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Sept. 8, 2020
September 8th, 2020

Question: Who coined the term, “ From the sublime, to the ridiculous”?

Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: What were the sins of Absalom?
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history for 9/8/2020
Birthdays: Richard the Lionhearted, Michel Caravaggio, Antonin Dvorak, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, Peter Sellars, Sid Caesar, Freddy Mercury, Lyndon LaRouche, Ewell Gibbons- natural food advocate, Heather Thomas, David Arquette is 48, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas, Pink is 41, Alvy Ray Smith is 77

1381-Battle Of Kulikovo- Prince Dmitri Donskoi of Novgorod defeated the Tartars of the Golden Horde.

1504- Michelangelo unveiled his completed statue of David. The project had humble origins. The Florentine Republic had commissioned a statue from another artist who gave up after gouging a large hole in a huge block of pure Carrara marble. Stuck with the block, magistrates asked Michelangelo if he could do anything with it. Michelangelo carved the David positioning the hole where the legs stand spread.

1565- Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent lifted the Siege of Malta. The Knights of St. John Hospitaller were granted ownership of Malta in perpetuity. They become the Knights of Malta. Their symbol, the Maltese Cross, is four barbed arrowheads forming a cross.

1636- Barely 6 years since Boston was founded, Massachusetts established the first school of higher learning in North America in the town of Cambridge. First called New Towne College, it was given money and 400 books from clergyman John Harvard. In 1639 the school was renamed for him- Harvard.

1642- Pilgrim governor William Bradford noted in his diary this day the Pilgrims executed a 16 year-old named Thomas Granger for perversion. Young Master Granger confessed to buggering a mare, two cows, six sheep, two goats and a turkeybird. I guess the Pilgrims felt it was hard to enjoy thanksgiving when someone has had sex with the main course.

1760- Montreal, the last French stronghold in Canada and seat of the French Governor, fell to British troops. Governor Vaudreuil- Cavagnal surrendered all of New France to the Merde-Anglais.

1771- Mission San Gabriel founded by Fra Junipero Serra.

1812- The day after the terrible battle of Borodino, the Russians began the evacuation of Moscow from Napoleons’ invading army.

1892- Writer Francis Bellamy published "The Pledge of Allegiance" in the Youth's Companion magazine as a vehicle to instill a sense of Patriotism in America's youth. Bellamy was a socialist.

1900- THE GREAT GALVESTON HURRICANE- At this time no one could chart or forewarn hurricanes beyond trying to read signs in the sky’s color. Despite hurricanes being common, no one in Galveston Texas was seriously prepared. There had been talk of building a breakwater in the harbor but nothing had been done. This day a huge hurricane that had ravaged Cuba came over and surprised Galveston Texas. It's eye later passed over Houston. No accurate count could be made of the dead but 4,000 bodies were recovered. One friend said his grandmother remembered a huge oak tree getting out of the ground and dancing a jig around the yard before it flew off. Afterwards authorities raised the town of Galveston 25 feet and built a sea wall to prevent future floods. Luxurious 3 story mansions were filled in and built on top of.

1919-The Boston Police Dept. goes on strike. Forbidden to actually picket, they took off their uniforms and walked home. "Gangs roam the streets unchecked. Women are attacked, are Lenin & Trotsky on the way ?!" (The Wall Street Journal)

1920 - US Air Mail service begins (NYC to SF)

1921 - 1st Miss America crowned -Margaret Gorman of Washington DC.

1926- Screen actress Greta Garbo skipped her own wedding and left John Gilbert alone at the altar. They still stayed lovers and lived together.

1930 - NYC public schools begin teaching Hebrew

1930 - Richard Drew creates Scotch tape.

1932-The emirates of Hejaz and Nuir are combined into the new Kingdom of Saudi Arabia under the House of Ibn Saud. Ibn Saud had conducted a masterful military and diplomatic campaign to get the Hejaz lands away from Faisal, the old ally of Lawrence of Arabia. Before the oil wealth began, Ibn Saud drove around his desert kingdom visiting Bedouin camps in an old Rolls Royce, with the nation's treasury in a trunk strapped to the roof.

1935- HUEY LONG, the "Kingfish" Louisiana governor and colorful 3rd party candidate for President is assassinated at the statehouse in Baton Rouge. His assassin, a quiet doctor named Karl Weiss, was riddled with bullets by Long's bodyguards before anyone found out why he did it. So many bullets flew some scholars wonder if Weiss' shot was even the one that killed Long.

1935-A vocal group called "4 Joes from Hoboken" get their first break on Major Bo's radio show. One of the singers is a young man named Frank Sinatra.

1935- Top Hollywood musical director Buzby Berkeley (42nd Street, Footlight Parade) got drunk at a party in Malibu and drove his Cadillac head on into oncoming traffic on Pacific Coast Highway near where Gladstones Fish Restaurant is today. He piled into three other cars. Berkeley was unhurt but three people died and four were injured. After three trials for 2nd degree murder Berkeley was found innocent. The reason star defense attorney Jerry Geisler gave was “cancerous tires”. Later it was revealed that all the tire experts who testified for the defense were on the Warner Bros. payroll.

1939 - FDR declares "limited national emergency" due to war breaking out in Europe.

1939- British film director Alfred Hitchcock began shooting his first Hollywood picture- Rebecca, for David Selznick.

1944- Italy declared Benito Mussolini deposed, and announced its intention to surrender to the Allies. The Germans occupy the Italy and free Mussolini in short order.

1946 - SF 49ers play their first AAFC game, losing to the NY Yankees 21-7.

1954- Akira Kurosawa’s film The Seven Samurai premiered at the Venice Film Festival.

1960- Penquin Books was charged with obscenity for the first large public paperback printing of D.H. Lawrence's 'Lady's Chatterley's Lover'.

1963-THE BOSTON STRANGLER- The killing of young Evelyn Corbin by the Boston Strangler. A married maintenance worker named Albert De Salvo terrorized the Beantown area by the rape-strangulation of 13 women over several years. Police were so baffled at one point they resorted to asking a Dutch Psychic for help. DeSalvo was finally caught and just missed execution as Massachusetts ban on capitol punishment had gone into effect months before. He was murdered in prison on 1973.

1965 - Dorothy Dandridge, beautiful black actress (Island in the Sun), dies at 41 in
Hollywood of sleeping pills overdose.

1966- STAR TREK debuts. LA policeman turned screenwriter Gene Roddenberry pitched it to Desilu Productions as, “Wagon Train in Outer Space.” The first episode “ The Man Trap” aired tonight. That season it ranked 52nd in the Neilsen ratings, behind #1 "Iron Horse" starring Dale Robertson, and "Mr. Terrific". It was canceled after two seasons but a letter writing campaign won it a third season. Star Trek then found a new life in syndication.
The cult fan base called Trekkies kept the memory of the show alive for ten years until Paramount felt compelled to revive it to cash in on the Star Wars-Close Encounters craze. First as a Filmation animated series, and then from 1979 a series of feature films, then spin-offs.
Frank Sinatra once said: "The only good thing to come out of the 1960s was Star Trek."

1966 - "That Girl" starring Marlo Thomas and Ted Bessell premieres on ABC-TV

1967 - Surveyor 5 launched; makes soft landing on Moon, Sept 10.

1971- Washington D.C.'s Kennedy Center opened. It was planned in the early sixties by John and Jackie Kennedy, although then unaware that their name would be on it. The performance featured the debut of Leonard Bernstein’s choral work “Mass”.

1974- Daredevil Evil Knieval in his most famous stunt, jumped the Snake River Gorge in a rocket powered motorcycle.

1974- President Gerald Ford surprised America by pardoning resigned President Richard Nixon for whatever he may have done in the Watergate Scandal, but not saying he really did anything..... Ford sez: " Our great national nightmare is over.."
America later surprised Ford by electing Jimmy Carter in his place.

1979- Jean Seberg, actress (Breathless, Airport), committed suicide at 40. She had been in love with a member of the radical Black Panther Party and was under continual harassment by the FBI and other Federal authorities.

1986- The Chicago based television talk show the Oprah Winfrey Show went national and became one of the most successful talk shows ever.

2008- The Rachael Maddow Show premiered on TV.

2009- A pair of Queen Victoria’s old underwear was recovered from a private collector and returned to the Royal Collection. Her waist size? 56 inches.

Yesterday’s Quiz: What are the sins of Absalom?

Answer: Absalom was the handsome son of King David, who rebelled against his father.


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