Quiz: Much is made today about Mitt Romney being a Mormon as was John Kennedy being a Roman Catholic. Has their ever been a President who was a Jehovah’s Wittness?

Yesterday’s Quiz answered below: Which nation is older? Belgium, Greece, Saudi Arabia or the U.S.A.?
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History for 1/14 /2008
Birthdays: Dr. Albert Schweitzer, Benedict Arnold, Faye Dunaway, Hal Roach, Raymond Outcault, Cecil Beaton, John Dos Passos, Lawrence Kasdan , Andy Rooney, Julian Bond, Steven Soderbergh is 45, LL Cool J, T. Bone Burnet, Emily Watson, Sterling Holloway the voice of Winnie the Pooh “oh bother…”

350 a.d.- The feast day of Saint Hilary of Poitiers- Saint Hilary may have been the father of church music. In exile in Phyrgia he noticed pagans sang hymns to their deities, so he composed the first Christian musical hymns. The Haleleiuyah Chorus, Ave Maria and “Drop Kick Me Jesus Through the Goalposts of Heaven” would follow in due time.

1604- King James 1st of England thought he could be like Roman Emperor Constantine and use his royal authority to resolve the theological disputes dividing Christianity. This day he convened at Hampton Court a grand synod of Anglican Bishops, Presbyterians, Baptists and Puritan elders to try and settle their differences. Nothing was solved, but the only positive step was a motion was made to create a standardized translation of the Holy Bible into English- The King James Edition.

1639- The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, the first constitution for a colony, is established. The Connecticut territory was a disputed area between the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam and the English New Englanders until the English conquest of 1661. The personal intervention of the Duke of York in England prevented Long Island New York from being considered part of Connecticut.

1699- The Pilgrims of Salem hold a day of fasting and prayer to atone for any people they may have unjustly tortured and executed as witches. Well, at least they said they were sorry.

1797-Battle of Rivoli ( Napoleon whups dem Austrians in Italy )

1858- Italian terrorists throw three bombs at French Emperor Napoleon III’s carriage outside the Paris Opera. 8 killed and 158 wounded but not the Imperial family.

1893- After Britain’s Liberal party broke up over the Irish Question the Independent Labour Party was founded.

1900- Puccini's opera "Tosca" debuts in Rome.

1914- Henry Ford's assembly line process for building cars accelerates thanks to a new chain system pulling the chassis along as they are worked on. As the system got faster and faster the older, slower workers were replaced by younger ones. Hair dye sold at a premium in Detroit.

1943- Churchill and Roosevelt hold a summit meeting in Casablanca in North Africa. The Casablanca Declaration bound the allies to never negotiate less than a total surrender out of the Axis powers. It was felt that one of the reason Germany resorted to war only twenty years after the last World War was their denial that they were ever defeated.
It was also the first time people noticed that the President used a plane-Air Force One, to travel instead of a battleship. FDR had a plane for years, but he preferred to travel by private train while first lady Eleanor used it more frequently.
At the Casablanca conference one point Churchill made a number of American diplomats and staff climb a high tower in the Casbah because he thought the setting sun would make a smashing good watercolor painting.

1952-The NBC "Today" show debuts with Dave Garroway, Jim Fleming and J. Fred Muggs the chimp.

1954- actress Marilyn Monroe married baseball great Joe DiMaggio.

1957- Humphrey Bogart died of esophageal cancer at age 57. When he was buried at Forrest Lawn, wife Lauren Bacall put in with his ashes a solid gold whistle inscribed with the famous line from "To Have and To Have Not"- 'If you ever need me, just whistle.' The group of friends around Bogie and Bacall were nicknamed ‘The Rat Pack” . After Bogart’s death Frank Sinatra made the Rat Pack famous.

1964- Hanna & Barbera's ' The Magilla Gorilla' cartoon show. "We got a Gorilla for sale, Magilla-Gorilla, for sale, won't you buy him, take him out and try him..Go-rilla for sale.."

1967- Hippies in San Francisco hold the first “Be-In” in Golden Gate Park.

1972- Norman Lear’s hit comedy series Sanford & Son premiered. Starring Red Fox, it was based on the English show Steptoe & Son.

1990- Matt Groenings the Simpsons, which had been run as a series of blackout vignettes on the Tracey Ullman Show, now debuted as its own regular prime time series. 18 years later is is not only the most famous show in TV animation, but the most famous show in television. Cowabunga!

2004- President George W. Bush declared his country’s resolve to return to the Moon and make a manned landing on Mars by 2030. To do this he gave NASA only one billion dollars more than their normal budget, while at the same time allocating $1.5 billion to fight Gay marriage initiatives.

2005- The Cassini-Huygens Probe landed on Saturn’s moon Titan.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: Which nation is older? Belgium, Greece, Saudi Arabia or the U.S.A.?

Answer: The USA- 1776. The Greek people obviously go back to the migrations of Dorians and Ionians in the 800s BC. They called themselves Hellenes. But the modern nation of Greece was born in 1827. The Arabs of Medina and the Hejaz also go back to ancient times, but the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia began in 1948. Flanders and the Spanish Netherlands broke away from Holland in 1832 and became Belgium.

Classes at USC and UCLA resume. The Golden Globe presentation show was canceled, but in truth, through most of it's history it was never televised. Only a few years ago did they begin to turn it into the Mini-Me of the Oscars. And while everyone is complaining, the fact is Dick CLark Productions could have made a deal with the WGA if they wanted to like Letterman, UA and the Weinsteins did. NOTE: Mike Sporn told me this morning that he heard Dick Clark productions did indeed want to sign the same deal as Letterman's company did, but the WGA refused. This is typical of the publicity war that goes on between warring sides for public support. Each side will release information they want and spin it to favor their argument. Possibly the WGA wanted a high profile cancellation like the GLobes to make headlines, which has happened, but to what end?

Here's a funny little film on the strike featuring what great movie moments would have looked like without writers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKtKteRTA-8&feature=related

I have my invitation to get Oscar tix, but I confess I'm thinking of skipping this year. Odds are the strike won't be settled by then, and so most folks will be boycotting it. We'll see.

Hey, when the Annie Awards come up, it's okay because it's not in the WGA jurisdiction!
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Quiz: Which nation is older? Belgium, Greece, Saudi Arabia or the U.S.A.?

Answer to yesterday’s question below; Early Christians had as their symbol the fish, the symbol now gracing so many evangelical bumper stickers. What does it mean?
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HISTORY FOR 1/13/2008
Birthdays: Salmon P. Chase, Horatio Alger, Sophie Tucker, Gwen Verdon, Robert Stack, Charles Nelson Reilly, Rip Taylor, Brandon Tartikoff, Armie Archerd, Julie Louise Dreyfus is 47, T Bone Burnett is 60, Patrick Dempsey, Orlando Bloom is 31

1847- Gen. Andres Pico signed the capitulation of Campo de Cahuenga (the little park next Universal studios today), surrendering the Mexican state of Alta-California to U.S. General John Fremont. Fremont, nicknamed "The Pathfinder" was the first Republican candidate for President in 1856 and when the Civil War began he was a General until the confederates made a fool of him and he dropped from public view. During the Civil War Andres Pico served in the Yankee force that defeated an attempted Confederate invasion of California. I guess he figured one change of flag in a lifetime was enough.

1854- The Accordion is patented. polka fans rejoice!

1864-Stephen Foster, the composer of "Old Kentucky Home"and "Camptown Races" was found dead, a penniless drunk in New York's Bowery slum. In his hands was a piece of paper with the words "Dear friends and gentle hearts... ". A Pennsylvania Yankee, despite writing a lot of music about the South he only visited it once, to New Orleans in 1852.

1872- GRAND DUKE ALEXIS BUFFALO HUNT. Grand Duke Alexis the son of the Czar of Russia visited America. A sportsman, He expressed a desire to go out West and hunt buffalo. The US Government ordered General Custer and Buffalo Bill to afford him every courtesy. Buffalo Bill even talked Sioux Chief Spotted Tail to move his tribes winter encampment 100 miles south so the Grand Duke could visit real wild Indians. Starting today the hunting party hunted and feasted for two weeks leaving behind a trail of champagne bottles and buffalo carcasses across the prairie. The trip was a great success, and Buffalo Bill realized there was big money to be made showing city slickers and foreigners a taste of the Wild West…

1895 Oscar Wilde's play the Ideal Husband, premiered in London.

1906- The first ad for a radio appeared in an American Science Magazine. It boasted an effective range of over one mile !

1910- Dr. Lee Deforrest experimenting with his new radio vacuum tubes, broadcast singers from New York's Metropolitan Opera including Enrico Caruso for the first time. His audience were 100 amateur audio-fans with new state of the art radio wireless sets. Network broadcasting was seventeen years in the future, the 'Live from the Met' broadcasts wouldn't begin until 1934.

1914- Folksinging union organizer Joe Hill was arrested in Utah on trumped up murder charges.

1925- THE FIRST CALIFORNIA GURU- Indian spiritual teacher Abrahamansa Yogananda , then called “The Swami” settled in Los Angeles and gave his first lecture to an audience in LA Philharmonic Hall. He founded the Malibu Self-Realization Center in 1950.

1929- Wyatt Earp died at 81 of prostate cancer in Los Angeles. After careers as a gunfighter, buffalo hunter, Dodge City marshal, prizefight referee, Yukon gold prospector and faroe dealer he finished in L.A. speculating in real estate. He liked to stroll onto Hollywood western movie sets to give advice to Tom Mix and William S. Hart on how they did it in the Old West. He was buried in San Francisco's Jewish Cemetery because his third wife, ex-saloon hooker Sadie Marcus was of that faith. On the subject of the Gunfight of the OK Corral in 1881 he told so many different versions of what happened that his account is considered unreliable.
Wyatt Earp would have died totally forgotten but in his last years he was interviewed by a journalist named Stuart Lake who published a best selling biography in 1931 called Wyatt Earp, Frontier Marshal. After that the movies and TV took up his name to make him the most famous lawman in western history, which would have been a surprise to him.



1942- In the late evening the German U-Boat U-123 sailed into New York Harbor. The German captain was amazed that although they were at war the Americans had made no defensive arrangements. The city wasn’t even blacked out, but still illuminated brightly.

1943- Movie starlet Frances Farmer was dragged screaming in a straightjacket out of a Hollywood Hotel and committed. She screamed Rats! Rats! and listed her occupation on her arrest record as “c**ksucker”. Her career was ruined and she spent years in asylums but it’s inconclusive whether she had actually suffered mental illness or it was her mother overreacting to her sullen, temperamental nature.

1945- Sergei Prokoviev's 5th Symphony ( Classical) premiered in Moscow.

1957-THE FRISBEE- Two former World War Two pilots, Warren Fransconi and Walter Morrison invented he plastic platter in a San Luis Obisbo home. Originally called Flying Saucers and Pluto’s Platters they got the name Frisbee when they demonstrated it at Yale University. The students there were used to flipping pie platters at each other from the local Frisbee Pie Company, so when they played with the new disc they cried “Frisbee, Frisbee!” which seemed to Warren and Walter a better name. When Morrison died in 2002 his family obeyed his last request- and I’m not making this up- to have his body cremated and his ashes mixed with plastic and molded into a Frisbee.

courtesy of hickoksports.com

1958- Actress Jayne Mansfield married weightlifter Mickey Hargitay. Their daughter was Marisa Hargitay

1979- The Young Men’s Christian Association filed a lawsuit against the outrageously gay rock group the Village People over their hit song “YMCA”. Even though it gave them more good publicity than they had in decades.

1985- Carol Wayne, an actress who played bimbo blonde roles on shows like Johnny Carson, drowned while swimming in Mexico. She was 41.

2002- Pres. G.W. Bush almost choked on a pretzel, alone watching football on TV. The pretzel was then sent to Gitmo without benefit of a lawyer and promptly waterboarded.
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Yesterday’s Question: Early Christians had as their symbol the fish, the symbol now gracing so many evangelical bumper stickers. What does it mean?

Answer: When early Christianity had to hide underground during the persecution of the Romans, they used the sign of the fish as a secret code to recognize one another. The Greek for fish was Icthus. It stood for Ieyseus Christos, Theos Unios, Soter- Jesus Christ, One God, Savior. The Ancient Roman world was bi-lingual, with the Greek dominating the eastern part where Judea was.

QUIZ: Early Christians had as their symbol the fish, the symbol now gracing so many evangelical bumper stickers. What does it mean?

Answer to yesterdays question below. What are Fabian Tactics?
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History for 1/12/2008
Birthdays: Pilgrim leader John Winthrop, John Hancock, Edmund Burke, John Singer Sargent, Jack London , Charles Perrault (Mother Goose), James Farmer the founder of CORE, Herman Goering,, Kirstie Alley is 52, "Smokin'Joe"Frazier, Tex Ritter, Howard Stern is 53, Rush Limbaugh, Oliver Platt, Wayne Wang, Tiffany, John Lasseter

1669- Buccaneer Henry Morgan convened a meeting of the Captains of the Coast, a council of pirates on board his frigate the Oxford. In their meeting they resolved to attack Cartagena Columbia, a rich Spanish port and staging area for the great treasure fleets. During the drunken celebrations someone fired a gun off in the Oxford’s powder magazine and the ensuing explosion killed 200. Arrrg..Mateys!

1928- Henry Grey and Ruth Snyder are electrocuted in Sing-Sing Prison for the murder of Mrs. Snyder's husband. The love triangle was the inspiration for the films 'Double Indemnity, The Postman Always Rings Twice' and 'Body Heat". Press photographer Thomas Howard taped a small camera to his ankle and snapped a photo of Mrs Snyder frying in the chair. The New York Daily News published the photo on its front page.

so, you think cheap, trashy, sensationalist journalism is a modern problem?

1960-” The Scent of Mystery”- the first film in Smell-O-Vision.

1962- President John F. Kennedy signed Executive order 10988, mandating federal workers had the right to join unions and bargain collectively. In 2001 in the trauma over 9-11, President George W. Bush demanded his new 50,000 member Department of Homeland Security be forbidden to unionize.

1966- Holy Cult Classic ! The t.v. show "Batman" with Adam West and Burt Ward premiered.

1970- The Boeing 747 makes it’s first flight.

1971- “ ALL IN THE FAMILY” Norman Lear's t.v. sitcom about racism and the 60's, debuts. Based on a successful British show it broke new ground for American sitcoms by frankly discussing prejudice, menopause, rape and other taboo subjects. It’s first show featured the sound of a toilet flushing. The networks were so worried about its explosive content ABC rejected the show twice and CBS ran the first episodes with a long apologetic disclaimer. Carrol O’Connor, the actor who played Archie Bunker was so convinced the show would flop he demanded as part of his contract a round trip plane ticket home. The show ran for 13 years, a bushel of Emmy Awards and made Archie Bunker a folk-hero.

1992-According to Arthur C. Clarkes "2001, a Space Odyssey", the HAL-9000 computer was booted up today.

1987-No mystery, Agatha Christie dies at 88 of natural causes.

1995- Steven Speilberg, Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen announced the name of their new partnership would be 'Dreamworks SKG'. Someone in Florida immediately bought the domain name “Dreamworks.com” and waited for their buyout offer. I heard it was $5,000

1998-The LEWINSKY SCANDAL- Former White House staffer Linda Tripp was frustrated her career in the Bill Clinton Administration was going nowhere. This day she appeared in the office of independent special prosecutor Kenneth Starr with tape recordings she secretly made of her friend Monica Lewinsky, admitting to a sexual affair with the President. Conservative stalwart Starr had been investigating Slick-Willie Clinton for years and after spending $54 million tax dollars hadn’t found much, so he immediately leapt at this opportunity and asked the Attorney General for an extension of his mandate.
Ms. Lewinsky had meant to keep her affair a secret, despite her telling 11 friends. By autumn the resultant scandal brought Washington to a standstill and only the second presidential impeachment trial in U.S. history. President Clinton admitted to the affair but was acquitted and served out his term anyway. Later Ms. Tripp asked the public for donations for her legal defense fund for her violating federal wiretap laws “I am one of you...a David against a Goliath...Even $1,000 dollars would do..” She took the money and got a facelift.
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Yesterdays’ Question: What is meant when someone employs Fabian tactics?

Answer: It was named for Quintus Fabius Maximus. He was the
Roman general who realized Hannibal was too good to defeat in one
big battle. So he delayed and let Hannibal chase him around Italy, depleting his
supplies and exhausting his citizens support. Fabius' the Delayer’s name became a synonym for this kind of tactic. George Washington was called the Fabius of the Americas by the British, for avoiding battle, and bogging them down, wearing out the British public’s enthusiasm for the war.

Quiz: What is meant when someone employs Fabian tactics?

Yesterday’s question answered below. What is a Triffid?
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History for 1/11/2008
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Theodosius 1st, Alexander Hamilton, Gliere, Domenico Ghirlandaio, Mr. Selfridge the London department store guy, Rod Taylor, David Wolper, Lyle Lovett, Ben Crenshaw, Naomi Judd, Stanley Tucci, Amanda Peet is 34

Roman festival Carmentalia, or the Feast of the Nine Muses

1025-Byzantine Emperor John Tzimisces poisoned. He had become Emperor after seducing the previous emperors wife and assassinating him. John was succeeded by Basil II "the Bulgar Slayer". Basil was known for cute stuff like having an entire Bulgar army blinded, leaving every hundredth man with one eye to lead the rest home. The Bulgar Khan Samuel supposedly dropped dead of grief when he saw them.

1874- Gail Borden, the inventor of condensed milk, died and was buried beneath a tombstone made to look like one of his milk cans.

1892- French impressionist painter Paul Gaughin, aged 46, married a 13 year old Tahitian girl named Tehura.

1908- President Teddy Roosevelt, possible the only Republican enviornmentalist, declared the entire Grand Canyon a National Monument. “The Ages have been at work at it and Man can only mar it.” He knew the Congress would never do it, so he declared it a monument by Executive decree.

1949- First recorded snowfall in Los Angeles.

1958- the TV show Seahunt permiered. It made a star out of Lloyd Bridges.

1964- U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry gave the first warnings against smoking. Which government agency was the first to declare smoking caused lung cancer? The Nazi Government in 1939.

1965- Whiskey-A-Go-Go, the first Disco opened on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. Discotecque is French for record library.

1995- Warner Bros purchased a dozen metromedia television stations around the US and this day started them off as the WB Network.

2000- America On Line announced its takeover of the worlds largest media conglomerate Time Warner Inc who had earlier merged with Ted Turner. The Walt Disney Company, who had just purchased ABC/Cap Cities, ESPN and Jim Henson, complained to the US Government that Time Warner was creating a monopoly. Uh- huh. After three years of plunging stock prices, Time Warner regained control of itself and reduced AOL to a subsidiary, and will probably sell it off.
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Yesterday’ Question: Sometimes when people joke about plants growing out of control, they call them Triffids. What is a triffid?


Answer: Based on a 1951 novel, Day of the Triffids was a 1962 low budget British horror movie that gained a cult status. A meteor shower blinds everyone on Earth so they become prey to a horde of giant mobile carnivorous plants. The one guy who can save us(Howard Keel) was having an eye operation so didn't see the meteors.

My old Friend Kevin Geiger gave Drawing the Line a swell plug at his animation coop site http://www.animationcoop.org its a great resource, check it out!


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Quiz: Sometimes when people joke about plants growing out of control, they call them Triffids. What is a triffid?

Yesterday’s question answered below.
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History for 1/10/2008
Birthdays: Ethan Allen, Marshal Michel Ney, Frank James -Jesse's brother, Francois Poulenc, Ray Bolger (the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz), Al Goldstein the publisher of Screw Magazine, Stephen Ambrose, Sherrill Milnes, Pat Benatar, Sal Mineo, Jim Croce, Frank Sinatra Jr., Rod Stewart, Walter Hill, George Foreman, Linda Lovelace

50 B.C.- "ALEA JACTA EST!" After a lot of political maneuvering Gaius Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon River near modern Rimini with his legions and began a civil war for control of the Roman Empire. Caesar had been ordered by the Senate to give up his army command in Gaul and not bring his troops down. Once stripped of command he could be open to lawsuits, investigation and criminal charges. Scipio Africanis was ruined by his political enemies this way after defeating Hannibal. So instead Caesar attacked. The Rubicon was the border between the outer provinces and the home territory of Rome. Since then, "Crossing the Rubicon" means committing to a course of action you cannot turn back from. Caesar said "Alea jacta est" which means "The die is cast".

1529- Michelangelo elected to design the military defenses of Florence. They failed to keep out the enemy but they must have looked really cool!

1775- PUGACHEV’S RISING. Yemelian Pugachev was an illiterate Cossack. One day, for a laugh, his friends shaved his beard off while he was too drunk to notice. Without the beard they discovered he bore an amazing likeness to the Catherine the Great's dead husband, Czar Peter III. There was deep resentment in Russia among the common folk against the rule of Czarina Catherine. She was modernizing Russia against it's will and wasn't even Russian (she was a German princess). Pugachev declared himself the Czar Peter, back to reclaim his throne for the Muziks (peasants) and the Old Religion. Pugachev's Rising cost tens of thousands of lives before Catherine's armies stamped it out Today Pugachev was brought to Moscow in an iron cage, then beheaded. A comparable people's uprising would not be seen again until 1905.

1863- The world's first Subway Train line opened in London at Baker's Street Station.

1888-date of LOUIS LePRINCE's claim of a patent on Motion Pictures, predating Edison 1893 and the Lumiere Brothers1895. LePrince even had as proof film he shot of his mother, who died in 1887. Despite this, LePrince could get no one to take him seriously. One day he boarded a train from Dijon to Paris and disappeared from the face of the Earth.

1901- SPINDLETOP- BLACK GOLD, TEXAS TEA..- Conventional wisdom up till then was America’s oil reserves were chiefly around the Great Lakes and Pennsylvania. On this day Texas wildcat drillers strike oil in Beaumont Texas. The Spindletop gusher is so gigantic, 3,000 barrels an hour, it doubles the total U.S. oil production output overnight. Companies like Gulf and Texaco spring up to compete with industry leader Standard Oil (Exxon). The era of the Texas Oil Tycoons began and until the 1970s America controlled 80% of the worlds petroleum output.

1917- Frontiersman and master showman Buffalo Bill Cody died at 70 of uremia poisoning. His last words after he was told his end had come was "Ah forget it boys, let's play a round of High-Five." His grave overlooks the city of Denver.

1924- Columbia Pictures created, ruled by Harry Cohn, who's motto was "I don't get ulcers, I give them!"

1927- Fritz Lang’s masterpiece film Metropolis premiered.

1939- Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov sold his first story to Amazing Stories Magazine "Marooned off Vesta".

1941- The comedy play ARSENIC AND OLD LACE opened on Broadway. When buying the movie rights Warner Bros agreed to wait until the play ended it’s theatrical run. They thought plays usually are done in a few months. Arsenic and Old Lace ran until 1944.

1949- For years the recording industry had been working on ways to improve the 78 RPM record –RPM means Rotations Per Minute. RCA records announced the invention of the 45 RPM record. Columbia (CBS) had announced the LP 33 rpm record and originally offered to share the technology but RCA (NBC) was having none of it. But the 33 stored more music and could use old 78 rpm turntables adapted so the 45 soon became a vehicle for hit singles.

1958- Jerry Lee Lewis single "Great Balls of Fire" topped the pop charts.

1958- GET MARRIED..OR ELSE! Blond actress Kim Novak had starred in Hitchcock’s Vertigo and was touted as the new Marilyn Monroe. In 1957 she began a love affair with black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr.. Davis was a member of Sinatra’s Ratpack and he challenged America’s racial barriers with his great talent. But this high profile interracial match was just too much for Hollywood society to handle. Columbia’s studio head Harry Cohn said of Novak-"That fat Polack Bitch! How could she do this to me?! " Legend has it Cohn called the Chicago Mafia and put a contract out on Sammy Davis. L.A. mobster Mickey Cohen told Davis’ father that if Sammy didn’t marry a colored girl in 24 hours he would have his legs broken and his remaining good eye poked out. On this day in Las Vegas’ Sands Hotel Sammy Davis Jr. married black actress Loray White. Harry Belafonte was the best man. The couple honeymooned separately and divorced 6 months later. But the affair with Novak was over and Harry Cohn died of a heart attack the same year. In 1960 Sammy Davis married blonde German actress May Britt.

1970-Masterpiece Theater debuted on US TV with Alastair Cooke. The first show was the BBC series the First Churchills. These shows were so popular that for awhile people thought PBS meant Preferably British Shows. Alastair Cooke was always amused that he seemed to Americans the quintessential Brit, while the American correspondent for the BBC he lived most of his life traveling the US. "People ask me all sorts of questions about England, when I could much better tell them where to get the best Kansas City barbecue or knish in Brooklyn."

1992- The GREAT RUBBER DUCKY DISASTER- A North Pacific storm causes a ship to lose 29,000 bath toys overboard. They joined 61,000 Nike sneakers already bobbing in the water from a similar accident. Scientists used the rubber ducky migration to plot Pacific ocean currents around Alaska.

1993- CAMILLAGATE- As speculation grew that the English Prince and Princess of Wales' marriage was on the rocks a London tabloid published tapes of phone conversations between Prince Charles and his long term mistress Lady Camilla Parker Bowles. The highly embarrassing transcripts included the Prince expressing a wish that he could be Ms. Bowles' tampon. Camilla's husband divorced her and Charles and Diana soon divorced as well. Within a year of Princess Diana's fatal auto accident Camilla resumed spending the night at Kennsington Palace. Camilla and Charles married in 2005.

2004 NY based Writer and actor Spaulding Gray spent the day taking his kids to the movies. They saw Tim Burton’s Big Fish. Gray put is kids into a taxi home and from the Staten Island Ferry Terminal called his wife to say he would be home soon and that he loved her. Then he took the ferry, jumped into the harbor and drowned himself. He had waged a long battle with depression and his mother had commit suicide. His body did not resurface until March 9.
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Yesterday’s QUIZ: In the Disney Film, Make Mine Music, when Willie the Operatic Whale is hunted by Metropolitan Opera Impresario Prof. Tetti-Tatti, he was a caricature of a real person. Who was that person?

Answer: Giuliano Gatti-Cazazza, director of New York’s Metropolitan Opera from 1927 to 1946. With conductor Arturo Toscanini he directed the Met through some of its’ most famous years and with the national radio broadcasts became famous.