PLYMPTON vs. SITO 15 rounds, Weds Night 7:00PM, Fletcher Jones Auditorium, Woodbury University, Burbank !!!!


Never mind earthquakes or brushfires, Bill Plympton hits LA weds night! Tom Sito will do an evening interviewing the august and amazing Plympton about his new movie IDIOTS AND ANGELS! Check ASIFA/Hollywood.org for details!

------------------------------------------------------
Question: Why is it considered bad luck to spill salt?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What does it mean to call someone a Bluebeard?
----------------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/26/2010
Birthdays: Danton, Leon Trotsky,Bill Tytla, Francois Mitterand, Domenico Scarlatti, Charles W. Post of Post Cereals, Bob Hoskins, The last Shah of Iran Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, Mahalia Jackson, Clive Barker, Bootsie Collins, Marla Maples, Dylan McDermott, Cary Elwes, Jaclyn Smith, Hilary Rodham Clinton, Pat Sito

1326- Hugh Despenser, the boyfriend of King Edward II, is hanged on orders of Edward's wife, Queen Isabella the" She-Wolf of France".

1440- French nobleman Giles De Rais beheaded. If the concept of "medieval justice" always seemed like an oxymoron, the case of Giles De Rais is a notable exception.
Giles was a powerful warlord of Joan of Arc who went bizarrely wrong in later years. He was so paranoid about losing his fortune, he listened to a sorcerer who told him the Devil would help if Giles sacrificed some children to him. When children began disappearing in large numbers from around his castle, even the Royal court and aristocracy couldn't ignore the outcry. The knight was tried, beheaded and his remains burned without Christian rites. His castle Chevrenault outside Tours was leveled, so no memory of the horrible episode would remain. Giles De Rais is sometimes called Bluebeard, a name also given to the insurance murderer Nicholas Landru in 1928.

1825-THE ERIE CANAL COMPLETED, on budget and ahead of schedule. Governor Dewitt Clinton poured a ceremonial bucket of Great Lakes water into the Hudson River. Once called Clinton’s Big Ditch, even elderly Thomas Jefferson thought the plan was madness. The 350 mile Erie Canal tied the Midwest interior of America to it’s Atlantic coast and makes New York the economic capitol of the nation. It also set off a boom in canal boat building. Remember at this time trains weren’t invented yet and roads were so poor, it took Jefferson two weeks to travel from Washington to Charlottesville Virgina, a distance today driven in two hours!

1858- The rotary drum washing machine patented by H. E. Smith of Philadelphia.

1863- The English Football Association formed to standardize the rules for soccer.

1863- We all know the Transcontinental Railroad was completed when the Golden Spike was driven in, on May 10,1867. Well today the first nails of that four year, 800 mile track were hammered in ceremonies in Missouri on the East and Sacramento on the West.

1881-The GUNFIGHT AT THE OK CORRAL- The grudgefight between the Earp Brothers and the Clantons only lasted about two minutes but remains one the most famous fight of the Old West. The fight may have actually happened in front of McFly's Photo-Parlour, but the Tombstone Gazette decided the OK Corral, a block away sounded more macho. Deputy Marshal Wyatt Earp later told so many different versions of what happened that he's totally discredited as a witness today. Before the encounter, Morgan Earp had been discussing with his brothers whether there was a life after death. As Morgan lay dying, he looked up at his brothers and said:" I guess you're right Wyatt, I can't see a damn thing!"

1929- Henry Ford invited President Herbert Hoover out for a picnic at Greenfield Michigan to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the invention of Electricity. Greenfield was a theme park recreation of a pre-industrial American farm town Ford's innovations had done so much to change forever. Other guests include Thomas Edison, William Dupont, Henry Firestone and Madame Curie. During their picnic the President gets ominous news of a growing crisis on Wall St.. Hoover tells Ford not to worry, but later quietly advises his own broker to sell all his stocks. The Stock Market Crash happened three days later.

1942- Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands- American and Japanese planes dogfight for supremacy in the fourth carrier battle of the Pacific War. The carrier USS Hornet was sunk but the damaged Japanese fleet had to draw off and give up plans to re-supply their troops on Guadalcanal. In a strange bit of bad luck a torpedo rigged under the wing of a damaged PBY Catalina flying boat accidentally dropped into the ocean and after several mad circles sank the destroyer USS Porter.

1944- End of the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

1947-HOLLYWOOD FIGHTS BACK.- Members of Hollywood's progressive elite tried to answer the McCarthy hearings and the blacklist with a nationwide radio broadcast "Hollywood Fights Back' -Starring Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Judy Garland, Katharine Hepburn, Danny Kaye, John Huston, Gene Kelly and Edward G. Robinson.
The event was a public relations fiasco. Nobel laureate Thomas Mann used his air time to launch into a longwinded intellectual defense of Communism. When word reached them that some of the Hollywood writers they were defending really were communists Bogart and Bacall felt they had been hoodwinked. "As politicians we stink!" quote Bogie.

1951- Despite being past his prime famed heavyweight boxing champ Joe Louis The Brown Bomber came out of retirement to attempt a comeback and pay off back taxes. This day he was knocked out and finally retired by young champ Rocky Marciano. Growing up Marciano had idolized Louis and afterward apologized to him.

1952- David Wolper’s documentary Victory at Sea, with it’s majestic score by Richard Rogers first premiered.

1955- The Greenwich Village Voice, later called simply The Voice, first published.

1957- Vatican Radio began broadcasting.

1962- During the tense standoff of the Cuban Missile Crisis, this day a KGB contact named Frohman met Peter Scholly, an ABC news correspondent, at a quiet Washington DC coffee shop. He gave the newsman a letter with a deal proposed by Khruschev to take to the White House that would eventually end the superpower standoff.

1965- The rock band the Beatles received MBEs ( most excellent Member of the British Empire ) medals at Buckingham Palace. John Lennon later returned his as a protest.

1970- Doonesbury born. Yale law graduate Gary Trudeau was convinced by Jim Andrews his classmate now an editor at Universal Press syndicate, to recreate his funny comic he did in the campus newspaper .It's original name was 'Bull Tales".

1972- Nixon advisor Dr Henry Kissinger announced "Peace is at Hand" in Vietnam.

1979 - Kim Jae-kyu, head of the South Korean intelligence agency, blew away their country's President, Park Chung-hee. with a machine gun at a state banquet. Park had been president/dictator since 1961. The assassin was executed some months
later. He claimed it was an accident.

1984-" I’LL BE BACK…" James Cameron’s sci-fi thriller THE TERMINATOR first released. Arnold Schwarzenegger was considered a Hollywood joke before this film made him a major star. An interesting what-if, was that before Arnold was cast in the role of the cyborg assassin, the producers were first considering O.J. Simpson.

1996 -Basketball star Charles Barclay was charged with aggravated assault and
resisting arrest in Orlando, FL. It was hard to argue about what happened since two police men standing at the Church Street Station were interrupted when Charles threw the man through a plate glass window. Barclay said: "I only regret we weren’t on a higher floor."

2001- President Bush signed the USA Patriot Act, which gave him power to read your mail, tap your phones, bypassing all the safeguards demanded by Congress and the Bill of Rights, even the Magna Carta of 1215.

2028- Asteroid 1977 FX11 will pass within 600,000 miles of the Earth. In 1998 The Smithsonian announced the asteroid would hit the planet or maybe pass closer than the moon's orbit 30,000 miles, causing global meteorological convulsions. The following day the Jet Propulsion Lab and Mount Palomar Observatory announced a correction of the calculations to prove it will miss us by a wide distance. Stick around, we're gonna find out.
--------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What does it mean to call someone a Bluebeard?

Answer: A man who marries women, then kills them. See above- 1440. Charles Perrault in the 1690s wrote a story based on Giles Des Rais about a nobleman with a blue beard who kills his wives. In the 1920s, a French serial killer named Nicholas Landru was nicknamed Bluebeard. He was tried and guillotined.

Question: What does it mean to call someone a Bluebeard?

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: Who said “Speak Italian to Ladies, German to enemies, French to friends and Spanish to God.”…?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/25/2010
Birthdays: Pablo Picasso, George Bizet, Johann Strauss Jr., Bobby Knight, Helen Reddy Minnie Pearl, Whit Bissell, Lyle Lovett. Leo G. Carroll, Bill Barty the famous Little Person celebrity, John Matusak, Julia Roberts

Today is the Feast of Saints Crispin and Chrispinian- the patron saints of leatherworkers. They were supposed to be so holy that when the Roman prefect of Soisson saw his tortures were having no effect, he drowned himself. Another case of low job satisfaction.

1555- Emperor Charles V was called the Man who Married Europe- The Prince of the Netherlands was also King of Spain, which meant all of the Americas and Italy , and he was Emperor of Germany-which meant everything from Denmark and the Rhine to Turkish held Hungary. He assumed all this power at 19, fought wars, tried to stop the Protestant Reformation, sacked Rome and imprisoned the Pope and wielded power with gusto.

But by 45 he was exhausted, sick with asthma and arthritis. So this day at the States General of the Netherlands Charles V announced his resignation of all his offices and retirement to a monastery in Spain. He named his son Phillip II to be King of Spain and the Netherlands and his brother Ferdinand to succeed him as German Emperor. A master of languages, Charles once said “Speak Italian to Ladies, German to enemies, French to friends and Spanish to God.”

1760- King George II died of constipation, his grandson George III becomes King. Old George II completed his 33 year reign with this final opinion of English politics:” I am sick to death of all this foolish stuff, and wish with all my heart that the Devil may take all your bishops, and the Devil take all your ministers, the Devil take your Parliament and the Devil take this whole Island, provided I can get out and go home to Hanover!” Gee, thank you Sire, we love you too.

1769-Young Massachusetts lawyer John Adams married Abigail Smith.

1854-THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE- BALACLAVA- the climactic battle of the Crimean War in which Britain and France sent armies to help Turkey fight off Russia.
During the battle Lord Raglan watched from his mountaintop the Russians on another mountaintop (their army was arranged on the hillsides like a fork with it's prongs pointed at the English and French). They were trying to pull some field artillery out of the way of the advancing Brits. So Raglan sent Lord Cardigan orders to send the Light Brigade to capture these few cannon before they got away. Lord Cardigan (who always insisted his officers drink champagne for breakfast) wasn't on a mountaintop but deep in a valley and all he could see was the whole heavily fortified Russian army in front of him. Then he got Raglan's command: "-Charge the Guns!" To cap matters the messenger Captain Nolan was angry with Cardigan so he refused to explain the order.

So the 600 of the Light Brigade charged right into the whole Russian Army alone. It all took about 8 minutes. Lord Cardigan led his brigade through the first line of guns then immediately turned back “It is not the job of commanders to grapple with common soldiers.” One problem the Light Brigade had that never made it into any movies was when they finally reached the Russian gunners they were wearing their heavy wool winter coats that were too thick for Wilkinson sabers. The horsemen slapped their swords harmlessly against their shoulders and backs.

The Light Brigade staggered back accomplishing nothing, 3/4 of their men killed, and inspiring a really swell poem by Tennyson. The 17th Lancers went in with 250 and came out with 17 men. In a delightfully British moment, the Brigades 2nd in command, his clothes torn up by bullets, blackened with gunsmoke and a horrible saber gash across his face, said to Lord Cardigan: "Sir, shall we have another go?"

1891- THE SECRET OF THE LOST DUTCHMAN MINE- An old German (Deutsche) immigrant miner named Jacob Walsh lay dying after a lifetime digging in the Superstition Mountains in Arizona. Before he passed on he told those around him he had discovered a fabulously rich gold mine and killed his partners to keep the secret. As proof he gave them the 45 pounds of pure gold in his trunk and said there was ten times that amount in the mine. He died leaving tantalizing vague clues like " I can see the military road from my mine, but those on the military road can't see me.." 125 people died or went mad looking for the Lost Dutchman Mine but to this day it has ever been found.

1903- New York’s New Amsterdam Theater opened with a gala performance of A Midsummer’s Night Dream. The New Amsterdam boasted all Art Nouveau decoration, the first theater in a steel girdered building and a new style of floating balcony that didn’t obstruct the view with support pillars, an effect to be copied by movie houses throughout the world. The Great Ziegfield staged his great Follies there and in the rooftop garden theater for only the cream of New York society. The theater fell into decrepitude and in the 1970’s was a porno house, but the Walt Disney Company restored it to it’s Gilded Age glory in 1996.

1917- Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, in a lecture announced his firm belief in spiritualism, divination, fairies and communication with the dead. He called it the New Revelation. “The chasm between this life and the next is not insurmountable.” Other British intellects think Sir Arthur had gone a bit potty.

1920- King Alexander of Greece died from blood poisoning after being bit by his pet monkey.

1921- Bat Masterson, Quebec born gunfighter, marshal of Dodge City, gambler, Indian fighter and outlaw, died over a typewriter as a sports reporter for the New York Morning Telegraph while covering a championship prize fight. He was 67.

1944- Battle of the Leyte Gulf. The combined forces of General MacArthur and Admiral Nimitz destroyed the last remaining tactical Japanese fleet. Four carriers, three battleships and assorted other craft sunk. After Leyte the Japanese Navy ceased to be a factor for the rest of the war.

1946- President Harry Truman declared a postwar “Housing Emergency” that led to the development of the suburban track house.

1957- Gangster Al Anastasia, head of "Murder, Inc." walked into Arthur Grosso’s Barbershop in the Park Sheraton Hotel for his usual shave and haircut. He trusted Arthur enough to allow him to cover his face with a hot towel. While he was relaxing this way Grosso backed away and two hitmen sent by Vito Genovese came in and started shooting Al full of bullets. The murderers were never found.


1960- The Accutron Watch went on sale today. The first watch using an electronic power cell instead of a wound mainspring.

1964- At a football game Minnesota Viking defensive back Larry Marshal scooped up a fumble and ran 66 yards into the end zone. Except, it was his own goal line. DOH!

1983- President Reagan sent thousands of US Marines to invade the tiny island of Grenada, ostensibly to save a few American medical students from some fat Cuban construction workers, and secure the US strategic supply of nutmeg.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Who said “Speak Italian to Ladies, German to enemies, French to friends and Spanish to God.

Answer: Emperor Charles Vth. See above 1555.

Question: Who said “Speak Italian to Ladies, German to enemies, French to friends and Spanish to God.”

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Was composer Richard Wagner a Nazi?
--------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/24/2010
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Domitian, Bob Kane the creator of Batman, Moss Hart, Jiles Perry Richardson better known as the Big Bopper, F. Murray Abrahams is 71, Enkwase Mfume, Y.A. Tittle, Sara Josepha Hale 1788- who wrote the poem "Mary Had a Little Lamb", Kevin Kline is 63

439- The barbarian horde called the Vandals went into Africa and captured the Roman colony of Carthage, built on the ruins of Hannibal’s old city. When the Romans had destroyed Carthage in 146BC they put a curse on the land, but the cities natural harbor proved too useful, so a colony was soon set up. Ironically or perhaps the curse in effect, in 455 Geneseric the Vandal launched an attack from Carthage that sacked Rome.

1648 –THE TREATY OF WESTPHALIA- After four years of negotiations Europe ends it’s last great religious war, the Thirty Years War. The good thing was nobody disputed Dutch or Swiss independence or the right to be a Protestant anymore, the bad part was Germany was ravaged and divided. It wouldn't really get it's act together again until 1870. Germany lost almost half her population. France replaced Spain as the dominant power on the continent. And because the Pope refused any peace signed with heretics, the exhausted European kings simply ignored him.

1800- Just before a presidential election, Alexander Hamilton published ON THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN ADAMS ESQ, a 58 page attack on the incumbent Presidents’ character and record. Though they were of the same party, the two men loathed one another. Hamilton had almost challenged the President to a duel. Finally Hamilton decided he would rather see the opposition win than Adams re-elected. His persuasive pamphlet not only ruined any chance John Adams had of re-election, it was a grenade lobbed into the midst of his own Federalist Party. President Adams placed fourth in the election, but Alexander Hamilton’s party disloyalty lost him most of his political influence.

1861-The Last Pony Express ride. The idea was romantic, but a financial dud and only operated about two years before being replaced by stage, rail and telegraph.

1901- Anne Taylor becomes the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel and live to talk about it. She attempted the stunt for a cash prize she used to get a loan to buy a ranch in Texas.

1902- Author Arthur Conan-Doyle was knighted by King Edward VII. He received the award not for his literary accomplishments but for his volunteer services during the just concluded Boer War. It was also said the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was one of the few books King Edward ever managed to read from cover to cover.

1907- President Teddy Roosevelt called for a grand conference of government and business leaders to discuss a strategy for the conservation of America’s natural resources. For the first time, Conservation was made an issue of national policy. “ I have seen the last fluttering of bird species that once blackened the skies...”

1918- As the German front crumbled, the Kaiser’s government requested preliminary talks for a cease fire to end the Great War. This day hotheaded General Eric Ludendorf tried to derail the peace initiative by publishing a manifesto in German newspapers. Last week he was urging the Kaiser to negotiate, but he suddenly changed his mind. He denounced American President Wilson’s Fourteen Points peace proposal and declared the German Army would fight on. He had no authority to publish such a rash statement and it got him fired.

1918- Battle of the Victorio Veneto. This day Italy launched one final attack across the Piave and reached Austrian territory.

1929- BLACK THURSDAY- THE PRELUDE TO THE GREAT CRASH- The Bear Stock Market that had seen prices dropping steadily since September 5th turned into a panic as dependable stocks prices like General Motors dropped through the floor. $11.5 billion dollars was lost in one day. Vacationing Winston Churchill picked that day to visit the Stock Exchange and later saw someone jump to his death past his Waldorf Astoria window.

Basically what happened was people had bought stock on Margin, which meant you could buy ten thousand dollars worth of stock with just one thousand dollars. As the collapse occurred your broker would call you and demand the other nine thousand bux immediately or he would sell off everything you had. So in minutes you were broke. Thousands of small time investors from Groucho Marx, Irving Berlin to General Blackjack Pershing were wiped out in minutes.

It took every major banker and financier on Wall Street together dumping millions of dollars of emergency funds to stop the slide.

It was the worst day in American financial history, but it turned out to be just a mild prelude to Black Tuesday coming the following week. Ironically that night in a Broadway show the new song "Happy Days are Here Again' had it's debut. When the stage manager thought it inappropriate, the show's director snapped: "Play it for the Corpses !".

1937- At Piping Springs NY, composer Cole Porter suffered an accident while horseback riding that broke both his legs. Even after 26 operations he never regained their full use and one leg was amputated in 1958.

1938- The Fair Labor Standards Act established the 40 hour workweek as the law of the land. The 40 hour week that thing few of us see nowadays.

1945 the United Nations Charter ratified.

1945- Vikdun Quisling was shot by firing squad. Quisling was a Nazi sympathizer who governed occupied Norway. His name was synonymous with traitor or Benedict Arnold.

1947- Walt Disney testified to the House UnAmerican Activities Committee (HUAC) as a friendly witness. He accused members of the Cartoonists Guild and the League of Women Voters –which he mistakenly called the League of Women Shoppers as being infiltrated by Communists "Seeking to subvert the Spirit of Mickey Mouse'.

1948- Bernard Baruch while testifying to Congress about the worsening relations between the US and Russia coined the term "cold war". "Although the war is over we are in the midst of a cold war, and it is getting hotter."

1960- At the Baykonur space center in Russia an R-16 ballistic missile exploded on the launch pad. The blast incinerated 165 people. This was all kept secret until the 1990s. Included among the dead is Field Marshall Mitrofan Nedelin, whose death was covered up as having occurred in a plane crash.

1962- During the Cuban Missile Crisis the U.S. Naval blockade closed around Cuba to prevent any more Russian missiles coming in. For one of the few times in it's history Strategic Air Command went from Defensive Condition Three to Def Con -2, a full war footing.
An American destroyer dropped depth charges on a Soviet submarine armed with nuclear tipped torpedoes. The enraged captain ordered a torpedo loaded into its tube and had to be talked out of firing it.

1969- Godfather Producer Robert Evans married young actress Ali McGraw.

1970- Chile elected Salvador Allende president. The US State Department went nuts because Allende was a lefty, and began plans to have him overthrown.

1975- The Musical play A Chorus Line opened.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: Was composer Richard Wagner a Nazi?

Answer: Richard Wagner died in 1883, Adolf Hitler was not even born until 1889. It’s that Wagner was an outspoken Anti-Semite, and his music about ancient German heroes deeply inspired Hitler, who made it the soundtrack of his Third Reich. Wagner’s daughter Winifred Wagner also was an enthusiastic follower of Hitler.

Question: Was composer Richard Wagner a Nazi?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: What is so special about the Dark Side of the Moon?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/23/2010
Birthdays; Johnny Carson, Adlai Stevenson, Pele, Zioniev, Weird Al Yankovic, Dwight Yoakham, Doug Flutie, Michael Crichton, Chi-Chi Rodriquez, Sam Raimi, Phillip Kaufman, porn star Jasmine St. Claire, Gummo Marx, Ang Lee is 56, Ryan Reynolds is 34

this must have been take with some legionaries i-phone
42 BC- Battle of Phillipi- The forces of Marc Anthony and Octavian defeated the Republican legions of Brutus and Cassius in Greece. Both Marcus Brutus and Cassius Longinus, who had assassinated Julius Caesar two years earlier, died.

1642- EDGEHILL- First battle of the English Civil War. King Charle's Cavaliers-1, Roundheads-0. Even though the Parliamentary forces were defeated the King hesitated when his impulsive cavalry general Prince Rupert wanted to pursue the enemy to London. It was the best chance Charles ever had to crush the rebellion at one grand blow, Oliver Cromwell was as yet an obscure m.p. from Cambridge who led a small troop. Yet Charles hesitated and let the opportunity slip away. The Parliamentary Army was under the command of the Earl of Essex, who traveled around with a coffin and burial shroud among his personal baggage. I wonder if that inspired confidence in his leadership...

1661- King Charles II, the Merry Monarch, crowned at Westminster Abbey. The current English Crown Jewels date from this time, since Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan Parliament had the ancient crown jewels of Anglo-Norman times destroyed.

1812- THE MALET PLOT-While Napoleon was retreating from Moscow thousands of miles away all France waited anxiously for news of his fate. This day a civil servant named Malet convinced Paris that Napoleon was dead and his army destroyed. In the ensuing panic Malet actually succeeded in taking over the French Government!
After a few days the confusion was eventually straightened out and Malet imprisoned. But it was terribly discouraging to Napoleon; he had hoped to build a dynasty to last generations. But it took only one nut with a rumor to show how shallow was the support for his regime was.

1917- In a secret meeting in Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg) all the various left wing Russian political parties: Mensheviks, Anarchists, Utopian Socialists and Narodniks agreed to unite under Lenin’s Bolshevik Party and adopt their plan to violently seize power. After taking control Lenin had them all suppressed. The assassin who shot and wounded him in 1921 was a Socialist.

1923- The German postwar economy collapses. Raging inflation makes it 6 billion DeutschMarks to one U.S. dollar. The few workers who had jobs are paid every other day and it takes a wheelbarrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread. The major industrial region of the Ruhr was under foreign occupation. These conditions made the rise of Adolf Hitler possible. The creeping depression afflicting the war-ruined European economies would help collapse the American banking system in 1929.

1928- A financial consortium led by banker-bootlegger Joseph Kennedy Sr. buys the Keith Albee theater circuit and merged it with the Radio Company and the Orpheum theaters to form Radio-Keith-Orpheum or RKO pictures. After Joe Kennedy met with the other Hollywood moguls he told a friend :”They’re all a bunch of Austrian Pants Pressers! I can take their businesses away from them!” Kennedy made a quick killing then got out of the picture business in 1930, just before the Depression dropped his studios stock value. RKO made films like King Kong, Fort Apache and Citizen Kane before merging into Desilu in 1957.

1930- The first Miniature Golf tournament held in Chattanooga Tenn.

1931- Chicago gangster Al Capone sentenced to 11 years in Alcatraz for federal income tax evasion.

1935- New York gangster Dutch Schultz was rubbed out. The erratic Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer ) had announced to the other mob bosses that Federal prosecutor Thomas Dewey was getting too close so he would kill him. To the syndicate killing such a high profile fed was going too far and would bring the wrath of Washington down on them, so Lucky Luciano decided it was easier to take care of the Dutchman. Schultz was having dinner at the Bob Treat Porkchop House in Newark with his crooked accountant "Abadaba" ( a corruption of Abracadabra ) when he excused himself to go to the mens room. Hitmen followed him and pumped 6 slugs into him while at the urinal. Gee, I hope he zipped up.....


1940- Shooting on the film Citizen Kane wrapped.

1942-EL ALAMEIN- Montgomery's British 8th Army threw 2500 new American made Sherman and Grant Tanks against Rommel's Afrika Korps threatening Egypt and the Suez Canal. Rommel the Desert Fox was on sick leave in Germany with diptheria and Rommels' replacement, General Stumme, dropped dead of a heart attack in the middle of the battle. Rommel flew back to try and stop the British attack, but by Nov.4th he had to accept defeat and abandon his Egyptian positions. Hitler had made Rommel a field marshal “ I wish he had given me another Panzer division instead” was his reply.

1968-THE FIRST OCTOBER SURPRISE- Pres. Johnson was pushing secret peace talks to wrap up the Vietnam War before he left office. Secret messages from South Vietnamese ambassador Bo Dhiem to the Saigon government confirmed that the Republican leaders were assuring the South Vietnamese that if they didn’t make peace before the American elections, Nixon could win and would support them. On Nov 2nd, President Nyguyen Van Thieu withdrew from the peace table and talks collapsed. Nixon won election and the war went on 4 more years.

1971-Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida opened.

1973- President Nixon ordered a world wide red alert of our strategic nuclear forces to warn the Soviets not to take advantage of U.S. domestic turmoil over Watergate. Soviet ambassador Dobrynin wrote in his memoirs that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger later telephoned and apologized to him for the alert. He said that it was done to distract U.S. opinion from the Watergate scandal.

1983- Jessica Savitch was one of the first women journalists to break the barrier for women getting the top anchor jobs in network news broadcasting. This day she died in a car accident.

1983- President Ronald Reagan had sent U.S. Marines into civil war torn Beirut to achieve peace. This day a suicide bomber drives a truck full of dynamite into the Marines barracks, killing 241 men in their sleep. Reagan then withdrew the remaining Marines. When Congress tried to enforce the War Powers Act limiting the President's power as commander in chief to send troops in harm's way, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger testified to Congress that Act didn't apply because the Beirut situation was not a war. "What was it then?" The incredulous senators asked. Cap Weinberger replied-"it is a state of Organized Violence." (----uh huh-?--)

1987- Judge Robert Bork was defeated in his bid for a seat on the Supreme Court. Besides offending Liberals by being a longtime Conservative stalwart, he offended Conservatives by admitting under oath he smoked marijuana

2001- Apple Computers launched the i-pod.

2007- massive brush fires north of San Diego California. It displaced one million people, one of the largest numbers of U.S. refugees since the Civil War.
--------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: What is so special about the Dark Side of the Moon?

Answer: Because of the Moons orbit around the Earth, there is always one side of it we never get to see. No one knew what was on the Dark Side of the Moon until the Apollo 8 astronauts went into orbit around it in 1968.

Question: What is so special about the Dark Side of the Moon?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: President Clinton was caught in a lie about his affair, and President George W. Bush lied about our involvement in Iraq. But who was the first President to be caught in a lie?
-------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/22/2010
Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt, Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd is 72,, Annette Funicello, Brian Boitano, Catherine Deneuve is 67, Spike Jonze is 41.

1641- The Irish rise in revolt yet again against England, this time hoping that the Brits would be too wrapped up in their own Civil War to deal with them. By 1649 Oliver Cromwell came over and dealt with them so harshly his fury is still remembered today.

1660- Edward Hyde the Earl of Clarendon was a staunch supporter and adviser to King Charles Ist and his son Charles II. This day upon learning that his daughter Anne had been seduced and made pregnant by James the Duke of York the aforesaid earl humbly petitioned King and Parliament to please cut off his daughters head! Boy, when daddy gets angry! King Charles II dismissed the affair as much ado about nothing.

1746- The Royal College of New Jersey chartered- it was later renamed Princeton.

1797- Frenchman Jean Garnerin does the first successful parachute jump. He conceived the idea while imprisoned in a Hungarian Castle during the French Revolution. He first used his dog and threw him out of a balloon, then he jumped himself at 2300 feet in the air and sprained his ankle. Garnarin died in a balloon accident in 1823 and his experiments forgotten. The practical modern parachute was not invented until 1910.

1805-After the naval Battle of Trafalgar, the shot-up English and French fleets were scattered by an ocean storm. Admiral Nelson's dead body had been sealed in an upright barrel of brandy for the trip back to London. After four days his body released some pent up gasses that suddenly popped the lid off the barrel. Must have scared the hell out of the guard on duty.

1843- THE GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT- American preacher William Miller working with the books of Daniel and Revelations in the Bible calculated the exact date of the Messiah’s return and the End of the World to be Oct. 22nd 1843. A highly publicized newspaper and lecture campaign got the American public so worked up that many didn’t bother to plant crops. Banks noticed businessmen returning monies they swindled from former partners. On the appointed day Miller and thousands of followers withdrew to pitched tents outside Rochester New York to await the Rapture. They waited all day and all night. By dawn most went home disappointed and feeling a bit foolish.

1883- First performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It was Gounod’s Faust with soprano Christine Nillson and tenor Italo Campanini.

1900-Two bicycle repairmen from Ohio named Orville and Wilbur Wright build a large glider and fly it .They choose the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk North Carolina to test their glider because the winds were strong and they would crash in something soft. The airplane was still three years in the future but this was their first test of their prototype double winged plane design.

1903- Tom Horn, considered the Last of the Western Outlaws, was hanged in Wyoming for the murder of Willie Nickel. The era of the gunslinger ends with him.

1923- THE TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL hearings began. By World War One the U.S. Navy had refitted it's battleships from coal to diesel fuel engines, so maintaining a strategic petroleum reserve became as serious as nuclear stockpiles are today. The Secretary of the Interior Albert Ball arranged for some reserved oil rich areas of Teapot Dome Oklahoma and California transferred from the Navy Department's jurisdiction to his department of the Interior, so he could 'lease them' to oil magnates James Doheny of Doheny Drive fame, and Harry Sinclair. They in turn gave him a fortune in stock and other monetary kickbacks.

Albert Ball became the first senior cabinet officer to go to jail. It took years for the scandal to wind through the courts and blackened the last days of President Warren Harding's administration.

1934- Bank Robber James" Pretty Boy" Floyd killed in a furious gun battle with the F.B.I. He had told his father months before:" Pa, when ah go, I’m gonna go down in lead!" Floyd was considered a "dust bowl robin hood" for leaving food and money on doorsteps of destitute farmers. One story had him steal a pie cooling on a windowsill pput replacing it with a $50 bill. In Woody Guthrie's "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" He says:" You may call me an outlaw, but one thing that I have known. I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home."

1938-THE XEROX COPY- Chester Carlson working with an amateur chemistry set behind a beauty parlor in Astoria Queens creates the first xerox copy. He took his invention to Edison, G.E., RCA and IBM who all rejected it. Finally a little firm that produced photographic paper for Kodak called the Haloid Company bought it. They later changed their named to Xerox.

1939- The first televised football game- The Brooklyn Dodger's 23 Philadelphia Eagles 14.

1962- Twentieth Century Fox chief Daryl Zanuck fired long suffering director Joe Mankiewicz off of the editing of the spectacle Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had shot a 6 hour movie he wanted shown as two films. Zanuck wanted one big movie at half that size. After a lot of embarrassing feuding in the press, Zanuck rehired Mankiewicz and he recut Cleopatra, It became one of the biggest disasters in Hollywood History.

1962- After it looked like a news leak would make the news public anyway, President John Kennedy goes on national television and tells the American public about the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. 54 B-52 bombers with 4 Hydrogen bombs each took off to fly within two hours of their Soviet targets. 134 Titan nuclear missiles were armed.

Both sides wrestled with the temptation to do a 'First-Strike', meaning the side that hit first without warning just might knock out enough of the enemies nukes to limit the damage and “megadeaths” to his own side. Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled: "I'd wake up in the morning and the first thing I'd think was, I'm alive, Khruschev didn't do it today." In Moscow Khruschev grimly joked:" With the time difference Kennedy works while I sleep and I work while he sleeps, hmph, maybe soon we'll both be sleeping..."

1962- At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis a stand up comic named Vaughn Meador recorded a comedy album called The First Family. It made lighthearted fun of John F. Kennedy and his White House. The record became the fastest selling hit of the pre-Beatles era, 7.5 million copies. Jackie called Meador a rat, but JFK thought it was funny and gave out copies as Christmas presents, even though he said Meador’s impersonation sounded more like Ted Kennedy than him.

1967- In Oakland black militants Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and H.Rap Brown form the Black Panther Party of Self Defense. ---------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Question: President Clinton was caught in a lie about his affair, and President George W. Bush lied about our involvement in Iraq. But who was the first President to be caught in a lie?

Answer: In May 1960, President Eisenhower declared that there was no such thing as illegal U-2 spyplane flights violating Soviet airspace. Two days later at a press conference, Russian Premier Khruschev produced the plane wreckage and the pilot, Captain Francis Gary Powers. Doh!