Quiz: Why is a signature called a John Hancock?

Yesterdays’ question answered below: What do you mean by something being called apocryphal?
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History for 8/3/2008
birthdays: British Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin, Elisha Otis inventor of the Elevator, John T. Scopes- the teacher accused in the Monkey Trial, Habib Bourghiba, Ernie Pyle, Gene Kelly, Lenny Bruce, Tony Bennett, John Landis, Jay North, Dolores Del Rio, Leon Uris, Ann Klein, Martin Sheen

126 B.C. HANNIBAL DEFEATS THE ROMANS at CANNAE. Hannibal's defeat of a much larger Roman army is one of the great pieces of strategy still studied today. He had crossed the Alps to attack Italy with 30 war elephants but only 3 or 4 survived the crossing. The one-eyed Carthaginian was one of histories few conquerors with a sense of humor. When a nervous warrior named Gisgo remarked to him: "General, there must be a million Romans down there." Hannibal replied " Yes, and I’ll wager not one of them is named Gisgo". Hey, for a two thousand year old joke that's not bad ! His maneuvering and use of cavalry annihilated the top generals of Rome and left nothing between him and the city . Yet he uncharacteristically hesitated until the Romans recovered. His cavalry commander Mago snarled at him:" You know how to win battles, but not a war."The Romans recovered eventually drawing him off to Africa to protect his home city Carthage, where he was defeated by Scipio Africanis at Zama. Years afterwards Roman mothers would scare their children at night by recalling the old cry Annibale ad Portas! Hannibal is at our Gates!

48 B.C.-Battle of Pharsalia- Julius Caesar defeats his political rival Pompey the Great in northern Greece. Pompey fled to Egypt where he was murdered. Caesar came in hot pursuit where he met Cleopatra.

1492- One half hour before dawn Christopher Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria in search of the Indies. This was the first of four voyages. He took on board a linguist fluent in Turkish ,Sanskrit and Hebrew to speak to any natives they might encounter.

1769- Spanish explorer Gaspar de Portola made the first-ever recorded mention of the Rancho La Brea "tar pits" in Los Angeles: "The 3rd, we proceeded for three hours on a good road; to the right of it were extensive swamps of bitumen which is called chapapote. We debated whether this substance, which flows melted from underneath the earth, could occasion so many earthquakes.”

1858- British explorer John Speeckes discovered Lake Victoria Nyanza, the source of the Nile River. The question of the Nile's origins had become a cause celebre among British explorers and debate raged fiercely. Speeckes was traveling with famed Orientalist Richard Burton, translator of the Arabian Nights stories, but Burton absented himself from the last leg of the journey because of malaria. He regretted this decision for the rest of his life and grew to hate Speeckes. Speeckes and Burton began a feud that may or may not have contributed to Speeckes accidental suicide in 1864.

1916- Sir Roger Casement was executed for treason in London. Casement was an Irish patriot who went to Berlin to get Germany to fund the Irish Easter Sunday Uprising and he exposed human rites violations done by the Belgians in the Congo. After his conviction many leading English intellects like Arthur Conan-Doyle and Bernard Shaw lobbied for mercy for Casement, but the government produced his “black diaries” from his home in London, that proved he was homosexual. So the mercy movement was silenced, and Sir Roger Casement was hanged.

1943- In Sicily Gen. George S. Patton while touring a field hospital encountered a Pvt. Herman Kuhl. Private Kuhl wasn't physically wounded but suffering from nervous exhaustion called today Traumatic Stress Syndrome. Patton angrily accused him of cowardice and slapped him down. Allied High Command ordered Patton to apologize to Kuhl and the entire army, then recalled him to England. He would have no part in military actions until after D-Day, to the amazement of the Nazis General staff. Patton never could understand battle fatigue, I guess he never got tired of it.

1948- Time Magazine editor Whittaker Chambers publicly denounced a top Truman presidential aide Alger Hiss of being a Russian spy. Alger Hiss was a protege of both Franklin Roosevelt and Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. The Hiss investigation eventually convicted Hiss of espionage based on the 'pumpkin papers', incriminating documents Chambers said were found hidden in a pumpkin. The senate investigation shot to national prominence a new young congressman named Richard Nixon. In 1991 Soviet KGB files revealed Hiss was never a spy.

1963 –Unemployed television producer Alan Sherman released an album of comedy songs at the request of his friends. Called “My Son the Folksinger” it contained the hit “Hello Muddah, Hello Fadduh, Here I am at, Camp Granada” and became an overnight sensation.

1966- While celebrating his 39th birthday, Comedian Lenny Bruce died of a morphine overdose. The groundbreaking comedian who coined the term “T & A” was arrested in 1964 and charged with obscenity for using the "F" word in his act. President Johnson and his opponent Senator Barry Goldwater could swear enough to make a sailor blush, but comedians were only supposed to make mother-in-law jokes. Bruce served six months, was broken physically and financially and no club would hire him. Yet today he is the model for all modern stand-up comedy. Phil Spector said: Lenny died of an overdose of cops” Today no one is arrested for telling jokes. Whether he leapt to his death from a window yelling “ I’m Super Jew! ” is a matter of legend.

1981- U.S. Air traffic controllers (PATCO) go on strike despite Pres. Reagan's warning they would be fired. Reagan was once president of the Screen Actor’s Guild. Ironically the only U.S. President who has ever been a labor leader was the most union-busting president of all time.

1996- The silly dance the Macarena by Los Del Rio becomes the #1 hit worldwide.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What do you mean by something being called apocryphal?

Answer: The Bible, like any other book, was subject to editing. Rabbi Akivah comes down to us as one of the champions of keeping the Psalms and the poetry of David in the final. From 200BC to 100AD all the other Bible stories, Judith, Tobit, The Prayer of Manassah, was gathered up in a collection called Apocrypha, or the Hidden Books. They were considered by many churches as probably authentic but not enough to be considered sacred text. Since then, the term apocryphal has come to mean probably mythical, but believed by many to be true.

Quiz: What do you mean by something being called apocryphal?

Yesterday’s Quiz: In old cartoons there always seems to be a big, dumb character saying” duh..tell me about da rabbits, George..” where did that come from?
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History for 8/2/2008
Birthdays: Perre L’Enfant the architect –designer of Washington DC, Myrna Loy, Sir Arthur Bliss, James Baldwin, Carrol O'Connor, Joanna Cassidy is 63, Pete Sampras, Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster ), Jack Warner, Bob Beamon, Wes Craven, Apollonia, Edward Furlong, Kevin Smith is 37, Peter O'Toole is 76, Marie Louise Parker is 44

47BC- Battle of Zela. This day Julius Caesar took time off from Cleopatra and rushed up to Pontus where he destroyed King Pharnaces army in one large battle. Caesar sent a three word report to the Senate:“VENI VIDI VICI- I came,I saw, I conquered.”

1589- French King Henri III de Valois is stabbed in the guts by a demented Dominican, Brother Jacques Clement. He thought the King wasn't doing enough to stamp out Protestantism. The kings last words were: "That little bastard has killed me. Kill him!" Henry IV de Bourbon becomes one of Frances most well beloved kings. The children's song "Frere' Jacques" is about this assassin. "Brother Jacques, Why are you sleeping?" another King needs stabbing, in other words.

1865- The Confederate raider CSS Shenandoah, after sinking a dozen U.S whaling ships in the Bering Sea off Alaska, is told by a passing British merchantman that the American Civil War had ended over 3 months ago......doh! They refused to believe it until shown some newspapers.

1873- The first San Francisco cable car began service. Inventor Arthur Halliday had conceived the idea in 1869 after seeing a horse drawn tram fail to get up a steep hill.

1876- In Deadwood South Dakota at Nuttall & Manns No.10 Saloon gunfighter Wild Bill Hickock was shot in the back and killed while playing cards. He was 48 years old. He was holding the "Deadman's Hand" aces & eights, all black and a jack of hearts. His assailant 'Crooked Nose" Jack McCall was found hiding in a butchers shop and hanged for the murder. An eyewitness said:" It was very sad. Bill had won the hand too."

1914- THE GUNS OF AUGUST-General mobilization began throughout Europe for World War One. Large armies moved towards their frontiers amid hysterical street demonstrations of patriotism, Jubilant mobs shouting "A Berlin!" "Nach Paris!" ring out as Europe prepared to destroy itself. In Russia Czar Nicholas II in a solemn religious ceremony takes the oath his ancestor Alexander Ist had taken to drive out Napoleon. In Berlin a torchlight parade stopped under the Japanese Embassy to salute their friends. They were unaware that Japan had already decided to join the other side. The terrified diplomats thought the crowd was there to lynch them. From the Reichchancellory window German foreign minister Von Bethman-Holveig mumbled: "How did this all happen? If only I knew..." In London Lord Grey similarly reflected-" The Lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime."

1923- President Warren Harding died suddenly in San Francisco’s Palace Hotel. He was touring the country to get away from the festering 'Tea Pot Dome'' bribery scandal in Wash. The official cause of death was listed as “ a stroke of apoplexy”. It was rumored he may have committed suicide or had eaten bad crab meat. A popular idea was that First Lady Florence “Flossie” Harding had poisoned him. Harding was a womanizer and once locked a girlfriend he was entertaining in a closet in his office because his cabinet was coming. Flossie was well aware of his indiscretions; She refused an autopsy and had him quickly embalmed. She controlled all media coverage. To the press she was the Duchess. Nan Britton, the tootsie in the closet, immediately sued for $50,000 for the daughter she bore Harding. She lost but wrote a best selling book called the President’s Daughter in 1927. “Silent Cal” Coolidge became President.

1939- Albert Einstein then living in New Jersey wrote a famous letter to President Franklin Roosevelt describing the potential power of nuclear energy and that the US must develop atomic weapons before the Nazis do. The Manhattan Project was the result. In later years Einstein described this letter as “one of the biggest mistakes of my life.”

1961 - Beatles 1st gig as house band of Liverpool's Cavern Club.

1962- If you are a “Marilyn Monroe was done in by the Kennedy’s ” Conspiracy fan, a recently unearthed CIA document dated this day mentioned that Marilyn’s bungalow was under electronic surveillance and that she kept a “red book” diary. The diary disappeared after her death in two nights from now.

1990 –After Kuwait refused to waive Iraq’s outstanding debts. 100,000 troops of Sadam Hussein’s army invaded and occupied Kuwait.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: In old cartoons there always seems to be a big, dumb character saying” duh..tell me about da rabbits, George..” where did that come from?

Answer: John Steinbeck’s 1937 novel Of Mice and Men had two characters. Lennie, the big simpleton with the mind of a child, and George the small flinty one. It was very popular with Warner Bros cartoonists. Director Tex Avery saw the story as a play and loved it. He did the voice of the Lenny character in his cartoons himself.

Despite the heat, downtime and vacations, the LA Animation Community will have a busy month this August. The big news is SIGGRAPH, (Special Interest Group on Graphics and Interactive Techniques) the computer graphics society's annual gathering, is happening at the LA Convention Center downtown (8/11-15th). This provides Angeleanos with their semi-annual excuse to bother to drive downtown.
Other goodies this month include:

-Eric Goldberg will be having a book-signing/ launch party at Samuel French Bookstores in Studio City 8/6 7:00PM sponsored by CTN Creative Talent Networks.

-SOUND IN ANIMATION II, the Motion Picture Academy will host a show where award winning sound artists Mark Mangini ( Aladdin), and Randy Thom (Incredibles,Forrest Gump, Ratatouille, even Osmosis Jones!)will discuss the art of past sound efx masters like Looney Tunes Treg Brown, and Jimmy McDonald. Fri. 8/8 7:30PM www.oscars.org

-Sunday Aug 10th at 1:45PM I'll be giving a talk to Once Upon a Classic, a group of Disney Animation supporters. I'll be talking about my own career and signing copies of DRAWING THE LINE.

-FREDERIC' BACK is coming! Composer Michael Giacchino will host a tribute to Frederic's music master Normand Roger. Sun 8/10, 7:30PM www.oscars.org
Frederic's work will be on exhibit at the Academy's Linwood Dunn gallery in Hollywood.

-I'll be MC at a panel celebrating the art of FRANK THOMAS & OLLIE JOHNSTON at SIGGRAPH. Don Hahn, Ted Thomas, Dave Burgess, Kevin Koch, Randy Cartwright and Andreas Deja will join me in discussing the art of one of animation's most famous teams, and their continued relevance to our digital world. SIGGRAPH 8/13 10:30AM-noon.

-The School of Visual Arts will hold an Alumni Party at SIGGRAPH thurs at the Hotel Figueroa Thurs 8/14 6:00PM

-There will be an invitation-only Tribute to the Life of the late Ollie Johnston at the El Capitan Theater, 8/19.

-The Academy is hosting a CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF GEORGE PAL. The Hungarian immigrant filmmaker who created the PUPPETOONS shorts, then went into producing visual effects fantasies like THE WONDERFUL WORLD OF THE BROTHERS GRIMM, WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE, THE TIME MACHINE (1960) and THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) film director Joe Dante will host. Guests include Russ Tamblyn, Alan Young (Mr. Ed), Ann Robinson and effects master Jim Danforth. Weds 8/27th 7:30PM.

The Martians cruise LA, from George Pal's War of the Worlds

So, Dude! Wipe off that zinc-oxide! lots of cool reasons not to go to the beach this summer!

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Quiz: In old cartoons there always seems to be a big, dumb character saying” duh..tell me about da rabbits, George..” where did that come from?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What was the original language the Old Testament was written in?
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History for 8/1/2008
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Claudius, Emperor Pertinax, Francis Scott Key, Captain William Clark of Lewis and Clark, Herman Melville, Robert Todd Lincoln- Abe and Mary Lincoln’s only child to live a full life, Geoffrey Holder, Yves St. Laurent, Giancarlo Giannini, Dom Deluise, Jerry Garcia, Coolio, Sam Mendes

31 B.C. Marc Anthony fell on his sword. It wasn't an accident, that’s how they did themselves in back then.

14 A.D. The Roman Senate decided to change the name of the Month Sextilius (number 6) to the Month of the Divine Augustus, or August. Greek scientist Sosigene's plan for the Julian Calendar was a mix of alternating months- 30 days, then 31 days. The system got messed up when Augustus' relations hated that Julius Caesar's month July had 31 days but their August had only 30! So the Senate added a day onto August and took one from the last month of the year, February which was named for a god of the underworld that nobody liked anyway, which went down to 28.

1740- Thomas Arne's song "Rule Britannia" is performed for the first time.

1744- British chemist Joseph Priestley isolated oxygen, first calling it "dephlogisticated air" . Swedish chemist Carl Scheele isolated the gas in 1771-2 but didn't publish his results until after Priestley. Before this doctors knew how the heart, lungs and blood operated but no one was sure why. Some thought the heart was a little furnace that kept the blood warm, others thought it sifted blood as it passed through the ventricle walls like a cheesecloth.

1793 – Revolutionary France became the 1st country to adopt the metric system.

1797- According to C.S. Forrester, his British naval hero Horatio Hornblower received his captain's commission today.

1798- BATTLE OF ABU KIR or ABOUKIR BAY. Also called THE BATTLE OF THE NILE so it doesn’t confuse it with a land battle of Aboukir happening at the same time. The Nile itself is 20 miles away from Abukir Bay but it sounds better in dispatches. British Admiral Horatio Nelson caught Napoleon's fleet in an Egyptian harbor and destroyed it in a spectacular night battle. Nelson bore down upon the French ships even though it was already past 4 p.m.. The furious cannonading lit up the evening sky and caused the windows to rattle in nearby Alexandria. The English ships each had four lanterns hung on their stern rails so they could tell each other apart in the dark. The French complained about the English sailors disconcerting habit of cheering like a football match whenever an enemy ship went down or was dismasted. The French Admiral Brousse', his legs blown off by a cannonball, was propped up in an armchair on his poopdeck and died directing the fight. Nelson was wounded in the head by flying splinters and was temporarily blinded by his own blood. Fighting was over by dawn as the exhausted sailors dropped from their guns dead asleep. The victory ruined Napoleon's efforts to destroy the British Empire through Egypt and Turkey and link up with Indian Maharratta Tippoo Sahib in India.

1893 - Henry Perky & William Ford patent Shredded Wheat cereal.

1914- Count Friedrich von Portales, the German ambassador to Russia, suffering from nervous exhaustion after a sleepless week of negotiations, appeared in the office of the Czar's foreign minister Nikolai Sazonov. He asked if Russia had reconsidered Germany's ultimatum that Russia demobilize. Sazonov said they did not. Whereupon Portales pulled a paper out his pocket and read the Declaration of War: "His Majesty the Emperor, my august sovereign, accepts the challenge in the name of the empire and now considers himself at war with Russia!" Portales then burst into tears and was comforted by his old friend Sazonov. Late that night Czar Nicholas II was lowering himself into his bathtub with a glass of tea when a final telegram pleading for peace from Kaiser Wilhelm himself arrived. "Silly man! Hadn't he just declared war on me?" Nicholas remarked. The Czar said he slept soundly that night.

1919- Bela Kun resigned as leader of the Bolshevik state of Hungary. In the postwar chaos of the collapsed Austro-Hungarian Empire Bela Kun seized power in Budapest and tried to set up a Soviet regime like Lenin in Russia. This day he was deposed and Admiral Horty began a purge of all leftists. The violence in Hungary inspired young people like scientist Dr Edward Teller and UPA artist Jules Engel to be a livelong opponent of Communism. Bela Kun fled to Moscow where Josef Stalin had him shot in the Great Purges of 1936.

1924- Six months after his death Russian Leader Nikolai Lenin’s mummified body is unveiled in his great tomb in Red Square. After the USSR fell there were many calls to finally bury the Commie-Under-Glass but in 2001 the decision was made to leave him as is.

1933- The WPA Arts Project set up to employ starving artists on large public works projects like murals for libraries and bridges, etc. Artists like Grant Wood, Andrew Wyeth, Dorothea Lang , Orson Welles and Bernice Abbott got commissions. At the time American artists were obliged to post on the outside of their residences or studios a sign "A.I.R." or artist-in-residence. This was to warn the general public that the person at this dwelling may have nude models, bongo players and other such depravities cavorting around at all hours.

1936- The opening ceremonies for the Olympic Games in Berlin. The United States was the only nation to refuse to dip their flag in salute to the host head of state- Adolf Hitler. Filmmaker Leni Reifenstahl was given unlimited access to document the Games. She pioneered the use of slow motion, tracking shots and closeups to revolutionize the way sports is filmed.

1943- Late at night off the coast of Borneo the little torpedo boat P.T. 109 rammed and sunk by the Japanese destroyer Amaqiri. Lieutenant John F. Kennedy and his crew swam to an uncharted island. They will be rescued when a native in a canoe delivers a message from Kennedy scrawled on a coconut. “Naru Is. Native knows it. 11 alive need small boat.” When President, Kennedy had the native man to the White House and kept the coconut on his desk in the Oval Office. In June 2002 Dr Robert Ballard, who had discovered the Titanic, found the wreckage of the PT 109 on the ocean bottom.

1946-The first drive-in bank teller opens in Chicago.

1950-Jay Ward's "Crusader Rabbit" the first animated cartoon show made for television.

1953- The Alan Ladd movie Shane released.

1960 - Chubby Checker releases "The Twist" and starts a world wide dance craze.

1960 –A young Baptist preachers daughter who had sung nothing but gospel went into a recording booth to try her hand at R & B. Aretha Franklin’s career began.

1966- TEXAS TOWER WHITMAN-Lunatic Charles Whitman barricaded himself into the steeple of Texas University and shot 15 people at random during a day long gunbattle with police. The tragedy reached comic proportions when Texas recreational gun owners hauled out their pieces and joined the fun alongside the police. Whitman's Marine training was cited for his excellent marksmanship and his eccentric behavior, like constantly polishing his shoes during the day long battle. 1971- The Rock Concert for Bangladesh, organized by George Harrison. The first charity-fund raising rock-concert.

1971- The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour debuted.

1971- PBS started a new television series called Masterpiece Theater hosted by Alastair Cooke. It’s first presentation was a the Six Wives of Henry VIII. The high quality BBC and Thames Television programs became so popular in the US, that people said PBS meant Preferably British Shows.

1972- Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s first articles in The Washington Post exposing the depths of the conspiracy in the Watergate Scandal. The two journalists claimed they were fed information by someone very high in the Nixon White House who would only give his name as Deep Throat. In 2005 his identity was revealed as W. Mark Felt, the assistant head of the FBI. Their story was dramatized in the film All The Presidents Men.

1972- 187th Tactom Flight Group of the Air Texas National Guard suspended the flight privileges of Lieutenant George W. Bush for failing to take a drug test. The future US president went AWOL (away without leave) from May 1972-to May 1973 to work on his dads’ congressional campaign. It was well known the National Guard then was an easy way for rich kids to avoid being sent to combat.

1973- With the tag line “Where were you in ’62?” the film American Graffiti opened in theaters. The hit made skinny young director George Lucas a player in Hollywood, and made stars of kids like Harrison Ford, Richard Dreyfus and Susanne Somers.

1981-I WANT MY MTV! MTV goes on the air, rock videos 24 hours a day. The idea was funded by a consortium of investors including Mike Nesmith of the Monkees, now on the board of 3M Paper company. If you put on the TV this day you saw a slide of an astronaut for several hours, then finally a voice said :”Ladies and Gentlemen, this is Rock & Roll.” The first rock video played was by a British New-Wave Band called the Buggles entitled “Video Killed the Radio Star.” followed by a Pat Benatar single. There are now MTV channels around the world- Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin and Moscow, but they hardly ever show music videos. That kind of experimental filmmaking has moved to U-Tube.

1991- elderly movie queen Heddy Lamarr was busted in Tampa Florida for shoplifting.

1994- NASDAQ stock trading on Wall Street was halted for 35 minutes because a squirrel gnawed through a main fiber optic cable at the organization’s computer center in Connecticut.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What was the original language the Old Testament was written in?

Answer: This is a subject for massive study and debate. Scholars agree the oldest Hebrew versions of the Bible date from 1000 BC. But the first five books – the Pentateuch or Torah, go back to 1250 BC or earlier. Whether you believe they were written by Moses himself, taking dictation from God, is a matter of faith. The oldest parts, were written in Chaeldean, the old language of Sumer, where Abraham came from. Other parts were written in Aramaic. It’s generally accepted all changes and edits came to an end by 450BC. The Western Christian Churches got theirs from a Greek translation from the Hebrew. Interesting that when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947, they matched our modern Hebrew translation almost word for word.

Nice teaser trailer for Disney's 2D comeback film PRINCESS AND THE FROG.

http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/princessandthefrog/

copyright WDP

Lessez le Bon Temps Rollez


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Quiz: What was the original language the Old Testament was written in?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: What language was Beowulf written in?
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History for 7/31/2008
Birthdays: Liberace, Sebastian Sperling Kresge the founder of S.S.Kresge stores. Wesley Snipes, Milton Friedman inventor of supply side economics, Sherry Lansing, Geraldine Chaplin, Kurt Gowdy, Dean Cain, Leon “ Bull “Durham, Primo Levi, Ted Cassidy who played Lurch in the Adams Family, and according to J.K. Rowling this is the birthday of Harry Potter

1620- The Pilgrims set sail for America. They were aiming for Virginia but washed up in Massachusetts instead. Comedian Eddie Izzard noted:” The Pilgrims sailed from Plymouth and landed in…. Plymouth…how convenient for them!”

1763- Battle of Bloody Bridge. British Captain Dalyell tried a surprise attack on Chief Pontiac’s camp to relieve the Indian attacks on Fort Detroit. But Pontiac was forewarned. His warriors shot up Dalyell's force. He slew the captain, then ate his heart. yum!

1793- THE BIRTH OF THE TWO PARTY SYSTEM IN AMERICA- Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson informed President George Washington of his intention to resign. Jefferson was frustrated with his endless feuds with Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton and Vice President Adams. Although he told Washington he wished to retire to Monticello, in reality he planned to direct the strategy of his new opposition party the Democratic-Republicans. The party that became the Democratic Party was first called the Republicans, the term “democrat” was then seen as an insult. Jefferson called Hamilton’s Federalist party “the Monocrats” because he felt they had royal ambitions. From now on with few exceptions the U.S. President’s cabinet would not be a coalition of differing viewpoints but all from one party. The modern Republican Party would not be born until Lincoln’s time, 60 years in the future. Washington was appalled that his old friend and fellow Virginia planter Jefferson would take partisanship so far that he would desert him. Washington thought political parties a bad thing because it encouraged people to put the needs of their party over the needs of their country…. Heh, he should see things now.

1873- San Francisco's famous cable car system starts up.

1904- Russia completed the Trans-Siberian Railroad, linking European Russia with the Pacific Coast.

1914- Europe spirals down into world war. The Czar of Russia changed his mind one more time and ordered the Russian Army to mobilize. He told his chief of staff ” You may smash your telephone now, for I will not change my mind again.” The French government decided to reject the last minute German warning to keep away from their coming war with Russia and orders general mobilization. The leader of the French Socialists and best hope for European pacifists, Jean Jaure' was assassinated that night. He was shot through a window while sipping wine in a Paris café’. Jean Jaure’ had helped diffuse a similar crisis the previous year by chairing a last minute international summit in Switzerland. This time someone didn’t want him to spoil their fun. The murderer was never found.

1914- Meanwhile in America the reaction to the war in Europe was THE WALL STREET PANIC OF 1914. American investors feared the war would cut off European markets for their goods and thus be disastrous for business. So many sell orders deluged the exchange that on the advice of Treasury Secretary MacAdoo and J.P. Morgan, Jr. the New York Stock Exchange closed down completely until December. Brokers began to meet in the street around Wall and Nassau streets and make deals anyway. These 'Gutter-Brokers" were the world's only open functioning stock market for several months.
Ironically the war proved a boon to U.S. industry ( stock in Dupont went up 400% ) and caused the U.S. to supplant England as the world's largest creditor nation.

1922- Ralph Samuelson invented water skis.

1930- Radio mystery show “The Shadow” premiered. “Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows…heh, heh, heh.” Orson Welles did the voice of the crime fighting Shadow for a year in 1937 for $185 a week.

1948- President Truman dedicated New York City’s second major airport Idlewild Field. In 1963 the airport was renamed Kennedy Airport.

1971- Apollo 15 astronaut went for a drive on the surface of the moon in their land-rover.

1977- Son of Sam serial killer David Berkowitz had kept normally unflappable New York City in the grip of fear for one year. This night he killed his last victim and was caught because of his Volkswagen beetle being illegally parked. When writing the ticket the policeman noticed the 44 cal. pistol sticking out of a paper bag on the seat. Berkowitz was sentenced to three consecutive life sentences and today says he is a born-again Christian and he doesn’t like to dwell on the past. ( too bad ).

1995- The Walt Disney Company bought the ABC Network, the Discovery Channel and ESPN.

2008- The Mars Rover robot found water on Mars.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: What language was Beowulf written in?

Answer: English. Beowulf is considered the first work of English literature. Although it’s tough to read it in it’s original. The developing language looks much more like German or Scandinavian.