Question: In Chuck Jones's cartoon"Tom Turk and Daffy" (1944) Daffy Duck helps to hide the Thanksgiving turkey, until Porky's description of how delicious his planned thanksgiving dinner will be seduces Daffy into revealing the turkey's hiding place. Tom Turkey comments on Daffy's betrayal by saying "Quisling..."
What does that mean?



Answer to Yesterday’s question below: We always read things like “Dick Cheney and his cohorts,” or “Move On and their cohorts..” So, what the heck is a cohort?

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING!- Since the earliest recorded times societies have had harvest festivals to give thanks to the appropriate deities that they're not going to starve come winter. Whether or not you believe in 1626 Pilgrim Gov. Bradford and Massacoit and his Wampanoag Indians sat down to share their dinner, the custom of Thanksgiving was a New England custom for decades thereafter. A few years later the New Englanders exterminated these same Indians and stuck Massacoits son King Phillips dismembered head on a post. In 1789 George Washington had called for a thanksgiving celebration in late November to celebrate the new Constitution but the holiday didn’t really become an annual custom until the Civil War. Sarah Hale the editor of the Ladies Magazine had been lobbying the US Government to make the New England practice a national one.

In 1864 after the capture of Atlanta and Mobile Bay it looked obvious that the Union was finally going to win the Civil War. President Lincoln issued a decree that the last Thursday of November be set aside as a feast of national Thanksgiving –Old Abe had just won his re-election so he had lots to be thankful for as well. As blue clad troops chowed down on their turkey and chicken dinners the Confederates withheld their fire in honor of the new Yankee holiday. To this day Thanksgiving is still declared by Presidential decree, probably buried somewhere in the back of today’s newspaper.

In 1940 President Roosevelt tried to move Thanksgiving earlier in the month to help Depression-wracked business by spurring early Christmas shopping, but people were used to it where it was. If he was alive today he would see that Xmas shopping gets going before Halloween these days..
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History for 11/22/2007
Birthdays: French explorer Sieur de LaSalle, George Elliot- pen name for Mary Anne Evans, Benjamin Britten, Charles DeGaulle, Andre Gide,Wiley Post, Billy Jean King, Boris Becker, Geraldine Page, Jamie Lee Curtis is 49, "Cactus Jack" Garner*, Hoagy Carmichael, Rodney Dangerfield, Terry Gilliam is 67, Robert Vaughn, Greg Luzinski, Tom Conti, Mark Ruffalo, Steven Van Zandt, Victoria Paris- porn star of such classics like Bimbo Bowlers from Buffalo, Scarlett Johanssen is 23

* Texan Cactus Jack Garner was a Senate leader and FDR's vice president for his first two terms. Lyndon Johnson was in Dallas visiting him on his 90th birthday when Kennedy's assassination occurred. Garner had advised Johnson about leaving his senate leadership to become Vice President: "Lyndon, the Vice Presidency ain't worth a bucket of warm spit !"

St. Cecilia's Day- Patron Saint of Musicians

1622- English poet John Donne ordained the deacon of Saint Paul’s Cathedral. The poet had written some of the most erotic poetry in English literature, now he devoted himself as fervently to religious contemplation.

1739- Georg Frederich Handel premiered the oratorio Ode to Saint Cecilia’s Day.

1809- Baltimore native Peregrine Williamson invented a re-usable steel pen. This finally freed the western world from sharpening goose quills and other feathers to write.

1880- Actress Lillian Russell made her debut on the New York Stage. Russell exemplified the sex appeal of the era- big figured, big bustle, tiny waist and BIG caboose.

1888- According to Edgar Rice Burroughs this is the birthday of the boy who would become Tarzan.

1916- Author Jack London died at 40 in Glen Ellen California of kidney disease. The author of White Fang and Call of the Wild was a lifelong socialist and supporter of the labor movement. In 1918 Emma Goldman eulogized in an article in The Masses: “It’s a pity that brother Jack never lived long enough to see the Red Flags of Freedom flying over the Kremlin!”

1917- The National Hockey League-NHL, founded in Montreal. The first teams The Quebec Bulldogs, Ottawa Senators, Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Arenas, and Montreal Maroons.

1928- Long before Bo Derek ran down a beach, Ravel’s Bolero Suite premiered in Paris.

1935- The First Pan Am China Clipper service began from San Francisco to Honolulu and Manila. Captain Edwin Musik took off with 20.000 people waving bon voyage.

1942- Operation Uranus- The German 6th Army surrounded at Stalingrad. As the Russian pincers were closing behind him Gen.Von Paulus wired Hitler for permission to pull back and maneuver. Hitler promoted him to Field Marshal and ordered him not to withdraw one millimeter. When Hitler had given Ervin Rommel a similar order at El Alamein Rommel simply ignored it with no ramifications and saved his army. But Von Paulus believed in Hitler. It was his bad luck the Germans had kept their main supply dumps just outside the area surrounded by the Russians, so they were cut off from food. The Luftwaffe tried to feed his men by air drops but the 70 tons of supplies delivered could barely maintain starvation rations. The 6th Army was slowly starved, frozen and pounded on all sides. By February 100,000 surviving German troops surrendered. They were sent to Stalin's gulags in Siberia where most of them died. The bitter Von Paulus became as diehard a communist as he had been a diehard Nazi. After the war testified for the prosecution against his old commanders at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials.

1950- The Lowest Scoring Basketball game in NBA history. The Fort Wayne Pistons defeated the Minneapolis Lakers 19-18. They later became the Detroit Pistons and Los Angeles Lakers.

1957- The Miles Davis Quintet debuted.

1963- ONE DAY IN DALLAS- At 12:30 Central time President John F. Kennedy was shot and killed. Whether you believe the assassin was Lee Harvey Oswald, The Military Industrial Complex, Vice President Johnson, the Mob, Corsican contract killers, The C.I.A., Fidel Castro, Anti-Castro Cubans, space aliens or all of the above, it remains one of the traumatic moments of US History. Only 15% of Americans believe Lee Harvey Oswald did it alone. One Mafia don said in his memoirs:” If you believe Oswald, a rather lackluster Marine, could get off three carefully aimed shots from an old bolt action rifle in just six seconds, you have a vivid imagination.” One of the last things Kennedy heard before the bullets struck him was the wife of Texas governor John Connolly said:” Well Mr President, now nobody can say they don’t love you in Dallas!” After taking the oath of office on Air Force One Lyndon Johnson broke down and locked himself in the toilet crying hysterically “They’re out to kill us all!” Jackie Kennedy, who after flying to D.C. from Dallas still wearing the blood soaked pink Channel dress “let the people see what they’ve done!” immediately started going over the funeral arrangements. Before retiring she had her staff comb the National Archives for the details of the Lincoln Funeral. Cub reporter Robin MacNeil remembers after the shots running into the nearest building to phone in the story. He ran into the Texas Book Depository and asked a skinny t-shirted man who was just leaving where the nearest phone was. Two days later when watching the footage of the assassin being arrested he realized he had been talking to Oswald!
In 1966 key evidence from the Kennedy assassination including the presidents brain and Oswalds tax returns disappeared. People claiming knowledge of a conspiracy died in strange ways, like karate chops and boating accidents.

1963- Aldous Huxley died. The author of Brave New World had inoperable cancer, so his wife kept him high on LSD,

1965- The musical The Man of La Mancha opened on Broadway. “ To Dream, the Impossible Dreaaammm…”Brings back memories of Junior High School band practice.

1980- Screen goddess Mae West died at 87. He apartment suite at the Ravenswood in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles has been lovingly restored since the owner claims her ghost nagged him to put her furniture back!

1986- 20 year old Mike Tyson knocked out Trevor Berbick to become the youngest man to ever wear the Heavyweight Champion’s belt.

1990- Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, the Iron Lady of English politics, resigned her offices. After 11 years in power her popularity was low because of her poll tax and resistance to English cooperation in the European Community. So her resignation and replacement with her protégé John Major was seen as a way for the Tories to retain control of government.

1993- Sir Anthony Burgess died. The author of A Clockwork Orange had been diagnosed with a brain tumor and told he had one year to live, in 1959.
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Yesterdays’ Quiz: We always read things like “Dick Cheney and his cohorts,” or “Move On and their cohorts..” So, what the heck is a cohort?

Answer: Smallest unit of the ancient Roman Army, equal to a platoon. Several cohorts make up a legion, three to ten legions can be an army. A legion was about 3,000-5,000 men. Roman generals like Caesar were always writing about sending three cohorts here, two cohorts there, etc.

Quiz: We always read things like “Dick Cheney and his cohorts,” or “Move On and their cohorts..” So, what the heck is a cohort?

Yesterday’s question- Queen Elizabeth II celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary. Is she the longest reigning English monarch? Answer below…
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History for 11/21/2007
Birthdays: Francios Arouet called Voltaire, Marlo Thomas called That Girl,, Rene Magritte, Adolphe Marx called Harpo, Colman Hawkins called Bean, Stan ' the Man' Musial, Tom Horn called the last Outlaw, Pope Benedict XlV, Earl the Pearl Monroe, Goldie Hawn, Harold Ramis, Ken Griffey Jr, Mariel Hemingway, Lorna Luft, Troy Aikman, Bjork

In the Orthodox Church this is Feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel


1620- THE PILGRIMS LAND AT PLYMOUTH ROCK- Legend has it Mary Chilton and John Alden were the first ones to set foot upon American soil. The English religious sect after first leaving England had lived in Utrecht but the Dutch couldn't stand them either. They had set sail for Virginia but bad weather had blown them to the coast of Massachusetts. The area they were settling was some of the most densely populated Indian land in North America, but the smallpox spread by preceding European explorers had decimated the tribes, leaving entire villages empty. When the Pilgrims saw this they held a thanksgiving service in honor of: "He who prepares a way for His people by sweeping away the heathen." The Puritans landed several years later but they were a separate group who didn't like the Pilgrims. Then came the Quakers whom nobody liked.
The Plymouth Rock enshrined in modern Plymouth was identified in 1677 by an elderly survivor of the landing as the huge rock escarpment they landed on. The city fathers tried to pry it loose but only a little chunk broke off. That’s why Plymouth Rock looks pretty small for a ship to land on.

1718- BLACKBEARD THE PIRATE KILLED. William Teech from Bristol England had served on privateers fighting the French. When the war was over he went into business for himself. He grew a huge black beard, which he twisted into ringlets and tied smoking cannon fuses into it to scare people. This day two sloops of Royal Marines sent from Virginia colony led by a Lieutenant Maynard RN, boarded Blackbeard’s ship when she ran aground on the coast of North Carolina. The fighting was all hand to hand. Blackbeard finally went down after he was shot five times and slashed with cutlasses 25 times. Blackbeard had stationed a black child with a lit match in the powder magazine with orders to blow everything to hell the moment the battle was lost, but the boy was killed before he could accomplish his task. After the battle Lt. Maynard found papers proving the Royal Governors of Bermuda and North Carolina were receiving bribes from the pirates for safe harbor. Blackbeard’s head was cut off and hung it from the bowsprit for the trip home. (No one had invented foam dice yet.) They threw the rest of his corpse into the ocean where legend says it swam around the ship once before sinking. Shiver Me Timbers!


1794- Honolulu Harbor discovered by British explorers.

1920- Bloody Sunday- In Dublin IRA chief Michael Collins sent out his best assassination squad, nicknamed the Twelve Apostles. In the early morning of one day they rounded up and shot 20 of the top British counter terrorist police inspectors, nicknamed the Cairo Gang. In some cases they forced the wives to watch their husband’s executions. The British paramilitary constabulary nicknamed the Black & Tans reacted to the killings by entering a soccer stadium during a match and opening fire on the players and fans with rifles and machine guns. 25 were killed and scores wounded .

1933- Columbia director Frank Capra went to Claudette Colbert’s home to talk her into delaying her holiday vacation long enough to star with Clark Gable in “It Happened One Night”. Colbert said she would only do it for double her normal salary and if they would be done by Dec 23rd so she could spend Christmas with friends at Squaw Valley Idaho.
They made the picture on a rush and Colbert later told her friends:” I just finished the worst picture in the world!” It Happened One Night” became a monster hit for Capra, Columbia and is one of Colbert’s most memorable performances. At one point in the story Clark Gable bites on a carrot and says" What's up, Doc?" giving Warner Bros director Tex Avery a neat thing for his new character Bugs Bunny to say....


1934- Cole Porter's musical 'Anything Goes!' opened on Broadway. Ethel Merman starring, In olden days a glimpse of stocking was looked upon as somewhat shocking. Now Heaven knows- Anything Goes!”

1942- Warner's "A Tale of Two Kitties" the first Tweety Pie. I tawt I taw a puddy cat !

1959- The day after he was fired WABC radio DJ Alan Freed refused to sign a statement that he never received cash payments or payola to run Rock & Roll records on the air, which is exactly what he did.

1963- President John F. Kennedy and Jackie fly into San Antonio for a swing through Texas to gather support for a possible re-election run. Tomorrow would take them to Houston for breakfast then through Dallas....

1963- Robert Stroud, the 'Birdman of Alcatraz' died behind bars at 73. Jailed in 1916 for murdering a man who beat up his girlfriend, he spent 54 years in prison, 42 in solitary confinement. His study of birds enabled him to become an expert in bird diseases, he wrote three books. Burt Lancaster played him in the movies as a tragic hero, but those who knew him said he was a morose psychopath who stabbed another inmate and murdered a guard. He was known to shave off all his body hair and drink alcohol distilled from the birdseed admirers sent him. His own mother hoped he'd never be paroled.

1964- The Verrasano Narrows Bridge opens in New York Harbor. I remember the first person through the gate was a motorcyclist who "popped a Wheelie" and tried to cross the bridge balanced on his back tire.

1967- Mission Accomplished I? General William Westmoreland announced that the North Vietnamese were losing the Vietnam War. Two months later US and ARVN forces were hit by the massive nationwide Tet Offensive.

1969- THE BIRTH OF THE INTERNET- In 1957 after Sputnik scared the US the Defense Department asked the Rand Corporation to theorize a communication system that could survive Russian atomic bombs. They conceived of a “net” of computers all in communication with another around the world. Because there was no center a bomb could not knock out the entire system. This day in 1969 UCLA scientists J.C.R. Licklider, Robert Taylor and others working for the Defense Dept. successfully hooked up five computers at Stanford, UC Santa Barbara and Univ if Utah using long distance phone lines. They called it ARPANET- Advanced Research Projects Agency-NET, a few years later Internet. By 1978 the Defense Department didn’t want to run the thing anymore so they offered to turn over the entire Internet to ATT for free. AT&T said no thanks, we just don’t see the value in it. In 1992 the US government made the Internet public and the rush was on.

1980- A huge fire at the MGM Grand Hotel in Las Vegas killed 80 people.

1980- Australian Olivia Newton John’s disco anthem to aerobic exercise “Let’s Get Physical ” goes to number one of the pop charts and stays there for ten weeks.

1987- Bruce Willis married Demi Moore in Las Vegas. The divorced five years later.

1989- Junk bond king Michael Milken pleads guilty to insider stock trading and 98 counts of fraud. He now does lectures on ethics in business.

1999- 90 year old writer Quentin Crisp died. The author of the Naked Civil Servant had moved from England to San Francisco to lower Manhattan- he asked a friend “I’m moving to New York, I wonder if I should first learn the language?” Another time when Quentin was accosted by young punks he retorted:” Gentlemen, do you not know you are disturbing a National Heritage? I have been declared one of the Stately Old Homo’s of England!” Sting wrote a song about him- Englishman in New York.

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Quiz: Yesterday Queen Elizabeth celebrated her 60th wedding anniversary. Is she the longest reigning English monarch?

Answer: Crowned in 1953, Queen Elizabeth II recently passed Queen Elizabeth Ist as the second longest reigning British monarch. But she’ll need to stick around ten more years, to 2017, to catch Queen Victoria 1837-1901– 64 years on the throne. Victoria was crowned when veterans of Waterloo and Yorktown were still around, and she lived long enough to talk on a telephone and watch a movie.

click on image to enlarge

The 30th anniversary reunion of the Raggedy Ann crew was a great success. We had a screening of a Mark Kausler's 35mm scope print of the film, non-digital scratches and all. Check out my gallery section for details and more photos.

Thanks to ASIFA/Hollywood and their Animation Archives,the American Film Institute and historian Jerry Beck for all their help. Thanks to Art Bininger for taking the photos, which are here with his permission. Thanks also to the blogs of Michael Sporn (head of cleanup back then), Cartoon Brew and Jim Hill Media for giving the event a plug. Our love and regards go out to all our Raggedy Brothers and Sisters who couldn't make the event, but were with us in spirit.

Coming Next year- the 20TH Anniversary of the 1988 film, Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and the dawn of the Animation Renaissance.

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Quiz: Today Queen Elizabeth celebrates her 60th wedding anniversary. Is she the longest reigning English monarch?

Answer to yesterday’s question- One of the reasons Beowulf is taught in schools is it is considered the oldest secular work of English literature. What is the oldest song? Answer below
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History for 11/20/2007
Birthdays: Robert F. Kennedy, Maya Plisetskaya, Gene Tierney, Dick Smothers, Richard Dawson, Estelle Parsons, Barbera Hendricks, Duane Allman, Joe Walsh, Chester Gould the creator of Dick Tracy, Judge Kennesaw Mountain Landis the first baseball commissioner, Alastair Cooke, Senator Robert Byrd is 90, Hu Yao Bang, Bo Derek is 51, Sean Young is 48, Ming Na

866 A.D.- Saint Edmund the Martyr, King of the East Angles since being proclaimed by the Kingdoms of Norfolk and Suffolk, was killed in battle with the Vikings. They said he ruled wisely and patterned his court after that of King David. His story may be another feeder root for the legend of King Arthur.

1272- King Edward Ist crowned king of England. Sometimes called the Great Plantagenet, the Hammer of the Scots or simply Edward Longshanks- long legs.

1601-THE GOLDEN SPEECH- Elderly Queen Elizabeth Ist had ruled England for 42 years, a time of unparalleled prosperity and peace. This day the old queen gave her farewell speech to parliament: "Though God has raised Us to the Throne, the Glory of Our reign was ruling with the love of my people…… You may have had and may yet have mightier and wiser princes in this seat, but you will never have one who loved you more, than I do." Elizabeth died two years later.

1620- Shortly before coming ashore in the New World The Mayflower Compact was drawn up and signed by the 24 male Pilgrim settlers "To covenant and combine ourselves into a civile body-politick". Governor John Bradford wrote: "We shall be a bright City upon a Hill."

1718- " Fifteen men on a Dead Man’s Chest, Yo-Ho-Ho and a Bottle of Rum!" Even though he knew the British Navy was going to attack him tomorrow, violent buccaneer Blackbeard spent this night drinking and partying with his crew. Someone asked Blackbeard that if he died did his wife know where he had buried his treasure? Blackbeard laughed" No one but me and the Devil himself knows where it is, and the longest liver can have it all !" It was said Blackbeard actually enjoyed being a pirate. In the thickest of hand-to-hand fighting amidst the blood and mayhem he could be seen smiling. Ultimate job satisfaction. Another time he made his officers sit with him in a locked cabin with smoldering pots of choking, sulphurous brimstone. He told them as they were all going to Hell ,they might as well get used to it now..

1777- In an amazing speech in the House of Lords elderly William Pitt the Elder, Lord Chatham denounced the governments policy of trying to put down the American Revolution with military mercenaries bought in Germany."My Lords, you cannot conquer America! If I were an American as I am an Englishman, while foreign troops were landed on my soil I would never lay down my arms- never, never, never!"

1783-In Paris Benjamin Franklin is in the crowd watching the first humans go aloft in a balloon designed by the Montgolfier Brothers. For 25 minutes Piastre de Rosier and the Marquis d'Arland flew 500 feet over the Seine, sipping champagne.

1895- Beethoven’s opera Fidelio premiered. He rewrote the overture four times and still wasn’t happy with it. So he rewrote it once more and published the other four as the Leonora Overtures.

1820- In the Pacific Ocean the Nantucket whaling ship Essex was sunk by an enraged sperm whale. The whale's nickname was Mocha-Dick. Only six men survived floating on driftwood for ninety days, resorting to cannibalism before being rescued. This incident is thought to have been one of the inspirations for Herman Melville to write his novel Moby Dick.

1912- Carl Warr walked into Los Angeles City Hall with 60 sticks of dynamite strapped to him. Police grab him he sets off his detonator but nothing happened. He then begged police to kill him. Warr was sensationalized in the press as the Mad Bomber.

1947-Princess Elizabeth the future Queen Elizabeth II married her cousin Prince Phillip Mountbatten of the exiled royal family of Greece. At 60 year of marriage, they have had the longest lasting marriage of any British monarch.

1947- The longest running television show in history- Meet the Press, premiered. And it is still on today.

1963- Attorney General Robert Kennedy had a birthday party up at his house Washington D.C. suburbs called Hillsborough. There his brother President John F. Kennedy and he discussed the coming 1964 election. The President said he was looking forward to doing a campaign swing through Dallas Texas that weekend. Then JFK left the house. It was the last time Bobby Kennedy would ever see his brother alive.

1969- The U.S. Dept of Agriculture bans the use of the insecticide DDT.

1975- Spanish Fascist dictator Francisco Franco died at age 89, despite sleeping with the mummified arm of St. Theresa of Avila for a cure. Patriotic Spaniards start partying. Stores sold out of champagne by 10 a.m. As planned King Juan Carlos takes over and Spain converts to a constitutional monarchy.

1994- Rock & Roll star David Crosby received a new liver.

1995- During and interview on a BBC television show Panorama, Diana Princess of Wales admitted to having a love affair with an officer named James Hewitt. This was after Prince Charles admitted to his long affair with Lady Camilla Parker-Bowles. After the Princesses death Hewitt sold a juicy tell-all story to the London tabloids for half a million pounds.

1998- Several state governments and the US tobacco industry reach a landmark settlement arising from lawsuits over smoking illnesses. The trial also killed off once and for all ads featuring The Marlboro Cowboy and Joe Camel, a cartoon character that at one point was as recognizable to children as Donald Duck.
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QUESTION: One of the reasons Beowulf is taught in schools is it is considered the oldest secular work of English literature. What is the oldest song?

ANSWER: Greensleeves. Richard the Lionhearted’s Crusaders sang a song that became For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow (the Bear Went over the Mountain) but that was in Norman French. Greensleeves is the oldest non-religious song in the English language. No one is sure just how old it is. Some say it was written by King Henry VIII (1491-1547) for Anne Boleyn, but that is apocryphal.

QUIZ: Beowulf is taught in schools, not because Angelina Jolie gets naked, but because is it is considered the oldest work of English literature. What is the oldest song?

Answer to yesterday’s question: Yesterday was the birthday of Mickey Mouse. Legend says he got his name from Walt’s wife Lillian. What did Walt want to call him originally?
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History for 11/19/2007
Birthdays: King Charles Ist of England, President James Garfield, Ferdinand de Lesseps, Roy Campanella, Tommy Dorsey, Ted Turner, Calvin Klein, Indira Ghandi, Dick Cavett, Larry King, Kathleen Quinlan, Alan Young -Mr. Ed’s friend, Ahmad Rashad, Allison Janey, Meg Ryan is 46, Jodie Foster is 45, Terry Farrell,

1619- A young French student named Renes Descartes had enlisted in the army of Elector Maximillian of Bavaria to fight the Thirty Years War. Outside of Neuberg one evening he climbed into a stove to keep warm and there did a lot of thinking. He had the first of a series of revelations to invent analytical geometry and the mathematical applications of religion. Happens to me every time I climb into a stove, too. “ Cogito, Ergo Sum.” I think, therefore I am.”

1703- The "Man in the Iron Mask" died in the Bastille prison. Louis XIV had him locked up for forty years. He was first mentioned in Voltaire's History of the Age of Louis XIV as having a velvet mask which writer Alexandre Dumas changed to iron for dramatic effect. No one ever discovered who he was or why his face was covered. Speculation was that he was everyone from an Italian diplomat, to the son of Oliver Cromwell, to a twin brother of King Louis XIV himself. It made for great literature but he remains a mystery.

1828- Composer Franz Schubert died of complications of gonorrhea at age 31. The year before he had walked as a pallbearer in the funeral of Ludwig Van Beethoven.

1863- THE GETTYSBURG ADDRESS-At the dedication of the soldiers cemetery on the Gettysburg battlefield, the crowd watched Rev. Edward Everett, a famous abolitionist, deliver a fiery two hour speech. Then President Abraham Lincoln stood up and in just two minutes delivered the most famous speech in U.S. History. "Forescore and Seven years ago Our Forefathers set Forth....And Government Of the People, By the People and For the People Shall Not Perish from the Earth. "
The crowd was polite but indifferent. The Times of London correspondent thought it "vague and uninspiring". Lincoln himself told his aide: "Lehman, that speech won't scowl !" meaning a plow blade that's too dull to cut. But Rev Everett was inspired “Mr. President, you said in two minutes much more than I did in two hours.” Contrary to legend Lincoln didn’t write it quickly on the back of an envelope, he worked long on his speeches and was seen doing corrections up to the last minute. There are three pencil copies of the speech still in existence.
one of the few photographs taken at the scene. The photographer was still setting up his equipment when the brief speech ended and Lincoln started to sit down. He opened his shutter in time to get a blurry view of Lincoln's head in the crowd.(arrow)

1915- I DREAMED I SAW JOE HILL LAST NIGHT.... Joe Hill executed in Utah- Swedish Immigrant Josef Hilstrom was a nationally known charismatic poet and union organizer. Large Utah copper mining companies that found Hill's folk song singing activism a nuisance had him convicted on trumped up murder charges. He was shot by firing squad despite pleas for clemency from President Wilson, Helen Keller and the Pope. Crowds of 10,000 marched in London and Sydney Australia for mercy for Joe Hill.
Hill's last words were:"I die as I have lived, a rebel. Don't mourn, Organize!" He stipulated in his will that his body be transported over the state line and buried in Colorado because: "I DON'T WANNA BE CAUGHT DEAD IN UTAH!" His body was cremated and the ashes sent in little envelopes to union offices across the nation.


1942-“ THE IVANS ARE COMING!” OPERATION URANUS- The big Russian counter-attack in the Battle of Stalingrad begins. The Battle for the city named for Stalin had stalemated into house to house fighting in cellars and factory rooms the Germans called Rattskrieg- Rats War. Meanwhile Marshal Gyorgi Zhukov had been massing forces on either end of the German 6th Army where weak Axis units of Romanian and Italian troops were holding the line. Luftwaffe commander Freiherr Von Richtofen reported the concentrations to army commanders but HQ remained strangely apathetic. Today to the sound of thousands of Katyushka rocket launchers, nicknamed Stalin’s Pipe Organs, Marshal Zhukov launched two massive pincer assaults that blew through the German front above and below and joined up in the rear trapping 100,000 Nazis.

1942-GUERILLA MICE- A curious incident during the Battle of Stalingrad. While house to house battles raged in the inner city the main German tank forces sat quiet in fields outside since August. When the Russian attack began the tanks were started up. But soon their engines began to overheat and stall. In the long weeks of waiting field mice had crawled into the motors and ate away radiator hoses and electrical insulation. 68 of 100 tanks broke down thanks to enemy mousekis.

1942- In a concentration camp in Poland author-artist Bruno Schulz was executed. The author of “Street of Crocodiles” last act was being forced by a Gestapo officer to paint images from Brothers Grimm fairytales on his sons bedroom wall before he was shot.

1945- Trying to complete the plan of social services created by Franklin Roosevelt, President Harry Truman called for National Health Insurance. It was defeated in Congress after intense lobbying by the powerful insurance and pharmaceutical companies. It would also be blocked when reintroduced later by Presidents Johnson, Nixon and Clinton. Today the U.S. is the only nation in the front rank of developed nations to have no form of national health insurance. In 2003 while general U.S. inflation is around .03%, prescription medicine inflation averages around 400%. We also are the only nation who runs our hospitals as profit making organizations.

1959-Happy Birthday Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris & Natasha. Jay Ward's television show 'Rocky and his Friends' debuts. Ward and Bill Scott had been planning the adventures of the denizens of Frostbite Falls since 1957. Many of it’s writers like Alan Burns and producer Sheldon Leonard would later help create classic television sitcoms like the Mary Tyler Moore show. On that show they inspired a young writer named James L. Brooks who would one day create the Simpsons.


1969- The great soccer champion Pele scored his 1,000 goal.

1998- Film Director Alan J. Pakula was one of the Hollywood community who preferred living in New York City. This day he was driving on the Long Island Expressway when he was killed in a freak accident. A large truck kicked up in its tires a discarded piece of steel pipe. It flipped it through Pakula’s windshield, killing him instantly.
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Yesterday’s question: Yesterday was the birthday of Mickey Mouse. Legend says he got his name from Walt’s wife Lillian. What did Walt want to call him originally?

Answer: Mortimer Mouse.

Happy World Hand-Drawn Animation Day.

To celebrate, go see an old cartoon, and remember the animation’s value in entertaining and educating the world.

From Tashjin Ozgur in Istambul yesterday:

It was in 2005; the future of traditional, hand-drawn
animation, the original "animated cartoon", seemed
dark, with a diminishing number of die-hards trying to
keep it alive, when some participants of a Turkish web
forum on animation proposed a day to celebrate the
art. The date chosen was November 18, in commemoration
of the 1928 release of Steamboat Willie, the first
Mickey Mouse cartoon to reach audiences.

We hoped our idea would spread across borders and be
taken up by all who consider the art of the hand-drawn
animation to be something special and worth
preserving. We here, at least, have observed and
celebrated the day the last two years, and are gearing
up to do so again.

So this year, on Novemeber 18th, take some time to
watch an old fashioned cartoon, and appreciate it for
what it is- drawings that seem to move.

The heritage of the Renaissance that runs through the
centuries has culminated at the tip of the animators'
pencil.

Happy Cartoon Animation Day!
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Quiz: Today is the birthday of Mickey Mouse. Legend says he got his name from Walt’s wife Lillian. What did Walt want to call him originally?

Answer to Yesterday’s Question: In what classic film did Humphrey Bogart say: “ Play it Again, Sam”…? below
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History for 11/18/2007
Birthdays: Armelita Galli-Curci, Karl Maria Von Weber, W.S. Gilbert, Johnny Mercer, Astronaut Alan Shepard, Louis Daguerre, Brenda Vaccarro, Eugene Ormandy, George Gallup, Warren Moon, Pam Dawber, Delroy Lindo is 55, Owen Wilson is 37, Chloe Sevigny is 33, Animator Steve O.Moore

500 A.D.- Today is the Feast day of the Irish Saint Mawes, who was born in a barrel floating in the sea.

1602- In Transylvania, 22 year old English mercenary Capt. John Smith kills three Turkish warriors in single combat. The Voivode or Duke of Transylvania, Sigmund Bathory, allowed Smith to put three Turkish heads on his Coat of Arms. This is the same John Smith who will go to Virginia and meet Pocahontas in 1607.

1718- Francois Voltaire’s first major work, the play Oedipe premiered in Paris to triumphant success.

1863- Abraham Lincoln boarded a train to Gettysburg to deliver “a few appropriate remarks” to dedicate the new national cemetery there.

1865 Mark Twain's first story "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County' published.

1883- Congress divided the United States into standard time zones corresponding to timetables set by the railroads.

1902- THE TEDDY BEAR BORN-The Washington Evening Star published a story of how President Teddy Roosevelt while hunting couldn't bring himself to shoot a grizzly bear cub. Cartoonist Cliff Berryman illustrated the incident with one of his signature “dingbat” bear cubs in a gesture of “oh no!” Brooklyn toymaker Morris Mitchcom sewed a doll from the illustration in the newspaper and sent the first one to the White House.

1928- HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICKEY MOUSE- At the Colony Theater in New York Walt Disney’s cartoon "Steamboat Willie" debuted- The first major sound cartoon success and the official birth of Mickey Mouse. Two earlier silent Mickey's had been done, but they were held back when the sound experiment went ahead.

1953- Singer Frank Sinatra had been having trouble with his sputtering career and his crumbling marriage to screen sex goddess Ava Gardner. This day songwriter Jimmy Van Heusen found Old Blue Eyes on his bathroom floor with his wrists slashed. Heusen bound his wounds then called his agent rather than the police. Sinatra recovered and soon his career revived and he had a new marriage. His subsequent rough use of women afterwards, calling them “broads” and using and discarding them may have come as a reaction to his rough treatment in the soft hands of La Gardner.

1963-The first push button telephones go into service.

1964- In a public statement to the press FBI director J. Edgar Hoover called Dr. Martin Luther King “The most notorious liar in the country!” This in response to the criticism Dr. King made that the FBI wasn’t trying hard enough to track down the murderers of civil rights workers. Hoover went to his grave believing Dr. King and the whole NAACP were communists.

1978- JONESTOWN- After visiting U.S. congressman Leo Ryan and his party are ambushed and murdered, 912 American members of the Rev. Jim Jones cult in Jonestown Guiana commit suicide, many with tubs of Kool Aid spiked with cyanide.

1985- Bill Watterson’s comic strip Calvin & Hobbs debuted.
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Yesterday’s Question: In what classic film did Humphrey Bogart say:
“ Play it Again, Sam”…?

ANSWER: It was in the classic film Casablanca (1943), but he never said it.



Rick ( Bogart )

Stop playing that. You know what i want to hear.

Sam ( Dooley Wilson )

No I don't Mister Rick.

Rick

You played it for her, you can play it for me.

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