Trivia People

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On this date in 1913, the first crossword puzzle was printed in the New York World newspaper.

Here are some things you may not have known about crossword puzzles.

The first puzzle was actually called a word-cross puzzle. It was created by Arthur Wynne, who was a journalist from Liverpool, England. It was based on earlier puzzles, such as the word diamond, but also included many of the features of the modern crossword puzzle, such as black squares to separate some answers. It came to be known as a crossword puzzle early on as a result of a typesetting error.

The New Yorker magazine’s first issue made mention of the large number of puzzle solvers on public transportation and noted that the puzzles had become a fad. The New York Public Library complained that puzzlers were hogging dictionaries that should be used by “legitimate readers.” The New York Times expressed alarm that so many people were wasting so much time with the puzzles. The New Republic magazine reported that the fad was sure to fade away in 1925; it repeated the claim in 1929. In 1930, The New York Times touted the fact that it had never run a crossword puzzle. The Times didn’t run one until 1942; their puzzle is now considered one of the gold standards of the genre.

In the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth countries, the dominant form of crossword is the cryptic crossword. In these, the clue is a word puzzle, which must be solved first before filling in the solution. Roger Squires, who sets these types of puzzles, holds the world record for number of crosswords created. In 2007, he published his 66,666th puzzle, all of which totaled more than 2 million clues.

During World War II, cryptologists at Bletchley Park in England were selected using a crossword competition.

Also during the war, It was also noted that an unusual number of military code words were showing up in puzzles in The Daily Telegraph. In 1942, the French port of Dieppe appeared as an answer the day before an Allied raid on the port. Later, in the run up to D-Day, the words “Utah,” “Omaha,” “Overlord,” “Mulberry,” and “Neptune” were answers. All of them were codewords. The authorities suspected that the words were a form of espionage. An investigation by Britain’s MI5 determined that the puzzle’s creator was a school headmaster, who used answers supplied by his students. The school happened to be located next to an American and Canadian military base where the boys overheard the words.

Our question, who was responsible for introducing the cryptic crossword to the United States in New York magazine?

Today is Armed Forces Day in the Philippines, and Forefathers’ Day in Plymouth, Massachusetts, marking the anniversary of the arrival of the Mayflower. It’s the birthday of actress Jane Fonda, actor Samuel L. Jackson and tennis legend Chris Evert.

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Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossword

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Wynne

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptic_Crossword

Orange County sheriff’s deputies dump illegal booze on March 31, 1932, in Santa Ana, Calif. (Photo from Orange County Archives via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1917, the 18th amendment to the U.S. Constitution passed the Senate and was sent to the states for ratification.

Here are some facts you may not have known about prohibition.

Prohibition was the climax of the temperance movement in the United States. The movement began in earnest just after the American Revolution as people who were accustomed to drinking low-alcoholic beverages like cider transitioned to higher-powered drinks like rum and whiskey without an accompanying reduction in volume consumed.

Along with the increase in alcohol use, public drunkenness, spousal abuse, and unemployment rates increased.

This saw the rise of several temperance movements and organizations, most of which faded away. The one most responsible for the 18th amendment, the Anti-Saloon League, used the politically shrewd technique of not demanding politicians stop drinking, only that they vote in favor of prohibition, with the insinuation that their access to alcohol wouldn’t change much because of their political and business connections.

The 18th Amendment was introduced in the Senate in August 1917. A revised resolution passed the House of Representatives on December 17, 1917, and was passed by the Senate the next day.

The amendment read: “After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all the territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”

However, the amendment did not ban the consumption or possession of alcohol.

Over the course of the next year, 35 states ratified the amendment before Nebraska pushed the amendment past the required 75 percent of states. The only state that never ratified the amendment was Rhode Island. The law went into effect on January 16, 1920.

As the amendment Itself dealt largely in generalities, Congress passed the National Prohibition Act in October 1919 to define the term “intoxicating liquors” and to lay out penalties for violating the law. The Volstead Act defined “intoxicating liquors” as anything more having more than one-half percent alcohol.

The first violation of the Volstead act happened 59 minutes after it went into effect. Six armed men stole $100,000 worth of medicinal whiskey (which was an actual thing) from a freight train in Chicago.

Prohibition turned alcohol distribution into a black-market business, leading to a rise in organized crime centered on booze running. Gangsters like Chicago’s Al Capone rose to prominence, and speakeasies became common.

Prohibition destroyed the American brewing business and crippled the winemaking industry as vineyards replaced wine grapes with juice grapes. Some enterprising vineyard owners sold frozen unfermented grape juice concentrate with the following warning: “After dissolving the brick in a gallon of water, do not place the liquid in a jug away in the cupboard for twenty days, because then it would turn into wine.”

It also hit state governments in the pocketbook. Before prohibition, about 14 percent of taxes were derived from the alcohol business. Franklin Roosevelt ran for president promising to work to repeal prohibition. In March 1933 after winning the election, Roosevelt signed into law the Cullen-Harrison Act,

Richard Jewell testifies before the House Judiciary Committee.

Today is the birthday of Richard Jewell, the security guard who discovered a bomb during the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and was later considered a suspect in the attack.

Here are some things you may not have known about him.

Richard Jewell was born Richard White in 1962 in Danville, Georgia. He was later adopted by his stepfather and took his last name. He worked as a security guard at Piedmont College in Georgia before working in the same capacity at the Centennial Olympic Park during the summer games.

After midnight on July 27, a man, later identified as Eric Rudolph, planted a backpack filled with three pipe bombs and masonry nails under a bench near where a concert was underway.

Jewell discovered the bag, alerted police, and then helped clear people from the area. Thirteen minutes after he discovered the suspicious bag, it detonated killing one woman and injuring more than 100 people. A television cameraman from Turkey died of a heart attack while running to cover the explosion.

Initially Jewell was hailed as a hero for his actions. Four days later, media outlets reported that Jewell was considered a potential suspect. Jewell’s lawyers claimed that the president of Piedmont College called investigators and provided them with false information that cast Jewell in a negative light. The suggested motive painted him as a failed law enforcement officer who planted the bomb to create a situation to make himself look like a hero. The FBI searched his home twice and kept him under 24-hour surveillance. He later took and passed a polygraph test. Three months later, he received a letter from the investigating U.S. Attorney clearing him of any wrongdoing.

Jewell went on to sue Piedmont College, NBC News, the New York Post, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and CNN for libeling him. Each of the defendants settled, with the exception of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. All of the news outlets said they stood by their reporting.

In 1997, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno said the Justice Department owed Jewell an apology and that she regretted the information leak that implicated him.

In 2006, Georgia governor Sonny Perdue honored Jewell for his actions during the attack.

After the Olympics, Jewell worked as a police officer in Pendergrass, Georgia and as a sheriff’s deputy in Meriwether County, Georgia.

He died in 2007, suffering from heart disease, kidney disease and diabetes. He was 44.

In 2003, Eric Rudolph was arrested after seven years on the FBI’s list of ten most wanted fugitives. In 2005, he pleaded guilty to the Olympic Park bombing, as well as bombings at two abortion clinics and a lesbian nightclub. He was sentenced to four life terms.

Our question, Rudolph is being held at the Federal Correctional Complex in Florence, Colorado. What is nickname of the security level at that prison?

Today is National Day in Bhutan, and Wright Brothers Day in the United States. It’s unofficially National Maple Syrup Day. It’s the birthday of Pope Francis, marathoner Paula Radcliffe, and boxer Manny Pacquiao.

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Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Today is probably the birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven, perhaps the most famous of all composers.

Here are some things you may not have known about Beethoven.

He was born in Bonn, in what is now Germany in 1770. At the time, Bonn was part of the Holy Roman Empire.

His grandfather, also named Ludwig van Beethoven, was a prominent singer and musician in Bonn.

The younger Beethoven was baptized on December 17, 1770. No official birth record exists, but newborns were usually baptized the day after they were born, so December 16 is generally accepted as his birthday.

His father was reputed to be a stern music teacher, who would often reduce his son to tears. He also tried to tout his son as a child prodigy, taking a year off his age when promoting the boy’s piano performances.

While still in Bonn,  Beethoven studied under organist Christian Gottlob Neefe. Neefe helped him write his first composition in 1783. That year Beethoven also wrote his first piano sonatas.

Beethoven traveled to Vienna for the first time in 1787, apparently in an attempt to study with the already well-established Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. However, there are varying accounts as to whether Beethoven ever actually met Mozart. Some sources claim Beethoven received a few lessons from the master.

Beethoven returned to Bonn shortly after arriving in Vienna —some say after just two weeks there — to tend to his mother who was dying of tuberculosis. He would not return to Vienna for nearly five years, one year after Mozart’s death.

Around the time he returned to Vienna, Beethoven began studying composition under Joseph Haydn. He made his adult public performance debut three years later, premiering one of his first two piano concertos.

Starting in 1798 he composed his first six string quartets, with the premieres of his first two symphonies following in 1800 and 1803.

In 1799, he began teaching piano to the daughters of Hungarian countess Anna Brunsvik, eventually falling in love with the younger daughter, Josephine. Josephine has been identified as one of the possible intended recipients of Beethoven’s legendary “Immortal Beloved” love letter.

Completed in 1804, his third symphony was the first of what is known as Beethoven’s middle period. Better known as the “Eroica Symphony,” or heroic symphony, it was originally dedicated to Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven rescinded the dedication after Napoleon declared himself emperor of France.

His fifth symphony, completed in 1808, has become one of the best known works of classical music. Known for its distinctive opening, it’s one of many of his works written in C minor.

In 1810, he wrote his Bagatelle No. 25 in A Minor, better known as Fur Elise. It’s unknown who “Elise” from the title was, but the possibilities include Therese Malfatti, to whom Beethoven proposed marriage in 1810, and German soprano Elisabeth Rockel, a friend of Beethoven.

The composer had begun losing his hearing in his late 20s. He had suffered from tinnitus, which is a ringing in the ears. It’s unknown exactly what caused his deafness, but possible causes include typhus, lupus, chronic ear infections and Paget’s disease. His hearing faded gradually until the age of 44 (1814), when he was almost totally deaf.

His late period started just after he had lost his hearing. It is highlighted by his ninth and final symphony and its final movement “Ode to Joy.”

Ludwig van Beethoven died on March 26, 1827 after a lengthy illness. The exact cause of death is unknown, but possibilities include cirrhosis of the liver, hepatitis, diabetes,

John Hammond

Today is the birthday of American music producer and talent scout John Hammond.

Here are a few facts about a man whose career spanned several decades and several genres.

John Hammond was born in New York in 1910, the great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt. As a child, Hammond was drawn to music played by his family’s servants, many of whom were black. On a trip to London in 1923 he saw two jazz shows, which changed how he thought of music.

While attending boarding school in Connecticut, Hammond would make weekly trips into New York to visit jazz clubs. After graduating, he attended Yale for two years before a reoccurring case of jaundice forced him to drop out in 1931.

After Yale, Hammond became the U.S. correspondent for the British music newspaper Melody Maker. That same year he funded a recording by pianist Garland Wilson. Later he started a radio show which was uncommon for the time in featuring black and white jazz musicians.

In 1934 he introduced bandleader Benny Goodman to arranger and pianist Fletcher Henderson. He later helped form Goodman’s band, which also featured vibraphonist Lionel Hampton. In 1933, after joining Columbia Records, he arranged for the first recording by Billie Holliday.

After serving in World War II, Hammond returned to Columbia Records and signed folk singer Pete Seeger and the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin. In 1961, he signed Bob Dylan to Columbia and produced several of his early recordings.

In the 1960s and 70s, he signed Bruce Springsteen and Leonard Cohen to Columbia before retiring in 1975. He didn’t stop scouting talent however and helped Columbia sign guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan in 1983.

Hammond was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. He died in 1987 at the age of 76 after a series of strokes.

Our question, what is the name of Bruce Springsteen’s 1973 debut album?

Map of the disputed Toledo Strip area of what is now Ohio. (Map by Drdpw via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 1836, the Toledo War, a battle between the state of Ohio and the territory of Michigan, ended.

Here are some facts about the largely bloodless battle.

Ohio and Michigan were once part of the Northwest Territory of the United States. When the borders of the territory were created, it was determined that the land would eventually be subdivided into three to five states. The boundary for these states was to be a line drawn through the “southerly bend or extreme of Lake Michigan.” The problem was that the territory was not all that well mapped and when Ohio began the process of becoming a state in 1802, there was confusion over where the northern boundary should be. So the Ohio constitutional framers determined that the border would run slightly northeast to include the entire mouth of the Maumee River at Toledo. Three years later, the U.S. Congress created the Michigan Territory using the original set of boundaries.

In 1816, Congress approved a request for a survey of the line. The Surveyor General of the U.S. at the time was former Ohio governor Edward Tiffin, who instructed his subordinate to survey the line used in the Ohio constitution, rather than the Northwest Territory Ordinance Line. That survey determined that Toledo and the mouth of the Maumee River were completely in Ohio. Michigan then commissioned a survey which was based on the Ordinance Line. It found the border should be south of Toledo.

Tensions increased in 1833 when Michigan sought admission to the union. Congress refused, largely at the behest of the Ohio delegation, because of the dispute over what had come to be known as the Toledo Strip. in 1835, Michigan’s governor, 23-year-old Stevens T. Mason raised a militia and sent it to the disputed area. Ohio governor Robert Lucas responded in kind. Ohio stationed 600 troops in Perrysburg, 10 miles southwest of Toledo, while Michigan’s 1,000 troops occupied Toledo proper. President Andrew Jackson sent representatives to present a compromise. Part of the compromise was allowing the people of the area to choose their government until Congress could formally decide the matter. An election was held under Ohio law. Because of this, Michigan’s Governor Mason ordered the arrest of anyone participating in the election.

In the spring, as a surveying crew from Ohio was marking the border, they came under fire at Phillips Corner and nine Ohioans were taken prisoner. Two months later, the only bloodshed of the war came when a Michigan deputy sheriff entered Toledo to arrest Ohio’s Major Benjamin Stickney. Stickney and his sons scuffled with the deputy before one of the sons stabbed him with a pen knife. This was enough for Ohio’s Governor Lucas, who began looking for ways to end the standoff.

In June 1836, President Jackson signed a bill that would make Michigan a state, but only after ceding the Toledo Strip. In exchange, Michigan would be given the western three-quarters of what is now known as the Upper Peninsula. The Michigan government rejected the offer, as the peninsula was considered worthless.

With the high cost of funding a large militia weighing on the territory’s budget, Michigan found itself on the brink of bankruptcy. The territorial government, realizing that the federal government was about to distribute a $400,000 budget surplus to states, but not territories, finally decided to take the deal and give up the Toledo Strip.

On January 26, 1837, Michigan was admitted to the Union as the 26th state.

The Upper Peninsula proved to be far from worthless. In the 1840s copper and iron deposits were found.

Charles Ponzi was a businessman born in Italy who became known as a swindler for his money scheme. (Image from Boston Library via Wikimedia Commons)

On this date in 2008, Bernard Madoff was arrested and charged with running a $50 billion Ponzi scheme.

Here are some facts about Ponzi schemes, their history and how they work.

A Ponzi scheme is a scam where a person or organization pays returns to investors using funds from new investors, rather than from profit earned by the original investment, otherwise known as robbing Peter to pay Paul.

Charles Ponzi, an Italian con artist, found a loophole in a system which allowed people in foreign countries to prepay for postage for a reply message at the local rate. For instance, if a stamp cost the equivalent of one cent in Italy, but stamps in the U.S. cost four cents, the person in Italy could buy a coupon for a penny, enclose it in a letter and have the recipient redeem the coupon for a four-cent return stamp. Thus, buying an asset at a lower price in one market and selling it in a market where the cost is higher, which is known as arbitrage and is not illegal. He tried to profit from this, but couldn’t make it work.

That didn’t stop him from pretending to continue the postage investment. He formed a company and went looking for investors. In February 1920, Ponzi’s company took in $5,000. By May, he had raked in $420,000. By July he had made millions. As new money was coming it, it was quickly leaving to pay off earlier investors. Ponzi also bought a mansion and other perks of the high life.

However, things were about to go south for Ponzi. A series of articles in the Boston Post questioned the authenticity of Ponzi’s profits. Clarence Barron, the head of Dow Jones and Company noted that for the amount of money Ponzi’s company had invested in postal coupons, more than 160 million of them were required to be in circulation. At the time, only about 27,000 actually were. The stories caused a run on Ponzi’s company and he paid out more than $2 million in three days. On August 11, a story ran in the Post detailing a previous forgery conviction. The next day, knowing that the scam was busted, he surrendered to federal authorities. The scheme brought down six banks and cost his investors about $20 million. Ponzi ended up serving more than 10 years in prison for his scheme and was deported to Italy.

He eventually moved to Brazil, where he died penniless in 1948 at the age of 66.

Closely related to the Ponzi scheme is the pyramid scheme. While it has several things in common with Ponzi schemes, there are some important differences as well. A Ponzi scheme is centered on one person or agency, who deals with all investors. A pyramid scheme recruits other participants who are responsible for recruiting even more participants. Pyramid schemes are built around the specific demand that new money be brought into the scheme or it will collapse; Ponzi schemes are reliant on fraud to attract new investors. Finally, pyramid schemes require an exponentially increasing number of participants to continue; Ponzi schemes can continue largely with reinvestment from existing participants, and a small number of new participants.

Our question: How many years in prison was Bernard Madoff sentenced to for his Ponzi scheme?

Today is International Mountain Day, National Tango Day in Argentina, and Republic Day in Burkina Faso. It’s unofficially National Salesperson’s Day and Lost and Found Day. It’s the birthday of former New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, singer Big Mama Thornton and actress Teri Garr.

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Lutefisk for sale in Norway. (Photo by Flickr user Adam_d via Wikimedia Commons)

We’re talking about lutefisk today.

As someone of Scandinavian descent, who grew up in a town nicknamed Little Norway, lutefisk has been a part of my life since I was born, despite the fact that I’ve only eaten it once.

Lutefisk is a traditional Scandinavian fish dish made with cod or other whitefish.

The cod is soaked in water for the better part of a week, before being soaked in a combination of water and lye for two days. It is then soaked in water for another week or so before being cooked.

During the lye soak, the fish swells and takes on a jelly-like consistency. After all of its various soakings, the fish is baked or steamed until it’s cooked.

In Scandinavia, it is traditionally served with boiled potatoes and green peas, and sometimes horseradish or a white sauce. In the U.S., you’ll see it commonly served with meatballs and lefse, a potato-based flat bread that is similar in appearance to a tortilla.

Because of its gelatinous consistency, lutefisk leftovers must be cleaned off plates immediately or it will become nearly impossible to remove later. Also, stainless steel utensils are recommended as the chemicals in lutefisk will ruin silver.

So, eat up. Or do like I do and skip the lutefisk and fill up on lefse with butter and sugar or cinnamon.

Our question, and no it’s not “what’s wrong with people who eat lutefisk?” The question is: What town calls itself the lutefisk capital of the world?

Today is International Human Rights Day; It’s Constitution Day in Thailand and Alfred Nobel Day in Sweden. Today is unofficially Dewey Decimal System Day. It’s the birthday of poet Emily Dickinson, mathematician Ada Lovelace, and actor Kenneth Branagh.

Song: “Oh, Lutefisk” by Stan Boreson

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Charlie Brown, left, and Linus with Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree from “A Charlie Brown Christmas.” (Image via Wikimedia Commons)

Today is the 50th anniversary of the original airing of “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

Here are some things you may not have known about the animated television special.

The idea for the special came about in April 1965 when television producer Lee Mendelson was trying to sell a documentary on Charles Schulz’s comic strip “Peanuts.” Advertisers and television networks weren’t interested in the documentary, but John Allen of the McCann Erickson advertising agency proposed the idea of a half-hour animated Christmas special to be sponsored by Coca-Cola. Mendelson and Schulz sketched out a basic idea for the special and Mendelson pitched their idea to Coca-Cola five days later. Coke wanted to sponsor the special and air it in early December, which gave them about six months to produce it.

The special was animated by Bill Melendez Productions. Melendez had never worked on a half-hour show before and learned as he went along. It is estimated that the special consists of 13,000 drawings shown at 12 frames per second.

The producers decided to try and use non-actors to voice the roles of Charlie Brown and his schoolmates. Eight-year-old Peter Robbins was cast as Charlie Brown, while Christopher Shea played Linus and Tracy Stratford played Lucy.

The music used in “A Charlie Brown Christmas” is noted for its unusual combination of jazz and Christmas music. The now-well-known “Linus and Lucy” theme and most of the other music was performed by the Vince Guaraldi Trio. The soundtrack album was voted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2007 and was added to the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry in 2012 as a “culturally, historically or aesthetically important” recording.

The finishing touches were put on the special just 10 days before it aired on CBS. Lee Mendelson was concerned with the show’s quality, concerns that were amplified when network executives in New York didn’t like the special either. Animator Bill Melendez was embarrassed after seeing it for the first time, telling his animators, “My golly, we’ve killed it.” However one of the animators, Ed Levitt, told Melendez that it is “the best special you’ll ever make,” and that “this show is going to run for a hundred years.”

The show premiered at 7:30 p.m. on December 9, 1965, and was second in the ratings behind an episode of “Bonanza.” The reviews for the show were unanimously positive, hailing it as “delightfully novel and amusing,” “a yule classic,” and “fascinating and haunting.” One critic called the scene in which Linus quotes from the Bible as “quite simply, the dramatic highlight of the season.” The special won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Children’s Program.

The special ran yearly on CBS until 2000, when ABC bought the rights. It is usually shown twice a year.

Our question, what product faded in popularity after it was portrayed negatively in “A Charlie Brown Christmas”?

Publicity photo of John Lennon and host Tom Snyder from the television program “Tomorrow.” Aired in 1975, this was the last television interview Lennon gave before his death in 1980. (NBC Photo via Wikimedia Commons)

Today marks the 35th anniversary of the death of John Lennon.

Here are some things you may not have known about that horrible day.

John Lennon and Yoko Ono had spent the day participating in a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. Following the photo shoot, Lennon gave a radio interview and then headed to the Record Plant Studio to work on Ono’s song “Walking on Thin Ice.” The couple had released their album “Double Fantasy” three weeks earlier. The album featured the hits “Watching The Wheels,” “Woman,” and “(Just Like) Starting Over.”

On his way out the door of the Dakota apartment building on the west side of New York’s Central Park, Lennon autographed a copy of his latest album for a man waiting outside. The man would later be identified as Mark David Chapman. After working on the song, Ono and Lennon returned to the Dakota where Chapman was waiting in the shadows of the archway entrance to the building. From a distance of about 10 feet, Chapman drew a .38 caliber revolver and fired five times at Lennon. The first shot missed, the second two hit Lennon in the left side of his back and the final two hit him in the left shoulder.

The doorman at the Dakota summoned police, while Chapman dropped his gun and sat down on the sidewalk waiting to be arrested. The police arrived and saw that there wasn’t time to wait for an ambulance, so they rushed Lennon to Roosevelt Hospital in their police car. Lennon was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m. The doctor who tried to resuscitate him later said if Lennon had been shot in same way in the middle of an operating room with a team of surgeons ready to work on him, he still wouldn’t have survived his injuries.

Many Americans heard the news of Lennon’s death during that evening’s “Monday Night Football” game between the New England Patriots and the Miami Dolphins. As the seconds wound down during a tie game, news of Lennon’s death reached announcers Howard Cosell and Frank Gifford. Here is what transpired between the two announcers during a commercial break, from a segment on ESPN’s “Outside the Lines”:

Following the first play after the break, Cosell made the memorable and tragic announcement.

Chapman pleaded guilty to murdering Lennon and was sentenced to 20 years-to-life in prison. He has been denied parole eight times since becoming eligible in 2000.

Lennon and Ono’s album “Double Fantasy” went on to win the Grammy for Album of the Year.

Our question, what is the name of the Central Park memorial to John Lennon?

Today is National Youth Day in Albania and Constitution Day in Romania and Uzbekistan. It’s National Brownie Day and Pretend to Be a Time Traveler Day. It’s the birthday of Mary, Queen of Scots, and singers Sammy Davis Jr., and Jim Morrison.

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