There are many great anecdotes about unexpected meetings between two historical figures. Just in this Trivia Tuesday thread from three years ago, we get to learn about the fact that a young Theodore Roosevelt met Pope Pius IX and many other interesting tidbits.

However, I think no unexpected meeting (and you're all welcome to challenge me on this) is more unexpected than a meeting that took place in New York City in the late 1970s.

Lady Bird Johnson, former First Lady of the United States was having breakfast in the dining room of the New York's Plaza Hotel with Harry Middleton, the director of the LBJ Presidential Library and former speech writer for the now deceased president. This could have been like any other meeting between Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Middleton had it not been for the fact that seated nearby, a group of six men dressed quite strangely were also having breakfast. Two of them didn't look entirely out of place, being dressed as a police officer and a construction worker but seeing as the other men seated around the table were dressed like a biker, a soldier, a cowboy and a Native American, they probably stood out in the dining room.

That's right. This is the story of how Lady Bird Johnson met the Village People.

One of the men (recognized as the leader of the group by Mr. Middleton), Victor Willis, recognized Lady Bird Johnson and walked over to her table where he proceeded to introduce himself and the men he was sitting with as well as to express his admiration of her and ask if she'd agree to take a photo with him and the rest of the group. She agreed, despite having no clue who these men dressed up in funny outfits were, and a picture was taken.

After finding out who they were and what they did for a living, Lady Bird Johnson said: "Well, I wonder if we just made the cover of their next album."

Unfortunately, the photo never surfaced and we can only hope that we can one day gaze upon the glory of this unexpected but amazing encounter.

For all you teachers out there, are you aware of your idiosyncrasies when lecturing? As in, do you know what your students might think is "your thing"? For example, I have a professor who tends to ask a question and regardless of the correctnes of the answer (which more often then not I provide and correctly, ahem ahem), he always goes "Well, no..." and then proceeds to pretty much repeat what the student (ahem) has just said, only in a more confusing way.

Back in 2016, the long-range-planning committee from my museum's board put together a three year plan for the institution. For the most part, they came up with the goals and then assigned them to staff members or other board committees for completion. Because my duties include "as needed", I ended up assigned several things that made me go, well, unless they come to me and tell me to do this explicitly, I'm not focusing on that because I have too many things to do and that's outside of my wheelhouse. One of these things was creating a driving tour for the county. It was never really described to me and I'm still not 100% sure of what they were thinking - my first impression was that it was supposed to involve chartering a bus and driving people around, which is a thing the museum used to do for faraway historical sites and which a couple of people complain that we no longer do.

But then my boss suggested that a list of the other historical societies, for instance, arranged into a driveable order, would fulfill the request. And I discovered The Clio Foundation, which allows you to put historic sites onto a big map and even plot out tours. (It also allows you to create markers for "time capsules", non-historic sites that you have, say, an old photo of, which I plan to use to create a walking tour of our downtown ca. 1900.)

tl;dr I didn't want to do my job but then I found an easy way to do it

How do you all feel about the modern BCE-CE dating system being taught?

Personally, I think it's a stupid change. Before Common Era and Common Era are meaningless terms and the switch is still the birth of Jesus.

I'm not against changing the dating system but we should do it right

This week in music history a piece written by Fanny Mendelssohn, and long attributed to her brother Felix Mendelssohn has been rediscovered and premiered for the first time in a hundred and fifty years under her own name. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/mar/08/fanny-mendelssohn-easter-sonata-premiere-sheila-hayman

Oh - and another thing! Since cutting my hair almost two weeks ago, I've finally managed to get it to be in a proper 1940s/1950s style. I'm extremely proud of this, and I'm sitting here in my wool jumper dress, cardigan held around my shoulders with vintage sweater clips, sipping my tea, very pleased.

This is mostly meant for professional historians, or those with an education in history: Do you edit Wikipedia articles related to your field of study? Why or why not?

I'm a budding board game designer with an interest in making historical simulation games. I'd like to work on a game about a topic that doesn't get much discussion. What are some moments in history or topics that you find fascinating but aren't discussed much? I'm especially interested in the 20th Century, but feel free to give answers from any era.

When did the Franks started thinking of themselves more as a Latin people than a Germanic people?

I'm still relaxing, as my profs haven't gotten back to me yet about my second draft. This week I've been playing a lot of Gravity Rush 2 for the PS4, as well as reading Prof. Timothy Snyder's new book, On Tyranny. I review both here:

https://gunlord500.wordpress.com/2017/03/10/living-the-good-life-episode-24-march-10-2017-gravity-and-tyranny/

Has one one theorized what nations would be liked if there was no colonization?

I'm having trouble understanding the breakup of Yugoslavia, the wars that followed, what the different ethnic groups are and how ethnicity played a part in the Yugoslav wars.

What's a good introduction to the subject?

I read a post about an incident where an army was sent to assassinate Napoleon. In response he put himself in front of the army and dared any man to kill him. No one did and they joined his army. This sounds far fetched. Does anyone know if it had any basis in fact? I quick Google turned up nothing.

During The Troubles, how likely do you think it was that Northern Ireland would actually gain independence?

On the History Of Rome podcast its said the Hun fought the Sassanids in and around modern day Armenia, without real gains. If this is the case how or what did the Sassanids do differently to the Romans, Burgundians etc who crumbled in their wake?

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