March 30

Well my birthday is one day away and to commemorate I thought I would list some famous things that occurred on my birthday.  FYI I just wrote 3 papers clocking in at 15 pages over the past 2 and 1/2 days so this post may rely more on visual aids then the potent power of my persuasive pen. (haha still got it)  Oh and there will be a quiz.

First Use of Anesthesia in 1842

Question I: Who was the doctor who used anesthesia for the first time?


Treaty of Paris is signed in 1856, ending the Crimean War

The Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava

Question II: Name two of the combatants in the Crimean War. (There are 5 total)


The Queensboro Bridge opens to public traffic in 1909

Question III: What New York Burroughs are linked by the bridge?


The Red Army Captures Vienna in 1945

Red Flag over the Reichstag

Question IV: Name a Russian General from WWII, Stalin does not count.

1972 The Commencement of the Easter Offensive in Vietnam, the first major invasion of the NVA into South

 Vietnam since 1968

Question V: What was the major NVA offensive of 1968 known as?

The attempted assassination of President Reagen in 1981

Question VI: What was the assassins name?


1990 Gordon Szymanski is Born

Question VII: Where was I born?  Japan doesn't count in this case, you have to get the island.  Hint: it was the final battlefield of WWII

Answers Below:

Just a picture to seperate the answers

Answers:

I- Crawford Long

II- (Possible Choices) Britain, France, Ottoman Empire, Sardinia, and Russia

III-Manhattan and Queens

IV-Zhukov, Timeshenko, Kovel, Chuikov, are some of the more famous ones

V-Tet Offensive

VI- John Hinkley Jr

VII- Okinawa

 

Journey's End

Most of you have either read in whole, part, or are familiar with the story of Homer's Odyssey.  You know, Odysseus travels 10 years across the Mediterranean to return home to Ithaca and faithful Penelope, after the end of the Trojan War.   However I'm sure most of you are unfamiliar with what happens to Odysseus after the conclusion of the audience.  Well dear readers this is where I come in.

Odysseus



This is how the tale of Odysseus comes to an end.  During his visit to the underworld, in the events of the Odyssey, Odysseus was given a command by the blind prophet Tiresias to travel far from Ithaca once he had reclaimed his kingdom from the suitors.  He was told to carry an oar with him and not stop until he found a people who did not know what it was.  A few years after the conclusion of the Odyssey, Odysseus traveled inland for a long time before eventually finding a people who had no previous knowledge of an oar.  It was in this distant land, that after instructing the people in the use of an oar, that Odysseus died of old age, far from his family and Ithaca.  Little truth of the Odysseus legend actually exists, but I have always found this to be a fitting end for the weary journeyman of Greek mythology.

From the Odyssey Book 23:

Teiresias ordered me to journey out
to many human cities, carrying
in my hands a well-made oar, till I reacheda people who know nothing of the sea,
who don't put salt on any food they eat,                                         [270]
and have no knowledge of ships painted red,
or well-made oars that serve those ships as wings.                   350
He told me a sure sign I won't conceal—
when someone else runs into me and says
I've got a shovel used for winnowing
on my broad shoulders, he told me to set it
in the ground there, make rich sacrifice                           
to lord Poseidon with a ram, a bull,                                   
and a boar that breeds with sows, then leave,
go home, and there make sacred offerings
to immortal gods who hold wide heaven,                                       [280]
all of them in order.  My death will come                                 360
far from the sea, such a gentle passing,
when I'm bowed down with a ripe old age,
with my people prospering around me.
He said all this would happen to me."