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November 23, 2010 tues.
November 23rd, 2010

Question: What film had the line " Oh darling, come with me to ze Casbahhh!"

Yesterday’s Question Answered below: For the 1951 Sci Fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, composer Bernard Hermann was the first to employ an unusual instrument in the soundtrack. That instrument became iconic for describing aliens and monsters. What is it?
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HISTORY FOR 11/23/2010
Birthdays: German Emperor Otto Ist 972AD, Edward Rutledge –Declaration of Ind signer, President Franklin Pierce, Krystoff Penderecki, Manuel DeFalla, William Henry Pratt better known as Boris Karloff, William Bonney better known as Billy the Kid, Susan Anspach, Victor Jory, Vincent Cassel, Joe Esterhaus is 68, Miley Cyrus is 18.


1654- BLAISE PASCAL was one of the great minds of French civilization. A scientist who invented an early computer. This day he almost died when his carriage plunged off a Seine River Bridge. The carriage remained precariously perched above the water allowing Pascal to escape.

That night in his trauma he had the first of several religious revelations. Blaise Pascal became a philosopher and one of the great Christian apologists. He wrote of that night:” The God of Abraham and Issac appeared to me, The God of Jacob - Reassurance. Certainty. Peace.”

1874- Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy first published.

1889- The first Juke Box installed at the Palais Royale Saloon in San Francisco. Created by Louis T. Glass it used Edison cylinders instead of records and cost 5 cents a play. Juke comes from Juke Joint, a slang term then for a dance hall.

1897-First Royal performance for Queen Victoria of a Cinematograph moving picture, at Windsor Castle. Also on the program was Monsieur Taffary's Calculating Dogs.

1903- Italian tenor Enrico Caruso made his debut at New York’s Metropolitan Opera in Verdi’s Rigoletto. The great singer loved drawing caricatures, collecting police badges, pinching ladies bottoms and doing practical jokes, like filling your hat with flour.

1921- Tightening the Prohibition laws, President Warren Harding signed the Willis-Cambell Act. It was nicknamed the Anti-Beer Bill, because it forbade doctors to prescribe beer or other liquors for medicinal purposes.

1936- The first florescent lighting tubes are installed in the U.S. Patent office.

1936- Time Magazine owner Henry Luce launched LIFE Magazine. The first picture on the cover was a dam photographed by Margaret Bourke-White. The second picture was a doctor slapping a newborn baby with the caption: “Life Begins!”

1938- Bob Hope recorded his signature tune “Thanks for the Memory” for the movie The Big Broadcast.

1942- PLAY IT AGAIN SAM- The movie CASABLANCA premiered. Based on an never produced musical, “Everybody Comes to Ricks’, Howard Koch and the Epstein Brothers adapted the play into one of the most memorable Hollywood movies ever. It was never expected to be more than a rehash of the popular Charles Boyer film Algiers. Humphrey Bogart acted opposite Ingrid Bergman, although he had to stand on boxes to appear taller than his Swedish leading lady.

Louis, I don't know whether to shoot you for being a corrupt collaborator, or Tom Sito for directing Osmosis Jones.

1945- The U.S. government ends most wartime food and gas rationing.

1947- THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS- Prof E. L. Sukenik of Hebrew University in Israel was first told of a discovery made by two Bedouin shepherds in a cave near Qumran. Hebrew sacred scrolls dated from 200BC to 70AD, many were found to corroborate translated passages in the modern Bible.

1948- Japanese Prime Minister Gen. Hidecki Tojo was hanged for war crimes.

1952- Animator Fred Moore, who drew Mickey Mouse in Fantasia and the Brave Little Tailor, died in an auto accident in the Tujunga Canyon area of Los Angeles.

1960- The Hollywood Walk of Fame is dedicated, featuring over 1,500 names- but not Charlie Chaplin, who was banned until 1972 because of his alleged lefty political views.

1963- The night after the JFK Assassination, the presidential party was back in Washington from Dallas. Secret Service Agent Gerald Blaine was guarding the home of new president Lyndon Johnson. During the night he raised his weapon at a figure approaching him. He was about to fire when he saw the man was President Johnson! Doh! Blaine didn’t admit this until 2010.

1963- The first episode of Dr.Who premiered on the BBC.

1966-The film “ Spinout “ premiered. Elvis Presley pioneered the genre movie of bored male movie stars who use their studio muscle to make us watch movies of them in racing cars. James Garner in Grand Prix-arguably the best one, Steve McQueen in LeMans, Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, Sly Stallone in Driven, etc.

1973- THE BOSTON STRANGLER- Albert DeSalvo molested and murdered 13 women and kept Beantown in fear between 1962 and 1964. In '64 he was finally apprehended and sentenced to life in prison, just getting in after the states death penalty was repealed. On this date another prisoner did what the State would not do, he knifed him to death in an argument.
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Yesterday’s Question: For the 1951 Sci Fi film The Day the Earth Stood Still, composer Bernard Hermann was the first to employ an unusual instrument in the soundtrack. That instrument became iconic for describing aliens and monsters. What is it?

Answer: He used a Theramin, named for inventor Leon Theramin.


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