We saw Princess and the Frog on Sunday and loved it! Bravo to all the team, especially - Eric Goldberg's animation of Louis the Gator, Bruce Smith's animation of Dr. Facilier and Nik Ranieri's animation of Charlotte. I also loved Ian Gooding's Art Direction.

I think it's the best the House of Mouse has produced since Lilo & Stitch.

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Question What is the name of the musical genre that combines Louisiana Cajun and Creole with Jazz?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: In the late 70’s-early 80s, alongside Punk, there was another popular style in pop music. It was played by bands like Devo, Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. What was its’ name?
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History for 12/14/2009
Birthdays: 1553-King Henry IV of Navarre, Tycho Brahe, Nostradamus -Michel de Nostre Dame-1503, English King George VI-1895, Spike Jones the bandleader, Morey Amsterdam, Charlie Rich, Gen. Jimmy Doolittle, Lee Remick, Patty Duke, Porn star Ginger Lynn, Clark Terry-trumpeteer. Cecil Pay-Saxophonist. Jane Birkin "Je t'aime moi non plus"chanteuse.

Welcome to the first day of what is referred to as the HALCYON DAYS. The seven days prior to and after the Winter Solstice, a time of tranquility and peace.

1776-After chasing George Washington's miserable little rebel army across New Jersey, British General Lord William Howe announced the customary holiday truce and beds his army down for the winter. His subordinate Lord Percy wrote home:” It’s just about over with those people, we shall be home shortly.” Lord Howe took as a mistress the wife of his Boston superintendent of prisons a Mr. Loring, who grew rich enough on army contracts to not mind. A rebel poem of the time said: "Sir William He, snug as a Flea, lay in his bed a Snorring. Nor thought of Harm, as he lay Warm, in bed with Mrs......".

1799- GEORGE WASHINGTON DIED. 67 year old Washington had retired to Mount Vernon after his last presidential term in 1796. On Dec. 12th he went riding five hours during a sleet storm and caught the flu. Another theory was a viral infection of the epiglottis.

He might still have survived had it not been for modern medicine. Doctors bled him of four pints of blood, while applying leeches, mustard sulfur packs and laxatives to purge him of the ill humors. He developed pneumonia and died swiftly. Because coma was so little understood people had a dread of premature burial. Washington left instructions that his body be left out several days to make sure he was dead before being sealed in a tomb. After assurances put his mind at ease his last words were:" Tis well." No priests or religious last rites were performed or called for.

The US government wanted to place his tomb at the center of the planned dome in the capitol building, but Washington’s wish was to be in a simple tomb in Mt. Vernon. He also freed all his 137 slaves and sent them each off with a pension.

1819- Alabama was separated out from Mississippi territory and made a new state. Under Spanish rule Alabama was known as West Florida.

1861- Albert the Prince Consort, husband of Queen Victoria, died at 42. Even though he died of typhoid fever, which was common in those times, Victoria blamed her son Bertie (Edward VII)'s sexual escapades as causing her beloved husband's heartbreak. One of Albert’s last acts was to tone down a diplomatic response to the Trent Affair, which avoided war with the United States.

Victoria wore mourning for the rest of her long life. She withdrew from formal politics for 12 years. She had Albert's rooms at Balmoral and Osborne kept like he was still there. Every single night for 40 years the servants would lay out his clothes and a basin of warm water like for some invisible user. She kept the cast of his hand on her night table so she could reach out and touch it for reassurance at night. When she died in 1901 after reigning 64 years her last words were "Albert..."

1871- Verdi's opera "Aida" debuts in Cairo.

1901- The first Ping-Pong tournament held in London.

1911- Norwegian explorer Roald Ammundsen and four others first reached the South Pole, winning the race against Captain Robert Falcon Scott.

1913- Cartoonist Johnny Gruelle entertained his dying daughter by making up stories involving her rag dollies. After her passing friends urged Gruelle to publish them. The RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY stories are born.

1924- Ottorino Respighi‘s stirring rhapsody the Pines of Rome premiered.

1927- Charles Lindbergh does one last flight with his famous monoplane the Spirit of Saint Louis, from Washington to Mexico City. This is at the request of American Ambassador Dwight Murrow who wanted to improve Mexican-American relations. Lindbergh would not only improve relations but also marry Murrow's daughter Anne. To make the flight a challenge Lindbergh took off at night in a rainstorm to prove air travel was safe. The President of Mexico and 150,000 people greeted him in Mexico City. When flying he noticed many Mexican towns had a sign named 'Caballeros' in their railroad stations. He reasoned Caballeros must be a popular name for a town.

1944- Hollywood starlet Lupe Velez, the "Mexican Spitfire' committed suicide. She had taken an overdose of sleeping pills and laid herself out in a beautiful negligee of her own design to be found radiant. But instead of dying immediately, the pills made her sick and she was found dead on her knees with her head in the toilet.


1944- The film National Velvet premiered, making a star out of 12 year old Elizabeth Taylor.

1947- The National Association of Stock Car Racing or NASCAR formed.

1953- Young pitcher Sandy Koufax was signed by the Dodgers. He became one of their most famous players.

1957- Hanna Barbera's first TV cartoon "Ruff and Ready" premieres.

1970- George Harrison’s single My Sweet Lord went gold.

1972-THE LAST MAN LEAVES THE MOON. Apollo 17 blasts off. We all remember the first man on the moon, but do you remember the last? Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmidt. President Nixon annoyed NASA by saying he doubted that men would return to the moon in the Twentieth Century, but he was right.

1977- DISCO! The movie Saturday Night Fever starring John Travolta and the music of the Bee Gees make the Disco dancing scene a national craze.

1979- STUDIO 54 RAIDED- The Internal Revenue Service busted the worlds most notorious disco club. Formerly the hangout of Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Truman Capote and other “Beautiful People”, now the Feds were on to them. The IRS seized doctored account books, cocaine and undeclared cash, landing the owners in jail and bringing the celebrity playland’s days to an end.
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Yesterday’s Question: In the late 70’s-early 80s, alongside Punk, there was another popular style in pop music. It was played by bands like Devo, Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. What was its’ name?

Answer: New Wave.

Question: In the late 70’s-early 80s, alongside Punk, there was another popular style in pop music. It was played by bands like Devo, Talking Heads and Elvis Costello. What was its’ name?

Yesterday’s Question Answered Below: Of the CBS network, what does CBS stand for..?
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History for 12/13/2009
Birthdays: Heinrich Heine, Mary Todd Lincoln, Dick Van Dyke, Mike Mosley, Darryl Zanuck Jr., George Schulz, Tim Conway, Ted Nugent, Christopher Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Jamie Fox is 40, Lynn Holly Johnson, Wendy Malick

Today is the Feast of Saint Lucy, who was ordered by the Romans to be violated in a brothel, set on fire, stabbed to death and to stop men saying how beautiful her eyes were she ripped them out and handed them over on a plate. But they miraculously grew back. So Lucy is the patron saint of opticians.


1264-THE CREATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS- Victorious rebel English Earl Simon de Monfort calls for a meeting in Westminster of a Parliament of all nobles, clergy and - common folk of the realm. It's probably the first time since the ancient Roman republic anybody had asked the people their opinion about anything. King Henry III and Prince Edward Longshanks couldn't argue because Simon had them locked up in the Tower. To make final sure Earl Simon ordered bishops to pronounce the most fearful oaths of excommunication and anathema on anyone who dared to undo his creation. So even after Longshanks escaped and had Earl Simon chopped into mincemeat, the House of Commons remained.

1543-THE COUNCIL OF TRENT convenes- Officially called the XIX Ecumenical Council this conference launched the Catholic Counter-Reformation against the Protestant reformers. Among it's doctrinal pronouncements was to declare that the only Good Art is Realism, all attempts at stylization or mannerism was heresy. Michel Caravaggio master painter and wise guy decided to test this law by painting a Death of the Virgin. This is a terribly touchy subject because in Catholic tradition she's always portrayed as16 years old even though she lived to 64 and four other children by Joseph. You can imagine the furor when he did her realistically as a chubby dead old lady with grey hair and the accompanying apostles as balding old vagrants.


1642- Dutch explorer Abel Tasman in the Pacific discovered a big island near Australia and named it for the Dutch province of Zeeland, so New Zealand. He also found another island and called it Van Deimans Land, but it was later named in his honor as Tasmania.

1862-BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURG- Union General Ambrose Burnside (who created the men’s fashion-"sideburns") made his men frontal attack uphill an impregnable Confederate position of concentrated fire that :" a chicken couldn't live through."
The massed regiments of bluecoats were mowed down wave after wave in one of the worst disasters in U.S. Army history. The New York Fighting 69th, the all Irish brigade, fell dead in even rows shielding their eyes from the bullets as though they were rain. They shouted “Faugh au Ballagh !” Gaelic for “Clear the Way!” They left 53% of their men dead on the field. In all 13,000 Yankees died to a mere handful of rebels. One rebel general, sickened by the stupidity of it all, said: "This ain't war, it's just plain murder." After the defeat, Burnside rode past some of his men, a kissass major tried shouting :"Three cheers for the General!" and was met with stony silence. When the Yankees defeated the rebels at Gettysburg a year later they shouted "Fredericksburg! Fredericksburg!' in revenge at the retreating graybacks.

1872- Wild Bill Hickock was fired as sheriff of Abilene Kansas because he was more violent than most of the men he arrested. He's preferred method of arresting suspects was "buffaloing". That meant to hold a six-shooter in the open palm of the hand and smack the suspect across the face with it.

1895- Gustav Mahlers 2nd Symphony “Resurrection” premiered.

1928- Leopold Damrosch conducted the premiere of George Gershwin's -"An American in Paris."

1936- At the urging of New Yorker editor Harold Ross to find a better line of work, actor Dave Chasen opened Chasen's restaurant in Beverly Hills, which catered to Hollywood stars for 60 years. It is the restaurant where Leopold Stokowski was introduced to Walt Disney and as a result they conceived "Fantasia". Humphrey Bogart, John Huston and Lauren Bacall met upstairs to discuss the Blacklist of 1947. Elizabeth Taylor ordered Chasen’s chili flown out to Rome so she could eat it on the set of Cleopatra. The restaurant closed in 1995 because the Chasen family wanted to cash in on the real estate. Today it’s a supermarket.

1939- Battle of the River Platte- The German pocket battleship Graff Spee battled with several British cruisers near the Argentine coastline. The German then put into the neutral port of Montevideo for repairs.

1940- Fleischer Popeye cartoon "Eugene the Jeep" .The Thimble Theater character would give its name to the new army General Purpose vehicle- G.P. or "Jeep".

1942- In the rubble choked streets of Stalingrad, Soviet sniper Tanya Chernova was making her way to Nazi headquarters with instructions to kill their commander Field Marshal Friedrich von Paulus. But on the way a comrade stepped on a mine and the explosion tore through her abdomen. She survived, but her participation in the war was over. An attractive blonde former ballerina, she began the war as a guerrilla in the Ukraine, and was trained by supersniper Vasily Zaistzev. She called the Germans she had killed “broken sticks” because she refused to acknowledge their humanity. By the time this explosion ended her military career Tanya had 80 broken sticks to her record. She was 20 years old.

1951- One of the legendary Hollywood producers was Walter Wanger- starting in 1921 his films included The Sheik, Stagecoach, Queen Christina, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Silk Stockings and Cleopatra. His wife was beautiful starlet Joan Bennett, but at this time she had taken a lover. On this day Wanger surprised Hollywood by pulling out a gun and shooting his wife's lover in the nuts right in the MCA studio parking lot. In true Hollywood fashion Wanger got off, sentenced to just a few months in an honor ranchero compound and was soon back to work. Contributors to pay his legal fees included the Jack Warner, Walt Disney and Sam Goldwyn. The boyfriend, Jennings Lang, recovered and later became an executive producer of comedies like House Calls. After all, who needs balls to be a producer?

1961- Jimmy Dean’s folk ballad Big Bad John went to #1 of the country charts. Later Dean had his own TV variety show and started Jimmy Dean’s Pure Pork Sausage Company.

1969- Arlo Guthrie’s hit song Alice’s Restaurant released.

1981- Communist Polish Gov't under General Jaruszelski declared martial law and outlaws Solidarity, the Polish Labor Organization. The secret police, the ZOMO's started arresting all the ringleaders. Jaruszelski later claimed the liberal political climate was getting so out of hand that he had to crack down or the Soviet Union would invade like they did to Czechoslovakia in 1968 and Hungary in 1956. People showed their quiet resistance by wearing a small transistor (i.e. resistor) on their lapel. Also popular was a button that from a distance looked like the graphic "Solidarity" Logo but up close spelled out: "WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT ?"

1996- In Terry Gilliams’ sci-fi apocalypse epic the Plague of the 12 Monkeys was unleashed today, a virus that killed 4/5ths of the world’s population and drove the remainder underground.

2002-Cardinal Bernard Law resigned in disgrace. The Primate of Boston, the largest Roman Catholic diocese in the United States. Cardinal Law had spent years covering for priests who molested children. He even protected a priest who was registered in the Man-Boy Love Society. Cardinal Law was the highest ranking Catholic to step down from popular pressure. He was recalled to Rome to be prior of Santa Maria Maggiore.

2003-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was pulled out of a hiding hole and captured by U.S. forces near his hometown of Tikrit.
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Yesterday’s Question: : Of the CBS network, what does CBS stand for..?

Answer: The Columbia Broadcasting System, built up by William S. Paley, son of family of cigar manufacturers.

Question: Of the CBS network, what does CBS stand for..?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: Which Hollywood studio was built up by Wall St investor Joseph Kennedy, the father of John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy?
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History for 12/12/2009
Birthdays: Frank Sinatra, Roman Emperor Alexander Severus, Edvard Munch, Gustav Flaubert, Auguste Rodin, Cherokee Confederate General Stand Watie, John Jay, Edward G. Robinson-born Emmanuel Goldenberg, Field Marshal Karl Von Rundstedt-the Black Knight of Germany, former NY Mayor Ed Koch, Zack Mosley –the cartoonist who drew “Smilin' Jack", Connie Francis, Dionne Warwick, Cathy Rigby, Tracy Austin, Jennifer Connelly is 38

1524- Pope Clement VII the Medici Fox, steered a dangerous policy to keep the Germans and French from taking over Italy. The previous year he signed a secret treaty with Germany against France, today he signed a secret treaty with France against Germany. This policy blew up in his face. The German army of Charles V stormed Rome and locked up the Pope in 1527. Italy was ravaged by wars for the rest of the century.

1793-WASHINGTON THE SLAVEMASTER- The best evidence we have that George Washington was morally disturbed about owning slaves. This day George Washington wrote a friend in England about his plan to carve up his Mt. Vernon estate into small lots and rent them out to immigrant English tenant farmers, so he could liberate his slaves. He asked his British correspondent to keep his plan a secret and destroy this note after reading it. He never went ahead with his plan but after he and Martha were both dead, Washington’s will freed all 137 of his slaves and sent each off with a cash pension. Compare that to Thomas Jefferson, who freed 6 out of 300 when he died and James Madison, author of the Bill of Rights, who freed none.

1897-The Katzenjammer Kids comic strip by Rudolph Dirks appears. The adventures of Hans & Fritz was so popular a rival Hearst newspaper started an imitation called the Captain & the Kids, leading to the first artistic plagiarism lawsuit. Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas had a problem whenever they bought the American newspapers for their Paris salon, because Picasso and Fernand Oliver would fight over who got to read the Katzenjammer Kids first.

1899- George Grant of Boston invented the Golf Tee.

1901-First transatlantic wireless signal received by Guglielmo Marconi. This finally ended the frustrating hoopla over laying transatlantic telegraph cables and have them break down almost constantly since the 1850s. The pioneers of radio broadcasting like Armstrong, Lee Deforrest and David Sarnoff got their start working for the Marconi Wireless Company.
In his old age Marconi believed that sound never died but just got fainter. He theorized he could build a machine that could receive the faint traces of the voice of Jesus.

1922-Nickolai Lenin suffered the first of a series of strokes that left him too sick to work. He ruled Soviet Russia for one more year as a figurehead while his true state of health was concealed from the public. Top Communist officials like Trotsky and Stalin now fought for power. When Lenin died in Jan.1924 doctors examining his brain said the blood clots were as solid as small stones. The only words he could mumble from his paralyzed mouth was “That’s it. That’s it.”

1925- The world’s first Motel opened. Arthur Heinman opened the Milestone Motel in San Luis Obispo California. Motel was a contraction of Motor-Hotel.

1925- Cossack officer Rezah Pahlavi deposed the last Qajar Shah and becomes Shah of Persia, which would shortly change its name to Iran.

1952- The first Screen Actors Guild Strike. President Walter Pidgeon -Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet- had the movie stars hit the bricks to win television and commercial residuals. The final deals were settled by then SAG president Ronald Reagan in 1960. Ronnie compromised with the studio heads (who later backed his bid for the governorship of California) that only residuals for films after 1955 would be paid. The studios made it known to the membership that if you didn’t vote for Reagan you can forget about your residuals. So the deal was struck. Actors who made their big hits in the 30's and 40s like Laurel and Hardy, the Marx Brothers, The Little Rascals and Mickey Rooney were left out. Mickey Rooney, who's Andy Hardy movies were the box office champs of the mid-1940's put it mildly: "Reagan screwed me !!"

1963- Kenya under Njomo Kenyatta declared independence from Britain.

1975- Sarah Jane Moore pleaded guilty to trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford.

1980- The song “Whip It” by Devo won a gold record.

1991-Actor Richard Gere married supermodel Cindy Crawford.

2000- THE SUPREME COURT PICKED THE PRESIDENT. In the tightest presidential election since 1877 The Supreme Court ruled on the case Bush Vs Gore. The High Court decided George W. Bush won over Vice President Al Gore. They stated that although there may have been irregularities in the vote counting in the decisive state of Florida, it was too late and pointless to continue the recount, so they were suspending all further appeals. Al Gore and the Democrats quickly caved in and squelched attempts by African-American congressmen to point out vote discrimination. In 1960 the difference between Nixon and Kennedy was around 100,000 votes in a population of 150 million people- in 2000 Bush’s lead was down to a mere 140 votes in one Florida county, out of a population of 350 million.
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Yesterday’s Question: Which Hollywood studio was built up by Wall St investor Joseph Kennedy, the father of John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy?

Answer: RKO, the studio that produced King Kong and Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Question: Which Hollywood studio was built up by Wall St investor Joseph Kennedy, the father of John F. Kennedy and Ted Kennedy?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: : We hear about Fox News, Fox Sports, etc. But Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and used to be owned by Darryl Zanuck. So, who was Fox?
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History for 12/11/2009
Birthdays: Sir David Brewster,1781- inventor of the kaleidoscope, Fiorello LaGuardia, Robert Koch, conqueror of tuberculosis, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Carlo Ponti, Gilbert Roland, Big Mama Mabel Thornton, Jean Marais, Jean Louis Tritignant, Tom Hayden, Jermaine Jackson, McCoy Tyner- John Coltrane's pianist, singer Brenda Lee, Rita Moreno, Teri Garr

493 AD.- Today is the feast of Greek Saint Simon Stylites the greatest of all the religious hermits known as pillar-sitters. He died at the age of 85 after having sat on top of a solitary stone column for 35 years. He only descended twice, once to chastise the Byzantine Emperor. The Patriarch of Constantinople even had to be hoisted up by ropes and pulleys to ordain him a priest.

1882- The Bijou Theater in Boston presented Gilbert and Sullivan’s Iolanthe in the first show completely illuminated by electric light bulbs.

1926- Josephine Baker performed her banana dance in Amsterdam.

1927- THE LADY VANISHES- 35 year old mystery writer Agatha Christie caused a mystery herself when she disappeared, leaving her car abandoned by a local brook. The search for the body sensationalized the London press, even knocking the death of Eduard Manet off the front page. Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle employed the first use of a police psychic. Finally after a week Mrs Christie turned up at a health spa in Yorkshire. She was depressed when she earned her husband Sir Archibald Christie of the Guards was having an affair with a younger lady. She ran off and registered in the hotel using her younger rivals name as her alias- Mrs Neal.

1929- Frenchman Charles Cros patented a searchlight he declared he would use to signal civilizations on Mars and Venus. Nobody's returned the call yet.

1936- In a dramatic speech broadcast on radio British King Edward VIII abdicated his throne to be with "The Woman I Love" - to marry the American divorcee' Wallace Simpson. He had been king of the British Empire for 325 days. His brother George became George VI, the father of the present Elizabeth II. He and Wallace later became Duke and Duchess of Windsor and lived outside of England for the rest of their lives.
The Nazis had planned after they had conquered England to put Edward back on the throne as a puppet. Edward Windsor never quite dismissed the rumors that he secretly sympathized with Nazi ideology and while governor of Bermuda had many parties and dinners with socialites who were known Nazi intelligence agents.

1941- Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy declared war on the United States, honoring their Tripartite axis pact with Japan. Hermann Goering protested to Hitler that the Japanese had so far not been of any help to them, they refused to declare war on Russia. Why invite another mighty foe? Hitler sniffed:’ The Americans will be our enemies eventually, why wait?”

1941- The hopelessly isolated little group of Marines on Wake Island repulsed a Japanese naval task force with heavy casualties. They played possum until the invasion fleet got in very close then hammered them with 16 inch naval shore batteries. To a U.S. still reeling from the shock of the Pearl Harbor attack, the nation was encouraged by the gutsy request broadcast from tiny Wake : "Send us more Japs!"

1941- Gone With The Wind producer David Selznick pitched a movie version of Hitler’s book Mein Kampf to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Ben Hecht. Mercifully for movie goers the idea was soon dropped.

1946- UNICEF formed.

1950-THE CHOISIN FEW- During the Korean War the last remnants of the US First Marine Division completed their terrible march from the Chosin Resevoir. In subzero conditions they fought their way out of 5 encircling Red Chinese armies and brought out all of their wounded. Col. Chesty Puller, a veteran of Guadalcanal, exhorted his men “Remember you are First Marines, and all the Commies in Hell can’t stop you!” A Life Magazine reporter asked an exhausted soldier trying to eat a frozen can of beans “If I was Santa Claus what would you want me to give you?” The hollow-eyed man replied: “Tomorrow.”

1951- Yankee slugger Joe DiMaggio announced his retirement from baseball.

1957- Rock and Roll singer Jerry Lee Lewis secretly married his 13 year old cousin Myra Gail Brown, while still married to his second wife, who he divorced her when the press broke the story the following April. The incident shot down his meteoric career. Great Balls of Fire!

1962-SAVE THE VILLAGE! Robert Moses was the famous engineer who crisscrossed New York City with bridges and high speed motorways. But many felt the imperious city-planner destroyed whole neighborhoods with little compassion for the inhabitants. Finally he set his sites on a roadway cutting right across Manhattan at Hudson Street to the Holland Tunnel, which would destroy historic Greenwich Village-houses once inhabited by Walt Whitman, Elizabeth Barret-Browning, Kerouac and Twain. But Robert Moses plans were thwarted by an odd alliance of Beatniks, Little Italy Mafia dons, Chinatown merchants and various Village Bohemians lead by author Jane Jacobs. This day after successfully pleading their case the Mayor and the NY City Board of Estimate rejected Moses plan. The Village today remains a gloriously confused muddle of quaint streets.

1964- Soul music star Sam Cooke was shot to death in an argument with a lady who ran an L.A. motel he had brought his girlfriend to.( "Darling you send meee...")

1967- The Concorde SST passenger plane is unveiled in Toulouse. It was a joint venture between England and France. The American SST project was scrapped as too expensive.

1968- Just point your browser and click! Stanford Univ Dr. Douglas Englehardt invented the computer mouse.

1970- Walt Disney's the 'Aristocats'.

1978- THE LUFTHANSA HEIST.- Some small time Brooklyn Mafiosi slipped into the Lufthansa cargo terminal at Kennedy Airport and stole $8 million in unmarked bills and jewelry, most from European money exchange booths. As the FBI moved in on the gang it’s members tended to wind up dead, thirteen bodies in all. The money was never recovered and the reputed mastermind Jimmy the Gent Burke died in prison on an unrelated murder charge in 1991. The incident was dramatized in the Martin Scorcese film “Goodfellas”.

2008- Wall St investor Bernie Madoff was arrested for stock fraud. He was known around town as the A-list investment firm. In reality, he was the center of the largest Ponzi-Scheme Fraud in world history. Madoff cheated people out of $180 BILLION, more than the GNP of a lot of small nations. Hundred of Investors as diverse as Steven Speilberg, Elliot Spitzer and Yeshiva University got burned.
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Yesterday’s Question: We hear about Fox News, Fox Sports, etc. But Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and used to be owned by Darryl Zanuck. So, who was Fox?

Answer: The little known movie mogul, William Fox, started his studio in 1917. It merged with Twentieth Century Pictures in 1935, and ex Warner production chief Darryl F. Zanuck took it to the top. But by then little William Fox had lost his chairmanship and fortune.

Question: We hear about Fox News, Fox Sports, etc. But Fox is owned by Rupert Murdoch, and used to be owned by Darryl Zanuck. So, who was Fox?

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What place had a sign over the entrance that read “ Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Enter..”?
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History for 12/10/200 9
Birthdays: English King Edward VII “Bertie”, Emile Dickinson, Chet Huntley, Morton Gould, Victor McLaghlin, Dan Blocker, Tommy Kirk, Fionnula Flanagan, Kenneth Branaugh is 50, Dorothy Lamour, Susan Dey, Michael Clarke Duncan, Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich

969AD- Byzantine Emperor Nicephorous II Phocas had no better administrator than John Tzimisces. But John was also the lover of Nicephorous’s wife Empress Theophano. This day she had Nicephorous assassinated. Theophano had earlier poisoned her own father-in-law Emperor Romanus II to help Nicephorous seize the throne. But now she was bored with him. To please the angry Greek Patriarch John Tzmisces exiled Theophano to a convent and reigned as a pretty good emperor. But he too was poisoned, by Basil II the Bulgar Slayer. Believe it or not, this was actually a happy period in Byzantine history.

1513- Former Florentine politician Niccolo Machiavelli was living in a small town after being thrown out of power and even twisted on a torture rack. Still missing his life in power, he declared today to a friend he was writing a book on political theory to present to the Medici duke of Florence. He hoped by doing so he’d be called back to office. It didn’t get him a job, but his book THE PRINCE became one of the great works of political philosophy, the handbook of unscrupulous politicians everywhere.

1518- Ulrich Zwingli was chosen to be the Gross Munster or chief vicar of the Swiss city of Zurich. Zwingli became a top leader of the Protestant Reformation like Martin Luther and John Calvin.

1520- Protestant reformer Martin Luther shows the Pope what he thinks of his Bull of Excommunication on him by burning it in public. Pope Leo’s command Exsurge Domine went up in smoke along with the Canons of Roman Church Law to the cheers of students.

1577- The Union of Brussels- The 17 provinces of the Netherlands and Belgium formalize their union. This is why Holland is also known as the United Provinces.

1607- In Virginia Captain John Smith left the Jamestown camp with two men to find food. They were captured by the Indians who killed the other men and dragged Smith before chief Powhatan. He ordered Smith’s head to be placed on a flat stone and bashed in with a war club. But Powhatan’s favorite daughter Pocahontas threw herself over Smith and protected him. Smith could speak no Algonquin and the Indians no English and neither could sing any Broadway tunes. Was this an execution prevented or a ritual of admission into the tribe? Powhatan was known to extend his rule through dynastic alliances with other tribal leaders, and he was well aware of the white strangers, wiping out a Spanish attempt to land on his beach in 1600. Maybe this was his way of wanting to bring the white mans powers to his side. No one knows for sure. Smith didn’t write of this incident until back in England 14 years later.

1800- Congress debated a bill to build a mausoleum for George Washington to be placed in the center of the Congress. But Martha Washington cut off such efforts by citing George’s specific instructions that his remains not be turned into some kind of regal national shrine. He insisted on and still sleeps in his simple family tomb at Mt. Vernon.

1864- Sherman’s army reaches the sea at the Georgia coast near Savannah.

1869- Wyoming Territory grants women the vote, the nation follows 58 years later (California in 1911).

1898- Spain and the U.S. make peace ending the Spanish American War. Secretary of State John Hay who was once Abe Lincoln’s secretary called it “A Splendid Little War.” Critics Mark Twain and Ambrose Bierce called it the Yanko-Spanko War. The United States becomes a global power with colonies in Puerto Rico, Guam, Samoa, and the Philippines. The Philippinos, who were fighting for independence under their leaders like Aquinaldo, suddenly discover they were now American property. The U.S. declared they fought for their freedom from Spain yet never officially recognized their national independence movements. The Philippines gained its full independence in 1946 and the last American base Subic Bay wasn’t removed until the 1990s.

1901- The First Nobel Prize is given. Alfred Nobel made millions by inventing dynamite and nitro-glycerine. But as much as his discoveries were used for constructive purposes they also made it possible for armies to blow each other up much more efficiently. He felt guilty and after an accident with the stuff killed his own brother. He resolved to create something positive from his fortune. Hence the Nobel Prize. Nobel died on Dec 10th 1896 and the awards are given each year on the anniversary. President Teddy Roosevelt won the first Peace Prize in 1910 for mediating an end to the Russo-Japanese War. President Obama is the third U.S. President to receive the Peace Prize.

1905- O. Henry’s short story “ A gift from the Magi” first published.

1915- President Woodrow Wilson married Edith Bolling Galt in a ceremony in the White House.

1938- To make the film "Gone With the Wind" Producer David Selznick and director Victor Fleming shot the massive "Burning of Atlanta" in Culver City, California. The sequence was storyboarded and designed by William Cameron-Menzies, who designed the sets for Intolerance for D.W. Griffith. Selznick used the opportunity to clean the studios backlot storage, destroying sets from King Kong, Little Lord Fauntelroy and Last of the Mohicans in the inferno. They shot the scenes with three Rhett Butler stand ins.

1941-The Hollywood Victory Committee formed. Top Hollywood agents like Abe Lastfogel, Lou Wasserman and Myron Selznick (David's brother) start signing up movie stars for bond drives and touring shows for the troops.
The committee later created the Hollywood Canteen, a nightclub for servicemen on Ivar near Sunset. A soldier or sailor could come in for a free meal served by Tyrone Power or Red Skelton and have a dance with celebrities like Rita Hayworth or Dina Shore.
One animation painter who worked in the kitchen told me the only celebrity who would stay until closing, even mopping and washing coffee cups was Marlene Deitrich.

1941- The New York Metropolitan Opera announced that in light of the Pearl Harbor attack they were suspending any further performances of Madame Butterfly. Other opera companies also stopped doing Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Mikado.

1948- The United Nations adopts Article XIX, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The committee, spending months drafting the resolution, was chaired by the Eleanor Roosevelt. By this act she debuted not just as a former first lady and widow of FDR but as a stateswoman and diplomat in her own right.

1966- The Beach Boys “Good Vibrations” hit #1 in pop charts.

1967- R&B star Otis Redding and four of his band the Bar Kays were killed in a small plane crash near Madison Wisconsin. Redding had recorded his hit “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay” just three days earlier.

1974- Powerful Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Congressman Wilbur Mills resigned in disgrace after being busted by the DC police for getting drunk with a stripper named Fanne Fox and taking her for a 2:00 AM skinny dip in the Tidal Basin near the Jefferson Memorial. Fanne was later christened the “Tidal Basin Bombshell.”

1995- Worst recorded snowstorm in Buffalo, NY history. 37.9 inches in just 24 hours!
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Yesterday’s Question: What place had a sign over the entrance that read “ Abandon All Hope, All Ye Who Enter..”?

Answer: The entrance to Dante’s Inferno, the land of Dis, or Hell, if you prefer.