Question: When autos have those round white stickers with country abbreviations like F for France, and UK for England. What does CH stand for?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Today’s Quiz: When we toast, why do we tap our glasses together?_____________________________________________________
History for 12/27/2009
Birthdays: Johannes Kepler, Linwood Dunn, Marlene Dietrich, Louis Pasteur, Oscar Levant, Sidney Greenstreet, Anna Russell, William Masters of Masters & Johnson, Leslie Maguire, John Amos, Tovah Feldshuh, Heather O’Rourke, Bollywood star Salman Khan is 44, Gerard Depardieu is 61

1831- Charles Darwin sets sail for the Pacific on board the HMS Beagle. The observations he made of exotic species while on this voyage formed the basis of his theories on evolution and natural selection.

1871- The world’s first cat show opened at the Crystal Palace in London.

1887- Beginning of the Sherlock Holmes story the Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle.

1892- In New York City, the Cathedral of St. John the Divine starts construction (and is still not finished..) The largest Gothic nave in the world, work was stopped during the Depression and resumed in the 1970s. Part of the problem re-starting construction was finding some Gothic medieval-style stonemasons who were willing to re-locate.

1900- Temperance crusader Carrie Nation staged her first public axe attack on a saloon, the bar at the Carey Hotel in Witchita, Kansas. She shattered a large mirror behind the bar and threw rocks at a titillating picture of Cleopatra nude bathing. She called her actions not vandalism, but “hatchetation”.

1903- The Barbershop Quartet favorite “Sweet Adeline” sung for the first time. It was written in praise of opera star Adelina Patti.

1904-PETER PAN, a play by James Barrie, opened at the Duke of York Theatre in London. Barrie reserved seats in the opening night performance for orphaned children who laughed and cheered all night. Peter llewlyn Davies, the little boy Barrie befriended who was the basis for Pan used to say:” I am not Peter Pan. Mr Barrie is.”, He committed suicide in 1960. James Barrie once said to H.G.Wells:” It’s all right and good to write books, but can you wiggle your ears?”

1927- Broadway musical "ShowBoat" debuts at the Ziegfeld theater. Based on a story by Edna Ferber the music was written by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein. The play made a star out of a tall black baritone named Paul Robeson.” Ol’ Man River..”

1934- The Shah declared the nation of Persia would now be known as Iran.

1935- Radio City Music Hall opened. The Art Deco masterpiece was for many years the largest indoor theater in the world, seating over 6,000. Cole Porter sang” They all laughed at Rockefeller Center, now they clamor to get in…..”

1943- The movie The Song of Bernadette premiered.

1945- Eleven nations sign the Bretton Woods agreement creating the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

1945- Russia and American agree to divide occupied Korea into two parts and administer it for 5 years until regulated elections could decide the peninsula’s future. That never happened because before the five year time limit was up North Korea and South Korea had each set up rival governments, and the division stands to this day.

1947- The "Howdy-Doody" show debuts on NBC. Buffalo Bob, Howdy and Clarabell the Clown, also known as the Puppet Playhouse.

1951- The Crosley car goes into service for the post office in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is a little jeep with the steering wheel on the right side so the mail deliverer didn’t have to get out of his vehicle to reach every curbside mailbox.

1954- The" Disneyland" television show premieres. Up until then the major Hollywood Studios were all boycotting the new upstart medium of television, then mostly done in New York by blacklisted stage actors and writers. Walt Disney is the first to break ranks with the major film studios and get into television production and even films the show in Technicolor, figuring television will develop color broadcasting eventually.

1985-Terrorists organized by Abu Nidal open fire in airports in Vienna and Rome. Sixteen tourists killed. When White House aide Oliver North was giving testimony about the Iran Contra Scandal he fixed upon the threat posed by Abu Nidal as though it was a personal vendetta. In 2001 while the world was distracted by the event of 9-11 and the war on Al Qaeda, Saddam Hussein’s secret police executed Abu Nidal in Baghdad.

2007- Former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in Pakistan. She had been leading the opposition to the government of General Pervhez Musharraf.
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Yesterday’s question: When we toast, why do we tap our glasses together?

Answer: In the Dark Ages, poison was a common way to get rid of problem political enemies. When a trusting host offered drinks, he dipped his horn in with the guests to show he too was drinking from the same mead bowl. Then tapping the horns or cups together, proved to the guests that he indeed had liquid in it and was not faking.