Prep Show
News You Can Use
Wednesday February 16, 2011
FAMOUS EVENTS:
| 1741 | BENJAMIN FRANKLIN first published America’s second magazine, The General Magazine and Historical Chronicle. |
| 1804 | Lieutenant STEPHEN DECATUR led a successful raid into Tripoli Harbor to burn the U.S. Navy frigate “Philadelphia,” which had fallen into the hands of pirates. |
| 1857 | The National Deaf Mute College was incorporated in Washington, D.C. It was the first school in the world for advanced education of the deaf. (It was later renamed Gallaudet College.) |
| 1862 | During the Civil War, some 14-thousand Confederate soldiers surrendered at Fort Donelson, Tennessee. (General ULYSSES S. GRANT’S victory earned him the nickname “Unconditional Surrender Grant.”) |
| 1868 | The Jolly Corks organization, in New York City, changed its name to the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks (BPOE). |
| 1883 | Ladies Home Journal began publication. |
| 1914 | The first airplane flight between Los Angeles and San Francisco took place. |
| 1918 | Lithuania proclaimed its independence, which lasted until World War Two (it again declared independence in 1990). |
| 1923 | Archaeologist HOWARD CARTER unsealed the burial chamber of Egyptian KING TUTANKHAMEN. The next day he entered the chamber with several invited guests. (He had originally found the tomb on November 4, 1922.) |
| 1932 | The first fruit tree patent was issued to JAMES E. MARKHAM for a peach tree which ripens later than other varieties. |
| 1937 | Dr. WALLACE H. CAROTHERS received a patent for nylon. Nylon is a strong, elastic, synthetic material made from coal, water and air. It was called the “poor people’s silk.” |
| 1938 | The U.S. Federal Crop Insurance program was authorized. |
| 1942 | SHEP FIELDS and his Orchestra recorded “Jersey Bounce.” |
| 1945 | During World War Two, U.S. troops landed on the island of Corregidor in the Philippines |
| 1946 | The first commercially designed helicopter was tested in Connecticut. |
| 1948 | NBC-TV began airing its first nightly newscast, “The Camel Newsreel Theatre,” which consisted of Fox Movietone newsreels. |
| 1950 | “What’s My Line” premiered on CBS-TV, with moderator JOHN CHARLES DALY. The first panelists were DOROTHY KILGALLEN, former New Jersey governor HAROLD HOFFMAN, LOUIS UNTERMEYER and psychiatrist Dr. RICHARD HOFFAMN. ARLENE FRANCIS made her appearance on the second show. (The show ran until September 3, 1967.) |
| 1959 | FIDEL CASTRO appointed himself as premier of Cuba after the overthrow of President FULGENCIO BATISTA. |
| 1960 | The nuclear-powered radar picket submarine “USS Triton” departed New London, Connecticut, on the first-ever totally submerged circumnavigation by a vessel, a voyage which took nearly three months. (The trip ended on May 10TH.) |
| 1961 | The U.S. launched the “Explorer 9” satellite. |
| 1963 | The Beatles got their first Number One British hit single, “Please, Please Me.” |
| 1964 | The Beatles performed for the second time on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” (They had made their first appearance on the show only a week before.) |
| 1968 | The nation’s first 911 emergency telephone system was inaugurated in Haleyville, Alabama. |
| 1968 | ELVIS PRESLEY received a gold record for his sacred album of hymns, “How Great Thou Art.” (Despite his popularity in the pop music world, Presley won only three Grammy Awards.) |
| 1970 | JOE FRAZIER began his reign as the undefeated heavyweight world champion when he knocked out JIMMY ELLIS in five rounds. (He lost his title on January 22, 1973, when he lost for the first time in his professional career to GEORGE FOREMAN.) |
| 1970 | ELVIS PRESLEY recorded his show at the International Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, for a live album “On Stage.” |
| 1971 | ARETHA FRANKLIN recorded “Spanish Harlem.” |
| 1971 | ALAN DAVID PARASO sued the Rolling Stones charging them with invasion of privacy. The charge stemmed from the footage of a stabbing in the film “Gimme Shelter.” (Pasaro was tried and acquitted for the stabbing death.) |
| 1972 | Los Angeles Lakers basketball great, WILT CHAMBERLAIN, topped the 30-thousand point mark in his career during a game against the Phoenix Suns. |
| 1972 | Singer RICKY NELSON began his first British tour. |
| 1977 | JANANI LUWUM, the Anglican archbishop of Uganda, and two other men were killed in what Ugandan authorities said was an automobile accident. |
| 1978 | The book The Ends of Power was published by former White House Chief-of-Staff, H.R. HALDEMAN, in which he accused his former employer, President RICHARD NIXON, of initiating the Watergate Hotel break-in. |
| 1980 | At the Winter Olympic Games in Lake Placid, New York, American speed skater ERIC HEIDEN captured the second of five gold medals, while the U.S. hockey team defeated Norway, 5-to-1. |
| 1984 | JERRY LEE LEWIS surrendered to federal authorities to answer income tax evasion charges. (He was later acquitted.) |
| 1985 | MURRAY P. HAYDON, a retired autoworker, became the third person to receive a permanent artificial heart as doctors at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, Kentucky, implanted the device. (Haydon lived 488 days with the heart.) |
| 1985 | “Kojak” returned to network television after an absence to seven years with the CBS-TV special, “Kojak: The Belarus File.” |
| 1985 | RAY “BOOM BOOM” MANCINI lost the World Boxing Association lightweight championship crown to LIVINGSTON BRAMBLE. Mancini had been trying to regain the title, but ended up fighting for the last time on this night. (The fighter retired in August, 1985.) |
| 1985 | Coach LEFTY DRIESELL got this 400TH career victory as the University of Maryland defeated Davidson, 65-to-63. |
| 1987 | JOHN DEMJANJUK went on trial in Jerusalem accused of being “Ivan the Terrible,” a guard at the Treblinka concentration camp. (Demjanjuk was convicted, but his conviction ended up being overturned by the Israeli Suprememe Court.) |
| 1988 | Seven people were shot to death during an office rampage in Sunnyvale, California, by a man who was obsessed with a co-worker. (The gunman, RICHARD FARLEY, is under sentence of death.) |
| 1988 | Singer BILLY VERA received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. |
| 1989 | Investigators in Lockerbie, Scotland, said a bomb hidden inside a radio-cassette player was what brought down Pan Am Flight 103 the previous December, killing all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground. |
| 1989 | JAMES BOND, an ornithologist whose name was adopted for the fictional British Agent 007 in IAN FLEMING’S novels, died. |
| 1989 | Bookstores across the country reported brisk sales of The Satanic Verses, a novel by SALMAN RUSHDIE, who became the target of death threats from Moslem fundamentalists who called the book blasphemous. |
| 1990 | Former President RONALD REAGAN began two days of giving videotaped deposition in Los Angeles for the Iran-Contra trial of former national security adviser JOHN POINDEXTER. |
| 1990 | Singer IKE TURNER was sentenced to four years in prison on cocaine charges. |
| 1991 | Iraqi officials charged that 130 civilians were killed when British jet fighters raided the town of Fallouja two days earlier. |
| 1991 | A Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman downplayed Moscow’s initial enthusiasm for an Iraqi offer to withdraw from Kuwait, saying it was insufficient to end the war. |
| 1993 | Prices fell as Wall Street reacted unfavorably to President BILL CLINTON’S economic austerity plan previewed in a White House address the night before. |
| 1993 | At the Brit Awards, a Faces reunion took place. |
| 1994 | DIANE SAWYER signed for 7-million dollars a year with ABC-TV. |
| 1994 | Figure skaters TONYA HARDING and NANCY KERRIGAN encountered eachother at the Winter Olympic Games in Norway before posing for the U.S. team photograph. |
| 1994 | At least 217 people were killed when a powerful earthquake shook Indonesia’s Sumatra island. |
| 1995 | Four people were killed when tornadoes tore through rural north Alabama. |
| 1995 | In a dark and defensive address to his nation, Russian President BORIS YELTSIN berated his military leaders for big losses and human rights abuses in Chechnya, but insisted Russia had to use force to defend its unity. |
| 1996 | 11 people were killed in a fiery collision between an Amtrak passenger train and a Maryland commuter train in Silver Spring, Maryland. |
| 1996 | Former California Governor EDMUND G. “PAT” BROWN died in Beverly Hills, California, at age 90. |
| 1996 | World chess champion GARRY KASPAROV won for the second time against IBM supercomputer “Deep Blue” in the fifth game of their match in Philadelphia (Kasparov had drawn twice and lost once). |
| 1997 | U.S. Representative DAN BURTON (Republican, Indiana), the chairman of the House committee investigating campaign fund-raising activities, told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that his probe would be far broader than originally anticipated. |
| 1998 | A China Airlines Airbus A300-600R trying to land in fog near Taipei, Taiwan, crashed, killing all 196 people on board and six people on the ground. |
| 1998 | Skier HERMANN MAIER of Austria won the Super-G and KATJA SEIZINGER of Germany won the women’s downhill at the Nagano Olympics; Russia’s PASHA GRISHUK and YEGGENY PLATOV won the ice dancing event. |
| 1998 | At the Brit Awards, DANBERT NOBACON (of Chumbawamba) dumped a bucket of ice water on the United Kingdom’s Deputy Prime Minister JOHN PRESCOTT. |
| 1999 | A bomb exploded at the government headquarters in Uzbekistan. Gunfire followed the incident. The event apparently was an attempt on the life of President ISLAM KARIMOV. |
| 1999 | Enraged Kurds seized embassies and held hostages across Europe following Turkey’s arrest of Kurdish rebel leader ABDULLAH OCALAN. |
| 1999 | Testimony began in the Jasper, Texas, trial of JOHN WILLIAM KING. He was charged with murder in the gruesome dragging death of JAMES BYRD JUNIOR. (King was later convicted and sentenced to death.) |
| 1999 | Rap star OL’ DIRTY BASTARD was arrested in Hollywood for allegedly wearing body armor, a forbidden garment because of his previous arrests. ODB was initially pulled over for driving erratically. |
| 2000 | LUCY EDWARDS, a former Bank of New York executive, and her husband, PETER BERLIN, pleaded guilty in federal court in Manhattan to laundering billions of dollars from Russian bankers in one of the biggest such schemes in U.S. history. (The couple was fined, put under house arrest for six months and given suspended sentences.) |
| 2001 | The United States and Britain staged air strikes against radar stations and air defense command centers in Iraq. |
| 2001 | President GEORGE W. BUSH met with Mexican President VINCETNE FOX on the first foreign trip of Bush’s presidency. |
| 2001 | Dr. WILLIAM H. MASTERS, who with his partner and future wife VIRGINIA JOHNSON, pioneered research in the field of human sexuality, died in Tucson, Arizona, at age 85. |
| 2002 | President GEORGE W. BUSH, en route to a three-nation tour of Asia, stopped off at Elmendorf Air Force Base in Alaska, where he told hundreds of cheering U.S. soldiers that “America will not blink” in the fight against terrorism and OSAMA BIN LADEN. |
| 2002 | Authorities in Nobel, Georgia, arrested RAY BRENT MARSH, who’d been operating a crematory where dozens of decomposing corpses were found stacked in storage sheds and scattered in woods behind it. (Marsh later pleaded guilty and is serving a 12-year sentence.) |
| 2002 | Former U.S. Cabinet member and Common Cause founder JOHN W. GARDNER died in Stanford, California, at age 89. |
| 2003 | More than 100-thousand people demonstrated in the streets of San Francisco, California, to protest a possible U.S. invasion of Iraq. |
| 2003 | In Chicago, Illinois, 21 people were killed in a night club after a disturbance on the second floor. The panic that ensued resulted in the trampling. |
| 2003 | MICHAEL WALTRIP raced past leader JIMMIE JOHNSON to win the rainshortened Daytona 500 for the second time in three years. |
| 2003 | ELEANOR “SIS” DALEY, the matriarch of Chicago’s Daley political clan, died at age 95. |
| 2004 | A confident JOHN KERRY launched a full-throttle attack on President GEORGE W. BUSH’S economic policies, mostly ignoring his Democratic rivals on the eve of the Wisconsin primary. |
| 2004 | The Walt Disney Company rejected a takeover bid by Comcast Corporation. |
| 2005 | Israel’s parliament gave the final approval to Prime Minister ARIEL SHARON’S plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements. |
| 2005 | The Kyoto global warming pact went into effect in 140 nations. |
| 2005 | The National Hockey League announced the cancellation of the 2004-2005 season due to a labor dispute. (It was the first time a major sports league in North America lost an entire season to a labor dispute.) |
| 2006 | President GEORGE W. BUSH said he was satisfied with Vice President DICK CHENEY’S explanation about his shooting accident. Texas authorities said they had closed their investigation without filing any charges. |
| 2006 | RENE PREVAL was declared the winner of Haiti’s presidential election. |
| 2006 | Russia’s EVGENI PLUSHENKO beat world champion STEPHANE LAMBEL of Switzerland by an unfathomable 27-point-12 points to win the gold medal in men’s figure skating at the Winter Games in Turin, Italy. |
| 2007 | The Democratic-controlled House issued a symbolic rejection of President GEORGE W. BUSH’S decision to deploy more troops to Iraq, approving the nonbinding resolution by a vote of 246-to-182. |
| 2007 | An Italian judge indicted 25 suspected CIA agents and a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel in the alleged kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect. (The proceedings have been suspected pending a ruling on the Italian government’s request to throw out the indictments.) |
| 2007 | Singer BRITNEY SPEARS shaved her head. |
| 2008 | President GEORGE W. BUSH, on a six-day tour of Africa, made his first stop in Benin before flying on to Tanzania. |
| 2008 | JOHN McCAIN, the presumed Republican presidential nominee, picked up a total of 50 GOP national convention delegates from Michigan and Louisiana, 2008 A car plowed into a group of street-racing fans obscured by a cloud of tire smoke on an isolated Maryland highway, killing eight people. |
| 2009 | The National Hockey League canceled what was left of its decimated schedule after a round of last-gasp negotiations failed to resolve differences over a salary cap which was the flash-point issue that had led to a lockout. |
| 2009 | Israel’s parliament gave the final approval to Prime Minister ARIEL SHARON’S plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip and four West Bank settlements. |
FAMOUS BIRTHDAYS:
| PATTY ANDREWS
Age: 92 (1919) |
Singer With The Group: The Andrew Sisters Song – Rum And Coca-Cola Song – Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy Song – Beer Barrel Polka Song – Apple Blossom Time |
| SONNY BONO
Would Have Been: |
Entertainer / Congressman Born – Salvatore Bono Song – I Got You Babe Song – The Beat Goes On Song – Baby Don’t Go TV Show – The Sonny And Cher Show Was Married To Entertainer Cher Former Mayor of Palm Springs, California |
| JOHN SCHLESSINGER
Would Have Been: |
Film Director Academy Award Winner Movie – Midnight Cowboy Movie – Eye For An Eye |
| JIMMY WAKELY
Would Have Been: |
Country & Western Singer / Actor Song – Slippin’ Around Song – Wedding Bells Appeared In More Than 50 Films As A Western Star |
| HUGH BEAUMONT
Would Have Been: |
Actor TV Show – Leave It To Beaver |
| EDGAR BERGEN
Would Have Been: |
Actor / Ventriloquist Born – Edgar Bergren Academy Award Winner His Sidekick Was Dummy Charlie McCarthy Radio – The Edgar Bergen Show Father Of Actress Candice Bergen |
| WAYNE KING
Would Have Been: |
Bandleader Nicknamed: The Waltz King Song – The Waltz You Saved For Me |
TRIVIA QUESTIONS:
| 1. |
WHAT CONSTELLATION CONTAINS THE TWINS CASTOR AND POLLUX?
Answer: GEMINI |
| 2. |
WHAT 42-TO-1 UNDERDOG KNOCKED OUT MIKE TYSON IN TOKYO, JAPAN, IN 1990?
Answer: BUSTER DOUGLAS |
| 3. |
WHICH AMENDMENT GRANTED WOMEN THE RIGHT TO VOTE IN THE UNITED STATES?
Answer: 19TH AMENDMENT |
| 4. |
WHAT STYLE OF PANTS IS NAMED FOR AN ISLAND IN THE GULF OF NAPLES?
Answer: CAPRI PANTS |
