Quiz: The nations of South America are sometimes called Latin America. Who coined that term?



Yesterday’s Answer below What is an old Duffer?

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History for 10/14/2012

B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e.cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everet Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Ralph Lauren- real name Ralph Lifshitz, Roger Moore is 86. Mia Wasikowska is 23.



Feast of St Theresa of Avila

1066-WHEN WILLIAM ROSE AND HAROLD FELL- BATTLE OF HASTINGS- The Norman army of William the Bastard defeats and kills King Harold Godwinson of the Anglo-Saxons. The occupation and settlement of Norman French into England had a dramatic effect on the language ensuring the language you are now speaking would become English, instead of something between Dutch and Danish. The Normans also introduced the English to the concept of surnames- Wulf the Tailor yielding to Robert Beauceant and William Longchamps. Duke William, who was never fond of the title 'Bastard", became instead King William the Conqueror.



1492- Columbus and his men left San Salvador to continue west and look for Cipango- their name for Japan.


1529- WESTERN EUROPE DISCOVERS COFFEE- The first Turkish Siege of Vienna ends. Despite the oath of Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent, who told his troops that if they didn't win he would fill the Danube with their genitals, the Turkish army lifts the siege and retreats back into Hungary. As the Viennese went through the Turkish camp they found large quantities of black beans that tasted awful. the ancient Egyptians mashed coffee beans into cakes and ate them. A Polish mercenary named Adam Kolschitsky had lived in Turkey and knew what to do with the bitter beans. He opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the KolschitskyDom. He is also credited with inventing the coffee filter, which made the strong Turkish java palatable to Europeans. The Viennese commemorated their victory with a pastry shaped like the Turkish battle ensign, the crescent, or the Croissant. History however is silent about who first uttered the awesome command DOUBLE-DOUBLE-ICE-MOCHA-NON-FAT-LATTE !



1670-At a performance before King Louis XIV the Sun King at the Chateau of Chambord Moliere’s satire “Le Bourgeouis Gentilhomme” premiered. Lully wrote the music.


1806- BATTLE OF JENA- Napoleon's army destroyed the Prussian (German) army and occupies Berlin in only six weeks. The Prussian army had been considered the finest in the world but by this time the legendary regiments of Frederick the Great were led by old men and a timid king. The average age of the sergeants was 50 and the generals 75!

The night before the battle the Prussians gave up the strategic high ground to the French because it was too chilly for most of the old men to sleep in the open. Also they had built their camp facing in the opposite direction from the enemy to be out of the wind. Shortly before they were hit from the fire of three hundred cannons Prince Hohenlohe was telling his outposts to get some more sleep as there probably would be no battle that day. One other psychological tactic Napoleon used was he lined up 250 regimental bands so their combined musical power would augment the cannon in blowing the Germans out of their beds. A contemporary German analyst said; "The Prussian Army had to be very clever to lose that badly, for it had all the advantages." The embarrassing campaign caused major reform in the army and for the remainder of the 1800's Europe would fear French Militarism, not German.



1873-MY NAME IS MUYBRIDGE. One night a carriage drove up from San Francisco to the Yellow Jacket Mine near Calistoga in the north Napa Valley. A man asked for the foreman Major Harry Larkyns. When Larkyns answered the door the man quietly said to him:”Good Evening, Major. My name is Muybridge. Here is the answer to the message you sent my wife earlier. “ He pulled out a pistol and shot Larkyns through the heart, killing him instantly.

The killer was the famous Photographer and Motion Picture Pioneer Edweard Muybridge. Muybridges’ young wife Flora had been having an affair with Larkyns while he was working on his Motion Studies Series in Palo Alto. Muybridge discovered the son she bore him was not his. They were even calling him Little Harry behind his back. The jury that convened in Napa did not hang the artist-inventor. In the Code of the Old West proven adultery was considered a justifiable homicide. And Governor Leyland Stanford was sponsoring Muybridge. So he was acquitted. Flora Muybridge divorced him in 1875 and after her early death two years later, he gave Little Harry to a San Francisco Orphans Asylum and refused to pay for his upkeep.



1908- The Chicago Cubs defeated the Detroit Lions for their first, and so far only, World Series championship. The next time they got to the series was 1945.



1912- While going to give a political speech in Milwaukee, a lunatic named William Shrenck shot Teddy Roosevelt in the chest. The bullet was slowed down tearing through his clothes, speech notes and tin eyeglasses case, and missed any important organs. Bleeding from his side Teddy spat in his hand to see if there was blood in his spittle, which would mean internal damage. Seeing there was none, he went ahead and gave his 90 minute speech before going to a hospital. -Bully!



1926- Happy Birthday Winnie the Pooh! A.A. Milne’s first book of Pooh, Eeyore, Piglet and Christopher Robin debuted this day.



1934- The Lux Radio Theater premiered.


1943- The Sobibor Uprising. At the Sobibor Concentration Camp the Jewish inmates launch a surprise attack on their guards. They were led by several Jews who were Red Army POW’s and understood the use of weapons. After killing 16 SS guards 365 escaped into the countryside. Most were hunted down and killed but 47 survived.


1944- Field Marshal Ervin Rommel, the "Desert Fox", is forced by the Nazis to take poison. He had been a leader in the July Generals Plot to assassinate Hitler, take over Germany and stop the war. At first Rommel demanded a public trial, but reluctantly accepted the quiet way in exchange for the Nazi's promise not to hurt his family. This way Berlin could claim Germany's greatest soldier succumbed to his war wounds instead of trying to revolt. Winston Churchill paid an unusual tribute in the House of Commons to the Nazi general for trying to overthrow Hitler-" In the somber wars of modern democracy, there is little room for Chivalry."



1944- British Paratroops liberated the city of Athens from the Nazis.

1947- Chuck Yeager in the X-1 “Glamorous Glennis” first breaks the Sound Barrier.



1954- First day of shooting on Cecil B. DeMille’s remake of the Ten Commandments staring Charlton Heston out in the Egyptian desert.



1959- Errol Flynn died of a heart attack in Vancouver. Exhausted by overindulgence in his favorite vices, doctors said the 50 year old movie star had the body of a 70 year old. A descendant of one of the Bounty mutineers, the Tasmanian born actor's last film was ' Cuban Rebel Girls'.


1962- Fifty Years Ago- THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS BEGAN- President John F. Kennedy was first shown top secret U-2 photos of Russian nuclear missile pads being constructed 90 miles away in Cuba. This meant instead of a 30 minute warning time a Soviet H-Bomb could hit New York or Washington in 7-10 minutes. Attorney General Robert Kennedy asked CIA operative Richard Helms: “Dick, is it true there are Russian missiles in Cuba?” When Helms replied there were, the erudite RFK reacted: “ OH, SH*T!!” For the next 14 days the world came close to nuclear Armageddon.



1964- Dr. Martin Luther King Jr won the Nobel Peace Prize.



1964-IT’S FUN TO PLAY AT THE Y-M-C-A! Just three weeks before the presidential election Lyndon Baines Johnson’s re-election was almost derailed by a gay sex scandal. One of LBJ’s closest friends Walter Jenkins, whom LBJ called My Vice President of Almost Everything, was busted by DC police for having gay sex with a Turkish diplomat in the YMCA locker room! He had been arrested for the same thing five years before.



This day Walter Jenkins announced his resignation from the Johnson White House and was sent to a mental hospital, Lyndon Johnson distanced himself from Jenkins and the press was strong-armed to hold the story until after the election. Republican challenger Barry Goldwater was warned by the FBI that if he tried to use this story they had plenty of info on the Arizona senator patronizing prostitutes. The story never effected the election. Goldwater remarked:” Communists and c*cksuckers, what a way to win an election!”



1968- French Canadians who wanted independence from Canada form a political party called the Parti-Quebecois.



1972- Joe Cocker and his backup band were busted in Australia for drug possession.



1973- The Yom Kippur War between Arabs and Israelis almost drag the superpowers in as well. Russia had been supplying Egypt and Syria with their latest weapons. When Israeli tanks approached Damsacus the Soviets warned Israel that if they attacked the Syrian capitol they would intervene with two Red Army airborne divisions. Israeli diplomat Yigail Allon said “From the way the Russians reacted you’d think they were protecting Stalingrad rather than Damascus!”



Prior to this time Israel would buy weapons on the international market, paying cash, but now the US refitted the Israeli military directly. This day President Nixon warned Moscow that any attempt to intervene in the Middle East would be matched by American ground forces. Both sides cooled off and the superpower confrontation was kept a secret until the 1990s. Ironically the early founders of Israel were all Socialists.



1978- Lover Scott Thorsten “outs” pianist Liberace by filing a palimony suit.



1979- Wayne Gretsky scored his first goal.

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Yesterday’s Question: What is an old Duffer?



Answer: An elderly golfer with minimal skills at playing the game.

Question: Who invented Octoberfest?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who sat on The Peacock Throne?
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History for 10/12/2012 Traditional Columbus Day
Birthdays: "God's Imp"King Edward VI- only son of Henry VIII, Emperor Pedro Ist of Brazil 1798, Helena Modjeska, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, Alastair Crowley, Luciano Pavarrotti, animator Izzy Klein, Joan Rivers, Dick Gregory, Tony Kubek, Susan Anton, Kirk Cameron, Hugh Jackman is 44

1285- 180 Jews of Munich who refused to be baptized were burned to death in their synagogue.
1492- COLUMBUS STEPS ASHORE IN AMERICA.- The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria drop anchor off San Salvador in the Bahamas after sighting land around 2:10am, Oct 22nd Old Style. It was a full moon. Columbus had offered a reward for the first man to see land. Juan de Boromeo aboard the Pinta sighted land first, but Columbus later claimed he did and kept the money- cheap bugger. Expecting to meet Chinese people Columbus brought with him a translator who could speak Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish and Hebrew as well as a letter from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to the Great Khan of Cathay. None of these were much help speaking with the Taino Indians. 1776- Battle of Throgg's Neck- The British amphibiously land a force behind George Washington's army in the Bronx and force the American's to escape to White Plains and later across the Hudson into New Jersey. Throgg's Neck is a Dutch form of 'frog's neck'.

1800- The Independent Chronicle reported the national debt of the United States was around $70 million dollars. The Bank of the United States refused any additional loans to the government to help complete construction of Washington D.C.

1886- Beginning of Sherlock Holmes story:” Adventure of the Second Stain”.

1915- British nurse Edith Cavell was put up against a wall and shot by a German firing squad. She remained behind when allied armies retreated, and was accused of espionage for helping wounded soldiers escape to neutral Holland. The execution of a 49 year old woman outraged Victorian opinion in Britain and the US, and was played up by the press to drum up enthusiasm for the war.

1920- Thoroughbred racehorse Man O’War won his last race.

1928- The Winnie the Pooh stories featuring Tigger are first published. 1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signed the first animation union contract and settled the Cartoonist strike begun May 8th. The following year Fleischer tried to escape unions by moving his studio to Right-To-Work State Florida, but the additional expenses and poor box office ruined his studio. 1940-Silent movie star Tom Mix died in auto crash outside of Florence, Arizona. The 60 year old actor ignored signs that a bridge was out and fell into a dry gulley. A large overpacked suitcase popped out of his back seat and broke his neck. The “Suitcase of Death” is preserved along with Tony the Wonder Horse at the Tom Mix Museum in Oklahoma.

1942- Louis Armstrong married his second wife, singer Lucille Watson. She made a home for him in a suburban neighborhood in Queens New York that Sachmo always returned to after traveling the world. 1960- During a long loud debate on colonialism during a speech by the Philippine Ambassador, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev got the attention of the U.N. General Assembly by taking off his shoe and banging it on the table. This caused an uproar so uncontrollable that the Secretary General U-Thant broke his gavel trying to restore order.

1964- Adding to their string of success in the Space Race, the Soviets launched Vokshod 1, the first capsule with a multi-person crew and the first ship where Cosmonauts didn’t need to wear their space suits inside.

1966- Sammy Davis Jr. appeared on the Batman TV Show. Sock-it-to-me!

1969- Police arrest Charles Manson inside Death Valley National Park.

1971-Weber & Rice’s musical Jesus Christ Superstar opened on Broadway at the Mark Hellinger theater.

1977- Script completed for the classic film comedy Animal House. 1994-Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and Jeffrey Katzenberg announce the partnership that would be named Dreamworks SKG.

1997-53 year old singer John Denver died when he crashed his ultra-light Long E-Z plane into the ocean near Monterrey California. Later reports showed he was flying inebriated. The impact was so great his body had to be identified by fingerprints.

1998- Matthew Shepard, a gay student at the University of Wyoming, was taken out to a field by a gang of other boys, tied to a rail fence and beaten savagely with a pistol. His assailants left him tied to the fence all night with no way to call for help. He was dead by morning. Matthew Shepards’ death caused a wave of revulsion nationwide against anti-gay violence.

2000- A suicide bomber in a speed boat blew a hole in the USN destroyer Cole in a harbor in Yemen, killing 16 American sailors. The attack was done by Al Qaeda, the same terrorist group that did the World Trade Center attack.

2001- After the 9-11 attack NATO AWAC planes began patrolling the East Coast of the US. This is the first foreign aid for America since Lafayette helped General Washington in the American Revolution.

2005- Chinese archaeologists near the Yellow River discover the world’s oldest bowl of noodles. Someone’s fossilized noodle lunch from a bowl that tipped over in 2,000BC, and remained that way for four thousand years.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who sat on The Peacock Throne?

Answer: The Shah of Iran.

Question: Who sat on The Peacock Throne?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What animated movie was released in France as Les Indestructables”?
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History for 10/11/2012
Birthdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Heinz the Ketchup king, Jerome Robbins, Carl Hubbard, Ron Leibman, John Candy, Omar Shariff is 80, Ben Vereen, Art Blakey, Luke Perry, Joan Cusak, Sig Ruman– the fat actor with the goatee and the over-the-top German accent in the Marx Brothers comedies, Ninotchka and Stalag 17

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Bruno of Cologne, the son of Saint Matilda and King Henry the Fowler.

1303- Pope Boniface VIII died. He was the Pope who first proclaimed Papal dominance in the bull Unam Sanctam ( even when I'm wrong I'm still right because I'm the Pope and you're not ), and who used to declare Crusades against Italian families he didn't like. He died a raving lunatic in the dungeons of San Angelo eating the flesh off of his own arms. Dante hated him so much, in his poem "The Inferno" he has two devils stirring a boiling cauldron of lead and calling up to the world above:" Hey Boniface! When are you coming down? It's almost ready!"

1424- Czech general John of Ziska died of plague. He had never been defeated in the Hussite Wars and led battles even when almost blind. When dying, he requested that his body be skinned and the skin used to make a drum for his army.
1492- As the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria continue sailing west, Christopher Columbus' fear crazed men began to see signs that land was close at hand: floating driftwood, a carved stick, moths, a seabird.

1531- Battle of Kappell- Civil war broke out between the Swiss cantons that were Catholic and the Protestant ones. In this battle the Catholics won. Among the killed was Ulrich Zwingli, the great Protestant theologian.

1649- Oliver Cromwell ravaged rebellious Ireland with fire and sword. Today his Ironside army captured the Irish town of Wexford and massacred the inhabitants. A month earlier when the town of Drogheda was stormed, many thought the massacre was due to the stubbornness of its defense. But the slaying of the defenders of little Wexford showed that Cromwell intended to use terror as a weapon to pacify Ireland. No pity would be shown to anyone against English rule.

1737- A huge earthquake in Bejing China killed 300,000. 1776- The Battle of Valcour Island- American patriot Benedict Arnold builds a little navy on Lake Champlain and lets himself get shot up to stall a huge British invasion force under Canadian Governor-General Sir Guy Carleton. Because of Arnold's delaying tactics it became too late in the year to cut off Washington's army retreating from New York and crush the Revolution in it's first year. Sir Guy Carleton's force had to return to Canada and wait until the Spring thaw. Valcour Island sometimes is called the first action of the U.S. Navy. Amazingly one of Arnold's little boats was recently brought up from the lake and is now in the Smithsonian.
1779-Battle of Savannah- Polish immigrant Count Casimir Pulaski was killed leading an American cavalry attack against British positions in Georgia. He had been involved in a plot to kidnap the King of Poland, was a lover of Catherine the Great, and was in debtor's prison in Marseilles before running into Ben Franklin who sent him to America. “Have I got a revolution for You !”He was the only officer to ever hold the rank in the U.S. Army of Master of Horse.

1800- The remaining French army trapped in Egypt and abandoned by Napoleon, made a deal with the Egyptians and their English allies to get evacuated back to France. One of the things that had to give up to the Brits was the Rosetta Stone, the key to deciphering Ancient Hieroglyphics. Another thing the French troops brought back to Europe was marijuana, easily purchased in Egyptian bazaars. The old soldiers said the weed didn’t give you a hangover like drinking brandy did and made recovering from wounds easier.
1809- MERIWETHER LEWIS’ SUICIDE- Colonel Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, shot himself -twice. He wounded himself in the head the first time. He was 35. Meriwether Lewis was governor of Upper Louisiana (Missouri, Wisconsin, Montana, Illinois) and was the personal protege of Presidents Jefferson and Monroe. It’s not inconceivable to assume that he would have been president one day.

Some contend that Lewis didn't commit suicide but was murdered, because it was at a small tavern on the Natchez Trace, he had been arguing with some men along the road, and he was found with two head wounds, and his belly slashed with a bowie knife. Another scholar recently theorized Lewis was suffering from delirium caused by advanced syphilis, which he may have contracted from a Shoshone woman while on the great trek over the Rockies.

His friends Jefferson and Captain Clark maintained Lewis was emotionally overwrought and was drinking too much. What an important United States Governor was doing riding all alone with no staff on a country road is still a mystery.

1867- General George Armstrong Custer was courts-martialed for leaving his post without permission to see his wife Libby, ordering his men to shoot deserters and marching his troops too excessively. He was found guilty but only given a years suspension of pay.

1868- Telegraph operator Thomas Edison patented his first invention. It was a device that recorded the votes of legislators automatically. It proved unpopular with politicians because it eliminated their ability to rig votes and filibuster.

1890- The Daughters of the American Revolution ( DAR ) formed. 1899- THE BOER WAR BEGINS. Ever since the British took over South Africa they had to contend with the fiercely independent German Dutch settlers called Afrikaners or Boers. Warfare flared up in 1886 but was settled temporarily.

Now egged on by the German Kaiser, and threatened by the nationalistic pressures of English speaking immigrants (Uitlanders) President Kruger of the Transvaal ("Oom Paul" -Uncle Paul) invaded the Orange Free State and the Cape Colony to throw off British domination. The Boers were defeated after three bloody years which saw the development of military barbed wire, khaki uniforms (from the Persian word for dust, advocated by Arthur Conan-Doyle) and concentration camps. Twenty five thousand Boers died, of them only five thousand were soldiers, the rest were uprooted civilians stuffed into camps with inadequate sanitary conditions.

Despite his belligerent talk, the Kaiser begged off sending any aid, despite pleas from the Queen of Holland. When German-Americans asked Vice Presidential candidate Teddy Roosevelt to condemn British actions, Teddy replied: " It is right and natural that stronger nations should gobble up weaker ones!”

1906- The San Francisco Board of Education ordered children of Chinese and Japanese ancestry placed in segregated schools. This act caused great popular resentment back in Japan who thought the Americans were their friends after helping settle their war with Russia. President Teddy Roosevelt intervened and forced Frisco to rescind the law.
1910- Teddy Roosevelt becomes the first U. S. President to fly in an airplane.

1939- Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the feasibility of atomic weapons and urging the US begin such a program before Hitler creates an A-Bomb. Years later with atomic weapons a reality he said his letter of Oct.11th “was the biggest mistake of my life.”

1942- As the Russian Army continued to collapse before the Nazi invasion, dictator Josef Stalin reacted in the best way he knew- an act of terror. This day he signed Order # 227. It ordered no further retreat and the penalty of death for cowardice. The Russian Secret Police NKVD planted troops behind the combat soldiers called blockers who machine-gunned anyone falling back. They also set up Penal Battalions of solders arrested for cowardice. The only way out of these suicide squads was to show a wound got in battle, in which case your record would read” Atoned with his own blood”.

1944-“ To Have and to Have Not,” written by Ernest Hemingway premiered. The movie paired Humphrey Bogart with a sultry Harpers model turned actress named Betty Persky, now changed to Lauren Bacall. Bacall originally had a higher voice but director Howard Hawks told her to go behind the soundstage and scream for an hour every day to bring her voice down to a dusky, sexy alto. It worked on Bogart, who fell in love and married her despite his being 44 and she 20 years old. The nicknamed each other Slim and Steve after the characters in the film.“If you want me, just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you? Just put your lips together and blow.”

1960- The Bugs Bunny Show premiered on TV. “Overture, hit the lights! This is it, we’ll hit the heights, and oh what heights we’ll hit…..etc..”

1962- Pope John XXIII convened the 2Nd Ecumenical Council. Nicknamed Vatican II, it instituted major reforms in the Catholic Church including ordering the Mass said in the vernacular instead of Latin , and toleration of Judaism and other faiths. Many conservative Catholic splinter groups including the one Mel Gibson belongs to reject Vatican II.

1967-The NY Times printed an image of a female nude by Bell Lab scientist Ken Knowlton. It was done on a computer as a digital mosaic of thousands of numbers. It was a breakthrough image in CGI.

1968- Apollo 7 blasted off.
1975- NBC needed a Saturday replacement for Best Of Carson reruns, so Lorne Michaels’ TV show SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE premiered. Featuring the Not-Yet-Ready-For-Prime-Time Players: John Belushi, Dan Ackroyd, Gilda Radner, Garret Morris, Chevy Chase, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin and Mike O’Donaghue. First guest host George Carlin did his opening monologue while high.
Albert Brooks did a short film and Andy Kaufman did his Mighty Mouse lip sync routine. Paul Shaefer conducted the music and the show was held in NBC’s Studio 8H, which was built originally for Maestro Arturo Toscanini and the NBC Symphony of the Air. At the last moment a sketch by young Billy Crystal was cut from the show. The show also revived the career of announcer Don Pardo, who had trouble finding work since the original Jeopardy Show was cancelled.

1975- Bill Clinton married Hillary Rodham.

1976- After the death of Chairman Mao, Chinese authorities arrest his widow Chiang Ching and three followers and accuse them of plotting a coup- the Gang of Four.

1978- Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious stabbed his girlfriend Nancy Spungen at the Chelsea Hotel in New York. Sid was too stoned to adequately explain why he killed the love of his life. It’s assumed they had a suicide pact. Vicious died of a drug overdose before his trial.

2001- V.S. Naipul won the Nobel Prize for literature.

2005- Andrea Merkel named Chancellor of Germany. She is the first woman to lead Germany and the first head of state from the former East Germany. ---------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: What animated movie was released in France as Les Indestructables”?

Answer: Pixar;s The Incredibles.

Quiz: What animated movie was released in France as Les Indestructables”?

Yesterday’s question answered below: What hit American movie was released in France, entitled “ Les Dentes de la Mer”?
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History for 10/10/2012

Birthdays: Martin Luther, Giuseppe Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, LaVerne Harding, Boer President Paul Kruger, Alberto Giacometti Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson the Little Mermaid, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 53, Sharon Osbourne is 58

1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna.

1492-According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost broke out into open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back.

1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice and encouraging moderation to all.

The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested.

1770- At Mission San Gabriel in Old California a Spanish soldier killed a Chumash Indian chief who sought revenge for the rape of his wife. An uprising is put down and the Church responds with a period of forced baptisms.

1794 Battle of Mazowzse -Gen.Thaddeus Kosciuszko's attempt to bring what he learned from the American Revolution home to Poland, doesn't work against the Russians.

1842- King Frederich Wilhelm IV issued a new style of headgear to the Prussian Army, a pressed leather and metal helmet with a distinctive spike on top. The spiked helmet became famous and was called the Pickelhaube, or Pickle Sticker. It lasted until World War One in 1918.

1845- The US Naval Academy at Annapolis opened.

1846- Neptune’s moon Triton discovered by William Lassell.

1886- The first Tuxedo jacket worn at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales. Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off.

1911- Ten-Ten National Day- Chinese demanding a republic seize the city of Wuhan and begin to march to Beijing. Their leader Dr. Sun Yat Sen was at this time in Denver soliciting funds for their cause. The Wuhan Uprising is the beginning of the final overthrow of the Manchu Emperors. One of the revolutionaries first recruits was a young Hunan man named Mao Tse Tung,.

1953- "Winky Dink and You" show. Children were invited to place a piece of celluloid acetate on their t.v. screens from a kit and help Winky Dink through numerous adventures by drawing on their t.v. screens. Of course many kids didn’t wait for the acetate but just drew on their family TVs with indelible markers. The birth of Interactive T.V. -?

1957- RKO Studios, who produced King Kong, The John Ford Westerns and the Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals, was sold to Desilu- the television production company of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnez.

1957- President Eisenhower had to apologize to Komla Gbdemah, a diplomat from Ghana, after he was refused service at a segregated restaurant in Dover, Delaware.

1962- The BBC banned on air play of a novelty record The Monster Mash, by Bobby Picket. For some reason they considered it offensive.

1968- Jane Fonda does her zero-gravity striptease and runs into a kinky organist, the film Barbarella premiered.

1971- The reconstructed London Bridge dedicated at Lake Havasu City Arizona. Moving London Bridge from the Thames to the American Southwest was the brainchild of Kirk McCullough, the chainsaw tycoon. After winning the auction of the bridge as he flew home he filled out the little customs declaration card- "Amount of goods you are bringing into the country, not to exeed $400. McCullough wrote-" One Bridge. $2,500,000.00. Antique, therefore – TARIFF EXEMPT."

1973- Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned. He was under indictment for accepting bribes and pleaded no contest to one count of income tax evasion. Until Nixon picked House Minority leader Gerald Ford for veep there was a lively discussion over who would be president if Nixon fell. The House Speaker (3rd in line) was also facing charges. Lots of jokes about the under secretary of game and fisheries, etc. Lyndon Johnson had said of Jerry Ford: "Jerry's a good senator, but sometimes I think he played too much football with his helmet off."

1979-The Panama Canal Zone returned to Panamanian sovereignty.

1980- Actor William 'Billy" Thomas, also known in the Our Gang kiddie comedies as Buckwheat, died at 49. His last words weren't "O' Taayy !"

1985- Orson Welles and Yul Brynner die one hour apart. They were both 70. Welles had just finished taping yet another appearance on the Merv Griffin Show. Brynner had a furious smoking habit, supposedly leaving one lit cigarette in every room of his house as he paced around thinking. When he knew he was dying of the stuff, he recorded several television spots to be aired after his death. He looked squarely at camera and said: " I smoked. -Don't."

2002- Intimidated into believing Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons, the U.S. Congress voted to grant overwhelming war-making powers to President George W. Bush. The unprovoked U.S. invasion of Iraq began the following March.
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Yesterday’s Question: What hit American movie was released in France, entitled “ Les Dentes de la Mer”?

Answer: Jaws.

Question: What hit American movie was released in France, entitled “ Les Dentes de la Mer”?

Quiz: Quiz: Who was Thomas a’ Kempis?
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History for 10/9/2012
Birthdays: Camille Saint Saens, E. Howard Hunt, Jacques Tati, Alastair Sim, Bruce Catton, Joe Pepitone, cartoonist Mike Peters, Savannah, John Lennon, his son Sean Lennon, E. Howard Hunt, Scott Bakula, Tony Shalloub, Peter Tosh, Charles Rudolph Walgren-the inventor of the modern Drugstore, Guillermo Del Toro is 47, Tony Schaloub is 59, Pete Doctor is 44.

In 270 a.d. Saint Denis and several followers were sent to preach in Lutetia (home of a Gaulish tribe called the Parisi ). The local Roman authorities had them rounded up and beheaded on a small hill north of town. The hill is today called the Hill of Martyrs, or Montmartre. The legend goes Saint Denis was so indignant at this lack of hospitality of having one's head cut off, that he picked up his head and walked out of town. Where he reached the city limits he dropped down lifeless. This is where basilica designed by the Abbey Suger in 1122 today stands.

1000AD- VIKINGS DISCOVER AMERICA. Viking Leif Ericsson lands his dragonships in Labrador, Canada. He calls it Vinland. There are several theories why: one was because of an abundance of grapevines he discovered. Another is that the old Norse crossed with Latin Vinland could also be described as Land of Pastures. The Vikings settled a colony in America but it didn't take and was withdrawn for unknown reasons, maybe the mini-Ice Age temperatures that made it tough even for Scandinavians. The second expedition under Thorfinn Karlsefni called the Indians they met Skraelings, and claimed they met a race of one legged men.

1192- Richard the Lionheart left the Holyland. End of the Third Crusade. He planned to return in 1196 and take Jerusalem but never did.

1609- Invalid Captain John Smith is put on a ship back to England. Smith had earlier gotten stung by a stingray and almost died. This time a powder horn exploded on his hip and blew out part of his side. While Smith was leader of the Jamestown Colony he had many enemies among the jealous gentry and some don't think he had an accident. Opinions also differ as to why the Jamestown settlers put Smith through a two month Atlantic crossing that could kill even healthy men. Some say they were hoping he wouldn't make it. He survived but never returned to Jamestown. Nobody told Pocahontas he had left and when she visited camp the men told her he was dead and forget about him. She would meet him ten years later in England when she was a wife and mother of the children of settler John Rolfe.

1635- Pilgrim Roger Williams was banished from the Massachusetts colony for saying the government should not be involved in determining someone’s religion.

1701- Yale University chartered.

1744- Peace of Kleinschellendorf- Frederick II the Great makes peace with Maria Theresa of Austria ending Prussian participation in the War of Austrian Succession.

1779- THE LUDDITE RIOTS- A movement of English peasants and tradesmen started by a man named Ned Lud who felt that all this newfangled machinery was going to cost them their jobs. The Luddites roamed the countryside smashing any looms, pistons, flywheels or other such devices they encountered. A similar movement in France. French peasants would remove their wooden clogs, called sabots, and throw them into a machine's gears to jam them, and coined the term Saboteurs.

1780- The islands of St Lucy and Barbados are hit with the worst hurricane in memory. Jamaica got hit with a tidal wave. 400 die and most of the structures destroyed.

1781- George Washington and the Comte du Rochambeau commenced the bombardment of English positions opening the Battle of Yorktown. Not much credit is given that although Rochambeau considered himself the more experienced tactician he diplomatically deferred to Washington as the commander of the allied army. Privately Rocheambeau didn’t think the American rebels had much of a chance, still, when the Yankee payrolls dried up he paid the US troops out of is own fortune. Hmph, so what have the French ever done for us, eh?

1809- The first Royal Jubilee celebrated in England. The monarchy had taken a number of hits lately. King George III was a blind, insane shut in and the Prince and Princess of Wales couldn't stand each other and were sleeping around. So an old widow named Mrs Biggs came up with the idea of a celebration of King George's 50th anniversary of his reign as a way to boost morale. It worked and it's been a custom ever since.

1855- James Stoddard patents the steam calliope.

1888- The Washington Monument finally opened to the public. Construction on it was begun in 1840 and discontinued for a decade during the Civil War. Work was also held up when Protestant workmen refused to use marble blocks donated by Pope Pius IX.

1905- The World Series resumes after a one year haggle between the owners of the American and National leagues. A best of seven contest between the N.Y. Giants and the Philadelphia Athletics. It would continue undisturbed until 1994 with the players strike.

1938 Eugene O'Neill's play 'The Iceman Cometh' opened.

1951- RKO Pictures asked Marilyn Monroe to please wear panties while working, She was distracting the film crew.

1963- Uganda became a republic from a British Colony.

1983- Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt forced to resign. Watt was a former oil industry lawyer who galvanized popular anger over his views on ecology, such as what's wrong with a few MacDonalds hamburger stands at the base of the Grand Canyon? Yet he refused to allow the Beach Boys to perform at a public 4th of July concert in DC because he felt they attracted: ”An unsavory element”. The thing that did Watt in was a comment he made about a government panel he had just convened. Quote Mr Watt:” We have all bases covered. We have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple!”

1986- The Fox Network's first program-the Joan River's Show, premiered. That show didn't last, but future hits like The Simpson's, Married With Children and the X-Files made Fox a major network in ten years.

1989- First edition of Penthouse Magazine in Hebrew. Oy Vey!

2009- President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was Thomas a’ Kempis?

Answer: Kempis in 1380 wrote a very popular book of religious theology entitled An Imitation of Christ.