Pixar artist Adrian Molina did this nice little film about an anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot here in CA. http://adrianmolina.blogspot.com/

Thousands of creative people including the National Cartoonists Society and the Graphic Artist's Guild among others, is urging people to contact their congressmen and voice opposition to a nasty bit of legislation that would take away the rights of creative people to their own creations. Called The Orphan Work Act of 2008 H.R. 5889. Check out this site.

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/utr/2/?a=11980321&i=90022847&c=&u=capwiz.com%2Fillustratorspartnership%2Fhome%2F

Indian film workers on strike.

I've also heard that most of Bollywood in India has been on strike since Tuesday. Indian film industry workers want union recognition, standardized wage scales and limits on foreign workers permits. Film workers and animators in China are also forming unions to better their conditions. (Hindustan Times, Tues.)

Only in North America, where animation unions began, do animators still stand around like slack-jawed sheep, mumbling " I don't want to get into trouble..." while their jobs are exported. Maybe they hope when our working conditions are as lousy as a undeveloped nation's labor force, will we get some of the work back.

Duh, nope. I don't need a union, I make my own deals...

Remember Pericles of Athens said a citizen who doesn't participate in civic life is a waste of food and space. If you live in America, DON'T FORGET TO VOTE! Registration in many states is ending today!

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Quiz: Which city is the oldest? New York, Boston, Colonial Williamsburg, or Philadelphia?

Yesterday’s Answer below: What is a G-Man..?
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History for 10/4/2008
Birthdays: French King Louis X The Stubborn 1314, Richard Cromwell-“ Tumbledown Dick, “ President Rutherford B. Hayes, Frederick Remington, Jean Millet, Buster Keaton, Englebert Dolfuss, Charlton Heston, Susan Sarandon, Armand Assante, Damon Runyon, John Atanasoff, Alvin Tofler, Anne Rice, Alicia Silverstone, Liev Schreiber

1798- Lyrical Ballads, a small book of poems published jointly by English poets William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge. The book opened with the Rime of the Ancient Mariner and finished with Wordsworth’s Lines composed a few miles above Tinturn Abbey.” The book didn’t sell that well. Wordsworth blamed Coleridge’s Ancient Mariner poem for being too long. Some of the best sales of the book were by sea captains who thought a Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner was a collection of sea shantys.

1869- Henry J. Heinz begins his condiment company, bottling horseradish in a little shop in Pittsburgh. He was later called the Catsup King, -or Ketchup, if you prefer. One of the Heinz Company's greatest stunts was in the 1920s they placed a 40 foot tall electrified pickle on the corner of 23rd and 5th Ave. in Manhattan.

1909- St. Louis Missouri was site of the first –and probably only- airship race in the US. Four dirigibles, the total number in America, ran a course for a purse of $1000 dollars.

1931- Chester Gould's "Dick Tracy" comic strip debuts.

1943- Actor Clark Gable was awarded the Distinguished Flying Medal for flying combat missions over Germany. It was said Gable took these deliberately dangerous missions instead of doing USO shows out of a death-wish in grief for his wife Carole Lombard, who was killed in a plane crash.

1950- The first Peanuts comic strip introducing Charlie Brown’s dog Snoopy.

1955- The Brooklyn Dodgers a.k.a. "Da Bums" win the World Series for the first time, and the only time they ever won it while inhabiting the precincts of Flatbush. The name Dodgers came from the fact that several main trolley car lines intersected in front of Ebbets Field on Atlantic Avenue. To get into the ballpark you had to cross this area dodging the traffic. So they were known as the Brooklyn Trolley-Dodgers, then Dodgers.

1957-SPUTNIK- Russia inaugurates the Space Age and first shoots an object into space orbit. A basketball sized satellite called" Sputnik-1" . Sputnik means Satellite and the word spawned pop words like Beatnik, Nudnik and Peacenik. Americans used to thinking of themselves as the leaders in all technology reacted with shock. Why weren’t we first? We were losing the space race! Wild rock & roll star Little Richard Penniman thought Sputnik was an omen of the end of the world and resolved to give up sex, drugs and rock & roll and become a Born Again Christian preacher. Good Golly Miss Molly!

Oh Little Sputnik, flying high
With made-in-Moscow beep,
You tell the world it’s a Commie sky
And Uncle Sam’s asleep.
Michigan Gov. G. Mennen Williams

1957-"Leave it to Beaver' debuts on CBS.

1971- Janis Joplin was found dead at the Landmark Hotel in Hollywood. She was 27 and died of a heavy drug overdose. Her song “Me and Bobby McGee” was as yet unreleased but soon topped the pop charts. Joplin left a considerable sum in her will for a party for her friends. The invitation read “ The Drinks are on Pearl”.

1986- On a New York street a man named William Tager walked up to CBS News anchor Dan Rather and mumbling “Kenneth, what’s the Frequency?” started furiously punching Rather. He thought CBS was beaming microwaves at his brain and it was Dan’s fault. Who Kenneth is remains a mystery.

2001- James Hemingway, the youngest son of writer Ernest Hemingway, was found dead in the women’s wing of a Miami jail. A cross-dressing transsexual , he had gone by the name of Gloria and was picked up by Miami cops for drug use and exposing himself in public. He was 69.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is a G-Man..?

Answer: In the 1930’s when the FBI were hunting down gangsters they were sometimes called Government Men, to distinguish them from local cops. In 1933, when the FBI caught George “Machine Gun “ Kelly, Kelly raised his hands in the air and shouted:” DON’T SHOOT, G-MAN!” And so the nickname stuck.

One year ago, for a lark I threw in a trivia question or two with my history. When I stopped, I was surprised when I got a very strong response from readers around the world who wanted me to continue. Since then I asked everything from define the word Perjorative to Who was the voice of Elmer Fudd. I am very flattered that you all like the quiz questions, and you're having so much fun with them.

So Vox Populi- Let the Voice of the People be heard!

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Question: What is a G-Man..?

Yesterday’s Answer below: What was the Gilded Age?
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History for 10/3/2008
Birthdays: Gore Vidal is 83, Mikail Lermontov, Harvey Kurtzman, Chubby Checker, James Herriot, Eleanor Duse, Emily Post, Leo McCarey the director of the Marx Brothers Duck Soup and many Laurel & Hardy shorts, Steven Reich, Dave Winfield,Neve Cambell, Tommy Lee is 46, Clive Owen is 44

1226- Saint Francis of Asissi died at 44. He seldom bathed and he asked his followers to strip him naked so he could leave the world as he came in. They all sang his Canticle of the Animals, then he exclaimed 'Welcome, Sister Death." His gravesite was kept secret until 1818.

1855- American James McNeill Whistler arrived in Paris to study painting. He had tried to apply to West Point for a military career but failed the entrance exam. Years later he joking told friends "If I hadn't identified phosphorous as a gas I'd be a major general by now!'

1903- Dr Horatio Nelson Jackson, the first man to drive an automobile across the American continent, was fined in his home town in Vermont for driving his automobile faster than 6 miles an hour.

1910- English comedians Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel first arrive in the U.S. with a touring British vaudeville company.

1941- Warner Bros. THE MALTESE FALCON "premiered. Screenwriter John Huston asked if he could direct an adaptation of this old Dashell Hammett story, which had been already made into movies twice. This version became the most famous. The name was kept despite producer Hal Wallis wanting to change it to THE GENT FROM FRISCO. Jack Warner was amazed that homely looking little character actor Humphrey Bogart had shown the potential to be a romantic leading man in 'The Petrified Forrest', now the Maltese Falcon established him as a major draw. Warner joked to Bogie about his looks in referring to his contentious brawls with his wife Mayo-"I don't know what women see in you, but the more pots and pans she hits you in the kisser with, the more the dames love you!"

You fat, bloated eediot! -Said like Ren from Ren & Stimpy

1942- In Pennemunde Germany, a group of Nazi scientists led by Dr. Werner Von Braun successfully launch a 12 ton rocket that flies 200 miles. The good thing is Braun proves his thermos-bottle type liquid-fuel rocket engines arranged in a cluster of three can work. After the war they become the basis of NASA's and Soviet rocket programs in the 1950's. The bad thing is the Nazis named them the Vengance-2, (V-2) fill them with explosives and started shooting them at England. When the war ended Von Braun and his team had been working on a rocket that could carry explosives 4,000 miles- to America.

1955- 'Good Morning, Captain.' The Captain Kangaroo kiddy Show debuted on television.

1955- The Mickey Mouse Club TV show premiered. “Who’s the leader of the Band that’s Made for you and me…?”

1957-Walter Lantz's The Woody Woodpecker T.V. show debuts.

1957- Jayne Mansfield met Greta Garbo and asked for her autograph.

1961- The Dick Van Dyke Show premiered. It made stars of Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore and was written by ex-Sid Caesar writer Carl Reiner and Rocky & Bullwinkle writer Alan Burns.

1967- Folksinger and union activist Woodie Guthrie died of Huntington’s Chorea. His family dumped his ashes in New York Harbor then went to Nathans on the Coney Island Boardwalk for hot dogs, Woody’s favorite.

1992- Bald Irish pop star Sinead O’Connor caused a fuss by tearing up a picture of the Pope on the show Saturday Night Live. She was later booed off stage during a concert at Madison Square Garden.

1993- THE RAID ON MOGADISHU- US troops were deployed with other UN forces to the civil war wracked nation of Somalia to aid the starving population. Once there they found themselves plunged in a chaos of heavily armed warring clans. This day a Delta Force was sent into the capitol city Mogadishu to apprehend lieutenants of the faction leader Mohammed Farah Idide. Once there two helicopters were shot down by hand held missiles and the Deltas were surrounded in the narrow streets by swarms of hostile militia. The US forces fought their way out with the aid of UN Pakistani mountain troops. But the images of dead American troops being dragged through the dusty streets by gleeful Somalis soured the American public back home and the forces were soon withdrawn. Idide was later assassinated and the chaos continued. The Ridley Scott film BLACK HAWK DOWN dramatized the incident.

1995- After a long sensationalist trial turned into a media spectacle, celebrity O.J. Simpson was acquitted of the double murder of his second wife Nicole and Ron Goldman. He was later convicted in a wrongful death suit brought in Civil Court by Nicole’s family.

2002- Disgruntled Gulf War vet John Allen Mohammed and his 17 year old stepson John Lee Malvo went on a shooting spree in the suburbs of Washington DC as the DC Sniper. They shot thirteen people at random with one bullet each and terrorized Maryland and Virginia before they were caught. Even Son of Sam killer David Berkowitz was employed from prison to appeal to the Sniper to stop.

2003- The Siegfried and Roy magic show in Las Vegas comes to an end after a large Bengal Tiger attacks Roy Horn and tears his throat open in front of an audience. Most thought it was part of the act.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What was the Gilded Age?

Answer: The time after the Civil War to the Turn of the Twentieth Century (1865-1899), was known in America as a time when the Industrial Revolution created a class of fabulously wealthy tycoons who paid almost no taxes. Much uh…. Like it is now. Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Huntington, Stanford, Astor, Morgan.

While working people toiled in bad conditions for long hours and little pay, Rich People flaunted their wealth and tried to outdo one another in conspicuous displays. Uh… much like now. People’s decorative taste included a lot of overstuffed furniture and gold leaf, and gold paint on decorative moldings.

The term was coined by Mark Twain in his 1873 book The Gilded Age.

Quiz: What was the Gilded Age?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase ” Born with a silver spoon”?
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Birthdays:Richard III, Nat Turner, Mohandas K. Ghandi known as the Mahatma- the Great Soul, Spanky MacFarland, Julius Marx known as Groucho Marx, Bud Abbot, Moses Gunn, Graham Greene, LeRoy Shield -composer of the music in the Hal Roach short comedies, Donna Karan, Gordon Sumner known as Sting is 57, Lorraine Bracco-Dr Melfi in the Sopranos, Tiffany, Kelly Ripa, Ian McNeice- the newsreader in the HBO Series ROME.

Happy World Farm Animals Day

1608- Dutch lens grinder Hans Lipperschei sent to the States General in the Hague a plan for an invention to see enemies at great distances. It used a tube with concave lenses on one end and convex lenses on the other. The Telescope. Another Dutch lens maker asked for a similar patent. But it was Italian scientist Galileo Galilei who read their doctoral papers and a year later invented his own telescope. He was the first to train it on the Universe.

1925-The first bright red Leyland doubledecker omnibuses appear on London streets.

1928 - This was a busy day at Victor Records Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. DeFord Bailey cut eight masters. Three songs were issued, marking the first studio recording sessions that made Nashville known as Music City, USA.

1933- Library of Congress musicologist John Lomax met with an Arkansas chain gang convict Hudlan Ledbetter, who everyone called Leadbelly. He recorded work songs of his called "the Rock Island Line, Midnight Special and Irene Good Night.'. Leadbelly became world famous and recorded his own versions 3 years later. Lomax died in 2002.


1937 - Ronald Reagan, just 26 years old, made his acting debut this day with Warner Brothers release of "Love is in the Air".

1950- Charles Schulz's "Peanuts" comic strip debuts. Good ol' Charlie Brown was the name of a fellow post office worker all the guy's liked to play jokes on. Schulz's idea 'little folks' was initially rejected by all the major comic syndicates. Three months before the strip was accepted his girlfriend broke off their engagement. He had left his job at the post office and she was convinced he would never amount to anything. At the time of his death Charles Schulz had mountains on the moon named for his characters and was arguably the most successfull visual artist in the world.

1954- Elvis Presley is fired from Nashville's Grand Ol' Opry Show after one performance. He was told :"Son, you ain't a' going no where. Go back to driving a truck!"

1955- "Good Eeeeeeevening." The master of mystery movies, Alfred Hitchcock, presented his brand of suspense to millions of viewers on CBS on this night.


1957- Raintree County, the first film in Panavision.

1958- The Huckleberry Hound Show.

1959- The television show the Twilight Zone debuts. Producer/writer Rod Serling had fought network execs for months that a mystery-suspense show could compete with all the Doctor and Cowboy shows on TV. He originally wanted Orson Welles to be the host of the show but Welles asked for too much money. So Serling decided to host it himself. He personally wrote 90 episodes. Twilight Zone is a term airline pilots used for the area when both the clouds and ground are invisible from view and you lose your bearings.

1967- San Francisco Police raid the Haight-Ashbury home of the rock band the Grateful Dead, busting everyone for possession of narcotics.

1977- After a month following what appeared to be an attempt to steal the body of Elvis Presley from Forest Hill Cemetery, both Presley's and his grandmother's bodies are moved to Graceland.

1978- Future TV star Tim Allen was busted in Kalamazoo Michigan for selling cocaine.

1985- Actor Rock Hudson died of AIDS. The first major celebrity to die of the disease.
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Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is the origin of the phrase ” Born with a silver spoon”?

Answer: In wealthy Gilded Age families, a baby gift would be a ceremonial personally engraved baby spoon of solid silver, for baby’s first feeding. Since then, to be born rich is to be born with a silver spoon in one’s mouth.

For a long time, friends have bugged me, if you're an artist, how come your website doesn't have any ART on it..? SO, alright already! I'm putting examples of some of my stuff up in the Gallery Section here.

Check it out.

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Question: What is the origin of the phrase ” Born with a silver spoon”?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What do London, Vienna, Cologne, Seville and Caesarea all have in common?
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History for 10/1/2008
Welcome to Month Number 8, Octubrius to the Romans. In 138 AD the Roman Senate wanted to rename month eight as Faustina, after the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. But being a rare modest empress, she declined the honor.

Birthdays: Vladimir Horowitz, Julie Andrews is 70, Walter Matthau, Richard Harris, Phillipe Noiret, James Whitmore, Pres.Jimmy Carter is 82, Everet Sloane, Rod Carew, Stanley Holloway, Tom Bosley, Chief Justice William Rheinquist, Max Morath, Mark McGuire, Randy Quaid, Cindy Margolis

331BC. BATTLE OF GAUGAMELA or Arbelum - Alexander the Great's greatest victory over the Persian army of King Darius IV. Darius had sought to once and for all destroy this Greek troublemaker by assembling an enormous army from all over his kingdom. But this multinational, polyglot force had no cohesion and the disciplined Macedonian-Greek veterans knifed through their ranks. The Persian kingdom collapsed and Alexander soon captured his capitol and family.

326 A.D. Emperor Constantine the Great bans sentencing criminals to Gladitorial schools, effectively ending Gladitorial Combat. Games continued on a little while longer using prisoners of war but the fun and professionalism had gone out of it. The last recorded bout in Rome was in 407AD.

1202- To the sound of massed trumpets and singing the hymn Veni Creator Spiritus, the knights of the Fourth Crusade left from Venice for Constantinople and the Holy Land.

1273- German Electors choose Duke Rudolph of Hapsburg as Holy Roman Emperor. The Hapsburg family was the most successful dynasty in Europe. They remained in power (with one or two interruptions) for 645 years, finally being deposed in 1918. And several Hapsburgs are still around in case Austria gets tired of republican democracy. Dr. Otto von Hapsburg is a member of the European Parliament.

1857- Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary premiered in magazine installments. Flaubert was tried for pornography but acquitted.

1880- John Phillip Sousa was named leader of the Marine Corps Band and began his career as the March King.

1903- The First World Series of Baseball. The Boston Pilgrims had lost the first game today to the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-3, even though Cy Young was the starting pitcher. But Boston went on to win the series in best of nine games. Yes, that’s not a typo, Boston did win a World Series. There was no 1904 World series because the owners couldn't agree on a format.

1908- Ford announces the Model "T" the "Tin Lizzie" the first mass produced affordable car. It was called the Model T because it took Twenty prototypes to perfect it. The Model T cost $825 dollars and paid on installments with as little as 10 dollars down. It’s top speed was 45 miles and hour and 15 million were sold. When they asked Henry Ford what color should it be, he replied: "Any color so long as it's black.' The auto goes from being a rich mans plaything to something every home could afford.

1911- A bomb blew up the L.A. Times building, killing 23 people. The Times had a hostility to unions and two union organizers the McNamara Brothers were arrested.
Despite having Clarence Darrow as a lawyer they were convicted, possibly because halfway through the trial the brothers confessed and Darrow had to beat a charge of jury-tampering. As the MacNamaras were hanged they shouted 'Hurrah for Anarchy!'

1919- THE FIX IS IN- First game of the 'fixed' world series. The Chicago White Sox had the best team in baseball at the time, but Charles Comisky paid them wages lower than most minor league teams. They were nicknamed the Black Sox because Comisky was too cheap to pay for laundering their uniforms. So this year five players accepted bribes from gangster Arnold Rothstein to throw the world series. Pitcher Eddie Cicotte ,who spent much of the previous night sewing $10,000 into the lining of his overcoat, at first threw a perfect fastball strike, then hit the batter in between the shoulderblades- a signal to the gangsters that "The Fix was In" Cincinnatti won this game 9 -1 and eventually the series. The scheme was uncovered a year later and Baseball Commissioner Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis banned 8 top the Sox players from ever playing again. The White Sox did get back to the World Series until 1959.

1932- Babe Ruth's "Called" Home Run. Ruth was hitting against a Chicago Cubs pitcher when he pointed with his bat towards right field. He then swung his bat and hit a home run over the right wing bleachers.

1937- After heavy lobbying by millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst the first Federal law banning Marijuana goes into effect. The law was sought chiefly by southwestern states, that wanted to have an excuse to deport Mexican immigrants. Plus Hearst had many powerful paper manufacturers behind him who wanted wood pulp to be the chief source of paper products rather than hemp, which grows, well…. like a weed.

1942-The test flight of America’s first experimental jet aircraft- the XP59A Comet.

1944- Nazis doctors in Buchenwald concentration camp began conducting experiments on homosexuals.

1945- Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin left the cartoon business to work full time at Paramount doing live action movies. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.

1946- NUREMBERG-The verdicts read in the International Military Tribunal Trials of top Nazi war criminals. Herman Goering, Hans Franck, Keitl,Jodl and 8 others got death sentences, their bodies later to be burned in the very crematoriums they created. Others like Rudolf Hess life prison terms.

1947-THE BIRTH OF THE BURBS- William Levitt's postwar dream, a planned community of affordable pre-fab homes on the outskirts of New York, called Levittown, is born. Mr. and Mrs. Bladykas moved into the first 2 bedroom house, which cost $7,990 bucks. The first true suburb.

1949- THE EAST IS RED - Mao declared the Peoples Republic of China. "Now Let the World Tremble! " he said. In China today is a holiday –National Day. Contrary to paranoid conservative American politicians who feared the growing global Communist Conspiracy, Soviet dictator Stalin continued to support Chiang Kai Chek’s nationalist government and always hated Mao. During World War Two, Mao sent his wife to Moscow for safety. Stalin locked her up in a lunatic asylum just to piss him off.

1952- This Is Your Life TV show hosted by Ralph Edwards premiered.

1957- Los Angeles outlaws garbage incineration to try and cut down smog levels. Even though Los Angeles has reduced it's pollution levels by 30% in ten years it still had the worst air in the United States until surpassed by Houston in 1999.

1958- NASA born. The National Aeronautics & Space Agency. The U.S. government takes the space program out of the hands of the military and sets up a civilian space agency to get us into orbit.

1962- Johnny Carson took over the Tonight Show, after host Jack Paar in a rage walked of the set and resigned. Paar was annoyed at network censors for cutting a comedy sketch about a toilet.

1964- THE FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT- It’s hard to believe now, but once upon a time most US universities had strict laws against students holding political protests on campus. It changed when this day on the campus of Berkeley, Cal., Jack Weinberg was arrested by Oakland police for distributing Civil Rights pamphlets. A mob of students surrounded the police car he was handcuffed in and would not let it proceed. The crowd held the car for 32 hours as speakers stood on the roof and made speeches denouncing the ban and other issues. The University lifted the ban on public political rallies and set the stage for the Ant-War protest of the 60’s.

1966- Largest demonstrations in China of Mao's Cultural Revolution.

1968-George Romero's weird film "Night of the Living Dead' premieres.

1982- Disney's EPCOT opens.

1987- The Whittier Earthquake rocks L.A. 5.9 on the Richter Scale killed 8 and caused millions in damage.

1992 -The Cartoon Network started.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do London, Vienna, Cologne, Seville and Caesarea all have in common?

Answer: They were all first founded as Roman Legion camps. Cologne means Colony.

Happy Rosh Hassannah to all my animation Mizpoche!



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Question: What do London, Vienna, Cologne, Seville and Caesarea all have in common?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What do Boston, Montreal and Phoenix have in common?
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History for 9/30/2008
Birthdays: William Wrigley the Chewing Gum king 1868, Truman Capote, Eli Weisel, Lester Maddox, Buddy Rich, David Oistrach, Deborah Kerr, Angie Dickinson, Marylin McCoo, Len Cariou, Johnny Mathis, Rula Lenska, Eric Stolz, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Elfman is 37

1187-SALLADIN CAPTURED JERUSALEM- After destroying the Crusader army at The Horns of Hattin in July the Sultan of Egypt laid siege to the Holy City. The Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem threatened to destroy the Al Acqsa, Dome of the Rock and other Moslem Holy Places if Salladin didn't agree to mild treatment of the Christian citizens of the city. Salladin didn't want his name to go down in history with such an infamy, so he agreed. Still, he consoled himself with beheading 3,000 captured Knights Templar (you gotta have some fun). Remember Richard Lionheart had 5000 Arab people chopped up outside St.Jean d’Acre just to piss Salladin off. The Queen of Jerusalem, Yolanda DeCourtenay, wife of Baldwin IV 'the Leper King '(deceased), went into exile looking for Western support for more Crusades. Despite her efforts the Europeans never got back Jerusalem and Yolanda's titles passed from one courtly alliance to another. Today Dr. Otto Von Hapsburg, a retired dentist from Stuttgart, European Parliament member and heir apparent to the Austrian Empire has among his other titles King of Jerusalem.

1630- Pilgrim John Billington became the first American hanged for murder. Known as the “Wickedest Pilgrim Father” criminologists call him the first American crook.

1789- After adopting the Constitution, setting up the Supreme Court and working with the first President, the First Congress of the United States adjourned. The current congress is called the 106th.

1791- Mozart's opera "Die Zauberflotte, The Magic Flute" premiered at Emanuel Schiknader's theater in Vienna. One of the theories about Mozart's death was that he put so much FreeMason's secret ritual into the story, that the Masons did him in for violating their secrecy. The Papageno-Papagena duet when they meet at the end was Schiknader's idea. Mozart gave pyrotechnical trills to the coloratura aria of the Queen of the Night, but privately he laughed at such singing as “Cut Up Noodles”.

1846- Dr. William Morton first pulled a tooth using ether as an anesthetic.

1868- Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women first published in installments.

1888- Jack the Ripper killed two more prostitutes in the Whitechapel area of London, Elizabeth Stride and Catherine Eddowes

1919- The Fleischer Brother's first Out of the Inkwell cartoon featuring Koko the Clown. Koko was rotoscoped- meaning traced from live action like Motion Capture does today. Dave Fleischer put on the clown suit and was filmed by his brother Max.

1930- Death Valley Days show premiered on radio, sponsored by Twenty mule Team Borax powder. When it moved to television in the 50’s the host was Ronald Reagan.

1935- George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess premiered at the Colonial Theater in Boston. It flopped originally but after some rewrites it became a major hit.

1942-THE STAR OF AFRICA- Just prior to the Battle of El Alamein the top German fighter ace Hans Joachim Marseilles The Star of Africa died when his ME 109F caught fire and his parachute didn’t open. Marseilles had shot down 158 aircraft in one and a half years. He was just 22. His marksmanship over the Sahara desert was so good that his wingman was nicknamed “The Adding Machine” for his only job seemed to be to watch and tally up the enemy planes, that Marseilles shot down. Because of the desert heat this air ace fought his battles in shorts and white tennis shoes.

1947- The first World Series Game on Television- New York Yankees beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-3. Gillette and Ford paid $65,000 to sponsor the entire series.

1952- This Is Cinerama, showcasing the widescreen film process, opened in theaters.

1955-James Dean (24) died when his Porsche 550 Spyder crashed head on into a pickup truck driven by college student Donald Turnipseed on Highway 41 outside of Paso Robles, California. Dean was driving 85 mph at dusk without his headlights on, and two hours earlier had been given a ticket for speeding. Until now the American public had only seen him in one movie- "Rebel Without a Cause" and some TV work. Giant and East of Eden had yet to be released, yet the legend endures to this day. In an errie coincidence, Dean filmed a public service announcement promoting automobile safety. His last lines were:” Remember, the life you save may be mine!”

1960-Hanna Barbera's "The Flintstones" debuts. For six seasons in prime time the inhabitants of 301 Cobblestone Lane, Bedrock, was one of the most successful tv series ever. Originally going to be named the Flagstones, then Gladestones, before Flintstones. Ed Benedicts' designs with Alan Reed as the voice of Fred, Jean Van Der Pyl the voice of Wilma, Mel Blanc doing Barney and Bea Bernadette doing Betty. Trivia: Wilma became the first character on television to appear visibly pregnant. Lucille Ball went through her pregnancy on TV in 1953, but she was not allowed to be seen as such, covered with a lot of big clothes and filmed from the neck up.

1971- The Baseball Washington Senators played their last game in RFK Stadium. Their fans rioted and threw so much trash on to the field that the game was declared a forfeit. The Senators moved to Texas and became the Texas Rangers.

1982- The TV comedy Cheers premiered. The Beacon Street Bar in Boston where everybody knows your name. It made stars of Ted Danson, Woody Harrelson, Kirsty Alley and Kelsey Grammar.

1990- READ MY LIPS! President George Bush Sr made the cornerstone of his policy the fact that he’d never raise taxes- He declared “Read my lips, no new taxes!” Well today he went back on his word and announced a hefty tax increase of $134 billion. When a spokesman was called on this obvious flip-flop he responded:” The Presidents position has Evolved.” So did the American public’s view of Bush, they voted him out of office.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do Boston, Montreal and Phoenix have in common?

Answer: They all began as Indian villages. Shawmut, Hochelaga and Pima.