April 25th, 2010 sun.
April 25th, 2010

Quiz: What doe these things have in common? A landau, a calache, a surrey and a Berlin?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What do these men have in common- Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans and Mongo Santamaria?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 4/25/2010
Birthdays: Roman emperor Otho -32ad, English King Edward II-1284, Oliver Cromwell-1599, Guiseppi Marconi, Edward R. Murrow, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Pacino is 68, Meadowlark Lemon, Talia Shire, Paul Mazursky, Hank Azaria, Rene Zellwellger is 40

TODAY is the feast of the Roman god ROBIGUS, god of Rust and Mildew.

It is also the part of the Festival of Venus for the male prostitutes of Rome to celebrate. It’s Raining Men!!

404BC- ATHENS SURRENDERED TO SPARTA- After the victory of Aegespotamoi, Spartan General Lysander had the Long Walls of Athens torn down to the sound of flutes. It ended the Peloponnesian War and the Athenian dominance of Greece. Lysander had delayed the surrender at one point to allow for the funeral procession of old Sophocles the playwright to move between the lines. Spartan domination of Greece was short lived. They were defeated by a coalition led by Epaminondas of Thebes. In 323 Macedonian armies led by Alexander the Great’s father Phillip crushed all resistance to his uniting Greece under Macedonian rule. The Spartans were renowned for their military prowess but were also reputed to be the worst cooks in the Ancient World –their favorite dish was Spartan Black Broth. Writers said most Spartan men sought death on the battlefield so they may avoid going home for dinner.

799AD- Pope Leo III was attacked by a Roman mob. He was beaten up and he had to hide in a monastery until Frankish King Charlemagne came to rescue him.

It is also the FEAST OF ST. MARK- the evangelist whose mummy was smuggled by Venetian traders out of Moslem held Egypt in a case of pig fat in 981 A.D. Venetian clerics later made up a great story to justify the act. St. Mark was rowing a boat in the marshes where Venice would one day stand. Suddenly God appeared to him and said: "Pax Tibi Marce, Evangalista Meus- Tues Corpus Reposituam." "Peace be with you Mark, my Evangelist, here your bones will lay".(after the pig fat) You see this inscription on most Venetian stuff, along with the saint’s symbol, a winged lion.. The Italians returned his bones to Egypt in the 1970’s. So the gold sarcophagus people file past in the Basilica of San Marco is now empty.

1185- Battle of Dan-no--mura. Epic Japanese sea battle when legendary warlord Minamoto Yuritomo defeated the Taira Clan.

1684- The Thimble invented!

1719- The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe first published.

1792-THE NATIONAL RAZOR- Highwayman and murderer Nicholas Pelletier becomes the first man guillotined. Dr. Guillotine’s invention was considered a more humane way to kill a person than breaking on the wheel, which was the way of execution in France of lowborn malefactors. Ironically in the memoirs of the court executioner Charles Samson it is alleged that no less than King Louis XVI himself suggested the distinctive angled blade in place of a semicircular one. The King would discover for himself it’s killing power the following January. Contrary to myth Dr. Guillotine didn't die by his own device, he died in bed of old age. During World War Two the Nazis added their own personal touch, turning the victim on his back so he could watch the blade come down. The last man guillotined was in 1977.

1792- A captain from Arras named Roget du Lilse writes a patriotic song for his Marseille regiment . LA MARSEILLAISE is sung for the first time in Strasbourg. It became the French National Anthem and one of the most stirring revolutionary hymns ever sung. In 1986 French first lady Mrs. Francois Mitterand tried to get the more bloodthirsty parts of the song re-written but failed. Aux Armes Citoyens!

1850- Paul Julius de Reuter used 40 carrier pigeons to carry stock market prices between Paris and London. He went on to form Reuters, the first international news agency.

1859- First sand dug for the Suez Canal. It took ten years to finish. It’s been estimated that maybe as many as 100,000 Egyptian peasants died while digging. Egyptian sources said every family in the country wound up mourning a father, husband or a son. Ever since that time black became the traditional costume of women in Egypt.

1862- Union superior General William Henry Halleck rewarded Ulysses Grant for his victory at Shiloh by having him removed from command. Halleck was an administrator and intellectual who translated books on Napoleon’s tactics. He was nicknamed Old Brains. But in command of armies he was a loser. After the rebels made him look stupid at the siege of Corinth Lincoln put Grant back in command.

1865- Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Grant left Joe Johnston commanding the second largest army of Southern troops, still facing Sherman in North Carolina. After several meetings and confused negotiations this day Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered General Johnston to resume fighting and fall back towards Texas. Johnston like Lee felt any further bloodshed was now pointless. He chose to ignore his President and accept Sherman’s surrender terms.
Joe Johnston’s modern descendent Joe Johnston IV, is a Hollywood film director who made "Honey I Shrank the Kids" and "Jurassic Park III".

1886- The New York Times attacks the outcry among American union workers for an 8-hour workday (the norm then was 12) as: A Seditious, riotous notion that would collapse the American economy and lead to sloth, drunkenness and debauchery. It was probably the work of foreign extremists." The eight-hour day doesn’t become a norm in America until 1913 (in animation until 1941) and is still under attack today.

1898- THE US DECLARED WAR ON SPAIN Teddy Roosevelt had his uniform tailor-made by Brooks Brothers in New York. Secretary of War John Hays (who was once Abe Lincoln's secretary) called it: "A splendid little War' It was the first time men from all the states would come together since the Civil War. Eyewitnesses were amazed that all the old regional anger was gone

1901- New York State became the first to require automobiles to show license plates.

1915- ANZAC DAY- At Gallipoli, the Australian and New Zealand regiments rise from their trenches, and charged headlong into the massed Turkish guns, to achieve death and glory, and not much else. The Peter Weir movie Gallipoli staring a young Mel Gibson dramatized the event.

1926- Giacomo Puccini's last opera Turnadot premiered in Milan. Puccini died before it's completion so students had to finish the work based on the masters notes. Conductor Arturo Toscanini put down his baton at the beginning of the Third Act, turned to the audience and said:" Here is where the Maestro died." He then left the podium and let another finish the performance.

1928- The German shepherd named Buddy became the first seeing-eye dog for the blind.

1945-U.S. Army advancing from Normandy and the Soviet Army advancing since Stalingrad finally meet each other at the Elbe River in Germany.

1956- Elvis Presley’s song Heartbreak Hotel goes to #1 in the pop charts.

1970- Policeman Frank Serpico’s story of rampant corruption in the NYPD explodes on the pages of the New York Times. The practices of decades of graft are exposed by the Knapp Commission and the police commissioner and several captains resign in disgrace.
Serpico’s story was made into a famous film starring Al Pacino.

1972- Witty, urbane actor George Sanders ( All About Eve, Samson & Delilah, Sher Khan in Jungle Book) had turned age 65. He complained he had been famous and rich and was not looking forward to old age and having a nurse wipe his bottom. So he committed suicide and left a witty, urbane note. "Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored. Adieu, I leave you with your worries in this sweet cesspool."

1981- Dixie, the oldest living mouse known, died at age 6 1/2.

1982- In accordance with the Camp David Peace Accord, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, turning over the resort port of Sharm El Sheik, which returned to Egypt.

1996-"Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk" opened on Broadway.

-------------------------------------------------------
Yesterdays Question: What do these men have in common- Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans and Mongo Santamaria?

Answer: They were all legendary jazz musicians.


April 24th, 2010 sat
April 23rd, 2010

Quiz: What do these men have in common- Charles Mingus, Dexter Gordon, Bill Evans and Mongo Santamaria?

Yesterday’s Answer below: When an orchestra has a woodwind section, what instruments does that mean?
-------------------------------------------------
History for 4/24/2010
Birthdays: Daniel Defoe, William de Kooning, St. Vincent de Paul, Morgan Earp, Shirley McLaine, Jack E. Leonard, Dame Ethel Smyth, Jill Ireland, Eric Bogosian, Sue Grafton, Robert Penn Warren, Barbera Streisand is 68, Cedric the Entertainer

1184 B.C.(est.)- TROY FALLS TO THE GREEKS- Despite the warnings of Cassandra and Laocoon the Trojans pull Ulysses' great horse into the city and at night the Greeks climb out and open the city gates to destruction. The reason we have any estimated date for this is this was the day the Romans celebrated a festival commemorating this event.
Conventional wisdom was always that Troy was a myth until Heinrich Schleimann found it in the 1800’s. The Romans loved a myth of their own origin that they were descended from the Trojan refugees led to Italy by the hero Aeneas. This seemed way more cool than being a grubby little Latin tribe who got their act together ahead of their neighbors.
They loved this myth so much that in 218 B.C. when the legions of Publius Scipio Asiaticus marched into Turkey to make war on Antipater the king of Syria, they paused first to go to the plains of Illium (the field where Troy once stood).
There the writer Livy states" The grim warriors embraced and wept aloud like babes, for after countless generations, the children of Troy had come home at last."

1584- Japanese Shogun Hideyoshi Toyotomi ordered the Heii Shrine in Edo (Tokyo) to dedicate a new heraldic design - the red disc Asahi - Rising Sun flag is created.

1800- The U.S. Congress set up the Library of Congress. By 1814 it had three thousand volumes, but they were destroyed when a British Army burned Washington. Thomas Jefferson then donated his own private library to restart the collection. Today it numbers in the millions of volumes.

1833- The Soda Fountain is patented.

1861- The minister of the independent German citystate of Bremen, Johann Schlieben, offered his services to Abraham Lincoln to open shuttle diplomacy with the rebellious Confederate States. He carried a message or two between Washington and Richmond. Eventually Lincoln told him thanks but no thanks. Blood had been shed and the flag insulted; it was too late for negotiations...Similar offers of mediation by a delegation of Virginia moderates led by former President John Tyler were also refused.

1874- Jesse James married Miss Zerelda Mimms who he called Z.

1901-The First American League baseball game. The Cleveland Blues vs. the Chicago White Stockings.

1913- The Woolworth Building was dedicated in lower New York. It’s cornices decorated like the campanile of Saint Marks in Venice. At the time it was the tallest skyscraper in the world. President Woodrow Wilson illuminated its electric lights by flipping a switch long distance in the White House.

1933-Ub Iwerk's "Fiddlesticks" the first Flip the Frog cartoon, done in a simple two-color process. Iwerks was the first designer and animator of Mickey Mouse, who had left Walt Disney to open his own studio.

1945- As the Russian Army approached the center of Berlin, Adolf Hitler gathered his remaining staff in his bunker deep under the ReichsChancellery. He told his people that all was lost and that they should escape the city as best they could. Most decided to stay and began discussions on how to commit suicide. The Fuehrer himself lapsed into apathy. His secretary recalled seeing Hitler sitting quietly in a hallway, cradling a puppy in his lap, rocking back and forth, staring off hollow-eyed.

1949- The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) formed.

1948- The Chinese Communists under their leader Mao ZseDong and their generals Chu Teh and Lin Piao began their final push to conquer all of China.

1954- Handsome English actor Peter Lawford married John F. Kennedy’s sister Patricia Kennedy. This union would give JFK his link to Hollywood, Frank Sinatra and the RatPack.

1961- First day of shooting on the film King of Kings, the Christ story starring Jeffrey Hunter. Called by one critic” I was a Teenage Jesus” . In 1966 Jeffrey Hunter turned down a TV series after doing the pilot episode. His wife worried that he’d be typecast. The role of Star Trek’s Captain Kirk, it went instead went to William Shatner.

1967- Soviet Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov became the first acknowledged fatality in the conquest of Space, when the parachute of his re-entering capsule got snarled and he fell four miles to Earth.

1980- After months of fruitless negotiations to get the U.S. hostages held in the American Embassy in Teheran freed, President Jimmy Carter tried force. A Delta Force of eight helicopters met at their staging area in the Iranian desert. Once there it was discovered three of the helicopters had mechanical problems and they had fallen badly behind schedule so the mission was scrapped. As they were leaving one of the helicopters crashed into a transport plane killing 8 soldiers. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance resigned in protest. No more military adventures were planned and the Iran Hostage Crisis dragged on throughout 1980. The hostages were released in January 1981.

1981- Small companies like Apple and Commodore had dominated the personal computer market while giants like IBM stuck with large business systems. Now IBM weighed in with The IBM PC –personal computer, with basic software language DOS provided by Microsoft. It soon came to dominate the market.

1983- THE HITLER DIARIES HOAX- Gerd Heideman, a top correspondent for Germany’s top magazine Die Stern was contacted by a mysterious Professor Fischer that he had in his possession the long lost personal diary of Adolph Hitler. Heidemann was an eccentric who collected fascist memorabilia like Herman Goerings yacht and a pair of Idi Amin’s underwear! Fischer sold him the Hitler diary manuscripts for $4 million. \\

After Heidemann got British Historian Sir Hugh Trevor Roper and several handwriting analysts to declare them genuine, the Hitler Diaries went public in Die Stern and Rupert Murdoch’s London Times. When Sir Hugh began to express doubts over the authenticity of the diary, Times mogul Rupert Murdoch reacted in typical fashion: ”F**k him. I’m in the entertainment business!” This day a Bonn laboratory declared the diaries high quality but completely phony. Professor Fischer was actually an art forger named Konrad Kujau who knew suckers when he saw them. He had an expensive girlfriend and wife to keep so he was writing the diaries in his garage on 1940’s vintage paper and ink.

Careers were ruined and everyone looked pretty stupid. Even when they were all in jail, Gerd Heidemann refused to believe the truth. Konrad Kujau sent him a letter in Hitler’s handwriting admitting he did the forgery.

1984- David Kennedy, the eldest son of Robert Kennedy, was found dead in his hotel room of a drug overdose. As a child he had watched his father assassinated on live television and had never recovered. He was a drug addict by 15 and dead at 28.

1990-The Hubble Space Telescope was carried into orbit by the Space Shuttle Challenger.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: When an orchestra has a woodwind section, what instruments does that mean?

Answer: Instruments that require the blowing through a reed to make music- Clarinets, Oboes, Bassoons, Saxophones and flutes. Even though the flute does not use a reed, it used to be made of wood, so , close enough..


April 23, 2010 friday
April 23rd, 2010

Question: When an orchestra has a woodwind section, what instruments does that mean?

Yesterday’s question answered below: In Variety-speak, what company is called The Eye?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 4/23/2010
Birthdays: William Shakespeare, President James Buchanan, Sergei Prokoviev, J.M.W. Turner, Vladimir Nabokov, Senator Stephen Douglas the Little Giant, Shirley Temple is 81, Roy Orbison, Halston, Sandra Dee,Valerie Bertinelli, Lee Majors is 70, Judy Davis, Simone Simon, Michael Sporn, Tony Esposito, Michael Moore is 56, Herve Villechaise- da plane!da plane!

This was the ancient Roman Feast of the Vinalia, the feast of the first grapevine plantings.

This is the Feast of St. George.- George of Nicomedia was a native of Illyria (Croatia) who went up to the Emperor Diocletian’s palace and tore up his edict banning Christianity. Then Diocletian had George torn up. In the old tradition of borrowing from pagan myths, the Coptic Christian monks took from the Ancient Egyptian religion the famous battle between Horus and his evil uncle Seth, God of Sandstorms, often represented in temple art as a weird dragon-like animal.

1014- BATTLE OF CLONTARF- Irish High King Brian Boru defeated the Vikings and drove them from Ireland. Boru himself was too elderly to fight, so he was praying in a church when a renegade group of Danes surrounded the church and set it on fire.
Oh well, at least he won...

1348- The Order of the Garter created in England.

1374- The King of England grants the writer Geoffrey Chaucer a pot of wine daily for the rest of his life. What more could a writer ask for !

1500- Explorer Pedro Cabral claimed Brazil for Portugal.

1538- Protestant theologian John Calvin was asked to leave his ministry in Geneva for being, uhh, well.. too Puritan. Geneva went party wild. Two years later the city fathers called Calvin back to clean up the town.

1616-After a night out partying with Ben Johnson, John Draydon and other old buddies from Ye Old Mermaid Tavern, William Shakespeare caught a fever and died on his fifty second birthday.

1746-THE GLASS HARMONICON- German composer Johann Christoph Witobald Gluck had premiered his first opera La Caduta de Giganti in London to weak box office . Today he hit it rich by playing an entire concerto on twenty-six drinking glasses with water raised to different levels to effect the pitch. He played it by rubbing his fingers along the rims. The crowd went wild. Another triumph of musical taste.

1784- Congress adopted Thomas Jefferson’s plan to extend government to territories west of the Appalachian Mountains but reject his suggestion that ten states be organized with classical names like Metropotamia and Polypotamia. Some of his suggestions for Indian names like Michigania and Illinoia sounded better however.

1789- President-elect George Washington and Martha move in to their temporary U.S. capitol of New York City. Traveling from Virginia up to New York every town he passed through greeted him with huge parades and celebrations. When moving through Philadelphia the artist John Singleton Copley had designed a triumphal arch that as Washington moved under it sprang a strange mechanical device that plopped a gold laurel wreath on his head. Annoyed, the startled statesman tore it off.

1867- William Lincoln patents the zoetrope, an optical toy predating motion pictures..

1896-THE FIRST PROJECTED MOVIES IN THE U.S.- The first projection of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope film by means of Thomas Armat’s Vitascope at Koster & Bials Music Hall on 28th street and Broadway in New York City.. Edison had to be nagged into this by his engineer W.K.L. Dickson. Edison thought projecting movies like the Lumiere Brothers were doing in Europe would never catch on and the future of film was nickelodeon machines. The movie show featured the sultry Annabella the Dancer and a boxing match, but the real hit of the evening was footage of Waves Hitting the Rocks on Shore, which made people instinctively duck to keep from getting wet.

1900- A celebration held in Russian Georgia was addressed by a young revolutionary who had been expelled from the Tiflis Theological Seminary where he was studying to become a priest. Josef Dzugashvili was later encouraged by other revolutionaries to change his name so the Czar’s police wouldn’t pick up his family. He changed his name to Man of Steel- Josef Stalin.

1903- The first game of the New York Highlanders (later Yankees) baseball team. They defeated the Washington Senators, 7-2.

1942-The Baedecker Raids- In reprisal for an allied bombing raid on Lubeck the German Luftwaffe began bombing medieval English cities like Norwich and Canterbury based on their rating in the Baedecker Tourist guidebooks. If a place got three or more stars it got bombed.

1951 -Comedian Lenny Bruce was arrested for a stunt where he dressed as a priest and solicited funds in a leper colony.

1971- Vietnam veterans protest the continued U.S. presence in the war by ceremoniously returning their medals, in some cases tossing them over the White House fence. One angry soldier who tossed his medals was future Democratic Senator John Kerry. Meanwhile Lt. George W. Bush was in the Texas Air Guard, tossing his cookies.

1985- Coca Cola introduces New Coke. It's reception by the public is so overwhelmingly bad that the company returned to the original formula 90 days later. The chairman of rival Pepsi Cola exulted: " We've been eye to eye for decades and I think the other guy's just blinked ! New Coke became a symbol for large scale executive incompetence,

1998- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates introduced Windows 98 to a 4,000 industry leaders. When he ceremonially opened the first window, the system immediately crashed-.Doh!

2003- Boston area Catholic priests began to get busted for child molestation and the coverup by the Archdiocese was exposed. One priest, a Father Shayne was a registered member of the Man-Boy Love Society (NAMBLA). Outraged parishioners demanded the resignation of their Cardinal Bernard Law. Instead, Cardinal Law was recalled to Rome were he was made pastor of the Church of Maria Maggiore. Pope Benedict XVI is in hot water today over the world-wide Priest molestation problem.

2005- The first You-Tube video was uploaded- Me At the Zoo.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s question answered below: : In Variety-speak, what company is called The Eye?

Answer: CBS TV.


April 22,2010 thurs
April 22nd, 2010

Quiz: In Variety-speak, what company is called The Eye?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Is Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome really built over the grave of the Apostle Peter?
--------------------------------------------_________
History for 4/22/2010
Birthdays: Queen Isabella I of Castille, Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, Immanuel Kant, Madame De Stael , Alexander Kerensky, Arron Spelling, Eddie Albert, Glen Cambell, Betty Page, Marylin Chambers, Charlie Mingus, Peter Frampton, John Waters, Jack Nicholson is 73

Happy 40th Anniversary of Earth Day (see below- 1970)

753 B.C.-Founding of Rome by Romulus and Remus. The Romans counted time from this foundation date. So A.D. 1 to them was 754 AUC or Anno Urbis Conditae- from the "Founding of the City". So this year 2010 is 2,764 AUC.

1741- Georg Frederich Handel dipped his quill into ink and began to write the Messiah.

1769- Madame DuBarry officially presented at the French Court. King Louis XV’s earlier mistresses like Madame La Pompadour were women of breeding and culture. But DuBarry was a saucy little trollop who had already schtupped most of the men of the court. When the Duc d’ Richelieu asked Louis what he saw in this vulgar new toy His Majesty replied:" She makes me forget that I shall soon be sixty."

1778- THE CONWAY CABAL- During the American Revolution, a conspiracy (or cabal) of colonial officers led by an Irish immigrant Major Conway and former Washington aide Thomas Mifflin plotted behind George Washington's back to get Congress to replace him for being incompetent. Their choice for command of the American army was the victor of Saratoga, General Gage, who's career was undistinguished other than that one battle. The plot was exposed and Conway made to resign. Washington stayed the symbol of the American war effort even though he lost more battles than won.

1811- Last of the Parthenon Marbles pried off their walls in Greece and sent back to England on a British frigate. Lord Byron was on board and called Lord Elgin, the supervisor of this act, "The Spoiler". Today the marbles are still at the British Museum and the Greeks are still mad about it.

1836-GENERAL SANTA ANNA the Dictator of Mexico was captured after the Battle of San Jacinto and brought to Texas Gen. Sam Houston. Santa Anna was disguised in peasants clothes but when brought into the Anglo camp the Mexican prisoners gave him away by cheering El Presidente! Santa Anna was suffering from nervous exhaustion so Houston offered him some of his opium. ( Houston was one of the great alcoholic drug addicts of U.S. History ) As they sat puffing under a tree Santa Anna said to Houston: " Great is the destiny of the man who can defeat the Napoleon of the West!" Everyone (including many Mexicans) wanted to kill the man who massacred the Alamo, but Houston used him as a hostage to draw off the large Mexican armies still in Texas. Not only did Santa Anna get released unhurt, but ten years later the U.S. Government even covertly helped him regain power in Mexico. .

1876- Composer Peter Tschaikowsky completed his score for the ballet Swan Lake.

1889-At noon on the signal of a cannon shot The Great Oklahoma Land Rush began. The town of Oklahoma City was set up in one day-population 10,000. The settlers who slipped in early were nicknamed Sooners and Oklahoma became known as the Sooner State. This eats up the remains of the land of the Cherokee Nation, who once owned all of Georgia, the Carolinas and Alabama. The Cherokee kept their land in common, which to U.S. Senator Henry Cabot Lodge was their downfall: "The Cherokee possess many attributes except Greed, which we all know is the basis for Civilization."

1898- Teddy Roosevelt formed the First US Volunteer Cavalry, called the Rough Riders. It was a curious mix of Teddys' personal tastes- Harvard bluebloods and polo champions mixed with rough western cowboys and rodeo stars.

1906- In earthquake destroyed San Francisco, one day after the last of the fires were declared officially out, the Market Street cable car began running once more.

1915- Second Battle of Ypres- First use of poison gas on Western front battlefields. German Jewish Dr. Fritz Hauber and friend of Albert Einstein, was convinced his experiments to create poison gas would win wars. He ran from battlefield to battlefield ensuring it was being used correctly. At this time his wife committed suicide. The Chlorine clouds did cause a huge panic in the British ranks, that opened the way to Paris, but the German generals were too cautious to follow up their surprise and the Canadians fought fiercely to close the gap. Although they had no gas masks, a quick thinking Canadian doctor ordered his men to urinate into their own handkerchiefs, then tie it around their faces. Although exceedingly gross, the ammonia counteracted the gas enabling them to fight on.

1916- THE IRISH EASTER SUNDAY UPRISING -Patrick Pearse, Richard Connolly, Michael Collins, Eamon De Valera and followers seize the O'Connell Street post office in downtown Dublin and proclaim the Irish Republic. After furious gunbattles with British troops diverted from the World War I battlefields the rebellion is put down. All the ringleaders were executed, Connolly was so badly wounded that they had to prop up his stretcher before the firing squad and pinch his cheeks so he'd be awake for his death. Future Irish President Eamon De Valera pleaded his U.S. citizenship to escape execution. The Irish people in the majority hadn't wholly supported the futile rising, but ironically the fierce police crackdown had the effect of arousing sympathy for their cause and sparked the major IRA campaigns in the 20's and eventual liberty.

1922- Albert the Duke of York married Scottish socialite Lady Elizabeth Beaux-Lyons. Bertie was shy and had a speech impediment and it took him three proposals before she said yes. The Archbishop of Canterbury refused to allow a live radio broadcast of the marriage ceremony for fear it would be broadcast in pubs where uncouth men would not doff their hats. What Bertie and Elizabeth couldn’t know would be in 1936 Berties older brother Edward VIII would abdicate and they become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. After her husband died in 1952 and her daughter Elizabeth ascended the throne the Queen Mum lived on, finally dying at age 101 in 2002.

1934- In Little Bohemia Hunting Lodge in Wisconsin Public Enemy No.1 John Dillinger shot his way out of a FBI ambush. The FBI not only failed to stop Dillinger, they shot an innocent bystander who got caught in the crossfire.

1940- Writer Ernest Hemingway cabled his editor Max Perkins from Havana about a new novel he was writing.-" Title is "For Whom the Bell Tolls" from passage John Donne Oxford Book of English bottom page seventy one STOP Please register immediately."

1945- While the Red Army was attacking the outskirts of Berlin, Adolph Hitler sent away to the south his personal belongings and files in a final Luftwaffe flight of ten planes. One plane was shot down carried some of his most private possessions. Hitler called it a catastrophe. What was in that plane that he valued so much? See April 24th about the infamous Hitler Diary 1983 hoax. It’s a mystery to this day.

1954- THE ARMY–McCARTHY HEARINGS began. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s Senate committee chasing communists in the government had finally bit off more than it could chew when it took on the U.S. Army. Sparked by the drafting of Private G. David Shine, a young crony (and possibly lover ) of chief counsel Roy Cohn, a hearing was held to investigate Senator’s McCarthy’s charges that the Secretary of the Army and several other top Pentagon officers were in reality Russian spies. After a short time the hearing evolved from an indictment of the army into a probe of Senator McCarthy’s red baiting tactics. It lasted for three months and spellbound the nation on live t.v. At one point Senator McCarthy submitted a note that the television cameras be turned off for a minute so he could wipe his nose. After one heated session Roy Cohn and Robert Kennedy had to be separated or they would’ve come to blows. Finally under the withering voice of Joseph Walsh "Senator, have you no shred of decency?!" McCarthy was finished as a political force.

1970- The first Earth Day. The idea was started by Senator Gaylord Nelson as a Teach-In to bring attention to environmental issues.

1978- Comic actors Dan Ackroyd and John Belushi debut two new characters on the Saturday Night Live TV show, Joliet Jake and Ellwood Blues. The Blues Brothers are born.

1996- Christopher Robin Milne dies at age 75. The young boy who’s fascination with a bear in the London Zoo called Winnie inspired his father A.A. Milne to write the Winne the Pooh stories. Christopher Robin wasn’t always appreciative of all the attention. He said of his father: "Someday I’ll write some verses about him and see how He likes it!"

2000- The estranged wife of Mr Juan Gonzales of Cuba had grabbed their son Elian and tried to escape by boat to the United States. The wife and her lover drowned in the attempt but little 6 year old Elian survived and became a cause–celebre of the Cuban exile community in Miami. But Mr. Gonzales had come from Havanna to get his son back. Back in Havana Fidel Castro had a ball making political hay out of the Yankee Imperialistas stealing children from their parents. Finally after months of media circus US marshals under orders of Attorney General Janet Reno raid forcibly grabbed Elian Gonzales from his uncles home and gave him back to his father. His father pledged:" I want no one to ever stick a camera in my son’s face again!"

2004- Pat Tillman was a football star who gave up a lucrative future in the NFL to fight for his country. This day Tillman was killed by friendly fire in Afghanistan. The Pentagon played up his heroism, while lying to his grieving family and burning his diary.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Is Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome really built over the grave of the Apostle Peter??

Answer: In the 1960s there were excavations in the basilica’s sub basement that uncovered an ancient Roman cemetery. One sepulcher had an inscription that read “ THIS IS SIMON-PETER”. But we had to wait a few years for the news, because the Jesuit Priest who found the inscription chiseled it off and kept it on his bookshelf as a souvenir.


APRIL 21ST, 2010 WED
April 21st, 2010

Quiz: Is Saint Peter’s basilica in Rome really built over the grave of the Apostle Peter?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why was Adolf Hitler nicknamed Schickelgruber?
--------------------------------------------------------------
History for 4/21/2010
Birthdays: Edwin S. Porter, Charlotte Bronte', John Muir, Freiderich Froebel the inventor of kindergarten-1782, Anthony Quinn, Patti Lupone, Iggy Pop, Charles Grodin, Anna Mangnani. Andie MacDowell is 52, Tony Danza, Elaine May is 78, Queen Elizabeth II is 84

Happy Palilia- Roman festival of the rustic god "Pales" for whom the Palatine Hill in Rome was named.

1526-The First Battle of Panipat. Mogul Emperor Babur defeated the Indian army of Ibrahim Lodi and took Delhi. This established the Moghul Empire in India. Babur’s army fought with Mongol bows, elephants and he introduced cannon to India.

1831- NAT TURNER'S REBELLION- The most serious slave revolt in the South before the Civil War. Using an eclipse as a sign from heaven, Turner and 75 other slaves turned on their masters, and went on a rampage through Virginia. It took 3,000 troops to crush them. Turner was taken and hanged, defiant to the end. Nat Turner’s Rebellion hardened opinions of both pro and anti-slavery groups in the U.S, and accelerated the slide towards civil war.

1836-BATTLE OF SAN JACINTO-. After chasing Sam Houston’s men across Texas almost to the Louisiana border, General Santa Anna thought so little of these rag-tag gringo rebels that he no longer bothered to post sentries. When the Texans attacked at 1:00PM, the Mexican army was having it's afternoon siesta. General Santa Anna was bedded down with his mistress he called his Yellow Rose, the origin of the song Yellow Rose of Texas. Suddenly Houston's wild frontiersmen, filled with rage over the massacres of the Alamo and Goliad rushed into the Mexican camp and routed them. After the battle Houston couldn't restrain the Texans from killing running fugitives, and even scalping some. Santa Anna was captured and forced to sign a peace.
Twenty years later during the Civil War, Sam Houston resigned the Texas governorship over his opposition to the Confederacy. He was once stopped by a Johnny Reb sentry and asked who authorized him to pass that way. Old Sam Houston thundered: "Go to San Jacinto and see by what right I can travel in Texas!"

1847- The 4th rescue team removed the last survivors of the Donner Party wagon train from their snowed in camp on Lake Truckee in the Sierras down to the settlement on the Sacramento River. A furious winter trapped the Donners in the mountains last Oct 31st with almost no food and all their oxen dead. Of 86 pioneers 41 died and the others ate the dead to survive. Louis Keyesburg, the only settler who spoke openly of eating human flesh and was called a ghoul, moved to Sacramento and opened a restaurant.

1865- President Lincoln’s funeral train left Washington DC for the long trip back to Springfield Ill.

1911- LENIN WANTS A LIBRARY CARD. Russian communist revolutionary Nikolai Lenin was living in exile in London. In a letter dated this day he applied to the British Museum Library collection to study it's documents. His letter was in perfect English and he signed his name under the pseudonym Jacob Richter.


1910- ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO- Mark Twain died of congenital heart failure at 75 as Haley's comet appeared overhead. He once wrote: " When arriving in Heaven feel free to ask all the questions you want of Saint Peter. You may ask for his autograph, however don’t take any Kodak photos or bring your dog. Admittance to Heaven is based on favor, not merit, else the dog would be allowed to go in and you kept out."

1915- THE FIRST GALLIPOLI LANDINGS- This was young First Sea Lord Winston Churchill's idea to knock Turkey out of World War One. A British-Anzac force amphibiously landed on the beaches south of Constantinople to capture the enemy capitol. It turned into one of the biggest British fiascos of the war and knocked Churchill into resignation. The army of Gen. Ian Hamilton did surprise the Turks but then they sat on the beaches for weeks while reinforcements were brought up by a dynamic young Turkish General named Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, who would later become President of Turkey.

1918-THE RED BARON SHOT DOWN- In the wild duels in the air above the World War One trenches Baron Manfred Von Richtofen was the best of the best. The Red Knight had shot down more planes than anyone -80 confirmed. When other squadrons were disguising their planes with the new camouflage paints ("cubism gone to war"-Picasso), Richtofen had his men paint their planes bright colors to show their contempt of the enemy, hence the name-"the Flying Circus".
On this day, Richtofen got onto the tail of one plane and was about to add #81, when Canadian Roy Brown got behind him and filled the back of his plane with machinegun bullets. Mortally wounded, The baron still managed to land his red fokker triplane before slumping over dead. Baron von Richtofen was 26. The plane was later torn to pieces by Australian soldiers seeking souvenirs. Recent scholarship argues he was killed by Australian ground fire, but Brown got the credit.. Roy Brown couldn't handle his celebrity status and committed suicide after the war. For the remainder of the war, Baron von Richtofen's staffel (squadron) was led by a young pilot named Herman Goring.

1921- The Coconut Grove nightclub opened in Hollywood.

1938- Disney animator Bill Tytla married artists model Adrienne LeClerc.

1960- Brazil moved it’s capitol from Rio De Janiero to Brasilia, a modern architects fantasy built in the middle of the jungle.

1961- Two groups of British teenage rock bands meet each other for the first time- The Beatles met the Rolling Stones.

1964- British TV viewers double their pleasure- BBC 2 goes on the air. Their first program is Play School.

1975- As North Vietnamese armies roll towards his capitol South Vietnamese President Nygun Van Thieu resigned and went into exile. The Roman Catholic French-educated Thieu tearfully blamed America for the defeat. Vice President Ngyen Kao Key moved to Orange County Cal and opened a convenience store.

1989- Oil executive George W. Bush became part of a ownership consortium that bought the last place baseball team the Texas Rangers." As soon as I knew they were for sale I went after them like a pit bull on a pants leg….It doesn’t get much better than this…"

1997-The first Intergalactic Funeral. The ashes of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and 1960's drug guru Dr. Timothy Leary were shot into space.

2000- Scientists discovered the fossilized heart of a dinosaur in South Dakota. It had four chambers and an aorta like a mammal. This all but proved that dinosaurs were not reptiles but warm blooded. Later it was proven that all they found was an oddly shaped rock.
------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Why was Adolf Hitler nicknamed Schickelgruber?

Answer: Hitler’s father had died while he was 13, and his mother went back to her maiden name- Clara Schickelgruber. So for a time the family was known by that.


RSS