Alright, not gonna give it away just yet. We got to make it a bit of a quiz first and see who can come up with the answer. The name of the bar is also the name of a book that was turned into a movie starring Marlon Brando, seen above. What is it? Post your answer in the comments. Let’s see who can come up with it first (If you already know don’t guess). The new Thursday night quiz starts next week.

UPDATE: Palestra Jon nailed it. Answer is in the comments. More details coming tomorrow.

The Sly Fox Goat Races are this Sunday, and I desperately need to get my hands on a goat. I am determined to compete this year. If you have access to a goat, please email me as soon as possible. Thank you.

I was pretty fascinated by the fact that Jamaicans today speak English because of William Penn’s father (as we learned this week in quizzo), but I was unable to find a lot of information about the English takeover of the island. Apparently, Penn and his crew had tried to attack Hispaniola in 1655 but were repelled, so they had to settle for Jamaica, which was not considered very valuable at the time and was much less heavily fortified. He defeated the Spanish and took over the island, and it remained in English hands until 1962.

Here’s another interesting fact I came across about Penn Sr.:
The origin of grog lies with Vice-Admiral William Penn, father of the founder of Pennsylvania. In 1655, during Penn’s campaign for Cromwell in the Indies, Penn arrived in Barbados and captured Jamaica. Unfortunately Jamaica had few stores of beer or wine. Jamaica did, however, have rum. Penn, therefore, began the use of rum as a ration.

This makes it seem more like Penn introduced the English world to rum than to grog, as the origins of grog don’t date until 1740. So not only did the Penn family give us Pennsylvania, they gave us reggae (if it wasn’t for the William Penn it would be in Spanish, and probably use a bunch of horns) and rum. And is that a baseball bat in his right hand? Did the Penns invent baseball too?

A couple of pretty cool Philly history pieces to look at today.

• First of all, historyofphilly.com has a video that looks at Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession through Philadelphia.
• Secondly, a write up I did yesterday about how booze helped the Philadelphia Athletics win the 1871 baseball pennant.
• Finally, phillyhistory.org has a write up on a couple of spectacular hotels that were in downtown Philly.

From the state that brought us George W. Bush, Jerry Jones, and Vanilla Ice, we now get this: Bill Nye “The Science Guy” was booed in Waco, Texas for suggesting the Moon did not generate its own light, but reflected light from the sun…several people in the audience stormed out, including woman with three small children who shouted, “We believe in God!” and left.

Almost makes you wish the ATF had burned the whole damn town down.