Quiz: You’ve heard of characters named Wallace and Gromet. What is a gromet?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Who was Pierre Poivre (literally, Peter Pepper)?
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History for January 17, 2013
Birthdays: Benjamin Franklin, Max Sennett-1880, Al Capone, Ethan G. Hodell 1883- the inventor of the Tow-Truck, Constantin Stanislavsky, Moira Shearer, Shari Lewis, James Earl Jones is 82, Vidal Sassoon, Betty White, Zooey Deschanel, Denny Doyle, Kevin Reynolds, Muhammad Ali is 71, Jim Carrey is 51, Michelle Obama is 49, Zooey Deschanel is 33, Betty White is 91

50 BC- Julius Caesar¹s chief rival for power in Rome was Pompey Magnus. Pompey was as famous a general as Caesar and he controlled the Roman Senate. Pompey bragged that if Caesar started a civil war all he had to do would be to stamp his foot and soldiers would spring up everywhere to defend Rome.

But when Caesar invaded Italy, Pompey stamped his foot and nothing happened. Pompey¹s troops were in Spain and Greece. The only legions locally were loyal to Caesar. This day Pompey and the Senate abandoned Rome and fled south to the heel of the Italian boot.

395AD- Death of Theodosius Ist, the last Roman Emperor to rule over the all the Empire from Scotland to Arabia. After his death the Roman Empire divided permanently between East and West.

1775-Sheridan's Restoration comedy The Rivals premiered at Covent Garden Theater, London.

1781- BATTLE OF HANNAH¹S COWPENS- Dan Morgan "the old wagoneer" and his mountainmen shot up a pro-British American army in the Carolinas. The American Loyalists in the South were led by Col. Banastre Tarleton, a dragoon officer unusual for his ruthlessness. After one battle he made his men go over the field and bayonet any rebels who might still be alive. This atrocity filled Morgan¹s ranks with the mountain kinfolk of the slain. This night the cry in the Yankee camp was:" Heads up boys! Bennie's Coming!"

1794- SCANDAL!! ANDY JACKSON MARRIES RACHEL DONELSON FOR THE SECOND TIME. Mrs. Rachel D. Robards was married to a brutal older man, when she fell in love with the dashing young officer in the Tennessee wilderness. Separated from Mr. Robards she and Jackson were in Natchez, Mississippi at her sister¹s, when they heard word that Robards had filed for a divorce back in Nashville.

Jackson and Rachael then married and lived together for a year but then discovered that the divorce report was false and worse, Mississippi where they were married was still Spanish territory that didn't recognize Protestant marriages as legal. Rachel finally got her divorce from Robards, and they married again. Still, the social stigma of 'living in sin' stuck.

Rachel became morose in later years when Jackson's political enemies used the charge of adultery to attack him. Jackson fought duels and killed men over his wife's honor. By the time Jackson was elected President, Rachel Jackson was too ill to go to Washington. She died just before the Inauguration. The widower President lived long, but never got over his love for his Rachel.

1800- Thomas Jefferson welcomed French businessman Etienne Irenee¹ Du Pont de Nemours to America. Monsieur Dupont had decided to move his business from revolution ravaged France and become an American. He founded the Dupont Chemical Corporation that today makes plastics and housepaints, but back then what was most important was he made gunpowder. During the American Revolution gunpowder was a precious commodity. Colonial women saved pigeon droppings and their own urine to concoct saltpeter. Almost all the high quality gunpowder had to be imported from France. The Dupont family continued to control America¹s petrochemical destiny way into the twentieth century. And ladies could dispose of their urine in more sanitary ways.

1836- Texas General Sam Houston orders Jim Bowie to go to the Alamo and blow it up. Then bring the soldiers and the valuable cannon back to the main army to fight Santa Anna. But once there, Bowie was convinced by William Travis to disobey orders and defend the Alamo to the bitter end.

1884- The Battle of Abu Kleer. British forces attempting to save Gordon of Khartoum are furiously attacked by the Dervish army of El Mahdi. At one point the Dervishes broke up a British infantry square, something Napoleon had trouble doing at Waterloo. Kipling wrote a poem in praise of the bravery of the long haired black Sudannese tribemen called ³Fuzzy-Wuzzy² ­³Though we sloshed them with Martini;s an it wasn¹t hardly fair, with the odds against you Fuzzy-Wuzzy, you broke the British square.² A Martini-Henry was a rapid reloading rifle used at the time.

1904- Chekov's The Cherry Orchard opened in St. Petersburg.

1908- Thousands of women march on Downing Street in London demanding women be given the vote. The broke windows and shouted ³It will be bombs next time!² Among the suffragettes arrested and imprisoned was 23 year old Alice Paul from New Jersey. She was honored in 1996 by a US postage stamp.

1926- FATS WALLER KIDNAPPED-Harlem Jazz great Fats Waller was in Chicago for a gig. On the street several gunmen grabbed him and dragged him into their limo and sped off to the lair of mob boss Scarface Al Capone. When he arrived there the terrified Waller was reassured by Capone that as it was Big Al¹s birthday all he wanted was for Waller to perform at his party. The bash lasted three days and the joint was really jumpin! Waller left unharmed, and with a very fat paycheck as well, but resolved to stay in Harlem where it was safe.

1926- George Burns married Gracie Allen.

1929- First appearance of Popeye the Sailor in E.C. Seegar's comic strip the Thimble Theatre.

1935- In an address to Congress, Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed national unemployment insurance. It had been a issue demanded by workers since Coxey's Army in 1895.

1942- Right after the Pearl Harbor attack British Prime Minister Winston Churchill slipped across U-boat infested Atlantic waters and arrived in Washington for strategy planning meetings with President Roosevelt. Today he flew back to London without incident, although over London itself his plane was almost mistaken for the Luftwaffe and shot down.

1949- The first Volkswagen beetles arrive in North America.

1949- The Goldbergs, a radio comedy show about a Jewish family in the Bronx, moved to television and became the first true sitcom. The show ended when Mrs. Goldberg was accused by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee of being a Communist.

1950- THE BRINKS JOB- Several small time hoods wearing Halloween masks entered a Brinks Armored Car office in Boston and stole $1,2 million in cash and 1.5 in securities. By 1953 one crook broke down and confessed just eleven days before the statute of limitations would run out.

1957- The first non-stop jet flight around the world. Three U.S. B-52 bombers took off from Edwards Air force base in California and by flying at supersonic speed and refueling in mid air circumnavigated the globe in a little over 48 hours. The mission was not intended to set a record or for any scientific value as to demonstrate that the U.S. could now go anywhere on the earth and drop a nuke on you. They cemented this idea by dropping a dummy bomb after passing over Malaya.

1961- Frank Sinatra¹s Ratpack had campaigned hard for their friend John F. Kennedy for president. Black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. had worked particularly hard to help Kennedy win the African American vote. But Sammy had a preference for blond white actresses and had married one, May Britt in 1960. To fend off negative publicity this day JFK had his secretary Mrs. Lincoln telephone Sammy Davis and un-invite him to the President¹s Inaugural Ball. We¹re Liberal, but not that liberal. And uhh..thanks for the help. Dean Martin was so angry at this insult to his friend that he canceled his appearance at the inaugural.
In 1968 Sammy Davis angered the black community when he embraced republican Richard Nixon.

1961- President Dwight Eisenhower¹s farewell speech to the nation. He warned against the growing influence of the ³Military Industrial Complex².

1964- The first Porsche Carrera sportscar arrived in L.A..

1977- Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah for murdering an elderly couple. They pinned a paper on his chest with a heart drawn on it so marksmen could aim straight. Norman Mailor wrote the book ³Executioners¹ Song² about the event.

1994-The Great Northridge Earthquake rocked Los Angeles. 72 deaths and 20 billion dollars in damage. It was officially listed as 6.8 on the Richter Scale, although many persist that in some areas it was as high as 7.2. The epicenter was in the San Fernando Valley, so the valleys two major industries, animated cartoons and pornography, were temporarily disrupted.

1995- One year to the day after the Los Angeles earthquake, a massive earthquake struck Kobe Japan. The Japanese place great resources and time in earthquake preparedness, yet this 7.2 quake toppled whole freeways, killed 5,000 and left 1 1/2 million people homeless. It was the worse natural disaster in Japan since the 1923 Tokyo quake.

2000-A Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was offered for sale on E-Bay.
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Yesterday¹s Question: Who was Pierre Poivre (literally, Peter Pepper)?

Answer: He was an 18th century French adventurer who was the first to successfully transplant nutemg and clove trees from the Moluccas (aka the Spice Islands) By now growing them on Mauritius, Madagascar, Zanizibar, Grenada et al, led to the end of the exclusive Dutch spice monopoly