Quiz: What is RickRolling?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who turned down the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, before it was offered to Ian McKellen?
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History for 8/6/2011
Birthdays: LUCILLE BALL WOULD BE 100, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Daniel O'Connell "the Liberator", Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer), Louella Parsons,, Robert Mitchum, Andy Warhol, Hoot Gibson, William B. Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Sir Freddy Laker, M. Night Shyamalan, Melissa George, Andy Messersmith, Soliel Moon-Frye

1504 Birth of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I and was responsible for formulating the 39 Articles - an apocryphal story is that his long nose and inquisitive nature gave rise to the term "Nosy Parker ".

1571-During the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Cypus this day the second largest city Famagusta fell after a one year siege. The Turkish pasha was so enraged at all the time and soldiers killed to capture the city, that he ordered the Venetian commander General MarcAntonio Bradenigo skinned alive and his hide nailed to the poop deck of his flagship.

The Bradenigo Family later negotiated with Sublime Porte and regained possession of the skin, folded him up nicely and placed behind glass in his monument in the Church of San Giovanni et Paulo. When you enter the church today look to the right up high and you’ll see a bust with a glass plate with something that looks like a brown table napkin. That’s General Bradenigo.

1774- Religious leader Ann Lee and a group of followers first arrived in America from England. They called themselves the United Believers in Christ's Second Coming, but were more popularly known as the Shakers.

1806- Napoleon ordered the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. This was a bit of international bookkeeping. The Empire existed if only on paper since 950 A.D. but wasn't really an Empire, it wasn't Roman (it was mostly German states) and it wasn't that holy either. The Austrian Empire and the Confederation of the Rhine States under French dominion take it’s place.

1825- Bolivia gained independence from Peru.

1840- NAPOLEON III'S ABORTIVE COUP. Louis Napoleon was the nephew of the first Napoleon and one day he decided since his uncle was a genius he must be also. So he resolved to leave exile in Britain and overthrow the French government. His uncle in 1814 just had to show up on the beach in Cannes for the people to go wild and carry him to the palace on their shoulders.

So Louis Napoleon appeared on the beach in Boulogne waving his sword and flag. Instead of cheering crowds a local constable tried to arrest him for carrying a unlicensed firearm. When the gun went off and hurt the constable a mob chased Mr.Bonaparte back to his boat booing and laughing. While trying to row away the boat capsized and Napoleon III was picked up by a fishing boat while clinging to a lifebuoy. A gov't minister in Paris said of the affair: "That blockhead! Everything would be easier if he would just drown himself!" Louis Napoleon later became France's second emperor in 1852.

1890- FIRST MAN ELECTROCUTED- Prison officials wanted a more humane way to execute badguys than hanging, after a 300 pound killer named Mad Jack Ketcham made everybody sick when the noose ripped his head off. So they turned to the miracle of the age, electricity. A spirited competition began between inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse whether AC or DC current was more lethal. Lots of dogs and cats around their laboratories disappeared for test subjects. Edison wanted to call his device an "Automort" or "Electramort".

When Edison knew he was going to lose the contract he suggested the inventor give his name to it." Joe will be Westinghoused at Midnight !"-etc. Finally it was simply the Chair or the Hot Seat. The first man in it, an axe murderer named William Kemmler, took several 17 second jolts to be sent off, his hair and jacket caught fire and his shoes melted and stuck to the floor.

1890- Cy Young pitches and wins his first game.

1914 –The first German zeppelin raid. A Zeppelin bombs the Belgian city of Liege, 9 killed.

1926- Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel.

1926- Warner Brothers Studio premiered it’s motion picture sound on disk system. The film was Don Juan with John Barrymore the Great Profile. It didn’t really have much impact until they made the "Jazz Singer"with Al Jolson two years later.

1930- Judge Crater disappeared. The New York Supreme Court Justice had given no indication of any trouble but he had accrued huge gambling debts. The good judge had dinner with some friends at the Stork Club and told them he would join them later at the theater. He got into a taxi at 43rd street and vanished forever. It was the media story of the year.

1932- Top Broadway singer Libby Hollman "Statue of Libby" had married quiet millionaire Smith Reynolds and moved to his North Carolina estate. But life on the farm was boring so Libby brought her Broadway friends down to party. After one party she was missing for several hours and had grass stains on her knees. The couple quarreled and Smith Reynolds died of a gunshot wound to the head. No one was ever charged .

1945- HIROSHIMA.- At around 11:00 A.M. Capt. Tibbetts and his B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped one bomb and sent us into the Atomic Age. The uranium device was called the "Cosmic Bomb" by the scientists and "Little Boy" by the crew. Navy Secretary Admiral Leahy had said:" It's the biggest damn fool thing we've ever done. It'll never go off!"

When it did go off one crewmember shouted:"Wow! Lookit that sonofabitch go! This war is over!!" The navigator wrote in his journal" My God! What have we done ?" The target city of Hiroshima was selected because it was undamaged up until then, and the surrounding hills would concentrate it’s effect. The A-bomb killed around 130,000 people and continued to kill survivors with radiation and cancer. 50,000 people were vaporized outright leaving only shadows burned into the pavement.

Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb's main designer, had built it primarily to stop Hitler -both the Nazis and Japanese had their own unsuccessful atomic bomb programs. He was still horrified by the results. He became a lifelong pacifist and was later persecuted as a commie for refusing any more help in developing nuclear weapons.

1962-Ja Mahn! Jamaica gained independence from Britain.

1970- THE HIPPIES ATTACK DISNEYLAND- A nationwide call for civil disobedience at the famous American-establishment tourist spot was called for August 6th. Called "Yippie Day" Yippies were considered more militant than Hippies. 750 long haired, denim clad moppets filtered into park. Once in they quickly massed, then invaded the Wilderness Fort in Frontierland. There they raised the Vietcong flag, passed marijuana cigarettes to tourists and chanted "Stop the War! Free Charlie Manson!" They were finally expelled with great difficulty by park security and the Anaheim police. In the 1980’s Disney was almost invaded by Nazi skinheads but this time they were ready.

1973- Stevie Wonder involved in car crash, came out of a 4 day coma and recovered completely.

1984- Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track & field at the Olympic Games in LA.

1998- A chubby White House student intern from LA named Monica Lewinsky testified to a Federal Grand Jury that she had sex with President Bill Clinton in a small room down the hall from the Oval Office. Hey, watch where ya put that cigar!

2001- One month before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks, the CIA presented President George W. Bush with a study that increased terrorist chatter meant some kind of attack was likely. The report was entitled OSAMA BEN LADEN DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN CONTINENTAL US. That the terrorists may use hijacked civilian airliners. President Bush thanked them:” Okay, you’ve covered your ass...” then resumed clearing brush on his ranch. CIA chief George Tenant didn’t think it important enough to even show up.

Later in 2003 after the 9-11 attack National Security adviser Dr. Condoleeza Rice was quoted in the press " No one could predict terrorists would hijack civilian airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon." Tenant later got the Medal of Freedom.

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Yesterdays Quiz: Who turned down the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, before it was offered to Ian McKellen?

Answer: Sean Connery.

Quiz: Who turned down the role of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, before it was offered to Ian McKellen?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What actor turned down the role of James Bond, before it was offered to Sean Connery?

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History for 8/5/2011

Birthdays: Guy de Maupassant, Amboise Thomas, William- first black child born in British America, Neil Armstrong is 81, John Huston, Robert Taylor, Conrad Aiken, Roman Gabriel, Selma Diamond, Patrick Ewing, John Merrick the Elephant Man, Loni Anderson, John Saxon, Jonathan Silverman is 39

Feast of St. Afra, a German prostitute who was burned to death rather than worship idols.” My body hath sinned but my soul is pure.”


1583 - The HMS Squirrel brought the first English settlement within sight of Newfoundland. After the first rough winter the colony failed. The boat retrieving the colonists sank in a storm and all were drowned. The first permanent British colony wouldn’t succeed until Jamestown in 1607.


1667- Moliere’s famous comedy “Tartuffe” first played for the public. The next day the Parliament of Paris ordered the theater closed and it’s posters ripped down. The Archbishop of Paris threatened excommunication of anyone who saw it or performed it. It seemed the local religious community didn’t like all the jokes about a charlatan who steals everything from a family by pretending to be a man of the cloth. But the Sun King Louis XIV thought it was funny. He overruled the prelates and ordered the play resumed.

1769- Marching up the California coast Gaspar de Portola discovered the San Fernando Valley. ( Oh ma Gaawd!) He came down out of the Sepulveda pass, made a left at Ventura Blvd. and went over to the Chumash village by a spring in Encino (now Encino park near Balboa Blvd.).. The original Indian word for this valley was “Valley of Smoke”.


1775- 1st Spanish ship, the San Carlos, entered San Francisco Bay.


1847 -Author Herman Melville met Nathaniel Hawthorne. They went for a hike together in the Berkshires.

1864-“ DAMN THE TORPEDOES!” Admiral David Farragut at Mobile Bay. The Union Navy captured one of last Southern deep water ports. As the US warships in a line ran the heavy cannon of the rebel forts, a lead ship exploded from a floating mine called a torpedo. This stacked up the ship traffic under the enemy guns like a shooting gallery .

Admiral Farragut shouted “Damn the Torpedoes, Full Speed Ahead ! “ he pushed his flagship the USS Hartford to the lead and gambled the remaining booby traps would be duds. They were. They also defeated the Confederate ironclad Tennessee, who’s captain Franklin Buchanan had commanded the Merrimac two years earlier. Even though Farragut had closed the port to Confederate ships the North wouldn’t spare troops to capture the city. So Mobile Alabama didn’t surrender until four days after Lee surrendered to Grant in 1865.


1882- On little Bedloe’s Island in New York Harbor, on top of a old War of 1812 fort, the cornerstone of the Statue of Liberty set. The statue had arrived in pieces from France-some assembly required. Donations for the statue’s construction were collected by a national fundraiser organized by newspaper tycoon Josef Pulitzer.



1891- the American Express Company introduces Travellers Checks.



1910- The first Traffic Light set up on Euclid and 105th st. in Cleveland.



1921-KDKA Pittsburgh does the 1st radio baseball broadcast Pirates-8, Phillies-0.

1924 Arf, Arf ! the first Little Orphan Annie comic strip drawn by Harold Gray.


1926 Magician Harry Houdini stays in a coffin under water for one hour.

1927 Victrola Record producer Ralph Peer realized there might be a market for “Hillbilly Music”. So he set up a makeshift recording studio above a furniture store in Bristol Tennessee and put an ad in the local papers for talent. In one day he recorded future stars Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, The Carter Family, The Tennessee Mountaineers and Ernest Pop Stoneman. This session has been called the “ Big Bang of Country Music.”

1940- The Day of the Eagle. The first German raids by the Luftwaffe over England. Mostly to probe defenses and attack coastal radar installations. This was the beginning of the Battle of Britain.

1945- At Tinian airbase The atomic uranium bomb “Little Boy” is loaded onto the B-29 bomber Enola Gay after traveling by ship from Hawaii. The crew will take off at 5:00 am next morning.

1945-THE INDIANAPOLIS The ship that carried the Atomic bombs, the cruiser U.S.S. Indianapolis was torpedoed by the Japanese submarine I-168 on the way back from Tinian. Because the Indianapolis was under top secrecy it took five days for the Navy to realize that she was even missing. By the time rescue planes reached the site most of her sailors had drowned or had been eaten by sharks. Out of 900 sailors in the water only 300 were rescued. Survivors recalled how they could feel the sharks noses bumping into the soles of their feet then another comrade would disappear under water.

This day the plane that discovered them did so by accident. He had spotted the oil slick and assumed it was a submerged Japanese submarine and was closing in to drop a bomb when he saw the men’s heads bobbing in the water.

1953- The film “From Here to Eternity” opened, starring Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift. But the big story was Frank Sinatra’s Oscar winning performance as Maggio that signaled the turnaround in his slumping career.

1953- Operation Big Switch- a large exchange of prisoners of war in the Korean conflict. At this time when some American POW’s refused to come home the charge was made of “Brain Washing” that the Red Chinese used extreme psychological pressure to alter prisoners.

1955- The Screen Actor’s Guild strikes Hollywood for television residuals. Their president was Walter Pidgeon who had played Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet.

1957- American Bandstand featuring the eternally teenage Dick Clark debuts on television.

1962- GOODBYE, NORMA JEAN. Marilyn Monroe found nude in bed, dead of barbiturate overdose. She was 36. Whether you think the starlet overdosed by accident, suicide, or was done in by the Mafia, the Kennedys, a Svengali like personal physician, infatuated physical therapist or space aliens is still a mystery. She made a call to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s office in Washington several hours earlier but was rebuffed. Her last call was to her hairdresser Mr. Guilaroff. She left the bulk of her belongings to her drama teacher Lee Strassberg and her funeral was organized by ex-husband Joe Dimaggio. Her Westwood cottage suite had a tile over the doorway which read :"All my troubles end Here."

1963- The US, Britain and USSR sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

1964 - Actress Anne Bancroft & Comedian Mel Brooks wed.

1966- Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino first opened to the public. This was the first of the super-resort casinos, with a total theme park design and three times the space and accommodations of anything yet seen on the Vegas Strip. It’s success ushered in an accelerated era of building for Las Vegas casinos.


1966 –It a moment of youthful indiscretion, John Lennon says his band the Beatles are now more popular than Jesus. This flippant comment provoked a firestorm of nationwide protest among conservative elements in the US. Beatles albums were publicly burned in the streets. Lennon apologized, then followed up by saying he was being crucified over the comment. Paul McCartney rush up to the mike to insist that wasn't the choice of words they preferred.

1967- Bobby Gentry released “Ode to Billy Jo”.


1980- The Osmond Brothers break up.

1984- Welsh actor Richard Burton died of cerebral hemorrhage at 64. With a tumultuous career and two marriages to Elizabeth Taylor, the hard drinking Burton was the most famous English-speaking thespian of his day. But unlike Olivier and Gielgud, he was never knighted. As I recall, the monarchy objected to their portrayal, when Burton starred in a miniseries on Winston Churchill. Burton was buried with a copy of Dylan Thomas’ poems.

1984- Joan Benoit won the first Women’s Olympic Marathon.

1986 - It's revealed painter Andrew Wyeth had secretly created 240 drawings & paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf, in Chadds Ford, Pa

1994- JUDGE KENNETH STARR appointed by the Newt Gingrich Congress to be special prosecutor to investigate wrongdoing by President Clinton in his Whitewater financial dealings.

When the Whitewater affair proved a cold lead he came upon the Travelgate, Paula Jones and the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal. Yet Starr never garnered much public support because his probe was perceived as a political vendetta. Rather than seem to be impartial, Judge Starr was a declared enemy of Bill Clinton. And his blunt tactics brought up disturbing memories of McCarthyism- like his ordering the arrest of a D.C. bookshop owner who refused to hand over his receipts and berating jurors who deadlocked over two counts against Clinton’s law partners.

After $54 million tax dollars spent, Congress voted impeachment of the President for lying under oath. But that effort was defeated and Clinton served out his term. Judge Starr became president of Pepperdine College in liberal Malibu, Ca.

2001- In a throwback to the long dead Communist era, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il visited Moscow to meet with Russian leaders. Flanked by goose stepping soldiers he laid a wreath at the tomb of Lenin. Russian President Putin let him sleep in a Kremlin suite his father Kim Il Sung slept in 50 years earlier, as the guest of Stalin. Terrified of flying, Kim made the 6000 mile trip from Pyongyang by train, pausing to visit a tank factory. The only reaction was annoyance from Moscow workers. Kim’s private train had jammed up their morning commute.

---------------------------------------------

Yesterdays’ Quiz: What actor turned down the role of James Bond, before it was offered to Sean Connery?

Answer: Sean Connery got the role of Bond after it was first rejected by James Mason, David Niven, Patrick McGoohan and Rex Harrison.

Quiz: What actor turned down the role of James Bond, before it was offered to Sean Connery?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: John Peter Zenger was Pilgrim, Dutch Painter, American Newspaperman, Composer?
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History for 8/4/2011
Birthdays: Percy Bysshe Shelley, Nicholas Conte' 1777-inventor of the modern pencil and the conte'-crayon, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, William Pater, Richard Belzer, Franco Corelli, Elizabeth-England's late Queen Mum, Roger Clemens, runner Mary Decker-Slaney, Billy-Bob Thornton is 56, Helen Thomas is 91,
President Barack Obama is 50

1181- A supernova was observed by Arab astronomers in the constellation Cassiopia.

1265- Battle of Evesham –Young Prince Edward Longshanks defeats the rebellious barons holding his father King Henry III of England captive. The leader of the rebel barons, Simon de Monfort had forced the King to acknowledge his creation of a House of Commons in Parliament. For that act old DeMonfort was so hated by the King's men that even after he was slain in battle they continued to chop his body to bits in a blind rage. But it was too late. Nothing could end the institution of a parliament of common men, curbing the capricious power of kings.

1578- Battle of Alcazar El Kebhir- King Sebastien of Portugal’s attempt to restart the long defunct Crusades, this time in Morrocco, ended when he was defeated and killed.

1693 “ Come quickly Martin, I am tasting stars!”monk Dom Perignon invented champagne.

1735- N.Y. newspaper editor John Peter Zenger had been writing articles criticizing the Royal Governor for corruption. Past governors of New York, Maryland and North Carolina colonies were known fences for Caribbean pirates like Captain Kidd and Blackbeard. This day German born Zenger's newspaper was shut down, and he was arrested for 'Seditious Libel". His trial and acquittal was seen as the first great victory in America for Freedom of the Press.

1753- George Washington became a Master Mason in the Freemason Lodge #4 of Fredericksburg, Virginia. The first Masonic lodge in America was founded in 1730 by Benjamin Franklin. Some think Freemasons akin to Fred Flintstones Waterbuffalo Lodge, but in the 1700’s Freemasonry had strong political ramifications. Most European intellectuals –Voltaire, Mozart, Lafayette and Goethe were masons.

1776-The nice printed up Declaration of Independence we all recognize was officially signed. The declaration approved on July 2nd and published on July 4th was the rough draft. Today John Hancock signed that big flowing signature "So old King George won't need his spectacles". Today a nickname for a signature is a John Hancock. It was a gutsy thing to do, the signatures would be their death warrants if the rebellion was crushed. Ironically if you asked Hancock for a pinch of snuff his snuffbox was an engraved gift from King George III he received during a visit to London ten years earlier.

During the War of 1812 when the British burned Washington D.C. the Declaration was hidden under a doorstep in Baltimore. It later hung in a sunlit window for 30 years which bleached it’s print almost to invisibility. Today millions are being spent on restoration efforts like encasing it in pure helium.

1782- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart married Constanze Weber, the aunt of composer Karl Maria Von Weber. Mozart had first proposed to Constanze's sister but she chose another.

1789- The French Revolutionary Assembly abolished forever all rights of the nobility in France. The French aristocracy made up less than 1% of the population yet were given over 20% of the nation’s budget to play with and paid no taxes on their chateaus or lands. The Revolutionaries also abolished the system of High-Law and Low-Law.- In other words if some randy old Duke took a fancy to your wife or sister you could do nothing but smile and hope he gave her some money for her trouble. These things more than the “Let Them Eat Cake” quote made people dance around the guillotine.

1792- The FRENCH REVOLUTION HEATS UP. Since the fall of the Bastille two years earlier France and King Louis XVI had tried to work as a constitutional monarchy guided by the Marquis de Lafayette. But Louis only played the system for time while negotiating with his royal relatives in Germany and Austria to send armies to help him put his peasants in their place.

By now the French nation had enough. Mobs stirred to anger by radicals like Danton and Marat marched on the Tuilieries Palace demanding justice. The King Louis XVI's Swiss bodyguard opened fire on them . The enraged peasants tore the guards to pieces and looted the palace, sticking soldier's ears on the kings desk. The king and queen tried to escape out the back door but were grabbed by the mob. A flag was made from a Swiss red uniform coats- the very first Red Flag of Revolution. Lafayette later fled into exile and was imprisoned.

Standing in the street watching all this was a young unemployed lieutenant named Napoleon Bonaparte. He later wrote that if King Louis had the nerve to appear on a horse at the head of his supporters he could have still triumphed. Napoleon's murmured: " Quel con!”- “What an Asshole!"

1821- 1st edition of Saturday Evening Post -published until 1969.

1855 - John Bartlett publishes his first book of "Familiar Quotations"

1874- Methodist clergyman John Vincent and Ohio businessman Lewis Miller began the Chautauqua Assembly in Northwestern New York. Under large summer tents lectures and training were given to Sunday school teachers and other church workers. The Chautauqua Movement grew into a national movement for religious revival and became a conservative rural force in turn of the century national politics.

1892-" Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother forty whacks, when he saw what she had done, gave her father forty-one.", etc. In Fall River Mass, Andrew and Abbie Borden were found brutally murdered and their daughter Elisabeth was accused. Ms. Borden pleaded innocence and cited a long history of abuse from her parents .She was acquitted but the murderer was never found. When Lizzie died peacefully in 1927 she left $30,000 to the ASPCA.

1914- WWI- grey clad spiked helmeted armies begin crossing into Belgian territory to deliver their knockout blow against France-aka the Schefflein Plan. This strategy violated the neutrality of Belgium which had been agreed to by treaty since 1839. When this was protested, German minister Bethman-Holveig bragged "we shall not be held by a scrap of paper!" This outrage brought England into the war against Germany and made handsome young King Albert of the Belgians into a international celebrity. Ironically, professional diplomat Betthman-Holveig had worked tirelessly for the last three weeks to try and prevent the war, but by now he was reduced to a mere a mouthpiece for the army.

1918- Young corporal Adolf Hitler was awarded the Iron Cross, First Class for bravery. He was quite proud of it and wore it on his uniform for the rest of his life. The German officer who recommended Hitler, and pinned his medal on was Captain Hugo Gutmann, a Jew.

1921 The Motion Picture Fund created.

1922- In honor of the passing of Alexander Graham Bell, all 13 million telephones in the United States observed three minutes of silence.

1925- Conrad Hilton opened the first Hilton Hotel in Dallas Texas.

1940- The Mayor of Montreal was arrested for telling French-Canadian citizens to resist the military draft to fight for Britain in World War Two.

1942- The Bing Crosby-Fred Astaire-Marjorie Reynolds film the Holiday Inn released. The film featured Irving Berlin hit songs like White Christmas and Easter Parade but is hardly ever shown anymore because the Lincoln’s Birthday skit featured the cast in embarrassing minstrel blackface, singing “bout Massa Lincoln”.

1944- British pilot T.D. Dean uses his plane to bump the wing of a German V-1 Flying Bomb, causing it to flip over off course.

1944-Acting on a tip from a neighbor, the Gestapo discovered and arrested 16 year old Anne Frank and her family in their hiding place in an Amsterdam warehouse. All were sent to Auschwitz. Only her father Otto survived.

1955 –President Eisenhower authorizes $46 million for construction of CIA
headquarters in Langley Virginia.

1956- Elvis Presley released his version of the Big Mama Mabel Thornton song " You Ain’t Nothin’ but a Hound Dog".

1964- The TONKIN GULF INCIDENT. North Vietnamese gunboats attacked the U.S.S. Maddox and the Turner Joy patrolling off their coast. The US claimed they were in international waters but the Pentagon Papers revealed that the Maddox was deliberately sent close to the shore to provoke the Vietnamese. The Maddox's captain testified he was 30 miles offshore when in reality he was 3 miles. For months the CIA had been conducting hit and run naval raids on the Vietnamese coast, but that was all still top secret. Although the U.S. already had advisors in the Vietnamese civil war for years this incident provided the legal pretext President Lyndon Johnson needed to escalate U.S. involvement up to 450,000 combat troops and trillions of dollars. Johnson had told his press attache' Bill Moyers:" Bill, if this Vietnam thing comes off I'll go down as one of the great presidents of this century, if not I'll be the goat.".....

1964- Rand Corporation analyst Daniel Ellsberg’s first day working at the Pentagon. Ellsberg would be the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers.

1984- Actor Johnny Depp opened his own club on the Sunset Strip called the Viper Room. The original club on that site had once been owned by mobster Bugsy Siegel.

1993- Japan admitted that during World War Two they forced 200,000 Korean and Chinese women to become “comfort women”- i.e. prostitutes for the Japanese soldiers. The army organized this policy after in 1937 the massed rapes of Chinese women in Nanking made them look bad in the world press.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: John Peter Zenger was Pilgrim, Dutch Painter, American Newspaperman, Composer?

Answer: John Peter Zenger was a New York City newspaperman. See above- 1735.

Quiz: John Peter Zenger was Pilgrim, Dutch Painter, American Newspaperman, Composer?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: The Alpine region called the Tyrol spans two countries. Half is in Austria. Where is the other half?
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History for 8/3/2011
birthdays: British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Elisha Otis inventor of the elevator, John T. Scopes- the teacher accused in the Monkey Trial, Habib Bourghiba, Ernie Pyle, Gene Kelly, Lenny Bruce, Tony Bennett is 85, John Landis, Jay North, Dolores Del Rio, Leon Uris, Ann Klein, Martha Stewart, Martin Sheen is 71, John C. McGinley is 52

Happy National Mustard Day

126 B.C. THE BATTLE OF CANNAE. Hannibal's defeat of a much larger Roman army is one of the great pieces of strategy still studied today. He had crossed the Alps to attack Italy with 30 war elephants but only 3 or 4 survived the crossing. This victory annihilated the top generals of Rome and left nothing between him and the city . Yet Hannibal uncharacteristically hesitated until the Romans recovered. His cavalry commander Mago snarled:" You know how to win battles, but not a war." The Romans recovered, eventually drawing him off to Africa to protect his home city Carthage, where he was defeated by Scipio Africanis at Zama.

48 B.C.-Battle of Pharsalia- Julius Caesar defeated his rival Pompey Magnus in northern Greece. Pompey fled to Egypt where he was assassinated. Caesar came in hot pursuit where he met Cleopatra.

1305- Scots warrior William Wallace was betrayed to the English and captured while visiting the Glasgow house of a man named Robert Roe.

1347- THE BURGHERS OF CALAIS- When King Edward III attacked France to press his claim for it’s throne, the first city he attacked was the port of Calais. After a long vicious siege the leaders of Calais agreed to surrender. England held Calais for 250 years. The king wanted to hang the burghers (city leaders) because of their stubborn resistance, but they were spared after pleas of mercy from Edward’s Queen. August Rodin created a beautiful statuary group the Burghers of Calais. The six men loaded down with chains and ropes around their necks, defiance still radiating in their faces, are a symbol of resistance for all oppressed peoples.

1492- One half hour before dawn, Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria in search of the Indies. This was the first of four voyages. He took on board a linguist fluent in Turkish, Sanskrit and Hebrew to speak to any natives they might encounter.

1529- The Ladies Peace of Cambrai- The King of France Francis Ist and Spanish-German Emperor Charles V has fought a series of costly wars over who controlled Italy. Their hatred was so extreme that they even considered a personal duel. Nothing seemed to solve this feud and Europe was being wrecked. Finally both their mothers- Anne of Savoy and Margaret of Austria, met without their permission and concluded a peace treaty without them.

1553- Mary Tudor the eldest daughter of the late King Henry VIII entered London in triumph. The schemes and corruption of the Somerset regency had been such a mess that even Protestant London was glad to have a real queen again even if she was Catholic. People brought out tables of food, danced and celebrated all night.

1610 - Englishman Henry Hudson with the Dutch fleet discovers a great bay on the Northeast coast of Canada and names it for himself- Hudson’s Bay.

1745- Bonnie Prince Charlie stepped on the soil of Scotland- at Arisca in the Hebrides. When a frightened Scottish lord asked him to go home, Charles Stuart replied:” But I am home.” The English Parliament offered a reward of 30,000 pounds for his arrest. So began the Great Highland Uprising, the last great campaign on British Soil.

1769- Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola made the first-ever recorded mention of the Rancho La Brea "tar pits" in Los Angeles: "The 3rd, we proceeded for three hours on a good road; to the right of it were extensive swamps of bitumen which is called chapapote. We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes.”

1807- Former Vice President Aaron Burr is arrested for treason. President Jefferson accused him of plotting to make himself dictator of a republic in newly acquired Louisiana and conquering Texas for himself.

1823-English Poet Lord Byron arrived in Greece, burning with a desire to help the Greeks attain independence.

1852- The first Harvard-Yale boat race.

1858- British explorer John Speeckes discovered Lake Victoria Nyanza, the source of the Nile River. The question of the Nile's origins had become a cause celebre among British explorers and debate raged fiercely. Speeckes was traveling with famed Orientalist Richard Burton, translator of the Arabian Nights stories, but Burton absented himself from the last leg of the journey because of malaria. He regretted this decision for the rest of his life and grew to hate Speeckes. Speeckes and Burton began a feud that may or may not have contributed to Speeckes accidental suicide in 1864.

1882- Congress passed the first Immigration Act, trying to restrict what had been an open door policy since the Pilgrims. But the act had a heavy European bias. Chinese immigrants were banned for ten years.

1916- Sir Roger Casement was executed for treason in London. Casement was an Irish patriot who lobbied Germany to fund the Irish Easter Sunday Uprising, and he exposed human rites violations done by the Belgians in the Congo. After his conviction, many leading English intellectuals like Arthur Conan-Doyle and Bernard Shaw urged for mercy for Casement. But the government produced his “black diaries” taken from his home, that proved he was homosexual. All the bad publicity silenced the mercy movement, and Sir Roger was hanged.

1921- The first aerial crop dusting in Troy, Ohio to kill caterpillars.

1943- In Sicily Gen. George S. Patton while touring a field hospital encountered a Pvt. Herman Kuhl. Private Kuhl wasn't physically wounded, but suffering from nervous exhaustion, called today Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Patton angrily accused him of cowardice and slapped him down. Allied High Command ordered Patton to apologize to Kuhl and the entire army, then recalled him to England. He would have no part in military actions until after D-Day, to the amazement of the Nazi Generals. Patton never could understand battle fatigue, I guess he never got tired of it.

1948- Now that Baseball was finally integrated Satchel Page, genius of the Negro Leagues, makes his belated Major League debut with the Cleveland Indians. A 45 year old rookie. Page once said:" Don't look back, something may be gaining on you."

1948- Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers publicly denounced a top Truman presidential aide Alger Hiss of being a Russian spy. Alger Hiss was a protege of both Franklin Roosevelt and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The Hiss investigation eventually convicted Hiss of espionage based on the 'pumpkin papers', incriminating documents on microfilm Chambers said were found hidden in a pumpkin. The senate investigation shot to national prominence a new young congressman named Richard Nixon. In 1991 Soviet KGB files revealed Hiss was never a spy.

1949 -The National Basketball League is founded.

1958 - USS Nautilus begins 1st crossing of the Arctic Ocean under the icecap.

1961- The first airline hijacking to Cuba.

1963 –Unemployed television producer Alan Sherman released an album of comedy songs at the request of his friends. Called “My Son the Folksinger” it contained the hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, Here I am at, Camp Granada” and became an overnight sensation.

1966- While celebrating his 39th birthday, Comedian Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose. The groundbreaking comedian who coined the term “T & A” was arrested in 1964 and charged with obscenity for using the "F" word in his act. President Johnson and his opponent Senator Barry Goldwater could swear enough to make a sailor blush, but comedians were only supposed to make mother-in-law jokes.

Phil Spector said: “ Lenny died of an overdose of cops”. Lenny Bruce did six months in jail, and left broken physically and financially. No club would dare hire him. Yet today he is the model for all modern stand-up comedy. Today no one is arrested for telling jokes. Whether he leapt to his death from a window yelling “ I’m Super Jew! ” is a matter of legend.

1975- The Louisiana Superdome stadium is dedicated. Some football coaches like Mike Ditka of the Chicago Bears were skeptical:” Football is meant to be played in snow and mud. Dome stadiums are for Roller Derby!”

1981- U.S. Air traffic controllers (PATCO) go on strike despite Pres. Reagan's warning they would be fired. Reagan was once president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. Ironically the only U.S. President who has ever been a labor leader, was the most union-busting president of our time.

1996- The Macarena, by Los Del Rio, becomes the #1 hit worldwide.
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Yesterday’s Question: The Alpine region called the Tyrol spans two countries. Half is in Austria. Where is the other half?

Answer: Italy. The Southern Tyrol was given to Italy by the Versailles Treaty after the breakup of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1918.

Quiz: The Alpine region called the Tyrol spans two countries. Half is in Austria. Where is the other half?

Yesterday’s Question: Months alternate having 30 and 31 days each, but July and August each have 31. Why is that?
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History for 8/2/2011
Birthdays: Perre L’Enfant the architect –designer of Washington DC, Jack Warner, Myrna Loy, Sir Arthur Bliss, James Baldwin, Carrol O'Connor, Joanna Cassidy is 50, Pete Sampras, Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster ), Bob Beamon, Wes Craven, Apollonia, Edward Furlong, Kevin Smith is 41, Peter O'Toole is 79, Marie Louise Parker is 47

47BC- Battle of Zela. Pharnaces the King of Pontus- a land today in the middle of Turkey, decided he could take advantage of the Roman civil war by rising in revolt. He called for all the eastern provinces throw off the Roman yoke. This day Julius Caesar took time off from Cleopatra, and hurried up to Pontus, where he destroyed Pharnaces army in one large battle. Caesar then sent his famous three word report to the Senate: “ VENI VIDI VICI- I came, I saw, I conquered.”

1100- King William II Rufus (the Red), son of William the Conqueror, was shot with an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. His son Henry I became king. Truth be told, nobody liked Rufus very much, so it was probably not an accident.

1589- French King Henri III de Valois is stabbed in the guts by a demented Dominican, Brother Jacques Clement. He thought the King wasn't doing enough to stamp out Protestantism. The kings last words were: "That little bastard has killed me. Kill him!"
Henry IV de Bourbon became one of Frances most beloved rulers. The children's song "Frere' Jacques" is about this assassin "Brother Jacques, Why are you sleeping?" another bad King needs stabbing, in other words.

1858- The first public mailboxes installed on Boston & NYC streets.

1865- The Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah, after sinking a dozen U.S whaling ships in the Bering Sea off Alaska, is told by a passing British merchantman that the American Civil War had ended over 3 months ago......doh! They refused to believe it until shown some newspapers.

1873- The first San Francisco cable car began service. Inventor Arthur Halliday had conceived the idea in 1869 after seeing a horse drawn tram fail to get up a steep hill.

1876- In Deadwood South Dakota at Nuttall & Manns No.10 Saloon gunfighter Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back and killed while playing cards. He was 48 years old. He was holding the "Deadman's Hand" aces & eights all black, and a jack of hearts. His assailant 'Crooked Nose" Jack McCall was found hiding in a butchers shop and hanged for the murder. An eyewitness said:" It was very sad. Bill had won the hand too."

1909- The US issues the first Lincoln head pennies.

1914- THE GUNS OF AUGUST-General mobilization began throughout Europe for World War One. Large armies moved towards their frontiers amid hysterical street demonstrations of patriotism, Jubilant mobs shouting "A Berlin!" "Nach Paris!" ring out as Europe prepared to destroy itself. In Russia Czar Nicholas II in a solemn religious ceremony takes the oath his ancestor Alexander Ist had taken to drive out Napoleon. In Berlin a torchlight parade stopped under the Japanese Embassy to salute their friends. They were unaware that Japan had already decided to join the other side. The terrified diplomats thought the crowd was there to lynch them. From the Reichchancellory window German foreign minister Von Bethman-Holveig mumbled: "How did this all happen? If only I knew..." In London Lord Grey similarly reflected-" The Lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

1914- Holland and Switzerland declared their neutrality in the coming Great War, closed their borders and mobilized their forces.

1920- Marcus Garvey addressed a rally of 25,000 African Americans at Madison Garden New York. He called upon Black Americans not to integrate with White Society but to work for economic self-sufficiency and an eventual return to Africa. Garvey told biographers he was never born, he had “combusted himself” on the corner of 125 & Lennox in Harlem.

1923- President Warren Harding died suddenly in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. He was touring the country to get away from the 'Tea Pot Dome'' bribery scandal in Wash. The official cause of death was listed as “ a stroke of apoplexy”. It was rumored he may have committed suicide or had eaten bad crab meat. A popular idea was that First Lady Florence “Flossie” Harding had poisoned him. Harding was a womanizer and Flossie was well aware of his indiscretions; She refused an autopsy and had him quickly embalmed. She controlled all media coverage. To the press she was the Duchess. Nan Britton, one of Warren Harding’s tootsies, immediately sued for $50,000 for the daughter she bore Harding. She lost but wrote a best selling book called the President’s Daughter in 1927. “Silent Cal” Coolidge became President.

1934- Elderly President of the German Republic Paul von Hindenburg died, leaving Chancellor Adolf Hitler alone in charge of Germany. Hitler had waited for the old man to croak before dispensing with the parliamentary niceties. Hindenburg’s death signaled the official end of the Weimar Republic. Hitler combined the offices of President and Chancellor and becomes Der Fuehrer- the Leader.

1939- Albert Einstein then living in New Jersey, wrote a famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the potential power of atomic energy. That the US must develop atomic bombs before the Nazis do. The Manhattan Project was the result. In later years Einstein described this letter as “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

1961 - Beatles 1st gig as house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club.

1962- If you are a fan of the “Marilyn Monroe was done in by the Kennedy’s ” conspiracy theory, a recently unearthed CIA document dated this day mentioned that Marilyn’s bungalow was under electronic surveillance. Also that she kept a “red book” diary. The diary disappeared after her death, two nights from now.

1971- President Nixon acknowledged for the first time that the CIA was maintaining 30,000 irregular troops fighting in Laos.

1979- Yankee baseball star catcher Thurmon Munson died when he crashed his private plane near Akron Ohio. He was 32.

1990 –After Kuwait refused to waive Iraq’s outstanding debts. 100,000 troops of Saddam Hussein’s army invaded Kuwait.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Months alternate having 30 and 31 days each, but July and August each have 31. Why is that?

Answer: Greek scientist Sosigene's plan for the Julian Calendar was a mix of alternating months- 30 days, then 31 days. The system got messed up when Augustus' relations hated that Julius Caesar's month July had 31 days but their August had only 30! So the Senate added a day onto August and took one from, February, which was named for a god of the underworld that nobody liked anyway, which went down to 28.