Sunday, August 29, 2010

Answer of the Day
What games do we play 'according to Hoyle'? In 1742, Edmond Hoyle was making some extra money by teaching people to play cards. When he couldn't find a set of rules for the game of whist — a forerunner to bridge — he wrote them himself in A Short Treatise on the Game of Whist. The publication quickly became one of the 18th century's best-selling books. He went on to write rule books on backgammon, piquet, quadrille and chess. Though he is no longer the authority on bridge, backgammon is still played "according to Hoyle." The catchphrase "according to Hoyle" came to signify the final authority on a topic or any official rules. Today, the date of Hoyle's death in 1769, is celebrated as "According to Hoyle" Day.

Quote
"I believe in rules. Sure I do. If there weren't any rules, how could you break them?" — Leo Durocher

Word of the day

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Today's History

Atahualpa

• Atahualpa: last sovereign Incan emperor was garroted by Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizzaro, who thus defeated the Incan Empire and conquered Peru (1533)
• Royal George: some 900 drowned when the ship sank at port; the event was immortalized in William Cowper's "On the Loss of the Royal George" (1782)
• Shay's Rebellion: uprising began in Massachusetts, led by Revolutionary War captain Daniel Shays; farmers were protesting crushing debt and taxes (1786)
• Treaty of Nanking: marked the end of the First Opium War and the ceding of Hong Kong Island to Britain (1842)
• The Beatles: gave their last paid concert, at San Francisco's Candlestick Park, now Monster Park (1966)
• Hurricane Katrina: the costliest natural disaster in US history made landfall in Louisiana and Mississippi, devastating cities, most notably New Orleans (2005)

Today's Birthdays

Michael Jackson

• John Locke (1632-1704): English empiricist philosopher who influenced the American and French revolutions
• Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949): Nobel Prize-winning author; plus, writer Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
• Ingrid Bergman (1915-1982): Oscar-, Emmy- and Tony-award winning actress; and, actors Elliot Gould (72), G.W. Bailey (65), Ray Wise (63), Rebecca DeMornay (49?), Carla Gugino (39), Dante Basco (35) and Lea Michele (24)
• Richard Attenborough (87): director of Gandhi and Cry Freedom; also, directors Preston Sturges (1898-1959), William Friedkin (75) and Joel Schumacher (71)
• John McCain (74): US senator from Arizona
• Michael Jackson (1958-2009): pop megastar; plus, musicians Charlie Parker (1920-1955) and Dinah Washington (1924-1963)