Quiz: Who said- “ Only three people understand the world situation as it is today. One of them, a Russian, is dead. Another, a German, is mad. And me, and I don’t care….”

Yesterdays Question answered below: Was the world ever put up for auction?
Answer: See below, 193AD.
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History for 3/28/2008
Birthdays: Paul Whiteman, Pearl Bailey, Freddy Bartholemew, Dirk Bogarde, pianist Rudolph Serkin, Swifty Lazar, Marlin Perkins, Diane Weist, Reba McEntire, Vince Vaughn, Julia Stiles is 27

193 A.D. -THE DAY THE WORLD WAS AUCTIONED- The Roman Emperor Pertinax had just been slaughtered by his Praetorian Guards and the Praetorian Prefect Marius Maximus wisely turned down the promotion- bad retirement benefits, you know. The men realized they can't be Imperial Guards without an Imperial type person to guard. They might even get sent back to the front! So they posted an announcement that "who ever wanted to be Emperor and Lord of the Known World" should come to the Praetorian camp that night and submit a bid. Several senators competed but the winner was Didius Julianus, with a winning bid of 15,000 silver pieces per man in the 1,500 man Guards. Almost none of the Roman generals went along with this dippy solution to the succession to the throne of the Caesars. Juilianus was soon bumped off in a violent civil war that saw Septimius Severus the winner.

1456- Today is the feast of St. John Capistrano. The Saint of the Swallows of California was born in Italy and was a preacher, was married, waged war against the Turks in Hungary and in later life after becoming a monk was put in charge of the Holy Inquisition in Central Europe. He hated and burned the Hussites and other Protestant reformers and ordered all Jews to wear yellow badges so as not to seduce good Christians. He was so hated that a century after his death from plague the Calvinists desecrated his grave and threw his bones down a well. The Mission St. John Capistrano in California was named so by monk Fra Junipero Serra even though the Saint never visited the Golden State.

1776- Happy Birthday San Francisco! Don Juan Bautista De Anza brought 247 colonists to the tip of a rocky promontory in a huge foggy natural harbor and built a Presidio, or fort. When a monk came six months later to built a mission he called it San Francisco de Asiacutes. The neaby village was called Yerba Buena for all the good herbs growing in the area. Juan de Anza explored and mapped most of the route from Old Mexico through Northern California but is not as well known to Americans as the Anglo explorers John Freemont, Kit Carson and Jim Bridger.

1778 -GEORGE WASHINGTON ANNOUNCED MAJOR GENERAL BARON VON STEUBEN, LATELY OF KING FREDERICK THE GREAT'S SERVICE, WOULD TRAIN THE AMERICAN ARMY.- It turned out later Von Steuben was not a real Baron, never met the Great Frederick and never rose higher than Major. Even his medals were fakes purchased at a London theatrical costume shop. But America was the land where if you want to be called Baron, then you are a baron. Von Steuben did a excellent job training the farmers and shopkeeps in modern warfare. He wrote: “ In Germany I order a soldier to do something and they do it. In America when I order a soldier to do something I must then explain WHY I want him to do it and WHY it is important!” The minutemen enjoyed watching him scream in a language they didn't understand, and at night around the campfire his big pet greyhound Azor howled along to the music.


Today when military people are reluctant to criticize the President's policies, it is from uniform military codes first written by Von Steuben over two hundred ears ago.

1881- P.T. Barnum formed a partnership with his chief competitor James Bailey to create Barnum & Bailey’s Circus. He proclaimed it the Greatest Show on Earth!

1920- Silent film stars Douglas Fairbanks & Mary Pickford married.

1928- Via radio broadcast the public heard the voice of Charlie Chaplin for the first time.

1935- Leni Reifenstahl’s hypnotic movie paean to Nazism- Triumph of the Will, premiered.

1941- English writer Virginia Woolf filled her pockets with stones and drowned herself in he River Ouse in Sussex. Her body was never found. The incident was dramatized in the film The Hours.

1942- Albert Hurter, brilliant designer for Walt Disney's "Snow White' and 'Pinnochio" died of rheumatic fever.


1958- The Killer Slide- US 1, The Pacific Coast Highway has always been at the mercy of wind and weather erosion effecting the unstable cliffs it was carved from. This day while repairing a large landslide construction workers were caught in an even bigger hillside collapse- Bulldozers rode on top of the avalanche but several on foot were killed.

1978- Daryl Gates was made head of the LAPD.

1979- THREE MILE ISLAND- Partial Meltdown of the Pennsylvania reactor panicked the nation. Despite the official attempts to belittle the danger Governor Richard Thornburg in Harrisburg moved his office underground to a bunker and Cardinal Krol of Philadelphia gave the entire county of Lancaster and Harrisburg a blanket unction (Last Rites). just in case.... The accident spawned the largest civilian protests since the Vietnam War and nuclear energy business has never quite recovered.

1998-Viagra invented.

1999- Matt Groening’s cartoon series Futurama debuted.