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 69 –Monday  I pledge allegiance to Vespasian and to the Flavian Dynasty for which he stands…………Tiberius Julius Alexander ordered his Roman legions in Alexandria to swear allegiance to Vespasian as Emperor. After that lovable loon Nero was kaputed and ended the Augustan Dynasty, Rome would enjoy a musical chairs “year of the four emperors” with three of them emperoring and kaputing within  six months. The first was Galba who lasted seven months before being slewn by Otho. Othos lasted 95 days before being kaputing himself after losing a battle to the forces of the rebellious Vitellius.  Surprise!  Vitellius was emperor. Meanwhile, Vespasian had been gathering support as Tiberius Julius Alexander, Governor and general in Egypt pledged to join his forces.  Vespasian marched on Rome.  Guess who his troops killed.  If you said Vitellius you get to be emperor for a day…..of course you’ll be killed by your successor but………

1569 – Tuesday – Fast forward 1,000 years to the Union of Lublin as the Kingdom of Poland and the Great Duchy of Lithuania unite. The country was called the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.  The Commonwealth was ruled by a single elected monarch who carried on the duties of Polish King and Grand Duke of Lithuania, and governed with a common Senate and parliament (the Sejm).  Lithuania had to recognize incorporation of Podlachia, Volhynia, Podolia and the Kiev regions into Poland and does not have fond memories of the Union. It lasted over two hundred years but Cossack uprisings and foreign interventions lead to the partition of the Commonwealth by Russia, Prussia and Austria-Hungary in 1795.

1646 – Sunday-  Every present state of a simple substance is the natural consequence of its preceding state, in such a way that its present is big with its future ……Say what?...............Happy Birthday, Gottfried Leibniz, German mathematician born in Leipzig. We thought you’d like to know that his mother was Catharina Schmuck. Leibniz is most famous for We thought you’d like to know that his mother was Catharina Schmuck. Leibniz is probably most well known for having invented the differential and integral calculus (independently of Sir Isaac Newton, although he published his results slightly after Newton)  He published published Nova Methodus Pro Maximus et Minimus (‘New Method for the Greatest and the Least’), an exposition of his differential calculus

1742 – Sunday  Happy Birthday Georg Christoph Lichtenberg, German physicist who is more famous for is aphorisms than his physics. An aphorism is A pithy observation that contains a general truth. Among Lichtenberg’s were:    

• He marveled at the fact that cats had two holes cut in their fur at precisely the spot where their eyes were.
• Certain rash people have asserted that, just as there are no mice where there are no cats, so no one is possessed where there are no exorcists.
• We must not seek to abstract from the busts of the great Greeks and Romans rules for the visible form of genius as long as we cannot contrast them with Greek blockheads.
• Courage, garrulousness and the mob are on our side. What more do we want?
• Not only did he not believe in ghosts, he wasn't even afraid of them.
• The construction of the universe is certainly very much easier to explain than is that of a plant...

1770 – Sunday - Lexell's Comet (aka D/1770 L1) passed closer to the Earth than any other comet in recorded history, approaching to a distance of 0.0146 a.u. or 1.4 million miles.  The comet was discovered by Charles Messier, but named for the Swedish astronomer Anders Johann Lexell  who first calculated its orbit. Several gravitational encounters with Jupiter have changed the comet's orbit so that it no longer comes close enough to Earth to be seen and it may even have been ejected from the Solar System altogether.

1837 – Saturday - In the early days of the Indian Territory, there were no such things as birth certificates. You being there was certificate enough. ….Will Rogers…A system of the civil registration of births, marriages and deaths was established in England and Wales.  Registration was undertaken by civil registrars who reported to the Registrar General at the General Register Office (GRO) in London.

1858 –Thursday-  Once upon a time a species is a population of organisms that interbred and had fertile offspring. Living organisms have descended with modifications from species that lived before them……except for the organisms that appear in gossip columns…….. There was a  joint reading of Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace's papers on evolution to the Linnean Society. Everyone had to sit in a circle on the rug while the reader sat in a comfy  chair.

1862 – Tuesday - The Russian State Library was founded. Not noted for its taste, among the books were:
The Vladimir Putin Book of Gardening Tips
Joseph Stalin’s Jokes For Any Occasion
Nikita Khrushchev: My Shoe in My Hand and My Foot in My Mouth
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov: My Favorite Cocktails
Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and Ivan the Terrible: Extreme Monarching by Boris Gundenov
An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It by Al Gore
The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach
The Breast – Philip Roth
All seven Robert Ludlum “Bourne” books written by Eric Van Lustbaden
Battlefield Earth by L. Ron Hubbard
All Sherlock Holmes books not written by Arthur Conan Doyle
It Takes a Village by Hillary Clinton
All Ann Rice after the first three Vampire books.
The Kite Runner- Khaled Hosseini
On the Trail of the Assassins: My Investigation and Prosecution of the Murder of President Kennedy by Jim Garrison
The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
Scarlett: The Sequel to Margaret Mitchell's Gone With the Wind by Alexandra Ripley
The Bridges of Madison County by Robert James Waller
Chariots of the Gods by Erich Von Daniken
The Celestine Prophecy: An Adventure by James Redfield, Carol Adrienne
Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung by Chairman Mao
All the Twilight Books – Stephanie Meyer
All Clive Cussler collaborations
All Tom Clancy collaborations
Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead,
Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? Beatrice & Sidney Webb,
One-Dimensional Man by Herbert Marcuse,
The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X and Alex Haley),
All James Patterson collaborations
The Walrus was Paul: The Great Beatle Death Clues of 1969 by R. Gary Peterson

1862 – Tuesday The first of several famous battles that occurred on July 1.The Battle of Malvern Hill.  In a preview of Gettysburg a year later, Union artillery cut down Confederate attackers charging uphill - like Pickett’s Charge- in this,  the last of the Seven Days' battles: June 26, 1862    Beaver Dam Creek (Mechanicsville), June 27, 1862 Gaines' Mill,  June 29, 1862 Savage's Station, June 30, 1862, Glendale, June 30, 1862 White Oak Swamp, July 1, 1862, Malvern Hill. Gen. Robert E. Lee launched a series of uncoordinated assaults on  nearly impregnable Union position on Malvern Hill. The Confederates suffered more than 5,300 casualties without gaining an inch of ground. Despite his victory, the ever passive, George McClellan withdrew to entrench at Harrison’s Landing on James River, where his army was protected by gunboats. This ended the Peninsula Campaign. 

     1863  -  Wednesday- We entered Gettysburg in the afternoon, just in time to meet the enemy entering the town, and in good season to drive him back before his getting a foothold……John Buford…………The Battle of Gettysburg began as  advance elements of Lee and Meade's armies clashed in Gettysburg, PA.  The Confederates drove the Union forces from the town but fortunately, the Union now occupied the high ground.  It began as a skirmish but by its end involved 160,000 Americans. Lee would spend the next two days trying retake it and then defeat them.  The battle ended in defeat for the Confederates.

    1867 –Monday  O Canada! Our home and native land
True patriot love in all thy sons command.
With glowing hearts we see thee rise
The true north, strong and free
From far and wide, O Canada
We stand on guard for thee.
God keep our land glorious and free
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee
O Canada! We stand on guard for thee. ……………….Canadian Independence Day. The autonomous Dominion of Canada, a confederation of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and the future provinces of Ontario and Quebec, was officially recognized by Great Britain with the passage of the British North America Act.  Lower Canada was renamed Quebec, and Upper Canada was renamed Ontario and middle Canada was named Fred.  Prior to 1982, Canada Day was known as Dominion Day and Confederation Day. The name was changed to Canada Day on October 27, 1982 by an act of parliament.  The name Canada derives from an Iroquoian word for "village," kanata, that French explorers heard used to refer to the area near present-day Quebec City. Today, Canada comprises ten provinces and three territories.

            1869 – Thursday – Ten censure wrong, for one that writes amiss……Alexander Pope, Essay on Criticism ………….Happy Birthday,  William Strunk, Jr., American grammarian born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Strunk had  a long career as an educator. He taught English at Cornell for forty-six years. But it is for The Elements of Style that he is famous. Strunk wrote the first edition of The Elements of Style for the use of his students and had it privately printed in 1918. A revised edition titled The Elements and Practice of Composition, with Edward A. Tenney as coauthor, was printed in 1935.  And what were/are the elements of Strunk’s original book – it was  enhanced by E.B White in 1957- Elementary Rules of Usage  sets forth eleven rules of English usage dealing with the formation of possessives; correct use of commas, colons, and dashes; nounverb agreement; pronoun cases; and participial phrases. Elementary Principles of Composition-Another set of eleven rules addresses structure in written work, moving from the overall structure of a piece. A Few Matters of Form covers details of the actual presentation of written work—what it should look like on the page. Issues addressed range from margins and headings to where to place punctuation marks in relation to parentheses and Words and Expressions Commonly Misused.

1872 – Monday Happy Birthday, Louis Bleriot, French aviator who invented the monoplane (precursor of the stereoplane?).  He is best known for his tlhirty seven minute flight over the English Channel on July 25, 1909, the world's first flight over a large body of water in a heavier-than-air craft.  The airplane used was one of his own design, designated the Bleriot XI.  The flight was from Calais to Dover.

            1874 – Wednesday - I heard that if you locked William Shakespeare in a room with a typewriter for long enough, he'd eventually write all the songs by the Monkeys…………..Unknown…….. The Sholes and Glidden typewriter, the first commercially successful typewriter, went on sale. The typewriter was it was produced by the gunmakers E. Remington & Sons in Ilion, NY. It was not exactly as  successful as the Ipad since not more than 5,000 were sold. Christopher Latham Sholes thought of a simple device with a piece of printer's type mounted on a little rod, mounted to strike upward to a flat plate which would hold a piece of carbon paper sandwiched with a piece of stationery. The percussive strike, like a piano,  of the type should produce an impression on the paper.  Carlos Glidden was a lawyer and was exchanging ideas with Sholes and showed him an article about a typewriter written in Scientific American. for The original Sholes & Glidden used the QWERTY keyboard, but typed in capitals only.

 1874- Wednesday  Someone told me
It's all happening at the zoo.
I do believe it,
I do believe it's true.
The monkeys stand for honesty.
Giraffes are insincere.
The elephants are kindly but they're dumb.
Orangutans are skeptical of changes in their cages
And the zookeeper is they fond of rum.
Zebras are reactionaries,
Antelopes are missionaries.
Pigeons plot in secrecy
And hamsters turn on frequently.
What a gas you got to come and see
At the zoo. ….Paul Simon……….The first public zoo in the U.S  - Philadelphia - was opened.  The charter establishing the Zoological Society of Philadelphia was approved and signed on March 21, 1859. Due to the Civil War, however, it was another 15 years before America's first zoo was ready to open.  Admission was 25 cents for adults and 10 cents for children to see all 813  animals.  The rate remained the same  for the next half century.  The Zoo website informs us that  “the Frank Furness Victorian gates and gatehouses, and the Zoo's location, are the same today as they were on the day it opened. One of its assets, then and now, is John Penn's home, The Solitude, which sat on the land chosen for the Zoo. John Penn was the grandson of William Penn, founder of Pennsylvania. The Solitude is considered to be Philadelphia's most precise and elegant expression of neoclassical style.”

            1881 – Friday The world's first international telephone call is made between St. Stephen, New Brunswick, Canada, and Calais, Maine, United States. New Brunswick: “You don’t sound French”. Calais: “I’m not French”. New Brunswick:  Isn’t this Calais?”  Calais: “Oui”. New Brunswick:  “Isn’t Calais in France?” Calais: “Oui”.  New Brunswick: “So you’re French.”  Calais: “ Mais non, Je suis Americaine, cette Calais est situé dans le Maine, USA….n'est-ce pas une boule de bowling Brunswick?” So, how’s the weather? Cold. Us too. Mosquitos? Yup. Us too.

            1890 – Tuesday  Canada and Hamilton,  Bermuda were linked by telegraph cable as fair skinned Canadians rushed to make reservations for beach front condo rentals and madras shorts. On July 12 the Governor of Bermuda sent formal telegraph messages over the new submarine cable to Halifax, to Queen Victoria, the Governor-General of Canada, Frederick Stanley, 16th Earl of Derby,  and President Benjamin Harrison.

            1898 - Friday  Get me a proctologist right away! …Daffy Duck……….The Battle of San Juan Hill occurred as part of the campaign to capture Spanish-held Santiago on the southern coast of Cuba.  The U.S. Army Fifth Corps attacked Spanish forces at El Caney and San Juan Hill.  Included among the U.S. ground troops were the Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt-led "Rough Riders," a collection of Western cowboys and Eastern blue bloods officially known as the First U.S. Voluntary Cavalry.  The US had absolutely no experience fighting in the tropics, and the unprepared US Army showed up in Cuba with vast supplies of wool clothing. Also, unfortunately, the Rough Riders’ horses had not yet arrived so the charged up the hill on foot.  Won the battle anyway.

            1903- Wednesday Happy Birthday, Amy Johnson, pioneering British female aviator, the first womanto fly solo  from London to Darwin, Australia. Echoes of Amelia Earhart, Johnson, while on a flying mission for the Air Ministry on Jan. 5 1941 crashed in the Thames River estuary while ferrying airplanes for the RAF and was drowned.

            1903 – Wednesday- Get a bicycle.  You will not regret it if you live……….Mark Twain………………. A banner day for the performance enhancing drug industry as 1st Tour de France bicycle race began. All riders used training wheels. Hickcock Sports.com tells us that this, the world's greatest bicycle race originated in 1903 because of a feud between two French sports newspapers. Le Velo was the original publication. Its competitor, L'Auto-velo, was founded by a former advertiser who had become unhappy with some of Le Velo's editorial policies. In January of 1903, Le Velo won a trademark suit against its competitor, and L'Auto-velo was forced to become simply L'Auto.Fearful that the name change would kill the newspaper, L'Auto editor Henri Desgrange decided that a major race would create publicity and circulation. His cycling reporter, Georges Lefevre suggested a six-day race over roads and through towns rather than on a track et voila!  Even though the race had to be postponed once more, to July 19, for logistical reasons, it was an enormous success. When winner Maurice Garin entered Paris, a crowd of 20,000 paying spectators greeted him. And a special edition of L'Auto sold 130,000 copies, 100,000 more than the newspaper's circulation had been six months earlier.

1908 – Wednesday - So when you're near me, darling can't you hear me
SOS
The love you gave me, nothing else can save me
SOS ……ABBA………SOS was adopted as the international distress signal. It replaced CDQ (which did not stand for Come Quick, Danger) In 1904, the Marconi company had suggested the use of "CQD" for a distress signal and it was established on February 1 of that year. It is a general call, "CQ," followed by "D," meaning distress. At the Berlin Radiotelegraphic Conference of 1906 the  distress signal chosen was SOS which was officially ratified in 1908. However people were reluctant to give up CQD and it was still around in 1912 when the Titanic went kaput.  The logs of the SS Carpathia, indicate that the Titanic first used "CQD" to call for help.  

1910-  Friday The first time I tried organic wheat bread, I thought I was chewing on roofing material …..Robin Williams………..It was kneaded.  The first completely automatic bread plant in the U.S. was opened by the Ward Baking Company of Chicago, Illinois. The company  actually opened this first automatic bread baking plant in Bronx, New York.  A 20 minute process could produce 172 loaves a minute without the dough or loaf being touched by human hands until it emerged from the packaging machine.              

1916 Saturday - The trench was a horrible sight. The dead were stretched out on one side, one on top of each other six feet high. I thought at the time I should never get the peculiar disgusting smell of the vapour of warm human blood heated by the sun out of my nostrils. I would rather have smelt gas a hundred times. I can never describe that faint sickening, horrible smell which several times nearly knocked me up altogether. ..British Captain Leeham……….The Battle of the Somme began as the British under the command of the conspicuously incompetent Douglas Haig ( his strategy of attrition aka, “kill more Germans” resulted in monstrous British casualties) launched a massive offensive against German forces in the Somme River region of France. During the preceding week, 250,000 Allied artillery had pounded German positions near the Somme. As the battle opened, 100,000 British soldiers came out of their trenches and into no-man's-land on  expecting to find the way cleared for them by the shelling . But no..... (just like Gettysburg when the artillery fired OVER the Union lines and Pickett’s soldier charged into fully fortified defenses) disastrously, many  heavy German machine guns had survived the artillery attack, and the infantry were massacred. Haig kept sending wave after wave of soldiers and by the end of the day, 20,000 British soldiers were dead and 40,000 wounded. It was the single heaviest day of casualties in British military history. The disastrous Battle of the Somme stretched on for more than four months, with the Allies advancing a total of just five miles.

      1923 Sunday- The premier of  King Tut-Ankh-Amen's Eighth Wife directed by Andrew Remo and….whoops……the Gnus Editorial Board liked the title but we can’t find a synopsis nor a cast listing.  We do know it was a mystery.

            1930 – Tuesday- He rocks in the tree tops all day long
Hoppin' and a-boppin' and singing his song
All the little birdies on Jaybird Street
Love to hear the robin go tweet, tweet, tweet
Rockin' robin, rock, rock
Rockin' robin'
Blow rockin' robin
'Cause we're really gonna rock tonight….Happy Birthday, Bobby Day, born Robert Byrd in Ft. Worth, Texas, American singer who reached  # 2 on the Billboard Charts in 1958 with Rockin’ Robin.  Two Day written songs became hits when they were covered by other artists, Little Bitty Pretty One by Thurston Harris and Over and Over by the Dave Clark Five.

1934 - Sunday -Dr. Warren Sausser made , a full-body X-ray picture showing the entire skeletal system of an adult human. The Eastman Kodak Company cooperated fully on this project, making a special 20 x 70 inch film. The entire technique for the full-skeleton exposure was described in the February, 1935 issue of the National Chiropractic Journal. This first X-ray photograph of the whole body taken in a one-second exposure, using ordinary clinical conditions such as would exist at an average hospital. Wilhelm Rontgen had taken the first x-rays in 1895 (he x-rayed his wife’s hand) X-rays were so named Roentgen because they were then rays of unknown origin which, al-though' they could not be seen, could penetrate the human body and many other substances. Since the human body has different densities (skin, bones, cartilage), the differences in them could then be captured in gradations by the photographic medium behind the subject.  A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five…….Groucho Marx

1941 - Tuesday A day that should live in infamy as the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Brooklyn (yes, Brookly…..where they belong….)Dodgers 6-4.  But that’s not the infamous part. NBC broadcast the first official TV commercial during the game . In the first commercial, the Bulova watch company paid $9 to advertise its watches on the air…..for 10 seconds showing a map of America with a Bulova watch superimposed with the slogan, “America…..runs…..on……Bulova….time.” 

1941 – Tuesday – Happy Birthday - Alfred G. Gilman, 1994 Nobel Prize winning pharmacologist famous for his discovery of G-protein cell signal transmission in which which information from the beyond a specific cell is conveyed to within that cell through a complex chain of events usually consisting of texting, tweeting, Facebooking,  phone calls and yelling through the mitochondria. G-proteins bind to guanine nucleotides, a key component of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and ribonucleic acid (RNA).

1942 – Wednesday  Everyone must be imbued with the desire kill Germans, even the padres - one for weekdays and two on Sundays.….Bernard Montgomery, El Alamein battle orders………. Yet another famous battle on this day, (Malverne Hill, Gettysburg) El Alamein, about 150 miles from Cairo, Egypt as British forces under General Bernard (Monty) Montgomery halted the German army advance led by the great Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (the Desert Fox). The Allied victory at El Alamein lead to the retreat of the Afrika Korps and the eventual German surrender in North Africa in May 1943. The Germans were threatening to capture the Suez Canal, the main artery for allied supplies.  El Alamein was the last opportunity to stop Rommel’s tank corps. El Alamein was a bottleneck that ensured that Rommel could not use his favoured form of attack - sweeping into the enemy from the rear. Why would Rommel have to fight here?  The allies had deciphered key codes and knew the German battle plan……..see McClellan coming across Lee’s plans for Maryland igniting the Battle of Antietam..............The battle would continue for months.  By November 2nd 1942, Rommel knew that he was beaten. Hitler maniacally ordered the Afrika Korps to fight to the last man but Rommel refused to carry out this order. On November 4th, Rommel started his retreat.

1943 – Thursday Seeking to combat attacks by Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Gamera, Ghidra, the Three Headed Monster and the cast of Jersey Shore,  Tokyo City merged with Tokyo Prefecture and was dissolved. Since then, no city in Japan has had the name "Tokyo" (present-day Tokyo is not officially a city).  The governor of Tokyo became a Cabinet minister reporting directly to the Prime Minister. The system remained in place until 1947 when the current structure of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government was formed. This merger was similar to a Consolidated city–county in the US.

1956 - Sunday You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog
Cryin’ all the time.
You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog
Cryin’ all the time.
Well, you ain’t never caught a rabbit
And you ain’t no friend of mine. ……………………Elvis Presley appeared on The Steve Allen Show. He was told not to dance and Allen had him sing Hound Dog to a real basset hound wearing tails. The Steve Allen website quotes Allen, "When I booked Elvis, I naturally had no interest in just presenting him vaudeville-style and letting him do his spot as he might in concert.  Instead we worked him into the comedy fabric of our program.  I asked him to sing "Hound Dog" (which he had recorded just the day before) dressed in a classy Fred Astaire wardrobe--white tie and tails--and surrounded him with graceful Greek columns and hanging draperies that would have been suitable for Sir Laurence Olivier reciting Shakespeare.   For added laughs, I had him sing the number to a sad-faced basset hound that sat on a low column and also wore a little top hat.  (I learned not long ago that small ceramic statues of the dog-and-top-hat are now among the more popular items of Presley memorabilia.  I think somebody owes me royalties.)  We certainly didn't inhibit Elvis' then-notorious pelvic gyrations, but I think the fact that he had on formal evening attire made him, purely on his own, slightly alter his presentation.     "For his other spot, I wrote a spoof of a typical country-and-western TV or radio show.  Presley played my sidekick and the two of us were well supported by Andy Griffith, who in those days was a comedian, and  Imogene Coca.

1960 – Friday Soomaaliyeey toosoo
Toosoo isku tiirsada ee
Hadba kiina taagdaranee
Taageera waligiineeIdinkaysu tookhaayoo
Idinkaysu taamaayee
Aadamuhu tacliin barayoo
Waddankiisa taamyeelooSharcigaa isku kiin tolayoo
Luuqadaa tuwaaxid ahoo
Arligiina taaka ahoo
Kuma kala tegeysaan oo………… The Independence of Somalia. In 1969 Abdi Rashid Ali Shirmarke, Somalia's second President, was assassinated and in the following days a military coup, led by Major General Muhammed Siyad Barre, tgained control of the country. In 1970 Barre declared Somalia to be a socialist state.  Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory. The internationally recognized Transitional Federal Government controls only a small part of the country. Somalia has been characterized as a failed state and is one of the poorest[10] and most violent states in the world…well that’s certainly worked out well.

1960 – Friday Ghana
Hail the Name of Ghana
God bless our homeland Ghana,
And make our nation great and strong,
Bold to defend for ever
The cause of Freedom and of Right;
Fill our hearts with true humility,
Make us cherish fearless honesty……………. Ghana became a Republic and Kwame Nkrumah becomes its first President as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom ceases to be its Head of state. Ghana has since had 15 heads of state with more on the way. Well that’s certainly worked out well. Ghana is a West African country bordering on the Gulf of Guinea, Ghana is bounded by Côte d'Ivoire (formerly the Ivory Coast) to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Atlantic Ocean to the south. It’s about the size of  Oregon, and its largest river is the Volta which is sparsely populated , leading to the slogan, “one man, one Volta”.

1962 – Sunday Rwanda, our beautiful and dear country
Adorned of hills, lakes and volcanoes
Motherland, would be always filled of happiness
Us all your children: Abanyarwanda
Let us sing your glare and proclaim your high facts
You, maternal bosom of us all
Would be admired forever, prosperous and cover of praise…………… Independence of Rwanda. Rwanda has had only eight presidents (the U.S has had ten) since 1962. However there was that little matter of the Rwanda Genocide of 1994  when, in just three months, an estimated 800000 people were massacred. Most of the dead were Tutsis - and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.  Rwanda, in east-central Africa, is surrounded by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Tanzania, and Burundi. It is slightly smaller than Maryland.

1962 – Sunday Original Kirundi Words
Burundi Bwacu, Burundi buhire,
Shinga icumu mu mashinga,
Gaba intahe y'ubugabo ku bugingo.
Warapfunywe ntiwapfuye,
Warahabishijwe ntiwahababuka,
Uhagurukana, uhagurukana, uhagurukana, ubugabo urikukira. …..The Independence of Burundi which has had thirteen presidents as of 2011.  Burundi is stuck in there between Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Rwanda in east-central Africa, Burundi occupies a high plateau divided by several deep valleys. Continuing our Maryland comparison theme, Burundi is equal in size to Maryland

1962: Tuesday- Well, be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don't mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby
Be-bop-a-lula, I don't mean maybe
Be-bop-a-lula, she's my baby love
My baby love, my baby love ……….Perhaps to celebrate the independence of all the African countries listed above, Gene Vincent performed at the Cavern Club in Liverpool, opening for the house band……………..The Beatles.

1963 – Monday Horatio:
He waxes desperate with imagination. Marcellus:
Let's follow. 'Tis not fit thus to obey him.  Horatio:
Have after. To what issue will this come?  Marcellus:
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.  Horatio:
Heaven will direct it…………..Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 87–91  ZIP Codes were  introduced for United States mail. In June 1962, the a President John Kennedy appointed Advisory Board of the Post Office Department, after a study of its overall mechanization problems, made several primary recommendations. One was that the Department give priority to the development of a coding system.  Postmaster, it was actually a cabinet post in those days,  General John A. Gronouski announced that the ZIP Code would begin on July 1, 1963. A five-digit code had been assigned to every address throughout the country. So, how do you interpret a zip code? How do you solve a problem like Maria?  How do you catch a cloud and pin it down? How do you find a word that means Maria? A flibbertijibbet! A will-o'-the wisp! A clown! Each number is deep with  meaning,  first digit designated a broad geographical area of the United States, ranging from zero for the Northeast to nine for the far West. This was followed by two digits that more closely pinpointed population concentrations and those sectional centers accessible to common transportation networks. The final two digits designated small post offices or postal zones in larger zoned cities.

 1963 – Monday There’ s a man who leads a life of danger.
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger.
With every move he makes another chance he takes.
Odds are he won’t live to see tomorrow.
Secret Agent Man
Secret Agent Man
They've given you a number and taken away your name………… The British Government finally!!!!!!! admitted that four times married former diplomat Kim Philby had worked as a Soviet  communist spy. Philby had alerted notorious spies and poofters, Guy Burgess and Donald Maclean that the authorities were on to them.  They escaped to the proletarian workers paradise and even though Burgess and Maclean did escape successfully to the Soviet Union in May of 1951, Philby immediately came under suspicion by the SIS and U.S. intelligence. Amazingly, however, for ten more years he evaded full-scale incrimination, largely because many officials, both in the Foreign Office and in the British Parliament, simply refused to believe the spiraling evidence against him. If the evidence were true, they reasoned, it would prove an outrageous embarrassment to both the United States and British governments.  On the evening of Wednesday, January 23 1963, Philby vanished from Beirut, failing to meet his wife for a dinner party at the British Embassy. The Dolmatova, a Soviet freighter bound for Odessa, had left Beirut that morning. Philby claimed that he left Beirut on board this ship. However, others maintain that he escaped through Syria overland to Soviet Armenia and thence to Russia. Either way he was gone. It was not until 1 July 1963 that Philby's flight to Moscow was officially confirmed and revealed.  We note that On  October, 23,  1955, the newspaper, New York Sunday News, reported that Philby was a Soviet spy.

1976 – Thursday He at first refus’d us peremptorily; but at dinner with his council, where there was great drinking of Madeira wine, as the custom of that place then was, he softened by degrees, and said he would lend us six. After a few more bumpers he advanc’d to ten; and at length he very good-naturedly conceded eighteen…..Benjamin Franklin…………….After much whining and wining,  Portugal granted autonomy to Madeira granting the island its own parliament that passes local laws and regulations but still adhering to mainland Portugal laws as well. Madeira, discovered in 1419 is a Portuguese archipelago just under 400 km north of Tenerife, Canary Islands, in the north Atlantic Ocean and an outermost region of the European Union which made it a great jump off point for explorers Christopher Columbus and James Cook. Madeira is a fortified wine. Starting in the 1500s, the natives of Maderia would add brandy to their local wine to help the wine survive the long, hot ship voyages it would take to Europe.

1979 – Sunday A kluger farshtait fun ain vort tsvai ….A wise man hears one word and understands two……Yiddish saying……….Sony introduced the Walkman.  The TPS-L2 was 14 ounce, blue-and-silver, portable cassette player with bulky, unwieldy buttons, headphones and a leather case. It even had a second earphone jack so that two people could bop along at once. Originally the Walkman was introduced in the U.S. as the "Sound-About" and in the UK as the "Stowaway," but the challenge of coming up with new, non-copyrighted names in every country it was marketed in proved costly so  Sony eventually decided on Walkman, although they actually called it the ウォークマン.

1980 – Tuesday O Canada officially became the national anthem of Canada replacing You’re Having My Baby  by Paul Anka

1987 – Wednesday  Host: We have Ralph from Bayside on the line. Ralph? Ralph: Hi, long time listener, first time caller.  Host: What’s up Ralphie.  Ralph: Why don’t the Yankees trade Derek Jeter?  He hasn’t had a hit in two games.  Maybe we can get something for him before it’s too late. Host: Ralph, you may be overreacting. Ralph: No, no, really, we can trade Steve Whitaker and Horace Clarke for Willie Mays and Hank Aaron…….Host: Thanks Ralph.  Now we have Guido  from …………….The American radio station WFAN in New York, New York was launched as the world's first all-sports radio station.  The first voice heard on the new station was that of Suzyn Waldman, with a sports update, (every 20 minutes) followed by the first show, which was hosted by Jim Lampley. Other hosts besides Lampley included Bill Mazer, Pete Franklin, Greg Gumbel, Art Shamsky, and Ed Coleman.

1990 –Sunday - Cogito sumere potum alterum….I think I'll have another drink….. Evoking their inner ’62 Mets’ essence, the New York Yankees (they were 28-45 at the time under the leadership of the immortal, Stump Merrill)  managed to lose a game to the Chicago White Sox at Comiskey Park.  Yankee pitcher Andy Hawkins pitched a no-hitter (while walking five) but succeeded in losing the game 4-0.  Things turned ugly in the scoreless game when the White Sox batted in the bottom of the 8^th inning with two outs as third baseman, Mike Blowers bungled a grounder, followed by twowalk. . Jim Leyritz, a rookie playing in left field, then dropped a fly ball with the bases loaded. Three runs scored. Rightfielder Jesse Barfield then dropped one and another run scored. Since the White Sox were the home team, they did not bat in the 9^th inning so Hawkins (he was 1-4 entering the game) pitched an 8 inning no hitter.   On September 4, 1991 the Committee for Statistical Accuracy, appointed by Commissioner Fay Vincent, changed the definition of a no-hitter to require that a pitcher throw at least nine full innings and a complete game. Since Hawkins played for the visiting team, the White Sox never batted in the ninth inning and Hawkins lost the credit for a no-hitter.

1999 – Thursday The Scottish Parliament was officially opened by Queen Elizabeth II.  On this day that legislative powers were officially transferred from the old Scottish Office in London to the new devolved Scottish Executive in Edinburgh.  Fortunately, the official Scottish Parliament building would not open until 2004.  The monstrosity across the street from the Holyrood Palace ranks up there with the world’s ugliest buildings. Designed by Catalan architect Enric Miralles, some of the principal features of the complex include leaf-shaped buildings, a grass-roofed branch merging into adjacent parkland. It has nothing to do with the 16^th -19^th century architecture of Edinburgh but looks like a cheap Epcot Center ride-a-rama. It is truly hideous and someone must have imbibed too much single malt to a – approve the design and b- built the hideous eyesore.

1999- Thursday Deep Space 1 (DS1), launched 24 October 1998  flew by the Mars-crossing near-Earth asteroid 9969 Braille. The landscape consists of patterns of raised dots arranged in cells of up to six dots in a 3 x 2 configuration. Each cell represents a letter, numeral or punctuation mark. Some frequently used words and letter combinations also have their own single cell patterns. The Deep Space 1 was the first of a series of technology demonstration probes developed by NASA's New Millennium Program. It again flew by comet Borrelly in September 2001.  Unfortunately, radio waves transmitted to Earth contained mutant quarks that were able to subsume the thought processes of highly susceptible humans causing them to text while carrying on a conversation with another human.

2002 –  Monday Lawyer: This myasthenia gravis -- does it affect your memory at all?  Witness: Yes. Lawyer: And in what ways does it affect your memory? Witness: I forget. Lawyer: You forget. Can you give us an example of something that you've forgotten?…..  well that’s sure worked out well. The International Criminal Court was established to prosecute individuals for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression.  he court's official seat is in The Hague, Netherlands, but its proceedings may take place anywhere they have a place to sit.

2004 – Thursday – The Saturn orbit insertion of Cassini-Huygens.  Tthe spacecraft began a 4-year tour of the Saturnian system comprising nearly The tour included  71 gravity-assist flybys of Saturn's largest moon, Titan, and dozens of flybys of Saturn's smaller attendant moons. Unfortunately, photos sent to earth contained rogue mesons which entered the brains of susceptible humans causing them to not bath for weeks at a time and then ride on crowded subway trains.

2005 - Friday Don't gimme no Buick
Son you must take my word
If there's a God in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me I wanna go down
In a Silver Thunderbird …….Marc Cohen………The last Ford Thunderbird was produced.  A beautiful car in the 1950s and into the 1960s, the geniuses at Ford couldn’t leave it alone and it turned into an eyesore….really, you have see the ghastly machine they paraded around during the 80s………  Attempts at revival in the early 21^st century failed.

2007 – Sunday The universe itself keeps on expanding and expanding
In all of the directions it can whizz
As fast as it can go, at the speed of light, you know,
Twelve million miles a minute, and that's the fastest speed there is.
So remember, when you're feeling very small and insecure,
How amazingly unlikely is your birth,
And pray that there's intelligent life somewhere up in space,
'Cause there's bugger all down here on Earth…….Monty Python……… The Big Bang to the Big Bounce and ……….? The journal Nature Physics, posited the “Big Bounce” theory of the universe. Recall that the  Big Bang theory holds that a infinitesimally small  “singularity” (about the size of Lindsay Lohan’s brain) containing of zero volume nevertheless contained infinite density and infinitely large energy went BANG …ergo, big bang……and created our expanding universe.  But noooooooooo saysome  physicists used a mathematical time machine called Loop Quantum Gravity…..which is also helpful in opening bottles of beer…….. This theory, which combines Einstein's Theory of General Relativity with equations of quantum physics that did not exist in Einstein's day, is the first mathematical description to systematically establish the existence of the Big Bounce and to deduce properties of the earlier universe from which our own may have sprung. Instead of being infinitely small and dense, the singularity compacted down into a ball of some volume and density. The researchers believe that a previous Universe collapsed down to a tiny ball, and then had a Big Bounce to expand again. The previous Universe was very similar to the space-time geometry we have in our current Universe.  And there you have it.

Back to Calendar

2.  

  419 – Tuesday –Mama, Quanto ti voglio bene
Queste parole d'amore
Che ti sospira il mio cuore
Forse non si usano piu
Ah Mama
Ma la canzone mia piu bella sei tu
Sei tu la vita e per la vita non ti lascio mai piu..……Connie Francis…….Happy Birthday, Valentinian III, the last of three Valentinians, Roman Emperor, born Placidus Valentinianus. A ‘momma’s boy’, Valentinian was fairly useless as an Emperor.  His mom, was the emperor Honorius' sister Galla Placidia and she pretty much ran the show since Valentinian didn’t seem to have had much of an aptitude for rule. He is described as spoiled, pleasure-loving, and influenced by sorcerers and astrologers. But, like his mother, Valentinian was devoted to religion.

 626 – Sunday – You cheated. You lied. You said that you loved me…..The Shields…….America has The Gunfight at the O.K Corral, China has The Incident at Xuanwu Gate. Li Shimin, the future Emperor Taizong of Tang, Emperor of China, ambushed and killed his rival brothers Li Yuanji and Li Jiancheng. Emperor Gaozu of Tang (the founding emperor of the Chinese dynasty Tang Dynasty – based on his success in creating a powdered orange drink- in 618) and his wife, Duchess Douhad four sons, Li Jiancheng, Li Shimin, Li Xuanba (who died in 614) and Li Yuanji. Li Shimin had an intense rivalry with his older brother Li Jiancheng the Crown Prince and fearing that Li Jiancheng was about to render him kaput, set an ambush at Xuanwu Gate, the gate leading to Emperor Gaozu's palace, and killed Li Jiancheng and a younger brother, Li Yuanji the Prince of Qi, who had supported Li Jiancheng. He then sent forces into Emperor Gaozu's palace. Emperor Gaozu, under intimidation, installed him as crown prince, and two months later passed the throne to him (as Emperor Taizong).  The ambush had a Mack Sennett touch as When Li Jiancheng and Li Yuanji reached the palace, they sensed that something was wrong, and began to head back to Li Jiancheng's palace. Li Shimin personally chased them and yelled out, "Big brother!" Li Yanji yelled, I hate that show, the Great Race is much better” and fired three arrows at Li Shimin, missing each time. Li Shimin then fired an arrow at Li Jiancheng, killing him. Li Shimin supporter, Yuchi Jingde then arrived with 70 soldiers, and Li Yuanji did what any of us would do, he fell off his horse. Li Shimin's horse was spooked and took him into a forest. Li Shimin where, yes, he  fell off the horse too and could not get up. Li Yuanji then entered the forest and tried to strangle Li Shimin with his bow, but at this point Yuchi arrived, and as Li Yuanji tried to flee,  Yuchi chased him down and killed him with an arrow.   Whew!

706 – Monday An inexperienced preacher was to hold a graveside burial service at a pauper’s cemetery for an indigent man with no family or friends. Not knowing where the cemetery was, he made several wrong turns and got lost. When he eventually arrived an hour late, the hearse was nowhere in sight, the backhoe was next to the open hole, and the workmen were sitting under a tree eating lunch.The diligent young pastor went to the open grave and found the vault lid already in place. Feeling guilty because of his tardiness, he preached an impassioned and lengthy service, sending the deceased to the great beyond in style.As he returned to his car, he overheard one of the workman say to the other, “I’ve been putting in septic tanks for twenty years and I ain’t never seen anything like that.” …….Emperor Zhongzong of Tang (yes, the Tangsters were still around)  interred the bodies of relatives in the Qianling Mausoleum, located on Mount Liang outside Chang'an.  Qianling is the most typical and best preserved of all the eighteen Tang mausoleums.  It is situated some 80 kilometers away from Xian, on a stone mountain named Mt. Liangshan. It is the joint tomb of Emperor Gaozong, the third emperor of Tang Dynasty, and his empress Wu Zetian, the only Queen in Chinese history.

1262 – Sunday – Happy Birthday, Arthur II, Duke of Brittany.  The editorial board chose Arthur for mention because his father was John II and his son, when he became duke, was John ‘the Good’. 

1489 – Tuesday – And forasmuch as my hand offended in writing contrary to my heart, therefore my hand shall first be punished.  Thomas Cranmer at his execution. ………… Happy Birthday, Thomas Cranmer, the Uriah Heep of early Tudor England and toady of Henry VIII and later Archbishop of Canterbury. Cranmer supported, at least in public, Henry's numerous marital maneuvers. In his role as Archbishop of Canterbury he officially dissolved Henry's marriage with Katherine of Aragon, and later helped preside over the trial of Anne Boleyne, the divorce from Anne of Cleves, and Catherine Howard's trial and execution. This demonstrated his pliability; he seemed unable to deny Henry (who was always right) any whim.  In 1549 Cranmer produced The Book of Common Prayer, which produced a storm of controversy. Cranmer presented the view that a proper Christian Communion depends more on the heart of the practitioner than the actual bread and wine used in the ceremony. He also encouraged the public reading of the Bible by the entire congregation.  Unfortunately for Cranmer, Henry VIII bit the dust and was succeeded by his Catholic daughter, Mary who blamed him for her mother (Katherine of Aragon)’s divorce.  Cranmer was tried as a heretic and burned at the stake.

1613 –Tuesday  Samuel Argall led  first English expedition from Massachusetts against Acadia, which the English called Nova Scotia.  Lucky Acadia, it was right on the border between the English colonies and the French colonies so it played the colonial role of the remote control being fought over by two people on the couch. Argall, an English adventurer was working for the Virginia Company of London. Acting under authority from the Governor of Virginia, Argall was authorized to expel the French from all territory claimed by England and granted to the 'Company'. Argall was a busy beaver, later in the year, on a voyage up the Potomac, Argall captured Pocahontas, the daughter of Chief Powhatan. Argall took her to Jamestown and held as hostage for English prisoners held by her father.

1644 – Saturday - My Lord King,
You stoop to betray your own people,
And even in the eyes of God,
Do you not relent?
I am therefore bound by no other course
I shall raise an army;
Together we will march against you and your kind,
And every born man will fight to regain his own freedom,
And cleanse his wretched soul……..Electric Light Orchestra…………The Battle of Marston Moor….Marston Moor was one of the major battles of the English Civil War and the defeat inflicted on the Royalists, led by Prince Rupert, (the nephew of Charles I) at Marston Moor was a major reverse and any power that they might have had in the north was ended.  A moor is a broad area of open land, often high but poorly drained, with patches of heath and peat bogs. Rupert cleverly placed his army on the moor.  The Roundheads, led by Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven and Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester did not. The Battle of Marston Moor cost the Cromwellians approximately 300 killed while the Royalists suffered around 4,000 dead and 1,500 captured.

1698 – Wednesday Soon shall thy arm, Unconquer'd Steam! afar
Drag the slow barge, or drive the rapid car;
Or on wide-waving wings expanded bear
The flying-chariot through the fields of air. …………Erasmus Darwin………….. Thomas Savery patented the first steam engine.  Scotsman James Watt is credited with inventing the first practical engine.  In order in order to condense steam there had some cooling taking place. Watt came up with the idea of the separate condenser, which he patented.  Savery published a script in which he described the advantages and the mode of operation of an engine that would transport water out of mines easier. He called his script The Miners Friend.  In describing the clout of his engine, Savory was the first to use the term, horse power.   

1776 – Tuesday – When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. 2.1 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. ……….Citing the horse faced offspring of the Royal family, the insertion of the letter u in words like labour, driving on the wrong side of the road, angry television chefs, and Liverpudlian accents…..The Continental Congress adopted a resolution severing ties with Great Britain although the wording of the formal Declaration of Independence was not approved until July 4.  On June 11th the Congress took a vote on whether or not to vote on the matter of independence now or to wait until later. The decision came out 7 colonies against 5, with New York abstaining, (naturally) to push the vote three weeks later to July 2.  Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Robert Livingston and Robert Sherman were appointed to the committee that was responsible for writing a draft version of a formal Declaration of Independence.  Jefferson hid everyone else’s pens and then put sand in their ink so he wrote write the actual document because he was an eloquent writer, because he was a Virginian, and it was important for this leading state to appear to be in the forefront of the movement. On July 2nd, twelve colonies, excluding New York, naturally, voted to accept Richard Henry Lee's resolution for independence. This is actually the day American independence was declared, not July 4^th. Immediately after voting for independence, the delegates began to examine and debate Jefferson's drafted declaration. They debated the various parts and the wording for the rest of the 2nd, the 3rd and into the morning of July 4th.

1777 – Wednesday Vermont, which had broken away from New York, became the first American territory to abolish slavery.  Between 1777 and 1804, all states north of the Delaware voted to gradually abolish slavery.  Vermont was admitted to the Union in 1791.

1839 – Tuesday  Whenever I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally………………..Abraham LincolnSpeaking of slavery, Twenty miles off the coast of Cuba, fifty rebelling African slaves led by Joseph Cinqué took over the  Spanish slave schooner Amistad. It  It was to transport its human cargo 300 miles to two plantations on another part of Cuba at Puerto Principe but ended up in U.S court where civil rights issues involved in the affair made it the most famous case to appear in American courts before the landmark Dred Scott decision of 1857.  The slaves they killed the captain and the cook but spared the life of a Spanish navigator, so that he could sail them home to Sierra Leone. The navigator managed instead to sail the Amistad generally northward. Two months later the U.S. Navy seized the ship off Long Island, New York, and towed it into New London, Connecticut. The mutineers were held in a jail in New Haven, Connecticut, a state in which slavery was legal. In 1840, a federal trial court found that the initial transport of the Africans across the Atlantic (which did not involve the Amistad) had been illegal, because the international slave trade had been abolished, and the captives were thus not legally slaves but free. Given that they were illegally confined, the Africans were entitled to take whatever legal measures necessary to secure their freedom, including the use of force. After the US Supreme Court affirmed this finding on March 9, 1841, supporters arranged transportation for the Africans back to Africa in 1842.

 1853 – Saturday Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred.
"Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!" he said:
Into the valley of Death
  Rode the six hundred…..Tenneyson…………The Russian Army crossed the Pruth river into the Danubian Principalities, Moldavia and Wallachia……sounds innocuous but it set off the Crimean War since they had previously been controlled by Turkey. Britain and France were concerned about Russian expansion and attempted to achieve a negotiation withdrawal. Turkey, unwilling to grant concessions declared war on Russia.  After the Russians destroyed the Turkish fleet at Sinope in the Black Sea in November 1853, and, before you could say “Charge of the Light Brigade”, Britain and France joined the war against Russia.  Crimea is located on the northern coast of the Black Sea and on the western coast of the Sea of Azov, bordering Kherson Oblast from the North……it’s just south of the Ukrain.  Crimea is connected to the mainland by the 5–7 kilometres (3.1–4.3 mi) wide Isthmus of Perekop, about which Buckwheat of the Little Rascals said, “isthmus be the place”.

 1862 - Wednesday Happy Birthday, Sir William Henry Bragg, Australian physicist and chemist famous for his work on the atomic structure of crystalline substances and the measurement of x-ray lengths.   We're not sure if Bragg bragged about his work or not but according to Groucho Marx, A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five…………Bragg and his son,  Sir William Lawrence Bragg , was awarded the 1915 Nobel Prize for physics for his pioneering work on X-ray crystallography.  The Bragg ionization spectrometer William designed and built is the prototype of all modern X-ray and neutron diffractometers….we refer you to the afore mentioned Groucho Marx. X-ray crystallography is a technique that exploits the fact that X-rays are diffracted by crystals. Diffraction changes the directions and intensities of a group of waves after passing by an obstacle or through an aperture whose size is approximately the same as the wavelength of the waves.  Diffractions are also the parts of a whole.

1867-  Tuesday   An old man with long gray whiskers came through the cars selling popcorn, chewing gum and candy. Hey! said one of his customers. I thought young boys were supposed to do your job?……. I was a boy when this train started. -- On A Slow Train Through Arkansas, Thomas W. Jackson, 1903……………The “El”…….The first elevated railroad in the U.S. opened  in New York City. The first half-mile test section was built by Charles T. Harvey on single columns. It ran along the curb line of Greenwich Street, between Battery Place and Dey Street. It traveled at speeds up to 15 mph which is much faster than today’s high speed rush hour subways if you’re trying to get to work. The first elevated line with passenger service was the cable-powered West Side and Yonkers Patent Railway, which opened in 1868 and ran for just a few years.  The earliest elevated railway was the London and Greenwich Railway which was built on a brick viaduct of 878 arches between 1836 and 1838.

1877 – Monday – Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity…………Happy Birthday, Hermann Hesse, German-born -in Calw, Germany-  writer and Nobel Prize winner in 1946.  Hesse, explores in his work the duality of spirit and nature and individual's spiritual search outside restrictions of the society. Among his more famous works are, Siddhartha,  a short lyric story of an Indian youth's quest for self-actualization and the ability to answer technology customer support calls from America.  In Steppenwolf the artist-hero's double nature of human and wolfish forces him into a labyrinth of nightmarish experiences including listening to Born to be Wild on an endless loop.  Hesse's last novel, Magister Ludi is set in a utopian future, and is generally seen as a resolution of the author's recurring concerns about gastro intestinal problems.

1881 - Saturday  Nurse: "Doctor, the man you just gave a clean bill of health to dropped dead right as he was leaving the office". Doctor: "Turn him around, make it look like he was walking in."………Henny Youngman………… Four months into his administration, President James A. Garfield was shot as he walked through a railroad waiting room in Washington, D.C. The assassin, Charles J. Guiteau, was a deranged office seeker who had unsuccessfully sought an appointment to the U.S. consul in Paris. The president was shot in the back and the arm, and Guiteau was arrested. Garfield, mortally ill, was treated in Washington and then taken to the seashore at Elberon, New Jersey, where he attempted to recuperate with his family. During this time, Vice President Chester A. Arthur served as acting president. On September 19, 1881, after 80 days, President Garfield died of blood poisoning due to  mind boggling medical incompetence - at least a dozen medical experts probed the president’s wound, often with unsterilized metal instruments or bare hands, as was common at the time- …… One man suggested that they turn the president upside down and see if the bullet would just fall out………as much as much as to  Guiteau’s bullets,. The following day, Arthur was inaugurated as the 21st president of the United States.

1897 – Friday Do you remember lying in bed
With your covers pulled up over your head?
Radio playin' so no one can see
We need change, we need it fast
Before rock's just part of the past
'Cause lately it all sounds the same to me
Oh oh oh oh, oh oh. Rock'n, rock'n'roll radio Let's go….........The Ramones………Italian scientist Guglielmo Marconi obtained a patent for radio in London.  That patent – British Patent 12039 Improvements in Transmitting Electrical impulses and Signals, and in Apparatus therefore  – was applied for on June 2 of 1896. Unfortunately for Marconi, Nicola Tesla had been granted similar patents in America, and the two men would spend decades locked acrimonious dispute over the matter. In fact, in America it would only be resolved by a court decision after both men had died – the court found in favor of Tesla, ruling that he withstood the tesla of time. Tesla filed his own basic radio patent applications in 1897. They were granted in 1900. Marconi's first patent application in America, filed on November 10, 1900, was turned down. Marconi's revised applications over the next three years were repeatedly rejected because of the priority of Tesla and other inventors.  But Marconi won anyway – it’s his name, not Tesla’s, which is used as a synonym for ‘radio’ even today.

      1900- Monday  - Accompanied by the pound beat of Stairway to Heaven……..the dirigible, Zeppelin made its first flight at Lake Constance in Germany.   The German company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin, owned by Count Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin, was the world's most successful builder of rigid airships. Zeppelin flew the world's first eponymously named airship, the LZ-1, carrying five passengers. It was about 420 feet (128 meters) long and 38 feet (12 meters) in diameter. During this first flight, it flew about 3.7 miles (6 kilometers) in 17 minutes and reached a height of 1,300 feet (390 meters).  It didn’t work too well and that’s why it landed in Lake Constance.  Dirgible? Blimp? Zeppelin?....oh, my………A dirigible is any lighter-than-air craft that is both powered and steerable (as opposed to free floating, like a balloon).  Blimps like the famous Goodyear blimp or the dozens of imitations, rigid airships like the Hindenburg which blew up over New Jersey, and semi-rigid airships like the Zeppelin NT are dirigibles. A blimp (technically called a “pressure airship”) is a powered, steerable, lighter-than-air vehicle whose shape is maintained by the pressure of the gases within its envelope.  A blimp has no rigid internal structure; if a blimp deflates, it loses its shape like Congressman Gerald Nadler of New York. A zeppelin is a rigid airship manufactured by a particular company, the Luftschiffbau Zeppelin of Germany

   1902 - Wednesday The main idea, is to win. ….John J  (Mugsy) McGraw became manager of  New York Giants. Nicknamed "Little Napoleon," under McGraw, the Giants won pennants from 1911 through 1913, in 1917, and from 1921 through 1924. They had only three losing seasons from 1903 through 1931, his last full season as manager. On June 3, 1932, he abruptly resigned, hiring first baseman Bill Terry as his replacement.

   1903- Thursday It takes only one drink to get me drunk. The trouble is, I can't remember if it's the thirteenth or the fourteenth……….George Burns………The only major league baseball player to fall over Niagara Falls - Hall of Fame outfielder Ed Delahanty,  then playing for  the Washington Senators, was suspended by the team for breaking training rules and was traveling by train from Detroit to New York.  At International Bridge near Niagara Falls, the conductor put him off the train for being drunk and disorderly. That may have been due to the five whiskeys he had consumed.  Staggering along the tracks in the dark, he fell through an open drawbridge and was swept over the falls to his death. The Baseball Almanac obituary supplies the gruesome details, “Delehanty's body was mangled. One leg was torn off, presumably by the propeller of the Maid of the Mist, near whose landing the body was found.” In his 16 seasons with Philadelphia, Cleveland and Washington, Delahanty batted .346, with 101 HRs and 1464 RBI, 522 doubles, 185 triples and 455 stolen bases. He also led the league in slugging average and runs batted in three times each, and batted over .400 three times.

    1908 – Thursday None of us got where we are solely by pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. We got here because somebody - a parent, a teacher, an Ivy League crony or a few nuns - bent down and helped us pick up our boots……..Happy Birthday, Thurgood Marshall, the grandson of a slave, civil rights activist, and associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1967 to 1991.  Marshall was the first African American member of the Supreme Court. As an attorney, he successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), which declared unconstitutional racial segregation in American public schools.

1922- Sunday Ooh-hoo, water ski
Tough to get to where you wanna be
Oh, those skis just keep falling off, and
Ooh, barefoot, goes more like planned…..Larry Hensley……The first water skis as they are used today were were put to use by 19 year old (actually, it was the day before his 19th birthday), Ralph W. Samuelson at Lake Pepin, Minnesota. He had tried a few days earlier with barrel staves and snow skis, but they were a Titanic failure. Samuelson had proposed the idea that if you could ski on snow, you could ski on water……………..whatever………..on June 28  Ralph first attempted water skiing towed by his brother Ben. The brothers experimented for several days and then Samuelson  managed to make skis out of two 8 x 9 inch boards in which he attached leather straps to hold his feet in place. To make the attempt complete, he used a 100-feet long sash cord with an iron ring for the handle. This served as his towrope and then  Ralph discovered that leaning backwards with ski tips up lead to successful water skiing…..which is not particularly good for snow skiing.

    1925 – Thursday  A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers' blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man's brain
But he can't be blamed
He's only a pawn in their game…..Bob Dylan………..Happy Birthday, Medgar Evers, American civil rights activist.  Following service in World War II, became the first state field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi. As state field secretary, Evers recruited members throughout Mississippi and organized voter-registration efforts, demonstrations, and economic boycotts of white-owned companies that practiced discrimination. On June 12, 1963, President  John Kennedy, in a speech to the nation, stated that whites standing in the way of civil rights for blacks represented "a moral crisis" and pledged his support to federal action on integration, or ending segregation. That same night, Evers returned home just after midnight from a series of NAACP functions. As he left his car, he was shot in the back. Evers died shortly thereafter at the hospital

      1937 - Friday Amelia Earhart disappeared as the aircraft carrying her and navigator Frederick Noonan was reported missing near Howland Island in the Pacific. The pair were attempting to fly around the world when they lost their bearings during the most dangerous part their of the journey from Lae, New Guinea, to Howland Island, a tiny island 2,227 nautical miles away, in the center of the Pacific Ocean. The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca received intermittent messages from Earhart as she approached Howland Island and the last was that she was lost and running low on fuel. She was never heard from again and she probably tried to ditch the plane in the ocean. In 2010 array of artifacts from the 1930s and bones found on the uninhabited Pacific atoll of Nikumaroro suggested that Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, endured lingering deaths as castaways on a desert island and were eventually eaten by crabs. Researchers from The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar) found what might have been a phalanx from a finger and two other bones, one of them from the neck, alongside a host of other clues after two decades and 10 expeditions attempting to solve the mystery. The suspected finger is being tested for human DNA. It turn out to be from a turtle – which have similar bones in their flippers. But the other discoveries substantiated the theory that Earhart died on the atoll after going missing en route to Howland Island in July 1937 at the age of 41 – she was declared legally dead 18 months later.

      1940- Tuesday A neutron walks into a bar. "I'd like a beer" he says. The bartender promptly serves up a beer. "How much will that be?" asks the neutron. "For you?" replies the bartender, "no charge."………..A patent was issued to Enrico Fermi and colleagues, for a process of producing radioactive substances.  We quote; “The process, for production of isotopes including transuranic elements by reaction of neutrons, employs means for generating neutrons having a high average energy, slowing down and scattering the neutrons by projecting them through a medium of an element of a class including H, He, Be, C, Si, and Pb, and then passing the neutrons into a mass of material containing an element capable of forming a radioactive isotope by neutron capture, including radioactive isotopes capable of emitting beta rays.” Groucho? Take it away…..A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five. In 1934, Fermi came up with the idea to use neutrons, which have no charge, as projectiles. Fermi would shoot a neutron like an arrow into an atom's nucleus. Many of these nuclei absorbed the extra neutron during this process, creating isotopes for every element. By 1939 he had discovered that if you split an atom's nucleus, that atom's neutrons could be used as projectiles to split another atom's nucleus, causing a nuclear chain reaction. Each time a nucleus was split, an enormous amount of energy was released. Fermi's discovery of the nuclear chain reaction and then his discovery of a way to control this reaction, and poof!,  led to both the construction of atomic bombs and of nuclear power.

1946 – Tuesday ….. Ooooh that smell
Can't you smell that smell
Ooooh that smell ……..Lynyrd Skynyrd……….Richard Axel, American neuroscientist and Nobel laureate. You may have asked the question, How does the brain know what the nose is smelling?  Unable to locate Groucho Marx’s child of five (see above), we rely on the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for the explanation.  In 1991, Axel, working with Linda Buck—who was then a postdoctoral fellow in Axel's lab—discovered a family of roughly 1,000 genes that encode odor receptors lining the nasal cavity. These receptors in the olfactory epithelium contain neurons that send messages directly to the olfactory bulb of the brain. When a particular odor excites a neuron, the signal travels along the nerve cell's axon and is transferred to the neurons in the olfactory bulb. This structure, located in the very front of the brain, is the clearinghouse for the sense of smell. Axel and Buck were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2004.

1955  Saturday Wunnerful, wunnerful………ABC-TV premiered a new musical variety program called Dodge Dancing Party, which had already been airing locally in Los Angeles for four years; it would later be eponymously  retitled as The Lawrence Welk Show after its bandleader and host. Anda 1 anda 2 anda….the first music performed was, Say It With Music.  Then “Champagne Lady, Alice Lon sang Love Me Or Leave Me        

1956- Monday You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
You ain't nothin' but a hound dog
Cryin' all the time
Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit
And you ain't no friend of mine………Elvis Presley recorded  Hound Dog and its “B” side, Don't Be Cruel for RCA Victor. It would be the only single in history to have both sides reach #1.  Don’t Be Cruel was written by Otis Blackwell, who also wrote Return to Sender,  and All Shook Up, for Elvis. He also wrote Fever, which was made famous by Peggy Lee, and Great Balls Of Fire for Jerry Lee Lewis. Hound Dog was written by the great team of  Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller and was originally recorded by Big Mama Thornton in 1953. We note that in later years, Presley did not like to perform Hound Dog and would either rush through it or sing an abbreviated version.  Thank you, Thank you verra much.

1958-  Wednesday – Continuing our Elvo-centric items, we note that Elvis Presley's fourth movie, King Creole, opened in US theaters. Elvis had just been drafted at the time and so was unavailable for gala red carpet premiering to the chagrin of a then aging Joan Rivers.  Directed by Michael Curtiz, Elvis starred as Danny Fisher who, failing to graduate high school (for the second time), took a job as…..sit down now, this is a reach……….. a singer in the King Creole nightclub.  Also starring were Carolyn Jones (on to fame with the Addams Family), Dolores Hart, who would become a nun, Walter Matthau, Vic Morrow (fresh from Blackboard Jungle), and Dean Jagger. Among the songs were, Hard Headed Woman (our favorite as Elvis was leaving his Hound Dog voice behind and rolled it out for this one), King Creole, and Don’t Ask Me Why.

1962- Monday – Speaking of Elvis and the army, after breaking his ankle during a jump with the 101st Airborne, (it’s always wise to use a parachute for these things)  James (later Jimi) Hendrix received an honorary discharge from the US Army.

1962 –Monday – You know, to me Wal-Mart is a lot like George W. Bush. It’s not that I’m that big a fan in the abstract, really, it’s just that the viciousness and stupidity revealed in its enemies tends to make me view it more favorably than I otherwise would…………..Glenn Reynolds…………In a banner day for cheap Chinese goods, Samuel Walton and his brother J.L. (Bud) Walton open their first Wal-Mart store –Walmart Discount City - in Rogers, Arkansas.  By 1969 the brothers were operating 18 Wal-Mart stores in Arkansas, Missouri, Kansas, and Oklahoma and they incorporated these meccas for bizarre looking customers as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 

1969 –Wednesday- We had no sleep or days off or anything like that and then, when the band became big, Hendrix became a star and looked down at us lot…….Noel Redding…………Speaking of the army and Elvis and Jimi Hendrix, Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell got tired to the experience and left the Jimi Hendrix Experience as Hendrix formed formed the Band of Gypsies with drummer Buddy Miles and bassist Billy Cox to pursue funkier directions.

1976 – Friday -Fall of the Republic of Vietnam; Communist North Vietnam declared their union to form the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and changed Saigon to Ho Chi Ming City.

1985 Tuesday - . The European Space Agency’s first deep-space mission with the launch of the Giotto, Comet probe. Giotto encountered comet Halley March 13, 1986, asked what its sign was and what was its major and then talked about itself for the rest of the encounter. The Giotto mission was designed to study Comet Halley, and also studied Comet Grigg-Skjellerup during its extended mission. The spacecraft was named after the Early Italian Renaissance painter Giotto di Bondone. He had observed Halley's Comet in 1301 and used it as the Star of Bethlehem in his Adoration of the  Magi painting as well as on his BBQ apron rendition of  the painting.  Space dust from Comet Grigg-Skjellerup contained gluon plasma which enveloped areas of Earth resulting the escalation of the numbers of people who call their partner by baby names in public.

  2000 – Sunday – Dedicated on July, 1 the Øresund Bridge, connecting Skane, Sweden and on the island Zealand,  Denmark and the longest road and rail bridge in Europe, opened for traffic. It costs though. several Single use toll passes for cars are available for 36 Euros (roughly $51), vans and similar vehicles cost 71 (too much for us to calculate on our fingers)  Euros. The Øresund Bridge's local name "Øresundsbron" is a combination of the Danish word "Øresundsbroen" and the Swedish word "Öresundsbron", both meaning  ridiculously expensive Bridge in English.  At 7,845 m (25,738 ft), the bridge covers half the distance between Sweden and the Danish island of Amager, the border between the two countries being located 5.3 km (3.3 mi) from the Swedish end. The structure has a mass of 82,000 tons and supports two railway tracks beneath four road lanes in a horizontal girder extending along the entire length of the bridge and after you get to the island, there is a tunnel the rest of the way.

  2001- Monday Doctors at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Ky., using medical tools implanted the first self-contained, mechanical heart replacement into 59-year-old Robert Tools. The device, called the AbioCor, was battery powered and the size of a softball. The patient died a few months later when he was hit for a double off the wall during a softball game in which he was assigned the role of softball and the outfielder dropped him.

2001- Monday – Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground ….John Lennon………..After attempts to name it the Pete Best or Stu Sutcliffe Airport, Liverpool Airport was renamed John Lennon Airport in honor of its native son. It sported a new logo that features a Lennon self-portrait and the words "Above Us”.  

2002 – Tuesday It's been a long trip and I'm really glad to get across ………….Steve Fossett became the first person to fly solo around the world nonstop in a balloon.  Fossett, who had failed in five previous attempts, finally achieved one of manned flight's last earthly records at about 9:40 a.m. EDT. He and his muse Jean Passepartout,  crossed the finish line when he passed 117 degrees east longitude, the same line where he began his trip 13-1/2 days earlier from far western Australia.  Fossett disappeared in September 2007 while on a solo flight from a Nevada ranch.  His remains were found in November, 2007 in Northern, California.  Fossett's shoes and driver's licence were also found.

2010 – Monday The best car safety device is a rear-view mirror with a cop in it.  ………Dudley Moore……….. The South Kivu tank truck explosion in the Democratic Republic of the Congo killed  at least 230 people.  The tanker flipped over as it was speeding while attempting to overtake a bus in Sange, in South Kivu province, on the country's eastern border.  An explosion occurred as villagers "attempted to collect the oil" that was spilling from the overturned vehicle.

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 324 –Thursday – The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his…….George Patton……. In the Battle of Adrianople Constantine I defeated Licinius, who then absconded off  to Byzantium.  Fought during another of Rome’s seemingly endless series of civil wars, it was the second at the site  to be waged between the two rival emperors Constantine I and Licinius.  Of course people seemed to have loved Battles of Adrianople.  There was the first Battle of Adrianople (313) - Roman Civil War Battle of Adrianople (324) – Then another one in 378 (this was a major defeat for the Romans and the beginning of the end of the Empire) ….followed by:…….Battle of Adrianople (718) - Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars……. Battle of Adrianople (813) - Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars………. Battle of Adrianople (972) - Part of the war of the Byzantine Empire against the Russians………….. Battle of Adrianople (1205) - Fourth Crusade …………….Battle of Adrianople (1254) - Byzantine-Bulgarian Wars ………….Battle of Adrianople (1365) - Capture by Ottoman Turks………..and lastly, the  Battle of Adrianople (1913) - First Balkan War

987 – Tuesday It's good to be king, if just for a while
To be there in velvet, yeah, to give 'em a smile
It's good to get high, and never come down
It's good to be king of your own little town ……….Tom Petty………..Hugh Capet was crowned King of France.  Hughie was the first of the Capetian dynasty that would rule France till the French Revolution in 1792.  After the the weak Carolingian king Lothair and his son went kaput, the archbishop of Reims convinced an assembly of nobles to elect Hugh Capet, the son of a Frankish duke, who had inherited vast estates in the regions of Paris and Orléans, which made him one of the most powerful vassals in France

1423 – Thursday – He who knows not how to dissimulate, can not reign ………Speaking of rois de France, Joyeux Anniversaire,  King Louis XI  (aka theCruel or the Prudent, ) of France.  Louis started the move down the road to royal absolutism. His greatest potential opponents in France at this time was the Burgundy family. By the time of his death he had destroyed Burgundy (after arch enemy Charles the Bold went kaput) as well as Côtes du Rhône,  Beaujolais, Languedoc Roussillon and Chateauneuf-Du-Pape  and set the standards for other absolutist monarchs to build on - especially Francis I- but ending with Louis XVI and the decapitation of absolutism.  Louis, called the “spider king”, also made peace with England.

  1608 – Thursday Québec City was founded by Samuel de Champlain.  Québec Coming from the Algonquin  word, Kebec, meaning  either"where the river narrows", or “we hate you if you don’t speak French.” By 1663, the year during which Quebec became the capital city of New France, the population of Quebec and its surrounding farm lands had reached 1,950 people.  In 1759 General ThomasWolfe led the British to victory over Montcalm on the Plains of Abraham (although Wolfe went kaput during the battle) virtually ending the long-running conflict between Britain and France. In 1763 the Treaty of Paris gave Canada to Britain. In 1775 the American revolutionaries tried to capture Québec but retreated when they couldn’t get a table at Au Vieux Duluth.   

1728 – Saturday Happy Birthday, Robert Adam, Scottish architect born in Kirkcaldy. Adam was not only the leading Scottish architect of the 18th century - and exponent of the Classical Georgian style - but remains Scotland's most famous architect. Among the buildings he designed were Register House, Charlotte Square, and Old College, University of Edinburgh. He had nothing to do with the monstrosity that currently houses the Scottish Parliament at Edinburgh. EH99 1SP

1754 –Wednesday – I had a mother who taught me there is no such thing as failure. It is just a temporary postponement of success……..Buddy Ebsen……….. During the French and Indian War: George Washington decided that Fort Necessity, in Western Pennsylvania, wasn’t really necessary and surrendered it to French forces.  This was the opening action of the French and Indian War.  After losing the Battle of Great Meadows the previous day, in exchange for surrendering the fort, Washington was permitted to withdraw.  After the British departed on July 4, the French burned the fort and marched to Fort Duquesne. Fort Duquesne would remain in French hands until 1758, when the site was captured by General John Forbes.

1767 – Friday It is so high that we saw it at a distance of more than fifteen leagues, and it having been discovered by a young gentleman, son to Major Pitcairn of the marines, we called it Pitcairn's Island……Captain Philip Carteret of H.M.S. Swallow.  Pitcairn Island was discovered by Midshipman Robert Pitcairn on an expeditionary voyage commanded by Philip Carteret. But it is the aftermath of the Mutiny on the Bounty that Pitcairn’s Island is famous. After the mutiny, Fletcher Christian After the mutiny, Christian and his sailors returned to Tahiti, where sixteen of the twenty-five men decided to remain for good. Christian, along with eight others, their women, and a handful of Tahitian men commenced a search the South Pacific for a safe haven from the British Navy.  Pitcairn, an isolated volcanic island 1,350 miles southeast of Tahiti seemed like just the right place so on January 23, 1790, they set up shop.

    1767 – Friday Rather a bit correctly than much incorrectly ….Norwegian proverb…..actually, it’s snarere litt riktig enn mye feil …….Norway's oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, (although at the time it had the catchy moniker of Kongelig allene privilegerede Trondheims Adresse-Contoirs Efterretninger, was founded and the first edition was published. Martinus Lind Nissen was the founder and first editor.

 1775 - Monday    Malvolio:   Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. ….Twelfth Night (II, v, 156-159) ……………..George Washington formally took command of the Continental Army at nine o'clock the next morning. Under a large elm tree yet standing at the northerly end of Cambridge Common, the Continental forces were drawn up in line, and Washington, with uncovered head, stepped a few paces forward, drew his sword, and took formal command of the Army he would lead for the next eight years.  At first many of the New England troops were suspicious of him as an outsider, but he soon let them know that The General most earnestly requires order and obedience.

1778 – Friday There's a redskin waitin' out there, just fixin to take my hair

A coward I've been called, cuz I don't wanna wind up dead or bald…Larry Verne (Please Mr. Custer)….. During the Revolutionary War,  British forces killed 360 people in the Wyoming Valley massacre. No, it wasn’t in the state of Wyoming, it was in Wyoming, Pennsylvania. British Colonel, Colonel John Butler recruited a regiment of Tories for the and British allies, Seneca chiefs Sayenqueraghta and Cornplanter recruited primarily Senecas while Joseph Brant recruited primarily Mohawks for what essentially became a guerrilla war against frontier settlers.  On this day, Butler set up an ambush and directed that Fort Wintermute be set on fire. The Americans, cleverly thinking this was a British retreat, advanced rapidly. Whoops! Butler instructed the Seneca to lie flat on the ground to avoid observation. The Americans advanced to within one hundred yards of the Brits and fired three times. Surprise! The Seneca came out of their positions, fired a volley, and attacked the Americans in close combat. The battle lasted about  forty-five minutesuntil the the inexperienced Patriot militia panicked. This ended the battle and triggered the Iroquois hunt for survivors. Only sixty of the Americans managed to escape, and only five were taken prisoner. Butler reported that 227 American scalps were taken.

 1782 – Wednesday,  Two Geologists are walking across a granite outcrop one day. The first says to the second "Hey, this terrain is unmetamorphosed". Replies the second one, "No Schist". ……………Happy Birthday, Pierre Berthier,  French geologist, mineralogist and mining engineer who discovered bauxite (aluminium ore) near the village Les Baux de Provence in southern France. Yes, he was Berthier of a nation.  Bauxite is not a mineral, but a sedimentary rock with minerals in it that  is formed in weathered volcanic rocks. 

1806- Thursday –Michael Keens, a market gardener (someone who grows vegetables or flowers for, yes, market) of Isleworth near London, exhibited the first cultivated strawberry that combined size, flavor, and color at the Royal Horticultural Society. Strawberries are very unique, because they are the only fruit with seeds on the outside. Almost all varieties in cultivation today are descended from it. The 600 strawberry varieties found today stem from five or six original wild species, and are a member of the rose family.  Strawberry history goes back over 2200 years ago. It is thought that the name "strawberry" came from the practice of growers spreading a layer of straw around the plants when the berries begin to form, or from the sellers who strung berries on pieces of straw to carry them to market.  Darryl Strawberry played for the New York Mets during the 1980’s but ruined his career through drug use.  The Strawberry Alarm Clock recorded Incense and Peppermints in 1967.

1819 – Saturday  After failing in an initial attempt in 1816, the Bank of Savings in New York City, the first savings bank in the United States, opened at the the Old Alms House.

1844 – Wednesday – Life is a copiously branching bush, continually pruned by the grim reaper of extinction, not a ladder of predictable progress…..Stephen Jay Gould……….. In an aukward moment in conservation history, the last pair of Great Auks were rendered kaput. The Great Auk inhabited the rocky coasts and islands of the North Atlantic from Virginia, Scotland, Shetland and Ireland to Greenland and Iceland, almost to the Arctic Circle.  A flightless bird, it looked quite a bit like a penguin. Utterly defenseless, great auks were killed by predatory hunters for food and bait, particularly during the early 1800s. Enormous numbers were captured, the birds often being driven up a plank and slaughtered on their way into the hold of a ship. The last known specimens were killed at Eldey island, Iceland. About 80 great auks and a like number of their eggs are preserved in museums.

1852 – Saturday Gold has worked down from Alexander's time... When something holds good for two thousand years I do not believe it can be so because of prejudice or mistaken theory………Bernard Baruch………..Congress established the United States' 2nd mint in San Francisco, California.  This junior mint was covered with dark chocolate and quite chewy. The first U.S Mint was established in Philadelphia in 1792.  Why San Francisco?  Did you say Gold Rush?  In 1854, the San Francisco Mint finally opened its doors and began converting miners' gold into coins, producing $4,084,207 in gold pieces by December of that first year alone.

      1863- Friday Pickett, I am being crucified at the thought of the sacrifice of life which this attack will make. I have instructed Alexander to watch the effect of our fire upon the enemy, and when it begins to tell he must take the responsibility and give you the orders, for I can't…………….General James Longstreet……… The Battle of Gettysburg, 3rd day - Pickett's Charge (General Pickett charged breakfast, lunch, t-shirts, Gettysburg mugs, imitation army hats, refrigerator magnets and Little Round top dish towels at various Gettysburg souvenir shops to his American Express Card……A 15,000-man unit under the command of General George Pickett was organized in a last, desperate attempt attacking the middle of the Union line of defense on Cemetery Ridge.  Robert E. Lee ordered a massive bombardment of the Union positions.  At 3 p.m., Pickett led his force into no-man's-land and found that Lee's bombardment - just like those at Malverne Hill and the Somme- had failed. Only a few hundred Virginians reached the Union line….called the high water mark of the confederacy…… and within minutes they all were dead, dying, or captured. In less than an hour, more than 7,000 Confederate troops had been killed or wounded.  Lee retreated the next day.

1874 - Friday Happy Birthday, Johan Gunnar Andersson, Swedish geologist and archaeologist whose work laid the foundation for the study of prehistoric China and ultimately, Walmart tschotske sales

1878 – Wednesday – Over there, over there!
Send the word, send the word, over there!
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming ev'rywhere!
So prepare, say a prayer, send the word, send the word to beware!
We'll be over, we're coming over,
And we won't come back 'til it's over
Over There! …………Happy Birthday, George M. Cohan, whom many of us thought was James Cagney thanks to the 1942 movie, Yankee Doodle Dandy…….American actor, director, singer and dancer, who was born on this day, not the 4^th of July as his song Yankee Doodle Dandy intoned. Among Cohan's productions were Forty-five Minutes from Broadway, The Talk of New York, Get-Rich-Quick Wallingford, Broadway Jones, Seven Keys to Baldpate, The Tavern, The Song and Dance Man, and American Born.  He composed numerous songs, including You're a Grand Old Flag, Mary's a Grand Old Name, Give My Regards to Broadway, I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy, and of course, Over There of World War I, for which Congress authorized him a special medal in 1940.

     1886- Saturday George W. Bush is seen crossing the Potomac river on foot.
The Washington Post : "President Bush crosses the Potomac River".
The Washington Times : "Bush's conservative approach saves taxpayers a boat".
New York Times : "Bush can't swim"…………. The Daily Tribune in New York City became the first newspaper to be set in linotype.  Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the type setting machine in 1886. Mergenthaler’s breakthrough soon became known as the Linotype. The invention is regarded by many as the greatest advance in printing since the development of moveable type 400 years earlier. Linotype enabled one operator to be machinist, type-setter, justifier, type-founder, and type-distributor. Quickly adopted by major newspapers around the world, the Linotype initiated a new freedom in the creation of everything from newspapers to books, from advertisements to a wide range of literature.  Modern technology has replaced the Linotype process through a method called phototypesetting.

     1890 – Thursday And here we have Idaho
Winning her way to fame.
Silver and gold in the sunlight blaze,
and romance lies in her name.
Singing, we're singing of you,
Ah, proudly too,
All our lives thru, we'll go
Singing, singing of you……………..There will be no mention of  spuds, taters, French Fries, Steak Fries, crisps, hash browns,  or latkes as we note that Idaho was admitted to the union as the  43rd state.  Idaho was first presented to Congress, by mining lobbyist George M. Willing, as a name for a new territory around Pike's Peak. He told Congress that Idaho was a Shoshone Indian word that meant "Gem of the Mountains." Whoops, Just as Congress was about to bestow this name, it came to their attention that Idaho was not an Indian name, but a name made up by Mr. Willing. In reaction, Congress designated the territory Colorado instead of Idaho. So, whither goest Idaho?  Well in the meantime, the word Idaho had come into common usage in fact one of the mining towns in Colorado Territory had been named Idaho Springs. Gold was found in Nez Perce country, and these discoveries became known as the "Idaho Mines," So even though Idaho had been cast off as a name for the new territory, the name became well known from Washington D.C. to the Pacific northwest. So in 1863, Congress, being Congress created a new territory for the Idaho Mines and named it, Idaho.  Some Idahoian symbols: American Folk Dance -Square Dance, Bird-Mountain Bluebird , Fish- Cutthroat Trout . Flower -Syringa . Fossil-Hagerman Horse Fossil.  Fruit-Huckleberry . Horse – Appaloosa.  Insect- Monarch Butterfly. Raptor- Peregrine Falcon. Song -  "Here We Have Idaho," sometimes referred to as Our Idaho, music by Sallie Hume Douglas, verses by Albert J.Tompkins. Stone or Gem- Star Garnet.  Tree -White Pine and you’d never guess the state vegetable……………….Potato….yes, we know we promised not to mention it but……………..

1897 –Saturday-  Teacher: "What is seven Q plus three Q?" Student: " Ten Q"Teacher: "You're Welcome."…………Happy Birthday, Jesse Douglas, American mathematician who was awarded one of the first two Fields Medals……..Note (there will be a quiz – Since there is no Nobel Prized for Mathematics,  the Fields Medals are commonly regarded as mathematics' closest analog to the Nobel Prize (and are awarded every four years by the International Mathematical Union to one or more outstanding researchers……..  in 1936 for solving the Plateau problem……also known as the table, upland, highland, hill, mesa, table land, level, stage, period, phase problem……… The Plateau problem is one of finding the surface with minimal area determined by a fixed boundary. Experiments (1849) by the Belgian physicist Joseph Plateau demonstrated that the minimal surface can be obtained by immersing a wire frame, representing the boundaries, into soapy water. Soap films and soap bubbles are examples of "minimal surfaces," so-called because nature selects the shape that requires the least amount of total energy to maintain, and thus enclose a given area/volume with as little perimeter/surface area as possible.

1905 - Monday A hart to hart discussion deteriorated into a boxing match as Marvin Hart knocked out  Jack Hart in twelve rounds for the Heavyweight boxing title

1912 – Wednesday – I'm a loser
I'm a loser
And I'm not what I appear to be……….The Beatles………Lefthanded pitcher Rube Marquard of the New York Giants set a baseball pitching record when earned his 19th consecutive win. which stretched from Opening Day to July 3^rd.  The Giants lost 7-2 to the Chicago Cubs. Marquard went 7 -11 for the rest of the year to finish at 26-11

1922 -Monday Fruit Garden and Home magazine was introduced by Edwin Meredith, who had previously been the United States Secretary of Agriculture under Woodrow Wilson.  In 1924 he changed name to Better Homes and Gardens magazine. A three-person staff produced the first Better Homes and Gardens magazine. The first issue cost a dime on the newsstand, and a one-year subscription cost 35 cents.

1924 - Thursday Clarence Birdseye and partners founded the General Seafood Corporation. Birdseye, had been experimenting with the Eskimo method of quick-freezing foods. He stored fresh cabbages in a barrel with sea water which froze quickly in the subzero Arctic climate. Birdseye also experimented with quick-freezing fish and caribou meat. When thawed, these foods remained tender and fresh-flavored, unlike previous methods involving slow cold storage. In 1923 he invested everything he had in Birdseye Seafoods, marketing frozen fish. In 1924 General Seafoods of Gloucester, Massachusetts, became the first company to use the technique of rapid dry freezing of foods in compact, packageable blocks. Several recording artists have honored Birdseye and his frozen foods…..Steam, with Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na  Hey Hey, Pot Pie, Lynyrd Skynrd with the long guitar solo on Freezebird, and the John Lennon advising, Give Peas a Chance.

1929- Wednesday Foam here to eternity………Foam rubber was developed at the Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories in Birmingham. British scientist E.A. Murphy was frothing at the mouth as he conjured up the first lot in 1929, using an ordinary kitchen mixer to froth natural latex rubber. The Madehow.com website informs that foams are made by forming gas bubbles in a plastic mixture, with the use of a blowing agent. Foam manufacture is either a continuous process for making laminate or slabstock or a batch process for making various shapes by cutting or molding. There are two basic types of foam. Flexible foams have an open cell structure and can be produced in both high and low densities…..I’m looking through  And it would be so crystal clear   
If it wasn’t for foam  But the foam keeps getting thicker . And it just keeps getting harder   An I’m falling…………………Phish…………….

1935 – Wednesday – Happy Birthday,  Harrison Schmitt, American astronaut and politician. A geologist,  and the only scientist to fly on an Apollo mission, Schmitt was the lunar module pilot for Apollo 17 -- the last manned Apollo mission for  the United States –began December 6, 1972, and concluded on December 19, 1972-  He was accompanied on the voyage of the command module "America" and the lunar module "Challenger" by Eugene Cernan (spacecraft commander) and Ronald Evans (command module pilot). He was elected senator from New Mexico on November 2, 1976, and served a six-year term as one of New Mexico's Senators in Washington, D.C.

1940 – Wednesday The French fleet of the Atlantic based at Mers el Kébir, was bombarded by the British fleet, coming from Gibraltar, causing the loss of three battleships: Dunkerque, Provence and Bretagne. One thousand two hundred sailors perish…..Wait, wait, weren’t the British and French, you know, allies? After the French, as usual, had surrendered to the Nazis, and signed an  armistice Britain became concerned about the possibility that the Germans would acquire control of the French fleet, a first round draft choice, and two players to be named later.  The combined French and German naval forces would mean that the balance of power at sea might tip in Germany's favor thus threatening Britain's ability to receive raw materials from across the Atlantic and its communications with the rest of its Empire.

1951 - Tuesday – The premiere of Alfred Hitchock’s Strangers On A Train.  Tennis star Farley Granger meets a stranger on the Washington-to-New York train who offers to exchange murders. The stranger, Robert Walker, would Farley’s estranged wife kaput so he could run off with Ruth Roman if Farley would eradicate Walker’s hated, Jonathan Hale.  Farley didn’t take it seriously but whoops! his wife, played by Kasey Rogers, was  found kaput in an amusement park.  And then the fun really begins…. And when it becomes evident to Walker that Farley  wouldn’t kill his father, well! That’s Hitchcockian…..

1952 – Thursday  We, the people of Puerto Rico, in order to organize ourselves politically on a fully democratic basis, to promote the general welfare, and to secure for ourselves and our posterity the complete enjoyment of human rights, placing our trust in Almighty God, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the commonwealth which, in the exercise of our natural rights, we now create within our union with the United States of America. ……..The Constitution of Puerto Rico (national motto: Si es Goya, tiene que ser bueno) was approved by the Congress of the United States.  Puerto Ricans could now name their children Jesus and everyone would have thirty cousins.  Every time they were offered an opportunity to vote for independence from the United States, they would vote it down because who would give up a free lunch?

     1956- Tuesday The Oceanographic Institute in Woods Hole, Mass. placed the first ship outfitted for hurricane research into service.  It was the Crawford, a former US Coast Guard cutter, and the ship underwent considerable renovation at Munro Shipyard in Boston, including an increase in her fuel capacity giving her a range of 30 days and 6,000 miles. She worked in the North and South Atlantic, including the Caribbean Sea amd carried specialized gear for studying hurricanes. All of the crew had to practice saying “Yar” and “Be ye friend or be ye foe”.

1957 - Wednesday – I do not believe in Communism any more than you do but there is nothing wrong with the Communists in this country; several of the best friends I have got are Communists …..Franklin D. Roosevelt……Fooled by the Communists again.  Usually, Kremlinologists could tell who was who in the Communist high command by who stood where to view the May Day military parade but cuddly, Nikita S. Khrushchev (If you live among wolves you have to act like a wolf) took control in the Soviet Union in July, when no one was watching, by orchestrating the ouster of his most serious opponents from positions of authority in the Soviet government. Khrushchev and the gang had been jockeying for ultimate control in the Soviet Union since the overdue demise of the odious Russian dictator Joseph Stalin in March 1953.  Since 1953, he had worked to gain allies in the Soviet military and to gain control of the all-important Communist Party apparatus. On this day, it paid off as he used his important political connections and alliances to remove the three main challengers to his authority. Vyacheslav Molotov – appointed Ambassador to Mongolia, Georgi M. Malenkov - sent to Kazakhstan as head of the Ust-Kamenogorsk hydroelectric station and Lazar Kaganovich -assigned to managing a potash works in Perm oblast…which was much more than they could have expected under mass murderer, Stalin.  Khrushchev then reigned supreme, and ruled the Soviet Union until his own ouster in 1964.  

1959 - Friday …….. Each night before you go to bed my baby
Whisper a little prayer for me my baby
And tell all the stars above
This is dedicated to the one I love
This is dedicated to the one I love ……………The Shirelles released,  Dedicated To The One I Love.  Songfacts reminds us that it originally recorded by The 5 Royales and R & B group from North Carolina, in 1958. The song was written by written by Lowman Pauling and Ralph Bass. Pauling was the guitarist of The 5 Royales . The Shirelles' version first peaked at #83 in 1959, but when it was re-released in 1961 it went to #3 and Shirley Owens, lead singer and eponymous inspiration for the group, did not sing lead on this one.  It was Doris Coley.  The song was later covered in milquetoast  fashion by the Mamas and Papas in 1957.

1961- Monday  - Three men were killed in the first fatal nuclear accident in the U.S. when an experimental reactor exploded. The Stationary Low-Power Plant No.1 (SL-1), was part of the National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), near Idaho Falls, Idaho. ‘Oh, we’ll just pick this up and put it over here……aaargh!” An 80-pound  control rod was lifted by hand beyond its safe position, causing a core meltdown and explosion of the reactor. Plant manager, Charles Montgomery Burns then ordered……… Do my worst, eh? Smithers, release the robotic Richard Simmons. …….Four days were spent to devise a safe method to recover one of the corpses which unfortunately, came back to animation as a zombie and attacked the rescue squad which was in mortal danger until they called Judith O’Dea and Duane Jones of Night of the Living Dead and they hacked it up into tiny pieces.  

1962 - Tuesday I've been riding on cloud nine since the election (HOF), and I don't think I'll ever come down. Today, everything is complete. ………..Jackie Robinson  of the Brooklyn Dodgers (he retired rather than be traded to the New York Giants for Dick Littlefield) became the first African American to be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Also inducted were the great Cleveland Indians pitcher , Bob Feller, Manager (Cincinnati Reds, Boston Braves, St. Louis Cardinals) Bill McKechnie, and Edd Roush, outfielder mostly Cincinnati but ended with New York Giants.

1965-Saturday-  Happy trails to you, until we meet again.
Happy trails to you, keep smilin' until then.
Who cares about the clouds when we're together?
Just sing a song and bring the sunny weather.
Happy trails to you, 'till we meet again. …..written by Dale Evans…….Say it ain’t so Roy. Gasp! Marking the end of an era, King of the Cow boys, Roy Rogers bid adieu farewell to his trusty horse, Trigger, (the Smartest Horse In The Movies )who went kaput at the ripe old age of either 33 or 31, depending on a disputed birth date.  The equine was stuffed, mounted (by a very  lonely and horny cowboy evidently), actually it his hide was mounted over a plaster cast of a rearing horse.  according to Roy Rogersworld.com and put in the Roy Rogers' museum.  In 2010, A Nebraska cable TV network with too much time on its hands, paid $266,500 for  Trigger, at an auction.The movie cowboy's golden palomino was bought by the cable company RFD-TV in Omaha, at a Christie's auction of items from the now-closed Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Museum in Branson, Missouri.

1969 –Thursday – Kablooey!!! The biggest explosion in the history of rocketry occurred when a Soviet N-1 rocket exploded  and subsequently destroyed  its launchpad. The Soviet N1 rocket was the Communist answer to the Saturn V (just as soon as spies had stolen as many American technological secrets as possible). Surprise!  The five-stage moon rocket was nearly as big as the Saturn V rocket (345 feet tall vs 363 feet for the Saturn V). Just 0.25 seconds into the flight, the pump of engine number 8 ingested debris and exploded setting off a large fire. The N1 majestically rose just above the top of the launch tower when the remaining engines were cleverly shut down prematurely. The rocket plummeted back onto the pad in a spectacular explosion that destroyed the launch facility known as 110 East. Not only did it take 18 months to repair the pad, but the failure ended any last remaining hope of impressing the world prior to the American lunar landing which would occur on July 20, 1969.

1969- Monday – Another member of the “27 Club” of deceased rock stars as Brian Jones recently fired by the band he created, the Rolling Stones, probably for excessive drug use and being a miserable human being (see Life, by Keith Richards), was found doing a very realistic dead man’s float in his swimming pool.  The coroner's report stated "death by misadventure", and noted his liver and heart were heavily enlarged by drug and alcohol abuse.  Other members of the “27” club are the great bluesman, Robert Johnson, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Kobain, and most recently, Amy Winehouse.

 1970 – Friday – You cannot put a rope around the neck of an idea; you cannot put an idea up against the barrack-square wall and riddle it with bullets; you cannot confine it in the strongest prison cell your slaves could ever build……….Sean O’Casey……. During the “Troubles”,  the "Falls Curfew" began in Belfast, Northern Ireland. During a 36-hour period between Friday July 3 and Sunday July 5 three men were killed, a fourth injured who later died and  hundreds of families evacuated from their homes and some of the worst street violence of the period.  This was a British Army operation in the Catholic  area along the Falls Road in Belfast. The operation started with a weapons search but quickly deteriorated into rioting and gun battles between British soldiers and the Official Irish Republican Army. With a centuries old background, riots broke out in Catholic areas of  Derry (Londonderry) in 1968 and again in Derry and Belfast in 1969. British troops were brought in to restore order, but the conflict intensified as the IRA and Protestant paramilitary groups carried out bombings and other acts of terrorism. This continuing conflict, which lingered into the 1990s, became known as "the Troubles."

    1971 - Saturday I wouldn't mind dying in a plane crash.  It'd be a good way to go.  I don't want to die in my sleep, or of old age, or OD.  I want to feel what it's like.  I want to taste it, hear it, smell it.  Death is only going to happen once.  I don't want to miss it. …..Another member of the “27 club” and, and continuing the death in water them, two years after Brian Jones went kaput, lead singer Jim Morrison of the Doors was found dead in a bathtub in Paris. Morrison apparently died of heart failure, likely caused by a drug overdose. Girlfriend, Pamela Courson claimed she awoke the previous evening to find Morrison choking and gurgling.  Applying time a tried first aide technique, she slapped Morrison awake, after which he promptly vomited blood in the bathroom.  She said she offered to call a doctor, but Morrison declined, saying he was feeling better and wanted to take a bath.  Well if a loved one had just vomited blood and said they wanted to take a bath late at night, what would you do?  Of course, you’d go back to sleep because why would you be worried about blood vomiting. The girlfriend then claimed she awoke the next morning at approximately 8:00 a.m. to discover Morrison unconscious, and probably very wrinkly, in the bathtub.  So she called the police right? No.  The hospital for an ambulance right? No, she called a friend at 8:30, and THEN she later the fire department.  But it was too late. 

1987 Friday – I wanna buy a gun... Keep talkin' white trash, but I'm more interested in something that'll take the head off a honky at 20 paces! ………The premiere of  Surf Nazis Must Die, directed by Peter George.  How could we pass up this item? IMbd informs that heart warming plot involved  the grandson of a gun wielding woman being murdered by neo-nazi surf punks in ta post-apocalyptic future.  The pistol packing grandma, played by Gail Neeley,  (who portrayed “Maureen" in the Philips Milk of Magnesia commercials) then hunts them down, slewing them all.

1988 –Saturday- One thing is clear, and that is that the USS Vincennes acted in self-defense….. Vice President, George H.W. Bush …… The USS Vincennes shot down an Iran Air jetliner over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people aboard. The jetliner was misidentified as an Iranian F-14 fighter. The aircraft, an Airbus A300B2-203 was 54.08 meters (177.4 ft) long with a wingspan 44.85 meters (147.1 ft).  The F-14 Tomcat was 62 ft 9 in (19.1 meters) in length with a wingspan of  64 ft (19.55 meters).  Well, gosh, who wouldn’t mix them up if you were using million dollar sophisticated equipment, let alone your eyes?  The U.S had cleverly sold F-14s to the Iranians when times were good before the Islamic fanatic takeover of the country. I n February 1996 the United States agreed to pay Iran $131.8 million in settlement to discontinue a case brought by Iran in 1989 against the U.S. in the International Court of Justice relating to this incident, together with other earlier claims before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal. $61.8 million of the claim was in compensation for the 248 Iranians killed in the shootdown

1994 – Sunday – Dead Man's Curve, it's no place to play
Dead Man's Curve, you best keep away
Dead Man's Curve, I can hear 'em say
Won't come back from Dead Man's Curve…………Jan & Dean………Must have been something in the air as Texans set about killing each other in the  the deadliest day in Texas traffic history, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety. Forty-six people were killed in crashes.

1996 – Wednesday – Apud Monasterium de Scone positus est lapis pergrandis in ecclesia Dei, juxta manum altare, concavus quidam ad modum rotundae cathedreaie confectus, in quo future reges loco quasi coronatis. …”In the monastery of Scone, in the church of God, near to the high altar, is kept a large stone, hollowed out as a round chair, on which their kings were placed for their ordination, according to custom”….Walter Hemingford…….It was announced that the Stone of Scone would be returned to Scotland. Not to be confused with the stale scones of stone that we had at a roadside diner last week, the Stone of Scone, used to sit in Scone, now a suburb of Perth, on the Moot Hill, next to Scone Palace in Scotland. Legend says the Hill was created by sand taken there in the boots of lords who had sworn allegiance to the Scottish king. Here, Scottish kings were crowned, coinciding with regal processions.  In In 1296, Edward I of England annexed Scotland  and took the Stone of Scone, back to England and later placed under the Coronation Chair..  It had a brief period of freedom in 1950 when it was retrieved by Scottish Nationalists, but was re-stolen and would remain in England until November 15,  and n St Andrews Day, November 30th 1996, Scotland's coronation stone, was installed in Edinburgh Castle. The stone, weighing 336 pounds (152 kg), is a rectangular block of pale yellow sandstone (could have been one of the scones of stone after all)  measuring 26 inches (66 cm) by 16 inches (41 cm) by 11 inches (28 cm). A Latin cross is its only decoration.

1997 –Thursday- Jones: I appreciate Mr. Clinton's admission that he met with me alone in his hotel suite, a meeting I had every reason to believe was related to the Governor's interest in advancing the career of a total stranger. I stand by my earlier claim to have been shocked that this was not the case.

Clinton: I have no recollection of exposing myself to Ms. Jones, although it may be a possibility inasmuch as I regularly adjust, lower or remove my pants in the course of normal grooming or hygienic routine, and she may have been inadvertently included on one such occasion. I do, however, deny that I then directed Ms. Jones to perform anything that would fall outside her normal duties as a conference hostess……..Presidential stud muffin, Bill Clinton made his first formal response to the charges of sexual harassment from Paula Jones. Surprise! The ever truthful and completely honest Clinton denied all the charges and asked that the judge dismiss the case. Paula Corbin Jones filed suit in 1994, alleging that Bill Clinton propositioned her and exposed himself to her in a Little Rock hotel room three years earlier, when he was governor of Arkansas and she was a low-level state employee. 

2002- Wednesday -NASA launched Contour (Comet Nucleus Tour but it also played Do You Love Me by the Contours on a continuous loop), a U.S. unmanned satellite on a mission to get within 60 miles of a comet nucleus to study frozen samples of the solar system from its infancy and perhaps up to the “terrible twos”.  It was launched aboard a Boeing Delta 2 rocket from Cape Canaveral. After orbiting Earth the satellite's onboard rockets sent it toward an encounter with Comet Enke in 2003, then Comet Schwassman- Wachman 3 in 2006. Whoops!  Contact with the spacecraft was lost on August 15, 2002 for unknown reasons. Ground control to Major Tom…….They kept attempting to contact the probe but finally gave up on  December 20, 2002. The probe thus accomplished none of its primary scientific objectives.  However, gamma rays encountered en route, passengered on radio waves, entered Earth’s atmosphere, infiltrated the thinking processes of the susceptible and caused men to wear baseball caps in restaurants.

2005 –Sunday- Goin' to the chapel and we're
Gonna get married
Goin' to the chapel and we're
Gonna get married
Gee, I really love you and we're
Gonna get married
Goin' to the chapel of love ………………¿Es usted el Bob, George tomar a su legítima esposa, se equivocan, el marido, se equivocan ha decidido quién será el que? Same-sex marriage in Spain was legalized

Back to Calendar

4.        

1054- Tuesday - Wow! You're brighter than Las Vegas at Christmastime!......Daffy Duck…………The brightest known supernova started shining for 23 days.It was observed by Chinese, Arab, and Korean astromomers, members of the Elks Club, two teenagers in a lover’s lane, and our uncle Rufus who likes to howl at the moon. It is located in the constellation of Taurus  The remnants form the Crab Nebula.  The energetic cloud of electrons is driven by a rapidly rotating neutron star, or pulsar, at its core. The nebula is about 6,500 light-years away from the Earth, and is 5 light-years across.  The supernova was so  brilliant that it was visible even during the day for nearly three weeks and only faded from view nearly two years later. A supernova occurs These at the end of a star's lifetime, when its nuclear fuel is exhausted and it is no longer supported by the release of nuclear energy. If the star is particularly massive, then its core will collapse and in so doing will release a huge amount of energy. This will cause a blast wave that ejects the star's envelope into interstellar space. The result of the collapse may be, in some cases, a rapidly rotating neutron star that can be observed many years later as a radio pulsar.

            1253 – Friday At the Battle of West-Capelle, John I of Avesnes defeated Guy of Dampierre. Any time we have an item involving royalty named John it is voted in unanimously by the editorial board. So Guy was taken prisoner. [Guy, John’s half-brother was married to Isabelle de Luxembourg, his son’s wife’s sister in our medieval soap opera. 

1477- Wednesday  Happy Birthday, to the historian, Aventinus, born Johannes Turmair, Aventius authored the page turner, Annals of Bavaria which is really seven books dealing  with the history of Bavaria in the context of general history from the Roman period through 1460.

1534 – Wednesday - Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. Horatio:
Heaven will direct it.  Marcellus: Nay, let's follow him. [Exeunt.]…..Hamlet Act 1, scene 4, 87–91…………… Christian III was elected King of Denmark and Norway in the town of Rye. He immediately went to Rye Playland where he and his retinue enjoyed rides such as Super Flight which treats its riders to a constant change in positive and negative G-force and accelerations, with swooping turns, breathtaking drops and two zero gravity rolls - creating the incredible sensation of weightlessness! And, Catch a Wave with hundreds of flashing strobe lights, and speeds up to an amazing 20 revolutions per minute, will torque up the fun and excitement! Influenced  by the reformist ideas of Dr. Martin Luther, he became the "Reformation-king", and pushed  the Catholic Church out of Denmark and Norway.

1753 – Wednesday – Three Wednesday items in a row….. A man is flying in a hot air balloon and realizes he is lost. He reduces height and spots a man down below. He lowers the balloon further and shouts: "Excuse me, can you tell me where I am?" The man below says: "yes you're in a hot air balloon, hovering 30 feet above this field." "You must work in Information Technology," says the balloonist. "I do," replies the man. "How did you know?" "Well" says the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct, but it's no use to anyone." The man below says, "You must work in Management". "I do" replies the balloonist, "but how did you know?" "Well", says the man, "you don't know where you are, or where you're going, but you expect me to be able to help. You're in the same position you were before we met, but now it's my fault."  ……Happy Birthday, Jean-Pierre Blanchard French balloonist.  On January 7, 1785, Blanchard and Dr. John Jeffries, an American physician, made the first flight over the English Channel, traveling from Dover, England, to Calais, France. crossing….some people would do anything to avoid the lines for the ferry at Dover., Blanchard also made the first balloon flight  in North America on January 9, 1793 as he ascended from the Washington Prison Yard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and landed in Gloucester County, New Jersey. Carrying the first airmail letter, this flight was observed by President George Washington.

1776 – Thursday- The Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia. It was drafted by Thomas Jefferson between June 11 and June 28, 1776.  While the political philosophy of the Declaration was not new; its ideals of individual liberty had already been expressed by John Locke and the Continental philosophers., what Jefferson did was to summarize this philosophy in "self-evident truths". When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.  We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It wasn't until July 8 that representatives of all "states" had signed and the Liberty Bell was rung for the first time. Richard Henry Lee of Virginia had gotten the ball rolling on June 7 in the Continental Congress with  his resolution beginning: Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved because King George  is a poopy head.

1790 – Sunday – Trigonometry is a sin of the times…………unknown……..Happy Birthday, Sir George Everest, British military engineer and geodesist who worked on the trigonometrical survey of India from 1818-43, providing the accurate mapping of the subcontinent.  And what is a trigonometrical survey?  It’s a survey of a portion of country by measuring a single base, and connecting it with various points in the tract surveyed by a series of triangles, the angles of which are carefully measured, the relative positions and distances of all parts being computed from these data. Guess which mountain is named after him? Yes, Mount Everest was surveyed in 1852 under his successor Andrew Waugh, who calculated its summit height, establishing it as the world's highest mountain. It was renamed in honor of George Everest in 1865.

1802 – Sunday Hail, Alma Mater dear,
To us be ever near,
Help us thy motto bear
Through all the years.
Let duty be well performed,
Honor be e'er untarned,
Country be ever armed,
West Point, by thee.  At West Point, New York the United States Military Academy officially opened.  Plebes immediately began: Military Training Branch: Cadet Basic Training, Cadet Field Training and Military Individual Advanced Development Programs,Military Science Branch: Commandant's Hour Courses, Military Intersession Courses, Military Arts and Sciences Elective Courses,Military Clubs,Competitive Events ,Combat Team, Combined Arms Club, Drill Team, Marksmanship Teams, Orienteering, and how to lose football games to Navy. On March 16, 1802, Congress approved legislation establishing the United States Military Academy.  George Washington considered West Point to be the most important strategic position in America and personally selected Thaddeus Kosciuszko, one of the heroes of Saratoga, to design the fortifications for West Point in l778. Washington transferred his headquarters to West Point in l779. West Point was never captured by the British, despite the best efforts of Benedict Arnold.  

            1803 – Monday “Guess what we bought!”…..The Louisiana Purchase was publicly announced to the American people. On April 30, 1803, Napoleon, needing money to finance his wars, sold 828,000 square miles (2,144,510 square km) of land west of the Mississippi River to the young United States of America in a treaty commonly known as the Louisiana Purchase, via Ebay. President Thomas Jefferson more than doubled the size of the United States at a time when the nation's population growth was growing rapidly. The Louisiana Purchase was an incredible deal for the United States with the final cost totaling less than five cents per acre at $15 million (about $283 million in today's dollars).

1804 – Wednesday Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ……..Happy Birthday, author Nathaniel Hawthorne, born in Salem, Mass. and author of  The Scarlet Letter and The House of Seven Gables among others. Hawthorne was also Boston’s most famous Custom House measurer, first appointed in 1839. After three years Hawthorne was dismissed from his job with the Salem Custom House. In 1845, he was appointed surveyor of the Boston Custom House by President James Polk, but he was dismissed from this post when Zachary Taylor became president. The Custom House’s loss was literature’s gain as Hawthorne then devoted himself to his most famous novel, The Scarlet Letter  which was an immediate success  when published in 1850. Oh, and a gable is the triangle formed by a sloping roof. A building may be front-gabled or side-gabled.

            1807 – Saturday I offer neither pay, nor quarters, nor food; I offer only hunger, thirst, forced marches, battles and death. Let him who loves his country with his heart, and not merely with his lips, follow me ……….Happy Birthday, Giuseppe Garibaldi Italian patriot and soldier, a leading figure in the Risorgimento (the movement for Italian unification). He remains perhaps the most popular of all Italian heroes and also a great revolutionary hero in South America. He lived in exile in South America from 1836 to 1848 and learned guerrilla, chimpanzee, orangutan, and rhesus monkey warfare tactics while fighting in the War of the Farrapos War and the Uruguayan Civil War. He returned to Italy with his small band of "Red Shirts" and fought in Milan in the war of independence against Austria. After Pope Pius IX fled Rome in 1848, Garibaldi for a while defended the city from the French when they attempted to reinstate papal rule. He is most famous for his role in overthrowing the monarchy of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In May 1860, he set out to liberate southern Italy from the repressive regime of King Francis II. On May, 11, he landed with his ‘Thousand Redshirts’ at Marsala, Sicily, and destroyed the Neapolitan army in several battles. Garibaldi crossed the Straits of Messina and on  September 7, his forces occupied Naples. In March 1861, Garibaldi surrendered his conquests to King Vittorio Emanuele of Piedmont in order to realize his lifelong dream, a united and independent kingdom of Italy. We note that from 1850-51 he lived in New York,  where while raising funds for his revolutionary causes, he worked for inventor Antonio Meucci (who may have invented the telephone) in Meucci’s candle factory on Staten Island. The cottage on Staten Island where he stayed is listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places and is preserved as the Garibaldi Memorial.

                1826 – Tuesday John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, respectively, both went kaput on this day, the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence.  Adams, probably from heart failure caused by arteriosclerosis and Jefferson probably amoebic dysentery.  Adams was 90 and Jefferson, 83.  John Adams was the 2^nd President and Thomas Jefferson became Vice-President. The two men had disagreed politically throughout the Washington Administration, and were only both elected because in those days, whomever came in second in the Presidential vote became Vice-President. During the Adams Administration, the two argued over almost every issue including which side of the plate a fork goes to.  Then Jefferson defeated Adams and became President number three in  1800. Adams and Jefferson became truly bitter enemies when political parties began to form around each of them. But, just like the end of a chick flick, Adams and Jefferson reconciled in their retirement and they became bosom buddies as they lived out their final years. Both men were highly conscious of living to see the fiftieth Fourth of July. Adams last words have been reported as "Thomas Jefferson survives" (Jefferson had passed on a few hours earlier). John Adams died while his son John Quincy Adams was president. There are three different versions of Jefferson’s final words (see the Monticello.org website) but they boil down to “Is this the fourth?”  

1827 – Thursday- Slavery was abolished in New York State.  There had been various attempts at abolition since 1799 but slavery was still not entirely repealed in the state, because the new law offered an exception, allowing nonresidents to enter New York with slaves for up to nine months, and allowing part-time residents to bring their slaves into the state temporarily. The "nine-months law" remained on the books until its repeal in 1841, when slavery had become the focus of sectional rivalry and the North was re-defining itself as the "free" region.

1828-  Friday  She came in through the bathroom window
Protected by a silver spoon
But now she sucks her thumb and wanders
By the banks of her own lagoon …..The Beatles ……….Flushed with success, the cornerstone was laid for the first U.S. hotel to install bathrooms was the Tremont House, at the SW corner of Tremont Street and Beacon Street  in Boston, Mass.  It was also the first hotel to provide free soap – probably not the little bars offered nowadays – one for the sink and one for the tub. The hotel's water was raised by steam-powered pump to a storage tank on its roof, where it fed by gravity to the taps. Eight loos  were provided on the ground floor. Restrooms for bathing were located in the basement, and served by cold running water. Bathtubs were copper or tin, with local gas heating for the tub's water. Running water was also provided to the kitchen and laundry. A simple system removed the waste water to the sewage system.

 1832: Wednesday The song America, aka, My Country Tis Of Thee (currently out of favor and rarely sung anymore in the U.S) was performed for the first time in Boston at the Park Street Church. Dr. Samuel Francis Smith, after adapting the tune from a German song, would later realize that he'd “inadvertently” plagiarized the British national anthem, God Save The Queen.  Inspired by Francis Smith,   George Harrison plagiarized the Chiffons' He's So Fine, The Beatles were sued for plagiarizing Chuck Berry's You can't catch me in  Come together,   everyone plagiarizes Bo Diddley, the Beach Boys’s Surfin’ USA copies Chuck Berry’s Sweet Little Sixteen, Led Zeppelin's song Whole Lotta Love contained lyrics that were derivative of Willie Dixon's 1962 song You Need Love., Ray Parker, Jr.’s Ghostbusters sounds suspiciously like, Huey Lewis’ I Want a New Drug….they settled.  And lastly, John Fogerty  plagiarized himself. Fantasy Records owned the rights to the Creedence Clearwater Revival library.  Fogarty left Creedence and became a solo act. The owner of Fantasy, claimed Fogerty's song Old Man Down the Road was a musical copy of the Creedence song Run Through the Jungle. The court made a landmark decision when it ruled that an artist cannot plagiarize himself.   

1838 – Wednesday Q: What do you call a bunch of tractors parked in front of a McDonald’s on Friday night in Iowa?A: Prom……….The Iowa Territory was organized. The U.S. obtained control of the area in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase, (see 1804 above). Burlinton was the first capital but a  new territorial capitol was established in Iowa City in 1839.

1839 – Thursday- The first iron cast bridge in the U.S. was dedicated. Dunlap's Creek Bridge in Brownsville, Pennsylvania was 80-foot long, 25-ft wide, and spanned the raging waters of Dunlap's Creek Bridge in Brownsville, Pennsylvania. The bridge was so well built – by Captain Richard Delafield of the US Army Corps of Engineers -  that it has withstood time and carries a modern road ….cars and all!

1855- Wednesday  I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass……Song of Myself……..A “budding” classic, American poet Walt Whitman’ first edition of his self published Leaves of Grass was published.  It contained twelve poems.  He continued to release revised editions up to 1892.  Leaves of Grass is essentially a poem in process, with each succeeding edition representing a unique period in the poet's life as well as the nation's. This is perhaps best illustrated by Whitman's Civil War poetry. Originally published in 1865 as a separate volume entitled Drum Taps, these poems were later integrated into Leaves of Grass.

1862 – Wednesday The beginning of Alice was told to me one summer afternoon when the sun was so hot we landed in the meadows down the river, deserting the boat to take refuge in the only bit of shade to be found, which was under a newly made hayrick. Here from all three of us, my sisters and myself, came the old petition, 'Tell us a story' and Mr. Dodgson began it……Alice Liddell….. …During a rowboat ride, Mathematician Lewis Carroll (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) told ten year old Alice Liddell a story that would grow into Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequels.

1863 – Saturday Bravely Robin ran away, (No!)
Bravely ran away, away. (I didn't!)
When danger reared its ugly head,
he bravely turned his tail and fled. (No!)
Yes, brave Sir Robin turned about (I didn't)
And gallantly, he chickened out.
Bravely taking to his feet, (I never did!)
He beat a very brave retreat, (Oh, lie!)
Bravest of the brave, Sir Robin. (I never!)……..Monty Python, The Army of Northern Virginia withdrew from the battlefield after the colossal tactical errors of Robert E. Lee and James Longstree at the Battle of Gettysburg, signaled an end to the Southern invasion of the North.

1863 – Saturday Won't you please surrender to me
Your lips, your arms, your heart, dear
Be mine forever
Be mine tonight……Elvis……………The surrender of Vicksburg (Mississippi).  In May and June of 1863, Ulysses S. Grant’s armies converged on Vicksburg, surrounding the city and trapping a Confederate army of 29,000 men under Lt. Gen. John Pemberton. After a successful siege Vicksburg food was running desperately low…….you can only eat so much hamburger helper…… On  June 28  Pemberton had received an anonymous note from amongst his men asking him to surrender before the army deserted. On  July 1 Pemberton consulted with his senior officers about the possibility of fighting there way through the Federal lines, and was told that his men were no longer physically capable of making the attempt so on  July 4, Vicksburg surrendered. This was the culmination of one of the most brilliant military campaigns of the war. With the loss of Pemberton’s army and this vital stronghold on the Mississippi, the Confederacy was effectively split in half. 

1865 – Tuesday Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do: once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,' thought Alice `without pictures or conversation? …..Three years to the day (see 1862) after Lewis Carroll ( Charles Dodgeson) told his story to Alice Liddell, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was  published.  Dodgson's tale was published as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by "Lewis Carroll" with illustrations by John Tenniel. The first print run of 2,000 was held back because Tenniel had objections over the print quality. A new edition, released in December of the same year, but carrying an 1866 date, was quickly printed. As it turned out, the original edition was sold with Dodgson's permission to the New York publishing house of Appleton.

1872 – Thursday There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time……………Happy Birthday, (John) Calvin Coolidge, the 30th president of the United States.  Coolidge became president  (Charles Dawes would become Vice-President when Coolidge won the 1924 election) when  the hopelessly inept and corrupt Warren G. Harding (I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.)went kaput in 1923.  He restored integrity to the executive branch of the federal government while continuing the pro-business policies of his predecessor.  Coolidge’s administration saw the Immigration Act of 1924 which limited the amount of immigrants allowed into the U.S. so that only 150,000 total individuals were allowed in each year. The law favored immigrants from Northern Europe over Southern Europeans and Jews. Japanese immigrants were not allowed in at all. In 1924 and 1926, taxes were cut that had been imposed during World War I. The money that individuals were able to keep and spend helped contribute to the speculation that eventually would lead to the fall of the stock market and contribute to the Great Depression.

1879 – Friday  During the Anglo-Zulu War,  the Zululand capital of Ulundi was captured by British troops and burnt to the ground, thus, ending the war and forcing King Cetshwayo to flee. The Zulu kingdom, created by Shaka  kaSenzangakhona, whose conquests reduced many neighboring people to vassalage and caused others to flee. lasted just over six decades but within six months the kingdom was kaput. The British casualties at Ulundi were 3 officers and 79 men. Zulu casualties were said to be 1,500.  Following the battle the British burnt the military kraals in the area around Ulundi. The Zulu chiefs began to surrender across Zululand to the British forces. Cetshwayo, the Zulu king, was captured on 28th August 1879 and taken into exile in Cape Colony. The British established a regime in Zululand considered to be sympathetic to Britain and withdrew.

1883 – Wednesday- No matter how thin you slice it it's still baloney……….. Happy Birthday, Rube Goldberg, born in San Francisco. Rueben Lucius Goldberg was an  engineer and Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist.  A Rube Goldberg contraption – an elaborate set of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups and rods, put in motion by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles and live animals – took a simple task and made it extraordinarily complicated……sort of like when Congress passes a law.  Goldberh had solutions for How To Get The Cotton Out Of An Aspirin Bottle, imagined a Self-Operating Napkin, and created a Simple Alarm Clock –

            1883 – Wednesday Same day as Rube Goldberg was born -  We believe that electricity exists, because the electric company keeps sending us bills for it, but we cannot figure out how it travels inside wires……Dave Barry…… The first three-wire (An electric circuit that consists of three separate currents delivered at one-third cycle intervals by means of a three-wire circuit) central-station incandescent-lighting plant in the U.S. started operations in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, located at the corner of North Fourth and Vine streets. It was built by the Edison Electric Illuminating Company.  The City Hotel was built by E.T. Drumheller in 1871. On July 4, 1883, it became the first building in the world to be illuminated using incandescent electric lights wand would be renamed the, yes, Edison Hotel. Why Sundbury?  Jason Close at www.pabook.libraries.psu.informs us that Edison chose Sunbury as the site of his electric lighting plant due to several advantages. A - the town was using gas for illumination and the rate of cost of the gas was relatively high. B - The system had to be near the source of fuel as well as be on a competitive basis. C - the town was close to anthracite fields in the Shamokin area, and the abundance of coal there provided a comparatively cheap fuel source needed to operate the generator for Edison’s experiment and D - Another advantage was the readiness of the many wealthy citizens of nearby Williamsport to supply the necessary capital for the enterprise.

            1892 – Monday But will you love me tomorrow………The Shirelles………Western Samoa changed the International Date Line, so that year there were 367 days in this country, with two occurrences of  Monday, July 4.

1895 - Thursday – …… Picture you upon my knee, just tea for two and two for tea,
Just me for you and you for me, alone!
Nobody near us, to see us or hear us,
No friends or relations on weekend vacations,
We won't have it known, dear, that we have a telephone, dear.
Day will break and you'll awake and start to bake
A sugar cake for me to take for all the boys to see.
We will raise a family, a boy for you, a girl for me,
Oh, can't you see how happy life would be?....................Happy Birthday, Irving Caesar, (Isodor Caesar) song writer – Swanee, (co-written with George Gershwin, made famous by Al Jolson),  Tea for Two, Crazy Rhythm, and Just a Gigolo.

1903-  Saturday I don't like to be disturbed at home; I tell the cable office not to call me before 6:30 AM, unless there's a war…….U Thant…………President Theodore Roosevelt sent the first official message over the new cable across the Pacific Ocean between Honolulu, Midway, Guam and Manila. He booked rooms using Hotel.com.  Inspired by Roosevelt’s cable,  the imperialist Japanese decided go one better and just conquer the places in 1941/42

1906 – Wednesday A seedy business....Happy Birthday, Vincent J. Schaefer who invented the process of cloud seeding to cause rain and, yes, snow.   Professor Sy Yentz can cause rain by just washing his car. Schaefer became famous with his 1946 experiments for General Electric making the first snowstorm in a laboratory and inducing precipitation outdoors.  Well that certainly helped…..” can’t go into the dining room, there’s a thunder shower going on in there”….. He was hailed as the first person to actually do something about the weather and not just talk about it. Naysayers voiced concerns about disrupting weather patterns and "stealing" rain, spoiling picnics, soggying up outdoor graduations, and ruining barbeques and golf games.  There were also practical difficulties in controlling the weather. The Saturday Evening Post noted that after seeding, it was still "difficult to aim a cloud." In 2003, scientists at the National Academy of Sciences concluded there is no scientific evidence that it works.  The American Meteorological Society's (you know, those people who get the weather wrong every time you depend on it to be good weather) official position is that there has been some statistical evidence showing a 10 percent increase in precipitation after cloud-seeding, but no conclusive cause and effect.  In cloud seeding, silver iodide is used to assist the natural process of rain formation. It provides nuclei in which ice crystals can form.  If they become large enough, they fall, melt as they fall, and turn into rain.

            1911 – Tuesday It's like a heatwave
Burnin' like a heatwave
Deep in my heart
I can't keep from cryin'
It's tearin' me apart ……Martha and the Vandellas……….A heat wave that would not end until July 19  set record temperatures in the northeastern United States. 380 people would die.  In Nashua, New Hampshire, the mercury peaked at 106 degrees Fahrenheit. Other high-temperature records were set all over New England during the 11-day period. The area from Pennsylvania northeast to Maine was most affected by the roasting heat. New York City was particularly hard hit. In fact, the New York City Health Department put out one of its very first heat advisories.  Mayor William Gaynor tried to make sure that the city’s ice dealers could keep up their deliveries; in the time before refrigeration, ice was critical in keeping the food supply from spoiling.  When the heat wave ended, five people were killed during the violent thunderstorms that finally dropped the temperature.  Professor Sy Yentz has demonstrated his power over the weather by ending a mini-heat wave with the purchase of an air-conditioner.  Within 45 minutes of installation, a storm dropped the temperature to 66^◦.  It’s an awesome power yet he remains humble.

1912- Thursday A straight line can readily be drawn among each of the two series of points corresponding to maxima and minima, thus showing that there is a simple relation between the brightness of the variables and their periods ………Happy Birthday, Henrietta Swan Leavitt American astronomer famous for her discovery of the period-luminosity relation of Cepheid variables. Leavitt worked as a computer at Harvard – they were called computers because they spent their lives studying photographs. It was drudge work but it was as close as women could get to real astronomy at Harvard.  Leavitt noticed that a type of star known as a Cepheid variable (after the constellation Cepheus….look through a telescope and “cepheus self”) pulsated with a regular rhythm. This was vital in determining the size and age of the universe as Cepheids are quite rare but most of us know at least one – Polaris, the North Star This major discovery became the starting point for the ability of astronomers to determine the distance of stars from the earth.  Cephied variable stars that have used up their main supply of hydrogen fuel are unstable and pulsate, sort of like when their latest film release bombs, starting a series of failures that ends up with them as supporting actors or on television……….possibly even Dancing With the Stars. 

1925-  Saturday – Happy Birthday, Eric Fleming, American actor. Fleming starring as trail boss Gil Favor  was supposed to be the leading luminary on the show, Rawhide………….whoops, along came Clint Eastwood as Rowdy Yates and……… Fleming did co-star with noted Shakespearean actress Zsa Zsa Gabor in the astronomy documentary, Queen of Outer Space………. “I'm going to allow myself the exquisite pleasure of watching you while I obliterate the Earth.”.  

1927 – Monday  - If no one ever took risks, Michaelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor ……….Happy Birthday, Neil Simon, one of the world’s most successful playwrights with dozens of plays and nearly as many major motion pictures produced. Born in the Bronx, he was one of the writers for Sid Caesar’s Show of Shows (others included Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner). Simon incorporated his personal life into his writing.  His first play in 1961, Come Blow Your Horn, was based on his relationship with his brother and parents. There were many more to come, including  Barefoot in the Park, The Odd Couple, Prisoner of Second Avenue and thirty one other Broadway shows, while finding time to write 35 movie screen plays including Murder by Death, and The Cheap Detective.            

1929 – Thursday – Happy Birthday, Our way is to put fear in the opponent, baby, and outscore him Al Davis, madcap football owner, born in Brooklyn.  Davis managed to maneuver from general manager of the Oakland Raiders to owner of the team. Davis lived off his successes of the 1960s, and 80s.  Other than a Super Bowl loss in 2002, the Raiders his team would win only one conference championship in 22 years. Davis was one of the pioneers of Thug Football, in which the object is not so much to tackle the opponent as to maim them.        

1931- Saturday  - American actor Stephen Boyd, best remembered for his role as Charlton Heston’s arch enemy, Messala and being trampled in the Ben-Hur chariot race.

1934 – Wednesday- In London, where Southampton Row passes Russell Square, across from the British Museum in Bloomsbury, Leo Szilard waited irritably one gray Depression morning for the stoplight to change. A trace of rain had fallen during the night; Tuesday, September 12, 1933, dawned cool, humid and dull. Drizzling rain would begin again in early afternoon. When Szilard told the story later he never mentioned his destination that morning. He may have had none; he often walked to think. In any case another destination intervened. The stoplight changed to green. Szilard stepped off the curb. As he crossed the street time cracked open before him and he saw a way to the future, death into the world and all our woes, the shape of things to come…..Richard Rhodes……….Having just attended a lecture by Ernest Rutherford that pooh poohed the idea of the re lease of energy from atoms, most notably by science-fiction pioneer H G Wells in his book The World Set Free as “moonshine”. What Szilard realised as he stepped off that curb, was that if he found an element that when bombarded by one neutron would release two neutrons, it could lead to a chain reaction that could possibly release vast amounts of energy.Leo Szilard filed a patent for  the chain-reaction design for the atomic bomb. The British patent included a description of a "neutron induced chain reactions to create explosions", and the concept of critical mass. He also came up with the idea of nuclear.   The patent was given to the British War Office as part of the war effort.

1939- Tuesday   Thirty six-year old, New York Yankee first base man,  Lou Gehrig, afflicted with the eponymous fatal illness that would eventually bear his name, (aka amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) retired and bid a tearful farewell at Yankee Stadium,  telling 60,000 fans, Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about a bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth.    

1944- Tuesday The National Science Teachers Association was established in Pittsburgh, PA.  It was created by a merger of the American Council of Science Teachers and the American Science Teachers Association, both of which disappeared like toilet paper in a store just before a snow storm, after merger. At the time, the organizations had approximately 2,000 members combined. Years later, NSTA became an affiliate organization of the National Education Association (NEA) but eventually became an independent organization, NSTA purchased and moved into its own headquarters on Connecticut Avenue in 1974. In 1994 NSTA moved its headquarters to Arlington, Virginia.

 1945 – Wednesday Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security……….Happy Birthday, John Allen Paulos,  American mathematician and author of books encouraging people to make sense of the statistics and figures that inform their lives. Among his books are, Innumeracy: : Mathematical Illiteracy and its Consequences,  A Mathematician Reads the Newspaper, Once Upon a Number, and A Mathematician Plays the Stock Market.

1950 – Tuesday The first broadcast by Radio Free Europe when it began broadcasting 11 hours a day from Czechoslovakia. Secretly, it was funded by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), although even the U.S. public did not learn of this until the late 1960s.  Shockingly, Communist governments While Communist regimes strictly controlled information about events inside and outside the proletarian workers’ paradises. The broadcasts gave a voice to those opposing Communism 

1960 – Monday  You're a grand old flag,
You're a high flying flag
And forever in peace may you wave.
You're the emblem of
The land I love.
The home of the free and the brave.
Ev'ry heart beats true
'neath the Red, White and Blue,
Where there's never a boast or brag.
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
Keep your eye on the grand old flag. ……………..George M. Cohan………………The number of stars on the American flag was increased to 50 to honor the new state of Hawaii, admitted on August 21, 1959 (Alaska, when they could find someone living up there to tell the news to, was admitted on January 3, 1959)   The stars are placed in a staggered pattern . . . 5 rows have 6 stars, and 4 rows have 5 stars ( 5X6 + 4X5 = 50).

            1968 – Thursday  The Explorer 38, (the first successful U.S satellite was Explorer 1) an unmanned U.S. spacecraft was launched to measure galactic radio sources – but not talk radio in the Magellanic Cloud -  and study low frequencies in space. It was one of a series of 55 scientific satellites launched between 1958-75.  Unfortunately some electronic spectrum waves infiltrated beyond the receivers and into the radio world at large where the brains of the intellectually challenged were affected resulting in the evolvement of cretins who is blast loud music at the beach.

            1970- Wednesday – In London there is a man who screams when the church bells ring. ……H.P Lovecraft, The Descendant …….A banner day for dead dogs, dead grandparents, dead relatives, and dead people everywhere as Casey Kasem began his weekly Billboard countdown on the nationally syndicated radio show American Top 40. Initially broadcast in seven markets: Boston, St. Louis, San Antonio, Lubbock, San Bernardino, San Diego and Hollywood.

1971 – Sunday  - Happy Birthday, Koko, the sign-language gorilla.  Koko a domesticated lowland gorilla was taught to use human sign language. Beginning when Koko was one year old, psychologist Penny Patterson taught the gorilla signs from American sign language. Patterson eventually credited Koko with learning a vocabulary of over 1000 signs and understand approximately 2,000 words of spoken English.  A BBC story reported that three former female employees claimed that they were pressured into showing their breasts to Koko. They alleged that Dr. Patterson encouraged the behavior, often interpreted Koko's signs as requests for nipple display, and let them know that their job would be in danger if they "did not indulge Koko's nipple fetish." All claims of harassment have been permanently dropped as of November 21, 2005, after the foundation and the parties involved reached a settlement involving bananas and money. Koko was quoted as saying, I can’t help it - she brings out the beast in me

1976 – Sunday   It resonated far and wide.  It showed that you could counter terrorism, and that it was worth cooperating to do so….. General Dan Shomron …..the Good guys win, the good guys win!……….Israeli commandos raided Entebbe airport in Uganda, rescuing all but four of the passengers and crew of an Air France jetliner seized by Palestinian terrorists.  The entire operation took only 58 minutes. On June 27, 1976, four terrorists forced an Air France Airbus to land in Uganda.  They quickly demanded that Israel release 53 convicted terrorists. The hijackers freed the French crew and non­Jewish passengers, while retaining 105 Jewish and Israeli hostages. A 48­hour deadline was set before executions would begin.

1977 – Monday – Happy Birthday, Pharmacist, Elizabeth Cafarella. A graduate of THE Ohio State University, Dr. Cafarella wields pharmaceuticals and prescriptions for the fortunate residents of Kettering, Ohio.

1980: Friday - We’re trying to have an impact for wholesomeness. July 4th will be a [traditional ceremony] for the family and for solid, clean American lives. We’re not going to encourage drug abuse and alcoholism as was done in past years…..James Watt……The Beach Boys (all in their late 30s by now) and The Grass Roots (Let’s Live for Today, Midnight Confession, Where Were You When I Needed You)  performed their first free concert on the Mall in Washington DC to a crowd of half a million. Three years later to the day, 1983 if you’re counting…… they were replaced for the big Independence Day concert by “Daddy Don’t You Walk So Fast”, Wayne Newton after James Watt, sourpuss Secretary of the Interior for the Reagan Administration, notoriously claimed that the  group would attract a "bad element." Whoops, it turned out the Beach Boys were one of First Lady Nancy Reagan’s favorite groups. In 1984, the Beach Boys would be back on the National Mall. Here’s a clip from that show of the band doing Surfer Girl with the help of LaToya Jackson and Julio Iglesias

1987 – Saturday Former Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie (aka the "Butcher of Lyon") was convicted of crimes against humanity by a French court and sentenced to life imprisonment. It was estimated that under his command 7,500 people were deported to concentration camps, and 4,342 were murdered.  After the war, from 1945 to 1955, he was protected and employed by British and then American intelligence agents. In 1952 and 1954, military tribunals in Lyon found Barbie guilty of torture, executions, deportations, and looting. Barbie was sentenced to death in absentia. With American help Barbie moved to Bolivia in 1955.  In 1983, a Bolivian government was in power that was willing to deport Barbie to France. On May 11, 1987,  Barbie went on trial in Lyon. He went kaput in prison in 1991.

1997 – Friday After traveling 120 million miles in seven months, NASA's Mars Pathfinder became the first U.S. spacecraft to land on Mars since the U.S's  Viking landings of 1976.  On first impact it  bounced about 15 meters (50 feet) into the air, bouncing another 15 times and rolling before coming to rest approximately 2.5 minutes after impact (sort of like when Professor Sy Yentz muffs a golf shot) and about 1 km from the initial impact site. The landing site in the Ares Vallis and the lander was named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station. Among other findings Pathfinder confirmed that many of the performers on television reality shows are, in fact, Martians as are several congressmen/women, as well as Hugo Chavez, Vladimir Putin, Evo Morales, Sergio Berlusconi, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mouammar Kadhafi, and Kim Jong Il

1998- Saturday-  Sic we'll adaugeo iustus aliquantulus magis fuel quod. quis! (So, we'll add just a little more fuel and......what the!............ )For a while it appeared as it would become a  bit crowded up on Mars as Japan launched Nozomi ("Hope") from Kagoshima Launch Centre, to become the third nation (after Russia and the U.S.) to reach for Mars. The spacecraft made two fly-bys of the Moon in Sep and Dec in order to reshape its trajectory for an intended arrival in a highly elliptical Mars Orbit in Oct 1999.  But whoops, the attempt failed  due to malfunctioning valve and the plans were changed to alter the spacecraft's trajectory to reach Mars in 2003. In a Keystone Kops maneuver,  they used too much fuel for the course correction.  Then as they swung it by Earth again for a momentum gain, solar flares damaged it. The mission was designed to measure the interaction between the solar wind and Martian upper atmosphere but ended up with Japan being attacked by Godzilla, Ghidra the Three-Headed Monster, Mothra, Rhodan, Megalon, and MechaGodzilla.

2002 –   Thursday Another breakthrough in medical history came with elephant capped tusks.  In the immortal words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx, Why do elephants lose their teeth in Alabama?  Because of Tuscaloosa. On this day at the Calgary, Canada Zoo, Spike the elephant showed off his new dental caps after dental  surgery. The elephant was fitted with 14 kilogram stainless steel caps over his tusks in a three-hour operation.  After about one-third of its left tusk broke off, a crack in the remaining tusk needed protection against further damage to avoid a future medical problem of infection and pain that could require a complicated root canal treatment.  The most difficult task was getting Spike in the chair with the little bib and the cotton and all those other things they stick in your mouth and the mirror.  Plus, when they told him to rinse, he would expectorate through his trunk and then they and to clean everything….and oh, it was a mess…….because the little paper cups weren’t big enough.  

2005 - Monday - Who has not experienced the unutterable despair that follows the crash of a treasured bottle …..W.C Fields………..Launched on 12th January 2005,  The Deep Impact collider screaming “Banzai”, crashed into  the comet Tempel 1.  Comets are, in effect,  time capsules that hold clues about the formation and evolution of the solar system. They are composed of ice, gas, dust, detergent, including 1.2% sodium dichloro-s-triazinetrione dehydrate, and  primitive debris from the solar system's distant and coldest regions that formed 4.5 billion years ago. Comet Tempel 1 was discovered on 3 April 1867 by Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel in Marseilles, France. Comet Tempel 1 currently circles the Sun every 5.5 years. It's orbit lies between Mars and Jupiter. Deep Impact, a NASA Discovery Mission, is the first space mission to probe beneath the surface of a comet and reveal the secrets of its interior. On February 14, 2011, NASA’s Stardust space probe discovered the human made crater created on Comet Tempel 1. Stardust succeeded in briefly photographing the crater as it approached within 178 km (111 mi).. The man made crater is about 150 meters wide and was formed by a 375 kilogram (800 pound) projectile propelled into the speeding path of Comet Tempel 1 by Deep Impact on this day in 2005

Back to Calendar

5.        1795- Happy Birthday Sylvester Graham of West Suffield, Connecticut inventor of, yes, the graham cracker – in 1829.  Graham was an Presbyterian minister who mainly preached nutrition and wanted to reform the eating habits of America and the world. He believed an unhealthy diet led to sexual excess.  He advocated vegetarianism and the use of only coarse, whole grain flour.  The flour was nicknamed "graham flour" after Minister Graham, and became the  main ingredient in Graham Crackers.  Ironically, today’s graham crackers are made with bleached white flour…..an ingredient that would have Sylvester apoplectic.

            1801- Happy Birthday, David Farragut American Civil War admiral. Famous for saying "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" as his fleet attacked Mobile (Alabama) Bay in 1864.  He would later become the first admiral of the U.S Navy.

                1805 – Happy Birthday, Robert Fitzroy, British naval officer, hydrographer, and meteorologist who commanded the voyage of HMS Beagle, aboard which Charles Darwin sailed around the world as the ship's naturalist. That voyage provided Darwin with much of the material on which he based his theory of evolution. Fitzroy retired from active duty in 1850. He was elected to Parliament and served as governor general of New Zealand. Afterwards, he devoted himself to meteorology. He devised a storm warning system – particularly for gales -that was the prototype of the daily weather forecast, invented a barometer, and published The Weather Book in 1863.

            1810 – Happy Birthday,  P. T. Barnum, the great American showman.  A shameless huckster, Barnum bought the American Museum in New York City in 1841 and turned it into an exhibition hall for the presentation of "freaks" such as "The Feejee Mermaid" and the midget General Tom Thumb (real name: Charles Stratton). His string of successful acts included European opera singer Jenny Lind, Jumbo the elephant and “Siamese” twins Chang and Eng Bunker. In 1871 Barnum opened a circus, billed as "The Greatest Show On Earth." In 1881 he merged with competitor James Bailey, forming Barnum & Bailey's Circus (eventually it became today's Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus).

            1853- Happy Birthday Cecil Rhodes (large family; brother of Lonesome Rhodes, Dusty Rhodes, Back Rhodes, Cor Rhodes, and E. Rhodes) of England who became wealthy via diamond mining - in 1880, he formed the De Beers Mining Company -in South Africa and founded the colony, later country of Rhodesia, which is now Zimbabwe. Rhodes left nearly all his fortune of £6 million to public service. One of his chief benefactions was the Rhodes Scholarships to Oxford.  More than 90 scholarships are now awarded each year to students from the (now former) British colonies, the United States, and Germany.

            1867- Happy Birthday, Andrew E. Douglass, American astronomer and archaeologist who developed the term,  dendrochronology for tree-ring dating, a field he originated while working at the Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona from 1894 to 1901. He showed how tree rings could be used to date and interpret past events.  Yes, it was a “tree ring circus”.  . Douglass observed that the width of tree rings is a record of the rainfall, with implications on the local food supply in dry years. Each year a tree adds a layer of wood to its trunk and branches thus creating the annual rings we see when viewing a cross section.

           1879- A near-complete skeleton of a mastodon was discovered near Newburgh, N.Y., by a farmer's son while digging a ditch. The area had been a bog until drained and cultivated 50 years earlier. From a 5-foot deep trench over the next three days, neighbors dug up about 200 bones of ribs, spine, legs, feet and a skull complete with teeth and lower jaw.  And in answer to the burning question…..Although mastodons resembled mammoths (also extinct) and elephants, they were not closely related mammal species.  The ancestors of the mastodons diverged from the evolutionary tree, about 15 million years ago, long before those of the mammoths and elephants did. 

            1917 – Happy Birthday, Manuel Rodríguez Sánchez, “Manolete”, perhaps the greatest bullfighter and certainly the most famous to be killed in the ring – August 1947.

            1921 - The "Black Sox" were accused of throwing the1919 World Series against the Cincinnati Reds. The trial began with jury selection. The eight Chicago White Sox players, including stars Shoeless Joe Jackson, Buck Weaver, and Eddie Cicotte, subsequently became known as the "Black Sox" after the scandal was revealed.  There is some doubt to this day that Shoeless Joe, the best of the players, was involved, however they were all acquitted after a jury trial but immediately suspended from baseball for life by commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis

            1929- The New York Giants baseball team became the first team to have a public address system in the major leagues.

            1944 - The first American rocket airplane, MX-324 was flown in Hawthorn, Ca. (sometimes the date is given as 7/4) The pilot, Harry Crosby, had to lie flat on his back to withstand the effects of gravity. After a tow to 8,000 feet from a P-38, the Aerojet motor was ignited and it began to produce 200 lb. of thrust. The flight lasted over four
minutes and ended with a safe landing.

            1946- Inspired by the U.S atomic testing at the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific earlier in the week,  French designer Louis Reard debuted a (at the time) daring two-piece swimsuit which he named the “bikini” at  a popular swimming pool in Paris.

            1954 - Elvis Presley's first commercial recording session took place at Sun Records in Memphis, Tenn. He recorded That’s All Right Mama.

            1996-  Hello Dolly.  Dolly, a cloned sheep, was born at the Roslin Institute, Edinburgh, Scotland. Scientists had replaced the nucleus of an egg cell with the nucleus from a parent cell - in Dolly's case, an udder cell. We found this to be udderly fascinating. Dolly was mated to a male sheep named David and eventually gave birth to four lambs. Later, she was found to have arthritis in her hind legs, a diagnosis that
raised questions about genetic abnormalities that may have been caused
in the cloning process. Still later as she mutated into a creature with long fangs that wore a hockey mask and chopped up nubile teenagers…no, no, no Professor Sy Yentz has his abnormal sense of humor……After suffering from a progressive lung disease, Dolly was put down on February 14 (Valentine’s Day – how appropriate), 2003, at the age of six. Her early death raised more questions about the safety of cloning. It was felt that people should stop “cloning” around. As for Dolly, she was stuffed and is now on display at the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Back to Calendar

6.   

 Tonight Tonight, may it never reach an end…………..The Mello Kings….. On this evening, according to U.S. clocks, our planet Earth reaches its most distant point from the sun for this year. This point is called aphelion, and, at aphelion we’re about three million miles farther from the sun than we will be six months from now at perihelion.  We’re always farthest from the sun in July – and closest in January – and that’s a good reminder that it is the tilt (23 degrees relative to the Sun) of the Earth’s axis NOT distance from the Sun that causes our seasons.

  371 B.C – Thursday- Only the dead have seen the end of war……Plato….. The Battle of Leuctra, where Epaminondas defeated Cleombrotus I.  The big surprise was that Epaminondas was from Thebes and Cleombrotus from Sparta.  Didn’t the Spartans beat everyone?  Sometimes they even beat Michigan. This Spartan defeat in the Boeotian–Athenian war against Sparta of 379–371 destroyed the reputation of the Spartan hoplite (which consisted of jumping up and down) phalanx, developed by Alexander the Great,  and established Theban hegemony in Greece.  The hoplite phalanx was a formation in which the hoplites would line up in ranks in close order. The hoplites would lock their shields together, and the first few ranks of soldiers would project their spears out over the first rank of shields. The phalanx therefore presented a shield wall and a mass of spear points to the enemy, making frontal assaults much more difficult. A hoplite was a Greek citizen/soldier armed with a spear and a large vocabulary of epithets. Epaminondas used cavalry to push back the phalanx and then his left wing outflanked the Spartan right wing. Cleombrotus was rendered kaput.

1044 – Saturday Long distance information give me Ménfő Tennessee….apologies to Johnny Rivers………The Battle of Ménfő between troops led by Emperor Henry III and Magyar forces led by King Samuel dooked it out over Hungary. it was a victory for the Germans and thus for Westernizing influences in Hungary.

1189 – Thursday Only kings, presidents, editors, and people with tapeworms have the right to use the editorial "we”………Mark Twain……. Richard I "the Lionheart"  (aka Richard the Lionhearted, Richard the Lion-Heart, Richard the Lion-hearted; and Coeur de Lion) , became King of England with the demise of his father, Henry II. Richard was one of four sons of Henry and his wife Eleanor of Aquitain, all fairly useless, including the youngest, John who would become King on the kapution of Richard in 1199. He would be crowned on September 3. Spending only six months of his reign in the country he reigned over (England), Mr. The Lionheart was far more interested in his holdings in France and in his Crusading endeavors than he was in governing England. In 1199 while stupidly running around in France to claim to treasure-trove, he began a conflict the viscount of Limoges (he really wanted that china setting for 400). He harried the Limousin and laid siege to the castle of Châlus.  Then,while cleverly directing an assault he was wounded in the shoulder by a crossbow bolt, and, the wound became infected and Richard went kaput on April 6. 1415 – Thursday Jan Hus is burned at the stake.

1483 – Friday Now is the winter of our discontent. Act I, Scene I Richard III………Richard, Duke of Gloucester and brother of the late King Edward IV was crowned Richard III – thanks to the Tudors and William Shakespeare he has become one of history’s great villains.  He was the last English king to die on the battlefield – at Bosworth- and his death at age 33 (you thought he was older, didn’t you?) in 1485 is generally accepted between the medieval and modern ages in England. Richard (probably wasn’t a hunchback)  is credited with the responsibility for several murders: Henry VI , Henry's son Edward, his brother Clarence, and his nephews Edward and Richard (the “princes in the tower”…….although there is a considerable body of thought that places the blame for those murders on Richard’s successor, Henry Tudor (Henry VII) –read Josephine Tey’s Daughter of Time.

1535- Saturday Headless Body in Topless Bar……….New York Post……..Henry Tudor’s (Henry VII – see Richard III above)  son, King Henry VIII  had Sir Thomas More beheaded for treason. More, a “sir and a saint”, had refused to endorse King Henry VIII's plan to divorce Katherine of Aragón in1527. Yet  in 1529, More became Lord Chancellor, the first layman yet to hold the post. He resigned in 1532, citing ill health, but the reason was probably his disapproval of Henry's stance toward the Catholic Church. More refused to attend the coronation of the manipulative Anne Boleyn in June 1533.  Further endearing himself to Henry, in April, 1534, More refused to swear to the Act of Succession and the Oath of Supremacy. He was then given accommodations in the  Tower of London on April 17.  More was found guilty of treason and was beheaded. His head sat on display on London Bridge for a month after his death. More is also known as the author of the book Utopia, 1516, which describes a fictional country in which crime and poverty don't exist, possessions are shared, and humanistic ideals prevail.

1560 –Wednesday  Best laid plans o' mice an' men gang aft agley…….Robert Burns…….The Treaty of Edinburgh was signed by Scotland and England. When Elizabeth I became Queen of England in 1558, her cousin, Mary Queen of Scots ( nine years younger than the 26 year old Elizabeth)  was busy being married the French Dauphin, Francis. Meanwhile, Mary’s French mom, Mary of Guise was running Scotland with a French military presence.  When Madame of Guise went kaput in 1560, and Mary in absentia, the Scottish Lords of the Congregation, and French representatives in Scotland formally concluded the Siege of Leith  (where French troops were stationed) and replaced the Auld Alliance with France with a new Anglo-Scottish accord.  French troops would be withdrawn from Scotland and the English promised to eat haggis at least three times a week.

1747 – Thursday Come on, get up and fight, ya shivering junkyard! Put your hands up, ya lopsided bag o' hay! ……….Cowardly Lion, Wizard of Oz…….Happy Birthday,  John Paul Jones, American naval commander and drummer for Led Zeppelin. He was born John Paul the name Jones was assumed circa1778, in Kirkbean, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. After emigrating to America, volunteered early in the War of Independence to serve in his adopted country's sea forces. When congress decided in 1775 to equip a navy "for the defence of American liberty," Jones was named as the senior 1st Lieutenant. He sailed from Delaware river in the Alfred in February, 1776, to attack New Providence. The expedition returned in April, and Jones was placed in command of the sloop Providence. He took the war to the enemy's homeland with daring raids along the British coast and the famous victory of the Bonhomme Richard over HMS Serapis. After the Bonhomme Richard began taking on water and fires broke out on board, the British commander asked Jones if he had struck his flag. Jones replied, I have not yet begun to fight! In the end, it was the British commander who surrendered.  The Naval History website reports When Captain Richard Pearson of the Serapis asked Jones, "Have you struck? Do you call for Quarter?" or, in other words, was Jones prepared to give up the fight and surrender his ship, Jones, according to most accounts, replied, "I have not yet begun to fight." There is, however, some question whether those were Jones' actual words. Richard Dale, Jones' first lieutenant during the battle, first credited him with that immortal phrase. Dale would normally be considered an excellent source but his recollection of Jones' words came forty-six years after the battle when the then retired sixty-five-year-old commodore recounted them to John H. Sherburne, an early biographer of Jones'. Most accounts written immediately after the battle record Jones' words as, "I may sink, but I'm damned if I'll strike" or a very similar phrase. Such words according to one student of the battle are a "simple direct answer, to a simple direct question."

1748; Saturday – Happy Birthday, George Claghorn- That's a joke, son…….Senator Claghorn…and….Foghorn Leghorn………American revolutionary soldier and ship-builder whose most important vessel was the USS Constitution, (Old Ironsides) one of several 44-gun frigates (as was the Bon Homme Richard see John Paul Jones above) . It was first launched in 1797. Constitution was one of six ships – the others were:   the United States, Constellation, Chesapeake, Congress, and President- ordered for construction by George Washington to protect America's growing maritime interests.

 1766- Sunday I dare say you will smile at my presumption when I tell you that I have seriously begun to make a collection of drawings of the birds to be found in Pennsylvania, or that occasionally pass through it: twenty-eight, as a beginning, I send for your opinion……Alexander Wilson, in a letter to William Bartram, naturalist, July, 1805 ………Happy Birthday Alexander Wilson, Scottish/American ornithologist born in Paisley (near Glasgow), Scotland.   Wilson was the first to study and paint the birds of North America in their natural habitats. His seminal work was  American Ornithology; or, the Natural History of the Birds of the United States. 1808-1814. 9 volumes. The book covered the eastern United States north of Florida, based almost entirely on his own observations. He went kaput in 1813 from falling into a  river and subsequently contracting dysentery, while pursuing a bird.

1785 –Wednesday  And I don't give a damn about a greenback dollar, spend it as fast as I can.
For a wailin' song and a good guitar, the only things that I understand, poor boy, the only things that I understand. …..Kingston Trio……….After rejecting the Lek, the Euro, the Franc, the Dinar, the Peso, the Pula, the Kroon, the Kroner, the Ouguiya, the Rupee, Continental Currency, and the Vatu, the dollar was unanimously chosen as the monetary unit for the United States. The Coinage Act of 1792 helped put together an organized monetary system that introduced coinage in gold, silver, and copper. Paper notes or greenbacks were introduced into the system in 1861 to help finance the Civil War.  The Spanish milled dollar which had its roots in 17th century Bohemia was the standard coin used in trade and business transaction in the colonies. Where did the word dollar come from?  Glad you asked.  In 1516 a local pooh bah opened a silver mine and later a mint at a locale in Bohemia called Joachimsthal.  The mint began churning out coins known as Joachimsthalers. Obviously it was too time consuming to say 75  Joachimsthalers  so it was soon shortened to thalers and called dalers by the Dutch who had trouble with th. The English corrupted this to dollar and apparently began applying the word to any large silver foreign coin. In North America, for instance, English settlers referred to the Spanish piece of eight, then in wide circulation, as the Spanish dollar.

1785 –Wednesday  - BOTANY, n. The science of vegetables—those that are not good to eat, as well as those that are. It deals largely with their flowers, which are commonly badly designed, inartistic in color, and ill-smelling……Ambrose Bierce….The Devil’s Dictionary………….. Happy Birthday, William Jackson Hooker, English botanist and father of Joseph Dalton Hooker.  The elder Hooker was Professor of Botany at Glasgow, Director of Glasgow Botanic Gardens from 1820 to 1841, Director of Kew Gardens from 1841 to 1865. He opened the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew to the public. It was mainly by Hooker's influence that botanists were appointed to the government expeditions. His son, Joseph Dalton Hooker also a Director of Kew Gardens,  traveled extensively and yes, did much to stimulate interest in planting rhododendrons in British gardens.

1796 – Wednesday С Днем Рождения,  Tsar Czar  (Take me for a ride in you’re tsar czar….Peter Paul & Mary) Nicholas I of Russia. Just an all around great guy, he suppressed the Decembrist revolt and his reign came to represent autocracy, militarism, and bureaucracy……all the good things people expect from their government.  To enforce his policies, he created such agencies as the Third Section (political police). In foreign policy, Nicholas quelled an uprising in Poland, aided Austria against a Hungarian uprising and started the  Crimean War.

1854 – Thursday  Republicans sleep in twin beds—some even in separate rooms. That is why there are more Democrats. ……Will Stanton………..In Jackson, Michigan, the first convention of the United States Republican Party was held.  The stimulus for its founding was The stimulus for its founding was provided by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. That law repealed earlier compromises that had excluded slavery from the territories. The passage of this act served as the unifying agent for abolitionists and split the Democrats and the Whig party.  Two “anti Nebraska” meetings were held in Ripon, Wis., on Feb. 28 and Mar. 20, 1854, and were attended by a group of abolitionist Free Soilers, Democrats, Whigs, Toupees, Comb-overs and Falls.  They decided to call themselves Republicans-because they decided they were the  political descendants of Thomas Jefferson's Democratic-Republican party. The name was formally adopted by a state convention held in Jackson, Mich., on this day.

      1858- Tuesday There's no business like shoe business..........Let's go on with the shoe                      Let's go on with the shoe ! The shoe! The shoe! "……..apologies to Irving Berlin………. A shoemaker named Lyman Blake in Abington MA. patented the first shoe-sole machine. It was a sewing machine for shoes.  Coincidently, Blake worked for the Isaac Singer's sewing machine company. His invention revolutionized the shoe industry and helped establish Plymouth County as the nation's shoe manufacturing capital. The patent rights were later sold to Georges McKay.

     1885- Monday The death of this child appearing to be inevitable, I decided, not without lively and sore anxiety, as may well be believed, to try upon Joseph Meister, the method which I had found constantly successful with dogs. Consequently, sixty hours after the bites, and in the presence of Drs Vulpian and Grancher, young Meister was inoculated under a fold of skin with half a syringeful of the spinal cord of a rabbit, which had died of rabies. It had been preserved (for) fifteen days in a flask of dry air. In the following days, fresh inoculations were made. I thus made thirteen inoculations. On the last days, I inoculated Joseph Meister with the most virulent virus of rabies…… Louis Pasteur administered the first anti-rabies inoculation of a human being.  The 9 year-old boy, Joseph Meister, had been bitten by a rabid dog. Meister up to became director of the Pasteur Institute and enjoyed a daily “milk bone” break in addition to a bizarre attraction to fire hydrants.

1886-Tuesday  Horlick's of Wisconsin offered the first malted milk to the public. Invented by brothers James and William Horlick as a nutritional supplement for infants and people with bad digestion, malted milk was made at a large plant in Racine for decades until it closed in 1975.  The product originally had the attractive name of  "Diastoid".  This was not the beloved malted milk shake  (chocolate) of Professor Sy Yentz’ youth.  Malted milk is a powdered food product made from a mixture of malted barley, wheat flour, and whole milk, which is evaporated until it forms a powder.

  1887 – Wednesday  I want to go back to my little grass shack in Kealakekua HawaiiWhere the humuhumunukunukuapua'a goes swimming byWhere the humuhumunukunukuapua'a goes swimming by…….Bill Cogswell, Tommy Harrison and Johnny Noble………………David Kalakaua, monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, was forced at gunpoint, as well as the threat of forcibly watching endless loops of the new version of Hawaii Five-0, along with listening to Don Ho singing Tiny Bubbles, at the hands of the Americans, to sign the Bayonet Constitution giving Americans more power in Hawaii while stripping Hawaiian citizens of their rights.  Soon afterward, Kalakaua had to sign a reciprocity agreement with the U.S. government, allowing the U.S. to establish a permanent naval base at Pearl Harbor.

1893 – Thursday It’s a twister, it’s a twister………..Johnny…….Airplane……….The small town of Pomeroy, Iowa became an even smaller town as it was nearly destroyed by a tornado that killed 71 people and injures 200.  According to the Pomeroy Centennial, “this awful storm was formed by the junction of two clouds and two currents of air, which met in Rock Township, Cherokee county, about 5 p.m.”….probably for a few drinks and nachos during Happy Hour.

1903 – Monday Organic chemistry is the chemistry of carbon compounds. Biochemistry is the study of carbon compounds that crawl. ….Mike Adams…………..Happy Birthday, Hugo Theorell, biochemist born in Linkoping, Sweden and, Nobel laureate in 1955 for his discoveries concerning the nature and mode of action of oxidation enzymes. He focused on how enzymes called alcohol dehydrogenases catalyze the oxidation, or breaking down, of alcohol in an organism. In case you were going where we were going with the mention of alcohol (we prefer Glenmorangie single malt), Theorell’s  research provided a new method for testing blood alcohol content, which is used to test sobriety.

1919 – Sunday -The British dirigible R34 landed in New York, completing the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by an airship.  At 9:00 AM on July 6, 1919,  the airship arrived at Mineola, New York after crossing the Atlantic from Scotland, and Major E.M. Pritchard parachuted from the airship to the ground (presumably after assuring those he left behind that there was no reason to panic, to supervise landing operations.  R34 had departed East Fortune, Scotland on July 2, and completed the 3,130 nautical mile journey to America in 108 hours and 12 minutes or just about how long it takes one to get from Newark to Oakland with two plane changes. Just before midnight on July 10, 1919, R34 after purchasing refrigerator magnets, I heart New York tee shirts, Statue of Liberty dish towels, fake copper Empire State Building models, and taking pictures of Times Square, R 34 departed New York for its return to Britain, arriving in Pulham, England after a flight of 75 hours and 3 minutes only to discover that the luggage was lost.  It was the first round-trip crossing of the Atlantic by air.  In case you were wondering, A dirigible is any lighter-than-air craft that is both powered and steerable (as opposed to free floating, like a balloon).  Blimps like the Goodyear blimp, rigid airships like the Hindenburg, and semi-rigid airships like the Zeppelin NT were all dirigibles. An airship has a framework surrounding one or more individual gas cells, and maintains its shape by virtue of its rigid framework and not the pressure of its lifting gas. Got it?

1920- Tuesday I need you, by me,
beside me, to guide me,
to hold me, to scold me,
'cause when I'm bad
I'm so, so bad …….Donna Summer…………A radio compass was used for first time for aircraft navigation as a a naval seaplane flew 95 miles from Norfolk, Virginia, to the battleship Ohio, at sea, and returned, guided entirely by radio signals. The radio compass replaced the “two fingers to the left of the Sun” system of aeronautical navigation. It was finally perfected by William Lear in the 1940s.  Lear also invented the car radio – he called it “Motorola” and formed the Learjet company.

1928- Friday Take. . .him. . .for. . .a. . .ride!........The first all talking motion picture, Lights of New York, was previewed. Now we all know that The Jazz Singer, also released by Warner Brothers, but premiering  in 1927 is regarded as the first “talking film” but it was only a partially talking film…there were silent sequences with subtitles….and they stopped using diphthongs after a while. The perfectly awful Lights of New York was produced for a paltry $23,000 and released as a “B” movie.  But to everyone's surprise, the film went on to gross over a million dollars in its first run, proving once and for all that talkies had come to stay. The movie, directed by Bryan Foy –his first directorial attempt, and starring: Helene Costello, Cullen Landis and Mary Carr. The gangster movie about speakeasy’s was the first with the take him for a ride quote later used/and or parodied ad infinitum.

1933 – Thursday We wanted to see the Babe. Sure, he was old and had a big waistline, but that didn't make any difference. We were on the same field as Babe Ruth……Wild Bill Hallahan …………….Baseball's first All-Star game, the brainchild of writer Arch Ward, a sports editor for the Chicago Tribune, to coincide with the celebration of Chicago's Century of Progress Exposition,  was held at Chicago's Comiskey Park. The American League beat the National League 4-2.  Yes, Babe Ruth (the greatest player ever) hit the first home run.  The managers were the New York Giants’ John McGraw for the National League and the Philadelphia Athletics’ Connie Mack for the American League. Lefty Grove was the winning pitcher.  Wild Bill, quoted above, was the losing pitcher.  The starting line ups were:   

1. Pepper Martin                3B

2. Frankie Frisch               2B

3. Chuck Klein                  RF

4. Chick Hafey                  LF

5. Bill Terry                   1B

9. Bill Hallahan                 P

7. Dick Bartell                 SS

8. Jimmie Wilson                 C

6. Wally Berger                 CF for the National League and

      1. Ben Chapman                  LF 

2. Charlie Gehringer            2B

3. Babe Ruth                    RF 

4. Lou Gehrig                   1B 

 5. Al Simmons                   CF 

6. Jimmy Dykes                  3B 

 7. Joe Cronin                   SS

8. Rick Ferrell                  C 

 9. Lefty Gomez                   P for the American League.

1934 Friday – Mind like parachute - only function when open……Charlie Chan………………The premiere of Charlie Chan's Courage. Directed by Eugene Forde,  and George Hadden, the writers Earl Derr Biggers (creator of Charlie Can) and Seton I. Miller. The movie starred Warner Oland, Drue Leyton, Donald Woods, and James Wang as Wong.  There was no #1 son. In 1931, the Fox Film Corporation cast Swedish actor Warner Oland as Chan in Charlie Chan Carries On and there were 15 more Chan films with Oland in the title role. After Oland went kaput, American actor Sidney Toler (Margaret Sy Yentz favorite) was cast as Chan. Toler made 22 Chan films, first for Fox and then for Monogram Studios. After Toler went kaput, six more films were made, starring Roland Winters. Keye Luke debuted as #1 son in 1935 with Charlie Chan in Paris. Four of the earliest films from the series are currently classified as "lost" with no known prints being available for viewing. The films are , Charlie Chan Carries On (1931), Charlie Chan's Chance (1932), Charlie Chan's Greatest Case (1933), and the one that premiered on this day, Charlie Chan's Courage (1934).  They are only available in script form.

1937 – Tuesday And when I hold you,
You will be the Duchess
Duchess of Earl
When I walk through my Dukedom
The paradise we will share………Happy Birthday, American singer, Gene Chandler. A medley of his hit is Duke of Earl (B side is Kissin’ in the Kitchen) which he has probably sung 300 times a year since it was released in 1962.

1942 – Monday So wise so young, they say do never live long…..Richard III (act 1)………..13 year-old Anne Frank's family in Nazi-occupied Holland, took refuge in a secret sealed-off area of an Amsterdam warehouse. The day before, Anne's older sister, Margot, had received a call-up notice to be deported to a Nazi "work camp."  They would remain hidden until August 4, 1944, just two months after the successful Allied landing at Normandy, when an informer helped the Gestapo discover the Frank's "Secret Annex." Anne and most of the others ended up at  Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland.  In 1945 with Poland being liberated, Anne and Margot were moved to the  Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in Germany. The two sisters caught typhus and died in early March. a few weeks before the British came to free the Jews. Germany surrendered in April.  Anne's diary had been behind, undiscovered by the Nazis.

1944 – Thursday One day after the 134^th birthday of P.T Barnum, In Hartford, Connecticut, a fire of unknown origin broke out under the big top of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, killing 167 people and injuring 682. Two-thirds of those who perished were children. The tent, as was a common practice with many tented circuses at the time, the 520'x220' big top had been coated with a mixture of 18,000 pounds of parrafin and 6,000 gallons of white gasoline (some sources say kerosene) as a waterproofing measure.  Not so good for anti flammable though..  The fire began as a small flame about twenty minutes into the show, on the southwest sidewall of the tent, while the Great Wallendas were performing. Ringmaster Fred Bradna urged the audience not to panic and to leave in an orderly fashion, but the power failed and he could not be heard. Bradna and the ushers unsuccessfully tried to maintain some order as the panicked crowd of around 8,000 tried to flee the big top. 

1946 –Saturday Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. ………..Happy Birthday George W. Bush, 43^rd President of the United States, born in Midland, Texas and born on the exact same day, Suddenly I`ve got an overwhelming desire to surround myself with the aura of classical and Romantic art…………Sylvester Stallone, American actor

1946 – Saturday, Only Capone kills guys like that……………While George W. Bush and Sylvester Stallone (see above) were busy being born, George "Bugs" Moran was having some problems as he was arrested in Ohio for robbing a bank messenger of $10,000,  an amount that would have been loose change for him in his prohibition days. He was convicted and sentenced to ten years. After his release, he was again arrested for an earlier bank raid and sent away for another ten stretch at Leavenworth, no word on whether they saved his cell for him. Moran was known as “the man who got away”.  As a gangster and partner of Dion O’Bannion on the North Side of Chicago during the 1920s, (think Prohibition), Moran was the main target in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre of 1929 which was carried out by Al Capone’s gunman disguised as policemen.  Moran spotted the squad car outside the warehouse and, believing a raid was in progress, doubled back to a coffee shop with his bodyguard.

1957 – Saturday 15-year-old Paul McCartney attended a church picnic in the village of Woolton, near Liverpool, where he met 16-year-old John Lennon. Lennon had formed a band called the Quarrymen, which was playing at the picnic (songs included Gene Vincent’s Be Bop a Lula) . Between sets, McCartney played a few songs on guitar for the band, and a few days later Lennon invited him to join.  They became a bit more famous when George Harrison joined and they changed their name to the Beatles.  Of course Beatles came after “Johnny and the Moondogs”, and then the “Silver Beetles” but they finally got it right.

1964 –Monday  Malawi declared its independence from the United Kingdom. Topic of discussion amongst the British Cabinet that night was Malawi? Malawi?  We owned Malawi?  Where is it?.................. Malawi is a landlocked country about the size of Pennsylvania. Located in southeast Africa, it is surrounded by Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania. But wait, there's more!....Ron Popiel……..

1966 – Wednesday O God bless our land of Malawi,
Keep it a land of peace.
Put down each and every enemy,
Hunger, disease, envy.
Join together all our hearts as one,
That we be free from fear.
Bless our leader, each and every one,
And Mother Malawi. …………….Malawi National Anthem……Malawi became a republic, with Hastings Banda as its first President.  In his first month as ruler, he declared, “one party, one leader, one government, and no nonsense about it.” In 1971, he became president for life, further consolidating his authoritarian rule.  Bakili Muluzi of the United Democratic Front (UDF) won the country's first free election in May 1994, ending Banda's 30-year rule…Now that you’re gone, all that’s left  is a Banda gold…..apologies to Freda Payne….

1967 – Thursday Arise, O compatriots, Nigeria's call obey
To serve our fatherland
With love and strength and faith
The labor of our heroes past
Shall never be in vain
To serve with heart and might
One nation bound in freedom, peace and
unity…….Nigerian National Anthem………….. Nigerian forces invaded Biafra, beginning the civil war. Based on artificial colonial boundary lines which forces tribes and people that hated each other, Nigeria, life many former colonial states was in trouble from the start.  The immediate cause of the conflict was the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self-proclaimed Republic of Biafra. During the war, there were 100,000 military casualties and between 500,000 and 2 million civilians' deaths from starvation.  Biafra surrendered on January 13, 1970.

1975 – Sunday  The flag is flying,
Announcing complete independence;
The nation rises up
Because of the faith we have
In this our Comoria.
Let us always have devotion
To love our Great Islands………………..National Anthem……….The Comoros declared independence from France. In the French Parliament the discussion focused on Comores? Comores? Nous possédions des Comores? Où sont-ils? The Comoros Islands—Grande Comoro (Ngazidja), Anjouan, Mohéli, and Mayotte (which is not part of the country and retains ties to France)—constitute an archipelago of volcanic origin in the Indian Ocean, 190 mi off the coast of Mozambique. Independence has worked out really well for the Comoros with thirteen Presidents (including two co-presidents), assassinations, coups, coup attemts, and French invasions to fight mercenaries.

1978 – Thursday The Taunton sleeping car fire occurred in Taunton, Somerset, England killing twelve people. It was the Penzance to Paddington train (carrying Pirates) that stopped when an emergency  cord was pulled; this was about half mile short of Taunton station. Smoke could be seen coming from the leading sleeping car. The fire originated in sacks of soiled and clean bed linen placed against the electric vestibule heater in the leading sleeping-car. The interior of the first sleeper-car was completely gutted and the second sleeper-car suffered smoke damage. There was no fire detection and no means of sounding the alarm or instructions for rousing sleeping passengers and evacuating them. http://www.cookeonfire.com/pdfs/Taunton%20train.pdf

1978- Thursday She’s been married so many times, she has rice marks on her face………Henny Youngman……..Our D.I.V.O.R.C.E becomes final today
Me and little J.O.E will be goin' away
I love you both and it will be pure H.E double L for me
Oh, I wish that we could stop this D.I.V.O.R.C.E.  Virginia Wynette Pugh, aka, Tammy Wynette married her fifth and final husband, George Richey. Numbers 1-4 were Euple Byrd (married 1959–divorced 1966); Don Chapel,  (married 1967–annulled 1968); George Jones (married 1969–divorced 1975) and Michael Tomlin (married 1976–annulled 1976). So for two of them it was Our A.N.N.U.L.L.M.E.N.T becomes final today……………..

1988 – Wednesday 167 North Sea oil workers were killed by explosions and fires that destroyed the Piper Alpha drilling platform.  Piper Alpha, located around 120 miles north east of Aberdeen , and east of the Piper Laurie, started oil production in 1976. By 1988 the platform was producing both crude oil and natural gas.  The pressure safety valve on condensate pump A (A condensate pump is a specific type of pump used to pump the condensate (water) produced in an HVAC (heating or cooling), refrigeration, condensing boiler furnace or steam system. ... )was removed for maintenance. Paperwork was completed by the engineer prohibiting the pump from being used in the meantime, but this was either cleverly lost or misplaced. This event lit the fuse for the worst oil rig accident in history. When condensate pump B broke down on the evening of July 6th, pump A was switched on instead as the control room was unaware that the safety valve had been removed…….Boom!

2003 – Sunday The  Eupatoria Planetary Radar sent a METI message ( called Cosmic Call 2) to 5 stars: Hip 4872, HD 245409, 55 Cancri (HD 75732), HD 10307, 47 Ursae Majoris (HD 95128), and the planet where teenagers come from. .They contained text, (what are you wearing to tomorrow? Don’t you think Billy Biffledink is gross?  Ew! ……….images (sexting, pictures of giant boogers,..), video, music (Lady Gaga, David Bowie & Mick Jagger – Dancin’ In The Streets, Survivor- Eye of the Tiger, anything by Journey, Bobby McFerrin-  Don’t Worry Be Happy, Styx- Mr. Roboto, Vanilla Ice- Ice Ice Baby, anything with George Michael (including Wham), Olivia Newton John- Physical, anything from Glee, U 2- Numb, David Hasselhoff – Hooked on a Feeling, and Heidi Montag- Higher  ……), the Dutil/Dumas message, is a copy of the 1974 Arecibo message (in case they didn’t get it the first time….. a 1679 pixel image with 73 rows and 23 columns. It shows the numbers one through ten, the atomic numbers of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and phosphorus, the formulas for the sugars and bases in the nucleotides of DNA, the number of nucleotides in DNA, the double helix structure of DNA, a figure of a human being and its height, the population of Earth, a diagram of our solar system, and an image of the Arecibo telescope with its diameter.), BIG = Bilingual Image Glossary, the AI program Ella, and the Braastad message The messages will arrive to these stars in 2036, 2040, 2044 and 2049 respectively.  We can expect the Earth to be destroyed shortly afterwards.

Back to Calendar

7. 

1456 – Monday Whatever thing men call great, look for it in Joan of Arc, and there you will find it. …….Mark Twain…………In a  posthumous retrial of Joan of Arc authorized by Pope Callixtus III Surprise! Joan of Arc was acquitted of heresy 25 years after her death. There was no comment from Ms. D’Arc. However, defense attorney, Perry Mason was quoted as describing Joan as a martyr and implicating the late Pierre Cauchon, the judge at the original trial,  with heresy for having convicted an innocent woman in pursuit of a secular vendetta. The former Monsieur Cauchon had no comment.  Prosecutor, Hamilton Burger, said that just because the former M. Cauchon had threatened Joan with immediate execution if she did not confess, he had his fingers crossed behind his back and didn’t really mean it. Lt. Tragg, who had arrested Joan and turned her over to the English said “she looked guilty of something”.   The court declared that Joan had been tried as a result of ‘false articles of accusation’. Those articles and Cauchon’s sentence were to be torn out of a copy of the proceedings and burnt by the public executioner at Rouen.  This was big help to Joan who had been burned at the stake in 1431 but it did help weasely monarch Charles VII, for who Joan had fought and who did nothing for Joan during her trial.

1534 – Saturday – Do you know the way to San Jose
I’ve been away so long
I may go wrong and lose my way
Do you know the way to San Jose
I’m goin’ back to find
Some peace of mind in San Jose……Dionne Warwick…….. The first known exchange between Europeans and natives of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in New Brunswick as Jacques Cartier explored St. Lawrence River, claimed shores of Gulf of St. Lawrence for France

1543 – Wednesday  Spending warm Summer days indoors, writing frightening verse to a buck-toothed girl in Luxembourg. …..The Smiths……….French troops invaded Luxembourg which was controlled by the Hapsburgs.  The invasion had begun in 1539 but it took a while to find the tiny country - 84 km (51.7 miles) long and 52 km (32.5 miles) wide - and they kept going through it and coming out the other side.  Luxembourg was founded in 963 by Siegfried, a German count, as a fief of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 15th to the 18th century, Spain, France, and Austria held the duchy in turn. In 1543 it was Charles V of Spain sitting, well it was so small that they couldn’t have a throne so Charles sat on the stool.

1575 –Monday  The seventh of July, the suith to say,
At the Reidswire the tryst was set ;
Our Wardens they affixed the day,
And, as they promised, so they met.
Alas ! that day I'll ne'er forget ! …The Raid of the Redeswire, although most sources agree it wasn't really a raid and did not take place in the Redeswire.  Other than that, it was fine. The website http://www.oldandsold.com/articles32n/english-border-towns-5.shtml  English Border Towns contains our introductory quote and a 1914 description of the minor skirmish. Which took place at took place at the Cheviot pass which enters Redesdale, between the English Warden of the Middle Marches; Sir John Forster, Sir George Heron, Keeper of Redesdale and the Keeper of Liddesdale as well as the Scottish Warden; Sir John Carmichael with George Douglas of Bonjedworth over the disposition the case of a horse thief.

1585 – Sunday I'm Henry the eighth I am
Henry the eighth I am, I am
I got married to the widow next door
She's been married seven times before
And every one was an Henry (Henry)
She wouldn't have a Willy or a Sam (no Sam)
I'm her eighth old man, I'm Henry
Henry the eighth I am …..Herman’s Hermits……….But we didn’t say “no backsies” Henry III might have said as…The Treaty of Nemours abolished  tolerance to Protestants in France. Occurring during the War of the Three Henrys, Henry of Navarre, Henry III , and Henry of Guise, the Treaty, issued by Henry III, revoked all the previous edicts of pacification: banning the practice of the reformed religion throughout the kingdom, declaring Protestants unable to hold royal office, ordering all garrisoned towns to be evacuated, and requiring all Protestants to abjure their faith within six months or be exiled. For some strange reason, this lead to war with the Protestant Henry of Navarre. Navarre won significant victories at Ivry and Arques and laid siege to Paris (despite being greatly outnumbered), but a Spanish army under Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma lifted the siege.Deciding that further fighting was not worth the cost, Henry converted to Catholicism, saying: "Paris vaut bien une messe" ("Paris is worth a Mass") and became Henry IV.

1746 – Thursday  Happy Birthday, Giuseppe Piazzi, Italian astronomer, professor of Mathematics at the University of Palermo, and cleric who after obtaining a grant from Prince Caramanico, Viceroy of Sicily,  built an observatory on top of one of the towers at the royal palace. It was here that Piazzi discovered what he believed was a star, whoops, then after studying it for four days he reasoned it was a planet located between Mars and Jupiter. Whoops again, he had become the first to discover, on Jan. 1, 1801 an asteroid which he named Ceres. In 1803 he published a catalog of the fixed stars, and in 1814 he enlarged it to include 7,646 stars.

1752 – Friday The iron was sold for old iron, the wood for kindling, while I was delivered over to universal ignominy. Happy Birthday, Joseph Marie Jacquard, French inventor and certifiable ‘loomatic’.  Jacquard is best known for his creation of the programmable loom, an invention which changed the weaving industry in the world as well as inspiring the technology of punch cards, the first practical use of the binary system which in turn led to the development of the computer et voila! The IMac. The introductory quote refers to the warm and welcoming reaction to Jacquard’s invention by the Luddite weavers of Lyons, who thinking their vocation was endangered by the new machine, mobbed the inventor and broke up his invention

1816 -  Sunday  Happy Birthday, Rudolf Wolf Swiss astronomer and astronomical historian. Wolf's main contribution to astronomy was the discovery of the 11 year sunspot cycle. He was the co-discoverer of its connection with geomagnetic activity on Earth. Sunspots are any of the relatively cool dark spots appearing periodically in groups on the surface of the sun that are associated with strong magnetic fields. Wolf's interest in sunspots was fired by his spotting of a particularly large and spectacular sunspot group in December 1847.  In 1858, Wolf published his formula for determining the daily sunspot number, R = k(10g + f), where g is the number of spot groups, and f is the number of spots seen on the surface (including those in groups). The quantity k is a calibration factor that is different for each observer. From using this formula, observations from a large number of different observers could be compiled, thereby making sure that measurements of the sunspot number would be unbroken, regardless of inclement weather at some of the observatories on any particular day. This method of determining the sunspot number is still used today. A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five……….Groucho Marx

1834 –Monday  In New York City, four nights of rioting against abolitionists began.  Lloyd Garrison  returned from England, in 1833, and began to preach against slavery. From the  Journal of Commerce, July 10, 1834 – July 15, 1834 http://people.hofstra.edu/alan_j_singer/Gateway%20Slavery%20Guide%20PDF%20Files/5.%20Abolition_Complicity%201827-65/3.%20Activity%20Sheets/3.%20Abolition%20Riot.pdf  In May and June, 1834, Arthur and Lewis Tappan and other leading New York City abolitionists intensified their campaign against slavery and the idea of recolonizing African Americans in Africa.  On July 7, the group tried to meet again, but they were physically attacked by members of the New York Sacred Music Society who claimed that they had prior use of the Chapel. The musicians were outnumbered and driven from the building, but police arrived and arrested six of the African Americans. A large White mob then forced the rest of the group to flee. Riots broke out on Wednesday night July 9, 1834 and continued for two more days. Pro-abolitionist churches and businesses and African American institutions, including the African school house on Orange Street, were damaged and some were destroyed.  The riots had their origins in the combination of anti-Catholic nativism and Abolitionism among the genteel evangelical Protestants who had controlled the city since the Revolution and the fear and resentment of blacks among the growing underclass of Irish and other immigrants  who were crowded together in the Five Points district, and other ghettos

1843-Wednesday-  I am delighted that I have found a new reaction to demonstrate even to the blind the structure of the interstitial stroma of the cerebral cortex. I let the silver nitrate react with pieces of brain hardened in potassium dichromate. I have already obtained magnificent results and hope to do even better in the future. Camilo Golgi……or……… Oh, well, I'm, UH!, sittin' here,la la
Waitin' for my ya ya, ah-um, ah-um
A sittin' here la la, waitin' for my ya ya, ah-um, ah-um ………..Lee Dorsey……..Happy Birthday, Camillo Golgi,  Italian physician and cytologist who, in 1873, published his most important discovery, the use of silver salts to stain samples for microscope slides. With silver salt staining (say it fast three times) details of cellular structure components were revealed. They are still known as Golgi bodies, which are flattened cavities parallel to the cell's nuclear membrane whose function appears to be packaging and exporting various materials from the cell, and Golgi complex....and, not to mention Golgi locks and the Three Bears. In 1906 Golgi shared with Ramón y Cajal the Nobel Prize for physiology or medicine for his work on the structure of the human nervous system.

1846 – Tuesday During the Mexican War, Navy Commodore John D. Sloat  took Monterey, to support the efforts of Captain John C. Frémont and the “Bear Flag Revolt”. Starting at Monterey, Sloat’s naval forces systematically captured the towns around San Francisco Bay after  stopping to visit Alcatraz, (and got their pictures taken in cells) take a boat tour of the bay, have some clam chowder and crab at Fisherman’s Wharf . By the war's end, Mexico lost nearly half of its territory, the present American Southwest from Texas to California, and the United States became a continental power.

1861-Friday-  Biology is the only science in which multiplication is the same thing as division. …..unknown…………..Happy Birthday, Nettie M. Stevens, American biologist best known for her role in genetics - her research contributed greatly to the understanding of chromosomes and heredity. She theorized that the sex of an organism was determined by the inheritance of a specific chromosome - X or Y.

1862 – Tuesday Fully concurring in the wisdom of the views expressed to me in so patriotic a manner by you