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July 25th, 2006
July 26th, 2006

Birthdays: Artists Thomas Eakins and Maxfield Parrish, Walter Brennan,
David Belasco, Adnan Khashoggi, Imam, Jack Gilford, Illeana Douglas, Estelle Getty,
Matt LeBlanc, Louise Brown the first "test-tube" baby-1978

1788- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart completed his Symphony #40 in G minor.

1871- Samuel Colt patents the "peacemaker", the most famous Western sixgun.
Gunfighters filed off the barrel sight so it wouldn't catch on your clothes
during a quickdraw, and carried it "5 beans in
the wheel" meaning while walking they kept it set at the one empty chamber,
so it doesn't accidentally go off in the holster and shoot you in the foot,
which might look embarrassing. Most shootists
carried it in their belts or a waist high holster. Wild Bill Hickok carried his
1860 Navy Colts backwards in a red sash. The familiar low-on-the-hip two gun holsters
didn't become common until cowboys
saw them in the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show in the 1880¹s. Colonel Colt got very
rich from his invention, and had an annoying habit of shooting his guns off in courtrooms
and restaurants like Yosemite Sam. His private collection of sixguns is on exhibit at the Gene Autry
Western Museum.

1909-THE WRISTWATCH- Frenchman Charles Bleriot flew the English Channel.
Bleriot had no fuel gauge in his plane. He knew the rate that his plane burned fuel
so he kept a clock in his cockpit to mark the time. But a problem was the engines
vibrations would rattle the clock to uselessness. So he asked his friend
Charles Cartier the jeweler to make him a reliable timepiece free from
vibrations. Cartier created a pocketwatch that you could strap to your wrist
with the clockface showing- the Wristwatch. By World War One wristwatches
supplanted pocketwatches as the standard male accessory.

1940- In Nazi occupied Paris a Gestapo agent walks into the French offices of MGM
studios and confiscates the release prints of "Gone With The Wind." They
are taken to Berlin for a screening for top Nazis officials. Gone with the Wind was one of Hitler¹s favorite movies.

1943- The Birth of L.A. Smog! A newspaper headline from this date mentions a 'gas-attack'
of exhaust and haze that reduced visibility to three short blocks.

1951- CBS conducts the first broadcast of color television. Still NBC made color
tv popular in the mid 1960's.

1953-Chuck Jone's "Duck Dodgers in the 24 and 1/2 Century".

1953- New York City Subway fares rise from 10cents to 15 cents. Subway tokens are
issued for the first time.

1965 ­ Folk Music star Bob Dylan was booed off stage at the Newport Folk Festival
for using an electric guitar. Alan Lomax the great Smithsonian Folk Music historian
got into a fistfight over it and Pete Seeger threatened to pull the electric plugs.


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