Quiz: What is the difference between a cupid and a cherub?

Yesterdays Question answered below: What country in Europe has a region called Istria?
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History for 3/2/2023
Birthdays: Sam Houston, Alexander Graham Bell, Kurt Weill, Desi Arnaz (Desiderio Alberto Arnaz y de Acha III), Ted Geisel aka Dr. Suess, Mikhail Gorbachov, Willis O'Brian, Moe Berg, Karen Carpenter, Lou Reed, Jennifer Jones, John Cullum, John Irving, Tom Wolfe, animator Bob Givens, Jon Bon Jovi is 61, Daniel Craig is 55, animator Stephen Chiodo

1818- It had been thought that the Pyramids in Egypt were solid monuments with no chambers. This day Italian archaeologist Giovanni Belzoni discovered the long-lost entrance to the Great Pyramid of Giza and explored it’s inner corridors and burial chambers.

1836- TEXAS DECLARED INDEPENDENCE FROM MEXICO. In 1821 the Mexican Congress had given Yankee settlers permission to live in the under-populated northern province of Teijas. Soon there were 100,000 Yanquis to just 3,000 Spanish Tejanos living there. After a military coup in 1833 brought General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna to power, conditions in the outer provinces got harsh. Taxes were bad and the army sent to police them were drawn from the dregs, usually prison convicts. Mexico also wanted the American settlers to liberate their black slaves. Slavery was outlawed in Mexico.
When settlers leader Stephen Austin went to Mexico City to complain he was immediately jailed for fomenting insurrection. Even with Santa Anna’s army closing its grip on the Alamo, the Republic of Texas independence declaration was signed this day at Washington-on-the-Brazos. One of the signers there was John Wheeler Bunton, the Great Grand-Uncle of Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson.
The Texas revolt was as much a revolt of the ethnic Mexican Teijanos as the gringos. Similar revolts broke out at the same time in California and Jalixsco, but we remember Texas because it succeeded. Most histories were written after the Civil War in the racist Reconstruction Era. It made it out to be all white Texans vs. all brown Mexicans.

1863- The Union Pacific Railroad adopted a standard track width of 4 feet 8 and 1/2 inches. The width of a Conestoga wagon. This width became the standard for the United States and later for most of the railroads of the world. Although train travel was invented in Britain, Europe was slow to adapt to it, while America, Russia and India rapidly embraced a technology that could quickly cover their vast distances quickly.

1923- THE FIRST TIME MAGAZINE. Founders Henry Luce and Claire Booth Luce were among the more powerful of the nation’s cultural elite. Conservative to the core -to the end of their days they thought Franklin Roosevelt and Civil Rights were big mistakes, they still experimented with LSD when it was thought by Harvard professors to be mind expanding. In the late 1980's the Time merged with Warner Communications to form Time-Warner, the world's largest media conglomerate.

1925- The US Government started assigning numbers to motorways and planned interstate highways. Before that roads had names like the Boston Post Road or the Baltimore to Washington Highway.

1933- "KING KONG"s exclusive premiere at the new Radio City Music Hall in New York. It opened in the rest of the country in April. “Twas Beauty killed the Beast.”

1935- The Looney Tune Cartoon "I haven’t Got a Hat" premiered. This cartoon gave birth to the first permanent Warner Bros. Cartoon star- Porky Pig.

1940- SEABISCUIT. The small ungainly racehorse Seabiscuit had lost the Santa Anita Handicap Stakes twice before. Now at 7 years old, with ligament tears, he was considered all washed up. But he was entered one more time to try to win this race. The jockey Red Pollard was an alcoholic who had broken his leg and collarbone and was told he couldn’t walk, much less ever ride again.
Today this unlikely duo raced one more time against odds more like a Hollywood movie than a stakes race. The Biscuit not only won his last race, but set a track record, the second fastest time ever, and the richest win for that time. It’s called one of the greatest comeback stories in sports history.
When discussing the Sports Legends of the Twentieth Century- Ali, Ruth, Michael Jordan, Seabiscuit and Secretariat are the only non-humans.

1943- Battle of the Bismarck Sea. U.S. Navy planes shoot up a Japanese task force .

1947- Crusading Hollywood union organizer Herb Sorrell was plucked off the street in Glendale by gangsters posing as police. They may not have been just posing, many movie studios at the time hired off-duty LAPD at double-time rates to “take care” of troublesome employees. They drove Herb up to Mulholland and worked him over, leaving him by the side of the road. Shortly after leaving the hospital, Sorrell was jailed for disturbing public peace.

1960- Wilt Chamberlain ("Wilt the Stilt") scored 100 points in one game for the Philadelphia Warriors. Wilt averaged a phenomenal 55 points per game that year and the NBA instituted a number of anti-Wilt regulations to ensure guys under 6'2 could get back in the game, like offensive goal tending, etc. Wilt also claimed to have put his off the court time to good use. He claims to have had slept with 3,000 women.

1961- Pablo Picasso married his second wife Jacqueline. He was 80, she was 35. Jacqueline cared for the increasingly reclusive artist and kept even his family at a distance. When Picasso died in 1973, she turned away many family members from the funeral. Jacqueline committed suicide in 1986.

1962- The classic Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man premiered. It’s a Cookbook!

1965- US military bombers do the first bombing raid inside of North Vietnam in a campaign that got the designation Rolling Thunder.

1965- The movie The Sound of Music opened at the Rivoli theater in Manhattan.

1971- Charles Engelhard died, a venture capitalist whose wild investments and grand lifestyle made him the inspiration for Ian Fleming’s villain Auric Goldfinger.

1972- Pioneer 10 space probe launched. The first satellite to the outer planets, it sent back the first closeup photos of Jupiter in 1973 and left our solar system in 1983. It carries a plaque with a representation of men and women, a map of the Earth and Richard Nixon’s signature on it. It is in deep space now and will reach the star Ross 246 in the constellation Taurus in the year 34,600 A.D. Boy, I can hardly wait!

1973- The Women in Film organization founded.

1976- Francis Ford Coppola began shooting his epic film “Apocalypse Now” in the Philippines. The film was plagued by cost overruns, a typhoon and his Philippine Army helicopters frequently flying off to fight real guerrillas, but somehow it all got done. Today it is considered a classic.

1979- The Anglo-French Concord supersonic airliner service introduced. It was discontinued because of bad economics in 2003.

1982- Science Fiction writer Philip K. Dick died of a stroke in Santa Ana, California. He was 53. The author of stories the movies Blade Runner, Minority Report and Total Recall were based. Dick said he was at times possessed by a superalien who appeared in his mind in a beam of pink light. His autobiography was titled “I am alive and you are dead.”

1989- At a photo session, NY Mets outfielder and Darryl Strawberry threw a punch at the team's first baseman, Keith Hernandez. The scuffle started over comments about salaries and ended with The Straw walking out of camp. A sportswriter for Sports Illustrated describing the fight said," Darryl Strawberry finally hit his cut off man."

2014- Walt Disney’s Frozen won the best animated feature Oscar.
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Yesterday’s Question: What country in Europe has a region called Istria?

Answer: Istria is a peninsula in the Adriatic Sea that is mainly part of Croatia, but sections also belong to Italy and Slovenia.

Question: What country in Europe has a region called Istria?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: When Leadbelly sang in The Midnight Special: The next thing you know Boy, you’re Sugerland bound…”. What is that?
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History for 3/1/2023
Birthdays: Frederic Chopin, Augustus Saint Gaudens, Glen Miller, David Niven, Oskar Kokoschka, Roger Daltry, Robert Conrad, Deke Slayton, Yitschak Rabin. Catherine Bach, Timothy Daly, Ron Howard is 69, Javier Bardem is 54, Zack Snyder is 57, Harry Belafonte is 96, Lupita Nyongo.

Welcome to MARCH from MARTIUS Mensis, THE MONTH OF MARS-so named because in ancient times it was the first month that was warm enough for armies to take the field. Various warrior societies held religious ceremonies to inaugurate campaigning season. In Rome, the Salian Priests would do a ceremonial war dance with the magic shields of Mars the Avenger, dropped from heaven for Romulus. The Macedonians would split a dog in half lengthwise and parade the troops between the two halves, sort of going through the gates of Pluto.

86 BC. Roman legions of Lucius Cornelius Sulla recaptured Athens from Mithridates the king of Pontus (a part of eastern Turkey). Mithridates was defeated and committed suicide. According to Plutarch, at one point Sulla's men captured a satyr (half man-half goat) in the precincts of the temple of Artemis. Sulla questioned the supernatural creature about the history of the future, but all it would do is whinny like a goat. So he told his men to get rid of it.

589AD- HAPPY SAINT DAVIDS’ DAY- This is the traditional date of the death of St. David, the patron saint of Wales. Called the Waterman, he was a Celtic monk, abbot and bishop who became the first archbishop of Wales. He was one of many early saints who helped to spread Christianity among the pagan Celtic tribes of western Britain. Welshmen celebrate today like the Irish celebrate St. Patrick, although without the green beer.

1562-THE MASSACRE OF VASSEY- In France the Catholics and Huguenots- Protestants had been headed towards open conflict despite all attempts at mediation. In the little town of Vassey south of Dijon the Catholic Duke Du Guise became annoyed when Huguenots hymn singing in a barn disturbed his ability to hear Mass. Scuffling broke out and when the Duke got hit in the face with a stone, his retainers drew their swords and chopped up 125 people. The French Religious Wars had begun.

1579- Sir Francis Drake on board the Golden Hind made the catch of his career. In the waters off Cartegena Colombia he attacked and captured one of the great Spanish treasure ships carrying Inca gold from Peru. This one ship carried more wealth than the entire treasury of Queen Elizabeth’s England. And a fleet of these ships crossed the ocean twice a year. Drake instantly became a rich man. The galleon was called La Nuestra Senora De La Concepcion, but her crew nicknamed her “CacaFuego” which some translate as “Spitfire”, but more closely means “Hot Shit.”

1680- Pennsylvania became the first US colony to outlaw slavery.

1711- The first issue of England’s’ great periodical The Spectator first published. It was unique for a broadsheet in that it didn’t cover politics or doings at court but printed essays on social gossip, literary criticism, studies of manners and morals. It was said the Spectator helped begin the transformation of English gentry from ale-swilling philanderers to the well-bred, well-read toffs of the Victorian Era.

1777- Young artillery officer Alexander Hamilton was appointed to General George Washington’s personal staff. This marked the beginning of Hamilton’s personal relationship with Washington that would last throughout the war and his presidency. Hamilton was his constant consultant, advisor, and may have written many of Washington’s speeches. There is a rumor that GW may even have been Hamilton’s father since his only trip outside the US was to visit Bermuda. Hamilton was born illegitimately on the Virgin island of Nevis, but beyond that no evidence has ever been substantiated.

1808- Parliament outlawed the overseas slave trade within the British Empire.

1815- Napoleon Bonaparte came ashore in France near Frejus on the Riviera and marched on Paris in a desperate gamble to regain his throne. He was attacking a nation of 14 million with just 1,200 followers. After his defeat in Russia and exile to Elba the European allies restored the Bourbon King and old aristocrats to France.
The old royals soon made it plain they learned nothing from the French Revolution and wanted to continue things as if it was still 1789. Little things like evicting war orphaned children into the street so some old aristocrat could have his crumbling chateau back. The Royal family also liked to spit on the tricolor flag and appeared in public in Russian uniforms, a uniform seen by French people as responsible for the deaths of many of their brothers and husbands. The people’s anger enabled Napoleon to recall old memories of Glory, and Liberte’.
At the sight of the little man in the plain black hat everyone went nuts. The whole Royal Army changed sides without a shot fired. His desperate gamble became a triumphal party and he was carried on the crowd’s shoulders back into the palace.

1836- A dozen Texans from Gonzales slipped past Santa Anna’s Mexican army to join their friends in the Alamo. These are the last reinforcements to arrive.

1872- Congress okayed the creation of Yellowstone National Park. In 1878 during the military campaign against the Nez Perce Indians, Chief Joseph took his warriors through the park territory frightening some early tourists.

1896- Battle of Adwa- The Italian colonization of the ancient land of Ethiopia is halted for a generation after the entire Italian army is wiped out in one big battle. Critics like to scoff that the modern Italian forces were massacred by a spear wielding foe, but in truth the legions of the Negus Negusti (king of kings, i.e. Ethiopian emperor) had been covertly rearmed by France with the latest rapid firing steel cannon. France didn’t want any encroachment on her own colonial holdings in nearby Senegal.

1912- Albert Berry completed the first parachute jump from an aeroplane in St. Louis Missouri.

1917- Czar-Autocrat of all the Russias, Nicholas II rushed back to his rebellious capitol St. Petersburg in a private train. Today he was told the way was blocked by revolutionaries. His train backed up and was blocked again from behind by mutinous troops. His ministers advised that the army would no longer remain loyal and he may have to abdicate.

1919- The March Movement- Korea declared its independence from Japan, Russia and China.

1924- The first Alice in Cartoonland short, “Alice’s Day at Sea” from the new Disney Brothers Studio, premiered in several theaters.

1930- Disney animator Ub Iwerks, the animator/designer of Mickey Mouse, quit the studio to set up his own place. Iwerks partner was Pat Powers, who’s Powers Cinephone was the process used to put sound on “Steamboat Willie”. Powers engineered the break between Ub and Walt when Disney refused to let Powers buy into a co-partnership in Disney Studio. Walt was stunned by the loss of one of his first employees and closest friends. Iwerks studio produced Flip the Frog Cartoons, but it eventually failed, and he'll return to Disney to invent the xerox process.

1932- Museum of Modern Art in New York held first major retrospective of the style of architecture called "THE INTERNATIONAL STYLE" Steel girder frames with large windows for walls and no ornamentation. This style pioneered by Mies Van Der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Phillip Johnson. Called by critics "vertical ice cube trays" they now dominate the skylines around the world, making Moscow and Shanghai equally unrecognizable from Pretoria, or Newark, New Jersey.

1932- THE LINDBERGH BABY KIDNAPPING. The infant son of the famous aviator was taken from his crib in their Princeton New Jersey home. Forensic science determined he was bludgeoned and buried shortly afterwards. But the kidnap plot went ahead for nine days. The kidnapper left behind a crudely written note asking for $50,000 dollars in small bills. German immigrant Bruno Richard Hauptman, the man who was convicted and executed for the crime protested his innocence to the end. But some of the ransom money was found in his apt. The New Jersey country sheriff in charge of the investigation was the father of future Gulf War general Norman Schwarzkopf.

1937- Connecticut issued the first metal license plates for autos.

1941- Congress approved designating a committee to investigate waste in Defense appropriations. It was chaired by junior Missouri Senator Harry Truman. The Truman Commission uncovered corruption and sweetheart deals among businessmen doing war work. They exposed waste, fraud, padding bills and corporations still doing business with the enemy, even after Pearl Harbor. The Truman Commission saved America millions and made Harry Truman a national figure. Truman was also a Democrat investigating within a Democratic Administration.
No such committee was ever allowed for the Iraq War, and the result was billions given out in secret no-bid contracts, and over a trillion dollars never unaccounted for.

1941- The first Captain America comic book by Marvel Comics published.

1946- The National Cartoonists Society formed.

1951- Frank Sinatra was subpoenaed by the Senate Kefhauver Committee looking into the activities of the Mafia. In deference to Old Blue Eyes public persona, strings were pulled so he was allow to testify in his attorney’s private office high in 30 Rockefeller Plaza at 4:00 a.m.

1954- Puerto Rican Nationalists shot 5 Congressman on Capitol Hill. They opened fire from the visitor gallery down on the Congressman.

1961- John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps.

1961-The Ken Doll introduced as a mate to Barbie.

1962- A huge tickertape parade in New York is held for astronaut John Glenn.

1966- The Russian probe Venera 3 landed on Venus. Although the Venera crash landed it was the first unmanned probe to land on the surface of another world.

1968- Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who presided over the Vietnam War buildup and humiliated by the Tet Offensive, resigned and was replaced by presidential advisor Clark Clifford.

1968- THE CHICANO BLOWOUTS- Discontent had been buildings in the Mexican American community over substandard teaching and facilities in California schools. One student remembered her college-prep teacher yelling at her in class “ You’re never going to college! By the end of the year you and your girlfriends will all be pregnant anyway!” This day on a given signal hundreds of High School kids stood up and walked out of class. The protests grew through the Southwest, and the American Public heard a new word – Chicano, for the first time.

1971- Radical Hippy Weathermen Movement planted a bomb in the men’s room of the US Senate. It exploded causing thousands of dollars in damage but hurting no one.

1975- The first Honda Civics arrive in the US.

1978- Unemployed auto mechanics Gatchko Ganas and Roman Wardas broke into the tomb of Charlie Chaplin in Vevey Switzerland and stole his remains. They tried to hold it for ransom. The body was recovered and the two losers were soon arrested. They were trying to make enough money to open a car repair garage in France.

1988- Apple introduced the first commercially available CD-ROM drive for your personal computer.
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Yesterday’s Question: When Leadbelly sang in The Midnight Special: The next thing you know Boy, you’re Sugerland bound…”. What is that?

Answer: Sugarland Texas was the site of the Federal prison Hudlan Ledbetter (aka Leadbelly) was imprisoned in. At night, convicts could hear the lonesome whistle of the express train that left Houston bound for California and the Good Life. Leadbelly called it The Midnight Special. One of Steven Spielberg’s early films was Sugarland Express.

Question: When Leadbelly sang in The Midnight Special: The next thing you know Boy, you’re Sugerland bound…”. What is that?

Yesterday’s Question: What is a diva?
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History for 2/28/2023
Birthdays: Michel de Montaigne, The Marquis de Montcalm, Zero Mostel, Vasclav Nijinsky, Molly Picon, Gavin MacCleod, Bernadette Peters, Bubba Smith, Mario Andretti, Milton Caniff- the creator of Terry and the Pirates", Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel, Tommy Tune, Vincente Minelli, Linus Pauling, Dorothy Stratton, Frank Gehry, Sir John Tenniel, John Tarturro, Gilbert Gottfried, Bernadette Peters is 75.

468AD- Today is the Feast of St. Hilarius, who was a bishop at the Synod of Brigands. Held at Ephesus in 449AD, the theological debate of Church elders over where to place the Feast of Easter got so out of hand that the Patriarch of Constantinople was beaten to death, and St. Hilarius jumped out of a window to escape the brawl.

1574- The Spanish Inquisition sets up shop in the New World. The first two Mexican Lutherans were burned at the stake in a huge auto-da-fe in Mexico City.

1745- MADAME de POMPADOUR- Jeanne Poisson d’Etoiles was not only beautiful, but highly intelligent. Even her mother predicted “she is a morsel fit for a king”. This day at a masked ball at the Paris Hotel du Ville, King Louis XV first met her. She was dressed as Diana the goddess of the Hunt. The King was dressed as a Yew Tree. Louis ennobled her with the title Madame de Pompadour. Her husband was given a job as a tax collector and told to get lost. Madame de Pompadour spent the next thirteen years not only ruling Louis’ heart but France as well, and sponsored many artists and scholars like Voltaire, Rousseau and Diderot. Long after their sexual attraction faded, Jeanne remained the king’s close friend and confidante.
The champagne glass was supposedly modeled from Madame de Pompadour’s breast.

1753- Pope Clement XIII finally gave permission for the Catholic Bible to be translated into languages other than Latin, something people like John Wyclif were once burned for.

1827- First U.S. Railroad incorporated The Baltimore & Ohio (B&O).

1835- Dr. Elias Lohnnrot published the Finnish national epic poem Kalevala. It’s about the first man Vanjiamoimmen, who was born old and searched for the magical machine called The Samo, kept in a mountain with seven locks, guarded by seven wizards chanting Samo, Samo! Modern scholars cannot agree just what the samo was, or what it did.

1882- The first college store opened, the COOP, this one attached to Harvard & MIT. The COOP means Harvard Cooperative Society.

1896- Robert Paul demonstrates a kinetograph to the Royal Institute. The British Cinema industry is born.

1916- Writer Henry James died. William Faulkner said, "He was the nicest old lady I ever met." H.L. Mencken eulogized: "Henry James was an idiot, and a Boston idiot to boot, of which there is no form lower." Mencken was equally caustic of other cities.

1920- Evans vs. Gore – Al Gore’s grandfather. The U.S. Supreme Court upholds the legality of the Income Tax amendments, saying:” The power to tax carries with it the power to embarrass and destroy. “Isn’t that reassuring?

1920 Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin debuted.

1921-THE KRONSTADT REBELLION-The sailors of the Russian Baltic Fleet had been the most politically radical group in the armed forces, Trotsky's "pride and joy". Their naval guns trained on the Winter Palace helped win the Bolshevik revolution. But by 1921 they were disillusioned with "the nightmare rule of communist dictatorship" . The fleet in St. Petersburg harbor mutinied, demanding freedom of speech and press, and the right to form labor unions. Lenin and Trotsky’s reaction? ”We will shoot them down like partridges.” They sent 20,000 Red Army troops charging across the ice of the frozen harbor to attack the Red Navy. They crushed the sailor's revolt but the cost in human lives was so high the Finnish government complained of impending epidemics when the ice thaws began to wash corpses all over the Baltic coastline.

1938- Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev toured the Walt Disney Studio, and performed his piece Peter and the Wolf for Walt and his music director Leigh Harline.

1938- President Franklin Roosevelt introduced in Congress a bill to make the practice of lynching a Federal crime. After a lengthy filibuster by southern conservative senators, FDR caved and withdrew the bill.

1940- At the Oscars ceremony Hattie McDaniel became the first black actress to win an Oscar for her supporting role in Gone With The Wind. When some criticized her for portraying a stereotype black mammy, McDaniel snapped:” I’d rather make $5000 a week playing a maid than $5 a week being a maid!”

1940- Richard Wright’s novel Native Son, about growing up black in America, first published.

1942- Battle of the Java Sea. Japanese forces shoot up a U.S.-Dutch naval task force.

1949- Bob Clampett’s live puppet show Time for Beanie premiered. Albert Einstein was a fan. Ten years later it was revived as the popular animated series Beanie and Cecil.

1953- Chuck Jones “Duck Amuck” premiered.

1953- Englishman James Watson walked into his local pub and announced to the barman” Barman, set them up. I’ve just discovered the secret of life!” That morning Watson & Francis Crick had indeed came upon the DNA double helix molecule. They were building on the work of fellow scientist Rosalind Franklin. It’s been argued that Franklin was the one who actually made the discovery, but she died before Watson and Crick were awarded the Nobel Prize.

1968- Former teen idol singer Frankie Lyman OD’s on heroin.

1975- A fog bank crossing Freeway 91 near Corona California caused a 300 car pile up.

1982- BP oil tycoon J. Paul Getty had died in 1976 the richest man on earth. Getty found his immediate family so annoying he left the bulk of his estate to his little Getty Museum in Malibu California. This day after all attempts of the family to challenge his will were exhausted, the Getty Museum was endowed with two billion dollars and immediately became the richest museum on earth.

1983-The last episode of the television series M*A*S*H. It was the single most watched TV episode in history.

1986- Swedish Prime Minister Olav Palme was assassinated as he left a movie theater. The murderer was never caught.

1986- Disney animator Eric Larsen retired. Larsen had stayed on to train the next generation of animators who created the 2D Rennaissance of the 1990s.

1993- Government agents arriving at David Koresh’s Branch-Davidian Cultists Compound in Waco, Texas were met with gunfire. Six were killed. The FBI siege began that lasted until April 19th.

2001- Seattle rocked by a 7.0 earthquake. That’ll stir your Starbucks!

2012- Pope Benedict XVI stepped down. The first pope to resign since 1419. He died ten years later in 2022.

2023- The last Worthington Ford car dealership closed. Oklahoman Cal Worthington began selling autos in Southern California in 1951, making distinctive commercials. He died at age 96.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a diva?

Answer: A word in India for a goddess. In the English speaking countries it later became a term for someone absorbed with their own self-importance or vanity.

Quiz: How many English Kings were beheaded?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: 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?
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History for 2/ 26/2023
Birthday: King Wenceslas of Bohemia-1361, Frances Marion, Victor Hugo, Buffalo Bill Cody, Emma Destin, Levi Strauss, Jackie Gleason, Fats Domino, Betty Hutton, Johnny Cash, William Frawley, Robert Alda, Tony Randall- born Arthur Rosenberg, Erhyke Bahdu, Fred “Tex” Avery

747 B.C. In Sumer, it is the beginning of the Age of Nabronassar.

500s BC-391AD, HAPPY ANTHESTERION- the Ancient Greek holiday of Death and Spring. Dedicated jointly to Dionysus and Hermes Kthoninos- (Underworld). The Greeks believed ghosts weren’t as scary as they were annoying. If you didn’t bury the dead properly with spices and a coin in the mouth for the Chaeron the Boatman of the River Styx, they became ghosts. They would haunt you by moping around, turning up at inappropriate moments, predicting your death, bleeding on your lunch, etc. So this festival was a sort of visiting hours for the other world.
You left your door open and cooked a meal for the spirits so they could spend a day visiting their old haunts (forgive the pun). This way they would not annoy you the rest of the year. This festival was also considered a festival of flowers to usher in Spring.
Most Greeks spent all three days of the festival drunk.

393AD- Today is the feast day of Saint Porphyry, who made it rain in Gaza.

1773- Construction began in Philadelphia on the Walnut Street Jail, a Quaker alternative to physical punishment, where Penitents could reflect on their crimes- the first Penitentiary. The other innovation was individual cells instead of the large room common in colonial jails.

1775- Leslie’s Retreat. In Boston, British General Gage sent a Colonel Leslie with a column of soldiers to Salem Mass to confiscate a store of weapons the colonists had. The Redcoats played Yankee Doodle on the march, then a form of insult to Americans. They were stopped at a river crossing by a line of heavily armed Massachusetts colonists. Leslie didn’t want a showdown, so he negotiated, while other neighbors smuggled the illegal weapons into the forest. Leslie went back empty handed. The American Revolution started a few weeks later at Lexington & Concord.

1815- Napoleon and his followers escaped his exile island of Elba and sailed to France for another try for power. He had less than a thousand followers to try to re-conquer a nation of 14 million.

1854- Composer Robert Schumann went mad and jumped off a bridge into the Rhine River. He was fished out and institutionalized. His schizophrenia grew out of advanced syphilis. He said he was not committing suicide but had thrown his wedding ring into the river to free his wife Clara of him. He then relented and leaped into the raging ice filled water to get it back.
Ironically this drama was played out during his town’s winter carnival celebrations. The tragedy of seeing his friend and teacher collapse moved young Johannes Brahms to write his First Piano Concerto. It was rumored that Clara Schuman and young Brahms had a fling as well.

1907- British Oil and Royal Shell merge to form British Petroleum- BP Company.

1929- Congress declared the Grand Tetons a national park.

1935- Adolf Hitler revealed to the world press that Germany had built the Luftwaffe, the worlds’ largest air force. This was a direct violation of the restrictions placed on Germany in the Versailles Treaty. Germany awaited the response, which was nothing.

1936- The NINIROKU JIKEN. Or the Coup of 2-26. Young Japanese officers led four regiments to attempt a takeover the government in Tokyo. They killed several government ministers, including two former prime ministers, and tried unsuccessfully to assassinate Prime Minister Okada. The coup collapsed when Emperor Hirohito declared he would personally lead his Imperial Guard against them if they would not stand down. The anti-war Prime Minister was later assassinated by another officer. Despite the coup’s failure, the surviving peace-party politicians were intimidated to block the Imperial Army plans for continued conquest in Asia.

1942- Walt Disney received the Irving Thalberg Award at the Academy Awards. Leopold Stokowski got a special Oscar for his work on Fantasia, Frank Churchill and Oliver Wallace won Best Score for Dumbo.

1951- The 22nd Amendment ratified limiting the President to two four-year terms. This was passed by a Republican Conservative dominated Congress. They were determined to never have something like Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt’s four terms again.

1962- First day shooting on the first James Bond film Dr. No. The scene was in M's office and featured Bernard Lee, Peter Burton and their new discovery, Sean Connery.

1965- First day of shooting on the Beatle's second film 'Help!"

1983- Michael Jackson’s album Thriller went to #1 in the pop charts and stayed for weeks. Twenty-six year later, after Jackson’s death in 2009, Thriller again went to #1 around the world.

1985- New York Police under District Attorney Rudy Giuliani arrested most of the leaders of the New York Mafia families called The Commission. Despite this highly touted raid, the mob rebuilt, so that another big raid was necessary in 2010.

1986- Dragon Ball Z premiered in Japan

1990- Cornell Gunther, lead singer for the DooWop group the Coasters, was shot dead at a Las Vegas traffic intersection."Yakkety-Yak, Don't Talk Back!"

1991- At a meeting in Switzerland, Tim Berners-Lee introduced the first Web Browser.

1991-The Highway of Death- During Gulf War One, The U.S. Air Force fighter bombers caught a long column of Iraqi army vehicles fleeing on an open desert road with no cover. No one is sure how many Iraqis were killed but easily over a thousand.

1993- THE FIRST WORLD TRADE CENTER ATTACK. Followers of Muslim extremist cleric Omar Abdel Rahman set off a large truck bomb in New York's World Trade Center. The bomb created a five-story crater in level B-2 of the underground parking structure. It killed 7 and injured over one thousand. 50,000 had to be evacuated from the twin towers for smoke inhalation. But the Twin Towers remained standing.
It has been speculated that one reason there were not even more deaths in the collapse of 9-11, was because much of the office workers experienced this 1993 attack, so they already knew exactly how to evacuate the towers quickly. President Clinton’s Justice Dept had all the perpetrators in jail within a year. When planner Ramsay Youssef was being flown out of New York to his 240 year imprisonment, the plane flew over Manhattan by the World Trade Center. He was reported to have sighed: “….should have used more dynamite.”

1996- Silicon Graphics Corp (SGI) bought Cray Research.

2012- In Florida, 16 year old Trayvon Martin was walking home after buying a bag of Skittles, when he was shot to death by a self-appointed vigilante George Zimmerman. Zimmerman claimed self-defense and was acquitted in a trial with heavily racist overtones.

2014- Putin’s Russia invaded the Crimea, which was then part of Ukraine.

2017- Disney's Zootopia won best animated feature Oscar, and Pixar's Piper won best animated short.
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Yesterday’s Question: 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?

Answer: John of Gaunt, the father of Henry IV Bolingbroke, in Shakespeare’s Richard II.

Question: In a 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 Answer below: What was the only Hollywood movie to have 2 Nobel Prize winners working on the script?
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History for 2/25/2023
Birthdays: Enrico Caruso, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Zeppo Marx, St. Louis (King Louis IX of France), Bobby Riggs, Carl Eller, Dicky Jones the voice of Disney’s Pinocchio, Sir Anthony Burgess, Neil Jordan, Larry Gelbart, Tom Courtenay, Sean Astin is 53, Tea Leoni, John Foster Dulles, Neil Jordan is 73, Rashida Jones is 47

799AD- Today is the Feast of Saint Walburga, who with her brother Saint Winebold preached Christianity in the remote forests of Germany. Oddly enough after Walburga’s death the Saint’s remains were removed to a new resting place on the anniversary of a pagan festival and her name stuck to the celebration- April 30th the Walpurgisnacht.

1525- THE BATTLE OF PAVIA. King Francis I of France was besieging this Italian city when he was defeated and captured by Spanish-German Emperor Charles V. This battle was noteworthy as the first battle in which hand held rifles were important. Medieval Gonnes or guns were slow, and most times more dangerous to the holder than the enemy. A good archer could get off ten aimed arrows while a gun-man was still loading. But improvements created a more accurate rifle called a harquebus with a wooden stock and trigger.
At Pavia, when the French knights charged, harquebusiers, safe behind a wall of spears, shot them out of their saddles. 8,000 casualties and a new era in combat was born. King Francis fought in the van like a knight and didn’t notice his army was losing until he was alone, surrounded by enemies. After his capture wrote his queen: "All was lost save honor - and my skin, which is safe."

1570- Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth of England and absolved all English subjects of their allegiance to her. Since England was very Protestant by now, it didn't mean very much.

1601- The 31 year old Earl of Essex, one time toyboy of Queen Elizabeth, was beheaded for treason. She once gave him a ring and said if he was ever in trouble and needed her help he should send her the ring. One of his last acts was to send the ring to her. Whether she ever got it or she chose to ignore the summons is unknown.

1634-The ASSASSINATION OF WALLENSTEIN-Generalissimo of the Catholic armies in the Thirty Years War, which had been raging since 1618 with no end in sight. Duke Albrecht Wallenstein had so sickened of the seemingly endless carnage that he began secret negotiations with the Protestant Swedish generals to make peace in defiance of their kings. The German Emperor couldn't just fire him because his mercenary troops were so devoted to their General they would burn down their own capitol as soon as any enemy one.
Wallenstein was murdered by a hit squad sent by his own employer. They broke into the Generalissimo’s bedroom and speared him in his bed. Then the assassins dragged his perforated body down the grand staircase as his head bumped on every step. Just to show how confusing the Thirty Years War was the German Wallenstein was murdered in his castle in the Czech homeland by a troop of Scotsmen led by an Irishman hired by an Austrian through and Italian intermediary named Piccolomini. The only language anybody could speak in common was Italian. United Europe.

1689- James II Stuart tries to regain his throne on offer of the Irish Parliament. At Boulogne King Louis XIV of France sent him off with money and troops. He told James:" The best hope I can wish you is the hope that I never see you again."

1779- During bone chilling cold American Captain George Rogers Clark and his men stormed the frontier fort Vincennes in Illinois Territory and captured his British nemesis Sir William Hamilton. Hamilton was nicknamed The Hair Buyer for his encouraging local Indians to scalp settlers. Clark and his army of frontiersmen Indian style. Part of his surrender ceremony was to make Hamilton watch while Clark personally tomahawked six captive Seneca chiefs.
One chief was so tough after Clark imbedded his tomahawk in his skull the chief calmly pulled it out and handed it back to Clark and invited him to try another whack. The American Revolution on the Western Frontier effectively ended. Gen. Clark’s kid brother William Clark would be the explorer of the Lewis and Clark expedition.

1815- Princess Pauline Borghese holds a gala dress ball on the Island of Elba to distract the Allied occupation representatives away from Napoleon's secret plot to return to escape confinement and France. Pauline was Napoleon's kid sister and a wild thing. She drove her prudish brother nuts with her many love affairs and posing nude for artists, but when Nappy was down on his luck she was his most loyal sibling.

1836- FIRST COLT REVOLVER. Samuel Colt was given his first gun to play with at age 7. He was inspired by a ships steering wheel to invent a cylindrical gun chamber. They didn’t become popular until the price dropped with the 1860 Navy Colt. His six-shooter was nicknamed : The Great Equalizer","The Peacemaker" the "Confidence Machine" and sometimes the 'Thumbbuster". Gunfighters usually filed off the sight at the end of the barrel because it caught in your clothes during a quickdraw.
Wild Bill Hickok for instance didn't wear holsters, he carried his two Navy Colts tucked in a red sash around his waist. Shootists also learned to carry it "5 beans in the wheel', meaning leaving your gun cocked to one empty chamber while you walk around. This so your gun doesn't accidentally go off in your holster, which could be very embarrassing, as Wyatt Earp once found out.

1860- A little known former congressman from out west named Abraham Lincoln stepped off the Cortlandt St. Ferry in New York City. He walked through the busy streets alone, carrying a moth-eaten carpet bag suitcase up to the Astor Hotel, where he let the press know he was in town to declare himself a candidate for President of the United States. He went and traded in his old beaver skin stovepipe hat for a new silk top hat. Then he went to Matthew Brady’s photo parlor to pose for a photo like all genteel-type folks is supposed to do.

1863- CIVIL WAR PRANKS - Outside the siege lines of Vicksburg, Union admiral David Porter decided to play a joke on the rebs. On an old barge he built a dummy ironclad with wooden logs for guns and two burning tar smudge pots nailed to phony smokestacks. The total cost to for black paint and wood was $15 dollars.
He had this contraption pushed into the Mississippi and let it float with the current downstream.
When the rebel shore batteries spotted the black monster they let loose a furious barrage. It only increased their panic that the Yankee ship seemed so formidable that it didn't even bother to shoot back! When the Confederate river fleet spotted the black enemy warship they fled in terror. One captain ran his own gunboat into a sand bar, abandoned it and blew it up rather than let it be captured. Eventually the dummy boat stuck in some shallows. A rebel sheepishly rowed out to the barge and they’d been fooled.

1864- Battle of Buzzards Roost. Sherman’s army attacked Joe Johnston’s defense works in Georgia but were repulsed.

1932- TOONTOWN SCANDALS. Former Australian prizefighter Pat Sullivan was the producer of the Felix the Cat cartoons, the first true animation star. Although animator Otto Mesmer actually created him, Sullivan's name is the only one on the titles. Felix was one of the top film stars of the 1920s. Lindbergh supposedly had a Felix doll with him in the Spirit of St. Louis and his body shape was the prototype of Mickey Mouse and dozens of other characters. While Mesmer quietly drew pictures Sullivan lived the fast life of a roaring twenties celebrity.

Mrs. Marjorie Sullivan had been having an affair with her chauffeur. After a nasty scene when husband confronted wife and the chauffeur fled, Mrs. Sullivan mysteriously fell out of her window to her death. The scandal was front page news and Sullivan never got over it. He soon drank himself to death, which during Prohibition was difficult to do. Sullivan's death and his failure to get Felix into sound cartoons doomed his studio. Otto Mesmer went on to animate the first Broadway light signs but did not receive any recognition for his contributions to animation until he was re-introduced to the public at a Bob Clampett night at the Museum of Modern Art in 1975. Kid animators Eric Goldberg and Tom Sito were in the audience.

1932- A minor bit of bookkeeping. Austrian born Adolf Hitler had to officially become a German citizen before he could run for President.

1955- Davy Crockett at the Alamo with Fess Parker premiered on Walt Disney’s Disneyland TV show.

1956- THE SECRET SPEECH-In Moscow at a closed session of the 20th Party Congress Premier Nikita Khruschev denounced the crimes of the mass-murderer Josef Stalin. The audience was stunned at such revelations. When someone shouted:" If he was so terrible, why did you say nothing?" Khruschev roared back: " WHO SAID THAT?................(silence)..........................that's why."

1956- Poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes met at a party in Cambridge England.

1956- Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny short “ Broomstick Bunny” with Witchy Hazel, premiered.

1957- Bugs Moran, the gangster who challenged Al Capone for mastery of the Chicago rackets, died in prison of lung cancer. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre ruined Moran’s organization and he finally slipped down to petty thievery when he was nabbed.

1957- Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded "That'll Be the Day."

1964- Young Cassius Clay, later renamed Muhammad Ali, defeated Sonny Liston in 2:14 minutes into the 7th round for the heavyweight boxing crown. The odds were on Liston 8-1 but Clay said he would "Float like a Butterfly and Sting Like a Bee!"
When asked to comment about his defeat, Sonny Liston replied: "Life, a funny thing."

1971- Oh Calcutta, the first play with lots of actors shedding their clothes, premiered on Broadway at the Belasco.

1983- Famous playwright Tennessee Williams was found dead in a New York hotel room. He died when he choked on a nose spray bottle cap that fell into his mouth while he was using the spray. Others say it was a Pepsi bottle cap. He was 71.

1986- President Ferdinand Marcos fled the Philippines in the face of the People-Power revolution. Former movie star turned first lady Imelda Marcos left behind her amazing shoe collection. She felt that if the poor people saw her living in luxury it would make them feel better- (?)

1994- In Hebron, A Brooklyn born Jewish man named Baruch Goldstein went berserk in the Tomb of the Patriarchs and shot 29 innocent Palestinian civilians at prayers.

1996- Dr Haing Ngor, the doctor who survived the Cambodian Killing Fields and won an Academy Award in a movie of the same name, was killed in a robbery attempt outside his Los Angeles home.

2004- Movie star conservative-Catholic Mel Gibson’s movie the "The Passion of the Christ" opened in North America. The film was criticized for its perceived anti-Semitism, it was the first movie in which Jesus spoke his real language –Aramaic. Pastors bought blocks of tickets for their congregations. The film earned nearly a billion dollars, most of the profit earned by Mel Gibson, who was the films sole investor.
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Question: What was the only Hollywood movie to have 2 Nobel Prize winners working on the script?

Answer: Howard Hawks film “To Have and to Have Not”. Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner collaborated with Hawks on the screenplay.