Quiz: There always seems to be a lot of things named Linden: Linden Blvd, Unter Den Linden, Lindenhof Palace, Who or what was Linden?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Leon Trotsky was assassinated with a a) gun, b) poison, c) timebomb, d) mountainclimbers axe, e) bazooka.
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History for 8/20/2012
Birthdays: President Benjamin Harrison, Sukenoba Nishikawa, Bernardo O’Higgins, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, H.P. Lovecraft, Art Tatum, Issac Hayes, Connie Chung, Jacqueline Susanne, Rajiv Ghandi, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin- who co-wrote Stairway to Heaven, Joan Allen is 56, Fred Durst, Alan Reed -the original voice of Fred Flintstone, Slobodan Milosovic’, Amy Adams is 38

Feast day of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

480 B.C. -THE THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS- When Persian King Xerxes invaded Greece the King of Sparta Leonidas decided the best place to try and stop him was in the narrow pass of Thermopylae. But the Spartan senate and other allied Greek states refused to send troops until they completed the Olympic religious festival. It was forbidden for Greeks to wage war during the Games. So Leonidas went with the 300 Spartans of his bodyguard, and a thousand more allied troops, to try and stall ten times their number. After repulsing several attacks a traitor showed Xerxes a goat path around the Spartan position. Leonidas could still have retreated but he, his three hundred and some other Greek allies decided to stand and fight to the last man. They were wiped out, but they bought enough time for the Greeks eventual victory.

Later a monument was erected over their bones: O xein angellin Lakdaimoniois hoti tede keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi- which means "Go Tell the Spartans, stranger passing by, that True to their Command, Here We Lie."

636 A.D. Battle of Yarmuk- The armies of Islam led by Caliph Omar defeat the Byzantine Greeks and captured Palestine and Jerusalem. The Caliph Omar received the defeated and captured Byzantine Emperor Romanus Diogenes with a cup of fruit flavored ice called Sherbat or sorbet. Omar was a very devout Moslem and spurned the vanity of a white charger, preferring to travel by donkey, as the Prophet Mohammed had done. The custom was for high born prisoners like an emperor to be ransomed back. But the Byzantine court was so annoyed, they refused to pay for big loser Romanus.

1191- At Acre, Richard Lionheart had his crusaders slaughter 3,000 Arabs and their families in front of Saladin to piss him off. Also to see if they had swallowed their gold. In olden days when you were captured it was wise to swallow your gold. Gold never tarnishes and err... well...lets just say, you'll get it back three days later.

1619- A Dutch ship anchors at the English colony at Jamestown Virginia and landed the first African slaves. Twenty people. By the American Revolution three million African people had been forcibly brought to America to serve as slaves. There was white slavery as well in the form of indentured servitude, but that had mostly died out by the formation of the American Republic.

1648- Battle of Lens, the last battle of the Thirty Years War. Archduke Leopold defeated somebody or other. The Thirty Years war went on so long that all those who started the war in 1618 had died and by 1648 nobody remembered how the whole damn mess got started in the first place.

1672- Jan DeWitt had governed the Netherlands as Grand Pensioner of the Republic for four terms but by now the Dutch hated him and his weak handling of a French invasion. They wanted the more resolute leadership of young William III of Orange. Jan deWitt resigned his offices and when his brother Cornelius was imprisoned Jan went to his aid. A mob broke into the jail and as unsympathetic guards looked on they beat Jan and Cornelius to death and hung their bodies from a lamp post. The Dutch Republic ended and William became their Prince.

1741-VITUS BERRING DISCOVERED ALASKA and helps colonize California. Well, he didn't actually help but for 200 years Spain had ignored it's Southwest colonies because there were no gold sodden Inca empires there. But when Berring opened the Pacific coast to Russian colonization the King of Spain freaked and ordered towns and missions built up the California coast. Britain also rushed it's claims to Washington State and British Columbia. This is why Juan DeCabrillo explored the California coast in 1542 but cities like L.A. and San Francisco weren't founded until 1770's.

Berring was a reluctant explorer. The Dane had heard Tsar Peter the Great was giving cushy salaries to skilled European sailors. But when Berring arrived in Russia the Tsar ordered him to travel 3700 miles to Siberia, build a fleet and explore the arctic because the Tsar had always wondered if America and Russia are connected. He went off and fooled around in the Arctic Sea for awhile then went back and said it wasn't. The Tsars scientists said that wasn't good enough, go back and do it again! Finally he discovered his Berring straights but died of scurvy in the Aleutians before he ever saw any money.

1794- Napoleon Bonaparte was released from prison at Caps d’Antibe. He was arrested with the leading Jacobins when Robespierre was overthrown. Nappy was friends with Robespierre’s brother.

1862-SECOND BATTLE OF BULL RUN or MANASSAS. Robert E. Lee maneuvered the larger Union army of General George Pope back onto the old Bull Run battlefield and smashed it, sending thousands of bluecoats running back to Washington, -again. Pope considered himself a man of action and bragged "From now on my headquarters are in the saddle !" To which one wag wrote :"It's not the first time that a general had his Headquarters where his Hindquarters should be !' Confederate General James Longstreet was nursing a foot wound so he directed the decisive attack wearing bedroom slippers instead of boots.

After three spectacular Yankee defeats in just two months, the Confederate cause was looking pretty good. In London Prime Minister Palmerston wrote Lord Liverpool the foreign secretary that Washington or Baltimore would soon fall into rebel hands and a special steamboat was kept waiting at the navy docks to rush President Lincoln and his cabinet to safety should the capitol fall. The time may have arrived for England to offer her mediation to negotiate a ceasefire. Emperor Napoleon III of France was also offering Paris as the site of an international peace conference to oversee the final separation of North and South.

1866- One year after the Civil War ended President Andrew Johnson declared the great insurrection officially over and rescinded all remaining wartime regulations and edicts, reinstating Habeas Corpus, etc.

1882 -Peter Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture" premiered in Moscow. The composer said of all his works the two pieces he liked the least were the 1812 Overture and the Nutcracker Suite. Overture 1812 was Richard Nixon’s favorite classical piece.

1896 – The Dial telephone patented. It was nicknamed the Gravediggers Dial because it was invented by funeral director Almon Strowger. It was the world standard until replaced by the touchtone button system in the 1980s. Even though the dial phone is a memory the words remain when we speak of "dialing up a number" or "dialing up someone’s website."

1913- The first successful parachute jump. French balloonists experimented with parachutes in the 1790's but this is the first practical one.

1940- In Mexico City exiled Russian leader Leon Trotsky was assassinated. While writing at his desk he hacked in the neck with a mountainclimbers pick. His murderer Ramon Mercador- alias Jules Antoine, alias Jackson, was paid by Stalin's agents. He got into Trotsky's household by dating one of the maids. It was rumored that part of the Stalinist cell in Mexico was famed painter David Siquieros. Trotsky was having an affair with famed painter Frida Kahlo. Leon Trotsky predicted Stalin would try to get him while the world's attention was distracted by the Hitler War. When Mercador was released from a Mexican prison Stalin presented him with the Order of Lenin.

1940- In a radio speech Winston Churchill praised the efforts of the Royal Air Force in fighting Hitler's bombers-"Never have so Many, owed so Much, to so Few.'

1953- The Kinsey Report on Sexual Behavior in Women first published. Alfred & Clara Kinsey’s study proved to the conservative American public that 50% of women had premarital sex, liked sex for more than just procreation and 25% had an extramarital affair. This document following his 1948 report on sexual behavior of men revolutionized social attitudes towards sex and feminism.

1954- President Eisenhowers intelligence chief Allan Foster Dulles presented a paper on Far East Policy in which he urged that the US support be given to the post colonial government of South Vietnam in opposition to communist Ho Chi Minh.

1971- THE ENEMIES LIST. FBI documents prove this day the Nixon White House began to covertly investigate journalist Daniel Schorr because of his anti-war editorials. President Richard Nixon kept an enemies list of people he imagined to be opponents to his administration. It began with obvious liberals like George McGovern and Ted Kennedy, then expanded as far as June Foray the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

1972- Star Hollywood directors Francis Ford Coppola, Peter Bogdanovich and William Freidkin announced a partnership in a new production company called "The Director's Company" Young punks Martin Scorcese, George Lucas and Steven Speilberg were also involved. The partnership lasted two years then collapsed.

1977- NASA launched the Voyager One probe towards the outer planets of our solar system. Among the things Voyager discovered was that Jupiter had many more moons than previously thought and had a ring like Saturn. Part of NASA's program was an explanatory simulation film done totally on computer by Jim Blinn. The animation was so smooth and the graphics so breathtaking it expanded the use of the CGI medium and inspired a new generation of digital artists.

1982- Ralph Bakshi's film Hey Good Lookin'.

1982- President Reagan sent the Marines into civil war torn Beirut Lebanon.

1985- Israel shipped 96 American-made TOW shoulder held missiles to the Ayatollahs in Iran. This was part of the Iran-Contra scheme. When Congress had forbidden the Ronald Reagan White House to send them any money to Anti-Communist rebels in Nicaragua, Reagan’s West Wing cooked up this scheme to trade arms for secret funds. Irans’ cash payment for the missiles went to the Nicaraguan Contra-Rebels.

1989- George and Joy Adamson, the naturalists who inspired the book Born Free, were murdered by Somali poachers with machetes in Kampi Ya Simba, Africa.

1998- THE WAG THE DOG ATTACKS- After the Al Qaeda terrorist organization bombed US embassies in Africa the Bill Clinton administration looked for an opportunity to hit back. This day the CIA got word that senior Al Qaeda leaders including Osama Ben Laden were gathering in a remote Afghan camp for a meeting. President Clinton ordered a spread of cruise missiles launched to kill them. The missiles hit their target, but Ben Laden got away.

In Washington the hostile Neo-Con media had a field day accusing the Clinton of making the strikes only to distract public attention from the Monica Lewinsky Sex Scandal. It alluded to a popular movie out at the time called Wag the Dog, where a scandal ridden president rigs a fake crisis to distract attention. Bill Clinton was stymied in any further efforts, and Osama Ben Laden lived on to plan 9-11.

1999- Planet Hollywood, the theme restaurant started by movie stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Demi Moore filed for bankruptcy.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Leon Trotsky was assassinated with a a) gun, b) poison, c) timebomb, d) mountainclimbers axe, e) bazooka.

Answer: d) Mountainclimbers axe, see above, 1940.

Quiz: Leon Trotsky was assassinated with a a) gun, b) poison, c) timebomb, d) mountainclimbers axe, e) bazooka.

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What is the origin of calling someone a Loose Cannon? What is a Loose Cannon?
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History for 8/19/2012
B-Days: Orville Wright, Ring Lardner, Ogden Nash, Alfred Lunt, George Enesco, jockey Willie Shoemaker, Malcom Forbes, Tipper Gore, Gene Roddenberry, Colleen Moore the It Girl, Jill St. John, Ginger Baker of Grand Funk Railroad, Dawn Steel, John Stamos, Peter Gallagher is 57, Kyra Sedgwick is 47, Matthew Perry is 43, former President Bill Clinton is 66

480 B.C. THERMOPYLAE- The Spartan King Leonidas had gone on ahead of other Greek allies to try and slow down the gigantic Persian invasion force of Xerxes. He chose to stop them at a narrow mountain pass in Thessaly called Thermopylae or Hot Gates. He had only 300 Spartans of his royal guard and 7000 other Greek allies to fight off 200,000 Persians.

After repulsing several attacks, this night spies told Leonidas a Greek traitor named Ephialtes had shown Xerxes a way behind his position. If he did not retreat he would be surrounded. Their seer Meistias saw in the sacrificial entrails nothing but death.
But Leonidas decided the best way to gain time, and create an example for Greece to rally, was to stay and fight to the last man. He allowed his allies to withdraw, but 1500 warriors including his 300 Spartans stayed with him. Meistias sent away his only son to be saved, but he stayed to fight.

This night before the last battle the Spartans spent most of their time combing and oiling their hair and beards, for they did not want to enter the next world looking shabby. One Spartan warrior named Dieneces, was told when the Persian multitudes fire their arrows they black out the sun. Dieneces replied: “Good, then we can fight them in the shade.”

14 A.D.- Elderly Emperor Augustus died after ruling the Roman Empire for 44 years. The Empress Livia had ordered the imperial villa surrounded with troops so no one but her saw his end. She said his last words were:" Have I played my part well in this great comedy called life?" But the historian Tacitus suspected Livia might have aided his shuffling off this mortal coil before he had second thoughts about leaving the empire to her son Tiberius, He may have said something more like: " Honey, I don't feel so good. What did you put in these figs?"

1274- King Edward Ist Longshanks and his Queen Eleanor of Castile crowned at Westminster Abbey. Edward was called Long-Legs because he was over 6 foot, and his constant wars and blood conquest earned him nicknames like The Hammer of the Scots, the Great Plantagenet, and Big Baddass In-Your-Face Mofo King.

1399 - King Richard II of England surrendered his throne to his cousin Henry Bollingbroke, who became King Henry IV. Richard II is not remembered for much else but inventing the pocket-handkerchief.

1561 - Mary Queen of Scots arrives in Leith Scotland to assume her throne after spending 13 years in France. She was raised at the extremely Catholic court of Queen Catherine de Medici and had little in common with her increasingly Presbyterian Scots subjects.

1599- Spanish conquistadors capture Acoma pueblo in New Mexico, east of modern Albuquerque. The Indian village on the sheer tabletop mountain reminded the Spaniards of attacking castles back in Europe. After their victory they enslaved the population and burned the Indian chief at the stake as a heretic. As the chief was roasting the monk Diego Las Casas started to feel guilty, so he urged the chief at his last moments to accept baptism. The chief called out through the flames:" No thank you, because then I would go to the Christian Heaven and meet even MORE of you people!"

1692- Salem Mass, The pilgrims executed four women as witches. One was an elderly senile woman who just looked scary like a witch and another was a Caribbean servant named Tituba who liked to tell children ghost stories.

1745- THE GATHERING OF THE CLANS- At Glenfinnin in the Scottish Highlands, to the thunder of drums and the skirl of massed bagpipes, Bonnie Prince Charlie raised his banner of revolt and called all Scottish clans to rally to him. Many clans stayed aloof but Clan MacDonald and Cameron wholeheartedly swelled his ranks, as did his family clan the Stuarts. His men were paid in oatmeal.

1781- George Washington started his Continental army marching from Yonkers, New York to attack Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown Virginia. At Dobbs Ferry he started ferrying his troops across the Great Northern River as the Hudson was known then. He was amazed that the British army only twenty miles away in New York City never stirred to attack him. Washington’s minutemen at this time were so broke that the French General the Comte du Rocheambeau donated some of his own money to pay them some wages.

1787 – British astronomer W. Herschel discovers Enceladus, a moon of Saturn. Herschel also discovered Uranus and other celestial bodies.

1812-OLD IRONSIDES- During the war of 1812 The USS Constitution pounded it out with the frigate HMS Guerriere off the coast of Nova Scotia. The British captain complained his cannonballs bounced harmlessly off the Constitutions heavy New Hampshire oak hull as though it was made of iron. The nickname stuck and today Old Ironsides is the oldest commissioned ship in the US Navy. In 2012, the same Constitution was taken out for a spin around Boston Harbor.

1814-THE ASSAULT ON WASHINGTON BEGAN. A huge British battle fleet of 14 Ships of the Line landed an invasion force of veteran redcoat troops at the town of Benedict on the Pautuxent River in Virginia. Admiral Cockburn’s intent was to march on Washington D.C., and “give the Americans a Good Drubbing!”

The defenses of the American capitol were some militia and a few Marines from the two armed schooners hiding in the shallows of the Cheasapeake. U.S. Secretary of War Armstrong was convinced they were faking, and the real target of the British was Baltimore. President James Madison sent contradicting orders to Armstrong and the field generals. Secretary of State James Monroe personally galloped about alone under British fire bringing the only reliable scouting reports.

1848- The New York Herald published a story that President Polk confirmed that gold had indeed been discovered in California.

1886- Joseph Conrad got his British citizenship. The author of Nostromo, Heart of Darkness, and Lord Jim was born in Poland as Jozef Konrad Korzenieowski, but he went into exile when his patriot father was arrested by the Czars police and sent to Siberia.

1891 - William Huggins described the astronomical application of the spectrum.

1909- The Brickyard is born. The first Indianapolis 500 autorace.

1929 the Amos and Andy show premiered on de radio.

1942- The Dieppe Raid- Allied commanders were under pressure from Stalin to prove that they were doing something to open a second front in the west to take the pressure off Russia. So they sent a Canadian division in what amounted to the largest commando operation of World War Two. These Canadians had to attack a large U-Boat base on the channel and ram a destroyer full of explosives into the dry docks. The Germans were waiting and it became a suicide mission. The Canadians suffered almost 60% casualties.

1945- Four days after the Japanese surrender, Ho Chi Minh seized power in French Indochina and declared the Republic of Vietnam. Uncle Ho had been supported by the CIA’s forerunner the OSS in his struggle against the Japanese. This day Ho ordered a reading aloud of his declaration heavily borrowed from the U.S. Declaration of Independence. Even though FDR's personal representative Avriel Harriman advised that the U.S. recognize Ho's government, we decided to support the French and British in trying to keep their colonial empires. The British fly in French paratroops and the stage is set for the Vietnam wars of the next 30 years.

1953- Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh was overthrown and the Shah assumed absolute power. All with the blessing and cooperation of the American CIA. The popular Mossadegh was trying to steer Iran into a nonaligned status between the cold war superpowers and had nationalized the Iranian oil industry. So to Washington he was a threat. Eisenhower advisor Allen Foster Dulles considered Mossadegh a dangerous lunatic for not wanting American support. The Shah Reza Pahlevi II ruled for the next 25 years until overthrown by the Moslem fundamentalists under the Ayatollah Khomeni.

1953- The Israeli Knesset voted to create a huge memorial to Jews killed in the Holocaust called Yad Vashem.

1955 - WINS radio, announces it will not play "copy" white cover versions of black R&B . DJs must play Fats Domino's "Ain't It A Shame," not Pat Boone's. In 1957 Little Richards “Tuttie-Fruitie” never got higher than 17th in the Billboard Charts while Pat Boones version, by his own admission awful, went to number one.

1957- The NY Giants baseball team voted to move to San Francisco.

1960- The Russians launched a Sputnik capsule into space with two dogs- Belka and Strelka, 2 rats and 40 mice. They recovered this orbiting zoo the next day. The first sending of life into space and returning them safely.

1973 - Kris Kristofferson wed Rita Coolidge.

1977- Groucho Marx, the last surviving Marx Brother, died at age 86. In his final years Groucho had rewrote his will in favor of his young personal secretary Erin Fleming. This spawned a furious legal battle between Fleming and the Marx family.

1988- The Iran-Iraq war ended after 8 bloody years.

1989- The Polish Communist regime resigned and turned over power to the Solidarity trade union movement. Poland is the first Warsaw Pact government to collapse.

1991-THE AUGUST COUP. Communist hardliners in a final attempt to stop the fall of the Soviet Union, try to overthrow leader Mikhail Gorbachov. They try to do it the way they did it to Nikita Khruschev in 1964, arresting Gorbachov while he was at his vacation dacha or cottage. The coup failed several days later when Russian Republic President Boris Yeltsin climbed on top of a tank and called for a "people-power" style rising to support the democratic elements of the government.

2000- Scientists report water at the North Pole for the first time in 50 million years.

2335 – According to Star Trek the Next Generation, this is the birthday of William T Riker, in Valdez Alaska, first officer of the Enterprise.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What is the origin of calling someone a Loose Cannon? What is a Loose Cannon?

Answer: In the days of the wooden fighting ships, if a cannon came loose from
it's moorings on the firing line, especially during a battle, it could
roll all over a heaving deck, causing injury to the ship and crew. A
"loose cannon" has come to mean a person who cannot control their
volatile personality. ( Thanks Mr.G)

Quiz: What is the origin of calling someone a Loose Cannon? What is a Loose Cannon?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Italian and Spanish are Latin rooted languages, Dutch and German are Germanic rooted, Polish and Russian are Slavic. What family root is Basque?
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HISTORY FOR 8/18/2012
Birthdays: Meriwether Lewis ,Austrian Emperor Franz Josef II, Leo Slezak Shelly Winters, Roberto Clemente, Rafer Johnson, Enoch Light, Coco Channel, Roman Polanski is 79, Patrick Swayze, Madeleine Stowe, Christian Slater, Edward Norton is 42, Martin Mull, Denis Leary is 55, Robert Redford, born Charles Robert Redford Jr, is 76

325-a.d. Today is the Feast of Saint Helena. A Roman innkeeper's daughter in Eboracum- modern York England. There she happened to catch the roving eye of General Constantius Chlorus. They married and their son Constantine later made himself Caesar and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman World. It's debatable exactly when she was baptized, but she undoubtedly had a great influence on her son's decision. She was also instrumental in researching and defining the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. She started the Christian fascination with holy relics.

1503-Pope Alexander VI the Borgia died. Some say he died of malaria, others that he poisoned himself accidentally, while trying to poison someone else. The Borgia's enemies then take over the Vatican drive out Caesar & Lucretzia Borgia. The Pope had seven children and at the time was sleeping with 16 year old Giulia Farnese whom he had painted as the Virgin Mary. People said the Alexander had sold his soul to the devil, because at his death an ape appeared on his windowsill and water boiled in his mouth. Hmmm- proof enough for me. His 300 lb. corpse was so swollen with corruption that it had to be pounded into a coffin with big wood wine-corking mallets.

1573- In a vain attempt to cement a peace between French Catholics and Protestants, old Queen Mother Catherine De Medici married her youngest daughter Margot to the Protestant Prince Henry of Navarre. Paris filled with Protestants and Catholics for the wedding. Street fighting and massacre broke out soon after. Henry survived and eventually became King Henry IV. Surprisingly, although Margot was dazzlingly beautiful and Henry was one of the horniest princes in Christendom, they weren’t attracted to one another. They kept separate courts and lovers, stayed friends and divorced amicably in 1605.

1587- Virginia Dare, the first English child in America, is born. She was in the Roanoke Colony, the fabled "Lost Colony" who all disappeared a year later.

1840 - Organization of American Society of Dental Surgeons founded (NY).

1850- Honore' Balzac died after drinking too much coffee. He was overweight, seldom bathed and picked his nose in public, but women still found him irresistible.

1856- Mr. Gale Borden patented condensed milk. It became popular during the Civil War when it was used by the army, then it spawned the process food industry. When Borden died he left instructions that his tombstone be shaped like a milk can.

1862- THE GREAT SANTEE SIOUX UPRISING- Minnesota Sioux tribes called Dakota-Allies, had agreed to sell their land and settle on reservations and learn farming. Once removed from their land they starved waiting for food and money held up by government agents corruption. When Chief Little Crow -Taoyateduta demanded food he knew was being stockpiled in warehouses Indian Agent Andrew J. Myrick responded “Let your people eat grass!” This day the Sioux exploded across the prairie from New Ulm to Fort Snelling (Minneapolis)- 200 whites were killed, including Indian Agent Myrick, who was found with a tuft of grass stuffed in his mouth.

1872 - 1st mail-order catalog issued by A M Ward.

1896- 200 outlaws gather at Hole-In-The-Wall to form the "Wild Bunch".
They never went all at the same time to a heist, it was more like a gunfighters guild.

1919- Tennessee becomes the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote. The legislature was deadlocked but the tie was broken by one state senator who changed his mind. He wanted to please his mother.

1937- The Toyota Automobile Company was established as an offshoot of the Toyoda Motorized Loom Works. They changed the name Toyoda to Toyota because a Shinto priest told them the name would be luckier.

1939- The movie the Wizard of Oz released and made a star of Judy Garland. Frank Morgan, the actor playing the Wizard, needed to wear a shabby old coat so a studio costume designer went through some L.A. thrift stores until she found the good candidate. When Morgan looked in the lining he discovered the coat was previously owned by L.Frank Baum, writer of the Oz stories. Morgan was first president of the Screen Actor's Guild, but stepped down when he was considered 'too left'y to work with the Roosevelt administration. Lyricist Yip Harburg ( Somewhere over the Rainbow ) was later blacklisted as a communist. "And yer little dog ,too!!"

1947- Hewlett-Packard file papers to incorporate their electronics company. They began doing business in 1937.

1950- Battle of the Bowling Alley- The US and South Korean Armies pushed up against the Pusan Perimeter score their first victory against North Korean regulars. It got it’s name because the North Korean tanks bottled up into narrow defiles by the land made excellent targets for waiting anti-tank artillery, bazooka and aircraft. Eyewitnesses said it looked like a “Bowling Alley in Hell.”

1953- The first MacDonalds franchise restaurant opened in Downey California.

1956- Actress Vivien Leigh suffered a mental breakdown after a miscarriage.

1958 - "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov, published. The novel was rejected by four publishers before Putnams picked it up. It became a best seller and allowed Nabokov to quit teaching and focus on writing.

1958 – The TV Game Show Scandal investigation starts. Allegations that popular quiz shows like 21 were rigged turned out to be true.

1962 - Peter, Paul & Mary release their famous folk song "If I Had a Hammer".

1966- HAPPY BIRTHDAY SLURPEE! The Ice Slurpee was invented by two Dallas engineers for a failing Oklahoma ice cream store.

1974- The Xerox Company decided not to seriously market the Alto, the first personal computer that had a graphic window interface, ethernet and mouse, long before anyone else. Xerox decided to stick with copying machines and let go of many of their Palo Alto development team Xerox PARC. Most of their breakthroughs wound up in other computers like the Macintosh and the IBM PC.

1977- The rock band the Police make their debut in a Birmingham nightclub. The lead singer Gordon Sumner started to get the nickname Sting, from the black & yellow striped shirt he habitually wore.

1986 - John Tesh's first appearance on Entertainment Tonight.

1989- Publishing Tycoon Malcolm Forbes flies 800 guests to Tangiers to celebrate his birthday. His birthday party cost $2 million. The soiree' comes to symbolize 1980's wealthy excess.

1999- TV psychic Kriswell predicted TODAY would be the End of the World.
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Yesterday’s Question: Italian and Spanish are Latin rooted languages, Dutch and German are Germanic rooted, Polish and Russian are Slavic. What family root is Basque?

Answer: Nobody is sure where the Basques came from. They have been in the Pyrenees since Hannibal passed by. Basque is one of the only languages that can't be traced to the Indo European Family of Languages. So one theory is that they are the remnants of the people who were in Europe pre-Ice Age, when the Indo Europeans migrated in from Northern India. The name Basque comes from Vascos in Spanish. They call themselves euskotarrak.

Quiz: Italian and Spanish are Latin rooted languages, Dutch and German are Germanic rooted, Polish and Russian are Slavic. What family root is Basque?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: If you were declared a Hetman, what kind of people would you be in charge of?
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History for 8/17/2012
Birthdays: Davy Crocket, Mae West, Marcus Garvey, Sam Goldwyn- original name Schmuel Gelbfisz, Harry Hopkins, Monte Wooley, Maureen O’Hara is 92, Boog Powell, Belinda Carlisle, Guillermo Vilas, V.S. Naipul, Jim Courier, Donnie Wahlberg, Sean Penn is 53, Martha Coolidge is 67, Robert DeNiro is 69

1661- THE PARTY. Armand Fouquet, the first minister of Louis XIV (the Sun King), had his coat of arms read "To what heights may I aspire?" He decided to throw the ultimate party for his royal master. Fouquet's chateau Vaux le Vicomte was so lavish, the dinner for 6000 guests so exquisite, the gardens so beautiful and the entertainment was provided by the playwright Moliere. Everything was so all around superior, that the King had Fouquet thrown in the Bastille. It seems King Louis didn't like being upstaged by his servants. Louis wanted him arrested on the spot, but his mother didn’t want to spoil such a nice party. So he waited two weeks, then sent his chief of musketeers, D’Artangnan, to lock him up, The king's new minister Colbert was much more discreet in his entertaining.

1676- In Massachusetts, the conflict ended between the Pilgrims and local Indians called King Phillip’s War. This day Pilgrims placed the severed head of Wampanoag Chief Metacomet, or King Phillip, on a pole in front of the Plymouth settlement. Metacomet’s father Massacoit was the one who saved the Pilgrims from starving, and celebrated the first Thanksgiving.

1806- After two years trekking across the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean and back, Lewis and Clark finally returned to their starting point at the mouth of the Missouri. This day they paid off and said goodbye to guide Jean Charbonnau and his wife Sacajewea. That same day Private John Colter asked to be released from service, because he desired to go back and explore some more. So while Lewis and Clark continued east to Washington, John Colter went back into the Rockie Mountains to become the first American “Mountain Man”. Colter would discoverer Yellowstone Park. Captain Clark’s black slave York asked for equal wages as the other men because he shared all their labor and dangers. Captain Clark told him to shut up, else he’d sell him.

1870-Battle of Gravellotte-St.Privat- The French and Prussians battle to a draw but the French Marshal Bazaine retreated anyway, to the amazement of the enemy.

1876- Richard Wagner’s 4 hour opera Gotterdamerung- the Twilight of the Gods, premiered.

1908- D.W. Griffith signed a contract to begin directing movies for Biograph Pictures. He was paid $50 dollars a week plus royalties.

1914- Battle of Tannenburg. The Russian steamroller was stopped by Gen.Paul von Hindenburg in East Prussia.. Hindenburg and his brilliant aide Ludendorf divided the Russian army into two pieces separated by a salt marsh and defeated each piece in turn. The fighting was so fierce that German gunners aimed their cannons by looking through the barrel and firing directly into the thick masses of Russian soldiers. After the battle Russian Gen. Samsonov walked off into the forest and shot himself.

1941- EL GRUPO- Walt Disney and his artists leave on a goodwill tour of South America, underwritten by a $70,000 government grant. President Franklin Roosevelt was worried that some South American countries might be sympathetic to the Nazis, forcing the U.S. to worry about her backdoor. So FDR sent Nelson Rockefeller to give the Latin American countries whatever they wanted to keep them out of the world war. Among other things they wanted Donald Duck. The name comes from hotel footmen in Buenos Aires paging the artists as El Grupo Disney! The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos result.

1942- Carlson’s Raiders attack Japanese held Makin Island. Before the war Marine Lt. Colonel Evan Carlson served as an observer of Mao zse Tung’s Chinese Communist army. He was impressed with General Chu Teh’s development of guerrilla tactics. Carlson became such a fan of their hit & run tactics, he was called “Commie-Carlson”.

1943- General Patton and his Seventh Army won the “Race to Messina” and completed the conquest of Sicily.

1945- This was supposed to be the scheduled date for the Japanese Navy to attack the Panama Canal. The Japanese had built a fleet of new I-400 class long-distance submarines that could carry 3-5 kamikaze bombers each. The crews had to surface and get their planes in the air in 17 minutes. They targeted a key lock in the canal, that once destroyed would paralyze the entire system. But when the Japanese home islands were under threat of invasion, the Imperial High Command canceled the plan.

1945- Upon hearing of the Japanese surrender, Sukarno declared the Independence of Indonesia from Holland.

1962- The Beatles replaced drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr.

1969- The closing day of the Woodstock Rock Concert, Three Days of Peace and Music. Jimmy Hendrix did his famous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

1984- The Walt Disney Company informed it’s chairman Ron Miller that they wanted his resignation. Disney had fallen to 14th in film box office by then. Miller had been Walt’s son-in-law and he was he was once a tight end for the LA Rams. Within two years of Michael Eisner taking power Disney was number one.

1985-The Hormel Meat Packing Strike, severely threatening the worlds supply of SPAM.

1986- John Lasseter’s award wining short Luxo Jr, premiered at Siggraph’86 Dallas.

1987-Nazi Rudolph Hess found hanged in his cell by an electric light cord. He was 93 years old and had been in prison for 46 years. His body was burned and his prison Spandau was leveled, to prevent it from being made a shrine by Neo-Nazis

1988- Mohammed Zia Al Haq, the president of Pakistan, died in a plane crash.

1992- Famed film director Woody Allen admits he is having an affair with Soon Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his long time lover Mia Farrow. He is 60 and she is 21. But as the unrepentant Allen states: “The Heart wants what it wants.” They’ve been married ever since.

1994 The Great Baseball Players Strike- canceled out the season and the 1994 World Series. It was the longest strike in sports history until the NBA lockout of 1998.

1998- President Bill Clinton admitted to a grand jury that he had an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. This is only the second time in history that a sitting President allowed himself to be put under oath. The precedent was set by Ronald Reagan testifying he “couldn’t recall” anything about Iran-Contra. But this session is when Clinton, aka Slick Willy, defended his infidelity with the amazing argument that oral sex was not intercourse in the truest sense, and therefore he did not lie when he said on nationwide television that he did not have sex with Ms. Lewinsky. Part of his legal wriggling was a dissertation on the meaning of the word “is”.

2009- Police arrest Albert Gonzales for hacking into credit card company computers and stealing 134 million credit card numbers! He was an informant for the FBI on credit card crime, and was playing a double agent, still committing crimes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Yesterday’s Quiz: If you were declared a Hetman, what kind of people would you be in charge of?

Answer : Cossacks. Some Cossack chiefs are also called Atamans.

Quiz: If you were declared a Hetman, what kind of people would you be in charge of?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: Which one was not a British-born composer? Ralph Vaughn Williams, Howard Shore, Gustav Holst, Henry Purcell, Sir Arthur Sullivan,
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History for 8/16/2012
Birthdays: Fess Parker, Karl Stockhausen, George Meany Charles Bukowski, Menachim Begin, Otto Mesmer the creator of Felix the Cat, Myron Grim Natwick the creator of Betty Boop, Hal Foster the creator of Prince Valiant, Alex Raymond the creator of Flash Gordon, Kathie Lee Gifford, Eydie Gorme, Bill Evans, Leslie Ann Warren, Angela Bassett, Julie Numar, Robert Culp, James Cameron is 57, Bruce Beresford, Steve Carrell is 49, Madonna aka Louise Ciccone of Bay City Michigan is 54

Today is the Feast of St. Roch, who had a heavenly inspired dog to lick his sores and cure him of the Black Plague.

1521- Guatamoc was the last fighting Aztec emperor. After Montezuma died he led Aztec resistance to Cortez and his Spanish conquistadors. After 80 days of brutal house to house fighting, he finally surrendered the capital Tenochtitlan. The Spaniards tortured Guatamoc for three days trying to get him to reveal where the secret treasure of Montezuma was. As they poured boiling oil on his feet he laughed:” Ah, am I standing on a field of rose petals?” Today they hanged him. He never revealed where the Aztec treasure was.

1777-Battle of Bennington- General of Volunteers John Stark defeated a large contingent of Hessians sent by Burgoyne to get help for his redcoats trapped at Saratoga. Stark inspired his men before the battle with words like these: “Men, yonder are the Hessians. They were bought for seven pounds ten pence a man. Are you worth more than that? Tonight the American flag will fly atop that hill or Molly Stark will sleep a widow!” The flag few atop the hill and Stark went home to his wife a hero.

1780- Battle of Camden, South Carolina- Colonial General Horatio Gates excelled at backroom politics almost more than at military accomplishments. He finagled the northern army command away from it's creator General Phillip Schuyler, then later took full credit for the great American victory of Saratoga even though the hard work was done by Benedict Arnold.

Yet he was considered a serious rival of George Washington for leadership of the American armies. But on this day his humiliating defeat at the hands of Lord Cornwallis extinguished his ambitions. Citing ill health, he withdrew from the army and ended his career.

1805- In the camp at Boulogne Napoleon held a grand military ceremony for his Grande Armee’. To the thundering beat of 1,300 massed drums he personally awarded medals to worthy common soldiers. The secret to Napoleons leadership was a special bond between him and his men that was unique to his time. In an world of aristocrats who considered the common people scum, Napoleon walked casually among his soldiers like an equal, stopping to share a roast potato or a dirty joke in rough soldiers language. He called them his children. He had an uncanny memory and read the personnel rosters of his 350,000 man army once a month to update himself on his men’s achievements.

1812- Napoleon’s army stormed the burning Russian city of Smolensk. Marshal Murat, almost sensing the disaster this Russian invasion was going to bring, walked casually out in the open in front of the Russian cannons, almost inviting them to kill him. He was finally tackled out of harm’s way.

1812- American General Hull surrendered most of Michigan territory, including the settlement of Detroit, to British General Issac Brock.

1819- THE PETERLOO MASSACRE- At Saint Peters’ Fields in Manchester thousands of factory workers and their families gathered to protest for better working hours and minimum wages. The response of the local magistrate Sir Simon Burley was to send in the Royal Horse Cavalry to ride them down and saber them. The incident was called Peterloo because most of this same cavalry engaged were also at the battle of Waterloo four years earlier. People referred to Sir Simon Burley’s action with a pun from MacBeth, hurley-burley.

1858- Queen Victoria sent the first transcontinental wire message to President James Buchanan via Cyrus Field's incredible UNDERWATER TRANSCONTINENTAL CABLE, stretching from London to New York. After great fanfare about progress and a new era in communications it broke down, as well as the next several tries to fix it. Just hours after the first message a fisherman pulled it up in his net, thought it was the tail of a sea serpent and cut off a chunk to take home and brag to his friends. Other attempts were ruined when technicians tried to correct the faintness of the signal by boosting the voltage beyond the safety range of the insulation-Zapp!

Direct transcontinental communications didn't really become a reality until wireless broadcasting. But the who-ha over this scientific marvel did inspire author Jules Verne to write "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea."

1877- BIRTHDAY OF THE WORD-"HELLO". In a letter dated today Thomas Edison wrote to the first president of AT&T about how people should initiate conversation on the new telephone machine. A genteel Victorian would think it impolite to speak until spoken to. Edison explained that the results of sonic tests proved the old English fox hunting call "Halloo!" was most audible over great distances. Alexander Graham Bell, an old navy man, always thought the right way to start a phone conversation was to say "AHOY!", but hello won out. In most languages around the world the word hello is the same. It was the only English word Sioux Chief Sitting Bull ever learned. He loved to grab your hand and pump it vigorously while saying:" HELLO, HELLO!" 1896- Four miners find gold in Bonanza Creek in the Klondike. The Yukon Gold Rush.

1938- In Three Forks Misssissippi, Blues legend Robert Johnson was poisoned by a jealous husband. 1942- Happy Birthday Mighty Mouse. Terrytoon's short: "The Mouse of Tomorrow".

1954- First issue of Sports Illustrated.

1965- The AFL, American Football League offered it’s first expansion franchise to a new team called the Miami Dolphins. The AFL merged with the NFL in the 80s.

1969- “ Hey Man, we’re gonna serve breakfast in bed for 500,000” So was hippy Wavy Gravy’s announcement on the second day of the Woodstock Rock Concert. He said this was the day Americans learned to eat Granola. It was ladled out en masse in paper cups and has been a diet staple ever since. 1977- E-DAY in Memphis. 42 year old Elvis Presley, donuts and Pizza Hut box in hand died sitting on the toilet He was reading the book-the Historic Search for the Face of Jesus.

1985- On her birthday, Madonna married Sean Penn.

1987- The Harmonic Convergence- Another one of these celestial events that the mainstream media trumpeted as the end of everything. All nine planets of our solar system were in perfect alignment and the subsequent gravitational forces were supposed to knock the Earth into the Sun or something or other that would send us to Hell in a Handbasket. Lots of New Age types flocked to occult sites like Mt. Shasta and Stonehenge to meditate on the End of All Things. So what happened? Nothing.

1991- The original Shamu the Whale died of respiratory failure at age 16.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Which one was not a British-born composer? Ralph Vaughn Williams, Howard Shore, Gustav Holst, Henry Purcell, Sir Arthur Sullivan,

Answer: Howard Shore was born in Toronto, Canada.