April 13, 2016 Ridley's Believe It Or Not National Scrabble Day

Ridley’s Believe It Or Not For April 13, 2016. Only 282 days to go in President Obama’s pathetic lame duck term. Political theater continues as the RNC is expressing its frustration with Trump’s whining and incompetence in missing procedural deadlines; Hillary is lambasted for a racially insensitive skit and a video that makes her look like a bug-eyed zombie which was almost immediately pulled; Sanders is closing the gap in New York but at a crucial time is leaving the campaign for 48 hours to meet with the Pope and after 15 years before visiting Saudi Arabia, Obama is considering declassifying some 28 pages of a report that may detail the extent of involvement of Saudi Arabia in the 911 attacks. As always, I hope  you enjoy today’s holidays and observances, a music link to the Beatles, factoids of interest, relevant quotes from Owen O’Malley and President Franklin D. Roosevelt, while looking forward to enjoying a dish of peach cobbler, blessed with a positive attitude and  secure in  the knowledge that if you want to find a gift for any memorable events like birthdays, weddings, or  anniversaries, you know that the Alaskanpoet can provide you with a unique customized poem  at a great price  tailored to the event and the recipient. You need only contact me for details.

1. National Scrabble Day—honoring that great board game that stimulate one’s appreciation and knowledge of the language; it was invented in 1938 by Alfred Mosher Butts and is sold in 121 countries using wooden pieces in 29 language versions. Since Ridley's Believe It Or Not-This Day In History is always on the forefront in providing useful information, next time you play Scrabble use “muzjiks” which is a Russian peasant. Here is a link to ten great high scoring Scrabble word winners:  http://mentalfloss.com/article/50090/10-words-will-win-you-any-game-scrabble

2. National Bookmobile Day—celebrating what was for many rural communities before the advent of the internet, the only way to have access to libraries.

3. 1970 Number One Song—celebrating as we today leave the 60’s the number one song in 1970 on a surprisingly brief run of only two weeks in that position Let It Be by the Beatles. Here is a link to the Beatles performing Let It Be: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VoRAZdc85I

4. National Peach Cobbler Day—celebrating a great dessert especially when served ala mode.

5. Fame Can Be Fleeting From Teenager to Adult—celebrating the birthday on this day in 1974 of Jonathan Brandis a teenage movie star who at the height of his popularity was receiving 4000 fan letters a week and had three security guards escorting him to the studio because of female fans but like many young actors found his career on the wane in adulthood and started to excessively drink and hung himself at the age of 27 on November 12, 2003.

On this day in:

a. 1829 the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1820 gave Catholics the right to vote and to be elected to Parliament in Great Britain.         

b. 1870 the New York City Metropolitan Museum of Art was established.            

c. 1902 James C. Penney opened his first store in of all places Kemmerer, Wyoming, probably due to massive coal mining being conducted there which 55 the polio vaccine developed by Jonas Salk was declared safe and effective. 

d. 1943 in further evidence of the barbarity of Joseph Stalin and in complete violation of the Geneva Convention, a mass grave of 22,000 Polish prisoners of war, police officers and intelligentsia was uncovered by retreating Germans in the Katyn Forest near Smolensk, Russia. All the corpses had been shot in the head by the Soviet NKVD in 1940.

e. 2016 Kobe Bryant at age 37 will play his last game of professional basketball today at Staples Pavilion against the Utah Jazz.       

Reflections on this nation’s  and Britain’s cover-up of the massacre of 20,000 Poles on the orders of Joseph Stalin: “We have been obliged to . . . restrain the Poles from putting their case clearly before the public, to discourage any attempts by the public and the press to probe the ugly story to the bottom. We have in fact perforce used the good name of England like the murderers used the conifers to cover up a massacre.”Owen O’Malley, British Ambassador to the Polish government in exile in a May, 1943 letter.

"I am inclined to think that Prime Minister Churchill will find a way of prevailing upon the Polish government in London in the future to act with more common sense," President Franklin D. Roosevelt in a letter to Joseph Stalin after the Polish government in exile was demanding an investigation which Stalin would have no part of. The fact that the Red Army was carrying the laboring oar against the Germans meant ethics and morality was tossed out the window by the U.S. and Great Britain to the detriment of the Poles.  
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© April 13, 2016, Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet 
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