Question: Early TV star Danny Thomas “ Make Room for Daddy” had been a nightclub entertainer before. Many of those club celebrities were of Jewish ancestry. Was Danny Thomas Jewish?

Question: If New York natives are New Yorkers, and Los Angeles natives are Angeleanos, what are folks from Washington called?
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History for 11/17/2008
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vespasian 9 A.D, Florentine painter Il Bronzino, August Ferdinand Mobius-1790 the inventor of the Moebius Strip, Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery- “Old Monty”, Rock Hudson, Danny DeVito, Peter Cook, Martin Scorcese is 65, Lorne Michaels,Lauren Hutton, Tom Seaver, Gordon Lightfoot, Les Clark, Lee Strassberg, Shelby Foote, Sophie Marceau, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

1796- Russian Czarina Catherine the Great died at 67 years old of a stroke on the toilet, not crushed by trying to copulate with a horse as some scandalous rumors alleged.

1800- Following President Adams from their cozy homes in Philadelphia, Congress sulkily convenes for the first time in the half-finished Congress in the new Federal City. It was already being called Washington City D.C.. It was still mostly a damp muddy Virginia swamp. The only buildings up in operation were Congress, the Presidents Mansion and Conrads Tavern. Many complained that city planners Pierre L’Enfant and Benjamin Banocker had made the main avenues too big, that there will never be enough carriages and wagons to fill these roads. This first Congressional session couldn’t accomplish much, because there were not enough members present to make a quorum.

1839- Oberto premiered, an opera written by a new composer named Guisseppi Verdi –Joe Green, The great composer would go on to write Riggoletto, Aida and La Traviata.

1853- San Francisco passed a law to put up street signs at the intersections of major streets.

1858- A Pennsylvania businessman named William Larimer founded a new town at the foot of the Rockies called Denver.

1869- The Suez Canal opened. The opera "Aida" was commissioned to be premiered for this occasion but Verdi missed his deadline by ten years.

1880- The Chinese Exclusion Treaty signed in Peking between the United States and the Chinese Empress. This was the first of a series of pacts attempting to limit Asian immigration to the U.S.. In cities on the Pacific coast during the depression of the 1870’s violence against Chinese workers was sadly common. So many died building the Southern Pacific Railroad that the term “You Don’t Have a Chinaman’s Chance” was coined to mean the odds were against you. Writer Ambrose Bierce acerbically observed: A Chinese woman was recently found murdered on a street in San Francisco. She had done no crime but was merely the victim of Galloping Christianity. Barbaric acts like these mar the fine American tradition of Religious Persecution.”

1891- Polish pianist Jan Paderewski made his American debut at Carnegie Hall. Paderewski later followed by Stokowski create the cliché image of the grave classical music master with long flowing white hair combed straight back. Classical music became known as Longhair Music.


1934- LBJ marries LadyBird . For you born after the 60's, President Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor whom he nicknamed LadyBird Johnson. Their daughters were LucyBird and LindaBird, so everyone in the family had the initials LBJ.

1941- Ernst Udet was a top World War One German ace who was convinced by Herman Goring into helping build the Nazi Luftwaffe. He was responsible for developing the Stuka dive bomber and it’s screaming diving sound. But his conscience was troubled. One of the old Gallant Knights of the Air, he was depressed by the terror bombing of civilians and genocide his inventions were being used for. Sinking into drink and drugs, he finally shot himself. His last dinner that night he spoke of his adventures as a young ace with Von Richtofen the Red Baron, interspersing it with “Ahh, we were decent men then…”
Udet photographed by Vanity Fair, courtesy of condenastimages.

1959- The DeBeers mining company of South Africa announced the invention of synthetic diamonds.

1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi". The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies? So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So to this day on television no matter how dull a football game is, it is seen to it's completion.

1973- In a television address to the nation about the expanding Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon uttered the famous phrase:” People want to know if their president is a crook, well, I am not a crook!”

1988- Benazir Bhutto elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1989- Don Bluth's animated film "All Dogs Go to Heaven." premiered. When the film premiered in London in Leicester Square the opening night tickets were distributed with a printing error on them, the last letter of the film's title was dropped off. So the title read “All Dogs Go to Heave.”

1993- Congress voted for the free trade, job killing bill called NAFTA.

1994- The Sony Corporation posted a $2.7 billion dollar loss from it’s first year owning a Hollywood movie studio. Yet despite a lot of industry jokes ( “What’s the difference between Sony Pictures and the Titanic?-answer: The Titanic had entertainment.”) By 1996 the studio was on top with blockbusters like “Men in Black”.
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Question: If New York natives are New Yorkers, and Los Angeles natives are Angeleanos, what are folks from Washington called?

Answer: Washingtonians.

Question: If New York natives are New Yorkers, and Los Angeles natives are Angeleanos, what are folks from Washington called?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Which one of these celebrities never worked in animation? A) Jack Nicholson, B) Roger Moore, C) Marlon Brando D) Beverly D’Angelo
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History for 11/16/2008
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Tiberius, Paul Hindemith, George S. Kaufmann, W.C. Handy, Burgess Meredith, Daws Butler, Bob Watson, Zina Garrison, Dwight Gooden, Maggie Gylenhall is 31

HAPPY SADIE HAWKINS DAY! Fictional hillbilly race made famous by Al Kapp in his comic strip Little Abner.

1532- THE MASSACRE OF CAJAMARCA- Pizzarro tricked the Inca Emperor Athahualpa and his court into a narrow corral apart from their massive army with promises of a peace conference. The monk Fra Francisco Valverde gave a bible to the Great Inca declaring 'this is the voice of the Living God!" Athahualpa, who had never seen a book or European writing before, examined it over a minute, said "It says nothing to me" and dropped it in the dust. Then Valverde signaled and the Spaniards rushed out from all sides, slaughtering 9,000. Athahualpa was kept as a hostage and later strangled. Valverde became Archbishop of Lima, supervised the destruction of much of Inca culture, then was finally eaten by cannibals.

1632- BATTLE OF LUTZEN- Largest battle of the Thirty Years War, the great European war where Protestant and Catholic countries chose up sides and battled for the dominance of their religions. The Catholic German-Spanish army of Archduke Wallenstein and the Protestant German-Swedes and of King Gustavus Adolphus pound each other all day. Gustavus had been shot out of his saddle while leading an attack and was on the ground when the Croat cavalry surrounded him. Recognizing a leader they said:" Who are you?" According to legend Gustavus answered:"I am the King of Sweden, who do seal the religion and freedom of all Germany with my blood!" Thereupon the Croats obligingly stabbed him to death.


Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimar assumed command. When his generals suggested a withdrawal, Bernard shot back:" Retreat? Now is the time to speak of Vengeance!" He galloped down the battlelines shouting:" Swedes! They have killed the King!" The enraged Swedes advanced and swept all from their path. Lutzen was the highpoint of the religious war. Wallenstein continued to lead the German Emperor's armies until his boss the Emperor assassinated him. The Thirty Years War continued until Catholic France joined the Protestant side and the Protestant Germans fought the Protestant Swedes and everyone who started it died. By then nobody could remembered what it was all ever about to begin with and made peace.

1788- KING GEORGE III COLLAPSES IN CONVULSIONS, the first signs of mental illness that would make him a blind shut-in for the last years of his reign. His condition is now known as a rare blood disorder called Porpheria, but then had no known cure. Bleeding and ice water dowsings was the standard18th century medical treatments. He recovered for a time but the last ten years of his reign are called Regency Period, because even though he still was king his son the Prince of Wales ruled for him. George III's aides sensed something was not right with the King when while riding in his carriage in Hyde Park, George leapt out and called a large oak tree as the King of Prussia. He embraced the tree and shouted in French: "Aah, Le Roi du Prusse!"

1801- The first issue of the New York Post. Alexander Hamilton and his Federalists wanted a paper to print their views. Editor James Coleman once had to kill a man in a duel that morning and get back to the office to get the afternoon edition out. But the gentry of 1800 could not see the lowbrow tabloid the NY Post would become in our time.

1821-William Becknell reached Santa Fe New Mexico from Independence Missouri, proving it was a faster and easier land route than traveling from Mexico City. His route became a primary path for wagon trains and stagecoaches- the Santa Fe Trail.

1863- THE MARCH TO THE SEA- After burning the City of Atlanta to the ground, General William Tecumseh Sherman turned his 50,000 Yankee army eastward for his epic March to the Sea. His men cut a wide swath through the rich farm country of Georgia, burning homes, crops, looting, killing livestock and freeing thousands of slaves. He was mostly unopposed, Confederate forces off in Virginia and Tennessee could only watch helplessly. It was the first time since the Thirty Years War two hundred years earlier that an army made war solely on civilians. Sherman spared civilian lives but destroyed everything else. The discovery of skeletal Northerners POWs escaped from Andersonville Prison only increased the rage of the men to commit acts of destruction. The psychological effects of the march left deep scars on Southerners for decades to come.

whattaya mean they're all Republicans now..? I'll show you how to make a state red!

1906- Opera superstar Enrico Caruso was charged for pinching a ladies butt while visiting the Bronx Zoo. Caruso claimed a monkey did it.

1915-BIRTH OF THE COKE BOTTLE- The owners of Coca Cola were concerned that the success of their soft drink was being subverted by all the various cheap imitations. They decided if they had a distinctive bottle people would recognize genuine Coca Cola. This day the first Coca-Cola appeared in their distinctive curved little green bottles, created by the Ross Glass Co. of Indiana.

1924- THE MURDER OF THOMAS INCE- Thomas Ince was a film director and early Hollywood studio owner who’s property later became the site of MGM. This day he boarded William Randolph Hearst’s yacht Oneida for a birthday party in his honor. On the boat among the guests was Charlie Chaplin and Hearsts’ mistress Marion Davies. When the boat docked Ince was dead and everyone very troubled. The official cause of death was a heart attack but there was no autopsy or investigation and the Hearst press quickly hushed things up. The legend goes Hearst discovered Chaplin and Davies in flagrante-delicto and in a jealous rage shot Ince when he came in between them. We’ll never know for sure.

1932- VAUDEVILLE DIED- Vaudeville was the generic name for one admission to a showcase of short theatrical acts- singers, comics, jugglers, trained animals, etc. Vaudeville gave their first opportunities to many great twentieth century performers like Chaplin, Jolson, the Marx Brothers, Mae West , Gypsy Rose Lee and W.C.Fields. But it was slowly supplanted by more modern forms of entertainment like Movies and Radio. If you asked experts to pinpoint a date for the official end of the popular venue, many it would say it was the date that the New York Palace Theater on Broadway, the premiere palace for Vaudeville, switched from live shows to purely Movies.

1946- The Television Academy of Arts and Sciences founded. Fred Allen once said: "We call television a Medium because nothing on it is Rare or Well Done."

1960- CLARK GABLE DIED- The 59 year old star had just completed the film the Misfits, a film in which director John Huston demanded a great deal of physical exertion. He had told his agent that the unprofessional antics of his moody co-star Marilyn Monroe had driven him nuts-" That dizzy dame is going to give me a heart attack." Gable had one after shooting, and on this day while convalescing in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital while reading a magazine a second heart attack killed him. He wrote his own epitaph but it was never used- "Back to the Silents."

1981- Actor William Holden died. The star of such classics as Sunset Blvd., Stalag 17 and Network, was told as a young actor to take a few drinks to calm the pre-camera jitters. But by now he was a hopeless alcoholic. This night at home alone and so drunk he fell and hit his head on a table edge. Too inebriated to call for help he dabbed his forehead with bunches of Kleenex until he bled to death.

1990- Disney’s feature film the Rescuers Down Under premiered. The first traditionally animated film to be painted digitally on computer instead of acetate cels and paints.

2001- The film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone premiered to great fanfare and massive box office. Harry Potter’s creator J.K. Rowling had been so poor she at one time had been on relief, now she was one of the richest women in the world, in England second only to Madonna and the Queen.

2002-The mysterious flu like disease SAARS first reported in Kwantung China. The epidemic spread around the world killing hundreds but was contained by the following summer.
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Question: Which one of these celebrities never worked in animation? A) Jack Nicholson, B) Roger Moore, C) Marlon Brando D) Beverly D’Angelo

Answer: Jack Nicholson was an errand boy for the Tom & Jerry Unit at MGM, Roger Moore was an assistant animator, and Beverly D’Angelo was a painter on Scooby Doo, so the answer is C) Marlon Brando.

Welll...before the Spanish came, the local Indians called this area The Valley of Smoke, and we are living up to our name today. The fires in the Sylmar area are about 15-20 miles north of us. But the smoke is blowing over and our pool is full of ash.
We aren't worried about our area, but we remain vigilant.

Not like living back in New York, when all you really had to worry about was other New Yorkers!




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Question: Which one of these celebrities never worked in animation? A) Jack Nicholson, B) Roger Moore, C) Marlon Brando D) Beverly D’Angelo

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Define ubiquitous.
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History for 11/15/2008
B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Irvin Rommel the "Desert Fox", Avriel Harriman, Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Elder, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo, Mantovanni, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson, Otis Armstrong, Petula Clark

64 AD-THE ROMAN EMPIRE OUTLAWS CHRISTIANITY- It's hard to believe today but the Roman Empire was proud of it's religious toleration. There was a harmony to the pagan world, A Goth knew his god Odin or Wotan was called Jove in Rome and Zeus in Athens and Mithra in Persia. So the Judeo-Christian concept of One God exclusively and everybody else’s gods were demons just didn't quite fit in. The only other religion persecuted as vigorously as Christianity was the Druids, but that was because the Druids preached constant rebellion to Roman rule. The Romans dispersed the Jews as a nation, but Julius Caesar left strict laws about never violating Jewish dietary or Sabbath Laws. Even Caligula backed down from trying to put a statue of himself in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. Anti-Semites claim Messalina the wife of Nero was a Jewish convert and convinced her husband to ban the Christian cult, but the answer goes deeper than that. Secrecy and fear of its’ alien practices bred suspicion that would last 300 years.

1532- After marching his Spanish conquistadors for six months through steaming jungles and over tall mountains Francisco Pizarro reached the border of the mysterious Inca Empire. At the little border town of Cajamarca his 200 men suddenly found themselves face to face with 40,000 Inca warriors. The Imperial Inca Army was outfitted in gold and “they shined like the sun!” I wonder if they had any Kahlua with them...?

1754- First use of the modern trombone. It was played at a child's funeral.

1777- The ARTICLES OF CONFEDERATION passed by Congress. An early attempt at a U.S. Constitution that gave all real power to the individual states, similar to the provincial system in Canada now. It required a majority vote of 9 out of 13 states to get anything done and had no chief executive. With a majority like that needed nothing did get done. There were no laws regulating national commerce so goods traveling state to state paid tariffs like they were going through foreign countries! By 1787 the Articles were junked for the more centralized U.S. Constitution but States Rights supporters would resurrect it later for their Southern Cause, hence the Confederacy.

1828- Author Victor Hugo signs contracts with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result.

1849- In Rome Papal lay government minister Count Pelligrino Rossi was stabbed and killed as he walked through a nationalist mob. Italians desiring the unification of Rome to the newly forming State of Italy rioted and looted the Popes Quirinnal Palace. Pope Pius IX,” Pio Nono” had to flee the Vatican disguised as a plain priest. He returned a year later behind French troops and a loan from the Jewish Rothchild family to reinstate the Papal States. Rome was annexed by Italy in 1870. Pius IX came to power professing liberal reforms but soon went back on his word and threatened excommunication against “Treasonous Democracy”. In Italy another name for a liar was a Pio Nono.

1860- Shortly after Abraham Lincoln’s election as president a large meteor was seen in the skies over the Eastern U.S. Most took this as a bad omen of troubles to come.

1864- SHERMAN BURNS ATLANTA- Atlanta was the economic center of the South, an enormous depot far from the front with railroad tracks linking all the coastal ports. William Tecumseh Sherman was the first modern general. He understood the Civil War was a war of peoples, outmaneuvering armies for temporary strategic gains wouldn’t decide it. He drove out the civilian population of the city and torched it. He called his tactics 'Hard War" but today we call it 'Total War" Sherman had an army band serenaded him beneath his window playing the "Miserere'" from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", while he observed the burning, impatiently chewing on an unlit cigar. The next day Sherman began his epic March to the Sea.

1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals.

1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooks up 20 cities coast to coast, for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla starts at Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1937- The U.S. Congress gets air-conditioning.

1941- Edict of Nazi SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordering the arrest and deportation to concentration camps of all Homosexuals and Gypsies.

1969- THE MORATORIUM- 250,000 people gather in Washington to protest the War in Vietnam. Richard Nixon had run as a peace candidate but once in office escalated the Vietnam conflict to include Cambodia and Laos. President Nixon came to regard the young student protesters as the chief nemesis of his administration. He appealed to the Silent Majority, staged stunts like the Hard Hat Luncheon-an event thrown for conservative construction workers. According to John Dean by 1971 Nixon had a bunker built under the executive offices where aide John Ehrlichman monitored protests from a battery of television monitors. Nixon stalwart G. Gordon Liddy pitched preposterous schemes like infiltrating the students with mercenaries who would at a signal beat up people, and strategic commando style kidnapping of protest leaders. These schemes were never implemented.

1979- ABC news announced they would broadcast a daily update of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The late night show became Nightline.

1989- Disney's The Little Mermaid debuted. Unda da sea, unda da sea….

1990- It was revealed that the Grammy winning pop group Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their own album but lip synched to a recording.

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Yesterday’s Question: Define ubiquitous.

Answer: Being or seeming to be everywhere at the same time; omnipresent. What’s the point of my asking this? Nothing really. I always wondered and just needed an excuse to look it up.

I learned tonight about the death of Emru Townsend. Emru had been battling advanced leukemia, and on the 12th he finally succumbed. Emru was a writer journalist in Canada who interviewed me several times about my years at Nelvana in Toronto. He published FPS, a magazine devoted to the Canadian animation community. Emru waged a heroic struggle, yet never asked for our pity. He blogged about his illness, and as Mark Mayerson wrote, " he approached it with a journalists curiosity and thoroughness."
Mark wrote a moving tribute on his blog. Check it out.

Adieu dear colleague, you remain alive in all our hearts. Rest now. Our deepest sympathy to your family, and the Toronto animation community, in losing one of it's most eloquent voices.


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Question: Define ubiquitous.

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the significance of what a U.S. President does in his first 100 Days?
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History for 11/14/2008
Birthdays: Robert Fulton, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Claude Monet, Aaron Copeland, McClean Stevenson, Jarahwahal Nehru, Mamie Eisenhower, Brian Keith, Louise Brooks, Ellis Marsalis, Harrison Salisbury, Dr. Condoleeza Rice is 54, Yanni, P.J. O'Rourke, George Petrovic' called KaraGeorge "Black George" Serbian nationalist -1762, Astrid Lungren the creator of Pippi Longstockings, Prince Charles is 60

1565- King Phillip II of Spain ordered the Holy Inquisition to enforce his edicts against heretics in the Netherlands. When Dutch emissaries like William of Orange, nicknamed William the Silent for his diplomatic skill, urged moderation towards the growing population of Dutch Calvinists, Phillip said: “I would rather that thousands lose their lives than reign over a kingdom of heretics”.

1666- English diarist Samuel Pepys recorded witnessing the first experimental blood transfusion done on two dogs.

1798- WolfTone, the young Irish revolutionary leader, committed suicide in prison after his capture. He knew he was certain for a hangman’s noose. He is sometimes called the founder of the IRA, although this is more a romantic notion than historical fact.

1805- Napoleon’s French Army entered Vienna. Composer Ludwig Van Beethoven had dedicated his Symphony #3 Eroica to him when he considered Bonaparte a force for human rights, but after Napoleon became an emperor he angrily crossed it out. “So, he is just a man after all!” Now ironically with all the Austrian society run out of town Beethoven was forced to premiere his symphony to an audience of French army officers.

1832- The First regular horse drawn streetcar service began in New York.

1851- Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick, or the Whale” was first published in the U.S. by Harper & Row. Melville in part was inspired by a report of a whale named Mocha-Dick who had sunk seven ships off the coast of Java and a New Bedford whaling ship Nantucket that was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in 1839. For the famous author of Typoo and Billy Budd, Moby Dick was a critical and financial disaster. What's now considered one of the greatest works of American literature was ridiculed in its time. Melville, broken in spirit, sank into obscurity and finished his life as a customs agent for the Port of New York. When he died, he was so forgotten the New York Times misspelled his name in it's obituary. Today his great-great grandson Moby is a rock star.

1883- London’s World newspaper printed an exchange of telegrams between writer Oscar Wilde and painter James MacNeil Whistler. “ When you and I are together we never talk about anything but ourselves.”-Wilde. Whistler:” No, no, Oscar. When you and I are together we never talk about anything except me.”

1889- Inspired by Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days, New York World reporter Nellie Bly real name Elizabeth Cochrane, set out to travel the world in the declared time. She did it in 72 days. Bly was considered by Victorian society scandalously independent, she was a war correspondent, she had herself committed to a lunatic asylum to report on mistreatment of the mentally ill, she went up in a balloon and was the first woman to go down in a diving bell- bathosphere.

1922- Happy Birthday B.B.C.! the British Broadcasting Companies first regular radio service 2LO goes on the air with general election results.

1937- SPAM introduced! Shoulder-Pork And Ham.

1942- THE SULLIVAN BROTHERS- Five brothers of one Iowa family all enlisted in the Navy and were all posted on the same ship –the USS Juneau. All five were killed when the Juneau went down in action off Guadalcanal wiping out the family. After the Sullivan Brothers incident laws were passed that US Selective Service could not draft in its initial callup all sons of a family without leaving one and that close relatives were not allowed to serve on board the same ship.

1943- Bruno Walter was too ill to conduct the New York Philharmonic this night so 24 year old Leonard Bernstein was asked to assume the baton. Bernstein becomes an overnight sensation.

1943- During naval maneuvers in the South Atlantic the destroyer William S. Porter accidentally fired a live torpedo at the battleship Iowa carrying President Franklin Roosevelt! The Porter reported the mistake in time so the Iowa could take evasive actions and the torpedo exploded harmlessly in her wake. But the captain of the William S. Porter was arrested and courts-martialed back at port and the incident kept top secret until the 1970’s. For years afterwards whenever the William S. Porter came into harbor she was greeted with the cry “DON’T SHOOT, WE’RE REPUBLICANS!”

1957-THE APALLACHIN CONFERENCE- The top Dons of the Mafia decided to meet at a small upstate New York town near Binghampton. The estate of Joseph Barbara, the President of the Canada Dry soda pop company was clogged with black Cadillacs and Lincolns driven by guys in silk suits named Vinny. All the heads of the Families were there, Joe “Bananas” Bonano, Joey Profacci, Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese, Paul Castellano, Joey Catena and Louis Tafficante. To this day no one’s quite sure what this meeting was about. Theories are it was an attempt to broker a peace after the hits on Al Anastasia and Frank Costello, and to decide whether the Old Sicilian capos would agree to the younger men’s request that the mob organize narcotics. As luck would have it two New York State troopers investigating a bad-check case noticed the gangland gathering and called for the estate to be surrounded. Once the cops raid commenced it was a free for all of mobsters jumping out of windows and running like rabbits through the corn stalks.
The raid produced few convictions but the headlines focused national attention on the Mafia. It proved without a doubt what had always been feared, that the Mafia was not a loose term for some local immigrant gangs but an highly centralized national organization. Congressional hearings like the McClellan Committee began to bust up the rackets. Mobsters who write of this time say the Appalachin mistake was the beginning of the end of the Mafia’s nationwide solidarity and power.

1957-The Supreme Court refused to review the challenge to government obscenity laws brought by Irving Klaw and his wife, producers of the Betty Page kinky pinup photos.

1959- In Holcomb Kansas two men break into a farm home and murder four people. The subsequent trial and execution was attended by writer Truman Capote, who wrote the book “In Cold Blood”.

1960- Anthony Mann began shooting the film El Cid with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren with her pre-collagen Lips.

1961- President John F. Kennedy ordered the number of U.S. military advisors in Vietnam increased from 1,000 to 16,000. There has always been conflicting evidence about just what JFK thought about the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Some scholars point to writings that said Kennedy by 1963 was having second thoughts about involvement and wanted to begin pulling out but Lyndon Johnson had deeper ties to the South Vietnamese regime and big military contractors like Bell-Huey. Others say if JFK wasn’t assassinated he still would have done the same Vietnam policy that Lyndon Johnson later did.

1963- Volcanoes push up out of the water the island of Circe, now part of Iceland.
1967- Jack Warner, the last surviving Warner Brother, sells out his stake of Warner Bros and it’s huge film library to a Canadian company called Seven Arts. He becomes the last of the original Hollywood Moguls to step down.

1986- Wall Street Tycoon Ivan Boesky who defined the 1980's with mottos like "Greed is Good, Greed is Natural", pleaded guilty to insider trading and stock fraud and willingly finked on everyone at Drexel Bernham-Lambert who helped him.

1998- Colorful and eccentric NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman married beautiful supermodel Carmen Electra. There was some doubt at first as to the validity of the story as Rodman admitted he was blind drunk throughout and didn’t remember the ceremony. They divorced shortly after.
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Yesterday's Question: What is the significance of a President's first 100 days in office?

Answer: It started with Franklin Roosevelt. The outgoing Republican Hoover administration had let itself become notorious by doing nothing to stop the collapse of the American economy into the Great Depression. FDR realized he had to act fast to restore confidence. So in his first hundred days he launched a blizzard of progressive legislation and new gov't agencies with so many acronyms they were called the Alphabet Soup. HUD, NRA, WPA, TVA, FDIC, FHA, SEC, etc. Together thye were known as the New Deal.This so dazzled the public that ever since the press makes an issue about what a new president does in those first hundred days.

Question: What is so significant about what a U.S. President does in his first 100 Days?

Question: What does it mean to “ turn the tables” on someone?
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History for 11/13/2008
Birthdays: Saint Augustine 354 AD, King Edward III of England, Robert Louis Stephenson, Edwin Booth, Oskar Werner, Jean Seberg, Whoopi Goldberg- real name Karen Johnson, Erte'*, Jack Elam, Judge Louis Brandeis (the first Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Alexander Scourby, Eugene Ionesco, Garry Marshall is 74, Mel Stottlemyre, Joe Mantegna, Vinny Testaverde, Jimmy Kimmel, Gerald Butler is 39- This is SPARTAA!!


from the ErteMuseum.com
• Erte’ the great art deco designer was from a very old Russian military family. Their names were the Tschichagoffs. A Tschitchagoff had fought Napoleon in 1812 and all had been generals and admirals under the Tsar. But young little Emelyan Tschitchagov didn’t want to be an admiral or general, he wanted to design ladies clothes! So he moved to Paris to seek his fortune. When there, impresario Serge Diaghilev suggested he change his name to something non-Russians could pronounce, he gave the same advice to Gyorgi Balanchivadze- or George Balanchine. So Emelyan Tschichakov adopted as his name his initials E.T. - in French "Erte’".

In Ancient Rome, today was Epulium Jovis, or the Feast of Jupiter Reclining.

1749- The University of Pennsylvania, originally called the Franklin Institute is established as the first non-sectarian American college. See below**.

1789- Ben Franklin wrote " Nothing is certain except Death and Taxes."

1842- Lewis Carroll noted in his diary today:" Began writing the fairy tale of Alice. Hope to be done by Christmas.."

1861- THE TRENT AFFAIR- All through the American Civil War, Abe Lincoln's biggest fear, and Jefferson Davis’ greatest hope, was direct intervention of the great European powers. With England in Canada and France in Mexico and the British Navy ruling the seas this was a real possibility. The British and French thought nothing of intervening in conflicts all over the world like the Greek Revolution or the war between Argentina and Uruguay. Almost as soon as the guns of Fort Sumter boomed, Emperor Napoleon III of France and the German Elector of Baden were offering their services as mediators.
On this day a U.S. Navy frigate fired on the British ship HMS Trent and removed from her two Confederate diplomats. Mason and Slidell were being sent as ambassadors to the Court of Saint James. They claimed diplomatic imunity, the U.S. said they were citizen in rebellion. London reacted to the insult to her flag with an explosion of war talk. General Garnet Woolsey volunteered to raise new regiments for an invasion of New York State via Canada. Lincoln's reaction was "One War at a time." He apologized and offered reparations. On the other side Prince Albert helped keep the peace.

1868- Giacomo Rossini died at 68. He retired at 31 from active life and lived on royalties. It was said he became so lazy he laid about in bed all day. One day when writing a concerto his score dropped to the floor as he leaned over to fill his glass. Rather than bend down to pick it up he took a fresh sheet and wrote a sonata.

1874 -At the sesquicentennial celebrations of the University of Pennsylvania Robert Green invented the Ice Cream Soda.

1914- Clothing designer Carez Crosby took two handkerchiefs and some ribbon off some baby bonnets and invented the Brassiere.

1917- THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR- After Lenin’s Communist Party seized power in Saint Petersburg disaffected officers and businessmen fled to the edges of the Russian Empire to organize resistance to the new regime. This day some "White" soldiers under General Krasnoe skirmished with some of Trotsky’s Red Guards. These were the first shots of a bloody Civil War that would rage for 4 years and kill millions. After just completing a World War and two Revolutions, when she heard this news one Russian poet exclaimed : "Oh God, You Mean its Not Over?!"

1921- Premiere of the silent classic "The Sheik" introducing young actor Rudolph Valentino. Valentino’s wife Alla Nazimova made sure his image was pure male sex appeal. " Rudy looks best when he’s naked."



1940- Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' opened. as Walt put it, "this'll make Beethoven!"
Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion was 'I love the visuals, but why did you use all that old music?" Of all the composers used Igor Stravinsky was the only one still living. He was approached for the rights to his "The Rites of Spring". He was told if he refused, his Russian 1910 copyright was invalid in the U.S. because Russia never signed the international copyright pact of 1905, so they would could it anyway, ya bald commie! Stravinsky gave permission and when he saw the final result with George Ballanchine publicists said he "Speechless with Admiration!" In actual fact he told Vanity Fair in 1960 that he thought Stokowski's orchestration was "execreble' and the visuals "imbecillic". But his opinion didn't stop him from selling Disney the rights to two more works, Renard and the Firebird.

1953- An Indiana Judge ordered his local school district to remove any school books with references to the character Robin Hood. All the "take from the rich and give to the poor" it was obvious to the judge that the medieval rogue of Sherwood Forest was a Communist.

1969- President Richard Nixons’ Vice President Spiro Agnew accused the national news media of bias and partisanship. He excoriates them as "Nittering nabobs of Negativism" and gains a reputation for pithy use of the language. In reality Nixon speechwriter Pat Buchanan wrote all of Spiros’ best lines. Up to then White House reporters were a compromising bunch when asked, winking at John Kennedy’s bimbos and Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair. But Nixon’s paranoia led him to declare the press his enemy and the press reacted in kind. With no friendly Fox News yet to run interference for him. You can date the birth of the modern rapacious, scandal obsessed press corps from this speech.

1970- A giant typhoon carrying 100 foot tidal waves smashed into Bangladesh, then called East Pakistan. 150,000 died.

1971- ABC TV. movie "the Duel" premiered. It starred Dennis Weaver as a hapless motorist on a lonely freeway menaced by an unseen truck driver. The was directed by a young protégé of Lew Wasserman named Steven Speilberg.

1974- Atomic plant worker Karen Silkwood was the first person to expose lax safety practices at the US nuclear power plants. For this she was rewarded with demotion, harassment, lawsuits. Even a radioactive isotope was put under her car seat. On this night she was finally killed in a car accident. She was on her way to talk to a New York Times reporter and it’s been alleged her car was deliberately run off the road. The files she was going to hand over to the press were taken from the car. The crash was ruled an accident.

1978- Mickey Mouse got his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1986- President Ronald Reagan attempting to explain the festering Iran Contra Scandal said on nationwide TV:" We did not and I repeat did not…trade weapons or ransom for hostages, or would we ever." We now know that was exactly what we did.

1986- John Huston and Woody Allen denounced the fad of computer colorizing classic Black & White films like the Maltese Falcon. Supposedly one of the last things Orson Welles said on his deathbed was "Keep Ted Turner and his crayons away from my movies!"

1991- Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast opened, the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
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Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to “ turn the tables” on someone?

Answer: In some ancient board games like Backgammon, one maneuver allows you to turn the board around so you play your opponents winning pieces, and he suddenly is at your mercy. The earliest use of the term “ the tables have turned” can be traced to the 1630s.