Congratulations to all my friends at the UCLA Animation workshop, who are having their end of the year show today. They are giving the first UCLA ANIMATION AWARD to their illustrious alumni DAVID SILVERMAN, he who is the director of the Simpson's Movie and Monsters Inc.

Remember tonight is also the screening of Raul Garcia's THE MISSING LYNX at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica.

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Quiz: Was Napoleon short?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: The Zamboni is the rolling device that cleans ice hockey rinks. Where was it invented? Halifax? Buffalo??
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History for 6/6/2009
Birthdays: Diego Velasquez, Pierre Corneille. Alexandre Pushkin, Nathan Hale, John Trumbull, Thomas Mann, The Dalai Lama, Klaus Tennestedt, Bjorn Borg, Richard Crane, Harvey Fierstein is 57, Dr. Karl Braun, Walter Chrysler, Isaiah Berlin, Aram Kharachaturian, Jason Issacs, Sandra Bernhard is 54, Paul Giamatti is 42

1683- The worlds first public museum , the Ashmolean, was opened. English archaeologist Elias Ashmole donated his collection of curiosities to Oxford University for the students to study. A building was commissioned from Christopher Wren and the museum opened to the public this day.

1727- BATTLE OF THE DIVAS- In Old London at this time the rage was for Italian Operas. Many international musicians made lucrative livings singing for Britons. Italian soprano Francesca Cuzzoni was the reigning star but a rival arrived in town named Faustina Bodoni. This night at His Majesty’s Theatre Covent Garden with the Princess of Wales in attendance as Bodoni tried to sing Astianatte, Cuzzoni fans booed, hissed and shouted so much a fight broke out. Soon the two rival singers were up on stage tearing each others hair out, fistfights in the pit and scenery being pulled down. Composer George Frederich Handel laughingly accompanied the mayhem with an impromptu solo on kettledrums.

1740- Prussian King Frederick the Great instituted a new medal. Originally called the Order of Generosity, Frederick called the little blue Maltese cross Order Pour Le Merite fur Offizeren. Frederick liked to say things in French. The medal became famous as the Blue Max, coveted by World War I flying aces.

1797- The Lake Poets meet. In the Coxwolds region of England Samuel Taylor Colderidge walked across a field and visited William Wordsworth in his cottage. This began one of the great collaborations in literature. Coleridge had just finished the Rubiyat of Omar Khayam. The married Mr Colderidge even had a platonic affair with Wordsworth’s sister Dorothy and later Wordsworth’s sister-in-law Susan Hutchinson.

1833- President Andrew Jackson becomes the first President to ride a train.

1844 –George Williams formed the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) in London, for lonely young men working in the new urban factories to have an alternative to pubs and dance halls.

1857- THE SIEGE & MASSACRE OF KANPUR- The most infamous episode of the Indian Sepoy Rebellion against the British. The Hindu Maharrata of India and the Moslem Moghul Emperor Bajadur had thrown their support behind the Sepoys, the rebellious Indian troops attacking British posts throughout India. At Kanpur the rebels surrounded a garrison of British troops with their wives and children in a little hospital compound. After a two weeks of fighting and starving in100 degree heat the British surrendered on a promise of safe conduct. After giving up their weapons the Indians murdered them all, using professional butchers to chop up the captive women and children and fill a dry well with their body parts. 600 died. The incident horrified Victorian society, which adopted a harder attitude towards their Indian subjects. Captured Sepoys were tied across the mouths of cannon and blown to bits.

1867- THE KA-KA COMPROMISE- The Austrian Empire quiets its nationalist Hungarian subjects by turning their country into a dual monarchy. Hapsburg Emperor Franz Josef and Empress Elizabeth go to Budapest and are crowned King and Queen of Hungary. The Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary was called in German `Kaiserlich-Koniglich' or K.K. The regime's opponents called it KaKa, and they had understood the pun just as we do.

1918- BATTLE of the BELLEAU WOOD- In World War One as the first U.S. Marine units arrive in the Western Front, Marshal Foch threw them in front of a major German attack. They stopped the Germans only 37 miles from Paris. When the Yanks arrived in the trenches, the French commander announced the entire Allied line was retreating. Marine Major Taylor replied: " Retreat ? Hell, we just got here !" and they went into action. Later in the fighting the same major was heard bellowing to his men:" Come on' you sons a' b-tches! Do you wanna live forever?!"

1925 - Walter Percy Chrysler founded Chrysler Corp.

1933-The first Drive In movie opens in Camden, New Jersey.

1934- President Roosevelt signed the Securities and Exchange Act, which set up a regulatory commission to rein in the under the table shenanigans of brokers and financiers that had caused the Great Depression. The chairman of the SEC was Joseph Kennedy Sr.

1939- Playright Eugene O’Neill had hit a dry spell of no writing and fears of impending Parkinsons disease. This day he got the inspiration to sketch out two outlines for two potential plays- The Iceman Cometh, and Long Days Journey into Night.

1941- Actor George Raft wrote a memo to studio head Jack Warner reminding him of his contractual commitment to send Raft only good quality scripts. The latest he got: " The Maltese Falcon" he thought was a lousy substandard idea that has no chance." Humphrey Bogart did the film instead.

1942- Two days after the Battle of Midway the abandoned burning wreck of the carrier USS Yorktown was torpedoed and sunk by Japanese submarine I-162. In 1997 the Yorktown was found on the bottom of the Pacific by Dr. Robert Ballard, the same scientist who found the Titanic. To give you an idea of the depth of the Pacific compared to the Atlantic, Ballard said it took 1 1/2 hours for his submersible to descend to the Titanic, but it took three full hours one way to visit the Yorktown.

1942 – Test pilot Adeline Grey did the first nylon parachute jump in Hartford Conn.

1944-D-DAY, the NORMANDY INVASION- General Dwight Eisenhower launched 4,000 ships, 11,000 planes and 150,000 troops on the shores of Nazi occupied France with the order: "Okay. Let's go.". In Moscow where the Soviets had been begging for a second front, there was wild celebrations and Radio Moscow played "Yankee-Doodle" all day. Eisenhower had planned that green troops be used in the first wave. "If they knew what was waiting for them like the veterans know, they wouldn't go." Many technological innovations were tried including floating pre-fabricated harbors "mullberries" and amphibious vehicles. Some were duds like the "swimming tanks" Sherman tanks with a large rubber donut around them. 36 tanks were launched into the waves and 32 sank almost immediately.
In the assault were future Senator Robert Dole, Disney key assistant Dale Oliver and Warner artist Victor Haboush. Sergeant Baumgarden drew on his jacket a large Star of David and wrote "Bronx, N.Y." under it to let Hitler know who was coming. Many of the infantry had rolled condoms onto the muzzles of their guns to keep sand and water out of them. Famed war photographer Robert Capa leaped into the surf before the landing barges reached shore and walking backwards with the whole Nazi army shooting at him photographed the first G.I.s landing on Omaha Beach. His 22 rolls of film were later ruined by an inept lab developer.
The German High command was taken completely by surprise. When the invasion happened many officers were coming home from a weekend seminar on how to fight an invasion, and Hitler had taken a sleeping pill and left orders not to be disturbed.

1949-Comic strip character Joe Palooka gets married to Ann Howe.

1949-BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING- George Orwell's book about technological tyranny -1984 was first published. Orwell's working title was "The Last Free Man", but the publisher thought it too depressing to sell. So Orwell picked the date 1984, who's only significance was that it was the year he was writing 1948- reversed

1955 - Bill Haley & Comets, "Rock Around the Clock" hits #1.

1972 - David Bowie releases "Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust"

1976- The Glendale Galleria shopping mall in Glendale Cal. opened.

1978- Proposition 13 property tax cut approved by California voters.

1982- Russian Alexi Pajitnov invented the game Tetrus

1984- Climaxing two years of fighting Sikh Nationalists, Indian forces are ordered by Prime Minister Indira Ghandi to storm the Golden Temple of Amritsar, the holiest shrine of the Sikh religion. 1000 are killed. Later that year Mrs. Ghandi was assassinated by her own Sikh bodyguards in revenge. The current PM of India, Verdat Singh, is a Sikh.

2007- The Mighty Ducks of Anaheim California, named for a Disney movie, win the Stanley Cup after defeating the Ottawa Senators. It is the first Stanley Cup won by a west coast team since 1925.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: The Zamboni is the rolling device that cleans ice hockey rinks. Where was it invented? Halifax? Buffalo??

Answer: It was invented by the Zamboni Family in Paramount California, a southern suburb of Los Angeles.