Quiz: What is the Itiderod?

Yesterday’s Question answered below What classic rock & roll song was described by the FCC as containing “ lyrics unintelligible at any speed.”..?
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History for 2/1/2011
Birthdays: Victor Herbert, Langston Hughes, Renata Tebaldi, Clark Gable, John Ford, George Pal, Terry Jones, Jim Thorpe, Sherman Helmsley, Lisa Marie Presley, Garrett Morris, Boris Yeltsin, Pauly Shore, Sherilyn Fenn is 46, Michael C. Hall is 40

Welcome to February from Februarius, named for Februus, a Sabine god of the underworld called the Purifier. Another theory is this month is named for Febis, the Latin for fever, this being a time in the Roman climate when fevers were most common.

1733- Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland died. Described as Half-Bull- Half Cock, he could break horseshoes with his bare hands and drink everyone under the table. He wasted his kingdom’s treasury indulging his vices and filling his palace at Dresden with bejeweled treasures and porcelains, which make it such a cool tourist destination today. One of the horniest monarchs of Europe, his reputation for fornication would be unbelievable, had he not left behind scores of illegitimate children. His dying words were “My entire life has been one long act of Sin.”

1790- First U.S. Supreme Court Session. It was held in the former Royal Exchange Building, a converted barn on Broad Street in lower Manhattan. The John Jay Court at first acted like a circuit court traveling around arbitrating local issues until a permanent home was fixed in the new capitol city.

1887- California land Developer Harvey Wilcox takes out a county deed for a new ranch he calls 'Hollywoodland' after the name of an estate his wife admired back in Connecticut. It gave its name to the new Los Angeles town- Hollywood.

1893- In New Jersey Thomas Edison and his engineer W. K. Dickson built the FIRST MOTION PICTURE STUDIO in New Jersey. It was covered with black tar paper and nicknamed"The Black Mariah" because that was the nickname of police paddy wagons that it resembled. It's debatable how much of the inventing effort was more Dickson than Edison. Edison was only marginally interested in the movies. He was more concerned with how to extract New Jersey iron ore from rocks using magnets. Dickson worked himself into the hospital to make the studio work, and resenting Edison’s apathy started experimenting on his own. When Edison found out he fired him.

1896- Puccini's opera "La Boheme" debuts in Turin. It was based on Prosper Merimee’s popular book Bohemian Sketches. Puccini's old roommate Piero Mascagni (Cavaleria Rusticana) with whom Puccini and he once lived like Bohemian artists, tried to sue because he was writing a Boheme' also. The suit failed and Mascagni released his rival version but it didn't hold up in comparison with Puccini's.

1898- The Travellers Insurance company issued the first auto insurance policy. It was to protect a Buffalo car enthusiast from being sued by irate horse owners in his neighborhood.

1901- Outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with prostitute Hedda Place, sometimes referred to as Mrs. Sundance, escape the law back in Wyoming and arrive in New York City to relax. After a month of sightseeing they take a ship to Bolivia.

1915-The Fox Film Company formed (Later Twentieth Century Fox).

1926- Gen. Billy Mitchell resigns from the army after a court-martial censors him for shooting his mouth off in favor of building an independent U.S. Air Force and other such newfangled notions. After World War Two proved all of Mitchell’s arguments about air power correct he was reinstated an honorary Major general- posthumously.

1943- At his headquarters at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia, Adolf Hitler received the news of the Nazi army surrender at Stalingrad. Hitler was furious. Not that he lost 250,000 of his best men but that their commander Field Marshal Von Paulus surrendered instead of committing suicide.” This hurts me so much that the heroism of so many soldiers was nullified by one single characterless weakling.”

Then Hitler said in a foreshadowing of his own fate:” When the nerves break down, there is nothing left but to admit one can’t handle the situation and to shoot oneself.”

1960- Four Negro college freshmen sit down at a "whites-only" lunch counter at the Woolworth's in Greensboro, North Carolina. When they left or were arrested four more sat down. Then four more. The Civil Rights sit-in campaigns begin.

1964- Indiana Governor Matthew Walsh declares that the Rock & Roll song “Louie-Louie” by the Kingsmen was pornographic and should be banned. The FCC investigated and their conclusion was that the “lyrics are unintelligible at any speed”. The song remained a major hit. In the 1980’s several schools in Northern Cal held Louie-Louie Marathons-96 straight hours of Louie-Louie played by Punk bands, polka bands, string quartets, folk trios and marching bands. Whoah whoah, Me gotta go-yo,yo yo yo.

1968- During the Vietnamese Tet Lunar Offensive-as cameras rolled South Vietnamese General Nguyen Ngoc Loan put a snub nosed pistol to the head of a Vietcong prisoner and pulled the trigger. The photo of the young mans death grimace became one of the more haunting images of the 1960’s.

1979- The Ayatollah Khomeni took over Iran.

1990- Siegfried & Roy open their exclusive show at the Mirage Casino in Las Vegas. They and their white tigers have performed for Hollywood stars, presidents and Pope John Paul II. One Vegas columnist notes: “When Elvis performed in Vegas there were some empty seats. But there are nothing but full houses when Siegfreid & Roy perform.” The act was finally ended by Roy’s throat being slashed by a tiger in 2003.

2003-“ Columbia this is Houston on UHF, Houston, Columbia on UHF…” NASA’s first spaceshuttle- the Columbia, broke up and disintegrated upon reentry into the Earth’s atmosphere. All seven astronauts were killed. The Columbia had flown 26 missions since 1981. On board was the first woman astronaut born in India and the first Israeli in Space, Col. Llan Ramon.

2004- At a Superbowl live halftime show pop star Justin Timberlake pulled the bra cup off of singer Janet Jackson exposing her right breast with a starburst stud on it. Named “the Wardrobe Malfunction”, the incident sent America into another one of its periodic paroxysms of Puritan censorship.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What classic rock & roll song was described by the FCC as containing “ lyrics unintelligible at any speed.”..?

Answer: Louie-Louie by the Kingsmen. See above, 1964.

Quiz: What classic rock & roll song was described by the FCC as containing “ lyrics unintelligible at any speed.”..?

Yesterday’s quiz answered below: What is the longest running science fiction show on TV?
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History for 1/31/2011
Birthdays: Gouverner Morris, Zane Grey, James G. Blaine*, Franz Schubert, Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu, Sir John Profumo, Phillip Glass, Johnny Rotten, Ernie Banks, Norman Mailer, Nolan Ryan, Susanne Pleshette, Anthony LaPaglia, Tallulah Bankhead, Jean Simmons, Justin Timberlake is 30, Portia DiRossi, Minnie Driver is 41, Carol Channing is 90

*James G. Blaine was a corrupt politician and failed Republican presidential candidate that Thomas Nast loved to make derogatory cartoons of.

Today is the Feast day of St. John Bosco, patron saint of Catholic Schools.

Happy National Dress up in a Gorilla Suit Day. First advocated by Don Martin, cartoonist for MAD Magazine.

1606- Sir Guy Fawkes cheated the executioner by leaping off the scaffold and breaking his neck. Fawkes was convicted of the Gunpowder Plot, trying to blow up King & Parliament.

1696- Dutch undertakers rose in revolt after the town of Amsterdam mandated reforms.

1795- Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton resigned his cabinet post to play presidential advisor behind the scenes. Hamilton helped develop the American economy on a sound basis, but his imperious demeanor offended many. The English post of Prime Minister evolved out of the Exchequer, and many thought Hamilton hoped the Treasury job would make him the real power in government. Political heat as well as revelations Hamilton was diddling a married woman named Mrs Reynolds finally made it too hot for him to stay in office. Congress then set up the House Ways & Means Committee to ensure a Secretary of the Treasury never got that much power again.

1839- Englishman William Fox Talbot says Frenchman Louis Daguerre is full of pate' when he announces he had invented photography (1/7/39). Talbot declares HE invented it first. Actually a Belgian priest experimenting with capturing light on chemically treated glass or paper as early as 1817, Thomas Wedgewood in 1770 and Louis Niepce, with whom both Daguerre and Talbot were familiar. While the principles of capturing a shadow had been known for some time, no one had worked out how to fix the image so earlier attempts faded away in a few hours. Niepce' work predates both Talbot and Daguerre by about 10 years and constitute the earliest "photographic" images still extant. But Talbot and Daguerre are considered the fathers of Photography, provided you like history Anglais or a’ Francais.

1843-The first recorded minstrel show. The mode became so popular that even black performers were made to wear burnt-cork blackface makeup and white lips.

1876- The U.S. Congress ordered all remaining Indian tribes to move into reservations or be declared hostile.

1925- Scotch brand invisible tape introduced by the 3-M Company.

1933- New Chancellor Adolf Hitler promised he would respect Parliamentary Democracy. Uh, huh….

1940- Mrs. Ida Mae Fuller of Ludlow Vermont received the first Social Security check- $22.50.

1943- End of the Battle of Stalingrad. Field Marshal Von Paulus came out of the bombed out basement of a department store and surrendered the shattered remains of his 6th Army. The highest ranking Nazi General to surrender until the wars end.

1945- Private Eddie Slovik becomes the only U.S. soldier in World War II to be shot by firing squad for desertion.

1950- THE H-BOMB - Despite the unanimous recommendation of the civilian Atomic Energy Commission that a "Super" or Hydrogen Bomb "would not be a weapon of war but an instrument of mass genocide and calamity" President Harry Truman announced to the world that the U.S. was going to build one anyway. Physicist. I. G. Rabi said he was shocked that Truman should have announced a bomb we still didn't yet know how we were going to build ,and accelerate the arms race. When Dr. Robert Oppenheimer protested, Truman called him a “sissy-scientist.” Secretary of State Dean Acheson groaned privately to a friend: “What a horrible world we’re living in.”

1954- Howard Armstrong, the inventor of FM Radio, driven to despair by constant lawsuits with RCA Corporation over his patents, jumped to his death out of a hotel window. He first put on his hat, overcoat and gloves because he didn't want to be cold...(?) Armstrong loved heights and used to climb hundreds of feet in the air to meditate on top of his radio antennas. By 1977 his family won all the lawsuits. Today, most radio, television and air traffic communications are by FM band.

1958- The U.S. enters the Space Race with the launching of satellite Explorer- 1.

1963- U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara declared to the press:” The War in Vietnam is going quite well…”

1968- TET- The North Vietnamese army combined with the Viet Cong guerrillas surprise attack American Forces all over South Vietnam. Even the capitol Saigon and the American Embassy became battle zones. Despite an alert issued the night before, 200 US intelligence officers attended a pool party, and were as surprised as everyone else. Although all the Vietnamese attacks were defeated and the Viet Cong destroyed, the U.S. public was shocked that such an attack could happen from what they had been told was “ A defeated enemy” It was the turning point of the Vietnam War.
The military of course, blamed the media and asked for a bigger budget.

1968- The Seattle city council concluded that there was no legal means to curb hippies hanging out in the downtown U- District.

1974- Apollo 14 blasted off for the moon. This voyage is chiefly remembered for Alan Shepard playing golf on the lunar surface.

1978- Polish director Roman Polanski fled the U.S. for exile after being charged for having sex with a thirteen year old girl in Jack Nicholson’s house.

1989- LaToya Jackson posed nude for Playboy.

1995- First Meeting of the WTO- World Trade Organization.

1999- The first episode of Seth McFarlane’s show Family Guy premiered.

2003-DOWNING STREET II The Downing St meeting minutes proved that President Bush planned to invade Iraq just 8 months after the 9-11 attack. In this days’ meeting between English Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush, it was stated“ it is unlikely that the weapons inspectors will discover any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.” President Bush responded that it was too late to change the plans. They would start bombing Iraq by March 10th. Downing 1 was made public in 2005 and Downing II was not made public until 2009. Both were ignored by US mass media.
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Yesterday’s question: What is the longest running science fiction show on TV?

Answer: The English TV series Dr. Who, that has been running since 1963.

Quiz: What is the longest running science fiction show on TV?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: Russian Premier Vladimir Putin was once a KGB agent. Has a US President ever come from the CIA ?
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History for 1/30/2011
Birthdays: Barbara Tuchman, Walt “Moose” Dropo, Olaf Palme, , Dick Martin, Louis S. Rukeyser, Dorothy Malone, Boris Spassky, John Ireland, Phil Collins, Vanessa Redgrave is 74, Gene Hackman is 81, Christian Bale is 37, Former VP Dick Cheney is 70

1649- KING CHARLES I of ENGLAND BEHEADED-The Parliament, led by Oliver Cromwell condemns the King "That man of Blood" and abolished the English monarchy. As Charles laid his head upon the block he said:" I go from a corruptible crown to one which is Incorruptible." -Splat!

Cromwell’s government worried that if the identity of the headsman was ever found out avengers may harm his family. They kept the secret so well that his name for a time was lost to history. His name was Richard Brandon. In Alexander Dumas' sequel to “The Three Musketeers”, he makes the executioner to be the son of Madame DeWinter and the Duc de Rochefort.

1661-HAVE YOU SEEN OLIVER CROMWELL'S HEAD? English dictator General Oliver Cromwell died of natural causes in 1659. After the restoration of the British monarchy a mob celebrated by breaking into Cromwells’ tomb and bouncing the corpse around, taking the head and putting it on London Bridge where criminals are usually exhibited.

After the head fell off it's spike and rolled around on the ground, a priest took it home and sold it to a traveling circus. Eventually it was donated to Cambridge University, to whom Oliver Cromwell had been a benefactor. The college interred it but will not divulge where.

1790- Sir Malcom Greathead invented the lifeboat.

1835- THE FIRST PRESIDENTIAL ASSASINATION ATTEMPT –An unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence who imagined he was King Richard III, emerged from a crowd in the lobby of the House of Representatives and fired two pistols at President Andrew Jackson. They both miss. Jackson, an old army man who carried around two lead bullets in his body from Indian fights and duels, was so outraged that he grabbed Lawrence and started drubbing him on the head with his silver tipped cane. He beat him so badly that the Washington Police had the strange task of saving the assassin from his intended victim.

1862- John Ericsson’s radical design for an all iron warship, the USS Monitor, was launched at the Brooklyn Navy Yard.

1889- THE MAYERLING AFFAIR-Archduke Rudolf Von Hapsburg, heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, commits suicide with his mistress, a Bavarian baroness Maria Vestera. Rudolf was already married and even if he could divorce he could never marry so below his station. Some say that there was more intrigue to it, that German statesman Otto Von Bismarck had Rudolf murdered because Rudolph planned on challenging Berlin’s hold over German unity, but that conspiracy theory is a longshot. His family felt Rudolf was an emotionally disturbed man, who finally found a girl dumb enough to follow him in his suicide pact. The Baroness had taken poison and then Rudolf had blown his brains out. Austrian funerary makeup artists worked overtime to make the Archduke's shattered face fit for an open casket wake. His mother the Empress Elizabeth refused to go: "I won't go see that thing! It's head is made of wax !"

1894-Charles King of Detroit patented the pneumatic jackhammer.

1917- The German General Staff gambled that resuming unrestricted U-Boat warfare would economically destroy England and win the Great War even if it angered the United States enough to declare war. Admiral Keppel told the Kaiser that even if the United States did enter the war they would never get enough soldiers across the ocean past his U-Boats to accomplish anything. “The threat from America is less than nothing. Nothing!”

1931- Hollywood Premiere of Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights. Later at a dance at the Biltmore Hotel writer Herman Mankewicz (Citizen Kane, Duck Soup) got into a drunken fistfight with producer David O. Selznick (Gone With the Wind, Rebecca). You’ll never eat turtle-soup in this town again!

1933- HI-YO SILVER!! The Lone Ranger debuts on Radio. The Masked man was invented by the WXYZ station owner George Trendle and writer Fran Striker with absolutely no experience of cowboys or Indians. They just wanted a hero like Zorro with a strict moral code. He was later voiced by actor William Conrad who did the Rocky & Bullwinkle narration and the TV series Cannon.

1934- Artist Salvador Dali married Gala.

1933- ADOLF HITLER TAKES POWER. After a general election President Von Hindenberg was forced to appoint the Nazi Party leader Chancellor. Hindenberg had earlier growled” Chancellor? I’ll make him a postmaster so he could lick stamps with my face on it!” But he was forced to give in. Germans were fed up with skyrocketing inflation and political anarchy so they voted for the little man with the Charlie Chaplin mustache.

The Nazis didn’t win by a landslide vote, it was a 37-42% majority, with the rest divided among splinter parties. The German Army at first didn’t cooperate with the Nazis. Their real power came when Hitler made a bargain with the major German corporations like Krupp, Seimans, Bayer and Daimler to take the ‘socialist” out of National Socialists and arrest all communists, unions and other bad-for-business types. All this was applauded by big business in the US like JP Morgan, Chase and Hearst who floated loans to Germany. With their new corporate clout and money the Nazis quickly called a new election to gain an overwhelming parliamentary majority in the Reichstag.

After ancient President Hindenberg died in 1934 the Reichstag voted dictatorial powers to Hitler making him Der Fuehrer.

1946- The first US dimes with Franklin Roosevelt on the head were issued.

1948- 78 year old Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi was shot and killed by Hindu extremist Nathuram Godse while walking to morning prayers.

1956- Elvis Presley recorded Blue Suede Shoes.

1958- Britain’s House of Lords admitted women for the first time.

1960- STRAVINSKY SPEAKS OUT. For years after the making of Fantasia, critics had pondered Igor Stravinsky's cryptic reaction to Disney's portrayal of his "Rite of Spring".
Disney publicity said he was "speechless with admiration!" Today in a Saturday Review article, Stravinsky said Stokowski's editing of his music was 'execrable' and the visuals "an unresisting imbecility". His opinion still didn't stop him from selling the studio film rights to several other of his pieces including "The Firebird' in 1942. He needed the cash.

1961-H-B's the Yogi Bear Show.

1969- The rock band the Beatles last public appearance as a group. They tried to do a free concert in the London streets but were banned by police for fear of congestion and noise complaints. So they withdrew to a rooftop above their recording studio and played anyway. John Lennon ended the concert by saying: ‘Thank you very much on behalf of the band and myself and I hope we passed the audition.”

1973- White House operatives G. Gordon Liddy and James McCord were convicted of burglary in the Watergate break in. President Nixon hoped sacrificing these two small fish would end the investigation. It didn’t. Liddy did some jail time, and today is a highly paid conservative radio talk show host.

1976- George Bush Sr. became head of the CIA. Poppy Bush revived the organization which had been wracked by scandal after the Frank Church Congressional Committee revealed details of the Alende coup in Chile, overseas assassination, illegal surveillance of Americans and schemes to put chemicals in Fidel Castro’s food to make his beard fall out.

2002- President George W. Bush Jr salutes his Vice President Dick Cheney on his birthday by saying “You are the best Vice President this country has ever had!” He forgot that his own father George Bush Sr was also once vice president. I’m sure his mom reminded him later.

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Yesterday’s Question: Russian Premier Vladimir Putin was once a KGB agent. Has a US President ever come from the CIA ?

Answer: It was George H.W. Bush. See above, 1976.

Quiz: Russian Premier Vladimir Putin was once a KGB agent. Has a US President ever come from the CIA ?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: The Medieval Kings of England like Richard the Lionhearted had painted on their shields and banners three lions rampant. Why three lions?
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History for 1/29/2011
Birthdays: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Thomas Paine, William Claude Dunkenfeld known as W.C. Fields, Victor Mature, Paddy Chayefsky, Tom Selleck is 66
, Ed Burns, Greg Louganis, John D Rockefeller Jr., Claudine Longet, John Horsely (1817) the inventor of the Christmas Card-1842*, Oprah Winfrey is 57, Heather Graham is 41.

*Horsley was a Victorian artist at the Royal Academy in London who refused to draw nudes because it offended his morality. This earned him the nickname- Clothes Horsely.

1728-At this time all the rage in London was Italian Opera based on adaptations of Greek Mythology sung by castrated male sopranos. This day John Gay and Johann Pepuschs THE BEGGARS OPERA was first produced in Lincoln’s Inn Fields. The play was a sensation because it was an opera in English using popular tunes of the time and told the story not of gods or noble heroes but highwaymen, bawdy girls and innkeepers.

1775-the COCKPIT TAVERN, or BEN GETS his ASS CHEWED- Benjamin Franklin was postmaster general of the American Colonies and was feeling pretty good about his ability to represent American interests in London. He successfully argued the American's opposition to the Stamp Tax in the House of Commons. He offered to pay back exporters who lost money from the Boston Tea Party.

On this day he was invited to the Cockpit Tavern for what he thought was a private party. He was ushered into a private room where he faced the entire Royal Privy Council. The ministers spent the next 4 hours dressing him down. Prime Minister Lord North finished by shouting in 70 year old Ben’s face:" Spy, Traitor, Rebel, Thief! " He was fired as postmaster and ordered home to America before they clapped him in prison. Ben Franklin entered the tavern a loyal subject, and left a committed revolutionary.

1813- Jane Austin’s novel Pride and Prejudice first published.

1820- After spending the last ten years of his long reign as a blind insane shut-in, King George III died at age 82. His son the Prince Regent finally became King George IV. Americans remember George III as the tyrant of the Revolution, but Britons truly loved their old monarch and his simple family-man tastes. While his German grandfather George II was barely mourned at all, all the Empire lamented the passing of Old Shopkeeper George.

1842- The Republic of Texas authorized the raising of a company of rangers to keep the peace- the Texas Rangers. Stephen Austin had commissioned rangers as early as 1833, but from this date on their regular service began.

1845- Edgar Allen Poe's poem the Raven first published. Nevermore.

1886-In Karlsruhe Germany, Dr. Karl Benz patented the internal combustion engine. To prevent gasoline explosions it utilized a fuel distribution system based on a ladies perfume atomizer spray ( the carburetor ). He called his horseless carriage at first a Motorvagen, but later names it after his partner Godfried Daimler’s daughter, Mercedes.

1891 After the death of King David IV Kalakoua, Lilioukalani was proclaimed Queen of Hawaii. Besides being the last monarch of Hawaii, Lilioukalani composed the song "Aloha-Oi, Aloha-Oi, Until we meet Again."

1920- Walt gets a job. Nineteen year old Walt Disney was hired by a local Kansas City commercial art studio to draw ads for newspapers and slides for theaters.

1935- The first inductees to the new Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown announced- Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Matthewson and Walter Johnson. Hall of Fame dedication ceremony was on June 12th 1939.

1936- Dictator Benito Mussolini lays the first stone of Cinecitta’ Movie Studios.

1944- DARBY’S RANGERS were an elite American commando unit trained for the toughest assignments, the forerunners of the Green Berets and Delta Forces. On this day the bungling generals of the Anzio beachhead sent them into a suicidal battle at the Italian town of Cisterna. Germans were had anticipated the attack and set a trap. 761 rangers went in, 6 came out. Colonel Darby himself survived the battle, but was killed two days before the World War Two ended.

1957- Patsy Cline recorded "Walkin' After Midnight."

1964- Stanley Kubrick's nuclear comedy "DR STRANGLOVE –OR HOW I LEARNED TO STOP WORRYING AND LOVE THE BOMB." premiered. It's use of hand held camera for action sequences and cutting inspired by the European New Wave ushered in a new style in Hollywood cinema. So, who was Tracey Reed? She played Miss Scott, George C. Scott’s bikini clad secretary, and the only woman in the entire movie.

1975- The Weather Underground set off a bomb in the US State Department. They were a violent offshoot of the Student Anti-Vietnam War protest movement,

1977- Comic TV. star of "Chico and the Man " Freddy Prinze (23) blew his brains out. Some said he suffered from a survivor's depression about why he had succeeded in life while all his friends from the Barrio were dead from gang killings or drugs. Family members said that he was just stoned on Quaaludes and was clowning around with a gun.

1979- President Jimmy Carter commuted the jail sentence of Patty Hearst.

1986- The National Geographic Society announced the discovery of the largest fossil find in North America. Estimated 10,000 fossilized remains in Nova Scotia They include penny sized dinosaur footprints, the smallest ever found. Best guess are they are from the Triassic-Jurassic boundary – a time of mass extinction.

2002-THE AXIS OF EVIL- In his State of the Union speech President George W. Bush coined the term " The Axis of Evil". He labeled as charter members Iran, Iraq and North Korea. Iran is a Shiite religious theocracy, Iraq a Sunnite secular fascist dictatorship and North Korea an atheistic Communist state- all with nothing in common and little mutual contact. The speechwriter originally wrote "Axis of Hate" but the Bush people like the Good vs. Evil thing. They also substituted North Korea for Libya because they wanted one non-Muslim power included so they didn’t want to seem biased.

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Yesterday’s Question: The Medieval Kings of England like Richard the Lionhearted had painted on their shields and banners three lions rampant. Why three lions?

Answer: The Three Lions Passant Guardant first appeared on the shield of King Henry II, meaning the upper and lower states of Normandy and the Aquitaine. His son Richard the Lionhearted kept it with the Cross of St George ( Red cross on White) as the seal of England. 140 years later it was incorporated into the Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom with the Irish harp, The Red Lion of Scotland and the Welsh Griffin

Quiz: The Kings of England had painted on their shields and banners three lions rampant. Why three lions?

Yesterday’s quiz answered below: Who coined the phrase- …the better angels of our nature…?
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History for 1/28/2011
Birthdays: King Henry VII Tudor, Jose Marti, Colette, Jackson Pollack, Claus Oldenburg, Arthur Rubenstein, Ernst Lubitsch, Connie Rasinski, Susan Sontag, Alan Alda, Barbie Benton, General George Pickett, William Burroughs (1855) the inventor of the calculator, Mo Rocca, Elijah Wood is 31

1393- DANSE MACABRE- At a masquerade ball given at the French court King Charles VI 'the mad' and several of his closest friends dressed up as 'wild men' to amuse the court. They had fur and hair attached to their bodies with tar.

While everyone was enjoying the capering of these strange anonymous creatures a torch touched their tar covered bodies and the group exploded into flame. While the court watched these beings writhe in agony, one duchess screamed" Oh My God! That's the King!" King Charles was saved when that same duchess smothered his flames in her skirts and petticoats. Another duke saved himself by diving headlong into a vat of Beaujolais, but the others roasted to death.

The common people weren't sympathetic. One duke liked to step on your neck while sneering 'Down Peasant!". As his barbecued remains were carried through Paris, people laughed and sang 'Down M'Lord!" Edgar Allen Poe wrote a poem called “Hop Frog” about the incident, and Roger Corman put it into his 1964 film- Masque of the Red Death.

1547- English Henry VIII died, leaving his ten year-old sickly-son Edward VI "Gods Imp" king. He was 55 years old but his hard living had aged him early.

1596- Sir Francis Drake died at sea off the coast of Nicaragua while trying to mount one more big raid on the Spanish Main. The Devonshire preacher's son had raided there as a young man. But by now, the Spaniards had learned his tricks so they were prepared. The trip was a failure and he died on deck of yellow fever in late middle age.

1829- BURKE & HARE- In the early nineteenth century scientific experiments on cadavers were still outlawed as desecration of the dead so doctors secretly hired grave robbers to get them specimens to experiment on. Burke & Hare were the most infamous of Edinburgh's "ressurrectionists" because they didn't always wait for the subject to die, but murdered them in their boardinghouse. Doctors and later police became suspicious of the freshness of their specimens and Hare finked on Burke to save himself. On this day Burke was hanged before a crowd of thousands and his body later medically dissected. The notoriety of this case helped pass laws allowing doctors more legal use of mortal remains. Their story was the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson's story "The Body Snatcher."

1863- Ulysses Grant arrived at Vicksburg to begin the epic campaign that would end on July 4th with the capture of the 'Gibraltar of the Confederacy'. 1878- First commercial telephone switchboard.

1884- A British relief force reached the city of Khartoum just two days too late. After a one year siege the Sudanese Dervishes had sacked the city and massacred all the foreigners including General Chinese Gordon, dancing with their heads on spears. The desert relief force was held up until all their supplies were complete, including 20,000 black umbrellas.

1902- Andrew Carnegie was a rough crude tycoon with a ruthless streak that saw him ruin his competitors and pay vigilantes to murder his striking employees and their families. But after all the rough and tumble of the Gilded Age business world he showed a new side of his character in retirement. He set up the Carnegie Institute in Washington and resolved to give away the bulk of his $350 million dollar fortune in philanthropic causes like concert halls and orphanages. “A man who dies rich dies disgraced!”

1915- The U.S. Coast Guard born, combining the Lifesaving Service and the Revenue Cutter patrol. In 2002 the Coast Guard was folded into the Cabinet office Department of Homeland Security.
1916- President Woodrow Wilson nominated Judge Lewis Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Brandeis was the first Jewish American to be so honored.

1926- Composer Kurt Weill married his Pirate Jenny- Lotte Lenya.

1930- Warner Brothers Cartoons Born. Leon Schlesinger, the head of Pacific Art and Title, signed a deal with several unemployed Disney animators who had left Walt to form their own studio to draw Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, but had been stiffed by their contacts. Schlesinger had connections with the Warner Bros. since he helped them get funding for the 'Jazz Singer'. They create Leon Schlesinger's Studio Looney Toons, in imitation of Disney's Silly Symphonies. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and more result.

1949- The Admiral Broadway Review premiered on television. The one and a half hour comedy review starred Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca. The show was so popular Admiral was swamped for orders for new televisions and ironically was forced to cancel the show to focus on their production needs. The show was revived as Your Show of Shows, one of the great shows of early television.

1956- Young singer Elvis Presley first appeared to television audiences on the Dorsey Brothers Stage Show.

1978- Premiere of Hanna Barbera's the Three Robonic Stooges.

1982- Danny DeVito married Rhea Perlman.

1986- 25 years ago. THE CHALLENGER DISASTER- As the world watched the Space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after takeoff killing twelve crew members. They included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christie McAuliffe who had won the ride in a contest.. It was blamed on defective O-rings in the rocket booster.

2003- President George W. Bush in his State of the Union address says that he had proof that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had sent agents to the African nation of Niger to buy uranium yellowcake, a component to make atomic bombs. It is one of the major reasons that led to the war with Iraq.
When Senator Joe Wilson, who was an inspector in Africa, declared this proof a fiction, Vice President Cheney leaked to the media that Sen. Wilson’s wife Valerie Plane was a covert CIA agent.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who coined the phrase- …the better angels of our nature…?

Answered: President Abe Lincoln’s first inaugural (1861) ended with this phrase- We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.