Yesterday’s quiz answered below:
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History for 1/28/2009
Birthdays: King Henry VII Tudor, Jose Marti, Colette, Jackson Pollack, Claus Oldenburg, Arthur Rubenstein, Ernst Lubitsch, Connie Rasinski, Susan Sontag, Alan Alda, Barbie Benton, General George Pickett, William Burroughs (1855) the inventor of the calculator, Mo Rocca, Elijah Wood is 29

1393- DANSE MACABRE- At a masquerade ball given at the French court King Charles VI 'the mad' and several of his closest friends dressed up as 'wild men' to amuse the court. They had fur and hair attached to their bodies with tar. While everyone was enjoying the capering of these strange anonymous creatures a torch touched their tar covered bodies and the group exploded into flame. While the court watched these beings writhe in agony, one duchess screamed" Oh My God! That's the King!" King Charles was saved when that same duchess smothered his flames in her skirts and petticoats. Another duke saved himself by diving headlong into a vat of Beaujolais, but the others roasted to death. The common people weren't sympathetic. One duke liked to step on your neck while sneering 'Down Peasant!". As his barbecued remains were carried through Paris, people laughed and sang 'Down M'Lord!" Edgar Allen Poe wrote a poem called “Hop Frog” about the incident and Roger Corman put it into his 1964 film- Masque of the Red Death.

1782- The Congress called for the use and funding of the Great Seal of the United States, even though no one had designed one yet. But the British had one and so...uh, we had to have one too !

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

1878- First commercial telephone switchboard.

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

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

1930- Warner Brothers Cartoons Born. Leon Schlesinger, the head of Pacific Art and Title, signed a deal with several unemployed Disney animators who had left Walt to form their own studio but had been stiffed by their contacts. Schlesinger had connections with the Warner Bros. since he helped them get funding for the 'Jazz Singer'. They create Leon Schlesinger's Studio Looney Toons, in imitation of Disney's Silly Symphonies. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig and more result. Schlesinger sold to Warners Bros. and retired in 1943.

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

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

1958- Brooklyn Dodger catcher Roy Campanella paralyzed in an auto wreck. He spent the rest of his life as a spokesman for the rights of the handicapped.

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

1982- Danny DeVito married Rhea Perlman.

1986- THE CHALLENGER DISASTER- As the world watched the Space shuttle Challenger exploded 74 seconds after takeoff killing twelve crew members. They included New Hampshire schoolteacher Christie McAuliffe who had won the ride in a contest.. It was blamed on defective O-rings in the rocket booster.
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Yesterday’s Question: Has there ever been a 'President for a Day?'

Answered: I should have specified ‘U. S. President for a Day’. This also isn’t a job for an amateur apparently. Hello everyone, Pat Sito here. Our fearless blogger is under the weather and asked me to handle ‘history duties’ for a day or two while he recovers. My first foray into trivialand has landed me in some treacherous waters. I didn’t do my due diligence thoroughly enough! Snopes.com neatly blows to bits my bit of trivia. When the time came to take the oath of office after winning the election, Zachary Taylor refused to be sworn in on Inauguration Day 1849 – a Sunday. Taylor and his new Vice-President didn’t want to be sworn in on the Sabbath and delayed the taking of their oaths until the next day. I thought that left David Rice Atchison, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate, in charge or “President for a day”. It’s on his grave marker but snopes.com says False!
My deepest apologies to all!
Your humble author TS will be back soon with authentic quiz questions.
Thanks,
Pat Sito