Question: What does it mean to be jocular?

Yesterdays Question answered below: Who said “ Lay on MacDuff!”…?
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History for 12/8/2012
Birthdays: Horace (Quintus Horatius), 65BC, Mary Queen of Scots, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina Vasa, Jean Sibelius, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, James Thurber, Richard Fleischer, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell, Flip Wilson, Sam Kinison, Ann Coulter, Teri Hatcher is 48, Sinead O’Connor is 46, Kim Basinger is 59

Happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

1660- Margaret Hughes played Desdemona in Shakespeares’ Othello in London. She was the first woman to appear on an English stage. All during the Elizabethan Era, boys substituted for women on stage.

1776- George Washington’s exhausted minutemen were rowed across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, chased by a large British force. This marked the end of the pursuit across New York and New Jersey that had been going on since August.

1793- MADAME DUBARRY GUILLOTINED. During the French Revolution this day the old kings mistress Madame DuBarry was guillotined. She was originally of humble birth but lived in grand style and was very arrogant. She once dumped the contents of a chamber pot out of a palace window onto Princess Marie Antoinette for a laugh. "Garde du Lou!" Now on her way to the blade she screamed and wept aloud:" Save me good people, for I am one of you!" It didn't help, the executioner hurried his task to shut her up to the laughter of the crowd. Her last words were "Just one more minute, executioner!" Her husband the Comte’ du Barry had not seen her since the day they were married in 1769 for the convenience of the King. Now upon learning the news of his wife’s death he immediately married his mistress.

1813- Ludwig Van Meets Pop Culture. The most well received of all the musical pieces of Ludwig Van Beethoven was not his 5th Symphony or Moonlight Sonata, but a silly piece called the Overture to Wellington’s Victory which premiered this day in Vienna. A calliope designer named Wilhelm Deitzel commissioned the piece to show off his music machines that could recreate orchestra sounds. The music celebrated Wellington’s great victory in Spain over Napoleon’s forces. It had cannon shots and musket volleys in the music score. The overture made Beethoven much more money than his Seventh Symphony which debuted at the same concert.

1954- Pope Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. That the Virgin Mary stayed forever free of sin even though Jesus had brothers and sisters.

1864- During General Shermans’ epic March through Georgia his bluecoats first encounter a new invention ominously familiar to our present day. Explosive charges buried under the ground that explode when a friction trigger was stepped on. They called them Land Torpedoes but today we know them as LAND MINES. When a Yankee lieutenant lost his foot the hot tempered Sherman ordered all the Confederate prisoners driven to the front line and forced to dig up the weapons. When they protested this was inhumane, Sherman roared back:" Your people planted these cowardly things so if some of you get blown up removing them it's no concern of mine!"

1868- According to Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tonight is the night Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine the Nautilus attacked and sank a US warship and captured Professor Aronax and harpooner Ned Land.

1881- RINGSTRASSE THEATER FIRE IN VIENNA Two hundred people were killed when fire broke out during a performance of Offenbach's "Duchess du Gerolstein".

1886-The American Federation of Labor (AFL) formed. The first president was former cigar maker Samuel Gompers.

1913- ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried.

1941-DAY OF INFAMY Aftermath- On the day after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, President Roosevelt did his famous "Day of Infamy" speech. Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war on Japan. Interestingly enough the U.S. did not declare war on Germany along with Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. four days later. The only vote against the war was Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who had voted against the First World War also in 1917.

With the American Fleet sunk or scattered, the US Pacific Coast braced for Japanese attack. In California, Fourth interceptor Command reported two formations of enemy planes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They turned out to be seagulls. Another panicky report of an approaching Japanese task force turned out to be Monterey tuna boats. Blackouts began, as did mass arrests of Japanese-Americans. In Hollywood the Paramount Studio baseball team was allowed to finish it's game with the L.A. Nippons 6-3, after which the FBI arrested the entire team. The civil defense command placed anti-aircraft guns on the Walt Disney Studio lot because of it's proximity to the aircraft plant of Lockheed. Walt Disney himself was turned away at the gate for not wearing his identity badge.

1941- Following up on their successful attacks on Pearl Harbor and Hong Kong, Japanese task forces attacked the Philippines, invaded Malaya and another force captured Bangkok.

1941- The gunboat USS GUAM was serving in Shanghai as a station ship for the US Consulate. Its skipper was Lt Commander Columbus Darwin Smith, an old China hand. Smith was onshore, at home, when he received a phone call in the wee hours announcing the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. he put on his uniform, and went to the waterfront. Japanese soldiers had quickly occupied the International Settlement--but would not arrest
Smith, who argued with them to let him aboard his ship .

The Japanese had already taken the Guam by surprise and without a fight. Smith later
made an daring escape over 200 miles to Kumming in "free China" The USS Guam was the only US warship to be captured intact by the enemy in WWII.

1941- Russian immigrant inventor Igor Sikorsky invented the first practical Helicopter.
They were developed too late for World War Two but the "egg-beaters" or "flying windmills" played an important role in the Korean conflict.

1949-After being defeated by Mao Tse Tung’s Red Chinese Army, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Chek’s Kuomintang government voted to relocate to the island of Taiwan.

1953- Thurgood Marshal’s final arguments to the Supreme Court in the desegregation case Brown Vs. Board of Ed.

1953- The Atoms for Peace Speech. President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations that nuclear power be developed for peaceful purposes, and not just for bombs. The world builds civilian nuclear power plants, then makes bombs with them.

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1963- Frank Sinatra Jr was kidnapped in Lake Tahoe. After four tense days he was released unharmed, partly because he was part of the plot. Dad was not pleased.

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember when it played only classical concerts and ballets ?

1980- JOHN LENNON MURDERED. As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City, Beatle-Composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon in the back. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who said “ Lay on MacDuff!”…?

Answer: In Shakespeare’s play Scottish usurper Macbeth said this as he faced his enemy in battle. Lay on MacDuff! And damned be he who first cries Hold, Enough!”