Quiz: Who is considered the greatest Armenian composer?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What does it mean to dress your kid like Little Lord Fauntleroy?
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History for 4/25/2016
Birthdays: Roman emperor Otho -32ad, English King Edward II-1284, Oliver Cromwell-1599, Guiseppi Marconi, Edward R. Murrow, Ella Fitzgerald, Al Pacino is 76, Jason Lee is 46, Meadowlark Lemon, Talia Shire, Paul Mazursky, Hank Azaria is 52, Rene Zellwellger is 47, Ron Clements is 63

TODAY is the feast of the Roman god ROBIGUS, god of Rust and Mildew.

It is also the part of the Festival of Venus for the male prostitutes of Rome to celebrate.

404BC- ATHENS SURRENDERED TO SPARTA- After the victory of Aegespotamoi, Spartan General Lysander had the Long Walls of Athens torn down to the sound of flutes. It ended the Peloponnesian War and the Athenian dominance of Greece. Lysander had delayed the surrender at one point to allow for the funeral procession of old Sophocles the playwright to move between the lines.

Spartan domination of Greece was short lived. They were defeated by a coalition led by Epaminondas of Thebes and in 323 Macedonian armies led by Alexander the Great’s father Phillip crushed all resistance to his uniting Greece under Macedonian rule.

799AD- Pope Leo III was attacked by a Roman mob. He was beaten up and he had to hide in a monastery until Frankish King Charlemagne came to rescue him.

It is also the FEAST OF ST. MARK- the evangelist whose mummy was smuggled by Venetians out of Egypt in a carton of pig fat in 981 A.D. Venetian clerics later made up a great story to justify the act. St. Mark was rowing a boat in the marshes where Venice would one day stand. Suddenly God appeared to him and said: "Pax Tibi Marce, Evangelista Meus- Tues Corpus Reposituam." "Peace be with you Mark, my Evangelist, here your bones will lay".(after the pig fat) You see this inscription on most Venetian stuff along with the saint’s symbol, a winged lion..
Italians returned his bones to Egypt in the 1970’s. So the gold sarcophagus people file past in the Basilica of San Marco today is empty.

1185- Battle of Dan-no--mura. Epic Japanese sea battle when legendary warlord Minamoto Yuritomo defeated the Taira Clan.

1684- The Thimble invented!

1719- The Life and Strange Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe first published.

1792-THE NATIONAL RAZOR- Highwayman and murderer Nicholas Pelletier becomes the first man guillotined. Dr. Guillotine’s invention was considered a more humane way to kill a person than breaking on the wheel, which was the way of execution in France of lowborn malefactors. Ironically in the memoirs of the court executioner Charles Samson it is alleged that no less than King Louis XVI himself suggested the distinctive angled blade in place of a semicircular one. The King would discover for himself it’s killing power the following January.

Contrary to myth Dr. Guillotine didn't die by his own device, he died in bed of old age. During World War II the Nazis added their own personal touch, turning the victim on his back so he could watch the blade come down. The last man guillotined was in 1977.

1792- A captain from Arras named Roget du Lilse writes a patriotic song for his Marseille regiment. LA MARSEILLAISE is sung for the first time in Strasbourg. It became the French National Anthem and one of the most stirring revolutionary hymns ever sung. In 1986 French first lady Mrs. Francois Mitterand tried to get the more bloodthirsty parts of the song re-written but failed. Aux Armes Citoyens!

1850- Paul Julius Baron de Reuter used 40 carrier pigeons to carry stock market prices between Paris and London. He went on to form Reuters, the first international news agency.

1859- First sand dug for the Suez Canal. It took ten years to finish. It’s been estimated that maybe as many as 100,000 Egyptian peasants died while digging. Egyptian sources said every family in the country wound up mourning a father, husband or a son. Ever since that time black became the traditional costume of women in Egypt.

1862- Union superior General William Henry Halleck rewarded Ulysses Grant for his victory at Shiloh by having him removed from command. Halleck was an administrator and intellectual who translated books on Napoleon’s tactics. He was nicknamed Old Brains. But in command of armies he was a loser. After the rebels made him look stupid at the siege of Corinth, Lincoln restored Grant to command.

1865- Robert E. Lee’s surrender to Grant left Joe Johnston commanding the second largest army of Southern troops, still facing Sherman in North Carolina. After several meetings and confused negotiations this day Confederate President Jefferson Davis ordered General Johnston to resume fighting and fall back towards Texas. Johnston, like Lee, felt any further bloodshed was now pointless. He chose to ignore his president and accept Sherman’s surrender terms.

1886- In the Gilded Age most American workers worked a 10-12 hour day, seven days a week. This day The New York Times attacked the outcry among American union workers for an 8-hour workday as: A Seditious, riotous notion that would collapse the American economy and lead to sloth, drunkenness and debauchery. It was probably the idea of foreign extremists."
The eight-hour day doesn’t become a norm in America until 1913 (in animation until 1941) and is still under attack today.

1898- THE US DECLARED WAR ON SPAIN America’s first war to announce itself a world power. Secretary of War John Hays (who was once Abe Lincoln's secretary) called it: "A splendid little War'. It was the first time men from all the states would come together since the Civil War. Eyewitnesses were amazed that all the old regional anger was gone.

1901- New York State became the first to require automobiles to show license plates.

1915- ANZAC DAY- GALLIPOLI - This was young First Sea Lord Winston Churchill's idea to knock Turkey out of World War I. A British-Anzac force amphibiously landed on the beaches south of Constantinople to capture the enemy capitol. It turned into one of the biggest British fiascos of the war and knocked Churchill into resignation. The army of Gen. Ian Hamilton did surprise the Turks but then they sat on the beaches for weeks while reinforcements were brought up by a dynamic young Turkish General named Mustapha Kemal Ataturk, who would later become President of Turkey.
The Australian and New Zealand regiments fighting at Gallipoli rose from their trenches and charged headlong into the massed Turkish guns to achieve death and glory and not much else. The Peter Weir movie Gallipoli staring a young Mel Gibson dramatized the event.

1926- Giacomo Puccini's last opera Turnadot premiered in Milan. Puccini died before it's completion so students had to finish the work based on the masters notes. Conductor Arturo Toscanini put down his baton at the beginning of the Third Act, turned to the audience and said:" Here is where the Maestro died." He then left the podium and let another finish. He was too upset to complete the performance.

1928- The German shepherd named Buddy became the first seeing-eye dog for the blind.

1945- U.S. Army advancing from Normandy and the Soviet Army advancing since Stalingrad finally meet each other at the Elbe River in Germany.

1953- Watson & Crick announced the DNA Molecular Construction Theory and the world sees for the first time the twisted ladder model. Another researcher named Rosalind Franklin may have done all the real research and Watson & Crick just took the credit. The facts are still in dispute. This day, Watson went down to his local pub and told the barkeep:" Set up a round of lager, for I just discovered the Secret of Life!"

1956- Elvis Presley’s song Heartbreak Hotel goes to #1 in the pop charts.

1970- Policeman Frank Serpico’s story of rampant corruption in the NYPD explodes on the pages of the New York Times. The practices of decades of graft are exposed by the Knapp Commission and the police commissioner and several captains resign in disgrace.
Serpico’s story was made into a film starring Al Pacino.

1972- Witty, urbane actor George Sanders (All About Eve, Samson & Delilah, Sher Khan in Jungle Book) had turned age 65. He complained he had been famous and rich and was not looking forward to old age and having a nurse wipe his bottom. So he committed suicide and left a witty, urbane note. "Dear World: I am leaving because I am bored. Adieu, I leave you with your worries in this sweet cesspool."

1981- Dixie, the worlds oldest living mouse died at age 6 1/2.

1982- In accordance with the Camp David Peace Accord, Israel completed its withdrawal from the Sinai Peninsula, turning over to Egypt the resort port of Sharm El Sheik.

1996- "Bring in Da Noise, Bring in Da Funk" opened on Broadway.
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Yesterdays Question: What does it mean to dress your kid like Little Lord Fauntleroy?

Answer: Little Lord Fountleroy was a very popular book about a young boy being raised on the mean streets of NY City in the late 1800’s. It is discovered that he is actually the heir of a British aristocrat, which finds him and his widowed mother thrust into the upper class life of the English landed gentry. He is dressed in a velvet suit, short pants, lace shirt, floppy bow tie etc. In the book, he also has long, curly hair as well. That style became something of a fashion trend of the era. For instance Buster Brown, R. Outcault’s iconic comic strip character, wore a Fountleroy- suit.