Question: Why is classic Jazz from the 1950’s called BeBop or Bop?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Where does the Ouija Board get its’ name from?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 11/25/2008
Birthdays: Lope de Vega, Pope John XXIII, Andrew Carnegie, Tina Turner, Joe Dimaggio, Carl Benz of Mercedes Benz, Virgil Thompson, Jeffrey Hunter, John Kennedy Jr., Joe Gibbs, Percy Sledge, Ben Stein, Ricardo Montalban is 88, Bob Matheson, John Larroquette, Gloria Steinem, Berny Kosar, General Augusto Pinochet, Christina Applegate is 37, Bucky Dent, Bill Kroyer

1177-Battle of Montgisard- 19 year old Baldwin the Leper-King and his Crusader knights defeated Salladin.

1758- In the Pennsylvania wilderness a British force including frontier scout Daniel Boone captured Fort Duquesne from the French. They renamed it for their current Prime Minister William Pitt, hence the name Pittsburgh.

1783- EVACUATION DAY- The treaties ending the American Revolution signed, the last British troops leave U.S. soil, sailing out of New York Harbor.Evacuation Day was a holiday in New York City for years afterwards. This also marks the beginning of the exodus to Canada of Americans who sided with England, maybe as many as 130,000. United Empire Loyalists,or Tories as you prefer. One other little reported migration was of freed African slaves. Slavery would soon be eliminated in the British Empire and whenever redcoats would capture an American town they would liberate the slaves. About 3,000 requested to return to Africa and were sent to Sierra Leone. A large number also fought on the American side as well. Among their number was a personal slave of George Washington’s, who bolted through the lines to the British the moment the offer was published.

1817- First sword swallower performed in the US.

1867- Alfred Nobel patented Dynamite. The riches he accumulated from this and Nitro-Glycerine he used to fund the Nobel Prize.

1869- Ned Buntline was a hack dime novelist who understood that selling stories about gunfighters of the west would be easier if you could occasionally produce one in the flesh. So on a trip to Nebraska he found among the cavalry scouts an accommodatingly colorful rogue named William Cody, who everybody called Buffalo Bill. This day Ned Buntline announced in the New York Weekly the first installment of a serial series “Buffalo Bill King of the Bordermen”. Buntline and Cody collaborated to make Buffalo Bill the first true American media star, entertaining millions including crowned heads until 1916.

1929- Alfred Hitchcock’s film Blackmail opened in London. It was the first full length talkie in Britain.

1932- At Sam Houston High School in rural South Texas, a young teacher got a phone call. It was from Congressman Richard Clayburgh. He said he needed an executive aide in Washington, and he heard this guy was a go-getter. The teacher said yes, and packed his cardboard suitcase. Lyndon B. Johnson’s career in politics began.

1944- A German V-2 missile hit a Woolworth’s store in Deptford England while people were shopping. 160 killed.

1949- Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer sung by Gene Autry hit number one on the musical charts. The story was written by an advertising exec for Montgomery Ward Dept Store in Chicago and his friend wrote the melody.



1952- The stage adaptation of Agatha Christie’s mystery the Mousetrap opened in London’s West End and it’s still running today.

1956- Fidel Castro, Che Guevara and 88 followers departed Mexico in a ramshackle boat called the Granma to start a revolution in Cuba.

1960- CBS cancelled it’s remaining five radio soap operas, most of them now on television.

1963- THE GREAT FUNERAL OF JOHN F. KENNEDY. The massed muffled drums, bagpipes, bands blaring Chopin’s Funeral March, the riderless horse with the boots in the stirrups turned inward, a tradition that went back to Genghis Khan, the black horse drawn artillery caisson modeled on Abraham Lincoln's. The day was also John Kennedy, Jr.'s birthday and a big party had been planned with lots of little tots. Jackie knew that John-john didn't understand the gravity of what had transpired so after the funeral she changed out of her widows weeds and ran a kiddie party.

1970- Japan's greatest modern poet-playwright Yukio Mishima committed suicide
(seppuku) after attempting a coup at a military base where the Japanese Defense Force soldiers just laughed at him. He felt Japan was losing her spiritual soul to crass materialism and the ancient Bushido warrior code was the only way back.
In a poll conducted in a magazine at the time about 75% of Japanese women said they would rather commit suicide than sleep with Yukio Mishima.

1971- Con man D.B. Cooper hijacked a Northwest Orient passenger plane after stealing $ 200,000. He parachuted out of the 727 airliner with the money during a thunderstorm over Washington State and disappeared forever. Searchers found rotting bits of money in the forest but never a body. D.B.Cooper became a folk legend. In 1999 a man in South Carolina named Dwayne Weber was dying of liver cancer. Before he died he turned to his wife Jo and said “Before I go, I gotta tell ya something. I’m Dan Cooper” His wife said he loved singing at piano bars and his favorite song was “You’ll never know..”

1975- According to the first movie Rocky, this was the date of the first prizefight portrayed in the film where we meet Rocky Balboa.

1975- Happy Surinam Independence Day.

1980- “No Mas!” Sugar Ray Leonard defeated Alberto Duran for the World Welterweight Boxing Championship.

1986- President Reagan announced the firing of National Security advisor Admiral Poindexter and his assistant Marine colonel Oliver North. That night North’s bimbo secretary Fawn Hall smuggled incriminating documents out of her office stuffed in her brassiere and under her skirt. The NSC was engaged in an illegal scheme of selling weapons to Iran through middlemen then funneling the money made to the Nicaraguan Contras rebels even after a direct order by Congress to stop all funding. A $40 million probe and Congressional investigations could never definitively tie Reagan to the scheme even though North openly admitted he was only the designated fall guy. Information is also leaking that Reagan's Alzheimers disease at this time may have been more far advanced than the public was led to believe. Admiral Poindexter got a job in the GW Bush administration and North became a radio talks show host.

1995- Legendary Corporate CEO Akio Morita resigned as the leader of Sony. Under his guidance Sony went from a little postwar maker of cheap electric rice cookers to the largest electronics giant in the world. His official reason was health problems but insiders said the real problem was his headaches with Sony's Hollywood studios -MGM, Columbia, TriStar losing $2 billion. By the time he died in 1999 the Sony movie studios had pulled out of their slump and were on top with movies like Men in Black.

1998- Pixar’s film A Bugs Life premiered.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Where does the Ouija Board get its’ name from?

Answer: Spiritual message boards, called planchette boards, had been around for centuries, but in 1891 Elijah Bond and William Fuld mass produced them and called it Oui yes in French, and Ja, yes in German. They claimed Ouija was ancient Egyptian for Good Luck.
ouija guitar courtesy of neatorama.com
The famous 1940's crime photographer Arthur Fellig was called Weegee by the NYPD because of his ability to get to a crime scene to photograph the corpse before the cops could throw a sheet over it.

Question: Where does the Ouija Board get its’ name from?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What does it mean when you say someone is your Bete-Noir?
--------------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY FOR 11/24/2008
Birthdays: Benedict Spinoza, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Scott Joplin, President
Zachary Taylor “Old Rough & Ready”, William F. Buckley, John Lindsay, Dale Carnegie- author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, Carrie Nation, Dick Powell, Garson Kanin, Cass Gilbert-the architect of the first skyscraper, Alban Barkley- Truman’s VP, Steve Yeager, Denise Crosby, Billy Connolly is 66, Katherine Heigl is 30

800 AD- Charlemagne or Charles the Great, the King of the Franks ( France), arrived in Rome to spend the Christmas season with his old pal Pope Leo III. At the Christmas service Leo would crown Big Chaz Emperor of the Romans.

1221- The Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan destroy the army of Persian Shah Mohammed II's son Jellaladin in the Indus Valley in present northwestern Pakistan.

1326- Hugh Despenser the Younger, onetime gay lover of King Edward II, was executed by order of Eddie’s wife Queen Isabella the She-Wolf of France. She had his penis and testicles amputated and burned in front of him before he hanged.

1681- YOU UGLY MUG! The Earl of Shaftesbury acquitted of treason. In the restoration politics of King Charles II’s England the Earl was frequently in opposition to the Kings policy. He started the first political party in loyal opposition, the Green Ribbon Club, later the Whig Party. This was a new idea- a Loyal Opposition. Before this disagreeing openly with the government was considered treason. But now after the English Civil War open political debate became the acceptable. Politics at the time was discussed in coffee houses on Fleet St. where only wealthy gentry could afford to dally over a cup of rare Java or hot cocoa imported from the Americas. And Charles II ‘s queen Catherine of Braganza introduced Tea drinking. The Earl of Shaftesbury’s face was printed on coffee mugs by his partisans as were other images of leading politicians. This is when the word mug also came to mean a face:” I don’t like your mug!”

1688- English King James II Stewart was facing an invasion led by his own daughter Mary and his son-in-law William of Orange. In the middle of the night the commander of the English army the Duke of Marlborough and all 40 of his top generals deserted and rode over to the rebel camp. Next morning the King awoke to find his entire army missing. Even James other daughter Anne went to the rebel side. These defections meant that the Glorious Revolution of 1688 would be bloodless and not a repeat of the devastating Civil War of 1642-49.

1789- The first issue of France’s national newspaper Le Moniteur.

1859- Charles Darwin published the Origin of the Species.

1863- THE BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS or Missionary Ridge. Gen. Grant's army had to break through a Confederate Army dug in on a mountaintop above Chattanooga, Tennessee. At first it was the 24th Wisconsin Infantry that was ordered to take the rifle pits at the base of Missionary Ridge. This was intended as a diversion to the two flanking attacks occuring at the same time. When the Wisconsin soldiers swept the pits, they confused their orders and just continued the assault. They felt stopping for cover or retreating on the bare mountain slope was more suicidal than attacking. More units joined in the mad scramble up the summit and soon the mistake became an unauthorized general assault that blew the rebel army off the mountain. Grant had a great, if unplanned for victory. The first soldier to plant the U.S. flag on the summit was Lt. Arthur MacArthur, the father of World War Two hero General Douglas MacArthur. Lt. Arthur MacArthur took the Wisconsin regimental flag after the rest of the officers had been killed and led the charge up the slope, for which he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. How did Lt. MacArthur inspire his men? He kept yelling "On Wisconsin!". This tradition inspired the Wisconsin football fight song "On Wisconsin", still sung to this day and perennially voted one of the five best fight songs in college football.. After the battle when they were burying the dead an officer asked General George “Pap” Thomas if they should group the men by state. “No” Pap replied:” Mix them up. I’m sick of states rights.” For some reason, the Wisconsin assault on Missionary Ridge was the subject of a crayon/pastel painting by a young recruit of the 101st Airborne Division. The painting is in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. The artist?- Jimmy Hendrix.

1871- The National Rifle Association formed.

1874- Cacaobao, the high chief of the Cannibal Isles (modern Fiji) submits his people to the British Empire. He figured they were gonna get it anyway. He sends Queen Victoria his personal war club as a symbol.

1904- Alfred Steiglitz and William Steichen opened 291, the first art gallery dedicated exclusively to the art of photography.

1909- THE UPRISING OF THE TWENTY THOUSAND. Mary 'Mother' Jones led three fifths of the immigrant garment workers of New York out on strike to demand better conditions and recognition of their union, the ILGWU. Several Golden 400 socialites would meet the strikers at the old Water Tower in Greenwich Village to dispense food and day care. One of them was Betsy Morgan the youngest daughter of J.P. Morgan who was also involved in a lesbian love affair with designer Elzie DeWolfe.

1922- Irish writer Robert Erskine Childers was put up against the wall and shot by firing squad. Erskine Childers was the writer of the Riddle of the Sands, one of the first true spy novels, but he was also a leader of the IRA and after Irelands Treaty with Britain he sided with Eamon de Valera and the anti-treaty rebels in the Irish Civil War. Erskine Childers was executed by an Irish Army firing squad. His son became President of Ireland in 1973.

1933- The RKO movie Flying Down to Rio, originally meant as a starring vehicle for Dolores Del Rio, but what we remember is it is the first pairing of the famous dance team of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.

1937- The Andrew Sisters record their Boogie-Woogie version of the old German song “Bei Mir Bist Du Schon”.

1938- LENI DOES TINSELTOWN -Hitler's top filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl arrived in Hollywood to meet the film community and show off her new documentary 'Olympia". Nazis charges de’ affaires in L.A. Gerhard Gyssling had bragged to the press that all Hollywood was dying to meet Germany’s top film artist. But Hollywood had different ideas. Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, Fox and Goldwyn refused to speak to her and picketers hounded her every step. Well known Conservatives like Louis B. Mayer and Gary Cooper were polite but begged off the bad publicity. The only studio heads who would meet Leni Reifenstahl were Hal Roach and Walt Disney. Uncle Walt gave her a tour of the studio but begged off running her film, saying the IATSE union projectionist would make trouble. ( uh-huh....) Years later Disney said he didn't really know who she was. ( uh-huh......)

Leni told an LA historian years later that she thought Walt met her because his professional curiosity got the better of him. That he wanted to see Olympia, because it was the only film to beat his Snow White at the Venice Film Festival, then the world’s most prestigious.

1941- After suffering a strike and declining revenue because of the war in Europe Walt Disney’s studio was in trouble. Disney animator Ward Kimball noted in his diary for this day: “ 100 layoffs announced. Studio personnel from 1600 down to a Hyperion level of 300. Geez, It this the writing on the wall?” Disney saved itself with doing Defense films for the Army and after limping through the 1940’s with Cinderella was back on top..

1947- THE HOLLYWOOD BLACKLIST- 50 Hollywood moguls like Harry Cohn, Jack Warner and Dori Charey meet at the Waldorf Astoria in New York to formulate a group response to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee anti-commie hearings that were targeting Hollywood. Besides the heat from the feds their stockholders were clamoring for them to get the Reds out! They agreed to enforce an industry-wide blacklisting of anyone refusing to cooperate with the HUAC Committee. Nothing was ever officially written down or published, if you were blacklisted you suddenly were unable to find any work.
Eric Johnston, spokesman for the Motion Pictures Assoc. said on this day: "As long as I live, I will never be party ot anything as unAmerican as a blacklist!”.

Two days later on Nov. 26th he said: " We will forthwith discharge and never again knowingly employ a Communist. Loyalty oaths for the Entertainment Industry are now compulsory." Many Hollywood artists signed Communist Party cards in the 1930's when it was chic' to be lefty and the Communists were the only open opponents of segregation and Hitler. One screenwriters’ excuse was CP parties had the prettiest girls. Out of an estimated 15,000 entertainment workers only around 300 were ever actually proven to be Communists. Famous blacklist victims included Zero Mostel, Lillian Hellman, Lloyd Bridges, Dashell Hammett, Gale Sondergaard, Edward G. Robinson, Sterling Hayden & Dalton Trumbo. Sidney Poitier was blacklisted for no other reason than he was friends with black activist-actor Canada Lee; 'Somewhere over the Rainbow' composer Yip Harburg was blacklisted for writing a song: 'You Gotta Friend Named Joe" which the committee took to mean Russian dictator Josef Stalin.

1948- Hib Johnson, the President of Johnson's Wax had just moved into a home designed for him by the legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Called Wingspread, it was considered the culmination of Wrights prairie style. But there was a problem. Johnson called Frank Lloyd Wright to complain that the roof was leaking rainwater onto his Thanksgiving dinner! The water was leaking right on Hib's head as he sat at the head of the table. He refused to budge, had the phone cord stretched so he could make the
call, and spoke to Wright with the drops splashing off his bald head. What was Wright’s response? " Move your table..."

1950- Gen. Douglas MacArthur announced his "Home by Christmas Offensive" to finish off the North Korean army and end the Korean War. The following day he was attacked by 180,000 Red Chinese. MacArthur was later fired and the war dragged on until 1953.

1950- The musical Guys & Dolls opened. “ I got da horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, I know a jock who tells me Never Fear, Can Do- Can Do..The Jock sez da horse can –do ”

1958- The musical film Gigi opened, music by Lerner & Lowe. Based on the writings of French author Collette, Collette herself had insisted young unknown Dutch actress Audrey Hepburn play the lead.

1963- To complete the surreal drama that shocked America into the Sixties, JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was shot on nationwide T.V. by smalltime gangster Jack Ruby. He was taken to the same hospital and had the same doctors as Kennedy but still died. Ruby, real name Jacob Rubenstein, always hung around the Dallas police station, so no one thought it was unusual to see him around.

1968- Hey Jude by the Beatles topped the pop charts while Tammy Wynette’s Stand By Your Man headed the Country & Western listing.

1991- Freddy Mercury, lead singer of the rock group Queen, died of HIV/AIDS.

1998- America On Line bought their chief competitor Netscape.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean when you say someone is your Bete-Noire?

Answer: It means Black Beast, a name for your chief nemesis, the bane of your existence.

The renewed contract negotiations between the studios and the Screen Actor's Guild have broken down again. This even despite a Federal Mediator being present. Although, if the mediator was a Bush appointee, I'm not surprised he was ineffective.

Now SAG is asking it's membership for a Strike Vote. Speaking as someone who has been in a lot of labor negotiations, let me offer you my insider's view. A strike vote does not mean there will be a strike yet, 75% of the membership needs to vote for it, then more brinksanship and counteroffers.

In this current bad economy, the producers are probably gambling that SAG members won't have the stomach for another fight after the WGA mess last year. There will be a lot of threats and counterthreats until the actual strike would occur. So we still have a long way to go. But this overall climate will probably intimidate the already skittish big money guys from greenlighting more projects. We'll see.

--------------------------------------------------
Question: What does it mean when you say someone is your Bete-Noir?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: What is the Borscht Belt?
--------------------------------------------------------------
HISTORY FOR 11/23/2008
Birthdays: German Emperor Otto Ist 972AD, President Franklin Pierce, Krystoff Penderecki, Manuel DeFalla, William Henry Pratt better known as Boris Karloff, William Bonney better known as Billy the Kid, Susan Anspach, Victor Jory, Vincent Cassel, Joe Esterhas is 64, RObert Towne is 76, Miley Cyrus is 16

1654- BLAISE PASCAL was one of the great minds of French civilization. A scientist who invented an early computer. He loved debating science with Rene Descartes and Johannes Kepler. Descartes joked about Pascal’s championing the existence of a vacuum: “The only vacuum that exists is in Monsieur Pascal’s head!” This day he almost died when his carriage plunged off a Seine River Bridge. The carriage remained precariously perched above the water allowing Pascal to escape. That night in his trauma he had the first of several religious revelations. Blaise Pascal became a philosopher and one of the greatest Christian apologists. He wrote of that night:” The God of Abraham and Issac appeared to me, The God of Jacob - Reassurance. Certainty. Peace.”

1889- The first Juke Box installed at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. Created by Louis T. Glass, it used Edison cylinders instead of records and cost 5 cents a play. Juke comes from Juke Joint, a slang term for a dance hall.

1897-First Royal performance for Queen Victoria of a Cinematograph moving picture, at Windsor Castle. Also on the program was Monsieur Taffary's Calculating Dogs.

1903- Italian tenor Enrico Caruso made his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s Rigoletto. The great singer loved drawing caricatures, collecting police badges, pinching ladies bottoms and doing practical jokes like filling your hat with flour. Painter Norman Rockwell recalled, he was paying his way through school by being a Met stagehand. Caruso liked to talk art with him and about his teachers at the Art Student's League like George Bridgeman.

1936- The first florescent lighting tubes are installed in the U.S. Patent office.

1936- Time Magazine owner Henry Luce launched LIFE Magazine. The first picture on the cover was a dam photographed by Margaret Bourke-White. The second picture was a doctor slapping a newborn baby with the caption: “Life Begins!”

1938- Bob Hope recorded his signature tune “Thanks for the Memory” for the movie The Big Broadcast..

1942- PLAY IT AGAIN SAM- The movie [CASABLANCA premiered. Based on an never produced musical, “Everybody Comes to Ricks’, Howard Koch and the Epstein Brothers adapted the play into one of the most memorable Hollywood movies ever. It was never expected to be more than a rehash of the popular Charles Boyer film Algiers. George Raft was offered the script first, but he turned it down. Humphrey Bogart acted opposite Ingrid Bergman, although he had to stand on boxes to appear taller than his Swedish leading lady. Bogie told friends " Ah, it's just some more shit like Algiers!"

Louis, I don't know whether to shoot you for trying to arrest Viktor Lazlo, or Tom Sito for working on Son of the Mask.

During the famous scene where the French exiles drown out the singing Germans with a stirring rendition of le Marseillaise the Germans are singing Watch On the Rhine. The director wanted them to sing the Nazi Party anthem the Horst Wessel Song but the Warner Legal Dept discovered it was copyrighted! Don’t want them Nazis to sue! At this time the real Casablanca was still in a war zone so director Michael Curtiz and his art director Carl Jules Wyl had to fake what a North African French colonial city might look like. A decade later while filming in Almeida, Spain, he took the ferry over to Casablanca to see how close they came. Driving around Curtiz remarked “Carl, this doesn’t look anything like our movie!!”

1945- The U.S. government ends most wartime food and gas rationing.

1947- THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS- Prof E. L. Sukenik of Hebrew University in Israel was first told of a discovery made by two Bedouin shepherds. A cave near Qumran contained earthen pots containing scrolls, some used to cork the jugs. They may have been hidden there by the Essene priests to save them from the Roman invasion. These Hebrew sacred scrolls dated from 200BC to 70AD, and many were found to corroborate translated passages in the modern Bible.

1948- Japanese Prime Minister Gen. Hidecki Tojo was hanged for war crimes.
While Hitler was in power throughout the World War, Japan had gone through several parliamentary administrations, all dominated by the army party. Tojo had been out of power since 1943 after the Americans captured Saipan. Throughout the war Tojo’s official limousine was a Buick. Must have been tough getting parts....

1952- Animator Fred Moore, who drew Mickey Mouse in Fantasia and the Brave Little Tailor, died in an auto accident in the Tujunga Canyon area of Los Angeles.

1960- The Hollywood Walk of Fame is dedicated, featuring over 1,500 names- but not Charlie Chaplin, who was banned until 1972 because of his alleged lefty political views.

1963- The first episode of Dr.Who premiered on the BBC.

1966-The film “ Spinout “ premiered. Elvis Presley pioneered the genre movie of bored male movie stars who use their studio pull to make us watch movies of them racing cars. James Garner in Grand Prix-arguably the best one, Steve McQueen in LeMans, Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, Sly Stallone in Driven, etc.

1973- THE BOSTON STRANGLER- Albert DeSalvo molested and murdered 13 women and kept Beantown in fear between 1962 and 1964. In '64 he was finally apprehended and sentenced to life in prison, just getting in after the states death penalty was repealed. On this date another prisoner did what the State would not do, he knifed him to death in an argument.

1990- 37 year old baseball catcher Bo Diaz was crushed to death by a large satellite dish he was trying to install.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What was the Borscht Belt?

Answer: In the American northeast, because many newer immigrant groups like Jews, Italians, Russians and Poles were barred from older WASP mountain resorts. So starting in the 1940s they build their own resorts in the Adirondacks and Pocono mountains where they could enjoy the scenery and fresh air and celebrate their own culture.
The most well known were the Jewish resorts in the Catskill Mountains of New York State. Grossingers, The Pines Resort, Kutchners Hotel and more. Because of all the resorts, by the 1950’s the Catskill’s were nicknamed the Jewish Alps.
Many nightclub celebrities earned big money by playing this string of resorts, called by them the Borscht Belt, over the summer vacation season. Stars like Danny Kaye, Don Rickles, Lenny Bruce, Alan King, Rodney Dangerfield and many more. Films like Dirty Dancing were set in such a resorts.

Question: What was the Borscht Belt?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is meant by “ The Sins of Absalom”?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 11/22/2008
Birthdays: French explorer Sieur de LaSalle, George Elliot- pen name for Mary Anne Evans, Benjamin Britten, Charles DeGaulle, Andre Gide,Billy Jean King, Boris Becker, Geraldine Page, Jamie Lee Curtis is 50, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodney Dangerfield, Terry Gilliam is 68, Robert Vaughn, Greg Luzinski, Tom Conti, Mark Ruffalo, Victoria Paris- porn star of such classics like Bimbo Bowlers from Buffalo, Scarlett Johanssen is 24, Stevie Van Zandt “Sugar Miami Stevie” is 58

Aaooow. Happy Boi-day dere, Silvio!

St. Ceceilia's Day- Patron Saint of Musicians

1739- Georg Frederich Handel premiered the oratorio Ode to Saint Cecilia’s Day.

1809- Baltimore native Peregrine Williamson invented a re-usable steel pen. This finally freed the western world from sharpening goose quills and other feathers to write.

1888- According to Edgar Rice Burroughs this is the birthday of the boy who would become Tarzan.

1916- Author Jack London died at 40 in Glen Ellen California of kidney disease. The author of White Fang and Call of the Wild was a lifelong socialist and supporter of the labor movement. In 1919 Emma Goldman eulogized in an article in The Masses: “It’s a pity that brother Jack never lived long enough to see the Red Flags of Freedom flying over the Kremlin!”

1917- The National Hockey League-NHL, was founded in Montreal. The first teams The Quebec Bulldogs, Ottawa Senators, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Arenas, and Montreal Maroons.

1928- Long before Bo Derek ran down a beach, Ravel’s Bolero Suite premiered in Paris.

1935- The First Pan Am China Clipper service began from San Francisco to Honolulu and Manila. Captain Edwin Musik took off with 20.000 people waving bon voyage.

1950- The Lowest Scoring Basketball game in NBA history. The Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18. They later became the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers.

1957- The Miles Davis Quintet debuted.

1963- ONE DAY IN DALLAS- At 12:30 Central time President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. Whether you believe the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, The Military Industrial Complex,Vice President Johnson, the Mob, Corsican contract killers, The C.I.A., Fidel Castro, Anti-Castro Cubans, space aliens or all of the above, it remains one of the traumatic moments of US History.


Only 15% of Americans believe Lee Harvey Oswald did it alone. One Mafia don said in his memoirs:” If you believe Oswald, a rather lackluster Marine, could get off three carefully aimed shots from an old bolt action rifle in just six seconds, you have a vivid imagination.” One of the last things Kennedy heard before the bullets struck him was the wife of Texas governor John Connolly said:” Well Mr President, now nobody can say they don’t love you in Dallas!” After taking the oath of office on Air Force One, Lyndon Johnson broke down and locked himself in the toilet crying hysterically “They’re out to kill us all!” In 1966 evidence from the Kennedy assassination including the presidents brain disappeared. For years people claiming knowledge of a conspiracy died in strange ways, like karate chops and boating accidents.
Jackie Kennedy, who after flying to D.C. from Dallas still wearing the blood soaked pink Channel dress “let the people see what they’ve done!” immediately started going over the funeral arrangements. Before retiring she had her staff comb the National Archives for the details of the Lincoln Funeral. Cub reporter Robin MacNeil remembers after the shots running into the nearest building to phone in the story. He ran into the Texas Book Depository and asked a skinny t-shirted man who was just leaving where the nearest phone was. Two days later when watching the footage of the assassin being arrested he realized he had been talking to Oswald!

1963- Teamster president Jimmy Hoffa had been fighting off indictments and racketeering charges pressed by the aggressive Attorney General Robert Kennedy. When Hoffa heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas his first reaction was to laugh:” Now Bobby is just another lawyer!” Hoffa did finally go to jail and was himself whacked in 1975.

1963- Aldous Huxley died. The author of Brave New World had inoperable cancer so his wife kept him high on LSD,

1965- The musical The Man of La Mancha opened on Broadway. “ To Dream, the Impossible Dreaaammm…”Brings back memories of Junior High School band practice.

1980- Screen goddess Mae West died at 87. He apartment suite at the Ravenswood in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles has been lovingly restored since the owner claims her ghost nagged him to put her furniture back!

1990- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of English politics, resigned her offices. After 11 years in power her popularity was low because of her poll tax and resistance to English cooperation in the European Community. So her resignation and replacement with her protégé John Major was seen as a way for the Tories to retain control of government.

1993- Sir Anthony Burgess died. The author of A Clockwork Orange had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and told he had one year to live, back in 1959.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What is meant by “ The Sins of Absalom”?

Answer: Absalom was a son of King David who rebelled and fought against his own father.

FROM IMDB TODAY- The Australian animated feature Mary and Max has been chosen to open the 25th Sundance Film Festival on January 15 in Park City, UT. The claymation film, narrated by Barry Humphries, better known as Dame Edna Everage, tells the story of an 8-year-old girl who lives near Melbourne and her pen pal Max, a 44-year-old man who lives in New York City. Congrats to Adam Elliot and Melanie Coombs, who won the animation Oscar two years ago for their Harvie Krumpet, which also screened at Sundance
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Question: What is meant by “ The Sins of Absalom”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Where does the term come from “ to pull out all the stops”?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 11/21/2008
Birthdays: Francios Arouet called Voltaire, Marlo Thomas called That Girl,, Rene Magritte, Adolphe Marx called Harpo, Colman Hawkins called Bean, Stan ' called the man' Musial, Tom Horn, Pope Benedict XlV, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Goldie Hawn is 63, Harold Ramis is 64, Ken Griffey Jr, Mariel Hemingway, Lorna Luft, Troy Aikman, Bjork is 43

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 American soil. 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 Puritans landed several years later but they were a separate group who didn't like the Pilgrims. Then came the Quakers, whom neither liked.
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 Plymouth Rock looks pretty small for a ship to land on.

1718- BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE KILLED. Edward 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!

1774- Sir Robert Clive had won the great Battle of Plassey that had won India for the British Empire and avenged the Black Hole of Calcutta. But like every general since Scipio Africanis would discover, success in battle breeds jealousy at home. His London enemies pushed lawsuits alleging he used his power in Bengal to embezzle riches. Although he was acquitted of every charge the experience broke his spirit. This day under the influence of opium he committed suicide.

1794- Honolulu Harbor discovered by British explorers.

1852- The Methodist Congregation of Randolph County North Carolina charted a school called the Union Institute later renamed Trinity College. In 1924 a man named James B. Duke gave the school $20 million bucks, so they renamed it Duke University.

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.

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 to history, is that Britanic was the sister ship of the Titanic, that sank in 1912.

1920- Bloody Sunday- In Dublin IRA chief Michael Collins sent out his best assassination squad, nicknamed the Twelve Apostles. In the early morning of one day they rounded up and shot 20 of the top British counter terrorist police inspectors, nicknamed the Cairo Gang. In some cases they forced the inspectors wives to watch their husbands get shot. In retaliation the British paramilitaries called the Black & Tans entered a soccer stadium with an armored car during a match, and opened fire on the players and fans with machine guns. 25 were cut down.

1933- Columbia director Frank Capra went to Claudette Colbert’s home to talk her into delaying her holiday vacation long enough to star with Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night”. Colbert said she would only do it for double her normal salary and if they would be done by Dec 23rd so she could spend Christmas with friends at Squaw Valley Idaho.
They made the picture on a rush and Colbert later told her friends:” I just finished the worst picture in the world!” It Happened One Night” became a big hit for Capra, Columbia and is one of Colbert’s most memorable performances.

1934- Cole Porter's musical 'Anything Goes!' opened on Broadway. Ethel Merman starring, In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as somewhat shocking. Now Heaven knows- Anything Goes!”

1942- Warner's "A Tale of Two Kitties" the first Tweety Pie. I tawt I taw a puddy cat !

1959- The day after he was fired WABC radio DJ Alan Freed refused to sign a statement that he never received cash payments or payola to run Rock & Roll records on the air, Because it is exactly what he did.

1959- Jack Benny with his violin played a comic duet with Vice President Richard Nixon on piano.

1963- President John F. Kennedy and Jackie fly into San Antonio for a swing through Texas to gather support for a possible re-election run. Tomorrow would take them to Houston for breakfast then through Dallas....

1963- Robert Stroud, the 'Birdman of Alcatraz' died behind bars at 73. Jailed in 1916 for murdering a man who beat up his girlfriend, he spent 54 years in prison, 42 in solitary confinement. His study of birds enabled him to become an expert in bird diseases, he wrote three books. Burt Lancaster played him in the movies as a tragic hero, but those who knew him said he was a morose psychopath who stabbed another inmate and murdered a guard. He was known to shave off all his body hair and drink alcohol distilled from the birdseed admirers sent him. His own mother hoped he'd never be paroled.

1964- The Verrasano Narrows Bridge opens in New York Harbor. I remember the first person through the gate was a motorcyclist who "popped a Wheelie" and tried to cross the bridge balanced on his back tire.e.

1980- Half of America watched The Who Shot J.R. episode of the TV show Dallas.

1980- Australian Olivia Newton John’s disco anthem to aerobic exercise “Let’s Get Physical ” goes to number one of the pop charts and stays there for ten weeks.

1985- Jonathan Pollard, a Navy research analyst was busted for compromising US security and passing intelligence to the Government of Israel. He got life in prison for spying. Occasionally, there is a call for leniency, because he was spying for a friendly power.

1987- Bruce Willis married Demi Moore in Las Vegas. The divorced five years later.

1989- Junk bond king Michael Milken pleads guilty to insider stock trading and 98 counts of fraud. He now does lectures on ethics in business.

1999- 90 year old writer Quentin Crisp died. The author of the Naked Civil Servant had moved from England to San Francisco to lower Manhattan- he asked a friend “I’m moving to New York, I wonder if I should first learn the language?” Another time when Quentin was accosted by young punks he retorted:” Gentlemen, do you not know you are disturbing a National Heritage? I have been declared one of the Stately Old Homos of England!” Sting wrote a song about him- Englishman in New York.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Where does the term come from “ to pull out all the stops”?

Answer: When playing a pipe organ a stop is a button that restricts air flow, so pulling it out increases the volume. So pulling out all the stops means to go all in, maximum volume and maximum effort.