WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Please donate to keep ReaderRant online to serve political discussion and its members. (Blue Ridge Photography pays the bills for RR).
Welcome to the Reader Rant Roundtable for the week of July 17 - 24, 2011
Events this week in history
July 17
1821 - Spain ceded Florida to the United States. 1898 - Spain surrendered to the United States at Santiago, Cuba, ending the Spanish-American War. 1917 - The British royal family changed its name from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor amid anti-German senitment during World War I. 1938 - "Wrong Way Corrigan" took off from New York, purportedly aiming for California and landing in Ireland. 1945 - President Harry Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill meet at the opening of the Potsdam Conference. 1955 - Disneyland opened in Anaheim, Calif. 1975 - The American Apollo and Soviet Soyuz spacecraft linked up for the first time. 1998 - The last Russian Czar Nicholas II was buried 80 years after he and his family were executed by the Bolsheviks.
July 18 64 - A great fire began that ultimately destroyed most of Rome. The emperor Nero blamed it on Christians and began the first Roman persecution of them. 1925 - The first volume of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf was published. 1936 - The Spanish Civil War began. 1947 - President Harry S. Truman signed the Presidential Succession Act.
July 19 1848 - The first women's rights convention, called by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia C. Mott, was held in Seneca Falls, New York. 1870 - The Franco-Prussian war began. 1941 - Winston Churchill was the first to use the two-finger "V is for Victory" sign. 1966 - Fifty year-old singer Frank Sinatra married 21-year-old actress Mia Farrow. 1984 - Geraldine Ferraro became the first woman nominated for the vice-presidency by a major political party. 1993 - President Clinton announced the "Don't ask, don't tell" policy regarding gays in the military.
July 20 1810 - Colombia declared independence from Spain. 1881 - Fugitive Sioux Indian leader Sitting Bull surrendered to federal troops. 1951 - King Abdullah I of Jordan was assassinated. 1960 - Sirima Bandaranaike of Sri Lanka (then Ceylon) became the world's first woman prime minister. 1969 - Astronaut Neil A. Armstrong was the first man to walk on the Moon. 1985 - Treasure hunters found the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Atocha, which sank off the coast of Key West, Fla., in 1622 during a hurricane. The ship contained over $400 million in coins and silver ingots.
July 21 1861 - Confederate forces won victory at Bull Run in the first major battle of the Civil War. 1873 - The first train robbery west of the Mississippi was pulled off by Jesse James and his gang. 1925 - In the "Monkey Trial," John T. Scopes was found guilty of violating Tennessee state law by teaching evolution. 1949 - The U.S. Senate ratified the North Atlantic Treaty. 1970 - The Aswan High Dam was opened in Egypt. 1998 - Astronaut Alan Shepard died. 2002 - WorldCom filed for bankruptcy, the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history.
July 22 1796 - Cleveland, Ohio, was founded by Gen. Moses Cleaveland. 1933 - Wiley Post became the first person to fly solo around the world. 1934 - John Dillinger was shot to death outside Chicago's Biograph Theater. 1937 - Franklin D. Roosevelt's "court packing" scheme was rejected by the U.S. Senate. 1975 - Congress restored Confederate general Robert E. Lee's U.S. citizenship. 1990 - Greg LeMond won his third Tour de France. A Minnesota native, Lemond was the first American to win the great French cycling race. 2003 - Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Ousay, were killed in a firefight.
July 23 1829 - William Burt patented a forerunner of the typewriter. 1885 - Ulysses S. Grant, the 18th president of the United States, died at Mount McGregor, N.Y., at age 63. 1914 - Austria and Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia after the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, precipitating World War I. 1945 - Vichy government leader Marshal Henri Petain went on trial for treason. 1952 - Revolution erupted in Egypt as the military took power in a bloodless coup. The following year the monarchy was abolished and, for the first time since the pharaohs, Egypt was again ruled by Egyptians. 1995 - The Hale-Bopp comet was discovered by Alan Hale and Thomas Bopp. 1997 - Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was sworn in as president of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
July 24 1847 - Brigham Young and the first members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) arrived at the Great Salt Lake. 1862 - Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States, died in Kinderhook, N.Y. 1866 - Tennessee became the first Confederate state to be readmitted to the Union. 1937 - Charges against five black men accused of raping two white women in the Scottsboro case were dropped. 1974 - The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that President Richard Nixon had to turn over White House tapes to the Watergate special prosecutor. 2002 - Nine coal miners were trapped in a mine in Pennsylvania. All were rescued three days later. 2005 - Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France for a record-breaking seventh time.
I enjoyed the rain forest video and accompanying music, Phil. It's been raining on and off for the past couple of days here in the Panhandle and it's beginning to feel like a rain forest. Noticed something somewhat unusual a few days ago. I saw a bird chasing and pecking at a squirrel. I don't know what transpired, but that squirrel sure pissed the bird off for some reason.
Probably, but what amazed me was how intensely the bird pursued the squirrel. The bird really meant business. Sometimes you'll hear a commotion at the top of one of the tall pine trees when some birds defend their nest from some hungry snake.
' I remember a few summers ago, my pure white Norwegian Forest Cat climbed half-way up to a crow's nest, which made the crow go berserk. I waved a fallen leafy branch at the cat to induce him to climb down, which he did. The result was that, in the crow's dinosaurian brain I became associated with the evil cat, and for the rest of the summer, when I went out into my backyard, the crow swooped down on me, making a ferocious racket----though I was the one who saved its nest ! (no good deed goes unpunished)
The crow, all summer, relentlessly pursued my cat, hanging scant feet above the animal, shrieking endlessly at full volume. My cat, who is stone deaf, was entirely oblivious of the crow, which re-doubled the rage of the crow !
Like almost all of modern life, it was the theater of tha absurd : the cat quietly sniffing some grass, while, just above it, the crow was beside itself with paroxysms of frustration at being so totally ignored.
Rather like some Tea Party members one might be acquainted with? · · · ;)
I've been with the relatives from Ohio-they were out for my father-in-law's 70th birthday. We had a great time. It was held at Sweet Lumpy's BBQ in Temecula. Great food, especially the brisket. The next day, my son had us all down for dinner at his place in Balboa. Wonderful weather, and the beach was fantastic! Parking was a bit tight, but we all overcame that.
milk and Girl Scout cookies ;-)
Save your breath-You may need it to blow up your date.
