TomSito.com - TOM SITO'S BLOG

November 21st, 2009 sat.

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

The first day of CTN Expo was quite nice. Lots of people, reconnecting with lots of old friends. Sat promises to be even bigger. ------------------------------------------------- Question: In the English War of the Roses, which Rose won? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Where does the term come from “ to pull out all the stops”? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/21/2009 Birthdays: Francios Arouet called Voltaire, Marlo Thomas called That Girl, Adolphe Marx called Harpo, Colman Hawkins called Bean, Stan ' The Man' Musial, Tom Horn, Pope Benedict XlV, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Goldie Hawn is 64, Harold Ramis is 65, Ken Griffey Jr, Rene Magritte, Mariel Hemingway, Lorna Luft, Troy Aikman, Bjork is 44 In the Orthodox Church, this is Feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel 1620- THE PILGRIMS LAND AT PLYMOUTH ROCK- Legend has it Mary Chilton and John Alden were the first ones to set foot upon The New World. The English religious sect after first leaving England had lived in Utrecht. But the Dutch couldn't stand them either. They had set sail for Virginia but bad weather had blown them to the coast of Massachusetts. The area they were settling was some of the most densely populated Indian land in North America, but the smallpox spread by preceding European explorers had decimated the tribes, leaving entire villages empty. When the Pilgrims saw this they held a thanksgiving service in honor of: "He who prepares a way for His people by sweeping away the heathen." The Plymouth Rock enshrined in modern Plymouth was identified in 1677 by an elderly survivor of the landing, as the huge rock escarpment they landed on. The city fathers tried to pry it loose but only a little chunk broke off. That’s why the current enshrined Plymouth Rock looks pretty small for a ship to land on. 1718- BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE KILLED. William Teech from Bristol England had served on privateers fighting the French. When the war was over he went into business for himself. He grew a huge black beard, which he tied smoking cannon fuses into the ringlets to scare people. This day two sloops of Royal Marines sent from Virginia colony led by a Lieutenant Maynard RN, boarded Blackbeard’s ship when she ran aground on the coast of North Carolina. The fighting was all hand to hand. Blackbeard f went down after he was shot five times and slashed with cutlasses 25 times. Blackbeard had stationed a black boy with a lit match in the powder magazine, with orders to blow everything to hell the moment the battle was lost, but the boy was killed before he could accomplish his task. After the battle Lt. Maynard found papers proving the Royal Governors of Bermuda and North Carolina were receiving bribes from the pirates for safe harbor. Blackbeard’s head was cut off and hung it from the bowsprit for the trip home. (No one had invented foam dice yet.) They threw the rest of his corpse into the ocean where legend says it swam around the ship once before sinking. Shiver Me Timbers! 1794- Honolulu Harbor discovered by British explorers. 1864- THE BIXBY LETTER- President Abe Lincoln was moved to write a Massachusetts mother upon learning she had lost 5 sons in the Civil War. It is one of the most eloquent examples of presidential prose. “I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.” The original of the letter had never been found. Mrs Bixby was not a Lincoln supporter, and may have destroyed it. It later turned out only two of her sons were killed. Two others were POWs and another a deserter. 1871-The cigar lighter patented by Moses Gale. 1916- During World War One the hospital ship HMS Britanic struck a German mine in the Aegean Sea, and sank killing 30 people. What makes this sinking stand out , is that Britanic was the sister ship of HMS Titanic, that sank in 1912. 1933- Columbia director Frank [...]

November 20th, 2009 friday

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

The CTN Expo opens today in Burbank. Lots of excitement and anticipation. Hope all have a fun weekend! --------------------------------------------- Question: Where does the term come from “ to pull out all the stops”? Yesterday’s Question answered below: If Schubert wrote nine symphonies, why is his 8th called The Unfinished? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ History for 11/20/2009 Birthdays: Robert F. Kennedy, Maya Plisetskaya, Gene Tierney, Dick Smothers, Bo Derek is 53, Sean Young is 43, Richard Dawson, Estelle Parsons, Barbera Hendricks, Duane Allman, Joe Walsh, Chester Gould the creator of Dick Tracy, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis the first baseball commissioner, Alastair Cooke, Senator Robert Byrd is 92, Ming Na 1601-THE GOLDEN SPEECH- Elderly Queen Elizabeth Ist had ruled England for 42 years, a time of unparalleled prosperity and peace. This day the old queen gave her farewell speech to parliament: "Though God has raised Us to the Throne the Glory of Our reign was ruling with the love of my people…… You may have had and may yet have mightier and wiser princes in this seat, but you will never have one who loved you more than I do." Elizabeth died two years later. 1620- Shortly before coming ashore in the New World, The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed by the 24 male Pilgrim settlers "To covenant and combine ourselves into a civile body-politick". 1718- " Fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest, Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum! Even though he knew the British Navy was going to attack him tomorrow, violent buccaneer Blackbeard spent this night drinking and partying with his crew. Someone asked Blackbeard that if he died did his wife know where he had buried his treasure? Blackbeard laughed" No one but me and the Devil himself knows where it is, and the longest liver can have it all!" Blackbeard actually enjoyed being a pirate. In the thickest of hand-to-hand fighting, amidst the blood and mayhem, he could be seen smiling. Ultimate job satisfaction. Another time he made his officers sit with him in a locked cabin with smoldering pots of choking, sulphurous brimstone. He told them as they were all going to Hell anyway, it was time they got used to it. 1752- Death of John Shore, he was the most celebrated trumpet player of his time. Georg Frederich Handel and Henry Purcell wrote music for him, and he was the inventor of the Tuning Fork. 1777- In a speech in the House of Lords, elderly William Pitt the Elder, The Architect of the British Empire, denounced the Lord North’s government policy of trying to put down the American Revolution with military mercenaries bought in Germany." My Lords, you cannot conquer America! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while foreign troops were landed on my soil I would never lay down my arms- never, never, never!" 1783-In Paris Benjamin Franklin is in the crowd watching the first humans go aloft in a balloon designed by the Montgolfier Brothers. For 25 minutes Piastre de Rosier and the Marquis d'Arland flew 500 feet over the Seine, sipping champagne. One member of the crowd sneered, "What good is it?" Franklin turned and said, "What good is a newborn baby?" 1895- Beethoven’s opera Fidelio premiered. He rewrote the overture four times and still wasn’t happy with it. So he rewrote it once more and published the other four as the Leonore Overtures. 1820- In the Pacific Ocean the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was sunk by an enraged sperm whale. The whale's nickname was Mocha-Dick. Only six men survived floating on driftwood for ninety days, resorting to cannibalism before being rescued. This incident is thought to have been one of the inspirations for Herman Melville to write his novel Moby Dick. 1870- "YES , I AM A FREE LOVER!" In a speech in Steinway Hall to 3,000 people feminist Victoria Woodhull shocked polite society by declaring openly her right to her sexual freedom unfettered by law or social custom. That women had the right to own their own bodies. " To Love is a right [...]

November 19th, 2009 thurs

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

FIFTY YEARS AGO !! care of craceonline.com 1959-Happy 50th Birthday Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris & Natasha and the inhabitants of Frosbite Falls Minnesota. Jay Ward's television show 'Rocky and his Friends' debuts. Ward and Bill Scott had been planning the show since 1957. Many of it’s writers like Alan Burns would later help create classic television sitcoms like the Mary Tyler Moore show. --------------------------- Question: If Schubert wrote nine symphonies, why is his 8th called The Unfinished? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What do writers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, American Oliver Wendell Holmes and Russian playwright Anton Chekhov all have in common? ----------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/19/2009 Birthdays: King Charles Ist of England, President James Garfield, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Roy Campanella, Tommy Dorsey, Ted Turner, Calvin Klein, Indira Ghandi, Dick Cavett, Larry King, Kathleen Quinlan, Alan Young -Mr. Ed’s friend, Ahmad Rashad, Allison Janey, Meg Ryan is 48, Jodie Foster is 47, Terry Farrell 1493- On his second voyage to the New World, this day Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Puerto Rico. 1581- Czar Ivan the Terrible got so mad at his eldest son he beat him to death with a mace. Young Ivan tried to stop his dad from beating his pregnant wife, who he thought was wearing immodest garb. In one act of blind rage Ivan extinguished his family dynasty. Clearly Ivan had some anger management issues. 1619- A young French student named Renes Descartes had enlisted in the army of Elector Maximillian of Bavaria to fight the Thirty Years War. Outside of Neuberg one evening he climbed into a stove to keep warm. There he had the first revelation to invent analytical geometry and the mathematical applications of religion. Happens to me every time I climb into a stove, too. “ Cogito, Ergo Sum.” I think, therefore I am.” 1703- The "Man in the Iron Mask" died in the Bastille prison. Louis XIV had him locked up for forty years. He was first mentioned in Voltaire's History of the Age of Louis XIV as having a velvet mask, which writer Alexandre Dumas changed to iron for dramatic effect. No one ever discovered who he was or why his face was covered. Speculation was that he was everyone from an Italian diplomat, to the son of Oliver Cromwell, to a twin brother of King Louis XIV himself. It made for great literature but he remains a mystery. 1828- Composer Franz Schubert died of complications of gonnorrea at age 31. 1863- THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS-At the dedication of the soldiers cemetery on the Gettysburg battlefield, the crowd watched Rev. Edward Everett, a famous abolitionist, deliver a fiery two hour speech. Then President Abraham Lincoln stood up and in just two minutes delivered the most famous speech in U.S. History. "Forescore and Seven years ago Our Forefathers set Forth....And Government Of the People, By the People and For the People Shall Not Perish from the Earth. " The crowd was polite but indifferent. The Times of London correspondent thought it "vague and uninspiring". Lincoln himself told his aide: "Lehman, that speech won't scowl !" meaning a plow blade that's too dull to cut. But Rev Everett was inspired “Mr. President, you said in two minutes much more than I did in two hours.” Contrary to legend Lincoln didn’t write it quickly on the back of an envelope, he worked long on his speeches and was seen doing corrections up to the last minute. There are three pencil copies of the speech still in existence. The photographer at the scene was still setting up his equipment when the brief speech ended and Lincoln started to sit down. He opened his shutter in time to get a blurry view of Lincoln's head in the crowd. 1903- Suffragette Carrie Nation tried to address the US Senate to plead for women’s voting rights and alcohol prohibition. She was barred admittance. 1915- I DREAMED I SAW JOE HILL LAST NIGHT.... Joe Hill executed in Utah- Swedish Immigrant Josef Hilstrom was a [...]

November 18th, 2009 weds

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What do writers Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, American Oliver Wendell Holmes and Russian playwright Anton Chekhov all have in common? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Studio heads Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner were called Movie Moguls. What is a Mogul? ---------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/18/2009 Birthdays: Armelita Galli-Curci, Karl Maria Von Weber, W.S. Gilbert, Johnny Mercer, Astronaut Alan Shepard, Louis Daguerre, Brenda Vaccarro, Eugene Ormandy, George Gallup, Warren Moon, Pam Dawber, Rocket Ishmail, Owen Wilson is 41 Chloe Servigny is 35 500 A.D.- Today is the Feast day of the Irish Saint Mawes, who was born in a barrel floating in the sea. It’s hand drawn animation day! See below- 1928. 1421-In Holland a dyke holding back the Zuyder Zee River gave way and the ensuing flood killed 10,000. 1602- In Transylvania, 22 year old English soldier of fortune John Smith killed three Turkish warriors in single combat. Such single matches were normal before a large battle. The Voivode or Duke of Transylvania, Sigmund Bathory, granted the commoner Smith his own coat of arms, with three Turkish heads. This is the same John Smith who will go to Virginia and meet Pocahontas in 1607. 1718- Francois Voltaire’s first major work, the play Oedipe, premiered in Paris. 1863- Abraham Lincoln boarded a train to Gettysburg to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” to dedicate the new national cemetery there. 1865 Mark Twain's first story "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' published. 1902- THE TEDDY BEAR BORN-The Washington Evening Star published a story of how President Teddy Roosevelt while hunting couldn't bring himself to shoot a grizzly bear cub. Cartoonist Cliff Berryman illustrated the incident with one of his signature “dingbat” bear cubs in a gesture of “oh no!” Brooklyn toymaker Morris Mitchcom sewed a doll from the illustration in the newspaper and sent the first one to the White House. 1928- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICKEY MOUSE- At the Colony Theater in New York Walt Disney’s cartoon "Steamboat Willie" debuted- The first major sound cartoon success and the official birth of Mickey Mouse. Two earlier silent Mickey's had been done, but they were held back when the sound experiment went ahead. 1942-The KEYES RAID- The British army in North Africa had had enough of their German adversary Rommel the Desert Fox, so they sent a suicide commando mission to the Afrika Korps HQ just to kill him. Desert warfare was so porous the front lines were virtually non-existent. Unfortunately, Rommel was far away in Rome the night 50 British and Australian commandos shot up his offices. 1953- Singer Frank Sinatra had been having trouble with his sputtering career and his crumbling marriage to screen sex goddess Ava Gardner. This day songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen found Old Blue Eyes on his bathroom floor with his wrists slashed. Heusen bound his wounds then called his agent rather than the police. Sinatra recovered and soon his career revived and he had a new marriage. His subsequent rough use of women afterwards, calling them “broads” and using and discarding them, may have come as a reaction to his rough treatment in the soft hands of La Gardner. 1963-The first push button telephones go into service. 1964- In a public statement to the press FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called Dr. Martin Luther King “The most notorious liar in the country!” This in response to the criticism Dr. King made that the FBI wasn’t trying hard enough to track down the murderers of civil rights workers. Hoover always believed Dr. King and the whole NAACP were communists. 1978- JONESTOWN- After visiting U.S. congressman Leo Ryan and his party were murdered, 912 American members of the Rev. Jim Jones cult in Jonestown Guiana commit suicide, many drinking from tubs of Kool Aid, spiked with cyanide. 1985- Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin & Hobbs debuted. ------------------------------------------[...]

November 17th, 2009 tues.

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Studio heads Louis B. Mayer and Jack Warner were called Movie Moguls. What is a Mogul? Question: director Cecil B. DeMille made great movies like the Ten Commandments and Cleopatra. Which one of his films earned him a Best Director Oscar ? ---------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/17/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vespasian 9 A.D, Il Bronzino, August Ferdinand Mobius-1790 the inventor of the Mobius Strip. General Bernard Montgomery, Rock Hudson, Danny DeVito, Peter Cook, Lorne Michaels, Isamu Noguchi, Lauren Hutton, Tom Seaver, Gordon Lightfoot, Les Clark, Lee Strassberg, Shelby Foote, Sophie Marceau, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Martin Scorcese is 66 1796- Russian Czarina Catherine the Great died at 67 years old of a stroke on the toilet, not crushed by trying to copulate with a horse as some scandalous rumors alleged. 1800- Following President Adams from their cozy homes in Philadelphia, Congress sulkily convenes for the first time in the half-finished Congress in the new Federal City. It was already being called Washington City D.C.. It was still mostly a damp muddy Virginia swamp. The only buildings up in operation were Congress, the Presidents Mansion and Conrads Tavern. Many complained that city planners Pierre L’Enfant and Benjamin Banocker had made the main avenues too big, that there will never be enough carriages and wagons to fill these roads. This first Congressional session couldn’t accomplish much, because there were not enough members present to make a quorum. 1858- A Pennsylvania businessman named William Larimer founded a new town at the foot of the Rockies called Denver. 1869- The Suez Canal opened. The opera "Aida" was commissioned to be premiered for this occasion but Verdi missed his deadline by ten years. 1876- Peter Tchaikovsky’s musical rhapsody the Marche Slav premiered. 1891- Polish pianist Ignaz Paderewski made his American debut at Carnegie Hall. Paderewski created the cliché image of the temperamental classical music master with long flowing hair combed straight back. Classical music became known as longhair music. 1934- LBJ marries LadyBird . For you born after the 60's, President Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor whom he nicknamed LadyBird Johnson. Their daughters were LucyBird and LindaBird, so everyone in the family had the initials LBJ. 1941- Ernst Udet was a top World War One flying ace who was convinced by Herman Goring into helping build the Nazis Luftwaffe. He was responsible for developing the Stuka dive bomber and it’s screaming vertical attack. But his conscience was troubled. One of the old First War Gallant Knights of the Air, he was depressed by the terror bombing of civilians and genocide his inventions were being used for. Sinking into drink and drugs, he finally shot himself. His last dinner that night he spoke of his adventures as a young ace with Von Richtofen the Red Baron, interspersing it with “Ahh, we were decent men then…” 1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi". The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies? So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So to this day on television no matter how dull a football game is, it is seen to its completion. 1973- In a television address to the nation about the expanding Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon uttered the famous phrase:” People want to know if their president is a crook, well, I am not a crook!” 1978- Our world was rocked by a disturbance in The Force more calamitous than the destructio[...]

November 16th, 2009 monday

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: director Cecil B. DeMille made great movies like the Ten Commandments and Cleopatra. Which one of his films earned him a Best Director Oscar ? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, Mahler wrote ten. Who wrote 106 symphonies? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/16/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Tiberius, Paul Hindemith, George S. Kaufmann, W.C. Handy, Burgess Meredith, Daws Butler, Bob Watson, Zina Garrison, Dwight Gooden, Maggie Gylenhall is 32 HAPPY SADIE HAWKINS DAY! Fictional hillbilly race made famous by Al Kapp in his comic strip Little Abner. Don’ jes Stand by Yer Man, ketch him! 1532- THE MASSACRE OF CAJAMARCA- with promises of peace talks, Francisco Pizzarro tricked the Inca Emperor Athahualpa and his court into a narrow corral apart from their massive army. The monk Fra Francisco Valverde gave a bible to the Great Inca, declaring 'this is the voice of the Living God!" Athahualpa, who had never seen a book or European writing before, examined it a minute. "It says nothing to me" he said, and dropped it in the dust. Fra Valverde signaled and the Spaniards rushed out from all sides, slaughtering 9,000. Athahualpa was captured and later executed. Fra Valverde became Archbishop of Lima, supervised the destruction of much of Inca culture, finally was finally eaten by cannibals. 1632- BATTLE OF LUTZEN- Largest battle of the Thirty Years War, the great conflict where Protestant and Catholic countries chose up sides and battled for the dominance of Europe. The Catholic German-Spanish army of Archduke Wallenstein and the Protestant German-Swedes and of King Gustavus Adolphus pound each other all day. Gustavus had been shot out of his saddle while leading an attack and surrounded by Croat cavalry. Recognizing a leader they said:" Who are you? Gustavus answered:" I am the King of Sweden, who do seal the religion and freedom of all Germany with my blood!" Thereupon the Croats obligingly stabbed him to death. Duke Bernard of Saxe-Weimar assumed command and the revengeful Swedes swept all from their path. After the battle ,Wallenstein continued to lead the German Emperor's armies until his boss the Emperor assassinated him. The Thirty Years War continued until Catholic France joined the Protestant side, the Protestant Germans fought the Protestant Swedes, and everyone who started it died. Soon nobody could remember what it was all about to begin with. 1776-THE FIRST SALUTE -The U.S.N. Andrea Doria - not the famous Italian ocean liner but a US brig of war- entered the harbor of Saint Eustachius in the Dutch West Indies. It was a trading center that today we would call an international arms market. When the Andea Doria fired the customary salvo saluting her host's flag the Governor Johannes DeGraff returned the salute to the Stars and Stripes. So in effect Holland became the first nation to recognize the United States of America as an independent country. 1776- FORT WASHINGTON- When George Washington’s army was driven out of New York City, a rearguard force stayed behind to hold back the British advance. They fortified themselves in Fort Washington, a little stronghold in the wild country of North Manhattan approximately where the George Washington Bridge now is. When called upon to surrender, Colonel Magaw refused, saying that Americans had "joined to fight in the most glorious cause mankind has ever known!" After three months of holding off superior British forces, this day Fort Washington fell. 3,000 Yankees surrendered to Hessian General Knyphausen. General Washington was criticized for indecisiveness over whether to evacuate the forts defenders until it was too late. Today for some strange reason the park where the fort stood is named Fort Tryon Park, after the Tory governor of New York who was so hated by the populace he had to administer his colony from a British w[...]

CTN EXPO PANEL

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

At the CTN EXPO this Sunday at 1:00PM, I'll be hosting a panel entitled ZEROES & ONES. It's a look back at CGI's beginnings as seen by those pioneers who developed it. Sort of a What-Did-You-Do-In-The-Digital-Revolution, Daddy?


My guests- PHILIPPE BERGERON who created early character anim TONY DEPELTRIE at the
Univ of Montreal in 1986, LANCE WILLIAMS who was at NY Tech in the 70s and wrote THE WORKS, as well as at ILM, Disney and Dreamworks; TAD GIELOW of Disney's GREAT MOUSE DETECTIVE Big Ben clockworks; and RANDY CARTWRIGHT a traditionally trained animator who got interested in computers in the early 80s during TRON and the WILD THINGS ARE Disney test.
Other CGI trailblazers promise to drop in to join the discussion.

Watch us spin yarns of Days of Yore, When Men were Men, Women were Women and Rasters were Jaggy!

http://www.ctnanimationexpo.com
--------------------------------
I'm also premiering a retrospective of the films of Animation Educators for the Animation Educators Forum. It's entitled Those Who Teach-Do!
Featuring the works of John Canemaker of NYU, Christine Panushka of USC, Vibeke Sorensen of Nayang Univ of Singapore and many more. It will run concurrently all during the Expo.

Posted by:Tom

November 15th, 2009 sun

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Beethoven wrote nine symphonies, Mahler wrote ten. Who wrote 106 symphonies? Yesterday’s Question answered below: When Albert Brooks ( Marlin the clownfish in Finding Nemo) began his acting career, the first thing he had to do was change his name. What was his name at birth? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/15/2009 B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Irvin Rommel the "Desert Fox", Avrial Harriman, Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Elder, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo, Mantovanni, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson, Otis Armstrong, Petula Clark 64 AD-THE ROMAN EMPIRE OUTLAWS CHRISTIANITY- It's hard to believe today but the Roman Empire was proud of it's religious toleration. There was a harmony to the pagan world, A Goth knew his god Odin or Wotan was called Jove in Rome and Zeus in Athens and Mithra in Persia. So the Judeo-Christian concept of One God exclusively and everybody else’s gods were demons just didn't quite fit in. The only other religion persecuted as vigorously as Christianity was the Druids, but that was because the Druids preached constant rebellion to Roman rule. The Romans dispersed the Jews as a nation, but Julius Caesar left strict laws about never violating Jewish dietary or Sabbath Laws. Even Caligula backed down from trying to put a statue of himself in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. Anti-Semites claim Messalina the wife of Nero was a Jewish convert and convinced her husband to ban the Christian cult, but the answer goes deeper than that. Secrecy and fear of its’ alien practices bred suspicion that would last 300 years. 1532- After marching his Spanish conquistadors for six months through steaming jungles and over tall mountains Francisco Pizarro reached the border of the mysterious Inca Empire. At the little border town of Cajamarca his 200 men suddenly found themselves face to face with 40,000 Inca warriors. The Imperial Inca Army was outfitted in gold and “they shined like the sun!” 1754- First use of the modern trombone. It was played at a child's funeral. 1828- Author Victor Hugo signs contracts with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result. 1860- Shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president a large meteor was seen in the skies over the Eastern U.S. Most took this as a bad omen of troubles to come. 1864- SHERMAN BURNS ATLANTA- Atlanta was the economic center of the South, an enormous depot far from the front with railroad tracks linking all the coastal ports. William Tecumseh Sherman was the first modern general. He understood the Civil War was a war of peoples, outmaneuvering armies for temporary strategic gains wouldn’t decide it. He drove out the civilian population of the city and torched it. He called his tactics 'Hard War" but today we call it 'Total War" Sherman had an army band serenaded him beneath his window playing the "Miserere'" from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", while he observed the burning, impatiently chewing on an unlit cigar. A high strung asthmatic, he had had a nervous breakdown at the start of the war and had once tried to dye his bright red hair but it turned green. The next day Sherman began his epic March to the Sea. Not with green hair. 1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals. 1920- The League of Nations held it’s first meeting in Geneva. 1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooks up 20 cities for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan. 1934- Animator Bill Tytla starts at Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy [...]

November 14th, 2009 sat

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: When Albert Brooks ( Marlin the clownfish in Finding Nemo) began his acting career, the first thing he had to do was change his name. What was his name at birth? Yesterday’s Question answered below:In the Middle Ages, where would you go to meet The Venerable Bede? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/14/2009 Birthdays: Robert Fulton, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Claude Monet, Aaron Copeland, McClean Stevenson, Jarahwahal Nehru, Mamie Eisenhower, Brian Keith, Louise Brooks, Ellis Marsalis, Harrison Salisbury, Dr. Condoleeza Rice, Yanni, P.J. O'Rourke, George Petrovic' called KaraGeorge "Black George" Serbian nationalist -1762, Astrid Lungren the creator of Pippi Longstockings, Prince Charles is 61 1805- Napoleon’s French Army entered Vienna. Composer Ludwig Van Beethoven had dedicated his Symphony #3 Eroica to him when he considered Bonaparte a force for human rights, but after Napoleon became an emperor he angrily crossed it out. “So, he is just a man after all!” Now ironically with all the Austrian society run out of town Beethoven was forced to premiere his symphony to an audience of French army officers. 1851- Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick, or the Whale” was first published in the U.S. by Harper & Row. Melville in part was inspired by a report of a whale named Mocha-Dick who had sunk seven ships off the coast of Java and a New Bedford whaling ship Nantucket that was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in 1839. For the famous author of Typoo and Billy Budd, Moby Dick was a critical and financial disaster. What's now considered one of the greatest works of American literature was ridiculed in its time. Melville, broken in spirit, sank into obscurity and finished his life as a customs agent for the Port of New York. When he died, he was so forgotten the New York Times misspelled his name in it's obituary. Today his great-great grandson Moby is a rock star. 1875- British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and banker Sir Lionel Rothschild had lunch. Their brandy and Stilton was interrupted by an agent with the secret message that the Khedive of Egypt needed money and was willing to sell the unfinished Suez Canal zone to England. But Disraeli had to get the money on the spot. Disraeli knew Parliament was out of session and probably wouldn't agree to the sum anyway. "Well, how much do you need?" Rothschild asked. Disraeli replied "Four million Pounds Sterling" ( $44 million in modern money ). "No Problem"quote Sir Lionel. So Rothschild lent the Crown the money on the spot and the Suez canal was built and maintained by Britain until 1956. 1883- London’s World newspaper printed an exchange of telegrams between writer Oscar Wilde and painter James MacNeil Whistler. “ When you and I are together we never talk about anything but ourselves.”-Wilde. Whistler:” No, no, Oscar. When you and I are together we never talk about anything except me.” 1889- Inspired by Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days, New York World reporter Nellie Bly real name Elizabeth Cochrane, set out to travel the world in the declared time. She did it in 72 days. 1921- Winston Churchill told his political constituents that so far the "Twentieth Century has been a terrible disappointment." Just wait, Winnie, you ain't see nothing yet. 1922- Happy Birthday B.B.C.! the British Broadcasting Companies first regular radio service 2LO goes on the air with general election results. 1937- SPAM introduced! Shoulder-Pork And something else. 1942- THE SULLIVAN BROTHERS- Five brothers of one Iowa family all enlisted in the Navy and were all posted on the same ship –the USS Juneau. All five were killed when the Juneau went down in action off Guadalcanal wiping out the family. After the Sullivan Brothers incident laws were passed that US Sele[...]

November 13, 2009 fri

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: In the Middle Ages, where would you go to meet The Venerable Bede? Question: What is the snack food called Crisps in England, known as in the USA..?------------------------------------------------------ History for 11/13/2009 Birthdays: Saint Augustine 354 AD, King Edward III of England, Robert Louis Stephenson, Edwin Booth, Oskar Werner, Jean Seberg, Whoopi Goldberg- real name Karen Johnson, Erte'*, Jack Elam, Judge Louis Brandeis, Eugene Ionesco, Garry Marshall is 75, Mel Stottlemyre, Joe Mantegna is 62, Jimmy Kimmel is 42, Gerald Butler is 40 Happy Friday the 13th! Because Judas Iscariot was considered the 13th Apostle, and Loki the Norse god of tricks the 13th god, 13 was considered bad luck when coupled with the same day Good Friday occurred. • Erte’ the great art deco designer was from a very old Russian military family. Their names were the Tschichagoffs. A Tschitchagoff had fought Napoleon in 1812 and all had been generals and admirals under the Tsar. But young little Emelyan Tschitchagov didn’t want to be an admiral or general, he wanted to design ladies clothes! So he moved to Paris to seek his fortune. When there, impresario Serge Diaghilev suggested he change his name to something non-Russians could pronounce, he gave the same advice to Gyorgi Balanchivadze- or George Balanchine. So Emelyan Tschichakov adopted as his name his initials E.T. - in French "Erte’". In Ancient Rome, today was Epulium Jovis, or the Feast of Jupiter Reclining. In London it is Lord Mayor’s Day 1749- The University of Pennsylvania, originally called the Franklin Institute is established as the first non-sectarian American college. See below**. 1789- Ben Franklin wrote " Nothing is certain except Death and Taxes." 1842- Lewis Carroll noted in his diary today:" Began writing the fairy tale of Alice. Hope to be done by Christmas.." 1861- THE TRENT AFFAIR- All through the American Civil War, Abe Lincoln's biggest fear, and Jefferson Davis’ greatest hope, was direct intervention of the great European powers. With England in Canada and France in Mexico and the British Navy ruling the seas this was a real possibility. The British and French thought nothing of intervening in conflicts all over the world like the Greek Revolution or the war between Argentina and Uruguay. Almost as soon as the guns of Fort Sumter boomed, Emperor Napoleon III of France and the German Elector of Baden were offering their services as mediators. On this day a U.S. Navy frigate fired on the British ship HMS Trent and removed from her two Confederate diplomats. Mason and Slidell were being sent as ambassadors to the Court of Saint James. They claimed diplomatic immunity, the U.S. said they were citizen in rebellion. London reacted to the insult to her flag with an explosion of war talk. General Garnet Woolsey volunteered to raise new regiments for an invasion of New York State via Canada. Lincoln's reaction was "One War at a time." He apologized and offered reparations. On the other side Prince Albert helped keep the peace. 1868- Giacomo Rossini died at 68. He retired at 37 from performing and lived on royalties. It was said he became so lazy he laid about in bed all day. One day when writing a concerto his score dropped to the floor as he leaned over to fill his glass. Rather than bend down to pick it up he took a fresh sheet and wrote a sonata. 1874 -At the sesquicentennial celebrations of the University of Pennsylvania Robert Green invented the Ice Cream Soda. 1914- Clothing designer Carez Crosby took two handkerchiefs and some ribbon off some baby bonnets and invented the Brassiere. 1917- THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR- After Lenin’s Communist Party seized power in Saint Petersburg disaffected officers and businessmen fled to the edges of the Russian Empire to organize resistance to th[...]

November 12, 2009 thurs

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is the snack food called Crisps in England, known as in the USA..? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who was the crazy king who stood in the surf, and tried to command the tide to turn back? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/12/2009 Birthdays: Auguste Rodin, Dr. Sun Yat Sen, Bahi-ullah 1817 founder of the Bahii faith, Elizabeth Cadie -Stanton, Cecil B. DeMille, Grace Kelly, Edward G. Robinson, Jack Oakie, Kim Hunter, Shamus Culhane, Charles Manson, Neil Young, Edvard Munch, Nadia Comenici, Tanya Harding, Dave Brain, Megan Mullally is 51, Anne Hathaway is 27 1035- Canute the Great died. He was the Viking King of Denmark and England simultaneously. It was Canute who once tried to command the ocean tide to go out. He got his feet wet. 1792- The Revolutionary French Republic issued a declaration that any other European kingdom that wants to overthrow their king and chop his head off, is welcome to come join the fun and France will help. 1859- The first trapeze act was demonstrated at the Cirque Napoleon in Paris. The act caused such a sensation that the daredevil was immortalized by his tights becoming a fashion named in his honor- Jules Leotard. 1861- THE CURRAUGH CAMP AFFAIR- When 20 year old Edward the Prince of Wales went to Oxford he was kept on a short leash by his worried parents Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They expected his college life to be- well, Victorian. He was to reside off campus, limited his diet to bland foods and seltzer water and absolutely no smoking or carousing with women! This draconian regimen only stiffened Bertie’s rebellious nature. When allowed to attend maneuvers in Ireland and bunk with a company of hard drinking cavalry officers he was at last free to go wild. By unfortunate coincidence the gossip about the Prince’s all night drinking binges and bedding actresses reached his father just as Albert was showing the first signs of the typhoid fever that would kill him. For years afterwards Queen Victoria blamed her son for contributing to his father's death by breaking his heart. In his adult years King Edward VII was never without a cigar in his teeth, a girl on his lap and a drink in his hand. 1912- SCOTT OF THE ANTARCTIC- in the Antarctic this day the frozen bodies of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott and his men were found. He had lost his race to find the South Pole to Norwegian Piers Ammundsen then was stranded by a blizzard only 30 miles from his base camp on the Ross Ice Shelf. His last diary entry ( March 29th ) said "We are showing that Englishmen can still have a bold spirit, fighting it out to the end. This diary and our dead bodies will be the proof. I should like to write more but I haven't the strength..." 1920- In the wake of the "Black Sox" Baseball scandal, the first rigged World Series, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis was elected first Commissioner of Baseball. He ordered all those involved in the scandal including Shoeless Joe Jackson permanently banned from baseball even though they had been acquitted in a civil trial. 1927- The Holland Tunnel completed. It runs under the Hudson River connecting New York and New Jersey. It’s not named for the Netherlands, but for the engineer Clifford Holland, who died shortly before it’s completion. 1933- Hugh Gray of the British Aluminum Company takes the first photographs of what he claimed was a monster in Loch Ness. He would be the first of many to have claimed to have seen Nessie. 1946- Disney's "Song of the South" with William Baskett as Uncle Remus. Zippity-Doo-Dah 1948- After World War Two, Japanese leaders were sentenced for war crimes by a world court like the top Nazis leaders were at Nuremberg. Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, Generals Homma and Yamashita and 900 others[...]

November 11th, 2009 weds.

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who was the crazy king who stood in the surf, and tried to command the tide to turn back? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who is Holden Caulfield? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/11/2009 Birthdays: Abigail Adams, Alexander Borodin, Fyodor Doestoyevsky, Gen. George “Blood & Guts” Patton, Pat O’Brien, Kurt Vonnengut, Rene Clair, Carlos Fuentes, Jonathan Winters, Stubby Kay, Fuzzy Zoeller, Demi Moore is 47, Leonard DiCaprio is 35 Today in the Middles Ages this was "Martinmass" the feast of St. Martin of Tours, patron saint of France. Happy Veterans Day in the U.S., Memorial Day in many European countries. 1647- King Charles I had been defeated in the English Civil War and was held a prisoner at Hampton Court. On this day he gave his jailers the slip and escaped to the Isle of Wight to raise troops for what some historians call the Second English Civil War. His actions, not only of lying to escape but also of persuading a Scottish army to invade England on the promise to the Scots that he would forcibly convert England to Presbyterianism, offended his few remaining English friends. Parliamentary Leaders like Oliver Cromwell concluded there was no use negotiating with a king who saw peace talks only as a delaying tactic. They must have the head of this 'Man of Blood" 1668- Madamoiselle Du Parc was an beautiful actress who dumped Moliere and his comic company to become the mistress of the tragic playwright Racine, causing Moliere and Racine’s friendship to break. Plus Racine didn’t like the way Moliere’s actors did his plays. Three years later this day Mlle. Du Parc died under mysterious circumstances. Racine gave up his wild ways, got married and had a big family. In 1679 a notorious poisoner Madame Monvoisin claimed that Racine hired her to off his girlfriend! Was the French Shakespeare a Bluebeard or was La Voisin paid to slander him? The authorities considered arresting him, but King Louis XIV quashed the investigation because it would implicate the King’s favorite, Madame de Montespan. 1673- Battle of Cochim - Polish Hetman Sobieski and his "Winged Hussars" defeat a Turkish invasion in the Ukraine. The heavily armored Hussar cavalry wore wooden wings decorated with feathers like something out of a Christmas pageant, but the effect on enemies was terrifying. The flutter and hiss they made during their attack made them seem like warrior angels. 1914- Sultan Mehmed V of Turkey who was also the last Caliph, honoring his alliance with Germany in World War One, declared a Grand Jihad on the allies. He said it was the duty of all good Moslems to fight the Christians, unless of course they were Germans, Hungarians or Austrians. Historians say the effect of his declaration of Holy War was met in the Moslem world with resounding indifference. About the only one who listened was the Khedive of Egypt, who was promptly replaced by the British. 1918- ARMISTICE DAY- World War One ended. The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month the guns of the Great War fall silent. It sounds poetic but it was just a coincidence, the opposing sides had been negotiating since the 8th. In many countries this is the traditional Memorial Day, the American one in May is in honor of our Civil War. In a strange kind of salute when the word went down the battlelines that the ceasefire would take effect at 11:00AM, one minute before, thousands of cannons on both sides fired one last round simultaneously. World War One's final tally was 22 million dead, almost 20% of the young male population in the opposing countries. In only 7 months of actual fighting 200,000 American died – as opposed to 5,000 in 8 years in Iraq. This also marks th[...]

Nov 10th, 2009 tues.

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who is Holden Caufield? Question: The media is acting like the fall of the Berlin Wall was the end of the Cold War. What was the first communist country to drop communism? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/10/2009 Birthdays: Mohammed, Martin Luther, William Hogarth, Charles the Bold of Burgundy, Francois Couperin, King George II of England, Frederick Schiller, Claude Rains, Tim Rice, Richard Burton, Roy Scheider, Ann Reinking, MacKenzie Phillips, Russell Means, Sinbad, Brittany Murphy, George Fenneman-Groucho Marx’s TV announcer, Sue Kroyer, Kellie Bea Cooper Today is the feast of Saint Leo the Great, the Pope who scared Attila the Hun away from Rome by playing on his superstitions about the invisible powers of the Christian god. 1610- THE NIGHT OF DUPES- Cardinal Richelieu ruled France with a centralized authority that made him admired by King Louis XIII, but hated by just about everyone else. When the king was gravely ill the Queen Mother nursed him back to health. In return she asked as her payment- the Cardinals head! She wanted him replaced by keeper of the seals Jean de Mariac. This day in the Luxembourg Palace, Mom told Louis "It’s either Richelieu or me!" On cue, the gaunt cardinal emerged from a secret door. The King made his choice- Bye Bye Mom. Oh and uh.,. Jean de Mariac was beheaded. 1766- In New Brunswick New Jersey Queens College was founded. It later changed its name to Rutgers University. 1770- Voltaire said:" If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." 1775- The U.S. Marine Corps founded by Congress. Marines were originally the sharpshooters who climb up ships rigging during a sea battle and shoot down on the enemy decks. They have the nickname Leathernecks because part of their early uniform was a stiff leather collar worn under their cravat to ward off cutlass blows and "keep in the head up in a good military bearing." 1778- John Paul Jones had been beached in France for nine months. At the height of the American Revolution he had been told to send away his ship USS Ranger to await a bigger better one from the French. But delay and red tape was making him crazy. Today his agents found him a new command- a fat, old, run down East India merchant tub named L’Duc du Durras. Jones fixed it up, and renamed her the USS BonHomme Richard after Ben Franklin’s international bestselling book. The frigate BonHomme Richard became the most famous ship in the young American Navy. 1782- English King George III wrote his Prime Minister Lord Shelburne about the recently lost American Revolution: "I should be miserable indeed if no blame for the dismemberment of America from this Empire not be laid at my door, however knowing that Knavery is so much a striking feature of it’s Inhabitants, it may Not in the end be such an Evil that they are now aliens to this kingdom." 1865- During the Civil War Swiss immigrant Henry Wirz was the Confederate commander of the infamous prison Andersonville where thousands of Yankee prisoners starved and perished. On this day he became the first military officer ever hanged for war crimes. He was also the first person to use the excuse "I was only following orders." 1871- STANLEY FINDS LIVINGSTON- No one in England had heard from the famous African explorer-missionary Dr David Livingston for three years and he was feared dead. Henry Morton Stanley undertook the expedition partly as a publicity stunt funded by the Josef Pulitizer’s New York World newspaper. After one year of wandering through the jungle Stanley came upon the old missionary on the shores of Lake Tanganyika near Ujiji. Stanley introduced himself by saying: "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" Stanle[...]

November 09, 2009 monday

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: The media is acting like the fall of the Berlin Wall was the end of the Cold War. What was the first communist country to drop communism..? Yesterday’s Question answered below: what is a troussau? --------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/9/2009 Birthdays: English King Edward VII, Stanford White, Marie Dressler, Ed Wynn, Claude Rains, Ann Sexton, Spiro Agnew, Tommy Dorsey, Dr. Carl Sagan, Whitey Herzog, Dorothy Dandridge, Dr. Herbert Kalmus the inventor of Technicolor film, Lou Ferrigno, Sisqo In ancient Rome this was the Feast of Mania, like the Greek Anthesterion it was a time when the Gates of Underworld were said to be open and the shades of the dead could visit their old haunts. This is where we get the word Maniac. 1699- According to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, this was the day Lemual Gulliver was shipwrecked on the island of Liliput. " Alls Well, whats a rainy day..." 1781- After the Battle of Yorktown, George Washington watched his stepson Jackie Custis die of camp fever or meningitis. Washington would not believe that this victory had ended the Revolutionary War. He asked for a fresh offensive against Charleston South Carolina.But his French allies announced operations were done for the year. Meanwhile the British were thinking only about leaving. One British officer serving in America wrote home- I wish Columbus had never discovered this hateful place!”. 1875- A treaty had declared all of the Sacred Black Hills of South Dakota to be protected Indian land “ So Long as Grass grows and Water Flows.”But prospectors supported by General George Custer had discovered gold in those hills and a gold rush began, Indians or not. This day a confidential memo from Supreme Commander of the U.S. Army Phil Sheridan with President Ulysses Grant’s approval ordered the frontier cavalry to cease preventing settlers and gold prospectors from moving into the Black Hills. This memo in effect violated the Indian Treaty of 1868 and would lead to Custer's Last Stand next June. 1888- the last victim of Jack the Ripper found. 25-year-old prostitute Mary Reilly. After her murder the Ripper attacks ceased as mysteriously as they had started. 1906- President Teddy Roosevelt departed on board the battleship Louisiana to go inspect the Panama Canal dig. TR is the first sitting U.S. President to travel abroad. 1911-The first Neon sign illuminated. 1918- KAISER WILHELM ABDICATED. A curious fact was that no Tommy, Doughboy or Poilu ( the nicknames for British, American and French soldiers) in World War One ever made it to Berlin, much less entered Germany. The German war machine collapsed from within- bread riots, the economy in shambles, The entire Navy mutinied, Bolshevik Worker’s Soviets were set up in eleven cities- Cologne, Munich and Hamburg. At first the Kaiser hoped to sign a peace with the victorious Allies, then use the German army to put down the riots and restore order. But he changed his mind when 40 combat officers selected at random said 38 to 2 that they would refuse to kill other Germans to save his monarchy. “What about the Fananeider-the German Soldiers Oath to die for the Monarchy?! “he asked General Von Groener. “Sire, today the Oath is just some empty words!” Even the Kaiser’s personal bodyguards were setting up a Revolutionary Workers Committee. So rather than wind up arrested and maybe even shot like his cousin the Czar of Russia, Wilhelm abdicated.Young university professor Albert Einstein wrote in his class log-“ Class canceled today due to revolution….” 1923- THE BEER HALL PUTSCH-Adolf Hitler's first attempt at a revolution styled to coincide with Napoleon's anniversary[...]

November 8th, 2009 sunday.

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is a trousseau? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who invented the fork? ------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/8/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Nerva, Bram Stoker, Sir Edmund Halley, June Havoc, Margaret Mitchell, Joe Flynn- the cranky Captain Binghampton in the 60’s TV McHales Navy, Ricky Lee Jones, Bonny Raitt, Dr. Christiaan Barnard, Ester Rolle, Katherine Hepburn, Parker Posey, Gretchen Mol, Tara Reid 641 A.D.- Cyrus the Greek Patriarch of Alexandria surrendered Egypt to the Arab army of Caliph Omar. Egypt had been a Byzantine province and the emperors in Constantinople had been persecuting their national church, the Coptic Rite, as a heresy. So the Egyptians opened their gates to the Moslem conquerors. The Byzantine Emperor Heraclius appeared at the port of Alexandria with a large fleet. But after removing some personal effects, he abandoned the Paris of the Ancient World without a fight. 1519- Spanish Conquistador Hernan' Cortez first met the Aztec Emperor Montezuma II. Cortes was guided by Malinche', the "Pocahontas of the Aztecs". This noblewoman guided Cortez's little band into the heart of the empire. Conquistador Bernal Diaz described how after dinner the Spaniards were given tobacco pipes to smoke, but a special pipe with different tobacco was given to Montezuma, after smoking it "The Emperor became merry, as we do when drunk with wine.." Cortez was also offered a cup of chocolate, then a bitter brew called Tchocolatl. 1620 -Battle of White Mountain.- Austrian Catholic armies crush the Czech rebels and their leader Frederick of the Palatinate, who is nicknamed: "The Winter King" for his brief reign. Unfortunately the Thirty Years War was just beginning. Future French philosopher Renes Descartes was a young soldier in the ranks. Although Frederick was married to the daughter of the English King, James wisely refused to get England embroiled in the European war. Fredericks son Prince Rupert later traveled to England and got involved in the English Civil War. The Czech Protestant rebels mostly came from the province of Bohemia and their wandering exile in the cities of Europe caused the word "Bohemian" to become synonymous with a rootless lifestyle. 1789- Elijah Craig first distilled whiskey from Indian corn and strained it through a wool blanket. He lived in Bourbon County, Kentucky, so the stuff soon became popularly known as Bourbon. Abraham Lincoln praised Bourbon as the most American of drinks. 1793- In one of the positive results of the Reign of Terror, the French Revolutionary Government opens the royal art collection of the Louvre to the public as a museum. 1805- Lewis and Clark stand on the sand at the Pacific Ocean near the mouth of the Columbia River. 1864- Abraham Lincoln re-elected president over Democrat challenger George McClellan. It was the first U.S. election ever held during a war, and set the custom that Presidents in an election year never lose. Even most of the army voted for Old Abe. The inmates of the notorious Andersonville Prisoner of War Camp cast ballots, even if they had no way to send them to Washington. 1880- Famous actress Sarah Bernhardt made her American stage debut in La Dame aux Camellias. She made a further ten tours of the US, all billed as Farewell Appearances. 1887- Dentist-gunfighter Doc Holiday dies of tuberculosis or consumption at 35. He knew he had it for a long time, and in the 1800's it was as irreversible as AIDS is today. So some say this knowledge is what made him such a bold pistolero. But unfortunately for him, he won all his gunfights and died in bed anyway. His last words after taking a shot of whi[...]

November 07th, 2009 Animazing Festival

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

This weekend at the American Cinemateque at the Egyptian Theater, Tee Bosustow's Animazing Weekend of Shorts will premiere. The mini-fest will feature an international student film competition and a number of seminar talks. These include ones on technique by Eric Goldberg ( Animation Crash Course), Bill Kroyer on milestones in Computer Animation, and Yours Truly on the history of animated short films. Should be fun! --------------------------------------------- Question: Who invented the fork? Yesterday’s Question: In English slang, why does the phrase “ You don’t know Jack!” also means you know nothing. ------------------------------------------------ HISTORY FOR 11/7/2009 Birthdays: Francesco Zubaran, Madame Curie, Rev. Billy Graham is 92, Leon Trotsky –real name Lev Bronstein, Albert Camus, Al Hurt, Joni Mitchell, Joan Sutherland, Judy Tenuda, Clive Barnes 1783- The last public hanging at London’s Tyburn Hill, where executions of commoners had been going on since 1196. Today the Tyburn area is called Marble Arch. 1805- “Oh Joy of Joys!” explorers Lewis & Clark first see the Pacific. 1811- Battle of Tippicanoe- General William Henry Harrison defeats Tecumseh and his united Indian tribes in a battle that decided the ownership of the Old NorthWest (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan ). When Harrison later ran for the Presidency with James Tyler, his slogan was "Old Tippicanoe and Tyler Too!" 1820- This day President James Monroe was re-elected after running unopposed for nomination and unopposed for the election. It was the most boring election in US History. One presidential elector refused to vote for him only because he wanted George Washington to go down in history as the only US President ever elected unanimously. 1865- The London Gazette is founded. 1872- The S.S. Mary Celeste sets sail from New York bound for Italy. The ship was later found mid ocean with the crew and passengers mysteriously gone.... 1876- THE STOLEN ELECTION- The Presidential election between Democrat Samuel Tilden and Republican Rutherford Hayes was declared a dead heat. Tilden had actually won an overwhelming majority in the popular vote, but when did that ever matter in Washington politics? The electoral votes were even, so Republicans forced the issue to be decided by the House of Representatives. In the meantime they made a secret deal with former Confederate territories that were not allowed to vote that if they would vote for Hayes they could come back into the Union as States again. The Hayes government also promised to slow down civil rights for African Americans and withdraw occupying troops from the South. On March 3rd 1877 with the aid of the new electoral votes of Louisiana, Georgia and Florida Republican Rutherford Hayes was declared the winner. Republicans chanted: “Hooray for Hayes and Honest Ways!” while Democrats protested: “RutherFRAUD Hayes !” 1876- Three crooks try a scheme to break into President Abraham Lincoln’s tomb in Springfield Illinois while everyone was distracted by the presidential election. They planned to hold the remains hostage for money. But their scheme was foiled because nascent Secret Service had an informer among the gang and he tipped off the feds as the hoodlums were prying the lid off the sarcophagus. Lincoln’s bones stayed put. 1885- The Canadian Pacific Railway completed, linking Montreal with British Columbia. 1914- First issue of the magazine The New Republic. 1914- THE MASS MOONING OF TSING-TAO- Japan had joined the allied side in World War One to attack German colonial holdings in China. The British Navy helped the Japanese Army attack the big[...]

November 06, 2009 fri

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: In English slang, why does the phrase “ You don’t know Jack!” also means you know nothing. Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/6/2008 Birthdays: Sophocles 495BC., Joanna La Loca (the Mad- 1479), John Phillip Sousa, Joseph Smith the founder of the Mormons, Ignacz Paderewski, Charles Dow of Dow Jones, Adolphus Sax inventor of the Saxophone, James Naismith the inventor of Basketball, Mike Nichols is 67, Edsel Ford, Ed Rehberg, Sally Field is 63, Ray Coniff, John Olsen of the comedy duo Olsen & Johnson, Harold Ross the founder of the New Yorker magazine, Maria Shriver is 54, Ethan Hawke, Rebecca Romjin is 37 Today is the Feast of Saint Leonard of Noblac, the Patron of Women in Labor and Prisoners of War. -is there a connection there..? 1528-Conquistador Alva Nunez Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked on the coast of Texas. The first European to set foot in Texas. Cabeza de Vaca means Head of a Cow. 1566-Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe got his nose cut off in a duel. Thereafter he wore a gold cup over the scar held in place by a string . 1730- King Frederick William Ist of Prussia has General Von Katte, the gay lover of his son Crown Prince Frederick, beheaded by saber. He even made his horrified son to watch the execution from a window. Young Frederick was never that fond of his dad after this. When the old sadist died, and young Freddy became King Frederick the Great, he slept with whomever he liked. Frederick William Ist was the originator of mechanically strict Prussian discipline that made the German Army famous. He was so feared by his subjects that they used to run away when he arrived. The king caught one wretch in a doorway and drubbed in the face with his cane shouting: "WHY ARE YOU AFRAID? YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO LOVE ME-YOU SCUM!" 1806- The news reached London of the great naval victory of Trafalgar and the death of Admiral Nelson. Englishmen great and small fell into extreme grief over the death of their naval hero. Samuel Coleridge wrote: 'When Nelson died, it seemed as if no man was a stranger to another, for all were made acquaintances in the rites of a common anguish." 1812- On this day during Napoleons Retreat from Moscow, it began to snow. 1860- Abraham Lincoln of Illinois won the presidency of the United States. The first Republican to win an election. This is back when the Republicans were liberals. 1869- Rutgers beat Princeton 6-4 in the first college football game. 1916- The elderly cowboy showman Buffalo Bill made his next to last public appearance in El Paso Texas. El Paso had been as wild and bloody a frontier town as Deadwood or Tombstone, but now it was a quiet modern city. Telephone and electricity wires crisscrossed overhead and streetcars clattered down the streets where gunfighters once shot it out. Buffalo Bills parade seemed to make plain to all the final passing of the Old West to the New. The wild cheers brought tears running down the old scout's long white mustaches. It was a fitting final bow. He died of prostate cancer within a few weeks. 1975- First appearance of the band the Sex Pistols. ------------------------------------------ Yesterday’s Question: : Is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? Answer: Because it is a container for seeds, it is considered a fruit.Posted by:Tom[...]

November 05,2009 thurs

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Is pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who said” I’d rather keep that old man on the inside of our tent pissing out, than on the outside, pissing in.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/5/2009 Birthdays: Eugene V. Debs, Art Garfunkel, Roy Rogers, Tatum O'Neill, Elke Sommer, Ike Turner, Vivien Leigh, Will Durant, Joel McCrea, Sam Shepard, Bill Walton, John Berger, Sean Puffy- Combs, Tilda Swinton In Jolly Old England it is HAPPY GUY FAWKES DAY! in -1605 Sir Guy Fawkes, a Catholic nobleman, was caught digging a tunnel under the English Parliament and filling it with gunpowder. His goal was no less than blowing up the King and the entire blinkin' government! Sir Roger Catesby was actually the mastermind of the plot, but Sir Guy gets the fame. Modern day Brits commemorate this as a kind of April Fools Day with bonfires and merrymaking. Children go from door to door asking : "A penny for Sir Guy, please." But in olden times it was also a let's have a good laugh on the Roman Catholics day. This is why George Washington was against transplanting the holiday in America. Pope Day was celebrated in some American colonies but it died out after the Revolution. In 1775 Washington called it : A ridiculous and childish festival, burning effigies of the Pope." Many English folks I know told me they celebrate the day they tried to blow up the government because wouldn't things have been lovely if he had succeeded! 1895- Invention of the automobile clutch. 1940- President Franklin Roosevelt was re-elected to an unprecedented 3rd term. His defeated Republican opponent- Wendell Wilkie, became the butt of jokes in many Looney Tunes. 1946- Two kids fresh out of the Navy were elected to the US Congress- John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon. 1954- THE WRONG DOOR RAID- Baseball great Joe DiMaggio was stewing over the collapse of his marriage to sexy movie star Marilyn Monroe. He was especially sensitive to the rumors that she was seeing other men. This night Joltin Joe was having dinner with Frank Sinatra and a few friends when a detective brought him a report that Monroe’s car was spotted parked in front of an apartment complex on Kilkea Dr.. Enraged, he drove out to the building and kicked in the back door hoping to catch her en-flagrante. But Marilyn was staying in a girlfriend’s apartment upstairs. This was the home of a terrified old lady named Mrs Florence Klotz. We don’t know what she thought about her door suddenly kicked in by Joe DiMaggio, Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack but the tabloids had a field day. 1956- SUEZ CRISIS ENDS. The United States and Soviet Union bring heavy pressure on Israel, France and Britain to stop their war with Egypt. Egypt kept the Suez Canal, Israel no longer looked like a pathetic little country about to get stomped, and the world now saw that the only countries who’s opinion now mattered were Russia and the U.S.. British historian Jan Morris called it the official end of the British Empire. Israeli diplomat Chaim Herzog was visiting Mount Sinai when he got the cablegram to come to New York for the peace talks. He joked:" I am only the second Jew in history to receive a message on Mount Sinai." 1975- Logger Travis Walton was abducted by aliens and experimented on for five days, then returned to his Snowflake Arizona home. Walsh published a bestseller Fire in the Sky. 1977- George W. Bush married Laura Welsh. Laura was once a Democrat who campaigned for lefty George McGovern in 1972. 1979- National Public Radio’s news show[...]

November 4th, 2009 weds

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Who said” I’d rather keep that old man on the inside of our tent pissing out, than on the outside, pissing in.” Yesterday’s Answer Below: : Did the Earl of Sandwich really invent the sandwich? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/4/2009 Birthdays: Will Rogers, Art Carney, Loretta Swit, Martin Balsam, Gig Young, Darla Hood, Joe Neikro, Robert Mapplethorpe, Ralph Maccio, Andrea McArdle, Matthew McConnaughy, Walter Cronkite, Laura Bush is 63 1804- LEWIS & CLARK MET SACAJEWEA- The American explorers were spending the winter in a friendly Mandan village when a French Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charbonneau offered his services as a guide. He had two wives who were Shoshone (Snake) women. Sacajewea was then 15 and pregnant. Charbonneau won his wives in a bet with some Hidatsa warriors. Lewis and Clark hired Charbonneau not because he would be useful as much as Sacajewea, because she spoke the languages of the western tribes beyond the Rocky Mountians. Sacajewea would speak to Shoshone and Nez Perce in their language, then translate into Hidatsa to Charbonneau. He would translate it into French to another trapper named Driar who would speak English to Lewis and Clark. Despite the clumsiness, this system worked. Sacajewea braved every hardship the expedition faced to the Pacific and back, and with her baby on her back. One scholar said the European conquest of the America's could not have been done without the help of three women: Pocahontas, Malinche' the Aztec Princess and Sacajewea. 1854- THE LADY WITH THE LAMP- English nurse Florence Nightingale arrived at Scutari Turkey to care for English wounded from the Crimean War. The English Army medical system then was a disaster of outmoded bureaucracy. Hundreds of sick and dying men were piled up bed to bed in a hospital 4 miles square without basic sanitary conditions- no blankets, fresh clothes or fresh food. Rich English aristocrat Florence Nightingale brought her own finances to clothe, feed and care for the sick. Even just doing laundry saved lives because men had clean linens to sleep on. She told her volunteers "The strongest women must stand with me at the washtub!" She had no official status or commission from the government, but she revolutionized the military hospital system and the nursing profession, often fighting stodgy old generals who saw her as a troublemaker. Chief surgeon Sir John Hall growled:" The woman insists on grotesque excess and luxury- after all, what does a soldier want with a toothbrush?" 1862- Richard J. Gatling patented the machine gun. "It is to the pistol as the sewing machine is to the simple sewing needle." Gatling's idea was to invent machines to make war too terrible to be waged any longer. What he succeeded in doing was to indeed make war more terrible. 1927- HOWARD CARTER OPENED THE TOMB OF KING TUT-ANKH-AMON ( King Tut ). Other royal tombs had been opened before but they had always been cleaned out centuries ago by grave robbers. King Tut's was the first unspoiled Pharoah's tomb to be discovered in modern times. The site was discovered under a house built for workers excavating the tomb of King Ramses IV. There was King Tut's Curse guarding the door, and a few folks like Lord Carnaervon did go to an early grave: allegedly from scratching a zit and getting blood poisoning, legend has it the same zit was found on King Tut's mummy. But Howard Carter, the man who broke the seal, rifled the tomb and did everything but stick his fingers in Tut's ears, lived to a merry old ag[...]

November 3rd, 2009 Tues

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Did the Earl of Sandwich really invent the sandwich? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase to “ eat humble pie”? ----------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/3/2009 Birthdays: The Roman writer Lucan 39AD, John Montague the Earl of Sandwich, Walker Evans, William Cullen Bryant, Stephen Austin, Bronco Nagurski, Andre' Malraux, Vincenzo Bellini, Bob Feller, Karl Baedeker author of the guidebooks, Ken Berry, Michael Dukakis, Tom Schales, Lulu, Roseanne Barr, Osamu Tezuka 55 B.C. CLEOPATRA MARRIED PTOLOMEY VIII. They were brother and sister. Because the Pharoah was a god, he couldn't mate with a mortal, and the only available goddesses were in the immediate family. This curious inbreeding in the Royal line insured that the mighty family of Ptolomey, general of Alexander the Great, would produce descendants like Orestes the Flute Blower. 361AD- JULIAN THE APOSTATE BECAME EMPEROR OF ROME, upon the death of is uncle Constantius II. Julian's life was much like Claudius 300 years earlier, except the Imperial Family's official religion was now Christianity. The children of Constantine the Great fought, intrigued, seduced and poisoned each other with great gusto, then went to Church. This had a funny effect on bookish young Julian, and he decided Christianity was the mistake and everyone was a lot better off worshiping Jupiter, Hercules, bulls and such like the good old days. He just couldn't command it so, because Rome had been Christian for 50 years and would just kill him rather than switch. So he had to move cautiously. He was slain in battle with the Persians after only a five year reign, before he could affect any real change, but if he had reigned as long as Constantine did ( 30 years) the world might've looked different. When he went on campaign against Persia he sacrificed 5,000 bulls to Mars. One Christian joked: " If it was 5,000 bulls just to start, if Caesar Julian wins any battles I fear for the market price of beef!" 1503- MONA LISA- Leonardo Da Vinci was hired by a Florentine senator Francesco del Giocondo to paint a portrait of his third wife Madonna Elizabetha or Lisa. He fussed over the painting for four years and never gave it to Francesco, he said it was still unfinished and kept it for himself. Eventually he needed money so he sold it to the King of France and today it sits in the Louvre. courtesy of perfumequeen.com Was her enigmatic smile because she had lost a child earlier that year and Leonardo was trying to cheer her up? He used to have musicians playing in the room when she posed. Or is she emblematic of Woman smiling at all the foibles of Men? One historian called Mona Lisa “ the Face that Launched a Thousand Reams Upon a Sea of Ink.” 1623- The Dutch government in the Hague decided Henry Hudson had discovered something interesting in America after all and ordered the Dutch West India Company to prepare plans for the building of a colony to be called New Amsterdam. This colony would eventually become New York City. 1755- The Massachusetts Colony offered a bounty of 20 English pounds each for scalps of Indian children under the age of 12. Warrior scalps fetched a higher bounty, about 30 pounds. 1836- California ranchero Juan de Alvarado rallies local ranchers to overthrow Governor Juan de Michaltorena sent from Mexico City. This story may have been an early inspiration for Zorro. 1849-THE PNEUMATIC TRAIN- Alfred E. Beech, the publisher of Scientific American Magazine, first proposed an undergrou[...]

November 2nd, 2009 mon.

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is the origin of the phrase to “ eat humble pie”? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Who said:” He’s a sonofabitch, but he’s OUR sonofabitch!” --------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/2/2009 Birthdays: Daniel Boone, Pres. James Knox Polk, Jean Chardin, Luchino Visconti, Giusseppi Sinopoli, Burt Lancaster, Ray Walston, Pat Buchanan, Steve Ditko, Ray Walston, Stephanie Powers, k.d.lang, David Schwimmer Today is Dio de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead. It derives from the Aztecs, who believed the life you are living now is a dream, when you die, you awake to your real life. 1483- OFF WITH HIS HEAD! Whether you believe Shakespeares’ portrayal of King Richard III as a hunchback usurper or modern revisionist scholars who call him a maligned monarch, this day Richard III shows his friend the Duke of Buckingham how much he appreciated his help in becoming king, by cutting his head off. 1541- Archbishop Thomas Cranmer handed King Henry VIII a spy’s report that his hot young wife Queen Catherine Howard was getting-it-on with at least three other men. 1889- North Dakota and South Dakota are admitted into the Union. They argued for twenty years the position of a joint state capitol until finally deciding to go separately. 1904- London newspaper The Daily Mirror first published. 1917- Britain passed the Balfour Declaration, calling for a national home for Jews in Palestine. Sit Arthur Balfour was the British Foreign Secretary under David Lloyd George. Britain once considered Uganda and Argentina for a Jewish homeland before settling on Palestine, then a sleepy border province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. 1920- The first US Radio station, KDKA in Pittsburgh, began the nation’s first broadcasting with news of election results. 1930- Ras Tafari crowned Halie Selassie Ist, Ethiopian Emperor. The Jamaican movement Rastafarians are named for him. 1932- Young star Katherine Hepburn first shines in the film A Bill of Divorcement, co- starring with John Barrymore. 1937- LaGuardia Airport opened. New York City’s first municipal airport. 1944- RAOUL WALLENBURG- The Jewish population of Budapest was driven off to Nazi concentration camps, but not after Swedish envoy Raoul Wallenberg saved over a thousand by granting Swedish (neutral) passports to them. Wallenberg once walked alongside an SS officer ordered to execute 25 people and pleaded for each person as they were shot. The SS officer finally tired of Wallenburgs pleas and spared the last two. When Wallenburg’s aide asked him “What good did all that begging do?” He replied: “What Good? We just saved two human lives!” When Hungary was conquered by the Red Army Raul Wallenburg was arrested and died in one of Stalin's gulag prison camps. Russia didn’t officially admit this until 1991. 1947- Howard Hughes pilots his monster wooden airplane, the "Spruce Goose" for it's only test flight, one minute over Long Beach Harbor. Two hundred tons, Eight engines, a wingspan longer than a football field, it was conceived as an aid to win World War Two but was completed long after it ended. 1950- Writer George Bernard Shaw died at 94. His last words were:" Oh well, it will be a new experience anyway." 1964- CBS television purchased the NY Yankees Baseball club. This is one of the dumber business deals in entertainment history. CBS thought they were buying the world champion Murderers Row team, if they had done their research they would have known most th[...]

November 1st, 2009 sun.

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who said:” He’s a sonofabitch, but he’s OUR sonofabitch!” Question: Which American President never lived in the White House? George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Harry Truman? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 11/1/2009 Welcome to November, Roman Month #9-Novembrius. Birthdays: Marie Antoinette, President Warren Harding, Stephen Crane, Marcel Ophuls, Benevenuto Cellini, Larry Flynt, Walter Matthau, Fernando Valenzuela, Lyle Lovett, Willie D, Rick Allen of Def Leppard, Jenny McCarthy To the ancient Romans this was the Feast of Pomona, Goddess of the Fruit Harvest. The Early Christian Church they changed the name to the feast to All Saints Day. Pomona's offerings were apples, a staple of the Roman diet. The custom of bobbing for apples at Halloween comes from a pagan ritual. 79AD- Erupting since last August and burying the Roman cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum, Mount Versuvius finally calmed down. 1290- This was the deadline King Edward Ist Longshanks ( the bad guy in Braveheart ) set for all Jews to leave England. Many drowned in small boats crossing the Channel. Once in France the French king told them they had to leave in one year. Jews would not be allowed to resettle in England until Oliver Cromwell’s time in the 1650s. 1478- THE SPANISH INQUISITION- At the request of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, Pope Sixtus IV promulgated a bull setting up the office of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. The royal couple tired of civil fighting among Moslems, Jews, Christians and converts in their country. As they united the land under their one rule, they wanted Spain united under one orthodox doctrine. The Inquisition, also called La Suprema, dominated life and thought for centuries. Other offices for the Holy Inquisition were set up in Portugal and Brazil. The Inquisition was administered by the Dominican monks and supported by an elite group of nobles called the Santa Hermandad,or the Sacred Brotherhood. In 1709 King Phillip V broke with tradition by refusing to attend an Auto da Fe, a public festival featuring the burning of heretics. The Spanish Inquisition was stopped by Napoleon’s French invasion of 1808, but restored after liberation. It finally died out in 1819. 1503 –IL PAPA TERRIBLE- Giuliano Della Rovere made Pope Julius II. The Holy Father delayed his coronation until his astrologers told him the stars were right. Julius drove out Caesar and Lucretia Borgia and fought in armor more than as he prayed. In his 10 year reign he'll commission the Sistine Ceiling, the rebuilding of St.Peter's Basilica ,Michelangelo's Moses, Raphael's "The School of Athens", created the Swiss Guard (uniform designed by Michelangelo), dug up the Laocoon, conquered most of Central Italy and left the Vatican treasury a surplus for the first time in decades. He was known for quotes like:"Let the whole world perish provided I get my way!" One critic wrote how during a festival where the Pope is supposed to kiss the feet of the poor Julius was careful to hold them up, then kiss his own bejeweled fingers. Still he was one of the greatest of the Popes, called "Il Papa Terrible'" the Terrible Father. 1512- Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel Ceiling is unveiled to the public for the first time. 1604- William Shakespeare's play "Othello the Moor of Venice" first performed. 1755- THE GREAT LISBON EARTHQUAKE-85% of the city destroyed, 50,000 killed, gallows erected around the city to punish[...]

Halloween History, Oct. 31st, 2009

Sat, 31 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Which American President never lived in the White House? George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson or Harry Truman? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is phrenology? --------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/31/2009 Halloween Birthdays: Jan Vermeer, John Keats, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek, John Candy, Dale Evans, Jane Pauley, David Ogden Stiers, Dan Rather, Lee Grant, Ethel Waters, Juliet Low-founder of the American Girl Scouts, Vanilla Ice, Stephen Rea, Rob Schneider, Peter Jackson, Ollie Johnston courtesy of Alex Ross HAPPY ALL HALLOWS EVE- The night before the Feast of All Saints, beginning the Christian season of Advent, was confused in Medieval custom with one of the four Druid fire festivals, All Hallows. In Ireland it was called Samhein, at this time all hearth fires in the land are extinguished then re-lit from the fire at the sacred grove. Add to this the early Church's attempt to eradicate the pagan custom of giving food to departed spirits -Greek Anthesterion in Feb., Roman Feralia and Lemuria in May- by moving the date to honor the dead to the Feast of All Saints on November 1st. Many cultures have customs of putting food offerings on doorsteps so the spirits would leave you in peace. So today's the last night for ghosties to romp. 1517- THE REFORMATION BEGINS- Augustine monk and theology professor Martin Luther had had enough of the growing corruption of the Church. Pope Leo X the party-animal Pope who had succeeded Pope Julius II the Warrior Pope, who succeeded Pope Alexander VI Borgia the “totally-out-of-control” pope, ordered a new sale of Indulgences throughout Europe to pay off a loan on St. Peter's construction to the Augsberg banker Jacob Fugger . An indulgence was sort of " after-life insurance" absolving you of sin. When Wilhelm Tetzel, the local Bishop selling indulgences showed up in his area Luther blew his cork. On a wagon Tetzel had a big barrel that had written on it: "For every Coin tinkles in my Well, another Soul is spared from Hell." Luther nailed 95 theses or arguments against Roman primacy in religion to the door of the Palace Church, in effect challenging Tetzel to debate, the customary university challenge. He picked today to do it because he knew tomorrow being the Feast of All Saints there would be a large crowd to read it. But Martin Luther wasn't made into toast like Jan Hus or Wycliff, because was he was protected by German princes like Frederick the Wise of Saxony. They were tired of sending as much as a third of their GNP to Italy. Called Peter’s Pence. This is the official start date for the Protestant Reformation. 1663- THE GREAT PLAGUE OF LONDON- English writer Samuel Pepys noted in his famous diary: “The plague is much in Amsterdam and we in fears of it here”. The plague took another year to reach London but when it did it decimated the population for most of 1665 and 1666 until burned out by the Great Fire of London. 1820- PAPA HAYDN’S HEAD. Famous composer Franz Josef Haydn had died in 1809. The powerful Ezterhazy Family, who were great patrons of classical music, built a beautiful new tomb for him in 1820. There was only one problem. When they exhumed Haydn’s coffin it was found that his head was missing! It seems the Ezterhazy attorney Rosenbaum was a fan of Phrenology, studying the human mind through measuring bumps on the skull. He ordered Haydn’s head se[...]

October 29th, 2009 thurs

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What was Abe Lincoln’s nickname among his White House staff? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Why is the Halloween celebration in October? The ancient Greek festival of the Dead was in February, the Roman one was in May. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/29/2009 Birthdays: James Boswell, Sir Walter Raleigh, John Keats, Sir Edmund Halley, Louis Blanc, Fanny Brice, Joseph Goebbels, Richard Dreyfus, Zoot Sims, Winona Ryder, Jesse Barfield, Kate Jackson, Bill Maudlin, Akim Tamiroff, Ralph Bakshi, Denis Potvin Neal Hefti-composer of the theme song for TV shows like Batman and the Odd Couple. 1618- Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded on his birthday. Raleigh was once Queen Elizabeth’s favorite, but by now he was getting on King James nerves, by opposing the Kings peace overtures to Spain. Also Raleigh was implicated in a plot to keep James from attaining the throne. The king had him dangling on a commuted death sentence for treason for 15 years. Finally when Raleigh attacked Spanish settlements in Brazil against his direct orders that was enough. Off with his head! On the scaffold Raleigh thumbed the axeman’s blade. He joked:" This is sharp medicine, but it cures all ills." The man credited with introducing tobacco to Northern Europe, he puffed his pipe for one last time before putting his head on the block. His wife kept the severed head in a cabinet for the rest of her life. 1787- Wolfgang Amadeus’s opera DON GIOVANNI premiered in Prague. Mozart had partied the night before and after midnight sat down and wrote the overture. As the musicians were sitting down he ran from stand to stand handing out the music. Goethe and Schiller loved it . Giacomo Rossini called it “the Greatest of All Operas”. After Don Giovanni his lyricist Lorenzo da Ponte left Europe for America and settled down in New Jersey. His niece had an affair with the son of Francis Scott Key and married a general who was wounded at Gettysburg. 1795- NAPOLEON MET JOSEPHINE- After quelling anti-government riots in Paris Napoleon ordered the citizens to turn in all weapons. Beautiful socialite Josephine de Beauharnais came this day to thank the young General for allowing her son to keep his slain fathers sword. Napoleon was at once twitterpated and their love became a legend. He would write her letters from the battlefield like “Don’t send your kisses, they burn my blood!” And “ I shall be home in a week, please don’t bathe until then, I want to smell you!” 1836- The young nephew of Napoleon, Louis Napoleon, tries again to overthrow the French Government the way his famous uncle did. Instead of cheering, people chased him through the streets of Strasbourg yelling :"Shut Up you Blockhead!" He will eventually become Emperor Napoleon III. 1936- The resolutions of the First Geneva Convention announced. It attempted to regulate the treatment of civilians and prisoners in wartime. It was set up by Henry Dunant, who also helped found the International Red Cross. More Geneva Conventions would be signed and ignored by nations in 1925 and 1949. 1904--Mayor McClellan opens the New York City Subway System. For 5 cents you could go 722 miles of tunnel under 30 square miles, the largest system in the world. The Mayor was given a solid silver ceremonial throttle, took controls of the first train and drove it around himself. When asked to hand the contro[...]

October 30th 2009 friday.

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is phrenology? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What was Abe Lincoln’s nickname among his White House staff? ------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/30/2009 Birthdays: John Adams, Christopher Columbus, English playwright Richard Sheridan, Ezra Pound, Emily Post, Louis Malle, Henry Winkler, Charles Atlas, Ruth Gordon, Claude LeLouch, Dick Gautier, Louis Malle, Ted Williams, Grace Slick, Diego Maradona 1501-THE BALLET OF THE CHESTNUTS, or His Holiness throws an Orgy. One of the most notorious examples of depravity in PreReformation Rome. Pope Alexander VI Borgia, with his children Cesare and Lucretia Borgia throw a party of parties at the Vatican. The wild revelry was highlighted by a race of nude prostitutes on hands and knees through an obstacle course of silver candlesticks gobbling up chestnuts. The pope later gave gifts to the courtiers and ladies who demonstrated the greatest sexual stamina. On another occasion His Holiness closed off St. Peter's Square to worshipers to stage a bullfight. This was the kind of holy hedonism that drove the Protestant reformers nuts and caused the eventual rift in the Christian world. One participant in these revelries was the chef of the French ambassador, who was intrigued to see the guests getting their own plates of food from large tubs set in a row. He though this was a neat way to serve food. His name was Pierre Buffet. 1811- Jane Austen’s novel Sense and Sensibility published. 1918- Kaiser Wilhelm moved his staff from riot-ravaged Berlin to Spa on the Belgian frontier to prepare for the armistice to end the Great War. Socialist leader Franz Ebert told Chancellor Prince Max of Baden the Kaiser had to abdicate to avoid civil war. But Wilhelm still imagined that after making peace with the Allies he could turn the German army around and put down his own rebellious subjects. But after four years and two and a half million dead, all his exhausted army wanted to do was go home. 1938-"THE NIGHT THAT PANICKED AMERICA- 27 year old Orson Wells broadcast a radio update of H.G. Well’s story "The War of the Worlds". Despite periodic station announcements that it was only a fictional re-enactment, people across the U.S. go bonkers that an actual Martian invasion had landed in Grover’s Mill New Jersey. In Hollywood famed actor John Barrymore, drunk as usual, went over to his kennel of prize winning racing greyhounds and open their cage doors, saying: "Fend for yourselves!" 1941-The REUBEN JAMES INCIDENT-Five weeks before the Pearl Harbor attack the neutral U.S. destroyer Reuben James was torpedoed by a German U-boat, drowning dozens of American sailors. Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill thought this would be the incident to anger Americans enough into getting into World War Two like the Lusitania did a generation earlier. Woody Guthrie sang: "Oh tell me what were their names, tell me what were their names? Did you have a friend on the good old Reuben James?" However Adolf Hitler apologized and offered immediate monetary reparations. Popular anger cooled Roosevelt told his cabinet:" I think I can keep us out of this war for one more year unless Germany or Japan does something stupid." 1947- Bertholt Brecht, the playwright of Mother Courage and the Threepenny Opera, testified to the McCarthy HUAC committee. He smoked a large cigar through the whole session. [...]

Oct. 28th, 2009 weds

Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Why is the Halloween celebration in October? The ancient Greek festival of the Dead was in February, the Roman one was in May. Yesterday’s Question answered below: What American entertainment guild first called itself the Society of the White Rats? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/28/2009 Birthdays: Elsa Lanchester, Cleo Lane, Charlie Daniels, Evelyn Waugh, Jonas Salk, Bruce Jenner, Joan Plowright, Bill Gates, Chef August Escolfiere the great French Chef who created Peche Melba and moved French cuisine to the front rank of world cooking , Charles Grovesnor the founder of National Geographic magazine, Joaquin Phoenix is 36 FEAST OF SAINTS SIMON ZEALOT & ST. JUDE- In the Middle Ages people mixed up St. Simon with St. Simeon the " Hobgoblin Saint", and St. Jude ( The patron saint of Lost Causes) with Judas Iscariot- I guess they felt God made him a saint as a consolation prize. So today was considered a good day for conjurers, sorcerers, necromancers and other practitioners of the Black Arts. One 17th century sorcerer, Bruno of Prague, claimed he could summon up St. Jude this day to grant you a wish. But if you showed any sign of fear or hesitation, St. Jude would smack you upside of the head. 312AD BATTLE OF THE MULVIAN BRIDGE-The day before his showdown with his enemy emperor Maxentius at the gates of Rome, Roman Caesar Constantine had a vision: a fiery Cross appeared in the sky with the device "IN HOC SIGNO VINCE" -By This Sign shalt thou Conquer". He decided this must be Christianity calling, so when Constantine won the battle, he lifted Nero's 300 year ban on the outlaw religion and later made it the official religion of the Empire. 1492- Christopher Columbus reached the island of Cuba. Here the Indians showed him how to smoke tobacco, which they called cochiba. 1726-Johnathan Swift published "Gulliver's Travels"-"To Vex the World rather than Divert it." 1872- EVANGELIST SEX SCANDAL! After the Civil War, minister Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn's Plymouth Church was the most famous clergyman in America. He was a great abolitionist, friend of Presidents and brother of writer Harriet Beecher Stowe. On this day feminist Victoria Woodhull revealed Beecher's habit of seducing the ladies of his congregation. Woodhull was a radical socialist who believed in Spiritualism and Free Love, and she admitted she herself had slept with the good reverend and even participated in a ménage a' trois with Beecher and publisher Charlene Tilton! Beecher's friends locked up Woodhull for slander and tried every lawsuit possible and his sister Harriet wrote lampoons of Mrs. Woodhull calling her Aurelia Dangereyes. But the famous reverend fell from grace in American eyes. In later years Rev Beecher preached a sermon that Hell didn’t exist. Critics said it was because he was afraid that was his eventual destination. 1918- The Czechs, Bohemians, Sudetens, Moravians and Slovaks form themselves into the Republic of Czechoslovakia. In 1991 the Slovakians split off from the Czech Republic. 1919- Congress overrides the veto of President Woodrow Wilson and passed the Volstead Act. The act gives enforcement powers to the Prohibition (XIX) Amendment forbidding the sale and consumption of alcohol. The Volstead Act gave government the power to seize and destroy alcohol and distilleries and shu[...]

October 27th, 2009 Tues. The Day the World Almost Ended

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What American entertainment guild originally called itself the Society of the White Rats? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What country refers to itself as Suomi? ------------------------------------------------------------- HISTORY FOR 10/27/2009 B-Days: Captain James Cook, Theodore Roosevelt, Dylan Thomas, Nicolo Paganinni, Gerhard Von Gneisenau, Sylvia Plath, Roy Lichtenstein, John Cleese, Freddy De Cordova, Jerry-Curly Howard of the Three Stooges, Bernie Wrightson the creator of Swamp Thing 1560- Beserk conquistador and Amazon explorer Aguirre who called himself the Emperor of El Dorado and we know from a movie as Aguirre the Wrath of God, was killed in Venezuela by Spanish loyalists. 1788-THE FEDERALIST PAPERS- While the new American republic was still trying to decide what kind of government it wanted this day the first in a series of editorial letters appeared in American newspapers. The 85 essays argued the case for a strong federal government and judiciary, superceding the authority of individual states. Under the pseudonym "Publius".the essays were written by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison. Today they are called collectively the Federalist Papers. 1806- After defeating the Prussian Army at Jena Napoleon’s French army marched into Berlin, all bands blaring Le Marseillaise. Part of his sightseeing Napoleon went to Potsdam and visited the tomb of Frederick the Great, the previous generation’s military genius. 1864-"BLOODY BILL" ANDERSON BUSHWHACKED-Among the Missouri bandits who called themselves Confederate guerillas like Quantrill and Jesse James, Bill Anderson was one of the worst. A complete psychopath, he had union soldier' scalps hanging from his horses bridle and to avenge his sister’s death he made a knot in a silk cord every time he killed a Yankee. He rode into battle tearfully shouting her name. By the time the Yankees finally killed him and stuck his head on a telegraph pole, the silk cord had 54 knots in it. 1886-THE STATUE OF LIBERTY DEDICATED- Frederic Auguste Bartholdi was originally asked by Ferndinand deLasseps to create a huge statue of a woman to welcome Europeans sailing into the Suez Canal at Port Said. After that deal didn’t work out Bartholdi revamped the design for the Americas. The face looks like a classic Greek beauty but some insist it’s an image of the artist’s mother. This day Bartholdi’s masterpiece held up by Gustav Eiffel's superstructure was supposed to be unveiled at the American Centennial celebrations in 1876, but was a little over deadline, about ten years. President Cleveland had started giving his opening remarks when the curtain revealing the statue was dropped early and he was drowned out by cheers, boat whistles, cannon salutes and fireworks. Women Suffragettes rented a boat and floated alongside the parade bearing a large banner "She's beautiful but she can not Vote!" 1886-Musical fantasy "Night on Bald Mountain" premiered in Russia. Composer Modest Mussogorsky worked as a florist during the day and wrote music at night. He was convinced he couldn’t make a living otherwise. 1916- The entertainment trade magazine Variety has the blurb: "Chicago has added recently to it’s number of so-called Jazz bands." Now jazz was around in black neighborhoods for years before, but the form was labeled Ragtime or Syncopation. Th[...]

October 26th, 2009 mon

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Spent a nice day watching old 60's children's TV hosts on YouTube. Reliving days watching my parents old Emerson console that smelled of too much Lemon Pledge. Eating my Alpha-Bits on a rickety aluminum tray table.Soupy Sales, Sandy Becker, Sonny Fox and Chuck McCann. Fascinating to watch these early TV shows and realize how much was improv by these guys, with little or no budget and lots of old cartoons in Public Domain. Before Action for Children's Television, before CTW, before child psychologists and network regulators spoiled all the fun. Here's Soupy playing Oscar Peterson and Motown to pre-schoolers! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcb87xi8cVg It seems every new media form- TV, MTV videos in the early 80s, Cable TV, now the Internet, goes through this pioneer stage, where anything goes and creativity runs rampant. Remember when Cable TV meant Screaming Mad George running through the streets of Newark with a video portapak trying to convince random women to expose themselves on TV? Now it's TrueBlood and the Sopranos. On Friday John McCain introduced legislation in Congress to allow corporations to control the free flow of content on the Internet. A company will charge you for the privilege of high speed downloading, and slow down competitive content. I hope it fails to pass. --------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------- Question: What country refers to itself as Suomi? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: In the 1988 comedy A Fish Called Wanda, John Cleese’ character was named Archie Leech. What is that in reference to..? ---------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/26/2009 Birthdays: Danton, Leon Trotsky, Vladimir “Bill” Tytla - Disney animator who gave life to Dumbo, Grumpy and the Devil from Bald Mountain, Francois Mitterand, Domenico Scarlatti, Charles W. Post of Post Cereals, Bob Hoskins, The last Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Mahalia Jackson, Clive Barker, Bootsie Collins, Marla Maples, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes, Jaclyn Smith, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Pat Sito 1440- French nobleman Giles De Rais beheaded. If the concept of "medieval justice" always seemed like an oxymoron, the case of Giles De Rais is a notable exception. Giles was a powerful warlord of Joan of Arc who went bizarrely wrong in later years. He was so paranoid about losing his fortune, he listened to a sorcerer who told him the Devil would help if Giles sacrificed some children to him. When children began disappearing in large numbers from around his castle, even the Royal court and aristocracy couldn't ignore the outcry. The knight was tried, beheaded and his remains burned without Christian rites. His castle Chevrenault outside Tours was leveled, so no memory of the horrible episode would remain. Giles De Rais is sometimes called Bluebeard, a name also given to the insurance murderer Nicholas Landru in 1928. 1825-THE ERIE CANAL COMPLETED, on budget and ahead of schedule. Governor Dewitt Clinton poured a ceremonial bucket of Great Lakes water into the Hudson River. Once called Clinton’s Big Ditch, even old Thomas Jefferson thought the plan was madness. The 350 mile Erie Canal tied the Midwest interior of America to it’s Atlantic coast and makes New York the economic capitol of the nation. It also se[...]

October 25th, 2009 sun

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: In the 1988 comedy A Fish Called Wanda, John Cleese’ character was named Archie Leech. What is that in reference to..? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What American corporation was nicknamed “ Big Blue”…? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/25/2009 Birthdays: Pablo Picasso, George Bizet, Johann Strauss Jr., Bobby Knight, Helen Reddy Minnie Pearl, Whit Bissell, Lyle Lovett. Leo G. Carroll, Bill Barty the famous Little Person celebrity, John Matusak, Julia Roberts 1760- King George II died of constipation, his grandson George III becomes King. Old George II completed his 33 year reign with this final opinion of English politics:”I am sick to death of all this foolish stuff, and wish with all my heart that the Devil may take all your bishops, and the Devil take all your ministers, the Devil take your Parliament and the Devil take this whole Island, provided I can get out and go home to Hanover!” Gee, thank you Sire, we love you too. 1769-Young Massachusetts lawyer John Adams married Abigail Smith. 1854-THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE- BALACLAVA- the climactic battle of the Crimean War in which Britain and France sent armies to help Turkey fight off Russia. During the battle Lord Raglan watched from his mountaintop the Russians on another mountaintop (their army was arranged on the hillsides like a fork with it's prongs pointed at the English and French). They were trying to pull some field artillery out of the way of the advancing Brits. So Raglan sent Lords Lucan and Cardigan orders to send the Light Brigade to capture these few cannon before they got away. Lord Cardigan (who always insisted his officers drink champagne for breakfast) wasn't on a mountaintop but deep in a valley and all he could see was the whole heavily fortified Russian army in front of him. Then he got Raglan's command: "-Charge the Guns!" To cap matters the messenger Captain Nolan was angry with Cardigan so he refused to explain the order. So the 600 of the Light Brigade charged right into the whole Russian Army alone. It all took about 8 minutes. One survivor recalled seeing a Sergeant Talbot get his head struck off by a cannonball but his body stayed galloping in the saddle another 30 yards, lance still positioned under his arm. Fired on from three sides the Light Brigade took the first lines of cannon and could have pierced the Russian center if they had been followed by reinforcements, but everyone just watched in stunned silence.. The French commander gave orders for his Chausseurs d'Afrique to storm one other position which was the only positive result of the day. Lord Cardigan led his brigade through the first line of guns then immediately turned back “It is not the job of commanders to grapple with common soldiers.” One problem the Light Brigade had that never made it into any movies was when they finally reached the Russian gunners they were wearing their heavy wool winter coats that were too thick for Wilkinson sabers. The horsemen slapped their swords harmlessly against their shoulders and backs. The Light Brigade staggered back accomplishing nothing, 3/4 of their men killed, and inspiring a really swell poem by Tennyson. The 17th Lancers went in with 250 and came out with 17 men. In [...]

October 24th, 2009 Sat.

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What American corporation was nicknamed “ Big Blue”…? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What American corporation used to be nicknamed “ The Octopus”…? -------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/24/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Domitian, Bob Kane the creator of Batman, Moss Hart, Jiles Perry Richardson better known as the Big Bopper, F. Murray Abrahams is 69, Enkwase Mfume, Y.A. Tittle, Sara Josepha Hale 1788- who wrote the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb", Kevin Kline is 61 439- The barbarian horde called the Vandals went into Africa and captured the Roman colony of Carthage, built on the ruins of Hannibal’s old city. When the Romans had destroyed Carthage in 146BC they put a curse on the land, but the cities natural harbor proved too useful, so a colony was soon set up. Ironically or perhaps the curse in effect, in 455 Geneseric the Vandal launched an attack from Carthage that sacked Rome. 1648 –THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA- After four years of negotiations Europe ends it’s last great religious war, the Thirty Years War, not quite sure why it got started in the first place. The good thing was nobody disputed Dutch or Swiss independence or the right to be a Protestant anymore, the bad part was Germany was ravaged and divided. It wouldn't really get it's act together again until 1870. Germany lost almost half her population. France replaced Spain as the dominant power on the continent and because the Pope refused any peace be signed with heretics, the exhausted European kings for the first time simply ignored him. France also thought by using her influence to help the weak little Margrave of Brandenburg based in Berlin get more territory she could create a German state to counter the Austrians and the Bavarians. No Frenchman could know that four centuries from then soldiers from this Berlin based German state would ravage their country in three huge wars. 1800- Just before a presidential election Alexander Hamilton published ON THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN ADAMS ESQ, a 58 page attack on the incumbent Presidents’ character and record. Though they were of the same party, the two men loathed one another. Hamilton had almost challenged the President to a duel! Finally Hamilton decided he would rather see the opposition win than Adams re-elected. His persuasive pamphlet not only ruined any chance John Adams had of re-election, it was a grenade lobbed into the midst of the entire Federalist Party. President Adams placed fourth in the election but Alexander Hamilton found his party disloyalty had lost him most of his political influence. 1861-The Last Pony Express ride. The idea was romantic, but a financial dud and only operated about two years before being replaced by stage, rail and telegraph. 1901- Anne Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live to talk about it. She attempted the stunt for a cash prize she used to get a loan to buy a ranch in Texas. 1902- Author Arthur Conan-Doyle was knighted by King Edward VII. He received the award not for his literary accomplishments but for his volunteer services during the just concluded Boer War. It was also said the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was one of the few books King Edward ever managed to read from cover [...]

October 23, 2009 freitag

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What American corporation used to be nicknamed “ The Octopus”…? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Which of the Marx Brothers never performed on film? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/23/2009 Birthdays; Johnny Carson, Adlai Stevenson, Pele, Zioniev, Weird Al Yankovic, Dwight Yoakham, Doug Flutie, Michael Crichton, Chi-Chi Rodriquez, Sam Raimi, Phillip Kaufman, porn star Jasmine St. Claire, Gummo Marx, Ang Lee is 55 42 BC- Battle of Phillipi- The forces of Marc Anthony and Octavian defeated the Republican legions of Brutus and Cassius in Greece. Both Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus, who had assassinated Julius Caesar two years earlier, died. 1642- EDGEHILL- First battle of the English Civil War. King Charle's Cavaliers-1, Roundheads-0. Even though the Parliamentary forces were defeated the King hesitated when his impulsive cavalry general Prince Rupert wanted to pursue the enemy to London. It was the best chance Charles ever had to crush the rebellion at one grand blow, Oliver Cromwell was as yet an obscure m.p. from Cambridge who led a small troop. Yet Charles hesitated and let the opportunity slip away. The Parliamentary Army was under the command of the Earl of Essex, who traveled around with a coffin and burial shroud among his personal baggage. I wonder if that inspired confidence in his leadership... 1661- King Charles II, the Merry Monarch, crowned at Westminster Abbey. The current English Crown Jewels date from this time, since Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Parliament had the ancient crown jewels of Anglo-Norman times destroyed. 1812- THE MALET PLOT-While Napoleon was retreating from Moscow thousands of miles away all France waited anxiously for news of his fate. This day a civil servant named Malet convinced Paris that Napoleon was dead and his army destroyed. In the ensuing panic Malet actually succeeded in taking over the French Government! After a few days the confusion was eventually straightened out and Malet imprisoned. But it was terribly discouraging to Napoleon; he had hoped to build a dynasty to last generations. But it took only one nut with a rumor to show how shallow was the support for his regime was. 1917- In a secret meeting in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) all the various left wing Russian political parties: Mensheviks, Anarchists, Utopian Socialists and Narodniks agreed to unite under Lenin’s Bolshevik Party and adopt their plan to violently seize power. After taking control Lenin had them all suppressed. The assassin who shot and wounded him in 1921 was a Socialist. 1923- The German postwar economy collapses. Raging inflation makes it 6 billion DeutschMarks to one U.S. dollar. The few workers who had jobs are paid every other day and it takes a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. The major industrial region of the Ruhr was under foreign occupation. These conditions made the rise of Adolf Hitler possible. The creeping depression afflicting the war-ruined European economies would help collapse the American banking system in 1929. 1928- A financial consortium led by banker-bootlegger Joseph Kennedy Sr. buys the Keith Albee theater circuit and merged it with the Radio Company a[...]

iron giant party

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

The Iron Giant 10th Reunion is tonight. Remember the event is at the STEVEN J. ROSS THEATER ON THE WARNER BROS LOT, not at Woodbury University.

For those coming, please be advised to get there early. Warner Bros security will be checking their list of invitees and ask for photo ID.. Drivers Licenses, Passports or Student Photo ID is okay. If you're name was not given in to ASIFA by now, WB security will not let you in. Nobody named "Such-and-Such's Guest" will get in.

You can take in cameras, so long as you do not take photographs inside the studio lot. You may take them at the event.

WB will be filming the event for a possible new DVD release,so remember to comb your hair and brush your teeth. you may be asked to sign a release, so don't make faces at the camera. As Eric Larson used to tell us, your scenes are forever.

Hope you all have fun.

Posted by:Tom

October 22, 2009 thurs

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Which of the Marx Brothers never performed on film? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does Preston Sturges’ 1941 comedy Sullivan’s Travels have in common with a 2000 Cohen Brothers hit film starring George Clooney? ------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/22/2009 Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt, Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum, Annette Funicello, Brian Boitano, Catherine Deneuve is 66 1641- The Irish rise in revolt yet again against England, this time hoping that the Brits would be too wrapped up in their own Civil War to deal with them. By 1649 Oliver Cromwell came over and dealt with them so harshly his fury is still remembered today. 1660- Edward Hyde the Earl of Clarendon was a staunch supporter and advisor to King Charles Ist and his son Charles II. This day upon learning that his daughter Anne had been seduced and made pregnant by James the Duke of York the aforesaid earl humbly petitioned King and Parliament to please cut off his daughters head! Boy, when daddy gets angry! King Charles II dismissed the affair as much ado about nothing. 1746- The Royal College of New Jersey chartered- it was later renamed Princeton. 1797- Frenchman Jean Garnerin does the first successful parachute jump. He conceived the idea while imprisoned in a Hungarian Castle during the French Revolution. He first used his dog and threw him out of a balloon, then he jumped himself at 2300 feet in the.air and sprained his ankle. Garnarin died in a balloon accident in 1823 and his experiments forgotten. The practical modern parachute was not invented until 1910. 1805-After the naval Battle of Trafalgar the shot up English and French fleets were scattered by a violent three day ocean storm. Admiral Nelson's dead body had been sealed in an upright barrel of brandy for the trip back to London. After four days his body released some pent up gasses that suddenly popped the lid off the barrel. Must have scared the hell out of the guard on duty. 1843- THE GREAT DISSAPPOINTMENT- American preacher William Miller working with the books of Daniel and Revelations in the Bible calculated the exact date of the Messiah’s return and the End of the World to be Oct. 22nd 1843. A highly publicized newspaper and lecture campaign got the American public so worked up that many didn’t bother to plant crops. Banks noticed businessmen returning monies they swindled from former partners. On the appointed day Miller and thousands of followers withdrew to pitched tents outside Rochester New York to await the Rapture. They waited all day and all night and by dawn most went home disappointed and feeling a bit foolish. 1883- First performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It was Gounod’s Faust with soprano Christine Nillson and tenor Italo Campanini. 1892-The SWAHILI WAR begins. African ivory merchants Tippu Tip and Sefu began a revolution to drive the hated Belgian colonizers out of the Congo. This war has been forgotten in Europe in the light of how Belgium suffered under German occupations in the World Wars. But the Belgians proved they could be just as [...]

Brad Bird on the value of Morale on an animated film crew.

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Brad Bird: "In my experience, the thing that has the most significant impact on a movie’s budget—but never shows up in a budget—is morale. If you have low morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about 25 cents of value. If you have high morale, for every $1 you spend, you get about $3 of value. Companies should pay much more attention to morale."

( Thank you Dave Nethery for this..)

Lately,be it the Recession or whatever, I've been hearing that a lot of companies are working, but not many are very happy. They're glad to just be getting by.

We would all do well to heed such wisdom.

Posted by:Tom

Oct 21, 2009 Wed.

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What does Preston Sturges’ 1941 comedy Sullivan’s Travels have in common with a 2000 Cohen Brothers hit film starring George Clooney? Yesterday’s question answered below: What is a redoubt? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/21/2009 Birthdays: Katushika Hokusai, Dizzy Gillespie, Whitey Ford, Alfred Nobel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Carrie Fisher, Patty Davis (Ronnie Reagan's daughter), Benjamin Netanyahu, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Manfred Mann, Sir Georg Solti, Angus MacFadyen Today is the FEAST OF SAINT URSULA AND THE ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS, one of the sillier medieval legends. Supposedly on the way back from a pilgrimage to Rome the saintly daughter of a Mercian (English) king had spurned the attentions of the King of the Huns. So he had her and all eleven thousand of her handmaid put to death. Earliest accounts said she had only ten servants. 1492- San Salvador. Christopher Columbus writes on this day in his diary about the new land he is exploring: " We must have found Eden. I think men shall never see this place again as we have seen it." Within 50 years of Columbus's discovery, the Indian tribe that welcomed him on the beach, the Taino, were all but extinct. 1520- Fernand de Magellan sails into the Straights named for him to the Pacific. 1600- BATTLE OF SEKIGEHARA The final battle of Japan's feudal civil wars- Warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa defeats the Toyotomi faction and becomes paramount leader under the Emperor, called the Shogun. Ieyasu later died from eating too much tempura, but the Tokugawa family closed off Japan from all contact with foreigners and missionaries and ruled as Shoguns until 1868. 1797- The 44 gun frigate USS Constitution launched. Nicknamed Old Ironsides, it is the oldest commissioned warship in the US Navy. It saw active service until 1861, remained a training vessel and is still entertaining tourists in Boston Harbor today. In 1997 it took a spin around the harbor to show it still had what it takes. 1805- TRAFALGAR- Admiral Nelson destroyed Napoleon's naval power in one huge battle off the southwestern coast of Spain. Trafalgar is a vulgarization of the Arabic " Al-Taraff Al-Agharr" or " The Fair Point.” Nelson began the day raising the signal flags "England expects every man to do his duty." One of Nelson's toughest captains, Sir John Collingwood said: "What the devil is Nelson about ? We already know that!" In the heat of the battle the one-eyed, one armed Lord Nelson strode up and down the poop deck in his full dress uniform to inspire his men. He loved medals, he even had one that spun around. He not only inspired the English Tars but also the French sharpshooters who shot him down. He received the news of the victory as he lay dying and said:" The day is ours, kiss me Hardy." Hardy was captain of the flagship HMS Victory. French admiral Villeneuve, whom Napoleon goaded into fighting by threatening to courts-martial him as a 'Coward, Idiot and Traitor" left the service and later committed suicide. When they took Nelson's body back to England they bent it into a brandy barrel for preservation, whi[...]

October 20th, 2009 tues. IRON GIANT NEWS!!!

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

ASIFA-Hollywood's 10th Anniversary Iron Giant Reunion, will be taking place on Friday, October 23, 2009, at 7:30 p.m. Due to the overwhelming response to the event, the program has been moved from Woodbury University to the Stephen J. Ross Theater, on the Warner Bros. Studio Lot, in Burbank. Guests will park in the Franklin parking structure, located at 4301 W. Olive Ave, Burbank, which is across the street from the Warner Bros. Studio Lot. At the parking structure, guests will be given an entrance pass, then directed across the street to Gate 2, for entrance onto the studio lot, and then directed to the theater. All guests are required to show a valid government photo ID, in order to be admitted into the parking structure and onto the studio lot. Bring walking shoes, you'll be talking a nice walk across the historic studio lot, walking in the footsteps of Errol Flynn and Chuck Jones. Due to the large turnout to this event, you are advised you to arrive no later than 7:00 p.m, to insure that you have enough time to park and and get to the theater before the program begins. Warner Bros studio security requires a list of every person attending. In addition, all guests are required to show a valid government photo ID, in order to be admitted into the parking structure and onto the studio lot. To confirm your reservation, you are required to email ASIFA-Hollywood (or reply to this email) your name and the name of your guests (if any), no later than 5:00 p.m. Wednesday, October 21, 2009. If ASIFA-Hollywood does not hear from you by then, it will be assumed that you will not be attending the event, and your seat(s) will be released. Please remember that tickets are non-refundable. ------------------------------------------------------- Question: What is a redoubt? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is the origin of the phrase :” What’s in a Name..?” ----------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/20/2009 Birthdays: Sir Christopher Wren, Bela Lugosi (born Bela Blasgow from Lugosz), Charles Ives, Arthur Rimbaud, Black Panther Bobby Seale, Juan Marichal, Tom Petty, Art Buchwald, Arlene Francis, Grandpa Jones, Mickey Mantle, Jerry Orbach, Rex Ingram, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Michael Dunn, Snoop Dogg is 38, Viggo Mortensen is 51 1805- NELSON'S LAST DISPATCH- Once Admiral Horatio Nelson learned that Napoleon’s Franco-Spanish Fleet had come out of Cadiz harbor he headed them off at Cape Trafalgar. Knowing the big battle would be fought on the morrow, he wrote his last log entries and letters. In one of them he begs the Admiralty to 'take care of My Poor Emma', meaning Lady Hamilton, his beautiful mistress. He wrote nothing about his wife. Nelson was killed in the battle and lionized as the hero of the nation, but Lady Hamilton was shunned as a homebreaker, and died a fat old souse in Calais. 1813- An incident during Napoleons evacuation of Germany after his defeat at Leipzig. The retreating Neuchatel regiment were being harassed by pursuing Russian Cossack cavalry. Seeing a women camp follower or vivandiere, straggling behind the column a Cossack [...]

October 19, 2009 mon

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is the origin of the phrase :” What’s in a Name..?” Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What is a spoonerism? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ History for 10/19/2009 Birthdays: Martha "Patsy" Jefferson, Auguste Lumiere, John Le Carre', Peter Tosh, Amy Carter, Jack Anderson, Peter Max, John Lithgow, Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch, Evander Holyfield, Patricia Ireland, Michael Gambon, Trey Parker of South Park is 39 Roman festival Armilustrum, blessing of the shields of the Roman Legions. Official end of campaigning season. Ancient nations didn't wage war from Oct. to Feb. because the winter cold would cost more lives than battle. It's no wonder that the first month that's warm enough to go out and kill people is named for Mars (March). 202BC.-BATTLE OF ZAMA - Hannibal's great defeat at the hands of Publius Cornelius Scipio, who was honored by Rome with the surname "Africanis". It was said Scipio thwarted Hannibal’s dreaded elephants by frightening them away with a herd of wild pigs. The reason elephants weren't more widely used in battle was they had the nasty habit of getting frightened easily and trampling on your own men to run away. To correct this Carthaginians invented the first Emergency Brake- a large wooden stake behind the animals ears pounded into the brain with a mallet. Problem was you could only use this braking method once. Despite saving Rome and defeating the greatest military genius since Alexander, after the Punic war Scipio Africanis was the target of a senate investigation into defense budget overdrafts. He tore up his expense records in front of the Senate and went into exile, not before scolding the Senators: "If Hannibal stood here instead of me, you would not be worrying about this." 43BC- Octavian, Julius Caesars 20 year old nephew and adopted heir, marched four legions into Rome and seized the government. He drove out the supporters of Brutus & Cassius as well as the supporters of his erstwhile ally Mark Anthony. He had Brutus & Cassius officially declared Enemies of the State. Octavian would eventually defeat them all and rule Rome as Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome. 1216- King John Lackland died, legend has it from an evil monk who pours poison from a venemous toad into his ear as he slept. There's no such thing as a poisonous toad in England, he actually died from eating too many peaches and brandywine. 1453- Britain and France sign a peace treaty finally ending the Hundred Years War. The on again, off again conflict had started in 1336. 1739- England declared war on Spain. The war was called the War of Jenkins Ear because a sea captain appeared in Parliament with his ear floating in a bottle of spirits and swore a Spanish captain had done it to him on the high seas. Some thought he was a fraud but England was hot for war, and a man named James Thompson had introduced his stirring new song "Rule Britannia! Britannia Rules the Waves! Britons Never, Never, Never Shall be Slaves! 1739-The Holy Inquisition in Portugal has it’s great dramatist An[...]

October 18th, 2009 sunday

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is a spoonerism? Yesterday's Question Answered Below: Why is staying away from school called playing hooky? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/18/2009 Birthdays: Cannaletto, Lotte Lenya, Wynton Marsalis, Leo G. Carroll, George C. Scott, Pierre Trudeau, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mike Dytka, Peter Boyle Inger Stevens, Violetta Chamorro, Wendy Wasserstein, Wynton Marsalis, Martina Navratilova, Jean Claude Van Damme FEAST OF ST. LUKE. According to ancient sources Luke was actually a physician, but Medieval tradition made him the protector of artists. In Rome during the Renaissance Titian, Rubens and El Greco were members of the Guild of St. Luke. 1776- A New York pub decorated with birds opened, customers ordered a drink they nicknamed a "Cocks Tail". The origin of the name. 1767- The Mason-Dixon line settled the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. In a later generation it became the symbol of the divide between North and South. 1793- Napoleon gets his first job. Sub-lieutenant Napoleon Bonaparte promoted to major of artillery and posted to Toulon. He is 24. At 25 he will be a General, at 31 a dictator at 35, an Emperor, at 46 unemployed, and dead at 52. Hmmm, sounds like a career in Hollywood. 1861- Poet and suffragette Julia Ward Howe was staying at the Willard Hotel down the block from the White House. She awoke in the middle of the night inspired to write new words to a popular soldiers tune she heard that day "John Brown's Body". She wrote "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord...." She called it "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"." Glory-Glory Halleluiah, His Truth is Marching On…" 1896- Joseph Pulitzer's N.Y. Journal American created the first Sunday Color Comics supplement. 1922- The British Broadcast Corp or BBC formed. 1924- College football star Red Grange scored four long yardage touchdowns in one game. 1926- In Hollywood, Sid Grauman's Egyptian Theater opens. 1931- Thomas Edison died peacefully at age 84. His last words were- "It's beautiful over there..." 1950- In an emotional showdown in the Directors Guild all motions by C.B.DeMille and Frank Capra to extend the Hollywood anti-Communist blacklist to include expulsion from the Director's Guild are defeated. Billy Wilder, John Huston, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy supported President Joe Mankiewicz who blocked the Blacklist Motions, and they also prevented a recall vote on Mankiewicz' s presidency. 1954- Hi & Lois comic strip debuted. 1967- Walt Disney's last cartoon done under his supervision "the Jungle Book." premiered. Disney had died the previous December. If you remember the film the end sequence Mowgli meets four vultures who talk like the Beatles but sing barbershop quartet. That’s because the characters were supposed to sing a Beatles parody song but the directors felt the group would soon be forgotten so they didn't want to date the film. The director of the Jungle Book, Woolie Reitherman, died when he drove his car into a tree in 1985. 1974- Tobe[...]

October 17th, 2009 sat

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Why is staying away from school called playing hooky? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What is the Hippocratic Oath? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- history for 10/17/2009 Birthdays: Arthur Miller, Rita Hayworth, Jean Arthur, Montgomery Clift, Jimmy Breslin, Tom Poston, Gary Puckett, Margot Kidder, Evil Knievel, Jerry Seigel (Superman co-creator), Virgil 'Vip' Partch Disney animator, Charles Kraft the sliced cheese king, Beverly Garland- star of Attack of the Alligator People, George Wendt, Mike Judge the creator of Beavis & Butthead, Eminem 641 A.D.- ALEXANDRIA, the "Paris of the Ancient World" fell to the advancing armies of Islam. The Byzantine Greek emperors had been persecuting the native Coptic Christians as a heresy, so the Egyptians bloodlessly opened their gates to the Arab invaders. 1777- BURGOYNE SURRENDERS AT SARATOGA- 'Gentleman Johnny' Burgoyne, and his British Army are surrounded in upper New York State and forced to surrender. This is seen as the turning point of the American Revolution, because the victory gave the rebels credibility in the eyes of England's traditional enemies- France, Holland and Spain. That evening General Burgoyne was invited to dinner by the American General Gates and his staff. When invited to give the first toast Burgoyne raised his glass and said:” To His Excellency George Washington!” When Burgoyne left England that spring he had wagered politician Charles Fox 50 guineas he would conquer America singlehanded and return by Christmas. Well, he did get home by Christmas... 1787- The US Constitution accepted and signed into law, U.S. Constitutional Convention adjourns. 1805- THE BATTLE OF ULM- Napoleon maneuvers his regiments around and entire Austrian army and captured it while it sat around waiting for their Russian allies. Nobody in the Austrian command realized that the Russian's calendar date for their link up was two weeks different then the Western Calendar. The last they heard Napoleon's army was at the English Channel trying to figure out how to get across. Napoleon sent his army in five columns racing across Europe to suddenly appear in Austria. When the Austrian defeat seemed certain the honorary commander of the army the Emperor’s brother Archduke Ferdinand ran for the hills and left the actual commander General Mack to take the consequences. When Mack was brought before Napoleon to surrender he exclaimed: "Behold the Unfortunate Mack !" Before the war Mack taught strategy and tactics. Not only did the Austrian Emperor order Mack court-martialed and sacked but a lot of students must have dropped his class. 1814- In London a large beer vat burst and drowned nine people. 1815- Napoleon is landed on his final island of exile, St.Helena, off the coast of sub equatorial Africa. The humid climate was considered by the British so unhealthy that they rotated the garrison every year. Napoleon spent the voyage learning English and became such good friends with his assign[...]

October 15th, 2009 thurs

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What does Roger Moore have in common with Jack Nicholson and Beverly DiAngelo? Quiz: What is the Vitruvian Man, why is it important to digital animators using Maya? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/15/2009 Birthdays: Quintus Virgilius-Virgil 70 BC, Mughal Emperor Akbar the Great 1542, Oscar Wilde, Fredrich Nietszche, Mikail Lermontov, John L. Sullivan, Burt Gillett, John Kenneth Galbraith, Robert Trout, Klaus Barbie the Nazi Butcher of Lyon, P.G. Wodehouse, Penny Marshall, Mario Puzo, Linda Lavin, 'Tanya Roberts, Sarah Ferguson-Fergie' the former Duchess of York is 49, Chef Emeril LeGasse, Roger Moore is 82, Chuck Berry is 83 Happy Birthday Chuck Berry Ancient Roman Festival of the Ides, a chariot race where the winning team of horses was sacrificed to Mars the Avenger. 1564- Great doctor and medical scholar Andreas Vesalius died of exposure after his ship was wrecked off the coast of Zante Greece. Vesalius specialty was anatomy, he described the lobes of the liver, the bones of the jaw and finally got modern medicine to stop following the conclusions of the Roman doctor Galen on faith, and go experiment for themselves. Vesalius was so passionate about anatomical dissection that he would sneak out to the hangmans’s tree outside town and pull the bodies down for study. 1582- THE GREGORIAN CALENDAR took effect- Julius Caesar’s 366 day calendar was losing 11 minutes every year since 45 BC. Medieval scientists like Dennis Exiguus ( the man responsible for B.C.-A.D. counting) and Roger Bacon in the 1200’s noticed something was wrong. By 1582 the calendar was 11 days off the solar year. Pope Gregory XI had scientist Dionysius Ingratius revise the calendar of Julius Caesar by using a 400 year cycle of 365 days with a leap day every four years and no leap year when it occurred every fourth century. So 2000 was a leap year while 1900,1800 and 1700 were not. On this day people had gone to sleep on Oct. 5th and woke up on Oct.15th ! 1757- Prussian King Frederick the Great took time out from fighting wars with most of Europe to try and convince German poet Johann Gottsched to stop trying to write poetry in German. “So many guttural explosions, so many consonants- Klop, Knap, Krotz, Krok how could you make melody in such a language?.” Frederick spoke French exclusively and switched to German only to address servants and soldiers. Ironically, despite Frederick, the fame of his court sparked a renaissance of music, poetry and philosophy- all in German. 1764- While wandering through the ruins of ancient Rome, British writer Edward Gibbon is inspired to write "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire". After 20 years labor and thousands of pages he finished. When he gave the first copy bound in gold to mad King George III, the king said to him: " What's this? Another big damned black book, eh, Mr. Gibbon? Scribble, scribble!" 1781- Climactic actions of the Siege of Yorktown when Franco-A[...]

October 16th, 2009 fri.

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is the Hippocratic Oath? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What does Roger Moore have in common with Jack Nicholson and Beverly DiAngelo? ------------------------------------- History for 10/16/2009 Birthdays: Lord Cardigan, Eugene O'Neill, Noah Webster, Dave DeBusschere, David Ben-Gurion, Angela Lansbury, Gunter Grass, Linda Darnell, Charles Colson, Tim Robbins, Susanne Somers is 62, David Zucker, Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers Today is the Feast of Saint Hedwig who was married to a German Duke at 12 years old. They had six children and when they were grown, she went to a cloister, and her husband never shaved or bathed again. He was called Henry the Bearded. 1793- French Queen Marie Antoinette guillotined. She followed her husband King Louis XVI who was beheaded the previous January. The crowd in the Paris streets didn't have much sympathy for the foreign born wife Marie. They called her "'la Chienne d'Autriche' '-the Austrian Bitch. Her last words were as she ascended the scaffold, she stepped on the toe of the executioner. 'Excuse me." she said. 1817- Giovanni Belzoni discovered the great tomb of Pharaoh Seti Ist in the Valley of the Kings. He discovered 8 more ancient royal tombs in the valley as well as the inner chambers of the Great Pyramid of Khufu, making the world aware of the Valley of the Kings. 1829- The Tremont Hotel opened in Boston. Called the first modern hotel in America, it had a luxurious 170 rooms and 4 meals a day. All for an extravagant $2 a night. 1834- The British House of Parliament caught fire and burnt to the ground in a horrific conflagration. Luckily artists William Turner and John Constable were around watching the blaze from the south bank of the Thames, so at least we got a few neat paintings out of it... 1846- At Massachusetts General Hospital Dr. John Warren performed the first operation on a patient under anesthesia. A Georgia doctor named Morton extracted a tooth using ether two years earlier and there was a fracas as to who invented it first. But the new was groundbreaking. Until then surgeons were considered social inferiors to doctors because all surgeons really needed in their work was strong arms to hold people down while sawing on them. 1859-HARPERS FERRY- Kansas abolitionist John Brown led a group of followers and slaves to seize the large U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. They planned to use the weapons to begin a general slave uprising throughout the South. Brown had declared: "the Sins of this Nation are so great that they cannot be expunged but by a great effusion of blood!" Harriet Tubman wanted to be present but for an illness. Brown and his men were surrounded by the army and forced to surrender after a gunbattle in which two of Brown's sons were killed. The slaves did not rise in revolt. Present at the army operation were U.S. army officers Robert E. Lee and a Virginia National guard reservist, actor John Wilkes Booth. Brown was later hanged. Northerners co[...]

Oct 14, 2009 Wed.

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is the Vitruvian Man, and why is it important to digital animators using Maya? Yesterday’s Answer below: Dashell Hammett and Raymond Chandler wrote detective stories set in dark, corrupt and misty Noir cities. Where did they both live? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/14/2009 B-Days: William Penn-1644, King James II Stuart, Joseph Plateau, Sword master Masoaka Shiki 1867, Dwight Eisenhower, Lillian Gish, Ralph Lauren, Eamon De Valera, e.e.cummings, Mobutu Sese Seko, C. Everet Koop, John Dean III, Cliff Richards, Jack Arnold the director of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Roger Moore is 82 Feast of St Theresa of Avila 1066-WHEN WILLIAM ROSE AND HAROLD FELL- BATTLE OF HASTINGS- The Norman army of William the Bastard defeats and kills King Harold Godwinson of the Anglo-Saxons. The occupation and settlement of Norman French into England had a dramatic effect on the language ensuring the language you are now speaking would become English, instead of something between Dutch and Danish. The Normans also introduced the English to the concept of surnames- Wulf the Tailor yielding to Robert Beauceant and William Longchamps. Duke William, who was never fond of the title 'Bastard", became instead King William the Conquerer. 1492- Columbus and his men left San Salvador to continue west and look for Cipango- their name for Japan. 1529- WESTERN EUROPE DISCOVERS COFFEE- The first Turkish Siege of Vienna ends. Despite the oath of Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent, who told his troops that if they didn't win he would fill the Danube with their genitals, the Turkish army lifts the siege and retreats back into Hungary. As the Viennese went through the Turkish camp they found large quantities of black beans that tasted awful. the ancient Egyptians mashed coffee beans into cakes and ate them. A Polish mercenary named Adam Kolschitsky had lived in Turkey and knew what to do with the bitter beans. He opened the first Viennese coffeehouse, the KolschitskyDom. He is also credited with inventing the coffee filter, which made the strong Turkish java palatable to Europeans. The Viennese commemorated their victory with a pastry shaped like the Turkish battle ensign, the crescent, or the Croissant. History however is silent about who first uttered the awesome command DOUBLE-DOUBLE-ICE-MOCHA-NON-FAT-LATTE ! 1670-At a performance before King Louis XIV the Sun King at the Chateau of Chambord Moliere’s satire “Le Bourgeouis Gentilhomme” premiered. Lully wrote the music. 1806- BATTLE OF JENA- Napoleon's army destroyed the Prussian (German) army and occupies Berlin in only six weeks. The Prussian army had been considered the finest in the world but by this time the legendary regiments of Frederick the Great were led by old men and a timid king. The average age of the sergeants was 50 and the generals 75! The night before the battle the Prussians gav[...]

October 13, 2009 tues.

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Dashell Hammett and Raymond Chandler wrote detective stories set in dark, corrupt and misty Noir cities. Where did they both live? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who invented Octoberfest? ---------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/13/2008 Birthdays: Revolutionary War heroine Mary Ludwig nicknamed Molly Pitcher, Paul Simon is 65, Lily Langtry-the Jersey Lilly, Lenny Bruce, Larraine Day, Nipsy Russell, Cornel Wilde, Margaret Thatcher, Herblock, Yves Montand, Nancy Kerrigan, Sammy Hagar, Marie Osmond is 50, Kelly Preston is 47, Chris Carter is 53, according to the X-Files this is the birthday of Special Agent Fox-Mulder-1961, Sascha Baron-Cohen is 38 539BC- The Persian armies of Cyrus the Great captured the city of Babylon, beginning the great Persian Empire which would last for a thousand years. Cyrus also allowed the Israelites to return home, ending their Babylonian Captivity. 54AD- Elderly Roman Emperor Claudius died from eating poisoned mushrooms served to him by his wife Agrippina. Another account has him vomiting the mushrooms but Agrippina administered to him an herbal enema which she also poisoned. This way she ensured her boy Nero would be emperor before Claudius could come to his senses about making that fat little maniac his heir. Later as emperor Nero had his mom killed. Robert Graves wrote that Claudius feigned simple-mindedness but many Romans felt it wasn’t an act. It was the custom when a Roman emperor died to deify him, make him a god. The writer Seneca thought it would be embarrassing for the gods to have a dolt like Claudius in their company. He wrote an epic poem on the subject called the 'Pumpkinification of Claudius". 1307- MASSACRE of the TEMPLARS- The Knights Templar were a holy order of warrior monks named for their Crusader base at he site of the Temple of Herod in Jerusalem. After the Crusades while the Knights of St John continued to fight Moslems in Greece and Malta the Templars settled back in Europe and went into banking. They amassed great wealth all tax-free because it was Church property. This annoyed kings like Brtiain’s Edward Ist and France’s Phillip the Fair. So this day Phillip bribed the Pope to declare the entire Templar Order heretics and burned at the stake. Myths abound about the Templars having bizarre rituals and the secrets like the location of the Holy Grail, but most of it was made up by the Inquisitors to frame them. But one neat idea they brought back from the Middle East was the personal check. This way a Templar Knight could cross international borders without carrying heavy bags of gold, then go to the nearest Templar castle and redeem a note with his signet on it for money. I wonder if their notes had pretty sunsets painted on them... 1590- Chief Powhatan, head of a confederation of Algonguian tribes in the Cheasapeake Bay area, wiped out a Spanish Jesuit colony attempting to [...]

Oct 12, 2009 mon.

Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who invented Octoberfest? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does TNT stand for? -------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/12/2009 Traditional Columbus Day Birthdays: "God's Imp"King Edward VI- only son of Henry VIII, Emperor Pedro Ist of Brazil 1798, Helena Modjeska, Ralph Vaughn-Williams, Alastair Crowley, Luciano Pavarrotti, animator Izzy Klein, Joan Rivers, Dick Gregory, Tony Kubek, Susan Anton, Kirk Cameron, Hugh Jackman 1492- COLUMBUS STEPS ASHORE IN AMERICA.- The Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria drop anchor off San Salvador in the Bahamas after sighting land around 2:10 A.M.Oct 22nd Old Style. It was a full moon. Columbus had offered a reward for the first man to see land. Juan de Boromeo aboard the Pinta sighted land first, but Columbus later claimed he did and kept the money- cheap bugger. Expecting to meet Chinese people Columbus brought with him a translator who could speak Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish and Hebrew as well as a letter from King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella to the Great Khan of Cathay. Obviously none of this was of much help with the Taino Indians. Although other people have claimed to have discovered the Western Hemisphere earlier: The Chinese, the Vikings or Irish Saint Brendan, Columbus' landing was the beginning of the great European-African migration to the Western Hemisphere. As Noel Coward put it:" Let’s just say that by 1492 we just couldn't ignore you any longer." 1776- Battle of Throgg's Neck- The British amphibiously land a force behind George Washington's army in the Bronx and force the American's to escape to White Plains and later across the Hudson into New Jersey. Throgg's Neck is a Dutch form of 'frog's neck'. 1800- The Independent Chronicle reported the national debt of the United States was around $70 million dollars. The Bank of the United States refused any additional loans to the government to help complete construction of Washington D.C. Today’s national debt is in the trillions. 1886- Beginning of Sherlock Holmes story:” Adventure of the Second Stain”. 1915- British nurse Edith Cavell was put up against a wall and shot by a German firing squad. She remained behind when allied armies retreated, and was accused of espionage for helping wounded soldiers escape to neutral Holland. The execution of a 49 year old woman outraged Victorian opinion in Britain and the US, and was played up by the press to drum up enthusiasm for the war. 1928- The Winnie the Pooh stories featuring Tigger are first published 1937- Under pressure from parent Paramount Studio, Max Fleischer signed the first animation union contract and settled the Cartoonist strike begun May 8th. 1940-60 year old silent movie star Tom Mix died in auto crash outside of Florence, Arizona. He ignored signs that a bridge was out and fell into a dry gulley. A large overpacked suitcase[...]

October 11, 2009 sun.

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What does TNT stand for? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below- What did Alfred Nobel do to get a prize named after him? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/11/2009 Birthdays: Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Heinz the Ketchup king,, Jerome Robbins, Carl Hubbard, Ron Leibman, John Candy, Omar Shariff is 77, Ben Vereen, Art Blakey, Luke Perry, Joan Cusak, Sig Ruman– the fat actor with the goatee and the over-the-top German accent in the Marx Brothers comedies, Ninotchka and Stalag 17 1424- Czech general John of Ziska died of plague. He had never been defeated in the Hussite Wars and led battles even when almost blind. When dying he requested that his body be skinned and the skin used to make a drum for his army. Wow, tough Czech! 1492- As the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria continue sailing west, Christopher Columbus' fear crazed men began to see signs that land was close at hand: floating driftwood, a carved stick, moths, a seabird. 1776- The Battle of Valcour Island- American patriot Benedict Arnold builds a little navy on Lake Champlain and lets himself get shot up to stall a huge British invasion force under Canadian Governor-General Sir Guy Carleton. Because of Arnold's delaying tactics it became too late in the year to cut off Washington's army retreating from New York and crush the Revolution in it's first year. Sir Guy Carleton's force had to return to Canada and wait until the Spring thaw. Valcour Island sometimes is called the first action of the U.S. Navy. Amazingly one of Arnold's little boats was recently brought up from the lake and is now in the Smithsonian. 1809- MERIWETHER LEWIS’ SUICIDE- Colonel Meriwether Lewis, of Lewis and Clark fame, shot himself -twice. He wounded himself in the head the first time. He was 35. Meriwether Lewis was governor of Upper Louisiana (Missouri, Wisconsin, Montana, Illinois) and was the personal protege of Presidents Jefferson and Monroe. It’s not inconceivable to assume that he would have been president one day. Some contend that Lewis didn't commit suicide but was murdered, because it was at a small tavern on the Natchez Trace, he had been arguing with some men along the road, and he was found with two head wounds, and his belly slashed with a bowie knife. Another scholar recently theorized Lewis was suffering from delirium caused by advanced syphilis, which he may have contracted from a Shoshone woman while on the great trek over the Rockies. His friends Jefferson and Captain Clark maintained Lewis was emotionally overwrought and was drinking too much. What an important United States Governor was doing riding all alone with no staff on a country road is still a mystery. 1867- General George Armstrong Custer was courts-martialed for leaving his post without permission to see his wife Libby, ordering his men to sho[...]

October 10th, 2009 sat.

Sat, 10 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What did Alfred Nobel do to get a prize named after him? Yesterday’s question answered below: What is the meaning of 54/40 or Fight!...? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/10/2009 Birthdays: Martin Luther, Guiseppi Verdi, Henry Cavendish 1731- the chemist who discovered Hydrogen, Helen Hayes, Mary Blair, Louis Lumiere, Thelonius Monk, Rod Scribner, LaVerne Harding, Boer President Paul Kruger, Alberto Giacometti Tanya Tucker, Harold Pinter, Richard Tucker, James Clavel, Jodi Benson the Little Mermaid, David Lee Roth, Bradley Whitford is 50, Sharon Osbourne is 56. 1469- Renaissance master artist Fra Filippo Lippi died, probably poisoned by the family of a girl he seduced. The great painter was a major influence on Leonardo daVinci and Massaccio, but for a Carmalite monk he had an immoderate lust for women. He left one son, the artist Fillipino Lippi, by his wife Lucrezia Buti, a nun he had carried off from the convent of Santa Margherita promising to use her as a model for the Madonna. 1492-According to Columbus's diary, this was the worst day of his sailor’s disaffection. Their pleas to turn around and go home almost become open mutiny, but still Columbus refused to turn back. 1520- ERASMUS EXILED- The Great humanist scholar had tried to steer a neutral course between the growing feud between Catholics and Protestants. He preferred to stay a Catholic while sending Martin Luther advice and encouraging moderation to all. The result was both sides hated him as a traitorous heretic. On this day he was hounded out of his home in Louvain by the Papal nuncio. The archbishop of Toledo who had defended him in Rome was burned at the stake. Desiderio Erasmus, ill and elderly, wandered from Switzerland to France to Austria until he was finally allowed to die in peace in Basel -even though Protestant leader John Calvin protested. 1842- King Frederich Wilhelm IV issued a new style of headgear to the Prussian Army, a pressed leather and metal helmet with a distinctive spike on top. The spiked helmet became famous and was called the Pickelhaube, or Pickle Sticker. It lasted until World War One in 1918. 1845- The US Naval Academy at Annapolis opened. 1846- Neptune’s moon Triton discovered by William Lassell. 1886- The first Tuxedo jacket worn at the Autumn Ball at Tuxedo Park, New York. Another story of the origin of the fashion was supposedly invented by English gentleman on safari with Bertie the Prince of Wales. Wanting to appear at dinner formally but because of heat and high spikey grass they cut the lower part of their long dinner jackets off. 1911- Ten-Ten National Day- Chinese demanding a republic seize the city of Wuhan and begin to march to Beijing. Their leader Dr. Sun Yat Sen was at this time in Denver soliciting funds for their cause.[...]

October 09, 2009 friday

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is the meaning of the phrase 54-40 or Fight!....? Quiz: What does it mean to “ set your imprimatur” on something? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/9/2009 Birthdays: Camille Saint Saens, E. Howard Hunt, Jacques Tati, Alastair Sim, Bruce Catton, Joe Pepitone, cartoonist Mike Peters, Savannah, John Lennon, his son Sean Lennon, E. Howard Hunt, Scott Bakula, Tony Schaloub, Peter Tosh, Charles Rudolph Walgren-the inventor of the modern Drugstore, Guillermo Del Toro is 45 Today is the Feast of St. Denis. If you've ever been to Paris you'll notice the Basilica of St. Denis is way out of town in a northern suburb. In 270 a.d. Saint Denis and several followers were sent to preach in Lutetia (home of a Gaulish tribe called the Parisi ). The local Roman authorities had them rounded up and beheaded on a small hill north of town. The hill is today called the Hill of Martyrs, or Montmartre. The legend goes Saint Denis was so indignant at this lack of hospitality of having one's head cut off that he picked up his head and walked out of town. Where he reached the city limits and dropped down lifeless is where basilica designed by the Abbey Suger in 1122 today stands. 1000AD- VIKINGS DISCOVER AMERICA. Viking Leif Ericsson lands his dragonships in Labrador, Canada. He calls it Vinland and there are several theories why: one was because of an abundance of grapevines he discovered. Another is that the old Norse crossed with Latin Vinland could also be described as Land of Pastures. Still a third theory was that Leif may have been taking after his old man Eric the Red, one of the phoniest used car salesmen in history. Eric discovered a frozen waste near the arctic circle and named it Greenland to dupe people into coming out to settle, so Leif may have described this barren rocky shoreline Vinland to get suckers interested. The Vikings settled a colony in America but it didn't take and was withdrawn for unknown reasons. The second expedition under Thorfinn Karlsefni called the Indians they met Skraelings, and claimed they met a race of one legged men. 1192- Richard the Lionheart left the Holyland. End of the Third Crusade. He planned to return in 1196 and take Jerusalem but never did. 1609- Invalid Captain John Smith is put on a ship back to England. Smith had earlier gotten stung by a stingray and almost died. This time a powder horn exploded on his hip and blew out part of his side. While Smith was leader of the Jamestown Colony he had many enemies among the jealous gentry and some don't think he had an accident. Opinions also differ as to why the Jamestown settlers put Smith through a two month Atlantic crossing that could kill even healthy men. Some say they were hoping he wouldn't make it. He survived but never returned t[...]

October 08, 2009 thurs

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

The Iron Giant Show at ASIFA SOLD OUT in just 2 &1/2 hours. ------------------------------------------------------------------- Quiz: What does it mean to “ set your imprimateur” on something? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What do these families have in common? Lucchese, Gambino, Bonano, Genovese, and Colombo?------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/8/2009 Birthdays: Eddie Rickenbacker, Rev Jesse Jackson, Juan Peron, David Carradine, Art Babbitt -the creator of Goofy, Chevy Chase, Paul Hogan, Rona Barrett, Ruben Mamoulian, Edward Zwick, Johnny Ramone, Sigourney Weaver is 60, Matt Damon is 39 1777- British General Clinton tried to get a message through to Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne and his army trapped at Saratoga. He sent a Tory-Loyalist scout with a message rolled up and hidden in a solid silver capsule. When he was intercepted by the Americans, the loyalist swallowed the capsule before he was searched. He was given a heavy emetic "whereupon he soon produced the capsule, which he proceeded to grab and swallow again. Another emetic was administered and he produced the capsule again." The message was opened and read, then the man hanged as a spy." 1846- Battle of Old Woman's Gun. In 1846 as part of the Mexican War, United States forces had taken the pueblo of Los Angeles. But after a few weeks, the first Yankee mayor, a Lt. Gillespie, was such as a-hole that the Mexican citizens drove them out of town. On this day the US forces came up from their fleet anchored in San Pedro Harbor and tried to re-take the city. Mexican forces led by a rancher named Carillo routed the Yankees in part with an old 4 pound signal cannon that an old lady had buried in her front yard. She had hid the old gun when Gillespie ordered the population disarmed. The Californios had no gun carriage so they lashed the old gun to a wagon harness. Six months later, the US forces finally overcame LA resistance and the town stayed in Yankee control. 1862-THE BATTLE OF PERRYVILLE- Union forces defeat General Baxton Bragg's Confederates and prevent Kentucky from joining the Confederacy. Abe Lincoln said: " I hope I have God on my side but I Must have Kentucky." The Confederates had actually pushed the Yankees off the field and were at the edge of victory, but Bragg overestimated the enemies strength the next day and ordered a general retreat, wasting everything they gained. His second in command General Kirby Smith resigned in disgust. The commander of the Union Army Gen. Don Carlos Buell, was so distracted with other business that he was hardly aware that his men had fought a battle. He was soon replaced. One of those killed was a Virginian who had joined the Union Army, a General James Tyrell. Two years later his only [...]

October 07,2009 weds The Iron Giant 10th Reunion

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Plans are set and tickets being sold for the 10th Anniv Iron Giant panel. Friday Oct 23rd at 7:30PM at the Fletcher Jones Auditorium at Woodbury Univ in Burbank. Brad Bird is coming in person, as well as dept heads Jeff Lynch, Steve Markowski, Scott Johnston and Anne Guenther. Many of the crew will come to celebrate and we promise rare behind the scenes footage. Come and give them the applause that they should have gotten ten years ago. check out asifa_hollywood.com for tickets. ---------------------------------------------------------- Question: What do these families have in common? Lucchese, Gambino, Bonano, Genovese, and Colombo? Quiz: What is Tilting the Quintain..? ------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/7/2009 Birthdays: Hans Holbein, Heinrich Himmler, Caesar Rodney, Joe Hill, Andy Devine, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Henry Wallace, June Allyson, Oliver North, Al Martino, Jose Cardenal, Neils Bohr, Ameil Buraka, Johnny Cougar Mellencamp, Toni Braxton, Yo Yo Ma 1337- King Edward III of England decides he's not only King of England but King of France as well- the HUNDRED YEARS WAR begins. It was actually 111 years, until 1446. Ironically it was around this time that the English language began to emerge as the common mother tongue of Britain, melding the Norman French of the nobility with the Anglo Saxon of the common folks. 1763- THE ROYAL PROCLAMATION TO NORTH AMERICA- The British Colonial Ministry, trying to reward it's Indian allies in the French and Indian War and kill two birds with one stone, told the Americans that any further western colonization to the Mississippi was forbidden, but they were invited to go north and colonize Quebec. This would hopefully mean the outnumbering and eventual assimilation of the French Canadians. Neither happens and it only angered the Americans who were never asked about this idea. The British even toyed with making the Illinois and Michigan territories part of Canada. Could you imagine it:" How' bout dem Cubs,-eh?" 1777-SECOND BATTLE OF BEMIS HEIGHTS-British General Johnny Burgoyne trying to break out of a trap, smashed his army against the American defenses in a heavy rain. The defense works were engineered by Polish patriot Thaddeus Kosciuszko. Washington spelled his name 11 different ways in dispatches, the men just called him " Colonel Koz". Burgoyne had snubbed his superior officers since his arrival in America, saying he answered directly to the War office in London. Now surrounded in the forest by overwhelming odds he snuck out a message to General Guy Carleton in Canada "I await your Lordship's orders." Carelton recognized this weenie attempt to shift blame and ignored him. The hero of this battle was Benedict Arnold. Arnold w[...]

October 06th, 2009 tues.

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is Tilting the Quintain..? Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below: Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have been called demagogues. What is a demagogue? -------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/6/2009 Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Jenny Lind the Swedish Nightingale, George Westinghouse, Janet Gaynor, Carol Lombard, Karol Szymanowski, Thor Heyderthal, wrestler Bruno Sammartino, Britt Eckland, Le Corbusier, Elizabeth Shue is 46, Sean William Scott, Jeremy Sisto In Ireland this is Ivy Day, when Irish folk commemorate the death of the great statesman Charles Stuart Parnell with a sprig of ivy in their buttonholes. 1072- King Sancho the Strong of Castille was killed while trying to attack neighboring King Ulraca of Zamora. 1502- THE LAST VOYAGE OF COLUMBUS -Rejecting the ideas of Amerigo Vespucci, Juan De La Cosa and the Portuguese that what he had discovered was in fact a new continent, Columbus makes one more attempt to reach China by sailing west. He explores down the Central American coastline to Venezuela and Columbia. The Nicaraguans tell him that beyond their jungle is another Great Ocean. He surmises that it must be the Indian Ocean so these people must be the Vietnamese (Cochin-China). 1536- Near Brussels Englishman William Tyndale was strangled and burned at the stake for committing a crime against the Church, that of translating the Bible into English. Years later Tyndale’s writing provided the base of the King James Bible. 1600- THE BIRTH OF OPERA. This day as part of the celebrations of the marriage of French King Henry IV to Marie de Medici composers Rinconcini and Caecini premiered a new kind of musical drama where soloists sang without the heavy polphony of madrigals but more directly in imitation of ancient dramas. It was “Eurydice” and it was the first true opera. The form was taken up by many composers including Claudio Monteverdi. But remember it ain’t over until the Fat Lady sings. 1802- The Heiligenstadt Testament- Composer Ludwig van Beethoven left behind a note found among his papers after his death in 1827. Dated this day it was addressed to his brother Karl and another unspecified relative. It was more of a spiritual Last Will than anything else. In the note Beethoven poured out of his heart confessing his faults and his fears of going deaf. It is an amazing insight into the great man’s soul. 1826- A Missouri saddlemaker offered a reward of one penny for a runaway apprentice. The boy had joined a Santa Fe bound wagon train and grew up to become Kit Carson, one of the Old West's most famous scouts. 1847- Charlotte Bronte's novel Jane Eyre first published. 1860 First telegraph linking L.A. and San Francisco. 1860- During[...]

October 05, 2009 mon

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have been called demagogues. What is a demagogue? Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below: What does it mean to be “ tilting at windmills..”? ------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/5/2009 Birthdays: Wendel Wilkie, President.Chester Allen Arthur, Ray Kroc the founder of MacDonalds restaurants, Louis Lumiere, Vaslav Havel, Larry Fine of the Three Stooges" , Bob Geldorf, Mario Lemieux, Josh Logan, Bill Dana "my name Jose Jimenez", Bill Keane, Clive Barker, Glynis Johns, Donald Pleasance, Maya Lin, Karen Allen is 58 ,Kate Winslet is 36, Bernie Mac Happy Birthday Larry Fine, born Louis Feinberg 1902-1975 1600- King Henry IV of France married his second wife Marie de Medici by proxy in a grand ceremony in Florence. Flemish master painter Peter Paul Rubens was in attendance, and the Queen would ask him to create paintings commemorating the events. 1759- Col. Robert Rogers led his Roger’s Rangers on a forced march to surprise the Abeknackie Indians who had been raiding Maine homesteads. At 4:00 am near present day Saint Francis Maine the Rangers burned the Abeknackie village and killed so many people that the Abeknackies ceased to be a force in the area. Years later Rogers wrote down his principles of irregular warfare- his maxims like "Move Fast and Hit Hard" are the basis of Special Forces training today. 1761- Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder, called the Architect of the British Empire, resigned from office. He was replaced by Lord Bute, who Frederick the Great called a complete scoundrel. Bute was chosen mostly because young King George III liked to play whist with him. Whist was a card game similar to bridge. 1762- Christoph Gluck premiered his opera Orpheo et Eurydice in Vienna. 1795- THE WHIFF OF GRAPESHOT- The end of the French Revolution. The problem with revolutions is once you start one it’s a real problem how to stop them. The Paris mob had gotten used to overthrowing one government after another since 1789. In 1795 when yet another mob of rioters threatened to overthrow yet another French government the politicians turned to young general Napoleon Bonaparte, who dispersed the crowd by firing cannons at them loaded with buckshot. A self proclaimed "Child of the Revolution" Bonaparte was already considered politically left so his act of force could not be accused of royalist leanings. This action helped the little general with the funny Italian name becomes a national figure. 1813- BATTLE OF THE THAMES RIVER. Indiana - Tecumseh, an Indian visionary who foresaw that only by united action could native peoples hope to drive the White invasion back to Europe, spent his life convincing tribes to put awa[...]

October 4th, 2009 sun

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What does it mean to be “ tilting at windmills..”? Yesterday’s Answer below: What is a G-Man..? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/4/2009 Birthdays: French King Louis X The Stubborn 1314, Richard Cromwell-“ Tumbledown Dick, “ President Rutherford B. Hayes, Frederick Remington, Jean Millet, Buster Keaton, Englebert Dolfuss, Charlton Heston, Susan Sarandon is 63, Armand Assante is 60, Damon Runyon, John Atanasoff, Alvin Tofler, Anne Rice, Alicia Silverstone is 33, Liev Schreiber, Tcheky Kayro is 56. 1648- Happy Birthday NYFD! Dutch Governor of New Amsterdam Peter Stuyversant established the first regular municipal fire department in the New World. Fire depts. were volunteer brigades until the late 1800s. 1777-BATTLE OF GERMANTOWN-George Washington tried a dawn surprise attack on the British army around Philadelphia. The same tactic had worked at Trenton, but here things went wrong from the start. In the morning fog the Yankee right flank got turned around and started shooting at the Yankee center. The Center thought they were being attacked by Loyalists and returned fire. Two thirds of the American army shot itself to pieces and ran away before the British even knew what was happening. Washington realized he was going to need some drill instructors.... 1798- Lyrical Ballads, a small book of poems published jointly by English poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The book opened with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and finished with Wordsworth’s Lines composed a few miles above Tinturn Abbey.” The book didn’t sell that well. Wordsworth blamed Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner poem for being too long. Some of the best sales of the book were by sea captains who thought a Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner was a collection of sea shantys. 1846- The First American mayor of Los Angeles, a Lieutenant Gillespie, was apparently so harsh and racist to the population of Spanish Californians that they rose in revolt and chased him out of town. The Californios under their old Mexican General Andres Pico waged a guerrilla war against the U.S. army for the next few months. 1869- Henry J. Heinz begins his condiment company, bottling horseradish in a little shop in Pittsburgh. He was later called the Catsup King, -or Ketchup, if you prefer. One of the Heinz Company's greatest stunts was in the 1920s they placed a 40 foot tall electrified pickle on the corner of 23rd and 5th Ave. in Manhattan. 1909- St. Louis Missouri was site of the first –and probably only- airship race in the US. Four dirigibles, the total number in America, ran a course for a purse of $1000 dollars. 1910-King Manue[...]

Oct. 3, 2009 sat

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is a G-Man..? Yesterday’s Answer below: What movie from Warner Bros was a hard-boiled detective story that was first going to be called” The Gent From Frisco.”-? ------------------------------------------------------------ History for 10/3/2009 Birthdays: Gore Vidal is 84, Mikail Lermontov, Harvey Kurtzman, Chubby Checker, James Herriot, Eleanor Duse, Emily Post, Leo McCarey the director of the Marx Brothers Duck Soup and many Laurel & Hardy shorts, Steven Reich, Dave Winfield, Tommy Lee, Neve Cambell 1226- Saint Francis of Asissi died at 44. He seldom bathed and he asked his followers to strip him naked so he could leave the world as he came in. They all sang his Canticle of the Animals, then he exclaimed 'Welcome, Sister Death." His gravesite was kept secret until 1818. 1855- American James McNeill Whistler arrived in Paris to study painting. He had tried to apply to West Point for a military career but failed the entrance exam. Years later he joking told friends "If I hadn't identified phosphorous as a gas I'd be a major general by now!' 1895-The Red Badge of Courage first published. Despite being one of the best books on the average soldiers experience, author Stephen Crane was never in the Civil War or any army. He died of tuberculosis at age 26. 1903- Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson, the first man to drive an automobile across the American continent, was fined in his home town in Vermont for driving his automobile faster than 6 miles an hour. 1910- English comedians Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel first arrive in the U.S. with a touring British vaudeville company. 1918-THE LOST BATALLION During the Meuse Argonne Offensive the 577th Battalion of the US Rainbow Division moved too far ahead of other attacking units and was cut off and surrounded by superior German forces. Called upon to surrender the doughboys fought off all attacks in a heroic stand for five days. Six hundred men went in, barely two hundred came out. After the war their commander Major Wittelsey was awarded the Medal of Honor but he never got over the trauma. Three years later he shot himself. 1941- Warner Bros. THE MALTESE FALCON "premiered. Screenwriter John Huston asked if he could direct an adaptation of this old Dashell Hammett story, which had been already made into movies twice. This version became the most famous. The name was kept despite producer Hal Wallis wanting to change it to THE GENT FROM FRISCO. Jack Warner was amazed that homely looking little character actor Humphrey Bogart had shown the potential to be a romantic leading man in 'High Sierra', now the Maltese Falcon established him as a major draw. Warner joked[...]

Oct 02, 2009 fri.

Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What movie from Warner Bros was a hard-boiled detective story that was first going to be called” The Gent From Frisco.”-? Yesterday’s Question answered below: “Hi Ho the Radio, there’s music in the air…” ------------------------------------------------------- October 2, 2009 Birthdays: Richard III, Nat Turner, Mahatma Ghandi, Claus Von Hindenburg, Ferdinand Foch, Spanky MacFarland,Groucho Marx, Bud Abbott, Moses Gunn, Graham Greene, LeRoy Shield ( composer of the music in the Hal Roach comedies), Donna Karan, Gordon Sumner known as Sting is 58, Lorraine Bracco, Tiffany, Kelly Ripa 1608- Dutch lens grinder Hans Lipperschei sent to the States General in the Hague a plan for an invention to see enemies at great distances. It used a tube with concave lenses on one end and convex lenses on the other. The Telescope. Another Dutch lens maker asked for a similar patent. But it was Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who read their doctoral papers. Within a year he had ground his own lenses and created his own telescope. He was the first to train it on the Universe. 1780- The Americans hang British Major John Andre' as a spy at a tavern near present day Nyack New York. Andre' was Benedict Arnold's contact and had put aside his redcoat to slip through American lines. He was arrested before he could get back. Washington really wanted to trade Andre for Arnold if he could, and the British were disgusted that Arnold refused to nobly offer himself in exchange. The hangman chosen was a loyalist prisoner who was promised his freedom. It was felt if the executioner was a Yankee, the man's family might be harmed in revenge. Up until now the British and their Yankee cousins had been quite civil to each other and it was not uncommon to see paroled American and British officers dining together at the height of the Revolution. But the British considered this hanging a barbaric abuse of a prisoner of war. Everyone knew Andre was not a professional spy or turncoat, but a gentleman British officer of high standing. John Andre had always been dismissed as a dandy fop, but it was admitted by all he met his end well. Benedict Arnold became a redcoat, but he was never accepted by British . 1807- Napoleon met Goethe at the philosopher's home at Weimar. People expected sparks to fly as the Great Enslaver of Nations would meet the Champion of the Human Spirit. Actually they had a pleasant afternoon conversation. 1836-Charles Darwin on the HMS Beagle returned to Falmouth England, ending a five year voyage to Brazil, the Galapagos and New Zealand. The knowledge he gained on exotic flora and fauna would lead[...]

October 01, 2009 thur

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: “Hi Ho the Radio, there’s music in the air…” Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who coined the phrase, The Fix is In..? ---------------------------------------------------------- History for 10/1/2009 Welcome to Month Number 8, Octubrius to the Romans. In 138 AD the Roman Senate wanted to rename month eight as Faustina, after the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. But being a rare modest empress, she declined the honor. Birthdays: Vladimir Horowitz, Julie Andrews is 71, Walter Matthau, Richard Harris, Phillipe Noiret, James Whitmore, Pres.Jimmy Carter is 83, Everet Sloane, Rod Carew, Stanley Holloway, Tom Bosley, Chief Justice William Rheinquist, Max Morath, Mark McGuire, Randy Quaid, Cindy Margolis 331BC. BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA or Arbelum - Alexander the Great's greatest victory over the Persian army of King Darius IV. Darius had sought to once and for all destroy this Greek troublemaker by assembling an enormous army from all over his kingdom. But this multinational, polyglot force had no cohesion and the disciplined Macedonian-Greek veterans knifed through their ranks. Alexander ordered his elite Companion Cavalry to make right for Darius, since he was the only factor holding his army together. Darius had to run for his life and his army broke up soon after seeing their Great King fleeing. The Persian kingdom collapsed and Alexander soon captured his capitol and family. 326 A.D. Emperor Constantine the Great bans sentencing criminals to Gladitorial schools, effectively ending Gladitorial Combat. Games continued on a little while longer using prisoners of war but the fun and professionalism had gone out of it. The last recorded bout in Rome was in 407AD. 1202- To the sound of massed trumpets and singing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, the knights of the Fourth Crusade left from Venice for Constantinople and the Holy Land. 1791- The first day of the French Legislative Assembly, the second French parliamentary body after the Assembly National that had started the French Revolution adjourned itself. In this assembly for the first time the conservatives sat on the right side of the hall, the liberals on the left side and the moderates in the center. This gives us the designation today used around the world for political Leftists and Right Wingers. 1857- Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary premiered in magazine installments. Flaubert was tried for pornography but acquitted. 1880- John Phillip Sousa was named leader of the Marine Corps Band and began his career as the March King. 1903- First World Series of Baseball. The Boston Pilgrims had lost th[...]

September 10th, 2009 weds

Wed, 30 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who coined the phrase, The Fix is In..? Yesterday’s Question answered below: A CIA analyst recently commented: “ This is not Hari Seldon stuff….” Who was Hari Seldon..? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/30/2009 Birthdays: William Wrigley the Chewing Gum king 1868, Truman Capote, Eli Weisel, Lester Maddox, Buddy Rich, David Oistrach, Deborah Kerr, Angie Dickinson is 78, Marylin McCoo, Len Cariou, Johnny Mathis, Rula Lenska, Eric Stolz, Monica Bellucci is 45, Jenna Elfman is 38 331BC- On the night before the Battle of Gaugamela. Alexander the Great made preparations. The Persian Great King had assembled and enormous army of peoples from throughout his vast empire-Lydians, Scythians, Bactrians, Phoenicians, Ionians, Egyptians, Medes, all to face the tiny Macedonian Greek army-150,000 vs. 30,000. Alexander’s ordered soothsayer Aristander offer sacrifices to the God of Fear. 420AD- Today is the feast of Saint Jerome, who first translated all of the Old and New Testaments from Hebrew, Chaledean, Aramaic and Greek into commonly spoken Latin. This is referred to as the Vulgate Edition. 1187-SALLADIN CAPTURED JERUSALEM- After destroying the Crusader army at The Horns of Hattin in July, the Sultan of Egypt laid siege to the Holy City. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem and knight Bailin of Ibelin threatened to destroy the Al Acqsa, Dome of the Rock and other Moslem Holy Places if Salladin didn't agree to mild treatment of the Christian citizens of the city. Salladin didn't want his name to go down in history with such an infamy, so he agreed. Still, he consoled himself with beheading 3,000 captured Knights Templar (you gotta have some fun). Remember Richard Lionheart had 5000 Arab people chopped up just to piss Salladin off. The Queen of Jerusalem, Yolanda DeCourtenay, wife of Baldwin IV 'the Leper King '(deceased), went into exile looking for Western support for more Crusades. 1630- Pilgrim John Billington became the first American hanged for murder. Known as the “Wickedest Pilgrim Father” criminologists call him the first American crook. 1791- Mozart's opera "Die Zauberflotte, The Magic Flute" premiered at Emanuel Schiknader's theater in Vienna. One of the theories about Mozart's death was that he put so much FreeMason's secret ritual into the story, that the Masons did him in for violating their secrecy. The Papageno-Papagena duet when they meet at the end was Schiknader's idea. Mozart gave pyrotechnical trills to the coloratura aria of the Queen of the Night,[...]

September 29th, 2009 tues

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: A CIA analyst recently commented: “ This is not Hari Seldon stuff….” Who was Hari Seldon..? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What nation has people who speak the language called Tagalog? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/29/2009 Birthdays: Roman general Pompey Magnus, Miguel de Cervantes, Admiral Horatio Nelson, Rudolph Diesel (inventor of the engine), Enrico Fermi, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Autrey, Lech Walesa, Stanley Kramer, Bryant Gumbel, Greer Garson, Michelangelo Antonioni, Ian McShane, Anita Ekberg, Andrew Dice-Clay, cartoonist Russ Heath, Tom Sizemore, Emily Lloyd is 39, Lefty talk show host Stephanie Miller is 48. In the Medieval calendar this was The Feast of Mickelmuss or MichaelMass In Old London this was the beginning of the winter lighting season when every tenth store had to maintain a candle in a street lamp, and light it after dark, until Lady Day March 25th. 1066-WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR LANDS IN ENGLAND. When King Edward the Confessor died childless, he left the throne up for grabs. Earl Harold son of Godwin promised Duke William of Normandy that he would step aside and let him be king. But later Harold took the crown for himself. So Duke William invaded with 30,000 Norman knights. Duke William was an illegitimate son of Robert the Devil. He was called William the Bastard until the conquest, then he became William the Conqueror. When William's ship landed at Pevensey Beach near Dover, Duke William lept out into the surf to be the first to set foot in Britain. However in front of the whole army he stumbled and fell to his knees. Quickly realizing that if he didn't act fast the men would regard this as a dangerously bad omen, he grabbed two fistfuls of muddy sand in his clenched fists, raised them up and declared : "Ah Britain! Now I have you!" His men cheered and he went on to victory at Hastings on Oct. 16th. 1798- At the court of Naples Admiral Horatio Nelson was given a 40th birthday party by his friend and patron, the British ambassador Sir William Hamilton. At this party Nelson first shows the signs of getting seriously turned on by Hamilton's hot young wife Emma. Sir William was 69, Emma was 30 and was known to be sleeping around. The party was broken up when Nelson's stepson, who was serving as one of his lieutenants, got so drunk he made a scene. hey sailor, wanna party? The love affair between Nelson and Mrs. Hamilton in defiance of all social stigmas scandalized even that notorious age. Yet Sir William Hamilton see[...]

September 28, 2009 mon.

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What nation has people who speak the language called Tagalog? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: In the movie LA Confidential, who was Roland Tomassi-? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/28/2009 Birthdays: Michel Caravaggio, Georges Clemenceau, Al Kapp, William Paley, Max Schmelling, Bridgette Bardot is 74, Frederic Engels, Marcello Mastroianni, Moon Unit Zappa, Ed Sullivan, Sylvia Kristel, John Sayles, Arnold Stang, J.T. Walsh, Janeane Garofalo is 44, Mia Sorvino is 41, Hillary Duff, Naomi Watts is 40 48 B.C.- Pompey the Great, fleeing Julius Caesar after he was defeated by him in battle in Greece, was assassinated by the Egyptians when he lands on their shore. A hired Roman named Septimius did the murder. The Egyptians thought it would please Caesar to present him with his enemies head. When one of Pompey's supporters was approaching the coast by ship and saw a roman-style funeral pyre, he knew their cause was lost. He said:" Even you, Pompeius Magnus?" 1216- CORONATION OF KING HENRY III- English King John Ist, aka John the Bad, John Lackland, John SoftSword, John the Total Loser, etc. was killed when an evil monk poured poisonous toad venom in his ear. His son Henry was left a situation that didn't make for a good coronation. The country was racked by civil war and invasion because of the dispute over the Magna Charter, the great document that granted broad ranging civil rights. Henry couldn't have his coronation at Westminster because London was occupied by a French army. He couldn't have the Archbishop of Canterbury preside over the ceremony because he was under house arrest in the Vatican, the Pope disliked the Magna Charter too. And to top it all off his father had lost the Iron Crown of Alfred the Great at the beach. Boy, what a downer of a party! Henry III would reign for 56 years and demand extravagance at all subsequent royal functions. 1542- The European Discovery of California- Juan de Cabrillo sailing up from Mexico stepped ashore at Cabrillo Point in San Diego Harbor. He had hoped that San Diego Bay would be the Straights of Anian, a mythical sea route back to the Atlantic that would be safer than Magellan’s Straights. All through the 1500’s conventional thinking in Europe was that America was a big island with sea routes all around it. California was supposed to be the Kingdom of Califa, the Amazons who wield Golden Swords- hmm maybe Juan was toking on one too many of those tobacco pi[...]

September 27th, 2009

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: In the movie LA Confidential, who was Roland Tomassi-? Quiz: Who is older? Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd or the Tasmanian Devil? ----------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/27/2009 Birthdays: King Stefan Bathory of Poland, Thomas Nast, Arthur Penn, Mike Schmidt, Meatloaf, William Conrad, Dick Schapp, Samuel Adams -brewer and patriot , George Cruikshank, Jayne Meadows, Wilford Brimley, Shaun Cassidy, Greg Morris, Amanda Detmer, Avril Lavigne. 1771-Young artist Francisco Goya enters a scholarship competition sponsored by the Academy of Parma. He loses to some obscure artist named Bettino. Judges say about his work: "Crude and ugly colors". 1821- After a ten year struggle Spain acknowledged the independence of Mexico. The commander of the last Royal army in Mexico, Juan Ituribe, changed sides and tried to become Emperor of Mexico. He was later deposed by young republican officers like Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. One Mexican leader who was killed in the conflict, Francisco Menars, had been a guerrilla chief in Spain fighting Napoleons occupying forces. 1894- The Big A, Aqueduct Racetrack opened in New York. 1903- THE WRECK OF OLD 97- The Southern Pacific express jumps the tracks at 90 miles an hour and inspires the first great country music hit. Written in 1924, recorded by everyone from Woody Guthrie to Johnny Cash. 1910- The Black & Decker tool company formed. Starting with the first portable electric drill in 1919 they became the first power tool company. 1934- “ I’M SICK OF THIS CAT & MOUSE GAME!” shouted Gangster Baby Face Nelson as he was cornered by two FBI agents on a rural road south of Chicago. While his gang and wife looked on in amazement Nelson boldly walked out in the open, down the middle of the road, his tommy gun blazing away at the G-Men. He killed them both but not before he was riddled with 17 bullets. He died the next day and was left in a ditch. 1935-13 year old singer Frances Gumm of the singing Gumm Sisters signed an exclusive contract with MGM Pictures. Louis B. Mayer changed Frances name to Judy Garland. 1938- Bob Hope first sang “Thanks For the Memory” on his NBC radio show. It became a hit his movie appearance in the film “The Big Broadcast of 1938.” 1943- THE FOUR DAYS OF NAPLES- Naples was a city known for it’s tough street gangs. This day in advance of the American armies closing in the city the Napledons rose in revolt and fought the Germans with knives, scissors,[...]

The Disney Family Museum in San Francisco

Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Had a fun time at the Walt Disney Family Museum opening on Saturday. On Saturday the Disney Family Museum in SF threw a party for us animation folks to preview the new museum. It was an intimate soiree for 300, including John Lasseter, Andreas Deja, Kevin Lima, Ralph Eggleston, Brenda Chapman-Lima, Charles Solomon and Scott Johnston, Peter Sohn, Didier Ghez, Hans Perk and many more. I was impressed by the museum. I had initially worried that it was just going to be a gallery of family photos and some home movies. Such museums, like that of Liberace and Roy Rogers, had to close as the succeeding generations are born with no memory of such a celebrity. But the Walt Disney Family museum collection, filling ten galleries of an 1890s barracks in the Presidio, has a lot of cool artifacts that we hadn’t seen before. Including some of the earliest design sketches of Mickey Mouse, a wonderful digitized reference log of an effects designer on Fantasia named Schultzie, that you can bring up and send back manually like Tom Cruises computer programs in Minority Report. Walt Disney’s first model train, The Multiplane Camera, and a large scale model plan for Disneyland. Some of Walt Disney’s earliest live action trick films, including one including his mom wee screened. I was consulted on the section on the 1941 Strike and Walt’s HUAC testimony, which was certainly more honest than a similar exhibit at Ronald Reagan’s Library. That had one little glass case facing a wall, which you have to search for to find. The next day Didier hosted a luncheon for about twenty animation historians. We had a great time discussing issues relevant to such a collection. So I can certainly recommend the Disney Family Museum. SF is a good tourist and foot traffic city, and people there take visiting museums as a serious form of recreation. The view of the Golden Gate from the Presidio, formerly only available to Generals, is breathtaking. I look forward to seeing how the Museum will expand and what special shows they will mount in the future. Thanks to Paula and Howard, Diane Disney and Ron Miller and all there for throwing such a great party.Posted by:Tom[...]

History September 26th, 2009 sat

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Who is older? Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd or the Tasmanian Devil? Yesterday’s question answered below: What are the Doldrums? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/26/2009 Birthdays: George Gershwin, T.S. Elliot, John Chapman (also known as Johnny Appleseed)-1774, Winsor McKay-1869, Theodore Gericault -1791, Olivia Newton-John, Cheryl Tiegs is 60, Marty Robbins, Linda Hamilton, Pope Paul VI, Jack Lalanne is 95, Melissa Sue Andersen, Phillip Bosco, James Cavaziel, Surena Williams 303a.d. Feast of Saints Cosmas & Damian . The Syrian twin doctors were nicknamed 'The Moneyless" and this was before HMO's. they were martyred by being crucified, stoned, shot full of arrows, beheaded, then they had to read their own prescriptions. 1575-Writer Miguel de Cervantes was captured by Barbary Pirates and held a slave for five years until his family ransomed him. He wrote Don Quixote in 1604. 1579- Sir Francis Drake in his ship the Golden Hind enters Plymouth Harbor England after sailing around the world for 33 months. They raided Panama, Peru and visited a strange new place they called Nova Albion and we call California. The Golden Hind was kept in dry-dock in a place of honor for years, until it finally fell to pieces from dry rot. 1650- A Spanish expedition under Don Pedro de Ursua left Peru for the deep Amazon. Lost in the limitless rainforest almost all his men die or go mad. The expedition at one point is taken over by a lunatic conquistador named Aguirre who declared himself 'Emperor of the Kingdom of El Dorado'! The incident is the subject of Werner Herzog's famous movie "Aguirre the Wrath of God". 1687- The Ancient GREEK PARTHENON IS BLOWN UP during a minor Venetian raid on Turkish held Athens. A random shell ignited a gunpowder magazine the Turks had been storing inside of it. For two thousand years the Greek masterpiece had survived mostly intact. Later on in 1801 English Lord Elgin will back up his frigate to the shore and pry off the frieze marble sculptures for his collection. 1739- THE WAR OF JENKINS EAR- A small war between England and Spain started when a Spanish warship stopped an English merchant ship and cut off the ear of the captain named Jenkins. Jenkins ran around Parliament loudly calling for war and waving his ear in a bottle of spirits. He wore his hair long so some doubted that it was his ear in the bottle. 1820- In Defianc[...]

September 24th, 2009 thurs.

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: In American cities, what is a Wayne Broom? Quiz: Some political writers are called pundits. What is a pundit? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ History for 9/24/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vitellius, Duke Albrecht Wallenstein, Chief Justice John Marshall, Francis Scott Key, Jim Henson, F. Scott Fitzgerald, George Raft, Chief Joseph, Sheila MacCrae, Anthony Newley. Phil Hartman, Mean Joe Greene, Linda MacCartney, Pedro Almodovar 1561- Mary Queen of Scots first met Presbyterian reformer John Knox. The beautiful young monarch, reared in Catholic France, attempted to win the sour old preacher to her side. Historian Unfortunately Knox was not impressed by Mary’s personal charm and howled against her entire reign. He thought women as rulers were “an abomination in the sight of God.” When she was deposed and imprisoned in England he wrote Queen Elizabeth Ist constantly urging Mary be beheaded. John Knox also called Queen Elizabeth a beast and whore. 1688- King Louis XIV of France declared war on Germany and moved his armies towards the Rhine. This had the unexpected consequence of deciding who became King of England. Dutch Prince William of Orange was waiting for the opportunity to invade and overthrow his father-in-law King James II Stuart, who many English despised for being a Catholic. But William would never have dared such a move if Louis and his large French Navy who were allies of James, were watching him. Once Louis turned his attention eastward, William crossed the Channel with no trouble. William overthrew James in short order and became King William III of England. 1789- Congress passes the First Judiciary Act, which calls for an Attorney General and a Supreme Court. John Jay was first Chief Justice. When Washington formed the first cabinet, Thomas Jefferson asked if he could be Attorney General as well as Secretary of State, because representing a little country with no foreign policy was boring and had nothing to do. 1869- BLACK FRIDAY- A scheme by robber barons Big Jim Fisk and Jay Gould to corner the US gold market backfired into a major financial panic. The two tycoons had thought they had convinced the gullible President Ulysses Grant into halting sale of government bullion. The night before Gould tried to bribe Grants brother-in-law James Corbin with $100,00 to ensure the President wouldn’t change his mind. But[...]

Sept 23, 2009 weds.

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Some political writers are called pundits. What is a pundit? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Greek-American actor Telley Savalas 1922-1994( Kojak) had a granddaughter that is pretty famous today. Who is she? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/23/2009 Birthdays: Euripides-484BC, Victoria Woodhull, Walter Lippmann, Ray Charles, John Coltrane, Mickey Rooney is 89, Julio Inglesias, Bruce Springsteen, Walter Pidgeon, Louise Nevelson, Jason Alexander, Mary Kay Place, Harry Connick Jr, William McGuffey* *McGuffey was the educator and author of "the McGuffey Readers", a standard school textbook so successful, that by 1860 the U.S. had an 80% literacy rate. 480 BC THE BATTLE OF SALAMIS- Themistocles and the Athenian fleet defeated the giant armada of Xerxes the Great King of Persia and threw back his invasion. Xerxes was so angry he had his top Phoenician captains beheaded. This battle assured the Golden Age of Greek culture would flourish uninterrupted with democratic Athens at its’ center. The playwright Aeschylus fought in the ranks and Sophocles led the chorus of nude boys dancing and singing in the victory celebrations. Themistocles laid the foundation for Athenian power by insisting she built a large navy rather than an army and concentrate on trade rather than territorial conquest. But Themistocles liked to make money too, and used his offices to pad his fortune, which eventually got him exiled. But not before in another moment of originality he set himself up histories first known foreign bank account as a private slush fund. Aeschylus in his old age was supposedly killed by an eagle who dropped a turtle upon his head, mistaking his bald skull for a rock. Ouch. Greek Chronicles tell us that also on this same day in 480 BC- Glycon of Syracuse defeated the huge Cathaginian host of Hamilcar and saved Sicily for Greece. Hamilcar spent the battle burning up animal sacrifices to the Gods for good omens. When he saw he was losing Hamilcar threw himself on the fire. Not a bad solution because Carthage’s tradition was to crucify generals who lost battles. 1326- Queen Isabella the "She-Wolf of France" and her lover Edmund Mortimer invade England to overthrow her openly gay husband, King Edward II. Sounds like a soap opera, doesn't it ? 1568- English merchantman John Hawkins and his 3 slave trading [...]

September 22, 2009 tues.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Greek-American actor Telley Savalas 1922-1994( Kojak) had a goddaughter that is pretty famous today. Who is she? Answer to yesterday’s question below: Who is older? Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat or Betty Boop. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ history for 9/22/2009 Birthdays: Anne of Cleves 1515- Henry VIII’s fourth wife. Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins, Mafioso Joe Valachi, Michael Farraday, John Houseman, Joanie Jett, Erich Von Stronheim, Tom Lasorda, Paul Muni, Debbie Boone, Scott Baio, John Woo is 61, Meryl Streep is 60 287 AD.-THE THEBAN LEGION-One of the celebrated myths of the Middle Ages. A Roman general Maximian Herculius recruited an entire army unit from Christians in upper Egypt. In Gaul with the imperial army the Emperor Maximian orders sacrifices to the gods for victory. The Theban Legion refused to a man to participate in the pagan rituals. The emperor had every tenth man executed (to "decimate") and still they refused. Soon all 1,500 were executed. So much time and money was invested by the state in the training of veteran soldiers that it is unlikely that the practical Romans would massacre an entire legion, still, it's a good story. 1692- Seven witches hanged in Salem, Mass. When the daughter of the Royal Governor of the Massachusetts Colony was accused the Governor finally stepped in and stopped the madness. He overturned the decisions of the Salem court and ordered it's disbandment. These were the last witch executions in America. 1761- King George III’s coronation in London. Unlike his two George forebears who clung to their German Hanoverian roots, George III spoke English without an accent. All the great men of the day were there like Pitt the Elder, Edmund Burke and Dr. Samuel Johnson. In the crowd in front of Westminister Abbey, dazzled by all the pomp and circumstance, was a young colonist from America named John Hancock. Presented at court, he received from his sovereign’s hands a silver snuffbox. Ironically this was the very same Hancock whose bold signature would one day adorn the U.S. Declaration of Independence. 1776- Nathan Hale is hanged as a spy by the British in New York. The Connecticut schoolteacher had only been a spy for nine days until he was sniffed out and exposed by Colonel Robert Rogers, the French and Indian W[...]

Sept 21th, 2008 Monday

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who is older? Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Felix the Cat or Betty Boop. Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Many planets and stars in the galaxy are named for Greek and Roman gods. One of the brightest stars in the night sky right now is Regulus. So, who was Regulus? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ History for 9/21/2009 Birthdays: Louis Joliet of the explorers Marquette & Joliet, Chuck Jones, Gustav Holst, H.G. Wells, Stephen King,, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Larry Hagman, Ricky Lake, Fanny Flagg, Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers is 52, Leonard Cohen not one of the Coen Brothers, Faith Hill, Jerry Bruckheimer, Nicole Richie is 28, Bill Murray is 59 454 A.D.- Aetius, a Romanized Vandal who as commander of the decaying Roman Empire's legions had defeated Attila the Hun, is assassinated by his boss Emperor Valentinian III. Valentinian couldn't think of a way to get Aetius alone so he just stabbed him in the neck himself right in front of the horrified court. Aetius's family got their revenge and assassinated Valentinian later. 1327- English King Edward II was openly gay with his courtiers Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despencer. In the Middle Ages, it was okay to be gay if you were a big, homicidal mo-fo like Richard Lionheart, but Edward was a weenie who lost battles to Scottish King Robert the Bruce. So he was overthrown by his own Queen Isabella the She-Wolf of France and her lover Roger Mortiimer. This day Edward was murdered in Berkeley Castle. They shoved a rd hot spear up his rectum, so it would leave no marks. Edwards only son Edward III later killed everyone involved. 1776- A fire broke out in war devastated New York City, now occupied by British troops. The fire started near Whitehall Street and burned down most of the city, including the spire of Trinity Church at the foot of Wall St. 1793- The French Revolutionary Government throws out the calendar and makes a new one. So today was the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST DECADE (week) OF THE FIRST MONTH OF YEAR II OF THE REPUBLIC ! If you didn't get it you were guillotined. 1846- Drygoods dealer Mr. A.J. Stewart opened a store in New York City that was so large he put the various items in their own departments, the Department Store. He also had the first large glass display windows which o[...]

September 20, 2009 Sun. TIMING FOR ANIMATION OUT NOW!

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

TIMING FOR ANIMATION, by John Halas and Harold Whitaker, with a new update written by Yours Truly, is now officially out in stores and on order on sites like Amazon. Thanks to everyone who contributed to making the new edition special, especially Mark Farquhar, Dorse Lanpher, Kevin O'Neill, Bill Plympton, John Lasseter, JibJabb, Olive Jar, Rhythm & Hues and many more! Hope you all like it. ----------------------------------------------------- Question: When asked: What do you think of Western Civilization? Who replied:" I think it would be a very good idea."..? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean to “ see the writing on the wall”..? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/20/2009 Birthdays: Alexander the Great -356 BC, Upton Sinclair, Jelly Roll Morton, Red Auerbach, Guy Lafluer, Fernando Rey, Ann Meara, Rachel Roberts, Jonathan Hardy, Pia Lindstrom, Gary Cole, Fran Drescher, Sophia Loren is 75 356BC- The Great Temple of Artemis of Ephesus was destroyed by fire. It was said to be the work of a lunatic arsonist from Hailicarnassus. The temple had been built as a gift to the goddess by Croesus the Lydian who had so much wealth the phrase “To be as rich as Croesus “ is still in use today. Why had the Goddess Artemis would allow her house to be consumed so cruelly? The priests explained that she was probably too busy overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great in Macedon to keep a watch on her house. The Ephesians rebuilt the huge temple and 400 year later Saint Paul was thrown out of it for preaching his weird new religion. The cult statue of Artemis or Diana had dozens of breasts, which some describe as bull testicles. They are symbols of fertility. 450 A.D.-Battle of Chalons-Attila the Hun is decisively defeated by Theodoric the Visigoth and Aetius, the general of what remained of the dying Roman Empires’ legions. Attila's shaman's had predicted a great chief would die that day. Theodoric wound up being the one killed as his warriors won the battle. 1400- The Welsh under Owen Glendower revolt against English rule. Supposedly the fierce bowmen marched into battle to the sound of harps. Owen had captured English Prince Edwin Mortimer. He not only treated him well but he married Owens dau[...]

September 19th, 2009 sat.

Sat, 19 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What does it mean to “ see the writing on the wall”..? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: In Ben Hur movies, What does SPQR mean? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/19/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, Salladin, Hungarian nationalist Leopold Kossuth, Brian Epstein, "Momma" Cass Elliot, Frank Tashlin, Dr. Ferry Porsche- inventor of the Porsche race car, Twiggy– real name Leslie Hornby, Leon Jaworski, William Golding author of The Lord of the Flies, Paul Williams, Adam West is 81, Frances Farmer, David McCallum is 76, Duke Snyder, Jeremy Irons is 61, Jimmy Fallon is 35. 1356-BATTLE OF POITIERS- In the Hundred Years War Edward the "Black Prince" destroyed the French army and captured the French King and Dauphin. French King John II "The Good" was held for ransom in the Tower of London. Once there he found he could have all the benefits of Kingship without any of the stress, so he party'd hardy. Even when the Dauphin Charles V got his freedom, and started to organize a heroic resistance to the English invasion, John the Good ignored his sons pleas to escape. Some apologist historians say John sacrificed his freedom for the French Nation. Other scholars like Henri Guizot and found the budgets this hostage spent on dwarves, feasts, mistresses and hunting dogs "disgraceful". 1493- Pope Alexander VI had never made it a secret that he had a growing family of children. He wanted to make his son Caesar Borgia a Cardinal at 26 and his daughter Lucretzia a duchess but first there was the problem that they were illegitimate. Well, that’s no problem for the Vicar of Christ! This day he declared them legitimate offspring, of his cousin. Everyone winked at the twisted logic and went along with it. 1580- The family of Miguel de Cervantes ransomed the writer from the Barbary Pirates. He wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha in 1604. 1692- One of the only men convicted in the Salem Witch Trials was executed. Pilgrim Giles Corey had a wooden board laid on top of him and his neighbors piled large stones on top until he was squished to death. At one point his tongue was sticking so grotesquely out of his head that the magistrate pushed it back in his mouth with the tip of his cane.[...]

September 18th, 2008 fri.

Fri, 18 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: In Ben Hur Roman movies, What does SPQR mean? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Are St. John the Apostle and St. John the Evangelist the same guy? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/18/2009 Birthdays: Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Trajan 53AD, Dr Samuel Johnson, Frankie Avalon, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Leon Foucault ( Foucault's Pendulum ), Jack Warden, Canadian PM John Diefenbaker, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Rossano Brazzi, Debbie Fields founder of Mrs. Field's Cookies, Jada Pinkett-Smith, James Gandolfini is 49, June Foray 96 A.D. ROMAN EMPEROR DOMITIAN ASSASSINATED- Domitian was a crazy tyrant in the mold of Nero and Caligula. He once ordered all the fortunetellers, sorcerers, swamis and such driven out of Rome. Their guild got together and retaliated by doing a group prediction of Domitian's assassination: Sept. 18th on the eleventh hour. Domitian pretended not to care but on the day spent all day locked indoors with a sword under his pillow. He didn't come out until his slaves and butlers assured him the eleventh hour had passed. Domitian came out and was promptly murdered by his slaves and butlers. They lied. It was the eleventh hour. -BUT WAIT! IT GETS WEIRDER... A Roman mob drags Domitian's body through the streets on a hook and chain. They tried to stuff him into the sewer but he was too fat, so they tore the body to pieces and threw the chunks into the Tiber. -BUT WAIT! IT GETS EVEN WEIRDER!!-The Roman Senate told his wife the Empress Valeria no hard feelings, if she needed anything.... She requested to be allowed to keep one statue of her husband in the Forum. The Senate approved. Unbeknown to them fishermen had fished out the pieces of Domitian. Valeria took the fish-knawed chunks to an Egyptian doctor and had him sew them back into something resembling a man. Then she told her artists to make a statue of the cadaver. This horrid statue she put in the forum to remind Roman's of 'their ingratitude'. 324 A.D.-Battle of Chalcedon-Constantine, Roman Emperor of the West, defeated Licinius, Emperor of the East and takes over the whole Roman Empire. One result of this battle was he took the Christian religion, which he had earl[...]

Sept. 17, 2009 thurs.

Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Are St. John the Apostle and St. John the Evangelist the same guy? Yesterday’s Question answered below: When they say “ he faced a phalanx of reporters.” What is a phalanx? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/17/2009 Birthdays: Hank Williams, Spiro Agnew, Ken Kesey, Jerry Colonna, Roddy MacDowell, George Blanda, Wendy Carlos Williams, Elvira- real name Cassandra Peterson, Anne Bancroft, Jeff MacNelly, Sir Frederick Ashton, Rita Rudner, Bass Lehrman is 47 1179- Feast of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval female composer. 1630- Happy Birthday Beantown! The Puritan colonists of New England decide to name their new settlement Boston, after a town in Lincolnshire. The site was an Algonquin village called Shawmut. 1632-BATTLE of BRIETENFELD- One of the great battles of the religious Thirty Years War. South Germans, Austrians, Italians, Spaniards on the Catholic side, Swedes, Danes, Hungarians and North Germans on the Protestant side. Catholic general Joachim Tchserclas Von Tilly lost despite dedicating the battle to the Virgin Mary and having twelve cannon named for the Twelve Apostles. Protestant Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus sang morning prayers with his army from the saddle. I wonder if their battle cry was:" Prince of Peace! CHAAAAARGE !!" 1787- The U.S. Constitution signed by the representatives of 12 of the thirteen states. Rhode Island boycotted the convention. “The business is closed.” George Washington wrote in his diary. Alexander Hamilton signed as the only representative of New York since the others left in protest. He was a prime mover of the Constitutional rewrite but was unimpressed with the final result: “Just more pork with the same old sauce, but it might lead the way for a better one later.”Aaron Burr wrote” I doubt if it will last 50 years.” Yet the US Constitution became the bedrock of the American system and is viewed with an almost religious dedication. When Ben Franklin emerged from the meeting, an old woman asked:’ Well, Dr Franklin, what have you given us now?” Franklin replied:” A Nation, mam, if you can keep it!” 1859- JOSHUA NORTON of San Francisco, a well known rice merchant, suff[...]

Sept 16th, 2009 weds

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: When they say “ he faced a phalanx of reporters.” What is a phalanx? Yesterday’s Question answered below: Lately the favorite catchphrase of politicos is “ The Senator Double downed on his comment in Congress.” Okay, what does Double down mean? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/16/2009 Birthdays: J.C.Penney (James Cash Penney), B.B. King is 84 (originally Rydell King, when a DJ in Memphis his name was Beale St. Blues Boy or B.B.King, Anne Francis, Linda Darnel, Nadia Boulanger, Alan Funt, George Chakiris, Peter Falk, Ed Begley Jr, Jennifer Tilly, Molly Shannon, Marvin Middlemark 1919-the inventor of the rabbit ears TV antenna. ), Mickey Rourke is 53, Lauren Bacall- born Betty Persky is 85 218BC -Estimated date that Hannibal and his Carthaginian army completed their crossing of the Alps and descended into the Po River Valley of Italy. Of 32 elephants only 2 survived the journey. 1498-The Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada died peacefully. He presided over the torture and execution of up to 17,000 people during the Spanish Inquisition. He also oversaw the expulsion of Jews and Christian Arabs from Spain. Even the Borgias asked him to cool it. The name Torquemada became a synonym for judicial cruelty. 1776-BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS- From Washington's defeat by the British at New York City until Christmas he fought several rearguard actions as the British chased him and his raggedy ass rebels up into White Plains, across the Hudson, and across New Jersey to Pennsylvania. Historians graciously call these desperate hit and run actions battles, Harlem Heights, Throggs Neck, White Plains, Ft. Washington. The British were now so cocky about knocking the rebels about, that when the advance scouts spotted the American positions they didn't use the usual trumpet signals but sounded fox-hunting calls. The British referred to the Americans as Mr. Washington’s Army, because they refused to honor him with the title of General. 1830- The Liverpool-Manchester railroad inaugurated. The first trip was an all VIP affair, with the Prime Minister the Duke of Wellington and most of the governmen[...]

September 15th, 2009 tues.

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Lately the favorite catchphrase of politicos is “ The Senator Double downed on his comment in Congress.” Okay, what does Double down mean? Yesterday’s Question: What fruit is mentioned most times in the Holy Bible? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/15/2009 Birthdays: James Fennimore Cooper, William Howard Taft, Porfirio Diaz- Mexican President 1884-1911, Agatha Christie, Julian Cannonball Adderly, Bruno Walter, Yuri Noorstein, Merlin Olsen, Hank Williams, Oliver Stone, Jean Renoir (film director and son of painter August Renoir), Alexander Korda, Jesse Norman, Robert Benchley, Ron Shelton, Merlin Olsen, Dan Marino, Fay Wray, Tommy Lee Jones is 63, Prince Henry, the second son of Charles and Di is 25 7 BC.- THE STAR OF BETHLEHEM..? According to astronomical records kept by the Persian Magi starting this day an alignment of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars caused a rare bright star that glowed both day and night . Another explanation of the star may have come from Chinese astronomers who recorded a comet during the year 5 BC.. Remember according to the most modern calculations Jesus may actually have been born in 6 BC 1776- The BATTLE OF NEW YORK- Lord Howe's British Army crossed the East River from Brooklyn and attacked Manhattan at Turtle Bay, approximately between E 30th and 31st Streets. Colonial troops panicked and fled uptown while George Washington futilely tried to rally them where the 42nd St. Public Library now is. As the last panic stricken farmer scampered off tossing his weapons away, George Washington threw down his hat and exclaimed: "Lord, have I such soldiers as these?" Legend has it the only reason the British let the Yankees escape was the commanders paused to have tea with a Quaker lady acquaintance. New York was an occupied city for the rest of the Revolutionary War. Hundreds of colonial prisoners were kept in rotting prison ships moored in the harbor, where many died of disease and neglect. 1811-El GRITO- MEXICAN INDEPENDENCE- As the bells ring peasant priest Father Miquel Hidalgo waved the banner of the Virgin of Tonantzin-Guadalupe an[...]

September 14th, 2009 mon

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What fruit is mentioned most times in the Holy Bible? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Who said “ It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before. It is a far, far better place I go to, than I have ever been..” ? --------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/14/2009 Birthdays: Lao Tzu-604BC,Caliph Al Mansur -the founder of Bagdhad-711AD, Dr. Ivan Pavlov, Charles Dana Gibson, Czech nationalist Jan Masaryk Margaret Sanger the founder of Planned Parenthood, Clayton Moore TV’s Lone Ranger, Luigi Cherubini, Producer Hal Wallis, Joey Heatherton, Bowser from Sha-Na-Na., Walter Koenig-Star Trek’s Mr. Chekov, Nicole Williamson, Sam Neill is 62 615 A.D.- Battle of Nineveh- Byzantine Emperor Heraclius defeats the army of Shah Chosroes II of Persia. Heraclius is a mystery to military historians. For most of his reign he sat on his throne in a stupor while the Persian army overran his kingdom. Finally when they're practically at the gates of his palace, Heraclius got up, took his legions and destroyed Chosroes in a series of lightning campaigns worthy of Caesar, Alexander and Rambo all rolled into one. He chased the Persian army to the edge of Afghanistan and spread garbage on the grave of the great Persian philosopher Zoroaster. The fleeing Persian satraps (noblemen) threw Chosroes down a well and piled stones on him just to make Heraclius go away. Then Heraclius went back to his throne and did nothing for the rest of his reign. 1324- In Ravenna a few hours after he put the finishing touches on the last part of his epic poem The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri died of malaria fever. 1523- Pope Adrian VI died. He was a Dutchman who thought he had been selected to be a true shepherd to his Christian flock. But when he entered Rome he was hurled into a hurricane of Vatican power politics and intrigue. It was said he died of shock. He was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II in 1978. Romans hated Adrian so much that when he died they sent flowers to his doctor in thanks for losing his patient. 1812-NAPOLEON ENTERS MOSCOW- Napoleon entered the grea[...]

Sept. 13, 2009 sunday

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who said “ It is a far, far better thing I do, than I have ever done before. It is a far, far better place I go to, than I have ever been..” ? Question: Who were the Fab Four? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/13/2009 Birthdays: Gen"BlackJack" Pershing, Clara Schumann, Milton Hershey, Arnold Schoenburg, Jacqueline Bissett, Frank Marshal, Laura Secord, Jesse L. Lasky, Richard Kiel – Jaws in the James Bond movies, Maurice Jarre, Roald Dahl, Don Bluth is 72, Dr Kenneth Starr, Fred Silverman “The Man with the Golden Gut.” 122AD- In England the Roman legions began to build Hadrians' Wall. 1759- THE BATTLE OF THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. England took Canada away from France. Gen. Wolfe defeated The Marquis De Montcalm and captures the great fortress of Quebec. Both Wolfe and Montcalm are killed, the only time both commanding generals were killed in a one battle at the same time. Gen. Wolfe (32) was aware he was asking his redcoats to scale a sheer rockface in a driving rainstorm then defeat a huge army with their backs to a cliff. So to boost their morale he read them his favorite poem: "Elegy in a Country Churchyard". with lines like:" The paths of Glory lead naught but to the Grave..." Gee, that would cheer me up.... 1805- Admiral Nelson leaves London to take out HMS Victory and his fleet to sea. He will achieve death and glory at the Battle of Trafalgar. Shortly before he had a conversation with the artist Benjamin West. He told West his portrayal of the Death of General Wolfe at the Battle of Quebec was his favorite painting and why had he not painted anything as good since? West replied that there hasn't been any comparable incidents of tragic heroism lately. Nelson laughed and said: "Well I shall make a it a point to get myself killed in my next battle, to provide you with suitable inspiration!" 1814- After destroying Washington DC and Alexandria , the British Navy began a bombardment of the forts surrounding Baltimore. Baltimore then was the main port of the many American privateers pirating English ships. [...]

Sept. 12, 2009 sat

Sat, 12 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Who were the Fab Four? Yesterdays Question Answered Below: Okay, classic SciFi fans, what is SOMA..? ============================ History for 9/12/2009 Birthdays: Piero 'the Fatuous' DeMedici, King Francis Ist of France-1494, H.L. Mencken, Maurice Chevalier, Ben Blue, Jesse Owens, Barry White, Alfred A. Knopf, Ian Holm, Hans Zimmer, Rachael Ward, Michael Odaatje-author of The English Patient, Margaret Hamilton -"I'm mellllttinnng,,oooohh.." Joe Pantoliano Today is the Feast of Saint Victoria Fornari-Strata, who in 1604 founded the Blue Nuns 1642- THE CINQ MARS AFFAIR- The young, sexy Marquis de Cinq Mars was a favorite of King Louis XIII. He became so close to the king that Cardinal Richelieu feared he would lose control of France to this "bedroom coup". The vain marquis was so confident of his power that he openly plotted with the kings feckless brother Gaston de Orleans to overthrow the government. Richelieu had the young marquis convicted of treason and beheaded. 1654- In the little Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, three Sephardic families who had fled the Spanish Inquisition, gathered to celebrate the first Rosh Hassanah in North America. Their Congregation Sha-Aref Israel became the oldest Jewish community in North America, second in the New World only to the Dutch Caribbean colony of Curacao. 1683-THE SECOND SIEGE OF VIENNA - Polish King Jan Sobieski and Prince Eugene of Savoy lift the Turkish siege of Vienna, the last major attempt of Ottoman Turkey to conquer Europe. They called it the Completion of the Crescent. It ended the career of Mustapha Korprolu, the Sultan’s Vezir who had staked all on one more try at European conquest. Jan Sobieski's elite heavy cavalry, the "Winged Hussars" wore large feathered angel wings strapped to their backs. It was designed to deflect Tartar lariats but had the psychological terror effect of making the Moslems think they were fighting Christian angels. 1786- Despite his losing the decisive Battle of Yorktown in America Charles Lord Cornwallis was named Governor-General of His Majesties Territorie[...]

Sept 11, 2009 fri.

Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Okay, classic SciFi fans, what is SOMA..? Answer to Yesterday’s Question below: What are Marquis of Queensbury Rules? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/11/2009 Birthdays: O.Henry, D.H. Lawrence, Brian DePalma, Hedy Lamarr, Lola Falana, Paul "Bear" Bryant, Tom Landry, Kristy McNichol, Lola Falana, Pinto Colvig the voice of Goofy & Pluto, Peter Tosh, Virginia Madsen, Amy Madigan, Moby 1297-First Battle of Sterling- William Wallace's Scottish rebel army inflicts a spectacular defeat on the English Army. They chop up the hated military governor the Earl of Cressingham and send dried strips of him throughout the shires. Despite Wallace's victory, most Scottish noble families refused to support him because of his low birth. " Scot's Wa Hae Wi Wallace Bled, The Ranks The Bruce so Nobly Led, Come on to Your Gory Bed, or On to Victory..." 1649- THE MASSACRE OF DROGHEDA- During the English Civil War the Irish had risen in rebellion. Various forces on the island demanded freedom, Catholic worship and even Loyalty to King Charles I Stuart. Finally Oliver Cromwell came over to Ireland with his battle hardened New Model Army and laid siege to the fortress city of Drogheda, defended by one legged Loyalist Sir Arthur Ashton. After a savage cannon bombardment Cromwell’s men stormed in, Oliver himself led the final charge into the breached city wall, sword in hand. The enraged Cromwell ordered every man in arms in the city cut to pieces whether he surrendered or not. Sir Arthur was beaten to death with his own wooden leg. People who took refuge in St. Peter’s church were cremated when the furious troops piled wooden pews against the steeple and set it ablaze. “God-Damn Me! I Burn, I Burn ! One shouted as he leapt to his death. 3,500 perished in the massacre and the few left living were sent to slave plantations in Barbados. Cromwell said of the massacre “I wish that all honest hearts give the Glory to God, to whom praise of this Mercy belongs”. 1709- BATTLE OF MALPLAQUET.[...]

September 10th, 2009 thurs

Thu, 10 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What are Marquis of Queensbury Rules? Yesterday’s Quiz Answered below: Could General Custer sing? -------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/10/2009 Birthdays: Fae Wray,Yma Sumac ( Star of Brazilian jazz and crossword puzzles- real name Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chavarri del Castillo, from Ichocán, Peru. Descendent of Inca royalty), Ian Fleming, Raymond Scott (composer of songs Carl Stalling loved to score into Bugs Bunny cartoons) , Margaret Trudeau, Amy Irving, Arnold Palmer, Charles Kuralt, Jose Feliciano, Karl Lagerfield, Steven Jay Gould, Chris Columbus, Colin Firth is 49 1171- Saladin, the Vezir of Egypt, changed the religious practice of Egypt from Shiite back to Sunni Moslem. For this act, the Caliph in Baghdad made the Kurd a Sultan, and he took up the war begun by Nur-Al-Din against the Christian Crusaders in Jerusalem. 1224-The first Franciscan monks land in England. The are promptly arrested and sent to London in chains. 1608- Captain John Smith elected leader of the Jamestown Colony. This advances the common adventurer over the heads of several gentlemen like President Wingfield and Captain’s Martin and Newport. But since they first landed in April the rigors of the Virginia wilderness proved that Smith knew best how to run the colony. 1646- The Parliamentary forces capture King Charles' last major fortress, the seaport of Bristol, which in effect wins the English Civil War. 1813- Commodore Oliver Perry defeats a British naval flotilla on Lake Erie. This battle and New Orleans prevented the War of 1812 from being a complete botchup by the U.S. considering we had our capitol burned and all our invasions of Canada defeated. Perry's victory message:" We have met the enemy, and he is ours." 1846- Elias Howe patented the sewing machine. 1926- The remains of screen idol Rudolph Valentino arrived in Hollywood after a mammoth funeral in New York where he had died two weeks before. Hollywood, knowing a publicity coup when it saw one, immedia[...]

Sept. 09, 2009 weds.

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

The El Grupo Show at the American Cinemateque was good fun. The movie itself opens on Friday. --------------------------------------------- Quiz: Could General Custer sing? Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What was a carpetbagger? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History 9/9/2009 Birthdays: Antonio Frescobaldi, Captain William Bligh, Jimmy the Greek Snyder, Joe Theismann, Cliff Robertson, Angela Cartwright, Alf Landon, Dee Dee Sharpe who sang the 60's R&B hit the Mashed Potato, Michael Keaton, Adam Sandler, Don Mattingly, Otis Redding, Anita Ekberg, Hugh Grant, Topol, Colonel Lyman Sanders the founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken, James Hilton-writer who created the name for paradise- Shangri-La, in his novel Lost Horizons. 490BC -About this time, although I haven’t found a precise date yet, was the battle of MARATHON- when the small Athenian army led by Militiades defeated a huge invasion led by Darius the Great King of Persia. Militiades is from whom we get the word "Military". 490BC- This was the event that the runner Phidippides ran to bring the news to Athens- the first Marathon. He once ran from Athens to Sparta- 150 miles in two days. The ancient Olympics had foot races but no marathons, that came with the modern Olympics. The reason the marathon became 26.2 miles, was during the London games the race was lengthened so it could begin at Windsor Castle where Queen Victoria’s grandchildren could watch, then end at the stadium in London where the little old Queen could see them finish. 1087- WILLIAM THE CONQUERER DIED- King William had subdued Normandy, England and Scotland and was one of the most successful kings of the Middle Ages. But old age and good living caught up to him. He became very fat. One day when riding near Mantes-La-Jolie, his horse bucked, causing the saddle pommel to stab up into his groin and rupture his bladder. Blood poisoning brought the end swiftly. He was carried to a monastery in great pa[...]

Sept 08, 2009 tues. SALUDOS & GRUPO SCREENING.

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Tonight I'll have the honor of hosting an evening in honor of Ted Thomas's new documentary WALT & EL GRUPO. It tells the behind the scenes story of Walt Disney's 1941 Latin American trip. http://www.waltandelgrupo.com/ We'll be talking with Ted Thomas ( Frank Thomas' son), Producer Kuniko Okuba, the composer and effects supervisor about the film, and run some clips. We'll conclude the evening with a screening of the 1943 Disney film SALUDOS AMIGOS. A new digital print from the original negative, it will be it's first theatrical screening in decades. courtesy of Jim Hill Media It will be at the American Cinemateque at the Historic Hollywood Egyptian Theater (6217 Hollywood Blvd near Highland) Tues at 7:30PM WALT & EL GRUPO will open nationwide on Friday Sept 11th. ----------------------------------------- Question: What was a carpetbagger? Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Who was the first movie star? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- history for 9/8/2009 Birthdays: Richard the LionHearted, Michel Caravaggio, Antonin Dvorak, Patsy Cline, Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, Peter Sellars, Sid Caesar, Freddy Mercury, Lyndon LaRouche, Euwell Gibbons- natural food advocate, Heather Thomas, David Arquette, Jonathan Taylor-Thomas is 28, Pink is 30 1381-Battle Of Kulikovo- Prince Dmitri Donskoi of Novgorod defeated the Tartars of the Golden Horde. 1504- Michelangelo unveiled his completed statue of David. The project had humble origins. The Florentine Republic had commissioned a statue from another artist who gave up after gouging a large hole in a huge block of Carrarra marble. Stuck with the block, magistrates asked Michelangelo if he could do anything with it. Michelangelo carved the David positioning the hole where the legs stand spread. 1565-Sultan Sulieman the Magnificent lifted the Siege of Malta. The Knights of St. John Hospitaller were granted ownership of Malta in perpetuity. They become the Kni[...]

Sept. 07, 2009 Mon

Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Who was the first movie star? Yesterday’s question answered below What country has for its’ official name The Great Socialist People’s Arab Jamahirjiya? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/7/2009 Birthdays: Grandma Moses, Dame Edith Sitwell, Elia Kazan, Richard Roundtree, Sinclair Lewis, Anthony Quayle. Peter Lawford, Senator Daniel Inouye, Susan Blakely, Shannon Elizabeth, Sonny Rawlins, Julie Kavner the voice of Marge Simpson. 605 B.C. Nebuchanesser II crowned king of Babylon. In 597 he destroyed Israel and began the Baylonian Captivity of the Judeo-Christian apocalyptic writings, but he also build the famed hanging Gardens of Baylon for his wife Amrytis. 1191-KING RICHARD VS. SALLADIN-The Battle of Arsuf, the only major set battle between King Richard's Crusaders and Saladin Saracens. Saladin's men were driven back by the charging armored knights, but no final victory was achieved. Richard galloped about chopping people so fiercely, that the Saracen warriors rode around him and avoided contact. Contrary to the image Saladin didn't ride around on a fiery Arab white stallion. He directed his army from the rear on a donkey. This he did in imitation of the example of the pious Caliph Omar, who also disdained white chargers as vanity. After such hot work in the desert Salladin sent his enemy Richard a cup of snow with rose water called Sherbat, which is the forerunner of modern Iced Sherbet or Slurpie. 1303- ATTACK ON THE POPE- Pope Boniface VIII considered his throne higher than all Royal crowns. He even had a big triple tiara crown made bigger than all royal crowns to prove it. He got into a fight over sovereignty with French King Phillip the Fair, excommunicating him and all France. Then Phillip had a French clerical assembly accuse Boniface of being a “murderer, false monk, sorcerer, embezzler, adulterer, sodomite, idolater and infidel”. But King Ph[...]

September 06, 2009 Sun.

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What country has for its’ official name The Great Socialist People’s Arab Jamahirjiya? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: In Shakespeare, who was the character of Oberon? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/6/2009 Birthdays: Marquis De Lafayette ,Joseph Kennedy Sr., Buddy Holly, Jane Curtin, Sergio Aragones, Swoozie Kurtz, Jo Ann Worley, Rosie Perez, Billy Rose, Ernest Tubb, Justin Whalin 338BC- Five days after Athens was conquered by Phillip of Macedon, the Greek philosopher Isocrates died. It was said the 98 year old was depressed by world events and old age. So he simply stopped eating. Isocrates created the first literary criticism essays. 1298- Battle of Curzola- One of the perennial battles between Venice and the Pisa only distinguished by the fact that Marco Polo was captured. The first thing the globe trotting merchant did upon getting home from China was get drafted. While a P.O.W. in a Pisan prison he wrote his accounts: " My Travels". He actually dictated them to another prisoner because he may have been illiterate or simply had weak eyes. Recently scholars challenged just how much of China he actually saw, because he makes no mention of The Great Wall or chopsticks. 1522- A ship reached Spain manned by only a dozen or more skeletal sailors. They were all that was left of Fernand de Magellans fleet of five ships and 260 men that set out one year ago to reach the Indies. Magellan was killed and eaten by cannibals in the Philippines, Magellan had beheaded three of his captains in Argentina and most of the crew was dead. The last leg of the trip the men sailed up the coast of Africa without stopping for food or water for fear of falling into the hands of their Portuguese enemies. But they had achieved the dream of the great Columbus, they reached the Indies by sailing west. In fact they had circumnavig[...]

Sept. 5th, 2009 sat

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz In Shakespeare, who was the character of Oberon? Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Cogito Ergo Sum ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/5/2009 Birthdays: Louis XIV The Sun King, Jesse James, Cardinal Richelieu, Johann Christian Bach, Jacopo Meyerbeer, John Cage, Quentin de la Tour, Darryl F. Zanuck, Jack Valenti, Bob Newhart, George Lazenby, Raquel Welch is 69, Kathy Guisewhite, Dweezil Zappa, Werner Herzog, Michael Keaton is 58 1499- Former Columbus captain Alonso De Hojeda arrives in the New World on his own expedition. Along with him as pilot (Navigator) was a Florentine named Amerigo Vespucci. Vespucci made several more trips to the alien land and published a book about his adventures never mentioning Hojeda. His publishers spiced up his accounts with naked brown natives with lascivious morals throwing themselves on the Europeans. It was quite popular reading. In 1538 when Columbus was dead and forgotten German mapmakers Martin Waldseemuller & Gerhardus Mercator published the first mass printed maps of the known world. They drew on Vespucci's books and called the new hemisphere "America". I guess that's better than the United States of Hojeda. 1536- Protestant Reformer John Calvin was put in charge of the religious life of the city of Geneva. His ideas were so Puritan that within two years he was asked to leave. 1654-FIRST JEWS IN AMERICA- The first boatload of Jewish families arrived in America at what would one day be New York City- then Nieu Amsterdaam. They were fleeing the Spanish Inquisition that was being set up in Brazil. They had to auction their furniture to pay off their French pirate captain, Jean De La Monthe, but Asher Levy and his family where here to stay. Puritan Dutch Governor Peter Stuyversant immediately complained to the Hague that Jews not be allowed to settle in New Amste[...]

Sept. 04. 2009 fri.

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Cogito Ergo Sum. Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who said: “ an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, set in a question..” and what was he/she referring to? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ History for 9/4/2009 Birthdays: Marcus Whitman the missionary who led US settlement of Oregon, Howard Morris, Darius Mihlaud, Anton Bruckner, Chateaubriand, Craig Claiborne, Dick York, Richard Wright, Nigel Bruce, Mary Renault, Tom Watson, Mitzi Gaynor, Damon Wayans, Paul Harvey, Beyonce' Knowles 218BC- Hannibal’s army with elephants reached the summit of the Alps. 1781- HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOS ANGELES. Royal Governor of New Spain Gaspar de Portola and Franciscan monk Fra Junipero Serra with twelve soldiers, some free black families and Indians, about 44 in all, dedicated a new town, one days ride north of San Pedro. The 63 year old Serra had been stung by a scorpion but ignored it, so he hobbled around dragging his swollen leg. Fra Serra named the town after St. Francis of Assisi's first church in Italy- St. Mary of the Angels, so El Pueblo Nuestra Senora Santa Maria Reina de Los Angeles de Porcuincula. Like awesome, dude! 1781- Benedict Arnold, the American Colonial general turned traitor, led a force of British redcoats to burn his own home town of New London, Connecticut. Who says you can never go home? 1821- Russian Czar Nicolas I issued an Imperial Ukase- edict restating Russia's claim to all of the North American Pacific coastline from Alaska to Northern California. The United States rejected this claim and threatened war, which is interesting considering they didn't own any of it at the time. They had plans. 1833 –The New York Sun hired young boys to sell their papers on street corners. The first newsboy was ten year old Barney Flaugherty. Now go peddle your papers, kid. 1839- The Opium Wars [...]

September 3rd, 2009 thurs

Thu, 03 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Who said: “ an enigma, wrapped in a mystery, set in a question..” and what was he/she referring to? Yesterday’s question answered below: What does it mean to call someone a “ real live wire..?” ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/3/2009 Birthdays: Alan Ladd, Dr. Ferdinand Porsche, Irene Papas, Memphis Slim, Eddie Brat Stanky, Mort Walker creator of Beetle Bailey, Bill Flemming, Mitzi Gaynor, Richard Tyler, Eileen Brennan, Valerie Perrine, Charlie Sheen is 43, Phil Stern- former WWII Darby’s Ranger and personal photographer for Louis B. Mayer, is 90! 401BC- THE MARCH OF TEN THOUSAND- Cyrus the Younger had begun a civil war to overthrow his brother the Persian Great King Artaxerxes The Mindful. In Prince Cyrus’ army was ten thousand Greek mercenaries led by several generals including Xenophon, a writer who was once a student of Socrates. Today at a Babylonian town called Cunaxa, Cyrus’s force defeated the Persian Royal Army, but Cyrus was killed. Without an employer and a thousand miles from home in a hostile country. These ten thousand Greeks were really screwed. But they got themselves together and in an epic march they fought their way through hostile armies from the Euphrates to the Greek colonies on the Black Sea. After 5 months their cry "Thalassa! " The Sea! meant they were at last safe and could get a ship home. They dedicated a monument which was discovered by archaeologists near Trapizond Turkey in 1997. Xenophon wrote a book about this adventure called Anabasis. He wrote a book about horsemanship- Dressage, which is still used today. 1189- King Richard Ist the LionHearted crowned at Westminister. He declared his desire to fulfill his father Henry II’s vow to go on Crusade. Richard spoke French and only visited England twice more [...]

Sept. 1st, 2009 Tues.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Considering Sarah Palin’s husband is of Alaskan Innuit (Eskimo) ancestry. Has there ever been a US President that was Native American? Yesterday’s Question Answered below: : Last week Republican Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins of Kansas said that the Republican Party was looking for a “ Great White Hope”. Later she claimed she didn’t understand what it meant. Where does the phrase some from? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/1/2009 Welcome to Septembrius, After August the Romans ran out of names for months. Septembrius means number 7, March being the first month of the Roman Calendar. Birthdays: Joachim Pachebel, Gentleman Jim Corbet, Sir Roger Casement, Seiji Ozawa, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Walter Reuther founder of the United Auto Workers, Englebert Humperdinck- the 19th century composer, Conway Twitty, Jack Hawkins, Leonard Slatkin, Seiji Ozawa, Yvonne DeCarlo, Gloria Estefan, Mike Lah, Boxcar Willie, Richard Farnsworth, Lily Tomlin, 338B.C. -BATTLE OF CHAERONEA- Phillip of Macedon, with his son Alexander the Great, defeated the combined armies of the independent Greek city states. . The Macedonian victory united Greece for the first time under one rule but ended the citystates individual rule. By this time Athens and Sparta had fallen from their once powerful positions and the Greek states that fought King Phillip were led by Thebes ( the Greek city of Theseus is often confused with the similarly named Egyptian city Thebes) Even among the hard drinking Macedonian warriors King Phillip was considered a partyguy. It was said that night he went out on the battlefield and danced on the bodies of the slain. The elite corps of the Greek Theban army was the Sacred Band, a unit where every warrior was married to the man next to [...]

September 02, 2009 weds.

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What does it mean to call someone a “ real live wire..?” Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Considering Sarah Palin’s husband is of Alaskan Innuit (Eskimo) ancestry. Has there ever been a US President that was Native American? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 9/2/2009 Birthdays: The last monarch of Hawaii Queen Lydia Kemehcka Liliuokalani, Yang Tsu Ching leader of the Taiping Rebellion, Cleveland Amory, Alfred Spaulding 1850, founder of Spaulding sports equipment, Martha Mitchell, Mark Harmon, Marge Champion, Peter Ubberroth, Terry Bradshaw, Chrysta McAuliffe, Jimmy Connors, Eric Dickerson, Selma Hayek is 41, Keanu Reeves is 45 31 BC- The Battle of Actium- Large naval battle near Corfu that decided that Augustus and not Anthony & Cleopatra would be the master of Rome. Legend has it that before a battle the priests spread out sacred chicken feed and could predict victory or defeat based on how the sacred chickens would peck. This time the chicken wouldn't peck. Anthony said:"If the chickens won't peck, then let them drink!" And had them all thrown overboard. He lost the battle. Don't mess with the sacred chickens.! 1191-Richard the Lionheart and Sultan Saladin made peace. Contrary to legend and Hollywood movies Richard and Saladin never met face to face. Saladin couldn't defeat Richard in open battle but knew the English king's time in the Holy Land was limited, because he had to get back to fight the French and his own brother Prince John. Richard knew Saladin was old, his Jihad was worn out and Richard fully expected to return by 1196 and finally take Jerusalem. So he made peace for now and got for Christians freedom to worship at the Holy Sepulcher, which they always had before the [...]

August 31st, 2009 mon.

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: Last week, Republican Congresswoman Lynn Jenkins of Kansas said that the Republican Party was looking for a “ Great White Hope”. Later she claimed she didn’t understand what it meant. Where does the phrase some from? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What are dungarees? -------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/31/2009 Birthdays: Caligula 12AD*, Commodus 161AD**, Amilcare Ponchielli, Eldridge Cleaver, Buddy Hackett, James Coburn, Itshak Perleman, Van Morrison, Arthur Godfrey, Debbie Gibson, Richard Baseheart, Rocky Marciano. Alan J. Lerner, Dan Rather, Maria Montressori (of the Montressori Method of education), Daniel Saroyan, Richard Gere is 60, Chris Tucker is 37. * Caligula was a nickname. His real name was Gaius but as a child in his dad's army camp the troops dressed him up in his own little uniform. An army issued boot was a Caligae, so they called him Caligula, or Little Army Bootie. As Emperor if you called him that to his face he'd have you killed. ** Commodus was yet another mad Roman Emperor . He'd have you killed if you reminded him that he had the same birthday as Caligula. Romans refused to believe such a loser as Commodus could be the son of the great philosopher Marcus Aurelius. The rumor was the empress coupled with a gladiator while Marcus was away in Germany. When Marcus found out he was …uh…philosophical. 1422- King Henry V of England had settled the Hundred Years War in England’s favor after the great victory of Agincourt. But this day he died of dysentery at age 35 before the peace could hold. Had he lived, the Hundred Years War would have been the 90 Years War. 1829- Giacomo’s Opera Guglielmo Tell debuted in Paris. The William Tell overture w[...]

August 30th, 2009 sun. NEW FLIP!

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Steve Moore's on-line animation tradezine written by animation people for animation people- FLIP! is up on line now. In it we discuss the old Filmation Studio, Daryl Van Citters talks about his new book on Mr. McGoo's Christmas Carol. Check it out: http://www.flipanimation.net -------------------------------------------------- Question: What were Dungarees? Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What is a tefillin? ------------------------------------------------------------------ History for 8/30/2009 Birthdays: Mary Shelley, Jacques Louis David, Huey Long, Fred MacMurray, Raymond Massey, Ted Williams, John Blondell, Timothy Bottoms, Jean-Claude Killy, Shirley Booth, John Landis, Tug McGraw, R. Crumb, Lewis Black, Cameron Diaz is 37 Happy Birthday Crumb Today is the Feast Day of Saint Fiacre, the Patron Saint of Gardeners. 30 BC- Cleopatra committed suicide at age 39. Some accounts have her allowing herself to be bitten by a poison asp concealed in a basket, another said she took poison concealed on a hairpin. It was said she killed herself to join her lover Marc Anthony, more likely it was because the victorious Augustus planned to have her dragged through the streets of Rome in a cage for the crowd's amusement, then quietly strangled. The snakebite was thought by Egyptians to bestow immortality. 304 AD-Today is the feast of Saints Felix and Adauctus. Felix was sentenced to be beheaded when a voice in the crowd called out :"I too believe in what this man confesses! Take me too!" So the Romans beheaded both of them but forgot to get the other guy's name. Adauctus means "That other guy" So it's Saint Felix and Saint Whats-His-Name. 1483- French King Louis XI, “the Spider King” died. 1721- The Treaty of N[...]

August 29, 2009 sat.

Sat, 29 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What is a tefillin? Question: What do the films Barry Lyndon and Last of the Mohicans have in common? ------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/29/2009 Birthdays: King James II Stuart, John Locke, Oliver Wendel Holmes Sr., Jean Dominique Ingres, Charlie Parker, Preston Sturges, Ingrid Bergman, William Friedkin is 71, Dinah Washington, George Montgomery, Slobodan Milosevic, Robin Leach, Richard Attenborough is 86, Donald O’Connor, Elliot Gould, Rebecca DeMornay, Joel Schumacher, choreographer Mark Morris, Charles Kettering inventor of the automobile ignition, Sen. John McCain is 73, Michael Jackson would have been 51. 29 AD- Estimated date of the beheading of John the Baptist. 1664- The name of the colony of Niew Amsterdaam is officially changed to New York by the occupying British forces. This was a birthday present to the King Charles’s brother James, the Duke of York. 1756- THE SEVEN YEARS WAR began. This could arguably be called the true first World War. Britain, France, Prussia and Russia, Austria, Poland, Sweden and Turkey fought each other all over the globe. Armies battled from Prague to Pennsylvania, Belgium to Gibraltar, to Madras, Quebec and Sri Lanka. In America it is called The French & Indian War. If you are a film buff consider this: Barry Lyndon and the Last of the Mohicans are happening at the same time as part of the same war. 1776- The Long Island Campaign ends. George Washington's army was badly beaten in open battle by the British, and pinned up against the East River. All night the fishermen of Marblehead Massachusetts succeeded in ferrying the remainder of his troops across to Manhattan while the British Navy sat [...]

August 28th, 2009 friday.

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What do the films Barry Lyndon and Last of the Mohicans have in common? Yesterday’s Answer Below: What was the first novel written on a typewriter? ------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/28/2009 Birthdays: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Leo Tolstoy, George Villiers the Duke of Buckingham- minister of James I, O'Flagherty, Donald O'Connor, Charles Boyer, Karl Boehm, Bruno Bettleheim, Ben Gazzara is 79, Jack "King" Kirby, Janet Evans, Ron 'Louisiana Lightning' Guidry, Jason Preistley, Daniel Stern, Shania Twain, Charles Solomon, Jack Black is 40. In Hong Kong today is the Festival is the Festival of Hungry Ghosts. 79 a.d.- POMPEII AND HERCULANEUM DESTROYED BY MOUNT VERSUVIUS -The great volcano erupted, burying the two Roman cities. The Emperor Titus rushed a fleet commanded by the natural scientist Pliny to rescue as many as he could. Pliny was overcome by the sulphurous fumes and died. His son, Pliny the Younger, eyewitnesses it all and wrote a moving account of the tragedy in his 'letters'. Scientists have been digging at the site of Pompeii since it's rediscovery in 1726, but estimates are there's as many as 30,000 skeletons still buried. 390 AD-This was the Feast of Saint Augustine of Hippo. He was the Saint who tried every weird orgiastic cult he could find before converting to Christianity, He drove his mother Saint Monica crazy but his experiences helped him develop an answer to every anti-Christian argument. His famous book was "the City of God". For a Saint he could have done stand-up. He was famous for one liners like when someone asked him "What did God do before he created the world?" Augustine answere[...]

August 27th, 2008 Thurs.

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What was the first novel written on a typewriter? Question: What is the Mystery of the Trinity? --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HISTORY FOR 8/27/2009 Birthdays: Man Ray, Martha Ray, LBJ ( Lyndon Baines Johnson), Hegel, C.S. Forester, Hannibal Hamlin- Abe Lincolns first term vice president, Barbara Bach, Theodore Dreiser, Lady Antonia Fraser, Tommy Sands, Tuesday Weld, Mangesuthu Buthelezi,, Downtown Julie Brown, Paul Rubens-aka Pee Wee Herman 53 B.C.- JULIUS CAESAR LANDED IN ENGLAND- Caesar paused from his conquest of Gaul to check out the British Isles. He didn't stay long because Channel storms were playing havoc with his supply ships. Just long enough to fight some Celts under their chief Cassilvelaunus, collect some tribute and add a chapter to his memoirs. The Romans returned in A.D. 61 under instructions from Claudius to conquer and colonize. London, Colchester and York were originally Roman army camps. The Romans never considered Britain a good investment though, for the two legions that had to be stationed there year round to protect colonists from the Scottish Picts (Painted People), all the Romans got was some tin, slaves and a bigger road map. In 401 A.D. the Romans evacuated Britain to cover their collapsing Empire. The Romanized Britons who followed the armies back across the Channel settled in North Gaul and called it Brittany. 1664- NIEUW AMSTERDAAM BECOMES NEW YORK. The English had disputed Holland's stake in America based on the early exploration of John Cabot. Now with the growth of the New England colonies, the English Civil War over and the Spanish Menace diminishi[...]

August 26th, 2009 weds

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Question: What is the Mystery of the Trinity? Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Did you know the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall” was based on a real incident? What was it? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/26/2009 Birthdays: Sir Robert Walpole the first British Prime Minister, Albert the Prince Consort, John Wilkes Booth, Guilliame Appollinaire who coined the term Surrealism, General Maxwell Taylor, Christopher Isherwood, McCauley Culkin is 29, Geraldine Ferrarro, Dr. Lee DeForrest, Ben Bradlee, Barbet Schroeder, Branford Marsalis, Chris Pine is 29 480 BC- The Persian Army of Xerxes the Great King marched into Athens. They found an empty city. Athenian leader Themistocles had ordered the population to evacuate to the small island of Salamis. Themistocles defeated Xerxes later at an epic sea battle. 580AD An ancient Chinese inventory of the household of a nobleman makes the first recorded reference to toilet paper. The ancient Romans used a sponge tied to a small stick. You were expected to rinse it out afterwards for use by the next person. 217AD- Today is the Feast of St. Zephyrinus, who didn't die violently but he is still counted as a Martyr because he had a lot of stress. (?) He was supposedly so charitable, that Saint Hippolytus found him annoying. 1346-Battle of Crecy – The English beat the French in the Hundred Years War., The Welsh longbows rained powerful armor piercing arrows on the French knights from long range. The King of France’s friend King John of Bohemia rode into the thi[...]

August 25,2009 tues.

Tue, 25 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Did you know the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty, sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall” was based on a real incident? What was it? Yesterday’s answer below: Who first said “ Ignorance is Bliss’..? -------------------------------------------------- History for 8/25/2009 Birthdays: King Ludwig II the Mad of Bavaria, Leonard Bernstein, Bret Hart, Lola Montez (flamenco dancing mistress of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria), Alan Pinkerton, Elvis Costello is 55, Clara Bow, Ruby Keeler, Monty Hall, Van Johnson, Willis Reed, Frederick Forsythe, Wayne Shorter, Billy Ray Cyrus, Dr. Bruno Bettleheim, Rolly Fingers, Gene Simmons, Anne Archer, Tim Burton is 51, Sean Connery is 79, Claudia Schiffer is 38 Happy Birthday Sean! 1718- The FIRST BOATLOAD OF FRENCH COLONISTS LAND IN LOUISIANA- Sieur de la Moyne- Bienville established a fort and trading post on some low ground between the Mississippi and Lake Ponchartrain. He named the place for Phillip of Orleans, then ruler of France in the name of the child King Louis XV. The French and Dutch always had a problem with their American colonies, in that nobody wanted to leave home to live there. Voltaire called New France a land of Beaver, Bears and Barbarians. One solution the French thought up involved sweeping the streets of all the hookers, cutthroats and riffraff and shipping them all to America. Though it wasn't exactly "Pilgrim's Progress", this influx of cardsharks and sportin' ladies helped New Orleans quickly establish it's rep as one of the wildest towns of the New World. 1814- The British Army occupying Washington D.C. conti[...]

August 24th, 2009 mon

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

The list so far of all the old movies that Hollywood has remakes planned for: Back to School (without Rodney Dangerfield), Meatballs( without Bill Murray), Child's Play, Clash of the Titans (without Ray Harryhausen), Conan The Barbarian (without Arnold Schwarzennegger), Death Wish (without Charles Bronson), Dune, Escape from New York, Evil Dead, Fame, Fahrenheit 451, Footloose, Hellraiser, Logan's Run, Near Dark, Poltergeist, Robocop, Rock 'n' Roll High School, Short Circuit ( wasn't that called Wall-E?), The Birds, The Stepfather, The Thing, Tron, Valley Girl, Westworld, The Yellow Submarine. Amazing. It reminds me of an old New Yorker Cartoon of two Hollywood producers talking shop over a martini. One says " Recently, I've been experimenting with Originality." -------------------------------------------------- Quiz: Who first said “ Ignorance is Bliss’..? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What the difference between a Pederast and a Pedagogue? ----------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/24/2009 Birthdays: Jorge Luis Borges, William Wilberforce, Marlee Matlin, Yasir Arafat, Max Beerbom, Cal Ripken Jr, Joshua Lionel Cowan the inventor of Lionel toy electric trains, Steve Guttenberg, Kenny Baker-C3PO in Star Wars, Stephen Fry is 52, Durward Kirby- 1960s T.V. announcer, Duke Kahanamoku-1890- Olympic medalist who popularized the Hawaiian sport of Surfing. Dave Chappelle is 36, Steve Guttenberg is 51 410 A.D. ROME FALLS TO THE BARBARIANS- Alaric the Visigoth marched a horde of Goths, Vandals and Huns [...]

August 23rd, 2009 sunday

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: What the difference between a Pederast and a Pedagogue? Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the plural of Moose? -------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/23/2009 Birthdays: French King Louis XVI, Gene Kelly, Keith Moon, Rick Springfield, Shelly Long, Sonny Jurgensen, Alphonse Mucha, Vera Miles, River Phoenix, Queen Noor of Jordan, Kobe Bryant, Barbara Eden is 75, Dr. Stuart Sumida, Oscar Grillo Roman Festival Volcanalia, to pray to Vulcan to prevent fires. In Kyoto Japan this is the first day of the Fire Festival, when candles are placed at each statue in the Temple of the Eight Thousand Buddhas In Swaziland, Happy Umhlanga Day 1305- In London the great Scottish rebel William Wallace was hanged, then cut down while still alive and drawn and quartered. His head was stuck on a spike on London Bridge and his pieces were sent to be displayed in various parts of Scotland. But the Scots instead of being cowed, got even angrier. In 1314 won independence under their King Robert the Bruce. 1572-THE ST. BARTHOLEMEW'S DAY MASSACRE- The reason there are no Protestants in France. Emotionally unstable King Charles IX and his domineering mother Catherine DeMedici had been trying to cope with the growing hatred between Catholics and Protestants, called Huguenots in France. After several civil wars and several treaties Catherine tried to cement a permanent peace by marrying the Kings sister Margot to the Prince of the Protestants Henry Bourbon of Navarre. Catholic Paris was filled with Hugueno[...]

Post Grad opens.

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Vicky Jenson is a long time colleague in animation. Her credits include directing the first SHREK and SHARKTALE, and doing storyboards on SHE-RA, TAZMANIA and art directing on FERNGULLY. This weekend our sister in crime takes the long jump into live action. She has directed her first feature length film POST GRAD, starring Alexis Bledel, which opens this weekend. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eJu4h0jgew I'm going to go see it, looks like fun! Hollywood secret: If you want to support a film you like, the best time to go is on the first friday and saturday of the opening weekend. The Powers-That-Be take the box office of those days, and estimate the sunday to announce the Weekend Box Office. It's when they declare you a hit or flop. No matter how your film does eventually, it can never shake the rep of that first weekend. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Question: What is the plural of Moose? Yesterdays Quiz: : in World War II, what class of Navy warship was nicknamed a Tin Can? ------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/22/2009 Birthdays: George Herriman the creator of Krazy Kat, Dorothy Parker, Claude DeBussy, Johnny Lee Hooker, Denis Papin 1647 inventor of the Pressure Cooker, Leni Reifenstahl, General Stormin’Norman Schwarzkopf, Paul Molitor, Bill Parcells, Max Vilander, Carl “Big Yaz”Yazstremski, Dyanna Nyad, Deng Xiao Ping, Henry Cartier Bresson, Valerie Harper, Cindy Williams, Ray Bradbury is 89, Khristen Wiig is 36 In[...]

August 21, 2009 fri.

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: in World War II, what class of Navy warship was nicknamed a Tin Can? Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Ever smell a stench that was so bad it stuck in your nostrils long after? What is the tip perfume chemists recommend for clearing your nose? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/21/2009 Birthdays: King Phillip II Augustus of France- 1165, King William IV of England- 1765, Aubrey Beardsley, Count Basie, Wilt (Wilt the Stilt) Chamberlain, Isadore "Friz" Freleng, Kenny Rogers, British Princess Margaret, Matthew Broderick, Peter Weir is 65, Kim Catrall is 53. Dr. Joan Dominick, Carrie Anne Moss is 42 1858- The first Lincoln-Douglas debates. Abraham Lincoln and Stephen Douglas squared off in a series of open air debates for a congressional seat for Illinois. But the main subject was the slavery issue. Douglas, the 'Little Giant" won the election but the debates brought national attention to Lincoln. Douglas had even courted Lincoln's wife Mary before they were married. After Lincoln was in the White House Douglas was his strong supporter. 1863-THE LAWRENCE KANSAS MASSACRE – In the Western Border States the town of Lawrence Kansas was the center of pro-Union partisan Jayhawkers. Locals called it YankeeTown. Early in the morning this day Confederate guerrilla leader William Clark Quantrill led 450 hard-riding raiders flying black flags into town. Quantrill's Raiders included young pups like Jesse James and Cole Younger. [...]

August 20th, 2009 thurs

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Ever smell a stench that was so bad it stuck in your nostrils long after? What is the tip perfume chemists recommend for clearing your nose? Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Can you be arrested for being an Oeneophile? ------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/20/2009 Birthdays: President Benjamin Harrison, Sukenoba Nishikawa, Bernardo O’Higgins, Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry, H.P. Lovecraft, Art Tatum, Issac Hayes, Connie Chung, Jacqueline Susanne, Rajiv Ghandi, Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin- who co-wrote Stairway to Heaven, Joan Allen is 53, Fred Durst, Alan Reed -the original voice of Fred Flintstone, Slobodan Milosovic’, Amy Adams is 35 480 B.C. -THE THREE HUNDRED SPARTANS- When Persian King Xerxes invaded Greece the King of Sparta Leonidas decided the best place to try and stop him was in the narrow pass of Thermopylae. But the Spartan senate and other allied Greek states refused to send troops until they completed the Olympic religious festival. It was forbidden for Greeks to wage war during the Games. So Leonidas went with the 300 Spartans of his bodyguard, and a thousand more allied troops, to try and stall ten times their number. After repulsing several attacks a traitor showed Xerxes a goat path around the Spartan position. Leonidas could still have retreated but he, his three hundred and some other Greek allies decided to stand and fight to the last man. They were wiped out, but they bought[...]

August 19th, 2009 weds

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: Can you be arrested for being an Oeneophile? Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: In Walt Disney’s film of Alice in Wonderland, the portrayal of the Queen of Hearts was based on a real life person. Who was it? --------------------------------------------------------------------- History for 8/19/2009 B-Days: Orville Wright, Ring Lardner, Ogden Nash, Alfred Lunt, George Enesco, jockey Willie Shoemaker, Malcom Forbes, Tipper Gore, Gene Roddenberry, Colleen Moore the It Girl, Jill St. John, Ginger Baker of Grand Funk Railroad, Dawn Steel, John Stamos, Peter Gallagher is 54, Kyra Sedgwick is 44, Matthew Perry is 40, former President Bill Clinton is 63 480 B.C. THERMOPYLAE- The Spartan King Leonidas had gone on ahead of other Greek allies to try and slow down the gigantic Persian invasion force of Xerxes. He chose to stop them at a narrow mountain pass in Thessaly called Thermopylae or Hot Gates. He had only 300 Spartans of his royal guard and 7000 other Greek allies to fight off 200,000 Persians. After repulsing several attacks, this night spies told Leonidas a Greek traitor named Ephialtes had shown Xerxes a way behind his position. If he did not retreat he would be surrounded. Their seer Meistias saw in the sacrificial entrails nothing but death. But Leonidas decided the best way to gain time, and create an example for Greece to rally, was to stay and fight to the last man. He allowed his allies to withdraw, but 150[...]

August 18th, 2009 tues.

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Quiz: In Disney’s film Alice in Wonderland, the portrayal of the Queen of Hearts was based on a real life person. Who was it? Yesterday’s Question answered below: In G.I. slang, what was the nickname given to a meal of fried chip-beef hash on a piece of hardtack biscuit? ---------------------------------------------------------------------- HISTORY FOR 8/18/2009 Birthdays: Meriwether Lewis ,Austrian Emperor Franz Josef II, Leo Slezak Shelly Winters, Caspar Weinburger, Roberto Clemente, Rafer Johnson, Enoch Light, Coco Channel, Roman Polanski is 76, Patrick Swayze is 57, Madeleine Stowe, Christian Slater, Edward Norton is 40, Martin Mull, Denis Leary, Robert Redford, born Charles Robert Redford Jr, is 73 325-a.d. Today is the Feast of Saint Helena. A Roman innkeeper's daughter in Eboracum- modern York England. There she happened to catch the roving eye of General Constantius Chlorus. They married and their son Constantine later made himself Caesar and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman World. It's debatable exactly when she was baptized, but she undoubtedly had a great influence on her son's decision. She was also instrumental in researching and defining the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. She started the Christian fascination with holy relics. 1503-Pope Alexander VI the Borgia died. Some say he died of malaria, others that he poisoned himself accidentally, [...]

Adam Beckett tribute

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 12:00:00 PST

Spent a nice night at the Motion Picture Academy, attending a show honoring animator Adam Beckett(1950-1979) He was a CalArts student of Jules Engel, who made personal films like Flesh Flows and Evolution of the Red Star, while he worked on George Lucas first Star Wars. Beckett died tragically in a fire at age 29. Larry Cuba said had he lived, he would have been an important artist in animation today. So the audience was a mix of avant-garde and MP Visual Effects artists. Got to see old friends like Sarah Petty, Chris Cassady, Lois & Stewart Fox, John Van Vliet and Sari Guinness. One highlight was 16mm home movies of the workrooms on Valjean in Van Nuys, where young artists were creating the effects for the first Star Wars. This was back when no one dreamed of something called ILM or knew where San Rafael was. The films took me back to the first time I saw many of these at ASIFA*East meetings in the early 1970s. They held them at the old Phoenix School in Manhattan. Dick Rauh and Mike Sporn ran the projector. Tissa David kept a running commentary. We'd get together and greet each other " You got a job?" " Nope..., you?" " Nope.." Posted by:Tom[...]

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