Question: What is the origin of the term, The Gang of Four?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the term A Young Turk?
---------------------------------------
History for 1/24/2008
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Publius Hadrian AD117, Carlo Broschi called Farinelli the Castrato-1707, Pierre De Beaumarchais, Ernest Borgnine, Frederick II the Great, Edith Wharton, German Field Marshal Model, Mary Lou Rhetton, John Belushi, Disney director Wilfred Jackson, Yakov Smirnoff, Daniel Auteuil, Orel Roberts, Natassia Kinski

41 A.D.- CALIGULA ASSASSINATED- The psychotic Roman Emperor left a gladiator bout to have lunch when in an isolated hallway of the amphitheater his own bodyguards turned on him. His chief assailant was the captain of the watch Chaerea who Caligula liked to embarrass -he once gave Chaerea the watchword “Gimme a kiss”. After two sword thrusts the bleeding emperor shouted: " I still live ! Strike again !" Which they did until he was finally dead. They threw Caligulas’ corpse in a hole in the Lamian gardens. It was said his ghost continued to scare people there for years afterwards. Realizing that without an Emperor an Emperor's Guard isn't much use, the guards looked about for a member of the Imperial family that hadn’t already been butchered. They dragged Caligula's simple old uncle Claudius out from under a table and made him Caesar. Robert Graves worked his novel 'I Claudius' around the theory that Claudius was actually very intelligent but merely feigned idiocy to escape the murderous intrigues of his family. This idea is disputed by a number of ancient writers like Seutonius who said: "Claudius told the court he had merely feigned simple-mindedness, but of course nobody believed him, as his subsequent behavior would prove out."

1848- James W. Marshall discovers Gold at Sutter's Mill, California. This event will spark the first big gold rush the following year, the '49 ers. John Sutter had bought the land from the last Russian settlers and set up his town while under Mexican rule. Ironically the gold rush ruined him. Thousands of prospectors ignored his jurisdiction claims, trampled his crops and slaughtered his herds for food. Within a year or two he was broke and spent the rest of his life trying to get the US Government to reimburse him.

1865- The Pioneer Oil Company set up to prospect for petroleum in the L.A. area.

1874- Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Gudunov premiered in Saint Petersburg.

1875- Camille Saint-Saens orchestral work Danse Macabre premiered in Paris.

1927- The Pleasure Garden premiered, the first film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

1942- Producer David O. Selznick signed young star Jennifer Jones. He became infatuated with her and left his wife, the daughter of Louis B. Mayer to marry Jones.

1961- Warner Bros. cartoon voice actor Mel Blanc had a terrible auto crash. He lingered in a coma for several weeks. The way the doctor brought him around was to say: “Hey Bugs Bunny! How are we today?” Blanc replied in character:” Ehhh…fine,doc!”

1965- Winston Churchill died at 90. His last words were "Oh, I'm so bored of it all..." At 75 Churchill said :"I am ready to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the ordeal of meeting me is another matter." David Lloyd George once quipped of how Churchill would behave in Heaven: "Winston would go up to his Creator and say he would very much like to meet His Son, about whom he has heard a great deal."

1972- Japanese soldier Soichi Yokoi was found in the jungles of Guam unaware that World War Two had ended 27 years earlier. He had stolen a radio and listened to the news. But he thought the stories of Americans in Korea and Vietnam were just propaganda. He was returned to Japan a healthy, if somewhat confused hero.

1983- Hulk Hogan pinned the Iron Sheik to win his first World Wrestling Federation title.

1984- Apple announced the first Macintosh Computer. It went for $2500.
it's so small!

1986 -Voyager 2 spacecraft flies by Uranus. A friend of mine was in the visitor's gallery at The Jet Propulsion Laboratory as the data began to roll in from the space probe. He saw one man break up the entire room of Nobel-prize winning professors into hysterical laughter with the childish pun :”Here is the latest data on Gas Emissions from Uranus..."

2006- The Walt Disney Company acquired CG animation studio PIXAR. Apple and PIXAR head Steve Jobs and Ed Catmul get a seat on Disney Board and director John Lasseter becomes creative head.
---------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What is the origin of the term A Young Turk?

ANSWER: In 1913 a group of young Turkish army officers led by Enver Bey take over the government from the despotic rule of Sultan Abdul Hamid IV, and try to modernize Turkey, while keeping the Sultan as a figurehead. This group around Enver became a political movement, an insurgent group fighting for change....Today Young Turks has come to refer to "new blood" infused into an established heirarchy, such as hot shot graduates from business or law school who come into well established firms with high falootin' ideas and
challenge the status quo, or how young actors like Kiefer Sutherland, Emilio Estevez, etc in the early '80's who broke in to challenge the "old guard" for prominence..