QUIZ: What country did XIX Century Western sailors call The Cannibal Isles?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: On ancient Roman calendars, was the province of Upper Germania to the north or south of Lower Germania?
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History for 5/18/2011
Birthdays: Pope John Paul II, President Grover Cleveland, Ezio Pinza, Tsar Nicholas II, Omar Khayam, Walter Gropius, Reggie Jackson, Margot Fonteyn, Robert Morse, Perry Como, Dwayne Hickman aka Dobie Gillis, Big Joe Turner, Richard Brooks, Miriam Margolyes, Chow Yung Fat is 56, Tina Fey is 41

331 B.C. -ALEXANDER THE GREAT DIES IN BABYLON. By age 31 he had conquered most of the known world and was planning a campaign to Arabia and western Europe when he fell ill. When asked "To whom do you leave your empire? He replied- "Hoti to Kratisto- To the Strongest". Some historians speculate he actually meant :"Hoti to Kratero" to Craterus, one of his trusted companions, but the generals in the room had their own ideas and didn't want to hear that.

They carved up his Empire into their own kingdoms-Ptolemey became Pharoah of Egypt, Seleucus king of Syria and Antigonus One-Eye & Cassander divided up Greece. They started fighting with each other almost immediately. Alexander grimly joked: "There will be great games at my funeral". The Successor kings even fought over his corpse, carrying it around with the army in a huge rolling shrine, until Ptolomey brought it to Alexandria and embalmed it in a solid block of honey. Caesar and Marc Anthony were able to gaze upon Alexander’s face three hundred years later.(imagine today being able to look at the undecayed face of George Washington! )The final fate of the honey-pickled corpse is unknown.

323BC- Diogenes the Cynic philosopher died his 90s. He once met Alexander the Great. Alexander came up to him seated upon the ground, stood over him and said "I am Alexander the King of Macedon". Diogenes countered:" And I am Diogenes the Dog". Alexander said:" If there is anything in the world you desire of me, just ask and I shall do it!" Diogenes replied:" yes, get out of my sunlight."

257 a.d.- Today is the Feast of Saint Venantius. Little is known of him except his endurance record for being martyred. His persecutors flogged him, burned him with torches, hanged him upside down over a fire, knocked his teeth out, broke his jaw, and threw him to the lions, who merely licked his feet. Then they threw him off a cliff, and finally cut his head off.

1291- The Last Christian stronghold in Middle East, St. Jean D'Acre fell to the Mamelukes under Al Khalil. The official end of the Crusades.

1512- IRON HAND- German knight Gotz von Berlichingen spent his 81 years fighting and raiding throughout Germany. When his hand was blown off by a cannonball he had a mechanical one built for him out of metal. This day Gotz and one legged Hans von Selbitz raided 55 Nuremburg merchants and carried off their gold. Goethe and other German writers made Gotz into a Robin Hood type folk hero.

In answering a challenge to personal combat, Iron Hand was credited with uttering the famous epithet "Er aber sag seinem Herren, er kann mich im Arsche lecken!" Go tell your master he can lick my ass!"

1565- THE SIEGE OF MALTA BEGINS. Turkish Sultan Suleimann the Magnificent attacked the island stronghold of the Knights of St.John. The knights had formed in Jerusalem during the Crusades and ran a hospital when not chopping people, so they were called Hospitalers. Later after their victory they became the Knights of Malta. Their symbol, four barbed arrowheads forming a cross is called the Maltese Cross. Today they still run a medical service called St. John's Ambulance.

1642- Huron village of Hochelaga was rededicated as the city of Montreal.

1778-THE MESCHIANZA- Before the British Army evacuated the rebel capitol of Philadelphia they threw a grand farewell ball. Beautiful American loyalist girls and dashing young redcoat officers danced the night away under a spectacle of fireworks. There was a waterborne parade, medieval tournament and a huge dinner.

Nothing this lavish had ever been staged in the American Colonies. One of the belles was Peggy Shippen, who would marry General Benedict Arnold and turn him from the American patriot cause. That night her dance partner was Major John Andre’, who art directed and designed the event. He even designed Peggy’s costume. The men had costumes as Knights and the women as Turkish damsels, symbolizing the civilizing influence of art on barbaric peoples.

The next day the British began their withdrawal to New York and abandoning Philadelphia to Washington’s army camped at Valley Forge. Two years later Major Andre hanged by George Washington as a spy.

1781- The last fighting king of the Inca, TUPU AMARU II was executed by the Spanish conquistadors. They tried to tear him apart with horses, but he was too pliable so they cut him up. Inca resistance to the Spaniards didn't end when Pizzarro left. They abandoned Cuzco and fled deeper into the Andes and continued to struggle for another 150 years.

The Inca believed the world periodically is overthrown and another takes it's place, so the European invasion was seen as a part of this cycle. The Inca word for earthquake also means revolution. In the 1980s the rebels fighting the Peruvian government forces called themselves the Tupu-Amaru Liberation front.

1795- Col. Robert Rogers died in poverty in London. During the French and Indian War Rogers’ colonial militia called Roger’s Rangers was the most daring unit fighting for England. But by the American Revolution George Washington didn’t trust his loyalty and refused him a command. He formed a Tory unit but it was undistinguished except for ratting out Nathan Hale. Despite the obscurity of his death, Rogers wrote down a manual of his tactics that are considered the basis of all special ops -Move Fast, Hit Hard.

1804- French senate votes Napoleon the title of Emperor of the French. This act disappointed many European liberals like Beethoven who had seen Napoleon as the strong wind of reform blowing through the dusty corridors of Monarchy. Sometimes you may see the word "parvenu" in a story. The term was coined during this time to mean brand new synthetic royalty instead of ancient noble families.

1832-CLIMAX OF THE MAY DAYS- The closest England ever came to a full French style working class Revolution. The Whig party under Lord John Russell and Lord Grey ( Earl Grey Tea ) had introduced three bills in Parliament asking for voting rights to be extended to the middle classes and parliamentary allocations reformed to better represent the large city populations like Manchester and Birmingham. This would forever shatter the tight hold on power possessed by the gentry and peers. Naturally the conservatives like King William IV (Victoria's uncle) fought it tooth and nail. Every time the bill passed in the House of Commons it was defeated in the House of Lords. The Commons in retaliation refused to let the Tories form a government.

Starting with the bills third defeat on May 7th England was convulsed by rioting, looting, general strikes and boycotts . The King was hit in the face with a stone, the Horse Guards were called out and the elderly Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had so many rocks thrown at his house in Hyde Park he had steel shutters installed on the ground floor. On this day Lord Grey told the King if he didn't sign the reform act and create a dozen new liberal peers to the Lords, anarchy and revolution would result ! Lord Lionel Rothschild reported the economy was at the point of collapse.

The king backed down, reform went through and real two party voting resulted, although the working classes would have to wait 86 more years until they could vote. King William IV has come down to us called William the Reformer, although it sounds like a title he would have liked to do without....

1896- The US Supreme Court in the decision Plessy Vs Ferguson upheld the concept of Separate-But-Equal facilities and laws. This racial separation called Segregation or Jim Crow, was not reversed until the 1950’s.

1904- In Paris 12 nations sign an international agreement for the Suppression of the White Slave Trade. The United States did not sign.

1905- MORROCCAN CRISIS OF 1905- A Moroccan desert sherif, El Raisuli, kidnapped a small Greek-American businessman named George Pedicaris. He did this for ransom, and because he wanted someone new to play chess with. Pedicaris was ransomed, but not before the incident became a major international showdown between with Germany, Britain, France and the U.S.. The incident was romanticized in the John Milius film "The Wind and the Lion", with Raisuli played by Sean Connery and Pedicaris turned into the beautiful Candice Bergen.

1911- Composer Gustav Mahler died of heart disease shortly before his 51st birthday. He had completed his Ninth Symphony with dread, because he knew Beethoven, Schubert and Bruckner had never lived beyond nine symphonies. On his table were preliminary sketches for his tenth.

1926- L.A. evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson shocked the nation when she mysteriously disappeared on a beach near Venice Cal. After an exhaustive search she turned up a month later with a lame story of being kidnapped. Truth was she ran off with a boyfriend to party in Monterrey. Haleileiuyah!

1931- Japanese pilot Seiji Yoshihara attempted to be the first pilot to fly alone across the Pacific Ocean. But he crashed and was rescued by a passing ship.

1933- President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the Tennessee Valley Authority. The TVA created massive public works bringing electric power to much of the Appalachians and deep South.

1943- Battle of Monte Cassino. A Ninth Century mountaintop abbey filled with German troops held back the allied armies advancing up from Naples. In order to capture the fortress the allies had to heavily bomb it from the air, destroying many priceless paintings by Piero della Francesca and Giotto.

1944- Stalin's revenge- a million Crimean Tartar people are herded up and sent into exile in Central Asia because Stalin felt they collaborated with the Nazis. In the 1990s they were allowed to return to their ancestral homeland.

1976- The filming of Francis Ford Coppolla's Apocalypse Now was disrupted when the Philippines was hit by a major typhoon. Francis rides out the storm cooking pasta, smoking weed and listening to records of La Boheme.

1980-Mt. St. Helens explodes in Washington State. The volcano was always thought to be safely extinct but Mother Nature had other plans. I was in Toronto thousands of miles away and noticed volcanic ash floating in Lake Ontario. The eruption and earthquake killed 57 people and destroyed 24 square miles around the mountain. A lone eccentric named Harry Truman refused to be evacuated and stayed in his home. He was interviewed by Sixty Minutes and other programs. After the explosion Truman disappeared and is assumed killed.

2001- Dreamworks animated SHREK opened. The voice of Shrek was originally planned to be Chris Farley but the obese comedian died of a drug overdose and was replaced by Mike Myers. I’m serving Waffles!
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Yesterday’s Quiz: On ancient Roman calendars, was the province of Upper Germania to the north or south of Lower Germania?

Answer: Lower Germania was North of Upper Germania. Before the invention of the Compass defined North and South, anything closer to Rome they called Upper, and further away was called Lower.

Quiz: On ancient Roman calendars, was the province of Upper Germania to the north or south of Lower Germania?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why is a machine that plays records called a Juke Box?
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History for 5/17/2011
Birthdays: Sandro Botticelli, Eric Satie, Ayatollah Khomeni, Edmiond Jenner, Archibald Cox, Sugar Ray Leonard, Maureen O'Sullivan, Craig Ferguson, Bill Paxton is 56, Dennis Hopper, Enya is 50- born Eithne Patricia Ni’ Bhraonain

1204- The Fourth Crusade captured the city of Constantinople (Istanbul). The Crusaders decided to blame the Greeks for their failure to keep Jerusalem and the Holy Land so they sent a crusade just to get them. This Crusade was backed by the growing merchant naval powers like Venice, Genoa and Pisa who saw the Byzantines as a commercial competitor.
They stormed the unconquerable city and killed the Emperor Constantine VIII Paleologus called Mourzufle "Fuzzy", by hurling him off a high column.

The Republic of Venice plundered many treasures to adorn their Cathedral of San Marco back home, including the four bronze horses that had adorned the Hippodrome. In the weeks of destruction and pillage that followed many priceless works of art were lost, including only remaining copies of a dozen plays of Sophocles, leaving only the four we have now. The Doge of Venice Enrico Dandolo had a horror of dying in bed. So he was in the first assault boat to attack the city's walls even though he was 81 and blind. He survived the arrows, spears; catapult stones and boiling oil, and died in bed anyway.

1488- Vasco DeGama reached India from sailing around the horn of Africa.
This fulfilled the master plan of Prince Henry the Navigator to outflank the Moslem world, providing an alternative to the ancient Silk Road land route caravans that connected the world’s trade.

It was the beginning of the Age of Exploration and the rise of Western Europe to world domination. Both Columbus and Magellan learned their stuff studying in Prince Henry’s Portugal. Ironically legend has it that DeGama’s navigator was an Arab. A previous Portuguese navigator named Diaz had actually rounded the African continent before DeGama but his men were so freaked out that they mutinied and made him go home, so he got no credit.

1673- French Explorers Father Marquette and Joliet set out from Green Bay, Wisconsin to explore the Mississippi. The missionary made only one baptism but he said that alone made the trip worthwhile.

1792- In New York twenty-four investors meet under a buttonwood tree on the street where the old city wall once stood and formed the first New York Stock Exchange. Then they all went to the Merchant’s Coffee House for lunch.

1802- Meriwhether Lewis went to Philadelphia to meet Dr. Benjamin Rush to get advice for his Lewis and Clark expedition to the Pacific. Rush was a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the most famous doctor in America. Dr. Rush gave Lewis a list of questions he had about the West, such as asking the Plains Indians if they practiced the religion of the Hebrews ? Were the Sioux or Cheyenne the Lost Tribes of Israel? If you think that’s silly Thomas Jefferson told Lewis to look for living Mastodons.

When Lewis asked what medical supplies were needed Rush said unhesitatingly that he should lay in a good supply of Rush’s Purgative Pills, nicknamed ‘thunderclappers’ for the effect they had on your system. - It’s nice to know doctors haven’t changed all that much.

1845 - Rubber bands invented.

1847- The American Medical Association- the AMA formed.

1860- At the second presidential convention of the Republican Party former Illinois Congressman Abraham Lincoln is nominated on the second ballot, beating out William Seward and John Freemont, aka the Pathfinder.

1861- The California State Legislature passed a resolution declaring the states loyalty to the Union and against slavery and secession.

1875 –The First Kentucky Derby. Winning horse was Aristides.

1885- Geronimo went on the warpath for the second time. His Chiracaua Apache was the last independent Indian tribe still fighting the U.S. and Mexico.

1890 - Comic Cuts, 1st weekly comic paper, published in London.

1924- Marcus Loew of the Loew's theater chain buys Metro Pictures and combines them with Sam Goldwyn and Louis B. Mayer’s studio to form Metro Goldwyn Mayer.

1931- Vaudeville dancer James Cagney became a tough guy movie star when the Howard Hawk’s film Public Enemy debuted. “I wish you wuz a wishing well… so I could tie a bucket to ya and sink ya!”

1938 - Radio quiz show "Information Please!" debuts on NBC Blue Network.

1941- The Looney Toon Lockout. Producer Leon Schlesinger tries to forestall the unionization of his Bugs Bunny cartoonists by locking them out. After a week he relents and recognizes the cartoonist guild. Chuck Jones called it “our own little six-day war.”

1943- The B-17 bomber Memphis Belle flew it’s last of 25 successful missions over Germany. Today the Belle is in a museum in Memphis, appropriately enough.

1954-" Brown vs. Board of Ed" Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal. Future justice Thurgood Marshal was the successful attorney.

1965- Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke shake hands and agree to write a sci-fi movie, with accompanying novel. First called How the Solar System was Won, then Journey Beyond the Stars, the title was finally- 2001: A Space Odyssey.

1971 - Stephen Schwartz' musical "Godspell," premiered off-Broadway.

1973 - Stevie Wonder releases "You are the Sunshine of my Love"

1974- The LAPD attacked the LA stronghold of the Symbionnese Liberation Army extremists, then holding heiress Patty Hearst .In a furious shootout most SLA members including leader Donald DeFreeze were killed, but Miss Hearst remained missing for a few more weeks.

1977- In Israeli general elections, the right wing Likud party under Menachem Begin won a majority. Labor lost power for the first time since independence in 1948. It also marked the religious conservative groups having a bigger say in Israeli politics over the earlier socialist-humanist reformists that built Israel. One-eyed Moshe Dayan startled his friends by changing parties and becoming foreign minister in the new government.

1978- Sony and Phillips Electronics introduce the Compact Disc, where the music is played by a laser instead of a needle.

2004- Massachusetts became the first US State to legalize gay marriage.

2005- You Tube.com started up.
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Yesterday’s Question: Why is a machine that plays records called a Juke Box?

Answer: Juke Box is from the 1940s derived from Juke Joint, a Gullah slang term meaning a rowdy dance hall.

Quiz: Why is a machine that plays records called a Juke Box?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: Who was Maynard G. Krebs? Hint, Classic TV.
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History for 5/16/2011
Birthdays: Lily Pons, Richard Tauber, Henry Fonda, Liberace- real name Wladziu Valentine Liberace, Jan Kiepura, Edmund Kirby-Smith, Gabriela Sabbatini, Thurman Thomas, Margaret Sullivan, Olga Korbut- the original adorable 16 year old Olympic Gold Medal gymnast, Debra Winger is 56, Tori Spelling, Janet Jackson, Woody Herman, Studs Terkel, Pierce Brosnan is 58.

218 A.D.- Elagabulus hailed Roman Emperor by the Eastern Legions. During the long succession of Roman emperors many usurpers and mercenaries would try and prove a tenuous family link to Julius Caesar or Augustus for legitimacy. Elagabulus was the son of an Egyptian prostitute and had no idea who his father was. So he declared himself divinely conceived by the Sun god, Helios -hence Helio-gabulus.

1571- By his own calculations, Astronomer Johannes Kepler was conceived at 4:37 AM.

1648- Battle of Zolty Wody (sweet water) The Cossack rebel army of Ukrainian leader Bogdhan Chmeilnitski defeated the royal Polish army of King Jan II Kazmiersz.

1717- A Lettre du Cachet was issued to arrest young writer Voltaire. They locked him up in the Bastille for writing satires critical of the King’s government. He was not allowed to take anything but his clothes, and his mistress Suzanne De Livry consoled herself by promptly jumping into bed with his best friend. Philosopher Voltaire was philosophical: ” We must put up with these bagatelles.”

1763- James Boswell was drinking tea in Samuel Davis’ London bookshop when he first met Dr. Samuel Johnson. The two great men of letters became lifelong friends and Boswell’s biography of Dr Johnson became a literary classic.

1777- Button Gwinnett died from wounds incurred in a duel. Button Gwinnett has the fame of being the most obscure signer of the Declaration of Independence.

1861- The State of Kentucky declared its’ neutrality in the Civil War. For that it became a battle ground for armies for most of the following year.

1863- THE LONG CHANCE- In Richmond at a meeting of the Confederate Cabinet plans are discussed for helping relieve the fortress city of Vicksburg. If Yankee General Grant captured the city he would cut the Confederacy in half and choke off the Mississippi. Gen. Pierre Beauregard proposed drawing regiments from west and east to launch a grand assault into Ohio and Indiana. This would force Grant away from Vicksburg to defend the Yankee heartland.

But Gen. Robert E. Lee countered with his idea for the Gettysburg Campaign. Lee proposed an invasion north through Pennsylvania to menace Philadelphia and descend upon Baltimore and Washington, in effect, gambling everything that he could knock out the U.S. Army with one giant blow. Some strategists agreed with Beauregard's plan but President Jefferson Davis disliked Beauregard personally and just couldn't say no to the invincible Bobby Lee. Of all the Confederate cabinet only postmaster general John Reagan had the nerve to disagree. He was outvoted. He still lost, 15-1. Lee was defeated at Gettysburg and Vicksburg fell to Grant.

1866- Congress authorized the creation of a new 5 cent coin, which because of it’s metal content people called the Nickel.

1868-The IMPEACHMENT OF THE PRESIDENT -President Andrew Johnson survived a Senate vote of Impeachment by one vote. The pro-union governor of rebel Tennessee was made Vice President, then became president because of Abe Lincoln’s assassination. Johnson was filling out Lincoln's term and was despised by Washington circles for being too quick to forgive the defeated Confederacy and restrict the new rights of the freed slaves. His campaign slogan was “This Nation was made for the White Man.”

He was continually at odds with the members of Lincoln's cabinet who wanted to control him, especially Secretary of War William Stanton. When Johnson tried to fire Stanton the bewhiskered secretary not only barricaded himself into his office but he instigated impeachment proceedings in Congress. He even accused President Johnson of treason and of complicity in the plot to kill Lincoln! Senate leader pro-tem Benjamin Wade was so sure he was going to be president he had already announced his cabinet.

The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly for impeachment and the Senate was only one vote short of the 2/3 majority required. The one vote that kept Johnson in office was a Senator Edmund Ross. Ross deliberately voted no because he didn’t want to be famous as the man who impeached a President. Ross’ career was ruined- “He will die in the street!” thundered one-legged N.Y. Senator Dan Sickles. A century later John F. Kennedy included Ross's story in his book 'Profiles in Courage'.

Andrew Johnson for the rest of his life bitterly resented the questioning of his patriotism when he had sacrificed friends and family to stay loyal to the U.S. When he died he left instructions that his body be wrapped in the Stars and Stripes and a copy of the U.S. Constitution put under his head.

1879- Dvoraks’ Slavonic Dances premiered.

1900- MAFEKING- During the Boer War in South Africa the besieged city of Mafeking was rescued by the British Army. When the first combat units fought their way into the beleaguered post the first Englishman they saw was a droll gentleman seated on a porch sipping lemonade who calmly stated:" Ah, so there you are. We'd heard you chaps had been knocking about. " The public in London went wild with the news and a huge spontaneous street party breaks out, forever called a "Mafeking Night".

The British commander at Mafeking was Sir Anthony Baden-Powell "Good Old B.P." After the war he would form the Boy Scouts. The scout uniform with the ranger hat and neckerchief was based on his own uniform in the Boer war. The slogan 'Be Prepared' was an abbreviation of the more sanguine orders B.P. gave at the height of the Mafeking battle “ Be Prepared to Die for your Country! “

1913-President Woodrow Wilson held a crisis cabinet meeting over a potential war with Japan. The Japanese Government was shocked and insulted by the State Legislature of California passing a law forbidding Japanese immigrants the rights of citizenship or to own property. Wilson’s own policy advocated states rights but he didn’t want to needlessly offend Tokyo any further. The crisis was averted by January when Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan was sent to negotiate milder treaty language, not with the Japanese, but with the State of California!

1922- The White Star Line’s ocean liner Majestic, a sister ship to the Titanic, made its maiden voyage with no problem at all.

1929- The First Academy Awards ceremony at the Rose Ballroom of the Biltmore Hotel. The best picture winner was William Wellman’s “Wings”. The name Oscar for the award supposedly came from joking that it’s butt looked like Betty Davis’ husband Oscar’s. The ceremony was originally a dinner party with some industry business conducted. During the Depression in 1933 the Oscars was the place to announce across the board wage rollbacks and salary cuts. Must have made for a swell party.

1934- 35,000 Pacific longshoremen go on strike and paralyze ports from Seattle to San Diego.

1946- the musical Annie Get Your Gun starring Ethel Merman premiered on Broadway.

1957- in a small town in Pennsylvania, a failing small time businessman who had been drinking heavily, died of a heart attack at age 54. Ironically, he had just approved the first draft of a memoir about his days as a young Treasury Agent in Al Capone’s Chicago. His name was Elliot Ness. The book - The Untouchables- became a national best seller and Hollywood turned it into a hit television series, films. Elliot Ness became the most famous lawman since Wyatt Earp.

1963- Gordo Cooper orbits the Earth in the last flight of Project Mercury.

1965 – the birthday of Spaghetti-O's.

1975-Japanese climber Junko Tabei becomes the first woman to climb Mt. Everest.

1975 - Wings release "Listen to What the Man Said" in UK

1979- Shooting wraps on 1941, Steven Spielbergs first flop.

1980 - Brian May of rock group Queen collapses on stage with hepatitis.

1980 - Paul McCartney releases "McCartney II" album

1981 - "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes hits #1 for next 9 weeks. The elderly movie legend was not impressed:” Kim Carnes does not have eyes like me!” quote Bette.

1985 - Michael Jordan named NBA Rookie of Year.

1986 – the film "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott and starring Tom Cruise and Kelly McGillis premiered..

1996- One of the lamest moments in TV writing. On DALLAS Pam Ewing encounters her husband Bobby Ewing in the shower although he had been dead for one year. The incident meant the entire previous season’s events had only been a bad dream.

2001-THE SECRET ENERGY SUMMIT- Traditionally the job of U.S. vice presidents is to attend state funerals and wait for the president to cough. Shortly after the inauguration, VP Dick Cheney convened a secret summit of top energy execs. This day their plan was announced- A heavily one-sided partisan document that emphasized increased drilling for oil and nuclear power, regardless of their environmental impact. Even today it is a top secret just who was invited to that summit and Cheney had all records and transcripts destroyed or sealed.

2009- The Sri Lankan military declared victory over the Tamil Tiger separatist rebels and killed their leader Vellilpurai Prahabkaran. The civil war had been raging since 1983.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was Maynard G. Krebs? Hint, Classic TV.

Answer: He was the Beatnik friend of Dobie Gillis in the 1960 TV series The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis. Maynard was played by Bob Denver, who was later Gilligan in Gilligan’s Island.

Quiz: Who was Maynard G. Krebs? Hint, Classic TV.

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who was Mother Goose?
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History for 5/15/2011
Birthdays: Lyman Frank Baum, Claudio Monteverdi, Richard Avedon, James Mason, Joseph Cotten, George Brett, Jasper Johns, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Jean Renoir, Richard Daley Sr., Trini Lopez, Charles Lamont, director of Abbott & Costello Go to Mars, country singer Eddy Arnold, Chaz Palmintieri is 59, Lainie Kazan is 71, Joe Grant

The Roman Festival of Mercury, the Mercuralia- God of business, profit, and professional athletes. Businessmen and athletes would go to the sacred well of Mercury on the Aventine Hill, and sprinkle water on themselves to ensure good luck.

392A.D.- Roman Emperor Valentinian gets so angry at a bunch of barbarians that he burst a blood vessel and fell over dead. Accession of Theodosius Ist.

756- Abdel Rahman I became Moorish Emir of Cordoba, Spain.

1248- Bishop Otto Von Hochstaden laid the cornerstone for the great DOM Cathedral of Cologne (Koln)

1577- The Great Orgy of Chenonceaux. Wild party at the French Royal Palace gardens with nude ladies cavorting with cross dressing knights and all such goings on.

Historians like Barbara Tuchman speculate that queen mother Catherine de Medici threw this kind of party for her son King Henry III because the monarch showed no interest in his Queen but hung around with his male courtiers, his "mingons"-darlings. She figured by placing scores of scantily clad damsels around the palace grounds perhaps the King would see that girls are fun too and he should try some and make some heirs to the throne.

If this was the reason for the party it didn't work. The king spent the evening in drag and there were no royal princes at the time of the king's death. Most gay monarchs like Edward II of England understood that your personal tastes aside, part of your job was to make an heir.

1602 - Cape Cod discovered by English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold.

1648- Treaty of Muenster- After 125 years of conflict Spain finally signs a peace that recognized the independence of Holland.

1776- The Continental Congress in Philadelphia voted that the American Colonies would refuse to obey any further orders from England and would from now govern themselves. Yet they still shrank from the obvious step of declaring independence.

1800-At a performance at London's Old Drury Lane Theatre, a man rose from the audience and fired two pistols at King George III. They both miss and the assassin was dragged off. The King not only insists that the show go on but even doses off during the second act.

1863- Edouard Manet first displayed his Dejeuner sur l’Herbe at the Salon des Refuses in Paris. The painting is of two modern clothed men having a picnic with two nude women by a river bank. The women aren’t mythical goddesses or muses but just naked ladies. This shocked Paris society and Emperor Napoleon III and Empress Eugene called it “Immodest and obscene”. It’s revolutionary simple subject matter heralded the rise of Impressionism.

1874- Mexican Bandito Turbico Vasquez hanged. His last words were “Pronto!” The wild hills north of Newhall California where he hid out are today named in his honor-Vasquez Rocks. They are the site of numerous film shoots like original Star Trek episodes.

1905- From a public auction of railroad land the town of Las Vegas Nevada founded.

1930- Miss Ellen Church became the first airline stewardess on a flight from San Francisco to Cheyenne Wyoming. Originally called SkyGirls, stewardesses had to be registered nurses in case of any health emergencies.

1935- Japanese Prime Minister Inokai was assassinated in his official residence by several young army officers because he tried to cut the military budget. Several top Japanese statesmen who tried to stop the military taking over the government wound up lying in the street full of bullets. Inokai was replaced as Prime Minister by Admiral Hokoku Saito. The war party now silenced all opposition in Japan.

1935- The Moscow Subway system opens.

1940- Nazis panzer tanks pierce the French Maginot line near Sedan with little trouble.

1940- The first Nylon stockings go on sale in the US.

1941- Yankee centerfielder Joe Dimaggio had been in a dry spell hitting lately. This day he got a safe hit and began a hitting streak that ran for 56 straight games, an unparalleled feat. He became America’s most famous baseball player since Babe Ruth. He was variously nicknamed Joltin’Joe, the Yankee Clipper but his teammates called him affectionately the Big Dago.

1942- The U.S. initiated a program of wartime gas rationing. Slogans like “Is this Trip Really Necessary?” and a system of ratings vehicles with A,B & C cards pop up in a lot of movies and cartoons of the period. C meant a war-essential worker and A cards was the lowest status.

1947- Future President George Bush Sr. was initiated into the elite secret society at Yale University called Skull & Bones. It’s so named because initiates pledge to remain loyal until “I die and nothing remains but skull and bones.” His sponsor-Charles Whitehouse later became big in the CIA. So many Bonesmen men went into the CIA that they nicknamed the agency “ The Front Office.”

1948- The ISRAELI WAR OF INDEPENDENCE- The day after the State of Israel was proclaimed the Jewish State was attacked simultaneously by the armies of Iraq, Syria, TransJordan, Egypt and Lebanon. Egyptian planes bombed Tel Aviv and destroyed what Israeli airforce there was, leaving two Piper cub planes. Many Jewish fighters were Holocaust survivors and veterans of former European armies who were given guns and rushed into battle almost as soon as they stepped off their boats. The UN Mandate also called for the creation of a Palestinian homeland state but that seemed to be forgotten in all the fighting. Jordan and Syria both felt the territory of Palestine should be part of their country.

1953- Rocky Marciano defeated Jersey Joe Walcott for the Heavyweight Championship.

1955- The Cuban dictator Fulgensio Batista ordered a partial freeing of political prisoners. One of those freed from prison was a young lawyer named Fidel Castro. Castro goes into exile but returns a year later with trained guerrillas to begin an insurgency.

1963 - Peter, Paul & Mary win their 1st Grammy for “ If I Had a Hammer”.

1967- Paul McCartney first met his first wife Linda Eastman.

1970 – The Beatles' last album, "Let It Be," is released in US

1972- Alabama governor and rogue third party Presidential candidate George Wallace was shot five times by Arthur Bremer. Wallace survived but spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair in great pain.

An Ultra Conservative, Wallace always thought he’d be killed by some hippy Negro liberal outraged by his extremist political views. But in the end he was shot by a lonely little loser who wanted his picture in the newspapers. Arthur Bremer had contemplated shooting President Nixon before he focused on Wallace. In all the excitement Bremer forgot to say the words he wanted to be quoted for on TV: ” Penny for your Thoughts…”.

The Nixon Whitehouse in their unique way immediately focused upon how they could turn this tragedy to their own political use. There was a scheme to plant George McGovern campaign material in Bremers’ apartment but unfortunately for Tricky Dick’s people the FBI had already sealed it off.

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Yesterday’s Quiz: Who was Mother Goose?

Answer Charles Perrault 1628-1702 was a retired minister to French King Louis XIV, who wrote stories for children under the title Mother Goose. He created Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella and Puss in Boots.

Quiz: Who was Mother Goose?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Hey Birthers! Which Presidents were NOT born American citizens?
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History for 5/14/2011
Birthdays: Thomas Gainsborough, George Lucas , Thomas Wedgewood, Francesca Annis, David Byrne, Jack Bruce, Bobby Darin, Tim Roth is 50, Robert Zemeckis is 60, Kate Blanchett is 42

Roman festival of the Avral Brethren, a ceremony where straw puppets are thrown into the river to bless Father Tiber. (perhaps it's an adaptation of a more primitive human sacrifice?)

1264-BATTLE OF LEWES- Rebel earls of Sussex and Simon de Monfort defeated and captured King Henry III and the Prince of Wales -Edward Longshanks. These barons compelled extensions to liberties that began with Magna Carta and created the House of Commons. The Prince eventually gets loose and kills de Monfort and Sussex but can’t stop the growth of representative parliament.

1525 - Great German peasant revolt of Thomas of Munzer was crushed at The Battle of Bad Frankenhausen. Munzer was a devotee of reformer Martin Luther and he became a folk hero for trying to extend Luther’s concepts of spiritual freedom to political freedom. Martin Luther himself was horrified by the violence of the revolt and denounced it.

Finally a powerful coalition of the Elector Dukes of Hesse, Saxony and Brunswick raised a big army of knights and went city by city suppressing the revolt with great massacre. Munzers group was destroyed at Bad Frankenhausen Thomas Munzer was ordered broken on the wheel and beheaded by the vengeful German nobles. So many common people were being put to the sword, that the Imperial Diet at Augsburg warned that if the nobles killed all their peasants, who would be left to do the work and pay taxes?

1667- The sailors of the English Navy were only paid once a month. During the Dutch Wars, an incident happened when after several months of hard fighting the loyal sailors were told that their fun loving King Charles II didn't have any money left in his treasury to pay them. The tars were so angry, scores of them deserted to the enemy. They guided Dutch Admiral De Ruyter's fleet right up the Thames where they could burn the docks of Greenwich, within sight of King Charles' palace.

1787- Shortly before returning to America, the Marquis de Lafayette wrote his friend George Washington about his sponsorship of the famous quack Dr. Anton Mesmer, for whom Mesmerism is known. "Before leaving I shall obtain permission to tell Dr Mesmer’s great secrets on Animal Magnetism to you, for it is a great philosophical discovery."

1787- George Washington arrives in Philadelphia to chair the great Convention to write the U.S. Constitution. Once there, he discovered that so only three states had even bothered to show up, and that included host Pennsylvania. There was a fear that if enough states could not be made to cooperate, a federal constitution imposed by a minority would break up the United States. To Washington’s relief by months end all the states except Rhode Island sent a delegation.

1796- English scientist Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination. This disease, which ravaged Europe for decades, was cured by the Chinese in the 600's B.C. Chinese doctors would ground up particles from a smallpox scab and blow it up your nose through a glass tube. After the pox decimated Native American tribes in the 1500's, by the 1770’s they did the same vaccination using a porcupine quill under the fingernail.

Small pox was the great killer of the age, Queen Elizabeth, George Washington and Robespierre almost died of the pox. The fashion of wigs and makeup became popular because it covered the facial scars and hair loss from the disease. Robespierre’s eyes were permanently weakened by the pox and he had to wear black painted spectacles (the first Ray-Bans).

1800- The Sixth US Congress voted to adjourn for the last time in Philadelphia and meet again in November in the new capitol city, already being called Washington City.

1800- Napoleon’s army began crossing the Alps into Italy via the Great Saint Bernard Pass.

1804- Lewis and Clark set out from St. Louis to find the Pacific. President Jefferson had told his aide Meriwether Lewis that there was a large river headed west from the Mississippi called the Missouri. Perhaps the large river that emptied in to the Pacific in Oregon called the Columbia was the same river? So you could go by water from New Orleans to Seattle? And if there was a little neck of land between the two rivers they were to measure the distance.

Later 1200 miles into the high Rockies eating candles to stay alive they determined that the distance was greater than previously thought. Pres. Jefferson had a fossil bone from a prehistoric sloth in his office. He told Lewis if he found a live one out there to send it back. *Known as Paramylodon jeffersoni, remains of this animals have been found while digging the world's largest reservoir near Hemet, CA, and one specimen is known from the La Brea Tar Pits on Wilshire Blvd in downtown L.A.

1842 - 1st edition of London Illustrated News

1860- The first delegation of diplomats from Japan arrived in the U.S bringing greetings from the Shogun.

1878- Vaseline petroleum jelly patented.

1940- Holland surrendered to the Nazis after Hitler threatened to bomb Amsterdam to rubble the way they did to Rotterdam.

1942- Disney composer Frank Churchill, who wrote "Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf", shot himself at the piano. Another version of the story had him shooting himself in an onion field in Valencia that would one day be the site of Cal Arts.

1944- In the comic strip Dick Tracy, the longtime Tracy nemesis the gangster Flattop was killed.

1948- Kathleen “Kick” Kennedy, the older sister to John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Ted Kennedy, was killed in a plane crash. She was 28.

1948- THE STATE OF ISRAEL DECLARED- Since the Jewish Diaspora begun by the Roman Emperor Hadrian in 162 AD Jews have wished for their own country. In 1897 European Jews called Zionists began building a homeland by encouraging mass immigration to the loosely governed Turkish province called Palestine. By World War Two there were two populations, Arab and Jewish Immigrants, both claiming the same territory. After years of sectarian fighting the British protectorate announced they would evacuate Palestine May 15th. The 5 surrounding Arab states announced they would invade if a Jewish State was declared- 45 million against barely one million. US ally King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia declared:" Even if we lose ten million to destroy the Jews, it will be a small sacrifice."

The UN was considering a further three month delay to debate the problem, when at 4:00PM Jewish Agency Premier David Ben Gurion walked into the crowd at the Tel Aviv Museum and declared the State of Israel. He did it at 4 and the day before the mandate ran out, because it was Friday night, which is the Jewish Sabbath. During the Sabbath no Jews can sign anything or do any business, so he had to move it up.

1951 - Ernie Kovacs Show, TV Variety debut on NBC. Kovacs was a great pioneer in the video medium who loved creating surreal images and pantomime blackout skits.

1955- Kepler’s Books in Menlo Park Cal, today’s Silicon Valley, was founded by peace activist Roy Kepler. Keplers’ books was a hangout for Stanford computer scientists, Hippies, and creators of the Whole Earth Catalog. The Grateful Dead and Joan Baez played there, Prof Douglas Englebart the inventor of the computer mouse, would pop in for coffee, and kids like Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak would ride their bikes over to check out the new computer books.

1973- Skylab, Americas first attempt at a space station, blasted off into orbit. In 1979 the remains of the 77 ton satellite re-entered the atmosphere, causing half the world to duck and cover.

1974- Tha Maalot Massacre-On the anniversary of Israeli Independence Palestinian terrorists of the Al Fatah faction entered an Israeli school and murdered 22 children.

1976- Keith Relf of the rock group the Yardbirds, was electrocuted while playing his guitar in his bathtub.

1968 - Beatles announce formation of Apple Records.

1989 – The funeral for a Communist Party reformer named Hu Yao Bang grow into massive Demonstrations for democratic reforms in Beijing's Tiananmen Square. For three weeks the attention of the world focused on the students demands for greater personal freedom. The movement was finally crushed by the Chinese Army in June.

1998 - Last episode of the sitcom Seinfeld on NBC (commercial fees were $2M for 30 seconds) Elderly singer Frank Sinatra died shortly after watching it.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Hey Birthers! Which Presidents were NOT born American citizens?

Answer: Every president from George Washington to Andrew Jackson were born British subjects first. Martin Van Buren, born 1782, was the first President born in an independent United States.