Quiz: Which president had the first Air Force One?

Yesterday’s Quiz: When you find yourself walking through a large gate with the device written above “Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Enter.” ("Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", where are you going?
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History for 5/30/2016
Birthdays: Czar Peter the Great, Benny Goodman, Mel Blanc, Stepin Fetchit, Boris Pasternak, Irving Thalberg, Milt Neil, Howard Hawks, Gale Sayers, Michael J. Pollard, Wynonna, Keir Dullea is 80, Ceelo Green is 41, Idina Menzel is 45

In the US- HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY
For those who are curious why America celebrates Memorial Day in May instead of November 11th like most of Europe, it is because of our Civil War.
The main Confederate field armies surrendered in early April; it took this long to quiet the entire countryside, the last violence occurring on May 27th. Once the countryside was finally at peace, the U.S. government declared a Day of Remembrance of the fallen. An abolitionist named James Redpath began having black children in South Carolina decorate the graves of fallen union soldiers with flowers. Former slaves were already decorating the graves of Yankees of their own accord.
Later in 1868, Mary Cunningham Logan, wife of General John A. Logan, Commander in Chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, the first Veterans Organization, went to Petersburg, where she mentioned to her husband the Southerners were decorating the graves of their soldiers.
The holiday was called Decoration Day, and the first formal one was held May 28, 1868. By the end of WWI in 1918, Americans had gotten used to honoring all their war dead at then end of May, and the holidays name changed to Memorial Day.

1431- At Place de Vieux-Marche’ in English controlled Rouen, St. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. She was only 19. Her last request was for a priest to hold up high a crucifix, so she could pray aloud above the flames. When an English knight watched the maid call out to Christ as she died, he exclaimed in grief: "Brothers, we are lost, because I think we have just killed a Saint! ". Recently scientists opened her tomb for study, and only found the remains of a cat.

1593- English playwright Christopher Marlowe was stabbed to death in an argument over a restaurant check at the Bulls Tavern in Depford. Marlowe, whose plays included “Tamburlane” and “Dr Faustus", was one of Shakespeare's competitors and found time for some espionage on the side. Writer Sir Anthony Burgess theorized there may have been more spy-stuff to this case than not wanting to pay for ale & kippers. The murderer, Ingram Frizer, was quickly pardoned by Queen Elizabeth I, and Marlowe was buried in an unmarked grave.

1630- King Gustavus Adolphus gave an emotional farewell speech to the Swedish Diet as he prepared to leave with his army for Germany. He had pledged to take up the Protestant cause in the brutal Thirty Years War then raging across Europe. Gustavus won many victories but he never saw Sweden again because he was killed in battle at Lutzen in 1632.

1787- THE CRUCIAL VOTE in creating the U.S. Constitution. The delegates of the thirteen states (actually twelve, Rhode Island refused to participate) had originally come to Philadelphia to iron out some bugs in the system called the Articles of Confederation.

On this day they were instead convinced to accept “the Virginia Plan” authored by James Madison and strongly backed by Alexander Hamilton. In effect, they voted to scrap the entire U.S. government used up till then and create a new strong central government with a two chamber Congress based on the Roman Senate and an elected chief magistrate called, at first, 'The Executive" and later the President. Some politicians not attending the meeting, like Patrick Henry and Sam Adams, were outraged. Thomas Jefferson, then ambassador in Paris, was dubious about the elected-president idea. “So they’ve decided to saddle us with a Polish King” he quipped, meaning an elected figurehead monarch with no real power. Aaron Burr wrote:” Same old pork, different sauce.”

1788- French philosopher Francois Voltaire died of uremic illness at age 84. He breathed his last cradled in the arms of Benjamin Franklin. He had been trying to write a chapter of a new dictionary, trying to keep himself going by drinking 20 cups of coffee a day. A great critic of the Catholic Church, he refused the Sacrament up to the last but was still smuggled away after death to be buried in sacred ground. In 1793 his remains and Rousseau’s were moved to the Pantheon.
In 1814 a Royalist ghoul broke into Voltaire and Rousseau’s tombs, stuffed their bones into a sack and threw them into a garbage dump. The whereabouts of his remains are unknown to this day.

May 30, 1806- ANDREW JACKSON KILLED CHARLES DICKINSON IN A DUEL. -the hotheaded Jackson challenged Dickinson after he welched on horse racing bet. After Jackson accused him, he made insulting remarks about Jackson’s wife Rachel, calling her a scarlet lady. In Long County, Kentucky they faced off with pistols at ten paces.
Dickinson got off a shot first. Eyewitnesses said you could see the puff of dust from Jackson's jacket where the bullet entered his ribs. Amazingly, instead of falling, Jackson just coldly stood there, staring. He then lifted his gun and shot Dickinson dead. 
Jackson would carry the lead ball in his chest for the rest of his life, alongside two others earned in Indian wars.
When asked why he didn’t forgive Dickinson and shoot wide, He replied: "I'd have killed Dickinson, even if he had put a bullet in my brain!"

1821 - James Boyd patents the Rubber Fire Hose.

1848- William Young patents the ice cream freezer.

1883- A rumor among the strollers on the Brooklyn Bridge that the bridge was falling caused a panic and 12 people were trampled. Young street kid Al Smith recalled being under the bridge and seeing a rain of bowler hats and parasols as the crowd pushed and shoved. To prove the bridge was absolutely safe, the mayor had P.T. Barnum parade his circus elephants over to Brooklyn.

1899- Female outlaw Pearl Hart robbed the Globe, Arizona stagecoach.

1913- It’s Albanian Independence Day! The Treaty of London signed, ending the First Balkan War and acknowledging the independence of Albania. The Second Balkan War started thirty days later.

1919- Hollywood entrepreneur Charles Tolman bought a natural declivity north of Hollywood Blvd called Daisy Dell. People had been picnicking in the grass there for years. Now Tolman wanted to build a concert amphitheatre. Conductor Hugo Kirchhofer remarked “ It looks like a big bowl!” So it became the Hollywood Bowl thereafter.

1922- The Lincoln Memorial dedicated. The huge statue of Lincoln seated was carved by an Italian immigrant family in the Bronx. While President Harding talked, a guest of honor was 86 year old Robert Todd Lincoln, Abe and Mary Lincoln’s only surviving child. He was a former Secretary of War. It was his last public appearance.

1927- In one of the more disturbing Memorial Day parades in New York City history, one thousand Ku Klux Klansmen and blackshirted Italian Fascists tried to march down Broadway, and got into fistfights with bystanders.

1930- The Lockheed Terminal rededicated as Burbank Airport.

1935 - Babe Ruth's final game. He goes hitless for the Braves against Phillies.

1942- The British RAF launch the first of their 1000 plane bombing raids on Germany, this one flattened the city of Cologne.

1955- The New York chapter of the Catholic League of Decency pressured Loews Theater on Broadway to take down a giant 30-foot billboard of Marilyn Monroe trying to push her skirt down.

1961- Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was ambushed in his Chevrolet. Shot five times, he was left dead in the street.

1962- Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem had it’s first performance.

1972- Director choreographer Bob Fosse filmed a live performance of Liza Minelli’s one-woman show Liza with a Z. It was telecast in Sept. and became a sensation.

1994 - Death of Baron Marcel Bich, Italian-born French engineer and industrialist who created an empire through his disposable BIC pens, lighters and razors.

2003- Pixar’s Finding Nemo opened.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: When you find yourself walking through a large gate with the device written above “Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Enter.” ("Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", where are you going?

Answer: According to Dante’s Inferno, you are entering the entrance of Hell.