Birthdays: King Henry V of England, John Dryden, Sir Issac Walton-author of the Compleat Angler, Melanie Griffith, Whitney Houston, David Steinberg, Bob Cousy, Jill St. John, Robert Shaw, Robert Aldrich, Sam Elliot, Gillian Anderson, Pamela Lyndon Travers –the creator of Mary Poppins, Eric Bana, Audrey Tautou

1588- Queen Elizabeth I visited the camp at Tilbury to inspect the troops that would defend England from a landing by the Spanish Armada. The Armada had been driven off ten days ago but they were still somewhere in English waters so it still seemed like a good idea to visit. She thrilled the men by delivering the most famous speech of her career: “ I know that I have the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart and stomach of a king, Aye, and of a King of England too!”

1854- Henry David Thoreau published “Walden”, the first great work about nature conservation.

1929- Hollywood theater mogul Alexander Pantages was convicted of assaulting a young woman in a broom closet. The conviction was later overturned. It was the first successful defense case of attorney Jerry Geisler, who became famous for getting movie stars and other Hollywood hoi poloi out of trouble with the law. The word in the studios when a movie star was naughty was “Get Geisler!”

1930- Max Fleischer's cartoon "Dizzy Dishes" introduces Betty Boop. A singing star named Helen Kane sued Fleischer claiming that they stole her distinctive Boop-Ooop-a-Doop from her, but the case was thrown out when it was revealed Kane had stolen it herself from another singer. Betty was supposed to be a dog character to match her male couterpart Bimbo. But Animator Grim Natwick had done a lot of drawing of girls in Paris and New York and turned the character into a saucy little flapper.


1936- Jesse Owens wins four gold medals at the Berlin Olympics. Host head of state Adolph Hitler refused to shake hands with him.

1941- One of the more legendary British air aces in the Battle of Britain was Wing Commander Douglas Bader. He was all the more novel because he had no legs. His wing commander said "Legs or no legs, I've never seen such a goddam mobile fireball!" This day Bader’s Spitfire was finally shot down by the Luftwaffe over Belgium. Bader bailed out and was captured. But the German pilots were so impressed with this handicapped ace that they treated him like a rock star, touring him around airfields where other pilots could wine and dine him. Bader’s tin legs were damaged when his plane went down so the RAF dropped a substitute pair over a German airfield for him. But later, as a POW, he tried so many times to escape that the German commandant of his prison camp took away his legs. “I wish all my prisoners were so easily manageable.”


1942- Walt Disney's "Bambi" premiered.

1944- Antoine Du Saint-Exupery, the author of the Little Prince, died when he crashed his fighter plane. He was not shot down by the Germans, he was just a terrible pilot. The main protaganist of the little prince is an aviator who crashes his plane.

1945-NAGASAKI- the second Atomic Bomb "Fat Man" was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. The B-29 bomber "Boxcar” was plagued by a violent thunderstorm and they wasted precious fuel searching for their target. When they made it back to base after the 14 hour flight two of their four engines had run out of gas. Nagasaki was the second choice target. The first Kokura, was so fogged in scientists couldn't study the bomb's effect. 63,000 people killed was one effect.

1945- At the same time President Harry Truman was reporting to Congress and the nation about his trip to Potsdam and plan for post war Germany. He said among other things that it was vital for democracy in Germany to break up the huge centralized corporations and foster the rights of workers to form unions. Hmmm…we could use a plan like that in the US today….

1947 -The British government in an attempt to bolster revenue for their shattered postwar economy, announced a 300% import tariff on Hollywood films. The Big Eight-Hollywood studios retaliate by stopping the export of movies to Britain. The British film industry has a heyday and Disney starts producing films locally in Britain like 'Rob Roy Highland Rogue' and such.

1960- Near Cuernavaca Mexico Harvard professor Timothy Leary took some magic mushrooms and experienced his first hallucinogenic trip. He called it “ a conversion.”

1963 - Britains rock & roll TV show, Ready Steady Go, premieres.

1969-HELTER SKELTER- Charles Manson's cultists murder pregnant actress Sharon Tate and several houseguests of her husband/director Roman Polanski. One other guest killed was socialite Jay Sebring, who made cocaine fashionable and invented the 1970's blow-dry hair style for men. A Polish tourist named Dominic Frykowski who had the misfortune to be visiting that night was shot twice, bludgeoned and stabbed 51 times. Kill the Pigs was scrawled on the wall in blood. Charles Manson had a messianic concept that he could lead the Apocalypse devolving out of a race war if his followers first killed celebrities to advertise their cause. Manson had a hit list that included Frank Sinatra, Steve McQueen and Liz Taylor. The California spawned Hippy-Flower-Child culture lost it’s innocent fun after Manson.

1974- “KNEEL WITH ME, HENRY.” Richard Nixon, aka Tricky Dick, resigned and left the Presidency of the United States in disgrace. I was a young zitty cartoonist in the offices of Penthouse Magazine in New York trying to sell some spot cartoons when I heard the news. New President Gerald Ford’s real name was Leslie Lynch King. His parents divorced when he was two and his mom’s second husband Gerald Ford Sr renamed him. Sharing in the disgrace of the presidency was Ford’s chief of staff, Dick Cheney and assistant attorney General Donald Rumsfeld.

1993- Heidi Fleiss , The” Hollywood Madam” arraigned for prostitution. The film community shuddered when she threatened to reveal the names of her clients in her “black book”. Most were suppressed except actors Charlie Sheen and Sean Penn who admitted as much early on. Fleiss wrote a memoir called “Pandering” and still thinks prostitution is an honorable profession. “I ran an 85% cash business.”

1995- THE HIGH TECH BUBBLE- Netscape first appeared on the stock market. The 15 month old company started by a Silicon Graphics exec and a 22 year old college senior immediately shot up to $1.07 billion dollars in value. This IPO signaled the beginning of the gold rush in high tech stocks which five years later came crashing down as violently. Stocks like Lucent Technology which sold at $84 dollars a share in 1998 dropping to 39 cents a share in 2001.

1999- The US Government tax people closed Nevada’s Mustang Ranch, the most famous legal house of prostitution in the US.

My friend Stephen Silver has posted the model sheets he designed for our Car Talk Show. http://stephensilver.blogspot.com
He was the designer of hit shows like Kim Possible and has published some very popular books of his sketches. The stuff he's doing for us is pretty cool. You'll be seeing Car Talk next summer, but check out his stuff now.

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Birthdays: Emiliano Zapata. Esther Williams, Gene Deitch, Dino DeLaurentis, Carl "Alfalfa" Switzer, Keith Carradine, Deborah Norville, Mel Tillis, Dustin Hoffman is 70, Martin Brest, Peter Weir, Patricia Arquette, Animator Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, Innocence) is 56

Today is the Feast of St. Dominic- Dominic was a Spanish zealot who wanted to preach to pagan's but the Pope sent him to south France to try and re-convert the Albigensian heretics, who were all former Catholics. After ten years of fasting, begging and praying his legendary summary of his efforts was:" Someone should take a stick to those people!" The Holy Office of the Inquisition was later administered by Dominicans. Saint Dominic is also reputed to have said “Nothing Cleans like Fire.”

1143- Byzantine Emperor John III Comnenus killed in a hunting accident when a poisoned arrow sitting in his own quiver scratched his leg. I don't know who hunts with poisoned arrows but that's Byzantine politics for you.

1709 - 1st known ascent in hot-air balloon indoors by Bartolomeu de Gusmao.

1811- THE IRON CROSS- Before medals common soldiers were rewarded for bravery with a few gold coins. Washington and Napoleon made medals things soldiers dreamt of. General Gerhard von Gneisenau urged the King of Prussia to create a medal like the French Legion d'Honneur to reward all ranks in the German Army. At first the sulky King was against anything that led common soldiers to believe they were better than the common schweinhundts he felt they were, but he finally was made to give in. The new medal was based on the heraldic symbol of the Crusader order of the Teutonic Knights, a black cross formed by four arrowheads. The "Iron Cross" medal was created. Goths, Surfers and Hells Angels rejoiced.

happy German generals with their Iron Crosses


uhh...other happy folks with their Iron Crosses too.

1876 - Thomas Edison patented the mimeograph, a forerunner of the Xerox process.

1944 - Smokey the Bear, named after NYC fireman Smokey Joe Martin born .

1960 – Brian Hyland’s song "Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka-dot Bikini" hits #1.

1963 – THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY- In Buckinghamshire England a small group of masked men stopped the London to Glasgow express and stole 2.6 million pound sterling about $7.3 million U.S.. English police netted most of the gang, but the ringleader Ronald Biggs escaped. Biggs lived well in Rio de Janiero for thirty eight years and gave frequent interviews to British media. Old and sick, he finally returned to England and jail in 2001. “I just want one more pint in a pub” he sighed.

1963 – The Kingsmen release the song "Louie, Louie,". Many labeled it obscene, although no one is quite sure just what the song lyrics mean. In the 1980s Northwestern University staged Louie-Louie Marathons- 44 straight hours of Louie-Louie, played by punk bands, polka bands, marching bands, folk trios, and singing water glasses.

1964 - Rolling Stones 1st Dutch concert.

1966 -The Beatles' released "Revolver"

1973-Vice President Spiro Agnew vows not to resign. He resigned shortly afterwards.

1974 - Richard Nixon decided to resign the U.S. Presidency after Senator Howard Baker informed him his last supporting congressmen on the Senate Impeachment Committee intended to change their vote to yes for impeachment. Insiders say his last call before making up his mind was to Dixiecrat George Wallace, who told the President he could no longer count on the support of Southern white conservatives.

1978- The character of Odie the dog first met Garfield in Jim Davis’ comic strip.

Siggraph 2007, Click to Enlarge
Student Fjorg competition

Three Vikings- Becky Weibel, Ragnar Sito and Pat Beckman

I had a nice time at SIGGRAPH 2007 yesterday. Pat Beckman had organized an Iron Animator competition called Fjorg! ( pronounced Forge!) Sixteen teams of four from around the world are given three days to create a 3D film. They won't sleep much, but they are having a lot of fun. I was brought in to lecture and crit their ideas. Everyone was issued Viking horned helmets and they caused quite a stir among the Digerati. The competiton looks like a success and there was a great energy among the contestants. I hope they do it again next year in LA.

Otherwise, I met a number of old friends including my old Digimax crew from Taipei. Saw Jim Hillin, Dr Stuart Sumida, Prof Richard Weinberg, Fumi Kitahara, Steve Goldberg, Valerie Leitera among many others. Met artists from DNA studio Dalla who did Ant Bully and the San Clemente studio that did Barnyard. Both studios went under when their films flopeed. Too bad about DNA, the owners seemed like nice guys.

I Got to handle the new Microsoft program SURFACE which looks like an i-phone the size of a coffee table, where your touch opened and closed files without a keyboard. Pretty cool, like the computer in the Minority Report. Lots of programs trying to simulate the articulation of fabric, but nothing looked that convincing to me.

I wish I could have stayed longer but duty calls on Car Talk! So back to LA I go...
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Birthdays: Roman Emperor Constantius II, Mata Hari, Rassan Rolling Kirk, Nicholas Ray, Dr. Richard Leakie, Grandma Moses, The Amazing Randi, David Duchovny, Billy Burke aka Glenda the Good Witch " Come out, come out. wherever you are..." Garrison Keillor, animation voice actor and radio personality Stan Freeberg, Animator Rudy Ising , Charlize Theron is 32, Animator and WIA president Linda Miller

1674-The Bagel is invented in Vienna. Some say the hole is a tribute to the stirrup of Polish warrior king Jan III Sobieski, more likely the hole was just so a street peddler could stack them on a stick.

1815- Prisoner Napoleon Bonaparte was transferred from the HMS Bellerophon to the HMS Northumberland for the voyage to Saint Helena. After his defeat at Waterloo the British public warmed up to Napoleon as an okay chap now down on his luck. While waiting in Plymouth Harbor curious crowds of English people would row out to wave hello at the fallen emperor. One enterprising citizen learned Napoleon’s schedule and from his rowboat would hold up a large sign "BONEY’S OUT ON DECK" to let the crowd know.

1834 -Death of Joseph Jacquard, French silk weaver who invented the first loom capable of weaving patterns. Some say that the cards used in the looms were the inspiration for the computer punch card, a way of transmitting data, whether pulses of light or lengths of wool

1882- The legendary Hillbilly Feud in Kentucky between the Hatfields and the McCoys began, supposedly over a prize hog. Ellison Hatfield was stabbed 26 times and shot in the back. The Hatfields then rounded up three McCoys and shot them. Over the next forty years over100 men women and children from both families would be killed in the argument.

1914 – The famous poster of Lord Kitchner pointing and saying "Your country needs you," spreads over UK. James Montgomery Flagg later copied the poster for the American version with Uncle Sam in a similar pose. Lord Asquith commented that by now the elderly soldier Kitchener made "a better poster than a leader."

1919- the First Actor’s Equity Strike.

1928- The US Treasury issued a smaller leaner dollar bill. Before this dollars were two times larger and wider than the ones we now use. They were nicknamed shin-plasters.

1931 - Leon Bismarck "Bix" Beiderbecke, jazz trumpeter died at 29 of drink and drugs. Bix along with his idol Louis Armstrong was considered one of the first jazz musicians to popularize the solo-riff, where in the body of a song the soloist would depart from the arrangement and improvise like a cadenza in classical music. His family in Davenport Iowa were horrified that their son dropped out of school to associate with Negroes and become a musician. Even after Bix was famous he returned proudly home only to discover his parents had stacked up every record he sent them in a box under the stairs. They never listened to a single one.

1933-The first "Alley-Oop" comic strip.

1953- President Eisenhower granted Ohio statehood retroactively 150 years later. It seems when Ohio joined the union in 1803 Congress screwed up the enabling legislation, so Ohio was never officially a state. Local historians preparing for an anniversary celebration uncovered the glitch.

1970 - Christine Perfect McVie joins the band Fleetwood Mac.

1970 – The first computer chess tournament.

1974- French daredevil Phillipe Petit strung a tightrope between the two 110 story towers of NY’s World Trade Center and walked across it. As New Yorkers watched in amazement, Petit kept his concentration by carrying on a conversation with the buildings.(?)

1979- THE RUNAWAY WARS.-Hollywood Cartoonist’s Union strike against studios sending animation work overseas. Your kids now know Digimon and Yu-Gi-Oh more than Bugs Bunny so you can guess how successful we were.

1998- Simultaneous car bombs explode in front of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania . It killed 100 and injured 2,200, many more innocent African bystanders than Americans. The bombs proved to be the work of Osama Ben Laden and the Al Qaeda organization.

Richard Schickel has a nice piece in this week's TIME about the passing of directors Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni. About the passing of The Age of the Art Film. That in the 1960's you were identified not just by the books you read but by the movies you went to see. That the resergent Hollywood Studio blockbuster has swept most international cinema from the world's screens, and the cinema of a new Truffault, Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Ozu, or Fellini would find it difficult to find an audience. A bit depressing, but pretty insightful.
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History for 8/6/2007
Birthdays: Alfred Lord Tennyson, Daniel O'Connell "the Liberator", Dutch Schultz (real name Arthur Fleigenheimer), Louella Parsons, Lucille Ball, Robert Mitchum, Andy Warhol, Hoot Gibson, William B. Williams, Michelle Yeoh, Sir Freddy Laker, M. Night Shyamalan, Melissa George, Andy Messersmith, Soliel Moon-Frye aka Punky Brewster

1504 Birth of Matthew Parker, English cleric who became Archbishop of Canterbury under Elizabeth I and was responsible for formulating the 39 Articles - an apocryphal story is that his long nose and inquisitive nature gave rise to the term "Nosy Parker ".

1571-During the Ottoman Turkish conquest of Cypus this day the second largest city Famagusta fell after a one year siege. The Turkish pasha was so enraged at all the time and soldiers killed to capture the city that he ordered the Venetian commander General MarcAntonio Bradenigo skinned alive and his hide nailed to the poop deck of his flagship. The Bradenigo Family later negotiated with Sublime Porte and regained possession of the skin, folded him up nicely and placed behind glass in his monument in the Church of San Giovanni et Paulo. When you enter the church today look to the right up high and you¹ll see a bust with a glass plate with something that looks like a brown table napkin. That¹s General Bradenigo.

1774- Religious leader Ann Lee and a group of followers first arrived in America from England. They called themselves the United Believers in Christ's Second Coming, but were more popularly known as the Shakers.

1806- Napoleon ordered the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. This was a bit of international bookkeeping. The Empire existed if only on paper since 950 A.D. but wasn't really an Empire, it wasn't Roman (it was mostly German states) and it wasn't very holy either. The Austrian Empire and the Confederation of the Rhine States under French domination result.

1825- Bolivia gained independence from Peru.

1840- NAPOLEON III'S ABORTIVE COUP. Louis Napoleon was the nephew of the first Napoleon and one day he decided since his uncle was a genius he must be also. So he resolved to leave exile in Britain and overthrow the French government. His uncle in 1814 just had to show up on the beach in Cannes for the people to go wild and carry him to the palace on their shoulders. So Louis Napoleon appeared on the beach in Boulogne waving his sword and flag. Instead of cheering crowds a local constable tried to arrest him for carrying a unlicensed firearm. When the gun went off and hurt the constable a mob chased Mr.Bonaparte back to his boat booing and laughing. While trying to row away the boat capsized and Napoleon III was picked up by a fishing boat while clinging to a lifebuoy. A gov't minister in Paris said of the affair: "That blockhead! Everything would be easier if he would just drown himself!" Louis Napoleon later became France's second emperor in 1852.

1890- FIRST MAN ELECTROCUTED- Prison officials wanted a more humane way to execute badguys than hanging, after a 300 pound killer named Mad Jack Ketcham made everybody sick when the noose ripped his head off. So they turned to the miracle of the age, electricity. A spirited competition began between inventors Thomas Edison and George Westinghouse whether AC or DC current was more lethal. Lots of dogs and cats around their laboratories disappeared for test subjects. Edison wanted to call his device an "Automort" or "Electramort". When Edison knew he was going to lose the contract he suggested the inventor give his name to it." Joe will be Westinghoused at Midnight !"-etc. He wanted his competitor's name to be synonymous with death. Finally it was simply the Chair or the Hot Seat. The first man in it, an axe murderer named William Kemmler, took several 17 second jolts to be sent off, his hair and jacket caught fire and his shoes melted and stuck to the floor.

1890- Cy Young pitches and wins his first game.

1914 ­the first German zeppelin raid. A Zeppelin bombs the Belgian city of Liege, 9 killed.

1926- Gertrude Ederle swam the English Channel.

1926- Warner Brothers Studio premiered it¹s motion picture sound on disk system.The film was Don Juan with John Barrymore the Great Profile. It didn¹t really have much impact until they made the "Jazz Singer"with Al Jolson two years later.

1930- Judge Crater disappeared. The New York Supreme Court Justice had given no indication of any trouble but he had accrued huge gambling debts. The good judge had dinner with some friends at the Stork Club and told them he would join them later at the theater. He got into a taxi at 43rd street and vanished forever. It was the media story of the year.

1932- Top Broadway singer Libby Hollman "Statue of Libby" had married quiet millionaire Smith Reynolds and moved to his North Carolina estate. But life on the farm was boring so Libby brought her Broadway friends down to party. After one party she was missing for several hours and had grass stains on her knees. The couple quarreled and Smith Reynolds died of a gunshot wound to the head. No one was ever charged .

1945- HIROSHIMA.- At around 11:00 A.M. Capt. Tibbetts and his B-29 "Enola Gay" dropped one bomb and sent us into the Atomic Age. The uranium device was called the "Cosmic Bomb" by the scientists and "Little Boy" by the crew flattened the city of Hiroshima. Navy Secretary Admiral Leahy had said:" It's the biggest damn fool thing we've ever done. It'll never go off!" When it did go off one crewmember shouted:"Wow! Lookit that sonofabitch go! This war is over!!" The navigator wrote in his journal" My God! What have we done ?" The target city of Hiroshima was selected because it was undamaged up until then and the surrounding hills would concentrate it¹s effect. The A-bomb killed around 130,000 people and continued to kill survivors with radiation and cancer. 50,000 people were vaporized outright leaving only shadows burned into the pavement. Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the bomb's main designer, had built it primarily to stop Hitler -both the Nazis and Japanese had their own unsuccessful atomic bomb programs. He was still horrified by the results. He became a lifelong pacifist and was later persecuted as a commie for refusing any more help in developing nuclear weapons.

Just this week Japan's Defense Minister resigned and had to apologize to Hiroshima's survivors for comments that all in all the atomic bombings were probably a good idea because it shortened the war and saved lives.

1962- Jamaica gained independence from Britain.

1970- THE HIPPIES ATTACK DISNEYLAND- A nationwide call for civil disobedience at the famous American-establishment tourist spot was called for August 6th. Called "Yippie Day" Yippies were considered more militant than Hippies. 750 long haired, denim clad moppets filtered into park. Once in they quickly massed, then invaded the Wilderness Fort in Frontierland. There they raised the Vietcong flag, passed marijuana cigarettes to tourists and chanted "Stop the War! Free Charlie Manson!" They were finally expelled with great difficulty by park security and the Anaheim police. In the 1980¹s Disney was almost invaded by Nazi skinheads but this time they were ready.

1973- Stevie Wonder involved in car crash, goes into a 4 day coma but eventually recovered.

1984- Carl Lewis won four gold medals in track & field at the Olympic Games in LA.

1998- A chubby White House student intern from LA named Monica Lewinsky testified to a Federal Grand Jury that she had sex with President Bill Clinton in a small room down the hall from the Oval Office. Snap that thong and watch where your're stickin dat ceegar!

2001- One month before the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks the CIA presented President George W. Bush with a study that increased terrorist chatter meant some kind of attack may be likely. The report was entitled OSAMA BEN LADEN LIKELY TO ATTACK IN CONTINENTAL US. That the terrorists may use hijacked civilian airliners. President Bush thanked them then resumed clearing brush on his ranch in Crawford Texas. CIA chief George Tenant didn¹t think it important enough to even show up. Later in 2003 after the 9-11 attack National Security advisor Condoleeza Rice was quoted in the press that " No one could predict terrorists would hijack civilian airliners and fly them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon."

Birthdays: Guy de Maupassant, Neil Armstrong, film director John Huston, film star and HUAC fink Robert Taylor, Conrad Aiken, Selma Diamond, John Merrick the Elephant Man, Loni Anderson, Bill Scott -the voice of Bullwinkle Moose, John Saxon, Jonathan Silverman

1924 Arf, Arf ! the first Little Orphan Annie comic strip drawn by Harold Gray. Do you have your decoder ring from Ovaltine?

1926 – Magician Harry Houdini stays in a coffin under water for one hour.

1927- Victrola Record producer Ralph Peer realized there might be a market for “Hillbilly Music” so he set up a makeshift recording studio above a furniture store in Bristol Tennessee and put an ad in the local papers for talent. In this one session he recorded future stars Jimmy Rogers the Singing Brakeman, The Carter Family, The Tennessee Mountaineers and Ernest Pop Stoneman. This session has been called the “ Big Bang of Country Music.”

1953- The film “From Here to Eternity” opened , starring Deborah Kerr, Burt Lancaster and Montgomery Clift. But the big story was Frank Sinatra’s Oscar winning performance as Maggio that signaled the turnaround in his slumping career.

1955- The Screen Actor’s Guild strikes Hollywood for television residuals. Since 1955 SAG will hit the bricks at around seven times, and they're set to do it again in 2008. Their president was Walter Pidgeon who had played Dr. Morbius in Forbidden Planet.

1957- American Bandstand featuring the eternally teenage Dick Clark debuts on television.

1962- GOODBYE NORMA JEAN. Marilyn Monroe found nude in bed, dead of barbiturate overdose. She was 36. Whether you think the starlet committed accidental suicide, or was done in by the Mafia, the Kennedys, a Svengali like personal physician, lesbian physical therapist or space aliens is still a mystery. She made a call to Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s office in Washington several hours earlier but was rebuffed. Her last call was to her hairdresser Mr. Guilaroff. She left the bulk of her belongings to her drama teacher Lee Strassberg and her funeral was organized by ex-husband Joe Dimaggio. Her cottage suite had a tile over the doorway which read :"All my troubles end Here."

1964 - Actress Anne Bancroft & Comedian Mel Brooks wed.

1966- Caesar’s Palace Hotel & Casino first opened to the public. This was the first of the super-resort casinos, with a total theme park design and three times the space and accommodations of anything yet seen on the Vegas Strip. It’s success ushered in an accelerated era of building for Las Vegas casinos.

1966 –It a moment of youthful indiscretion Beatle John Lennon says his band the Beatles are now more popular than Jesus. This flippant comment provoked a firestorm of nationwide protest among conservative elements in the US and Beatles albums were publically burned in the streets. Lennon apologized and suggested that they were being crucified over the comment. McCartney rush up to the mike to insist that that wasn't the choice of words they preferred.

1984- Welsh actor Richard Burton died of cerebral hemorrhage at 64. With a tumultuous career and sometime marriages to Elizabeth Taylor the hard drinking Burton was the most famous English thespian since Lord Lawrence Olivier and Sir John Gielgud. But unlike them he was never knighted by Queen Elizabeth. As I recall the monarchy objected to their portrayal when Burton starred in a miniseries bio of Winston Churchill.

1986 - It's revealed painter Andrew Wyeth had secretly created 240 drawings &
paintings of his neighbor Helga Testorf, in Chadds Ford, Pa