Jan. 1, 2023 A.D. or 2023 of the Common Era- New Year's Day
It’s also the Hebrew year 5,873 AM, or Year of the World, Anno Mundane,
in the Muslim calendar 1443 A.H. or Al Hajira –since the Haj.
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Quiz: : When a woman was called a bluestocking, what does that mean?

Yesterday’s Quiz question answered below: In Philadelphia on New Years they celebrate the Mummers Parade. What is a mummer?
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History for January 1, 2023
Birthdays: Lorenzo De Medici” the Magnificent”, Pope Alexander VI Borgia, Paul Revere, Betsy Ross, Mad Anthony Wayne, E.M. Forrester, J. Edgar Hoover, Alfred Stieglitz, Xavier Cugat, Barry Goldwater, Kuniyoshi Utagawa, Chesley Bonestell, Dana Andrews, Idi Amin, Kliban, Verne Troyer (Mini-Me), Frank Langella is 85

Welcome to the month January from IANUARIUS, the old Roman god Janus, the two faced god of doorways and portals who looks forward and back, symbolizing new beginnings. Not to be confused of course with Terminus the god of boundaries and borders.
Janus’ temple was dominated by a large doorway in the Roman Forum. Whenever the temple doors were closed, it meant Rome was at peace with the world. Unfortunately, this was hardly ever the case.

Happy Last Day of Kwanza.

45 BC. AVE ANNO NOVUM! The Roman Empire adopted the 12 month 366 day calendar developed by the Alexandrian scientist Sosigenes. This was an improvement from the ten month, ten day week, 304 day system that began in March. The ten-month system is why December, which means ten, is counted as the twelfth month. The old system had become so clunky that the Roman civil service had a special office just to tell you what day it was. To pull the calendar back in line with the solar year, Julius Caesar decreed the last year of the old system 46 BC would have to be 445 days long! He called it Ultimus Annus Confusionis- The Year of Total Confusion.

Happy Feast of the Holy Circumcision, when baby Jesus had his…well,…you know…..

69AD- The Roman legion at the Rhine frontier fort of Mainz rose in rebellion under their general Marius Vindex. This is the first act of defiance that would overthrow the Emperor Nero. By years end four men would be Emperor until only one –Vespasian, remained.

1525- Despite the pleading of Hernando Cortez to respect Aztec institutions, twelve Franciscan missionaries began to close down Aztec temples, and conducted mass baptisms at gunpoint.

1531- French King Louis XII died of sexual exhaustion from too many evenings spent with his new English queen, the sister of Henry VIII. His nephew Francis was next in line. The dying king lamented. “That big nosed boy will ruin everything we tried to accomplish!” Actually, Francis I turned out to be one of France’s best kings.

1540- King Henry VIII met his 4th wife Anne of Cleves. This was an arranged political marriage, and this day was the first time they actually met each other. Henry tried to play a jest and burst in her room dressed like Robin Hood to carry her off. A shocked Anne said to her guards in German “ Who is this fat, disgusting, old man? Throw him out, please.” After he picked himself up off the ground, Henry immediately began the process to annul their marriage.

1586 -Sir Francis Drake plundered Santo Domingo.

1666- Sabbatai Zevi, a 22 year old Sephardic rabbi of Smyrna, announced to the world that he was the long awaited Mosiach, the Messiah. Married to the Kaballah he claimed, he and his followers were going to Constantinople where the Turkish Sultan Selim the Grim would happilly hand over his crown to him and restore the Jewish people to Palestine. Zevi had already been expelled by his fellow rabbis in Smyrna, but stories of his miracles worked up the hopes of Jews from Amsterdam to Baghdad. But the Turkish Sultan Selim was not that impressed.
Upon landing in Constantinople, the Turks clapped Sabbatai in prison and made him convert to Islam to avoid torture and execution. Once free, Sabbatai tried to say he only converted as a ruse, so he was still the Messiah. But by now everyone knew he was a phony, and he died in obscurity.

1673- Regular mail delivery is established between Boston colony and the newly conquered Dutch territory, now called New York.

1677- Racines greatest play “Phedre” premiered at the Theatre du Bourgogne in Paris. Phedre is the role all French actresses aspire to, the way English speaking actors dream of doing Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

1772- Thomas Jefferson married Martha Lockwood who he called “Patsy”. She died giving him 6 children, only one outlived Jefferson. He sat by her bedside and they both read together from Tristram Shandy. The grief stricken Jefferson promised on her deathbed to never remarry, but I guess he didn’t count the slave quarters, or French aristocrats.

1776- The first U.S. invasion of Canada was defeated, Benedict Arnold and William Montgomery's colonial army attacked Quebec City in a snowstorm and were repulsed. Montgomery was killed and Arnold shot through the leg. Aware of the Puritan New Englanders contempt for Roman Catholics, most French Canadians did not rise up as expected to help 'Les Bostonnais', as they called the minutemen.

1776- Lord Dunmore, the Royalist Governor of rebellious Virginia, gave permission for the warships of the Royal Navy to open fire on the town of Norfolk Virginia.

1788- THE LONDON TIMES is born. Daily newspapers had appeared in Europe in the early 1600s. Publisher John Walters had started a small one sheet in 1785 called the Daily Universal Register. In 1788 he changed the name to the simpler "The Times" and created the format for newspapers around the world for centuries to come. The Walters family ran the newspaper for 125 years and Walters even had to edit it for two years while serving a prison term for libel.

1788- The Quaker Community of Pennsylvania freed all their slaves.

1801- Toussaint L’Overture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines declared the Republic of Haiti, only the second independent republic in the Americas. Originally called Sainte Dominque, they reverted to the original Arawak Indian name of Haiti. The other American republic, the United States, refused any aid, out of the fear that the example of a successful slave revolt would spread to their own plantations.

1831- William Lloyd Garrison first began publishing his newspaper The Liberator, openly calling for the end to black slavery in the U.S. ‘ I will not Equivocate, I will not Retreat, and I Will Be Heard!”

1839- Twelve years after Franz Schubert's death composer Robert Schumann was rooting around in an old trunk at his friend's house when he discovered the score for Schubert's Great C Major Symphony. That is why this Symphony is called # 9 when the Unfinished Symphony is called #8.

1850- The TaiPing Rebellion began in China. Hung tsu Tsuan had listened to a Christian missionary. He decided he was the son of Jesus Christ come to Earth to right all wrongs. He led millions in revolt until he was crushed by the Manchu Emperor’s army.

1863- Poet Walt Whitman visited Washington D.C., but passed on a chance to meet Abraham Lincoln. Whitman was looking for his brother, and the New Years reception line in front of the White House was just too long to bother. Whitman reasoned Lincoln was young and running for a second term. So there would be plenty occasions to meet him later...

1875- The Molly Maguires, a fraternal union of Irish immigrant coal miners in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, go on strike after their employer cuts their wages by twenty percent. The employer had many shot and hanged.

1878- The Knights of Labor, the first national American Union Movement is born. They demanded unheard of: An 8 hour workday down from 14, a six day workweek down from 7, paid vacations and no child labor.

1881- The Eastman Kodak Company formed. Kodak supposedly was named from the sound of the snapping camera shutter. Ko-DAK!

1888- Johannes Brahms met Peter Tchaikovsky. The two musical giants shared a birthday, but otherwise they disliked each other, and hated each other’s music. Tchaikovsky wrote in his diary about Brahms, “What an unharmonious German bastard he is!” Usually Anton Bruckner could get them together. This night the two met for dinner with violinist Josef Brodsky after a rehearsal and had quite a pleasant time together. As he left the house that night, Anna Brodsky asked Tchaikovsky if he liked what he had heard during the rehearsal. “Don’t be angry with me, my dear friend,” he answered, “but I did not like it.”
1890- The First Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena California.

1890- Ellis Island, the great processing center for immigrants in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty opened for business. By the 1990 census it was estimated that close to 50% of the U.S. population could trace back to an ancestor who came through Ellis Island.

1909- London astronomers say they had detected signs of a planet further out than Neptune, the furthest known planet in our solar system. The theoretical body was called Planet -X until in 1930 an amateur astronomer named Clyde Tumbaugh found it, and named it Pluto.

1914- The Archbishop of Paris threatened with excommunication young people who dance the Tango. "It's lascivious nature offends morality."

1939- Vladimir Zworkin patented the Iconoscope (the eye of a TV camera) and Kinescope. The television process evolved over so many years -there were experimental TV stations in 1923 and the Berlin Olympics of 1936 were televised. So you can't really point to one Tom Edison type inventor, although Zworkin, Englishman James Logie Baird in 1924, Philo Farnsworth, and Dr. Lee DeForest all at one time tried to take the full credit.

1942- Young French Resistance leader Jean Moulin parachuted back into Nazi-occupied France to unify the scattered resistance groups into one force under Charles DeGaulle.

1942- Because of the fear of a Japanese attack on the California coastline, the Rose Bowl that year was played in North Carolina.

1943- Walt Disney's Donald Duck cartoon Der Fuehrer's Face premiered. Originally titled Donald Duck in NutziLand, it was changed to match to the song after Spike Jones recorded it.

1953- Country music star Hank Williams had spent New Years drinking whiskey and doing chloral hydrate. When a West Virginia policeman pulled over his car, he remarked to the driver that his passenger looked dead. The driver said he was just sleeping and drove on. 29 year old Hank Williams was dead. His last recorded song was “I’ll never get out of this World Alive.”

1959- As Fidel Castro’s guerrilla army entered Havana, Cubans celebrate the fall of dictator Fulgensio Batista. Fidel was proclaimed the leader of Cuba.

1959- The Chipmunk Song by David Seville (aka Ross Bagdassarian) tops the pop charts..

1960- The Radio and Television Director's Guild merge with the Screen Directors Guild to form the DGA.

1963- Tetsuwan Atomu or Atom Boy, an animated television show by Osamu Tezuka premiered on Japanese TV. As Astro Boy it became the first Japanese anime show to break into the mainstream American market.

1966- Ailing Walt Disney served as Grand Marshal for the Tournament of Roses Parade. Standing in the crowd on the curb with his mother was 8 year old John Lasseter.

1976- Potheads sneak up to the Hollywood Sign and change the two “O’s to “E’s so the sign read HOLLYWEED.

1980- The debut of Gary Larson's surreal single panel comic strip "The Far Side". Larson has recently revived it online.

1984- By court order, the phone system AT&T also called The Bell System, which had dominated telephone communication exclusively since Alexander Graham Bell, was ordered broken up into 22 regional companies, the Baby Bells. The explosion of telecommunications, smart phones, blackberries, and bigger phone bills result.

1998- Michael Kennedy, a son of Robert F. Kennedy was killed in Aspen Colorado during a freak skiing accident. He was playing ski-football, shooting down a hillside while distractedly handling a video camera, and he ran headlong into a tree.

2000- Conservative Christian school Bob Jones University finally permitted students interracial dating.

2019- The space probe New Horizon reached the furthest known object in our Solar System outside the orbit of Pluto, a wobbly peanut shaped rock named Ultima Thule. 4 billion miles from Earth. A single radio signal from the spacecraft took 6 hours to reach Earth.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In Philadelphia on New Year’s they celebrate the Mummers Parade. What is a mummer?

Answer: Mummery is a fusion of Swedish custom of celebrating New Years with masquerade and noisemaking with a Medieval British custom of mummery- reciting doggerel and ribald songs in exchange for cakes and ale. George Washington received mummers when the US capitol was in Philadelphia in 1790. The large Mummers parade that continues to this day, began in Philadelphia in 1876 and still goes on.

Quiz: What is a baldric? Besides the character in the BlackAdder TV show.

Yesterday’s question answered below: In music we all heard of the term allegro. But what does it mean?
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History for 12/29/2022
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Flavius Titus, Pablo Casals, Madame de Pompadour, Andrew Johnson, Charles Goodyear, Gelsey Kirkland, Dina Merrill, Tom Bradley, Mary Tyler Moore, Jon Voight is 84, Ray Nitschke, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Flanders, Ted Danson is 75, Marianne Faithful, Paula Poundstone, Jude Law is 50, Patricia Clarkson, Animator Duncan Marjoribanks is 69.

1172- ST. THOMAS BECKET murdered. A debate that raged throughout the Europe in the Middle Ages was whether the Church could boss around Kings or visa-versa.
In England when a vacancy opened up for Archbishop of Canterbury, King Henry II arranged to get his old drinking bud, Sir Thomas Beckett elected. However Beckett took his new job so seriously he became the English Church’ strongest champion.
On this night, King Henry was so fed up with Beckett that he shouted at his court:" Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" Two of Henry's dumber knights took this as a hint and went over to Canterbury and stabbed the Archbishop while at prayers. The Pope excommunicated Henry and placed England under the Writ of Interdict, which meant no English priest could administer baptism, marriage or last rites to anyone. They even took down the church bells so you didn’t know what time it was. King Henry apologized and did penance, even allowing himself to be whipped, and Beckett was made a Saint.

1566- Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe got into an argument with another scientist named Manderup Parsbjerg and they reached for their swords. During the duel, Tycho got his nose cut off. He thereafter he wore a gold cup over the scar, held in place with glue. He eventually reconciled with Parsbjerg, to whom he was distantly related.

1776- George Washington marched his minutemen back to the old Trenton battlefield, scene of their victory of four days before. There he praised them, then begged, pleaded and cajoled them not to go home now that their enlistments were up. Washington announced to the press that all his men had rejoined the colors, but in a private letter to Congress he admitted only about half were staying.

1837- THE CAROLINE INCIDENT. A minor rebellion against England had broken out in Canada led by William Lyon Mackenzie. This day on the American side of the Niagara river a ship full of supplies destined for the rebels called the Caroline was attacked by Canadian loyalist militia. They set fire to the Caroline and pushed it over Niagara Falls. The incident caused tensions between the U.S. and British governments. Mackenzie’s Rising was put down, and his grandson became Canadian Prime Minister.

1845- Texas became a U.S. state.

1851- In 1844 the Young Men’s Christian Association or YMCA opened in London. An American named Thomas Sullivan was inspired by this idea and brought it home to Boston. This day the first American YMCA meeting was held in the Old South Church. The idea soon spread across the United States..

1851- Lola Montez dances on tour in America. Lola Montez was originally an Irish lass named Betty James who re-invented herself as an Argentine flamenco dancer. She was famous for her “Tarantula Dance”. Lola became mistress to King Ludwig I of Bavaria, the second largest kingdom in Germany. Officially he claimed all they did was read the Bible together. Privately he admitted she was exceedingly talented with her…uh,.. muscles.
King Ludwig was so besotted with Lola Montez that he bankrupted his kingdom for her. Anybody who dared criticize her was horsewhipped. Finally, Ludwig was overthrown and Lola fled the country. She did dancing and lecture tours to support herself, and even published books on beauty secrets. She died a social worker in New York in 1861, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery. Her ghost is sometimes seen on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

1890- WOUNDED KNEE- The last battle of the Indian Wars. The US government reacted violently to the Ghost Dance Movement then sweeping Sioux reservations. But the Ghost Dance was not calling for an actual rebellion against the US. Ghost dancers believed if they danced with the spirits of their ancestors the white man would go away.
But to the US Department of the Interior even a metaphysical rebellion is rebellion enough. Sitting Bull was arrested and killed. The army was sent to Wounded Knee reservation to demand a disarming of a few braves. When shooting broke out, the army opened up with modern rapid firing cannon and rifles. To 30 US casualties 300 Sioux, mostly women and children were killed. Reports abound of troops shooting the survivors. They left the bodies where they fell until after Jan. 1. Ironically the army unit was from the Seventh Cavalry, and soldiers considered it the revenge of Custer.

1913- Cecil B. DeMille had been sent to the West by his New York partners to scout out a possible place to move to escape Edison's Patents Trust.
After scouting several cities with year round sunshine, this day C.B. telegraphed his partners back in New York:” Flagstaff no good for our purpose. Have proceeded to California. Want authority to rent a barn in a place called Hollywood for $75 a month.” His partner Sam Goldwyn cabled back: “ Rent barn on month to month basis. Do not make long commitment.” DeMille began shooting the Squaw Man, the first official Hollywood Film.

1916-James Joyce’s novel “the Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” published.

1939- Scientist William Shockley first noted in his laboratory notebook that it should be possible to replace vacuum tubes with something called a semi-conductor. Eight years later he led the team that developed the transistor.

1940- After a one week truce for Christmas, this night the Luftwaffe did one of their biggest raids of the Blitz. They firebombed London, causing 1500 fires. At one point they hit St. Paul's Cathedral. CBS correspondent Edgar R. Murrow achieved fame by standing on a rooftop and reporting live on the radio, even as the bombs exploded around him.

1941- Disney animator Bill Tytla told Time Magazine in an interview about creating "Dumbo": "I don't know a damn thing about elephants!"

1946- Milt Caniff published his last Terry and the Pirates comic strip. Caniff moved on to begin his Steve Canyon strip, which he had better ownership of.

1950- Congress passed the Celler-Kefhauver Act, which sought to reign in global companies mega-mergers. It was the last major piece of legislation to try and regulate corporate monopolies in the U.S.

1964- The first transistorized hearing aid.

1964 – To create the first pilot of the TV series Star Trek, the original model of the U.S.S. Enterprise was delivered by model maker Rick Datin, Jr, based on the design created by Star Trek production artist Walter “Matt” Jefferies. The “miniature” was 11 feet long!

1965- First day shooting on Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was an indoor set at Elstree Studios in England, and the first setup was the inspection of the excavation of the Monolith in the moon crater Tycho.

1967- The Star Trek episode The Trouble with Tribbles first aired.

1968- Animator Bill Tytla died at age 64, from complications of a stroke. He had several strokes over the previous six years.

1972- LIFE Magazine ended publication.

1974- While staying at the Polynesian Village in Disneyworld Florida, John Lennon signed the last papers dissolving the Beatles. The band had broken up in 1970, but it took four more years to unravel all of their vast financial holdings. The other three members had already signed.

1975- Euell Gibbons, early natural foods advocate, died of a stomach ailment.
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Yesterday’s Question: In music we all heard of the term allegro. But what does it mean?

Answer: Play it fast.

Quiz: In music we all heard of the term allegro. But what does it mean?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a jalopy?
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History for 12/28/2022
birthdays: Woodrow Wilson, Robert Sessions, Earl "Fatha" Hines, Hildegarde Neff, Edgar Winter, Stan “The Man” Lee would be 100, Martin Branner the creator of Winnie Winkle, Johnny Otis, Martin Milner (1-Adam-12), Lew Ayres, Lou Jacobi, Terri Garber, Denzel Washington is 68, Maggie Smith is 88, Sienna Miller is 41

Feast of the Innocents-commemorates the Massacre of the Innocents, when King Herod the Great was told a king was born in Nazareth, he ordered all the first born of Nazareth slain. This is what made Joseph and Mary flee with the child to Egypt.
In Spain and many Latin American countries this is a kind of April Fools Day, the victim of a practical joke being proclaimed an "innocent".

1065- English King Edward the Confessor dedicated a new abbey church west of London. Since in those days a church was also called a minster, it was known as the West-minster Abbey. (St. Pauls is the East-minster). King Edward himself was too sick to attend the ceremony and died a few days later.

1598- The troupe of actors called The Lord Chamberlains Men was tired of negotiating with their landlord who held the lease on Richard Burbage’s theatre at Blackheath. Burbage was dead and they suspected the landlord had other plans for the property. So this night the actors moved through the snow and slowly dismantled the theatre and reassembled the pieces on the Southbank of the Thames. The completed theatre was christened the New Globe Theatre, where many of William Shakespeare’s greatest works premiered. And Will was one of those actors.

1694- Queen Mary II of England, one half of the husband & wife team William & Mary, died at age 32. She had helped her Dutch husband overthrow her father King James II.

1734- ROB ROY- Scottish nationalist guerrilla Robert McGregor, called Rob Roy, died peacefully of old age in his cottage in the Highlands. Made famous by Sir Walter Scot’s novel about him, he spent his last hours making peace with former enemies. His last wish was for a bagpiper to be brought into his room and pipe a tune as he passed away. Hoot-Man!

1793- Thomas Paine, philosopher of the American Revolution, was arrested by Robespierre's Reign of Terror in Paris. English born Paine was kind of an eighteenth century Che Guevarra. He went to Paris to help spread revolution. The American ambassador, Elbridge Gerry, hated Tom, so he took his sweet time about getting him out of the guillotine's shadow. But with the diplomatic pressure of James Monroe he eventually convinced the Revolutionary authorities to release him. While in prison in the Luxembourg Palace, Tom Paine wrote the Age of Reason and had a love affair with pretty inmate Murial Alette, who was arrested for being the mistress of an aristocrat.

1832- Southern states rights advocate John C. Calhoun resigned as Vice President under Andrew Jackson. Calhoun felt “King Andrew” was going to betray the South and force them to give up slavery. Calhoun continued on in government as senator from South Carolina. He was the first sitting Vice President ever to resign, but not the last.

1846- Iowa becomes a state.

1847- Peace Conference of Guadalupe Hidalgo began to try to end the U.S war with Mexico. Diplomat Nicholas Trist was given the tricky assignment of alone seeking out the Mexican authorities, although their government structure was in chaos at the time, and convincing them to sign away half their national territory while hostile American armies roamed their heartland.

1869- CHEWING GUM- William Semple and Thomas Adams of Mt. Vernon Ohio received a patent for chewing gum. Since early times frontiersmen and Indians had the habit of chewing on a piece of pine resin or sap. A 9,000 year old chewed piece of gum was found in Sweden in a glacier in 1993. As early as 1842 Charles Curtis was selling spruce chewing gum from his home in Bangor Maine.
In 1869 a Staten Island photographer named Thomas Adams made friends with exiled Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, he of The Alamo fame. Adams noticed the old general didn’t smoke, but he liked to chew a plug of tree sap he called “Chicle”. It was an ancient custom, going back to the Mayans. Adams took the chicle and put a candy shell around it, and became rich on the invention of Gum Balls. Santa Anna hoped the invention would finance his return to power in Mexico City but that never occurred. Gumball machines appeared in 1918, Bubble Gum in 1928.

1895- THE BIRTHDAY OF CINEMA- In Paris at the Grande Cafe des Capucines the Lumiere brothers combined Edison's kinetoscope using George Eastman’s roll film with a magic lantern projector and showed a motion picture to an audience in a theater. Back in the U.S. Thomas Edison thought the idea of projecting film in a theater was foolish and would never catch on. They called their device a Cinematograph, hence the word Cinema is born. The screening included dancers and people leaving a factory but the biggest reaction out of the audience was from shots of waves crashing on a rocky beach. The audience in the front row jumped for fear of getting wet.

1896- THE JAMESON RAID- The German-Dutch Boers of the Transvaal had led a quasi-independent status in South Africa that annoyed British Empire builders like Sir Cecil Rhodes, the DeBeers diamond millionaire who had created the nation of Rhodesia, today called Zimbabwe. "I am not religious, but I always felt God would like me to paint all of Africa in the colors of the Union Jack." Cecil Rhodes financed a freelance military coup by 70 pro-British mercenaries led by his right hand man Col. Jameson. The attack failed and embarrassed the British Government. The German public was outraged at the bald arrogance of the attempt while the British called Jameson a hero. The tensions aggravated by the incident would result in the Boer War two years later and eventually the First World War and the independence of South Africa. In retrospect Winston Churchill said that the decline of the British Empire may have begun with the Jameson Raid.

1897- Edmond Rostands famous play Cyrano de Bergerac premiered in Paris. There really lived a poet-duelist in the 1640’s named Cyrano de Bergerac-Servigan but little was known about him. Rostand created the hopelessly lovesick big nosed hero who helps another man romance his girlfriend Roxanne.

1908- A massive earthquake devastates Messina Sicily and causes a tsunami tidal wave that causes more destruction in Sicily and the Calabrian coast. More than 100,000 died. It was the largest quake recorded in Europe, an estimated 7.5 on the Richter scale.

1928- Last recording of Ma Rainey, The Mother of the Blues.

1941- Paramount Pictures called Max Fleischer to their business offices in New York. There they told him his contract with the studio would not be renewed and he was fired. Paramount had seized direct control of Max Fleischer Productions in May and put Max and Dave on notice. Dave Fleischer took the hint and left around Thanksgiving. Max was probably holding out that if Hoppity Goes to Town was a hit he might still work out an accommodation. But such was not to be.

1944- On The Town, a musical written by Betty Comden & Adolf Green and young composer Leonard Bernstein premiered in NY.

1948- Mahmud Nokrashi-Pasha the Prime Minister of Egypt was assassinated.

1950- The first stretch of the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles was dedicated.

1951- The British film A Christmas Carol with the memorable performance of Alastair Sim as Scrooge premiered in the USA.

1958- Cuban Communist forces under Che Guevara won the Battle of Santa Clara. It was a decisive battle in Fidel Castro's campaign to overthrow the dictator Fulgensio Batista. Today the remains of both Fidel Castro and Che Guevara rest in Santa Clara.

1963-Happy Birthday the Daleks. In the first season of the BBC TV show Dr. Who, this day Dr. Who first met the Daleks.

1968- The Beatles White Album goes to number one on the pop charts.

1973-Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s book “The Gulag Archipelago” first published in Paris. The exposing of the Soviet prison camp system was a great success in the west. It gave the word for prison camp-“Gulag” into popular parlance.

1973- Pres. Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act into law. It saved animals like Bald Eagles, American Buffalo, Grizzly Bears and Gray Whales from extinction.

1983- Dennis Wilson was the original drummer of the Beach Boys, but he had a pretty bad drinking and drug habit. He was once friendly with the Manson Family.
Taking time off from rehab for Christmas he and some friends sat on a yacht doing more drugs and booze near Marquesas Pier. Wilson recalled this very spot was where after breaking up with his first wife he threw her mementos overboard. He wondered if he could get them back and started “pearl-diving “i.e.-diving holding your breath without any scuba equipment. But being stoned, he miscalculated the depth and drowned.
Dennis Wilson was 37. Of all the Beach Boys he was the only one who liked to surf.

1987- The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a jalopy?

Answer: A jalopy is a beat-up old car that somehow still manages to run. Once a jalopy stops running at all, it becomes a wreck. ( thanks FG)

Question: What is a jalopy?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who was Howdy Doody?
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History for 12/27/2022
Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, Linwood Dunn, Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Levant, Sidney Greenstreet, Anna Russell, Dr. William Masters of Masters & Johnson, Leslie Maguire, John Amos, Tovah Feldshuh, Heather O’Rourke, Cokie Roberts, Bollywood star Salman Khan, Gerard Depardieu is 75

In Bhutan- Happy Day of the Nine Evils.

Feast Day of Saint John the Apostle.

1784- Francis Asbury was ordained the first Bishop of the Methodist Church in America.

1820- John Quincy Adams wrote a friend that he was sad that Washington DC didn’t have any good monuments yet. It could use one to George Washington and a cathedral like Westminster Abbey. If John Q. could only see DC today, it’s a rock garden of statuary.

1831- Charles Darwin sets sail for the Pacific on board the HMS Beagle. The observations he made of exotic species while on this voyage formed the basis of his theories on evolution and natural selection.

1869- RIEL'S REBELLION- The Red River wilderness of Manitoba were home to French-Indian trappers called the Metis. When the Hudson's Bay Company turned their jurisdiction over to the British Empire and English protestant surveyors and settlers began to arrive, the Catholic Metis banded together and declared independence.

On this day they proclaimed Louis Riel "President of the Provisional Republic of Prince Rupertland and the Northwest Frontier"! They had a militia and newspaper-the New Nation. Louis Riel convened the first bi-lingual non-sectarian parliament. At this time the Governor General of Canada was still referring to his French and Indian subjects as 'Un-Britons '.
The U.S. State Department seriously considered recognizing the Metis to curb British-Canadian expansion to the Pacific, but ultimately decided to stay neutral. In summer 1870 when a British army paddled in bateaux up stream to attack Riel at Ft. Gary (present day Winnipeg), The Metis Republic dissolved and Riel fled across the border. Louis Riel returned in 1885 lead an uprising in Saskatchewan but was finally caught and executed.

1887- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes story, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

1892- In New York City, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine started construction (and is still not finished..) The largest Gothic nave in the world, work was stopped during the Depression and resumed in the 1970s. Part of the problem re-starting construction was finding some Gothic medieval-style stonemasons who were willing to re-locate.

1900- Temperance crusader Carrie Nation staged her first public axe attack on a saloon, the bar at the Carey Hotel in Witchita, Kansas. She shattered a large mirror behind the bar and threw rocks at a titillating picture of Cleopatra nude bathing. She called her actions not vandalism, but “hatchetation”.

1903- The Barbershop Quartet standard “Sweet Adeline” sung for the first time. It was written in praise of opera star Adelina Patti.

1904- PETER PAN, OR, THE BOY WHO WOULDN’T GROW UP, a play by James M. Barrie, opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Barrie reserved seats in the opening night performance for orphaned children who laughed and cheered all night.He placed the kids all amongst the London theatre critics. Michael Llewelyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan, used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.” James Barrie once said to H.G. Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

1927-"ShowBoat" debuted at the Ziegfeld theater. Based on a novel by Edna Ferber, the musical was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein. The play made a star out of a tall black baritone named Paul Robeson.” Ol’ Man River” became his signature song.

1934- The Shah declared the country known as Persia would now be called Iran.

1935- Radio City Music Hall opened. The Art Deco masterpiece was for many years the largest indoor theater in the world, seating over 6,000.

1940- Al Jolson and Ruby Keeler announced their separation.

1942-THE SMOLENSK COMMITTEES- The Nazis began a recruiting campaign in the vast camps of Russian POWs to set up an Anti-Communist Russian Army. They had good results the previous April recruiting among the Soviet-hating nationalist Cossack groups of the Don, Tartar, Kuban and the Ukraine. These men hated Stalin worse than Hitler, so they signed up. Anti-Communist Russian armies eventually numbered as high as 100,000 men under their generals Vlasov, Komorov and Bach-Zelewski. After the war they tried to surrender to the Americans but by secret agreement with Moscow, they were all repatriated to Russia. Most were executed or died in Stalin’s labor camps.

1943- The movie The Song of Bernadette premiered.

1945- Eleven nations signed the Bretton Woods agreement creating the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1945-Korea had been a Japanese colony since 1910. After Japan’s defeat in WW2 Russia and America agreed to divide occupied Korea into two parts along the 38th parallel, and administer it for 5 years until regulated elections could decide the peninsula’s future. That never happened, because before the five year time limit was up North Korea and South Korea had each set up rival governments. The division stands to this day.

1947- The "Howdy-Doody Show” debuted on NBC. Buffalo Bob, Howdy and Clarabell the Clown, also known as the Puppet Playhouse. Gumby was debuted on the show in 1957.

1949- Happy Indonesian Independence Day.

1951- The Crosley car goes into service for the post office in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the funny little jeep with the steering wheel on the right side, so the mail deliverer didn’t have to get out of his vehicle to reach every curbside mailbox.

1968- Apollo 8 landed safely on Earth after being the first ship to reach the Moon and come back. The brought back spectacular photos of the Earth from space. One of the three astronauts was also the first to barf in deep space, but they aren’t saying which.

1978- King Juan Carlos ratified Spain’s first democratic constitution in 50 years.

1985- Terrorists organized by Abu Nidal open fire in airports in Vienna and Rome. Sixteen tourists killed. When White House aide Oliver North was giving testimony about the Iran Contra Scandal he fixated upon the threat posed by Abu Nidal as though it was his personal vendetta. In 2001 while the world was distracted by the events of 9-11, Saddam Hussein’s police quietly arrested and executed Abu Nidal in Baghdad.

2007- Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated. She had been leading the opposition to the government of General Pervhez Musharraf.

2016- Actress-screenwriter Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia in Star Wars), died of cardiac arrest due to sleep apnea while flying from London to Los Angeles. She stopped breathing 15 minutes to landing. The coroner’s report said it was cardiac arrest/deferred. She was 60. Her mother Debbie Reynolds had a stroke and died the next day at age 84.
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Yesterday’s question: Who was Howdy Doody?

Answer:

Today’s Quiz: Who was Howdy Doody?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Sword & Fantasy stories since Robert Howard created Conan spoke of lands called Thule or Ultima Thule. Did such a place ever exist?
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History for 12/26/2022
Birthdays: Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Mao Zedong, Charles Babbage, Admiral Dewey, Richard Widmark, Steve Allen, Henry Miller, Carlton Fisk, Chris Chambliss, Alan King, Phil Spector, Fred Schepsi, Jared Leto is 50

St. Stephen’s Day- “Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen…” Wenceslas I of Bohemia (Svaty’ Vaclav in Czech) was a chieftain of the West Slavs 907AD-937. When Czechs accepted Christianity, part of the deal was that they would make their national hero Wenceslas a Saint. The English Christmas carol was written in 1853 by Thomas Helmore and John Mason Neal. Neal adapted it from a collection of Christmas tales from other lands.
First Day of the Kwanza Festival. Kwanza is from the Swahili words “Matunda ya kwanzaa” meaning “first fruits” of the harvest. See below-1966. In the Middle Ages this was the Feast Day of the Pagan god Jul, when good Guildsmen would gather in their Guild Halls to eat themselves sick and drink themselves silly. Then in a total stupor they would swear oaths on their patron saints to stick by and protect each other in the New Year. Churchmen bristled at the licentious nature of the festival and tried to ban it, but there was no stopping a good crazy party. Nobody really knew who the pagan god Jul was, just that it was fun to see the priests get so annoyed.

527AD- HAGIA SOPHIA- The Byzantine Emperor Justinian dedicated the newly completed basilica the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople in a grand ceremony. Sometimes called St. Sophia, the real name was not for this saint. It is Greek for The Holy Wisdom or Creative Logos, in other words, God himself. It was then the biggest Church in the world, surmounted by a great dome. Emperor Justinian walked alone to the altar and raised his arms up to heaven:” Glory be to God who has thought me worthy to accomplish so great a work. Solomon, I have vanquished thee!” He was referring to Solomon’s great temple in Jerusalem.
Centuries later when Byzantine Empire was conquered by the Turks and Constantinople’s name was changed to Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque and four complimentary minarets were added to it’s design.

795 AD- Leo III became Pope.

1492- Columbus founded the first European settlement in the New World on the beach on San Salvador. He called it La Natividad because it was founded on Christmas. 1522- The Siege of Rhodes ends. Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent occupied the island after the Knights of St. John agreed to evacuate to the island of Malta.

1776- THE BATTLE OF TRENTON- George Washington was desperate for a victory against a huge British Army that had chased him from New York. He crossed the Delaware and at dawn surprise attacked a Hessian regiment while they were still waking up from their Christmas hangovers. As the dazed Hessians ran out of their barracks and tried to form a battle line, Washington positioned his troops so they would be have to face into a snowstorm.
The Americans captured 1,000 Hessians to just 4 casualties, and killed their commander Colonel Johann Rall. Just before the fatal musket ball hit him, Colonel Rall said to his aide: “Fuck! A bunch of country clowns cannot beat us!”
Because part of his army got lost in the dark, Washington couldn’t hold Trenton and had to retreat. But the news of the rebel attack made other British units fall back to the Atlantic Coast.
This was the first true offensive action of the American Army in the Revolutionary War. Back in occupied New York City, British commander Lord Howe, when hearing the news, exclaimed:” It seems inconceivable that three venerable old regiments made up of men who make war their profession, should lay down their arms to a rabble of ragged, undisciplined farmers!”

1799- While Washington DC was still being built. at Zion Lutheran Church in Philadelphia this day was the state memorial service in honor of George Washington, who had died two weeks ago. All of the US government was there, except President John Adams. Adams was still angry at him. Former General Richard Henry “Lighthorse Harry” Lee, eulogized Washington as “First in War. First in Peace, First in the Hearts of his Countrymen.”

XIX Century England- Today was Boxing Day, a Victorian tradition where you boxed up the leftovers of your Christmas dinner and gave them to the poor.
1825- Nicholas I, the "Iron Czar" crushed the Russian democratic movement called "The Decembrists". 1860- In Charleston Harbor U.S. Major Robert Anderson found himself trying to hold government forts in a city seething with Southern hostility. South Carolina had just declared herself seceded from the United States, so just what was the status of U.S. Government military posts and arsenals? As a precaution, Major Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie, and other strong points to consolidate his hold on Fort Sumter, a rock in the center of the bay. He then wrote to Washington for instructions. A tense standoff ensued until April when Southerners opened fire upon Fort Sumter.
1862- The largest mass execution in U.S. history. 38 Sioux warriors were hanged at Mankato, Minnesota. It was revenge for the Great Santee Sioux Uprising that had all Minnesota on fire that summer. The Governor of Minnesota had asked for 300 additional executions but President Abe Lincoln had manumitted all but these 38. As he ascended the scaffold, Sioux Chief Shackopee heard a train whistle. He remarked: “ As the White Man comes in, the Indian goes out.”

1865- James Nason of Massachusetts invented the coffee percolator.

1908- In Australia, Jack Johnson knocked out Canadian Tommy Burns in the 15th round to become the first African American heavyweight boxing champ. Jack Johnson held the heavyweight title until 1915. Jack Johnson’s flaunting of racist segregation laws drove mainstream America nuts. Johnson drove race cars, flashed gold teeth and openly dated white women. Later champion Muhammad Ali paid him tribute:” He did this all in the time of Jim Crow and Lynching. I was outspoken, but Jack Johnson was crazy!”

1909- Famous Western artist Frederick Remington died from an acute appendicitis operation that went badly. Today operations like that are routine and handled by anti-biotics, but back then no such drugs existed. He was 40.
1919- THE CURSE OF THE BAMBINO- Boston Red Sox baseball owner Harry Frazier announced the trade of Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees for $126,000. The Yankees become champions and Boston believed Ruth cursed their team so they would never win another World Series, BoSox fans became obsessed with the curse story. They scoured a lake where Ruth supposedly pushed a family piano. A young man named Chris believed he helped break the curse. He lived in Ruth’s Boston home and during a 2004 game he was hit in the face with a pop fly ball, losing two teeth. He called it a Blood Sacrifice. The Boston Red Sox went on to win their first two World Series in 86 years and become a postseason power for years after.

1924- Baby Frances Gumm first appeared on a stage at 2 1/2 years old. Grown up she would change her name to Judy Garland. 1926- Young artist Al Hirschfeld had made his first caricature for the Broadway Stage. A drawing of actor Sasha Guitry. A friend took it to The New York Tribune and sold it. Al figured here's a nifty way to make a living, so soon he was selling to all the papers including the New York Times.
Al would keep doing caricatures of Broadway greats into the millennium and became a legend himself. In the American Theater, a Hirschfeld caricature of you meant you had arrived and were a real star. His style influenced the look of Walt Disney’s animated classic Aladdin. At age 94 Al remarried and drew the cast of Ally McBeal for TV Guide. In 2003 he died just shy of age 100, drawing to the end.

1935- The premiere of the Warner Bros swashbuckler Captain Blood, starring a debonair young rogue from Tasmania named Errol Flynn. The first teaming of Flynn, 19 year old Olivia deHaviland, director Michael Curtiz. Music by Eric Wolfgang Korngold.

1938- Young playwright Thomas Williams moved from Saint Louis to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee Williams. 1939- Walt Disney Animation moved from Hyperion to the new Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hit economic trouble, Disney could sell them to the planned St. Joseph's Hospital across the street. Animator Ward Kimball said it was the first time he worked in a studio where all the furniture matched. The old Hyperion Studio was bulldozed in 1966, the year of Walt Disney’s death.

1941- Goofy cartoon, the Art of Self Defense, premiered.

1943- Battle of North Cape. British battleship the Duke of York sank the German battlecruiser Scharnhorst in the North Sea. Of 2000 crew on board only 36 survived. 1944- Patton's Third Army broke through to the besieged city of Bastogne. This marked the turning of the tide in the Battle of the Bulge

1944- Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie premiered in Chicago.

1946- The Gala Opening day of the Flamingo Casino, the birth of modern Las Vegas. Mobster Bugsy Siegel's million-dollar gamble in the desert. Despite booking top talent like Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat, the promised Hollywood bigshots failed to materialize. The hotel part of the casino wasn't ready for guests yet, so the high rollers couldn't see making the long trip. A violent rainstorm kept still more people away. Also the casinos formal dress code discouraged the locals who liked to gamble in cowboy hats and blue jeans. Bugsy had to close down until the hotel was completed in March, $4 million in the red.
The Flamingo Casino eventually made a profit but not before the Mob riddled Bugsy Siegel with bullets, and cut the throat of the hotel’s manager, Moe Greenberg.

1956- The premiere of the Japanese monster movie Rodan. Released in Japan as Radon the Sky Monster. The name comes from a flying dinosaur called a Pteranodon.

1963- The death of Gorgeous George Wagner, the first pro wrestler to adopt a flamboyant character.

1966- The first Kwanzaa Festival was organized by African studies professor Dr Marulanga Karenga at Cal State Long Beach to celebrate African-American culture.

1973- The horror film The Exorcist starring Linda Blair premiered. Merry Christmas! Have some pea soup!

1979- The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. The Moslem fundamentalist tribesmen called Mujahadin, who hadn’t submitted to any foreign conqueror since Alexander the Great, began a ten year long guerrilla war that became the Russian Vietnam. The Russians quit Afghanistan in 1989 and the USA quit in 2021 with the same result.

1985- Gorillas in the Mist author and ape anthropologist Diane Fossey was murdered by machete in her lab in Africa.

1985- Ford introduced the Taurus motorcar.

1991- The crucial vote in the Supreme Soviet to dissolve the Soviet Union and create the Federation of Russian States.

2003- As part of a promotion for a NJ Islanders-NY Rangers Hockey Game the Nassau Coliseum invited all the fans dressed as Santa Claus to parade on the ice. As the hundreds of Santas marched on to the rink several opened their coats to reveal they were actually Rangers supporters. The Islander Santas objected, some shoving ensued and pretty soon the Nassau Coliseum was packed with fist-fighting Santas.

2004-TSUNAMI- One of the strongest earthquakes 9.1, recorded in the last 100 years hit the Indian Ocean. The earthquake sent giant tidal waves covering the coastlines of Sumatra, Thailand, the Maldives and Sri Lanka, killing over 215,000. Whole beach communities were swept away without warning. Poor fisherman to wealthy vacationers like a Victoria Secret model had to run for their lives.
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Yesterday’s Question: Sword & Fantasy stories since Robert Howard created Conan spoke of lands called Thule or Ultima Thule. Did such a place ever exist?

Answer: In ancient times people believed the world had a finite edge you could sail off. The Greeks and Romans called that extreme northern border of Europe (Denmark?) Thule, and the edge of the world Ultima Thule. They were probably referring to the Orkney Islands or Iceland.