This week we have to honor French Premier Leon Blum, who 70 years ago passed legislation mandating for all French workers a manditory three weeks paid vacation. It later was expanded to six weeks in August. In our current studios where Americans feel guilty about taking even a few days off, six weeks sounds heavenly. And since then the French economy has still blossomed, and companies made profits.

History for 7/23/2006
Birthdays: Ethiopian Emperor Rastafari Halie Selassie "the Lion of Judah", Raymond Chandler, Raymond Booth, Don Drysdale, Gloria DeHaven, Arthur Treacher, Woody Harrelson, Pee Wee Reese, Bob Fosse,
Harry Cohn, Don Imus, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Charisma Carpenter, Slash, MarlonWayans, Monica Lewinsky , Daniel Radcliffe the Harry Potter star is 17

1599- Michel Caravaggio received his first commission for a painting.

1866- The Cincinnatti Reds Baseball club formed. The oldest continual professional
baseball team in the U.S.

1886- This was the day Bowery saloonkeeper Steve Brodie claimed he jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge, inspiring a great Bugs Bunny cartoon.

1904 ­ The Ice Cream Cone created by Charles E Menches during the LA Purchase Expo.

1908 -Turkish Sultan Abdul Hamid IV is deposed by a group of militant army officers demanding modern reforms called the Young Turks.

1932-The Birthday of Fritos. Texas ice cream maker Elmer Doolin buys a recipe for corn chips from a Mexican fry cook for $100 dollars and starts the Frito-Lay Company.

1962- The first simultaneous television broadcast via the new TelStar communications satellite from America to Europe.

1968- Fred Blasie won an unprecedented fifth World Wrestling Championship belt. Blasie later gained more fame for recording the comedy song "Pencil Necked Geeks".

2004 ­ two armed men enter the Munch Museum in Norway and steal Edvard Munch¹s masterpiece. The Scream at gunpoint. Several of the culprits have been apprehended, but the Scream is still missing.
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