Question: The global economic turmoil has been called a Recession. Sunday a former Secretary of the Treasury first used the word Depression. What is the difference between a recession and a depression?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Who wrote the music that began the Tod Browning 1931 movie Dracula with Bela Lugosi?
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History for 12/9/2008
Birthdays: Sappho, John Milton, Jean De Brunhoff, Elzie Segar the creator of Popeye, Hermoinie Gingold, Dalton Trumbo, John Cassavettes, Broderick Crawford, Dick Butkus, Kirk Douglas is 92, Red Foxx, Cesar Franck, John Malkovich is 55, Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Buck Henry is 78, Felicity Huffman, Judy Dench, Star Trek’s Mr Worff- 2340 AD

536- The legions of Byzantine General Belisarius captured Rome from the Ostrogoths. This was part of Emperor Justinians’ master plan to win back the western half of the old Roman Empire.

1658- Dutch explorers land at the Indian harbor of Quilon, beginning the European interference in India that would last until 1947.

1783- First executions began at Englands Newgate Prison, replacing the traditional public hanging, drawing, quartering, branding, beheading place of Tyburn Hill- approximately where London’s Marble Arch is today.

1803- Congress passed the Twelfth Amendment calling for the President and Vice President to be of the same party and defining the order of succession: President-Vice President, Secretary of State. Speaker of the House, Senate Leader Pro-Tem. In 1945 this system was amended once more to exclude the Secretary of State, who is not an elected official. Before this the system was the Vice President was the loser of the presidential election, thus the people’s second choice. But trying to govern with your political enemy standing next to you proved clumsy. Imagine John Kerry standing behind G. W. Bush instead of Cheney.

1824- Battle of Ayacucho- Simon Bolivar defeated the last Spanish Army in the Americas.

1825- THE LATIN AMERICAN BUBBLE- The London Stock Exchange crashed over rampant stock speculation in the potential wealth in the new emerging Latin American republics. Financier Nathan Rothschild became a national figure when he lent the Bank of England millions to stay solvent. Thanks to new communications and international investment for the first time the London panic reached across national borders and caused the U.S. Stock Exchange and the Paris Bourse to also crash. This kind of speculation in futures caused the South Sea Bubble in France and the Tulip craze a century earlier. We’ve seen it in our own times with the High Tech Stocks crash of 2001 and this current global crash.

1835- First battle of San Antonio de Bexar. Angry Texas citizens forced Mexican General Cos to abandon a post in an old mission called the Alamo and give up a store of valuable cannon. This was the inciting incident that provoked President Santa Anna into attacking the following Spring.

1840- Dr. David Livingstone set sail for Africa to do missionary work. He met Stanley in 1871.

1854- Albert Tennyson's poem "The Charge of the Light Brigade" published.

1861- The first ever government oversight committee formed. The Joint Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War. It was created because Congressmen were afraid President Lincoln was a naïve hillbilly lawyer who was ruining the country and losing the Civil War. All they succeeded in doing was give Lincoln more stress and at one point they even accused First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln of being a Confederate spy. Hmm.. a congressional committee investigation during wartime….?

1889- The Chicago Auditorium dedicated. The landmark building’s architect Louis Sullivan had hired a new assistant to help with the drawings-Frank Lloyd Wright.

1899- BLACK WEEK-Battle of Stormberg Junction. A series of small battles in which British forces were unexpectedly shot up by Boer guerrillas in South Africa. German and Dutch descendant South Africans were called Boers which meant farmer, the British South Africans were called Uitlanders or outsiders.
The commanding British general Sir Redvers Buller, was considered so slow moving that one wag suggested they periodically hold a mirror up to his nostrils to check for if he was still breathing. He was replaced with the more energetic Lord Roberts of Kandahar.-“Ol’ Bobs”
The tabloid press back in London played up fears of the defeats from information fed to them by war correspondents like H.G. Wells and young Winston Churchill. This was the era of "jingoisim" or militant national pride.
This term derived from the pub song:
"We don't want a war but by jingo if they do..
" We got the lads, we got the ships, we got the money too..."

1905- Richard Strauss’s opera Salome premiered in Dresden. The lead role demands a soprano with big Wagnerian lungs but also a flat stomach to do the strip tease the Dance of the Seven Veils. When the opera debuted in New York old millionaires like J.P. Morgan were shocked at its’ blatant sexuality. They threatened to cut off funding until Sal and her skimpy veils were pulled from the schedule.

1907- the first Christmas Seals go on sale to fight tuberculosis.

1909- Mary Harris a.k.a. Mother Jones speaks at the Thalia Theater in support of the
"The Strike of the 20,000" Immigrant seamstresses in New York's garment district.
"Every strike I have ever been in has been won by women !"

1917- During World War One Field Marshal Allenby and the British army entered Jerusalem while Lawrence of Arabia and the Arab forces headed for Damascus. To promote harmony between Arabs & Jews, Allenby decided to build a huge YMCA in the Old City.

1936- The first cookery show appeared on British television.

1937- In the path of advancing Japanese armies, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai Shek and his government abandoned the capitol Nanking and moved to Chunking.

1946- Damon Runyon died, the writer whose characters the musical "Guys and Dolls' are based. His philosophy: "All life is six to five against."

1948-Actor Ossie Davis married actress Ruby Dee.

1960-Coronation Street premiered on British ITV.

1964-John Coltrane recorded his landmark jazz album “The Love Supreme”. Late on foggy nights Trane liked to take his sax out onto the middle of San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and practice by himself.

1965- Bill Melendez's "A Charlie Brown Christmas" the first half hour animated t.v. special featuring the music of Vince Guaraldi. Producer Lee Mendelson had heard Guaraldi's jazz combo perform in San Francisco. He never scored a film before:" How many yards of music do you want?" Vince Guaraldi died a few years later of the various vices jazzmen were prey to, but the t.v. special goes on. A Charlie Brown Christmas has run every year for over 40 years.

1967- At a Doors concert lead singer Jim Morrison was sprayed with mace and arrested by Miami police for “lewd behavior” on stage, but probably more for referring to the cops in derogatory terms.

1967- Nicholas Ceaucescu became dictator of Communist Romania.

1992-Britain's Prime Minister John Major announced the separation of Prince Charles and Diana of Wales.

1994- Disney Animators in California move into their new Animation building designed by Robert Stern.

1994- The Surgeon-General of the United States, Dr Jocelyn Elders, was forced to step down after her statements that sex education in primary schools include masturbation outraged many conservatives.

2004-Mia Hamm and the stars of the Womens National Soccer Team played their last game, defeating Mexico 5-0. Mia Hamm became a role model of womens sports in the US. Like hundreds of boys who want to be like Michael Jordan or Joe DiMaggio, now scores of little girls want to be like Mia.

2008- The Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, was arrested for corruption and trying to sell the senate office of incoming President Barack Obama.
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Yesterday’s Question: Who wrote the music that began the Tod Browning 1931 movie Dracula with Bela Lugosi?

Answer. Tschaikowsky. It’s the beginning to his ballet Swan Lake. It was also used over the credits of Karl Freund's film "The Mummy" (1932) with Boris Karloff and, if you listen carefully, Howard Shore uses the excerpt as a kind of theme for Martin Landau's Bela Lugosi character in the music he composed for Tim Burton's "Ed Wood" (1994).(Thanks Frank G).

Question: Who wrote the music that began the Tod Browning 1931 movie Dracula with Bela Lugosi?

Yesterdays Question answered below? In the Buster Crabbe adventure serial Flash Gordon (1936), the music played over and over as background was a piece of classical music. What was it?
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History for 12/8/2008
Birthdays: Horace (Quintus Horatius), 65BC, Mary Queen of Scots, Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus, Queen Christina Vasa, Jean Sibelius, George Melies the father of Motion Picture Special Effects, James Thurber, Eli Whitney, Jim Morrison, Diego Rivera, Emile Reynaud, Sammy Davis Jr, Maximillian Schell, Flip Wilson, Tim Foli, Sam Kinison, Teri Hatcher is 44, Sinead O’Connor is 42, Kim Basinger is 55, David Carridine is 72

Happy Roman Catholic Feast of the Immaculate Conception

1660- Margaret Hughes played Desdemona in Shakespeares’ Othello in London. She was the first woman to appear on an English stage. All during the Elizabethan era boys substituted for women on stage.

1776- George Washington’s frozen exhausted army was rowed across the Delaware River into Pennsylvania, closely followed by a large British invasion force. This is the end of the pursuit across New York and New Jersey that had been going on for months.

1793- MADAME DUBARRY GUILLOTINED. During the French Revolution this day the old kings mistress Madame DuBarry was guillotined. She was originally of humble birth but lived in grand style and was very arrogant. She once dumped the contents of a chamber pot out of a palace window onto Princess Marie Antoinette for a laugh. "Garde du Lou!" Now on her way to the blade she screamed and wept aloud:" Save me good people, for I am one of you!" It didn't help, the executioner hurried his task to shut her up to the laughter of the crowd. Her last words were "Just one more minute, executioner!" Her husband the Comte’ du Barry had not seen her since the day they were married in 1769 for the convenience of the King. Now upon learning the news of his wife’s death he immediately married his mistress.

1813- Ludwig Van Meets Pop Culture. The most well received of all the musical pieces of Ludwig Van Beethoven was not his 5th Symphony or Moonlight Sonata, but a silly piece called the Overture to Wellington’s Victory which premiered this day in Vienna. A calliope designer named Wilhelm Deitzel commissioned the piece to show off his music machines that could recreate orchestra sounds. The music celebrated Wellington’s great victory in Spain over Napoleon’s forces. It had cannon shots and musket volleys in the music score. The overture made Beethoven much more money than his Seventh Symphony which debuted at the same concert.

1954- Pope Pius IX promulgated the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. That the Virgin Mary stayed forever free of sin even though Jesus had brothers and sisters.

1864- During General Shermans’ epic March through Georgia his bluecoats first encounter a new invention ominously familiar to our present day. Explosive charges buried under the ground that explode when a friction trigger was stepped on. They called them Land Torpedoes but today we know them as LAND MINES. When a Yankee lieutenant lost his foot the hot tempered Sherman ordered all the Confederate prisoners driven to the front line and forced to dig up the weapons. When they protested this was inhumane, Sherman roared back:" Your people planted these cowardly things so if some of you get blown up removing them it's no concern of mine!"

1868- According to Jules Verne’s novel Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, tonight is the night Captain Nemo’s fantastic submarine the Nautilus attacked and sank a US warship and captured Professor Aronax and harpooner Ned Land.

1913- ground broken for the construction of San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts.

1891- George O'Brien invented the electric tattooing needle, making modern tattooing possible.

1940- Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo remarry. The two great Mexican artists had been married for ten years but divorced for a year because of their mutual infidelities. Diego also wanted to protect Frida from fallout from his political activities. But after a year apart that decided they couldn’t live without one another and remarried.

1941-DAY OF INFAMY Aftermath- On the day after the Pearl Harbor sneak attack, President Roosevelt did his famous "Day of Infamy" speech. Congress voted almost unanimously to declare war on Japan. Interestingly enough the U.S. did not declare war on Germany along with Japan. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. four days later. The only vote against the war was Montana Congresswoman Jeanette Rankin, who had voted against the First World War also in 1917. With the American Fleet sunk or scattered the US Pacific Coast braced for Japanese attack. In California Fourth interceptor Command reported two formations of enemy planes flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles. They turned out to be seagulls. Another panicky report of an approaching Japanese task force turned out to be Monterrey tuna boats. Blackouts began, as did mass arrests of Japanese-Americans.

The civil defense command placed anti-aircraft guns on the Walt Disney Studio lot because of it's proximity to the aircraft plant of Lockheed. Walt Disney himself was turned away at the gate for not wearing his identity badge.

1941- Russian immigrant inventor Igor Sikorsky invented the first practical Helicopter.
They were developed too late for World War Two but the "egg-beaters" or "flying windmills" played an important role in the Korean conflict.

1949-After being defeated by Mao Tse Tung’s Red Chinese Army, Generalissimo Chiang Kai Chek’s Kuomintang government voted to relocate to the island of Taiwan.

1953- Thurgood Marshal’s final arguments to the Supreme Court in the desegregation case Brown Vs. Board of Ed.

1953- The Atoms for Peace Speech. President Eisenhower proposed to the United Nations that nuclear power be developed for peaceful purposes, and not just for bombs. The world builds civilian nuclear power plants, then makes bombs with them.

1958- THIS IS JAZZ- Landmark live CBS television broadcast of jazz greats Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Lester Young , Coleman Hawkins and Thelonius Monk .

1961-"Surfin’" the first record by the Beach Boys started to climb the local LA pop charts.

1980- The Bravo Channel began. Remember before Queer Eye, when Bravo played only classical concerts and ballets ?

1980- JOHN LENNON SHOT. . As he went in to his apartment building the Dakota in New York City Beatle-Composer John Lennon was stopped by a fan named Mark David Chapman for an autograph. A few hours later Lennon emerged from the building on another errand. Chapman was still there, except this time he pulled out a gun and shot Lennon in the back. John Lennon was 40. The area of Central Park across from the apartment was dedicated to him as Strawberry Fields.

2008- Italian Prime Minister Sylvio Berlusconi proposed a 25% tax on Internet Porn. " This is an optimistic thing! What is more optimistic than a beautiful woman's behind?" - Berlusconi
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Yesterday’s Question: In the Buster Crabbe adventure serial Flash Gordon (1936), the music played over and over as background was a piece of classical music. What was it?

Answer: Franz Liszt’s Les Preludes.

Question: In the Buster Crabbe adventure serial Flash Gordon (1936), the music played over and over as background was a piece of classical music. What was it?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Did Franklin Roosevelt know in advance about the Pearl Harbor Attack and let it happen?
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History for 12/7/2008
Birthdays: Willa Cather, Larry Bird, Piero Mascagni, Madame Tussaud-1761, Tom Waits, Johnny Bench, Louis Prima, Ted Knight –real name Wladsyslaw Konopka, Victor Kiam II, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Burstyn-real name Edna Mae Gilhooley, Eli Wallach is 93, Harry Chapin, Clarence Nash the voice of Donald Duck, Jeffrey Wright is 43

43 B.C.- Marcus Tullius Cicero executed. The great orator/writer was a declared enemy of Julius Caesar, yet Caesar preferred to ignore him. After Caesar’ murder at the Ides of March, Marc Anthony & Augustus were not so forgiving, They drew up lists of all those to be aced, and the old philosopher's name was at the top. Cicero tried to flee by sea but got so seasick, he went back to his estate. The death squad caught him trying to flee again, but when he saw it was no use, he calmly bared his neck to the soldiers. Gaius Pompilius Linus, the centurion who slew him, had once been successfully defended by Cicero in the law courts. Linus brought Cicero’s head and hands to Mark Anthony who happily nailed them to the speakers rostrum in the Forum. Many years later When Augustus was an old man he caught his grandson reading Cicero’s writings. Augustus paused to read some verses. He sighed:” A learned man, and a patriot.”

185AD- Emperor LoYang wrote of seeing a bright star that was probably a supernova.

1671- In London two scientists- Nehemiah Grew and Italian Marcello Malpighi presented their findings on plants that established the Science of Botany. That plants derive nutrients from the soil and grow from increased exposure to light and water and not because they are urged to grow by a “Vegetable Soul”. That they cannot grow in a vacuum. That stamens, pistils and pollen are sexual organs and the veins of a leaf function much like the veins and arteries of humans. Malpighi later went on to human anatomy and discovered the capillaries and the human taste buds.

1775- A lieutenants’ commission in the new U.S. Navy was granted to a young Scotsman named Paul Jones, who sometimes called himself John Paul and we know as John Paul Jones. When Abigail Adams met him she was surprised at his small stature :” I could wrap him in wool and carry him in my pocket.” She said. He had been a prospering merchant captain until he stabbed a rowdy shipmate in Tobago and fled his ship. He wandered about looking for employment for 20 months until the American Revolution gave him a new identity. No one is sure why he adopted the surname Jones. Despite John Paul Jones’ successes against the British Navy, the closed clique of New England Yankee privateers never quite trusted little Scotsman with the high voice, bad temper and big ego.

1787- Delaware became the first state to ratify the constitution, which is why it calls itself “the First State of the Union” on its license plates.

1815- MARSHAL NEY SHOT. Michel Ney was Napoleon's right hand at Waterloo. Called Le Rougeaud -the Redhead, because his hair color was inherited from his father, a Scot’s follower of Bonny Prince Charlie. After the final defeat the restored French royalty needed a scapegoat to blame for the embarrassing ease with which the Corsican upstart took back France. So Michel Ney was court- martialed by his peers and put up against the wall in the Luxembourg Gardens. The fiery warrior offered no repentance and even gave the "Ready, Aim, -Fire!" order himself.

Recently some theorists claim the execution was a sham arranged by Wellington and that Ney lived on. Their reasons were first the public was kept away from the execution site and the soldiers of the firing squad were handpicked from Ney's old veterans. When shot he fell forward instead of backwards after being hit by 12 -68 caliber musket balls, and no coup d' grace pistol shot to the brain was administered, instead the body was immediately bundled up into a carriage and driven away. That night the officer in charge of the firing squad was arrested by the Royalist government.
Twenty-two years later, in 1837, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, a French immigrant schoolteacher named Michael Stewart died of old age in South Carolina. On his deathbed he told his confessor " I swear before God that I am Michel Ney, Marshal of France." When embalming the body his family saw he was covered with scars from old musket and saber wounds.

1842- The New York Philharmonic, the oldest symphony orchestra in the U.S., gave its first concert, performing works of Beethoven under the baton of Ureli Corelli Hill.

1862- Battle of Prairie Grove- Brutal Civil War battle in Missouri where the chief recollection was how wounded soldiers stuck between the armies crawled into haystacks for shelter. Cannon shots ignited the hay and the 200 men roasted to death. Then the smell of barbecued flesh brought out local hogs who feasted on the human legs and entrails while the combatants watched in horror. It was one of the few battles that future outlaws Frank James and Cole Younger were present for. Frank later wrote:” All those men standing around for hours trying to kill each other. I wouldn’t have wasted so much time…”

1869- The Davis County Savings Bank in Gallatin, Missouri was robbed by some Clay County boys who began to get a reputation – Jesse James and Frank James. The bank manager Capt. Sheely was shot dead by another gang member Ed Anderson. Anderson had mistook him for a union officer who had killed his brother Bloody Bill Anderson during the Civil War. While attempting to escape Anderson,s horse bucked and dragged him 40 feet by a stirrup until he got loose.

1872- The Los Angeles Library Association formed.

1916- David Lloyd George became Prime Minister of Great Britain. The little Welshman with Ferret-black eyes was considered one of England’s great statesmen despite helping to create some of the biggest problems of our time- The 1923 Anglo-Irish treaty that created Northern Ireland, The Versailles Treaty that spawned World War Two and the Balfour Declaration that helped create Israel with no fit solution for the dispossessed Arabs. In is old age Lloyd George visited Hitler in Bertchesgarden and found him “A most fine fellow.”

1919- “Blind Husbands” premiered, the first film by Erich Von Stroheim. Originally a Viennese hat salesman, Stroheim cultivated his Germanic aristocratic image on the silver screen. The premiere issue of the New Yorker in 1923 glibly noted how “Mr Stroheim has grown a very stylish “Von” in the Southern California Sun”.

1925- Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150 meter freestyle, one minute 25 and 2/5th seconds. He later went to Hollywood and was the star of the Tarzan movies.

1934- Aviator Wiley Post discovered the upper atmosphere air current called the Jet Stream.

1941-THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR- At dawn on a quiet Sunday morning, 360 Japanese planes surprise attack and sink most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, causing 4,000 casualties. Simultaneous attacks are made on British and Dutch military posts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. The White House butler recalled a general telling President Franklin Roosevelt-“ It’s Pearl! They got the whole g*ddamn navy!”
Japan had begun her previous foreign wars with surprise attacks: against China in 1891 and Russia in 1905. It had its philosophical roots in the Emai school of Samurai, that of dealing a death stroke with one decisive blow. Americans were enraged by the "Day of Infamy" sneak attack, the US government was bracing for some kind of attack since July when FDR embargoed Japan’s steel and oil imports, but they couldn’t be sure where. Most experts expected a strike at Manila. Lt. William Higgins was awakened by the radar post on Diamond Head reporting hundreds of unknown planes headed towards them. His famous reply:" Well...don't worry about it..."
The plan was masterminded by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Harvard class of 1926. He was anti-war and knew a war with America was a long shot. When he heard that the surprise was complete but delivered before the war declaration in Washington he said:" All I fear we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve." The fact that Japan had sent a special envoy to Washington named Kurusu to negotiate the crisis even while preparing this attack was even more maddening to Americans. Young Daniel Inouye was playing ball in his Honolulu yard when he saw the Rising Sun insignia on the Zeros flying overhead."You Dirty Japs!" he cried, realizing a moment later the silliness of his remark, being Nisei Japanese himself. He went on to become a US Senator.

1942- An RAF bomber pilot named Lumsden filed a report about seeing a UFO following his plane in the night skies over the English Channel. British pilots nicknamed the unexplained lights Foo Fighters, after a phrase in the Smokey Stover comic strip.

1945- The microwave oven patented.

1964- Height of student uprising at Berkeley College in California. Students won more liberalized curriculum and open teaching and created the first major student protest of the tumultuous 1960's and earned Berkeley the national reputation of the the nation's most radicalized school. The Oakland police were later nicknamed the Blue Meanies after the villains in the Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine.

1974- The disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas hit #1 in the pop charts.

1983- The first execution by lethal injection. The man’s name was Charles Brooks, a murderer in Texas. Interestingly enough, the barbiturate used was Sodium Pentothal, the “truth serum” when administered in small dosage. Comedian George Carlin asked;” When they give you a lethal injection, why do they swab your arm with alcohol first?”

1988- A huge earthquake in Armenia killed 100,000 and left 5 million homeless.

1995- The Galileo space probe reached an orbit around Jupiter.
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Yesterday’s Question: Did Franklin Roosevelt know in advance about the Pearl Harbor Attack and let it happen?

Answer: Revisionist historians, conspiracy buffs and NeoConservatives still mad about the social reforms of the New Deal, try to prove that FDR had knowledge of the assault and allowed it to happen, so there would be no argument from the isolationist elements about going to war to help Churchill.

FDR's cabinet had been expecting some kind of a Japanese attack since they imposed the oil and steel embargo last July. When the Japanese sank a US gunboat Panay in the Yangtze or the German U-Boat that sank the destroyer Ruben James, war came close. But I think they all expected the strike to be on US Asian facilities in Manila, Guam or Hong Kong, but they never expected such a huge strike all the way across the Pacific in Hawaii. And that it was done while Japan’s two top diplomats, Nomura and Kurusu, were in Washington to negotiate directly to lessen tensions.

CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow noted he had dinner at the White House the night of the attack “...if any of the cabinet members had foreknowledge of the attack, then that group of elderly men were giving a performance that would excite the admiration of the most skilled actor." He also describes Franklin Roosevelt's conversation with him: the President kept striking his fist on the table and raging about how American planes were destroyed "ON THE GROUND!" ( from my friend Nancy)

Finally, the next day FDR declared war on Japan, not Nazi Germany. Germany and Italy declared war on the U.S. several days later.

I heard today about the passing of FORREST J. ACKERMANN at age 92. For those born after the Baby Boom, Forry Ackerman was the publisher of the fanzine FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. Overall I am not a big fan of the monster-horror movie genre, but I was addicted to that magazine as a child. His interviews, behind the scenes photos and comics devoted to the subject were a right-of-passage for many of my age.

I recall being particularly inspired by a comic book section added in one issue. In it a mad movie director unleashed real dinosaurs on a movie set that attacks the crew. The drawing was really good, I think it was a Burny Wrightson.

I regret I did not take advantage of the opportunity to visit his LA home. Up until the later 1980s, all who knocked on his door would be treated to a selfless appearance by Forry, who loved taking guests through his huge collection of movie memorablia, the Martian ship from the 1954 War of the Worlds, Bela Lugosi's Dracula cape, etc.

Adieu Forrest Ackermann! Thanks for the all the memories!

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Question: Okay, okay.. so … did Franklin Roosevelt really know about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and let it happen?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is the origin of the term-to be well-heeled?
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History for 12/6/2008
Birthdays: King Henry VI of England-1422, English Puritan General George Monck-1608,, John Eberhard 1822, builder of the first large pencil factory in the US- Eberhard Faber, John Singleton-Mosby the Grey Ghost,Henry Jarecki, Baby Face Nelson, William S. Hart, Ira Gershwin, Dave Brubeck is 87, Agnes Moorehead, Tom Hulce is 55, Wally Cox, Lynn Fontaine, Janine Turner, Steven Wright, JoBeth Williams, Richard Edlunds is 68, Nick Park is 50

Today if the FEAST of SAINT NICHOLAS, the patron saint of sailors and children. In the 350 AD Bishop Nicholas heard of a man so poor that he was about to sell his daughters into prostitution. Nicholas climbed into the man’s house and placed gold coins in the families socks drying by the fireplace. In some cities during the Middle Ages the custom was this day to elect a Boy Bishop who would reign in an honorary style until the Feast of the Holy Innocents December 28th.

1240- The Mongol hordes of BatuKhan destroy the city of Kiev. This ended the kingdom of Kievan Russ.

1648- PRIDE'S PURGE or the BIRTH OF THE RUMP- The final move of the Cromwell’s Army to secure power in post-Civil War England. His army had occupied London after Parliament had given him a direct order to disband. Soldiers led by a Colonel Thomas Pride stood at the entrance to the House of Commons with a list and as the Parliament members walked in he pulled out 60 of them for arrest. Outraged statesmen demanded to know what was his commission? Pride sneered " This sword point is my commission !"
Thus cowed, the truncated remainder was nicknamed the Rump Parliament. General Oliver Cromwell was discreetly out of town, but he was doubtless in on the planning of the purge. England was now a military dictatorship and would remain so for ten years until Cromwell's death when General Monk called back the monarchy.

1825- President John Quincy Adams in his first message to Congress called for increased funding for scientific research, the founding of a national university and a national observatory. His ideas are ridiculed as idiotic and his political credibility was damaged by this speech. He also installed the first indoor toilets in the White House. People started calling the newfangled commodes a Quincy in his honor.

1849- Harriet Tubman escaped from slavery in Maryland and began her underground railroad to smuggle runaway slaves from the South up North. After the Fugitive Slave Act was passed she extend her route to Canada. At one point she wanted to join John Browns insurrection in Harpers Ferry but illness prevented her, and probably saved her life.

1877- First edition of the Washington Post.

1915- MAX FLEISCHER PATENTS THE ROTOSCOPE TECHNIQUE- This system enables you to film an actor then draw the cartoons over the still frames of the live action to achieve a realistic motion. (an early form of Motion Capture) Max would film his brother Dave in a clown suit then draw Koko the Clown over him. Dave had already owned the clown suit because he had been seriously considering a change in careers. The Fleischer's New York studio would be Disney's chief rival for most of the 1920's-30's.

1921- IRISH INDEPENDENCE- Irish home rule announced. It had been an Irish dream since William Strongbow and the Norman English invaded in 1085. After decades of Parliamentary pressure from advocates like Charles Parnell and Daniel O'Connell, a long guerrilla war with the IRA and public exhaustion from the Great War, London was ready to talk terms. But the British Crown insisted on a compromise of letting the 6 Protestant Counties of Ulster remain under British rule and an oath of loyalty to the king. Prime Minister Lloyd George threatened a full war on Ireland with all the resources of the British Empire as the alternative. Irish negotiators Michael Collins and Alexander Griffith knew this deal would cause resentment, but they felt it was the best they could get. In the following months both men would be dead and a civil war broke out. The loyalty oath was ignored and full Irish independence declared in 1946.

1929- Turkey under Kemal Ataturk gave women the right to vote.

1933- U.S. Federal Judge Woolsey decides James Joyce's "ULYSSES" is not a dirty book and can be published in the U.S by Viking Press. The book had been out in Europe since 1922.

1941- Admiral Nagumo turns his carriers into the wind and begins to prepare to launch the attack on Pearl Harbor. Colonel William Bratton of army intelligence in Washington decoded a message from Tokyo to the Japanese Embassy telling them after their final message to destroy their cyphers and top secret documents. He ran all over D.C. trying to get someone to listen but it was a lazy weekend like any other.
Saturday morning Mrs. Dorothy Edgers of the Navy cryptographic division translated long decoded instructions to the Japanese Consul Kita in Honolulu to provide up to date intelligence on Pearl Harbor's ship movements and armaments. When she pointed this out to her immediate supervisor, he told her "Ummm..We'll get back to this on Monday."

1941- NY City Council decided to build a second municipal airport- Idylwild Airport, later renamed John F. Kennedy Airport.

1942- Val Lewton’s strange movie the Cat People with Simon-Simon premiered.

1957- In a reaction to the Russians launching sputnik, the first US attempt to launch a satellite into space failed- the Vanguard I rocket blew up on the launch pad.

1960- Baseball’s American League granted an expansion franchise team to old cowboy singer Gene Autrey, the California Angels.

1964- The first concert at the Los Angeles Music Center.

1964- Rankin Bass' t.v. special 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' first broadcast.

1969- The Rolling Stones do the last big rock festival of the 60s in Altamont California. The festival turned ugly when Hells Angels motorcyclists, hired to guard the stage, started fighting with fans. One man was killed.

1980- Reverend Jim Baker of the PTL ministry had sex in a motel room with Church volunteer Jessica Hahn. His reasoning to her was “when you help the shepherd you help the flock”. But later he paid her hush money. This indiscretion would help pull down his career. Baker’s ministry included a lavish lifestyle, air conditioned doghouse for his pets and a Christian theme park called Heritage USA. Comedian and ex-evangelist Sam Kinison joked: I can imagine up in heaven Jesus is thumbing through the New Testament , saying” Hey, where did I ever say anything thing about a water slide?”

1994- Orange County California, one of the richest counties in the United States declared bankruptcy because an official gambled and lost the county's funds on speculative investments like junk-bonds. One billion dollars disappeared in less than a week of day trading.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the origin of the term- to be well-heeled?

Answer: High heels for women had been found in ancient Egyptian and Chinese tombs. In the Renaissance, heels for women and men’s shoes became a popular fashion. They were only for the rich, the gap between heel and sole fit a horses stirrup better. Poor people wore wood clogs if they wore any footwear at all. So a rich person is one who is well-heeled.

In honor of Walt Disney’s 107th Birthday-




From Walt Disney Imagineering Commissary

Walt's Own Chili Recipe
>
> 2 pounds ground beef (coarse)
> 2 whole onions (sliced)
> 2 whole garlic cloves (minced)
> 2 pounds pink beans (dry)
> 1/2 cups celery (chopped)
> 1 teas. chili powder
> 1 teas. paprika
> 1 teas. dry mustard
> 1 can solid pack tomatoes (large can)
> salt (to taste)
>
> Soak beans overnight in cold water. Drain. Add water to cover
> 2 inches over beans and simmer with onions until tender (about 4
> hours). Meanwhile, prepare sauce by browning meat and minced
> garlic in oil. Add remaining items and simmer 1 hour. When beans
> are tender, add sauce and simmer 1/2 hour. Serves 6-8.