May 13, 2017 May 13th, 2017 |
Quiz: US news is mentioning a potential future threat from the son of Osama bin Laden. Reminds me of Napoleon’s quote: I always felt the fate of Astyanax was the cruelest of all.” Who is he talking about?
Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who or what was the Venerable Bede?
---------------------------------------------------------------
History for 5/13/2017 Birthdays: St. Sergius of Radonez 1314, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Cyrus McCormick, Stevie Wonder, George Braque, Daphne DuMaurier, Joe Louis, Richie Valens, Gil Evans, Beatrice Arthur, Harvey Keitel is 76, Dennis Rodman, Clive Barnes, Bernie Mattinson is 82, Steven Colbert is 52
In ancient Rome this was the Liberalia, Festival of the gods of the Grape- Liber and Liberia. As part of the fertility theme Romans waved little carved phalluses or wore them around their necks to parties. Putting a big carved penis in your garden was a sure way to make your flowers bloom. ……..Is Martha Stewart reading this?
1568- Battle of Langside- Mary Queen of Scots was forced to abdicate her throne in favor of her son James in 1565. She raised an army of Scottish Catholics to try and regain power but was defeated outside Glasgow by her son’s Protestant guardians. This battle forced her to flee to England and fall into the hands of Queen Elizabeth. Liz beheaded Mary in 1587.
1610- French King Henry IV Bourbon was stabbed to death by Ravaillac the mad monk. Catholic extremists were furious with him for ending the Religious Wars in France by granting freedom of worship to all. Ravaillac leapt up onto the running board of the King’s carriage and thrust at him with his knife through the carriage window. His Queen Marie De Medici, the fat lady Rubens painted so many triumphant pictures of, succeeded Henry.
1637-French Cardinal Richelieu threw a dinner where he introduced a novel invention. He had each place at the table set with a fork, a spoon and a table knife. For the first time guests didn't have to whip out their own blade to cut their food.
1655- A Rhode Island statute was passed granting freemanship with no prerequirements regarding Christian worship. This first gave Jews and Dissenters the vote in the U.S., in fact, anywhere.
1794- Dolly Madison writes in her diary today that if she was ever to die, she would want her child raised by Aaron Burr (Vice President, two time presidential candidate, assassin of Alexander Hamilton). She was a 26 year old widowed mother at the time but according to both friend and foe she was a ravishing beauty. Much writing of the time criticized her immodestly low necklines and flirtatious demeanor around men. She knew most of the Founding Fathers and in four months would marry powerful senator James Madison author of the Bill of Rights and the original 40-year-old virgin. Ironically Burr introduced them to each other.
1809- After bombarding the city for a day, Vienna surrendered to Napoleon.
1846-THE U.S. DECLARED WAR ON MEXICO- The U.S had claimed the border of it’s new state of Texas was the Rio Grande, Mexico said it was the Rio Nueces. When American General Zachary Taylor was ordered to march his army into the disputed area and was attacked, the United States declared War. America won the Rio Grande line as well as the new states of California, New Mexico and Arizona, basically half the landmass of Mexico.
Just in case you thought political dissent began with Vietnam; Daniel Webster said this war was unworthy of America for it could not be disguised as other than a old world-style imperial land grab for the Pacific coast. Henry Clay and Abraham Lincoln were anti-war congressman. Ulysses Grant said in his memoirs that the Civil War was God's punishment on the U.S. for attacking Mexico. Henry David Thoreau refused to pay his taxes and was fined, later writing his famous work On Civil Disobedience.
1851- the two leaders of the US Women’s Rights movement- Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady-Stanton met for the first time in Seneca Falls New York.
1910- James "Sugar Jim” Smith, the boss of the Essex County Democratic machine announced his candidate for the New Jersey governor’s race would be a tall, sour-puss Presbyterian professor named Woodrow Wilson, then President of Princeton University. Wilson had never run or held elective office and everyone thought they were out of their minds, until they heard him speak. Woodrow Wilson not only won the governorship but two years later became U.S. president.
1913- In Saint Petersburg Igor Sikorsky invented the first airplane toilet. Later he would move to the US and invent the helicopter. Without a toilet though.
1917- Three small children see the Virgin Mary in the town of Fatima in Portugal. All Catholics know about the story that the Madonna gave a letter to the Pope which was to be opened 50 years later which revealed secrets about the fate of mankind too horrible to say. Actually we all know, we’re just not saying.
1925- Tallahassee Florida ordered daily Bible readings in public schools.
1940-100 Nazis Heinkel 111 bombers began bombing the city of Rotterdam as an act of terror. This despite Rotterdam being declared an open city and negotiations under way for its surrender. The bombers destroyed the city in just several hours. At the same time
Queen Wilhelmina left The Hague for London as the Nazi tanks rolled in.
1950 - Diner's Club issued its first credit cards.
1956- Actor Montgomery Clift was disfigured in a car crash. He had to have his jaw wired until it could heal.
1957- THE MAIN BOUT- The McClellan Senate Committee was investigating organized crime inroads into the labor unions, but the "main bout" as it was then called was young prosecutor Robert Kennedy’s attempts to nail Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa. This day RFK tried a sting on Hoffa, arresting him at the Dupont Circle Hotel in Washington with $21,000 in kickback money handed him by an FBI plant.
Hoffa’s attorney portrayed the money as a misunderstood legal fee and when he noticed half the jury was black Jimmy Hoffa had boxing champ Joe Louis flown in so they could see them embracing. Hoffa was acquitted in this trial but eventually convicted ten years later. When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated Hoffa ordered the flag over his office run back up to full staff and spent the day celebrating.
1965 - Rolling Stones record "Satisfaction"
1965- In a DC nightclub the Ramsey Lewis Trio recorded live “ The In Crowd”, one of the last jazz singles to crossover and become a hit pop song.
1966 - Rolling Stones release "Paint it Black"
1971- The Black Panther 21’ trial- In 1969 the F.B.I. pre-dawn raided the headquarters of the militant Black Panther Party in New York. After a trial that took eighteen months the Panthers were acquitted on all charges after a jury deliberation of only 55 minutes. The case raised serious questions of the F.B.I.’s right to domestic infiltration and surveillance. Despite winning 96% of all the court cases brought against them, by 1975 most of the Black Panthers were dead or in exile. In later years Panther leader Bobby Seale owns a barbecue franchise in Philadelphia. Panther Eldridge Cleaver died a born-again Reagan-Republican.
1971 - Grace Slick of Jefferson Airplane seriously injured in a car accident
1982- President Reagan says he's certain that our nuclear missiles could be recalled in case of an accidental firing. He didn't say how we'd catch them when they came back.
1981-Pope John Paul II shot by Turkish-Terrorist Mehmed Ali Agca. He survived and lived twenty more years. It’s never been proven but generally believed the hit on the Polish Pope was organized by the Soviet KGB through the Bulgarian secret service. Another source said the in 2001 the Vatican revealed that a prediction of the assassination attempt on the Pope was part of the secret message given by the Virgin Mary to three small Portuguese children at Fatima in 1917.
1992- Police arrest the manager of Comic Book Heaven in Sarasota Florida on seven counts of "displaying materiel harmful to minors", i.e. comic books.
============================================================
Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Who or what was the Venerable Bede?
Answer: Bede, or Baeda, was an English monk in the Dark Ages (circa 730). Bede wrote the first Chronicle of the English People, and is considered the father of English history.