Question: What is the Mason-Dixon Line?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered: What is a luthier? (hint: hand-made craftsperson)
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History for 1/20/2024
Birthdays: King Charles III of Spain, Richard Henry Lee- signer of the Declaration of Independence, Frederico Fellini, Patricia O’Neal, Dorothy Provine, Mario Lanza, David Lynch, George Burns, DeForest Kelly, Arte Johnson, Lorenzo Lamas, Rainn Wilson is 58, Edwin Buzz Aldrin is 94.

In the French Revolutionary calendar this is the first day Pluvoise, the Month of Rain.

661AD- Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, was assassinated by a partisan of Muyawiah Ibn Abi Suffian- the founder of the Ummayad Dynasty of Caliphs. Ali’s supporters were called Ali's SHIAH or Ali's Partisans – which became the branch of Islam called Shiite, the rest of Islam is known as Sunni. It grew into a split like the one between Catholics and Protestants in Christianity.

1193- Licensed prostitution began in Japan.

1777- George Washington invited a bright young artillery captain to join his personal staff. Alexander Hamilton’s career began.

1779- The great English actor David Garrick died. Supposedly his last words were when asked “Is it hard to die?” Garrick replied:” Dying is not Hard. Comedy is Hard.”

1783- Britain signed peace treaties with France and Spain, ending their support to the American Revolution. The treaty with America had been finalized three months earlier.

1841- Convention of Chuen Pei-Treaty that ended the Opium Wars. China ceded harbor front land to Britain that would become the city of Hong Kong. The Chinese never smoked opium until it was introduced by British merchants from India.

1908- The Sullivan Ordinance barred women from smoking in public facilities.

1920- The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) founded by Roger Baldwin.

1924- WAR ON THE MAFIA- In 1924 the Mafia was almost completely destroyed. By who? Benito Mussolini. His fascist regiments marched across the island of Sicily arresting 11, 000 and executing hundreds. Mussolini declared victory and many of the surviving dons fled to America where Prohibition was providing great new opportunities for crooks. During WWII, when the Anglo-American armies liberated Sicily from the Nazis, who to put in charge of the local towns? Can’t be Fascists. Can’t be Communists. Who was left? (Cue the Godfather music….)

1930-The Matanza Massacre. Authorities in El Salvador kill 30,000 peasants protesting the government refusing to seat peasant ministers who won an election. By the time the army stopped, 4 percent of the population was dead, the Communist Party gone and native Indian dress and languages outlawed. The leader of the peasants Augustin Farabundo Marti later gave his name to the 1980’s guerrilla movement.

1936- King George V of England died. In great pain from incurable cancer, In 1986 a doctor admitted getting instructions from his son The Prince of Wales to euthanize him with a strong shot of cocaine and morphine, called a “Brompton Cocktail”. The doctor timed his offing of the king so the news would be out with the morning newspapers, instead of the trashier afternoon tabloids.
His Majesties last words were reported to be:" How goes the Empire? " He actually winced at the sloppy way the injection was done and said: "Oww, God damn you!"
Another legend says when the King was told if he recovered they would return to the town of Bognor in Sussex for holiday, His Majesties last words were “Oh, Bugger Bognor!”

1936- 19 year old Adriana Caselotti recorded her first tracks as Snow White for Walt Disney. Her father Guido Caselotti was a casting agent charged with finding the right actress. She stood behind him while he was on the phone, saying” Daddy! Pick me! Pick me!” I met her in her 80s, and that voice was still recognizable.

1937- Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated for his second term after defeating Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas. He is the first president to be inaugurated in January instead of the customary March 4th. The Depression still raged despite all his efforts, he gave the inaugural speech decrying the rampant poverty in the U.S. "I see one third of the nation, ill-housed, ill-fed, ill-clothed, living in conditions far beneath the minimum standards we regard as decent, etc."

1938- Early animation pioneer Emile Cohl died while headed for the Paris premiere of Disney's" Snow White and the Seven Dwarves". Cohl by then was so poor that the electricity in his flat had been turned off and the candles had ignited his beard. Angry he was never recognized in his time, he once said: "the French prefer their artists with marble and flowers on top."

1942- The Wanasee Conference-Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann and other top Nazis have a lunch meeting in a suburb in Berlin. Over cocktails they invented The Final Solution. Zyclon–B gas chambers instead of electrocution or carbon-monoxide. They set a target goal of ten million Jews to be murdered by 1946.

1945- Franklin D. Roosevelt sworn in as U.S. President for a fourth consecutive term, the only person ever to do so.

1947- Josh Gibson, star hitter of the segregated Negro Baseball Leagues, died indigent and alone. He was only 35. Had he been white he would be counted with Babe Ruth and Ty Cobb in baseball stardom. Instead, he was buried in obscurity. There was no money for a gravestone.

1949- FBI chief J. Edgar Hoover gave Shirley Temple a pen that shoots tear gas.

1953- The Birth of Little Ricky on the I Love Lucy show drew a larger viewing audience than the televised inauguration of President Dwight Eisenhower.

1961- John F. Kennedy gave his famous inaugural speech:” Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Outgoing President Eisenhower disliked JFK personally. He was angry that his win over Nixon seemed a repudiation of his policies, so almost nothing was said between them in the limousine during the drive to the ceremony. John Kennedy also went through that day mostly hatless, inaugurating the fashion. Before JFK, a man was not fully dressed without a hat or cap of some sort.

1964- Sports Illustrated Magazine put out its first Swimsuit Edition. Discovering many men like other things besides sports…

1965- Alan Freed, the disc jockey who coined the term Rock & Roll, died at 43 of uremic blood poisoning. He was broken by the Rock payola scandal and died so poor his friends passed the hat to pay for his funeral.

1966- The Ghost and Mr Chicken, with Don Knotts premiered.

1968- Young U.S. infantryman Ron Kovic was wounded near the Vietnamese demilitarized zone the DMZ. The black soldier who carried him to safety was killed shortly after and Kovic never learned his name. The incident put Kovic in a wheelchair for life and changed his attitude towards the righteousness of the war. He wrote the bestseller " Born on the Fourth of July" and became a passionate antiwar activist.

1969- Richard Nixon sworn in as President capping one of the most amazing comebacks in political history. After losing to Kennedy in 1960 Nixon lost yet again to Pat Brown for the governorship of California and was considered politically finished. Anybody remember Michael Dukakis, Dan Quayle or Fritz Mondale?
Yet Nixon worked on his image over the years and re-emerged in 1968 as “The New Nixon”. Nixon ran as peace candidate and at his inaugural announced, “The era of confrontation is over, the era of negotiation has begun.” It took him five years to get us out of Vietnam, destroying Cambodia, Laos and almost Thailand in the process. When Nixon took office there were 23,000 combat deaths, but when he left there were 58,000 war deaths and 8 US students shot down on their college campuses. So his record remains at best controversial.

1981- As President Reagan was being sworn in, the hostages taken at the United States Embassy in Teheran were released after being held for 444 days. 6 years later it was revealed a deal was negotiated with the Iranians to release the hostages in exchange for a ransom of weapons. But at the time, all the American public knew was that all the Old Gipper had to do was show up, to make the Mad Mullah’s hightail-it outta town.

1982- Rock star Ozzie Osbourne was hospitalized in Des Moines Iowa after biting the head off a dead bat thrown on stage during a concert.

1982- SONY introduced the Camcorder, the personal video camera.

1986- The worlds first computer virus, Brain, was sent out over the infant internet.

2001- George W. Bush inaugurated as the 43rd President. He is only the second son of a president to be elected, the other being John Quincy Adams, the son of John Adams.

2009- Standing in front of the U.S. Capitol, a building built by black slaves, Barack Obama was inaugurated 44th President of the United States. The first African-American.

2009- While the inaugural balls for President Obama were taking place, leaders of the defeated Republican Party met in a secret conclave at The Capitol Grill. There they formulated the strategy to paralyze all legislation and frustrate all of Pres. Obama’s attempts to heal the economy they had destroyed. Then they would run against his record as ineffective. They did paralyze his government with four times more filibusters than any time in history and won in 2016 with a promise to get America moving again.

2016- Cal Tech astronomers announced they discovered signs of a Ninth Planet beyond Pluto. It is 5,000 times larger than earth, and it’s wobbly oblong orbit takes 22,000 years to go completely around the sun, while the Earth takes one year. Named Ultima Thule, the space probe New Horizon reached it in 2019.

2021- The central ceremony of American Democracy is the peaceful transfer of power. This day Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46 U.S. President, without the presence of outgoing Pres. Trump. Although Biden defeated him by the same substantial margin that FDR defeated Hoover in 1932, Donald Trump refused to concede and spent the four years stirring up discontent among the ignorant with conspiracy theories, and legal recounts in 21 states. All of which proved Biden won. Today 60% of Republicans still believe the 2020 election was rigged, without a single bit of proof.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a luthier? (hint: hand-made craftsperson)

Answer: Someone who hand-makes violins and other string instruments.