1006 Brightest supernova in recorded history is observed http://celestialdelights.info/pub/SN1006.html

1772 John Clais patents 1st scale http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmeasurement.htm

1803 Date of the negotiation of Louisiana Purchase. 828,000 square miles for 15 million dollars. Lucky for us that Napoleon had numerous wars in Europe to finance and needed cash. . www.napoleonguide.com/timeind.htm Not surprisingly, there was some controversy over bringing "alien people" into the 13 Colonies.

1828 Shaka the great Zulu king, killed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaka_Zulu

1900 Hawaii becomes a U.S. territory http://www.smplanet.com/imperialsim/hawaii.html

Casey Jones died on this day in 1900. For the true story of the locomotive engineer posted by a deadhead try www.netcd.com/roots/caseyjones.html.

1903 New York Highlanders (Yankees) 1st home game, (Hilltop Park-168th St & Broadway, Manhattan), they beat Washington Senators, 6-2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Yankees

1904 Ice cream cone makes its debut
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/icecreamcone.htm

1939 The Worlds Fair opens in New York. Try the Touring The Future exhibition. www.flammer.com/Projects/survey_of_Popular_culture/30’s/1939_worlds_fair_overview.htm

1945 Queen For a Day was broadcast on the radio for the first time. No it wasn’t a BBC fashion import. http://history.acusd.edu/gen/projects/hanley/queen.html And on the very same day Adolph Hitler and Eva Braun commit suicide in an underground Bunker after one day of marriage. www.shoah.dk/Braun/

1948 The Organization of American States held its first meeting in Bogota, Columbia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_American_States

1952 Mr Potato Head is 1st toy advertised on television http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blMrPotatoHead.htm

1953 Little-Bigger League changes its name to Babe Ruth League

1961 Lee Harvey Oswald marries Marina Prusakova in Minsk USSR. Lone assassin or patsy? http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/oswald.htm

1961 1st shuttle flights between Washington DC, Boston MA & New York NY begin (Eastern) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_Airlines

1970 Nixon announced the U.S. was sending troops into Cambodia. http://www.usconstitution.com/PresidentNixonCambodianInvasion.htm

1973 Nixon Aids Ehrlichman and Haldeman resign along with Attorney General Kleindienst and John Dean. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._Haldeman

1975 Saigon falls. The BBC has the fall of Saigon memorialized in photographs at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/720724.stm

1983 Muddy Waters US blues singer/guitarist (Mad Love), dies at 68 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/waters_m.html

1992 208th & final episode of "The Cosby Show" on NBC-TV http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/cosbyshowt/cosbyshowt.htm

1993 Monica Seles was stabbed in Germany by a fan of Steffi Graf. Here’s the news from that day on the BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/low/dates/stories/april/30/newsid_2499000/2499161.stm

1995 After 120 years the last 15 A & S department stores close http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=888

1997 ABC aired the "Coming Out" episode of Ellen. http://www.glaad.org/media/archive_detail.php?id=170 Will and Grace couldn’t be far behind.

Birthdays

1923 – 2006 Al Lewis actor (Grandpa-The Munsters) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Lewis

1933 Willie Nelson Abbott TX, country singer (On the Road Again) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Nelson

1943 Robert L Livingston (Representative-Republican-LA, 1977- 1999) Gotcha via hustler magazine http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/19/livingston.quits/

That was then, this was Now

A new book is coming out by the former editor of Hustler Magazine. A NYT book review On the Allan MacDonell book about those times and Mr. Livingston

During the period leading up to Bill Clinton's impeachment, he also spearheaded Mr. Flynt's 1998 campaign to expose hypocrisy among Republican congressmen by offering as much as $1 million to women who would testify to sexual encounters with them. This tactic eventually brought about the downfall of Robert L. Livingston, a Republican congressman from Louisiana and speaker-elect of the House of Representatives, who initially confessed to adulterous affairs and then, after trying for a couple of days to cling to his position, resigned from the House.

---------------------------

Economist John Kenneth Galbraith dies at 97. A New York March in New York against the war in Iraq draws 300,000 and the American casualty count reaches 2400 with another soldier being killed by a mine.

1813 a patent for rubber was given to J.F.Hummel. Here’s more in science history. http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/4/4_29.htm

1852 1st edition of Peter Roget's Thesaurus published http://www.rain.org/~karpeles/rogetdis.html

1856 End of Crimean War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimean_War

1913 the improved formula for the Zipper was patented by Swedish engineer Gideon Sundback. http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa082497.htm#patent

1934 Pittsburgh is last major league city to play a home game on a Sunday http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_laws

1936 1st pro baseball game in Japan is played Nagoya defeats Daitokyo, 8-5
http://journals.iranscience.net:800/mcel.pacificu.edu/mcel.pacificu.edu/as/students/baseballjapan/sum.html

1941 the Boston Bees agreed to rename themselves the Braves. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/mgrtmab1.shtml

1945 German terms of surrender in Italy were signed. Adolph finally married Eva Braun. http://www.fpp.co.uk/Hitler/Eva_Braun/cousin.html

The Dachau concentration Camp was liberated in 1945. www.scrapbookpages.com/dachauscrapbook/ is as gruesome a site as any to learn from

1960 Dick Clark told the House Committee investigating payola that he never took money for playing records. http://www.history-of-rock.com/payola.htm

1961 The Wide World of Sports Debuted on ABC. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/a/htm1A/arledgeroon.htm

1968 Hair debuted on Broadway. First time actors appeared nude on Broadway. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/broadway/hello/rock.html

1968 Frankie Lymon rocker (& Teenagers), dies of a drug overdose at 25 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankie_Lymon

1971 Bill Graham closes down the Fillmore & Fillmore East http://subrealities.waiting-forthe-sun.net/Pages/BeIn/HaightAshbury/Fillmore/fillmore_east_history.html

April 1972 Intel introduces its 200-KHz 8008 chip, the first commercial 8-bit microprocessor. http://library.thinkquest.org/22522/timeline3b_en.html

1974 President Nixon said he would release edited tapes related to the Watergate Scandal. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/24/newsid_4562000/4562445.stm

1980 Alfred Hitchcock died. http://www.mysterynet.com/hitchcock/bio.shtml

1992 Police are acquitted in Rodney King trial. Remember what happened next? http://www.courttv.com/archive/casefiles/rodneyking/

1993 Queen Elizabeth II announced Buckingham Palace would be open to tourists. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckingham_Palace the fees were originally used to rebuild Windsor Castle after a fire.

1996 "Rent", opens at Nederlander Theater NYC http://www.mtishows.com/show_history.asp?ID=000281

Birthdays

1863- 1951 William Randolph Hearst You might want to rent Orson Well’s Citizen Kane, the film Hearst went to great lengths to attempt to keep from being released. www.obits.com/hearstwilliamrandolph.html

1899-1974 Duke Ellington’s http://www.pbs.org/ellingtonsdc/noteMusicians.htm

1901 – 1989 Emperor Hirohito of Japan (1926-89) http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWhirohito.htm

1936 Zubin Mehta Bombay India, conductor (New York Philharmonic)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zubin_Mehta

1946 John Waters Baltimore MD, director (Hairspray) http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/waters.html

That was then, this was Now

Rush Limbaugh was charged with fraud in obtaining drug prescriptions.

The charge will be dropped in 18 months, said his attorney, Roy Black, provided that Limbaugh continues treatment for drug addiction, as he has for 2 1/2 years. According to an agreement with the Palm Beach County state's attorney's office, Limbaugh also must pay $30,000 to defray the costs of the investigation, as well as $30 a month for his supervision

--------------------------

And what did Bill O’Reilly have to say about his conservative friend? . From Newshounds.

O'Reilly said he didn't want to report the story about Rush but claimed he had to do it so he brought Judge Napolitano on to do the spin. Napolitano claimed, right after O'Reilly plugged his new book, that Limbaugh was the victim of an aggressive, Liberal Palm Beach Prosecutor who (gasp) donated to the Gore/Lieberman campaign. However, Napolitano said the arrest was "a collossal victory for Limbaugh". 4/28/06

Napolitano explained that Limbaugh was arrested and released at the same time and will not need to go to trial. After paying a $30,000 fine he will undergo rehab with the same Doctor that originally prescribed the Oxycontin and if he stays clean for 18 months, charges will be dropped.

O'Reilly expressed sympathy for poor Limbaugh because the Leno and Letterman will be laughing at him tonight but Napolitano assured him that Rush would keep all his listeners. O'Reilly made sure to stress once again that it was all politically motivated.

------------------------------

And while we’re on Dirty Tricksters, former GOP Chairman Haley Barbour had ties to the firm implicated in phone jamming and harassment during the 2002 elections in New Jersey and Hampshire.

The report links former RNC Chairman and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour to an investment company that arranged $246,700 in startup financing for GOP Marketplace in 2000, a loan that gave the investors a financial stake in the company. The AP also revealed that, prior to implementing the criminal scheme to keep people in the Granite State from voting, GOP Marketplace and its leaders were indicted for political dirty tricks in New Jersey. (AP, 4/28/06)

-------------------------

A March in Washington is scheduled for tomorrow against the slow motion genocide taking place in Dafur in the Sudan.

Mired in its fourth consecutive year of unchecked atrocities, Sudan's Darfur region still awaits a legitimate semblance of international intervention. Unfortunately, the world's collective non-response has legitimized nothing more than the status quo -- which, for Darfurians, has translated to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children. With the Bush-led government stalled in an apparent combination of apathy, bureaucracy, and geopolitics, a number of US-based grassroots movements are rallying their constituents to take action.

 

1758 James Monroe POTUS V fifth president of the U.S. most famous for the Monroe doctrine declared in 1823 warning European countries that the America’s were no longer ripe for colonization. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monroe_Doctrine For an updated interpretation on the doctrine check out Blood, Contracts, and the costs of Empire. Think Halliburton and the spoils of war at .http://zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=10&ItemID=4681

 

1770 Captain James Cook in Endeavor lands at Botany Bay in Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Cook

 

1787 the Mutiny on the Bounty took place. Poor Captain Bligh http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutiny_on_the_Bounty

 

1788 Maryland became the 7^th state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/es/md

 

1855 1st veterinary college in US incorporated in Boston

http://www.nal.usda.gov/awic/pubs/VetHistory/vethistory.htm

 

1914 W H Carrier patents air conditioner

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa081797.htm

 

1919 1st jump with Army Air Corp (rip-cord type) parachute (Les Irvin)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parachute

 

1925 Kurd rebels surrender to Turkish army. But that wasn’t the end of the conflict.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/kurdistan-turkey.htm

 

1932 the first yellow fever vaccine was announced.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_fever

 

1937 Saddam Hussein was born www.commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm A good site for breaking news from the real liberal press. This article examines the 1983 visit by Reagan envoy Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq where he discussed "topics of mutual interest" with the Iraqi president

 

1937 1st animated cartoon electric sign displayed in NYC. From The Sign Museum.  

http://www.signmuseum.com/exhibits/histories/brfhist/briefhistory.html

1937 1st commercial flight across the Pacific made by Pan American.  Here’s more April firsts. http://www.centennialofflight.gov/user/fact_apr.htm

 

1940 Glenn Miller records "Pennsylvania 6-5000"

http://www.glennmillerorchestra.com/history.html

 

1945 Italian Dictator Mussoline and his Mistress Clara Petacci were executed as they attempted to leave the country. http://www.ronterpening.com/extras/league_ex.htm

 

1956 Last French troop leave Vietnam

http://countrystudies.us/vietnam/15.htm

 

1947 A six man multinational expedition set out on the balsa raft Kon-Tiki across the Pacific to Polynesia. Here’s why. http://www.scandinavica.com/culture/famous/heyerdahl.htm

 

1967 Muhammad Ali refuses to be inducted into the US Army. http://www.sportingnews.com/archives/jackie/time.line.html On the same day General William Westmoreland told Congress we would prevail in Vietnam. Sound familiar? http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/agitation/draft/draftupdate10112004.html

 

1969 President De Gaulle resigned http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdegaulle.htm after voters rejected his reforms

 

1975 Last Americans evacuated from Saigon

http://www.afa.org/magazine/april2000/0400saigon.asp

 

1983 Argentine government declares all 15-30,000 missing persons dead

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothers_of_the_Plaza_de_Mayo

 

1991 Floyd B McKissick  former head of CORE  dies

http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/573/Floyd_McKissick_former_CORE_director

 

Birthdays

 

1874 – 1947  Sidney Toler  actor  (Charlie Chan, Madame X, Meeting at Midnight)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0866010/bio

 

1926 Harper Lee author (To Kill a Mockingbird)

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/harperle.htm

 

1950 Jay Leno New Rochelle, comedian/talk show host (Tonight Show)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Leno

 

That was then, this was Now

 

Freedom Tower Construction finally began yesterday at Ground Zero in NY. Actually it began weeks ago, but now it’s official after years of negotiation between City, State, MTA and Larry Silverstein.  And not that size matters

 

 

Are we finally in for a good Beltway sex scandal involving hookers and friends of Duke Cunningham

 

 

1521 Ferdinand Magellan was killed in the Philippines but his men completed the voyage, proving the Earth is round although most educated people already knew this. Similar to people still waiting for "proof" of global warming. www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1519magellan.html For more on global warming avoid what Bush Administration financial contributors have to say on the matter.

1607 Blind poet John Milton sells Paradise Lost for 10 British pounds. www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jmilton.htm is a good introductory source to find a hell of a lot of writers.

1805 U.S. Marines captured the city of Derma on the shores of Tripoli. The first Barbary war. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebulon_M._Pike

1813 Zebulon M Pike US explorer (Pike's Peak), dies in battle at 34 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebulon_M._Pike

1861 President Abraham Lincoln suspends the writ of habeas corpus http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus

1865 the boiler of the steamer Sultana exploded on the Mississippi killing up to 1,700 http://www.thehistorynet.com/ah/bltragicpostscript/

1880 the hearing aid was patented. In 1932 Poet Hart Crane drowned after jumping from a steamer. In 1937 the first Social Security checks were issued. http://www.projectextreme.com/ssn.html

1882 Ralph Waldo Emerson US poet (Representative Men), dies http://www.transcendentalists.com/1emerson.html

1897 Grant's Tomb (famed of song & legend) dedicated http://www.lifefiles.com/libraryArticle.php?i_messageid=965260108

1947 Babe Ruth Day celebrated at Yankee Stadium & through the US http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/R/Ruth_Babe.stm

1950 South Africa passes Group Areas Act segregating races http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apartheid

1953 Wrestler Freddie Blassie coins the term "Pencil neck geek"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Blassie

1956 Heavyweight boxer Rocky Marciano http://espn.go.com/classic/biography/s/Marciano_Rocky.html retired as the first undefeated boxing champion

1960 The Pennsylvania Railroad merged With the New York Central to become the Penn Central. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pennsylvania_Railroad

1961 Sierra Leone declares independence from UK http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=ad45

1970 The Penn Central filed for bankruptcy. The U.S. Government created Conrail on April 1^st 1976 to save rail transit in the East. www.pcrrhs.org/history.html

1972 Kwame Nkrumah President of Ghana and founder of Pan Africanism, dies at 62 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwame_Nkrumah

1978 Afghánistán revolution (National Day), pro-Russian military coup http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Afghanistan

1983 Nolan Ryan becomes strikeout king (3509), passing Walter Johnson http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/R/Ryan_Nolan.stm

1997 Hong Kong officially opens the worlds longest road-rail suspension bridge. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsing_Ma_Bridge

Birthdays

1759 – 1797 Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin England, writer/feminist (Female Reader)  Mother of Frankenstein creator. http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/philosophers/wollstonecraft.html

1820 Herbert Spencer Derby England, Victorian philosopher (Social Statics) coined the term "survival of the fittest". No it wasn’t Darwin. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/spencer/

1900 - 1994 Walter Lantz animator (Woody Woodpecker's creator) http://lantz.goldenagecartoons.com/

1822-1885 U.S. Grant Was he really a drunk? http://faculty.css.edu/mkelsey/usgrant/alcohol.html

That was then, This was Now

Barry Bonds hit #711 yesterday in the 9th inning (Ruth 714) to tie the game with the Mets. The Mets won 9-7 in the 11^th.

----------------------

So Grant wasn’t really a drunk (swift boating goes way back) but President Bush was right about our being addicted to oil. It only took him 5 years to figure that out. Or is it that he finally realized Iraq isn’t going to be a cheap source any time in the near future? Anyway, now Congress is reconsidering the tax breaks given to Oil and energy concerns way back when. Uhh 8 months ago, when "conservation" was for wimps. Drill alaska.

Leading Republicans echoed President Bush's call Tuesday to trim about $2 billion in tax breaks Congress passed as part of the energy bill last August. Several prominent Democrats, not to be outdone, pushed for repealing oil and gas tax breaks worth more than $10 billion over the next five years.

-------------------------

Karl Rove testifies for the 5^th time in front of the Grand Jury investigating the 2003 leak of the CIA operative. Before Mary McCarthey there was someone known as Valerie Plame.

 

1607 English Colonists led by John Smith went ashore at Cape Henry, VA and established the first permanent settlement in the new world. For a timeline of events that shaped U.S. history http://franklaughter.web.aplus.net/bin/histprof/misc/timeline5.html

 

1655 Dutch West Indies Company denies Peter Stuyvesant's desire to exclude Jews from New Amsterdam  http://www.jewishcurrents.org/2004-nov-gritz.htm

 

1783 Artist John James Audubon was born in Haiti. http://wwar.com/masters/a/audubon-john_james.html

 

1865 John Wilkes Booth assassin, is shot dead near Bowling Green VA at 27

http://home.att.net/~rjnorton/Lincoln72.html

 

1926 the First weather broadcast took place for aviators http://www.stormfax.com/history.htm

 

1928 Madame Tussaud's waxworks exhibition opens in London

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Tussauds

 

1933 Jewish students are barred from school in Germany

http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005681

 

1937 the Nazi military tests it’s new Air force-the Luftwaffe- on the Basque town of Guernica in Northern Spain. To find out more about the Spanish Civil War www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guernav.html and his famous painting.

 

1945 Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, Leader of the puppet Vichy government is arrested for treason. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/petain

 

1964 Tanganyika and Zanzibar merged to form Tanzania. In 1970 "Company" the musical opened on Broadway. http://www.sondheim.com/shows/company/

 

1966 Arnold "Red" Auerbach retires as Boston Celtic's coach.

http://www.jewishsports.net/biopages/ArnoldAuerbach.htm  Never thought of Red in terms of “Jewish” but I might as well run with today’s sub-theme.

 

1970 Gypsy Rose Lee [Rose Louise Hovick] stripper/actress (Pruitts of Southampton), dies rom cancer at 56. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_Rose_Lee

 

1986 the worlds worst nuclear power plant accident occurs at the Chernobyl power station in the Soviet Union. www.historychannel.com click on this day in history. For everything you every wanted to know about nuclear threats www.firstpulseprojects.net/bombproject/Index.html

 

1986 Actor/body builder Arnold Schwarzenegger weds newscaster Maria Shriver. I believe his father was a Nazi. Just continuing today’s sub-theme.

http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/entertainers/actors/arnold-schwarzenegger/

 

1989 Lucille ball died at the age of 77. www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0806.html for the

NY Times obit.

 

1994 Well, something good did happen this day in 1994. More then 22 million South Africans turn out in the country’s first multiracial elections. On May 4^th Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as President, becoming South Africa’s first black head of state. http://electionresources.org/za/system/

 

1995 Baseball season begins after lengthy strike

http://www.answers.com/topic/1994-baseball-strike

 

Birthdays

 

1711 – 1776  David Hume England, empiricist/philosopher (Treatise of Human Nature)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/h/humelife.htm

 

1822 – 1903  Frederick Law Olmsted architect/writer (designed Central Park)

http://www.jssgallery.org/Paintings/Frederick_Law_Olmsted.htm

 

1886 – 1939 Ma Rainey [Gertrude Pridgett] "Mother of the Blues"

http://lesbianlife.about.com/od/herstory/p/MaRainey.htm

 

1889 Ludwig Wittgenstein Austria, philosopher (Tractatus)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/w/wittgens.htm

 

1895 – 1987  Rudolf Hess Hitler's Deputy Führer, only prisoner at Spandau

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERhess.htm

 

1933 Carol Burnett San Antonio TX, comedian/actress (Annie, 4 Seasons)

http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/burnettcaro/burnettcaro.htm

 

That was then, This was now

 

Jane Jacobs died yesterday. She was 89. More from wiki. 

 

 

Tony Snow is about to be announced as the new Scott McClellan. His nickname according to the NY Observer is Max Headroom.  I don’t think Max would like that.

http://www.observer.com/20060501/20060501_Rebecca_Dana_media_nytv.asp

 

 

1719 Daniel Defoe publishes "Robinson Crusoe" http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/defoe.htm

1792 Nicolas Jacques Pelletier, a highwayman, became the first to be guillotined in France http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.uk/guillotine.html

1859 Work began on the Suez Canal. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/lesseps_ferdinand_de.shtml

1886 Sigmund Freud opens practice at Rathausstrasse 7, Vienna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

1898 United States formally declares war against Spain in 1898. Known as the first Imperialistic war, or as William Randolph Hearst said in a telegram to illustrator Frederic Remington "Please remain. You furnish the Pictures and I’ll furnish the war." www.zpub.com/cpp/saw.html

1901 New York becomes the first state to require automobile license plates.. Here’s some license plate trivia http://www.alpca.org/faq.trivia.html

1915 Allied soldiers invaded the Gallipoli Peninsula in an unsuccessful attempt to take the Ottoman Turkish Empire out of the war. http://www.firstworldwar.com/battles/overview_gf.htm

1928 Buddy becomes the first guide dog for the blind http://www.muhlenberg.edu/studorgs/companion/ccfaqhistory.html

1953 Scientists identify DNA  http://www.pbs.org/wnet/dna/resources.html

1954 Bell labs announces 1st solar battery (New York NY) http://www.bellsystemmemorial.com/belllabs_photovoltaics.html

1959 the St. Lawrence Seaway opens, linking the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lawrence_Seaway

1961 Robert Noyce patents integrated circuit http://nobelprize.org/physics/educational/integrated_circuit/history/  

1988 a Jerusalem judge sentenced John Demjanjuk to death after being convicted of being "Ivan the Terrible" a Nazi death camp guard. In 1993 http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/18/newsid_2525000/2525057.stm the ruling was quashed and Demjanjuk was released.

Birthdays

1599 – 1658 Oliver Cromwell Puritan lord protector of England (1653-58) http://www.british-civil-wars.co.uk/biog/oliver-cromwell.htm

1908-1965 Edward R. Murrow Before Cronkite there was Murrow. "a great many people think they are thinking when they are really rearranging their prejudices." http://quotationspage.com/quotes/Edward_R._Murrow

1918 – 1996 Ella Fitzgerald Newport News VA, jazz singer (The First Lady of Song, Is it live or Memorex, A-Tisket A-Tasket) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Fitzgerald

1923 – 1992 Albert King Indianola MS, blues singer/guitarist (Bad Look Blues) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_King

1933 Meadowlark lemon played 24 years for the Harlem Globetrotters. www.harlemglobetrotters.com/history/leg-lemon.php. He’s now an ordained minister.

1933 Jerry Leiber songwriter (Leiber & Stoller) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Lieber

That was then, This was Now

The Alleged CIA whistleblower denies the allegations, though she admits to meeting with reporters without reporting those meetings to her superiors.

McCarthy's lawyer, Ty Cobb, told NEWSWEEK this afternooon that contrary to public statements by the CIA late last week, McCarthy never confessed to agency interrogators that she had divulged classified information and "didn't even have access to the information" in The Washington Post story in question.

------------------

While Congress is on leave we haven’t heard much about immigration reform or the proposed Great Wall to keep illegals from entering the US. Meanwhile, in Iraq it appears contractors are doing all they can to keep foreign workers from leaving.

The top U.S. commander in Iraq has ordered sweeping changes for privatized military support operations after confirming violations of human-trafficking laws and other abuses by contractors involving possibly thousands of foreign workers on American bases, according to records obtained by the Chicago Tribune

-----------------------

A suicide bomber carried out an attack in Sri Lanka. Yesterday it was Egypt. Last week it was Israel. I am amazed there hasn’t been a suicide bomber attack in the US, similar to the one’s we hear about much too regularly.

1348 1st English order of knighthood founded (Order of the Garter) http://www.britainexpress.com/History/medieval/garter.htm

1564 William Shakespeare was born. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/shakespe.htm He died in

1616 William S died at the age of 52. The same day as Spanish Novelist Miguel de Cervantes (Don Quixote) who died in Madrid. http://www.csdl.tamu.edu/cervantes/biography/new_english_cerv_bio.html

1850 William Wordsworth died at the age of 80. http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/wordswor.htm

1858 German Physicist Max Planck has a birthday. http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1918/planck-bio.html

1900 1st known occurrence of word "hillbillie" (New York Journal) http://www.answers.com/topic/hillbilly

1918 National Urban League forms http://www.pbs.org/wnet/aaworld/reference/articles/national_urban_league.html

1954 NBA adopts the 24-second shot clock rule

1968 The Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merged, forming The United Methodist Church. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Methodist_Church

1971 Columbia University operations virtually end, by student strike http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_University

1975 This month Bill Gates and Paul Allen found Micro-Soft. http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Gates.Mirick.html Also in 1975 the Altair 8800 becomes available for $375.00 with 1 KB memory. In 1977 the Apple II is selling for $1,195, including 16K of RAM but no monitor

1985 Coco Cola announced it was changing the secret flavor formula for Coke. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_033.html

1986 Otto Preminger director (Advise & Consent, Anatomy of Murder), dies at 79 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Preminger

1988 a federal smoking ban during domestic airline flights went into effect. Next thing you know they’ll be banning smoking in bars. Wonder if anyone made that slippery slope argument?

 

1990 Paulette Goddard actress (Hazard), dies of heart failure in Ronco Switzerland at 78
http://www.answers.com/topic/paulette-goddard

Today also begins professional secretary’s week. Some think it might be a conspiracy dreamt up by the illuminati of the flower, candy and/or stripper industries. A nice little article can be found at www.trinity.edu/~mkearl/secretry.html Oddly enough, It’s also National Volunteers week. If plying the office staff with candy, flowers or strip-O-grams doesn’t forge subservience you can always "downsize" and hire volunteers or interns. .

Birthdays

1928 Shirley Temple Black Santa Monica CA, child actress (Heidi)/ambassador (UN) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shirley_Temple

1936 Roy Orbison Vernon TX, rocker (Oh Pretty Woman, Only The Lonely)http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=160

1939 Lee Majors [Harvey Lee Yearly] Wyandotte MI, TV actor (Big Valley, $6,000,000 Man, Fall Guy) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Majors

That was then, this was Now

So Why is the FBI really interested in the archived papers of deceased journalist Jack Anderson?

Why? Because they say these documents may--or may not--shed light on alleged leaks to a dead investigative reporter that may--or may not--have occurred more than 20 years ago.

--------------------

The Name of the CIA whistleblower was revealed by NBC to be Mary McCarthy. Oh, I’m sorry, she’s a leaker, and the Pulitzer Prize winning reporters should be put on trial for treason. Here’s more from OpEd News who do not plant their tongues in their cheeks.

---------------------

Oh, Osama Bin Laden has left an audio tape concerning Hamas. Shouldn’t the so called intelligence community be looking for him and other terrorists rather then investigating 20 year old archives of a dead muckraker? Plus there’s the re-classifying of previously declassified archives under the rubric of national security when it makes the intelligence communities appear stupid. Or should we worry that when presidential popularity goes down there’s no better way to get support back up by focusing on an external enemy?

1500 Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvarez Cabral discovered Brazil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedro_%C1lvares_Cabral

1509 Henry the Eighth took over for Henry the Seventh who had taken over for… http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page19.asp

1724 German Philosopher Immanuel Kant was born. http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/k/kantmeta.htm

1823 R J Tyers patents roller skates. Here’s what happened next . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In-line_skating

1864 Congress authorized the use of the phrase "In God We Trust" on coins. What heppened to E Pluribus Unum? http://www.atheists.org/public.square/coins.html

1876 The first official national league baseball game was played in Philadelphia

1889 the Oklahoma land rush began. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_land_rush

1897 NYC Jewish newspaper "Forward" begins publishing (stiil active)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Forward

1898 Congress passed the Volunteer Army act which resulted in "the Rough Riders." http://www.spanamwar.com/rrhist.html

1904 Nuclear Scientist Robert Oppenheimer was born. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer

1930 the U.S. London and Japan signed the London Naval Treaty. Didn’t work very long. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/longon_naval_treaty

1954 Senate Army-McCarthy televised hearings began http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/A/htmlA/army-mccarthy/army-mccarthy.htm

1970 Today is both Earth Day and Vladimir Lenin’s birthday (1870-1924). At the site www.newspaperarchive.com you can browse millions of searchable newspaper pages going back to 1748. Requires registration for free (limited) access. Also requires Adobe Acrobat 6.0. If yellowed archives is not to your liking www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/lenin_vladimir.shtml has a brief history, timelines and related links. If you believe there is a conspiratorial link to Earth day coinciding with Lenin’s birth miss-spell Vladimir with an e (Vladimer) and search Yahoo to find out how the Green movement is "allegedly" a totalitarian plot. For the true origin go to www.earthday.org Oh, and it’s also Jack Nicholson’s birthday in 1937. Who did Jack play in Warren Beatty’s 1981 Film REDS?. Hint, it wasn’t V..I. Lenin? www.imdb.com for the answer.

1978 'The Blues Brothers' (Dan Akroyd and John Belushi) make their first appearance on Saturday Night Live

1989 Huey Newton US, Black Panther leader, shot dead at 47 in what was rumored to be a drug related incident. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAnewtonH.htm

1993 Cesar Chavez US farm worker (United Farm Workers), dies at 66 http://www.pbs.org/itvs/fightfields/cesarchavez.html

1994 President Richard F. Nixon died at the age of 81. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/nixobit.htm

1995 Maggie Kuhn activist (Gray Panthers), dies at 89
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maggie_Kuhn

Birthdays

1707 – 1754 Henry Fielding England, novelist (Joseph Andrews, Tom Jones) http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/hfieldin.htm

1899 – 1977 Vladimir Nabokov St Petersburg, novelist (Lolita)http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/nabokov.htm

1922 - 1979 Charles Mingus Arizona, jazz musician (Pithecanthropus Erectus) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Mingus

1923 Aaron Spelling Dallas TX, TV executive producer (Charlie's Angels, Melrose Place, Dynasty, Love Boat, Starsky and Hutch, Mod Squad) http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/S/htmlS/spellingaar/spellingaar.htm

1923 Betty Page Kingsport TN, playmate (January 1955)/model (Dark Angel) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bettie_Page and now there’s a new movie.http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0404802/

That was then, This was now

A Whistleblower was fired from The CIA for leaking classified information to media which resulted in a Pulitzer Prize.

The officer admitted to "unauthorized discussions with the media in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence including operational information," said spokeswoman Michelle Neff.

Neff declined to divulge the officer's name or position, or what specifically was leaked. (Watch how a failed polygraph test outed a journalist's source -- 1:50)

---------------------

Gas prices continue to rise and the cost of a barrel of crude hit  $75.00

 

1142 Pierre Abélard French philosopher (Sic et Non, Héloïse), dies at 62

http://historymedren.about.com/library/who/blwwabelard.htm

 

1649 Maryland passes a toleration act, guaranteeing freedom of worship of Christians. http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Oracle/5650/maryreligion.htm

 

1699 Jean Racine French playwright (Phèdre), dies at 59

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jracine.htm

 

1789 John Adams was sworn in as the first vice president.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Adams

 

1836 Sam Houston defeated the Mexican army at San Jacinto, assuring Texas independence. From the mexican perspective http://www.texasbob.com/texdoc.16html

 

1837 Friedrich Froebel founded the first Kindergarten in Germany http://www.ohiou.edu/~Chastain/ip/kinderga.htm

 

1855 the first train crossed the Mississippi Rivers first Bridge.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River

 

1910 Author Mark Twain died. The rumors finally came true. http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/index.shtml

 

1918 Baron Manfred von Richthofen, "The Red Baron" German flying ace was shot down and killed in action. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=13654&nfid=rssfeeds%3Cbr

 

1940 the quiz show "Take it or Leave it" premiered on CBS radio. http://www.radiohof.org/musicvariety/takeit.html

 

1948 1st Polaroid camera is sold in US (type 40)

http://polaroids.theskeltons.org/history.htm

 

1956 Elvis Presley's 1st hit record, "Heartbreak Hotel", becomes #1

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heartbreak_Hotel

 

1960 Brazil moved its capital from Rio de Janeiro to Brazilia.

http://www.v-brazil.com/tourism/brasilia/brasilia.html

From the CIA factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/br.html

 

1961 French army revolts in Algeria leading to the evian accords

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War_of_Independence

 

1963 Dr Michael Ellis De Bakey performs 1st successful heart implant

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_DeBakey

 

1967 Los Angeles Dodgers 1st rain out in Los Angeles (after 737 consecutive games)

 

1975 South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu resigned. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/VNthieu.htm

 

1977 the musical "Annie" opened on Broadway. http://www.ibdb.com/production.asp?id=3996

 

1980 Howard Stern begins broadcasting on WWWW Detroit MI

http://www.sirius.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Sirius/Page&c=FlexContent&cid=1130574541451

 

1984 Centers for Disease Control says virus discovered in France causes AIDS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDS_in_the_United_States

 

1985 Rudi Gernreich US designer (miniskirt), dies at 62

http://citypaper.net/articles/091301/cov.fall.rudi.shtml

 

1992 Windows 3.1 released around this time. www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/computertimeline.html. For more on computer history going back to the abacus.

 

1997 Ashes of Timothy Leary & Gene Roddenberry launched into orbit

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/9704/20/space.ashes/

 

Birthdays.

 

1816 Charlotte Bronte, Author of Jane Eyre.  http://www2.sbbs.se/hp/cfalk/bronte1e.thm you can learn about all three Bronte sisters.

 

1838-1914 John Muir  The naturalist and conservationist who discovered living glaciers in the High Sierra’s.. www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/life/muir_biography.html

 

1915 – 2001  Anthony Quinn Méxican  actor (Zorba the Greek, Lawrence of Arabia)  http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000063/

 

1926 Queen Elizabeth turns the big 80 http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,,1757958,00.html?=rss

 

That was then, This was Now

 

Go to Slate or the Huffington Post for the latest the in world.news.

1715 Nicholas Rowe's "Tragedy of Lady Jane Gray", premieres in London http://tudorhistory.org/jane/

1799 Napoleon issues a decree calling for establishing Jerusalem for Jews http://www.napoleon-series.org/ins/weider/c_jews.html

1832 Congress established the first U.S. national park at Hot Springs. Arkansas, http://www.cr.nps.gov/history/hisnps/NPSHistory/npshisto.htm

1841 1st detective story (Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue") published http://www.mysterynet.com/edgar-allan-poe/murders-in-the-rue-morgue.shtml

1879 1st mobile home (horse drawn) used in a journey from London & Cyprus http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blmobilehome.htm

1884 Potters field reopens in 1884 as Madison Square Park. www.correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/hart/html/hartbook2.html has an interesting history of Potter’s field, the burial ground for the unclaimed dead and indigents.

1889 Adolph Hitler born today. For a quirky little site which explores issues like whether Hitler only had one testicle www.eightballmagazine.com/epiphanies/120050.htm By the way, the same goes for Napoleon.

1898 President Mckinley signed a congressional resolution (The Teller Amendment) that was passed the day before recognizing Cuban independence from Spain and authorizing intervention. http://www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl2d.htm

1902 Marie & Pierre Curie isolate radioactive element radium http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/on-line/curie/index.asp

. 1912 Fenway Park officially opens, Boston Red Sox beat New York Highlanders 7-6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenway_Park

1912 Tiger Stadium in Detroit opens, Tigers beat Cleveland Indians 6-5 http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/tigers.htm

1916 1st National League game at Weeghman Park (Wrigley Field) in Chicago opens, Chicago Cubs beat Cincinnati Reds 7-6 http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/national/wrigle.htm

1920 The Balfour Declaration recognized, making Palestine a British Mandate and leading to the creation of a Jewish State. For the political intrigue try www.washington-report.org/backissues/0897/9708018.html

1934 Shirley Temple debuted in "Stand up and Cheer." http://www.mailtribune.com/primet/archive/1999/72799p1.htm

1935 "Your Hit Parade." Was first broadcast on radio. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g1epc/is_tov/ai_2419101357

1940 RCA demonstrated its new electronic microscope. http://collections.ic.gc.ca/heirloom_series/volume4/258-261.htm

1948 the NYC subway fare rises from 5 – 10 cents.

1961 the Federal Communication Commission gave approval to FM stereo broadcasting. http://media.colorado.edu/telecom/timeline2.html

1971 the Supreme Court upheld busing as a means of achieving racial desegregation in schools. http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/jbalkin/brown/1971.html

1972 the manned lunar module from "Apollo 16" landed on the moon. http://www.nasm.si.edu/collections/imagery/apollo/AS16/a16.htm

1980 Cubans begin to arrive in US from Mariel boatlift http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/mariel-boatlift.htm

1984 Mabel Mercer English/US singer (Fly me to the moon), dies at 84 http://www.mrlucky.com/songbirds/html/jul99/c_mmercer.html

1999 The Columbine Shooting . "Are we a nation of gun nuts or just nuts? www.bowlingforcolumbine.com/ is Michael Moore’s academy award winning documentary movie site.

 

Birthdays

0121 - 0180Marcus Aurelius 16th Roman emperor (161-80), philosopher http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Aurelius

1745 – 1826 Philippe Pinel physician, founder of psychiatry http://www.answers.com/topic/philippe-pinel

1893 – 1971 Harold Lloyd Burchard NE, silent comic (Why Worry, Safety Last) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/lloyd_h.html

1893 – 1983 Joan Miró Spain, painter/sculptor (Dog Barking at the Moon)http://www.artelino.com/articles/joan_miro.asp

1907 - 1977 Alan Reed actor/voice (Fred Allen Show, Fred Flintstone)http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0715284/

1909 – 2002 Lionel Hampton orchestra leader/vibraphone improviser (Depths Below) http://www.pbs.org/jazz/biography/artist_id_hampton_lionel.htm

1923 - 2000Tito Puente Puerto Rico, bandleader (Dance Mania) http://www.gale.com/free_resources/chh/bio/puente_t.htm

1951- 2005 Luther Vandross Bronx NY, rock vocalist (Here and Now, Never Too Much) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luther_Vandross

That was then, This was now

House cleaning at the White House? A new face to front against the press. Goodby Scott. Rove has his job description changed.

However most experts agree that the changes are more decorative than fundamental.

Another political analyst, and editor of Congressional Quarterly, Chris Lehmann, describes the shake-up as "merely rearranging the furniture at the White House".

He argues: "This is the way an administration creates the illusion of change at minimal cost to itself - it's an old dog doing a not-very-new trick."

--------------------------

Protests continue in Nepal.

The Royal Nepalese Army fired at pro-democracy protesters in an eastern town on Wednesday, as the death toll climbed to at least eight in two weeks of defiant demonstrations and the country appeared headed toward a dangerous brink.

The brink of what remained unclear.

-------------------------

New site. Bloggingheads.TV where two bloggers debate the issue of the day. Yesterday it was David Corn and TPM’s Joshua Micah Marshall.

 

1587 Sir Frances Drake sails into Cadiz Spain & sinks Spanish fleet

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/drake_francis.shtml

 

1775 Minutemen Captain John Parker orders not to fire unless fired upon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Parker_(Captain)

1775 Revolution begins-Lexington Common, shot "heard round the world"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_heard_'round_the_world

 

1813 Benjamin Rush physician/abolotionist (signed Declaration of Independence), dies at 67 http://www.historyguy.com/benjamin_rush.html

 

1896 Herzl's "The Jewish State" is published. From the World Zionist association.

http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id=887  here’s more from NPR http://www.npr.org/news/specials/mideast/history/history1.html

 

1897 1st Boston Marathon won by John McDermott of New York in 2:55:10

http://www.boston.com/marathon/history/1897.shtml

 

1942 .The Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

 http://motlc.wiesenthal.com/pages/t083/t08342.html

 

1948 ABC-TV network begins

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Broadcasting_Company

 

1948 Chiang Kai-shek elected President of Nationalist China

http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cks.html

 

1957 Charles Funk Encylopediest (Funk & Wagnalls), dies at 76

http://www.answers.com/topic/funk-and-wagnalls

 

1960 Baseball uniforms begin displaying player's names on their backs

1960 Comiskey Park's famed "exploding" scoreboard begins operating

http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/comisk.htm

 

1965 1st all news radio station (WINS 1010 AM in NYC) begins operating

http://www.1010wins.com/pages/4621.php

 

1979 FCC raids & shuts down pirate radio station WFAT (Brooklyn NY)

http://www.frn.net/linksfrn.php

 

1982 Sally Ride announced as 1st woman astronaut

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Ride

 

1989 Daphne Du Maurier English writer (Rebecca, Jamaica Inn), dies at 82

http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/dumaurie.htm

 

1993 The Branch Davidians  (remember David Koresh?) compound goes up in flames.  Two years later in 1995 the Murrah Office Building in Oklahoma is bombed.   This day just happens to be the anniversary of the  first exchange of   fire between British troops and American Patriots at the towns of Concord and Lexington in 1775.  Do you believe in conspiracy theories? http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/waco/davidkoresh.html  

 

1994 Rodney King award $3,800,000 in compensation of police beating

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King

 

Birthdays

 

1772 – 1823 David Ricardo economist

http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Enc/bios/Ricardo.html

 

1925 Hugh O'Brian [Krampke] Rochester NY, actor (Wyatt Earp, Search

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0639385/bio

 

1933-1967 Jayne Mansfield for more on the “light-weight top-heavy sex goddess,” check out www.swinginchicks.com/jayne_mansfield.htm

 

1946 Tim Curry Cheshire England, actor (Rocky Horror Picture Show)

http://www.answers.com/topic/tim-curry

 

That was then, this was now

 

Two trials are going on simultaneously.  In Iraq Saddam remains on trial, the most interesting evidence are the death warrants he signed against Shiites. Meanwhile,  in  Texas Jeffrey Skilling begins his second day of being cross examined about his time at  Enron.

 

The price of a barrel of Oil ($70.88 in UK) continues to rise and Exxon/Mobil has given former CEO Lee Raymond a 400 million dollar retirement package.    Bryon Dorgan has called for an investigation, which will prove embarrassing for Big Oil but go nowhere.

 

Of course the more important story is that Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes have had a 7 7 lb. baby girl named Suri.

 

1480 Lucretia Borgia murderess (poison)/daughter (Pope Alexander VI)http://www.crimelibrary.com/borgia/borgialucrezia.htm

1775 Paul Revere’s and William Dawes do their famous ride http://www.colorpro.com/wmdawes/theride.html

1861 Battle of Harpers Ferry WV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Harpers_Ferry

1895 Public Baths open in NYC. www.nycgovparks.org/sub_newsroom/daily_plants/daily_plant_main.php?id=18234

It seems many of today’s recreational centers were public baths at a time when bathing was not all that common. At www.historyproject.org/timeline/index.php you’ll find a gay timeline, which includes a look at how public baths became gay meeting places.

1902 Denmark is 1st country to adopt fingerprinting to identify criminals http://www.south-wales.police.uk/fe/master.asp?n1=8&n2=253&n3=1028

1906 100 years ago today, the date of the San Francisco earthquake A magnitude of 8.3 which resulted in an estimated 3000 deaths. www.amercahurrah.com/USGS/Index.htm This U.S. Geological survey includes photographs of the quakes aftermath.

1909 Joan of Arc declared a saint http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm

1923 Yankee Stadium opens, often referred to as The House that Ruth Built. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Stadium

1924 1st crossword puzzle book published (Simon & Schuster) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword

1925 Charles Ebbets president (Dodgers), dies http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/E/Ebbets_Charlie.stm

1934 1st "Washateria" (laundromat) opens (Fort Worth TX) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laundrette

1942 James H Doolittle bombs Tokyo & other Japanese citieshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doolittle_Raid

1945 Ernest T Pyle British/US newscaster, killed in WWII at 44 http://www.journalism.indiana.edu/news/erniepyle/

.

1968 London Bridge is sold to US oil company (to be erected in Arizona) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Bridge

1994 Former President Richard Nixon suffers a stroke & dies 4 days later http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAnixon.htm

Birthdays

1857 Clarence S Darrow defense attorney at the Scopes monkey trial http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/DARESY.HTM

1921 Barbara Hale Dekalb IL, actress (Della Street-Perry Mason) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Hale

That was then, This was Now

The (90^th annual) Pulitzer Prizes have been announced The New York Times won for their NSA wiretapping story. Here’s a transcript from a discussion on yesterday’s NewsHour about the winners and the future of investigative journalism. Nicholas Kristoff won for best commentary, primarily for his work on Dafur.

"I don't think the Pulitzer board was necessarily sending a message, but the prize may have the effect of bringing a little more attention to Darfur," The New York Times columnist told E&P Monday evening.
More attention from governments is welcome, of course, but Kristof would also like to see the media focus more on Darfur.

--------------

As the debate over Nuclear Power heats up Greenpeace came out with a paper saying the estimated UN death toll from Chenobryl is too low.

Official UN figures predicted up to 9,000 extra cancer deaths attributable to Chernobyl's radioactive fallout.

But Greenpeace says in a report released on Tuesday that recent studies estimate that the actual number of extra cancer deaths will be 93,000.

1492 Christopher Columbus signs contract with Spain to find the Indies http://www.columbusnavigation.com/

1521 Martin Luther is excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church http://www.historymole.com/cgi-bin/main/results.pl?type=theme&theme=MLuther

1524 Giovanni Verrazano, a florentine navigator, discovers New York Bay http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giovanni_da_Verrazzano

1534 Sir Thomas More confined in London Tower http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/more_sir_thomas.shtml

1839 Guatemala forms republic http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Guatemala

1860 laws were passed requiring Fire escapes for NYC tenants. www.auroraregionalfiremuseum.org/history/timeline.htm is an interesting site for anything related to fire and fire departments

1875 "Snooker" (variation of pool) invented by Sir Neville Chamberlain http://www.titansports.co.uk/history/snooker.htm and the current incarnation.http://www.snookergames.co.uk/hisgame5.html

1920 American Professional Football Association forms (NFL) http://www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec=839

1946 Syria declares independence from French administration http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syria

1960 American Samoa sets up a constitutional government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Samoa

1964 Ford Mustang formally introduced ($2368 base)http://www.musclecarclub.com/musclecars/ford-mustang/ford-mustang-history-1.shtml

1964 1st game at Shea Stadium, New York Mets lose to Pittsburgh Pirates, 4-3 http://www.ballparksofbaseball.com/nl/Shea%20Stadium.htm

1986 IBM produces 1st megabit-chip http://www.thocp.net/timeline/1984.htm

Birthdays

1817- 1913 John Pierpont Morgan built the house of Morgan into a financial and industrial empire. www.inforplease.com/ce6/people/A0834017.html for the thumbnail sketch. www.innercitypress.org/jpmchase.html is a site opposing the proposed merger with Bank One Corporation. It includes a history of J..P. Morgan Chase’s recent banking practices like redlining neighborhoods.

1937 Daffy Duck animated character has a lively history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daffy_Duck

That was then, this was Now

The liberal Oasis looks at the Sunday Talks shows which focused on Iran and the competency of Donald Rumsfeld. Richard Lugar comes out for direct negotiations with Iran.

----------------------

Over at TPM Muckracker a look at K Street and a homeland Security memo release warning

In a bulletin issued yesterday, the Homeland Security Department warns U.S. businesses of the threats they face from animal rights group and "eco-terrorists." Such radical extremist groups may use several tactics -- each devastating in its own way -- including:

• "organizing protests"
  - "flyer distribution"
  - "inundating computers with e-mails"
  - "tying up phone lines to prevent legitimate calls"
  - "sending continuous faxes in order to drain the ink supply from company fax machines"

This came on the same day that A White Supremicist Group was being convicted on 5 counts of attempting to obtain chemical weapons and explosives. No warning about Right Wing Militia or anti-abortion groups.

Today is Easter Sunday which is the most important religious holiday of the Christian liturgical year, observed between late March and late April (early April to early May in Eastern Christianity) to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, which Christians believe occurred after his death by crucifixion in AD 27-33 (see Good Friday). Easter can also refer to the season of the church year, lasting for fifty days, which follows this holiday and ends at Pentecost. Easter Day is also called the Sunday of the Resurrection or "Resurrection Day." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter

1789 George Washington began his 8 day trip from Mt. Vernon to New York for his inaugaration. http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/washingtoninaug.htm

1900 the U.S. Post Office issued the first book of stamps.http://inventors.about.com/od/mstartinventions/a/mail.htm

1905 Andrew Carnegie set up the Carnegie foundation. http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/aboutus/history.htm

1912 Harriet Quimby became the first woman to fly a plane across the English Channel. http://www.pbs.org/kcet/chasingthesun/innovators/hquimby.html

1917 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin returned to Russia to begin the Bolshevik Revolution. http://www.time.com/time/time100/leaders/profile/lenin.html

1926 the Book of the month club chose as its first selection "The Holly Willowes" by Sylvia Townsend. http://www.kruse.co.uk/warner.htm

1929 New York Yankees become 1st team to use numbers on uniforms

1935 Fibber McGee and Molly" premiered. http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mcgee/fibnmol.html on radio.

1940 1st televised baseball game, WGN-TV, (White Sox vs Cubs exhibition). Actually there was the 1939Worlds fair http://www.earlytelevision.org/baseball.html Here’s more http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_Broadcasting_Firsts

1946 the date of U.S. launching captured German U2 Rocket in White Sands NM. A year earlier it was the test area for the A bomb. http://www.pcswhitesands.net/

1948 Babe Ruth baseball legend, dies http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babe_Ruth

1962 Walter Cronkite succeeded Douglas Edwards on the CBS Evening news. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/C/htmlC/cronkitewal/cronkitewal.htm Eighteen years later in 1980 shock Jock Howard Stern begins his radio career.

1981 In the world of computer history it’s 1981 and Osborne introduces the first portable computer. http://www.cedmagic.com/history/osborne-1.html

1997 Stern’s television show airs for the first time on a station in Minneapolis/ St.Paul. In January 2006 he moved to Satellite radio. http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-12-15-stern-cover_x.htm For an alternative memoir of FM radio sensibilities Jonathan Schwartz has a new book titled All in Good Time. www.amazon.com

Birthdays

1889-1977 Charlie Chaplin www.fadetoblack.com/foi/charliechaplin/ is a nice site which includes both Charlie’s biography and his FBI Files.

That was then, This was Now

Over at The Political Animal the case for Nuclear Power according to Greenpeace founder Patrick Moore.

....Here's why: Wind and solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute for coal. It's that simple.

1800 James Ross was born. Who? He discovered the Magnetic pole

http://www.south-pole.com/p0000081.htm He died in1862 . Here’s more Science from NASA. http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/29dec_magneticfield.htm

1817 the first school for the deaf opened in Hartford, Conn. http://www.connerprairie.org/HistoryOnline/silence.html

1850 San Francisco was incorporated. http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/north_america/san_francisco/history.htm

1865 Abraham Lincoln died after being shot by John Wilkes Booth at Fords Theater. But was he gay? http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040402.html

1892 General Electric Company forms & is incorporated in New York http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric

1912 The Titanic sunk. www.historychannel.com

1941 Record helicopter flight (Igor Sikorsky) of 1 hour duration, Stratford CT http://www.sikorskyarchives.com/timeline.html

1947 Jackie Robinson made his official debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers on opening day. http://espn.go.com/page2/s/list/openingday.html

1952 1st B-52 long range bomber prototype test flight http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/b-52-history.htm

1955 Ray Kroc opened his first McDonalds in Des Plaines, Ill. http://www.mcdonalds.ca/en/aboutus/history.aspx Who said, "Only the little people pay taxes." Hint. She was referenced last month as "The Queen of Mean." It was only fitting that on tax day 1992 Leona Helmsley began her 4 year prison term for tax evasion For an Economic abstract on Wealth distribution. In summary the rich are getting richer and the rest of us aren’t. www.inplainsight.info/Topics/Tax%20Reform/wealth.htm www.prospect.org is a good site for following economic policy issues.

1958 1st baseball game in California, San Francisco beats Los Angeles 8-0

1990 Greta Garbo actress (Anna Karenina, Camille), dies at 84 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Garbo

1990 "In Living Color" premieres on FOX-TV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_Living_Color

1997 Baseball honors Jackie Robinson by retiring #42 for all teams

1998 Pol Pot, the former leader of the Khmer Rouge died. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pol_Pot He’s responsible for the death of possibly two million Cambodians

Birthdays

1452 – 1519 Leonardo da Vinci Italian painter/sculptor/scientist/visionary. ie;; the Helicopter. http://www.lairweb.org.nz/leonardo/

1889 – 1975 Thomas Hart Benton Neosho MO, painter/muralist (Lonesome Road) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hart_Benton_(painter)

1894 – 1937 Elizabeth Mae "Bessie" Smith Empress of Blues (over 200 songs)http://www.redhotjazz.com/bessie.html

1933 – 1995 Elizabeth Montgomery Los Angeles CA, actress (Samantha/Serena-Bewitched) http://www.obituariestoday.com/Obituaries/ObitShow.cfm?Obituary_ID=30013

That was then, This was Now

Ever hear of operation Hotspur? War games from 2004 based on the invasion of Iran in which Britain participated.

The disclosure of Britain's participation came in the week in which the Iranian crisis intensified, with a US report that the White House was contemplating a tactical nuclear strike and Tehran defying the United Nations security council

--------------------------

Was Defense Secretary Rumsfeld participating in "phone torture" with a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay?

According to a December report by the army inspector general, obtained by Salon.com online magazine, the investigators did not accuse the defence secretary of specifically prescribing "creative" techniques, but they said he regularly monitored the progress of the al-Kahtani interrogation by telephone, and they argued he had helped create the conditions that allowed abuse to take place.

 

1775  Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush formed the first American society for the abolition of Slavery. http://www.probe.org/docs/slavery.html

 

1799 Napoleon called for establishing Jerusalem for Jews

http://www.napoleon-series.org/ins/weider/c_jews.html

 

1818 The first edition of Websters American Dictionary was published. http://www.lexrex.com/bios/nwebster.htm 

 

1841 Edgar Allen Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue", published

http://www.bookrags.com/notes/poe/PART17.htm

 

1853 Harriet Tubman began her Underground Railroad, helping slaves escape

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html

1859 Charles Dickens' "A Tale Of Two Cities" published

http://www.online-literature.com/dickens/twocities/

1860 1st Pony Express rider arrives in San Francisco CA from St Joseph MO

http://www.usps.com/history/his2.htm

 

1865 Abraham Lincoln was shot and killed at Ford’s Theater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford's_Theater

 

1894 Thomas Edison  was demonstrating a kinetoscope peep show footage of Annie Oakley and Buffalo Bill . http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edmvhist.html

 

1910 William Howard Taft became the first President to throw out the first ball to open the baseball season. http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/Politics/story?id=1792017&page=1

 

1925 1st regular-season Cubs game to be broadcast on radio (WGN)

http://wgnradio.com/history/75th01.htm

 

1927 First Volvo comes off the assembly line. My first car was a Volvo so I tend to get sentimental. http://www.volvo.com/group/global/en-gb/Volvo+Group/history/ 

 

1939 John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” is published. http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/grapesofwrath/ 

 

1960 1st underwater launching of Polaris missile. Could Star wars be far behind

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polaris_missile

 

1964 Rachel L Carson US biologist/author (Silent spring), dies at 56

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/carson.html

 

1968  Mart Crowley’s play “The Boys in the Band” opened in New York.  http://www.shs.starkville.k12.ms.us/mswm/MSWritersAndMusicians/writers/MartCrowley/MartCrowley.html#Related

 

1971 President Richard Nixon ends blockade against People's Republic of China

 

1985 Geraldo Rivera broke into a long sealed vault of Al Capone.  http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/R/htmlR/riverageral/riverageral.htm Do you remember what he discovered? 

 

1986 Jean Genêt French, playwright (Lesson Nègres), dies at 75. Part of  the Grove press catalog along with Sammy Beckett… http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/jgenet.htm

 

1986 Simone de Beauvoir French author (Deuxième Sexe, That’s The Second  Sex) ), dies at 86  http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/beauvoir.htm

 

1986 on this date, the United States bombs Libya in retaliation for Libyan sponsorship of terrorism. http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/ShalomLyb2.html

 

1988 The Russians withdraw from Afghanistan. Oct. 2001, the   U.S. invaded Afghanistan. http://afghanland.com/history/timeline/timeline.html

 

Feb. 2004 U.S. eases sanctions against Libya who are no longer deemed part of the “Axis of Evil.”  If  the definition of terrorism appears confusing or politically arbitrary, check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism. So you’ll be better able to recognize  a rogue state the next time a  president goes  pre-emptive.  Remember the term “going postal?” Check out  this humor site for crazy postal stories to share at  the Post Office while waiting in line.  http://www.geocities.com/SouthBeach/Boardwalk/4132/postal.html

 

Birthdays

 

1904  - 2000 Sir John Gielgud London England, actor (Arthur, Ages of Man)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000024/

 

1907 – 1971  François "Doc" Duvalier dictator of Haiti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fran%C3%A7ois_Duvalier

 

1928 Robert Mugabe President (Zimbabwe, 1988- )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Mugabe

 

1941 Julie Christie Assam India, actress (Dr Zhivago)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001046/bio

 

 

That was then, This was Now

 

From Editor and Publisher, rumblings at the Village Voice, now under new ownership

 

 

 

More Retired Generals call for Rumsfeld to resign.  Getting to be an impressive list.

 

 

 

And the death penalty stage of the Zacarias Moussaoui continues as he testifies his way into being a martyr 

 

 

.

1668 John Dryden (36) becomes 1st English poet laureate
http://www.bartleby.com/people/Dryden-J.html

1742 Handel’s "Messiah" was performed publicly for the first time in Dublin, Ireland. http://www.operaworld.com/baroque/semele/handel.shtml

1743 -1809 Thomas Jefferson was born. 3^rd POTUS http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/

1870 New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761560817/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art.html

1899 Alfred M. Butts the inventor of Scrabble was born. http://www.historychannel.com/exhibits/toys/scrabble.html

1902 JC Penney opens his 1st store in Kemmerer WY http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JC_Penney

1940 the first of "The "Road" movies with Bob Hope, Bing Crosby and Dorothy Lamour opened in New York. http://www.kcmetro.edu/~crosby/road.htm

1943 FDR dedicated the Jefferson Memorial. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jefferson_Memorial

1954 Henry Aaron made his Major League Debut with the Milwaukee Braves. Known as the hammer, but not relation to Tom Delay. http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/hofers_and_honorees/hofer_bios/aaron_hank.htm

1957 Due to lack of funds, Saturday mail delivery in the US is temporarily halted. Congress gave the PO 41 million and life returned to normal.

1963 Pete Rose got his first major league hit for the Cincinnati Reds.

1964 Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to win the best Actor Oscar. It was "lilies of the Field." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier

1975 the Homebrew Computer Club is formed in Palo Alto, the first computer user group. www.bambi.net/bob/homebrew.html

1975 Christian Falange kills 27 Palestinians, begins Lebanese civil war http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/lima/lebanon1975.htm

1981 Janet Cooke won a Pulitzer for feature writing but later admitted it was made up. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/day/04_17_2001.html

1984 Pete Rose becomes 1st National League to get 4,000 hits in a career http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/R/Rose_Pete.stm

1985 the Grand Old Opry premiered on Television.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Ole_Opry

1986 Return to Mayberry reunited the cast of The Andy Griffith Show (1960-1968) on CBS. http://www.fiftiesweb.com/tv/andy-griffith.htm Any bets on the date for a Justin/Janet reunion show. Better yet, email CBS and tell them to bring back The Smothers Brothers. Feedback@cbs.com

1992 Crystal Pepsi begins test marketing in Providence, Denver & Dallas. No sugar, no luck. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystal_Pepsi

1997 Tiger Woods became the youngest person to win the Masters Gold tournament, as well as the first of partly black heritage.

Birthdays

1519 - 1589 Catherine de Médici Queen of France /daughter of Henry II http://europeanhistory.about.com/od/medicicatherinede/

1852-1919 Frank Winfield Woolworth Father of the Five and Dime. First store opened 1879 in Utica, NY where nothing cost more then 5 cents. Those were the days. http://www.thewoolworths.com/FWWoolworth.html

1906 – 1989 Samuel Beckett Irish playwright (Waiting for Godot/Nobel 1969) http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/beckett.htm

1937 Lanford Wilson US playwright (Hot L Baltimore)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lanford_Wilson

That was then, This was Now

Remember MAD from the Cold War. The Acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction as part of the rationale of ongoing arms buildup? The recent article by Sy Hersh about the contingent use of tactical Nuclear weapons makes our friend Billmon at the old Whiskey Bar coin a new Mad acronym. Mutually Assured Dementia.. Some Pentagon leakers are worried. Now that Bush has "lost" Iraq his new Mission is to "Save" Iran by any means necessary. Yes, the POTUS has found a new mission from which to be remembered. Just goes to show you shouldn’t allow these born again types too close to the red button.

--------------------

Speaking of evangelical love. Evangelical Christians are going to court, sueing for the right to hate. From our Wescthester Correspondent.

With her lawsuit, the 22-year-old student joins a growing campaign to force public schools, state colleges and private workplaces to eliminate policies protecting gays and lesbians from harassment. The religious right aims to overturn a broad range of common tolerance programs: diversity training that promotes acceptance of gays and lesbians, speech codes that ban harsh words against homosexuality, anti-discrimination policies that require college clubs to open their membership to all.

----------------

Earlier this week was the anniversary of Albert Einstein coming up with his Theory of Relativity, back in 1906. Today, the NY Post is running a front page story of momentous proportions. (S& C) x (B&F) / T-V). Yes, the formula for a perfect butt, with pictures on page 3. Not page 6? Oh, yeah that page is facing indictment.

 

1606 England adopted as its flag the original version of the Union Jack.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_Jack

 

1709 1st edition of Tattler magazine in England

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9071388

 

1811 1st US colonists on Pacific coast arrive at Cape Disappointment WA

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_National_and_State_Historical_Parks

 

1833 Charles Gaylor patented the Fireproof Safe in NYC. Interested in a primer on safes and safe cracking ? http://www.timhunkin.com/94_illegal_engineering.htm

 

1847 Yung Wing, the first student from China to graduate from Yale , arrived in America. .  http://research.yale.edu/aacc/

 

1857 Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary" published

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madame_Bovary

 

1861 Fort Sumter was attacked beginning Civil the war.

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/cwphtml/tl1861.html

 

1877 a catchers mask was first used in a baseball game. 

http://www.brownielocks.com/baseball.html

 

1892 voters in Lockport, NY became the first in the Nation  to use a voting machine. http://americanhistory.si.edu/vote/votingmachine.html  

 

1892 George C Blickensderfer patents portable typewriter.  The laptop can’t be far behind. http://www.mytypewriter.com/generic104.html

 

1905 Hippodrome arena opens (New York NY) http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON027.htm

 

1919 British Parliament passes a 48-hour work week with minimum wages. Whereas in this country http://www.pbs.org/livelyhood/workday/weekend/timeline.html

 

1935 "Your Hit Parade", debuts on radio

http://www.radiohof.org/music/hitparade.html

 

1938 1st US law requiring medical tests for marriage licenses (New York)

http://www.interfaithweddings.beliefnet.com/textpage3.html

 

1945 FDR died of a cerebral Hemorrhage at the age of 63

 

1955 Jonas Salk’s Polio Vaccine was termed “safe”  by UMich polio evaluation Center.

http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/salk.html

 

1960 Bill Veeck & Chicago Comiskey Park debut the "Exploding Scoreboard"

http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/comisk.htm

 

1966 1st B-52 bombing on North Vietnam

 

1975 entertainer Josephine Baker dies.  Baker  refused to perform in segregated venues  http://virtualology.com/virtualmuseumofhistory.com/hallofwomen/JOSEPHINEBAKER.Net/   She gained notoriety in France at the Follies Bergere  Speaking of which, do you know the true origin of the “French Fry”? Try going to www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mfrenchfry.html 

 

1981 Joe  Lewis (the brown bomber) dies  www.detnews.com/history/louis/louis.htm   His defeating Max Schmelling in 1938 should have told Hitler something about his  theory of Aryan supremacy.

 

1983 Chicagoans elected Harold Washington the city’s first black mayor. http://www.newstips.org/commnews/blackchi.html

 

1988 the U.S. patent and trademark office issued a patent to Harvard University for a genetically engineered mouse.  http://www.gene-watch.org/genewatch/articles/15-5mice.html

 

1989 Sugar Ray Robinson [Walker Smith Jr] world welterweight champion (1946-51)/5-time middleweight champion, dies of Alzheimers at 67

http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016439.html

 

 

Birthdays

 

1777 – 1852  Henry Clay [the Great Compromiser] US politician http://espn.go.com/sportscentury/features/00016439.html

 

1940 Herbie Hancock Chicago IL, pianist (I Thought it was You)

http://www.warr.org/hancock.html

 

1950 David Cassidy New York NY, singer/actor (Keith-Partridge Family)

http://www.apeculture.com/music/cassidy.htm

 

That was then, This was Now

 

What’s today’s top story?  Wasn’t this what Keith Obermann asked last night? Hey, take it as flattery.  Italy. Prime Minister Berlusconi refuses to concede that he lost in a razor sharp election. And the real Mafia Godfather of Italy  Bernardo “Tractor”   Provenzano has been captured by Italian Police in Corleone, which as you probably know was the family name of the “Godfather” via Francis Ford Coppola.

 

Of course Iran remains in the news as it was announced that they now have the capacity to enrich Uranium. This comes several days after Pentagon leaks concerning plans for a military attack on Iran. Including using the Nuclear “Bunker buster”.    According to news coverage it seems like the Bush Administration has cried Pre-emptive strike once too often.  However, the stock market dropped yesterday with the fear of increased oil prices should anything should go boom in Iran.

1790 US Patent system is established http://www.myoutbox.net/popstart.htm

1841 New York "Tribune" begins publishing under editor Horace Greeley http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAnytribune.htm

1849 Walter Hunt patented the safety pin. Used for cloth baby diapers http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blhunt_pin.htm what about disposable diapers http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bldiaper.htm

1866 The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals were incorporated. http://animal.discovery.com/fansites/animalprecinct/history.html

1912 the Titanic left Southampton England on its maiden voyage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic

1916 the Professional Golf Association held its first professional tournament. http://www.worldgolf.com/wglibrary/history/tourhist.html

1919 Emiliano Zapata was ambushed and killed by Mexican troops.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliano_Zapata

1925 Scribner’s published The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. For an historical time capsule of any year http://www.dmarie.com/timecap/

1947 Jackie Robinson became the 1st black in modern major league baseball (Dodgers) http://www.baseball-almanac.com/firsts/first8.shtml

1953 "House of Wax", 1st 3-D movie is released (New York NY)http://www.filmmonthly.com/Horror/Articles/houseofwax/houseofwax.html

1961 The Adolph Eichman war criminal trial begins in Israel http://www.pbs.org/eichmann/intro.htm

1963 Submarine USS Thresher failed to surface, killing 129. http://www.nationalgeographic.com/k19/disasters_detail2.html The worst submarine disaster in U.S. History.

1964 Demolition begins on Polo Grounds to clear way for housing project http://www.baseballlibrary.com/baseballlibrary/ballplayers/P/Polo_Grounds.stm here’s more including Pictures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polo_Grounds

1966 Evelyn Waugh British writer (Brideshead Revisited) dies at 62 http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ewaugh.htm

1967 the 13 day strike by the American Federation of Radio and TV Artists came to an end two hours prior to the 39^th Academy Awards http://www.aftra.org/aftra/history.htm

1970 Paul McCartney resigns from the Beatles officially disbanding the group. That same day a poll reveals that Public support of Vietnam Policy was waning. Here’s a brief history of polling http://www.harrispollonline.com/history.asp

1972 70 nations vote for a ban on biological warfare. For research and think tank links on weapons of mass destruction (real ones) www.mackinac.org/features/debate/2001/National/links.htm Demolition begins on the Polo Grounds to clear way for a housing project. http://espn.go.com/mlb/s/2000/1101/850503.html

1975 Photographer Walker Evans died Some of his New York Photo’s can be found at the Library of Congress. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/fsahtml/fachap04.html

1991 Last automat (coin operated cafeteria) closes (3rd & 42nd St, New York NY) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automat

1995 NYC bans smoking in all restaurants that seat 35 or more http://newyork.citysearch.com/roundup/39597

Birthdays

1847-1911 Joseph Pulitzer was the founder of the Pulitzer Prize, the most prestigious award in journalism. Like William Randolph Hearst, he was not above using sensationalism, but unlike Hearst , He was more populist then power hungry. www.pulitzer.org/History/history.html

1903-1987 Clare Boothe Luce former US ambassador to Vatican http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKluceC.htm

1929 Max [Carl Adolf] Von Sydow Lund Sweden, actor (Hawaii, Exorcist, Dune, Dreamscape http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_von_Sydow

1934 David Halberstam New York Times international correspondent (New York Times/Pulitzer 1964) http://www.answers.com/topic/david-halberstam

That was then, This was Now

According to an article in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh there are Plans to invade Iran, along with the use of Nuclear weapons.

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that "a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government." He added, "I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ "

----------------------

A day after Seymour Hersh’s Birthdays this was the reply. Over at Fox news. The Administrations Voice of America for local propoganda purposes.

-----------------------------------

We’re now hearing about a bloodbath, if we should leave Iraq. We heard similar arguments for not leaving Vietnam after the Domino theory got us in. Here an historical comparison from HNN which nice falls more then precisely into the That was Then, This was Now, category.

The bloodbath theory proved beneficial to the Nixon administration because, at a time when a growing number of Americans viewed the Vietnam war as immoral, it restored a moral cast to the American intervention. The war, in other words, was not being waged solely in the furtherance of U.S. interests; it was being waged to prevent the slaughter of innocent Vietnamese. Moreover – and this was crucial to the war’s proponents – the bloodbath potential meant that those calling for a rapid American withdrawal appeared as callous isolationists indifferent to the fate of Vietnamese suffering.

Well, the youth job contract proposals in France has been withdrawn by President Chirac after weeks of demonstrations.

President Jacques Chirac on Monday threw out part of a youth labor law that triggered massive protests and strikes, bowing to intense pressure from students and unions and dealing a blow to his loyal premier in a bid to end the crisis.

While some unions celebrated what they called ``a great victory,'' students who had planned more demonstrations appeared more cautious, saying their movement would continue for now.

-------------------------

1766 1st fire escape patented, wicker basket on a pulley & chain
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfiresprinkler.htm

1834 Cornelius Lawrence becomes the first New York city mayor elected by popular vote. http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/issueoftheweek/20030901/200/507

1862 John D Lynde patents aerosol dispenser. Here’s more on inventors in science history today http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/4/4_08.htm

1873 Alfred Paraf patented the first successful Oleomargarine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margarine

1879 Milk was sold in bottles for the first time http://www.earlyamericanworkshop.com/History1.htm

1889 the tabulating machine was patented by Dr. Hermann Hallerith. http://www.sis.pitt.edu/~mbsclass/hall_of_fame/hollerit.htm

1893 The Critic reports that the ice cream soda is our national drink http://info.detnews.com/history/story/index.cfm?id=192&category=life

1913 17th amendment, requiring direct election of senators, ratified http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment17/

1935 the Works Progress Administration was approved by congress. http://www.answers.com/topic/works-progress-administration

1946 The league of Nations began its final session in Geneva. http://worldatwar.net/timeline/other/league18-46.html

1952 President Truman seized the Steel Industry to avert a nationwide strike. http://www.independent.org/publications/article.asp?id=1394

1969 1st Baseball game in Canada - Montréal Expos beats New York Mets 10-9 http://expos.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mon/history/mon_history_timeline.jsp

1969 Expansion teams Royals, Expos, Padres & Pilots win their 1st games

1971 Picasso died at the age of 91. In 1975 Hank Aaron breaks Babe Ruth’s home run record. www.sportingnews.com/archives/sports2000/players/152557.html. .

1975 Frank Robinson debuts as 1st black baseball manager (Cleveland, beats New York 5-3) http://www.baseball-reference.com/managers/robinfr02.shtml

1976 Phil Ochs protest singer dies at 35
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Ochs

1988 Assemblies of God TV Evangelist Jimmy Swaggert was defrocked for frolicking with a prostitute. He returned to the TV airwaves 3 months later. Check out www.raptureme.com/who/Jimmy_Swaggart.html and go to the rapture index to see how near we are to Armageddon.

1990 teenager Ryan White succumbs to AIDS after battling for acceptance.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryan_White

1990 "Twin Peaks" by David Lynch premieres on ABC-TV http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Peaks

1992 Arthur Ashe announced he had AIDS and DNA testing proves that Joseph Mengele died in Brazil in 79. Here’s how he escaped capture http://www.posner.com/articles/mengele.htm

1994 Kurt Cobain of Nirvana is found dead? Officially suicide but some think murder. http://www.thesmokinggun.com/kurt/kurt.html

1997 Microsoft releases IE explorer 4.0. and singer/songwriter Laura Nyro dies at the age of 49. http://www.warr.org/nyro.html

Birthdays

563 Buddha. http://www.connect.net/ron/buddha.html belief net http://www.beliefnet.com/story/88/story_8819_1.html

1893-1979 Mary Pickford http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pickford

1898 E Y "Yip" Harburg [Isidore Hochberg], lyricist/librettist http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAharburg.htm

1937 Seymour Hersh award winning investigative reporter (New York Times, New Yorker) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh

1943 Michael Bennett aids victim/choreographer (A Chorus Line) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seymour_Hersh

1968 Patricia Arquette New York NY, actress (Ed Wood, Medium TV show) http://www.thespiannet.com/actresses/A/arquette_patricia/index.shtml

That was then, This was Now

Okay, I’m gloating. A page 6 writer at Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post is under Federal investigation for extortion. Flash. He’s been suspended. The Times has a long feature today but the story was broke by the Daily News who I am sure are in stitches.

In two 90-minute meetings, characterized by a shocking breach of ethics, Jared Paul Stern, a fixture on the city's gossip scene who also edited Page Six The Magazine, asked for a series of payments from Ron Burkle, the managing partner of Yucaipa Cos., a conglomerate with interests in supermarkets, celebrity clothing lines, and media.

--------------------------

George II approval rating is remaining down at 36 % .

It’s the end of the week so let’s look at Iraq Casualty count.

American death is up to 2349. Wounded 17469

Iraqi civilian deaths? No complete list is available but we know that 79 were killed and 146 wounded at a Shiite mosque yesterday. At Iraqi Body Count 37,943 would be one estimate. Other Estimates range from 10,000 to 100,000.

 

1712 First Slave revolt in New York City. http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/geography/slave_laws_NY.htm

1827 English chemist John Walker invents wooden matches http://www.oldgas.com/info/texacohist.html

1862 Ulysses S. Grant defeated the Confederates at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. http://www.nps.gov/shil/

1902 The Texas Oil Company (Texaco) forms http://www.oldgas.com/info/texacohist.html

1927 a New York city audience saw an image of Herbert Hoover on the first long distance demonstration of Television. It was accomplished through the use of phone lines from Washington DC to New York NY

1947 Auto pioneer Henry Ford died at 83. Scroll down to the list of Ford quotes http://www.willamette.edu/~fthompso/MgmtCon/Henry_Ford.html

1948 the World Health Organization was founded. http://www.who.int/about/en

1950 the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical "South Pacific" opened on Broadway. For more events from 1950 year click http://www.fiftiesweb.com/pop/1950.htm

1957 the last electric Trolley ran from Queens to Manhattan. http://www.forgotten-ny.com/TROLLEYS/trolleyterminal/stations.html here’s more on queens mass transit http://www.nycroads.com/crossings/queensboro/

1966 the US recovered an H bomb lost off the coast of Spain. There were 10 others lost during the cold war. http://edition.cnn.com/2004/us/09/13/lost.bomb/

1969 the Supreme Court struck down laws prohibiting private possession of "obscene" material in Stanley v George plus a few more http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/porn/prosecuting/overview.html

1977 Toronto Blues Jays 1st game, they beat Chicago 9-5

1978 Gorbachev announces the withdrawal of Soviet Troops from Afghanistan. From the National Security Archive. http://www2.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB57/us.html

1978 President Jimmy Carter defers production of the neutron bomb. It kills people but leaves property intact. The capitalist bomb http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron_bomb

1990 John Poindexter (National Security Advisor) found guilty on Iran-Contra scandal. Most recent incarnation as head of Total information Awareness project which turned into something of a Bush II embarrassment in 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Poindexter

1991 George Washington Bridge raises toll from $3.00 to $4.00

1994 was the onset of the Genocide in Rwanda. http://hrw.org/reports/1999/rwanda/ The world stood by for 100 days until nearly a million Tutsi and Hutu moderates were massacred.

1915-1959 It’s also Billy Holidays birthday Listening to Lady Days rendition of Strange Fruit, would be fitting after reading about Rwanda. www.ladyday.net

Birthdays

1860 W K Kellogg a real corn flake http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blcereal.htm

1897 – 1972 Walter Winchell Harlem New York NY, newscaster/columnist (voice of the Untouchables) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Winchell

1928 – 1998 Alan J Pakula director (All the President's Men, Klute) http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/370/370521p1.html

1931 Daniel Ellsberg whistleblower (Pentagon Papers)/patriot http://www.newyorker.com/critics/books/?021104crbo_books

1939 Francis Ford Coppola Detroit MI, film maker (Godfather, Apocalypse Now, American Graffiti) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Ford_Coppola here’s an article. http://www.salon.com/people/bc/1999/10/19/coppola/

1951 Janis Ian [Janis Eddy Fink] New York NY, folk singer (Society's Child, At 17) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janis_Ian

That was then, This was Now

Yesterday it was the missing link 375 million year old fossil (Tiktaalik) that made the news. Yes, a walking fish.

'It is a stepping-stone in the water-land transition showing us a permutation of features not seen before, notably the combination of lobe-fins with the beginnings of a neck.'

-----------------------------

Today, the translation of an old coptic text concludes that Judas was not a Judas (traitor) but a collaborator with Jesus. Yeah, I know it’s another Jewish Plot.

The announcement of an alternative account to those of Mark, Matthew, John and Luke is bound to stir the passions of believers--especially coming shortly before the annual commemoration of Jesus' final days.
"It raises the question: What does the Sunday school teacher tell her students?" said Hershel Shanks, publisher of Biblical Archeology Review, a longtime forum for scholars and others interested in biblical times.

--------------------------

And then now we find out from Scooter Libby grand jury testimony that President Bush sanctioned National Security leaks prior to the pre-emptive strike against Iraq.. "Leaker in Chief". Or perhaps the missing Fink in the Valeria Plane affair.

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," the president said a couple of years ago.

Bush took that stance again and again in the Valerie Plame case, and said he would fire anyone who was found to have committed a crime by leaking classified stuff.

On that score, Bush is probably safe from having to fire himself, despite Scooter Libby's accusation yesterday that the president, through Dick Cheney, had authorized him to feed classified CIA data to Judy Miller. The reason: It's legal for the president to declassify something that otherwise would remain super-secret.

648 BC is the date of the first chronicled Solar Eclipse by the Greeks. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse

1652 Cape Colony, the first European settlement in South Africa was established. http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Cape-Colony

1663 King Charles signed the Carolina Charter. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Province_of_Carolina

1722 Peter the Great ended the tax on men with beards. http://www.hyperhistory.net/apwh/bios/b2peterthegreat.htm

1830 the Mormon Church was founded by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in Fayette, NY. http://www.religioustolerance.org/lds_hist.htm

1867 Mormon leader Brigham Young married his last wife. Number 27. www.stgeorgetemplevisitorcenter.org/by/byfamily.html

1869 the first plastic celluloid was patented. http://lennon.csufresno.edu/~avillarreal/rt2.html

 

1889 George Eastman placed the Kodak camera on sale for the first time. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bleastmen.htm

1896 the 1^st modern Olympics begins in Athens Greece in

1906 the first animated cartoon was copyrighted. http://www.filmsite.org/animatedfilms.html

1912 Electric starter 1st appeared in cars http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automobile_self_starter

1917 Congress approved a declaration of war against Germany. Why was it called the "War to end all Wars"? http://computasaur.tripod.com/ww1/

1930 Hostess Twinkies was invented by James Dewar. http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/twinkie.htm

1931 1st broadcast of "Little Orphan Annie" on NBC-radio http://www.radiohof.org/adventuredrama/littleannie.html

1931 1st Scottsboro (Alabama) trial begins - 9 blacks accused of rape here’s a contemporary account http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/FTrials/scottsboro/SB_HRrep.html

 

1938 Teflon was invented by Roy J. Plunkett. http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/plunkett.html

1947 the first Tony Awards were presented. http://www.tonyawards.com/en_US/about/history/index.html

1954 Swanson’s TV dinner was first put on sale. http://www.fiftiesweb.com/pop/tv-dinner.htm

1957 the final trolley runs in NYC www.forgotten-y.com/TROLLEYS/trolleyterminal/stations.html.

1965 the Intelsat 1 communication satellite was launched. Known as "early bird". Here’s background on wireless communication http://www.hq.nasa.gov/office/pao/History/satcomhistory.html

1973 Yankee Ron Blomberg becomes 1st designated hitter, he walks

1980 Post-it notes were introduced. http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/frysilver.html

1987 Al Campanis appears on Niteline saying blacks may not be equipped to be in baseball management, sparking a racial controversy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Campanis

1992 Microsoft introduced the Windows 3.1 upgrade. http://www.computerhope.com/history/windows.htm

1992 1st game at Camden Field, Baltimore Orioles beat Indians 2-0http://www.ballparks.com/baseball/american/oriole.htm

1992 Isaac Asimov science fiction writer (I Robot), dies from kidney failure at 72 http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/asimov.htm

1992 Molly Picon yiddish actress (Milk & Honey), dies of Alzheimers at 94 http://www.myjewishlearning.com/culture/Film/Film_TO/YiddishFilm/MollyPicon.htm

Birthdays

 

1806 – 1861 Elizabeth Barrett Browning poet (Sonnets from the Portuguese)/Mrs Robert Browning http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Barrett_Browning

1892 – 1981 Lowell Thomas, newscaster. Traveler. Made Lawrence of Arabia famous. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lowell_Thomas

1914 –1959 George Reeves Ashland KY, actor (Superman, Gone With the Wind) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001660/bio

1922 Barry Levinson Baltimore MD, director (Homicide@Life on the Street, Avalon, Rain Man, Diner) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Levinson

1945 – 1981 Bob Marley reggae musician/singer (Whalers-No Woman)http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=148 That was then, This was Now

 

Gone fish'n. Actually, the missing link fossil has been found.

 

2348 BC  According to legend  Noah’s Ark landed on Mt. Arafat around  2348 BC.  http://www.noahsarksearch.com/arafat.htm

 

1614 Pocahontas married English colonist John Rolfe in Jamestown   http://www.virtualjamestown.org/jrolfe.html 

 

1772 Jacob Roggeveen discovered Easter Island.  http://www.sacredsites.com/americas/chile/easter_island.html 

 

1806  Isaac Quintard patented apple cider.   http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/4/4_05.htm

 

1887 Teacher Anne Sullivan achieved a breakthrough with her student Helen Keller. http://www.afb.org/section.asp?Documentid=927 

 

1895 Oscar Wilde lost his libel suit against the Marquess of  Queensbury who accused him of homosexual practices.  http://www.dublintourist.com/Literary_Dublin/Oscar_Wilde.shtml

 

1923 Firestone placed inflatable tires into production. Introduced the flat tire problem. http://www.firestoneag.com/about/history_1920.asp 

 

1927 Johnny Weissmuller set records in the 100 & 200 meter freestyle. Could Tarzan be far behind? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Weissmuller

 

1941 In San Francisco, Castro & Fillmore streetcars replaced by buses

http://www.cable-car-guy.com/html/ccsfmsr_curtail.html

 

1951 Julius and Ethel  Rosenberg were sentenced  to death for spying.    www.crimelibrary.com/rosen/rosenmain.htm .

 

1955 Winston Churchill resigned as British Prime Minister. 

http://www.britannia.com/gov/primes/prime47.html

 

1964 the first driverless train ran on the London Underground. http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/London%20Underground 

 

1973 The first operational Alto Computer is completed at Xerox PARC this month  http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Jun/bch20030609020327.htm

 

1974 the World Trade Center opened in NYC. http://ericdarton.net/html/tallstories.html

 

1984 Kareem Abdul-Jabbar breaks Wilt Chamberlain's all-time career scoring record of 31,419 points (31,421) http://www.basketball-reference.com/leaders/PTS_career.html

 

1987 Fox TV network premieres showing Married With Children & Tracey Ullman..then The Simpsons http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_Network

 

1990 Paul Newman won a lawsuit against Julius Gold to continue giving all profits from Newman foods to charity. http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/7380505.htm?1c

 

1991 Kitty Kelly publishes a book knocking Nancy Reagan

http://archives.cjr.org/year/91/4/kittykelley.asp

 

1992 Peru’s president Alberto Fujimori suspended the constitution and dissolved congress. http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR460172001?open&of=ENG-PER 

 

1997 Allen Ginsberg beat poet, dies at 80

http://www.answers.com/topic/allen-ginsberg

 

2063 Earth's 1st contact by extra-terrestrials (Vulcan); according to Star Trek

For more relevant and irrelevant data of your own choosing

http://www.scopesys.com/cgi-bin/today2.cgi

 

Birthdays

 

1588 – 1679 Thomas Hobbes England, philosopher (Leviathan)

http://cepa.newschool.edu/het/profiles/hobbes.htm

 

1827 – 1912 Joseph Lister England, physician (founded aseptic surgeryd)

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/b.gardner/Lister.html

 

1856-1915 Booker T. Washington born into slavery,  was  founder of  Tuskegee Institute. His writings are available online at http://washington.thefreelibrary.com/ 

 

1908 -1989 Herbert von Karajan Austria, Berlin Philharmonic conductor/Nazi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_von_Karajan

 

1908 -1989 Bette Davis Lowell MA, famous eyes (Of Human Bondage, Jezebel)

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000012/

 

1926 Roger Corman Detroit MI, producer/director (Little Shop of Horrors)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B-movie

 

1937 Colin Powell, born right here in NYC www.opensecrets.org/bush/cabinet/cabinet.powell.asp   profiles the first  Bush cabinet. 

 

1946 Jane Asher Paul McCartney's former girlfriend/actress (Deep End) and linked to Roger Corman’s B movie realm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Asher

 

That was then, this was Now

 

Go to Liberal Oasis for coverage of the liberal blogosphere. Including Tom Delay media blitz, New Orleans continued

 

Go to Cursor for the latest in Mess-in- Potania.  Looks as if the body count of Civilian Iraqi’s was 1038 last month, compared to 375 in December.

1581 Frances Drake completed his circumnavigation of the world. Can you name his ship? http://www.sirfrancesdrakehistory.net/

1818 It was decided the U.S. Flag would consist of 13 red and white stripes. http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/

1828 Casparus Van wooden patented chocolate milk powder. Here’s more food firsts http://www.foodreference.com/html/html/april4.html

1841 President William Henry Harrison succumbed to pneumonia becoming the first president to die in office. Gave the longest Acceptance speech and served the shortest term. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Henry_Harrison

1850 Los Angeles was incorporated as a city. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles,_California

1887 Susanna Medora Salter became the first woman elected mayor of a US city. She ran on the temperance line http://www.kancoll.org/voices/1997/0997vote.htm

1902 British financier Cecil Rhodes left $10 million in his will to provide scholarships at Oxford University. http://www.davidicke.net/tellthetruth/research/rhodesscholars.html

1932 C.C. King isolated Vitamin C at the University of Pittsburgh. http://www.yourproduceman.com/news_apr_4_05.html

1933 the U.S. Dirigible Akron crashed off the New Jersey coast. http://www.numa.net/expeditions/akron.html

1944 De Gaulle forms new regime in exile, with communists and what remained was the Vichy Government http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_France

1949 The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was signed by 12 nations. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO

1968 Martin Luther King assassinated by James Earle Ray in 1968. Or was he? www.realhistoryarchives.com/collections/assassinations/mlk.htm

1969 Dr. Denton Cooley implanted the first temporary artificial heart. www.muddywaters.com

1969 the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour was irreverently thrown off the air by CBS. The Museum of Broadcasting www.museum.tv/archives/etv/ShtmlS/smothersbrot/smothersbrot.htm has the dirt. This was before Viacom bought the network. For daily information on who owns what media and why they do what they do, check out Danny Schechter the news dissector at www.mediachannel.org If you’d like to hire the Brothers go to www.eaglestalent.com One of the talents the agency represents Is Suzanne Somers who will presumably demonstrate the use of her thigh master.

1972 the first electric power plant fueled by garbage began operation. http://members.aol.com/Ramola15/timeline.html

1975 one hundred thirty people die when a plane evacuating Vietnamese orphans crash after a Saigon take off.

1981 Henry Cisneros of San AntonioTexas becomes the first Mexican-American mayor of a major U.S. city.

1983 the Space Shuttle Challenger takes off on its maiden voyage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger

1984 Winston Smith in Orwell's "1984" begins his secret diary http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/

1994 Netscape Communications was founded by Mosaic Communications. http://www.jeremie.com/misc/moz/

Birthdays

1802 – 1887 Dorothea Dix US, aroused interest in treatment of mental inmates http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/dorotheadix.htmlLinus Yale US, portrait painter/inventor (Yale cylinder lock)

1821-1868 Linus Yale creator of the lock http://www.northstar.k12.ak.us/schools/ryn/projects/inventors/yale/yale.html

1920 Eric Rohmer Nancy France, director (Claire's Knee)/ actor (6 in Paris, Collector, Perceval) http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/03/rohmer.html

1915-1983 McKinley Waterfield aka Muddy Waters born today. www.muddywaters.com.

That was then, This was Now

Tom Delay, the hammer, has said via a videotaped message, that he is retiring from congress. " After months of prayer and contemplation "

--------

Fareed Zakaria compares US immigration policies with that of Europe. Or as Kevin Drum at The Political Animal put it, Quoting Zakaria

Compared with every other country in the world, America does immigration superbly. Do we really want to junk that for the French approach?

--------

Arianna Huffington on John McCain running for President "as a born again Bushophile".

1776 George Washington received an honorary doctor of law degree from Harvard College. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gwhtml/

1829 James Carrington patented the coffee mill. Here’s more in science history http://www.todayinsci.com/cgi-bin/indexpage.pl?http://www.todayinsci.com/4/4_03.htm

1860 the Pony Express began service between St. Joseph, MO and Sacramento Calif. http://www.historybuff.com/library/refpony.html .

1882 Jesse James was shot and killed by a member of his own gang. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-JesseJames6.html

1948 Harry Truman signed "the Marshall Plan" allocating 5 billion in aid to 16 European countries. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/georgecmarshall.html

1950 Kurt Julian Weill German composer (Dreigroschenoper), dies at 50 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Weill

1953 TV Guide was published for the first time. . http://hippyhaven.bravehost.com/Highlights%20of%201953.htm . Can you guess who was on the first cover?

1965 Bob Dylan appeared on the pop music chart for the first time with Subterranean Blues http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dylan

1979 Jane Byrne became the first woman elected mayor of Chicago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Byrne

1982 John Chancellor stepped down as anchor of the NBC Nightly news. His replacement was Tom Brokaw http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/N/htmlN/newsnetwork/newsnetwork.htm

1982 UN Security Council demands Argentina's withdrawal from Falkland Islands

Lets see what the CIA has to say http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/fk.html

1990 Sarah Vaughan jazz singer, dies of lung cancer at 66 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/vaughan_s.html

1991 Graham Greene British writer (3rd Man, Our man in Havana), dies at 86 http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/greene.htm

1994 Betty Furness actress/news consumer reporter (WNBC), dies at 78 http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/F/htmlF/furnessbett/furnessbett.htm

1996 Theodore Kaczynski was arrested and accused of being the Unabomber. The smoking gun has letters from media pen pals seeking an interview http://www.thesmokinggun.com/unabomber2/unabomber.html

Birthdays

1783-1859 Washington Irving) was the first American to make A living solely from his writing. To find out his link to the NY Knickerbockers (Knicks) go to www.hudsonvalley.org/education/Background/abt_irving_/abt_irving.html

1898 –1981 George Jessel toastmaster general/entertainer (Diary of Young Comic) http://www.answers.com/topic/george-jessel-actor

1898 – 1967 Henry R Luce Tpublisher (Time, Fortune, Life, 1965 Fisher Award) http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/luce_h.html

1924 - Doris Day Cincinnati OH, "girl next door" actress (Pillow Talk) http://www.meredy.com/daytriv.htm

1924 – 2004 Marlon Brando Omaha NE, actor (Superman, Godfather)http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/brando.html

1934 Jane Goodell’s birthday. If you’re interested in the fate of chimpanzees in Africa go to www.janegoodall.org. for the person http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Goodall

 

That was then, this was now

 

1513 Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed in Florida. http://ma.essortment.com/historyponcede_rmgn.htm

1784 Daylight savings time begins. Originally suggested by Benjamin Franklin in 1784 but not widely adopted until the First World War. www.timeanddate.com/time/aboutdst.html

1792 Congress passed the coinage act which authorized the U.S. Mint. http://www.usmint.gov/about_the_mint/index.cfm?flash=yes&action=fun_facts

1865 Confederate president Davis and most of his cabinet fled the Confederate Capitol of Richmond, Va. http://www.civilwarindex.homestead.com/April.html

1870 Victoria Woodhull is 1st woman to be nominated for US President http://www.victoria-woodhull.com/whoisvw.htm

1872 Samuel F B Morse developer of electric telegraph, (Morse Code) dies at 80 http://www.morsehistoricsite.org/history/morse.html

1877 the first Easter egg hunt was held on the White House lawn. http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bleasterorigins.htm

1917 Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to declare war on Germany. http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/4943

1932 Charles Lindbergh paid $50,000 in ransom for his kidnapped son.http://www.celebritymorgue.com/lindbergh-baby/

1971 Steve Jobs and Wozniak are building and selling "blue boxes" in Southern California. No relation to the "little blue pill". http://www.pbs.org/nerds/timeline/micro.html

1972 Burt Reynolds is featured in Cosmopolitan magazine. http://www.layla.de/maenner/bild12.html

1978 Dallas debuted on CBS .for JR junkies http://www.ultimatedallas.com/news/critic.htm

1982 Argentine troops seized the Falkland Islands from Britain. Resulted in Getting Thatcher re-elected as PM http://www.onwar.com/aced/chrono/c1900s/yr80/ffalkland1982.htm

1984 Georgetown Hoyas coach John Thompson became the first black coach to lead an NCAA team to a college championship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/john_thompson_(basketball_coach)

1987 States began raising the interstate highway speed limit to 65 miles per hour.

1992 Mob boss John Gotti was convicted of murder and racketeering. . http://gangsterinc.tripod.com/John.html

Birthdays

0742 Charlemagne 1st Holy Roman emperor (800-14) http://www.chronique.com/Library/MedHistory/charlemagne.htm

1725 –1798 Casanova writer (erotic hero) http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/casanova.htm

1805-1875 Hans Christian Anderson His Aesop’s Fables can be downloaded at www.pacifnet.net/~Johnr/aesop/aesophca.html.

1840 – 1902 Émile Zola France, novelist (Nana, J'Accuse)http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/ezola.htm

1875 – 1940 Walter Chrysler founded Chrysler car company http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Chrysler

1914 -2000Sir Alec Guinness [de Cuffe] London England, thespian (Colonel Nicholson-Bridge on River Kwai, Obi-Wan Kenobi-Star Wars, George Smiley-Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy) http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000027/

1939-1984 Motown’s Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his father. The Detroit Free Press has an archival piece about his music and complex life. www.freep.com/motownat40/archives/040884mo.htm

1965 Rodney King Sacramento CA, black motorist beaten by Los Angeles cops. Speaking of an accident waiting to happen. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lapd/kingarrests.html

That was then, This was Now.

Does anyone really know what time it is?

It’s April Fool’s day. No one is quite sure. of the origins. http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/aforigin.html In the rural south it was the opportunity for children to tease their teachers. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/today/apr01.html

1748 Ruins of Pompeii found http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pompeii

1789 the U.S. House of Representatives held its first full meeting in NYC.

1826 Samuel Mory allegedly patented the internal combustion engine. Could be an April fools Internet hoax. Here’s a better documented history of the engine. http://www.katylon.com/harisauto/c_1st/1st.htm

1853 Cincinnati became the first U.S. City to salary firefighters. http://www.emergencydispatch.org/articles/historyoffirefighting.html .

1864 The Travelers Insurance Company issues the first travel accident policy to James Batterson. He was also the founder. http://www.oldandsold.com/articles17/insurance-22.shtml .

1876 1st official National League baseball game (Boston-6, Philadelphia-5)http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/1876_NL

1889 1st dishwashing machine marketed (Chicago)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishwasher

1918 the Royal Air Force came into existence. http://www.raf.mod.uk/history/line1780.html

1929 Louie Marx introduces the Yo-Yo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Marx_and_Company

1930 "Blue Angel", starring unknown Marlene Dietrich, premieres in America http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marlene_Dietrich

1931 Pitcher Jackie Mitchell became the first woman to play organized baseball. http://www.exploratorium.edu/baseball/mitchell.html

1933 Nazi Germany began prosecuting Jews .. http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/boycott.htm by boycotting Jewish businesses.

1938 Baseball Hall of Fame opens in Cooperstown NY http://www.baseballhalloffame.org/default.htm

1945 American Forces invade Okinawa. The last major battle of WWII in the Pacific http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/okinawa-battle.htm

1954 US Air Force Academy established http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/usafa.htm

1956 Newscaster Chet Huntley began his career at NBC. http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/H/htmlH/huntleychet/huntleychet.htm

1960 the first weather satellite TRIOS-One was launced from Cape Canaveral. http://www.space.com/news/spacehistory/tiros_anniversary_000330.html

1963 General Hospital premiered on NBC. http://en.wikpedia.org/wiki/general_hospital

1970 President Nixon signed a bill prohibiting cigarette advertising on radio and Television. A tobacco timeline http://www.historian.org/bysubject/tobacco4.htm

1985 George Plimpton wrote in Sports Illustrated about a pitcher named Sid Finch http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/siddfinch.html.

1990 It becomes illegal in Salem OR to be within 2' of nude dancers http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/S49963.htm

1991 Martha Graham US, choreographer (Appalachian Spring), dies at 96 http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/graham_m.html

1995 the house banking scandal broke resulting in 53 resignations. Dick Cheney was accused of overdrawing his account 21 times. That shouldn’t be a problem now as after five years of being CEO of Halliburton it was estimated that Cheney’s 2002 net worth was valued between $19.1 million and $86.4 million. For more on our vice Presidents idea of governmental ethics and the private sector www.issues2000.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Government_Reform.htm

Birthdays

1873-1943 Sergei Rachmaninoff composer http://www.lucidcafe.com/library/96apr/rachmaninoff.html

1908 –1970 Abraham H. Maslow US psychologist (humanistic psychologyhttp://www.maslow.org/sub/bios.htm

1915 –1992 Willy Dixon blues artist (Mellow Down Easy) http://www.rockhall.com/hof/inductee.asp?id=90

1929 Milan Kundera Czechoslovakia, poet/writer (Unbearable Lightness of Being, L'art du Roman, Joke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milan_Kundera

1932 Debbie Reynolds actress (Singin' in the Rain) Princess Leah’s Motherhttp://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001666/

1949 Gill Scott-Heron US, writer/poet/singer (Whities on the Moon)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gil_Scott-Heron

That was Then, This was Now

 

Former Delay Aide pleads guilty.

Tony Rudy was the second former aide to Tom DeLay to go down - the first was Michael Scanlon. But the details in his plea, it looks like he's going to take down a third with him, Ed Buckham. Buckham's name might not be immediately familiar to you now, but it will be if he eventually pleads guilty.