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November 30th, 2007 friday.
November 30th, 2007

Question: Sam Clemens called himself Mark Twain. Why?

Answer to yesterday’s quiz below: Why is the South Eastern US known as Dixie?
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History for 11/30/2007
Birthdays: Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain, Winston Churchill,Jonathan Swift,Gordon Parks, G. Gordon Liddy, Alan Sherman, Abbie Hoffman, Virginia Mayo, Ephram Zimbalist Jr, Richard Crenna, Robert Guiliame, Rex Reason, Mandy Patinkin, Luther Ingram, Ridley Scott is 70, David Mamet, Ben Stiller is 42, Shuggie Otis, Billy Idol, Joan Ganz Cooney the creator of Sesame Street, Dick Clark is 79

1750- Marshal Saxe died. The one-eyed old general was given the beautiful French chateau of Chambord by Louis XV as his retirement home. An illegitimate son of Polish King Augustus the Strong, Saxe spent the summer nights camping out Cossack style and letting wild steppe ponies gallop the castle grounds. An old ladies man, he died after an all night "interview" with eight actresses. The king's physician wrote as the cause of death on the Death Certificate; "Une surfeit des femmes."- an overdose of women.

1776- As George Washington’s minuteman army retreated across New Jersey to escape the pursuing British Army a third of his troop’s enlistment’s were up. In a cold rain two thousand New Jersey and Maryland militiamen quit and walked home. Writer Thomas Paine was serving General Nathaniel Greene as a secretary and was moved by this pitiful sight to write the pamphlet: “The Crisis.”:”These are times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will shrink in this crisis from the service of his country. But he that stands now deserves the love and thanks of both man and woman. “ Washington called his downcast soldiers together and had the pamphlet read aloud to them.

1782- On a dark snowy day in an upstairs room on the Rue Bonaparte on Paris’ Left Bank, The United States and Britain signed the first of several protocols leading up to the full peace treaty ending the American Revolution in 1783. John Adams, John Jay, Benjamin Franklin and Richard Lawrence signed for America, a parliamentary delegation led by Lord Oswald signed for the Crown. On British diplomat said:” The Americans are the greatest quibblers I have ever dealt with, and I pray never to again in the future!”

1886- Paris’ famed naughty nightclub the Follies Bergere opened. The home of the Can-Can, Toulouse Lautrec, Josephine Baker, Brickttop, Maurice Chevalier.

1900- Oscar Wilde died of meningitis in a hotel in Paris. His last words; "This wallpaper is appalling! Either it goes or I do."

1922- The great actress Sarah Bernhardt made her last performance in Turin Italy. She was still considered sexy despite advanced age and a wooden leg.

1924- The first fax message sent. A photo of the Prince of Wales was wired across the Atlantic by radio transmission.

1939- Soviet Russia attacks Finland. The gallant Finns fought back fiercely with skiing hit and run attacks, and gasoline bottle bombs nicknamed for Stalin's Foreign Minister, Vachyescav Molotov, the "Molotov Cocktail".

1940-actress Lucille Ball married Cuban band leader Desi Arnaz. Together they pioneered the new art of Television. They divorced in 1960.

1968- “Love Child” by Diana Ross and the Supremes hit #1 in the pop charts.

1970- First day shooting on William Freidkin’s film The French Connection.

1974- In a dry gully in Ethiopia Dr Dennis Johannsen discovered the perfect skeletal remains of one of the earliest human ancestors, a homonid ape that walked upright named- Australiopithicus Afranencis. Johannsen liked the Beatles song Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds so he named the ape Lucy.

1979- ESPN, the 24 hour sports channel began broadcasting.

1982- Nova Pictures is founded, but due to conflict with a PBS t.v. show of the same name they change theirs to TriStar Pictures. In 1994 TriStar was merged into SONY Pictures.

1985-Punk band The Dead Kennedys released their album Frankenchrist.

1991- Battered wife Mrs Omeima Nelson killed her abusive husband, dismembered his body and ate him. “I did his ribs just like in a restaurant.” she said.

1993- President Clinton signed the Brady Handgun bill into law. The bill was named for Reagan press secretary James Brady, who received a debilitating head wound in the assassination attempt on Reagan in 1981.President Bush allowed the law to expire.

1999- Seattle protestors trying to disrupt the World Trade Organization battle riot police and turn the downtown area into a retro-sixties battle zone. For the next several years wherever the WTO met they were surrounded by hundreds of thousands of protestors, although the mainstream media tends to pooh-pooh their message.

2003- Roy Disney Jr, the last member of the Disney family, was forced to resign from the Walt Disney Company. It was claimed to be the mandatory retirement policy but more likely he was forced out by the exec he hired to run the company in 1984- Michael Eisner. In 2005 after compelling Eisner to leave, Roy Disney was restored to an emeritus consultant position.
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Yesterday’s Question: Why is the South Eastern US known as Dixie?

Answer: In the early days of the United States, states minted their own currency until the Dollar became standard. Because some much of the new nations good came through the Port of New Orleans, merchant got used to the Louisiana currency with the French words printed on it. The most common was the ten dollar bill, with the French for ten- DIX on each bill. So it was Dixie money, or money from Dixie.


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