I heard today of the passing of actor Arnold Stang at age 91. Stang had a distinctive voice that made him perfect for little characters and nerd-types. He was the voice of Top Cat, Herman of Herman & Catnip, Courage the Cowardly Dog, and I worked on his voice when he did the parrot Queasy in 1977 Raggedy Ann & Andy.

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Quiz: Why or What, is a Yule Log.?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What nation was St. Nicholas originally from?
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History for 12/22/2009
Birthdays: Josef Stalin- real name Jozef Djugashvili, James Oglethorpe the founder of the State of Georgia, Jean Racine, Giacomo Puccini, Connie Mack, J. Arthur Rank, Ladybird Johnson, Deems Taylor, Jean Michel Basquiat, Barbara Billingsley, Peggy Ashcroft, Emil Sitka, Gene Rayburn, Hector Elizondo, Diane Sawyer, Steve Carlton, Steve Garvey, Robin Gibb & Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees, Ralph Fiennes is 46.

1742-HALLELUIAH! HALLELUIAH!- George Fredrich Handel's oratorio "the Messiah" debuted in Dublin. Legend says he completed the work in only three weeks. When Messiah was played in London King George II was so moved by the "Halleluiah Chorus" that he rose to his feet. Of course then everyone else immediately had to also, and to this day the tradition is to stand during it's singing. Critics said the only reason he stood up was the silly old duffer thought they were playing the national anthem.

1808-DA-DA-DA- DUMMMM- Beethoven premiered his 5th Symphony.

1849-Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky had been a political radical. On this day the Czar's secret police the Ohkrana broke his spirit by a cruel ruse. They arrested him for treason. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He was given a last meal, received Last Rites from a priest, blindfolded and stood before a firing squad. But before the guns would go off the squad stopped and his sentence was commuted. He was sent instead to Siberia for four years. This naturally had an adverse effect on his sensitive nature and he spent his later years a raving conservative.

1882- Thomas Edison introduced the string of electric Christmas Tree lights replacing candles.

1864- General Sherman marching through Georgia, today telegraphed Lincoln :”I present you as a Christmas gift the City of Savannah”. Sherman spared Savannah the depredations his men committed in the rest of the state, many say because he had friends there before the war, but also because he needed a deep water port for a winter base that the US Navy could supply him from.

1898-THE DREYFUS CASE- Early in 1898 the French Army High Command discovered they had a spy on their staff leaking secrets to Germany. The man was a Colonel Count Esterhazy an aristocrat pretty high up in the chain of command. The Generals worried that news of the scandal would humiliate and weaken the army's prestige. So they looked for a lower ranked scapegoat to pin Esterhazy's crimes on. They chose a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was working class and Jewish. They had Dreyfus courtmartialed for espionage and treason and exiled to Devil's Island. As his sword and medals were being publicly stripped from him he shouted out loud "Citizens of France ! I am Innocent !!"
But Dreyfus's family refused to give up hope and brought in the famous author activist Emile Zola, who uncovered the plot in the news article "J'Accuse !"I Accuse. The scandal tore the French military and public opinion apart. Esterhazy fled to Germany and one top general shot himself. In 1906 Dreyfus was cleared of all charges and when the Great War came General Dreyfus was entrusted with the defense of Paris.
The Dreyfus case to French scholars is as contentious as the “Did Thomas Jefferson boink his Slaves?” controversy is to Americans. In 1998 on the hundredth anniversary of the Dreyfus Case everyone was still arguing over the interpretation of events.

1921- LENIN'S TESTAMENT- Soviet Russian leader Vladimir Lenin was in failing
health after an assassination attempt and a stroke . He knew of the internal
struggle within the Communist Party between Trotsky and Stalin to succeed
him. This day he dictated a series of notes spelling out his analysis of the
situation and where he thought the future of the revolution should go. He
felt Stalin was able but too dangerous to be in charge" Comrade Stalin is devoid of
the most elementary human honesty". So Trotsky should come after him as
leader of the Soviet Union. Lenin called it "Letter to the Party Congress"
because he intended it to be published. Upon Lenin's death Stalin seized
power and made sure this document was never made public. It didn't come out
for thirty three years, until after Stalins death in 1953.

1940- Nathaniel West, novelist author of Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts, was killed in a car crash in L.A..

1941-Now that America was officially at war with the Axis, Prime Minister Winston Churchill slips across U-Boat infested waters to spend a month at the White House planning strategy with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A White House butler described;" Mr. Churchill awoke to a tumbler of sherry. At noon scotch and sodas, champagne at dinner finished off with 90 year old brandy then light a cigar and begin the day's work- from 9:00 PM- 2:00 AM. Churchill liked to dictate memos from his bath. When Roosevelt was told he could enter the room he was embarrassed and excused himself to leave. Churchill stood up from the tub wearing nothing but soapsuds and the cigar in his teeth and declared: "THE PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN HAS NOTHING TO HIDE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES !" When a friend later asked FDR what was Churchill like, the President mused: "He's pink...all over."

1944- During the Battle of the Bulge a German officer was sent under a white flag to Gen.McAulliffe's American troops in Bastogne. His message was “You are surrounded with no hope of relief. Surrender or be annihilated!” General McAuliffe sent him a simple reply:" NUTS!' McAulliffe's force was eventually rescued by Patton. In later years McAullife grew tired of the fame of being the general who said "nuts". At a party a Manhattan socialite once said to him: "How do you do, General Nuts".

1964- In Chicago Comedian Lenny Bruce was sentenced to four months in prison on obscenity charges. When the arresting officer read aloud his jokes, the jury laughed out loud. Lenny complained about the policeman’s delivery. After Lenny Bruce no one has ever been convicted in the U.S. for telling jokes. One fan arrested that night with Bruce, was future comic George Carlin.

1973- The 55 miles per hour speed limit was set for all US interstate highways.

1984- Nerdy shopkeeper Bernard Goetz shot four black men on a NYC subway train. They had asked him for money and one man had a sharpened screwdriver. Goetz had been robbed before of a liquor store payroll and pushed through a plate glass store window. Two of the men died and one was left paralyzed. Like OJ Simpson ten years later, the Subway Vigilante divided people along racial lines. Was David Goetz a homicidal racist or a mild man pushed over the brink?

1988- In Brazil ecologist and rubber workers union activist Chico Mendes was shot and killed by plantation owners.

1993- The Hubble Space telescope cost $1.5 billion but it had a flaw. It’s lens was ground incorrectly so it was nearsighted. This day Space Shuttle Endeavour flew into space to fit the Hubble with an optical corrective system called CoStar, in effect, giving it a set of glasses. The Hubble now sees correctly into deep space and records phenomena billions of light years away.

2001- THE SHOE BOMBER. Would-be terrorist Richard Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Rome to Orlando by trying to ignite a substance concealed in his sneakers. He was stopped and beaten silly by his fellow travelers, including a 6’8 pro basketball player returning home from the Italian leagues. He’s why we all have to take our shoes off in airports now.
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Yesterday’s Question: What nation was St. Nicholas originally from?

ANSWER: Haogious Nikolaos of Bari, was a Christian Bishop of Lydia, now modern Turkey. Scholars can’t even agree if he ever lived, but people celebrated the goodness of St. Nicholas since the late 300s. He’s the one who climbed in a poor man’s house and left gold coins in the stockings drying by the hearth fire.