Last week Pat and I were invited to be on the jury of the Animatu Festival, in Portugal. It was in the city of Beja', about 90 minutes from Lisbon.

2007 Grand Prize winner Neibla- Fog, by Mexican animator Emilio Ramos. courtesy of Emilio Ramos

Portugal is relatively new to the animation scene, but everyone was on hand to celebrate, and see new short films. In addition to the work of local artists and students we saw shorts from France, Taiwan, Australia, England, Germany, Estonia and the USA. Awards were given in categories like 3D, 2D, Machinima ( manipulated photographic imagery), Motion Control, Mobile Phone, and Best Portuguese films. The theater was named the Pax Julia, after the original Roman name for the city founded by Julius Caesar in 45BC.
Click on an image to enlarge-

Pat with festival bus

Pat and I with Festival Director Marco Taylor

Lunch with Portuguese animators. Wine and lots of fried pork!

With the festival mascot. Fortunately, it didn't follow us around.

2008 Grand Prize winner Ossudo by Julio' Alves

typical Portuguese animation studio

Statue commemorating Hayao Miyazaki's Porco Rosso

A very funny film from Argentina, Lagrimas Demasiado Tarde (too late for tears) by Pablo Polledri

Our Wonderful Nature by Tomer Eshed from Germany

Merchandise, Animatu

Pat wrestles the flower centerpiece during her talk

More fried pork!

Pat and I had a great time, we saw lots of fun new films, and we made a lot of new friends. Thanks to everyone for making us so welcome. Obrigado!
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Question: Why is staying away from school called playing hooky?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: In 1770, the largest city in the British Empire was London. What was the second largest?
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History for 10/22/2008
Birthdays: Sarah Bernhardt, Timothy Leary, Franz Liszt, Doris Lessing, Joan Fontaine, Derek Jacobi, Christopher Lloyd, Jeff Goldblum, Annette Funicello, Brian Boitano, Catherine Deneuve is 65

1660- Edward Hyde the Earl of Clarendon was a staunch supporter and adviser to King Charles Ist and his son Charles II. This day upon learning that his daughter Anne had been seduced and made pregnant by James the Duke of York the aforesaid earl humbly petitioned King and Parliament to please cut off his daughters head! Boy, when daddy gets angry! King Charles II dismissed the affair as much ado about nothing.

1746- The Royal College of New Jersey chartered- it was later renamed Princeton.

1805-After the naval Battle of Trafalgar the shot up English and French fleets were scattered by a violent three day ocean storm. Admiral Nelson's dead body had been sealed in an upright barrel of brandy for the trip back to London. After four days his body released some pent up gasses that suddenly popped the lid off the barrel. Must have scared the hell out of the guard on duty.

1843- THE GREAT DISSAPPOINTMENT- American preacher William Miller working with the books of Daniel and Revelations in the Bible calculated the exact date of the Messiah’s return and the End of the World to be Oct. 22nd 1843. A highly publicized newspaper and lecture campaign got the American public so worked up that many didn’t bother to plant crops. Banks noticed businessmen returning monies they swindled from former partners. On the appointed day Miller and thousands of followers withdrew to pitched tents outside Rochester New York to await the Rapture. They waited all day and all night and by dawn most went home disappointed and feeling a bit foolish.

1883- First performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House. It was Gounod’s Faust with soprano Christine Nillson and tenor Italo Campanini. The opera Faust was so popular and played so often, the Met was nicknamed the Faustspeilhaus instead of Festspeilhaus. ( yuk,yuk, yuk! that's a XIX Century opera joke.....uh....ahem....)

1900-Two bicycle repairmen from Ohio named Orville and Wilbur Wright build a large glider and fly it .They choose the sand dunes of Kitty Hawk North Carolina to test their glider because the winds were strong and they would crash in something soft. The airplane was still three years in the future but this was their first test of their prototype double winged plane design.

1903- Tom Horn, considered the Last of the Western Outlaws, was hanged in Wyoming for the murder of Willie Nickel. The era of the gunslinger ends with him.

1923- THE TEAPOT DOME SCANDAL hearings began. By World War One the U.S. Navy had refitted it's battleships from coal to diesel fuel engines, so maintaining a strategic petroleum reserve became as serious as nuclear stockpiles are today. The Secretary of the Interior Albert Ball arranged for some reserved oil rich areas of Teapot Dome Oklahoma and California transferred from the Navy Department's jurisdiction to his department of the Interior, so he could 'lease them' to oil magnates James Doheny of Doheny Drive fame, and Harry Sinclair. They in turn gave him a fortune in stock and other monetary kickbacks. Ball became the first senior cabinet officer to go to jail. It took years for the scandal to wind through the courts and blackened the last days of President Warren Harding's administration. The same room the senate hearings took place later saw the Watergate hearings, Oliver North's Iran-Contra, Whitewater and the Monica Lewinsky hearings.

1934- Bank Robber James" Pretty Boy" Floyd killed in a furious gun battle with the F.B.I. He had told his father months before:" Pa, when ah go, I’m gonna go down in lead!" Floyd was considered a "dust bowl robin hood" for leaving food and money on doorsteps of destitute farmers. One story had him steal a pie cooling on a windowsill pput replacing it with a $50 bill. In Woody Guthrie's "Ballad of Pretty Boy Floyd" He says:" You may call me an outlaw, but one thing that I have known. I've never seen an outlaw drive a family from their home."

1938-THE BIRTHDAY OF THE XEROX COPY- Chester Carlson working with an amateur chemistry set behind a beauty parlor in Astoria Queens creates the first xerox copy. He took his invention to Edison, G.E., RCA and IBM who all rejected it. Finally a little firm that produced photographic paper for Kodak called the Haloid Company bought it. They later changed their named to Xerox.

1939- The first televised football game-The Brooklyn Dodger's 23 Philadelphia Eagles 14.

1962- Twentieth Century Fox mogul; Daryl Zanuck fired long suffering director Joe Mankiewicz off of the editing of the spectacle Cleopatra. Mankiewicz had shot a 6 hour movie he wanted shown as two films. Zanuck wanted one big movie at half that size. After a lot of embarrassing feuding in the press Zanuck rehired Mankiewicz and he recut Cleopatra,. It became one of the biggest flops in Hollywood History.

1962- After it looked like a news leak would make the news public anyway, President John Kennedy goes on national television and tells the American public about the CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS. 54 B-52 bombers with 4 Hydrogen bombs each took off to fly within two hours of their Soviet targets. 134 Titan missiles were armed.
Both sides wrestled with the temptation to do a 'First-Strike', meaning the side that hit first without warning just might knock out enough of the enemies nukes to limit the damage and “megadeaths” to his own side. Secretary of State Dean Rusk recalled: "I'd wake up in the morning and the first thing I'd think was, I'm alive, Khruschev didn't do it today." In Moscow Khruschev grimly joked:" With the time difference Kennedy works while I sleep and I work while he sleeps, hmph, maybe soon we'll both be sleeping..."

1962- At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis a stand up comic named Vaughn Meador recorded a comedy album called The First Family. It made lighthearted fun of John F. Kennedy and his White House. The record became the fastest selling hit of the pre-Beatles era, 7.5 million copies. Jackie called Meador a rat but JFK thought it was funny and gave out copies as Christmas presents, even though he said Meador’s impersonation sounded more like Ted Kennedy than him.

1967- In Oakland black militants Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, Bobby Seale and H.Rap Brown form the Black Panther Party of Self Defense. ---------------------------------------------------------------

Yesterday’s Question: In 1770, the largest city in the British Empire was London. What was the second largest?



Answer: Philadelphia, Pa.

Pat and I just got back from Lisbon Portugal where we were guests of the Animatu Festival. I'll report more after a good night's sleep.


The show I directed last season, CLICK & CLACK"S AS THE WRENCH TURNS, is now available on DVD on Amazon. Check out this review-

http://www.monstersandcritics.com/dvd/reviews/article_1438050.php/Click_and_Clacks_As_the_Wrench_Turns_%96_DVD_Review
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Question: In 1770, the largest city in the British Empire was London. What was the second largest?

Yesterday's question answered below: What is a redoubt?

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History for 10/21/2008
Birthdays: Katushika Hokusai, Dizzy Gillespie, Whitey Ford, Alfred Nobel, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Carrie Fisher, Patty Davis (Ronnie Reagan's daughter), Benjamin Netanyahu, Sir Malcolm Arnold, Manfred Mann, Sir Georg Solti, Angus MacFadyen

Today is the FEAST OF SAINT URSULA AND THE ELEVEN THOUSAND VIRGINS, one of the sillier medieval legends. Supposedly on the way back from a pilgrimage to Rome the saintly daughter of a Mercian (English) king had spurned the attentions of the King of the Huns so he massacred her and all eleven thousand of her handmaids. Earliest accounts of the incident say she had only ten servants.

1492- San Salvador. Christopher Columbus writes on this day in his diary about the new land he is exploring: " We must have found Eden. I think men shall never see this place again as we have seen it." Within 50 years of Columbus's discovery, the Indian tribe that welcomed him on the beach, the Taino, were all but extinct.

1520- Fernan' de Magellan sails into the Straights named for him to the Pacific.

1600- BATTLE OF SEKIGEHARA The final battle of Japan's feudal civil wars- Warlord Ieyasu Tokugawa defeats the Toyotomi faction and becomes paramount leader under the Emperor, called the Shogun. Ieyasu later died from eating too much tempura, but the Tokugawa family closed off Japan from all contact with foreigners and missionaries and ruled as Shoguns until 1868.

1797- The 44 gun frigate USS Constitution launched. Nicknamed Old Ironsides, it is the oldest commissioned warship in the US Navy. It saw active service until 1861, remained a training vessel and is still entertaining tourists in Boston Harbor today. In 1997 it took a spin around the harbor to show it still had what it takes.

1805- TRAFALGAR- Admiral Nelson destroyed Napoleon's naval power in one huge battle off the southwestern coast of Spain. Trafalgar is a vulgarization of the Arabic " Al-Taraff Al-Agharr" or " The Fair Point.” Nelson began the day raising the signal flags "England expects every man to do his duty." One of Nelson's toughest captains, Sir John Collingwood said: "What the devil is Nelson about ? We already know that!" In the heat of the battle the one-eyed, one armed Lord Nelson strode up and down the poop deck in his full dress uniform to inspire his men. He loved medals, he even had one that spun around. He not only inspired the English Tars but also the French sharpshooters who shot him down. He received the news of the victory as he lay dying and said:" The day is ours, kiss me Hardy." Hardy was captain of the flagship HMS Victory. French admiral Villeneuve, whom Napoleon goaded into fighting by threatening to courts-martial him as a 'Coward, Idiot and Traitor" left the service and later committed suicide. When they took Nelson's body back to England they bent it into a brandy barrel for preservation, which has since been incorrectly called a rum barrel. Which is why rum is known as "Nelson's Blood". Shiver me Timbers!

1879- Thomas Edison announced the invention of the Light Bulb. After experimenting with dozens of different type filaments in a vacuum Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb with carbonized cotton. He and his crew stared at the glowing bulb for 40 hours to make sure it was really worked.

1932- The film Red Dust premiered. It made stars out of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow.

1937- A quack medicine called sulfalitimide sold in stores poisoned dozens of people including children. It was found to have the same ingredients as antifreeze. The incident sparked the first Food and Drug legislation in the U.S. preventing medicines being released to the public without first being tested.
Darn those federal regulations stifling business!

1959- Six months after the death of Frank Lloyd Wright his last creation, the Guggenheim Museum in New York City, opened.

1972- Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack theme to the movie “Superfly” debuted at Number #1 in the Billboard charts.

1975- The Cinncinnatti-Boston World Series-Carleton Fisk's 12th inning homer keeps the Boston Red Sox hopes alive against Johnny Bench and the 'Big Red Machine".

1985- San Francisco Mayor George Mosconi and openly gay City Supervisor Harvey Milk are shot dead by clerk Dan White. White got off on an insanity plea using the "Twinkie Defense" that junk food raised his blood sugar to such an extent that he went nuts. He served a 5 years in prison, moved to Orange County and committed suicide, which some say is redundant.

2003- The Great California Brush Fires. Hot dry wind and a lost hunter ignited the worst brush fires in California history. Ten fires from Ventura County to Tijuana Mexico burned hundreds of thousands of acres for two weeks, destroyed 3000 homes and killed 20. The smoke clouds were visible from outer space.
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Yesterday’s question: What is a redoubt?

Answer: From the 1600s to 1916, French generals like Vauban and Turenne made military fortifications an art form. West Point recruits like Robert E. Lee all wanted to be engineers first. A redoubt is a heavily fortified strongpoint in a defensive line.
To call someone redoubtable is to mean they can be depended upon to be a bulwark against adversity.

Pat and I are just getting back from Portugal today. It would be an education to everyone back in the US to see how closely our elections are being followed over here. Some European statesmen have said that the job of President of the United States is so dangerous, that everyone here should get a vote too.

Needless to say, the whole world is holding it's breath, hoping we elect Barack Obama. I know it will annoy the jingoist America-First types, but Obama's become a symbol of hope to many who'll probably never even visit America. He represents the new plural society, not the old black & white rivalries, but the melding of all cultures.

Dwight Eisenhower had said our greatest strength in the world was not our military but our good reputation. In these last few years, we've seen America look like a worn-out empire, hollowed out by corruption and incompetence. With this one stroke of electing Obama, America would leap back to the forefront of nations.

For American voters, this is probably the most important election you'll ever participate in. Let's hope we all make the right choice. The World is watching.

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Question: What is a redoubt?
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History for 10/20/2008
Birthdays: Sir Christopher Wren, Bela Lugosi (born Bela Blasgow from Lugosz), Charles Ives, Arthur Rimbaud, Black Panther Bobby Seale, Juan Marichal, Tom Petty, Art Buchwald, Arlene Francis, Grandpa Jones, Mickey Mantle, Jerry Orbach, Snoop Dogg, Rex Ingram, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Michael Dunn, Viggo Mortensen

1805- NELSON'S LAST DISPATCH- Once Admiral Horatio Nelson learned that Napoleon’s Franco-Spanish Fleet had come out of Cadiz harbor he headed them off at Cape Trafalgar. Knowing the big battle would be fought on the morrow he writes his last log entries and letters. In one of them he begs the Admiralty to 'take care of My Poor Emma', meaning Lady Hamilton, his beautiful mistress. He wrote nothing about his wife. Nelson was killed in the battle and lionized as the hero of the nation, but Lady Hamilton was shunned as an adulteress and home-breaker. She died in exile in France,a fat old souse.

1813- An incident during Napoleons evacuation of Germany after the defeat at Leipzig. The retreating Neuchatel regiment were being harassed by pursuing Russian Cossack cavalry. Seeing a women camp follower straggling behind the column, a Cossack charged her, lance in hand. It was not sure whether he wanted to kill, rob or rape her in full view of the army. The vivandiere who’s name was Rosalie, put down her bundle, pulled out her brace of pistols and shot the Cossack out of his saddle. She then proceeded to steal his horse, which she rode back to the column to the cheers of the troops.

1818- America and Britain fix the western border between the US and Canada at the 49th parallel latitude.

1827- Battle of Navarino- France, England and Russia sent huge fleets to the Bay of Navarino to arbitrate the dispute between Turkey and the Greek revolutionaries. Not that anyone asked them to, but they were terribly moved by Byron's and Shelley's poems and after all, that's what Imperialist powers DID in those days. The Admiral of the British fleet was Admiral Collingwood, who was with Nelson at Trafalgar. The Allied fleet were under strict orders not to fire unless attacked, so when a Turkish gunner shot at a messenger under a white flag, BOOM, BOOM! Greek Independence.

1890-Retired explorer Sir Richard Burton died at 69. Burton was the first Christian to enter Mecca, he went up the Nile and the Amazon, fought Indians with Kit Carson and did the first modern translation of the Arabian Nights, introducing the western world to Aladdin, Scheherazade and Sinbad the Sailor. Wherever he went in his world travels he collected documents of the sexual habits of various cultures and erotic poems. After his death his wife burned all this anthropological material in their backyard. She feared for his soul. Its considered one of the great literary crimes of the century.

1912- The First Balkan War. In case you’re keeping score, the terrible conflicts in Kossovo and Bosnia 1994-2000, historians call the Third Balkan War.

1939- Frank Capra’s film “Mr Smith Goes to Washington” opened.

1947- 'ARE YOU NOW OR HAVE YOU EVER BEEN...' Judge J. Parnell Thomas banged the gavel opening the House Committee on UnAmerican Activites investigation into Communist infiltration into the Motion Picture Business. HUAC was set up in 1938 as the Dies Committee to keep an eye on pro-Nazis groups operating in German and Italian immigrant organizations, but by 1944 it's emphasis had switched to Communist espionage. Investigations of the army or top civil servants like Dean Acheson was dull stuff, New Deal hating conservatives knew investigating Hollywood would yield the big headlines and jazz up public interest. Jack Warner, Louis B. Mayer, Ronald Reagan and Walt Disney were the first in line to name names. Lucille Ball, Sterling Hayden, Zero Mostel, Ginger Rogers and Lloyd Bridges admitted they had once held communist party memberships. The anti-commie hysteria turned Hollywood inside out and the bitter feelings remain to this day.

1955- Harry Belafonte recorded the Banana Boat Song, that made him a star- Day-o!

1963- Groundbreaking for the Hollywood Museum. Walt Disney, Rosalind Russell, Jack Warner and Gene Autry are present at the dedication. Museum was never built.

1968- Former First Lady Jackie Bouvier Kennedy shocked American society when a few months after Bobby Kennedy’s assassination she married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis on his private island of Skorpios. “They’ll knock you off your pedestal” Truman Capote warned her. But she was determined to get her children away from the madness of violence engulfing the U.S. in the 60’s. Onassis’ employees nicknamed her “Supertanker” because they felt he spent the equivalent price of one of those ships to win her.

1973- Billy Jean King defeats Bobby Riggs in straight sets in the "Battle of the Sexes" tennis match.

1973- The Six Million Dollar Man with Lee Majors premiered.

1973-THE SATURDAY NIGHT MASSACRE- when special prosecutor Archibald Cox got too close to implicating President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal Nixon fired him without comment or explanation. Attorney General Elliot Richardson, rather than execute the order to fire Cox, himself resigned. Then deputy Attorney Gen. Donald Ruckleshaus was told to, he resigned as well. They eventually found someone in the Justice Dept. willing to fire Cox. It was that old conservative posterchild Robert Bork. Nixon sent FBI agents to immediately secure their files and records. Because of this overt act of presidential arrogance the first calls for impeachment of the President were heard, even from members of his own Republican party.

1973- Sidney Australia’s famed Opera House was dedicated by Queen Elizabeth II.

1977- Lynyrd Skynyrd band members Ronnie Van Zandt and Steve Gaines died when their plane crashed into a swamp, while en route to a concert at Louisiana University.

1991- The Oakland California Firestorm. Drought and Diablo wind conditions fanned a blaze in the East Bay hills that destroyed 3,000 buildings and killed 25 people.

1994- President Clinton opened up the first Presidential web site and set up an office of Director of Electronic Mail. To e-mail the President you us President@whitehouse.gov, or First.Lady@whitehouse.gov This may be poetic justice, but if you just use www.whitehouse.com you will get a porn site. One of the first acts of incoming President George W. Bush was to close the site down. Today whitehouse.org is a pretty funny political satire site.

History for 10/19/2008
Birthdays: Martha "Patsy" Jefferson, Auguste Lumiere, John Le Carre', Peter Tosh, Amy Carter, Jack Anderson, Peter Max, John Lithgow, Robert Reed of the Brady Bunch, Evander Holyfield, Patricia Ireland, Michael Gambon, Trey Parker of South Park is 38

202BC.-BATTLE OF ZAMA - Hannibal's great defeat at the hands of Publius Cornelius Scipio, who was honored by Rome with the surname "Africanis". It was said Scipio thwarted Hannibal’s dreaded elephants by frightening them away with a herd of wild pigs.

Despite saving Rome and defeating the greatest military genius since Alexander, after the Punic war Scipio Africanis was the target of a senate investigation into defense budget overdrafts. He tore up his expense records in front of the Senate and went into exile, not before scolding the Senators: "If Hannibal stood here instead of me, you would not be worrying about this."

43BC- Octavian, Julius Caesars 20 year old nephew and adopted heir, marched four legions into Rome and seized the government. He drove out the supporters of Brutus & Cassius as well as the supporters of his erstwhile ally Mark Anthony. He had Brutus & Cassius officially declared Enemies of the State. Octavian would eventually defeat them all and rule Rome as Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome.

1216- King John Lackland died, legend has it from an evil monk who pours poison from a venemous toad into his ear as he slept. There's no such thing as a poisonous toad in England, he actually died from eating too many peaches and brandywine.

1453- Britain and France sign a peace treaty finally ending the Hundred Years War. The on again, off again conflict had started in 1336.

1739- England declared war on Spain. The war was called the War of Jenkins Ear because a sea captain appeared in Parliament with his ear floating in a bottle of spirits and swore a Spanish captain had done it to him on the high seas. Some thought he was a fraud but England was hot for war, and a man named James Thompson had introduced his stirring new song "Rule Britannia! Britannia Rules the Waves! Britons Never, Never, Never Shall be Slaves!

1739-The Holy Inquisition in Portugal has it’s great dramatist Antonio da Silva burned at the stake for "practicing secret Judaism". On the same day one of his plays was playing to packed houses in Lisbon.

1781- YORKTOWN- The decisive stroke that won the American Revolution. Lord Cornwallis's army was trapped in the Virginia seaport of Yorktown and forced to surrender to George Washington and the French under the Comte du Rocheambeau. At 2:00PM the redcoats marched out to lay down their arms their bands played "The World Turned Upside Down."
"...If ponies rode men, and grass ate the cows
And cats should be chased into holes by the mouse...
If Summer were Spring, and the other way 'round,
Then all the World would be Upside Down."

As the disciplined troops marched between rows of Americans and Frenchmen, British sergeants ordered :"Eyes Right!" so the men would ignore the Yankees and look at the French, for whom this was just one more chapter in their ancient rivalry. Lafayette recognized the insult and ordered the colonial band to play Yankee Doodle real loud, and the Americans started giving happy Indian war whoops. One French officer wondered if the French: "would have to save our fellow Europeans from being scalped."
Back in London when Lord North received the news he "reacted like he had taken a ball in the breast.""Good God!' he shouted:" It's all over!" His government fell as a result. The government selected to sign the humiliating peace fell also.
As a final insult of fate, Lord Cornwallis on the boat home to England got captured by a French pirate ship and forced to pay ransom! The pirate was an Arcadian (Cajun) dandy, who would always dress in red.

1812- Napoleon quits Moscow, the Great Retreat begins.

1845- Richard Wagners’ opera Tannhauser premiered.

1864- 'And there was Sheridan, Twenty miles Away.." Battle of Cedar Creek. In the Shenandoah Valley Confederate Jubal Early surprise attacked the Union camp and send the Yankees running. Little General Phil Sheridan, coming from a breakfast meeting in Washington, jumps on his horse Reinzi and rides to the sound of the guns. As his men see him they cheer. He yells back:" Don't just cheer me, g--damn you! Turn around and Fight!" They counterattack and win the day. Sheridans Ride was later made into a famous poem.

1899- U.S. rocket pioneer Dr. Robert Goddard mentioned today in his memoirs as the first time he started to think seriously about how man could achieve space travel.

1901- Brazilian Santos Dumont flew a small dirigible around the Eiffel Tower in Paris. This proved that a balloon could be maneuvered by a propeller motor. This was four years before the Wright Brothers. A crowd of 100,000 cheered including Jules Verne and H.G.Wells.

1907- 'GENTLEMEN, YOU HAVE FIFTEEN MINTUES TO RAISE TWENTY FIVE MILLION DOLLARS'- THE STOCK MARKET PANIC OF 1907- The unregulated Trust bank system goes into a tailspin, pulling Wall Street with it. The Chairman of Knickerbocker Trust, William Barney, put a pistol to his head as mobs of his clients beat down the barricaded doors to withdraw their savings. The system was saved singlehandedly by the Emperor of Wall Street, J.P. Morgan. Like a general at a battle he pumped reinforcing capitol into the system and made the above statement to the assembled bank presidents.( The raised the money in ten minutes and got it to the Stock Exchange in time to save 30 brokerage houses ) He personally gave New York City $20 million to save it from default. At the close of trading J.P. Morgan got a public ovation from the stock traders assembled under his office window. Citizens were relieved, but instead of being grateful to Morgan they were not a little horrified that one man should have so much power over the U.S. economy. This realization caused the movement in Washington to create the U.S. Federal Reserve Banking System in 1913.

1917- The Silent Raid, London was bombed by 21 German Zeppelins.

1945- N.C.Wyeth, artist and father of Andrew Wyeth was struck and killed by a train.

1953 – Arthur Godfrey had one of the more popular tv variety shows at the time. One of his headliners was the singer Julius LaRosa. But Godfrey was seen to act more and more erratically and imperiously with his cast and crew. This day after a song Godfrey put his arm around LaRosa and said gently. "Julie lacks humility, So, Julie, to teach you a lesson, you’re fired!" La Rosa and the audience first thought he was kidding but he wasn’t. He had fired LaRosa live nationwide on the air.

1957- Montreal Hockey great Maurice Rocket Richard became the first player to score 500 goals.

1960- Rev Martin Luther King was arrested and jailed for holding a sit-in in Atlanta. Presidential candidate John F. Kennedy ignored his advisors and the silence of Republican Richard Nixon by openly contacting Dr King in jail to see if he was alright.

1964- Doo Wah Diddy Diddy hits the pop charts.

1968- RUPERT MURDOCH INVADED ENGLAND. Never mind the Vikings or William the Conquerer, on this day the little Australian landed at Heathrow to begin a takeover war for his first English newspaper, the News of the World. Until now the Fleet Street press barons were a closed club of rich old gentlemen who resisted the encroachments of an Australian upstart. Murdoch used Sir Robert Caro as his cover to get in and defeat a hostile takeover bid from Robert Maxwell. He then demoted Caro out of his leadership of the paper. Murdoch journalism specialized in sensationalism and tawdry titulation. .

1983- Prime Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada was overthrown and killed in a coup. This was the pretext for the US invasion of the tiny Caribbean island.

1987- Black Monday, The STOCK MARKET CRASH OF '87. The Dow falls 508 points, the biggest drop since the Great Depression. It was partly blamed on the Arbitrage high speed automated stock trading system going bananas and turning a downswing . Venerable old firms like E.F. Hutton sank beneath the waves -having their chairman Bob Froman plead guilty to 22 million dollars worth of bank and mail fraud didn't help either. However in six months most of the losses were regained, some traders saying the recovery was spurred by a bronze statue of bulls placed at the foot of Wall Street. A system of emergency circuit breakers were installed to prevent arbitrage from flipping out again. Last week, the market was falling 500 points a day, up to 750 points. Mayeb we need more bronze bulls.

History for 10/18/2008
Birthdays: Cannaletto, Lotte Lenya, Chuck Berry, Wynton Marsalis, Leo G. Carroll, George C. Scott, Jesse Helms, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Lee Harvey Oswald, Mike Dytka, Peter Boyle Inger Stevens, Violetta Chamorro, Wendy Wasserstein, Wynton Marsalis, Martina Navratilova, Jean Claude Van Damme

FEAST OF ST. LUKE. According to ancient sources Luke was actually a physician, but Medieval tradition made him the protector of artists. In Rome during the Renaissance Titian, Rubens and El Greco were members of the Guild of St. Luke.

1648-The First official union in the U.S. started, the Shoemakers Guild of Boston.

1776- A New York pub decorated with birds opened, customers ordered a drink they nicknamed a "Cocks Tail". The origin of the name.

1767- The Mason-Dixon line settled the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. In a later generation it became the symbol of the divide between North and South.

1781- For several days British positions at Yorktown Virginia were heavily bombarded by the heavy siege guns of George Washington and his ally the Comte du Rocheambeau. No area of the town was safe from bombardment. One signer of the Declaration of Independence Thomas Nelson Jr. had given permission to fire on his own house, that he knew was being used as the enemy headquarters. The British Navy had given up hope of rescue and had sailed off to Martinique. Suddenly today the cannons went silent and a lone redcoat drummer boy appeared on the high earthworks beating the call to parley. He was followed by an officer with a white flag requesting surrender terms.

1793- Napoleon gets his first job. Sub-lieutenant Napoleone Buonaparte promoted to major of artillery and posted to Toulon. He is 24. At 25 he will be a General, at 31 a dictator at 35, an Emperor, at 46 unemployed, and dead at 52. Hmmm, sounds like a career in Hollywood.

1861- Poet and suffragette Julia Ward Howe was staying at the Willard Hotel down the block from the White House. She awoke in the middle of the night inspired to write new words to a popular soldiers tune she heard that day "John Brown's Body". She wrote "Mine Eyes have seen the Glory of the Coming of the Lord...." She called it "The Battle Hymn of the Republic"." Glory-Glory Halleluiah, His Truth is Marching On…"

1896- Joseph Pulitzer's N.Y. Journal American created the first Sunday Color Comics supplement.

1912- The First Balkan War- Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia and Montenegro attack Turkey in her remaining European territories.

1922- The British Broadcast Corp or BBC formed.

1924- College football star Red Grange scored four long yardage touchdowns in one game.

1926- In Hollywood Sid Grauman's Egyptian Theater opens.

1931- Thomas Edison died peacefully at age 84. His last words were-
"It's beautiful over there..."

1942- Admiral Nimitz appointed Admiral Bull Halsey to take command of the fleet locked in battle with the Japanese off the Solomon Islands.

1950- In an emotional showdown in the Directors Guild all motions by C.B.DeMille and Frank Capra to extend the Hollywood anti-Communist blacklist to include expulsion from the Director's Guild are defeated. Billy Wilder, John Huston, John Ford and Mervyn LeRoy supported President Joe Mankiewicz who blocked the Blacklist Motions, and they also prevented a recall vote on Mankiewicz' s presidency.

1954- Hi & Lois comic strip debuted.

1967- Walt Disney's last cartoon done under his supervision "the Jungle Book." premiered.
Disney had died the previous December. If you remember the film the end sequence Mowgli meets four vultures who talk like the Beatles but sing barbershop quartet. That’s because the characters were supposed to sing a Beatles parody song but the directors felt the group would soon be forgotten so they didn't want to date the film. The director of the Jungle Book, Woolie Reitherman, died when he drove his car into a tree in 1985.

1974- Tobe Hooper's low budget cult film Texas Chainsaw Massacre first opened. Despite one film critic calling it " a bunch of sick crap" it became a huge hit.

1977- New York Yankee batter Reggie Jackson earned the name Mr October by slugging three home runs in one World Series Game against the LA Dodgers.

1982- President Reagan said during a radio address:" My Fellow Americans, the economy is in a helluva mess....this microphone isn't on, is it?.."

1984- Young television star John Eric Hexum died after shooting himself with a prop pistol loaded with blanks. The concussion of compressed air shattered his skull at close range. He was playing at mock- Russian Roulette. His last words were "Lets see if I can do myself in this time!"