Quiz: As we near Valentines’ Day, why is a holiday dedicated to love and courtship named for a Saint? Did he date other saints?

Answer to yesterdays question below…Was Sherlock Holmes a real person?
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History for 2/11/2008
Birthdays: Thomas Edison, Leslie Nielsen, Eva Gabor, Tina Louise-Ginger on Gilligan’s Island, Rudolph Firkusny, Joe Mankewicz, Sidney Sheldon, Burt Reynolds, Sergio Mendes of the band Brazil 66, Al Eugster, Brandy Norwood, Bobby Picket -who recorded the Monster Mash, Jennifer Aniston is 39

1789- In Italy William Short wrote his friend Thomas Jefferson that as per his request he had obtained for him a pasta mold. The first known introduction of pasta in America.

1801- THE FIRST DEADLOCKED PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION decided in the House of Representatives after 35 separate votes were held. Upstart Aaron Burr managed to come out of nowhere and put together enough anti-Jefferson and anti-Adams votes to tie the election with Thomas Jefferson. President John Adams and Senator Charles Pickney were a distant 3rd and 4th. Former Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton was furious that fellow New Yorker Burr threatened to eclipse his power. New York and Pennsylvania were the swing votes in any deal between Yankee New England and the Aristocratic South. Since foreign born Hamilton could never be President, he liked to play kingmaker. So in retaliation Hamilton gave Adam's 36 votes to Thomas Jefferson, not out of any love for his old enemy, but just to screw Burr. Cranky old John Adams was furious that he was rejected by the public: “Damn Them! Damn Them! Anyone can see this elective government won’t work!” He took his sweet time moving out of the White House, making the president-elect wait in a tavern. All this political chicanery doomed the Federalists, the first American political party, and Burr would get his revenge on Hamilton with pistols in 1804.

1936- Famed German Expressionist animator Oscar Fishinger fled Germany for the U.S.

1963- Bell Jar author Sylvia Plath laid out bread and butter and two glasses of milk for her children, then stuck her head into an oven and committed suicide. Her poet husband Ted Hughes who had abandoned her waited until 1998 to tell his side of the story. Hughes wrote stories for his children like The Iron Giant.

1975- Margaret Thatcher became the first woman to lead the Tory Party in England. The green-grocers daughter from Finchley became the Iron Lady and dominated British politics until 1990.

1976-Chuck Jone’s tv special “Mowgli’s Brothers.”

1990- Nelson Mandela was freed by South African authorities after 27 years in prison. He was jailed in 1962 for a life sentence and became the conscience and symbol of the black resistance to white South African rule, called Apartheid.

1995- Disney Studios planned neighborhood suburban community Celebration opened.

2003- A small satellite named U-Map, while studying the faint glow at the center of the Universe, calculated the exact age of the Universe to be 13.7 billion years old. That stars first appeared at 200 million years after the Big Bang, and that the Universe will ultimately expand forever, not crunch back in on itself or explode in one big cataclysm.

2005- Playwright Arthur Miller died at 90.

2006- While hunting for quail, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot his hunting partner in the face. After being treated the victim, an attorney named Whittington, went before the press and apologized to Cheney.
Cheney became the first Vice President since Aaron Burr in 1804 to shoot someone while in office.
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Yesterday’s Question: In a recent survey a large part of British youth polled think Sherlock Holmes was a real person. Was he?

Answer : Nope. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle studied to be a doctor in Edinburgh. To pass the time he wrote stories inspired by Edgar Allen Poe’s Auguste Dupin, an eccentric sleuth who could solve crimes that baffled the police. Conan-Doyle’s teacher at Edinbugh Univ. was a Dr. Joseph Bell, who excelled at deductive reasoning, and had an assistant named Dr. Watson. Arthur Conan-Doyle also admired another doctor turned writer, the American Oliver Wendel-Holmes. A Study in Scarlet, the first Sherlock Holmes story, appeared several months after Conan Doyle attended a talk given by Oliver Wendell Holmes in London. No one is sure where he got the name Sherlock from, possibly a neighbor.
Despite these facts, Sherlock Holmes London address 221b Baker Street receives hundreds of letters a day requesting advice from the famous sleuth. The bank that occupies the site maintains a full time secretary to answer the mail.

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle

Well, it looks like we will have an uninterrupted Oscars after all. the WGA rank and file discussed the new deal with the producers and liked that they heard. Now every single person will not be totally happy with the deal, there is always one or two remaining hotheads wanting to fight on. But here is where pragmatism has to win out.
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Quiz: In a recent survey a large part of British youth polled think Sherlock Holmes was a real person. Was he?

Answer to yesterdays question below…
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History for 2/10/2008
Birthdays: Former British PM Harold Macmillan, Jimmy Durante, Bertholdt Brecht, Leontyne Price, Roberta Flack, tennis great Bill Tilden, Lon Chaney Jr., Stella Adler, Mark Spitz, Boris Pasternak, Dame Judith Anderson, Greg Norman, Donavan, Dr Alex Comfort author of the Joy of Sex, Michael Apted, Jerry Goldsmith, Robert Wagner, Laura Dern is 41

1722- Although not as famous as Blackbeard or Captain Kidd, Bartholemew Roberts was one of the most notorious pirates that ever flew the Jolly Roger. This day he met his end when the British warship HMS Swallow caught up with his ship the Royal Fortune near Cape Lopez in Gabon. The pirates had taken a merchantman the night before so most of them were too drunk or hung-over to fight. Captain Roberts bellowed defiance but as luck would have it he was struck dead by the first cannonball from the very first broadside the British fired. “ARR-MATEYS, ARR ….OUCH!” His men threw his body overboard and after a short fight surrendered. The pirates were rounded up and sent in chains to the Cape Coast in Ghana where an Admiralty Court hanged 54, the largest one time pirate hanging ever.
This stern treatment brought to an end the high period of piracy in the Atlantic and the Caribbean. Sea Piracy mostly died out by the mid 1800’s but vestiges persist even today. In 1999 China executed 15 men for piracy and in 2001 the New Zealand captain of the ship that won the America’s Cup was killed by pirates off the coast of Brazil.

1763- THE TREATY OF PARIS- Ending the Seven Years War ( or French and Indian War here). Europe makes peace and England wins an empire. France cedes her territory in India and all of Canada. Spain gets Louisiana. “Half a continent changed hands with the scratch of a pen”. To ensure speedy approval of the treaty, Prime Minister Pitt the Elder set up a booth outside the Parliament to distribute cash bribes to the members as they went in to vote. The French were bitter but philosophical. Minister Choiseul predicted:" With our threat removed the Americans will try for independence in ten years." American colonial representative Benjamin Franklin assured London:" Freedom is the last thing Americans want...."

1799- Napoleon marched out of Cairo at the head of his French expeditionary Army. He headed north towards Jerusalem and Syria but was stopped at the city of Jaffa. Around this time French soldiers discovered marijuana. The tough old soldiers thought it cheaper than brandy and didn’t leave you hung-over the next morning.

1837- Russian poet Alexander Pushkin dies of wounds from fighting a duel defending his wife's honor. His last words were to his books "Farewell, my friends..." Pushkin was the great, great grandson of a black man sent to serve Czar Peter the Great in his Moorish Guard.

1863- Alanson Crane invented the Fire Extinguisher.

1888- The City of Long Beach incorporated.

1907- THE EUHLENDBERG SCANDAL- Three of Kaiser Wilhelm's closest aides are accused by a socialist newspaper of being homosexuals. The aides, including the Kaiser's personal friend Count Phillip zu Euhlenburg, sue in court but are disgraced and ostracized in the way writer Oscar Wilde was suffering in England. The scandal shocked German society and the Kaiser suffered a nervous breakdown.
Discreet approval of gays in the military was common in the pre-war Austro-German officer corps. Around this same time Wilhelm witnessed the spectacle of one of his top generals, 56 year old Count von Hulsen-Haesler, did a dance for the army general staff in a pink ballet tutu and rose hair garland ! The general had done these pirouettes before but this time he suddenly seized up and dropped stone dead of heart failure. The generals in a panic squeezed his stiff body back into his uniform and monocle before calling the doctor.

1920- Major League Baseball banned the spitball pitch.

1929- Elsa Lanchester married Charles Laughton.

1938- RKO screwball comedy with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant “ Bringing Up Baby” premiered.

1940-MGM's "Puss gets the boot" the first Tom and Jerry cartoon and the first collaboration of the team of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.

1949- The premiere of Arthur Miller’s play "Death of a Salesman".

1962- U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers, shot down over Russia in 1960, was finally traded back to the U.S. for top Soviet spy Alexander Abel. In his memoirs Khruschev Remembers Khruschev later confided to Kennedy that he wanted to hang on to Powers through the American election of 1960 because he didn't want "that s.o.b. Nixon", as representing the administration, to have the advantage.

1966- CBS co-ops broadcasting the senate Kennan Hearings on the conduct of the Vietnam War with reruns of "I Love Lucy'. CBS news division president Fred Friendly quits in protest.

1966-Jaqueline Susanne’s novel The Valley of the Dolls first published. Although critics considered it cheap and trashy- Time Magazine called it “Dirty Book of the Month” and Truman Capote called Susanne in her heavy sixties eye shadow a “Truck Driver in Drag” Valley of the Dolls sold like wildfire. Its frank portrayal of single women enjoying casual sex and taking drugs was a big step in the sexual revolution of the 1960’s.

1966- Author Ralph Nader gained national fame when he testified to the Senate about the lax standards of auto safety. His greatest criticism was for GM’s Corvair. General Motors responded with a smear campaign trying to paint Nader as gay and anti-Semitic. Nader successfully sued them in court and many of the consumer advocates ideas are mandatory today like seat belts and listing gas efficiency on the sales sticker.

1993- Former black man Michael Jackson told Oprah Winfrey in a television interview that he wasn’t deliberately trying to whiten his skin but he was suffering from a rare pigment disease. And what about that nose?

1992- The children’s book- The Stinky Cheese Man debuted.
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Yesterday’s question: What is the origin of the phrase,” I gave him the whole nine yards”

Answer: 50 caliber Ammunition belts in the wings of a WW2 US fighter plane measured 27 feet, or nine yards...If the pilot shot off the entire belt, then he gave the enemy "the whole nine yards."

We all had a wonderful time at the Annie Awards at UCLA's Royce Hall last night. Ratatouille won most of the big awards as expected. Surfs Up won for best effects and production design. Robot Chicken for best TV show and EL Tigre for best childrens TV show. The Ub Iwerks Award was given to the inventors of FLASH, and the Winsor McCay Awards for lifetime achievement went to Glen Keane, John Canemaker and John Kricfalusi.
When Futurama won for direct to DVD, Matt Groening came up on stage waving a WGA Strike sign. Host Tom Kenny ( SPonge Bob) was pretty funny. But I thought the evening was taken by James Hong, veteran Chinese-American character actor ( Lo Pan in Big Trouble in Little CHina) He was very glib and had the audience rolling. James Hong has a role in the upcoming Dreamworks film Kung Fu Panda.
Take that, ASIFA!
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Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase,” I gave him the whole nine yards”

Answer to yesterdays question below…
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History for 2/9/2008
Birthdays: Constantine XI Paleaologus- the last Byzantine Emperor 1404, President William Henry Harrison, Samuel Tilden, Carmen Miranda, Alban Berg, Ronald Colman, Mia Farrow, Ernest Tubb, King Vidor, Mamie Van Doren, Roger Mudd, Illustrator Alberto Vargas, Carole King, Bill Veeck, Fred Harman, Joe Pesci is 65, Zhang Zhi-Yi., Painter Frank Frazetta, Mena Suvari is 29

1824- The House of Representatives decided a deadlocked presidential election in favor of John Quincy Adams even though he didn’t win the popular vote. After all, why vote for a guy just because his daddy was president? - Ahem!

1856- An early tabloid The London Illustrated News reported a live Pterodactyl dinosaur popped out of a rock and flew away when workers were excavating a railroad tunnel in Culmont France. Believe it or Not!

1861- The new Confederate States elected as their first and only president former US secretary of state Jefferson Davis. Among other projects Davis was once in charge of introducing Egyptian camels to the Southwestern deserts and creating the First US Army Camel-Corps. When the Southern states seceded Davis was hoping to become a general of Mississippi volunteers since he went to West Point, but not be made president. Old Sam Houston said Davis was "cold as a lizard and ambitious of Lucifer". Current Republican Senate leader Trent Lott has said Jeff Davis was his role model.

1900- Collegiate tennis player Dwight Davis created the Davis Cup.

1909- The First US narcotics legislation, this one against opium. At this time heroin, morphine and cocaine were all available in patent medicines. Marijuana wasn’t outlawed until after prohibition in the late 1930s. Cab Calloway reminisced about the Reefer Man on the streets of Harlem selling marijuana cigarettes 3 for 25 cents.

1932- Mobster Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll was a hit man for Dutch Schultz when he decided to go freelance and start shooting up New York. He earned the name "Mad Dog" for once gunning down school children who accidentally strayed into his crossfire. Finally he was so violent even the underworld couldn't stand him any more. This day Mad Dog Coll was waiting for a meeting in a soda shoppe on 23rd and 7th in Manhattan. Some one called him to the phone. While waiting on the line two gunmen jumped out and sprayed the phone booth with tommy gun fire. Dutch disliked freelancers...

1950- THE WHEELING SPEECH- Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy "Tail-Gunner Joe" delivered his speech in Wheeling West Virginia in which he blamed Communist subversion for all the ills of American society: the Soviet atomic bomb, the loss of China, fluoridated water, post nasal drip, the works. He dramatically waved a paper:" I have in my hand a list of 205 names- names given to the Secretary of State of known Communists who continue nevertheless to work and shape policy in the State Department !" The paper was blank, he had no such list. But the effect was electric. From 1950-1956 McCarthy’s anticommie witchhunt ruined hundreds of careers and elevated to national status folks like Richard Nixon, Whittiker Chambers, Roy Cohn and Bobby Kennedy.

1964- Ed Sullivan introduced the English rock band the Beatles to a nationwide t.v. audience. It was a "Rrrreally Big Shewww!" ( Sullivan’s signature line)

1967- The" Lindsay Snowstorm". John Lindsay was the handsome if confused mayor of New York in the sixties of whom the Robert Redford character in "The Candidate" was partially based. He tried to cut budget expenses by stripping New York of it's snowplow fleet, thinking they were unnecessary. The city was immediately paralyzed by 14 inches of snow. Plows had to be brought from as far as Montreal.

1968-"You did it! You Finally did it! Oh, Damn you all to Hell!!" the film the Planet of the Apes with a naked Charlton Heston premiered.

1971- The Sylmar Quake (6.8) rocks L.A.

1989- In testimony before the New Jersey State Senate World Wrestling Federation officials including President Vince McMahon admit that the sport of wrestling is purely entertainment and no one actually gets hurt. I’m shocked, shocked!

1990- Singer Del Shannon, who had a hit with the 1961 song Runaway, shot himself with a 22 rifle. Del Shannon was supposed to replace Roy Orbison in the Travelling Wilbury's, the group that featured Dylan, George Harrison, Tom Petty and Jeff Lynn. Orbison had died the previous year of heart failure and the Wilburys were starting to rehearse with Del Shannon. After Shannon's suicide, the group decided to disband.

1996- German World War Two figther ace Adolf Galland died at age 86. While other aces had skulls or dice painted on their planes, Galland preferred a Mickey Mouse on the tail of his Messerschmidt. Ach Adolf, ist dat der RAF on your tail? Nein, izt der Disney Legal Department! Himmel!

2001- Actor Tom Cruise filed for divorce from his wife actress Nicole Kidman.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Why is a mixed alcoholic drink called a cocktail?

Answer: In the 1730’s a popular ale house in colonial New York was called the CocksTail. They specialized in rum punch drinks with fruit juices in them. Another theory is that the cocktail was originally a morning drink to help you recover from the night before “a hair of the dog that bit you.” The cock being the herald of the morning., A lot of the cocktails we are familiar with today, Rob Roy, Fuzzy Navel, etc. were invented during Prohibition to mask the bad taste of homemade bootleg alcohol.

Tonight is The Annie Awards, when all us wacky cartoonists put on tuxedos and act like grownups for a night. Don't worry, we're just pretending. The orchestra level of UCLA's Royce Hall is sold out, so we expect a good crowd. Our presenters include Tom Kenny the voice of Spongebob, Paige O'Hara who played Belle and Patrick Warbuton. No picketlines around our event, so a good time will be had by all. Good luck to all the nominees.

last years Annies saw Steve Worth,the director of the ASIFA/Hollywood Animation Archive with Winsor McCay Award winner Andreas Deja.
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Question: Why is a mixed alcoholic drink called a cocktail?

Answer to yesterday’s question below- What is meant by highballing?
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History for 2/8/2008
Birthdays: Jules Verne, Dmitri Medeleyev- inventor of the Periodic Table of Elements, James Dean, William Tecumseh Sherman, John Williams, Bulgarian animator Ivan Ivano-Vano, Lana Turner, Jack Lemmon, Alejandro Rey, Ted Koppel, Nick Nolte, Buck Henry, Gary Coleman, Robert Klein.

1587- MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS BEHEADED at Fotheringay Castle. Circumstantial evidence proved Mary had not discouraged plots to overthrow and kill Queen Elizabeth. Truth was Elizabeth could never sit on her throne securely while Mary lived. While some could argue Elizabeth’s legitimate birth Mary’s mother was the sister of King Henry VIII. Apologists for Queen Elizabeth argue she did ordered the execution with great sadness but others say she cracked jokes as she signed the death warrant. Elizabeth and Mary never met face-to-face. Mary’s son James accepted his mothers death calmly, he hadn’t seen her since he was a toddler and his Presbyterian tutors were all filled him with hate for her.
It must have been a hard day at work for the headsman. First in order to ensure a good job, Mary gave a bribe to the executioner, but he muffed the first chop and had to do it in a couple of swings. Then, when the headsman picked up the head it plopped out of it's red wig. She had lost a lot of her hair to smallpox, as did Elizabeth and a lot of other folks. Finally, when they moved Mary's body, a yelping lap dog jumped out of her skirts and bit him. The heartbroken little lap dog refused all food, and died soon afterwards.

1672- THE SPECTRUM- Earlier in 1666 Sir Issac Newton bought a little prism stone at Stourbridge Fair. It inspired him to think about the principles of light. On this day he presented his paper to the Royal Society “New Theory about Light and Colors”. Newton discovered the Spectrum. That white light is not light devoid of color but made up of all colors which when broken up in a prism always assume the same spectral pattern Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, Violet.

1836- Davy Crockett with twelve Tennessee leathershirts arrived at the Alamo.

1864- Abraham Lincoln visited Matthew Brady's Photo Studio and posed for the photo's that would one day be on the Penny and Five dollar bill.

1893- THE FIRST RECORDED STRIPTEASE -discounting Salome’, of course. At Paris's famed Moulin Rouge an artist's model named Mona decided to get an edge in a beauty contest judged by art students by disrobing to music while walking up and down the stage. She was arrested and fined 100 francs. The students rioted. Vive le' France!

1915- THE BIRTH OF A NATION or The Clansman premiered at Clunes Auditorium in Los Angeles. Film pioneer and son of a Confederate veteran, D.W. Griffith's racist movie was considered for years the first American feature length film. Only recently the discovery of a 1913 Richard III film predates it. It is thought nowadays that Griffith was making a personal statement by the film, truth is there was a flood of Civil War films to mark the 50th anniversary of the conflict and the book the Clansman by Thomas Dixon was a hot property. President Woodrow Wilson ( another son of the South ) called it :"History written with a thunderbolt and I’m afraid all too true." Birth of a Nations’ inflammatory imagery and this politically incorrect Presidential endorsement helped a rebirth of the almost moribund Ku Klux Klan and caused a marked increase in lynchings of African Americans. But despite the film’s unfortunate politics it’s technique influenced world cinema and established once and for all the feature film length as the standard for all future motion pictures. It’s original running length was 3 hours. IN Later years D.W. Griffith lost his fortune and became a drunken has-been. Watching him at Chasen's Restaurant in the 1940’s pitifully beg MGM studio head Dore Schary for work inspired Billy Wilder to write the story for SUNSET BLVD.

1928- Englishman John Logie Baird transmitted a still television image across the Atlantic from England to Hartsdale New York. It was a still image of a woman. Baird was one of the fathers of Television with Vladimir Zworkin, Lee DeForrest and Deutches Telefunken.

1960- Adolph Coors III the heir to the Coors beer empire was killed in a failed kidnapping attempt. Joseph Corbett Jr was apprehended in Canada and charged with the crime. Ironically, Adolph Coors was reputedly allergic to beer.

1961- Nebraska teenager and future movie star Nick Nolte was busted for the first time. He was accused of selling fake Draft cards so his friends could buy alcohol. He was arrested for drunk driving in 2003.

1967- Georgy Girl by the Seekers goes to #1 in pop charts.

1994- Jack Nicholson destroyed the windshield of a neighbors car with a golf club, screaming “You cut me off!” He settled the matter out of court.

2002- The death of Sheldon Allman. He was 77. Sheldon was the lyricist of television songs like George of the Jungle and Mr. Ed .” A Horse is a Horse Of Course, Of Course”

2007- Penthouse centerfold and pole dancer turned heiress, Anna Nicole Smith, died from an overdose of prescription drugs. She was 39.
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Yesterday’s Question: What is the origin of the phrase “I’m Highballing it out of here.”

Answer: Before railroad trains had radio communications, signalmen would raise a large round white ball to the top of a pole to signal the engineer of a train that he didn’t have to slow down or make a stop, but could continue on with no obstructions. So highballin through town meant going by at top speed.

The date is set for the annual AFTERNOON OF REMEMBRANCE. This is when the animation community in LA gathers to remember our friends and colleagues who left us the previous year. A little later than usual this year, we will gather on Saturday March 1st at the historic Hollywood Studio Museum. It is the landmark building affectionately called the DeMille-Lasky Barn, where the first Hollywood movie was filmed. Cecil B. Demille’s office is still lovingly preserved there, maintained by Hollywood Heritage. We used to hold it in a church, but most animators get squirrely in such sacred places, and would rather be in someplace less solemn to recall stories of their friends.

Past speakers included Chuck Jones speaking about Friz Freleng, Joe Grant speaking about Marc Davis, Bill Stout speaking for Alex Toth and many more. This year we are honoring 47 people, from studio vice presidents to ink & paint artists, voice actors, writers. Jack Zander who died just shy of his 100th birthday, to James Street, voice actor of Strawberry Shortcake, who died in a skateboarding accident at age 13, the youngest honoree we’ve ever had to do.

Scooby Doo, characters designed by honoree Iwao Takamoto

Other honorees of 2007 include Iwao Takamoto who created Scooby Doo and Penelope Pittstop, Steve Krantz who produced Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz the Cat, Ryan Larkin, award winning Canadian animator who lived on the street, Jim Thurman who wrote the Roger Ramjet Show for Fred Crippen, Ray Erlenborn a sound effects artist who acted in Chaplin’s City Lights, and Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last, Will Schaefer who composed the music for the Flintstones and Yogi Bear Show, and Dave Hilberman, an artist/ activist who’s talents contributed to Walt Disney’s classic films, then co-founded UPA and Tempo Prod, and had the unique distinction of being one of the only artists personally fingered by Walt Disney to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee in 1947.
I’ll publish a complete list of honorees next week.

Background from Disney’s The Lion King, painted by honoree Gregg Drolette. Courtesy of The Van Eaton Gallery

The afternoon is free and is open for all the members of the animation family and their fans. Contact the Animation Guild Local 839 for more details.
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Question: What is the origin of the phrase “I’m Highballing it out of here.”

Answer to yesterday’s question below
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History for 2/7/2008
Birthdays: St. Thomas Moore, Eubie Blake, Sinclair Lewis, Larry "Buster" Crabbe, Laura Ingalls Wilder writer of Little House on the Prairie, Gay Talese, GI-Joe (the toy), James Spader is 48, Chris Rock is 43, Eddie Izzard is 46, Ashton Kutcher is 30

Happy Chinese New Year! Year of the Mouse. Gong Hai Fat Choi!

310 AD- Feast of St. Theodore the General. He commanded a Legion under the Emperor Licinius in Pontus. After admitting he had embraced the outlaw sect Christianity he was tortured and burned in a furnace. Two years before the ban on Christians was lifted.

457AD- After the death of the Roman Emperor Marcian, General Aspar proclaimed his friend General Leo the Armenian to be the new emperor of the Eastern Empire.

1601-Elderly Queen Elizabeth Ist dallied with a conceited courtier named Robert Deverueaux the Earl of Essex. This hot headed toyboy soon got it into his head he could overthrow the old Queen and take over her government. This night at his estate- the original Essex House, flattering friends paid for a performance of Master William Shakespeare’s play Richard II. Queen Elizabeth’s spies overheard and told her; the symbolism of Essex watching a play about a monarch justly deposed was not lost on her. Next day the Essex plot was crushed and he and all his buddies went under the headsman’s axe.

1792- The major European powers- Russia, Austria, Prussia, Spain and England announced a grand coalition to crush the Revolution in France. They considered it a pre-emptive war to prevent French people’s style revolution from over throwing their monarchies. About the only ally the French had was the American Republic, but they were too weak and too far away to be of any help.

1796- Napoleon and Josephine’s engagement was announced.

1807- BATTLE of EYLAU- Up until the 20th century armies traditionally avoided fighting in winter because of the added hardships of weather. After chasing the Russian army up into Northern Poland Napoleon put his French army into winter quarters and proceeded to bed down with his new mistress Countess Maria Walewska. Unfortunately a French division bumped into the main Russian force and a battle ensued. Everyone rushed there and an inconclusive slaughter raged in a blinding snowstorm. The battle was only ended when Marshal Murat massed all the French cavalry into one big juggernaut and sent it hammering through the Russian center.

1821- Yankee Captain John Davis became the first explorer to step ashore on the continent of Antarctica.

1904- Great fire of Baltimore.

1910- The Town of Hollywood annexed into the City of Los Angeles.

1925- Professor Raymond Dart of the University of South Africa named the small human like skull found in a lime deposit Australopithicus, a missing link between ape and man.

1931- Aviatrix Amelia Earhart married publisher George Putnam.

1937- PACKING THE COURT-Since seizing the initiative in 1933 to battle the Depression Franklin Roosevelt was used to having his own way with Congress. After the Supreme Court struck down important components of the NRA as unconstitutional FDR this night informed leading Senators that he was introducing a bill to expand the Supreme Court from 5 justices to nine so he could name his own men and create a majority to do his bidding. The heretofore docile Senate rose up and defeated FDR’s scheme, the resistance led by his own vice president Cactus Jack Garner. The newly invigorated Congress continued to defy Roosevelt until Pearl Harbor.

1940- Disney's classic "Pinnochio" opened nationwide.

1942- Despite being under heavy Japanese attack British commander Sir Spencer Percival vowed that Singapore would resist to the last man. Singapore surrendered one week later.

1942- Detroit assembly lines ceased all production of civilian automobiles and focused exclusively on war material- tanks, planes, trucks until 1945. When President Roosevelt challenged carmakers to help make America the "Arsenal of Democracy" in 1939 they dragged their feet. Now the government sweetened their orders with guaranteed profits, labor peace and they would sell at incredible discount the factories built at government expense.

1944- German Panzergrenadiers launched a heavy counterattack on the Allied beachhead at Anzio Italy.

1950- The US recognized the nation of Vietnam not as ruled by Ho Chi Minh, but ruled by French mandate under the Emperor Bao Dai.

1960- JFK PARTYS WITH THE RATPACK-Before he created the Peace Corps and Camelot, presidential candidate John Kennedy needed to relax and raise some hell. So in total secret he helicoptered down to Las Vegas and spent this night at the Sands Hotel with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Joey Bishop and his brother in law, actor Peter Lawford. These men were famous for their all-night Rat Pack parties, heavy drinking, party girls, poker and more. Sinatra introduced Kennedy to a party girl named Judith Cambell Exner, who would claim JFK as a lover at the same time as she was sleeping with Sam Momo Giancana, the don of the Chicago Mafia. In the wee dawn hours Kennedy slipped away to continue his race for the White House.

1964- THE BRITISH ROCK INVASION BEGAN. Thousands of screaming fans welcome THE BEATLES to New York for their first U.S. Tour. The last music out of England to be taken seriously by Americans was the Lambeth Walk, now the UK announced itself as a powerhouse of rock & roll. For a Brit to do Rock & Roll in America was as audacious as an American reciting Shakespeare in Stratford, but the welcome for the Beatles was so overwhelming that other bands like the Rolling Stones and Herman’s Hermits soon followed. Local New York disc jockeys Cousin Brucie and Murray the K wiggled to the front of the crowds and got a national audience by following the young musicians around. The crowds of teenagers were so excited they mobbed a Rolls Royce in front of the Warwick Hotel where the Beatles were staying just because they figured a Rolls Royce would be something they drove in. They actually used taxicabs.

1968- During the Vietnamese Tet Offensive a US Army colonel issued a statement to the A.P. after burning the tiny village of Ben Tre.:" We had to destroy that village in order to save it." It typified the sometimes dizzy logic the Army used to justify it’s actions.

1971- Women in Switzerland receive the right to vote.

1979- Nazis Angel of Death Dr. Josef Mengele was living in hiding in Brazil. This day the old man had a stroke while swimming and drowned. His death was kept secret until 1985.

1989- Retired tennis champ Bjorn Borg was rushed to a Madrid hospital and had his stomach pumped after he tried to overdose on sleeping pills.

1992- Twelve European nations sign the Maastricht Treaty of European Union.

1994 Jean Bertrand Aristide sworn in as democratically elected president of Haiti.

2001- Jean Bertrand Aristide sworn in as President of Haiti again. He was overthrown in 2003.
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Yesterday’s Question: There are hundreds of kinds of Typefaces in lettering- Geneva, Times, Baskerville, Old English. So what makes the typeface Helvetica so special that the Museum of Modern Art in NY had a special display about it?

Answer : Helvetica, created by a Swiss graphics firm in 1958, today is the most widely used typeface around the world for public signage.