Birthdays: George M. Cohan, Stephen Foster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Calvin Coolidge, Cartoonist Rube Goldberg, gangster Mayer Lansky, Tokyo Rose, MGM chief Louis B. Mayer, Neil Simon, Mitch Miller, Eve Marie Saint is 83, Gina Lollabrigida is 80, George Steinbrenner, Geraldo Rivera, Victoria Abril, Rene Laloux, Gloria Stuart the old lady in the film Titanic is 97 and Edward Walker the inventor of the Lava Lamp

Birthdaze: King Louis XI of France "the Spider King" 1423- dramatized by Hugo in the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Franz Kafka, Cartoonist Dave Barry, Composer Leos Janacek, Artist John Singleton Copley, Director Ken Russell, playright Tom Stoppard, George Saunders the voice of Sher-Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book, Peter Fountain, Tom Cruise is 44

Today is the Feast day of Saint Thomas the Apostle, “Doubting-Thomas,” the patron saint of architects.

1863-Pickett's Charge, the climax of the battle of Gettysburg. Disney animator Mark Henn, when not doing beautiful animation on films like Little Mermaid and Lilo and Stitch, is a Civil War buff. He participated in the 125th recreation of Picketts CHarge in Pennsylvania in 1987. Check out his historical paintings and sculptures of the period at markhenn.com

1898-Battle of Santiago Harbor- U.S. fleet under Admiral Sampson defeated the Spanish in Cuba. The U.S fleet so heavily outgunned the Spanish ships that the Spanish admiral is remembered at home as a hero for even attempting the fight to keep up the national honor. James Stuart Blackton, the first American animator, was down in Cuba with other correspondents covering the war. He went back to New York and claimed to have live, eyewitness movie footage of the battle. Of course, he didn't, so he faked it on a set with toy boats, sparklers and cigar smoke. Since no one had seen real footage yet, he got away with it. Blackton added to his resume by inventing the movie newsreel.

1931- The Cab Calloway Orchestra recorded 'The St. James Infirmary Blues."

1971- Rock singer Jim Morrison 28, found dead of a heart attack in his bathtub in Paris.

1978- The Supreme Court upheld the FCC’s reprimand of N.Y. Pacifica radio station WBAI’s airing of a George Carlin comedy routine called the “7 Deadly Words”, reciting expletives you cannot say on radio or television even today.

Dear Gang,

Allow me to re-introduce my trivia page, which had gone dormant when I left the Gang of Seven settup last May to direct a short in Taiwan. I am flattered and grateful to all who enjoyed reading them. I began doing a e-mail almanac of historical aprocrypha in 1992 on my little Mac II at Walt Disney. This was at the suggestion of Stacy Slossy, Disney chief Peter Schneider's secretary. Since then the e-mails grew to hundreds and went around the world. I knew they were being fowarded to The Rand Corp, the Pentagon, ILM, Microsoft, Paris, London, ALexandria Egypt, Beijing, Ankara, Scotland, San Bernadino, San Francisco and NYU. For years people have told me I should have my own website.

Well, here it is.

So lets ring up the curtain! Oh, for a Muse of Fire! Kings for Players and Nations for a Stage! What fools we mortals be! ( apologizes to the Bard...)

History for 7/2/2006
Birthdays: Composer Christoph Witobald Gluck, Herman Hesse, Justice Thurgood Marshall, Andrez Kertesz- photographer and brother of Hollywood director Michael Curtiz, Richard Petty-stock car racer and PIXAR voice in Cars, Abe Levitow- Disney Striker in 1941, helped create UPA and directed the first TV Special Magoo Christmas Carol in 1961, Jose Canseco- juiced up ballplayer, Jerry Hall, Brock Peters, Larry David, Lindsay Lohan is 20

1927- The film Flesh and the Devil established a new star named Greta Garbo.

1934- Twentieth Century Fox signed a movie contract with child star Shirley Temple.

1992- THE GREAT FLYING LAWNCHAIR- San Pedro resident Larry Walters flew 16,000 feet in the air in his lawnchair. He strapped 45 helium weather balloons to his chair and took along a sixpack of beer, a sandwich and a pellet gun. After his two hour flight he got entangled in some power lines. He was later fined by the FAA for violating LAX commercial airport airspace.

1998- In Paris Mexican World Cup soccer fan Rodrigo Rafael Ortega was arrested for drunkenly urinating on the eternal flame in honor of Frances Great War dead. The eternal flame had burned continuously since 1921, even the Nazis left it alone. Ortega was the first to ever put it out. Once again international soccer proves its abilities to bring peoples together.

Dear Friends,
Welcome to my website. Right now it is ThomasSito.com but I hope by August it will be just TomSito.com. You see, for now Warner Bros owns my name! It seems in 1998 when I began co-directing the animation of the film OSMOSIS JONES, Warner Bros as a precaution bought the domain names tomsito.com and my partner pietkroon.com. I haven't worked for Warners since 2003, but the name keeps going on. I guess over the years some preprogram keeps renewing the subscription. I've talked to Warners now and gotten the name back, but it must wait until their subscription runs out July 31st. Then the change will be automatic thanks to my brilliant web-meister Josh Morgan, no relation to Morgan the Pirate or Revolutionary General Dan Morgan, the Old Wagoneer. So look around and enjoy the site, I hope to add on in the future.

I accepted an offer to direct a 3D short in Taipei and I'm shipping out next week. It's something for their national museum, but it should be fun. One of the highlights of the museum is a hand carved jade of a cabbage with two bugs on it. It's a must-see over there, I'm told. I'll be back in September and I'll be dropping in to town once a month.