had tried to apply to West Point for a military career but failed the entrance exam. Years later he joking told friends "If I hadn't identified phosphorous as a gas I'd be a major general by now!'

1903- Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson, the first man to drive an automobile across the American continent, was fined in his home town in Vermont for driving his automobile faster than 6 miles an hour.

1910- English comedians Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel first arrive in the U.S. with a touring British vaudeville company.

1941- Warner Bros. THE MALTESE FALCON "premiered. Screenwriter John Huston asked if he could direct an adaptation of this old Dashell Hammett story, which had been already made into movies twice. This version became the most famous. The name was kept despite producer Hal Wallis wanting to change it to THE GENT FROM FRISCO. Jack Warner was amazed that homely looking little character actor Humphrey Bogart had shown the potential to be a romantic leading man in 'The Petrified Forrest', now the Maltese Falcon established him as a major draw. Warner joked to Bogie about his looks in referring to his contentious brawls with his wife Mayo-"I don't know what women see in you, but the more pots and pans she hits you in the kisser with, the more the dames love you!"

You fat, bloated eediot! -Said like Ren from Ren & Stimpy

1942- In Pennemunde Germany, a group of Nazi scientists led by Dr. Werner Von Braun successfully launch a 12 ton rocket that flies 200 miles. The good thing is Braun proves his thermos-bottle type liquid-fuel rocket engines arranged in a cluster of three can work. After the war they become the basis of NASA's and Soviet rocket programs in the 1950's. The bad thing is the Nazis named them the Vengance-2, (V-2) fill them with explosives and started shooting them at England. When the war ended Von Braun and his team had been working on a rocket that could carry explosives 4,000 miles- to America.

1955- 'Good Morning, Captain.' The Captain Kangaroo kiddy Show debuted on television.

1955- The Mickey Mouse Club TV show premiered. “Who’s the leader of the Band that’s Made for you and me…?”

1957-Walter Lantz's The Woody Woodpecker T.V. show debuts.

1957- Jayne Mansfield met Greta Garbo and asked for her autograph.

1961- The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered. It made stars of Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore and was written by ex-Sid Caesar writer Carl Reiner and Rocky & Bullwinkle writer Alan Burns.

1967- Folksinger and union activist Woodie Guthrie died of Huntington’s Chorea. His family dumped his ashes in New York Harbor then went to Nathans on the Coney Island Boardwalk for hot dogs, Woody’s favorite.

1992- Bald Irish pop star Sinead O’Connor caused a fuss by tearing up a picture of the Pope on the show Saturday Night Live. She was later booed off stage during a concert at Madison Square Garden.

1993- THE RAID ON MOGADISHU- US troops were deployed with other UN forces to the civil war wracked nation of Somalia to aid the starving population. Once there they found themselves plunged in a chaos of heavily armed warring clans. This day a Delta Force was sent into the capitol city Mogadishu to apprehend lieutenants of the faction leader Mohammed Farah Idide. Once there two helicopters were shot down by hand held missiles and the Deltas were surrounded in the narrow streets by swarms of hostile militia. The US forces fought their way out with the aid of UN Pakistani mountain troops. But the images of dead American troops being dragged through the dusty streets by gleeful Somalis soured the American public back home and the forces were soon withdrawn. Idide was later assassinated and the chaos continued. The Ridley Scott film BLACK HAWK DOWN dramatized the incident.

1995- After a long sensationalist trial turned into a media spectacle, celebrity O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the double murder of his second wife Nicole and Ron Goldman. He was later convicted in a wrongful death suit brought in Civil Court by Nicole’s family.

2002- Disgruntled Gulf War vet John Allen Mohammed and his 17 year old stepson John Lee Malvo went on a shooting spree in the suburbs of Washington DC as the DC Sniper. They shot thirteen people at random with one bullet each and terrorized Maryland and Virginia before they were caught. Even Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz was employed from prison to appeal to the Sniper to stop.

2003- The Siegfried and Roy magic show in Las Vegas comes to an end after a large Bengal Tiger attacks Roy Horn and tears his throat open in front of an audience. Most thought it was part of the act.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What was the Gilded Age?

Answer: The time after the Civil War to the Turn of the Twentieth Century (1865-1899), was known in America as a time when the Industrial Revolution created a class of fabulously wealthy tycoons who paid almost no taxes. Much uh…. Like it is now. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Huntington, Stanford, Astor, Morgan.

While working people toiled in bad conditions for long hours and little pay, Rich People flaunted their wealth and tried to outdo one another in conspicuous displays. Uh… much like now. People’s decorative taste included a lot of overstuffed furniture and gold leaf, and gold paint on decorative moldings.

The term was coined by Mark Twain in his 1873 book The Gilded Age.


October 02, 2008 thur
October 2nd, 2008

Quiz: What was the Gilded Age?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase ” Born with a silver spoon”?
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Birthdays:Richard III, Nat Turner, Mohandas K. Ghandi known as the Mahatma- the Great Soul, Spanky MacFarland, Julius Marx known as Groucho Marx, Bud Abbot, Moses Gunn, Graham Greene, LeRoy Shield -composer of the music in the Hal Roach short comedies, Donna Karan, Gordon Sumner known as Sting is 57, Lorraine Bracco-Dr Melfi in the Sopranos, Tiffany, Kelly Ripa, Ian McNeice- the newsreader in the HBO Series ROME.

Happy World Farm Animals Day

1608- Dutch lens grinder Hans Lipperschei sent to the States General in the Hague a plan for an invention to see enemies at great distances. It used a tube with concave lenses on one end and convex lenses on the other. The Telescope. Another Dutch lens maker asked for a similar patent. But it was Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who read their doctoral papers and a year later invented his own telescope. He was the first to train it on the Universe.

1925-The first bright red Leyland doubledecker omnibuses appear on London streets.

1928 - This was a busy day at Victor Records Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. DeFord Bailey cut eight masters. Three songs were issued, marking the first studio recording sessions that made Nashville known as Music City, USA.

1933- Library of Congress musicologist John Lomax met with an Arkansas chain gang convict Hudlan Ledbetter, who everyone called Leadbelly. He recorded work songs of his called "the Rock Island Line, Midnight Special and Irene Good Night.'. Leadbelly became world famous and recorded his own versions 3 years later. Lomax died in 2002.


1937 - Ronald Reagan, just 26 years old, made his acting debut this day with Warner Brothers release of "Love is in the Air".

1950- Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip debuts. Good ol' Charlie Brown was the name of a fellow post office worker all the guy's liked to play jokes on. Schulz's idea 'little folks' was initially rejected by all the major comic syndicates. Three months before the strip was accepted his girlfriend broke off their engagement. He had left his job at the post office and she was convinced he would never amount to anything. At the time of his death Charles Schulz had mountains on the moon named for his characters and was arguably the most successfull visual artist in the world.

1954- Elvis Presley is fired from Nashville's Grand Ol' Opry Show after one performance. He was told :"Son, you ain't a' going no where. Go back to driving a truck!"

1955- "Good Eeeeeeevening." The master of mystery movies, Alfred Hitchcock, presented his brand of suspense to millions of viewers on CBS on this night.


1957- Raintree County, the first film in Panavision.

1958- The Huckleberry Hound Show.

1959- The television show the Twilight Zone debuts. Producer/writer Rod Serling had fought network execs for months that a mystery-suspense show could compete with all the Doctor and Cowboy shows on TV. He originally wanted Orson Welles to be the host of the show but Welles asked for too much money. So Serling decided to host it himself. He personally wrote 90 episodes. Twilight Zone is a term airline pilots used for the area when both the clouds and ground are invisible from view and you lose your bearings.

1967- San Francisco Police raid the Haight-Ashbury home of the rock band the Grateful Dead, busting everyone for possession of narcotics.

1977- After a month following what appeared to be an attempt to steal the body of Elvis Presley from Forest Hill Cemetery, both Presley's and his grandmother's bodies are moved to Graceland.

1978- Future TV star Tim Allen was busted in Kalamazoo Michigan for selling cocaine.

1985- Actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS. The first major celebrity to die of the disease.
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Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase ” Born with a silver spoon”?

Answer: In wealthy Gilded Age families, a baby gift would be a ceremonial personally engraved baby spoon of solid silver, for baby’s first feeding. Since then, to be born rich is to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth.




For a long time, friends have bugged me, if you're an artist, how come your website doesn't have any ART on it..? SO, alright already! I'm putting examples of some of my stuff up in the Gallery Section here.

Check it out.

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Question: What is the origin of the phrase ” Born with a silver spoon”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What do London, Vienna, Cologne, Seville and Caesarea all have in common?
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History for 10/1/2008
Welcome to Month Number 8, Octubrius to the Romans. In 138 AD the Roman Senate wanted to rename month eight as Faustina, after the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. But being a rare modest empress, she declined the honor.

Birthdays: Vladimir Horowitz, Julie Andrews is 70, Walter Matthau, Richard Harris, Phillipe Noiret, James Whitmore, Pres.Jimmy Carter is 82, Everet Sloane, Rod Carew, Stanley Holloway, Tom Bosley, Chief Justice William Rheinquist, Max Morath, Mark McGuire, Randy Quaid, Cindy Margolis

331BC. BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA or Arbelum - Alexander the Great's greatest victory over the Persian army of King Darius IV. Darius had sought to once and for all destroy this Greek troublemaker by assembling an enormous army from all over his kingdom. But this multinational, polyglot force had no cohesion and the disciplined Macedonian-Greek veterans knifed through their ranks. The Persian kingdom collapsed and Alexander soon captured his capitol and family.

326 A.D. Emperor Constantine the Great bans sentencing criminals to Gladitorial schools, effectively ending Gladitorial Combat. Games continued on a little while longer using prisoners of war but the fun and professionalism had gone out of it. The last recorded bout in Rome was in 407AD.

1202- To the sound of massed trumpets and singing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, the knights of the Fourth Crusade left from Venice for Constantinople and the Holy Land.

1273- German Electors choose Duke Rudolph of Hapsburg as Holy Roman Emperor. The Hapsburg family was the most successful dynasty in Europe. They remained in power (with one or two interruptions) for 645 years, finally being deposed in 1918. And several Hapsburgs are still around in case Austria gets tired of republican democracy. Dr. Otto von Hapsburg is a member of the European Parliament.

1857- Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary premiered in magazine installments. Flaubert was tried for pornography but acquitted.

1880- John Phillip Sousa was named leader of the Marine Corps Band and began his career as the March King.

1903- The First World Series of Baseball. The Boston Pilgrims had lost the first game today to the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-3, even though Cy Young was the starting pitcher. But Boston went on to win the series in best of nine games. Yes, that’s not a typo, Boston did win a World Series. There was no 1904 World series because the owners couldn't agree on a format.

1908- Ford announces the Model "T" the "Tin Lizzie" the first mass produced affordable car. It was called the Model T because it took Twenty prototypes to perfect it. The Model T cost $825 dollars and paid on installments with as little as 10 dollars down. It’s top speed was 45 miles and hour and 15 million were sold. When they asked Henry Ford what color should it be, he replied: "Any color so long as it's black.' The auto goes from being a rich mans plaything to something every home could afford.

1911- A bomb blew up the L.A. Times building, killing 23 people. The Times had a hostility to unions and two union organizers the McNamara Brothers were arrested.
Despite having Clarence Darrow as a lawyer they were convicted, possibly because halfway through the trial the brothers confessed and Darrow had to beat a charge of jury-tampering. As the MacNamaras were hanged they shouted 'Hurrah for Anarchy!'

1919- THE FIX IS IN- First game of the 'fixed' world series. The Chicago White Sox had the best team in baseball at the time, but Charles Comisky paid them wages lower than most minor league teams. They were nicknamed the Black Sox because Comisky was too cheap to pay for laundering their uniforms. So this year five players accepted bribes from gangster Arnold Rothstein to throw the world series. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte ,who spent much of the previous night sewing $10,000 into the lining of his overcoat, at first threw a perfect fastball strike, then hit the batter in between the shoulderblades- a signal to the gangsters that "The Fix was In" Cincinnatti won this game 9 -1 and eventually the series. The scheme was uncovered a year later and Baseball Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned 8 top the Sox players from ever playing again. The White Sox did get back to the World Series until 1959.

1932- Babe Ruth's "Called" Home Run. Ruth was hitting against a Chicago Cubs pitcher when he pointed with his bat towards right field. He then swung his bat and hit a home run over the right wing bleachers.

1937- After heavy lobbying by millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst the first Federal law banning Marijuana goes into effect. The law was sought chiefly by southwestern states, that wanted to have an excuse to deport Mexican immigrants. Plus Hearst had many powerful paper manufacturers behind him who wanted wood pulp to be the chief source of paper products rather than hemp, which grows, well…. like a weed.

1942-The test flight of America’s first experimental jet aircraft- the XP59A Comet.

1944- Nazis doctors in Buchenwald concentration camp began conducting experiments on homosexuals.

1945- Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin left the cartoon business to work full time at Paramount doing live action movies. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.

1946- NUREMBERG-The verdicts read in the International Military Tribunal Trials of top Nazi war criminals. Herman Goering, Hans Franck, Keitl,Jodl and 8 others got death sentences, their bodies later to be burned in the very crematoriums they created. Others like Rudolf Hess life prison terms.

1947-THE BIRTH OF THE BURBS- William Levitt's postwar dream, a planned community of affordable pre-fab homes on the outskirts of New York, called Levittown, is born. Mr. and Mrs. Bladykas moved into the first 2 bedroom house, which cost $7,990 bucks. The first true suburb.

1949- THE EAST IS RED - Mao declared the Peoples Republic of China. "Now Let the World Tremble! " he said. In China today is a holiday –National Day. Contrary to paranoid conservative American politicians who feared the growing global Communist Conspiracy, Soviet dictator Stalin continued to support Chiang Kai Chek’s nationalist government and always hated Mao. During World War Two, Mao sent his wife to Moscow for safety. Stalin locked her up in a lunatic asylum just to piss him off.

1952- This Is Your Life TV show hosted by Ralph Edwards premiered.

1957- Los Angeles outlaws garbage incineration to try and cut down smog levels. Even though Los Angeles has reduced it's pollution levels by 30% in ten years it still had the worst air in the United States until surpassed by Houston in 1999.

1958- NASA born. The National Aeronautics & Space Agency. The U.S. government takes the space program out of the hands of the military and sets up a civilian space agency to get us into orbit.

1962- Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show, after host Jack Paar in a rage walked of the set and resigned. Paar was annoyed at network censors for cutting a comedy sketch about a toilet.

1964- THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT- It’s hard to believe now, but once upon a time most US universities had strict laws against students holding political protests on campus. It changed when this day on the campus of Berkeley, Cal., Jack Weinberg was arrested by Oakland police for distributing Civil Rights pamphlets. A mob of students surrounded the police car he was handcuffed in and would not let it proceed. The crowd held the car for 32 hours as speakers stood on the roof and made speeches denouncing the ban and other issues. The University lifted the ban on public political rallies and set the stage for the Ant-War protest of the 60’s.

1966- Largest demonstrations in China of Mao's Cultural Revolution.

1968-George Romero's weird film "Night of the Living Dead' premieres.

1982- Disney's EPCOT opens.

1987- The Whittier Earthquake rocks L.A. 5.9 on the Richter Scale killed 8 and caused millions in damage.

1992 -The Cartoon Network started.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do London, Vienna, Cologne, Seville and Caesarea all have in common?

Answer: They were all first founded as Roman Legion camps. Cologne means Colony.


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