Question: What is another name for a fatty or a spliff?

Yesterdays Question answered below: What is the origin of the term- to be well-heeled?
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History for 12/8/2011
Birthdays: Horace (Quintus Horatius), 65BC, Mary Queen of Scots, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina Vasa, Jean Sibelius, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, James Thurber, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell, Flip Wilson, Sam Kinison, Ann Coulter, Teri Hatcher is 47, Sinead O’Connor is 45, Kim Basinger is 58

Happy Roman Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

1660- Margaret Hughes played Desdemona in Shakespeares’ Othello in London. She was the first woman to appear on an English stage. All during the Elizabethan Era, boys substituted for women on stage.

1776- George Washington’s exhausted minutemen were rowed across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, chased by a large British force. This marked the end of the pursuit across New York and New Jersey that had been going on since August.

1793- MADAME DUBARRY GUILLOTINED. During the French Revolution this day the old kings mistress Madame DuBarry was guillotined. She was originally of humble birth but lived in grand style and was very arrogant. She once dumped the contents of a chamber pot out of a palace window onto Princess Marie Antoinette for a laugh. "Garde du Lou!" Now on her way to the blade she screamed and wept aloud:" Save me good people, for I am one of you!" It didn't help, the executioner hurried his task to shut her up to the laughter of the crowd. Her last words were "Just one more minute, executioner!" Her husband the Comte’ du Barry had not seen her since the day they were married in 1769 for the convenience of the King. Now upon learning the news of his wife’s death he immediately married his mistress.

1813- Ludwig Van Meets Pop Culture. The most well received of all the musical pieces of Ludwig Van Beethoven was not his 5th Symphony or Moonlight Sonata, but a silly piece called the Overture to Wellington’s Victory which premiered this day in Vienna. A calliope designer named Wilhelm Deitzel commissioned the piece to show off his music machines that could recreate orchestra sounds. The music celebrated Wellington’s great victory in Spain over Napoleon’s forces. It had cannon shots and musket volleys in the music score. The overture made Beethoven much more money than his Seventh Symphony which debuted at the same concert.

1954- Pope Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. That the Virgin Mary stayed forever free of sin even though Jesus had brothers and sisters.

1864- During General Shermans’ epic March through Georgia his bluecoats first encounter a new invention ominously familiar to our present day. Explosive charges buried under the ground that explode when a friction trigger was stepped on. They called them Land Torpedoes but today we know them as LAND MINES. When a Yankee lieutenant lost his foot the hot tempered Sherman ordered all the Confederate prisoners driven to the front line and forced to dig up the weapons. When they protested this was inhumane, Sherman roared back:" Your people planted these cowardly things so if some of you get blown up removing them it's no concern of mine!"

1868- According to Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tonight is the night Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine the Nautilus attacked and sank a US warship and captured Professor Aronax and harpooner Ned Land.

1881- RINGSTRASSE THEATER FIRE IN VIENNA Two hundred people were killed when fire broke out during a performance of Offenbach's "Duchess du Gerolstein".

1886-The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed. The first president was former cigar maker Samuel Gompers.

1913- ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried.

1941-DAY OF INFAMY Aftermath- On the day after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, President Roosevelt did his famous "Day of Infamy" speech. Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war on Japan. Interestingly enough the U.S. did not declare war on Germany along with Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. four days later. The only vote against the war was Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who had voted against the First World War also in 1917.

With the American Fleet sunk or scattered, the US Pacific Coast braced for Japanese attack. In California, Fourth interceptor Command reported two formations of enemy planes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They turned out to be seagulls. Another panicky report of an approaching Japanese task force turned out to be Monterey tuna boats. Blackouts began, as did mass arrests of Japanese-Americans. In Hollywood the Paramount Studio baseball team was allowed to finish it's game with the L.A. Nippons 6-3, after which the FBI arrested the entire team. The civil defense command placed anti-aircraft guns on the Walt Disney Studio lot because of it's proximity to the aircraft plant of Lockheed. Walt Disney himself was turned away at the gate for not wearing his identity badge.

1941- Following up on their successful attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, Japanese task forces attacked the Philippines, invaded Malaya and another force captured Bangkok.

1941- The gunboat USS GUAM was serving in Shanghai as a station ship for the US Consulate. Its skipper was Lt Commander Columbus Darwin Smith, an old China hand. Smith was onshore, at home, when he received a phone call in the wee hours announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. he put on his uniform, and went to the waterfront. Japanese soldiers had quickly occupied the International Settlement--but would not arrest
Smith, who argued with them to let him aboard his ship .

The Japanese had already taken the Guam by surprise and without a fight. Smith later
made an daring escape over 200 miles to Kumming in "free China" The USS Guam was the only US warship to be captured intact by the enemy in WWII.

1941- Russian immigrant inventor Igor Sikorsky invented the first practical Helicopter.
They were developed too late for World War Two but the "egg-beaters" or "flying windmills" played an important role in the Korean conflict.

1949-After being defeated by Mao Tse Tung’s Red Chinese Army, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Chek’s Kuomintang government voted to relocate to the island of Taiwan.

1953- Thurgood Marshal’s final arguments to the Supreme Court in the desegregation case Brown Vs. Board of Ed.

1953- The Atoms for Peace Speech. President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations that nuclear power be developed for peaceful purposes, and not just for bombs. The world builds civilian nuclear power plants, then makes bombs with them.

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1963- Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. After four tense days he was released unharmed, partly because he was part of the plot. Dad was not pleased.

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember when it played only classical concerts and ballets ?

1980- JOHN LENNON MURDERED. As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City, Beatle-Composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon in the back. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the origin of the term- to be well-heeled?

Answer: High heels for women had been found in ancient Egyptian and Chinese tombs. In the Renaissance, large heels for women and men’s shoes became a popular fashion. They were only for the rich, the gap between heel and sole fit a horses stirrup better. Poor people wore wood clogs if they wore any footwear at all. So a rich person is one who is well-heeled.

Question: What is the origin of the term- to be well-heeled?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Sometimes you’ll hear someone say “ He “had to drink the Kool Aid”. What does that mean?

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History for 12/7/2011

Birthdays: Willa Cather, Larry Bird, Piero Mascagni, Madame Tussaud-1761, Johnny Bench, Louis Prima, Ted Knight –real name Wladsyslaw Konopka, Victor Kiam II, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Burstyn-real name Edna Mae Gilhooley, Harry Chapin, Clarence Nash the voice of Donald Duck, Tom Waits, Jeffrey Wright is 46, Eli Wallach is 95

43 B.C.- Marcus Tullius Cicero executed. The great orator/writer was a declared enemy of Julius Caesar, yet Caesar preferred to ignore him. After Caesar’ murder at the Ides of March, Marc Anthony and Augustus were not so forgiving, They drew up lists of all those to be aced and the old philosopher's name was at the top. Cicero tried to flee by sea, but got so seasick he went back to his estate. The death squad caught him trying to flee again. When he saw it was no use, he calmly bared his neck to the soldiers. Gaius Pompilius Linus, the centurion who slew him, had once been successfully defended by Cicero in the law courts. Linus gave Cicero’s head and hands to Mark Anthony, who happily nailed them to the speakers rostrum in the Roman Forum.

Decades later, When Augustus was an old man, he caught his grandson reading Cicero’s writings. Augustus paused to read some verses. He sighed:” A learned man, and a patriot.”

185AD- Emperor LoYang wrote of seeing a bright star that was probably a supernova.

983- German Emperor Otto the Red died at age 28

1671- In London two scientists- Nehemiah Grew and Italian Marcello Malpighi presented their findings on plants. This established the Science of Botany. That plants derive nutrients from the soil and grow from increased exposure to light and water and not because they are urged to grow by a “Vegetable Soul”. That they cannot grow in a vacuum. That stamens, pistils and pollen are sexual organs and the veins of a leaf function much like the veins and arteries of humans. Malpighi later went on to human anatomy and discovered the capillaries and the human taste buds.

1775- A lieutenants’commission in the new U.S. Navy was granted to a young Scotsman named Paul Jones, who sometimes called himself John Paul and we know as John Paul Jones. When Abigail Adams met him she was surprised at his small stature :” I could wrap him in wool and carry him in my pocket.” She said. He had been a prospering merchant captain until he stabbed a rowdy shipmate in Tobago and fled his ship. He wandered about looking for employment for 20 months until the American Revolution gave him a new identity.

1787- Delaware became the first state to ratify the constitution, which is why it calls itself “the First State of the Union” on its license plates.

1815- MARSHAL NEY SHOT. Michel Ney was Napoleon's right hand. Called Le Rougeaud -the Redhead, because his hair color was inherited from his father, a Scot’s follower of Bonny Prince Charlie. After Waterloo, the restored French royalty needed a scapegoat to blame for the embarrassing ease with which the Corsican upstart took back France. So Michel Ney was courtmartialed by his peers and put up against the wall in the Luxembourg Gardens.

The fiery warrior offered no regret, and even gave the "Ready, Aim, -Fire!" order himself. Recently some theorists claim the execution was a sham arranged by Wellington and that Ney lived on. Their reasons were first the public was kept away from the execution site and the soldiers of the firing squad were handpicked from Ney’s old veterans. When shot he fell forward instead of backwards after being hit by 12 -68 caliber musket balls, and no coup d' grace pistol shot to the brain was administered, instead the body was immediately bundled up into a carriage and driven away. That night the Royalist government arrested the officer in charge of the firing squad.

Twenty-two years later, in 1837, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, a French immigrant schoolteacher named Michael Stewart died of old age in South Carolina. On his deathbed he told his confessor " I swear before God that I am Michel Ney, Marshal of France." When embalming the body his family saw he was covered with scars from old musket and saber wounds.

1842- The New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the U.S., gave its first concert, performing works of Beethoven under the baton of Ureli Corelli Hill.

1862- Battle of Prairie Grove- Brutal Civil War battle in Missouri where the chief recollection was how wounded soldiers stuck between the armies crawled into haystacks for shelter. Cannon shots ignited the hay and the 200 men roasted to death, Then the smell of barbecued flesh brought out local hogs who feasted on the human legs and entrails while the combatants watched in horror. So next time you have pork chops don’t feel guilty. Remember those little piggies would do the same to you if they had the opportunity.

It was one of the few battles that future outlaws Frank James and Cole Younger were present at. Frank later wrote:” All those men standing around for hours trying to kill each other. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time…”


1869- The Davis County Savings Bank in Gallatin Missouri was robbed by some Clay County boys who began to get a reputation – Jesse James and Frank James. The bank manager Capt. Sheely was shot dead by another gang member Ed Anderson. Anderson had mistook him for a union officer who had killed his brother Bloody Bill Anderson during the Civil War. While attempting to escape Andersons horse bucked and dragged him 40 feet down the street by his stirrup, until he got loose.

1872- The Los Angeles Library Association formed.

1916- David Lloyd George became Prime Minister of Great Britain. The little Welshman with Ferret-black eyes was considered one of England’s great statesmen despite helping to create some of the biggest problems of our time- The 1923 Anglo-Irish treaty that created Northern Ireland, The Versailles Treaty that spawned World War Two and the Balfour Declaration that helped create Israel with no solution for the dispossessed Arabs. In is old age Lloyd George visited Hitler in Bertchesgarden and found him “A most fine fellow.”

1919- “Blind Husbands” premiered, the first film by Erich Von Stroheim. Originally a Viennese hat salesman, Stroheim cultivated his Germanic aristocratic image on the silver screen. The premiere issue of the New Yorker in 1923 glibly noted how “Mr. Stroheim has grown a very stylish “Von” in the Southern California Sun”.

1925- Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150-meter freestyle, one minute 25 and 2/5th seconds. He later went to Hollywood and was the star of the Tarzan movies.

1934- Aviator Wiley Post discovered the strong air current in the upper atmosphere called the Jet Stream.

1941-THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR- At dawn on a quiet Sunday morning 360 Japanese planes surprise attacked and sank most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, causing 4,000 casualties. Simultaneous attacks were made on British and Dutch military posts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. Japan had begun her previous foreign wars with surprise attacks: against China in 1891 and Russia in 1905. It had it's philosophical roots in the Emai school of Samurai, that of dealing a death stroke with one decisive blow.

While average Americans were enraged by the "Day of Infamy" sneak attack, the government was bracing for some kind of attack since July when FDR embargoed Japan’s steel and oil imports. Most experts expected a strike at Manila. The White House butler recalled a general telling President Franklin Roosevelt-“ It’s Pearl! They got the whole g*ddamn navy!”Lt. William Higgins was awakened by the radar post on Diamond Head reporting hundreds of unknown planes headed towards them. His famous reply:" Well...don't worry about it.."

The fact that Japan had sent a special envoy to Washington named Kurusu to negotiate the crisis even while preparing this attack was even more maddening to Americans. Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Harvard class of 1926, masterminded the plan. He was anti-war and knew a war with America was a long shot. When he heard that the surprise was complete but delivered before the war declaration in Washington, he said:" All I fear we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve."

1942- An RAF bomber pilot named Lumsden filed a report about seeing a UFO following his plane in the night skies over the English Channel. British pilots nicknamed the unexplained lights Foo Fighters, after a phrase in the Smokey Stover comic strip.

1945- The microwave oven patented.

1964- Height of student uprising at Berkeley College in California. Students won more liberalized curriculum and open teaching and created the first major student protest of the tumultuous 1960's and earned Berkeley the national reputation of the nations most radicalized school. The Oakland police were later nicknamed the Blue Meanies after the villains in the Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine.

1974- The disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas hit #1 in the pop charts.

1983- The first execution by lethal injection. The man’s name was Charles Brooks, a murderer in Texas. Interestingly enough the barbiturate used was Sodium Pentothal, the “truth serum” when administered in small dosage. Comedian George Carlin asked;” When they give you a lethal injection, why do they swab your arm with alcohol first?”

1988- A huge earthquake in Armenia killed 100,000 and left 5 million homeless.


1995- The Galileo space probe reached an orbit around Jupiter.


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Yesterday’s Question: Sometimes you’ll hear someone say “ He “had to drink the Kool Aid”. What does that mean?

Answer: Rev Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple had moved from San Francisco and set up a commune in Guyana,. In 1978 visiting U.S. Congressman Leo Ryan was murdered as he returned to the airport after inspecting and interviewing some cult members, Jim Jones prepared Kool Aid with poison in it and, after an impassioned psychotic speech, he and his followers drank the Kool Aid. Investigation of the scene showed that many men women and children had willingly committed suicide.

So drinking the Kool Aid came to mean accepting something even to your own detriment. ( Thanks Dave B).

Question: Sometimes you’ll hear someone say “ He “had to drink the Kool Aid”. What does that mean?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Thinking of Spielberg’s film War Horse, when was the last cavalry charge in history?
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History for 12/6/2011
Birthdays: King Henry VI of England-1422, English Puritan General George Monck-1608,, John Eberhard 1822, builder of the first large pencil factory in the US, John Singleton-Mosby the Grey Ghost, Henry Jarecki, Baby Face Nelson, William S. Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dave Brubeck is 90, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Hulce, Wally Cox, Lynn Fontaine, Steven Wright, JoBeth Williams, Nick Park

Today if the FEAST of SAINT NICHOLAS, the patron saint of sailors and children. In the 350 AD Bishop Nicholas heard of a man so poor that he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Nicholas climbed into the man’s house and placed gold coins in the families socks drying by the fireplace. In some cities during the Middle Ages the custom was this day to elect a Boy Bishop who would reign in an honorary style until the Feast of the Holy Innocents December 28th.

1196- The northern coast of Holland was flooded, the Saint Nicholas Flood.

1240- The Mongol hordes of BatuKhan destroy the city of Kiev. This ended the kingdom of Kievan Russ.

1534- Spanish settlers in Equador found the city of Quito.

1648- PRIDE'S PURGE or the BIRTH OF THE RUMP- The final move of the Cromwell’s Army to secure power in post-Civil War England. His army had occupied London after Parliament had given him a direct order to disband. Soldiers led by a Colonel Thomas Pride stood at the entrance to the House of Commons with a list and as the Parliament members walked in he pulled out 60 of them for arrest. Outraged statesmen demanded to know what was his commission? Pride sneered " This sword point is my commission !"

Thus cowed, the truncated remainder was nicknamed the Rump Parliament. General Oliver Cromwell was discreetly out of town, but he was doubtless in on the planning of the purge. England was now a military dictatorship and would remain so for ten years until Cromwell's death when General Monk called back the monarchy.

1757-Battle of Leuthen- Frederick the Great beats the Austrian Army outnumbering him three to one. Austrian commander Archduke Charles was contemptuous of the smaller Prussian army, calling them a “Berlin Watch Parade” i.e. a police force. But the Prussians defeated the Austrians badly, and sang their hymn Nun Danket Alle Gott on the blood soaked snow. Napoleon called Leuthen Frederick’s masterpiece.

1790- Congress moved from New York City to Philadelphia to await construction of it’s final home in the new Federal City in Maryland, already being called by some Washington-City. George Washington himself would occasionally ride out from Mt Vernon and meet with Jefferson and Madison to inspect the construction site.

1825- President John Quincy Adams in his first message to Congress called for increased funding for scientific research, the founding of a national university and a national observatory. His ideas are ridiculed as idiotic and his political credibility was damaged by this speech. He also installed the first indoor toilets in the White House. People started calling the newfangled commodes a Quincy in his honor.

1846- Battle of San Pasquale- A Mexican victory in the U.S.-Mexican War. The US Army was so sure that California was conquered that General Phil Kearny detached part of his army to join Zachary Taylor in Mexico while he pushed on to the Pacific Coast. Just outside of San Diego Harbor he was attacked by Californio Vacqueros brandishing lances. The Yankee militia at first laughed at the silly “pig-stickers”, until they realized the previous nights rainstorm had made their gunpowder useless. Kearnys force was routed. Only with great difficulty did they escape under Kit Carson’s guidance to the sheltering guns of the US Fleet in San Diego harbor.

1849- Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland and began her underground railroad to smuggle runaway slaves from the South up North. After the Fugitive Slave Act was passed she extend her route to Canada. At one point she wanted to join John Browns insurrection in Harpers Ferry but illness prevented her, and probably saved her life.

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

1915- MAX FLEISCHER PATENTS THE ROTOSCOPE TECHNIQUE- This system enables you to film an actor then draw the cartoons over the still frames of the live action to achieve a realistic motion. (an early form of Motion Capture) Max would film his brother Dave in a clown suit then draw Koko the Clown over him. Dave had already owned the clown suit because he had been seriously considering a change in careers. The Fleischer's New York studio would be Disney's chief rival for most of the 1920's-30's.

1921- IRISH INDEPENDENCE- Irish home rule announced. It had been an Irish dream since William Strongbow and the Norman English invaded in 1085. After decades of Parliamentary pressure from advocates like Charles Parnell and Daniel O'Connell, a long guerrilla war with the IRA and public exhaustion from the Great War, London was ready to talk terms. But the British Crown insisted on a compromise of letting the 6 Protestant Counties of Ulster remain under British rule and an oath of loyalty to the king. Prime Minister Lloyd George threatened a full war on Ireland with all the resources of the British Empire as the alternative.

Irish negotiators Michael Collins and Alexander Griffith knew this deal would cause resentment, but they felt it was the best they could get. In the following months both men would be dead and a civil war broke out. The loyalty oath was ignored and full Irish independence declared in 1946.

1929- Turkey under Kemal Ataturk gave women the right to vote.

1933- U.S. Federal Judge Woolsey decides James Joyce's "ULYSSES" is not a dirty book and can be published in the U.S by Viking Press. The book had been out in Europe since 1922.

1941- Admiral Nagumo turns his carriers into the wind and begins to prepare to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor. Colonel William Bratton of army intelligence in Washington decoded a message from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy telling them after their final message to destroy their cyphers and top secret documents. He ran all over D.C. trying to get someone to listen but it was a lazy weekend like any other.

Saturday morning Mrs. Dorothy Edgers of the Navy cryptographic division translated long decoded intrstructions to the Japanese Consul Kita in Honolulu to provide up to date intelligence on Pearl Harbor's ship movements and armaments. When she pointed this out to her immediate supervisor, he told her "Ummm..We'll get back to this on Monday."

1941- NY City Council decided to build a second municipal airport- Idylwild Airport, later renamed John F. Kennedy Airport.

1942- Val Lewton’s strange movie the Cat People with Simon-Simon premiered.

1957- In a reaction to the Russians launching sputnik, the first US attempt to launch a satellite into space failed- the Vanguard I rocket blew up on the launch pad.

1960- Baseball’s American League granted an expansion franchise team to old cowboy singer Gene Autrey, the California Angels.

1964- The first concert at the Los Angeles Music Center.

1964- Rankin Bass' t.v. special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast.

1969- The Rolling Stones do the last big rock festival of the 60s in Altamont California. The festival turned ugly when Hells Angels motorcyclists, hired to guard the stage, started fighting with fans. One man was killed.

1980- Reverend Jim Baker of the PTL ministry had sex in a motel room with Church volunteer Jessica Hahn. His reasoning to her was “when you help the shepherd you help the flock”. But later he paid her hush money. This indiscretion would help pull down his career. Baker’s ministry included a lavish lifestyle, air conditioned doghouse for his pets and a Christian theme park called Heritage USA. Comedian and ex-evangelist Sam Kinison joked: I can imagine up in heaven Jesus is thumbing through the New Testament , saying” Hey, where did I ever say anything thing about a water slide?”

1994- Orange County California, one of the richest counties in the United States declared bankruptcy because an official gambled and lost the county's funds on speculative investments like junk-bonds. One billion dollars disappeared in less than a week of day trading.
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Yesterday’s Question: Thinking of Spielberg’s film War Horse, when was the last cavalry charge in history?

Answer: Mussolini had sent Italian troops to aid the Nazis invading Russia. In 1944, an Italian Savoy cavalry brigade charged pursuing Don Cossacks, probably the final such cavalry engagement in history.

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Question: Thinking of Spielberg’s film War Horse, when was the last cavalry charge in history?

Yesterdays Question Answered Below: The American Military is today known as the most powerful in the world. What nation was invaded at least four times by the U.S. and never conquered?
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History for 12/5/2011
Birthdays: Pope Julius II, Martin Van Buren , Walt Disney , Fritz Lang, Eugene Debs, George Armstrong Custer, Little Richard Penniman, Strom Thurmond, Otto Preminger, Lin Piao, Calvin Trillin, Joan Didion, Jim Plunkett, Jose Carrerras, Margaret Cho is 44

1212-THE WONDER OF THE WORLD.- Fredrick II Hohenstaufen became Holy Roman Emperor of the German Nation at 18. The son of Henry VI the Lion, Freddy was called "stupor mundi et immutator mirabilis” The Marvelous Transformer and Wonder of the World.

1349- People in Europe were at a loss to explain why the Black Death plague was killing everyone. So they settled on their age old answer- It must be the Jews fault! This day in Nuremberg 500 Jews were killed by rioters.

1484- Pope Innocent VIII raises the practice of Witchcraft from a minor sin to a major heresy. Included in the definition of witchcraft is any remaining vestiges of local animist customs, herbalism or treating illnesses with home grown medicines. He ordered the Holy Office of the Inquisition to look into all cases. From 1484 to 1750 maybe 200,000 people died in Europe and America. As late as 1784 a woman in Belgium was executed for bewitching a child.

1492- Christopher Columbus, still looking for Japan, now discovered Haiti.

1502- Columbus last voyage was hit by a hurricane. For twelve days his ships were battered by wind and waves. At one point Columbus saw a waterspout in the ocean near them. He read a Rite of Exorcism at it and made the sign of the Cross with his sword. Tradition says it then went away.

1560- King Francis II of France died at age 16. His mommy Catherine de Medici didn’t fret, she had sons to spare. She made her next son Charles IX king at age 10.

1704-In Hamburg towards the end of the opera Cleopatre composer Georg Frederich Handel and soloist Johann Mattheson start bickering over who should bow and receive the audiences applause. As the curtain came down and the cheers rang out Handel and Mattheson started furiously wrestling over the harpsichord. They then rushed out into a snowy public square and fought with swords. The audience followed them and cheered on this unique encore. Neither was hurt in the end, and they even made up over their next opera.

1766- London auction house Christies held it’s first auction.

1791-MOZART DIED- The 35 year old composer was slaving away on a commission for a Requiem Mass when he died of scarlet fever and kidney failure complicated by exhaustion and alcoholism ( and he didn't work in animation ) Mozart was buried in a pauper's grave and when his wife came to mourn him a few days later nobody could recall where he was buried.

The theories about Antonio Salieri poisoning him out of jealousy or the FreeMasons doing him in began only a few years later. Schiller wrote a play in 1817 called Mozart & Salieri where he has Salieri doing the dastardly deed. In 1827 one of Beethoven's pupils wrote the Maestro about going up to the sanitarium to visit the ancient composer: "Salieri is in one of his fits again, shouting “I killed Mozart! Mozart forgive me!”"

1791- First Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton presented his Report on Manufactures to Congress. This was considered a revolutionary document because here was this illegitimate snob from Martinique telling his half wild nation of farmers and trappers with dead raccoons on their heads, that their future lay in developing heavy industry closely regulated by a strong centralized government. Thomas Jefferson among many others thought it was a big mistake, but modern scholars declare The Report on Manufactures as the true beginning of the US economy.

1804- The Presentation of the Eagles- Part of Napoleon’s reforming of the French Army after becoming Emperor was to standardize the battle flags. The old tattered flags of the Revolution were collected and a red, white and blue flag with gold trim was distributed, each surmounted by a brass Eagle patterned on an ancient Roman design. In 1807 the flag was standardized as the modern French tricolor we know today. Also given out was an emerald green flag with golden harps to the Irish Volunteer brigade. Jacques Louis David did a beautiful painting of the event but the truth be told it was a lousy rainy day and there was a lot of confusion.

1837- Hector Berlioz chorale Requiem premiered.

1854- Aaron Allen of Boston patented the theater chair that folded up so you could exit.

1865-The steel industry is transformed when Sir Henry Bessemer received an American patent for the Bessemer Steel process, which made steel harder with less impurities.

1912- New York Hat directed by D.W. Griffith premiered. The first movie script written by Anita Loos, then 19. She became one of the finest Hollywood screenwriters ,who penned films like Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

1933- Prohibition is repealed in the U.S. Interestingly enough the final state to ratify the repeal amendment was Utah. My grandmother recalled a parade of beer trucks going down Broadway being cheered like Lindbergh's return. She jumped on the running board of one to hoist a stein with young congressman Fiorello Laguardia and Al Smith.

1941- Marshal Zhukov commenced the first Soviet counterattack since the Nazis invasion began in June. As the Red Army pushed them back from the outskirts of Moscow the Germans first came up against the new Soviet T-34 Stalin Tank. German tankman Heinz Guderian said to a colleague” I have just seen a most amazing tank, and if the Russians are mass producing them, we may lose the war!”

1941- Admiral Halsey moved his carrier fleet- USS Lexington & Enterprise out of Pearl Harbor to go on maneuvers. They would not be there for the Japanese attack on Pearl. This is why Admiral Yamamoto was disappointed with the battle’s final results.

1945- Flight 19, a routine training patrol of 5 Navy Avenger torpedo bombers took off from Fort Lauderdale at 2:00PM and flew into the Bermuda Triangle. Two hours later the commander radioed that his compass and backup compass had failed and his position was unknown. The 14 men and their planes were never seen again. In the next few months hundreds of planes and ships searched the waters for some signs of wreckage but nothing was ever found.

1951- Shoeless Joe Jackson died. The most powerful baseball batter of his age, he taught Babe Ruth how to hit. But he was implicated in the Black Sox scandal of 1919 and permanently banned from baseball. He spent the rest of his life running a hardware store near his rural Georgia home.

1952- The Abbott and Costello Television Show premiered. Where’s Hilary, Mr Fields and Stinky? “ Niagara Falls! Slooowwlly I turn! Step by Step! Step by Step!”

1953- Josef Stalin died. He was in a coma after a stroke but his doctors were too terrified to treat him. Before he died he was preparing a new purge aimed at doctors.

1953- Russian Composer Sergei Prokoviev died, but the news was overshadowed by the death of Stalin.

1974- The Seattle Seahawks football team formed.

1974- The BBC aired the last Monty Python show.
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Yesterday’s Question: The American Military is today known as the most powerful in the world. What nation was invaded at least four times by the U.S. and never conquered?

Answer: Canada- invaded by the US officially in 1776, 1812-1814, and unofficially in 1837, and 1867, and each case never conquered.

Question: The American Military is today known as the most powerful in the world. What nation was invaded at least four times by the U.S. and never conquered?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In the classic TV show The Dick Van Dyke Show, creator Carl Reiner modeled his character Allen Brady on a former boss of his, Who was it?
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History for 12/4/2011
Birthdays: Chief Crazy Horse, Samuel Butler*, Thomas Carlyle, Lillian Russell, Vasilly Kandinsky, Buck Jones, Wink Martindale, Max Baer Jr.,Robert Vesco, Charles Keating, Wally George, Deanna Durbin, Pappy Boyington, Horst Bucholtz, Rainer Maria Rilke,, Jeff Bridges is 62, Marisa Tomei is 47, Tyrah Banks is 38, Johnny Lyon- 1948 of the band Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, Jay-Z is 42, Fred Armisen is 45

*"Life is one long process of getting tired."- Samuel Butler

963AD- Pope John XII was beaten to death by the husband of a woman he was sleeping with. In Nominae Patrie- OUCH!..Et Filiae..OUCH!…Et Spitritu Sanctam..OUCH!

1154- Nicholas Breakspeare elected Pope Adrian IV, so far the only Englishman ever made pope of the Roman Catholic Church..

1534- Ottoman Turkish Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent occupied Baghdad.

1655- Jews had been expelled from England since 1291. This year Oliver Cromwell convened a conference at Whitehall to consider re-admittance of Jews. Cromwell’s Puritans had great sympathy for “God’s chosen People” and one Roundhead legislator even proposed moving the Sabbath Day back to Saturday. But there was still too much anti-Semitic resistance to make the re-admittance official. Despite the failure of the government to make a decision, from this time on Jewish families began resettling in England. They were allowed their own Jewish Burial Ground in 1657. In 1715 Solomon Medina became the first Jewish person to receive a knighthood.

1657-Old Painter Rembrandt van Rijn was evicted from his home. He was kept out of debtor’s prison, when his daughter and son-in-law auctioned most of his possessions to pay off his creditors.

1674- HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHICAGO! French missionary Jacques Marquette dedicated a mission house and trading post that will eventually become Fort Dearborn, then the Windy City. But who invented deep-dish pizza?

1777- Ben Franklin and the American commissioners in France were in despair. Nothing but bad news about British victories, and the French government was complaining about American privateers attacking British ships in French waters. Even sympathetic French newspapers called the American cause lost.

Today with playright-spy Pierre DuBeaumarchais in attendance, a courier from across the sea arrived. Jonathan Austin delivered the news of the Battle of Saratoga. That British General Burgoyne and his entire army were defeated badly and taken. Immediately the French, Dutch and Spanish governments started calling the Americans “our friends”, and began discussing an alliance.

1783- WASHINGTON'S FAREWELL- The American Revolution now ended, George Washington bid farewell to his officers at a dinner at Fraunces Tavern in New York. Creole cook Samuel Fraunces "Black Sam' was later invited by Washington to become the first presidential chef. The tavern is still there on the corner of Water and Pearl Streets and still serves food and ale.

1791- The London Observer, called the oldest continually published newspaper in the world, first published. True, the Times was begun in 1788 but t had a spotty release it’s first few years while it’s publisher would be thrown in prison for libel.

1829- The British in India abolished the custom of suttee- that a widow throw herself on her husbands funeral pyre and die also.

1875- William Marcy “Boss Tweed” escaped Ludlow Street jail and fled to Cuba. He had been the corrupt boss of New York City politics throughout the 1860s and 70s. He was rearrested in Spain by a Spanish policeman who spoke no English. When asked by American diplomats the Spaniard said he saw a newspaper cartoon by Thomas Nast of Tweed in prison garb with his hands on two young boys so he thought he was a kidnapper! Tweed was brought to justice by the one crime he probably never did.

1881- First issue of the Los Angeles Times.

1909- The first Canadian Football League championship the Grey Cup, U of Toronto defeated Toronto Parkdale 26-6

1915- HENRY FORD'S PEACE SHIP-The great industrialist was a livelong pacifist and was horrified by the carnage of the Great War. On this day he equipped a large yacht with neutral diplomats and other famous personages like Thomas Edison and sailed to Europe. Pundits had fun mocking his homespun naiveté' and local lunatics like Urban Ledoux, aka Mr. Zero, jumped into New York Harbor and swarm alongside the ship "to ward off hostile torpedoes." Ford docked in Oslo harbor hoping to use his influence to get the Kaiser, Czar and the other crowned heads to a bargaining table like some kind of board of directors negotiation. Nobody would meet with him. Young N.Y. politician Fiorello LaGuardia noted: "The only boy he managed to save from the trenches was his own son!"

1916-RASPUTIN THE MAD MONK KILLED- Several Russian noblemen resolve to rid their country of this Siberian peasant mystic who held such power over the Tsar and his family that he could dismiss government ministers at will. He once had an entire army offensive redirected because he was negotiating to buy the real estate they planned to fight over. A first cousin of the Czar, cross dressing Prince Youssuppov invited Rasputin to a late night party. He had a record player with Yankee Doodle playing in another room to convince the monk that a party indeed was in progress. Youssuppov gave Rasputin a glass of cyanide laced vodka. Rasputin drank it and finished the bottle. Then the conspirators rushed out, emptied a revolver into him, beat him with chains and heavy silver candlesticks, rolled him up in a rug and stuffed him into the ice clogged Neva River.

The official coroner's report said he had drowned. Shortly before his death Rasputin wrote a prediction in a letter to the Czar saying that 'if the peasants, my brothers, kill me, then you, Czar of Russia, have nothing to fear. But if your relatives kill me, not you nor any one of your family will remain alive longer than two years." Rasputin's prediction was off by about four months. Nicholas II and his 400 year old dynasty fell ten weeks later and the entire Imperial Family were murdered in July 1918.

1919- President Woodrow Wilson left the US by battleship for Europe to help chair the Versailles Peace Conference ending the Great War. Once there he surprised people by refusing to visit the battlefields and tour the horror and devastation. He said:” They want me to see red as they do. But I feel at least one of us should remain impartial.”

1927- The Cotton Club opened as a speakeasy nightclub in Harlem. Owners were New York ganglords Owney “The Killer” Madden and George “Big Frenchy” DeMange. Duke Ellington’s orchestra highlighted the opening night. When other gangsters tried to open a rival The Plantation Club, Owney had his hoods firebomb the place. The Cotton Club was one of the great centers of the Harlem Renaissance, but African Americans were banned from eating or drinking at the tables. Even W.C. Handy was turned away.

1931- James Whale’s macabre masterpiece film “Frankenstein” opened at the Mayfair theater in NY. English actor William Henry Pratt renamed Boris Karloff played the monster.

1932- “Good Evening Mr & Mrs North and South America and All the Ships at Sea! Let’s Go To Press!” Newspaper columnist Walter Winchell began his famous radio broadcasts on the NBC Blue Networks. Winchell became one of the most powerful voices in American society and politics for 23 years, later a strong voice of Anti-Communism and supporter of Joe McCarthy.

1941- As Admiral Nagumo's carrier fleet approached Pearl Harbor, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox assured news reporters : "No matter what happens, the US Navy will not be caught napping !"

1941- film "Mr. Bug Goes to Town"-opened. Max Fleischer's last gamble to keep up with Disney and keep his studio alive. However the events of Pearl Harbor three days later not only sink the American Navy, but also Hoppity's box office and puts Max out of business.

1948- “Hey...Stella !! A Streetcar Named Desire opened on Broadway with Marlon Brando and Jessica Tandy.

1950- President Truman gives General MacArthur in Korea direct orders not to open his big mouth and make any more public statements about the conduct of the war, without checking with Washington first ! MacArthur was used to being on his own during World War Two and as proconsul of occupied Japan. He didn't fret about being his own diplomatic corps as well as general. But now everything Dugout Doug said got him into trouble. He had been making statements in press that the U.S. should expand the Korean War into Communist China and Russia, and he warned the Chinese that if they didn’t quit he planned to rain Atomic Fire upon their cities.

1952- Smog in the London area kills 2,000 and sickens 8,000. London bans the use of coal, peat and wood fires to heat homes. A deadly smog covered Los Angeles in 1956. This accelerated the development of unleaded gasoline.

1955- French mime Marcel Marceau appeared on American TV for the first time.

1958- Cocoa Puffs cereal invented.

1961- Someone at the Museum of Modern Art in NY noticed that they had hung Henri Matisse’s painting Le Bateau upside down. It had been that way for two months and until now nobody had noticed.

1963- The first Instant Replay camera used at a football game. It was an Army-Navy game.

1978- After the murder of Mayor Robert Mosconi, Dianne Feinstein was sworn in as the first female Mayor of San Francisco.

1988- Actor Gary Busey almost died in a motorcycle accident on Olympic Blvd. In Los Angeles. He was not wearing a helmet and suffered massive head trauma. He later claimed to have an out-of-the-body experience at the scene.

1993- Rocker Frank Zappa died of prostate cancer at age 52.
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Yesterday’s Question: In the classic TV show The Dick Van Dyke Show, creator Carl Reiner modeled his character Allen Brady on a former boss of his, Who was it?


Answer: Sid Caesar.