Tuesday OYSTERS

                                    Al's Most Recent

Quote of the day:

“Karate is a form of martial arts in which people with years and years of training, only using their hands and feet, make some of the worst movies in history.”

                                              Dave Barry

Here is a bio of one of the most powerful women in history.

                                   Catherine de Medici

Catherine was born on April 13, 1519 in Florence, Italy. Her father was Florentine ruler Lorenzo de Medici otherwise known as Lorenzo the Magnificent because of his support and fostering of the arts. In 1533 at the age of 14 she married the Duke of Orleans as part of a political arrangement as was done most of the time with the powerful families in Europe. The good Duke became the King of France as Henry II making Catherine the queen of France. Many of the French did not cotton to having and Italian as queen but she stayed anyway. She had little influence in affair of state until Henry II died and soon thereafter her first son and also king as Francis II, died in 1560 leaving her in control of the French government as regent for her younger son Charles IX until he became of age to take control. In 1563 Charles reached the appointed age and became a full-fledged king but Catherine continued to dominate Charles throughout his reign. Catherine saw her role as maintaining royal power at all costs. This girl was ruthless when it came to that as y'all will see. She spent much time and energy trying to maintain a balance of power between the Huguenots, a Protestant group led by military leader Gaspard de Coligny, and the Catholics led by the powerful House of Guise. After the beginning of the religious wars that began in 1562, Catherine was a Roman Catholic but sided with which ever side held sway at any given time. In order to maintain a balance she included her family in her wheeling and dealing. She arranged for her daughter Elizabeth to marry the powerful Roman Catholic king of Spain Phillip II. And then she arranged for another daughter, Margaret, to marry the powerful Protestant ruler Henry of Navarre. You see what she is doing here, maintaining political and religious alliances no matter what it took. Catherine looked on with alarm at the rise in influence the Huguenots were having on her son Charles. Then in 1572 she did the honorable thing by having the Huguenot leader Garpard de Coligny assassinated along with an estimated 50,000 of his followers. This event went down in history as the St. Bartholomew Day Massacre . In 1574 her son Charles the king died and is succeeded by her third son Henry III. Henry III ain’t buying any of this from his Mom and tells Catherine to take a hike that he and only he is in command. Needless to say Catherine’s influence over the French court went down the toilet. Catherine died January 5, 1589 in Blois, France at the age of 70. Catherine like her father, was instrumental in the promotion of the arts what time she wasn’t involved in political intrigue. She added a wing to the famous Louvre museum began construction of the Tuileries Gardens and built the chateau of Monceau. Her personal library and rare manuscripts was and are some of the most treasured in history. She was a patron of the arts in spite of that indiscretion in the St. Bartholomew’s Day thing. She was a powerful influence in the history of Europe but as with most women, don’t threaten their security or they will do something rash.

This Date in History February 9

1942 In the late 1930’s the grandest ocean liner on the planet was built in France and named the Normandie. The ship had a revolutionary hull shape that made it very speedy and was able to cross the Atlantic in four days and was the first ship of that size to be able to do this. After the United States entered WWII in December of 1941, it became apparent that the American commercial fleet had enough ships to carry cargo but virtually no passenger vessels. In those times the luxury liners were English, Scottish or Dutch. England donated the liner Queen Mary to shuttle American troops worldwide. The French liner Normandie was seized while it was in port in New York and renamed the U.S.S. Lafayette. The ship fitters pulled the ship into dry dock and began transforming this ship from a luxury liner to a troop carrier. On this date a welder accidentally set fire to a large pile of life preservers and the fire spread quickly. The fire crews poured water into the ship at an enormous rate and finally the great ship capsized and burned into a lump of unusable steel. The ship was towed to a New Jersey and cut up for scrap. There was a rumor that President Roosevelt told the trade unions on American docks that a strike would not be tolerated for the duration of the war. Some of the more militant Union organizers ordered the Normandie destroyed as a sign that the trade unions would not be told what they could or could not do...but that is just a rumor.

Born today:

1773  President William Henry Harrison. He said “The Government that is the strongest is the one that is the most free”. He also made his hour and a half inauguration speech in sub-freezing weather with no coat on. He died of pneumonia 30 days later.

1865  Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Irish actress. She said “It doesn’t matter what you do in the bedroom as long as you don’t do it in the street and frighten the horses.” Mrs. Campbell must have known my third ex-wife before I did.

1821  Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky. He said “Realists do not fear the results of their study.”

1921  Irish writer Brendan Behan. He said “I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman would not make it worse.”

1945  US actress Mia Farrow. She said “I can match bottoms with anyone in Hollywood.” I don’t know about that, Mia, it looks kind of lean to me.

                 Thanks for listening I can hardly wait until tomorrow