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June 11th, 2009 Thursday
June 11th, 2009

Quiz: Before the Tom Wolf bestseller and the awful movie, what was The Bonfire of the Vanities?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who coined the term OnLine?
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History for 6/11/2009
Birthdays: Ben Johnson, Richard Strauss, Jacques Cousteau, Nelson Mandela, Bartolomeo Vanzetti, Joe Montana, John Constable, Gustav Courbet, Vince Lombardi, Adrienne Barbeau, William Styron, Chad Everett, race car driver Jackie Stewart , Gene Wilder is 76, Hugh Laurie is 50, Shia LeBoeuf is 23.

1174- Crusader king of Jerusalem Amalric IV dies, he is succeeded by his son Baldwin IV the "Leper King of Jerusalem". That this disease afflicted Baldwin did not stop him from marrying (unconsummated) and fighting battles -no one would get close enough to fight with him. Ed Norton played him in the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven.


1685- MONMOUTH'S REBELLION- The Duke of Monmouth, the illegitimate son of English King Charles II felt he should be king instead of his prissy Roman Catholic Uncle King James II. Being illegitimate was to him a mere technicality. This day The Duke of Monmouth landed in the U.K. and raised the banner of revolt. He got some of Oliver Cromwell’s old roundheads to join him but they were soon crushed by the regular army. Monmouth was executed and many of his men shipped off to be slaves on the sugar plantations of Bermuda and the Bahamas by the infamous Judge Jeffries during the Bloody Assizes. The novel Captain Blood is about one such slave-survivor of Monmouth's Rising.

1790- In Hawaii this is King Kamehameha day in honor of the king who united all the Hawaiian Islands under one rule.

1928 - Alfred Hitchcock's 1st film, "The Case Of Jonathan Drew," is released

1934- the first Mandrake the Magician comic strip.

1936- Shy, quiet, 30 year old Texas writer Robert E. Howard had created the macho warriors Conan the Barbarian, Kull and single handedly defined the genre we call Sword & Sorcery. This day after he learned his mother was dying and would never regain consciousness, he went into his garage and blew his brains out. Some say he had an Oedipal fixation, others that he always intended to end his life and was waiting to spare his mother the pain. On his typewriter he left a short message: "All fled, all done, so lift me upon the pyre. The feast is over and let the lamps expire."

1937 –" Getta’ yu tutsie-frutsie Ice-a Creem!"the Marx Brothers' "A Day At The Races" premiered.

1939 – President Franklin Roosevelt hosted King George VI and Queen Elizabeth at the White House. There the rulers of the British Empire ate Hot Dogs for the first time. Whether they in turn gave FDR some Marmite is an open question.

1944- The Allied forces who landed at D-Day at five separate beaches and several drop zones link up their forces into one continuous front.

1948- Col. Eddie Marcus was a career West Point grad US Army officer who spent World War Two on General Eisenhower’s staff planning the campaigns in Europe. Eddie Marcus was also a Jew. When the new state of Israel needed military experience, Marcus volunteered and was made the commanding Aluff -General of the Jerusalem Front. He was given the name Mickey Stone as a code name. After furious fighting against Jordanian, Syrian and Iraqi forces a UN ceasefire went into effect. This night when Marcus stepped out of his tent during a curfew to relieve himself he was accidentally shot and killed by a young Israeli sentry. The boy only spoke Hebrew and Marcus only spoke English. He was also wrapped in his bedsheet and the boy thought it was Arab dress. Eddie Marcus’ body was flown back to America and interred at West Point. The incident was made into a film with Kirk Douglas called "Cast a Giant Shadow."

1955- The deadliest day at Le Mans. During this particular running of the famous 24 hour car race a Mercedes crashed into an Austin Healy at high speed and the cars disintegrated spewing metal parts into the crowd of spectators. 85 died and 100 more were hurt.

1959 – The US Postmaster General banned D H Lawrence's novel Lady Chatterley's Lover as pornography. He was overruled by US Court of Appeals in March 1960. Do ya hear that, John Thomas..?

1963- Alabama Governor George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and refused to allow two black students to integrate Alabama University. He eventually stood aside before federal troops but his stand made him a national figure. Ironically Wallace was originally a liberal judge but after being defeated for Governor in 1958 changed his tone to conservative racism.

1964 - Manfred Mann recorded Do Wah Diddy Diddy.

1966 - "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones peaks at #1

1966 - Janis Joplin played her 1st gig in San Francisco.

1972- THE MOST PROFITABLE FILM IN HISTORY. The film Deep Throat premiered. The first full length blockbuster porn film. The film was shot in just three days, by an ex-hairdresser turned director. It cost $22,500 to make and grossed $600 million. It became a counterculture cause celebre. Frank Sinatra screened a print for Vice President Spiro Agnew. Star Linda Lovelace later disavowed her career and claimed she did the sex scenes under duress from her husband Chuck Trainor. She died in a car accident in the 1982. Today the term Linda Syndrome denotes former porn actresses who try to deny their past.


1977 - Main Street Electrical Parade premiered at Disneyland.

1979- John Wayne died after a long struggle with cancer. Many believed his condition began as a result of filming the movie "The Conqueror" near the Nevada Atomic Test site. Half the crew of that film including all the stars and director died of cancer. When Wayne made a final appearance at the Academy Awards two months earlier he had purchased a small size tuxedo to hide his emaciated frame, but he was still too thin even then so he filled it out by wearing a scuba wetsuit underneath.

1984- In the freewheeling economy of the 1980’s tycoons conducted hostile takeovers of companies by buying a majority of their stock on margin. When Wall Street corporate raider Saul Steinberg announced he intended to target the ailing Walt Disney Company for takeover CEO Ron Miller paid him $23 million just to make him go away. The Disney shareholders are outraged at this payment of "greenmail’ and demanded Miller’s resignation, which some say was exactly as Roy Disney had planned.

1987- Britain noted the first outbreak of Mad Cow Disease.

1993 –Steven Spielberg’s "Jurassic Park" opened. The film set a box office record of $931 million. It was begun with modelers and puppeteers about to do the dinosaurs with clay and beeswax. But after seeing tests using the new 3D CGI –computer graphic imaging software, Steven ordered all of ILM to do it digitally. Jurassic Park clinched the digital takeover of Hollywood and set the standard for future special effects.

2004- The state funeral for former President Ronald Reagan. The Great Communicator was the oldest chief executive to hold office, the first president to be divorced, to lead a labor strike, to tell former hippies it was time to wear Armani suits, and the first to get Alzheimer’s. The largest state funeral since Lyndon Johnson in 1973. Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Hoover and Nixon preferred private ceremonies.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who coined the term Online?

Answer: Professor Douglas Englebart of Stanford, who invented the Mouse, coined the term; since in the 1960s all computer communication was done via telephone lines.


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