Birthdays: James Cagney- movie star and union activist, John Jacob Astor Ist, Hyacinth Rigaud, Bernice Abbott, Chill Wills, Brian Trottier, Phoebe Snow, Donald Sutherland is 70, Phyllis Diller, Daryl Lamonica, Prof. Peter Schickele a.k.a. PDQ Bach, Earl Stanley Gardner the creator of Perry Mason, David Hasslehoff is 54

1841 - British humor magazine "Punch" 1st published.

1893- Representatives of fourteen stage unions meet to form IATSE, the International
Alliance of Theatrical & Screen Engineers of the U.S. & Canada. In the 1890s if a unscrupulous theater manager refused to pay their performers and crew, those people went to the IA man. He would put a flour sack over his head with eye holes, pull out his six-shooter and stuck up the theater. IATSE created the first Hollywood union agreement in 1914, and created Local 44 Grips, By 1947 IATSE defeated other unions like the Teamsters and Electrical Workers to represent all backstage film workers, Broadway stage workers, NASA cameramen, Vegas showgirls, and animation cartoonists.

1928-CARTOONIST ASSASSIN. President of Mexico Alvaro Obregon was at a large banquet gathering of all
former veterans of the Mexican Revolution. Part of the party was having an artist
stroll about making cariacatures of the guests of honor. Obregon said to cartoonist
Leon Toral: "Make sure you make me look good." Toral responded "Oh,
I will.." and pulled a gun and shot the President to death.


1935 - Variety's famous headline "Sticks Nix Hick Pix" meaning audiences
in rural areas were not attending movies with a rustic theme.

1936-. The Spanish Civil War begins. A Spanish Fascist army led by Francisco Franco
invades Spain from North Africa. The first moves were to occupy the Canary Islands.
The Phalangist generals figured the takeover would only take a few days but all
over Spain the common people- workers, farmers, artists and poets, even women and
children took up guns to fight. The facists won, despite the Loyalists having much better postergraphics and folk songs.

1937- the Nazis open an art exhibit of banned artworks and artists called Entartete Kunst- Degenerate Art.- Works of Dali and Duchamp, Grosz, Lippschitz, Kandinsky and Miro, with appropriate insults underneath. The next day Hitler dedicates the
Great German Art Collection, having cleansed the German art world for National Socialist art, mostly bad deco-greco nudes and dumb Nordic medieval fantasy scenes.

1955 DISNEYLAND OPENED- Walt Disney's dream of a perfect family them park, called 'The Happiest Place on Earth" was declared open with movie celebrities like Ronald Reagan, Art Linkletter and the Mouseketeers in attendance. It was almost one year to the day that they began construction. Walt Disney expectedto get 10,000 visitors that first day. He got 100,000. Facilities broke down from the huge crowds and the haste with which the park was built. Concrete pavement which was poured the night before was still soft under people's feet, there were no working water fountains and the car parking was a nightmare. To the Disneyland workers opening day was nicknamed 'Black Sunday". But despite it all, Disneyland became a huge success.

1968- The Beatles musical cartoon feature The Yellow Submarine went into general release in US theaters. It premiered in London’s Piccadilly Circus on June 6th. Look Out ! It’s the Blue Meanies!! Directed by George Dunning. The Beatles themselves did not do the voices, but when they saw the final film, they were impressed enough to record a little live action cameo at the end.When the film premiered in Singapore there was a riot, because patrons thought they were going to see the real band, not a cartoon.