Quiz: What does it mean when you write a hagiography?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: In British occupied Ireland, the area between English settlements and the rest of the Irish was called “the Pale”. What area in Europe was called “the Plattland”..?
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History for 5/12/2012
Birthdays: Dolly Madison, Daniel Rossetti, Frank Stella, Florence Nightingale, Tom Snyder, George Carlin, Wilfred Hyde-White, Emilio Estevez, Ron Zeigler, Farley Mowatt, Ving Rhames, Bruce Boxleitner, Katherine Hepburn, Yogi Berra is 87

1463-B.C.- THE BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON- Egyptian Pharoah Thutmoses III defeated a coalition of Canaanite princes at an outpost fort named Ha-Megiddo. This fort was the intersection of several roads that led south through the Lebanon mountains into Palestine, so for centuries it was known for all the vicious battles and invasions that occurred there. When Saint John wrote of the final battle in Book of the Apocalypse he said it would be as terrible as one fought at Ha-Meggido or Armageddon.

1641- Thomas the Earl of Strafford was beheaded. In the rapidly deteriorating political climate between King Charles I of England and his Parliament, the Earl of Strafford advocated the king get tough with these rude peasants and rule dictatorially with an Irish army of occupation. So Parliament passed an act of attainment accusing the earl of treason and the terrified king signed it. Ironically the Earl was never tried for treason, he was 'legislated to death'. But the situation was deteriorating so rapidly even he petitioned the King to sign his death warrant to keep the peace. By June King and Parliament would declare the English Civil War.

1745- THE BATTLE OF FONTENOY- Britain and France fight (yet again) .this time the French under one-eyed illegitimate son of the King of Poland named Marshal De Saxe defeated British under the Duke of Cumberland who was the illegitimate son of King George II. Saxe was suffering from dropsy so he conducted the battle from a wicker chair. It was also the last time a King of France and Dauphin appeared on a battlefield.
As the British army approached the French line an English Guards officer Lord Charles Hay produced a silver flask and toasted the enemy, declaring ' Lay on gentleman of France! We never fire first!" His French counterpart the Comte d’Antroche bowed and said "No. After you please!" They would have kept bowing and curtseying all day until someone finally fired.

1775- During the American Revolution a New York mob carrying clubs and torches broke onto the campus of King’s College determined to lynch it’s president Miles Cooper, who was an outspoken loyalist. The mob was stopped on the steps of Cooper’s home by student Alexander Hamilton. While Cooper watched from the second story window. Cooper was hard of hearing and he thought the troublemaker Hamilton was the instigator of the mob. So while Hamilton begged the mob not to kill his college President Cooper yelled down:” DON’T LISTEN TO HIM! HE’S A BLOCKHEAD!” Despite this Miles Cooper got away unharmed and Kings College name was changed to Columbia University.

1776- France’s chief finance minister Turgot fell from power and resigned. Turgot tried to reform France’s almost medieval economy- While all the king could think of was to cut the budget for the Royal Lapdogs Turgot abolished outdated medieval tariffs, and subsidies to useless noblemen. He also began serious land reform. Many including Voltaire and Catherine the Great felt that if Turgot was allowed to be successful the French Revolution wouldn’t have happened. Frederick the Great agreed that “the Fall of Turgot presaged the collapse of France.”

1789- TAMANY HALL BORN- The first and oldest of U.S. political machines (clubs , pacts, lobbies, whatever ) Founded in Philadelphia and moved to New York it was named for a Chief Tamamend, the Delaware chief who welcomed William Penn. The Hall on 14 th street was nicknamed the Wigwam and the leaders called Sachems, the Algonquin word for chief.

Throughout the 1800's it was famous for buying and selling political offices, bribery and corruption. Boss Tweed and Slippery Dick Connolly, the first American to embezzle one million dollars, were Tamany Sachems. Tamany were the first to realize there was political power in mobilizing the mass of working class immigrants against the snooty New York power elite. Tamany Hall men would stand on docks welcoming immigrants with a voting card and a silver dollar to vote for their candidates. Another trick was for Tamany men to grow a full beard and vote, then go home, shave to a goatee, vote again, shave to a mustache, vote again, then clean shave and vote once more.

Tamany Hall was still influential into modern times. Bill O'Dwyer, a Tamany sachem was mayor of New York in the late 1940’s and in 1963 future Mayor Ed Koch became a congressman by unseating the last Tammany sachem Carmen DeSapio..

1796- Napoleon's French Republican Army occupied the city of Venice and destroyed the last traces of the independent Venetian Republic 'La Serenissima" The Most Surene Republic. The Last Doge Daniele Manin was forced to abdicate and his Byzantine crown and trappings of office were burned, along with his famous gilded barge, the 'Boucintoro'.
Venice, an independent city-state since 976AD was going to be part of Italy whether she liked it or not!

1797- The Peace of Leoben- Napoleon forced a peace treaty on Austria by menacing Vienna. He went in French eyes from a popular general to a national figure. At one point when frustrated with negotiating with the Austrian diplomats he smashed a china tea set to the floor and shouted “ If you don’t submit to my terms I will break your empire like so much old crockery!” With this treaty France gets it’s first real peace since the Revolution started in 1789.

1809- Napoleon’s heavy cannon- called Napoleon’s Daughters- began bombarding the Austrian capitol Vienna. Beethoven hid in a celler. A cannonball fell near composer Franz Josef Haydn’s house but the octogenarian composer comforted his friends:” Children don’t be frightened; Where Papa Haydn is, no harm can come to you.” When the city was occupied the French officer in charge of the guard on Haydn’s house comforted the old composer by singing an aria from his oratorio The Creation as he entered the room.

1812- Czar Alexander signed a peace treaty with Turkey in order to free up troops to face Napoleon’s pending invasion. Napoleon encouraged the Sultan to declare a jihad on Russia and promised him Moldova and other lost Balkan provinces. But the Sultan knew a con when he heard one and wouldn’t take the bait.

1846- The Donner Party wagon train left Independence Missouri to start it’s trek out west to California. They tried a new short cut proposed by a charlatan named Lansford Hastings to get to California. They crossing the burning alkaline deserts of Utah and were attacked by Paiute Indians. By Halloween heavy snow storms stranded the Donners in the High Sierra Mountains where the starving survivors resorted to cannibalism.

1864-BATTLE OF SPOTSYLVANIA- After Lee whips Grant in the Wilderness, instead of retreating Grant wheels around and attacks again. This time winning a draw. The fighting was dreadful, reports of trees so thick you couldn't put your arms around cut down by bullets, and men hit with so many 68 cal. musket balls at one time that their bodies literally would fall apart.

At the fight in the center of the line called The Angle Yankees and Confederates crowded in so tightly they pressed against one another like a massive rugby game. Soldiers fought hand to hand with pistol butts, flag staffs, clubs, fists, some even took their empty bayonet muskets and hurled them into the crowd like a spear. Nothing failed to cause injury.

One casualty was union general "Uncle John" Sedgewick, shot by rebel snipers. His last words were:" Aw go on men! Them rebs couldn't hit an elephant at this dis......."

1881- Tunisia was made a colonial protectorate of France.

1915- THE BRYCE COMISSION- An English commission to study reports of German atrocities that was really a propaganda machine aimed at getting the United States into the Great War. America had the problem that if she chose the allied side in World War One, several million immigrant citizens of German, Hungarian and Austrian descent were sympathetic to the Kaiser. Add to them millions of English-hating Irish, Jewish Americans who wanted the openly Anti-Semitic Russian Empire beaten and many average Americans who felt the main reason their forefathers crossed the ocean was to get away from the kind of trouble that occurred back in Europe.

So you can see it was hard to get everyone up for intervention. The American yellow press printed all the British accounts without ever questioning their accuracy- they horrified the average reader with hair-raising stories of German troops raping and killing Belgian women, chopping the hands off of children and crucifying Canadian prisoners with bayonets through their hands and feet. Even though some atrocities stories were verified, like the needless burning of the medieval Library of Louvain -The German term was Shreiklichkeit- Rule by Fear- today it is acknowledged that most of these accounts were dressed up to get us to Hate the Hun!

Later the U.S. Office of War Information took over feeding these stories to the press. It was headed by a psychiatrist Edmund Bernays, a psychoanalyst nephew of Sigmund Freud who after the war went into advertising.

1934- Hungarian scientist Dr Leo Szilard took out a secret patent on his concept of a chain reaction, being able to theoretically release energy from uranium on an atomic level. Enrico Fermi proved this and created the first controlled chain reaction in 1939.

1936- John Maynard Keynes most famous work "the General Theory of Money, Interest and Work" was published. Today if a politician advocates government control in the business market, he is called a "Keynesian". Keynes once said: ' My only regret in life is that I did not drink more champagne."

1937-After the abdication of Edward VIII to marry Mrs. Simpson, his brother Bertie was crowned today as King George VI at Westminster. King George and Queen Elizabeth were the parents of the current Queen and were the first English monarchs to travel to America and eat hot dogs.

1938- “The Adventures of Robin Hood” starring Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Olivia DeHaviland, Claude Rains and Eugene Paulette premiered. The swashbuckling film then cost a whopping $2 million dollars to make! The light brown horse Maid Marion rode in the movie was later bought by singing cowboy Roy Rogers and renamed Trigger.

1940-Despite being neutral, Switzerland mobilized it’s tiny army in anticipation of a Nazi invasion.

1943- Penned in at Tunis by English and American armies, Rommel's Nazi Afrika Korps laid down their arms. Rommel himself was hospitalized in Germany with diphtheria and would fight again. Besides desert and snows of Norway the Germans were so sure they would be active in all climates that after the war the allies found warehouses full of Tropical uniforms for action in some future African equatorial jungle.

1945- Reischmarshall Herman Goring drove to an American air base and surrendered himself and his family to USAAF commander General Spaatz. The former fighter pilot said he wanted to surrender to a fellow airman. Spaatz was later reprimanded for being photographed toasting and celebrating the end of the war with Goring.

1948- In Palestine, the secret key cabinet meeting of Jewish leaders over whether to declare independence before the British evacuated on May 15th. The UN and even the US was asking for a UN sponsored three month cooling off period but Jewish leaders like David Ben Gurion felt any more delay would be fatal. The decided that even though they would be attacked by five Arab nations simultaneously they would declare independence on May 14th.

The last problem was what to call the new country? After Zion, Zionia and Herzelania was suggested, they decided to go with the name of a Kibbutz using an ancient Biblical name- Eretz-Israel or simply Israel.

1949- THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF WEST GERMANY BORN- Seventy German politicians free of a Nazi past meet in a schoolroom and create Germany's first ever democratic constitution. The Allied Military Governor General Lucius Clay announced he would close his office and return to America. In 1989, The Federal Republic or West Germany, reunited with the Democratic Republic, aka East Germany.

1962- First day shooting on Frederigo Fellini’s film 8 1/2. When screened for American Producer Joe Levine, Levine took the cigar from his mouth and growled-” Frederigo, what da hell did that movie mean? ” Fellini shrugged –“I dunno”.

1971 - Rolling Stone Mick Jagger weds Bianca Macias at St Tropez Town Hall.
They later divorced and Bianca became a famous habitue’ of trendy discos and fashion magazines.

1971- Tor Johnson died of a heart attack at age 68. Swedish wrestler turned actor Tor’s preferred role was the bald eyeless zombie in classics like Plan Nine from Outer Space and Bride of the Monster.

1977- A small Westchester radio station WENW hired a thin, gawky, college grad as a DJ- Howard Stern. US radio would never be the same.

1982- The comic strip 'Marvin' debuted.

1985- Philadelphia Police were trying to break into the headquarters of a militant anarchist group called MOVE. They were barricaded in a row house. Someone had the bright idea of dropping a bomb on the building. The explosion and fire killed 11 including some children and set off a conflagration that engulfed the neighborhood. Some people remember it as noteworthy in that it was the first time an air strike was used on an American city by American authorities

1999- The First Scottish Parliament in three hundred years and the first Welsh assembly since Owen Glendower, in 1410 sat in session today.

2008- A powerful earthquake hit Chungdu in Sichuan Province in China, killing tens of thousands.
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Yesterday’s Question: In British occupied Ireland, the area between English settlements and the rest of the Irish was called “the Pale”. What area in Europe was called “the Plattland”..?

Answer: It was the open border region between German East Prussia and Poland.

Question: In British occupied Ireland, the area between English settlements and the rest of the Irish was called “the Pale”. What area in Europe was called “the Plattland”..?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Which one is not an old French film star? Philippe Noiret, Anouk Aimee, Miou-Miou, Boeuf Bourguignon, Mistinguett?
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History for 5/11/2012
Birthdays: Salvador Dali', Jean Jerome, Chang and Eng Bunker-the original Siamese Twins-1811, Baron Munchausen, Irving Berlin, King Oliver, Martha Graham, Dr Richard Fenyman, Mort Sahl, Phil Silvers, Foster Brooks, Denver Pyle, Henry Morgenthau, Doug McClure, Randy Quaid, Natasha Richardson, Rev Louis Farrakhan

330 A.D. Constantine the Great founded his city of New Rome, called Constantinople on the site of an older Greek city called Byzantium. The Russians call it Tsargrad, the Turks Istanbul or "The City”.

1189- German Emperor Frederick Barbarossa (red-beard) led 100,000 Crusaders out of Regensburg towards the Holyland. Two thirds of them never came home.

1780- A RUDE SHOCK TO THE INDEPENDENCE OF AMERICA.- That was how it was described by a Tory minister back in London, when the British Army captured the last major American seaport- Charleston, South Carolina. Colonial General Lincoln and 2500 regulars laid down their arms, it is the largest surrender of American troops in the Revolutionary War. At one time during the Revolution all of the largest US cities: Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Charleston were under British occupation.

The capture of Charleston also wiped out what little was left of the U.S. Navy. John Paul Jones was sitting on a beach in New Hampshire waiting for a new ship. It was the French navy, not the American, that won the war at sea.

Up till then the British strategy had been to wait out the bankrupt Yankees and concentrate on fighting the French and Spaniards in the Caribbean. George Washington recognized this strategy was working, since Congress was broke and the unpaid Continental Army was on the verge of mutiny. But their victory at Charleston encouraged the British to deviate from their plan and commit new armies to conquer America from the South. That decision led to the great British defeat at Yorktown.

1792- Captain Robert Gray discovered the Columbia River in the Oregon territory.

1812- A British merchant named Bellingham who's business was ruined by the Napoleonic wars, walked into the lobby of the House of Commons, and shot Prime Minister Sir Spencer Percival. He was the only British Prime Minister ever assassinated.

1831- French writer Alexis De Tocqueville visited the United States.

1858- Minnesota became a state.

1862- When their navy base was overrun by US Troops the Confederates had to blow up their ironclad warship the CSS Virginia, also called the Merrimac.

1864-JEB STUART FELL- Confederate commander of cavalry Jeb Stuart was a Beau-Sabeur who always rode into the thickest of a fight. This day one soldier shouted:” General, you must love bullets!” Stuart replied:” I don’t love bullets, but I can’t hide from them. I got a feeling I’m not going to survive this war.” Then he rode into battle with Sheridan’s cavalry at Yellow Tavern six miles north of Richmond.

A dismounted Yankee marksman spotted the familiar gray horseman with the black plumed hat and cape. As he rode by he emptied his carbine into him. Gutshot, Stuart still managed to ride a mile to the rear before falling insensible from his horse. He died shortly afterwards. He was 31.

1878-Young anarchist Erik Hymdel tries unsuccessfully to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm Ist. People today fear Al Qaeda but in the "Gilded Age" 1870's to 1920's it was the Anarchist movement- the stereotypical men in broad hats and long black coats with smoldering round bombs. They believed that society itself was the problem and if it could be broken down only then would everyone be truly free.

1894- The workers of the Pullman Railroad Car Company went on strike led by young crusading attorney Eugene V. Debs.

1927- Polar explorers Roald Amundsen, Michael Ellsworth and General Nobile fly over the North Pole in a dirigible called the Norge. They were preceeded by several days by Commander Robert Byrd and Floyd Bennett in a fixed wing Fokker aeroplane. Norwegian Roald Ammundsen had already conquered the South Pole but on this flight he felt useless. He was offended when General Nobile celebrated in Fascist Italian jackbooted, Seig-Heiling style when they got back.

1943- US troops storm Attu island in the Aleutians. Japanese troops had occupied the Alaskan Aleutian archipelago in 1942 to draw attention from the fleet attack at Midway. It was the only US soil under enemy occupation in World War Two. The US forces were the Special Forces/10th Mountain Battalion once known as Darbys Rangers who fought in Italy. Their commander Col Darby was killed two days before the Nazi surrender in Europe.

1945-After the Nazi Germany surrendered the Nazi governor of occupied Norway, Josef Treboven, committed suicide by sitting on a stick of dynamite. When Wile E, Coyote does it, its funny, but Norwegian Nazis? Its messy.

1946- The first CARE package sent.

1948- After World War Two the cooperation between U.S. unions and management disappeared and the nation was paralyzed by a nationwide steel and railroad strikes. President Truman, who had praised the labor cooperation the year before reacted by this day ordering the military to seize the railroads and run them and draft into the navy any strikers who object.

1956 - Pinky Lee Show last airs on NBC-TV

1968 - actor Richard Harris attempted a singing career, releasing the song "MacArthur Park".

1968- The Vietnamese give up their siege of the Marine firebase at Que Sanh. The siege had lasted since January.

1969- In Vietnam the 101st Airborne and South Vietnamese forces began their assault on Hamburger Hill. Originally called the Ap Bia mountain, it was nicknamed Hamburger because of the meat grinder loss of human life to capture it. It was taken May 20th with the 11th assault.

1972 -On the Dick Cavett talk show Beatle and peace activist John Lennon said his phone had been tapped by FBI. It turns out it was, but at the time we all thought he was just paranoid from too many drugs.

1981- The musical play CATS opened in London.

1981- Bob Marley died of brain cancer at age 36. Jamaican Marley and his group the Wailers, made Reggae mainstream in pop music around the world. Ja –Mahn!

1992 - Carlos Herrera, bartender inventor of the Margarita, died at age 90- Margherita was supposedly named for Hollywood actress Margaret Sullivan who wanted to drink tequila and lime but couldn’t tolerate the strong taste. Herrera mixed the tequila and lime juice into an iced cocktail and put the salt along the rim. He mixed a batch whenever he heard the actress was in Tijuana, writing on the bottle- For Little Margaret- Por Margherita.

1992- Elizabeth McDonald, inventor of the detergent cleanser Spic & Span, died at 98.

1997- Deep Blue, a computer developed at IBM, defeated top world chess champion Gennady Kasparov.
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Yesterday’s Question: Which one is not an old French film star? Philippe Noiret, Anouk Aimee, Miou-Miou, Boeuf Bourguignon, Mistinguett?

Answer: Boeuf Bourguignon is a delicious dish of beef in wine sauce.

Quiz: Which one is not an old French film star? Philippe Noiret, Anouk Aimee,
Miou-Miou, Boeuf Bourguignon, Mistinguett?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Where are your Sebaceous glands?
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History for 5/10/2012
Birthdays: Fred Astaire, Nancy Walker, French royal minister Turgot, Marshal Jean Lannes, Marshal Nicolas Davout, John Wilkes Booth (assassin of Lincoln) Mark David Chapman (assassin of John Lennon), David O. Selznick, Ariel Durant, Jim Abrahams, Donovan, Homer Simpson, Gen. Lasalle*, Bono

(*Lasalle was the dashing French cavalry leader who said "Any hussar who's not dead by 30 is a coward!" In 1813, while leading an attack, he was shot through the head. He was 31.)

1650- The British take Jamaica from the Spanish. At this time Britons were discovering the delights of a new condiment made on that island- sugar!

1726- Philosopher Francois Voltaire visited England.

1748- English slave trader John Newton’s ship was caught in a violent Mid Atlantic storm and was about to go under. When Newton prayed to God he would reform his life if he made it through this gale, the storm broke. Newton not only stopped his slave trading ways but he wrote a hymn, Amazing Grace. "Amazing Grace, How Great Thou Art, to Save a Wretch Like Me! I was lost, but now I’m found, etc."

1774- King Louis XV of France died. Before he died he muttered "apres moi, le deluge.." after me, the deluge. His grandson the Duke du Berry became King Louis XVI.

1775- FT. TICONDEROGA- Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen surprise the great fortress in the dead of night and capture the cannons Washington needed to drive the British out of Boston. 20 years earlier the British took huge losses taking that same fort from the French. All the British commander lost this time was his trousers, he was captured in his nightclothes. As Allen and Arnold woke him he scowled: "By who's authority do you do this?" Allen retorted: " In the name of Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress!"

1796- THE BATTLE OF LODI- The Austrian Army in Italy attempted to slow Napoleons pursuit of them by blocking a bridge with 14 cannon and daring the French to cross. This is where the beginning of Napoleons legend among his men starts to form. He whips up the confidence of his men to the point where they enthusiastically rush across the bridge and overrun the cannon. Even though Napoleon is the army’s commander he is out in front sharing the danger from shot and shell sighting his cannon like a corporal. This is when men start to call him "The Little Corporal". He later told a friend’ They haven’t seen anything yet." An older general said:" You know, that little bastard scares me."

1815- Before any of the armies march to Waterloo Napoleon’s police minister and cousin Nicolas Fouche’ sneaked copies of all his battle plans to Wellington in Brussels. After Napoleon’s defeat this little act of treachery got Fouche’ a plum job in the post war Royal French Government.

1837-THE SEPOY REBELLION- Indian troops serving in the British army go on a rampage after they learn that their new rifle cartridges are greased with tallow made from pig and beef fat. To load your gun you had to bite the paper at the end of the cartridge, in effect tasting the fat, which is forbidden by the Hindu and Moslem religions. The British army withdrew the offending cartridges when they learned of the mistake but it was too late. The Sepoy's thought it was a British trick to rob their souls and make them Christians. The mutinying Indian soldiers were soon joined by the Hindu Maharratas and Moslem Moghul sultan. It became the biggest armed revolt ever in the history of British India.

1837- The Wall Street Panic of 1837 began a seven year depression. The militia was called in to keep the peace on Wall Street.

1861- First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln decided the White House looked like a dump and went off to New York to buy new furnishings. She was heavily criticized for her lavish spending during such dark days for the country, but her habit of dealing with stress was to go shopping. She learned from a White House long timer how to pad and hide expenses in credit statements so her husband wouldn’t find out. She once bought 300 pairs of gloves, some which she never opened from the boxes. When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Go Shopping!

1863- Confederate General Thomas Stonewall Jackson died of his wounds after being shot by his own men in an accident during the Battle of Chancellorsville. His last words were"Lets us cross over the bridge and rest under the shade of the trees." Years after the Civil War ended Robert E.Lee once meditated on his big loss at Gettysburg: " If Jackson had been there we would not have lost Gettysburg."

1865- One month after Richmond fell and Lee surrendered Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the remains of his government was arrested by U.S. cavalry while on the run in Georgia. The former US cabinet secretary served two years in prison at Fort Monroe Virginia, at times shackled with leg irons. He was threatened several times to be put on trial for treason but that never happened. Lawyer Davis actually wanted the trial because he wished the opportunity in court to prove the constitutional legality of states right to leave the union. He would never be allowed that chance. He was released and spent the final years of his life writing his memoirs.

One enduring mystery is the fate of the Confederate Gold Reserve. While the rebel government was on the run after the fall of Richmond several wagons in their train were carrying nine million dollars in gold bullion. Around Darien Georgia the wagons disappear from history...

1865- QUANTRILL FELL- William Clark Quantrill was a Confederate guerilla who was so brutal and uncontrollable that the Richmond government refused to admit he was ever in their army. Quantrill’s Raiders raised hell across Missouri and Kansas. One month after Lee surrendered to Grant, he was operating under an alias in Kentucky. Union authorities enlisted a vigilante gang led by Capt. Edmund Tyrell to kill him. Tyrell was as lawless as Quantrill, but he got the desired result.

In an ambush near Louisville, Quantrill was brought down in a hail of bullets. He lingered with a broken spine for a month before expiring. He was 27. On his deathbed he converted to Catholicism and left all his money to his mistress. The priest officiating at the burial encouraged people to strew garbage and human waste on his grave. Some of Quantrill’s junior soldiers went on to have even more famous careers: outlaws Jesse & Frank James, Cole & Bob Younger.

1868- Women's Rights advocate Victoria Woodhull declared she was a candidate for President of the United States with black activist Frederick Douglas as her running mate.Advocate of Free Love, Socialism and Spiritualism, Mrs. Woodhull had to campaign from jail where she was placed for distribution of pornography. She not as well remembered as Susan B. Anthony or Elizabeth Cady-Stanton because the main women’s rights movement distanced themselves from her outlandish behavior.

1869- THE GOLDEN SPIKE- At Promontory Utah the Union Pacific and the Southern Pacific met, finally connecting the entire U.S. continent by rail. Before this when you wanted to go from New York to San Francisco you had to take a boat to Havana, then Nicaragua, take a mule train through jungle then get a third ship up the Pacific coast to California. The millionaire directors of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific came to Utah for the ceremony. The racing rail gangs had actually passed each other and had to correct a detour of 250 miles.

When the rich men were called upon to swing the large sledgehammers to drive in the golden spike both missed and hit the ground -one had a hangover. A workman had to actually accomplish the deed. The link completed an electric circuit to send telegraph news of the event simultaneously to New York and San Francisco. They celebrated by the synchronized firing of cannon east over the Atlantic and west out over the Pacific, symbolically telling the world to watch out! That America was now a continental power that has got its act together.

1869- CREDIT MOBILIER SCANDAL- The stock company that handled the transcontinental railroad's budgets, Credit Mobilier, billed the government $175 million dollars for the job when it actually only cost $86 million. When the figures were disputed gov't officials were given bribes of Credit Mobilier stock to keep quiet.

When the scandal finally broke in 1872 many of Republican Pres. Grant's top officials were implicated. When Vice President Schuyler Colfax was asked about a deposit slip for $10,000 marked the same day as a Credit Mobilier payroll slip made out for the same amount, he remarked it was a political donation from a benefactor whose name he couldn't remember who died shortly after anyway. He said the check fell out of his morning newspaper at breakfast.

1885- Geronimo goes on the warpath. For the next 15 months he holds off 5,000 U.S. troops with just 16 Apache warriors,12 women and 6 children.

1893- The U.S. government declares the Tomato officially a vegetable and not a fruit.

1908- The First Mother's Day celebrated, it became a national holiday in 1914. The holiday was inspiration of a lady named Anna Jarvis, who spent the rest of her life trying to keep it from being commercially exploited. She died broke and surrounded by mothers day cards sent from well wishers.

1908- An article in the New York Times advised women to wash their hair every two weeks. The norm for women then was shampooing every three months!

1924- J.Edgar Hoover given control of F.B.I.- Hoover was the third director of what was up until then a small powerless division of the treasury dept that wasn't even allowed to carry guns until the late 1920's. He built up and dominated the bureau until 1972.

1928- General Electric starts up WG4 Schenectady, the first T.V. Station.

1929- Yankee slugger Babe Ruth signs new contract that brings him more money than President Herbert Hoover. "I had a better year than he had" was the Babe’s reply.

1933- Nazis Leader Josef Goebbels holds the first mass book-burning in Berlin. " We consign everything unGerman to the flames." 20,000 works by Thomas Mann, Hemingway, Dos Passos, Freud and Einstein are burned.

1940- THE BLITZKRIEG IN THE WEST BEGAN-Nazi Panzer tanks roll into Belgium and Holland in violation of their neutrality, beginning their massive offensive on Anglo-French forces. This ended the stalemate that existed for several months after the September declaration of war, nicknamed the 'Stitzkrieg', or 'sit-down war'. The French had spent millions building a complex system of underground mountain bunkers called the Maginot Line. The German tanks merely drove around them. Once flanked the bunkers discovered they couldn’t turn their guns around to shoot behind them.

1940- Old Kaiser Wilhelm was in exile in Holland since 1918. He refused to come home on Hitler's invitation because he knew he'd be used for propaganda. He died peacefully that same year.

1940- British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain resigned. Winston Churchill took over as Prime Minister to deal with the war crisis. He told Britons "I have nothing to offer you but blood, toil, tears, and sweat." In the 1960’s, a rock band thought that was a great name for a band- Blood Sweat & Tears.

1941- THE STRANGE FLIGHT OF RUDOLPH HESS. Rudolph Hess was Adolph Hitler’s trusted right hand and one of the top Nazis in the German Reich. This day at the height of Nazis power Hess commandeered a Messerschmitt fighter and flew alone to England. He claimed to be on a secret mission to reach Churchill and negotiate peace. Allied leaders refused to meet with him, and Hitler declared Hess had lost his mind. After the war, Hess was sentenced to life in prison at Spandau. To eyewitnesses at the Nuremberg trial he did indeed appear deranged. Historians have always speculated what the secret message Hess was carrying from Hitler to Churchill. In 1991 on the 50th anniversary, historians expected the secret files to at last be declassified, but the British government put them under a new top secret seal for another 100 years.

1948- Just five days before declaring independence Jewish diplomat Golda Meir sneaked through Palestine dressed in an Arab woman’s burkha to have a secret meeting with King Abdallah of Jordan. Abdallah had no use for the Palestinian leaders and tacitly supported the Zionists, but as subjects to a greater Jordan. Now the other Arab nations were pressuring him to join them in a war against the new Jewish state.

1963- On the advice of George Harrison and Little Richard, Decca Records signed a new teen band called the Rolling Stones to a recording contract.

1972-Over the skies of Vietnam, Navy pilot Randy “Duke” Cunningham had dogfights with enemy planes. This day he shot down three Mig 21s, and he dueled and shot down the top North Vietnamese ace, nicknamed Colonel Toon. Duke Cunningham parlayed his fame into a career in politics. He became a conservative Republican congressman who built a notorious record of taking bribes. He accumulated Rolls Royces, mansions, and a yacht he named the Dukester. He actually circulated a price list for his vote. Eventually, Randy Duke Cunningham went to prison.

1993- 188 young women died in a fire in a toy making factory near Bangkok, Thailand. They were locked into the building by their employer like the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire victims in 1911. They were making Bart Simpson dolls for America.

1994- Nelson Mandela inaugurated as first black president of South Africa.

1994- Former children’s party clown and serial killer John Wayne Gacy was executed by lethal injection. Police found 28 children buried around his house. His last words: "Kiss My Ass!"

1996- DEADLIEST DAY ON MOUNT EVEREST- One dozen mountain climbers with their veteran guides and Sherpas are caught on the summit by a hurricane-like blizzard. Pinned down by 100 mile an hour winds and a wind chill of one hundred degrees below zero. They soon run out of oxygen 29,800 feet above sea level. Eight die, two blindly walked off the South Escarpment and plunged 7,000 feet. Two had to have limbs amputated from frostbite. The groups leader Rob Hall called his base camp on his cellular phone who connected him with his pregnant wife in New Zealand so he could say goodbye before dying. The climbers were doctors, lawyers and executives who paid $65,000 apiece, not counting airfare and Tibetan permits. Mount Everest would claim 11 more lives that spring and seven in 1997, yet a waiting list remains of hundreds of people wanting to climb to the top of the world.
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Yesterday’s Question answered below: Where are your Sebaceous glands?

Answer: In your skin. They are the glands that secrete oils to keep your skin soft and pliable.

Can you please make a announcement of these May events?
Two May events at the Motion Picture Academy of Arts & Sciences I am part of.


On Monday May 21st, The Development of the Digital Animator, Tom Sito's hosts an evening dedicated to the history of computer animation. Featured Guests
JOHN LASSETER (Toy Story), BILL KROYER (Tron), PHIL TIPPETT(Jurassic Park), TIM JOHNSON (Over the Hedge), REBECCA ALLEN (Kraftwork, The Catherine Wheel), PHILIPPE BERGERON (Tony de Peltri) , JEFF KLEISER ( FLight of the Intruder)


http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2012/05/animator.html


Also, on Friday May 18th, For the Gene Kelly Centennial , Eric Goldberg and I will be discussing Gene Kelly's dancing with Tom & Jerry.

http://www.oscars.org/events-exhibitions/events/2012/05/kelly-choreography.html

Tickets are going fast. $5 for the public, $3 for students.

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Quiz: Who coined the term “ A last ditch effort”..?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below For George Clooney’s birthday, did he ever do a voice for animation?
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History for 5/7/2012
Birthday: Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilyich Tschaikowsky, Gary Cooper, Gabby Hayes, Robert Browning, Marcus Loew of Loews Theater chain, Darin McGavin, Edward Land (inventor of the Polaroid lens and camera), Bob Clampett, Amy Heckerling, Traci Lords is 44

Greek Festival of the Birth of Apollo.

401 B.C. SOCRATES DIED. Contrary to modern perception not everyone in ancient Greece loved philosophy. The Greeks had the same conflicts we have now between faith, tradition and rational thought and science. The scientist Anaxagoras was run out of town for saying that the Sun wasn’t Phoebus in a chariot but a burning rock floating in space. Euripides the playwright was also in trouble for doubting the Gods existence.

But Socrates pushed the argument to its most extreme conclusion. The Athenian conservatives convicted Socrates of blasphemy and subverting the public morals. All hoped Socrates would just pay a fine and shut up, but Socrates unrepentant stance forced the law to go all the way to the death penalty. He was ordered to commit suicide by being given a cup of Hemlock. Actually it wasn’t a cup., the poison was held in a leaf of Romaine Lettuce, then called Lettuce of the Isle of Cos. His friend Crito said “You don’t deserve to die!” To which he replied: “You weep because you would rather I did deserve death? ”

Socrates students like Plato and Xenophon continued on and became great writers on their own. My favorite story was that Socrates wife Xantippe was always yelling at him for wasting his time philosophizing when he should be working at his real job as a stone-cutter. After one loud tirade, she dumped a pisspot's contents on his head. Socrates looked at his friends and replied:" After thunder one should expect some rain."

558AD- The dome of the great Byzantine basilica the Haghia Sophia collapsed under its own weight. The Emperor Justinian ordered it immediately rebuilt stronger.

1661- When it became obvious that King Charles II was going to be restored to the English throne, radical Puritans like poet John Milton thought it best to go into hiding. Many urged the king to hang the old blind poet with the other men who caused his father Charles Ist to be beheaded. But Charles chose to forgive and ignore the old man. The positive result was now that Milton was barred from politics, he could focus on his great epic poems like “Paradise Lost”.

1760- A British merchant ship named the Friendship arrived in Virginia from Barbados. On board for his first sea voyage and his first sight of America was a young Scottish apprentice named John Paul, who we would know later as US Navy captain John Paul Jones.

1763- Chief Pontiac attacked Fort Detroit. Angry over British treatment after the French and Indian War , Pontiac had united all the Great Lakes tribes with their French trapper friends to attack all the forts simultaneously from Illinois to Maine. He later took the fort’s fat commander Captain Cambell hostage and gave him to the allied Chippewas who tomahawked him and ate his heart. Yum!

1789- To complete the break with Mother England the Church of England in America renamed itself the Episcopalian Church.

1795- Throughout the French Revolution one region of France, La Vendee’, stubbornly stayed loyal to the monarchy and waged a long guerrilla war. Several French generals were sent to pacify the province but were unsuccessful. This day young whiz kid Napoleon Bonaparte learned he had been posted to the Vendee’. He immediately protested the posting and requested duty elsewhere. He recognized this move would be bad for his career but beyond that Nappy never wanted to be part of a civil war. Even after Waterloo, when he could have stayed in power by enforcing military control he refused because it would have meant fighting other Frenchmen. “There is no honor in spilling the blood of Frenchmen.”

1800- The US Congress divided up the Northwest Territories, separating Indiana from Ohio.

1847-American Medical Assoc. founded.

1863- Hard-fighting Confederate major general Earl 'Buck' Van Dorn was killed, but not in battle. A Tennessee doctor named J.G. Peters made an appointment with the general, went up behind him while he was at his desk and shot him in the back of the head. Peters then calmly got back into his carriage and rode to Union lines. Peters wasn't a Yankee assassin. He was expressing his disapproval of the fact that the handsome Van Dorn was having an affair with his wife.

1864-The WILDERNESS- LEE MET GRANT FOR THE FIRST TIME- Southern General Robert E. Lee lured Ulysses Grant's army into a dense tangled forest called the Wilderness and defeated him. The superior numbers of the Yankee troops became meaningless crawling about in the thick woods. At one point when the rebel line was in danger of breaking Lee rode to the front himself but was stopped by a Texas brigade. “Texan’s Always Move Them! “ Lee cried, and the inspired Texans threw back the enemy.

That night hundreds of wounded left on the ground burned to death because the cannons had started a brush fire. Grant suffered as many casualties as at previous Union defeats like Chancellorsville yet instead of retreating to Washington to make excuses to Lincoln he circled around and attacked again. The men cheered wildly when they saw Grant quietly sitting atop his horse directing the columns back around for another try. Grant exhibited an iron-like reserve in public but that night alone in his tent he broke down and sobbed like a child. The two armies will maneuver and duel for 60 days straight until Grant boxed Lee into his Richmond defenses.

1904 - Flexible Flyer trademark registered

1912-Paramount Pictures formed.

1915- THE LUSITANIA- The Civilian oceanliner Luisitania was torpedoed and sunk by the German submarine U-20. 1,198 drowned, including many Americans. The Kaiser later gave a medal to the U-boat Captain Walter Schweige. These acts outraged American opinion and led us into World War I, despite many pro-German immigrants. It was revealed later that the reason Lusitania sank so quickly, just 18 minutes - even Captain Schweige was surprised- was that it's cargo hold was full of explosives.

First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill fought the German U-boat blockade by covertly transporting purchased American weapons on hospital ships, civilian ocean liners and let some British freighters illegally fly the flags of neutral countries. The German government knew that the Lusitania had been classified by the British admiralty a military cruiser. The German government apologized to the American government and stopped the unrestricted U-boat campaign for two years, but the Lusitania shifted neutral U.S. public sympathy irrevocably to the Franco-English side.

1919- Defeated Germany learned just how bad the terms of the Versailles Peace Treaty were going to hit them. They expected bad times but were shocked at just how severe and steep the reparation payments were going to be. Millions were to be paid in indemnities and large areas of their industrial heartland would be under foreign occupation. The anger over this treaty did a lot to stoke the fires for revenge that would bring Hitler to power.

1926- Gangster Al Capone killed 3 men with a baseball bat over dinner.

1937-Nobel Prize winning writer William Faulkner hired by MGM Studios, earning $500 a week. He celebrated by going on a two week long drinking binge. When MGM's Head of Writing Sam Marx had him tracked down to an Oakie migrant camp in the Imperial Valley, he was dragged off boozily whining: " Ah wanna write for Mickey Mouse !!"

1939- Los Angeles Union Station opened. It was built on top of L.A's original China Town.

1941-Glen Miller records the "Chattanooga Choo-Choo" for RCA. the first gold record million seller.

1942- Battle of the Coral Sea-The U.S. Navy, suffering only defeats up till then, stops a Japanese task force. This is the first engagement in which the two fleets never saw each other, but fought long distance with carrier launched airplanes. Veterans commented that one of the sadder losses was when the aircraft carrier USS Lexington went down, she took the fleet's supply of 6 Bugs Bunny cartoons with her. War is Hell.

1945- V.E. Day. Grand Admiral Doenitz, the successor to Adolph Hitler, officially surrendered the Third Reich to the allies. They repeat the ceremony to the Russians next day. Admiral Doenitz said after the signing:" I feel we shall not see our flag fly over a prosperous Germany in our lifetime." Well, not in your lifetime, Karl....

1945- German fighter ace Eric Hartmann celebrated the end of the war by going up in his Messerschmitt ME109f and shooting down one final allied plane. He caught the Ilushyin Russian fighter doing a victory roll. Hartman was called the Black Devil of the Ukraine, because he shot down 352 enemy planes. After ten years in a Siberian prison camp, he went home to his farm in Holstein and lived peacefully.

1945- In a top secret test at Los Alamos the Manhattan Project scientists detonated in the desert a single blast 100,000 pounds of TNT. This was to measure the effect of a blast that big and provide a control to gauge the effectiveness of the Atomic Bomb. 100,000 pounds of TNT became known as one Kiloton. The Hiroshima A-Bomb was 20 kilotons,
the largest thermonuclear device was 50 kilotons.

1966- “Monday Monday” by the Mammas and the Poppas becomes #1 in the pop charts.

1996- Comedian Martin Lawrence went berserk and ran down a main intersection in Van Nuys Cal. raving and waving a pistol. When asked to explain himself, Lawrence blamed it on “Dehydration.”

1998- Apple Computers introduced the iMac.

2009- Decorated professional soldier Lt. Dan Choi directly challenged the US military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell ban on gay soldiers by outing himself on Rachel Maddow’s national news show. He was discharged by July, but his plea helped make the case for gay servicepeople. In Dec 2010, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was repealed by Congress with overwhelming popular support.

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Yesterday’s Question: For George Clooney’s birthday, did he ever do a voice for animation?

Answer: He voiced the lead character in The Fantastic Mr. Fox. (2010).

Quiz: For George Clooney’s birthday, did he ever do a voice for animation?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What was the original proposed name of The Internet?
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History for 5/6/2012
Birthdays: Maximillien Robespierre, Sigmund Freud, Rudolph Valentino, Orson Welles, Robert Peary, Willie Mays, Stewart Granger*, Bob Seger, Toots Schoor, Weeb Ewbank, Andriana Caselotti- the voice of Snow White, Ruben Hurricane Carter, Christian Clavier, Tony Blair, George Clooney is 52.

*English actor Stewart Granger had to change his name to get into Hollywood movies. His real name was Jimmy Stewart.

1096- Massacre of Mainz- As mobs of Crusaders massed to war on the Holyland, they deliberately chose a route of march through Central Europe. As they passed through cities like Prague, Wurms, Mainz and Spier they could vent their religious zeal by massacring the Jewish communities there.

Many well meaning bishops like the Bishop of Mainz tried to stop them and hide Jews, but the pogrom was terrible. In some cities when faced with death or baptizing, hundreds of Jews committed suicide. When at the walls of Jerusalem the Crusaders saw the Jewish community fighting shoulder to shoulder with their Moslem-Arab cousins against them.

1527- THE SACK OF ROME- Pope Clement VII "the Medici Fox" played the diplomatic tango with the world powers a bit too clumsily and Emperor Charles V of Spain, Holland and Germany launched an army at Rome. Charles gave his general Charles De Bourbon a hangman's noose dipped in gold, a "Golden Rope to Hang the Pope"

The Vatican armies were led by the late Pope Julius's bastard son Maria Della Rovere who didn't like Clement so he kept his army out of the whole war. The city of Rome’s defense was organized by the artist Benevenuto Cellini. He managed to get off one shot before escaping out the back door and that shot killed Charles de Bourbon, so now a loot crazed mercenary army with no commander was let loose in the richest city in Europe. The troops pillaged for months, only the plague drove them out. Many of the troops were newly converted Protestants, so they looked forward to despoiling the Great Whore of Rome.

They entered the orphanage of Santo Spirito and slaughtered all the patients, then ran into St. Peters and massacred all the harmless people who sought sanctuary there. They dressed a donkey in cardinals robes, proclaimed Martin Luther pope and made campfires in the Sistine chapel-which is why the fresco was darkened by smoke. 147 of the Pope’s elite Swiss Guard held off the rampaging enemy army until the Pope could escape. They were massacred to a man. Ever since, May 6th is the day new members of the Swiss Guard are installed at the Vatican.

Pope Clement escaped the golden rope, but the Vatican never regained the power it once had and popes actually started to concentrate on spiritual stuff!


1603- After a triumphal procession down from Edinburgh James VI of Scotland enters London as James Ist of England. Although the treaty of union was not formally signed until 1717 James can truly be called the first king not just of England but of Great Britain.

1682-THE GLOUCESTER DISASTER- The good ship Gloucester was carrying the Duke of York and his court back from Scotland when it struck a reef off Norfolk and sank. It was said the good Duke, who would soon be King James II, courageously stayed until it was almost too late then escaped in a longboat. Later the Duke of Marlborough revealed in letters to his wife that if James had left sooner instead of worrying about his image they might have been able to save more people. As it was James took the only longboat and filled it with his luggage, hunting dogs and priest. He then posted guards with drawn swords to keep anyone else coming on board. James and only 40 people survived while 300 perished with the ship. Later as King James II he was overthrown and driven into exile with the help of Marlborough.

1793- American artist Gilbert Stuart arrived back home after a stay in Europe dead broke. In the Age of Gainsborough, Romney and West, Stuart didn’t do so well. He left America because he was tired of being pestered to do copies of his famous portrait of George Washington, the one that is currently on our dollar bill.

1833 - John Deere makes his1st steel plow.

1840- Britain issued the Penny-Blacks, the first perforated adhesive postage stamps.

1862- Henry David Thoreau dies at age 44. When his sister asked him :"Have you made your peace with God?" Thoreau replied:" I was unaware that we had ever quarreled."
His last words as he faded away were “Moose…Indian…”

1864-Ulysses Grant started his armies moving south towards Robert E. Lee in Virginia. One general cynically noted :” The fourth act of our comedy has begun.”

1877- One year after Custer's Last Stand Crazy Horse, "the Napoleon of the Plains", surrendered to U.S. authorities. They obligingly assassinated him later.

1882 -Congress passed the First Chinese Exclusion Act.

1903-A bronze plaque was attached to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. On it was a poem The New Colossus by a young Jewish immigrant woman named Emma Lazarus. She was disturbed by the Anti-Semitic violence in Russia and wrote this inspired by the symbol of the Statue. “Give Me your Tired, Your Poor..” The French creators had intended the Statue of Liberty to symbolize political liberty but Lazarus’s poem had confirmed the Statue as“ The Mother of Exiles ”.

1915-Babe Ruth hits his first home run. He was a Boston Red Sox pitcher at the time. He will finish his career with 714 home runs, a record that held for decades until Hank Aaron.

1919- Seattle dockworkers go on strike refusing to load weapons destined to fight fellow workers in the Russian Revolution.

1919- Wizard of Oz creator L.Frank Baum died of heart disease at 62. He was trying at the time to buy real estate in Los Angeles for an Oz- theme amusement park.

1937-The Giant Zeppelin Graf HINDENBURG EXPLODED while landing in Lakehurst New Jersey. Despite the horrible film images 63 of the 90 passengers and crew escaped.
People to this day aren’t sure what happened, from an igniting from static electricity to an anti-nazi saboteur firing a flare gun into the hydrogen gas bags. The explosion originated behind the large swastika on the tail.

The previous year a visit from a German luxury liner the S.S. Bremen caused a riot on the New York City docks as demonstrators fought police to tear the hated Nazi flag down. It was possible at that time to fly a dirigible with non flammable helium, but it was much more expensive than hydrogen and the worlds chief supplier of helium, the United States, was reluctant to sell Hitler that much of the strategic chemical.

The American ground crew wanted to give a gift to the German captain who was dying of 3rd degree burns, so they presented him with an engraved cigarette lighter! (tacky) My grandparents told me they drove out to see the wreckage with a huge crowd. Even though it was still smoldering people were prying chunks off it for souvenirs.

Zeppelins were once supposed to be moored to the top of the Empire State Building but that never came about. By 1939 Goring ordered all remaining zeppelins and hangers scrapped for their valuable materials.

1937- THE FLEISCHER STRIKE-Cartoonists vote to strike Max Fleischers Studio after Max fires 13 animators for union activity and complaining about the 6 day work week.
The strike was settled several weeks later when parent company Paramount forced Max to concede. Strikers sang "We're Popeye the Union Man! We're Popeye the Union Man! We'll Fight to the Finish, Cause We Can't Live on Spinach ! We're Popeye...etc."

1937- The Society of Motion Picture Art Directors formed.

1941- A friend of Bob Hope who was now in the military suggested the comedian come and entertain troops on their army post. Hope takes the suggestion and it becomes his signature event. Into his eighties he entertained servicemen around the world in five wars.

1945- Just as exhausted GI’s in Germany were beginning to celebrate the end of the war in Europe, an announcement in Stars & Stripes newspaper gave them the bad news that they won’t be demobilized and go home until Japan was defeated as well! European armies were scheduled for the invasion of the Japanese home islands in november if the atomic bombs didn’t work.

1946- Curly Howard, was the most outrageous of the comedy troupe The Three Stooges.
While people laughed at his antics, he lived a wild Hollywood life, lots of clubs, drinking, smoking and girls. This day while filming the short Halfwits Holiday, he suffered a massive stroke. He was 42. He survived 6 more years in deteriorating health, moved from hospital to hospital by his brothers. He died in 1952 at age 48.

1949-EDSAC did its’ first calculations in England. The first computer that could store data in it’s memory.

1954- Oxford student Roger Bannister ran the first Four Minute Mile. His time was 3:59.04.

1994- The Channel Tunnel or The Chunnel opened between Folkestone England and Calais France.

2001- Variety reported that the Walt Disney Company in promoting their upcoming summer film Pearl Harbor, had canceled plans for Pearl Harbor Happy Meals at McDonalds, as being in bad taste. …..Hmmm…do ya think..?

2003- A giant tornado destroyed the factory in Jackson, Tennessee that produced most of the world’s supply of Pringles Potato Chips.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was the original name of The Internet?

Answer: In 1966 when research team leader J.C.R. Licklider proposed linking up computers in several major universities, he called it the “ Intergalactic Network”. But when it really began in 1969, it was called the APRPANET, for Advanced Research Projects, Agency- net.