Quiz: Before Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, there was an earlier Golem. Who was that?
Yesterday’s Question answered below: Where is the Kingdom of Shangri-La?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 12/22/2019
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Diocletian 245AD, Josef Stalin- real name Jozef Djugashvili, James Oglethorpe the founder of the State of Georgia, Jean Racine, Giacomo Puccini, Connie Mack, J. Arthur Rank, Ladybird Johnson, Deems Taylor, Jean Michel Basquiat, Barbara Billingsley, Peggy Ashcroft, Emil Sitka, Gene Rayburn, Hector Elizondo, Diane Sawyer, Robin Gibb & Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees, Ralph Fiennes is 57.
HAPPY HANUKKAH ! - Today begins the Hebrew Festival of Lights commemorating the victories in 164BCE of the priest-general Judas Maccabeus (Maccabeus means the Hammer) against the Syrian Greeks when the re-lit lamp in the purified Temple of Solomon burned for eight days on one day’s oil . Hanukah of Chanukah means Rededication.
The ancient state of Israel had been conquered by Babylon then Persia and finally by Alexander the Great. After Alexander's death his Greek generals divided up his empire and Israel found itself on the border between the Syrian Kingdom of Seleucus and Ptolomey's Egypt. This power struggle enabled the Jewish state to reassert it's independence by playing one side against the other until the Romans kicked everyone's butt.
The Greek descendant of Seleucus, Antiochus IV Theos Epiphanes- “God Made Manifest” thought this one-God stuff weird and Jews should be praying to Hercules and Apollo like every other self respecting ancient citizen. He plundered the Temple of Solomon for gold and even tried to command Jews to eat Pork on pain of death.
The Jews reasserted their faith with such vigor that even when they fell under Roman rule Julius Caesar left specific instructions that Jewish customs and Sabbath be protected. So spin a dradle, light the candle, have some Hanukah gelt and enjoy!
1737- Preacher John Wesley, the founder of the Methodists, was chased out of Savannah Georgia. The townspeople thought Pastor Wesley applied the Law of God a bit too harshly. He finally refused to grant an old girlfriend the rights of marriage because she had not been to confession enough in the past three months. This day he took ship back to England before he was arrested.
1807- President Thomas Jefferson was desperately trying to steer a neutral course in the struggle between Britain and Napoleon’s France, each wanted the US to choose their side. This day Congress passed his Embargo Act, cutting off trade with both European powers.
1808- DA-DA-DA- DUMMMM- Beethoven premiered his 5th Symphony.
1849- Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky had been a political radical. On this day the Czar's secret police the Ohkrana broke his spirit by a cruel ruse. They arrested him for treason. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. He was given a last meal, received Last Rites from a priest, blindfolded and stood before a firing squad. But before the guns would go off the squad stopped and his sentence was commuted. He was sent instead to Siberia for four years. This naturally had an adverse effect on his sensitive nature and he spent his final years a raving conservative.
1861- Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) was ordained a deacon in the Church of England.
1882- Thomas Edison introduced the string of electric Christmas Tree lights replacing candles.
1864- General Sherman marching through Georgia, today telegraphed Pres. Lincoln: ” I present you as a Christmas gift, the City of Savannah”. Uncle Billy spared Savannah the depredations his men committed in the rest of the state, many say because he had friends there before the war, but also because he needed a deepwater port for a winter base that the US Navy could supply him from.
1898-THE DREYFUS CASE- Early in 1898 the French Army High Command discovered they had a spy on their staff leaking secrets to Germany. The man was a Colonel Count Esterhazy an aristocrat pretty high up in the chain of command. The Generals worried that news of the scandal would humiliate and weaken the army's prestige. So they looked for a lower ranked scapegoat to pin Esterhazy's crimes on. They chose a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, who was working class and Jewish. They had Dreyfus courts martialed for espionage and treason and exiled to Devil's Island. As his sword and medals were being publicly stripped from him he shouted out loud "Citizens of France ! I am innocent !!"
Dreyfus's family refused to give up hope and brought in the famous author-activist Emile Zola, who uncovered the plot in the news article "J'Accuse !"I accuse. The scandal tore the French military and public opinion apart. Esterhazy fled to Germany and one top general shot himself. In 1906 Dreyfus was cleared of all charges and when the Great War came General Dreyfus was entrusted with the defense of Paris.
The Dreyfus case to French scholars is as contentious as the “Did Thomas Jefferson sleep with his Slaves?” controversy is to Americans. In 1998 on the hundredth anniversary of the Dreyfus Case everyone was still arguing over the interpretation of events.
1921- LENIN'S TESTAMENT- Soviet Russian leader Vladimir Lenin was in failing
health after an assassination attempt and a stroke . He knew of the internal
struggle within the Communist Party between Trotsky and Stalin to succeed
him.
This day he dictated a series of notes spelling out his analysis of the
situation and where he thought the future of the revolution should go. He
felt Stalin was too dangerous to be in charge" Comrade Stalin is devoid of
the most elementary human honesty". So Trotsky should come after him as
leader of the Soviet Union. Lenin called it "Letter to the Party Congress"
because he intended it to be published.
Upon Lenin's death Stalin seized power and made sure this document was never made public. It didn't come out for thirty-three years, until after Stalin’s death in 1953.
1932 – The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund and starring Boris Karloff, Zita Johann, David Manners, Edward Van Sloan and Arthur Byron was released.
1937- The day after the triumphant premiere of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, animator Woolie Reitherman ran into Walt Disney at the studio. Instead of complimenting Woolie and telling him to kick back and relax a bit, Walt launched into a detailed analysis of the problems facing the next picture, and how they need to get started right away!
1938- Memo from Dave Fleischer’s casting director to Paramount rep A.M. Botsford, asking if they might offer the role of Gulliver in Gulliver’s Travels to Gary Cooper!
1940- Nathaniel West, novelist author of Day of the Locust and Miss Lonelyhearts, was killed in a car crash in L.A.
1941-Now that America was officially at war with the Axis, Prime Minister Winston Churchill slipped across U-Boat infested waters to spend a month at the White House planning strategy with Franklin Delano Roosevelt. A White House butler described;" Mr. Churchill awoke to a tumbler of sherry. At noon scotch and sodas, champagne at dinner finished off with 90 year old brandy then light a cigar and begin the day's work- from 9:00 PM- 2:00 AM. Churchill liked to dictate memos from his bath. When Roosevelt was told he could enter the room he was embarrassed and excused himself to leave. Churchill stood up from the tub wearing nothing but soapsuds and the cigar in his teeth and declared: "THE PRIME MINISTER OF GREAT BRITAIN HAS NOTHING TO HIDE FROM THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES !" When a friend later asked Roosevelt what was Churchill like, the President mused: "He's pink...all over."
1944- During the Battle of the Bulge, a German officer was sent under a white flag to Gen. McAulliffe's American troops in Bastogne. His message was “You are surrounded with no hope of relief. Surrender or be annihilated!” General McAuliffe sent him a simple reply:" NUTS!' McAulliffe's force was eventually rescued by Patton. In later years McAullife grew tired of the fame of being the general who said "nuts". At a party a Manhattan socialite once said to him: "It is an honor to meet you, General Nuts".
1951- Yves Montand married Simone Signoret.
1964- In Chicago, Comedian Lenny Bruce was sentenced to four months in prison on obscenity charges. When the arresting officer read aloud his jokes, the jury laughed out loud. Lenny complained about the policeman’s delivery. After Lenny Bruce no one has ever again been convicted in the U.S. for telling jokes.
1973- The 55 miles per hour speed limit was set for all US interstate highways.
1984- Nerdy shopkeeper Bernard Goetz shot four African American men on a NYC subway train. They had asked him for money and one man had a sharpened screwdriver. Goetz had once been robbed before of a liquor store payroll and pushed through a plate glass store window. Two of the men died and one was left paralyzed. Like OJ Simpson ten years later, the Subway Vigilante divided people along racial lines. Was Bernard Goetz a homicidal racist, or a mild man pushed over the brink?
1988- In Brazil ecologist and rubber workers union activist Chico Mendes was shot and killed by plantation owners.
1993- The Hubble Space telescope cost $1.5 billion but it had a flaw. Its lens was ground incorrectly, so it was nearsighted. This day Space Shuttle Endeavour flew into space to fit the Hubble with an optical corrective system called CoStar, in effect, giving it a set of glasses.
2000- The Cohen Bros. Depression Era comedy Oh Brother Where Art Thou? Opened.
2001- THE SHOE BOMBER. Would-be terrorist Richard Reid tried to blow up an American Airlines flight from Rome to Orlando by trying to ignite a substance concealed in his sneakers. He was stopped and beaten to a pulp by his fellow travelers, including a 6’8 pro basketball player returning home from the Italian leagues. Reid is why we all have to take our shoes off in airports now.
===================================================
Yesterday’s Quiz: Where is the Kingdom of Shangri-La?
Answer: Shangri-La was an imaginary secret paradise in the Himalayas invented by James Hilton in his 1933 novel Lost Horizon. It was inspired by the first opening to the outer world in the 1920s of the closed kingdom of Tibet.
President Franklin Roosevelt like the novel so much he named the presidential mountain retreat ShangriLa. President Eisenhower later renamed it Camp David.
No comments:
Post a Comment