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Oct. 19, 2018
October 19th, 2018

Question: On old maps, what did it mean when it said Terra Incognita?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What is a spoonerism?
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History for 10/19/2018
Birthdays: Martha "Patsy" Jefferson, Auguste Lumiere, John Le Carre', Peter Tosh, Amy Carter, Jack Anderson, Peter Max, John Lithgow is 73, Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch, Evander Holyfield, Patricia Ireland, Michael Gambon is 78, John Favreau is 52, Trey Parker of South Park is 48

Roman festival Armilustrum, blessing of the shields of the Roman Legions.
Official end of campaigning season. Ancient nations didn't wage war from Oct. to Feb. because the winter cold would cost more lives than battle. It's no wonder that the first month that's warm enough to go out and kill people is named for Mars (March).

202BC The BATTLE OF ZAMA - Hannibal's great defeat at the hands of Publius Cornelius Scipio, who was honored by Rome with the surname "Africanis". It was said Scipio thwarted Hannibal’s dreaded elephants by frightening them away with a herd of wild pigs.

Despite saving Rome and defeating the greatest military genius since Alexander, after the Punic war Scipio Africanis was the target of a senate investigation into defense budget overdrafts. He tore up his expense records in front of the Senate and went into exile, not before scolding the Senators: "If Hannibal stood here instead of me, you would not be worrying about this."

43BC- Octavian, Julius Caesar’s 20 year old nephew, marched four legions into Rome and seized the government. He drove out the supporters of Brutus & Cassius as well as the supporters of his erstwhile ally Mark Anthony. He had Brutus & Cassius declared Enemies of the State. Octavian would eventually defeat them all and rule Rome as the Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.

1216- King John Lackland died, legend has it from an evil monk who pours poison from a venomous toad into his ear as he slept. There's no such thing as a poisonous toad in England, he actually died from eating too many ripe peaches and brandywine.

1453- Britain and France sign a peace treaty finally ending the Hundred Years War. The on again, off again conflict had started in 1336.

1739- England declared war on Spain. The war was called the War of Jenkins Ear because a sea captain appeared in Parliament with his ear pickled in a bottle of spirits and swore a Spanish captain had done it to him on the high seas. Some thought he was a fraud but England was hot for war, and composers James and Thomas Arne introduced their stirring new song "Rule Britannia! Britannia Rules the Waves! Britons Never, Never, Never Shall be Slaves!

1739-The Holy Inquisition in Portugal has its great dramatist Antonio da Silva burned at the stake for "practicing secret Judaism". On the same day his plays were playing to packed houses in Lisbon.

1781- YORKTOWN- The decisive stroke that won the American Revolution. Lord Cornwallis's army was trapped in the Virginia seaport of Yorktown and forced to surrender to George Washington and the French under the Comte du Rocheambeau. At 2:00PM the redcoats marched out to lay down their arms their bands played "The World Turned Upside Down."
"...If ponies rode men, and grass ate the cows
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse...
If Summer were Spring, and the other way 'round,
Then all the World would be Upside Down."

As the disciplined troops marched between rows of Americans and Frenchmen, British sergeants ordered :"Eyes Right!" so the men would ignore the Yankees and look at the French, for whom this was just one more chapter in their ancient rivalry. Lafayette recognized the insult and ordered the colonial band to play Yankee Doodle real loud, and the Americans started giving happy Indian war whoops. One French officer wondered if the French: "would have to save our fellow Europeans from being scalped."

Back in London when Lord North received the news he "reacted like he had taken a ball in the breast. "Good God!' he shouted:" It's all over!" His government fell as a result. The government selected to sign the humiliating peace fell also.

As a final insult of fate, Lord Cornwallis on the boat home to England got captured by a French pirate ship and forced to pay ransom! The pirate was an Arcadian (Cajun) dandy, who would always dress in red. He was nicknamed " Le Joli Rouge " ( the Handsome Red One )... The nickname is the origin of the " Jolly Rogers " the skull and cross bones of the pirates' flag.

1790- HAMAR’S DEFEAT- The new US Government of President Washington had sent its first army expedition under Brigadier General Josiah Hamar to the Ohio Country to chastise the Indians raiding settlements with British help. This day near the Miami Indian village called Kekionga which would one day be Fort Wayne Indiana, Hamars force was met by a Miami-Eel chief named Meshekinoquah or Little Turtle. Despite the innocent sounding name Little Turtle was a 6 foot tall, 44 year old tough warrior and a brilliant strategist. He skillfully maneuvered Hamars force into an ambush and wiped out 3/4 of their number with minimal losses of his own. Militiamen screamed "For God’s sake run, there is Indians enough to eat you all up!"

1812- Napoleon and his army quit Moscow, the Great Retreat began.

1845- Richard Wagners’ opera Tannhauser premiered.

1864- 'And there was Sheridan, Twenty miles Away.." Battle of Cedar Creek. In Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley Confederate Jubal Early surprise attacked the Union camp and send the Yankees running. Little General Phil Sheridan, coming from a breakfast meeting in Washington, jumped on his horse Reinzi and rode to the sound of battle. As his men saw him ride by they cheered. He yelled back:" Don't just cheer me, g--damn you! Turn around and Fight!" They counterattacked and won the day. Sheridan’s Ride was later made into a famous poem.

1899- U.S. rocket pioneer Dr. Robert Goddard mentioned today in his memoirs as the first time he started to think seriously about how man could achieve space travel.

1901- Brazilian Santos Dumont flew a small dirigible around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. This proved that a balloon could be maneuvered by a propeller motor. This was four years before the Wright Brothers. A crowd of 100,000 cheered including Jules Verne and H.G. Wells.

1907- 'GENTLEMEN, YOU HAVE FIFTEEN MINTUES TO RAISE TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS'- THE STOCK MARKET PANIC OF 1907- The unregulated Trust bank system goes into a tailspin, pulling Wall Street down with it. The Chairman of Knickerbocker Trust, William Barney, put a pistol to his head as mobs of his clients beat down the barricaded doors to withdraw their savings. The system was saved singlehandedly by the Emperor of Wall Street, J.P. Morgan. Like a general at a battle he pumped reinforcing capitol into the system and made the above statement to the assembled bank presidents.

They raised the money in ten minutes and got it to the Stock Exchange in time to save 30 brokerage houses. He personally lent New York City $20 million to save it from default. At the close of trading J.P. Morgan got a public ovation from the stock traders assembled under his office window. Citizens were relieved, but instead of being grateful to Morgan they were not a little horrified that one man should have so much power over the entire U.S. economy. This realization caused the movement in Washington to create the U.S. Federal Reserve Banking System in 1913.

1917- The Silent Raid, London was bombed by 21 German Zeppelins.

1926- King George VI of England was known to have a bad stutter that embarrassed him in public speaking. This day, George had his first appointment with his Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue at his Harley St. office. The event was dramatized in the film- The King’s Speech.

1945- N.C. Wyeth, artist and father of Andrew Wyeth, was struck and killed by a train.

1953 – Arthur Godfrey had one of the more popular TV variety shows at the time. One of his headliners was the singer Julius LaRosa. But Godfrey was seen to act more and more imperiously with his cast and crew. This day after a song, Godfrey put his arm around LaRosa and said gently. "Julie lacks humility, So, Julie, to teach you a lesson, you’re fired!" La Rosa and the audience first thought he was kidding but he wasn’t. He had fired LaRosa live, nationwide on the air.

1957- Montreal Hockey great Maurice Rocket Richard became the first player to score 500 goals.

1960- Rev Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed for holding a sit-in in Atlanta. Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy ignored his advisers and the silence of Republican Richard Nixon, by openly contacting Dr King in jail to see if he was all right.

1964- Doo Wah Diddy Diddy hit the pop charts.

1968- RUPERT MURDOCH INVADED ENGLAND. Never mind the Vikings or William the Conqueror, on this day the little Australian landed at Heathrow to begin a takeover war for his first English newspaper, the News of the World. Until now the Fleet Street press barons were a closed club of rich old gentlemen. Murdoch used Sir Robert Caro as his cover to get in and defeat a hostile takeover bid from Robert Maxwell. He then demoted Caro out of his leadership of the paper. He soon bought the London Times. Rupert Murdoch later became a U.S. citizen so he could build the Fox News and cable TV empires.

1985- Take on Me by Aha hit number one on the pop charts.

1987- Black Monday, The STOCK MARKET CRASH OF '87. The Dow falls 508 points. It was partly blamed on the Arbitrage high speed automated stock trading system going bananas and turning a downswing into a panic. Venerable old firms like E.F. Hutton sank beneath the waves -having their chairman Bob Froman plead guilty to $22 million dollars worth of bank and mail fraud didn't help either.
However in six months most of the losses were regained, some traders saying the recovery was spurred by a bronze statue of bulls placed at the foot of Wall Street. A system of emergency circuit breakers were installed to prevent arbitrage from flipping out again. In the Great Recession of Sept 2008, the Dow fell 750 points and last week it fell 850.

1990- Kevin Costner’s film Dances With Wolves premiered.

1998- Website ClubLove.com published nude photos of conservative radio personality Dr. Laura Schlesinger. She denied the photos were of her, then sued the website for copyright infringement.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a spoonerism?

Answer: Spoonerisms are an error in speech, or deliberate play to rearrange words for comedic effect. So, Pouring Rain becomes Roaring with Pain, Washington’s Birthday became Birthington’s Washday, and so on. It was named for Rev Spooner, the Dean of Oxford in the Edwardian era, who made these comic slips accidentally. Or maybe it was Drain Bamage.


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