So, sometimes folks ask me Hey Sito! How do you know all dis stuff? I have been a history fan who's been collecting trivia for many years. For instance I'm currently polishing off a biography of Chiang Kai Shek and the warlord period in 1930's China. Maybe when your full time job is fantasy, reality is where you go to relax.

In 1992 at Walt Disney Studio Scott Johnston helped me set up my first data files on each day, then Peter Schneider's assistant Stacy Slossy suggested I sent out an e-mail to friends with a daily gazette. The rest, is history...
Me at the memorial for the LA Times Bombing- see below, courtesy of the LA Grim Society


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Welcome to Month Number 8, Octubrius to the Romans. In 138 AD the Roman Senate wanted to rename month eight Faustina, after the wife of the Emperor Antoninus Pius. But being a rare modest empress, she declined the honor.

Birthdays: Vladimir Horowitz, Julie Andrews is 70, Walter Matthau, Richard Harris, Phillipe Noiret, James Whitmore, Pres.Jimmy Carter is 81, Everet Sloane, Rod Carew, Stanley Holloway, Tom Bosley, Chief Justice William Rheinquist, Max Morath, Mark McGuire, Randy Quaid, Cindy Margolis

326 A.D. Emperor Constantine the Great bans sentencing criminals to Gladitorial schools, effectively ending Gladitorial Combat. Games continued on a little while longer using prisoners of war but all the fun and professionalism had gone out of it. The last recorded bout in Rome was in 407 AD. According to the historian Jerome Carcopino the person slaves feared more than the Gladiator trainer (Lanista) or the pimp (Leno) was the Theater Manager! You may survive the brothel or arena, but in plays audiences thrilled to special effects like when Hercules burns himself alive on his funeral pyre, the manager substitutes a slave for the actor and really set him on fire!

1857- Gustav Flaubert's Madame Bovary premiered in magazine installments. Flaubert was tried for pornography but acquitted.

1880- John Phillip Sousa was named leader of the Marine Corps Band and began his career as the March King.

1903- First World Series of Baseball. The Boston Pilgrims had lost the first game today to the Pittsburgh Pirates 7-3, even though Cy Young was the starting pitcher. But Boston went on to win the series in best of nine games. Yes, that’s not a typo, There was no 1904 World series because the owners couldn't agree on a format.

1908- Ford announces the Model "T" the "Tin Lizzie" the first mass-produced affordable car. It was called the Model T because it took Twenty prototypes to perfect it. The Model T cost $825 dollars and paid on installments with as little as 10 dollars down. It’s top speed was 45 miles and hour and 15 million were sold. When they asked Henry Ford what color should it be, he replied: "Any color so long as it's black.' The auto goes from being a rich mans plaything to something every home could afford.

1911- A bomb blew up the L.A. Times building, killing 23 people. The Times had a hostility to unions and two union organizers the McNamara Brothers were arrested. Despite having Clarence Darrow as a lawyer they were convicted, possibly because halfway through the trial the brothers confessed . As the MacNamaras were hanged they shouted 'Hurrah for Anarchy!'

1932- Babe Ruth's "Called" Home Run. Ruth was hitting against a Chicago Cubs pitcher when he pointed with his bat towards right field. He then swung his bat and hit a home run over the right wing bleachers.
courtesy putnampit.com
1937- After heavy lobbying by millionaire publisher William Randolph Hearst the first Federal law banning Marijuana goes into effect. The law was sought chiefly by southwestern states who wanted to have an excuse to deport Mexican immigrants. Plus Hearst had many powerful paper manufacturers behind him who wanted wood pulp to be the chief source of paper products rather than hemp, which grows like a weed.

1945- Looney Tunes director Frank Tashlin left the cartoon business to work full time at Paramount doing live action movies. He wrote for the Marx Brothers and later directed the Dean Martin Jerry Lewis comedies.

1947-THE BIRTH OF THE BURBS- William Levitt's postwar dream, a planned community of affordable pre-fab homes on the outskirts of New York, called Levittown, is born. Mr. and Mrs. Bladykas move into the first 2 bedroom house, which cost $7,990 bucks. The first true suburb. The word Suburb is from Subura, the ghetto of Ancient Rome.

1962- Johnny Carson takes over the Tonight Show after host Jack Paar in a rage walks of the set and resigned. Paar was annoyed at network censors for censoring a comedy sketch.

1966- Largest demonstrations in China of Mao's Cultural Revolution.

1968-George Romero's weird film "Night of the Living Dead' premiered.

1982- Disney's EPCOT opens. Walt Disney's orginal concept was for a planned community that he personally would oversee, but little of the original plan remained.

1987- The Whittier Earthquake rocks L.A. 5.9 on the Richter Scale killed 8 and caused millions in damage.

1992 -the Cartoon Network starts. Cartoon Network reintroduced classic Hanna Barbera cartoons to a new generation and made funky shows like Space Ghost Coast-To-Coast a hit.