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Oct. 20, 2020
October 20th, 2020

Question: If Disney character Pluto is a dog, what is Goofy?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: This close to a US election, pundits speak of an “ October Surprise”. What does that mean?
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History for 10/20/2020
Birthdays: Sir Christopher Wren, Bela Lugosi (born Bela Blasgow from Lugosz), Charles Ives, Arthur Rimbaud, Daniel Sickles, Black Panther Bobby Seale, Juan Marichal, Tom Petty, Art Buchwald, Arlene Francis, Grandpa Jones, Mickey Mantle, Frank Churchill, Thomas Newman, Jerry Ohrbach, Rex Ingram, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Michael Dunn, Snoop Dogg (born Calvin Broadus Jr) is 49, Danny Boyle is 64, Viggo Mortensen is 62

1740- The Austrian Emperor Charles VI died. He leaves his daughter Maria Theresa sole heir. Maria was such a tough monarch that even when giving birth to Marie Antoinette ( just one of her 18 children ) she refused to go into confinement, but sat propped up in an easy chair writing orders between contractions.

1805- NELSON'S LAST DISPATCH- Once Admiral Horatio Nelson learned that Napoleon’s Franco-Spanish Fleet had come out of Cadiz harbor he headed them off at Cape Trafalgar. Knowing the big battle would be fought on the morrow, he wrote his last log entries and letters. In one of them he begs the Admiralty to 'take care of My Poor Emma', meaning his beautiful mistress Lady Hamilton. He wrote nothing about his wife and son. Nelson was killed in the battle and lionized as the hero of the nation, but Lady Hamilton was shunned as a homebreaker, and died a fat old souse in Calais.

1813- An incident during Napoleons retreat from Germany after the defeat at Leipzig. The retreating Neuchatel regiment were being harassed by pursuing Russian Cossack cavalry. Seeing a women camp follower or vivandiere, straggling behind the column, a Cossack charged her, lance in hand. It was not sure whether he wanted to kill, rob or rape her in full view of the army. The vivandiere who’s name was Rosalie, calmly put down her bundle, pulled out a pair of pistols and shot the man out of his saddle. She then proceeded to steal his horse, and galloped back to the column to the cheers of the troops.

1818- America and Britain fix the western border between the US and Canada at the 49th parallel latitude.

1827- Battle of Navarino- France, England and Russia sent huge fleets to the Bay of Navarino to arbitrate the dispute between Turkey and the Greek revolutionaries. Not that anyone asked them to, but they were terribly moved by Byron's and Shelley's poems and after all, that's what Imperialist powers DID in those days. The Admiral of the British fleet was Admiral Collingwood, who was with Nelson at Trafalgar. The Allied fleet were under strict orders not to fire unless attacked, so when a Turkish gunner shot at a messenger under a white flag, BOOM, BOOM! Greek Independence.

1862- While the Civil War raged back east, Col. Patrick Connor and two regiments of US Cavalry (The California Blues) were sent to occupy Salt Lake City. His ostensible mission was to protect the overland stage and wagon trail routes through Utah, but also he was to keep an eye on Brigham Young and his Mormon Community. Connor was not the most diplomatic choice. He called Mormons “traitors and whores” and set up his camp overlooking the town with large cannon pointed down on them. He named his army camp Fort Douglas after the late Senator Stephen Douglas who had referred to Mormonism as a “disgusting cancer”.

Brigham Young had to use all his diplomatic tact and patience to deal with this hotheaded soldier. The Mormons formed a volunteer unit called the Navoo Legion to work with the army fighting hostile Shoshone and Paiute bands. Eventually everyone got along, although Connor and other federal authorities encouraged non-Mormon settlements in Utah hoping to overwhelm their community. Connor not only reconciled with his Mormon neighbors, he stayed the rest of his life in Salt Lake City, dying in the 1890s.

1890-Retired explorer Sir Richard Burton died at 69. Burton was the first Christian to enter Mecca, he went up the Nile and the Amazon, fought Indians with Kit Carson and did the first modern translation of the Arabian Nights, introducing the western world to Aladdin, Scheherazade and Sinbad the Sailor. Wherever he went in his world travels he collected pornography and erotic poems, documenting of the sexual habits of various cultures. After his death his wife burned all this anthropological material in their backyard. She feared for his soul. It is considered one of the great literary crimes of the century.

1912- The First Balkan War.

1921- Rudolf Valentino starred in The Sheik, which premiered today.

1939- Frank Capra’s film “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” opened.

1940-:” Fuehrer, we are on the march!” Mussolini told Hitler as Italy invaded Greece from Italian occupied Albania. The Greeks not only defeated his armies and drove them away, they even invaded Albania forcing Hitler to send German reinforcements. Hitler was angry at Il Duce’s move because it pulled on reinforcements he intended for the North African drive on the Middle Eastern oilfields.

1944- In Cleveland, liquid natural gas from storage tanks leaks into storm sewers and the streets, then explodes. The explosion and fire leveled 30 blocks of the city, killing 130.

1944-"I HAVE RETURNED'- Douglas MacArthur and the President Quezon of the Philippines led the invasion of Japanese held Luzon. The U.S. military wanted to pass by the Philippines to head straight for Japan, but MacArthur couldn't bear to go back on his pledge. MacArthur did the stepping off of the landing craft on to the beach twice, once for the moment and a second time for the newsreel cameras. Some insiders said the scowl on his face was not just his grim determination to get at the Japanese, but because the landing craft had left him in water deeper than expected and got cold sea water up to his nads. Supposedly, he joked,” Well, at lease now people will see I can’t walk on water.”

1945- Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon form the Arab League.

1947- 'ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN...' Judge J. Parnell Thomas banged the gavel opening the House Committee on Un-American Activities investigation into Communist infiltration into the Motion Picture Business. HUAC was set up in 1938 as the Dies Committee to keep an eye on pro-Nazis groups operating in German and Italian immigrant organizations, but by 1944 its emphasis had switched to Communist espionage. Investigations of the army or top civil servants like Dean Acheson was dull stuff, New Deal hating conservatives knew investigating Hollywood would yield the big headlines and jazz up public interest.
Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney were the first in line to name names. Lucille Ball, Sterling Hayden, Zero Mostel, Ginger Rogers, Ed Wynn, Howard da Silva, and Lloyd Bridges admitted they had once held communist party memberships. The anti-commie hysteria turned Hollywood inside out and the bitter feelings remained for the rest of their lives.

1951- the CBS Eye logo made its debut. Creative director Bill Golden was inspired when he drove through Pennsylvania Dutch country. He became intrigued by the hex symbols resembling the human eye that were painted on Shaker barns. In show biz slang CBS is still referred to as The Eye.

1955- Harry Belafonte recorded the Banana Boat Song, that made him a star. “ Come Mister Tally-Man, tally me bananas…Dayo!”

1955- J.R.R. Tolkein’s 3rd book of the Lord of the Rings published. The Return of the King.

1963- Diana Churchill, the eldest daughter of Winston Churchill, had two failed marriages and several nervous breakdowns. Today she took an overdose of sleeping pills. She was 52.

1968- Former First Lady Jackie Bouvier Kennedy shocked American society when a few months after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination when she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on his private island of Skorpios. “They’ll knock you off your pedestal” Truman Capote warned her. But she was determined to get her children away from the violence engulfing the U.S. in the 60’s. Onassis’ employees nicknamed her “Supertanker” because they felt he spent the equivalent price of one of those ships to win her.

1973- The Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors premiered.

1973- THE SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRE- when special prosecutor Archibald Cox got too close to implicating President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal Nixon fired him without comment or explanation. Attorney General Elliot Richardson, rather than execute the order to fire Cox, himself resigned. Then deputy Attorney Gen. Donald Ruckleshaus was told to, he resigned as well. They eventually found someone in the Justice Dept. willing to fire Cox. It was Robert Bork. Nixon sent FBI agents to immediately secure their files and records. Because of this overt act of presidential arrogance the first calls for impeachment of the President were heard, even from members of his own Republican party. In 2012 Bork was attached to the Mitt Romney campaign.

1973- Sidney Australia’s Opera House was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II.

1977- Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines died when their plane crashed into a swamp while en route to a concert at Louisiana University.

1991- The Oakland California Firestorm. Drought and Diablo wind conditions fanned a blaze in the East Bay hills that destroyed 3,000 buildings and killed 25 people.

1994- President Clinton opened up the first Presidential web site and set up an office of Director of Electronic Mail. To e-mail the President you use President@whitehouse.gov or First.Lady@whitehouse.gov This may be poetic justice, but if you used www.whitehouse.com you would get a porn site. One of the first acts of incoming President George W. Bush was to close the site down, but President Obama restored it.

2011- Libyan rebels killed dictator Col Mohammar Khaddafi. The man who had ruled Libya since 1967 was found hiding in a storm drain. He was dragged out, beaten bloody, rammed a broomstick up his butt, and shot him in the head six times.

2013- Saving Mr. Banks with Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, premiered.
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Yesterday’s Question: This close to a US election, pundits speak of an “ October Surprise”. What does that mean?

Answer: In US politics, because the US elections are held the first Tuesday in November, the October Surprise has come to mean some kind of political slight-of-hand, or unforeseen revelation in the final week that proves decisive to the outcome. It was first named the October Surprise in 1980 by William Casey, Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager. When he learned President Jimmy Carter was negotiating to get the US Embassy hostages released by the Iranian government. Casey contacted the Iranians and negotiated a delay in their release so the news would not help Carter. Carter lost to Reagan, and the hostages were released a week after his inauguration.
The most recent example was in 2016, FBI director James Comey’s announcement of an investigation of Hillary Clinton, one week before the election probably helped Donald Trump win.


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