Question: What were Rice Christians?

Quiz: Okay Disney fans, which one of these men was NOT one of the Nine Old Men?
A) Frank Thomas, B) Milt Kahl, C) Bill Tytla, D)Marc Davis, E)Eric Larson?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
History for 10/9/2008
Birthdays: Camille Saint Saens, E. Howard Hunt, Jacques Tati, Alastair Sim, Bruce Catton, Joe Pepitone, cartoonist Mike Peters, Savannah, John Lennon, his son Sean Lennon, E. Howard Hunt,Scott Bakula, Tony Shalloub, Peter Tosh, Charles Rudolph Walgren- the inventor of the modern Drugstore, Guillermo Del Toro is 44

Today is the Feast of St. Denis. If you've ever been to Paris you'll notice the Basilica of St. Denis is way out of town in a northern suburb.
In 270 a.d. Saint Denis and several followers were sent to preach in Lutetia (home of a Gaulish tribe called the Parisi ). The local Roman authorities had them rounded up and beheaded on a small hill north of town. The hill is today called the Hill of Martyrs, or Montmartre. The legend goes Saint Denis was so indignant at this lack of hospitality of having one's head cut off that he picked up his head and walked out of town. Where he reached the city limits and dropped down lifeless is where basilica designed by the Abbey Suger in 1122 today stands.

1000 AD VIKINGS DISCOVER AMERICA.- Viking Leif Ericsson lands his dragonships in Labrador, Canada. He calls it Vinland and there are several theories why: one was because of an abundance of grapevines he discovered. Another is that the old Norse crossed with Latin Vinland could also be described as Land of Pastures. Still a third theory was that Leif may have been taking after his old man Eric the Red, one of the phoniest used car salesmen in history. Eric discovered a frozen waste near the arctic circle and named it Greenland to dupe people into coming out to settle, so Leif may have described this barren rocky shoreline Vinland to get suckers interested. The Vikings settled a colony in America but it didn't take and was withdrawn for unknown reasons. The second expedition under Thorfinn Karlsefni called the Indians they met Skraelings, and claimed they met a race of one legged men.

1192- Richard the Lionheart left the Holyland. End of the Third Crusade. He planned to return in 1196 and take Jerusalem but never did.

1609- Invalid Captain John Smith is put on a ship back to England. Smith had earlier gotten stung by a stingray and almost died. This time a powder horn exploded on his hip and blew out part of his side. While Smith was leader of the Jamestown Colony he had many enemies among the jealous gentry and some don't think he had an accident. Opinions also differ as to why the Jamestown settlers put Smith through a two month Atlantic crossing that could kill even healthy men. Some say they were hoping he wouldn't make it. He survived but never returned to Jamestown. Nobody told Pocahontas he had left. When she visited camp, the men told her he was dead and forget about him. Pocahontas would meet John Smith ten years later in England when she was a wife and mother of the children of settler John Rolfe.

1701- Yale University chartered.

1744- Peace of Kleinschellendorf- Frederick II the Great makes peace with Maria Theresa of Austria ending Prussian participation in the War of Austrian Succession.

1779- THE LUDDITE RIOTS- A movement of English peasants and tradesmen started by a man named Ned Lud who felt that all this newfangled machinery was going to cost them their jobs. The Luddites roamed the countryside smashing any looms, pistons, flywheels or other such devices they encountered. A similar movement in France. French peasants would remove their wooden clogs, called sabots, and throw them into a machine's gears to jam them, and coined the term Saboteurs.

1780- The islands of St Lucy and Barbados are hit with the worst hurricane in memory. Jamaica got hit with a tidal wave. 400 die and most of the structures destroyed.

1781- George Washington and the Comte du Rochambeau commenced the bombardment of English positions opening the Battle of Yorktown. Not much credit is given that although Rochambeau considered himself the more experienced tactician he diplomatically deferred to Washington as the commander of the allied army. Privately Rocheambeau didn’t think the American rebels had much of a chance, still, when the Yankee payrolls dried up he paid the US troops out of is own fortune. Hmph, so what have the French ever done for us, eh?

1855- James Stoddard patents the steam calliope.

1938 Eugene O'Neill's play 'The Iceman Cometh' opened.

1951- RKO Pictures asked Marilyn Monroe to please wear panties while working, She was distracting the film crew.

1983- Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt forced to resign. Watt was a former oil industry lawyer who galvanized popular anger over his views on ecology, such as what's wrong with a few MacDonalds hamburger stands at the base of the Grand Canyon? Yet he refused to allow the Beach Boys to perform at a public 4th of July concert in DC because he felt they attracted: ”An unsavory element”. The thing that did Watt in was a comment he made about a government panel he had just convened. Quote Mr Watt:” We have all bases covered. We have a black, a woman, two Jews and a cripple!”

1986- The Fox Network's first program-the Joan River's Show, premiered. The show didn't last but future hits like The Simpson's, Married With Children and the X-Files made Fox a major network in ten years.

1989- First edition of Penthouse Magazine in Hebrew. Oy Vey!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Yesterday’s Quiz: Okay Disney fans, which one of these men was NOT one of the Nine Old Men? A) Frank Thomas, B) Milt Kahl, C) Bill Tytla, D)Marc Davis, E)Eric Larson?

Answer: C) Bill Tytla. Despite his status as one of the great Disney animators, Tytla left the studio in 1943. Walt used the term for his top animators in 1949. The term Nine Old Men was first used by Franklin Roosevelt to describe the Supreme Court.