Question: Which one of these was NOT named for a British Prime Minister? 1-Melbourne Australia, 2-Pittsburgh, 3- Earl Grey tea, 4-Vancouver, British Columbia.

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: What is a GUI? (pronounced “Gooey”). Why is it important to what you are doing right now?
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History for 6/19/2013
Birthdays: Euclid, Blaise Pascal, King James Ist Stuart, Wallis Simpson Duchess of Windsor, Moe Howard, Kathleen Turner, Lou Gehrig, Guy Lombardo, Gena Rowlands is 83, Mildred Natwick, Charles Coburn, Louis Jourdan, Pauline Kael, Salman Rushdie, Dame Mae Whitty, Lucie Sloane, Ang Sung Soo Chi, Paula Abdul is 51, Zoe Saldana is 35

240 BC- Greek mathematician, Erastosthenes, measuring the cast shadows made by sticks placed in the ground, first calculated the total circumference of the Earth. He was off by only a few miles.

1312- Piers Gaveston- royal courtier and openly gay paramour of English king Edward II, was executed by angry lords of the realm. Thoroughly-Out Eddie then went on to another boy-toy named Hugh Despenser. The memory of Piers Gaveston is preserved as the name of a mens’ fraternity at Oxford University.

1389- At Kosovo, the huge Turkish army of Sultan Murad Ist, faced the Balkan warriors of Serb Prince Lazar Ist. A Serb knight named Milosh Kobilich got an interview in the Sultan’s tent by claiming to be a deserter with vital information. Once there, he sprang upon Sultan Murad and stabbed him. Milosh was hacked to pieces by the Sultans’ guards. This should have been decisive, but unfortunately for the Serbs, Murad’s son, Bajazet, turned out to be an even better military leader. The next day the Turkish army destroyed the Serb Army .

1588- The Spanish Armada sailed from Cadiz and Lisbon to invade England.

1619- THE OLD GLOBE THEATER FIRE. During a performance of William Shakespeare’s Henry VIII, a prop cannon fired a salute that set afire the straw thatch on the roof. Soon the blaze consumed the old theater. Shakespeare, as a partner in the company that owned the Globe, paid to rebuild it. He soon retired home to Stratford. Fifty years later, during Cromwell’s Puritan rule, the Globe was pulled down because the Puritans frowned on theatrical entertainment as unGodly.

1754- Six American colonies and three Iroquois Indian tribes sent delegates to a meeting in Albany, New York to discuss how to work together more closely. Ben Franklin and Thomas Hutchinson submit plans to form a congress of all the Anglo colonies except Georgia and Nova Scotia (remember Canada was still New France at this time), with a President-General appointed by the King. But London rejected the plan.

1803- Captain Meriwether Lewis sent a letter inviting Captain William Clark to come join him and explore the route from the Mississippi to the Pacific Coast. Lewis had a backup in mind in case Clark said no, a Lt. Moses Hook. But Clark said yes so today we remember Lewis & Clark, not Lewis & Hook.

1815- The day after the Battle of Waterloo the Congress of Vienna published their final declarations. The Congress was a grand summit- England, Russia, Prussia, Austria, Sweden, Spain, Naples, Portugal, Holland, Turkey and Royalist France spent the better part of a year redistributing the lands disturbed by Napoleon’s conquests. They mostly reaffirmed hereditary rights of the old monarchs but published a joint ban on the African slave trade and chose not to dispute America’s purchase of Louisiana. This conference set the stage for European politics for the rest of that century.

1846-THE EARLIEST RECORDED BASEBALL GAME- The famous legend is that Abner Doubleday invented the game but that's been mostly disproved. No one is sure of the exact date the game was invented, but, on this day, a New York newspaper ran a notice of a "base-ball" game played by the New York Knickerbocker Baseball Club and the New York Nines Cricket Club at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. The cricketeers won 23-1. This was the first game played under Cartwright’s Rules.

Alexander Cartwright created a finite system of three outs and nine innings. Baseball spread nationwide because of the Civil War. When men of all the states would spend leisure time in army camps they learned to play the "Boston-New York Game”. After the conflict, they went to their homes in the various states and took the game with them.

1863- In one of the most famous ship-to-ship duels of the American Civil War the USS Kearsarge fought and sunk the Confederate commerce raider CSS Alabama in the harbor of Cherbourg, France. Young Impressionist painter Claude Monet was watching from the shore and later made a painting of the event. Confederate raiders hunted US shipping around the sea-lanes of the world, which is why today you can find Confederate grave markers in Capetown, South Africa and Alaska.

1865- Happy Juneteenth- Abe Lincoln’s emissaries finally reached Texas with news of the Emancipation of the slaves. Black Texans celebrate this day thereafter as Juneteenth-Independence Day, although white Texas refused to acknowledge the holiday until 1979.

1867-The Emperor of Mexico, Maximillian Hapsburg, shot by firing squad. Maximillian distributed bribes to the riflemen asking them not to aim for his head, but one hit him there anyway. Mexican President Benito Juarez felt this drastic gesture had to be taken to discourage any future European adventurers. And Maximillian routinely ordered the execution of any Juaristas who fell into his hands.

1867- The first Belmont Stakes horse race. The winner was Ruthless.

1889- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes adventure, the Man with the Twisted Lip.

1893 - Lizzie Bordon acquitted of the axe murders of her abusive parents. The murderers were never found. She lived alone peaceably and when she died she left all her money to the ASPCA.

1910 - Father's Day celebrated for 1st time. It was organized by the Spokane, Washington by members of the local YMCA and Spokane Ministerial Assoc.

1917- Still in the depths of World War I, King George V ordered members of the British royal family to dispense with German titles & surnames. Before that the official name of Queen Victoria’s family was the House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha. It now became the House of Windsor. Prince Louis Von Battenberg became Lord Louis Mountbatten.

1921- Distributer AmadeeVan Beuren announced production of a new series of "Aesop’s Fables" cartoons to be done by former Bray director Paul Terry. Terrytoons studio is born.

1923 - "Moon Mullins," a Comic Strip, debuts.

1934-The Federal Communications Commission, or FCC, created.

1941 - Cheerios Cereal invented. The name Cheerios comes from a town in Italy called Cheerigalia, where grain and cereals had been grown since Roman times.

1944-" The Marianas Turkey Shoot"- the Japanese tried to defeat a landing on the strategic island of Saipan by sending a task force of 9 carriers and 400 aircraft, many new generation Zeroes nicknamed Judys. But most of Japan’s veteran combat pilots were gone and the planes were manned by inexperienced novices rushed through training. In the last big carrier to carrier battle US forces shot down 346 Japanese planes and sank three carriers to a loss of only 30 American aircraft.

1953- THE ROSENBERGS GO TO THE CHAIR- Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, "The Atomic Spies", were electrocuted at Sing Sing for spying for the Soviet Union. When the Russians detonated their first nuclear weapon no one in America thought they could do it without spies giving them our secrets. .

Only hours before the execution, a young lawyer had found a clause in the law statutes that execution of spies could not take place except in time of war, but the judge who could have stopped it refused because he was Jewish and he feared an even greater anti-Semitic backlash if he saved them. The executions were moved up a day so they would not be killed on a Friday, the Jewish Sabbath. We now know, in 1945, Manhattan project physicists Klaus Fuchs and Ted Hall had given Stalin the plans to the Nagasaki bomb. According to KGB archives from 1989, Julius Rosenberg was on their payroll, but just what and how much he did is controversial. Dr. Fuchs gave away much more vital information yet he only got a moderate prison term. Ted Hall was never discovered until he wrote a book in 1997.

Housewife Ethel Rosenberg probably didn’t do anything and died horribly, screaming when the current was turned on. It took three tries for two full minutes. To conservatives the Rosenbergs were dangerous traitors; to progressives they were innocent martyrs of the red hysteria of the times and of anti-Semitism, even though their prosecutor Roy Cohn was also Jewish. Roy Cohn became one of the first celebrities to die of AIDS.

1952 - "I've Got A Secret" debuts on CBS-TV with Garry Moore as host.

1956- The comedy team of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis announce their breakup.

1963- The Ray Harryhausen fantasy film Jason and the Argonauts premiered.

1963- The Canadian Football Hall of Fame formed.

1964- THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT. African Americans finally get the basic rights promised them by Abe Lincoln 100 years earlier. In the South, blacks were routinely disqualified from voting and forced to take humiliating tests, like guessing how many bubbles were on a bar of wet soap. Several Civil Rights bills had been proposed since but they were all blocked by the Southern Caucus in Congress.

Those who remember Lyndon Johnson only as the warmonger of Vietnam should also recall that his arm twisting was the main reason this act made it through Congress. Chief Justice William Reinquist, Senator Strom Thurmond, Rev Billy Graham and Claire Booth Luce of Time Magazine urged LBJ not to sign it. The Civil Rights Act started the shift of Southern white conservatives from the Democratic Party to the Republicans.

1964- While flying home to Massachusetts, Senator Ted Kennedy was almost killed in a small plane crash. He broke several verterbrae but survived. Years later whenever his nephew John Kennedy Jr would offer to take Ted on his small plane, Ted always refused.

1964- The Condor Club of San Francisco becomes the first to offer topless dancers. Carol Doda became the first topless waitress, and a mainstay of San Francisco’s nightclub scene. She augmented her already ample bosom to 44 inches with silicon implants. She joked: "I dunno, I guess I just expand in the heat!"

1973 The Rocky Horror Picture Show stage show opened in London. The film version became a midnight cult classic. Writer Richard O’Brien himself plays the bald doorman Riff-Raff. Let’s do the Time Warp Again.

1975- Mobster Sam "Momo" Giancana was murdered while frying sausages. He was scheduled to testify the next day about what he knew of Pres. John F. Kennedy’s assassination to the Frank Church Committee’s Senatorial Inquiry on Assassinations. The following year Jimmy Roselli, a Giancana hit man who always claimed he was the second gunman in Dallas, was found dismembered in an oil drum floating in Florida’s Biscayne Bay.

1978 – Garfield the Cat, created by Jim Davis, 1st appears as a comic strip

1987 - Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream & Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia announce new Ice Cream flavor, Cherry Garcia.

1987 –David Geffen Records signed their 1st artist -Donna Summer.

1998 Disney’s Muhlan premiered.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is a GUI? (pronounced “Gooey”). Why is it important to what you are doing right now?

Answer: GUI means Graphic User Interface, first developed for computers by Xerox Parc in 1974. Before this, if you had to write code like an engineer to accomplish the simplest tasks. Now you just point and click.

Quiz: What is a GUI? (pronounced “Gooey”). Why is it important to what you are doing right now?

Yesterday’s Question answered below We hear minions sometimes called myrmidons. Who were the Myrmidons?
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History for 6/18/2013
Birthdays: M C Escher, Charles Gounod, James Montgomery Flagg, Kay Kayser, William Lassell 1799- English astronomer who discovered Neptune's moon Triton, Richard Boone, Jeanette MacDonald, Key Luke, Isabella Rosselini, E.G. Marshall, Roger Ebert, Eduard Daladier, Carol Kane, Sammy Kahn, The Quay Brothers, Paul McCartney is 72

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

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

1583 - Richard Martin of London takes out the1st life insurance policy on his friend William Gibbons. The premium was 383 pounds.

1682 – Quaker leader William Penn founded Philadelphia.

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

1778- The British army evacuated the American Capitol of Philadelphia. The reason General Clinton pulled back his redcoats was because of his learning of the French entry into the war. London didn’t want him to be stranded in the American interior should the French fleet attack the coast. Clinton offered protection to any Philadelphia loyalists who were afraid of Yankee revenge. Six thousand American loyalists abandoned the city with the troops, many pulling their furniture laden wagons by hand because of the scarcity of horses and oxen.

By 3:00PM the British columns were gone. Then the first elements of the U.S. Army marched into the silent city down Second St. to William Penn’s mansion. They were led by the newly appointed military governor- General Benedict Arnold.

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

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

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

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

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

1892 - Macademia nuts first planted in Hawaii

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

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

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

1913- composer Cole Porter graduated from Yale.

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

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

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

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

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

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

1953- Dr Martin Luther King married Corretta Scott.

1959 - 1st telecast transmitted from England to US.

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

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

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

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

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

2010- Pixar’s Toy Story III premiered.

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Yesterday’s Question: We hear minions sometimes called myrmidons. Who were the Myrmidons?

Answer: According to Homer, Achilles was the king of the Myrmidons. His warriors were famed for their unhesitating loyalty to whatever Achilles mood swings took him. So the name myrmidons means unquestioning followers.

Question: We hear minions sometimes called myrmidons. Who were the Myrmidons?

Yesterday’s question answered below: With Despicable Me II we are hearing a lot about his minions. Who were the first Minions?
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History for 6/17/2013
Birthdays: King Edward Ist "Longshanks", John Wesley the founder of the Methodists, , Wally Wood, Ralph Bellamy, Dean Martin, Barry Manilow, Joe Piscopo is 63, Newt Gingrich, Martin Bormann, Jason Patric, Ken Loach, Greg Kinnear is 50, Venus Williams, Thomas Haden Church is 53

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1917- The Republic of Finland is declared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1994- THE WHITE BRONCO CHASE- Movie actor and Hall of Fame football player O.J. Simpson was wanted for questioning about the grisly murder of his second wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ron Goldman. This day OJ tried to escape. He and his football friend Al Cowlings led police on a strange slow-speed pursuit for two hours around the freeways of Los Angeles as the world watched amazed on live television. He eventually was convinced to surrender. OJ Simpson was acquitted of murder in a controversial trial, but found guilty in a civil wrongful death suit.
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Yesterday’s question: With Despicable Me II we are hearing a lot about his minions. Who were the first Minions?

Answer: The French King Henry III Valois was a gay man who kept a group of young men around him. He called them his darlings, in French “mignons”,

Question: With Despicable Me II we are hearing a lot about his minions. Who were the first Minions?

Yesterdays Question answered below: Where is Albion? As in Perfidious Albion?
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History for 6/16/2013
Birthdays: Stan Laurel, Willy Boskovsky, Joyce Carol Oates, Nelson Doubleday, Brian Eno, animator Pete Burness, Martha Graham, Erich Segal, Jack Albertson, Helen Traubel, Ron LeFlore, Laurie Metcalf, Sonia Braga is 63, John Cho is 41.

Today is the Feast Days of Saints Tychon and Saint Luthgard

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

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

1497- Amerigo Vespucci reached the mainland of South America.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1903 – The Pepsi Cola Company formed.

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

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

1920- International Telephone and Telegraph incorporates- ITT.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1955- Disney’s Lady and the Tramp premiered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1967- The film “The Dirty Dozen” debuted.

1987- Italian porno star Ciccolina announced that since all politicians were whores and she was a whore she would run for office. This made sense to Italians who this day elected her overwhelmingly to a seat in Parliament.
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Yesterdays Question: Where is Albion? As in Perfidious Albion?

Answer: It is an old name for Briton. When the Romans first saw the White Cliffs of Dover they called it the White Island (Alban). Later they learned the locals called themselves Britons. Thomas Jefferson called it perfidious during the Revolution.

Question: Where is Albion? As in Perfidious Albion?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What part of America was once called The Kingdom of Yazoo?
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History for 6/15/2013
Birthdays: Edward the Black Prince of England, Rachael Donelson Jackson- Andy Jackson’s First Lady, Edvard Grieg, Saul Steinburg, Mario Cuomo, Jim Varney, Wade Boggs, Waylon Jennings, Xaviera Hollander the Happy Hooker, Jim Belushi, Ice Cube is 44, Neil Patrick Harris is 40, Courtenay Cox is 49, Helen Hunt is 50

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1836- Arkansas becomes a state.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1938-Tha Fair Labor Standards Act passed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

1994- The Lion King opened.

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

2002- Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones was knighted.
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Yesterday’s Question: What part of America was once called The Kingdom of Yazoo?

Answer: Before the Louisiana Purchase, a group of American frontiersmen entered Spanish held Mississippi and West Florida (Alabama) and tried to declare themselves a separate country.