Question: In what classic film did Humphrey Bogart say:
“ Play it Again, Sam”…?

ANSWER to yesterday’s question: Why are prostitutes known as Harlots, Whores and Hookers? Below.
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History for 11/17/2007
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vespasian 9 A.D, Florentine painter Il Bronzino, August Ferdinand Moebius-1790 the inventor of the Moebius Strip. WWII Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Rock Hudson, Danny DeVito, Bob Mathias, Peter Cook, Martin Scorcese is 65, Lorne Michaels, Isamu Noguchi, Lauren Hutton, Tom Seaver, Gordon Lightfoot, Disney animator Les Clark, Lee Strassberg, Shelby Foote, Sophie Marceau, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio

1796- Russian Czarina Catherine the Great died at 67 years old of a stroke on the toilet, not crushed while trying to copulate with a horse as some scandalous rumors alleged.

1800- Following President Adams from their cozy homes in Philadelphia, Congress sulkily convenes for the first time in the half-finished Congress in the new Federal City. It was already being called Washington City D.C.. It was still mostly a damp muddy Virginia swamp. The only buildings up in operation were Congress, the Presidents Mansion and Conrads Tavern. Many complained that city planners Pierre L’Enfant and Benjamin Banocker had made the main avenues too big,, that there will never be enough carriage traffic to fill these roads. This first Congressional session couldn’t accomplish any meaningful work because there were not enough members present to make a quorum.

1853- San Francisco passed a law to put up street signs at the intersections of major streets.

1858- A Pennsylvania businessman named William Larimer founded a new town at the foot of the Rockies called Denver.

1869- The Suez Canal opened. The opera "Aida" was commissioned to be premiered for this occasion but Verdi missed his deadline by ten years.

1876- Peter Tschaikowsky's musical rhapsody the Marche Slav premiered.

1891- Polish pianist Jan Paderewski made his American debut at Carnegie Hall. Paderewski later followed by Stokowski create the cliché image of the grave eccentric classical music master with long flowing white hair combed straight back.

1934- LBJ marries LadyBird, For you born after the 60's, President Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor whom he nicknamed LadyBird Johnson. Their daughters were LucyBird and LindaBird, so everyone in the family had the initials LBJ.

1941- Ernst Udet was a top World War One flying ace who was convinced by Herman Goring into helping build the Nazis Luftwaffe. He was responsible for developing the Stuka dive bomber and it’s screaming diving sound. But his conscience was troubled. One of the old Gallant Knights of the Air, he was depressed by the terror bombing of civilians and genocide his inventions were being used for. Sinking into drink and drugs, he finally shot himself. His last dinner that night he spoke of his adventures as a young ace with Von Richtofen the Red Baron, interspersing it with “Ahh, we were decent men then…”

1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi". The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies? So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So to this day on television no matter how dull a football game is, it is seen to it's completion.

1973- In a television address to the nation about the expanding Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon uttered the famous phrase:” People want to know if their president is a crook, well, I am not a crook!”

1988- Benazir Bhutto elected Prime Minister of Pakistan. While it is still argued if the US would elect a woman president, here is an example of a woman elected head of state in a Moslem fundamentalist nation.

1989- Don Bluth's animated film "All Dogs Go to Heaven."premiered. When the film premiered in London in Leicester Square the opening night tickets were distributed with a printing error on them, the last letter of the film's title was dropped off. So the title read “All Dogs Go to Heave.”

1993- Congress passed the free trade bill called NAFTA.
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Answer to yesterday’s question:
Why are prostitutes known as Harlots, Whores and Hookers?

ANSWER: The Mother of illegitimate King William the Conquerer,was a tavern girl named Harlette. Whore may come from a European corruption of Houris, the 100 dark-eyed damsels the blessed of Islam will have in Paradise; another version says the word comes from Old German houra, one who desires. Hooker comes from Civil War Yankee General Fighting Joe Hooker. General Hooker like his sporting ladies so much he brought them along on the march, giving them their own wagon and escort. The men called them Hooker’s Girls, then just Hookers.

poster courtesy of movieposters.com------------------ Thirty years? Real for sure strange…”

1977 saw the release of the animated film Raggedy Ann & Andy. Directed by Oscar winner Richard Williams, music by Sesame Street cmposer Joe Raposo, animators included Art Babbitt the creator of Goofy, Tissa David the animator on the wonderful John Hubley shorts, Grim Natwick who created Betty Boop and Jerry Chiniquy who animated Yosemite Sam. It was produced by Broadway impresario James Horner who had just scored a major success with Richard Burton in Equus. Voices included Didi Conn, who was Frenchy in the film version of Grease, Mark Baker and Joel Silver. It was the most impressive team of talent for it's time outside of the Walt Disney studio.

Other animated films released that year included Disney's Rescuers and Bakshi's Wizards. Oh and there was that little thing called Star Wars. But Raggedy Ann is special for me, because for me and artists of our generation, it was like finishing school.

Funny how for a film that didn’t seem to do a lot of business back in 1977, a lot of people remember it as a fond childhood memory.
It was done at a time when the most advanced new technology in animated film was a Boston electric pencil sharpener.

The thirty year anniversary screening of Raggedy Ann & Andy, a Musical Adventure will be tomorrow at the American Film Institute at 3:00PM. We will see a 35mm scope print followed by a panel discussion of the film. Check the ASIFA site on my links for further details.

On hand will be Eric Goldberg, who created the Genii in Disney’s Aladdin, Barney Posner who was the cleanup artist of Jerry the mouse dancing with Gene Kelly in MGM’s Anchor’s Aweigh, John Kimball ( Ward’s son) who worked on Star Trek the Motion Picture, Darkwing Duck, Chalk Zone, Carol Milikan who later directed the Beavis & Butthead Show and many more veterans of the crew.

All proceeds will be to benefit the ASIFA/Hollywood Animation Archive. You are all welcome to join us, as we share memories of this flawed gem of a film.

My section that i worked mainly was the Taffy Pitt, animated by Warner Bros veteran animator Emery Hawkins.
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Today’s Quiz: Why are prostitutes known as Harlots, Whores and Hookers?

Yesterday’s Question below: What is a faux-pas?
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History for 11/16/2007
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Tiberius, Paul Hindemith, George S. Kaufmann, W.C. Handy, Burgess Meredith, Daws Butler , Bob Watson, Zina Garrison, Dwight Gooden, Maggie Gylenhall

HAPPY SADIE HAWKINS DAY! Fictional hillbilly race made famous by Al Kapp in his comic strip Little Abner.

1532- THE MASSACRE OF CAJAMARCA- Pizzarro tricked the Inca Emperor Athahualpa and his court into a narrow corral apart from their massive army with promises of a peace conference. The monk Fra Francisco Valverde gave a bible to the Great Inca declaring 'this is the voice of the Living God!" Athahualpa, who had never seen a book or European writing before, examined it over a minute, said "It says nothing to me" and dropped it in the dust. Then Valverde signaled and the Spaniards rushed out from all sides, slaughtering 9,000. Athahualpa was kept as a hostage and later strangled. Valverde became Archbishop of Lima, supervised the destruction of much of Inca culture, then was finally and eaten by cannibals in Ecuador.

1632- BATTLE OF LUTZEN- Largest battle of the Thirty Years War, the great European war where Protestant and Catholic countries chose up sides and battled for the dominance of their religions. The Catholic German-Spanish army of Archduke Wallenstein and the Protestant German-Swedes and of King Gustavus Adolphus pound each other all day. Gustavus had been shot out of his saddle while leading an attack and was on the ground when the Croat cavalry surrounded him. Recognizing a leader they said:"Who are you?" According to legend Gustavus answered:"I am the King of Sweden, who do seal the religion and freedom of all Germany with my blood!" Thereupon the Croats obligingly stabbed him to death. Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimar assumed command and the revengeful Swedes swept all from their path. Lutzen was the highpoint of the religious conflict. Wallenstein continued to lead the German Emperor's armies until his boss the Emperor assassinated him. The Thirty Years War continued until Catholic France joined the Protestant side and the Protestant Germans fought the Protestant Swedes and everyone who started it died and nobody could remembered what it was all ever about to begin with.

1788- KING GEORGE III COLLAPSES IN CONVULSIONS, the first signs of mental illness that would make him a blind shut-in for the last years of his reign. His condition is now known as a rare blood disorder called Porpheria, but then had no known cure. Bleeding and ice water dowsings was the standard 18th century medical treatments. He recovered for a time but the last ten years of his reign are called Regency Period, because even though he still was king his son the Prince of Wales ruled for him. George III's aides sensed something was not right with the King when while riding in his carriage in Hyde Park, George leapt out and called a large oak tree as the King of Prussia. He embraced the tree and shouted in French: "Aah, Le Roi du Prusse!"

1801- The first issue of the New York Post. Alexander Hamilton and his Federalists wanted a paper to print their views. Editor James Coleman once had to kill a man in a duel that morning and get back to the office to get the afternoon edition out. But the elitist snobs of 1800 could not see the lowbrow tabloid the NY Post would become in our time.

1906- Opera superstar Enrico Caruso was charged for pinching a ladies butt while visiting the Bronx Zoo. Caruso claimed a monkey did it.

1907- Oklahoma and Indian territories became a state.

1915-BIRTH OF THE COKE BOTTLE- The owners of Coca Cola were concerned that the success of their soft drink was being subverted by all the various cheap imitations. They decided if they had a distinctive bottle people would recognize genuine Coca Cola. This day the first Coca-Cola appeared in their distinctive curved little green bottles, created by the Ross Glass Co. of Indiana and bottled in Vicksburg Mississippi.

1924- THE MURDER OF THOMAS INCE- Thomas Ince was a film director and early Hollywood studio owner who’s property later became the site of MGM. This day he boarded William Randolph Hearst’s yacht Oneida for a birthday party in his honor. On the boat among the guests was Charlie Chaplin and Hearsts’ mistress Marion Davies. When the boat docked Ince was dead and everyone very troubled. The official cause of death was a heart attack but there was no autopsy or investigation and the Hearst press quickly hushed things up. The legend goes Hearst discovered Chaplin and Davies in flagrante-delicto and in a jealous rage shot Ince when he came in between them. We’ll never know for sure.

1932- VAUDEVILLE DIED- Vaudeville was the generic name for one admission to a showcase of short theatrical acts- singers, comics, jugglers, trained animals, etc. Vaudeville gave their first opportunities to many great twentieth century performers like Chaplin, Jolson, the Marx Brothers, Mae West , Gypsy Rose Lee and W.C.Fields. But it was slowly supplanted by more modern forms of entertainment like Movies and Radio. If you asked experts to pinpoint a date for the official end of the popular venue, many it would say it was the date that the New York Palace Theater on Broadway, the premiere palace for Vaudeville, switched from live shows to purely Movies.

1946- The Television Academy of Arts and Sciences founded. Fred Allen once said: "We call television a Medium because nothing on it is Rare or Well Done."

1960- CLARK GABLE DIED- The 59 year old star had just completed the film the Misfits, a film in which director John Huston demanded a great deal of physical exertion. Gable had told his agent that the unprofessional antics of his moody co-star Marilyn Monroe had driven him so nuts they were going to give him a heart attack. Clark Gable then had one after shooting and on this day while convalescing in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital while reading a magazine a second heart attack killed him. He wrote his own epitaph but it was never used- "Back to the Silents."

1990- Disney’s feature film the Rescuers Down Under premiered. The first traditionally animated film to be painted digitally on computer instead of acetate cels and paints.

2001- The film Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone premiered to great fanfare and massive box office. Harry Potter’s creator J.K. Rowling had been so poor she at one time had been on relief, now she was one of the richest women in the world, in England second only to Madonna and the Queen.
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YESTERDAYS QUIZ-----------------------------------------------
Question: When John McCain in South Carolina the other day didn't apologize or correct the person who called Hilary Clinton a b*tch, that was called a Faux-pas. What is a faux-pas?

ANSWER: In Fencing it meant a false move, later at the Royal French court it meant a false step, which could mean a serious breach of etiquette and lost of status at court. When mistresses like Madame La Pompadour were presented at court, all would watch the way she bowed and withdrew from the throne, for hope of a faux-pas, that would drop her from favor.

Question: When John McCain in South Carolina the other day didn't apologize or correct the person who called Hilary Clinton a b*tch, that was called a Faux-pas. What is a faux-pas?

Answer to yesterday's question: What does SPAM mean? below.


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˙B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Irvin Rommel the "Desert Fox", Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Elder, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson, Petula Clark

64 AD-THE ROMAN EMPIRE BANS CHRISTIANITY- It's hard to believe today but the Roman Empire was proud of it's religious toleration. There was a harmony to the pagan world, A Goth knew his god Wotan was called Jove in Rome, Zeus in Athens and Mithra in Persia. So the Judeo-Christian concept of One God exclusively, and everybody else’s gods were demons just didn't quite fit. The only other religion persecuted as vigorously as Christianity was the Druids, but that was because the Druids preached constant rebellion to Roman rule. The Romans dispersed the Jews as a nation, but Julius Caesar left strict laws about never violating Jewish religious Laws. Even Caligula backed down from trying to put a statue of himself in the Holy of Holies in Jerusalem. Anti-Semites claim Messalina the wife of Nero was a Jewish convert and convinced her husband to outlaw the Christian cult, but the answer goes deeper than that. Secrecy and fear of its’ alien practices bred suspicion that would last 300 years.

1532- After marching his Spanish conquistadors for six months through steaming jungles and over tall mountains, Francisco Pizarro reached the border of the mysterious Inca Empire. At the little border town of Cajamarca his 200 men suddenly found themselves face to face with 40,000 Inca warriors. The Imperial Inca Army was outfitted in gold plates and weapons. He wrote“they shined like the sun!”

1754- First use of the modern trombone. It was played at a child's funeral.

1828- Author Victor Hugo signs contracts with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result.

1864- SHERMAN BURNS ATLANTA- Atlanta was the economic center of the South, an enormous depot far from the front with railroad tracks linking all the coastal ports. William Tecumseh Sherman is considered by many the first modern general. He understood the Civil War was a war of peoples, outmaneuvering armies for temporary strategic gains wouldn’t decide anything. So he drove out the civilian population of the city and torched it. He called his tactics 'Hard War" but today we call it 'Total War". Sherman had an army band serenaded him beneath his window playing the "Miserere'" from Verdi's "Il Trovatore", while he observed the burning, impatiently chewing on an unlit cigar. A high strung asthmatic, he had had a nervous breakdown at the start of the war and had once tried to dye his bright red hair but it turned green. The next day Sherman began his epic March to the Sea. Not with green hair.

1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals.

1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooks up 20 cities for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla starts at Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1969- THE MORATORIUM- 250,000 people gather in Washington to protest the War in Vietnam. Richard Nixon had run as a peace candidate but once in office escalated the Vietnam conflict to include Cambodia and Laos. President Nixon came to regard the young student protesters as the chief enemy of his administration. He appealed to the Silent Majority, staged stunts like the Hard Hat Luncheon,an event thrown for conservative construction workers. According to John Dean, by 1971 Nixon had a bunker built under the executive offices where aide John Ehrlichman monitored protests from a battery of television monitors. Nixon stalwart G. Gordon Liddy pitched preposterous schemes like infiltrating the students with mercenaries who would at a signal beat up people, and strategic commando style kidnapping of student leaders. These schemes were never implemented.

1989- Disney's The Little Mermaid debuted. When it opened in Copenhagen, director John Musker and Ron Clements attended a gala and sat next to the Queen of Denmark. They agonized over what would be her reaction to the reworking of the unhappy ending in this great Danish work, but the Queen's reaction was "It's beautiful! Hans Christian Andersen never could write a decent ending..."

1990- It was revealed that the Grammy winning pop group Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their own album but lip synced to the music.

1995- According to the Starr report, this day President Clinton had his first sexual tryst with intern Monica Lewinsky. At one point he was on the phone to a member of Congress while doing the nasty with the chubby chick from Beverly Hills High.
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Answer to yesterday's Question: What does Spam mean?

70 years ago in 1937, Meatmaker John Hormel came up with the strange brick and held a contest to name it. Some think it means SPiced hAM, but the official company version of the name is
Shoulder,Pork and hAM.

QUIZ:What does SPAM mean?

Answer to yesterday's quiz below:
What was the name of Abe Lincoln's dog?
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History for 11/14/2007
Birthdays: Astrid Lungren the creator of Pippi Longstockings, Robert Fulton, Sen. Joseph McCarthy, Claude Monet, Aaron Copeland, McClean Stevenson, Jarahwahal Nehru, Mamie Eisenhower, Brian Keith, Louise Brooks the It Girl, Ellis Marsalis, Harrison Salisbury, P.J. O'Rourke, Prince Charles is 59, Laura San Giancomo, Patrick Wharburton, Zhang zhi Miou, Dr. Condoloeeza Rice is 53, Yanni

1565- King Phillip II of Spain ordered the Holy Inquisition to enforce his edicts against heretics in the Netherlands. When Dutch emissaries like William of Orange, nicknamed William the Silent for his diplomatic skill, urged moderation towards the growing population of Dutch Calvinists, Phillip said: “I would rather that thousands lose their lives than reign over a kingdom of heretics”.

1666- English diarist Samuel Pepys recorded witnessing the first experimental blood transfusion done on two dogs.

1798- WolfTone, the young Irish revolutionary leader, committed suicide in prison after his capture. He knew he was certain for a hangman’s noose. He is sometimes called the founder of the IRA, although this is more a romantic notion than historical accuracy.

1805- Napoleon’s French Army entered Vienna. Composer Ludwig Van Beethoven had dedicated his Symphony #3 Eroica to him when he considered Bonaparte a force for human rights, but after Napoleon became an emperor he angrily crossed it out. “So, he is just a man after all!” Now ironically with all the Austrian society run out of town Beethoven was forced to premiere his symphony to an audience of French army officers.

1832- The First regular horse drawn streetcar service began in New York.

1851- Herman Melville's novel "Moby Dick, or the Whale” was first published in the U.S. by Harper & Row. Melville in part was inspired by a report of a whale named Mocha-Dick who had sunk seven ships off the coast of Java and a New Bedford whaling ship Nantucket that was rammed and sunk by an enraged sperm whale in 1839. For the famous author of Typoo and Billy Budd, Moby Dick was a critical and financial disaster. What's now considered one of the greatest works of American literature was blasted in its time. Melville, broken in spirit, sank into obscurity and finished his life as a customs agent for the Port of New York. When he died, he was so forgotten the New York Times misspelled his name in it's obituary. Today his great-great grandson Moby is a rock star.

1875- British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli and banker Sir Lionel Rothschild had lunch. Their brandy and Stilton was interrupted by an agent with the secret message that the Khedive of Egypt needed money and was willing to sell the unfinished Suez Canal zone to England. But Disraeli had to get the money on the spot. Disraeli knew Parliament was out of session and probably wouldn't agree to the sum anyway. "Well, how much do you need?" Rothschild asked. Disraeli replied "Four million Pounds Sterling" ( $44 million in modern money ). "No Problem" quote Sir Lionel. So Rothschild lent the Crown the money on the spot and the Suez canal was built and maintained by Britain until 1956.

1883- London’s World newspaper printed an exchange of telegrams between writer Oscar Wilde and painter James MacNeil Whistler. “ When you and I are together we never talk about anything but ourselves.”-Wilde. Whistler:” No, no, Oscar. When you and I are together we never talk about anything except me.”

1889- Inspired by Jules Verne's book Around the World in Eighty Days, New York World reporter Nellie Bly, real name Elizabeth Cochrane, set out to travel the world in the declared time. She did it in 72 days. Bly was considered by Victorian society scandalously independent, she was a war correspondent, she had herself committed to a lunatic asylum to report on mistreatment of the mentally ill, she went up in a balloon and was the first woman to go down in a diving bell- bathosphere.

1918- The Czechs declared their independence from the collapsing Austrian Empire.

1921- Winston Churchill told his political constituents that so far the "Twentieth Century has been a terrible disappointment." Just wait, Winnie, you ain't see nothing yet.

1922- the BBC- British Broadcasting Companies first regular radio service 2LO goes on the air with general election results.

1927- Stalin’s victory as paramount Russian leader was completed. His chief rival Leon Trotsky was this day officially expelled from the Soviet Communist Party. Trotsky went into exile and was eventually murdered in Mexico City.

1937- SPAM introduced!

1940- The Nazi Luftwaffe bombed to ruins the English city of Conventry, not for any military reason, but as a terror warning to the British. Ironically the British had broken the Nazis secret code and knew about the attack, but if they issued a warning the Nazis would have realized their code had been compromised and would change it. Churchill had to make the terrible decision that the secret was more valuable than all those civilian casualties.

1942- THE SULLIVAN BROTHERS- Five brothers of one Iowa family all enlisted in the Navy and were all posted on the same ship –the USS Juneau. All five were killed when the Juneau went down in action off Guadalcanal wiping out the family. After the Sullivan Brothers incident laws were passed that US Selective Service could not draft in its initial callup all sons of a family without leaving one and that close relatives were not allowed to serve on board the same ship.

1943- Bruno Walter was too ill to conduct the New York Philharmonic this night so 24 year old Leonard Bernstein was asked to assume the baton. Bernstein becomes an overnight sensation.

1943- During naval maneuvers in the South Atlantic the destroyer William S. Porter accidentally fired a live torpedo at the battleship Iowa carrying President Franklin Roosevelt! The Porter reported the mistake in time so the Iowa could take evasive actions and the torpedo exploded harmlessly in her wake. But the captain of the William S. Porter was arrested and courts-martialed back at port and the incident kept top secret until the 1970’s. For years afterwards whenever the William S. Porter came into harbor she was greeted with the cry “DON’T SHOOT, WE’RE REPUBLICANS!”

1957-THE APALLACHIN CONFERENCE- The top Dons of the Mafia decided to meet at the rural estate of Joseph Barbara, the President of the Canada Dry soda pop company near Binghamton, NY. The farm was clogged with black Cadillacs and Lincolns driven by guys in silk suits named Vinny. All the heads of the Five-Families were there, Joe “Bananas” Bonano, Joey Profacci, Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese, Paul Castellano, Joey Catena and Louis Tafficante. To this day no one’s quite sure what this meeting was about. Theories are it was an attempt to broker a peace after the hits on Al Anastasia and Frank Costello, and to decide whether the Old Sicilian capos would agree to the younger men’s request that the mob organize narcotics. As luck would have it two New York State troopers investigating a bad-check case noticed the gangland gathering and called for the farm to be surrounded. Once the cops raid commenced it was a free for all of mobsters jumping out of windows and running like rabbits through the corn stalks.
The raid produced few convictions but the headlines focused national attention on the Mafia. It proved without a doubt what had always been feared, that the Mafia was not a loose term for some local immigrant gangs but an highly centralized national organization. Congressional hearings like the McClellan Committee began to bust up the rackets. Mobsters who write of this time, say the Appalachin mistake was the beginning of the end of the Mafia’s nationwide solidarity and power.

1957-The Supreme Court refused to review the challenge to government obscenity laws brought by Irving Klaw and his wife, producers of the Betty Page kinky pinup photos.

1959- In Holcomb Kansas two men break into a farm home and murder four people. The subsequent trial and execution was attended by writer Truman Capote, who wrote the book “In Cold Blood”.

1960- Anthony Mann began shooting the film El Cid with Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren with her pre-collagen Lips.

1961- President John F. Kennedy ordered the number of U.S. military advisors in Vietnam increased from 1,000 to 16,000. There has always been conflicting evidence about just what JFK thought about the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Some scholars point to writings that said Kennedy by 1963 was having second thoughts about involvement and wanted to begin pulling out but Lyndon Johnson had deeper ties to the South Vietnamese regime and big military contractors like Bell-Huey. Others say if JFK wasn’t assassinated he still would have done the same Vietnam policy that Lyndon Johnson later did.

1963- Volcanoes push up out of the water the island of Circe, now part of Iceland.

1965- BATTLE OF IA DRANG- The First major engagement between U.S. combat troops and Vietnamese regulars. Ho Chi Minh wanted to see how his troops could withstand a major engagement with this new adversary. General William Westmoreland couldn’t think of any other way to say the battle was a success than by counting the number of enemy dead. Based on this defeat the Vietnamese would not challenge the Americans again in open battle like they had defeated the French but went underground and fought a guerrilla war for the next three years. Ia Drang was also the first battle where troops where brought in, out, and supplied totally by helicopters. Among the units involved were the reconstituted 7th Cavalry. The battle was dramatized in the Mel Gibson 2002 movie “We Were Soldiers.” Sergeant Major Basil Plumley, one of the toughest vets of Ia Drang was also a veteran of the Korean War. He calmly walked upright through the whizzing bullets telling his cowering troopers:” Stand up son, you can’t hit anything down there.” Retired Plumley was killed in the World Trade Center collapse of 2001.

1973- Britain's Princess Anne wed Captain Mark Phillips. They divorced in 1992.

1967- Jack Warner, the last surviving Warner Brother, sells out his stake of Warner Bros and it’s huge film library to a Canadian company called Seven Arts. He becomes the last of the original Hollywood Moguls to step down.

1986- Wall Street Tycoon Ivan Boesky who defined the 1980's with mottos like "Greed is Good, Greed is Natural", pleaded guilty to insider trading and stock fraud and willingly finked on everyone at Drexel Bernham-Lambert who helped him.

1995- Because of a deadlocked budget debate between President Bill Clinton and Congressional leader Newt Gingrich, the U.S. Government instituted a partial shut down.National parks and tourist attractions like Yosemite and the Statue of Liberty turned people away because their staffs were unpaid.

1998- Colorful and eccentric NBA basketball star Dennis Rodman married beautiful supermodel Carmen Electra. There was some doubt at first as to the validity of the story as Rodman admitted he was blind drunk throughout and didn’t remember the ceremony. They divorced shortly after.
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YESTERDAY'S QUIZ
What was the name of Abe Lincoln's dog?



answer: Fido.(1855-1866) Thats' why the name was so common with American dog owners. Fido from Latin Fides, Ever Faithful.

Quiz: What was the name of Abraham Lincoln's dog?

Answer to yesterdays' question below: Who was the original Goodtime Charlie?
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History for 11/13/2007
Birthdays: Saint Augustine 354 AD, King Edward III of England, Robert Louis Stephenson, Edwin Booth, Oskar Werner, Jean Seberg, Erte'*, Jack Elam, Judge Louis Brandeis (the first Jewish U.S. Supreme Court Justice), Alexander Scourby, Eugene Ionesco, Garry Marshall, Whoopi Goldberg- original name Karen Johnson, Joe Mantegna is 60, Chris Noth is 47, Jimmy Kimmel is 40

*Erte’ the great art deco designer was from a very old Russian military family. Their names were the Tschichagoffs. A Tschitchagoff had fought Napoleon in 1812 and all had been generals and admirals under the Tsar. But young little Emelyan Tschitchagov didn’t want to be an admiral or general, he wanted to design ladies clothes! So he moved to Paris to seek his fortune. When there, impresario Serge Diaghilev suggested he change his name to something non-Russians could pronounce, he gave the same advice to Gyorgi Balanchivadze- or George Balanchine. So Emelyan Tschichakov adopted as his name his initials E.T. - in French "Erte’".


In Ancient Rome, today was Epulium Jovis, or the Feast of Jupiter Reclining.

1789- Ben Franklin wrote " Nothing is certain except Death and Taxes."

1842- Lewis Carroll noted in his diary today:" Began writing the fairy tale of Alice. Hope to be done by Christmas.." His real name was Charles Dodgeson, The Oxford mathematics don invented the nom de plume as a fictional Renaissance writer Ludovicus Carolus, or Lewis Carroll.

1861- THE TRENT AFFAIR- All through the American Civil War Abe Lincoln's biggest fear and Jefferson Davis’ greatest hope was direct intervention of the great European powers. With England in Canada and France in Mexico and the British Navy ruling the seas this was a real possibility. The British and French thought nothing of intervening in conflicts all over the world like the Greek Revolution or the war between Argentina and Uruguay. Almost as soon as the guns of Fort Sumter rang out Emperor Napoleon III of France and the German Elector of Baden were offering their services as impartial mediators. On this day a U.S. Navy frigate fired on the British ship HMS Trent and removed from her passengers two Confederate diplomats. Mason and Slidell were being sent as ambassadors to the Court of Saint James. They claimed immunity as diplomats, the U.S. said they were rebellious citizens. London reacted to the insult to her flag with an explosion of war talk General Garnet Woolsey volunteered to raise new regiments for an invasion of New York State from Canada. Lincoln's comment was "One War at a time." He apologized profusely and offered reparations. On the other side Prince Albert helped keep the peace.

1868- Giacomo Rossini died at 68. He retired at 31 from active life and lived on royalties. It was said he became so lazy he layed about in bed all day. One day when writing a concerto his score dropped to the floor as he leaned over to fill his wine glass. Rather than bend down to pick it up, he took a fresh sheet and wrote a sonata instead.

1874 -At the sesquicentennial celebrations of the University of Pennsylvania Robert Green invented the Ice Cream Soda.

1914- Clothing designer Carez Crosby took two handkerchiefs and some ribbon off some baby bonnets and invented the Brassiere.

1917- THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR- After Lenin’s Communist Party seized power in Saint Petersburg disaffected officers and businessmen fled to the edges of the Russian Empire to organize resistance to the new regime. This day some "White" soldiers under General Krasnoe skirmished with some of Trotsky’s Red Guards. These were the first shots of a bloody Civil War that would rage for 4 years and kill millions. After just completing a World War and two Revolutions, when she heard this news one Russian poet exclaimed : "Oh God, you mean its not over?!"

1921- Premiere of the silent classic "The Sheik" introducing young actor Rudolph Valentino. Valentino’s wife Alla Nazimova made sure his image was pure male sex appeal. " Rudy looks best when he’s naked."

1940- Walt Disney's 'Fantasia' opened. as Walt put it, "this'll make Beethoven!" Disney conceived the idea during a dinner with Leopold Stokowski at Chasen's Restaurant in Beverly Hills. Frank Lloyd Wright's opinion was 'I love the visuals, but why did you use all that old music?" Of all the composers used, Igor Stravinsky was the only one still living. He was approached for the rights to his "The Rites of Spring". He was told if he refused, his Russian 1910 copyright was invalid in the U.S. because Russia never signed the international copyright pact of 1905, so they could use it anyway, ya bald commie! Stravinsky gave permission. When he saw the final result, publicists said he "Speechless with Admiration!" In actual fact he told Vanity Fair in 1960 that he thought Stokowski's orchestration was "execreble" and the visuals "imbecillic". But his opinion didn't stop him from selling Disney the rights to two more works, Renard and the Firebird.
The film was meant to be seen in Fantasound, a stereo sound system so advanced most theaters couldn't run it. To develop early components of the sound system, Disney gave a contract to two young Stanford engineers just starting out- Hewlett & Packard.

1953- An Indiana Judge ordered his local school district to remove any school books with references to the character Robin Hood. All the "take from the rich and give to the poor" it was obvious to the judge that the medieval rogue of Sherwood Forest was a Communist.

1969- President Richard Nixons’ Vice President Spiro Agnew accused the national news media of bias and partisanship. He excoriates them as "Nittering nabobs of Negativism" and gains a reputation for pithy use of the language. In reality Nixon speechwriters William Safire and Pat Buchanan wrote all of Spiros’ best lines. Up to then White House reporters were a pretty compromising bunch, winking at John Kennedy’s bimbos and Franklin Roosevelt’s wheelchair. But Nixon’s paranoia led him to declare the press his enemy. So the press reacted in kind. You can date the birth of the modern rapacious, scandal obsessed press corps from this speech.

1971- ABC TV. movie "the Duel" premiered. It starred Dennis Weaver as a hapless motorist on a lonely freeway menaced by an unseen truck driver . The film first brought fame to a young director named Steven Speilberg.

1974- Atomic plant worker Karen Silkwood was the first person to expose lax safety practices at the US nuclear power plants. For this she was rewarded with demotion, harassment, lawsuits. Even a radioactive isotope was put under her car seat. On this night she was finally killed in a car accident. She was on her way to talk to a New York Times reporter and it’s been alleged her car was deliberately run off the road. The files she was going to hand over to the press disappeared from the car. The crash was ruled an accident.

1978- Mickey Mouse gets his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

1986- President Ronald Reagan attempting to explain the festering Iran Contra Scandal said on nationwide TV:" We did not and I repeat did not…trade weapons or ransom for hostages or would we ever." Of course we now know that was exactly what we were doing.

1986- John Huston and Woody Allen denounced the fad of computer colorizing classic Black & White films like the Maltese Falcon. Supposedly one of the last things Orson Welles said on his deathbed was "Keep Ted Turner and his crayons away from my movies!"

1991- Disney's animated film Beauty and the Beast opened, the first animated film ever nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
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YESTERDAY'S QUESTION: Who was the original Goodtime Charlie?



ANSWER: Republican President Herbert Hoover's vice president was Charles Curtis, called by writers of the time " fat as a pastry and the apotheosis of mediocrity". He got the label Goodtime Charlie because when the Stock Market crashed and the Great Depression was putting millions of Americans out of work, VP Curtis was photographed going from one all night whoopee party to another. He didn't seem to think there was anything wrong and made speeches that things were fine. During the election of 1932 he actually argued with protesting unemployed workers, saying they were all "too damn dumb" to understand economics.
Hmmm...a conservative Republican Vice President who says things that infuriate people...gosh! I'm glad that doesn't happen today!