Question: Why are big armored vehicles named Tanks? Did they have water in them?

Yesterday’s Question: Did the Star of Bethlehem really happen? Was it a supernova?
Answer: See below @ 7BC.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 9/15/2008
Birthdays: James Fennimore Cooper, William Howard Taft, Porfirio Diaz- leader of the Mexican victory of Cinco De Mayo, Agatha Christie, Julian Cannonball Adderly, Bruno Walter, Yuri Noorstein, Merlin Olsen, Hank Williams, Oliver Stone, Jean Renoir (film director and son of painter August Renoir), Alexander Korda, Jesse Norman, Robert Benchley, Ron Shelton, Fay Wray, Tommy Lee Jones, Prince Henry the second son of Charles and Di is 24

7 BC.- THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM..? According to astronomical records kept by the Persian Magi starting this day an alignment of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars caused a rare bright star that glowed both day and night . Another explanation of the star may have come from Chinese astronomers who recorded a comet during the year 5 BC.. Remember according to the most modern calculations Jesus may actually have been born in 6 BC.

1776- The BATTLE OF NEW YORK- Lord Howe's British Army crossed the East River from Brooklyn and attacked Manhattan between E 30th and 31st Streets, then march crosstown (they could'a got the Times Square shuttle at Grand Central and saved themselves a walk). Colonial troops panicked and fled uptown while George Washington futilely tried to rally them where the 42nd St. Public Library now is. As the last panic stricken farmer scampered off tossing his weapons away Washington cried out in a rare display of temper: "Lord, have I such soldiers as these?" Legend has it the only reason the British let the Yankees escape was the commanders paused to have tea with a Quaker lady acquaintance. New York was an occupied city for the rest of the Revolutionary War. Hundreds of colonial prisoners were kept in rotting prison ships moored in the harbor, where many died of disease and neglect.

1858- The Butterfield Overland Mail service started up- driving stage coaches throughout the Old West.

1925- The Grand Order of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan take out a copyright on their logo – the white cross on the red circle with the black square in the center. After all, some other racist hate group might try to copy their cool duds!

1930- The first Blondie comic strip.

1930- Hoagy Carmichael first recorded “Georgia on My Mind”.

1935-“The Law Protecting German Blood and German Honor” aka The Nuremberg Edicts passed in Nazi Germany. They make Anti-Semitism official state policy. It took civil rights away from Jews and set up levels of Jewishness to determine pure Aryan bloodlines.”Jews are forbidden to marry other Germans or hold public office, including college professorships.

1936- Irving Thallberg, the "Boy Genius" MGM producer, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at 31. He was the inspiration for F.Scott Fitzgerald's "The Last Tycoon". His boss Louis B. Mayer was beginning to resent his popularity. When actress Gloria Swanson asked Mayer how he felt about Thallberg's death Mayer replied:" God has been very kind to me."

1940- Climax of the BATTLE OF BRITAIN-Herman Goring tries some final huge bomber raids to flatten London and wipe out the R.A.F., in preparation for Operation Sea Lion, the German invasion of Great Britain. Germans thought this was the day the attack across the Channel would happen at last. Hundreds of planes dogfight in the skies over London and Saint Pauls Cathedral is wreathed in flame and smoke. 65 German planes were shot down in one day. American CBS news correspondent Edgar R. Murrow gained national fame by fearlessly standing on a rooftop at the height of the battle and reporting a live radio broadcast.

1950- The INCHON LANDINGS. Gen Douglas MacArthur's masterstroke to amphibiously land an army behind the North Korean invaders and drive them from South Korea. It was an unlikely landing beach- short pebbly beach with a high craggy cliffs and the high tides in the world – 37 feet, from low to high tide, make the area inaccessible for most of the day. But MacArthur had remembered the Japanese had used this spot as a landing site in 1894 and it worked decisively. Mao Tse Tung had guessed that MacArthur might try a landing at Inchon and warned North Korean leader Kim Il Sung but Sung ignored the warnings and was taken completely by surprise. Within a week Seoul was recaptured and the North Korean Army was in full retreat.

1954- The day of shooting on the film the Seven Year Itch. Marylin Monroe in her little white dress stood over the subway grate and let the breeze blow her dress up, much to the annoyance of her husband, baseball star Joe Dimaggio. Her white halter outfit was thereafter known as a Marylin Dress.

1956- Surgeons Walter Freeman and Egas Moniz perform America's first prefrontal lobotomy on a depressed, 63-year-old Kansas woman in Washington, D.C.

1957-The tv series Bachelor Father starring John Forsythe premiered.

1959- Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev arrived in the U.S. for a good will tour that included farms and factories. Americans found the earthy bald peasant with the broad smile charming, and not at all the bogeyman everyone feared. At one point Khruschev requested to visit Disneyland, the “workers playground” but Walt Disney refused:” In 1942 we lent those Commie bastards a print of Snow White and they releasedit in their theaters with their own credits on it!” Khruschev also praised American white bread. “Russian Bread is made one day and goes stale. American bread can stay on shelf for weeks and still be soft!”

1963- Four little girls were killed when a bomb set by white racists destroyed the First Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. The Church was seen as the headquarters of the Black Civil Rights activists and Freedom Riders, but these girls had only arrived early for choir practice. The bomber who was a Klansman was not convicted of the crime until 2001. One of the slain little girls' schoolmates would one day grow up to become the Secretary of State- Dr. Condoleeza Rice.

1965- "Green Acres" t.v. show debuts. Arnold Ziffle the pig gains national prominence.

1971 –The environmental political movement Greenpeace founded in Vancouver by twelve members of the Don’t Make a Wave Committee.

1973- Star Trek animated series by Filmation premiered. This was the first time Kirk, Spock, Sulu and Uhura were united again with a Roddenberry script since the original series was cancelled in 1967.

Don't look at me. I wasn't working there yet.

1982- During the Lebanese Civil War the Christian Maronite President of Lebanon Bashir Gemayel had made a deal with the Israelis to rid his country of the PLO, who were using South Lebanon as a base since being thrown out of Jordan in the Black September of 1971. Israel invaded Lebanon but Gemayel refused to sign a peace alliance, just a non-aggression pact. This day Gemayel was assassinated by Moslem fighters. His murder provoked the Sabra and Shatila massacres of Palestinians.

1998- Rap star Coolio is busted in Lawndale Cal for driving on the wrong side of the road, using an expired license and having a 9mm pistol and bag of marijuana in his car.

2004- A mob of demonstrators protesting fox-hunting season break into the English House of Commons. The last time Parliament was broken into like this was the Gordon Riots in 1744. There was a swipe card security gate, but it was broken that day and no one had bothered to fix it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Did the Star of Bethlehem really happen? Was it a supernova?
Answer : See above, 7BC.