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July 16,2006
July 16th, 2006

Birthdays: Sir Joshua Reynolds, Ginger Rogers, Pinchas Zukerman, Orville Redenbacher the PopCorn King, Sunny Tufts- the star of 50s sci fi films like the Crawling Eye.- In Rocky and Bullwinkle Boris Badenov is ever lusting after an autographed photo of Sunny Tufts. Reuben Blades, Mary Baker-Eddy the founder of Christian Science, Will Farrell

1769- Fra Junipero Serra founded his first Mission settlement in California- San Diego de Alcala, now present day San Diego. The master plan was to create a string of missions from San Diego to San Francisco one days ride apart- San Clemente, San Juan Capistrano, San Gabriel , Los Angeles, etc.

1932- Cecil B. DeMille shot the scene in his film Sign of the Cross where Claudet Colbert took a bath in asses milk. Legend has it that DeMille insisted on real milk in the bath and that by the second day the hot studio lights had curdled it to a smelly cheese. But production notes show the scene was all shot in one day. DeMille always got away with sexy semi-nude scenes by putting them in biblical settings. After all, who would criticize a moral tale from the Good Book? This story of Jesus opens with an orgy scene at Mary Magdalene’s house.

1945-THE FIRST ATOMIC BOMB EXPLODED at Alamagordo New Mexico (site code name was "Trinity'). Called at first the Super Cosmic Bomb, nicknamed "The Gadget". The Manhattan Project scientists weren't sure that once you started the chain reaction detonating particles of light when it would stop, if ever. Physicists Richard Fenyman and Enrico Fermi wagered a case of beer that they would incinerate the state of New Mexico.(funny guys). They were led by General Leslie Groves, a by-the-book army engineer who supervised the construction of the Pentagon, and Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer, a brilliant physicist and Berkeley radical who read Sanskrit to relax. When he saw the force of the blast Oppenheimer recalled the Hindu verse: "Now have I become Death, the Destroyer of Worlds..."

1951-J.D. Salinger's "Catcher in the Rye" published.

1954- First groundbreaking for the construction of Disneyland.

1964 -Warner Brothers "A False Hare", the last Bugs Bunny theatrical short until the late 1980's.

1969- Passed this day Title 14, Section 1211 of the Code of Federal Regulations, makes it illegal for U.S. citizens to have any contact with extraterrestrials or their spacecraft.


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