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November 30th,2010 tues.
November 30th, 2010

Question: Was Franklin Delano Roosevelt the son of Teddy Roosevelt?

Yesterday’s question answered below: Who wrote,”these are times that try men’s souls...” ?
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History for 11/30/2010
Birthdays: Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, Winston Churchill, Jonathan Swift, Shirley Chisholm, Gordon Parks, G. Gordon Liddy, Alan Sherman, Abbie Hoffman, Virginia Mayo, Ephram Zimbalist Jr, Richard Crenna, Robert Guiliame, Rex Reason, Mandy Patinkin, Luther Ingram, Ridley Scott is 73, David Mamet, Shuggie Otis, Billy Idol, Joan Ganz Cooney the creator of Sesame Street, Dick Clark is 82, Ben Stiller is 45

1731-An earthquake kills 100,000 in Peking.

1750- Marshal Saxe died. An illegitimate son of Polish King Augustus the Strong, the one –eyed old general spent the summer nights camping out Cossack style and letting wild steppe ponies gallop the grounds of his Chateau Chambord. A ladies man, he died after an all night "interview" with eight actresses. The king's physician wrote as the cause of death on the Death Certificate; "Une surfeit des femmes."- an overdose of women.

1776- As George Washington’s minuteman army retreated across New Jersey to escape the pursuing British Army, a third of his troop’s enlistment’s were up. In a cold rain 2,000 New Jersey and Maryland militiamen quit and walked home. Writer Thomas Paine was serving Gen. Nathaniel Greene as a secretary. He was moved by this pitiful sight to write the pamphlet: “The Crisis.”:”These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink in this crisis from the service of his country. But he that stands now deserves the love and thanks of both man and woman. “ Washington called his downcast soldiers together and had the pamphlet read aloud to them.

1782- On a dark snowy day in an upstairs room on the Rue Bonaparte on Paris’ Left Bank, The United States and Britain signed the first of several protocols leading up to the full peace treaty ending the American Revolution. John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin and Richard Lawrence signed for America, a parliamentary delegation led by Lord Oswald signed for the Crown. On British diplomat said:” The Americans are the greatest quibblers I have ever dealt with, and I pray never to again in the future!”

1809- Napoleon told Josephine he wanted a divorce. She was the love of his life, but at 46 she could no longer bear children and he needed a son and heir to establish his dynasty. Even though she suspected something like this would happen, eyewitnesses said when she heard the news she screamed and swooned. The French Army called Josephine Our Lady of Victories and marked the end of their luck from this moment. Although his second wife Marie Louise gave him a son, Napoleon never forgot her. On his deathbed in 1821 one of his last words was “Josephine.”

1864- THE BATTLE OF FRANKLIN. Confederate General John Bell Hood had lost Atlanta to Sherman, failed to lure him out of Georgia. Now his subordinate officers missed an opportunity to entrap a different Yankee army outside of Nashville. That army now was facing them in an impregnable position across open country. Cavalry leader Nathan Bedford Forrest urged a maneuver around the enemy, but Hood had had enough of his insubordinate officers. He ordered a full frontal attack. General Patrick Cleburne, the blue-eyed Irish immigrant called the Stonewall of the West, thought the order stupid but couldn't send his men out without himself leading them.” Oh well lads, if we are to die today, let us do it like men.” After the battle he was found on the Yankee breastworks with 49 bullets in his body. Writer Ambrose Bierce was serving on the Union army staff. He was amazed at such a ghastly carnival of death was being enacted in such a beautiful Autumn day. The attack was a complete Confederate disaster.

1886- Paris’ famed naughty nightclub the Follies Bergere opened. The home of the Can-Can, Toulouse Lautrec, Josephine Baker, Brickttop, Maurice Chevalier.

1900- Oscar Wilde died of meningitis in a hotel in Paris. His last words; "This wallpaper is appalling! Either it goes or I do."

1922- The great actress Sarah Bernhardt made her last performance in Turin Italy. She was still considered sexy despite advanced age and a wooden leg.

1924- The first fax message sent. A photo of the Prince of Wales was wired across the Atlantic by radio transmission.

1939- Soviet Russia attacks Finland. The gallant Finns fought back fiercely with skiing hit and run attacks, and gasoline bottle bombs nicknamed for Stalin's Foreign Minister, Vachyeschav Molotov, the "Molotov Cocktail".

1940-Actress Lucille Ball married Cuban band leader Dezi Arnez. Together they pioneered the new art of Television. They divorced in 1960.

1954- Mrs. Elizabeth Hodges of Sylacauga Alabama was hit by a meteorite. It shot through her roof, bounced off a radio and hit her on the hip. It gave her a nasty bruise and one heck of a story to tell. Broke her radio too.

1961- President John F. Kennedy signed a secret memorandum creating Operation Mongoose. It ordered the CIA under the direction of Attorney General Robert Kennedy to eliminate Cuban leader Fidel Castro by any means necessary. The CIA tried everything from Mafia assassins to poison cigars to chemicals to make his beard fall out. Nothing worked and Mongoose was discontinued after Kennedy’s assassination.

1968- “Love Child” by Diana Ross and the Supremes hit #1 in the pop charts.

1970- First day shooting on William Freidkin’s film The French Connection.

1974- In a dry gully in Ethiopia Dr Dennis Johannsen discovered the perfect skeletal remains of one of the earliest human ancestors, an ape that walked upright named- Australiopithicus Afrancenis. She called it Lucy. Johannsen liked the Beatles tune Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.

1976- After doing such a fine job lowering the journalistic standards of the London press Australian tabloid king Rupert Murdoch turned his attention to America and bought the New York Post. The Post, a newspaper originally started in 1794 by Alexander Hamilton, quickly gains notoriety as the trashiest newspaper in the U.S. In an interview Murdoch said the only reason he didn’t put in the Post his “Page Three Girls” -topless photo spreads so successful in the London Daily Sun was because his wife objected...He later followed that up with buying New York Magazine and the Village Voice, whereupon half the staff immediately quit.

1979- ESPN, the 24 hour sports channel began broadcasting.

1982- Nova Pictures is founded, but due to conflict with a PBS TV show of the same name they change theirs to TriStar Pictures. In 1994 TriStar was merged into SONY Pictures.

1985-Punk band The Dead Kennedys released their album Frankenchrist.

1991- Battered wife Mrs Omeima Nelson killed her abusive husband, dismembered his body and ate him. “I did his ribs just like in a restaurant.” she said.

1993- President Clinton signed the Brady Handgun bill into law. The bill was named for Reagan press secretary James Brady, who received a debilitating head wound in the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981. President Bush let it expire without renewing it.

1999- Seattle protesters trying to disrupt the World Trade Organization battle riot police and turn the downtown area into a retro-sixties battle zone. For the next several years wherever the WTO met they were surrounded by hundreds of thousands of protesters, although the mainstream media tends to pooh-pooh their message.

2003- Roy Disney Jr, the last member of the Disney family was forced to resign from the Walt Disney Company. It was claimed to be the mandatory retirement policy, but more likely he was forced out by the exec he hired to run the company in 1984- Michael Eisner. In 2005 Eisner was compelled to retire, then Roy Disney was restored to an emeritus board position he held until his death in 2009.
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QUESTION: Who wrote, …”these are times that try men’s souls...” ?

Answer: Thomas Paine, see above- 1776.


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