QUIZ: Here’s another one about famous meetings. Of these meetings, which one never took place? Walt Disney and H.G. Wells, Walt Disney and Frank Lloyd Wright, Walt Disney and Max Fleischer, Walt Disney and Nikita Khruschev, or Walt Disney and Mussolini?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Napoleon & Wellington, Mozart & Beethoven, Michelangelo & Leonardo Da Vinci, Oscar Wilde & Walt Whitman. Of these encounters, which two people never met?
------------------------------------------------
History for 12/16/2007
Birthdays: TA-TA-TA-TUMMMMMM!!! Ludwig Van Beethoven, Catherine of Aragon (Henry VIII's wife number one), Marshal Gerbhard von Blucher, Lenoid Brezhnev, Jane Austen, Margaret Mead, Noel Coward, George Santayanna, Liv Ullmann is 66, Steve Bochco, Leslie Stahl. Quentin Blake- dean of British illustrators favored by Roald Dahl, William 'Refrigerator' Perry, Arthur C. Clarke is 89

1773- THE BOSTON TEA PARTY- The British Parliament had angered the colonists of New England by disallowing any tea to be imported except by British vessels and then a heavy tax to the Crown was to be paid on it's purchase. As New England women began to develop alternatives from grass and dandelions-what we now call Herbal Teas- the men of Boston threatened violence on any merchant who dared sell English tea.

On Nov 28th the good ship Dartmouth anchored at Griffith's Wharf with 144 tons of tea to be cleared of customs by December 17th. A mob gathered at the Old South Meeting House to discuss what to do. The call was made for 'The Mohawks!" In the crowd were Paul Revere and artist Jonathan Trumbull. At 6:00 p.m. men disguised as Indians boarded the Dartmouth overpowered the crew and tossed crates of loose tea into the harbor. British Admiral Montague watched the proceedings from his warship across the harbor, but didn't take any action "for fear of civilian casualties." He well remembered the political repercussions a few years earlier, when His Majesties troops fired into a snowball throwing crowd and the radical Yankees called it the Boston Massacre.
Next morning all of Boston developed mass amnesia. No one knew who did the deed. One man waited until he was ninety-three years old and the Revolution long over before he named who was there that night.

1900 -EARLY ANIMATED FILM "ENCHANTED DRAWINGS', James Stuart Blackton was a New York World cartoonist who used to do a vaudeville act in drag. He came to do an article on Thomas Edison then Edison put him on the payroll. He created this and several other trickfilms. It doesn’t move much more than his vaudeville lightning drawing act, His 1906 film Humorous Phases of Funny Faces is considered the first animated cartoon.

1905- Variety magazine born.

1907- THE WHITE FLEET- today Teddy Roosevelt sent a large contingent of US Navy battleships all painted white from Hampton Roads for a round the world cruise. It was billed as a goodwill tour but in an age when battleships were the viewed like nukes are today the message to other world powers was obvious. The US is a new power player in world affairs

1913- Young English music hall actor named Charlie Chaplin got a job at Keystone Studios in Hollywood. His first film he would play a villain.

1935- Hollywood movie star Thelma Todd found dead in her car in her garage in Malibu She was 30. She was a sexy comedienne who starred with Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton and the Marx Brothers and loved to party so much she was nicknamed"Hot Toddy". She knew New York mobster Lucky Lucciano. Was she done in by the mob, her jealous director boyfriend, was it a suicide or did she just pass out drunk in her car garage with the motor running? The mystery’s never been answered.

1944- Big Band Leader Glen Miller's plane disappeared over the English Channel. In 1988 ,a retired RAF engineer admitted he may have jettisoned some leftover bombs on top of the entertainer's plane while returning home from a bombing run.

1944- THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE- In his last gamble Hitler scraped together his remaining army reserves armed with new King Tiger tanks and launched them in an attack through the center of the allied armies. The Nazis panzers were spearheaded by a group of commandos in G.I. uniforms trained by one eyed Otto Skorzeny in American slang and baseball scores to confuse communications. They calculated to launch their offensive during a heavy snowstorm when the superior Allied air forces would have to be grounded.
After chasing the Germans across France to the Rhine recapturing with ease the World War One battlefields their fathers and uncles had bled for the American armies had come to consider the Krauts a defeated enemy. So they were taken completely by surprise. One US POW noted as he was brought to the rear seeing countless Germans in fresh uniforms and new tanks. General Eisenhower had just gotten his fifth general's star and was attending the wedding of his orderly Rickie in Versailles when he got the news. Rickies bride was Pearlie.

At one point the German offensive was so successful that Franklin Roosevelt wanted to drop the first Atomic Bomb on them. The offensive eventually stalled and was beaten back at the cost of 70,000 U.S. casualties; the most Americans killed and wounded in any single battle in history. Some analysts maintain that Hitler probably shortened the war by wasting his reserves early in such a gamble against the Anglo-American front, while the Russians were a lot closer to Berlin.

1966- New York Police raid the offices of Bernard Spindle, a freelance surveillance expert who bugged the phones of the rich and powerful. They carted off all his tapes and records; including tapes -he claimed- proving Marilyn Monroe’s sexual hijinks with President John Kennedy. He was later informed all his tapes were lost. Spindle’s career was the inspiration for the movies The Conversation and the Enemy of the State.

1966- The Jimi Hendrix Experience released the song ‘Hey Joe’, in the UK.

1971- Don McClean released the long version of the song ‘American Pie’.

1973- O.J. Simpson became the first NFL player to rush for 2000 yards in a season.

1988- Shockjock Howard Stern is fined $100,000 by the FCC for having on his radio show a man who could play the piano with his penis.

1993- Aaron Spelling fired Shannon Dougherty off the TV soap Beverly Hills 90210.

1999- Julie Andrews, star of Mary Poppins and the Sound of Music, sued New York’s Mount Sinai Hospital for destroying her singing voice during a routine throat operation.
-----------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: It’s interesting when famous people meet. Napoleon & Wellington, Mozart & Beethoven, Michelangelo & Leonardo Da Vinci, Oscar Wilde & Walt Whitman. Of these encounters, which two people never met?

Answer: Napoleon and Wellington faced each other across a three mile wide battlefield, but they never met one another face to face.

Quiz: It’s interesting when famous people meet. Napoleon & Wellington, Mozart & Beethoven, Michelangelo & Leonardo Da Vinci, Oscar Wilde & Walt Whitman. Of these encounters, which two people never met?

Answer to yesterday’s question below: Why is a man with old-fashioned ideas about the sexes called a chauvinist?
--------------------------------------------------------
-History for 12/15/2007

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeee!

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Nero, Gustav Eiffel, J. Paul Getty, Jeff Chandler, Alan Freed, animator Ernie Pintoff, Helen Slater, Don Johnson, Stuart Townsend

1790- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has a farewell dinner for Franz Josef Haydn who was going to London for two years. Amadeus said:" Farewell Papa, I think we shall not see each other again in life. " Mozart was 34 and Haydn was 67, so he probably thought Haydn would go first. Mozart died a year later at 35 and old Haydn lived another fifteen years.

1791-The BILL OF RIGHTS was ratified and added to the U.S. CONSTITUTION- It was the brainchild of James Madison, who felt the Constitution was a bit vague on basic civil rights. Even so Patrick Henry thought it was still too weak.

1792- FOUNDING FATHERS SEX SCANDAL- In the dead of night George Washington's Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton (that guy on your ten-dollar bill) was visited by a delegation sent by his political enemy, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson (that guy on your nickel). They included future president James Monroe and First Speaker of the House of Representatives Felix Muhlenberg.
They accuse Hamilton of having an extramarital affair with a certain Mrs. Reynolds, and that he even had her husband sent to prison to keep him out of the way! Hamilton, instead of denying, admitted it all but said he was being blackmailed by Mr. & Mrs. Reynolds. The accusers took pity and by “Gentleman's Agreement" for four years the scandal was hushed up. When at last it was made pubic in 1797 by a pro-Jefferson tabloid columnist, it helped drive Hamilton from government office and discredit the Federalist Party, who lost the White House to Jefferson's democrats. Hamilton was furious that his secret was out and challenged James Monroe to a duel. The duel was solved peacefully by an arbiter, Aaron Burr, who himself would shoot Hamilton to death eight years later. Burr later became Vice President and had slept with Mrs. Reynolds too.

1859- For those of you who speak Esperanto, Happy Zampenhoff Day!

1874- Hawaiian King David IV Kalakaou visited the White House and was received by President Grant.
.
1890-SITTING BULL KILLED by government employed Indian agents. They had come to arrest him when they learned he planned to join the Ghost Dancers at Wounded Knee. The Ghost Dance was a spiritual revival movement but the authorities overreacted in fear of a true-armed uprising. As Sitting Bull was led out of his cabin other Sioux tried to stop the Indian police and in the scuffle they shot Bull dead. In a macabre twist Bull's pony, who was a gift from Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, reared up and started doing circus tricks when he heard the shots.

1893-Czech composer Anton Dvorak premiered a symphony he wrote while living in the Minnesota. The New World Symphony.

1899-Battle of Colenso-More Boer Woer. Britain had had so many early reverses in South Africa that Kaiser Wilhelm annoyed Prince Edward by saying:" You English are renown for your sense of good sportsmanship. Why don't you admit you're beaten and make the best of it? Rather like last year when the Australians beat you at cricket." Comments like this didn’t help Anglo-German relations. The British won the Boer War in 1901.

1911- King George V of England moved the capitol of India from Calcutta to Delhi and laid the foundation stones for a new Imperial City, New Delhi.

1939- The gala premiere of Gone With The Wind at the Loews Grand Theater in Atlanta Georgia. Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh flew out from Hollywood and the Governor of Georgia declared it a state holiday.

1941- The American Federation of Labor announced there would be no strikes or other labor actions for the duration of World War Two.

1941- Lena Horne recorded her signature tune “Stormy Weather.”

1943- In Harlem jazz great Fats Waller died of alcoholism and heart failure. He was 39.

1950- President Harry Truman declared a State of National Emergency over the deteriorating situation in the Korean War. When Congress asked what it meant and why not ask Congress first instead of unilaterally declaring it, Truman lost his temper. “We must remember that we are the Leader of the Free World and as such have an obligation to meet!”

1952- British Fashion photographer George Jorgenson has the first sex change operation in Denmark and becomes Christine Jorgenson.

1954-“Davy Crockett, Indian Fighter” starring Fess Parker was featured on the Walt Disney TV show for the first time. The show created a mania for little kids, all wanting coonskin caps. “ Born on a mountaintop in Tenn- Ah- See..”

1964- Canada adopted the Maple Leaf flag. It did not completely replace the Dominion Flag until 1979.

1966-Walt Disney died at age 65. He was alone in the room at Saint Joseph's when he died. A heavy cigarette smoker- his favorites were Malboro and French Gitanes- he suffered from lung cancer and respiratory failure. Contrary to the legend that he's cryogenically frozen in a room in the Sleeping Beauty Castle at Disneyland, he was cremated and interred at Forest Lawn. Or maybe that’s what he wants us to think?!

1967- Beverly Hills police chief C.H.Anderson assured the public that there are "No Hippie Pads in Beverly Hills". Chief Andersen said many oddball types arrested on the Sunset Strip and West L.A. are sent to Beverly Hills municipal courts for trial, but inhabitants need not fear an outbreak of long haired hopped up psychedelic speed freaks. Groovy!

1973- The American Psychiatric Association reverses its earlier position and announced the homosexuality is not a form of mental illness. Being gay before that, meant your family could legally have you institutionalized and even lobotomized or electro-shocked.

1984- Gangster Paul Castellano had taken over the largest Mafia family in New York after the Godfather Carlo Gambino died. But he was having problems with his unruly lieutenant John Gotti. This day he was getting out his limo on a midtown Manhattan street to go to Sparks Steakhouse when he was shot dead by hitmen sent by Gotti. Instead of the dead of night on a lone wharf, it was done out in broad daylight and the killers just melted into the countless masses of lunch hour foot traffic on 5th Avenue. John Gotti took control of the Gambino family and ruled as the Dapper Don, until sent up the river for life in 1992.

1989- Colombian drug cartel leader Gonzalo Rodriquez Gacha “El Mexicano” was shot down in a furious gun battle with police. He had waged a war of terror with the Colombian authorities, bombing an Avianca airliner and blowing up the police headquarters in Bogota.
------------------------------------------------------
yesterday’s question: Why is a man with old-fashioned ideas about the sexes called a chauvanist?



Answer: Nicholas Chauvin was an old disabled veteran of Napoleon’s army. No matter how things were in France to Chauvin things were never better than they were in Napoleon’s time. Napoleon this, Napoleon that, he drove his neighbors crazy. Just as people worried about revolutionists or anarchists, they joked about chauvinists. It became a name meaning fanatical loyalty to a vanished ideal. In the Women’s Liberation Movement of the 1960’s the term was resurrected by Gloria Steinhem and Betty Freidan to mean a stubborn man who felt things were better they old fashioned way. Full name Male Chauvinist Pigs.

Now the WGA has filed a lawsuit against the producers with the NLRB , claiming the employers aren't bargaining in good faith. With George W. Bush's "No-CEO-Is-Ever-Wrong" Washington in control of the NLRB, good luck with that...... The DGA is delaying it's negotiations until the writers are resolved.

It's down to a game of chicken to see who will hold out the longest. The first side to ask for talks again will be seen as blinking first. So the layoffs in LA continue. The Simpson's artists will be laid off before Christmas. Merry, merry...

This would be a good time for our Governor Arnold to intercede. He has the power to compel both sides to return to the bargaining table. It would prove to us it was worth voting for someone from entertainment to go to Sacramento. Most of the politicos there are more concerned with artichoke subsidies than showbiz. It would be a win-win for him.

In the meantime, writers have to stay united, and not argue with one another. Now is the tough part of a strike when people in frustration start to turn on one another. One writer notes that the news of the contract talks breaking down over animation and reality show jurisdiction may have only been a tactic to get writers angry with their committee for breaking on such small potatoes. Who knows. The important thing, is to remember who the real adversaries are, and they are not your fellow film people. Good Luck.
-----------------------------------------

QUIZ: Why is a man with old-fashioned ideas about the sexes called a Chauvanist?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What is a swashbuckler? A pirate?
-----------------------------------------------------------------
History for 12/14/2007
Birthdays: 1553-King Henry IV of Navarre, Tycho Brahe, Nostradamus -Michel de Nostre Dame-1503, English King George VI-1895, Spike Jones the bandleader, Morey Amsterdam, Charlie Rich, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Lee Remick, Patty Duke-Astin , Adult film star Ginger Lynn,Clark Terry, trumpeteer & ex-Ellingtonian- 87. Cecil Pay, Saxophonist, 85. Jane Birkin "Je t'aime moi non plus" chanteuse is 60.

Welcome to the first day of what is referred to as the HALCYON DAYS. The seven days prior to and after the Winter Solstice, a time of tranquility and peace.

1776-After kicking George Washington's rebel butt from New York to Philadelphia, British General Lord William Howe announced the customary holiday truce and beds his army down for the winter. His subordinate Lord Percy wrote home:” It’s just about over with those people, we shall be home shortly.” Lord Howe took as a mistress the wife of his Boston superintendent of prisons a Mr. Loring, who grew rich enough on army contracts to not mind. A rebel poem of the time said: "Sir William He, snug as a Flea, lay in his bed a Snorring. Nor thought of Harm, as he lay Warm, in bed with Mrs......"

1798-David Wilkinson of Rhode Island patented a machine that made the new inventions metal screws, nuts and bolts.

1799- GEORGE WASHINGTON DIED. 67 year old Washington had retired to Mount Vernon after his last presidential term in 1796. In many letters and anecdotes he would describe this health as fragile and he never expected to live a long life. On Dec. 12th he went riding five hours during a sleet storm and caught the flu. Another theory was a viral infection of the epiglottis.
Washington might yet have survived, had it not been for modern medicine. Doctors bled him of four pints of blood, while applying leeches, mustard sulfur packs and laxatives to purge him of the ill humours. In other words, the finest treatments of the time. He developed pneumonia. Because coma was so little understood people had a dread of premature burial. Washington left instructions that his body be left out several days to make sure he was dead before being sealed in a tomb. After assurances put his mind at ease, his last words were:" Tis well." No priests, prayers or religious last rites were performed at his request. The US government wanted to place his tomb at the center of the planned dome in the capitol building, but Washington’s wish was to be in a simple tomb in Mt. Vernon.

1871- Verdi's opera "Aida" debuts in Cairo.

1901- The first Ping-Pong tournament held in London.

1911- Norwegian explorer Roald Ammundsen and four others first reached the South Pole, winning the race against Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

1913- Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying daughter by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing friends, urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.

1924- Ottorino Respighi ‘s stirring rhapsody the Pines of Rome premiered.

1927- Charles Lindbergh does one last flight with his famous monoplane the Spirit of Saint Louis, from Washington to Mexico City. This is at the request of American Ambassador Dwight Murrow who wanted to improve Mexican-American relations. Lindbergh would not only improve relations but also marry Murrow's daughter Anne. To make the flight a challenge Lindbergh took off at night in a rainstorm to prove air travel was safe. The President of Mexico and 150,000 people greeted him in Mexico City. When flying he noticed many Mexican towns had a sign named 'Caballeros' in their railroad stations. He reasoned Caballeros must be a popular name for a town.

1944- The film National Velvet premiered, making a star out of 12 year old Elizabeth Taylor.

1947- The National Association of Stock Car Racing or NASCAR formed.

1957- Hanna Barbera's first t.v. cartoon "Ruff and Ready" premieres. The first use of Hanna & Barbera's system of limited animation. Mouthcharts and eyeblinks, anyone?

1970- George Harrison’s single My Sweet Lord went gold.

1972-THE LAST MAN LEAVES THE MOON. Apollo 17 blasts off. We all remember the first man on the moon, but do you remember the last? Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt. President Nixon annoyed NASA by saying he doubted that men would return to the moon in the Twentieth Century, but he was right.

1977- DISCO! The movie Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta and the music of the Bee Gees make the Disco dancing scene a national craze.

1979- STUDIO 54 RAIDED- The Internal Revenue Service busted the worlds most notorious disco club. Formerly the hangout of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and other “Beautiful People”, now the Feds were on to them. The IRS seized doctored account books, cocaine and undeclared cash, landing the owners in jail and bringing the celebrity playland’s days to an end.

1984- Howard Cosell retired from sports reporting and calling the Monday Night Football game. “And now to Dandy Don down on the field.”
------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What is a swashbuckler? A pirate?

ANSWER: No. In Renaissance Italy, young toughs carried a sword and a small shield called a buckler. To show you were looking for a fight you would walk the streets slapping the flat of your sword across the little shield, to swash your buckler.

Question: What is a swashbuckler? A pirate?

Answer to yesterday’s question below:
What is the origin of the phrase:’ Keep the Ball Rolling.”
------------------------------------------------------
History for 12/13/2007
Birthdays: Heinrich Heine, Mary Todd Lincoln, Dick Van Dyke, Mike Mosley, Darryl Zanuck Jr.,Tim Conway, Ted Nugent, Christopher Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Jamie Fox is 40, Wendy Malick

Today is the Feast of Saint Lucy, who was ordered by the Romans to be violated in a brothel, set on fire, stabbed to death and to stop men saying how beautiful her eyes were she ripped them out and handed them over on a plate. But they miraculously grew back. So Lucy is the patron saint of opticians.
St. Lucy with her extra set of eyeballs

1264-THE CREATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS- Victorious rebel English Earl Simon de Monfort calls for a meeting in Westminster of a Parliament of all nobles, clergy and - common folk of the realm. It's probably the first time since the ancient Roman republic anybody had asked the people their opinion about anything. King Henry III and Prince Edward Longshanks couldn't argue because Simon had them locked up in the Tower. To make final sure Earl Simon ordered bishops to pronounce the most fearful oaths of excommunication and anathema on the head of anyone who dared to undo his creation. So even after Longshanks escaped and had Earl Simon chopped into mincemeat, the House of Commons remained.

1543-THE COUNCIL OF TRENT convenes- Officially called the XIX Ecunemical Council this conference launched the Catholic Counter-Reformation against the Protestant reformers. Among it's doctrinal pronouncements was to declare that the only Good Art is Realism, all attempts at stylization or mannerism was heresy. Michel Caravaggio master painter and wiseguy decided to test this law by painting a Death of the Virgin. This is a terribly touchy subject because in Catholic tradition she's always portrayed as 16 years old even though she lived to 64 and four other children by Joseph. You can imagine the furor when he did her realistically as a chubby dead old lady with a double chin and white hair, and the accompanying apostles as balding old vagrants.


1642- Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the Pacific discovered a big island near Australia and named it for the Dutch province of Zeeland, so New Zealand. He also found another island and called it Van Deimans Land, but it was later named in his honor as Tasmania.
No devils to be seen yet.

1862-BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG- Union General Ambrose Burnside (who created the men’s fashion-"sideburns") made his men frontal attack uphill an impregnable Confederate position of concentrated fire that :" a chicken couldn't live through."
The massed regiments of bluecoats were mowed down wave after wave in one of the worst disasters in U.S. Army history. The New York Fighting 69th, the all Irish brigade, fell dead in even rows shielding their eyes from the bullets as though they were rain. They shouted “Faugh au Ballagh !” Gaelic for “Clear the Way!” They left half of their men dead on the field. In all 13,000 Yankees died to a mere handful of rebels. One rebel general, sickened by the stupidity of it all, said: "This ain't war, it's just plain murder." After the defeat, Burnside rode past some of his men, a kissass major tried shouting :"Three cheers for the General!" and was met with stony silence. When the Yankees defeated the rebels at Gettysburg a year later they shouted "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!' in revenge at the retreating greybacks.

1872- Wild Bill Hickok was fired as sheriff of Abilene Kansas because he was more violent and out of control than most of the men he arrested.

1895- Gustav Mahlers 2nd Symphony “Resurrection” premiered.

1928- Leopold Damrosch conducted the premiere of George Gershwin's -"An American in Paris."

1936- At the urging of New Yorker editor Harold Ross to find a better line of work, actor Dave Chasen opened Chasen's restaurant in Beverly Hills, which catered to Hollywood stars for 60 years. It is the restaurant where Leopold Stokowski was introduced to Walt Disney and as a result they conceived "Fantasia". Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and Lauren Bacall met upstairs to discuss the Blacklist of 1947. Elizabeth Taylor ordered Chasen’s chili flown out to Rome so she could eat it on the set of Cleopatra. The restaurant closed in 1995 because the Chasen family wanted to cash in on the real estate. Today it’s a supermarket.

1937- THE RAPE OF NANKING- The Japanese army captured the then Nationalist capitol of China. The Japanese generals let their soldiers run amok for three weeks, raping and murdering civilians by the thousands. .Japanese who refused to kill the innocent were punished by their officers. Typical was two officers who held a contest to see who could behead more Chinese with their samurai swords. The winner killed 106 and the contest was reported in newspapers as a sporting event. They also executed most of the Chinese soldiers who had surrendered. When the commanding General Matsui returned from convalescent leave he was horrified and ordered a stop. That got him recalled home in disgrace. The unprecedented brutality shocked the world, remember the full horrors of World War Two were still years in the future. Even today an lack of official Japanese apology for this event remains a major sore point in relations between Japan and her Asian neighbors.

1937-THE GOOD NAZI- During the Rape of Nanking, in an ironic twist, the women and children of the foreign delegations were protected from the rampaging Japanese soldiers by German businessman Johann Robbe, who guarded the door in his Nazi party uniform and swastika armband. He took in desperate Chinese and saved thousands. Robbe had lived his entire life in China so when it was suggested to him, he joined the Nazi party not knowing anything about it. Robbe went home to Berlin and tried lodge a complaint with Adolf Hitler. The Gestapo visited him and threatened him with arrest if he didn’t shut up. Then after World War Two Johan Robbe was arrested by Allied authorities for being a Nazi! By 1947 he and his family were reduced to eating soup from nettles and grass to survive. Then a huge package was delivered of food and money. It was a subscription from the People of Nanking, to express their thanks for his humanity.

1940- Fleischer Popeye cartoon "Eugene the Jeep" .The Thimble Theater character would give its name to the new army General Purpose vehicle- G.P. or "Jeep".

1942- In the rubble choked streets of Stalingrad Russian sniper Tanya Chernova was making her way near Nazi headquarters with instructions to kill the German commander Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus. But on the way a comrade stepped on a mine and the explosion tore through her abdomen. She survived but her participation in the war was over. An attractive blonde former ballerina, she began the war as a guerrilla in the Ukraine and was trained by supersniper Vasily Zaistzev. She called the Germans she had killed “broken sticks” because she refused to acknowledge their humanity. By the time this explosion ended her military career Tanya Chernova had 80 broken sticks to her record. She was 20 years old.

1951- One of the legendary Hollywood producers was Walter Wanger- starting in 1921 his films included The Sheik, Stagecoach, Queen Christina, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Silk Stockings and Cleopatra. His wife was beautiful starlet Joan Bennett, but at this time she had taken a lover. On this day Wanger surprised Hollywood by pulling out a gun and shooting his wife's lover in the nuts right in the MCA studio parking lot. In true Hollywood fashion Wanger got off, sentenced to just a few months in an honor ranchero compound and was soon back to work. Contributors to pay his legal fees included the Jack Warner, Walt Disney and Sam Goldwyn. The boyfriend, Jennings Lang, recovered and later became an executive producer of comedies like House Calls. After all, who needs balls to be a producer?

1961- Jimmy Dean’s folk ballad Big Bad John went to #1 of the country charts. Later Dean had his own TV variety show with the Muppets and started Jimmy Dean’s Pure Pork Sausage Company.

1968- Arlo Guthrie’s hit song Alice’s Restaurant released.

2002-Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in digrace. The Primate of Boston, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States. Cardinal Law had spent years covering for priests who molested children given them by trusting parents. He even protected a priest who’s name was openly registered in the Man-Boy Love Society. Law was the highest ranking Catholic to step down from popular pressure. Modern republics regard power as coming from the people. Historically the Catholic Church regards itself above the complaints of the flock, that they are answerable to God alone. So this was pretty unusual. In the past the traditional way to get rid of Cardinals was to drag them out of their castles and chop their heads off like the Archbishop Laud of England in 1641.

2003-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hiding hole and captured by U.S. forces near his hometown of Tikrit.
------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s question: What is the origin of the phrase:’ Keep the Ball Rolling.”

Answer: In early American political campaigns like the one in 1840 between Martin Van Beuren and William Henry Harrison, one gimmick in a rally was to create a large ten foot tall tin and leather ball covered with the candidates images and slogans. As it was rolled from small town to town sometimes hundreds of miles, local party partisans were exhorted to run up and help“ keep the ball rolling!”

Today’s Quiz: What is the origin of the phrase “Keep the Ball Rolling?”


Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Did Vikings ever wear horned helmets?
--------------------------------------------------------
Birthdays: Frank Sinatra, Edvard Munch, Gustav Flaubert, Auguste Rodin, Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie, John Jay, Edward G. Robinson-born Emmanuel Goldenberg, Field Marshal Karl Von Rundstedt-the Black Knight of Germany, former NY Mayor Ed Koch, Zack Mosley –the cartoonist who drew “Smilin' Jack", Connie Francis, Dionne Warwick, Bob Barker , Cathy Rigby, Tracy Austin, Jennifer Connelly is 37

Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe

1793-WASHINGTON THE SLAVEMASTER- The most concrete evidence we have that George Washington was morally disturbed about owning slaves. This day George Washington wrote a friend in England about a scheme he formulated to carve up his Mt. Vernon estate into small lots and rent them out to immigrant English tenant farmers so he could liberate his slaves. He asked his British correspondent to keep his plan a secret and destroy this note after reading it. He never went ahead with his plan but after he and Martha were both dead Washington’s will freed all 137 of his slaves and sent each off with a cash pension. Compare that to Thomas Jefferson, who freed 6 out of 300 when he died and James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, who freed none.

1897-The Katzemjammer Kids comic strip by Rudolph Dirks appears. The adventures of Hans & Fritz was so popular a rival Hearst newpaper started an imitation called the Captain and the Kids, leading to the first artistic plagiarism lawsuit. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas had a problem whenever they bought the American newspapers for their Paris salon, because Picasso and Fernand Oliver would fight over who got to read the comics first.

1899- George Grant of Boston invented the Golf Tee.

1901-First transatlantic wireless signal received by Guglielmo Marconi. This finally ended the frustrating hoopla over laying transatlantic telegraph cables and have them break down almost constantly since the 1850s. The pioneers of radio broadcasting like Armstrong, Lee Deforrest and David Sarnoff got their start working for the Marconi Wireless Company.

1922-Vladimir Lenin suffered the first of a series of strokes that left him too sick to work. He ruled Soviet Russia for one more year as a figurehead while his true state of health was concealed from the public. Top Communist officials like Trotsky and Stalin now fought for power. When Lenin died in Jan.1924 doctors examining his brain said the blood clots were as solid as small stones. The only words he could mumble from his paralyzed mouth was “That’s it. That’s it.”

1925- The world’s first Motel opened. Arthur Heinman opened the Milestone Motel in San Luis Obispo California. Motel was a contraction of Motor-Hotel.

1925- Cossack officer Rezah Pahlavi deposed the last Qajar Shah and becomes Shah of Persia, which would shortly change its name to Iran.

1952- The first Screen Actors Guild Strike. President Walter Pidgeon -Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet- had the movie stars hit the bricks to win television and commercial residuals. The final deals were settled by then SAG president Ronald Reagan in 1960. Ronnie compromised with the studio heads (who later backed his bid for the governorship of California) that only residuals for films after 1955 would be paid. The studios made it known to the membership that if you didn’t vote for Reagan you can forget about your residuals. So the deal was struck. Actors who made their big hits in the 30's and 40s like Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, The Little Rascals and Mickey Rooney were left out. Mickey Rooney, who was the highest paid actor of the mid-1940's, put it mildly: "Reagan screwed me !!"
solidarity, Robbie!"

1980- The song “Whip It” by Devo won a gold record.

1991-Actor Richard Gere married supermodel Cindy Crawford.

2000- THE SUPREME COURT PICKED THE PRESIDENT. In the tightest presidential election since 1877, The Supreme Court ruled on the case Bush Vs Gore. The High Court decided George W. Bush won over Vice President Al Gore. They stated that although there may have been irregularities in the vote counting in the decisive state of Florida, it was too late and pointless to continue the recount so they were suspending all further appeals. Al Gore and the Democrats quickly caved in and squelched attempts by African-American congressmen to point out vote discrimination. In 1960 the difference between Nixon and Kennedy was around 100,000 votes in a population of 150 million people- in 2000 Bush’s lead was down to a mere 140 votes in several states out of a population of 350 million.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday’s Quiz: Did Vikings wear horned helmets? All the archaeological information unearthed have proved that the Vikings never wore helmets adorned with horns. No one is quite sure why they are portrayed that way. In the early 19th Century the poems of the Icelandic Poet Snorri Sturlason became popular. He was the first man to write down the ancient Viking stories like the Elder Edda and the Sagas. In the Viking period they were carried on by oral tradition. One professor of viking poetry was J.R.R. Tolkien.

In the XIX Century Sturlason’s translations of the Volsung Saga of Siegfried and Brunhilde the Valkyrie inspired Richard Wagner to write his Ring Cycle of operas. Edvard Grieg also wrote music about Viking sea kings like Olaf Tryggvason and Smetana about Earl Haakon-Jarl. When illustrating these stories, artists put the distinctive horns and birds wings on the Viking helmets. They were portrayed that way on the opera stage where the tales first reached the general public.