July 13, 2017 July 13th, 2017 |
Quiz: What are Van Allen Belts?
Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is schadenfreude?
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History for 7/13/2017
Birthdays: French Admiral Bailly de Suffren, Cheech Marin, Father Flannagan, Cameron Crowe, Woye Solenka, Dave Garroway, Chef Paul Prudhomme, Michael Spinks, Film special effects artist Jim Danforth, Dr. Erno Rubik inventor of the Rubik’s Cube, Patrick Stewart is 76, Harrison Ford is 74, Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob Squarepants is 55
1174- The Battle of Alnwick, in which Scottish King William I "the Lion" was
captured during a raid in Northumberland. He was held hostage by King Henry II until he recognized England's authority over Scotland.
1568 - Dean of St Paul's Cathedral perfects a way to bottle beer. What ever the process was it had to wait three hundred more years to be put to use.
1704- BLENHEIM-the great battle in Bavaria where the Duke of Marlborough destroyed the French army of Louis XIV. In the three centuries since Agincourt the reputation of English arms had faded in Continental Europe, preoccupied as they were by their internal Wars of the Roses and English Civil Wars. While the British Navy's reputation was growing, on land King William III trusted his Dutch generals more than his British. Blenheim changed all that. In one day Britain became the dominant powerbroker in Europe. John Churchill the first Duke of Marlborough was the great ancestor of Winston Churchill.
1787-THE NORTHWEST ORDINANCE PASSED- This unprecedented plan masterminded by Tom Jefferson stipulated that as new territory passed into the United States, their populations could organize their own government and enter the union as a state, an equal partner of the original older states. So Utah would have as much political power as Pennsylvania. Nothing like this had ever been imagined much less implemented.
Before The Northwest Ordinance the states of Virginia and Pennsylvania were claiming all the land west of them to the Mississippi as their territory. Virginia even claimed the jurisdiction of Bermuda and Nassau in the Caribbean!
1798- Poet William Wordsworth visited Tinturn Abbey and was inspired to write his famous elegy on the ruins.
1832- Geologist Henry Schoolcraft discovered the source of the Mississippi River at Lake Itasca, Minnesota.
1865- P.T. Barnum’s American Museum in New York City burned down in a spectacular fire. Barnum rebuilt but after that one burned as well, he got the idea of getting into the circus business. In his American Museum , more a sitting menagerie and sideshow than a museum as we know it, Barnum invented the idea of advanced hype and created kiddie matinees.
1868 - Oscar J Dunn, a former slave, was installed as the first African American governor of a state. Louisiana’s post Civil War elections were supervised by the occupying Union army and it ordered that no citizens who took up arms against the United States could vote. Since that was most of the white male population, the newly freed black population dominated the voting. But in ten years whites had reversed that situation and implemented Jim Crow laws to cheat black people out of political power until the Civil Rights movements of the twentieth Century.
1898-Giusseppi Marconi patents wireless transmissions, the Radio. Marconi believed that sound never dies, it just grows fainter. In his old age he was trying to invent a machine that could pick up the traces of the voice of Jesus.
1923- Paleontologist George Olsen while digging in the Gobi Desert discovered the first fossilized dinosaur eggs.
1925- Walt Disney and Lillian Bounds marry. Lillian was one of the first female animation ink & paint artists.
1930- Six thousand people in formal evening wear crowded into London’s Albert Hall to hear a special message from Sherlock Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle. It was extra special, because everyone knew Conan-Doyle had died just five days ago. Arthur Conan-Doyle was an advocate of spiritualism. He declared if anyone could get a message through from beyond the grave, he would. An empty chair was placed on stage in hopes of his apparition would take a seat. Hymns were sung and after long embarrassing silences, a clairvoyant medium cried out that she could see Sir Arthur.
Most saw nothing and thought it was all a big humbug.
1930 – David Sarnoff the head of the NBC radio network said in the NY Times that " The new invention of Television would be a theater in every home". Sounded crazy back then. Critics said it would require one room of the house be darkened, and they doubted people would just sit still that long.
1939- Frank Sinatra recorded his first album, this one with the Harry James Orchestra.
Pete Pantos was an Italian immigrant and fearless crusader for longshoremen’s rights. He spoke openly against the Mob stranglehold on New York waterfront unions led by Murder Inc. hitman Al Anastasia and his brother Tough Tony. On this day Pantos went to a secret meeting and never returned. A mob informer identified his body in a lime pit one year later. Graffiti covered the docks for weeks- WHERE’S PETE PANTOS? The mobs’ power on the docks was mostly broken up by in the 1960’s.
1949- Hollywood Studio exec David O. Selznick left his first wife Esther, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer, to marry actress Jennifer Jones.
1950- General Walton “ Bulldog” Walker was sent by MacArthur to assume overall command of all US and South Korean forces fleeing the North Korean invasion in the Pusan Perimeter. He stiffened the defense so MacArthur could launch his counterattack at Inchon. Bulldog Walker was one of George Patton’s top tank men and adopted Patton’s style of leadership. He once flew dangerously low over the battlefield in a small spotter plane waving his generals three star ensign at his retreating troops and bellowing at them:” Turn around and fight, ya yellow sons of bitches!!” Ironically like Patton he was killed not in battle, but in a car accident.
1960- Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts nominated for President by the Democratic Convention in Los Angeles. The day continued with rounds of fierce backroom deals to decide the running mate. Although the Kennedys wanted Sen. Stuart Symington of Missouri it finally was decided to go with Lyndon Johnson. He was the powerful Senate leader from Texas.
Johnson had asked his Texas mentor John Nance Garner if he should accept the job. Cactus Jack was Franklin Roosevelt’s Veep for his first two terms. The 90 year old Garner said:” Lyndon, the Vice Presidency ain’t worth a bucket a warm spit!” Bobby Kennedy considered offering Lyndon the Vice Presidency a token gesture to mollify his anger at losing the nomination. But he was surprised when Johnson accepted. Before going to Ciro’s with Frank Sinatra to celebrate the nomination, Presidential aide Kenny O’Donnell recalled JFK making the best of it:” The Vice Presidency doesn’t mean anything. I’m forty three and I don’t plan to die in office….”
1964- At the Republican Convention the delegates cheered far rightwing candidate Barry Goldwater, then booed Nelson Rockefeller for denouncing right wing extremism in the party.
1966- In Chicago, psycho killer Richard Speck broke into a woman’s dormitory hotel where he raped and murdered 8 nurses as they came home from work. He spent the rest of his life in prison. Richard Speck became a posterboy for the death penalty. On a smuggled video recorder he bragged about how much fun he was having in prison at public expense, getting all the sex and drugs he wanted. Just before his death in 1999 he was asked if he had any remorse about the horrible things he did to those nurses. All he would say was “I guess it wasn’t their night.”
1977- The Great New York City Blackout of '77. For the second time in 20 years the w power grid breaks down. Unlike the 1964 or 2003 Blackouts, it was much longer, much hotter, and there was no full moon to illuminate the city. There was some urban looting, and serial killer Son of Sam was on the loose. No wonder they called New York “ Fun City”.
1984- The film The Last Starfighter with Robert Preston opened. The first movie where all the spaceships and effects were done with cgi instead of miniature models.
1985- Boomtown Rats vocalist Bob Geldorf organized a massive live concert called LIVE AID. Televised and seen by 1.5 billion people, it raised money for African famine relief. Madonna, Santanna, Paul McCartney, The Beach Boys and reunions of Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Who and Led Zeppelin.
1985- A cancerous growth was removed from President Ronald Reagan’s colon. Comic Paul Rodriguez said:” Reagan is amazing: He got cancer in his nose, he got cancer in his butt, he got shot full of bullets- he’s like the Terminator President.”
2016- In the wake of the Brexit Debacle, Theresa May becomes the second female Prime Minister of Great Britain.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is schadenfreude?
Answer: It’s a German term meaning to get pleasure from the misfortune of others.