Quiz: What was Hobart’s Funnies?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What was a more common name for the Greek god Ares?
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History for 3/21/2011
Birthdays: Plato, Johann Sebastian Bach, Benito Juarez, Modest Mussorgsky, Fats Waller, Josef Pulitzer, Florenz Zeigfield, Bronco Billy Anderson, Rev Ralph Abernathy, Armand Hammer, Harold Robbins, Matthew Broderick is 49, Gary Oldman is 53, James Coco, Timothy Dalton is 67, Rosie O’Donnell is 49

Today in Switzerland this is the Feast of St. Nicholas Von Flue, who was married, had ten children, and made war. In 1481 when the Swiss Confederation was in danger of breaking apart Swiss leaders came to his monk's cell to seek his advice. Though he could neither read nor write, he worked out the Compromise of Stans, which saved peace and Swiss unity forevermore.

717 A.D. Battle of Vinciacus- Charles Martel, aka Charles the Hammer", defeated Ragenfridus and the Merovingian pretenders and assured the Carolingian line on the throne of the Franks, aka the French. Hammer don’t hurt’em! Charles Martel’s grandson was Charlemagne. His great-grandson Pippin was made into a musical by Bob Fosse and Stephen Schwarz in the 1970's. A musical called "Ragenfridus!" just doesn't have the same panache.

1617-Pocahontas, now called Lady Rebecca Rolfe, died at Gravesend, England after being taken off the homeward bound ship, too ill with smallpox to continue. She was 21. Her children with John Rolfe became the beginnings of one of the largest families in Virginia, with many scions of the Old Dominion tracing their ancestry to Pocahontas.

1740- Composer Antonio Vivaldi - Il Pietro Rosso- the Red Priest, conducted his last concert at the Ospedale Della Pietra in Venice. It was a home for orphaned girls so it was an all-girl orchestra. The 64 year old Vivaldi later went to Vienna to see if he could get any commissions from the Austrian Emperor, but caught an illness on the way and died.

1804- The Duc D'Enghein shot by firing squad. The Bourbon nobleman was setting up a conspiracy just beyond the French border in Germany to overthrow the French Republic and re-establish the king. Napoleon sent a covert strike force of fast riding cavalry across the border to capture him and bring him back. Napoleon prided himself on not executing political dissenters like the masses that were guillotined in the Revolution. But this Duke was too dangerous to keep alive. Still, the cold-bloodedness of the action bothered Napoleon, and he referred to it often with regret.

1804-THE CODE NAPOLEON- That same day the French Assembly gave final approval to Napoleon’s revising the legal system. The French civil law courts had been in a hopeless muddle with 368 separate regional law codes some dating back to the Middle Ages. Nappy tackled the problem like he did a battle. He presided over 35 of 87 all day meetings of the jurists- once waking up the drowsy legislators with the cry “Come Gentlemen, Let us Earn our Salaries!” The CODE NAPOLEON became the basis for all French civil property rights and family law and is still in use in Louisiana and Quebec Canada today. Napoleon said: ” When the memory of my forty battlefield victories have faded, what will live forever is my Civil Code.”

1829- The British Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington had to work so hard to get a Bill of Catholic Emancipation through Parliament that on this day he had to fight a duel with an opposition mp, a Lord Winchelsea. They popped away at each other without doing any harm and that seemed to satisfy everyone’s honor.

1859- The first zoo opened in the U.S.

1864- Nevada statehood. Lincoln at this time was pushing several territories into statehood ealry so he could get emancipation and Civil rights legislation through congress with a majority against the rebellious Southern States.

1871- William Stanley set out to find Dr. David Livingstone. Livingstone was an explorer –missionary who had disappeared into the African jungle. No one had heard from for two years. Stanley, an illegitimate Welshman, had been a soldier in the American Civil War and fought on both sides. He undertook this African expedition financed by the New York Herald. His Swahili name was “Bula Matari” the Breaker of Rocks.

1871- German Chancellor Bismarck convened the first Reischtag (parliament) of the unified Germany.

1918- The Ludendorf Offensive (second battle of the Somme) begins. When Lenin took over Russia he immediately made peace with the Germans to end the Great War in the East. This freed up one million German troops for the Western Front. German strategist Erich Von Ludendorf hurled them into one last attack to win the war before the American armies could arrive in greater numbers.

Ludendorf (who was such a stiff Prussian it was said he made love with his monocle on.) called the action "Kaiserschlacht" ( Kaiser's Battle") and he promised the Kaiser that he would be in Paris by April 1st. When this attack was stopped by the fresh American forces, the German High Command admitted their chances of winning the Great War were kaput.

1921- Chicago mobster Big Jim Colosimo was murdered by a new face in gangsterdom, a hitman for Johnny Torrio named Alfonso “Scarface” Capone. When Al Capone became famous, he showed his appreciation to Torrio by having him rubbed out too.

1921- Russian Communist leader Nicholai Lenin announced at a party conference the New Economic Policy. Russian state controls applied too quickly combined with the hardships of a civil war had destroyed the Russian economic infrastructure. A terrible famine raged. The New Economic Policy allowed for a certain amount of capitalism and free trade to occur until Russia could get back on her feet again. Stalin replaced the NEP with the first Five Year Plan in 1928.

1933- On the anniversary of Bismarck's parliament the Nazis dominated Reichstag passes the Enabling Act, giving newly elected Chancellor Adolph Hitler complete dictatorial powers to combat anarchy and terrorism. Hitler kept elderly President Hindenburg around for image sake until his death a year later. The Weimar Republic ended and the Third Reich began. Also passed today was an edict called the Heimtuckegesetz, or Malicious Practices Law, which made it a crime to criticize the Nazis.

1935- Persia renamed Iran and Mesopotamia renamed Iraq.

1951- HOLLYWOOD COMMIES- House UnAmerican Acitivities Commitee (HUAC) under Judge J. Parnell Thomas moves from Washington and sets up in Hollywood to continue rooting out Communist subversion in the movies. They began in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, and later move to the federal building downtown.

Their concerns weren’t total fantasy, actor Sterling Hayden confessed he was ordered by his communist operatives to try and influence the Screen Actor’s Guild. Still the point remains whether the authorities overreaction was justified and whether Congress could get more publicity looking for spies in Tinseltown than the Department of Games and Fisheries.

Out of 15,000 people who made a living in the movies and television, only 295 were ever proven or confessed communists. It was an open secret that for $5,000 delivered to the right committee member your dossier would be moved to the bottom of the pile. The hearings stopped in 1956, the blacklist was broken in 1960 and Judge J. Parnell Thomas went to jail himself for embezzlement.

1952- DJ Alan Freed put on an event of new pop music in Cleveland Ohio. Called the MoonDog Coronation Ball, it was the very first Rock Concert.

1960- THE SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE- White South African police confronting a peaceful demonstration in the black township of Sharpeville open fire with machine guns into the crowd, killing 69 and injuring hundreds. Nelson Mandela and other African National Congress leaders abandon for a time peaceful protest and form a militant wing of their movement- Spear of the Nation.

1961- The Beatles first perform at the Cavern Club in Hamburg Germany.

1961- based on the success of the first Playboy Club in Chicago, Playboy Clubs with their Bunny waitresses opened in New York, Miami and LA.

1963- On orders from Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Alcatraz Prison was closed.

1963- Barbera Streisand married Elliot Gould.

1965- Rev Dr Martin Luther King’s civil rights marchers reached Montgomery from Selma.

1976- ASPEN MURDER- Jet setter Claudine Longet, a model who was formerly married to singer Andy Williams, shot and killed her lover Spider Sabich, a Olympic skiing champion. Even though their relationship was foundering she said it was an accident, that the Luger went off in his abdomen when he was showing her how to use it. In the bathroom. Uh Huh. Imagine being in the bathroom shaving and your girlfriend pops in “Honey, I’m having problems with the safety on my Luger.. Here darling I’ll just –oops!”
She spent 30 days in jail for negligent manslaughter, then married her defense attorney.

1980- Mafia capo Angelo Bruno received a shotgun blast to the head while he sat in his car after dinner. The Genovese family had his former capo Phil "Chicken Man" Testa take over rackets in Atlantic City.

1988- the Screen Actor's Guild hits the bricks for the fourth time in twenty years, this time striking Hollywood for residuals for cable and videocassette income.

2014-Asteroid# 2003QQ47 will pass close by the Earth. If the half mile wide rock hits us it will have the effect of 23 Hiroshima bombs and cause drastic climactic convulsions. Right now the odds are 900,000 – 1 if we get hit. Get your catchers mitts out!
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Yesterday’s Question: What was a more common name for the Greek god Ares?

Answer: Mars.

Question: What was a more common name for the Greek god Ares?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was the Rebel Yell?
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History for 3/20/2011
Birthday: Roman poet Ovid -43b.c., Napoleon’s son Napoleon II "l'Aiglon" The eaglet, Henryk Ibsen, Lauritz Melchior, Ray Goulding, Mr. Rogers, Carl Reiner is 89, Bobby Orr, Sheldon "Spike" Lee is 54, B.F. Skinner, Pat Riley, Sir Michael Redgrave, Edgar Buchanan, Holly Hunter is 53, William Hurt is 61

Happy Vernal Equinox, or Spring, if you will….

Happy Saint Cuthbert's Day !

44BC- The Great Funeral of Gaius Julius Caesar. The spot in the Forum where the common people tearfully cremated Caesar’s body is still there today. Caesars lieutenant Marc Anthony won the Roman populace over by appealing to their love of Caesar.” Friends Romans Countrymen Lend me your Ears!” as Shakespeare wrote. At a key moment Anthony revealed Caesar’s bloody toga. The assassins Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus thought the people would proclaim them heroes for saving the democracy. But they committed a fatal error by staying hidden during this ceremony. They lost public sympathy and fled Rome.

1413- Prince Hal ascended the throne of England as King Henry V. He spent most of his short reign trying to conquer France and won the stunning victory at Agincourt. If he hadn’t died of dysentery at age 35 he might have united the kingdoms of France and England. Once more into the breach my friends!

1549- Thomas Seymour the Lord High Admiral of England was beheaded for treason. In the unstable regency following King Henry VIII’s death Seymour tried for the top job by wooing Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary and stockpiled secret stores of arms and ammunition. This execution weakened the political status of his brother the Earl of Somerset who was running the kingdom. Somerset eventually lost his head too.

1777- Benjamin Franklin was officially presented at the court of Versailles to meet King Louis XVI. Spain, Russia and Sweden withheld their ambassadors, both not wishing to cause a rift with England. His eyes teared up when he was introduced, not as representing rebellious English colonies, but as “ DR FRANKLIN, COUNSUL FROM THE UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA!” This is the beginning of U.S. foreign policy.

1782-British Prime Minister Lord North resigned his government after thirteen years in power. North was infamous for doing King George’s bidding almost exclusively and bungling the American War of Independence. After the big defeat at Yorktown he was the target of the first ever Vote of No Confidence in Parliament. Lord North resigned before Parliament could vote on a resolution ordering unilateral withdrawal from America.

1800- Alessandro Volta announced he had invented the electric battery.

1815- Napoleon Bonaparte was borne on the shoulders of a cheering Parisian mob back into the Tuileries palace as fat King Louis XVIII hightailed it to England. From this day to Nappy's abdication after Waterloo is referred to as the Hundred Days.

1841- Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder's in the Rue Morgue first published in Graham’s Magazine. Called the first true detective novel, Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin was inspired by a real French sleuth named Jules Vinquoc who used disguises and science to solve crimes the Paris police could not handle. The character was also the inspirations for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Inspector Poirot.

1852-Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" first published. It sold one million copies within six months. The book was the first to treat the horrors of slavery directly and portray slave families not as dumb brutes or happy minstrels but victimized human beings. Because of this book, during the Civil War Yankee soldiers referred to Confederates as women-whippers, and baby stealers. Stowe said modestly: “I didn’t write it, God did. I just took dictation.”When she visited the White House President Lincoln met her with:”So here’s the little lady who started the big war.”

1899- In Sing-Sing prison Martha Place becomes the first woman in the U.S. to be electrocuted. She had killed her stepdaughter. Because Sing-Sing Prison in Ossning New York was situated up the Hudson River from New York City, the phrase to be” sent up the River” as meaning going to jail, became popular.

1903- Henri Matisse exhibits at the Salon des Independents in Paris.

1931- Cantors Kosher deli opened in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles.

1932- The German airship Graff Zeppelin began a regular passenger service between Europe and South America -Cologne to Buenos Aires.

1942- After a harrowing escape from the Philippines through Japanese lines by pt. boat, submarine and plane General MacArthur arrived at the Australian town of Darwin. His first radio message was to tell the occupied Philippine people “ I Shall Return!” The U.S. State Department later asked MacArthur to amend his message to the more democratic We Shall Return but the imperious general refused.

1943-MGM's "Dumb Hounded" the first Droopy Cartoon.

1956-Habib Bourghiba and Prime Minister Mollet of France conclude talks for the independence of Tunisia.

1965- After the confrontation on the Edmund Pettis Bridge President Lyndon Johnson ordered 4,000 US troops to protect the Civil Rights protestors led by Martin Luther King marching from Selma to Montgomery. Alabama Governor George Wallace had sicked attack dogs and police on the marchers after promising the President not to. Johnson referred to Gov. Wallace as “a treacherous, lying son of a B*tch!”

1969-John Lennon married Yoko Ono on the Rock of Gibraltar.

1976- Heiress Patty Hearst, aka Tanya, convicted of bank robbery. How she could be tried for bank robbery and her Symbionese Liberation Army captors, simultaneously tried for kidnapping her, is one of the riddles of American jurisprudence. She was finally pardoned by Bill Clinton in one of those last day in office pardons.

1985- Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the Alaskan Iditarod dog-sled race. She would win it a total of four times.

1987- The U.S. food and drug administration finally approved AZT for use in treating the effects of AIDS.

1995-A Japanese doomsday cult called Aum Shinrikio released a deadly nerve gas called Sarin into the Tokyo subway system. It killed 13 and sickened 5,500. The cult had tried on several occasions to release anthrax and other germs into the air to kill millions but their attempts always failed. Their philosophy Poa stated the souls salvation could be achieved through mass-murder. Two days later Tokyo police raided Aum Shinrikio’s headquarters and arrested their leader Matsumoto Chuizo.

1999- After years of attempts and failures involving millionaires like Richard Branson, Rocky Aoki and Malcom Forbes, Dr Bertrand Picard of Switzerland and Brian Jones of the UK became the first to circumnavigate the Earth in a balloon. It was named the Breitling Orbiter 3. Dr Picard said: “I am with the Angels and completely happy.” Mr Jones said: First thing I’ll do is phone my wife, then like a good Englishman I’ll have a cup of tea.”

1999- Legoland opened in Carlsbad Cal.
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Yesterday’s Question: What was the Rebel Yell?

Answer: During the Civil War, at the Battle of Bull Run, Confederate General Stonewall Jackson told his men” When you charge, howl like Furies!” The men let out a sharp shriek, akin to an Indian war whoop, that unnerved their enemies. The Rebels made it a standard part of their attack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzOAbekZoOc

Question answered below: What was the Rebel Yell?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Was there a difference between a Pilgrim and a Puritan?
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History for 3/19/2011
Birthdays: George De La Tour, Wyatt Earp, Dr. David Livingston, William Jennings Bryan, Sir Richard Burton (The African explorer, not Liz Taylor's ex), Charles M. Russell, Jacky Moms Mabley, Leonard Nimoy, Adolf Eichman, Phillip Roth, Adolf Galland, Ursula Andress, Patrick McGoohan, Ornette Coleman, Harvey Weinstein, Bruce Willis is 56, Glenn Close is 64, Richard Williams is 78

Roman Festival ANCILIA when the Salii, the Leaping Priests of Mars, take down the Sacred Shields of Mars the Avenger that dropped down from Heaven on Romulus (Ouch! OOch!) and do the leaping dance of Mars! Ceremony to mark the beginning of campaigning season.

Today is Saint Joseph.’s Day, when the swallows come back to Capistrano.

1330- Edmund the Earl of Kent is beheaded by order of his mother. who's a naughty boy!

1611- Moscow Burns- again. During the period called the Time of Troubles a Polish army had captured the Kremlin and tried to get the son of the Polish King Wladyswav IV or Ladislas made Czar. The Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow Hermogenes forbade any good Russian from swearing allegiance to the Roman Catholic Ladislas. So the Poles threw the Patriarch in a dungeon where he soon died. This day a rebel army organized by a Prince Troubetskoy and peasant butcher Kosma Minin attacked the foreign occupiers and in the ensuing conflict the city caught fire.

1628- A group called Puritans, differing from the Pilgrims of the Plymouth Colony are granted a Royal Charter to set up their own Massachusetts Colony. Oliver Cromwell once considered emigrating to this colony but opted to stay in England.

1644- Si Sang, the last emperor of China's Ming Dynasty, committed suicide.

1687- French explorer Sieur de LaSalle was killed by his own men on the shores of the Mississippi in an argument over scarce food rations. He was 43.

1799- Franz Josef Haydn’s oratorio the Creation premiered. Haydn was inspired when he heard Handel’s the Messiah in London.

1812- LIBERALS- When Napoleon’s armies occupied Spain in 1808 the Spanish people formed independent bands and fought on in the hills as "guerrillas"- "Little Wars". These militias sent delegates to an free, independent parliament called the Supreme Cortes in the city of Cadiz. This day they formulated a constitution for a new Spain acknowledging King Ferdinand, Abolishing torture and the Inquisition but keeping the Catholic Church. These men were first called by the term Liberales or Liberals.

1831- The First U.S. Bank Robbery. English immigrant Edward Smith alias Edward Honeywell made a duplicate set of keys and robbed the City Bank of New York of $245,000 bucks. He did ten years in Sing Sing but only half the money was ever found.

1847- THE MORMON BATALLION reached Los Angeles. Brigham Young, in order to quiet Federal suspicions that his Utah commune didn't want to be part of the U.S., forms a volunteer battalion to help in the War with Mexico. This troop makes one of the longest infantry marches in U.S. history across the arid desert and arrives in El Pueblo de Los Angeles in time to interrupt a fiesta. They tell the startled locals that they were now Americans (see what happens when you let too many gringos into this country..?)

1853- Charles Dickens novel Bleak House first appeared in magazine installments. It is the first fictional novel to mention dinosaurs-" It would be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill…"

1859- Charles Gounod's opera 'Faust" premiered. It was so popular that after a while in New York wags nicknamed the Metropolitan Opera the "Faustspeilhaus" ( it's a pun on Wagner's theater in Bayreuth being called a Festspeilhaus, so Faustspeilhaus..heh-heh,.get it ?....look, don't blame me...its a Gilded Age opera joke....)

1866- H.M.S. MONARCH OF THE SEAS leaves Liverpool with 2,000 tons,700
immigrants and freight bound for New York. and disappears forever. No wreckage, no survivors, no distress signals. One of the Mysteries of the Deep...

1875- Mark Twain admits in a letter that he now likes to use a typewriter, a new technology accused of ruining the art of writing.

1895- The Lumiere Brothers shot their first movie, employees leaving their dad’s factory.

1914- A fire in the negative vaults of the Eclair Studios in New Jersey destroyed forever all the American work of pioneer French animator Emile Cohl. He had come to the U.S. to animate the first cartoon series, George McManus’ "The Newlyweds" later to be renamed in comic strip form "Life With Father".

1916- The first mission of the U.S. Airforce. The First U.S. Aero Squadron flew reconnaissance missions this day to aid General Pershing’s pursuit of Pancho Villa.

1918- As a wartime measure the Congress created Daylight Savings Time separate from Standard Time.

1920- U.S. Congress rejects U.S. admission into the League of Nations. The refusal of the worlds largest economy who's President (Wilson) was the architect of the plan as well as the refusal to admit Soviet Russia dooms the League to impotence. Wilson ruined his health crossing the country lobbying for support for the League and was heartbroken at its failure. In 1945 after another horrible war the world would try again with the United Nations.

1928- the Amos & Andy radio show debuted. NBC Blue Network, WMAQ in Chicago.

1931- Nevada legalized gambling.

1935- Harlem riots. When the rumor spread that a young shoplifter had been beaten to death by police in the basement of Kress Department Store, 10,000 Harlem residents riot in the streets and burn shops. Two people are killed. The child makes an appearance and in fact had never been harmed.

1945- THE NERO ORDER- While allied armies pour into Germany, Adolph Hitler in his bunker issued an order to destroy all bridges, water and telephone systems, dams, schools, anything that could be of any use after the war is over." The Allies will have conquered nothing by ashes!" A immolation worthy of Wagner's Gotterdammerung. Despite some Nazis fanatical wish to fight to the end most rational Germans including Albert Speer completely ignored this order. And Hitler down in his bunker didn't know one way or another. German generals started to refer to the Fuhrer's strange mood swings with a German word: VookenCuckooshein- that translates as "Cloud-Cuckoo-Land".

1953- First T.V. broadcast of the Oscar ceremony. That utterly memorable circus film
"The Greatest Show on Earth" won top honors. Ironically it was Cecil B. DeMille’s only Oscar of his career. Before TV, the Oscars ceremony included a dinner and an hour of dancing before the awards were presented.

1954- Singer Sammy Davis Jr. lost an eye in an auto accident in the California desert. He was left lying bleeding unattended in a hallway in Riverside County Hospital. This was because he was black and it was a segregated facility. Finally actor Jeff Chandler found him and forced the doctors to treat him. Friend Frank Sinatra urged Davis out of his depression and got him out on stage again. That first night at Ciro’s nightclub the entire Ratpack- Sinatra, Dean Martin and Peter Lawford each preformed on stage wearing a black eye patch similar to Davis’.

1957- Elvis Presley purchased an estate outside Memphis Tennessee called Graceland from Ruth Moore for $100,000.

1957- Skiing aficionado Pete Seibert was wounded in both legs during World War Two and was feared he would never walk again. He not only walked but he got back on skis and by 1950 made the US Olympic skiing team. This day he hiked with a friend up to an isolated Valley in Colorado named Vail:" My God Earl, we’ve climbed all the way to Heaven!" he exclaimed. Pete Seibert built Vail into a world class ski resort and town.

1959- North Vietnamese nationalist leader Ho Chi Minh declared a war of unification against the Republic of South Vietnam.

1962- The first Pillsbury Doughboy commercial.

1964- IBM gives the greenlight to plans for the 360 series. The first compatible computers.

1973- During the Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon's lawyer John Dean tells him "There is a cancer on the Presidency."

1974- The band Jefferson Airplane changed its name to Jefferson Starship.

1979- C-Span cable channel started broadcasting live from the floor of Congress. The first Congressman to speak on camera was Al Gore.

1982- Randy Rhoads, the lead guitarist for Ozzy Ozbourne died when he playfully flew his plane buzzing the bands travelling bus and smacked into a farmhouse.

1984- I’LL BE BACK- James Cameron began shooting the film the Terminator. He first considered casting O.J. Simpson for the cyborg killer before settling on Austrian weightlifter Arnold Swarzenegger.

1987- Reverend Jim Baker resigned as head of the PTL Ministries. The Televangelist had been accused of hanky-panky with secretary Jessica Hahn and defrauding his parishioners of millions to put air conditioning in his dog’s house, and build a Christian Theme Park named Heritage USA. Evangelist turned comedian Sam Kinison joked:
"I imagine up in Heaven Jesus must be flipping through the New Testament saying "Hey, where did I say anything about a Water Slide?!"

1993- Monkey-cam debuted on the David Letterman Show.

2003 THE INVASION OF IRAQ BEGAN- The United States, Britain and a loose coalition of small states used public outrage over the 9-11 attacks to invade Saddam Husseins’ Iraq and march on Baghdad.

The massed firepower of the attack was so devastating, it was called Shock & Awe. This was the United States first "preventative war" breaking fifty-five years of discouraging other nations from resorting to unilateral military actions, and it broke the 200 year old American tradition of never firing first.

Although Iraq had not bothered the US directly, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney declared they had solid evidence that Saddam had the ability to attack America with nuclear weapons in 45 minutes. The White House encouraged the belief that Saddam had a tie to Osama Ben Laden’s 9-11 attack. All these claims turned out to be fiction.

The previous summer, the movie Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones came out. Wags called this Gulf Wars Episode II: Clone of the Attack.

2004- Brian Maxwell, the inventor of the Power Bar nutrition snack, died of a heart attack at age 51.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Was there a difference between a Pilgrim and a Puritan?

Answer: They wore the same buckled shoes, spoke English and frowned on all vanities, but they were different. The Puritans wanted the Anglican Church Purified , while the Pilgrims were separatists who wanted a complete break with the Mother Church. The Pilgrims founded Plymouth and never numbered more than 2500. The Puritans founded Boston and the Massachusetts Bay Colony and were soon around 20,000.

Quiz: Was there a difference between a Pilgrim and a Puritan?

Yesterdays’ question answered below- Why is a zero score in Tennis called Love?
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History for 3/18/2011
Birthdays: Amerigo Vespucci, John Calhoun, Nicholai Rimsky-Korsakov, Neville Chamberlain, Wilson Picket, Edgar Cayce, John Updike, Grover Cleveland, Edward Everet Horton, Vanessa Williams, F. W. DeKlerk, George Plympton, Peter Graves, Irene Cara, Luc Besson, Queen Latifah is 41

44BC-This would have been the day Julius Caesar would have left Rome to lead his legions against the Parthians (Iran), had he not received multiple stab wounds.

566- The Feast of Saint Frediano (St Fred), who redirected a river near Lucca with his rake.

1286- King Alexander III of Scotland accidentally rides his horse off a cliff.

1554- Princess Elizabeth Tudor was sent to the Tower of London on a charge of treason. An uprising of English Protestants under Sir Thomas Wyatt had been crushed. Wyatt under torture confessed his goal was to put Elizabeth on the throne. Elizabeth claimed she never heard of Wyatt, but her stepsister Queen Mary was suspicious. You could imagine what Elizabeth was thinking when she was rowed into the Tower through the Traitor’s Gate, the same way her mother Anne Boleyn was. For the next several weeks Elizabeth played a dangerous game pretending to be a loyal Catholic. Mary soon died of cancer and Elizabeth became Queen.

1584-Czar Ivan the Terrible died while playing chess. Nobody is sure why, except for
"a noticeable swelling of his cods." He had no natural heir, especially after beating his eldest son's brains out with his scepter, and his youngest son Dmitri was also dead. Chancellor Boris Gudunov said during an epileptic seizure, the boy whipped out his knife and slashed his own throat. (yeah...right...) Then Boris Gudunov named himself Czar. Russia enters a period of dynastic struggle known as "the Time of Troubles".

1662- French philosopher Blaise Pascal, who had invented an early computer device, tried to start a municipal bus system.

1815-VIVE L'EMPEREUR ! While marching on Paris to overthrow King Louis XVIII Napoleon is stopped near Grenoble by the Royal French army led by his old friend Marshal Michel Ney. Ney had promised the king he would bring Bonaparte to Paris in an iron cage. The whole Royal Army was Nappy’s old troops anyway, just with a new flag. Soldiers who had served side by side for twenty years suddenly were facing each other. Instead of civil war, Napoleon quietly walked up to the raised guns and smiled: " Soldiers! You all know me. If any of you want to kill your Emperor, here I am." After an agonizing pause, the army cheered and went over to him en masse, including Ney.

1831- The U.S. Supreme Court rule that the Cherokee Nation are a “Domestic Dependant” and not a foreign power and therefore cannot sue in federal court.

1834- The Tolpuddle Martyrs. Six Dorchester farm laborers are arrested and banished to the Australian penal colony for trying to organize a labor union. It is considered the beginning of British trade unionism. Public agitation forced the government to pardon them and invite them home. Only one went back to Dorchester, the rest moved to Canada.

1852- New York City steamboat skipper Henry Wells and mailman William Fargo form the Wells Fargo Company. In 1873 they went into a joint venture with several other freight shipping companies called American Express.

1871- Citizens of Paris, disgusted with the inept handling of the Franco Prussian war and horrible siege they had to endure, declare a workers revolutionary state, The COMMUNE OF PARIS. Artist Honore' Daumier was named to it's governing board. Karl Marx, living in London, said it was still the wrong type of revolution.

The Communards were enthusiastic but inefficient revolutionaries, they tried to burn down Notre Dame but it was so old and damp it wouldn't burn. Then they tried to execute the aged archbishop of Paris by firing squad. They all missed on the first try.

They were eventually crushed by the regular French Army after bitter street fighting that destroyed a lot of Paris including the Tuileries Palace, the Hotel deVille and the Palace of St. Cloud. In Pere' Lachaise cemetery you can still see the 'Wall of the Comunards', where 150 were lined up and shot. They took as their banner the red flag of revolution. Young Nikolai Lenin, studying the Commune, adopted their red flag for his and it became the symbol of world communism. When Yuri Gargarin went into orbit in 1959 he had a relic bit of the Commune's flag with him.

1902- BIRTHDAY OF THE RECORDING INDUSTRY. The RCA Victrola company sends it's engineers to Milan to record ten discs of the young tenor Enrico Caruso. He becomes a world celebrity and the phonograph moves from being a scientific curiosity to something every home had to have.

1910- Rosie O’Neill invented the Kewpie Doll.

1913- On the streets of Salonika the King of Greece was assassinated by anarchist Alexandros Skinos. He was described in the London Times as “ A drunken Greek Degenerate.” The King, not the anarchist.

1915-THE BATTLE OF POINT HELLAS- As part of World War One’s Gallipoli Campaign a large British fleet attacked the shore installations guarding the sea approaches to Istanbul. The British Navy hadn't suffered a major loss since the days of Lord Nelson but now it was so badly shot up that they had to withdraw completely. First Sea Lord Jack Fisher resigned. King George V said Admiral Fisher should have been hanged from a yardarm. The British Navy stayed formidable but its myth of the invincibility was damaged. Historian Jan Morris said they had tried to beat the Turks by merely 'Looking Superb".

1924-The film “Thief of Baghdad” starring Douglas Fairbanks and designs by William Cameron Menzies premiered. It is considered the first great special effects blockbuster.

1925- THE GREAT MIDWEST TORNADO- One of the largest tornadoes ever recorded. A Force 5 monster that traveled 300 miles from Mississippi to Illinois traveling at 73 miles an hour. It wiped out two large towns and killed 689 people.

1928- William T. Hones was planting horseradish in Petersburg Virginia when he dug up a 32 carat diamond. He took it home as a curiosity and only figured out it’s value 15 years later. It was the largest diamond found in North America.

1931- Schick, Inc. introduced the electric razor.

1942- Paramounts “The Lost Dream” the first Little Audrey cartoon.

1947- William Durant, the brilliant executive who created General Motors and built it into an industrial giant., died the manager of a bowling alley in suburban Chicago. He had been ruined in the Great Depression.

1962-President DeGaulle of France and Algerian FLN sign an accord giving Independence to Algeria.

1965- Cosmonaut Sergei Leonov is the first human to walk in space.

1965-The Rolling Stones are fined 5 English pence for urinating on a wall in Stratford at ABC recording studio Romford.

1967- The Pirates of the Caribbean ride opened at Disneyland, designed by master animator Marc Davis. In recent years rampant political correctness has disturbed the pirates fun. One diorama that portrayed a lusty buccaneer chasing a wench around a table while she giggles. It was changed to show he was really only interested in her sandwich tray. Yeah,……right.

1968- Mel Brooks first comedy film “The Producers” premiered with Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder and Dick Shawn. His screenplay beat out Kubricks 2001 for a Best Screenplay Oscar. In the late 1990s Brooks reworked the screenplay into a hit Broadway musical.

1980- At the Soviet Union’ secret Plesetsk space center a Vostok rocket exploded on the launch pad, killing fifty top scientists.

1981- Ronald Reagan’s Vice President George H.W. Bush Sr got into a traffic accident in Washington D.C. while driving his secretary/mistress Jennifer Fitzgerald to dinner. Desperate to keep his affair out of the papers, Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Attorney General William French-Smith went to D,C. police HQ and erased any record of the accident from the daily police blotter.

2011- The first space probe goes into orbit around Mercury.

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Yesterdays’ question: Why is a zero score in Tennis called Love?

Answer: In many sports people refer to a zero score as a Goose Egg, or egg. Tennis came to England from France, where an egg is called l’oeuf. Englishmen trying to say L’oeuf, would say Love.

Question: Why is a zero score in Tennis called Love?

Yesterday’s Question answered Below: Which one of these people was not born in Ireland? A)- Liam Neeson, b)-Errol Flynn, C) Barry Fitzgerald, D) Lola Montez

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History for 3/17/2011
Birthdays: Jim Bridger the mountainman, Nat King Cole, film composer Alfred Newman, Mercedes McCambridge, Leslie Ann Down, Patrick Duffy, Rudolph Nureyev, Gary Sinise, Kate Greenaway, John Sebastian, Ben Washam (warner bros. animator), Ken Anderson (Disney animator), John Wayne Gacy (serial killer), Shemp Howard (stooge), Kurt Russell is 60, Rob Lowe is 47

-Ancient Roman Festival Bacchanalia-the wine festival.

44BC- Mark Anthony called the first meeting of the Roman Senate since Julius Caesars assassination. Caesar’s murderers Brutus and Cassius were annoyed that the Roman people didn’t rise up in joy over their deed, but instead remained ominously still. Instead of seizing the government, they went off to brood and talk it over. Meanwhile the Senate, not knowing who would win the coming power struggle, fence straddled by passing all of Caesars bills, at the same time voting amnesty for his killers.

180AD- The Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius died at his army camp Vindobona- the future Vienna. He was 59 and was succeeded by Commodus. He left behind a book of meditations entitled To Myself, that has become one of the great works of Western Philosphy.

461AD- HAPPY ST. PATRICKS DAY - St. Patrick was a Romanized Gaul named Patricius Magonus Sucatus who as a boy was taken as a slave to Ireland by raiders, then escaped and became a Christian Bishop at Auxerre. He returned to Ireland in 432. Patrick converted the daughters of Irish King Laoghaire and cast down the great pagan idol of Crom Cruach in Letrim. As far as snakes go, some say that was a metaphor for the pagans.
One man converted an entire nation. He died on this day in Ireland 461 A.D..
The holiday was a religious festival in Ireland but in America the feast day of Ireland's patron saint became a chance to show ethnic pride and political strength in the face of anti-Irish prejudice.

965. AD- Pope Leo VIII died of a stroke while in bed with a lady en flagrante delicto.

1394- THE WHITE COMPANY- Sir John Hawkwood died. During a time-out in the Hundred Years War in France Hawkwood formed a company of unemployed English knights and went to Italy to become “condottierie”-mercenaries, fighting for money in the feuds between all the little Italian city-states. Their distinctive brightly polished silver armor gave them the name “The White Company”. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle wrote a novel by that name about them.

Years earlier the term 'free lance' had been coined, meaning a knight who was free of any Shield-Oath to a noble lord.

1525- THE GERMAN PEASANTS WAR BEGAN- Excited by the new Protestant movement throwing off the yoke of the Church, German peasants decide to throw off the yoke of their nobles as well. Preacher Thomas Munzer led a mob of peasants to kick out the Bishop-Dukes of Mulhausen and established rule by “Eternal Council”.

Martin Luther was shocked by the violence. He alienated many of his followers by disassociating himself from the revolts and urged their suppression. The rebellious mobs of peasants flying black flags across Germany, Austria and Alsace were only put down after terrible massacres.

1526-Lusty King Francis I of France had been captured in battle with German-Spanish Emperor Charles V and kept a prisoner in Madrid. A year later after signing a lot of peace treaties he had no intention of honoring he was finally set free on the Spanish-French border near Hendaye. He jumped on a horse and shouted “I am King Again!” Then he jumped on an 18 year old blond his mother Louise of Savoy brought him. Thanks Mom!

1692- After the Quaker community refused to support a war with France the English Crown declared Governor William Penn deprived of his powers and the colony of Pennsylvania would be administered directly as a crown colony.

1737- The Irish Charitable Society of Boston held a dinner to celebrate Saint Patrick’s Day. Earliest known commemoration in America.

1762- in New York City, Irish militiamen against orders march down Broadway to Hull's Tavern to a St.Patrick's Day breakfast. The first recorded St. Patty's Day parade. In 1848 several Irish-American organizations marched together and the parade became large enough to bring out the Mayor to preside.

As immigration grew so did the parades and the political patronage.Pulaski Day, Steuben Day, Columbus Day, Puerto-Rican Day, etc.
In the 1890’s politician Teddy Roosevelt seemed to be at so many ethnic parades saying he had relations that were Irish, German, Dutch, etc. that opponents called him "Old Mister 57 Flavors".

1768- Black slaves on the Caribbean Island of Montserrat rise up against their plantation overlords. Because many of the white overseers were Protestant Irish the slaves guessed they would be distracted by Saint Patrick’s Day partying when they attacked. At the last moment someone gave the plot away. The rebellion was crushed and nine leaders hanged.

1776-This day the British Navy of 150 ships hoisted sail and left the City of Boston. Lord Howe had concluded an armistice with colonial General Washington that in exchange for an unmolested evacuation they would not burn the city. It was seen as a great early victory for the Americans. Boston Harbor was opened for the first time in three years. The British troops were heartily glad to leave. A lieutenant Sheffield wrote:” I curse Columbus and all the other discoverers of this diabolical land!”

1780 General Washington ordered his army to commemorate St. Patrick's Day in sympathy with "An ancient people's struggle for independence." One of the Pennsylvania line regiments had so many Irish volunteers that it was called The Line of Ireland.

1808- ROYAL SCANDALS- William the Duke of York, second son of King George III had to resign his position as head of the British Army over an investigation that he kept a tootsie named Mary Clarke, who used her influence to cash in with army contractors. William’s dad the insane king was locked up and his older brother the Prince Regent later George IV didn't complain because he was hiding an illegal Irish wife named Mrs. Fitzherbert and another girlfriend named Lady Cunningham from his estranged wife Caroline the Princess of Wales, who was herself having sex with most of the men of Italy.

All this scandal couldn't defeat Napoleon, but it did knock Boney out of the British newspapers for awhile, and help Prime Minister Pitt the Younger drink himself into an early grave.

1811- The first sidewheel Mississippi riverboat The New Orleans was launched.

1845- Rubber Bands invented.

1857- John Stephens founds the Fenian Brotherhood in Dublin. This group is the forerunner of Sinn Fein (Shin Fain). The Fenians tried numerous insurrections in the old country and even a conquest of Canada from New York State using former Union army soldiers in 1867. Like political leaders today worry about Hamas or Al Qaeda, Queen Victoria would cast a nervous eye over her shoulder for Fenians.

1874-MACY'S- Jacob and Isadore Strauss, two German Jewish peddlers whose first job in America was selling Confederate War Bonds, buy a dry goods store from a retired Quaker sea captain named R.H.MACY. They decide to keep the name to divert anti-Semitic customers. The store was later so successful that in 1904 Macys’s moved to it's present location on 34th St. The location was close by the new Penn. Station and also across the street from the two largest brothels in New York.

Izzy Strauss later went down with the Titanic in 1912 and Jacob's kids founded Stauss stores. When Jacob visited Paris in 1919, he joked on General Pershing's comment "Lafayette Nous'Voici" to :"Galerie Lafayette we are here!" Galerie Lafayette is a French department store...(don't blame me, it's a department store joke...)

1879- New Mexico Territorial Governor Lew Wallace stopped work on his novel Ben Hur long enough to meet face to face outlaw Billy the Kid to discuss an amnesty.

1898- First test of a practical submarine. Americans had experimented with underwater travel since 1776 with Bushnells "Turtle" then the Civil War CSS Hunley. In the ocean off Staten Island a diesel-electric battery powered sub built by the John A. Holland Electric Boat Company of Georgia ran underwater for an hour and forty minutes then resurfaced. As a child Holland was inspired by Jules Verne's Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea".

1901- At a grand exhibition of his paintings at Bernheim-Jeune Palace in Paris, the world discovered the brilliance of a poor Dutch lunatic who had shot himself a few years back- Vincent Van Gogh.

1905-Eleanor and Franklin D. Roosevelt marry. They were cousins. Eleanor was actually more directly related to Theodore Roosevelt than Franklin was -she was TR’s niece.

1906- Teddy Roosevelt in a speech to the Gridiron Club coins the term "Muckraker" He was not praising journalists, but critizing those who rake muck to find any type of sordid detail.

1912- The Camp Fire Girls created.

1941- The National Gallery of Art opens in Washington D.C.

1949- The first car show for Porsche sportscars.

1965- Chicago began the Saint Patrick’s Day tradition of dyeing the Chicago River green.

1967- Senator Robert Kennedy first openly broke with the Lyndon Johnson administration and in a speech denounced the US participation in the war in Vietnam.

1982- Politically conservative Hollywood actors led by Charlton Heston broke with the Screen Actor’s Guild and form a rival group called AWAG ( American Working Actor’s Guild). They were angered by SAG president Ed Asner’s taking their union into national politics by condemning Pres. Ronald Reagan’s policies in Central America, capped by the SAG board refusing Reagan (their former president) the Guild lifetime achievement award.
As a result Ed Asner’s hit t.v. show “Lou Grant” lost sponsors and was cancelled and Heston’s career cooled as well, beyond heading the NRA and writing cranky letters to the L.A. Times calendar section that Ben Hur wasn’t gay.

1983- On trial for libel, and refusing to name sources, wheelchair bound porn publisher Larry Flynt showed up in a US Federal court wearing a diaper made from an American flag. This was calculated to mock a conservative demand for a Constitutional amendment against burning the flag.

1991- Irish Gays and Lesbians first barred by the Ancient Order of Hibernians from marching in the New York and Boston St Patrick’s Day Parades. They took it to the Supreme Court who ruled the Hibernians could bar from marching who ever they wanted to. They ban Irish anti-abortion activists too. So the controversy goes on.
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Yesterday’s Question: Which one of these people was not born in Ireland?
A)- Liam Neeson, b)-Errol Flynn, C) Barry Fitzgerald, D) Lola Montez

Answer: b) Errol Flynn was born in Tasmania, New Zealand. Liam Neeson was born in Belfast, Barry Fitzgerald in Dublin, and Lola Montez was born Betty James of County Sligo.