Birthdays: Anne of Cleves 1515- Henry VIII’s fourth wife. Bilbo Baggins and Frodo Baggins, Meryl Streep, John Houseman, Joanie Jett, Erich Von Stronheim, Tom Lasorda, Paul Muni, Debbie Boone, Scott Baio, John Woo is 58

480 BC. Themistocles and the Athenian fleet of 300 faced the 1,200 warships of Xerxes the Great King of Persia in the Bay of Salamis. This night at a war council the Greek admirals voted not to try to fight such mighty host but withdraw. Themistocles finding himself outvoted was so confident in their ability to win that he took a risk that could have cost his life. He sent a spy to Xerxes to tell him the Greeks were planning to flee so he should maneuver his fleet around them and cut off any hope of retreat. Xerxes fell for it and forced the engagement. The victory of Salamis assured the Golden Age of Athens.

1761- King George III’s coronation in London. Unlike his two George forebears who clung to their German Hanoverian roots, George III spoke English without an accent. All the great men of the day were there like Pitt the Elder, Edmund Burke and Dr. Samuel Johnson. In the crowd in front of Westminister Abbey, dazzled by all the pomp and circumstance, was a young colonist from America named John Hancock. Presented at court, he received from his sovereign’s hands a silver snuffbox. Ironically this was the very same Hancock whose bold signature would one day adorn the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

1776- Nathan Hale is hanged as a spy by the British in New York. The Connecticut schoolteacher had only been a spy for nine days until he was sniffed out and exposed by Colonel Robert Rogers, the French and Indian War hero who was now a Tory Loyalist. Today the spot where he was executed is near the w44th st. entrance of the PanAm err..Sony building near the flagship store of Brooks Brothers. Hale met his death cooly, one account later by a English officer named Montrose was that his last words were a quote from Addison’s play Cato :”I regret that I have but one life to give for my country….”

1925- Lon Chaney’s horror classic film the Phantom of the Opera premiered.

1927- The Dempsey-Tunney championship fight. Tunney wins in the famous 'long count', meaning the referee delayed the count because Dempsey wouldn’t return to his neutral corner. The extra time allowed Tunney to recover his wits and continue the fight to victory. Jack Dempsey was world heavyweight champion for ten years but retired a year later.

1964-Jerome Robbins’ “The Fiddler on the Roof “ opened on Broadway. In 1953 Robbins had named names to the MacCarthy HUAC committee to save his career. Now in Fiddler he had to use blacklisted actors like Zero Mostel and Beatrice Arthur who despised him. One of Tevye’s daughters was played by Puerto Rican singer Dominica Jimenes-Johnson. She would later go on to a successful career singing opera at the Metropolitan.

1967- Farewell voyage of the Queen Mary, in service since 1936.

1975- A emotionally unstable FBI worker named Sarah Jane Moore tried to assassinate President Gerald Ford in front of the Saint Francis Hotel in San Francisco. Her gun arm was deflected at the last minute by a man named Bill Sipple. In the subsequent media attention Sipple was outed as a gay man and his career was damaged as a result. “I can’t see what my sexual orientation has to do with saving the President’s life!”

1976- TV show Charlie’s Angels premiered. It made a star out of Farrah Fawcett, Victoria Principle and Kate Jackson.

1979-Hanna Barbera's Super Globetrotter's Show, featuring Multi-Man, Sphere Man, Gizmo-Man,Spaghetti-Man and Fluid-Man.

1984- Michael Eisner named CEO of the Walt Disney Corporation.

Birthdays: Louis Joliet as in the French explorers Marquette and Joliet, Gustav Holst, H.G. Wells, Stephen King, Bill Murray, Cecil Fielder, Rob Morrow, Larry Hagman, Ricky Lake, Fanny Flagg, Ethan Coen of the Coen Brothers, Leonard Cohen not one of the Coen Brothers, Faith Hill, legendary animation director Chuck Jones
courtesy toon images.

1327- English King Edward II was openly gay with his courtiers Piers Gaveston and later Hugh Despencer. In the Middle Ages it was okay to be gay if you were a big tough mo-fo killer like Richard Lionheart, but Edward was a weenie who lost battles to Scottish King Robert the Bruce. So he was overthrown by his own Queen Isabella the She-Wolf of France and her lover Roger Mortiimer. This day Edward was murdered while being held in Berkeley Castle. The barons tied him down, held his butt cheeks open with a horn and shoved a red hot spear up into his body. Edwards only son Edward III later killed everyone involved and became an utterly great king.

1589- During the French Religious Wars King Henry IV defeated a large Catholic League army at Arques. He wrote a friend later:”Go hang yourself my brave Creon, we were at Arques and you weren’t!”

1793- The French Revolutionary Government throws out the calendar and makes a new one. So today was the FIRST DAY OF THE FIRST DECADE (week) OF THE FIRST MONTH OF YEAR II OF THE REPUBLIC ! If you didn't get it you were guillotined.

1846- Drygoods dealer Mr. A.J. Stewart opened a store in New York City that was so large he put the various items in their own departments, the Department Store. He also had the first large glass display windows which one writer labeled “A useless extravagance.”

1897- The famous column by Frank Church in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World first appeared with the answer to 8 year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s question : " ...and yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus..."

1915- The British archaeological treasure Stonehenge was sold at auction to a Mr Chubb, who promptly donated it to the British nation.

1917-The Gulf Between, the first film shot in Technicolor. Because the process was more expensive than other processes in 1932 inventor Herbert Kalmus made a deal with Walt Disney to make his cartoons exclusively in technicolor to advertise to other studios the bold pure color.

1920- The Kimberly Clark Company introduces Kotex ladies napkins in a hospital-blue box. Before that women had to wear something like a linen diaper that they washed and re-used.

1938- It’s very rare for a hurricane to reach up into the colder Mid-Atlantic waters of the Eastern seacoast of the US. This day the Long Island Express- A force 3 Hurricane slammed into New England killing 600. The Boston area was hit with 120 mile an hour winds and downtown Providence was flooded under 13 feet of water. Hurricanes and Typhoons didn't start to get names until the 1960s when they began to be tracked on radar and satellite.

1944- An internal FBI memo concludes "Communist infiltration of the Hollywood Guilds and unions and the only organization that could stop them was the Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals" a conservative publicity group that included Walt Disney, John Wayne and Gary Cooper.

1945- Disney short "Hockey Homicide" the first Sport-Goofy directed by Jack Kinney. Producer Harry Tytle mentioned in his memoirs that although Walt Disney didn’t complain about their success Walt never liked these cartoons and thought Goofy too stupid a character for the public to sympathize with.

1948- the first Texaco Star Theater television show featuring a minor nightclub comedian named Milton Berle. Berle’s antics make him a major star and with Arthur Godfrey’s show help grow television from a scientific curiosity to the entertainment every household had to have. For ten years the U.S. public never missed Uncle Miltie on t.v.

1950- General MacArthur’s UN Army fought their way into North Korean occupied Seoul. On a hilltop the First Marines Div raised a US flag on a loose drainpipe found near a local school. This caused one regular Army commander to complain: “Ever since Iwo Jima the Marines never pass up an opportunity to be photographed raising a flag over something!”

1954- The USS Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine, was launched in Groton Conn. The submarines in the submarine ride at Disneyland were originally painted to look like the USN nuclear ships Nautilus, Wasp and one other I can't recall.

1957- The Perry Mason tv show with Raymond Burr premiered.

1970-first ABC Monday Night Football - Cleveland Browns defeated the NY Jets led by Broadway Joe Namath, 24-21. Announcers- Keith Jackson, Howard Cosell and retired Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dandy Don Meredith. In 2006 the show moved to ESPN.

1985- “Money for Nothing” by Dire Straights hit #1 in the Billboard charts. Writer Mark Knopfler was inspired by a workman in an electronics store making fun of celebrities on MTV and wrote his discussion down.

I've gotten some wonderful reactions from the Chuck Jones family and Walt & Selby Kelly family about DRAWING THE LINE. Reprinted with his kind permission is the note I just received-

Dear Tom,

Mega-thanks for the copy of Drawing the Line you sent my wife and me. My mother (Selby Kelly), father (Roger Daley) and step-father (Walt Kelly) would have loved it!

I just got back from several days out of town and, finding your book on the door step, literally haven't put it down for the last two hours. While my dirty laundry and other travel artifacts lie about the room I read with utter fascination details of the Disney Strike and other events of MAJOR importance to me in my life. I probably wouldn't have been born if my mother had stayed at Disney's and hadn't met my father who was very pro-union and working on the Chuck Jones crew. Going to Mexico City with my parents (due to the Blacklist keeping them out of Hollywood) when I was five years old was certainly a life changing event for me. Just reading in print the many names of family friends from so many years ago -- workers that I had begun to feel were long forgotten -- has certainly made my day.
Thanks for your support of the men and women who, like my folks, drew a line in the sand and refused to step over it.

The Best,
Scott Daley

This note verifies one of the main reasons I wrote Drawing the Line. After all, an animation labor history is not likely to outsell anything by Stephen King or Tom Clancy. So it wasn't to make big bucks. I wanted new people coming into animation to know that there were once heroes among us, and not just because they drew well or were funny. I feel priviledged to bring out this part of their story.
I'm sure some will disagree with what I wrote, or will feel some facts are wrong. They may or may not be right, but notes like this make me feel like a winner already. Thank you.

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Birthdays: Alexander the Great -356 BC, Upton Sinclair, Jelly Roll Morton, Red Auerbach, Guy Lafluer, Fernando Rey, Ann Meara, Rachel Roberts, Jonathan Hardy,Fran Drescher, Sophia Loren is 72

356BC- The Great Temple of Artemis of Ephesus was destroyed by fire. It was said to be the work of a lunatic arsonist from Hailicarnassus. The temple had been built as a gift to the goddess by Croesus the Lydian who was so had so much wealth the phrase “To be as rich as Croesus “ is still in use today. Why had the Goddess Artemis would allow her house to be consumed so cruelly? The priests explained that she was probably too busy overseeing the birth of Alexander the Great in Macedon to keep a watch on her house. The Ephesians rebuilt the huge temple and 400 year later Saint Paul was thrown out of it for preaching his weird new religion. The cult statue of Artemis or Diana had dozens of breasts, which some describe as maybe bull testicles. They are symbols of fertility.

1670- English poet John Milton published his last works “Paradise Regained” and “Samson Agonistes”. He was blind but dictated to a secretary who wrote down his poems. When he felt the inspiration he would call him by saying:” Come. I need to be milked.”

1803- Irish patriot Robert Emmett executed for leading an abortive uprising against the British. His final words became famous: “ Let no man write my epitaph. When my country takes her place among the nations of the Earth, then, and not till then, Let my epitaph be written.”

1814- A new poem by Georgetown lawyer Francis Scott Key was first published in the Baltimore Patriot. First called the Defense of Fort McHenry. Keys brother in law Judge Nicholson suggested it sounded good sung to the tune To Anacreon in Heaven’. Soon everyone was singing it as the Star Spangled Banner.

1839- The steamer British Queen first brought news of the invention of Photography and the Daguerreotype process to the U.S.. Soon everyone is happily snapping away.

1853- Elisha Otis revolutionized office building construction by demonstrating his elevator that didn’t fall when the cable was cut.

1944- Now that the Pacific War was winding down martial law was lifted on the Hawaiian Islands. It had been imposed since Pearl Harbor. One tragic result for the servicemen was that the first thing the restored chief of Honolulu police did was shut down the brothels of Waikiki. The area known as Hotel Street was ringed with houses of ill repute servicing servicemen for the duration. One sailor reminisced: I got stewed, screwed and tatooed, all in one night.” The quarters most famous hooker, Jean O’Hara said: “ I think I slept with the entire US Navy.”

1952- CBS premiered the Jackie Gleason Show- The Honeymooners".

1955- The Phil Silvers Show, originally entitled You’ll Never Get Rich” debuted on CBS. His character Sgt. Bilko was later the inspiration for the Hanna Berbera Show Top Cat.

1973- Musician Jim Croce (30) died in a charter plane crash near Natchitoches Louisiana.

1984- The Cosby Show premiered.

Just remember:

Grim Natwick the creator of Betty Boop lived to be 100 years old. John Randolph Bray the inventor of the animation studio system died at 107, Friz Freleng lived to 89, Chuck Jones lived to 89, Bill Hanna to 90, Joe Barbera is still around at 94. In the mean time the inventor of the Power Bar died at 52 and the inventor of jogging died at 58.


Moral? Wanna live long? SIT ON YOUR ASS AND ANIMATE!


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Birthdays: Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius, Salladin, Brian Epstein, "Momma" Cass Elliot, Dr. Ferry Porsche- inventor of the Porsche race car, Twiggy – real name Leslie Hornby, Leon Jaworski, William Golding author of The Lord of the Flies, Adam West is 78, Frances Farmer, David McCallum, Duke Snyder, Mike Royko, Scar voice Jeremy Irons, Jimmy Fallon is 32, Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin.

1580- The family of Miguel de Cervantes ransomed the writer from the Barbary Pirates. He wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha in 1604.

1692- One of the only men convicted in the Salem Witch Trials was executed. Pilgrim Giles Corey had a wooden board laid on top of him and his neighbors piled large stones on top until he was squished to death. At one point his tongue was sticking so grotesquely out of his head that the magistrate pushed it back in with the tip of his cane.

1783- Jacques Montgolfier launches the first hot air balloon in Paris. The first aeronauts were a sheep, duck and rooster. Montgolfier made his fortune in paper. To this day if you get some high quality stationary with a balloon and French flag in the watermark that is Papier Canson et Montgolfier, his company.

1827- Fight at the Vidalia Sandbar- Famous Mississippi gamblers brawl in which Jim Bowie uses his famous knife to carve up a gang of sore losers who shoot him twice. The Bowie knife may not have been designed by Jim Bowie but by his brother Rezin Bowie, who wanted an intimidating toothpick to brandish after he almost died in an earlier altercation. The Bowie knife was the Saturday night special of the early nineteenth century. In Brahm Stoker's Dracula, Van Helsing doesn't kill the count with a wooden stake but with a Bowie knife.

1864- Battle of Winchester- General Phil Sheridan's Yankees whup Jubal Early's Confederates. The feisty son of an Irish ditch digger, Abe Lincoln called Sheridan "A runty little man with a bullet shaped head and not enough neck to hang him." But he proved his value today. He rode fearlessly down the battle line shouting to his men:" Pour it into them boys! Knock every sonofabitch down before you !" One sonofabitch killed was Confederate General George S. Patton, the grandfather of the World War Two general.
Sheridan's army had no less than three future U.S. presidents on staff- Gen.James Garfield, Gen. Rutherford Hayes and Major William McKinley.

1876- Melvin Bissell of Grand Rapids Michigan invented his carpet sweeper.

1926- THE BIG ONE- Miami Florida was destroyed by a huge Hurricane. The storm stopped for a time the runaway boom in land investment then all the rage in South Florida. SnowBirds up north invested millions in land that turned out to be swamps . The Marx Brothers poked fun at the craze in their 1929 film Cocoanuts. As Groucho said:” Florida Folks. Sunshine, Sunshine , now let’s get the auction started before there is a tornado.”

1931- The Marx Brothers comedy “ Monkey Business” premiered.

1936- Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald record “Indian Love Call”. When I’m Calling You, Oooh-ohhoohhh, Ohhhh-ohhh-oohhhhhhh”, etc.

1945- Little Shirley Temple, now all grown up, married actor John Agar, who she met on the set of John Ford's film Fort Apache. The RKO studio turned the marriage into a media circus by inviting 12,000 people. John Ford teased Agar mercilessly, calling him Mr. Temple. John and Shirley divorced within two years. Shirley Temple did a few more small roles, remarried and became a diplomat and John Agar went on to star in a number of sci-fi flicks like 'Tarantula", The Brain from Planet Aurous" and built his own theme dinosaur park by an Arkansas freeway "John Agar's House of Kong'.

1945- Klaus Fuchs, a spy in the British delegation member of the Los Alamos Atomic bomb program, delivered the plans of the plutonium 'Nagasaki" bomb to a courier for Soviet intelligence in Moscow.

1955- Juan Peron the President of Argentina was overthrown in a military coup.

1961- This is the night Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were picked up by a flying saucer and experimented on. It is one of the more famous abduction stories because it holds up under hypnosis. Hey, what are you planning to do with that anal probe?


1970- The Mary Tyler Moore TV Show premiered.

1995- Orville Reddenbacher 'the Popcorn king' died.

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Birthdays: Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Trajan 53AD, Dr Samuel Johnson, Frankie Avalon, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Leon Foucault ( Foucault's Pendulum ), Jack Warden, June Foray the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Canadian PM John Diefenbaker, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Rossano Brazzi, Debbie Fields founder of Mrs. Field's Cookies, Jada Pinkett-Smith, James Gandolfini is 45

1572-the painter El Greco first appeared in history in a document paying his union dues to the Guild of St. Lawrence, the artists guild of Rome. His real name was Domenico Theotocopoulos. People just called him 'the Greek Guy" -El Greco.

1804- Napoleon inspected Baron Gros new painting The Plague Victims of Jaffa and liked it. Nappy considered paintings part of propaganda and commissioned artists to project his image.

1811 A Portuguese 'Projectionist' (experimenter with Magic Lanterns) offers the Duke of Wellington to burn up Napoleon's army with a series of convex lenses and mirrors. Wellington says thanks, but no thanks...

1851-First issue of the New York Daily Times, later just the New York Times.

1870-THE SIEGE OF PARIS BEGAN- The main French armies defeated and Emperor Napoleon III a prisoner, Paris alone refused to surrender to Prussia. As the great Krupp guns boom shells into the city, American General Phil Sheridan stood as a tourist in between Chancellor Bismarck and the Kaiser. Painter August Renoir would go outside the city walls to sketch and was once picked up and accused of espionage. Parisians starved in the siege and elegant restaurants were soon offering 'roast cat in orange sauce with a decorative garnish of mice'. Top fashion guru Worth of Paris declared it chic' to have some decorative ruins in your garden. After the siege the Paris city walls were demolished. They were approximately where the freeway "peripherique" around the city is today. The fiercest fighting was where the suburb of La Defense is (hence the name).Young Emile Cohl was inspired by the military wall posters he saw to become an artist. He later became the first true animation artist.

1895- In Davenport Iowa Daniel David Liliiard invented the chiropractic adjustment session. Now just relax- CRACCCK!!

1917-Writer Aldous Huxley got a job teaching at Eton. One of his students was Eric Blair, who would write under the name George Orwell.

1927-The Columbia Broadcasting System-CBS broadcast its first program, an opera called the King’s Henchman.

1932-Frustrated movie actress Peggy Enwhistle jumped off the Hollywood Sign. In case you are curious she jumped off the “H”. She also didn’t hit the ground immediately but hit a cactus patch, dying slowly later in great pain. Ironically in her mail that day was a script and a job offer. The role was of a woman who commits suicide.

1965- I Dream of Genie debuted on television. Network Standards & Practices said Barbara Eden could wear the harem outfit so long as her belly-button didn’t show. At first the reviews were not good. Variety said: “The only star of this show is Barbera Edens cleavage.”

1970- Jimi Hendrix (27) was found dead of drug and alcohol abuse. He had passed out and choked on his own vomit. Janis Joplin's reaction was -"G-ddammit! He beat me to it !" Joplin herself died three weeks afterwards.

1991- Comedian Redd Foxx ( Sanford and Son) was famous for doing bits like faking a heart attack. This day on the set of his new series the Royal Family while joking with Della Reese he clutched his chest and fell over dead. Everyone thought he was faking and laughed.

2003- In Scotland, paleontologists discover the world's oldest genitalia. From a dinosaur era insect ancestor of the preying mantis. Sounds like an old prospectors exclamation:” Great Giant Mantis Balls!”