Question: When you ask for a Rob Roy, what do you get?

Yesterday’s question answered below: We discussed Russia’s Time of Troubles, but in what country was an era simply called “ The Troubles”..?
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History for 12/27/2011
Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, Linwood Dunn, Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Levant, Sidney Greenstreet, Anna Russell, William Masters of Masters & Johnson, Leslie Maguire, John Amos, Tovah Feldshuh, Heather O’Rourke, Cokie Roberts, Bollywood star Salman Khan is 46 Gerard Depardieu is 63

In Bhutan- Happy Day of the Nine Evils.

Feast Day of Saint John the Evangelist

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. 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. 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 finally 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.

1871- The world’s first cat show opened at the Crystal Palace in London.

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 starts 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 favorite “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 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. Peter llewlyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan, used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.”, He committed suicide in 1960. James Barrie once said to H.G. Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

1927- Broadway musical "ShowBoat" debuts at the Ziegfeld theater. Based on a story by Edna Ferber the music was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein. The play made a star out of a tall black baritone named Paul Robeson.” Ol’ Man River..”

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. Cole Porter sang” They all laughed at Rockefeller Center, now they clamor to get in…..”

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 Siberian labor camps.

1943- The movie The Song of Bernadette premiered.

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

1945- Russia and American agree to divide occupied Korea into two parts 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 and 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.

1949- Happy Indonesian Independence Day.

1951- The Crosley car goes into service for the post office in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is a 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.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production and even films the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

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 fixed upon the threat posed by Abu Nidal as though it was a personal vendetta. In 2001 while the world was distracted by the event of 9-11 and the war on Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein’s secret police 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.
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Yesterday’s question: We discussed Russia’s Time of Troubles, but in what country was an era simply called “ The Troubles”..?

Answer: It’s the period of sectarian conflict and IRA bombings in Northern Ireland, from the 1960s to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998.

Today’s Quiz: We discussed Russia’s Time of Troubles, but in what country was an era simply called “ The Troubles”..?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Quiz: Who was Emmanuel Yesuah Ben Joseph?
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History for 12/26/2011
Birthdays: Emperor Frederick II Hohenstaufen, Mao Tse Tung, Charles Babbage, Admiral Dewey, Richard Widmark, Steve Allen, Henry Miller, Carlton Fisk, Chris Chambliss, Alan King, Phil Spector, Fred Schepsi

St. Stephen’s Day- Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Steven…

In England today is Boxing Day- a Victorian tradition where you boxed up the leftovers of your Christmas feast and gave them to the poor.

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 rowdy 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 but Hagia Sophia 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 retreat to 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 snow storm.

The Americans captured 1,000 Hessians to just 4 casualties, and killed their commander Colonel Johann Rall. Just before the fatal musket ball entered his chest, Colonel Rall said to his aide: “Fu*k, 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 fell back to the Atlantic Coast and abandoned the Delaware line.

This was the first true offensive action of the American Army in the Revolutionary War. 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- In the still unfinished Washington D.C. this day was the memorial service in honor of the recently deceased George Washington. All of the US government was there, except President John Adams. Adams was still angry at him.

1825- Nicholas Ist, the "Iron Tsar" 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 was the status of US Government property such as military posts and arsenals? As a precaution Major Anderson abandoned Fort Moultrie, Sullivan's Isle and other strong points to consolidate his hold on Fort Sumter, a rock in the middle of the bay. He then requested Washington for instructions. A tense standoff ensued until April when Southerners fired 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. Sioux Chief Shackopee heard a train whistle as he ascended the scaffold. He remarked: “ As the White Man comes in, the Indian goes out.”

1865- James Nason of Massachusetts invented the coffee percolator.

1908- Jack Johnson knocked out Canadian Tommy Burns in the 15th round to become the first African American heavyweight boxing champ. Few of the 20,000 white people in the Australian arena cheered. Johnson’s flaunting of racist segregation laws drove mainstream America nuts. Johnson drove race cars, flashed gold teeth and made love to many white women. Muhammad Ali said:” He did this all in the time of Jim Crow and Lynching. I was outspoken but Jack Johnson was Crazy!” Jack Johnson held the heavyweight title until 1915.

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.

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 regular caricature for the Broadway Stage. A drawing of actor Sasha Guitry. A friend took it to The New York Tribune and sold it. He figured here's a nifty way to make a living, so soon he was selling to all the papers including the New York Times.
He will 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. At age 94 he remarried and drew the cast of Ally McBeal for TV Guide. In 2003 he died just shy of age 100, drawing to the end.

1938- Young playwright Thomas Williams moved from Saint Louis to New Orleans and changed his name to Tennessee Williams.

1939- Walt Disney Animation moves from Hyperion to the new Burbank Studio lot. The buildings are designed like hospital wards, so in case he hits 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.

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 breaks through to the besieged city of Bastogne. This was 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 in Las Vegas. Mobster Bugsy Siegel's $ 4 million dollar gamble in the desert. Despite booking top talent like Jimmy Durante and Xavier Cugat the promised Hollywood society types 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 dresscode discouraged the local yokels who liked to gamble in ten gallon hats and bluejeans.

The Flamingo casino made a profit eventually but not before the angry Mafia riddled Bugsy Siegel with bullets, and cut the throat of his manager, Moe Greenberg.

1963- The death of Gorgeous George Wagner, the first 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- Murakami-Wolf's t.v. special "The Point" with Dustin Hoffman narrating and Harry Nilsson's music. Hoffman's track was later rerecorded by Ringo Starr for some reason. “Me and my Ar-row…”

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 now we’ve been there for about as long

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.

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 fistfighting Santas.

2004-TSUNAMI- One of the stronger 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 beautiful people vacationers like a Victoria Secret model had to run for their lives.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who was Emmanuel Yesuah Ben Joseph?

Answer: What Jesus called himself. The name Jesus is Latin from the Greek Iaesos. Christ means The Anointed One.

TOM SITO'S CHRISTMAS TRIVIA-2011

As you sit back in your chair this Christmas –Christ’s Mass ( the biggest holiday of the Ancient Roman World called Saturnalia and the birth of the Persian Sun God Mithras was named the birth festival of Jesus by Pope Leo the Great in 885 A.D. December 25th was also the Feast of Sol Invictus, the Invincible Sun, a cult popular to Romans like Constantine, the first Christian emperor. Mithras was born of a virgin and adored by shepherds in the forest. You sit by your yule log (German Norse custom, the Yule Festival lasting twelve days), wrapping your presents in pretty paper ( Roman Saturnalia custom) with your house all decorated with lights ( Roman New Year custom) under your mistletoe (Druid custom), drinking from your Wassel Bowl (Anglo-German hot beer with toast floating in it, which is why we "toast" with the words "was-heil"-hail to you. Egg Nog was a drink of Elizabethan sailors which means 'Eggs with Grog".)

You're admiring your Christmas Tree ( besides Druid tree worship, the 24th of December was the feast day of Saints Adam & Eve when Medieval Churches act out the Genesis story and set up a tree representing the "tree of life" with glass balls representing the fruit. Some attribute the idea to Martin Luther and others to a legend about devils trying to undermine the Tree of Life and they succeed at end of the year so decorating a tree helps the Tree of Life grow back. They began to appear in private homes in the mid-1500s. The Christmas Tree custom was taken from Germany to England by Queen Charlotte of Mecklenberg Strelitz, the wife of King George III and to America by Hessian soldiers, Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Alfred’s insistence on a Christmas Tree in Windsor Castle made it a fashion everyone had to emulate, Thomas Edison first strung electric lights around the tree replacing candles in 1882.

Holly bloomed only at this time of year and to Medieval people it looked like the Crown of Thorns with the little red berries symbolizing blood droplets. Poinsettias were introduced in the 1828 by the US consul to Mexico, Joel Poinsett. The first Christmas Card was designed by Briton John Calcott Horsely of the Royal Academy of Art in 1843.

And you dream of a visit from Santa Claus ( a hybrid of Anglo-Dutch customs appearing in it's modern form in New York in the late 1850's. The English form was St. Nicholas, a big jolly Bishop in a red suit and the Dutch had Kris Kringle, the elf who dropped down your chimney and was also known as 'Klaus-in-the-Cinders' or 'Cinder-Klaus". The Welsh had a Druid priest who distributed magic mushrooms wore a red robe with white fur trim. To avoid the more toxic qualities they fed these mushrooms to Reindeer and drank ale fermented from their yellow snow. Yeah, that’s where the Reindeer come from. Part of your high from the mushrooms was everyone around you appears smaller- maybe the origin of the Elves..?

The first image of Santa Claus was drawn in 1859 in the New York Sun by cartoonist Thomas Nast for the anonymously published poem “A Visit from Saint Nicholas” attributed to Clement Clarke Moore. In 1866 Nast declared that Santa was from the North Pole, to stop post Civil War squabbling as to whether Santa was a Yankee or a Southerner. The modern Santa Claus image was created for a 1930's Cocoa Cola ad by illustrator Haddon Sundblom.

The song “THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS” was a secret code from an unknown author in the XVIII Century. From 1558 until 1829, Roman Catholics in England were not permitted to practice their faith openly. Someone during that era wrote this carol as a catechism song for young Catholics. It has two levels of meaning: the surface meaning plus a hidden meaning known only to members of their church. Each element in the carol has a code word for a religious reality, which the children could remember.

The partridge in a pear tree was Jesus Christ, don’t ask me why. Two turtle doves were the Old and New Testaments. Three French hens stood for faith, hope and love. The four calling birds were the four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke & John. The five golden rings recalled the Torah or Law, the first five books of the Old Testament. The six geese a-laying stood for the six days of creation. Seven swans a-swimming represented the sevenfold gifts of the Holy Spirit: Prophesy, Serving, Teaching, Exhortation, Contribution, Leadership, and Mercy. The eight maids a-milking were the eight beatitudes. Nine ladies dancing were the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit: Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control. The ten lords a-leaping were the ten commandments. The eleven pipers piping stood for the eleven faithful disciples. The twelve drummers drumming symbolized the twelve points of belief in the Apostles' Creed.

The carol “Silent Night” was composed by Josef Mohr and Franz Gruber in 1818. Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer appeared in 1939 in a story by a Montgomery Ward Department Store ad exec named Bob May who made it up to entertain his sick daughter- Gene Autry the Singing Cowboy recording the famous song.

So here's wishing you hopes for a "White Christmas" (song written by Russian-Jewish composer Irving Berlin) and a very Happy New Year (courtesy of the 12 month calendar designed in 45 B.C. by the Egyptian scientist Sosigenes for Julius Caesar, modified by Pope Gregory in 1582, else we'd be celebrating New Years in March.

Merry Christmas, Freylich Hanukkah, Happy Ramadan, Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Birth of Horus , Happy Washing of the Buddha, Happy Birth of Mithras, Io, Io, Saturnalia, Joyeux Noel, Bozego Narodzenia, Frohe Weinacht, Helige Yule, Feliz Navidad, Prettig Kerstfeest, Nadolig llawen, Selamat Hari Krismas,, Happy death and rebirth of Baldur son of Odin, Happy beginning of the rise of Porsephone back from Hades to her mother Demeter. Mele Kalikimaka.
And please pass the Reindeer Pee!

Tom & Pat Sito 2011

Quiz: Why is it Twelve Days of Christmas?

Yesterday’s Answer below: What was “ The Time of Troubles”..?
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History for 12/24/2011
Birthdays:, Roman Emperor Servius Galba, English King John Lackland, Revolutionary Patriot Dr Benjamin Rush, Kit Carson, Howard Hughes, Ava Gardner, Michael Curtiz, I.F.Stone, Robert Joffrey of the Joffrey Ballet, Mean Joe Green, John Matusak, Susan Lucci, Nicholas Meyer, Ricky Martin is 42, Ryan Seacrest

The religion that was runner up to Christianity in the ancient world was the Sun God Mithras. In it, today was celebrated as the birth of Mithras, who was conceived of a virgin, born in the wilderness to be adored by shepherds. Hmmm…?

In the Middle Ages this was the Feast of Saints Adam and Eve. The western theatrical tradition survived in the form of Mystery Plays, acting out stories from the Bible. So this day they would do a play about the temptation and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. A tree was brought into the church and decorated to represent the Tree of Life, glass balls representing the fruit. This is one of the origins of the Christmas Tree. The Feast of Adam and Eve was dispensed with during the Reformation.

1247- Sir Robin of Loxley, called Robin Hood, died. Legend has it that he fired an arrow out his window with instructions to bury him where it fell.

1294- Benedict Gaetani elected Pope Boniface VIII. Boniface felt the Roman pontiff was above any other earthly crown so much that he made the triple tiara the Popes are crowned with. The hat that looks like a big gold hairdryer. Dante hatred Boniface so much in his poem Inferno he has two devils stirring a cauldron of boiling lead and calling up :"Hey Boniface? When are you coming down? It’s just about ready!"

1652- In England the Puritan Parliament of Oliver Cromwell forbade any celebration of Christmas. Their brethren the Puritans of Massachusetts would arrest anyone found making merry and fine them three shillings. But after the restoration of King Charles II the partying came back.

1740- In Pope’s Creek Va, A fire burns out the home of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. This included little 8 year old child, George Washington.

1783 - the American Revolution concluded, General George Washington arrived home at Mt. Vernon :" The scene is at last closed. I feel myself eased of the load of public care."

1799- After seizing power in France in a military coup 31 year old General Napoleon Bonaparte invented an executive system for the French republic based on an interpretation of the ancient Roman Republic. Nostalgia for classical art and themes were all the rage then. Napoleon makes himself First Consul. He promised to share power with two other consuls in a rotation, Sieyes and Carnot. He never did. He became Emperor of France in 1804.

1800 - Going to the theater Napoleon was almost blown up by a bomb planted in a wagon near his carriage. The terrorist was a royalist named Jean Carbonis. In a sick twist Carbonis gave the reins of the booby-trapped horse & wagon to a little peasant girl to allay suspicions of the police. Napoleon was safe but 22 others including the little girl were killed. Carbonis was arrested and shot.

1801- Richard Trevithick created a three wheeled vehicle powered by a big steam boiler and drove 7 people down a road in Cornwall England. He couldn’t steer it very well and it hit a wall at barely two miles an hour.

1814- U.S. and Great Britain sign the Treaty of Ghent ending the War of 1812. John Quincy Adams headed the American negotiation team. The British had demanded a independent Indian buffer state in the Great Lakes between the US and Canada, and the US demanded the Pacific Northwest, but all they got was the status quo before the war started. The news wouldn't get across the Atlantic for two months and in the meantime Americans and Englishmen would murder each other one last time at the Battle of New Orleans (Jan 8th).

1818-the song Silent Night first sung at the Church of Saint Nicholas in Obersdorf, Austria. It’s lyrics were written by the minister named Josef Mohr and music by a teacher named Franz Gruber.

1862- Near Mufreesboro Tennessee Confederate guerrilla Col. John Hunt Morgan took advantage of the Christmas truce to get married. The ceremony was conducted by Confederate General Leonidas Polk, who was an ordained Methodist Bishop. Both men would not survive the Civil War.

1865- THE KU KLUX KLAN BORN. Before the Civil War white plantation owners rode together at night to patrol their fields catching runaway slaves. After the South’s defeat, in Pulaski Tennessee in the law offices of Thomas M. Jones some disaffected Confederate veterans formed a secret society of night riders.

They named it based on the Greek letter fraternities just gaining popularity in universities- Kappa-Alpha or Kuklos Adelphon.- Kuklos meaning Circle. There was also a version that it came from a lost Indian tribe called the Kawklats. It corrupted into the Ku Klux Klan.

They donned white sheets and hoods to portray themselves as the avenging ghosts of dead rebel soldiers. They played up the mystical images to terrify the superstitious-Grand Wizards, Cyclops. Ghouls. The first Grand Wizard was General Nathan Bedford Forrest, but he resigned after he felt their violence had become counterproductive. There is a hotly disputed version that the Klan first offered their leadership to Robert E. Lee. He declined in a letter, but suggested they should be an "Invisible Empire". After Congress outlawed them in 1871 the Invisible Empire went underground to thwart reconstruction and Black Civil Rights.

1888- Vincent Van Gogh cuts off a piece of his left ear after an argument with fellow artist Paul Gaugin over the affections of a prostitute named Rachel. He sent his ear to the prostitute. She fainted. Recent scholarship theorizes his ear was sliced off by Gaugin waving an antique sword.

1889- Daniel Stover & W. Hance of Freeport Ill. invented the bicycle backpedal brake.

1922- The BBC presented it’s first radio play:" The truth about Father Christmas."

1934-GENERAL DOUGLAS MACARTHUR DUMPED HIS GIRLFRIEND-For two years the divorced general had kept a beautiful young Eurasian mistress he met in Manila. But when he accepted the posting back in Washington she insisted on coming with him. Today he sent an aide to intercept her in the lobby of the Willard Hotel in Washington and buy her off with a newly minted sheet of 100 dollar bills. His chief reason for giving her the boot was the 54 year old four star general was afraid his mother would find out.

1941- General Homma and the advancing Japanese Army capture the Philippine capitol Manila. General MacArthur withdrew to the island fortress of Corregidor, while his exhausted Philippine-American troops set up a last line of defense on the Bataan Penninsula.

1941- Operation Drumroll. German Admiral Doenitz dispatched advanced 5 long range U-Boats to attack ships off the American East coast.

1942- Admiral Darlan assassinated. Darlan was a Vichy-Nazi collaborator who the Allies had to cut a deal with so the Vichy French wouldn't fight the Allied landings in North Africa at Casablanca. Having to be nice to this turncoat disgusted Free-French like Charles DeGaulle and apparently disgusted somebody even more...

1944- In some of the last big V-1 attacks on London the Nazis added a sick twist- they filled the buzz bombs with letters home from British POWs. As the bombs exploded in Oldham and Gravesend killing women and children, the letters blew out like confetti.

1951- Gina Carlo Menotti’s opera "Amal and the Night Visitors" premiered on NBC TV..

1952- Congress overturned Harry Truman’s veto the McCaren /Walters Immigration Act. It called for more strenuous screening of immigrants for Communist sympathies, but it also redistributed the quota system along more racist lines. Two thirds of the slots allowed for new immigrants to America went to England, Ireland and Germany with the rest of the world getting one third. The objectionable parts of the act were changed in 1965,…. they said.

1952- First draft script completed on the MGM film Terror Planet, changed to “ Forbidden Planet.”

1964- First day shooting on the “Cage” a pilot for a new TV show called Star Trek. Jeffrey Hunter was the first captain, later replaced by William Shatner when Hunter’s wife advised him to skip the series. She was worried he’d be typecast.

1966- Local New York City TV station WPIX premiered The Yule Log. They ran a loop of 6 minutes of a closeup of a log burning in a fireplace in Gracie Mansion. The loop ran from 11:00PM to 1:00AM with Christmas carols playing. It made the TV the metaphorical family hearth. New Yorkers loved their kitschy Yule Log tradition and when WPIX tried to replace it in 1989 hundreds of complaints made them put it back the following year. The log was taped once more in 1970, and that’s been the film ever since.

1968- Apollo 8 went into orbit around the Moon. Astronauts Jim Lovell, Frank Borman and William Anders become the first men to reach the moon and win the Space Race. They orbited but did not land, that was for Apollo 11 next year. Borman sent a message to Earth Christmas night by reading from Genesis as they sent back the first images of Earth, a little blue gem in a black cosmos: "And God said: Let there be Light, etc." To a world traumatized by the riots and assassinations of 1968, Apollo 8’s message ended the year on a positive note. That humans could still dream to be better than they were.

1968- Twentieth Century Fox announced that legendary Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa had been fired from the production of TORA-TORA-TORA. Producer Darryl Zanuck’s original concept was the story of the Pearl Harbor Attack told by Kurosawa from the Japanese side and David Lean from the American side. But Lean passed and Richard Fleischer stepped in. Japanese sections were directed by Toshio Fukusaku and Masuda, whose previous credit was The Green Slime.

1985- Fidel Castro gives up smoking cigars, on doctors’ orders.

1990- Tom Cruise married Nicole Kidman.

1992- Outgoing President George H. W. Bush Ist announced Presidential Pardons for all the former Reagan Whitehouse staff implicated in the Iran Contra Scandal. Caspar Weinberger, Bud McFarlane and probably himself.

1997- The first Hanukkah menorah lit in Vatican City.

1997- 62 year old Film director Woody Allen married 27 year old Soon-Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his former lover Mia Farrow. When asked to explain himself the director said: " The Heart wants what it Wants.."
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Yesterday’s Question: What was “ The Time of Troubles”..?

Answer: The period of Russian History from the death of Czar Ivan the Terrible to the election of Michael Romanov in 1613 was a time of civil and dynastic anarchy. Minister Boris Gudunov seized the throne, and was deposed by a Lithuanian priest pretending to be a dead prince. Moscow was occupied by a Polish Army and the Turks and Tartars invaded.
All together this is called the Time of Troubles.

Merry Christmas!—t.s.

Question: What was “ The Time of Troubles”..?

Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was the last president to serve a full term without having to send U.S. troops into a war?
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History for 12/23/2011
Birthdays; Joseph Smith -Founder of Mormonism, Paul Hornung, Ruth Roman, Otto Soglow -cartoonist of 'the Little King', Frank Morgan (the Wizard of Oz actor) Jose Greco, Elizabeth Hartmann, Harry Guardino, Claudio Scimone, Vincent Sardi of Sardi’s restaurant in NY, Harry Shearer is 68, Bob Barker, Frederick Forrest is 75, Japanese Emperor Akihito is 78, France’s First Lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is 44

1588- Henri Duc d'Guise, Catholic leader of a powerful anti-Protestant league in France is called into the private chambers of King Henry III. Inside the chambers with the king are a dozen murderers hired to off the duke. Seems his league was a bit too powerful. After Monsieur le Duc was sliced up, the king came out of his hiding place, put one foot on the perforated body and said; "There! He doesn't look so tall now!" The King himself was assassinated a few months later.

1740-King Frederick the Great of Prussia attended a masked ball, finished his coffee, said good night, mounted his horse and invaded Silesia. He described it as “my own little masquerade".

1753- A twenty year old buckskin clad surveyor from Virginia almost drowned when a raft his party was pulling across the Allegheny River capsized. Miraculously, despite his inability to swim and the icy water, he made it to safety. His name was George Washington.

1786- HMS Bounty sets sail from Portsmouth. Their mission to the South Seas was to bring back breadfruit plants and see if the breadfruit could be a cheap dietary staple like potatoes from America, except these would be used to extend the lives of the slaves in Jamaica and Barbados tending the sugar cane fields. But Mr. Christian and the crew would mutiny against tyrannical Captain Bligh and set him adrift in a rowboat.

1823- SANTA CLAUS BORN. This day the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was published anonymously in The Troy Sentinel, a New York newspaper. . Several years after the authorship was claimed by a Bronx Bible teacher, the Reverend Clement Clarke Moore, and he was celebrated in his time as the father of Santa Claus until his death in 1863.The poem completed the synthesis of English and Dutch folk traditions that were merging in New York into our modern concept of Santa. The Dutch Klaus-in-the-Cinders" or Kris Kringle was an elf who climbed down chimneys to give children toys. He merged with the British Father Christmas or Saint Nicholas who was a big fat jolly bishop with a white beard in a red suit.

In an 1859 reprint of the famous poem famed cartoonist Thomas Nast (who created the Republican elephant and Democratic donkey) drew the first likeness of Santa Claus. Because of residual rivalry from the Civil War claiming Santa was a Yankee or came from old Dixie, in 1867 Nast ended the argument by declaring Claus’s true address to be the North Pole. The likeness we all recognize was created by illustrator Haddon Sundblom for a Coca-Cola ad campaign in 1934.

In 2000 a literary-forensic specialist challenged Clement Moores authorship. He claimed an Revolutionary War veteran from Poughkeepsie named Major Henry Livingston actually wrote the poem. He uses as evidence the poetry style of Livingston being much closer to the anonymous poem than Rev Moores. But we may never know.

1834- In London Joseph Hansom patented Hansom cabs. This is the one horse, two wheeled cab with the driver in back. Cab is shortened from Cabriolet.

1857- Ex-army officer, failed businessman and town drunk Ulysses Grant pawned his watch so he could buy Christmas presents for his wife and kids. From this rock bottom he would eventually rise to win the Civil War, become President of the United States and the most celebrated American of his time.

1893- Humperdinck's opera "Hansel und Gretel" debuts in Weimar Germany.

1894- Claude DeBussey’s “Afternoon of a Faun” premiered in Paris.

1912- France’s leading literary magazine Nouvelle Revue Francaise rejected a new novel by an author named Marcel Proust “A La Recherche du Temps Perdu” “Remembrance of Things Past”. One critic wrote: “Maybe I’m dead from the neck up, but I can’t see why the author needed 20 pages to describe how he got out of bed in the morning!” Remembrance of Things Past became one of the great works of the Twentieth Century.

1912- The Max Sennett short comedy “Hoffmeyer’s Release” premiered, the first comedy featuring the Keystone Cops.

1913- Woodrow Wilson signed the Federal Reserve Act, creating the first federal banking reserve since the Bank of the United States was dismantled by Andrew Jackson in the 1830's.

1913- Young Italian Rudolph Valentino arrived in America to seek his fortune. He was so poor that after a year he sent his parents a photo of himself in a borrowed tuxedo to allay their fears. He worked as a nightclub dancer and gigolo until becoming a Hollywood film star in 1921.

1930- Young actress Betty Davis signed her first contract with Universal Studio.

1935- Walt Disney sent a detailed memo to art teacher Don Graham outlining his plans for retraining his animators to do realistic feature films.

circa-1935- This was the traditional day for Republic Pictures to fire all their employees and hire them back after New Years so they wouldn't have to pay them holiday pay. Republic billed itself on it’s business cards as The Friendly Studio.

1941- WAKE ISLAND. A large Japanese invasion force finally overwhelmed the tiny garrison of Marines and construction workers defending Wake Island. The hopeless stand of Col. Devereux, Hammerin-Hank Elrod and their men inspired the country still shocked by the relentless Japanese advance across the Pacific since the Pearl Harbor attack. The surviving Marines were shipped to POW camps in occupied Shanghai, but civilian construction workers were kept on the island to build an airbase for the Japanese. After they finished, they were all executed. The Japanese commander responsible was hanged for war crimes in 1948.

1941- A Japanese submarine torpedoed and sank the S.S. Montebello off the central California coast. Fifty five years later in 1996 a research sub found the wreck with it's three million gallons of crude oil still intact.

1941- A meeting of business leaders and union officials make a deal that there would be no strikes or lockouts in American industry for the duration of World War Two.

1942- The German Sixth Army was surrounded at Stalingrad and could not hold out much longer. General Von Manstein’s 16th Panzer Division was trying to break through and rescue them. But after two weeks of heavy fighting in blizzard like conditions, the 16th was bogged down. Hitler ordered Von Manstein to break off the attempt and stabilize the front in other areas, in effect, abandoning 250,000 men to their deaths.

This day while frozen, hollowed eyed men scanned the horizon for signs of rescue, the tanks of the 16th Panzer turned around. The commander of the last tank stood in his turret, solemnly snapped a crisp salute in the direction of his doomed comrades, then dropped down the hatch and drove off.

1944-The Germans had timed their surprise offensive “The Battle of the Bulge” to coincide with a heavy storm system over northern Europe. The snow and poor visibility kept Allied airforces helpless and grounded. As Third Army was moving northward to rescue soldiers trapped in the surrounded Belgian town of Bastogne General Patton called the Third Army’s chaplain to him. “Captain!” Old Blood & Guts growled:” I want a prayer for good weather! Have it in my hands in an hour!”

Dutifully the prayer was written and recited throughout the army. This day on cue the sky cleared and the sun shined for the first time in a week. The slow moving German Tiger Tanks proved easy pickings for Allied fighter planes. Gen. Patton’s reaction: “That chaplain! Make him a Major!”

1947- Two Bell laboratory scientists invent the Transistor. Nobody was quite sure what to do with the little thing until Texas Instruments invented the portable radio in 1954.

1948- Former Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and 6 others were hanged for war crimes. Tojo had tried to commit Hari Kari but guards bound his wounds and nursed him back to health. General Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, was granted death by firing squad by MacArthur to save him the indignity of dying like a criminal.

1954-the First Organ Transplant. 23 year old Richard Herrick was dying of kidney disease. Dr Joseph Murray of Harvard removed a kidney from his brother Ronald Herrick and used it to replace his brothers diseased one. The idea of operating on a healthy person just so he could help someone else was a radical idea. Tens of thousands of organ transplants of kidneys, hearts, livers and corneas followed.

1971-First B-1 bomber flight . The B-1 was supposed to replace the aging B-52 long range bomber fleet in service since 1958, but after billions of dollars and embarrassed faces at Congressional hearings, the B-1 didn’t accomplish much. Then after spending billions more the B-2 Stealth Bomber was developed. In 2001 in Afghanistan and 2003 in Baghdad the majority of all air strikes were by 30 year old B-52s.

1972- The Immaculate Reception. Football’s Pittsburgh Steelers were trailing the Oakland Raiders 7-6 with one second to go, when QB Terry Bradshaw unloaded a Hail-Mary pass across the field that Franco Harris caught in the Oakland end zone.

1973- Soap Opera “the Young and The Restless” premiered.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was the last president to serve a full term without having to send U.S. troops into a war?

Answer: Jimmy Carter, if you don’t count the bungled attempt to rescue the Iranian Hostages. If so, then it would be Gerald Ford.