Question: What is a spoonerism?

Yesterday's Question Answered Below: Why is staying away from school called playing hooky?
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History for 10/18/2009
Birthdays: Cannaletto, Lotte Lenya, Wynton Marsalis, Leo G. Carroll, George C. Scott, Pierre Trudeau, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mike Dytka, Peter Boyle Inger Stevens, Violetta Chamorro, Wendy Wasserstein, Wynton Marsalis, Martina Navratilova, Jean Claude Van Damme

FEAST OF ST. LUKE. According to ancient sources Luke was actually a physician, but Medieval tradition made him the protector of artists. In Rome during the Renaissance Titian, Rubens and El Greco were members of the Guild of St. Luke.

1776- A New York pub decorated with birds opened, customers ordered a drink they nicknamed a "Cocks Tail". The origin of the name.

1767- The Mason-Dixon line settled the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. In a later generation it became the symbol of the divide between North and South.

1793- Napoleon gets his first job. Sub-lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte promoted to major of artillery and posted to Toulon. He is 24. At 25 he will be a General, at 31 a dictator at 35, an Emperor, at 46 unemployed, and dead at 52.
Hmmm, sounds like a career in Hollywood.

1861- Poet and suffragette Julia Ward Howe was staying at the Willard Hotel down the block from the White House. She awoke in the middle of the night inspired to write new words to a popular soldiers tune she heard that day "John Brown's Body". She wrote "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord...." She called it "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"." Glory-Glory Halleluiah, His Truth is Marching On…"

1896- Joseph Pulitzer's N.Y. Journal American created the first Sunday Color Comics supplement.

1922- The British Broadcast Corp or BBC formed.

1924- College football star Red Grange scored four long yardage touchdowns in one game.

1926- In Hollywood, Sid Grauman's Egyptian Theater opens.

1931- Thomas Edison died peacefully at age 84. His last words were-
"It's beautiful over there..."

1950- In an emotional showdown in the Directors Guild all motions by C.B.DeMille and Frank Capra to extend the Hollywood anti-Communist blacklist to include expulsion from the Director's Guild are defeated. Billy Wilder, John Huston, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy supported President Joe Mankiewicz who blocked the Blacklist Motions, and they also prevented a recall vote on Mankiewicz' s presidency.

1954- Hi & Lois comic strip debuted.

1967- Walt Disney's last cartoon done under his supervision "the Jungle Book." premiered. Disney had died the previous December. If you remember the film the end sequence Mowgli meets four vultures who talk like the Beatles but sing barbershop quartet. That’s because the characters were supposed to sing a Beatles parody song but the directors felt the group would soon be forgotten so they didn't want to date the film. The director of the Jungle Book, Woolie Reitherman, died when he drove his car into a tree in 1985.

1974- Tobe Hooper's low budget cult film Texas Chainsaw Massacre first opened. Despite one film critic calling it " a bunch of sick crap", it became a huge hit.

1977- New York Yankee batter Reggie Jackson earned the name Mr October by slugging three home runs in one World Series Game against the LA Dodgers. In the same game, a documentary crew put a mike on Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda to experience the life of a big league manager. But Tommy let loose such a constant torrent of curses and obscenity, that they soon scrapped the project.

1982- President Reagan said during a radio address:" My Fellow Americans, the economy is in a helluva mess....this microphone isn't on, is it?.."

1984- Handsome young television star John Eric Hexum died after shooting himself with a prop pistol loaded with blanks. The concussion of compressed air shattered his skull at close range. He was playing at mock- Russian Roulette. His last words were "Lets see if I can do myself in this time!"
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Yesterday’s Question: Why is staying away from school called playing hooky?

Answer: It may have come from slang from 1848, to hook out, meaning to escape.