Birthdays: Salladin- Sa-Allah Al'Dhin, Brian Epstein, "Momma" Cass Elliot, Frank Tashlin, Dr. Ferry Porsche- inventor of the Porsche race car, Twiggy – real name Leslie Hornby, William Golding author of The Lord of the Flies, Paul Williams, Adam West is 79, Frances Farmer, David McCallum from the Man From Uncle, Duke Snyder, Mike Royko, Rosemary Harris, Jeremy Irons- Scar in Disney's the Lion King- is 59, Jimmy Fallon is 33.

1493- Pope Alexander VI had never made it a secret that he had a growing family of children. He wanted to make his son Caesar Borgia a Cardinal at 26 and his daughter Lucretzia a duchess but first there was the problem that they were illegitimate. But that’s no problem for the Vicar of Christ! Today he declared them legitimate offspring of a cousin and his wife. Everyone winked at the twisted logic and went along with it.

1580- The family of Miguel de Cervantes ransomed the writer from the Barbary Pirates. He wrote Don Quixote de la Mancha in 1604.

1692- One of the only men convicted in the Salem Witch Trials was executed. Pilgrim Giles Corey had a wooden board laid on top of him and his neighbors piled large stones on top until he was squished to death. At one point his tongue was sticking so grotesquely out of his head that the magistrate pushed it back in with the tip of his cane.

1777-First Battle of Saratoga, also called Freeman’s Farm- Gen. Johnny Burgoyne's British invasion down the Hudson was stopped. Burgoyne’s plan was to cut the rebel colonies in two with his thrust down from Canada being met from the South by Lord Howe coming up from New York City and another force east from Oswego. But Lord Howe disregarded the plan in favor of another shot at George Washington and Philadelphia. Back in London Lord Charles Germain neglected to write out the necessary orders for Howe to support Burgoyne because he was late to go on his Easter holiday and couldn’t be bothered. And the Oswego force was stopped by colonials using a lunatic hermit named Ute Schuyler who spooked the British allied Indians into deserting. Eastern Indians thought the mentally ill were possessed by Hipi-Manitou spirits and so were bad luck. The net result was Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne's army was alone in the forest, far from supplies and slowly being surrounded by the Americans.

1783- Jacques Montgolfier launches the first hot air balloon in Paris. The first aeronauts were a sheep, duck and rooster. Montgolfier made his fortune in paper. To this day if you get some high quality stationary with a balloon and French flag in the watermark that is Papier Canson et Montgolfier, his company.

1796-President George Washington’s farewell address was first published in Claypools American Daily Advertiser, then reprinted in other papers throughout the country. Washington warned to “avoid entangling foreign alliances and asked for national unity above partisan politics. But party politics in the new nation had firmly taken root. One opposition paper, the Aurora, called George Washington’s speech “-the last loathings of a sick mind..”

1819- On a beautiful English autumn day poet John Keats was moved to write his Ode to Autumn.

1827- Fight at the Vidalia Sandbar- Famous Mississippi gamblers brawl in which Jim Bowie uses his famous knife to carve up a gang of sore losers who shoot him twice. The Bowie knife may not have been designed by Jim Bowie but by his brother Rezin Bowie, who wanted an intimidating toothpick to brandish after he almost died in an earlier altercation. The Bowie knife was the Saturday night special of the early nineteenth century. In Brahm Stoker's Dracula, Van Helsing doesn't kill the count with a wooden stake but with a Bowie knife.

1849-First commercial laundry set up in Oakland Cal.

1864- Battle of Winchester- General Phil Sheridan's Yankees whup Jubal Early's Confederates. The feisty son of an Irish ditch digger, Abe Lincoln called Sheridan "A runty little man with a bullet shaped head and not enough neck to hang him." But he proved his value today. He rode fearlessly down the battle line shouting to his men:" Pour it into them boys! Knock every sonofabitch down before you !" One sonofabitch killed was Confederate General George S. Patton, the grandfather of the World War Two general.
Sheridan's army had no less than three future U.S. presidents on staff- Gen.James Garfield, Gen. Rutherford Hayes and Major William McKinley.

1876- Melvin Bissell of Grand Rapids Michigan invented his carpet sweeper.

1881- PRESIDENT JAMES GARFIELD DIED- Garfield was shot in the back at Washington rail station by Charles Guiteau on July 2nd.The President lingered these many weeks in agony before finally dying. Garfield might have lived had it not been for all the doctors poking around in his wound without antiseptic conditions. Even inventor Alexander Graham Bell was invited to search for the bullet with a new invented metal detector. James Garfield died of blood poisoning and infection. Interestingly enough, for the two and a half months the President was out of action and Congress was not called into session, yet the U.S.A. ran just fine.

1926- THE BIG ONE- Miami Florida was destroyed by a huge Hurricane. The storm stopped for a time the runaway boom in land investment then all the rage in South Florida. SnowBirds up north invested millions in land that turned out to be swamps . The Marx Brothers poked fun at the craze in their 1929 film Cocoanuts. As Groucho said:” Florida Folks. Sunshine, Sunshine , now let’s get the auction started before there is a tornado.”

1931- The Marx Brothers comedy “ Monkey Business” premiered.

1934- Bruno Richard Hauptman was arrested and charged with the kidnap murder of the Lindbergh baby. He pleaded innocence up until he fried in the electric chair, but he was found with a significant part of the ransom money on him.

1936- Nelson Eddy and Jeanette MacDonald record “Indian Love Call”. When I’m Calling You, Oooh-ohhoohhh, Ohhhh-ohhh-oohhhhhhh”, etc.

1945- Little Shirley Temple, now all grown up, married actor John Agar, who she met on the set of John Ford's film Fort Apache. The RKO studio turned the marriage into a media circus by inviting 12,000 people. John Ford teased Agar mercilessly, calling him Mr. Temple. John and Shirley divorced within two years. Shirley Temple did a few more small roles, remarried and became a diplomat and John Agar went on to star in a number of sci-fi flicks like 'Tarantula", The Brain from Planet Aurous" and built his own theme dinosaur park by an Arkansas freeway "John Agar's House of Kong'.

1945- Klaus Fuchs, a spy in the British delegation member of the Los Alamos Atomic bomb program, delivered the plans of the plutonium 'Nagasaki" bomb to a courier for Soviet intelligence in Moscow.

1961- This is the night Betty and Barney Hill claimed they were picked up by a flying saucer and experimented on. It is one of the more famous abduction stories because it holds up under hypnosis. Hey, what are you planning to do with that anal probe?

1970- The Mary Tyler Moore TV Show premiered.

1985- Mexico City devastated by a large earthquake 8.1 on the Richter scale. The next day the city was rocked again by a 7.5 earthquake. 10,000 people died. Curiously enough 80% of the cities ancient landmarks were undamaged, only modern buildings collapsed. People hid in Aztec ruins, figuring they’ve stood for centuries and would stand now.

1995- Orville Reddenbacher 'the Popcorn king' died.

1995-The NY Times and Washington Post printed the 35,000 word manifesto of the Unabomber. He promised to stop sending bombs to people if they printed his message. He accused technology of subverting American society and that the Democrats stoke the fears of the poor and the Republicans believe in nothing but pure self interest. Hmmm…

Birthdays: Roman Emperor Marcus Ulpius Trajan 53AD, Dr Samuel Johnson, Frankie Avalon, Greta Garbo, Claudette Colbert, Leon Foucault ( Foucault's Pendulum ), Jack Warden, Canadian PM John Diefenbaker, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson, Rossano Brazzi, Debbie Fields founder of Mrs. Field's Cookies, Jada Pinkett-Smith, James Gandolfini is 46,

Happy Birthday June Foray! June is the voice of Rocky the Flying Squirrel, Natasha Fatale, Granny, a founder of ASIFA-Hollywood, Motion Picture Academy Board of Governor and honors too numerous to mention- Happy Birthday!

1572-the painter El Greco first appeared in history in a document paying his union dues to the Guild of St. Lawrence, the artists guild of Rome. His real name was Domenico Theotocopoulos. People just called him 'the Greek Guy" -El Greco.

1804- Napoleon inspected Baron Gros new painting The Plague Victims of Jaffa and liked it. Nappy considered paintings part of propaganda and commissioned artists to project his image.

1811 A Portuguese 'Projectionist' (experimenter with Magic Lanterns) offers the Duke of Wellington to burn up Napoleon's army with a series of convex lenses and mirrors. Wellington says thanks, but no thanks...

1851-First issue of the New York Daily Times, later just the New York Times.

1870-THE SIEGE OF PARIS BEGAN- The main French armies defeated and Emperor Napoleon III a prisoner, Paris alone refused to surrender to Prussia. As the great Krupp guns boom shells into the city, American General Phil Sheridan stood as a tourist in between Chancellor Bismarck and the Kaiser. Painter August Renoir would go outside the city walls to sketch and was once picked up and accused of espionage. Parisians starved in the siege and elegant restaurants were soon offering 'roast cat in orange sauce with a decorative garnish of mice'. Top fashion guru Worth of Paris declared it chic' to have some decorative ruins in your garden. After the siege the Paris city walls were demolished. They were approximately where the freeway "peripherique" around the city is today. The fiercest fighting was where the suburb of La Defense is (hence the name).Young Emile Cohl was inspired by the military wall posters he saw to become an artist. He later became the first true animation artist.

1895- In Davenport Iowa Daniel David Liliiard invented the chiropractic adjustment session. Now just relax- CRACCCK!!

1917-Writer Aldous Huxley got a job teaching at Eton. One of his students was Eric Blair, who would write under the name George Orwell.

1927-The Columbia Broadcasting System-CBS broadcast its first program, an opera called the King’s Henchman.

1932-Frustrated movie actress Peggy Enwhistle jumped off the Hollywood Sign. In case you are curious she jumped off the “H”. She also didn’t hit the ground immediately but hit a cactus patch, dying slowly later in great pain. Ironically in her mail that day was a script and a job offer. The role was of a woman who commits suicide.

1965- I Dream of Jeannie debuted on television. Network Standards & Practices said Barbara Eden could wear the harem outfit so long as her belly-button didn’t show. At first the reviews were not good. Variety said: “The only star of this show is Barbera Edens cleavage.”

Around this same time Cartoonist Mort Walker, who drew the strip Beetle Bailey, was told by the syndicate that according to the Comic's Code, when he portrayed Gen. Halftrack's pretty secretary Miss Buxley in a bikini, he was not allowed to show her navel. He said he kept a drawer in his desk filled with little bits of cut out bellybuttons from the numerous daily strips he had to take an Xacto knife to.

1970- Jimi Hendrix (27) was found dead of drug and alcohol abuse. He had passed out and choked on his own vomit. Janis Joplin's reaction was -"G-ddammit! He beat me to it !" Joplin herself died three weeks afterwards.

1991- Comedian Redd Foxx ( Sanford and Son) was famous for doing bits like faking a heart attack. This day on the set of his new series the Royal Family while joking with Della Reese he clutched his chest and fell over dead. Everyone thought he was faking and laughed.

2003- In Scotland, paleontologists discover the world's oldest genitalia. From a dinosaur era insect ancestor of the preying mantis. Sounds like an old prospectors exclamation:” Great Giant Mantis Balls!”

Birthdays: Hank Williams, Spiro T. Agnew, Jerry Colonna, Roddy MacDowell, composer Wendy Carlos Williams, Elvira- real name Cassandra Peterson, Anne Bancroft, cartoonist Jeff MacNelly, Rita Rudner

Feast of Saint Hildegard of Bingen, the medieval female composer.
I don't know why an octopus is dropping on her head while she is eating chili, but that is a contemporary image of Hildegard. Courtesy of Wilson's Almanac.com

1630- Happy Birthday Beantown! The Puritan colonists of New England decide to name their new settlement Boston, after a town in Lincolnshire. The site was an Algonquin village called Shawmut.

1787- The U.S. Constitution signed by the representatives of 12 of the thirteen states. Rhode Island boycotted the convention. “The business is closed.” George Washington wrote in his diary. Alexander Hamilton signed as the only representative of New York since the others left in protest. He was a prime mover of the Constitutional rewrite but was unimpressed with the final result: “Just more pork with the same old sauce, but it might lead the way for a better one later.”Aaron Burr was more blunt” I doubt if it will last 50 years.” Yet the US Constitution became the bedrock of the American system and is viewed with an almost religious dedication. When Ben Franklin emerged from the chamber an old woman asked:’ Well, Dr Franklin, what have you given us now?” Franklin replied:” A nation, mam, if you can keep it.”

1859- JOSHUA NORTON of San Francisco, a well known rice merchant, suffered a mental breakdown under the strain of work, bought a tricycle and a marching band uniform and declared himself Joshua Ist, By God's Grace Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico! Everybody went along with the gag including Abraham Lincoln, who Joshua would write to as "My Prime Minister" and Abe would answer "Your Majesty". He once signed an order outlawing the Republican and Democratic parties. When Joshua died in 1875 35,000 people turned out for a state funeral befitting royalty.

1876- THE GREAT NORTHFIELD MINNESOTA RAID-One old Hollywood myth is of the Western town cowering in fear while desperadoes shoot up the street whoopin and a’hollering. When the Jesse James & Cole Younger gang rode out of Missouri and tried to rob the Bank of Northfield they found a town full of old Civil War veterans, who hauled out their rifles and shot them to pieces from every window and doorway. Frank and Jesse are about the only ones who escaped. The laid low in Tennessee for three years until resuming their outlaw ways. Cole Younger was wounded, captured and did 25 years in prison. In 1903 Cole and Frank James went on tour with their own Wild West Show.

1880- The L.A. Athletic Club opened.

1965- If you ever wondered what could be funny about being held in a Nazi prison camp you could watch the TV sitcom HOGANS HEROES, which debuted this day. Nazi Commandant Colonel Klink was acted by Werner Klemperer, whose father was the famous orchestra conductor Otto Klemperer who had to flee Germany because they were Jewish. Sergeant Schulz and the Frenchman LeBeau were also played by actors who survived concentration camps- John Banner and Robert Clary.

1971- RCA pulled out of the computer market.

1972- Filmation's The Groovie Ghoulies" debuts. Some designs done by a Don Bluth.

1975- Psychotherapist Lucile Yaney opened one of LA’s most unusual restaurants- the Inn of the Seventh Ray in Topanga Canyon. Built on the site of a countryhouse 1920’s evangelist Aimee Semple MacPherson brought her lovers. Premiere organic cuisine with berry wines, then you can browse the store for power crystals.

Today the Van Eaton Gallery in Sherman Oaks hosted a wonderful party for the Creative Talent Network, called Disney Heroes of the Imagination, displaying the artwork of the legendary designers Joe Grant, Mel Shaw, Rowland Wilson and Walt Stanchfield.

Joe Grant's drawings of his cockerspaniel Lady was the inspiration for the film Lady and the Tramp

Many of their families were there, as well as Mel Shaw himself. Mel is now in his 90s, and I had not seen him since we hung out in London in 1989 when working on the first designs for Beauty and the Beast.
He lives in the Napa area now, and has his own vineyard that produces high quality altar wine. We had a fine time catching up.

Also seen at the event was John Musker, Don Hahn, Mike Gabriel, George Scribner, Tina Price, Steve and Jeanette Hulett, Mark Kirkland, Lorna Cook, Ed Ghertner, Joe Campana, Thom Enriquez and many more. I wish I had more pictures to share, but the batteries in my camera were feschutz!

Bravo to Mike Van Eaton and his crew for a great time!

for more on the event- http://creativetalentnetwork.com


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Birthdays: J.C.Penny (James Cash Penny), B.B. King is 82 (originally Rydell King, when a DJ in Memphis his name was Beale St. Blues Boy or B.B.King), Marvin Middlemark 1919-the inventor of the rabbit ears TV antenna; Lauren Bacall is 83, Anne Francis is 77, Linda Darnell, Nadia Boulanger, Alan Funt, George Chakiris is 73, Peter Falk is 80, Mickey Rourke, Ed Begley Jr, Jennifer Tilly is 49, Molly Shannon is 43.

218BC -Estimated date that Hannibal and his Carthaginian army completed their crossing of the Alps and descended into the Po River Valley of Italy. Of 32 elephants only 2 survived the journey.

1498-The Grand Inquisitor Tomas de Torquemada died peacefully. He presided over the torture and execution of up to 17,000 people during the Spanish Inquisition. He also oversaw the expulsion of Jews and Christian Arabs from Spain. Even the Borgias asked him to cool it. The name Torquemada became a synonym for judicial cruelty.

1859- In Old San Francisco California State Senator David Broderick called California Supreme Court Justice David Terry a “pro-slavery crook, knave and poltroon”. The chief justice in a rage challenged Broderick to a duel. They had to reschedule their meeting several times to elude the police but finally met on this date on site near present day Stinson Beach. Broderick's gun discharged prematurely near Terry's feet. Terry, instead of considering honor satisfied and firing wide, took aim and drilled Broderick through the chest, killing him instantly.

1908- General Motors Car Company formed. Calvin Coolidge had once said:" What's good for General Motors is good for the Nation."

1917- TANKS make their first appearance on the Somme battlefield. The inventors wanted them to be called “Land-Battleships” but the British had shipped their secret weapon across the Channel in crates marked "water-Tanks" to fool spies, so the name Tank stuck.

1919- An Austrian ex-corporal named Hitler drifting through Munich today joined a new right wing political party called the German Workers Party, later the National Socialists or Nazis. He also attended meetings of the ultra-nationalist Thule Society. It was a group that espoused racial supremacy and hated of Jews.

1920- FOR THOSE WHO THINK TERRORISM IS A MODERN PROBLEM- On this day anarchists planted a time bomb in a wagonload of scrap iron and parked it in the middle of Wall Street on a busy business lunch hour. The blast killed 38 and injured hundreds, blowing out the ground floor of J.P. Morgan's bank. Bankers described nightmarish scenes like a woman's decapitated head with her stylish bonnet still on, imbedded like a cannonball in a marble inlaid wall by the force of the blast. One of the victims was a sailor named Watson who had survived the explosion of the U.S.S. Maine. He survived this one as well but had to get a steel plate in his head. He eventually went mad. Another man knocked senseless and almost killed was young bank executive Joseph Kennedy Sr., father of the Kennedy Dynasty. The perpetrators were never caught. On 9.11. 2001 the headquarters of Morgan/Stanley were destroyed in the World Trade Center.

1941- CBS Radio premiered the Arkansas Traveler Show. In it bandleader Bob Burns played a strange instrument he called a Bazooka. Later when the US Army issued the first hand-held anti-tank rocket launchers (RPG) to their infantry, the GI’s called the things Bazookas because it resembled Burns instrument.

1949-Happy Birthday Roadrunner and Wiley Coyote! Chuck Jones "Fast and Furrious" the First Road Runner-Coyote cartoon.

1953- The St. Louis Browns Baseball team moved to Baltimore and became the Baltimore Orioles.

1963- The Beatles record “She Loves You- Yeah,Yeah,Yeah.”on the Swan Records label.

1964- The Peter Potamus Show debuted.

1965- The Dean Martin Show premiered on NBC. “Well, Ah think I’m gonna go to da couch now..”

1966- the last LOOK magazine published.

1966- The new Metropolitan Opera House in Lincoln Center had its opening night. A performance of Samuel Barbers Anthony & Cleopatra sung by Leontyne Price and Justino Diaz. It was a near disastrous night because Ms Price got locked in a pyramid for awhile and couldn’t get out.

1969- President Nixon appears on the t.v. comedy "Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In" and says:"Sock it to Me?"

1983- Arnold Schwarzenegger became a US citizen.

1984- “Miami Vice” tv show debuted.

2003- Sheb Wooley, the composer of the 1951 hit “One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater” and the theme song of the TV show Hee Haw, died in Henderson Tennessee at age 82.

Birthdays: James Fennimore Cooper, William Howard Taft America's fattest president, Agatha Christie, Julian Cannonball Adderly, Bruno Walter, Russian animator Yuri Noorstein, Oliver Stone, Jean Renoir (film director and son of painter August Renoir), Alexander Korda, Robert Benchley the author of Jaws, Tommy Lee Jones is 61, Prince Henry the second son of Charles and Di is 22, Fay Wray (1907-2004) who played King Kong's girlfriend, would have been 100 today.

happy birthday Fay!

1858- The Butterfield Overland Mail service started up- driving stage coaches throughout the Old West.

1901- After the funeral of assassinated President McKinley, Teddy Roosevelt strode into the White House for his first day as President. Supposedly he was the man who named the famous caramel corn snack. After he tried it, he exclaimed to the inventor "These caramel dipped popcorns are Crackerjack!"

1925- The Grand Order of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan take out a copyright on their logo – the white cross on the red circle with the black square in the center. After all, some other racist hate group might try to copy their cool duds!

1930- The first Blondie comic strip.

1930- Hoagy Carmichael first recorded “Georgia on My Mind”.

1936- Irving Thalberg, the "Boy Genius" MGM producer, dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at 31. He was the inspiration for F.Scott Fitzgerald's "The Last Tycoon". His boss Louis B. Mayer was beginning to resent his popularity. When actress Gloria Swanson asked Mayer how he felt about Thalberg's death Mayer replied:" God has been very kind to me."

1954- The day of shooting on the film the Seven Year Itch. Marylin Monroe in her little white dress stood over the subway grate and let the breeze blow her dress up, much to the annoyance of her husband, baseball star Joe Dimaggio. Her white halter outfit was thereafter known as a Marylin Dress.

1957-The tv series Bachelor Father starring John Forsythe premiered.

1959- Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev arrived in the U.S. for a good will tour that included farms and factories. Americans found the earthy bald peasant with the broad smile charming, and not at all the bogeyman everyone feared. At one point Khruschev requested to visit Disneyland, the “workers playground” but Walt Disney refused:” In 1942 we lent those Commie bastards a print of Snow White and they released in their theaters with their own credits on it!” Khruschev also praised American white bread. “Russian Bread is made one day and goes stale. American bread can stay on shelf for weeks and still be soft!”He also enjoyed the fried chicken of the man Sanders that the state of Kentucky had made a Colonel- KFC. He called the little striped box with fork,salt and wetnap the perfect workers meal.

1965- "Green Acres" t.v. show debuts. Arnold Ziffel the pig gains national prominence.


1971 –The environmental political movement Greenpeace founded in Vancouver by twelve members of the Don’t Make a Wave Committee.

1973- Star Trek animated series by Filmation premiered. This was the first time Kirk, Spock, Sulu and Uhura were united again with a Roddenberry script since the original series was cancelled in 1967.