Birthdays: Gen"BlackJack" Pershing, Clara Schumann, Arnold Schoenburg, Jacqueline Bissett, Producer/director Frank Marshal, candy seller Laura Secord, Jesse L. Lasky, Richard Kiel – Jaws in the Roger Moore James Bond movies, Maurice Jarre, Roald Dahl, Don Bluth,Network Programming exec Fred Silverman “The Man with the Golden Gut.”

122AD- In England the Roman legions began to construct 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 !"

1812- Napoleon’s army makes camp within view of the domes and cupolas of Moscow.

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. After 25 straight hours continuous bombardment of Fort McHenry, the fort's big Stars and Stripes flag was still flying. A simultaneous land attack failed when General Ross, who was a veteran of Wellingtons’ army, was shot down by American snipers. Ross had ate his breakfast on shore in a local inn. When the proprietor asked if he should have a dinner ready for him Ross replied:" No thank you. Tonight I shall sup in Baltimore or in Hell!" After the failure of the bombardment the British gave up and sailed away leaving Francis Scott Key on the shore with notes for a neat little poem. More tomorrow.

1845-THE IRISH POTATO FAMINE- An Irish newspaper printed this day announced that a fungus named Vituperia Infestae was affecting most of the years potato crop, the one food staple for the poor. The same parasite carried over in American fertilizer had effected continental European agriculture as well but a drought minimized it’s effect. Ireland was more devastated by the famine than she had ever been by any war. The famine raged for three years and killed millions. And all this while Ireland was administered by the richest nation in the world, the British Empire. Irish companies were still exporting other grains at the time as well. British relief agencies that were set up were inadequate and refused to just dispense food for fear of creating "a race of dependents". They established works projects that killed more as the starving were made to clear roads and move boulders. Also to pay for the programs landlords were taxed based on how many tenant farmers they had, so they evicted the poor.
Truth be said most industrialized countries at this time were hard on their poor, poverty was viewed as a lack of character. It’s just everyone was too slow or apathetic to realize just how great a disaster was occurring in Ireland. By the time the famine eased in 1849 one quarter of the entire population of Ireland had perished or emmigrated. Ireland today is so prosperous, it now had an immigration problem.

1848- The first lobotomy. No, the patient didn't later become a cartoonist.

1899-First man hit by an automobile. (74th and Central Park West in New York City).

1916- A Tennessee judge orders Margo the circus elephant hanged for killing three men. It took a railroad crane and steel cable but it sure taught her a lesson!

1928- Riding high on their big hit film the Jazz Singer, the Warner Bros. buy out First National Pictures and move into their big Burbank studio lot, where they still are today.

1945- Henchmen of mobster Bugsy Siegel buy a 30 acre roadside tract from a widow in Las Vegas. On it will rise the Las Vegas Casino resort, the Flamingo. There were two little hayseed casinos in Vegas already, but the big glitzy hotel strip of mega casinos was Bugsy's dream.

1961- TV sitcom Car 54, Where Are You? debuted. Can you still sing the opening theme? " There's a fire in the Bronx, Brooklyns' broken out in fights, there's a traffic jam in Harlem that's backed up to Jackson Heights; There's a scout troop lost a child, Khruschevs' due at Idylwild...Car 54 Where are you?!"

1963- The sci-fi thriller series The Outer Limits premiered- Do not attempt to adjust your television- we control the horizontal, etc.

1969-Hanna Barbera's "Scooby-Doo,where are you?" and "Dastardly and Mutley and their Flying Machines" premiered.

1971- ATTICA, ATTICA! Mass prisoner riot in a top New York State Penitentiary acquired counter-culture celebrity status and heavy race-war overtones. The legend was cemented after Governor Nelson Rockefeller used a massive military force to crush the revolt this day. It has been argued that more inmates and hostages were killed because of the attack than if negotiations had been allowed to continue. Most of the prison guards held hostage were murdered, some killed by troops in the confusion. Nelson Rockefeller, the last Liberal Republican, had presidential ambitions. But any further hope he had of running were ended by this incident. For years afterwards every hippie protest resounded with cries of "Attica!".

1974- The Rockford Files TV series with James Garner debut.

1979- Animator Don Bluth quits Walt Disney Studios taking a third of the top artists with him. Often controversial, Bluth becomes Disney's most serious rival since Max Fleischer and helps sparked the animation renaissance of the 1990s. A whole new group of young talent, "bluthies", exert great influence throughout the animation business.

2001- Two days after the World Trade Center terrorist attacks all civilian air travel was banned over the skies of the US. Despite this ban, a special private jet was allowed to evacuate two dozen members of the Saudi Royal family attending school in the US. Among their number were relatives of Osama Ben Laden. None were ever detained or interrogated. An FBI agent complained:" It’s like if after the Oklahoma City bombing we flew all members of the Timothy McVeigh family out of the country, no questions asked!"

Happy Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashannah; Happy Ramadan.

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, Jennifer Hudson is 26

1866-Theater producer Fred Niblo got stuck with a French ballet troupe stranded and broke after the New York Academy of Music burned down. So he combined the dancers with a rather mundane melodrama and created" The Black Crook" and invented the first true Broadway Musical. It ran for twenty years and was continually revived until 1925.

1940- In southern France near Montignac a pet dog fell through a crack in the ground into an underground chamber. When four boys follow in to retrieve the dog they discover the Lascaux Caves Ice-Age paintings, where, a Stone Age man traced his handprint in chalk is considered the world’s oldest signature.

1941-THE WALT DISNEY STRIKE ENDS- Everyone goes back to work after the NLRB, with a lot of behind the scenes pressure from the Bank of America, settled the dispute. Walt Disney had to recognize the cartoonists guild, give screen credits, double the salaries of low
paid workers retroactive to May 29th and re-hire animator Art Babbitt. When Walt Disney returned to LA from his South American trip and was told of the results of the settlement, he immediately got on a train to Washington to try and convince the feds to reverse the decision or get an injunction. He failed and Roy finally convinced him to stop fighting and recognize the Cartoonist Guild. Afterwards he insisted everyone on his lot be unionized, even the gardeners. Ironically within a few months the war would break out and artists who had been bitter foes would be compelled to work side by side in the U.S. Army Picture Unit.

1945- Young Captain Ronald Reagan was discharged from the US Army Signal Corps. He never left Hollywood but starred in movies, training films and USO benefits. Yet in his old age he acted the great war hero. Some annoyed veterans told me Marlena Deitrich in fishnet stockings and pumps got closer to the fighting than Captain Reagan ever did.

1954- Television comedian Ernie Kovacs married Edie Adams, the Muriel Cigar Girl. They married in Mexico and at the insistence of Kovacs used a priest who read the entire service in Spanish, a language neither of them understood.

1953- THE RED REDHEAD-? McCarthy investigators accuse top t.v. star Lucille Ball of being a communist. She and husband Desi Arnez immediately went and testified that Lucy’s grandfather was an old Socialist who routinely enrolled all his grandkids in the Communist Party as a birthday present. America wouldn’t stand to see their favorite t.v. family go down, so the matter quickly blew over. Years later Desi would condescendingly joke/:" Lucy didn’t even know who the mayor of L.A. was. The only thing that was red about Lucy was her hair, and even that wasn’t real !"

The workers must seize all means of production..? Oh Ricky!

1957- Market researcher James M.Vicary explains at a press conference the theory of Subliminal Advertising. His company proposed to unconsciously compel people to buy products by flashing messages at 1/24th of a second during movies. Even though the concept was discredited (givetomsitomoney) by the American Psychiatric Association (givetomsitomoney) a national panic ensued as people feared brainwashing.

1965- The Beatles release 'Yesterday'.

1966-"Gee Mr. French..." Family Affair premieres on t.v.

1966- The Monkees t.v. show premiered. Two young television executives Bert Schneider and Sam Rafaelson convince their network to make "A Hard Day's Night" for American television. Of the four kids in the make-believe band Mike Nesmith was the only real musician. Micky Dolenz had to be taught how to play the drums the first day of shooting. Insiders nicknamed them "The Pre-Fab Four". Still, the show was a major hit, won Emmy Awards and all their albums went gold. The producers took that success and used it to finance the hit film "Easy Rider". Mike Nesmith later married into the Liquid Paper Company and used his fortune to help start MTV. I confess I had my own Monkees shirt, double row of buttons, puffed sleeves, cobalt blue with tiny red polka dots. Last Train to Clarkesville!

1992- Anthony Perkins, the star of Hitchcock’s Psycho, died of HIV/AIDS. His widow, Berry Berensen the sister of actress Marisa Berensen, died in one of the hijacked airliners that plunged into the World Trade Center on 9-11.

2005- Disneyland Hong Kong opened.

On this anniversary of 9-11 our hearts are with those who suffered and still suffer from the attacks and resultant conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
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The documentary FLOCK OF DODOS, that I created the animation for, is now available on DVD. It is a fun little film and very enlightening about the Evolution-Intelligent Design debate. Nine out of ten veterbrate paleontologists thinks it rocks big time.
Order it now at Amazon.-http://www.amazon.com/Flock-Dodos-Jack-Cahill/dp/B000PATZKQ/%20ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-0769478-0549704?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1189380128&sr=1-1 And as long as you're there, order some more copies of my book Drawing the Line. Extra copies make great gifts, and you can use them to prop up a backyard barbeque, plug a hole in your fence, or throw them at Free Marketeers and Corporate Apologists who annoy you.

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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, and Gabby in Gullivers' Travels, Peter Tosh, Virginia Madsen, Amy Madigan, Moby

1841- British artist John Reno invented oil paint in a tube.

1847- Stephen Fosters song “Oh Susanna” first published.

1914- W.C. Handy's Saint Louis Blues published, the first true Jazz recording to gain national popularity. Myron “Grim” Natwick, the cartoonist who would one day create Betty Boop and Snow White for Disney, did the artwork for the coversheet. For this he was paid one gold dollar. To this day, musicians say " Thank God there was a W.C. Handy..."

1916- The Star Spangled Banner first sung at a baseball game at Cooperstown New York.

1947-Radio Bejing goes on the air.

1951-METROPOLIS TO MOSCOW? Robert Shayne, the actor who played the Inspector Henderson character for television’s Superman show appeared before the House American Activities Committee accused of being a communist. He was led off the set by the FBI in handcuffs as Man of Steel George Reeves and Jimmy Olsen protested vigorously. He was eventually cleared of all charges but because of the Blacklist he gave up acting and went into real estate.

1960- Terrytoon's Deputy Dawg t.v. show.

1960- Nancy Sinatra married Tommy Sands.

1966- "Kimba the White Lion" debuts in the U.S.

1967-The Beatles began filming Magical Mystery Tour.

1971- The “Jackson Five” Saturday morning cartoon show.

1972- The BBC quiz show Mastermind first broadcast. The shows creator Malcom Muggeridge claimed he got the idea while a prisoner of the Japanese in Malaysia and in truth the show resembles an interrogation. Some postman from Neasden sits in a dark room with a single spotlight in his face while people shoot questions at him about the lesser known works of Thomas Hardy, etc.

1987-Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" wins MTV's Best Video Award.

1987-Reggae great Peter Tosh and two others are shot and killed by
thieves who were robbing his Kingston, Jamaica home.

2001- THE 9-11 ATTACKS – When New York’s Twin Towers were completed in 1974, they were the tallest office buildings in the world and a symbol of American commercial power. Islamic Fundamentalist terrorists had tried to bring down the towers with a truck bomb in 1993. This day, terrorists hijacked three US domestic airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington DC. It was a beautiful, clear, Autumn day and the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center was timed for maximum press coverage. The images looked improbably like a movie stunt rather than a real disaster. The planned multiple attack was organized by Osama Ben-Laden, a rogue millionaire whose family has close ties to the rulers of Saudi Arabia. The passengers of a fourth hijacked airliner United Flt. 93 were talking to their loved ones on digital phones and were told of the planes crashing into World Trade Center. So the passengers armed with trays and boiling water attacked their hijackers -. The last words heard from passenger Bob Beamer ,“We’re taking back the plane…let’s roll!” Flight 93 crashed in an uninhabited field outside of Pittsburgh before it could be used as a human bomb. Authorities now think that plane would have been used to crash into the White House. Back in New York City, after burning with aviation gas at 1500 degrees for over an hour the two giant WTC towers pancaked in on themselves and plunged to the ground on top of rescue workers and firemen. 3,000 died from 150 countries.

Sunday I was at the Laguna Museum of Design admiring a show of the great psychodelic 60's artist Rick Griffen. Rick was a surfer turned Haight Ashbury acid head who's work adorned the first ZAP! comics and iconic album covers of the Doors, Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

But what brought back memories to me was his use of Speedball pen and the humble Rapidograph.

this is not Griffens of course, but Crumb. But why could I never crosshatch as good as this? Sigh,I guess I was always meant to be an animator.

Back in the 1970s, before Photoshop, before Painter or FLASH, when I and my fellow SVA mates were taking cartoon classes with Harvey Kurtzman and Will Eisner, the height of cool was to draw with a Rapidograph. Point .01, .001 and more. Pelikan pens from Germany especially. Drooling at the store window of Pearl Paint on Canal St, Brownes on 46th St. and Peck's Hobbies on 32nd and 5th.

I was forever cleaning clogs out of the thing. All of us in the student lounge jerking their pens up and down over our sketchbooks like tribal natives waving animist rattles to drive away bad Juju. But no, I must have used the wrong Higgins ink and now I need to soak the &*%$# nibs again. Scratching divits with the steel point into my illustration boards with my heavy hand, and clouds of Liquatex whiteout covering my errors, and my fingertips. This matched by blue-black middle finger from all the ink leaking out the front. Adding more and more crosshatching to each picture until they looked like a Brillopad with a cherrybomb in it. It was so much fun! Is this really how the Fabulou Freak Brothers started?

I don't know if they've invented a more civilized way to torture young cartoonists since my time. But here's a salute to all those who ever wielded a rapidograph in hopes of being the next Crumb or Neal Adams.



And remember Ruling Pens? Oh, don't get me started...!

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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

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. In December he will meet Pocahontas and start singing Broadway tunes.

1907-The first Neiman Marcus dept. store opens in Dallas.

1940- During the Battle of Britain, Nazi bombs hit Buckingham Palace, just missing the Royal Family. The Queen later Queen-Mum said:"At last now I can look the East-enders in the face." RAF ace Sgt. Ginger Lacey volunteered to go up and get the bomber who did the bombing. In a London fog his Hurricane fighter caught up to the offending German Heinkell –111 bomber and shot it down., But his own plane was so shot up in the battle he had to bail out. His parachute caught in a tree and as Sgt, Lacey looked down he saw an old Englishman in a Home Guard helmet training a shotgun at him. He obviously thought he was a German. Lacey explained he wasn’t a Jerry but the old duffer remained unconvinced. He was preparing to fire when finally let loose a torrent of Anglo-Saxon invective "YOU STUPID GIT, YOU G*DDAM F**KING OLD WANKER! WAIT TILL I GET MY BLOODY ID CARD OUT, etc. The Old man then lowered his weapon with relief:" "Ere. He said:" Anyone who can swear like that, can’t be a German.."

1953 - Swanson Foods sells it's first "TV dinner"

1955- the t.v. series 'Gunsmoke' premiered.

1963- The First New York Film Festival opened with Luis Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel.

1966- H& B's Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossible's debut.

1968- Hanna Barbera's Space Ghost and Dino Boy' debut.

1972- Premiere of the landmark tv special Liza with a Z. Bob Fosse directed and choreographed the one woman show of the spangled 23 year old.

1977- The last execution in France by guillotine. Hamidas Djandoubi a Tunisian immigrant and convicted murderer.

1978- The Communist Premier of Bulgaria, Tobor Zhivkov, asked the Soviet KGB to do something about dissident Georgyi Markov who was making embarrassing broadcasts to Bulgaria on London's Radio Free Europe. After a broadcast Markov left the BBC offices and strolled across Waterloo Bridge. A man bumped into him and poked him in the shin with his umbrella tip. He excused himself and moved on. Markov grew sick and died within 24 hours on this day. A tiny pellet smaller than a pinhead carrying poison was injected into Markov by a hypodermic needle concealed in the umbrella tip.

1981- Picasso's painting Guernica is at last returned to Spain.

1993- The t.v series The X Files premiered. The truth is out there.

I’ve been doing history trivia for years, and I’ve sent out a daily history gazette since 1992. I know among my readers have been a number of historians and teachers from as far away as Sheffield England, Ireland, Beijing and Stonybrook, NY. There’s a number of contentious incidents I cover like revolutions and assassinations. But strangely enough, the incident I get more mail on than anything else is the scandal involving silent film comedian Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle.

Here is my original entry on Sept. 5th

1923-FATTY ARBUCKLE- Ex-plumber turned comedian Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle signed a $3 million dollar deal with Paramount Pictures. He celebrated by staging a wild three day party in the penthouse of the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. During the wild goings on he pulled young starlet Virginia Rappe into a bedroom. Soon screams were heard. Arbuckle came out and said "Get her dressed. She makes too much noise". Friends found Rappe in agony with her clothes shredded. She died of toxemia from a ruptured bladder saying "Fatty Arbuckle did this to me! Make sure he doesn't get away with it." Arbuckle was tried twice for rape and first degree murder, but was acquitted after both were hung juries. To this day film historians argue if Arbuckle was framed. In the trial it came out that Rappe had had a botched abortion and was suffering from internal bleeding before the party.
But Fatty Arbuckles career was destroyed. Women tore down the screen whenever his face appeared. In Wyoming cowboys pulled out their sixshooters and shot at the screen. At the suggestion of Buster Keaton he made a living writing gags under the pseudonym William or Will B, Good. Years later Santa Monica pulled him over for drunk driving. He flung a champagne bottle out of the car and laughed "There goes the evidence again!"

Here is a new note I got the other day-

Tom: You did not mention that the autopsy showed Virginia Rappe suffered from untreated venereal decease that weakened her uterus walls and played a major roll in her death. Or that she would have lived if she was treated at the hospital. Or that she and her boyfriend were banned from the Hal Roach lot for infecting half the crew with VD. Or even the roll of dear Bambina Delmont, the blackmail stringer with her 80 felony counts for extortion, bigamy, fraud, and racketeering who tried to blackmail Roscoe and then turned him in when he would not pay.

They also point out that the original stories about Arbuckle were pushed by the Hearst Newspapers, sort of like the Fox News of their day.

So history is a living thing after all. And as Napoleon once said;” History are but myths we can all agree on.’

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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, Adam Sandler, Don Mattingly, Otis Redding, Anita Ekberg, Hugh Grant, Topol, Colonel Lyman Sanders the Kentucky Fried Chicken founder, James Hilton-writer who created the name for the paradise Shangri-La for his novel Lost Horizon

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 and Mother Nature had the last laugh. He became so fat he could barely ride a horse. One day when riding near Mantes-La-Jolie his horse bucked. This caused his saddle pommel to stab up into his groin and rupture his bladder. He was carried to a monastery in great pain. His children ignored him in his last hours because they were too busy fighting for the throne. Even his servants stole the rich bed trappings and rings from his fingers as he lay in a coma. William the Conquerer died alone in a bare room. Finally the coffin provided was too small for the large body, now swollen with putrefied gas. Some monks tried to pound it into the box, but the corpse finally burst "filling the room with horrid, malodorous odors that drove all from the Church."

1825- BEETHOVEN'S LAST PUBLIC APPEARANCE. Before he retired to a government appointed home, Ludwig von Beethoven was still making appearances as a conductor and pianist, even though he was now stone deaf. The fees for personal appearances were still too good. The orchestra rehearsed to play the 9th Symphony and the Missa Solemnis while ignoring his commands, starting and stopping on a signal given by the first violinist. So Beethoven flapped his arms around fruitlessly while the orchestra played. Everyone enjoyed it even though people in the first few rows could hear the Maestro wailing to the music, unaware of his own voice. When the performance ended he was still gyrating, obviously a few bars behind the orchestra and oblivious to the cheers of the audience. The soprano made him turn around and bow.

1908- THE PATENTS TRUST- Thomas Edison, Charles Pathe and Leon Gaumont form the Motion Picture Patents Group. Called the "Trust", their attempt to monopolize movie production and strangle off the independents had a lot to do with the early filmmakers exodus to Los Angeles. Otherwise the film capitol of the world would have been Ft. Lee, New Jersey. The only positive result of the trust was they enforced a regular industry standard for film stock of 35 mm running at 24 frames per second. It seems the Mitchell Camera Company was developing a motorized motion picture camera to replace the hand crank variety but they needed an official speed to set it at. In a contentious meeting of the Trust held at the Waldorf Astoria no one could settle on a single speed. Finally the compromise was made to make it the number of delegates in the room- 24.

1910-Alice B. Toklas moved in permanently with Gertrude Stein in the 22 Rue de Flerus in Paris. Until Steins death in 1946 they held court in one of the most glittering social networks of twentieth century Paris. Regular soirees included Picasso, Matisse, Dali, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos, Max Ernst, Virgil Thompson, Sherwood Anderson, Max Ernst, Guilliame Apollinaire and Carlos Santayanna. But the ultra modern was not to everyone’s taste. Painter Mary Cassatt only visited once. She later told a friend:" I never saw so many horrible things, I never met so many horrible people!"


1920- Silent movie star Olive Thomas, nicknamed America's Kid Sister, partied a little too hard at the Dead Rat Cafe in Paris. The 21 year old star died of an overdose of cocaine and alcohol. Another theory was she accidentally overdosed on mercury bicholoride tablets. Her nude body was discovered wrapped in a full length ermine fur left on her couch in the Ritz Hotel. The scandal started the first investigation of drugs in Hollywood. It netted an army captain named Spaulding who admitted that film stars like Thomas, Mabel Normand and Ramon Navarro were regular clients for morphine, heroin and cocaine. Shortly after Groucho Marx put in his vaudeville show Animal Crackers the song Hooray for Captain Spaulding,.

1926 – The National Broadcasting Company or NBC created by Radio Corporation of
America RCA. Under the direction of David Sarnoff it became the powerhouse network of broadcasting, recording and later television.

1939- One week after Hitler invaded Poland and World War Two began, Italian Fascist planes taking off from their bases in Libya bombed the city of Tel Aviv in British Protectorate Palestine, killing 150.

1939- The first Andy Panda cartoon.

1939- The first day of shooting on Charlie Chaplin’s film the Great Dictator.

1943- The first V-2 missile hit London, destroying buildings in the Chiswick area. The V-2 was the first ballistic missile and the Allies were powerless to stop or intercept it. Tens of thousands of London children were evacuated for safety to Scotland and even as far as Canada. After the war the left over V-2’s were gathered up by the US and Red Armies as the basis for the beginning of their space programs.

1945 – The first bug in a computer program was discovered by Grace Hopper. A moth
was removed with tweezers from a relay & taped into the log. Since then any computer glitch was nicknamed "a bug".

1950 - 1st use of TV laugh track invented by Hank McCune.

1951 - 1st broadcast of the soap opera" Love of Life " on CBS-TV.

1956- Elvis Presley appeared on nationwide television on the Ed Sullivan Show. Sullivan himself had vowed never to have the kid on his show but caved in to network pressure. He stayed home that first time and actor Charles Laughton was the substitute host. CBS Network censors thought the gyrations of Elvis' pelvis so obscene that in many markets they blacked out the lower portion of the screen so he was covered the waist down.

1967- George of the Jungle t.v. show with SuperChicken and Tom Slick premiered.

1982- Princess Grace of Monaco, the former movie actress Grace Kelly, died in a car accident on the mountainous hill roads of Monaco. Twenty years earlier in the film To Catch a Thief, Alfred Hitchcock had her drive her car at dangerous speeds over the exact same hairpin turns.