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Aug 26, 2018
August 26th, 2018

Question: Who was the ancient hero Hermann? Also called Hermanric, or in Latin, Arminius.

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What movie is this line from? “ I drink your milkshake!!”
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History for 8/26/2018
Birthdays: Sir Robert Walpole the first British Prime Minister, Mother Theresa, Albert the Prince Consort, John Wilkes Booth, Guilliame Appollinaire who coined the term Surrealism, General Maxwell Taylor, Christopher Isherwood, McCauley Culkin is 37, Geraldine Ferarro, Dr. Lee DeForrest, Ben Bradlee, Barbet Schroeder, Branford Marsalis, Chris Pine is 38, Melissa McCarthy is 48

480 BC- The Persian Army of Xerxes the Great King marched into Athens. They found an empty city. Athenian leader Themistocles had ordered the population to evacuate to the small island of Salamis. Themistocles defeated Xerxes later in an epic naval battle.

55 B.C.- JULIUS CAESAR LANDED IN ENGLAND- Caesar paused from his conquest of Gaul to check out the British Isles. He didn't stay long because Channel storms were playing havoc with his supply ships. Just long enough to fight some Celts under their chief Cassilvelaunus, collect some tribute, and add a chapter to his memoirs.

The Romans returned in A.D. 61 under instructions from Claudius to conquer and colonize. London, Colchester and York were originally Roman army camps. The Romans never considered Britain a good investment though, for the two legions that had to be stationed there year round to protect colonists from the Scottish Picts (the Painted People). For that the Romans got was some tin, slaves and a bigger road map.

580AD- An ancient Chinese inventory of the household of a nobleman made the first recorded reference to toilet paper. Meanwhile in Europe, the ancient Romans used a sponge tied to a small stick. You were expected to rinse it out afterwards for use by the next person.

217AD- Today is the Feast of St. Zephyrinus, who didn't die violently but he is still counted as a Martyr because he had a lot of stress. (?) He was supposedly so charitable, that Saint Hippolytus found him annoying.

1346-Battle of Crecy – The English beat the French in the Hundred Years War., The Welsh longbows rained powerful armor piercing arrows on the French knights from long range. The King of Frances’ friend King John of Bohemia rode into the thick of the battle, despite his being elderly and completely blind. His horse’s reins were held by retainers galloping alongside him. When Edward the Black Prince of Wales discovered the king's dead body after the battle, he plucked three white plumes from his helmet and assumed his motto "Ich Dein" or "How's dat, ye blind old bugger !" They became the symbols of the Prince of Wales. Also appearing at this battle for the first time were the big rock throwing fire pipes they called Bombardons, but we call cannon.

1498- Michelangelo gets a job. The big Florentine stonecutter was commissioned by Pope Alexander VI Borgia to carve the Pieta, Mary lamenting over the body of Jesus.

1572- In Paris four days after the Great Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, someone noticed the hawthorns were flowering out of season in the little cemetery of the Holy Innocents. The Bishop of Paris thought this was a divine sign, and ordered the church bells to ring. But when the dumbass people heard the bells they thought it was a signal to resume the massacre, so everyone ran out and started killing each other again.

1576- The artist Titian died at age 88. He outlived all the artists of the Renaissance, worked every day of his life, and might have gone on had he not caught a touch of plague.

1648- French peasant uprising known as La Fronde. The Fronde was a reaction to the king's government being controlled by scheming cardinals like Richelieu and his protege, Cardinal Mazarin. Had the movement more legal structure to their demands, France might have developed an English style representative government. The English were in the middle of their Civil War over the same issues at the same time. But the Fronde was more about blind class rage, and after it was crushed it left a deep impression on the mind of child King Louis XIV. He concluded that giving the common people any voice or power was a bad idea.

1790- THE KINGDOM OF YAZOO- Before the Louisiana Purchase the area around Spanish Mississippi territory and American Tennessee was a no man’s land of swamps Creek Indians. An Irish adventurer named O’Fanlon with a group of leathershirts and yahoos tried to declare themselves an independent nation -named for the Yazoo River.

1814- After completing their work of burning Washington D.C. to the ground, the British redcoats under Admiral Cockburn marched away in good order back to their ships. One old grandfather yelled at the British:" If General Washington had been alive you would not have gotten off so easily!" Admiral Cockburn reigned in his horse and replied -"Sir, if General Washington had still been President, we should never have thought of coming here."

1838- American poet Ralph Waldo Emerson met English writer Thomas Carlyle.

1846- W.A. Bartlet became first American mayor of Yerba Buena, in 1850 renamed San Francisco.

1868- First practical typewriter patented by Christopher Scholes. The Remington Company who were famous for making firearms took up the typewriter and mass produced it. In 1874 Mark Twain admitted to a friend that he preferred writing on it.

1914- During World War I, the German artillery bombarded the Belgian city of Louvain, destroying it’s 600 year old medieval library. It was considered the first great cultural crime of the 20th Century, but alas, not the last.

1918- 17 year old Walt Disney dropped out of high school and faked his parents signature in order to enlist to fight in World War I. Turned down for his age, he volunteered for the Red Cross. Assigned to the ambulance corps, he arrived in Europe just as the war was ending.

1939- In preparation for the impending war with Germany, the Tower of London was closed to tourists and the English Crown Jewels smuggled out and hidden.

1944- Charles DeGaulle walked in triumph down the Champs Elysee among thousands as Parisians celebrates their liberation after four years of Nazi occupation.

1946 - George Orwell published "Animal Farm". Orwell said he conceived the idea for the novel while watching out his window a small boy driving a huge draft horse. The horse could have easily crushed the boy had it the free will, but instead patiently endured the boys taunts and flicks with a small switch.

1946- First day of shooting on Jean Cocteau’s film Belle et le Bete, Beauty & the Beast.

1958- First day of shooting on the Alfred Hitchcock film North By Northwest. Conceived as a story that ended in a chase across the stone faces of Mt. Rushmore. The original title of Ernst Lehman’s script was The Man Who Hung From Lincoln’s Nose.

1961- The Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto dedicated.

1964- The Tokyo subway system opens.

1967 – The Beatles, Mick Jagger & Marianne Faithful met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.

1970- Tens of thousands of women across North America march in The Women’s Strike for Equality. It was led by Betty Friedan of NOW, the National Organization for Women.

1971- The New York Giants announced they would move from Yankee Stadium to a new complex being built in the Meadowlands of Rutherford, New Jersey.

1980- Director Tex Avery died after collapsing in the parking lot of Hanna-Barbera. Two weeks before he was asked by a friend why he was working in Hanna & Barbera,
Tex laughed:" Hey, Don’t you know? this is where all the elephants come to die!"

1985- The first Yugo economy car arrived in the US. From Yugoslavia.

1997- Special effects house Boss Studios, closed.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What movie is this line from? “ I drink your milkshake!!”

Answer: Said by Daniel Day Lewis’ character in the 2007 film “ There Will Be Blood.” Explaining how we could push a drill pipe laterally underground to siphon oil from another’s claim.


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