Quiz: Who are these men? Schuyler Colfax, Hamilton Fish, Cactus Jack Garner, Charles GoodTime Charlie Curtis and Alban Barkeley?

Answer to yesterdays question below: What is meant by Balkanization?
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history for 2/23/2006
Birthdays: George Fredrich Handel, Samuel Pepys (pronounced 'peeps'), Mayer Amschel Rothschild-1743- founder of the Rothschild banking dynasty, Victor Fleming director of Gone With the Wind, Tom Bodet, W.E.B. DuBois, Johnny Winter, Peter Fonda, Ed Too Tall Jones, Barry Bonilla ,William Shirer, Allan MacLeod Cormack-inventor of the CAT Scan, Kelly MacDonald, Steve Jobs.

Roman Festival Terminalia, god of borders and boundries.
Not to be confused of course with Janus god of portals and doorways.

303 A.D. -DIOCLETIAN RENEWS THE BAN ON CHRISTIANITY. The Roman Empire recognized a cult as ‘religo’ ( officially sanctioned ) or “supersticio” ( banned ). It's a paradox that those men history called good Roman emperors were big Christian killers while the evil tyrants like Caligula ignored Christians, probably because they were too busy abusing their own subjects to focus on a minor Eastern cult. After Nero's death the pattern of Christian persecution raised and lowered with each emperor, at one time so mild that two bishops of the outlawed religion even asked the emperor Aurelian to arbitrate a dispute! When Diocletian became emperor he made it his mission to stop the Roman Empire's decline. So if weirdo cults like Christianity were considered part of the problem then it had to be stamped out. While Nero tortured people only in Rome Diocletian demanded a systematic quota of arrests and executions in every province of the Empire. A lot of saints date their martyrdom’s around 295-305 AD. Saint George was George of Nicomedia, a Yugoslav who strode up to Diocletian's palace in modern Split, Serbia and tore the edict from the walls. Then Diocletian had George torn up. Where the dragon slaying comes in is a bit of medieval invention. What Diocletian couldn't foresee was that ten years later the son of one of his own generals, Constantine, would make Christianity the state religion of the Empire 312 A.D.

1819- The CATO STREET CONSPIRACY- English radicals led by Sir Roger Thistlewood plot to murder the entire British cabinet including the Duke of Wellington as they supped after the opening of Parliament. Then would institute a French Revolutionary style republic in Jolly-Old England ! Ods Bodkins! But fear not, an informer disclosed the plan to the government and on this night constables raided the nefarious plotters at their Cato-Street hideout and nabbed the whole bunch! By Godfrey, Britain was safe once more!

1836- Santa Anna's Mexican army of 4,000 surrounds the mission called the Alamo, which had 185 Texas defenders. Santa Anna ordered the buglers to call to parley. Col. Travis answered with a cannon shot which Jim Bowie thought was rather rash. Santa Anna then called for the raising of a red flag from a church steeple in San Antonio de Bejar and his trumpeters sounded the Deguello, signifying that he intended to take no prisoners.

1861-Warned of death threats President-elect Abraham Lincoln sneaked into Washington D.C. at 3:15 AM. Abe, with his newly grown beard, was dressed in disguise and escorted by his bodyguard Lehman and Charles Pinkerton, a former Scottish barrel maker who had set up the first detective agency in the United States.

1871- C.B. Stone, the mayor of Seattle, embezzled the town’s treasury, $15,000 and skipped town.

1926- President Calvin Coolidge said he was against the creation of a large US Airforce because it “would be a menace to world peace.” And Coolidge was a Republican!

1935- Walt Disney Mickey & Donald cartoon "The Band Concert". This was the first color Mickey Mouse cartoon.

c-WDP

1940-Woody Guthrie had just arrived in New York City and was staying in a fleabag hotel in Manhattan. He overheard on the radio Kate Smith singing Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” and was annoyed because he felt it was overtly patriotic and corny. It was everything he hated about Tin Pan Alley, a rose-colored tune denying the class injustice and suffering of the Great Depression. So Woody took out some paper and his guitar and composed six stanzas he originally called God Blessed America, but he later changed to 'This Land is Your Land". It became the song he’s best remembered for and today it’s considered just as patriotic as God Bless America.

1942- In the dead of night a Japanese submarine surfaced off the California coast and fired it's cannon at lights it thinks is a city. In reality it's an oil refinery near Goleta (Ellwood) just north of Santa Barbera. The brief bombardment caused $150 dollars in damage. The sub breaks radio silence to report to Tokyo that " Enemy coast sighted. Los Angeles is in Flames." The incident fueled the panic that Californians had that the West Coast was ripe for enemy invasion. The incident was lampooned in the Steven Spielberg comedy "1941."

1960 - The Day Brooklyn Cried'- After the Dodgers move to Los Angeles, Flatbushs’ Ebbets Field baseball stadium went under the wrecking ball and became a low income housing project.

1994- The Russian Mir space station had been in space since 1986 but was starting to show it’s age. A booster ship sent with supplies collided with Mir during a bad docking maneuver. This day an oxygen fire fills the Mir Space Station with smoke. The fire is put out but it’s just the beginning of 6 months of privation, accidents and hair-raising close-calls for the joint Russian-German crew and lone American astronaut Jerry Leninger. Mir was retired in 2002 and fell back to Earth.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is meant by Balkanization?

Answer: The Balkan Area of South Eastern Europe is a loose collection of ethnic peoples of very different languages, cultures and religions, once all held by the Ottoman Turkish Empire. After World War One the Great Powers pressed them into two polyglot countries, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. As long as they were held down by Communist or fascist central authority they lived as one. But as soon as that authority was weakened they broke apart to found their own states- Slovenia, Montenengro, Slovakia, Croatia and four days ago – Kossovo.
So Balkanization means a region breaking up into ever smaller geo-political entities.