Quiz: When King Charles III referred to the boarding school in Scotland his father made him go to, he described it as “Colditz in kilts”. What does that mean?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What or where is Elysium?
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History for 9/23/2022
Birthdays: Euripides-484BC, Victoria Woodhull, Walter Lippmann, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Mickey Rooney, Julio Inglesias, Walter Pidgeon, Louise Nevelson, Jason Alexander, Mary Kay Place, Harry Connick Jr, Bruce Springsteen is 73, William McGuffey*

*McGuffey was the educator and author of "the McGuffey Readers", a standard public school textbook so successful, that by 1860 the U.S. had an 80% literacy rate.

480BC- THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS- Themistocles and the Athenian fleet defeated the giant armada of Xerxes the Great King of Persia and threw back his invasion. Xerxes was so angry he had his top Phoenician captains beheaded. This battle assured the Golden Age of Greek culture would flourish uninterrupted with democratic Athens at its’ center. The playwright Aeschylus fought in the ranks and Sophocles led the chorus of nude boys dancing and singing in the victory celebrations. Themistocles laid the foundation for Athenian power by insisting she build a large navy rather than an army and concentrate on trade rather than territorial conquest. But Themistocles liked to make money too, and used his offices to pad his fortune, which eventually got him exiled. But not before in another moment of originality he set himself up histories’ first known foreign bank account as a private slush fund.

480BC- Greek Chronicles tell us that also on this same day Glycon of Syracuse defeated the huge Carthaginian army of Hamilcar and saved Sicily for Greece. Hamilcar spent the battle burning up animal sacrifices to the Gods for good omens. When he saw he was losing Hamilcar threw himself on the fire. Not a bad solution, because the Carthage custom was to crucify generals who lost.

1326- Queen Isabella the "She-Wolf of France" and her lover Edmund Mortimer invade England to overthrow her openly out husband, King Edward II. Sounds like a soap opera, doesn't it?

1568- English merchantman John Hawkins and his 3 slave trading ship were blown by a hurricane into the harbor of San Juan de Ulua, the staging area for the treasure fleets that carry the gold of Peru to Spain. The Spanish and English worked out a temporary peace but on this day the Spanish Viceroy ordered his men to attack and kill the English heretics. Two ships got away, and one carried a young clergyman's son from Devon who from then on nursed a lifelong grudge - Francis Drake.

1642- The first commencement ceremony at Harvard College.

1779- "I HAVE NOT YET BEGUN TO FIGHT !" Captain John Paul Jones on the U.S.S. BonHomme Richard defeated the larger British H.M.S. Serapis in an epic sea battle off of Cape Falmouth, England. The two ships grappled each other side by side, pounded away with heavy cannon and fought hand-to-hand. The ships were so close that men could jump through the gun portals from one ship to another. At one point Bonhomme Richard was burning from stem to stern, sinking and all her guns out of action. But John Paul Jones refused to give up. The American crew thought their pint-sized Scots captain had lost his mind. When gunnery Ensign Grubb attempted to haul down the Stars & Stripes, Jones knocked him down with a pistol butt. English Captain Pearson overheard Jones arguing with his officers, and called aloud "Sir, do you strike your colors, sir?" That is when John Paul Jones shouted his famous retort: "I have not yet begun to fight!"

To make matters worse, the other American ship in the area the USS Alliance was manned by a jealous captain named Launnay. He ordered a broadside fired into the Bonhomme Richard! Launnay hoped that by helping the English kill Jones, he could then finish them off and take all the credit for the victory. Jones personally ran over to a ten pounder cannon whose crew had been killed, loaded it and fired it himself, bringing down the Serapis’ mainmast.
Finally it was English Captain Pearson who gave up. The BonHomme was so shot to pieces it sank, so the victors had to ride home on the Serapis. The point of the battle for Jones was trying to raid a British merchant convoy, and the convoy got away, but the symbolic victory to Americans and French was significant. John Paul Jones became a legend on the English Channel. In 2002 the wreck of the Bonhomme Richard was discovered 7 miles off the English coast.

1780-"TREASON MOST FOUL !" General Benedict Arnold, fed up with being ignored for promotion by the American high command, planned to change sides by betraying West Point to the British. This was the huge American fortress that would give Britain control of the Hudson River and so split the rebellious colonies in half.
Major John Andre' of British intelligence had a meeting with Arnold and was passing back through the lines when he was apprehended by some Yankee militia. These rascals skulked between the armies robbing anyone who chanced their way but when they discovered incriminating documents in his boot, they turned Andre over to the authorities. This morning Benedict Arnold found out Andre had been arrested and the jig was up, just as George Washington, Alexander Hamilton and Lafayette were riding over for breakfast !
Arnold escaped to the warship HMS Vulture waiting down river while his wife Peggy stalled Gen. Washington’s party in their parlor. When Washington learned of Arnold's treason and freaked, Peggy feigned a fit of hysterics. Disheveled, with her baby at her breast, she shrieked at the horrified Washington :"They're putting hot irons in my Head! Hot irons in my Head!!". She was put to bed and later slipped away to safety. It wasn't known until 1930 when British Army Intelligence documents were made public that loyalist Peggy Arnold was not only deep in the scheme but had been the chief inspiration of Arnold's changing sides. Major Andre was hanged as a spy. When Peggy died in London of old age, a locket containing the picture of Major Andre was found around her neck..

1803- Battle of Assaye- The Maharatta Rajahs of the Deccan are defeated by a young British general named Arthur Wellesley who Napoleon would meet twelve years later as the Duke of Wellington at a place called Waterloo. Wellington in retirement said Assaye was still his toughest fight.

1845- After only six weeks of U.S. rule, angry Los Angeleanos attacked the American commanders home. The War with Mexico hadn't broken out yet but American and Mexican paramilitary expeditions (called Filibusters) angled for power in California due to the loose and confused control from Mexico City. Mexican-Californian rancheros themselves frequently defied the government authorities, giving rise to the Zorro stories.

1846- The planet Neptune discovered by Johann Gottleib Gala. We did not know it had rings like Saturn until the Voyager 2 spaceprobe visited in 1989.

1862- writer Leo Tolstoy married Sophie Behrs.

1862- Battle of Wood Lake- Minnesota militia put down the Great Santee Sioux Uprising led by Chief Little Crow. The Sioux had set up an ambush in the tall grass on either side of a road but the hungry Army troops steered their wagons right into the fields to look for left over potatoes. The Indians had to reveal their position and fire before they were trampled.

1889- The Nintendo Company started in Kyoto, They began by making hand-painted playing cards, very popular with the Yakuza. In 1956 they transitioned to electronics, and invented Donkey-Kong, Gameboys, Pokemon and The Legend of Zelda.

1908- Giants batter Fred Merkle hit the winning run in a pennant game with the Chicago Cubs. But in running the bases he neglected to touch second base so his run was disallowed and the game was declared a tie. They replayed the game the following day and the Cubs won the pennant. Thereafter Merkle's nickname became Bonehead Merkle.

1912- "Cohen Collects a Debt" Max Sennett's first film comedy featuring the Keystone Kops.

1915- The German submarine U-9 shows the world the power of submarines by sinking three big British battle cruisers all in one day. HMS Hogue, Aboukir and Monmouth were torpedoed and sent to the bottom.

1921- The Band-Aid self-adhesive bandage introduced. A scientist at Johnson &Johnson, Earle Dickson, invented it for his wife who kept cutting herself in the kitchen. Supposedly the skin tone color, which never seemed to match anybody’s skin, was her skin coloring.

1923- A car accident in Chicago killed an elderly lady named Nancy Green. Born a slave, in 1890 she was hired by the Davis Milling Company to be the symbol of their new self-rising pancake flour. She adopted the name of a character in a popular minstrel song- Aunt Jemima. Nancy Green was a good storyteller and a good cook. Her demonstrations became so popular she was acclaimed “The Pancake Queen”. She was awarded a medal at the Chicago Exhibition of 1893. She was under lifetime contract to be the character Aunt Jemima.

1932- King Abdulaziz Ibn Saud combined several desert kingdoms including the Emir of the Hejaz and declared it the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

1933- At a dedication ceremony Adolf Hitler broke ground for the construction of Germany’s Autobahn system- 1,400 miles of modern freeway. One story says Hitler himself conceived the idea since he was a lifelong auto enthusiast. But that is untrue. German designers as early as 1913 were inventing the road features common to today’s motorists- the Blending Lane and Clover Leaf, Fast Lanes and meridian divided roads.

1937- Mickey Mouse cartoon The Brave Littler Tailor premiered.

1939- At the World’s Fair in New York a time capsule was buried not to be opened until the year 6939. It contains a Bible, a mail order catalog and newsreels of President Franklin Roosevelt. I hope they include a description of what film was, and how to use it.

1939- Sigmund Freud died at age 83. Suffering from inoperable cancer of the jaw, he had his doctor euthanize him with a lethal shot of cocaine.

1942- Erwin Rommel the Desert Fox left his Afrika Korps at El Alamein and flew home to Germany to be treated for acute diphtheria. He missed most of the battle, but returned when things were going badly.

1942- Dr. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Grove start the "Manhattan Project", the building of a "cosmic-super bomb" (the A-Bomb). Hungarian Professor Leo Szilard had been pestering the U.S. government since 1938 to do something before the Hitler made one first. Finally the War Dept. gave the go ahead to collect the finest physicists in the free world to create a super bomb. Scientists like Richard Fenyman and Enrico Ferme would arrive for work at an office in downtown Santa Fe and be immediately whisked out the back in a sealed truck to the top secret lab complex at Los Alamos.
The project was so secret that they were warned if they breathed a word about it the government would make sure they "disappeared' for at least ten years! Vice President Truman had no idea of the project until he was told the night Franklin Roosevelt died. Leo Szilard was never asked to join the team because the F.B.I. considered him 'politically suspect', yet we now know at least two scientists there were Soviet spies, Dr. Karl Fuchs and Ted Hall.

1952- The "CHECKERS" SPEECH- Young Senator Richard Nixon saved his career as Eisenhower's running mate by going on nationwide T.V. and explaining away allegations of accepting improper gifts while a congressman. Included is a dog "checkers" for his kids. "He’s a good dog, and we’re gonna keep him." "My wife doesn't own a mink coat, she has a good Republican cloth-coat." Eisenhower was close to dumping the embattled senator from the ticket but the popular outcry of support after this speech but Nixon back on top. In effect he four-walled Ike into keeping him on the ticket.

1962- H& B's show The Jetsons premiered. It was the first ABC show to be presented in color. Jane! Stop this Crazy Thing! Jane!

1964- Marc Chagall painting on the ceiling of the Paris Opera House unveiled.

1969- the film "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" premiered. Written by William Goldman and directed by George Roy Hill. It made fortunes for stars Paul Newman and Robert Redford, who later started and independent film festival called Sundance.

1984- Michael Eisner, Jeffrey Katzenberg and Frank Wells met the Disney Animation Dept. and were pitched storyboards for the film Basil of Baker Street, later called the Great Mouse Detective. Up to now their thinking had been to close the animation department, and earn income from the licensing of the existing library. Roy Disney was instrumental in insisting the animation division remain. Eisner dictates memos to start the Disney television animation division, moribund for over a decade.

1990- Ken Burns landmark TV series The Civil War premiered. It redefined American documentary filmmaking for a generation.

1994- Quentin Tarentino’s film Pulp Fiction premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: What or where is Elysium?

Answer: The Elysian Fields were the Greco-Roman concept of paradise, or Valhalla, where the blessed would dwell happily after death.

Question: Today we have fictional characters named Morpheus, Morbius, Mobius. Who was the original Morpheus?

Question Answered below: The title music of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is what song? (Hint: Sousa)
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History for 9/21/2022
Birthdays: Louis Joliet of the explorers Marquette & Joliet, Chuck Jones, Gustav Holst, H.G. Wells, Stephen King, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Jay Ward, Larry Hagman, Ricky Lake, Fanny Flagg, Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers, Leonard Cohen- not one of the Coen Brothers, Faith Hill, Jerry Bruckheimer, Nicole Richie is 42, Bill Murray is 72

454 A.D.- Flavius Aetius, a Romanized Vandal who as commander of the decaying Roman Empire's legions had stopped Attila the Hun, was assassinated by his boss Emperor Valentinian III. Valentinian couldn't think of a way to catch Aetius alone, so he just bade him approach his throne, and as he leaned in, Valentinian himself stabbed him in the neck right in front of the horrified court. Later, when Valentinian boasted that he had done well in disposing of Aetius, his counsellor Sidonius Apollinaris reacted, "Whether well or not, I do not know. But I know that you have cut off your right hand with your left.” Aetius's family got their revenge and assassinated Valentinian later. Aetius has been called The Last Roman.

1327- English King Edward II was openly gay with his courtiers Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despenser. In the Middle Ages, it was okay to be gay if you were a big, homicidal maniac like Richard Lionheart, but Edward lost battles and flaunted his male paramours out in the open. So he was overthrown by his own Queen Isabella, the She-Wolf of France, and her lover Roger Mortimer. This day Edward II was murdered in Berkeley Castle. Historians debate how and whether Edward was indeed killed. The popular version is that the murderers held him down and shoved a red-hot spear up his rectum. Edwards only son, Edward III, later executed everyone involved except his mom.

1589- During the French Religious Wars, King Henry IV defeated a large Catholic League army at the castle of Arques. He wrote a friend later:” Go hang yourself my brave Creon, we were at Arques and you weren’t!”

1599- A Swiss tourist named Thomas Platter was visiting London and kept a diary of his trip. He wrote on this day he attended the play The Tragedie of Julius Caesar by Master William Shakespeare at the New Globe Theatre, and enjoyed it very much. This is the first written account of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar being performed, and Shakespeare himself was one of the actors.

1745- Battle of Prestonpans- Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Scots defeated the first small English force sent against him and returned to Edinburgh in triumph. The English in London were alarmed, but at this time a new patriotic song had been written for King George II, it was called GOD SAVE THE KING, the first true national anthem. 1769- MAYER ROTHSCHILD, a dealer in antique coins and furniture in the ghetto of Frankfurt, set up his first bank. He was soon managing the Elector of Hesse's income from selling his soldiers, the Hessians, to Britain to fight the American Revolution. Mayer and his sons built the Rothschild financial empire. Rothschild banks lent the British Empire the money to buy the Suez Canal project from the Khedive of Egypt, they built the first European railroads, and you all know the reputation of wines like Chateau Mouton Rothschild, named for the street Louis Rothschild's house was on, the Rue Mouton. A Rothschild was the first Jewish person in the English House of Lords, and even German chancellor Otto Von Bismarck set a kosher dinner table while courting a Rothschild bank loan. Every baby in the family is born worth $62 million dollars, then it's uphill from there.

1776- A fire broke out in war devastated New York City, now occupied by British troops. The fire started near Whitehall Street and burned down most of the city, including the spire of Trinity Church at the foot of Wall St.
1779- The Spanish governor of New Spain, the Marquis de Galves began his military campaign to help George Washington’s Revolutionaries by taking Baton Rouge and Natchez from the British. The town of Galveston, Texas is named in his honor.

1793- The French Revolutionary Government throws out the calendar and makes a new one. So today was the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST DECADE (week) OF THE FIRST MONTH OF YEAR II OF THE REPUBLIC! If you didn't get it, you were guillotined.

1809- Two senior members of the British government, Whig leader Sir George Canning and Tory Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh got so mad at each other that they fought a duel with pistols on Putney Heath (southwest suburb of London near Wimbledon). Sir George received 'a fine wound in the thigh' and Castlereagh got one of his buttons shot off.

1846- Irish drygoods dealer Alexander T. Stewart opened a store in New York City that was so large he put the various items in their own departments. the first U.S. Department Store. He called it his Marble Palace, and gave it the first large glass display windows, which one newspaper labeled “A useless extravagance.”

1855- Queen Victoria met nurse Florence Nightingale for the first time. Miss Nightingale never had an official title or rank in the British Government but used her influence and wealth to force major reforms in the way the military treated the sick. 1862- King William of Prussia makes a minor junker (nobleman) Otto Von Bismarck premier-president and as well as chief foreign minister. Bismarck goes on to make him first Kaiser of a unified Germany (1871) and that Germany a world power. Bismarck's conservative, militaristic style of politics swung Germany away from development of middleclass representative government and set the stage for the totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century.
Bismarck also founded the centralized cradle-to-grave welfare state for the average citizen that the rest of the world envies today. At this time Germany was a loose coupling of 38 countries, some so small they made those Victor Herbert operettas so charming. A parliament of German nationalists had tried to form a plan for unifying Germany by meeting in Frankfurt and drafting a declaration. But Bismarck told the Prussian Reichstag that Germany will not be built by parliaments and papers, but by blood and iron!

1897- The famous column by Frank Church in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World first appeared with the answer to 8 year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question: "...and yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..."

1904- Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce died of natural causes at 64 on a reservation in Washington State. Others say he died of a broken heart.

1915- The British archaeological treasure Stonehenge was sold at auction to a Mr Chubb, who promptly donated it to the British nation. 1917- The Gulf Between, the first film shot in Technicolor.

1920- The Kimberly Clark Company introduces Kotex ladies napkins in a hospital-blue box. Before that women had to wear something like a linen diaper that they washed and re-used.

1938- This day the Long Island Express- A force 3 Hurricane slammed into New England killing 600. The Boston area was hit with 120 mile an hour winds and downtown Providence was flooded under 13 feet of water.

1942- The first Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber flew in a test flight in Seattle. 1944- An internal FBI memo concludes "Communist infiltration of the Hollywood Guilds and unions and the only organization that could stop them was the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals" a conservative publicity group that included Walt Disney, John Wayne and Gary Cooper.

1945- Disney short "Hockey Homicide" the first Sport-Goofy directed by Jack Kinney.

1948- the first Texaco Star Theater television show featuring a nightclub comedian named Milton Berle. Berle’s antics make him a major star and with Arthur Godfrey’s show help grow television from a scientific curiosity to the entertainment every household had to have. For ten years the U.S. public never missed Uncle Miltie on TV.

1950- General MacArthur’s UN Army fought their way into North Korean occupied Seoul. On a hilltop the First Marines Division raised a US flag on a loose drainpipe found near a local school. This caused one regular Army commander to complain: “Ever since Iwo Jima, the Marines never pass up an opportunity to be photographed raising a flag over something!”

1954- The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, was launched in Groton Conn.

1957- General Rudolph Ivanovich Abel, the KGB's top spy in the U.S. for ten years, was arrested in New York. Abel was a master at devising ingenious ways to conceal microfilm, using secret spaces in rusty bolts, shaving brushes and fountain pens. Abel served four years in prison but in 1962 was exchanged for downed U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers.

1957- The Perry Mason TV show with Raymond Burr premiered.

1961- The Washington Senators baseball club played its last game before moving to Texas. They lost. The US capitol would not have a hometown team again until 2005. Pundits would say,” Washington! First in War. First in Peace. Last in the American League.”````

1970-first ABC Monday Night Football - Cleveland Browns defeated the NY Jets led
by Broadway Joe Namath, 24-21. Announcers- Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dandy Don Meredith.

1970- 20 year old Bill Murray was at O’Hare Airport waiting for a plane, when he joking told another passenger he had two bombs in his suitcase. An airline attendant overheard him and called the police. They didn’t find any bombs, but they did find ten pounds of marijuana. He was charged a misdemeanor. Dropped out of college, His older brother got him a tryout at Chicago’s Second City Improv comedy club.

1981- President Ronald Reagan appointed Judge Sandra Day O’Connor to be the first woman to sit on the Supreme Court.

1985- “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights hit #1 in the Billboard charts. Writer Mark Knopfler overheard a workman in an electronics store making fun of celebrities on MTV and wrote the conversation down. The CG animation done by London company Mainframe for the video was groundbreaking.

1989- General Colin Powell became the head of the Joint Chiefs. First African-American to head the Joint Chiefs.
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Yesterday’s Question: The title music of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is what song? (Hint: Sousa)

Answer: John Philip Sousa’s The Liberty Bell March.

Question: The title music of Monty Python’s Flying Circus is what song? (Hint: Sousa)

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Spike Lee calls his film company 40 Acres and a Mule. Where did that come from?
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History for 9/20/2022
Birthdays: Alexander the Great -357 BC, Upton Sinclair, Jelly Roll Morton, Jay Ward, Red Auerbach, Guy Lafluer, Fernando Rey, Ann Meara, Rachel Roberts, Jonathan Hardy, Pia Lindstrom, Gary Cole, Fran Drescher, George R.R. Martin is 74, animator Nancy Beiman, Sophia Loren is 88

356 BC- The Great Temple of (Artemis) Diana of Ephesus was destroyed by fire. It was said to be the work of an arsonist from Halicarnassus named Herostratus. The temple had been built as a gift to the goddess by King Croesus the Lydian, who had so much gold, the phrase “To be as rich as Croesus “ is still in use. It was considered one of the seven wonders of the world. Why had the goddess allowed her house to be consumed so cruelly? The priests explained that she was probably too busy overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great to keep a watch on her own house.

188AD- Feast of St. Eustachius. Eustachius Placidius was a general under Trajan, who after profession his Christianity, was locked in a bronze bull and roasted to death.

450AD- Battle of Chalons-Attila the Hun is decisively defeated by Theodoric the Visigoth and Aetius, the general of what was left of the dying Roman Empires’ legions. Attila's shaman had predicted a great chief would die that day. Theodoric wound up being the one killed, even as his warriors were winning the battle.

1400- The Welsh under Owen Glendower revolt against English rule. Supposedly the fierce bowmen marched into battle to the sound of harps. Owen had captured English Prince Edwin Mortimer. He not only treated him well but he married Owens daughter creating the Tudor family of British monarchs.

1519- Fernand de Magellan sailed from Seville, Spain. His original mission from King Charles I was to seize the Moluccas from Portugal, now part of Indonesia. Instead his fleet was the first to sail around the world.

1670- English poet John Milton published his last works “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes”. He was blind but dictated to a secretary who wrote down his poems. When he felt the inspiration he would call him by saying:” Come. I need to be milked.”

1714- George I of Hanover entered his new capital of London as King of England. The German George feared his new subjects as treacherous revolutionists who’d overthrown and executed their earlier kings. So he deliberately waited out the huge throngs lining the streets come to welcome him. He slipped into the city in the dead of night, after most had gone home to bed disappointed. George never bothered to learn English.” The English have asked me to rule them, not to speak to them!”

1746- Bonnie Prince Charlie escaped Scotland to France, the Highland Rebellion ended.

1777- No-Flint Grey- In the dead of night British troops surprise attack American colonial forces under Gen Mad Anthony Wayne asleep in their camp at Paoli Tavern. British Commander Charles Grey ordered his men not to waste time loading their muskets, but just go at them silently with the bayonet. To ensure his order was obeyed he collected their musket flints, for which he earned the nickname “No Flint Grey”. Paoli Tavern was called a massacre by the American press because the perception was 500 men were stabbed as they slept. Fact is, only 150 casualties were reported, and George Washington had used the same kind of surprise attack on the Hessians at Trenton earlier that year.

1792-BATTLE OF VALMY- French revolutionaries (The Sans-cullottes, without breeches- aka rich people pants) mow down the Prussian army, the best soldiers in Europe, who were marching on Paris to suppress their revolution and rescue King Louis XVI. The cool, professional Prussian troops, used to the powdered bewigged, silk stockings type of soldier, had underestimated the passions unleashed by the enraged masses shouting "Aux Armes, Citoyen!"
Another problem the Germans had was an excess of diarrhea among the ranks from eating too many grapes in the Champagne region. The great German poet Johann Wolfgang Goethe was there as an adviser to his patron the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. Although Goethe did not fight, he stood cool under fire. Watching the spectacle Goethe predicted: “From today and from this place begins a new epoch in the History of the World”.

1803- Irish patriot Robert Emmett was executed for leading an abortive uprising against British rule. His final words became famous: “ Let no man write my epitaph. When my country takes her place among the nations of the Earth, then, and not till then, Let my epitaph be written.”

1814- A week after the British Fleet sailed away, a new poem by Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key was first published in the Baltimore Patriot. First called The Defense of Fort McHenry. Key’s brother-in-law Judge Nicholson suggested it might sound good sung to a pub tune,” To Anacreon in Heaven’. Soon, everyone was singing it as The Star Spangled Banner.

1830-The first National Convention of African-Americans convened.

1839- The SS British Queen first brought news of the invention of Photography and the Daguerreotype process to the U.S. Soon everyone is happily snapping away.

1853- Elisha Otis revolutionized tall building construction by demonstrating his elevator that didn’t fall when the cable was cut.

1863-THE BATTLE OF CHICKAMAGUA- Bloody Civil War battle in Eastern Tennessee. Union General Rosecrans moved some troops to fill an imagined gap in his line and opened up a real gap that Confederate General Bragg exploited to rout the Yankees. The Union army was only saved by the rearguard defense of Gen. George H. Thomas, who earned the name "Rock of Chickamagua". The fighting was unusually vicious, when soldiers ran out of bullets they threw rocks, clubbed and strangled each other.

Lincoln's opinion of the losing commander, Rosecrans:" Old Rosy's acts stunned, like a duck that's been struck on the head." Rosecrans was a devout Catholic and had the habit of crossing himself frequently and sitting with his head in his hands. He had verbally insulted most of the top officers of the U.S. Army, yet despite this his troops loved him.

1870- The Italian Army captured Rome from the Papal guards and allied French troops and completed the unification of Italy. The city was under Napoleon III's protection until he was defeated and overthrown by the Germans in the Franco Prussian War. The status of the Pope in an Italian Rome remained ambiguous until 1927, when Mussolini signed the Concordat (Treaty) creating the Vatican City-state.

1918- Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab army enter Damascus. Lawrence had inspired Prince Faisal's Bedouin tribesmen that they were fighting for their own all-Arab nation. But the British and the French had no intention of honoring that pledge and that knowledge gnawed at Lawrence. Arabia was divided into British and French protectorates (a civil servant named Speeckes created Iraq, Kuwait, Jordan, Palestine and Saudi Arabia with a stick in the sand) and Lawrence returned to England a spiritually broken, albeit famous, man.

1942- SUPERSNIPER- This day during the terrible Battle of Stalingrad, a young shepherd boy from the Ural Mountains named Vassily Zaitsiev arrived to fight the Nazis. Zaistsiev turned out to be the deadliest marksman since Sgt. York. In ten days he shot forty Germans, mostly officers- one man, one bullet. The Germans got so upset they sent for a top marksman from Bavaria named Major Koenig.
For the next few weeks the two supersnipers waged a private duel in the ruins of the city Stalingrad. Germans called this urban fighting rattskellerkrieg- rat cellar war. In mid-October, Zaitsiev finally killed Koenig. Vassily Zaitsev survived the war and his rifle is lovingly preserved in the Volgograd Museum today. The duel was made into a movie called Enemy at the Gates with Jude Law.

1944- Now that the Pacific War was winding down martial law was lifted on the Hawaiian Islands. It had been imposed since Pearl Harbor. One tragic result for the servicemen was that the first thing the restored chief of Honolulu police did was shut down the busy brothels of Waikiki. The area known as Hotel Street was ringed with houses servicing servicemen. One sailor reminisced: I got stewed, screwed and tattooed, all in one night.” The quarters most famous hooker, Chicago-born Jean O’Hara said: “ I think I slept with the entire US Navy.”

1947- Tex Avery’s MGM cartoon Slap Happy Lion.

1952- CBS premiered the Jackie Gleason Show- The Honeymooners".

1952- Chuck Jones’ short Rabbit Seasoning, second of his Bugs-Daffy hunting trilogy.

1955- The Phil Silvers Show, originally entitled You’ll Never Get Rich” debuted on CBS. Silvers played con-man soldier Sgt. Bilko.

1973- Musician Jim Croce (30) died in a charter plane crash near Natchitoches Louisiana.

1977- During the premiere episode of the 5th season of the show Happy Days, Henry Winkler’s Fonzi character water-skis in his trademark black leather jacket and jumps a ramp over a live shark. This caused writer Jon Hein to coin the term Jumping the Shark. It has come to mean pinpointing the moment a quality program or person descends into banal silliness.

1979- The Central African Empire of Boukassa I was overthrown with the aid of 700 French paratroops. Jean Bedel Boukassa was known for repression, and spending one quarter of the gross national income of his nation just on his coronation. He had a golden throne made based on Napoleon Bonaparte’s, but changed it when he saw it wasn’t opulent enough. The Central African Republic was declared.

1984- The Cosby Show premiered.

1989- A Los Angeles court found Richard Ramirez guilty of the Night Stalker crimes- 43 counts including 13 murders, rape, burglary and sodomy. He would draw a Satanic pentagram in the victim’s blood at the scene.

2001- In his first address to congress since the 9-11 attack, President George W. Bush declared a “War on Terror” that would be war everlasting.

2001- Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away released in the US. The first Japanese anime film to win an Oscar.
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Question: Spike Lee calls his film company 40 Acres and a Mule. Where did that come from?

Answer: When Sherman was marching through Georgia, he issued General Order #15, saying every freed slave would be given 40 acres of his own and a mule as reparations. New President Andrew Johnson was against this idea and during Reconstruction this idea was subverted, ignored and forgotten. For African-Americans the phrase is symbolic of all the false promises they had been given.

Question: Spike Lee calls his film company 40 Acres and a Mule. Where did that come from?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Where did the native-American tribes Yavapai and Havasupai live?
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History for 9/19/2022
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, Saladin, Hungarian nationalist Leopold Kossuth, Brian Epstein, "Momma" Cass Elliot, Frank Tashlin, Dr. Ferry Porsche- inventor of the Porsche race car, Twiggy– real name Leslie Hornby, William Golding author of The Lord of the Flies, Paul Williams, Adam West, Frances Farmer, David McCallum, Duke Snyder, Jeremy Irons is 74, Jimmy Fallon is 48.

1356- BATTLE OF POITIERS- In the Hundred Years War Edward the "Black Prince" destroyed the French army and captured the French King and Dauphin. French King John II "The Good" was held for ransom in the Tower of London. Once there he found he could have all the benefits of Kingship without any of the stress, so he partied hardy. Even when his son, the Dauphin Charles V got his freedom, and started to organize a heroic resistance to the English invasion, John the Good ignored his son’s pleas to escape. Some apologist historians say John sacrificed his freedom for the French Nation. Other historians like Henri Guizot and found his budgets spent on dwarves, feasts, mistresses, and hunting dogs, "disgraceful".

1493- Pope Alexander VI had never made it a secret that he had a growing family of children. He wanted to make his son Caesar Borgia a Cardinal at 26, and his daughter Lucrezia a duchess, but first there was the problem that they were illegitimate. Well, that’s no problem for the Vicar of Christ! This day he declared them legitimate offspring, of his cousin. Everyone winked at the twisted logic and went along with it.

1580- The family of Miguel de Cervantes ransomed the writer from captivity of the Barbary Pirates. He wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha in 1604.

1692- One of the few men convicted in the Salem Witch Trials was executed. Pilgrim Rev. Giles Corey had a wooden board laid on top of him and his neighbors piled large stones on top until he was squished to death. At one point his tongue was sticking so grotesquely out of his head, that the magistrate pushed it back into his mouth with the tip of his cane. His family descendent was Walt Disney.

1741- When the Austrian emperor died leaving only daughter Maria Theresa as heir, the surrounding powers like Prussia and France moved in to carve up her territory. The War of Austrian Succession began. Many lascivious cartoons were made of the symbolic ravishing of the young woman monarch. But Maria Theresa was made of tougher stuff. On this day, she went to her Hungarian parliament and in a dramatic piece of political theater, held her infant son aloft and called for the defense of the Homeland. The Hungarian noblemen went wild, and hundreds of drawn swords waved in the air. The people rose en-masse and drove out the invaders. Maria Theresa reigned as one of the strongest leaders of the XVIII century.

1777- First Battle of Saratoga, also called Freeman’s Farm- Gen. Johnny Burgoyne's British invasion down the Hudson was stopped. Burgoyne’s plan was to cut the rebel colonies in two with his thrust down from Canada being met from the South by Lord Howe coming up from New York City and another force east from Oswego. But Lord Howe disregarded the plan in favor of another shot at George Washington and Philadelphia. Back in London, Lord Charles Germain neglected to write out the necessary orders for Howe to support Burgoyne because he was late to go on his holiday vacation and couldn’t be bothered.
And the Oswego force was stopped by colonials using a lunatic hermit named Ute Schuyler who spooked the British-allied Indians into deserting. Algonquins thought the mentally ill were possessed by Hipi-Manitou spirits and so were bad luck. The net result was Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne's army was alone in the forest, far from supplies and surrounded by the Americans.

1783- Jacques Montgolfier launches the first hot air balloon in Paris. The first aeronauts were a sheep, duck and rooster. Montgolfier made his fortune in paper. To this day if you get some high quality stationary with a balloon and French flag in the watermark that is Papier Canson et Montgolfier, his company.

1796- President George Washington’s farewell address was first published in Claypools American Daily Advertiser, then reprinted in other papers throughout the country. Washington warned to “avoid entangling foreign alliances and asked for national unity above partisan politics. He thought political parties were a big mistake. But party politics had firmly taken root. One opposition paper called Washington’s speech “the last loathings of a sick mind.”

1797-The Marquis de Lafayette was released from an Austrian prison after negotiations successfully conducted by Napoleon. Lafayette at first tried to channel the passions unleashed by the French Revolution to forge the kind of democracy he saw in America. But that almost got him guillotined, and after he escaped across the French frontier the Austrians locked him up. He rotted in prison for five years. Napoleon hoped to use Lafayette as an ally in his grab for power, but Lafayette laid low during the period of Napoleon’s Empire.

1819- On a beautiful English autumn day poet John Keats was moved to write his Ode to Autumn.

1827- Fight at the Vidalia Sandbar- Famous Mississippi gamblers brawl in which Jim Bowie uses his famous knife to carve up a gang of sore losers who shot him twice. The Bowie knife may not have been designed by Jim Bowie but by his brother Rezin Bowie, who wanted an intimidating blade to brandish after he almost died in a similar altercation.

1841- The first railroad tracks to cross an international border was completed. From Strasbourg France, to Basel Switzerland.

1849- First commercial laundry set up in Oakland Cal.

1864- Battle of Winchester- General Phil Sheridan's Yankees whup Jubal Early's Confederates. The feisty son of an Irish ditch digger, Abe Lincoln called Sheridan "A runty little man with a bullet shaped head and not enough neck to hang him." But he proved his value today. He rode fearlessly down the battle line shouting to his men:" Pour it into them boys! Knock every sonofabitch down before you!" One sonofabitch killed was Confederate General George S. Patton, the grandfather of the World War II general. Sheridan's army had no less than three future U.S. presidents on staff- Gen James Garfield, Gen. Rutherford Hayes and Major William McKinley.

1876- Melvin Bissell of Grand Rapids Michigan invented the carpet sweeper.

1881- PRESIDENT JAMES GARFIELD DIED- Garfield was shot in the back at Washington rail station by Charles Guiteau on July 2nd.The President lingered these many weeks in agony before finally dying. Garfield might have lived had it not been for all the doctors poking around in his wound without antiseptic conditions. Even inventor Alexander Graham Bell was invited to search for the bullet with a newly invented metal detector. James Garfield died of blood poisoning and infection. Interestingly enough, for the two and a half months the President was out of action and Congress was not called into session, yet the U.S.A. ran just fine.

1893- New Zealand becomes the first nation in the world to give women the vote.

1898- THE RACE TO FASHODA- It is difficult to imagine that World War I might have been Britain vs. France instead of Germany. Since 1832, France and Britain had been competing to see who could build a bigger colonial empire and grab up more of the Third World. This "scramble for Africa" reached it's climax with a race to a small mud fort in the center of Africa called Fashoda. It was critical to Britain owning to the whole Nile River and land lengthwise down from Egypt, as well as critical to France's claim widthwise from Atlantic Senegal to East coast Ethiopia.
On this day at Fashoda the race climaxed with the French commander Captain Marchand face to face with the British General Kitchener, exchanging champagne toasts while cordially threatening to annihilate the other. Both Paris and London threatened war. The French Army, exhausted by the Dreyfus scandal and lack of public support, backed down by November. The British offered a compromise to evacuate Egypt as soon as the political situation settled down. They left Egypt in 1956.
As for the Africans? No one much cared what they thought. The Dinka people of southern Sudan referred to this period as: "The time the world was spoiled."

1926- THE BIG ONE- This day Miami, Florida was destroyed by a huge hurricane. They didn’t have names then. The storm stopped a real estate boom in South Florida. Snowbirds from up north invested millions in land that turned out to be under water. The Marx Brothers poked fun at the craze in their stage comedy The Cocoanuts. As Groucho said:” Florida Folks. Sunshine, Sunshine, now let’s get the auction started before there is a tornado.”

1931- The Marx Brothers comedy “Monkey Business” premiered.

1934- Bruno Richard Hauptman was arrested and charged with the kidnap murder of the Lindbergh baby. He pleaded innocence up until he fried in the electric chair, but he was found with a significant part of the ransom money on him.

1936- Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald record “Indian Love Call”. When I’m Calling You, Oooh-ohhoohhh, Ohhhh-ohhh-oohhhhhhh”, etc.

1939- Geli Raubel, Adolf Hitler’s 23 year old niece was found dead with a gunshot in the head. Hitler had a passion for his niece that she did not return. It remains a mystery whether she killed herself or she was murdered, and made to look like a suicide. Even though Eva Braun worshipped him, years later Adolf admitted Geli was the only woman he ever really loved.

1942- Chuck Jones cartoon The Dover Boys released.

1945- Little Shirley Temple, now all grown up, married actor John Agar, who she met on the set of John Ford's film Fort Apache. The RKO studio turned the marriage into a media circus by inviting 12,000 people. John Ford teased Agar mercilessly, calling him Mr. Temple. John and Shirley divorced five years later. Shirley Temple remarried and became a career diplomat, and John Agar went on to star in sci-fi flicks like 'Tarantula", The Brain from Planet Aurous". Eventually he built his own theme dinosaur park by an Arkansas freeway, "John Agar's House of Kong'.

1945- Klaus Fuchs, a spy in the British delegation of the Los Alamos Atomic bomb program, delivered the plans of the plutonium 'Nagasaki" bomb to a courier for Soviet intelligence in Moscow.

1955- Juan Peron, the President of Argentina, was overthrown in a military coup.

1961- This is the night Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were picked up by a flying saucer and experimented on. It is one of the more famous abduction stories because it was one of the first, and it holds up under hypnosis. Hey little guy, what are you planning to do with that anal probe?

1968 - "Funny Girl" opened in theaters, starring a young singer named Barbra Streisand. Hello Gorgeous!

1970- The Mary Tyler Moore TV Show premiered.

1984- Milos Forman’s movie of the play Amadeus opened.

1985- Mexico City devastated by a large earthquake 8.1 on the Richter scale. The next day the city was rocked again by a 7.5 earthquake. 10,000 people died. Curiously enough 80% of the cities ancient landmarks were undamaged, only modern buildings collapsed. People camped out in Aztec ruins, figuring they’ve stood for centuries and would probably stand now.

1990- Martin Scorcese’s movie Goodfellas opened. “You think I’m funny? What? Am I here to amuse you?”

1991- UTZI- Two German tourists hiking in the Austrian Alps discovered the remains of an Ice Age man, killed with an arrow over 5,000 years ago. The body, exposed from the ice by global warming, was in such an excellent state of preservation, that they thought it was a modern homicide. Called Utzi, or Frozen Fritz, he was 42. He had 50 tattoos, a copper axe, a full stomach, and Lime Disease.

1994- The US invaded Haiti- again. We also invaded in 1919 and 1922.

1995- Orville Reddenbacher 'the Popcorn king' died.

1995- The NY Times and Washington Post printed the 35,000 word manifesto of the Unabomber. He promised to stop sending bombs to people if they printed his message. He accused technology of subverting American society and that the Democrats stoke the fears of the poor, and the Republicans believe in nothing but pure self-interest.

2004- Chinese leader Zhiang zsi Minh retired and handed over his offices to his successor Hu Zhin Tao. It marks the first peaceful regular transition of power in China since the Manchu emperors over a century ago.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Where did the native-American tribes Yavapai and Havasupai live?

Answer: In the area of the Grand Canyon.

Question: Where did the native-American tribes Yavapai and Havasupai live?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Queen Marie Antoinette of France was born in what country?
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History for 9/18/2022
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Trajan 53AD, Dr. Samuel Johnson, Frankie Avalon, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Leon Foucault (Foucault's Pendulum), Jack Warden, Canadian PM John Diefenbaker, Eddie “Rochester”Anderson, Rossano Brazzi, Joe Kubert, Debbie Fields founder of Mrs. Field's Cookies, Jada Pinkett-Smith, James Gandolfini, June Foray

96 A.D. ROMAN EMPEROR DOMITIAN ASSASSINATED- Domitian was a mad tyrant in the mold of Nero and Caligula. He once ordered all the fortunetellers, sorcerers, swamis and such driven out of Rome. Their guild got together and retaliated by doing a group prediction of Domitian's assassination: Sept. 18th on the eleventh hour.
Domitian pretended not to care, but spent all day locked indoors with a sword under his pillow. He didn't come out until his slaves and butlers assured him the eleventh hour had passed. Domitian came out and was promptly murdered by his slaves and butlers. They lied. It was the eleventh hour. -BUT WAIT! IT GETS WEIRDER... A Roman mob drags Domitian's body through the streets on a hook and chain. They tried to stuff him into the sewer but he was too fat, so they tore the body to pieces and threw the chunks into the Tiber.
-BUT WAIT! IT GETS EVEN WEIRDER!!-The Roman Senate told his wife the Empress Valeria no hard feelings, if she needed anything.... She requested to be allowed to keep one statue of her husband in the Forum. The Senate approved. Unbeknown to them fishermen had fished out the pieces of Domitian. Valeria took the fish-knawed chunks to an Egyptian doctor and had him sew them back into something resembling a human being. Then she told her artists to make a statue of what they saw.
This horrid statue she put in the forum to remind Roman's of 'their ingratitude’.

324 A.D.-Battle of Chrysopolis-Constantine, Roman Emperor of the West, defeated Licinius, Emperor of the East, and took over the whole Roman Empire. One result of this battle was he took the Christian religion, which he had earlier removed the ban on, and raised it to the official state religion of the Roman Empire.

1572-the painter El Greco first appeared in history in a document paying his union dues to the Guild of St. Luke, the artists guild of Rome. His real name was Domenikos Theotokopoulos. People just called him 'The Greek Guy" -El Greco.

1705- PIRATES TAKE OVER NEW YORK CITY and hold it a few days until the British Navy drove them away.

1793- At the building site of the new capitol city (Washington D.C.) the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol building was set in a ceremony presided over by President George Washington and a group of Freemason masters from GW's local lodge.
At one point Washington dismissed the crowd so the Freemason's could do their mystical rites in secret. No regular clergy was invited and no conventional Christian benedictions given. The US Capitol as we know would not be completed until 1863.

1804- Napoleon inspected Baron Gros’ painting The Plague Victims of Jaffa and liked it. Nappy considered paintings part of state propaganda and commissioned artists to project his image.

1811- A Portuguese 'Projectionist' (experimenter with Magic Lanterns) offers the Duke of Wellington to burn up Napoleon's army with a series of convex lenses and mirrors. Wellington says thanks, but no thanks...

1812- The Great Fire of Moscow finally out, Napoleon sent to Czar Alexander informing him of the tragedy and once more calling upon him to submit to peace talks. The Czar sent no reply but told his troops and court: “I will continue to fight so long as I have one soldier. Rather than surrender to the invaders I’d grow my beard to my waist, go to Siberia and live on potatoes!”

1851-First issue of the New York Daily Times, later just the New York Times.

1870- THE SIEGE OF PARIS BEGAN- The main French armies defeated and Emperor Napoleon III a prisoner, Paris alone refused to surrender to Prussia. As the great Krupp guns boom shells into the city, American General Phil Sheridan stood as a tourist in between Chancellor Bismarck and the Kaiser. Painter August Renoir would go outside the city walls to sketch and was once picked up and accused of espionage. Parisians starved in the siege and elegant restaurants were soon offering 'roast cat in orange sauce with a decorative garnish of mice'. Top fashion guru Worth of Paris declared it chic' to have some decorative ruins in your garden. After the siege the Paris city walls were demolished. They were approximately where the freeway "peripherique" around the city is today. The fiercest fighting was where the suburb of La Defense is (hence the name). Young Emile Cohl was inspired by the military wall posters he saw to become an artist. He later became the first true animation artist.

1873- THE GREAT PANIC AND DEPRESSION OF '73- Contrary to modern belief the Depressions of 1929 and 2008 weren't the only times the U.S. economy collapsed. This panic began when the huge Bank of Cooke & Sons closed. In those times you would say "to be rich as Jay Cooke' was like saying rich as a Rockefeller today. Cooke got the news of his ruin while having breakfast with President Grant. He broke down and wept in front of the befuddled chief executive. The run on the collapsing market got so out of control that the New York Stock Exchange shut down for ten days. The Depression lasted ten years. 1907,1819,1893,1914, 1832, 1987 and 2008 also saw financial panics.

1895- In Davenport Iowa, Daniel David Palmer performed the first chiropractic adjustment session. Crack!

1917-Writer Aldous Huxley got a job teaching at Eton. One of his students was Eric Blair, who would write under the name George Orwell.

1927-The Columbia Broadcasting System-CBS, broadcast its first program, an opera called the King’s Henchman.

1931- THE MUKDEN INCIDENT- The Japanese army rig a supposed Chinese ambush at a small railway junction near Shenyang. This served as the pretext for a mass invasion of Manchuria. This is technically the first violence of World War II, since the Sino-Japanese conflict would continue until 1945.

1932-Frustrated movie actress Peggy Enwhistle jumped off the Hollywood Sign. In case you are curious she jumped off the “H”. She also didn’t hit the ground immediately but hit a cactus patch, dying slowly later in great pain. Ironically in her mailbox that day was a script and a job offer. The role was of a woman who commits suicide.

1939- LORD HAW-HAW. Shortly after World War II broke out in Europe, today Britons first heard an English voice reading propaganda news from Radio Berlin. English fascist William Joyce became the voice of Nazi Germany in English, making pro-axis commentary not unlike Tokyo Rose was doing in Asia. He was nicknamed Lord Haw-Haw because of his assumed upper-class British accent. He was actually of Irish ancestry and lived in Brooklyn New York for awhile, but he considered himself English. After Germany’s defeat Joyce was executed for treason.

1947- The US Army Air Force is reformed as an independent department of the armed services. The US Air Force is born.

1961- United Nations General Secretary Dag Hammerskjold was killed in a plane crash in Africa. He left behind a book of philosophical musings called Markings that became a best seller. Today the central plaza in front of the United Nations Building is named for him.

1964- H&B’s Johnny Quest Show premiered.

1964- The Addams Family TV show premiered. Lurch, Thing and Uncle Fester. You Rang?

1965- I Dream of Genie debuted on television. Network Standards & Practices said Barbara Eden could wear the harem outfit so long as her belly-button didn’t show. At first the reviews were not good. The Variety TV critic said: “The only thing that stands out in this show is Barbara Eden’s cleavage.”

1970- Jimmy Hendrix (27) was found dead of drug and alcohol abuse. He had passed out and choked on his own vomit. Janis Joplin's reaction was"G-ddammit! He beat me to it !" Joplin herself died three weeks later.

1981- France outlaws capitol punishment and the guillotine.

1987- Disney’s TV show Ducktales premiered.

1994- Tennis star Vitus Gerulaitis was found in his home dead from carbon monoxide poisoning.

2001- ANTHRAX- While America was still in shock from the 9-11 attacks, government and media offices started getting envelopes in the mail containing weapons grade Anthrax powder. 22 people are sickened and 5 died. The Bush Administration immediately claimed it was the work of Al Qaeda and later Saddam Hussein, but the only culprit the FBI could pinpoint was a disgruntled chemist at the Army Biological Weapons Lab who committed suicide. Nothing was ever proven conclusively.

2003- In Scotland, paleontologists discover the world’s oldest fossilized genitals. From a dinosaur era insect, an ancestor of the praying mantis. Great Giant Mantis Balls!”
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Queen Marie Antoinette of France was born in what country?

Answer: Austria.