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I've got a new article in Animation World Network that is an interview with Australian director Adam Elliot. Adam won an Oscar for his short Harvie Krumpett. Now he has a new movie out Mary & Max with the voices of Phillip Seymour Hoffman,Toni Colette, Eric Bana and Geoffrey Rush. It opened the Sundance Festival on Thursday, the first animated film to ever do so.

http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=pageone&article_no=3880



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Quiz: Barack Obama requested to be sworn in as president with the same Bible that Abraham Lincoln used. Is he is being sworn in on the exact same day?

Yesterdays Quiz answered below: Who said: “ there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
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History for January 17, 2009
Birthdays: Benjamin Franklin, Max Sennett-1880,Al Capone,Ethan G. Hodell 1883- the inventor of the Tow-Truck, Constantin Stanislavsky, Moira Shearer, Shari Lewis, James Earl Jones is 78, Vidal Sassoon, Betty White, Zooey Deschanel, Denny Doyle, Kevin Reynolds, Muhammad Ali is 69, Jim Carrey is 47, Michelle Obama is 45

395AD- Death of Theodosius Ist, the last Roman Emperor to rule over the all the Empire from Scotland to Iran. After his death the Roman Empire divided permanently between East and West.

1794- SCANDAL!! ANDY JACKSON MARRIES RACHEL DONELSON ROBARDS FOR THE SECOND TIME. Mrs. Rachel Robards was married to a brutal older man when she fell in love with the dashing young officer in the Tennessee wilderness. Separated from Mr.Donelson, she and Jackson were in Natchez, Mississippi, when they heard word that Robards had filed for a divorce back in Nashville.
Jackson and Rachael then married and lived together for a year but then discovered that the divorce report was false and worse, Mississippi where they were married was still Spanish territory that didn't recognize Protestant marriages as legal. Rachel finally got her divorce from Donelson, and they married again. But the social stigma of 'living in sin' stuck.
Rachel became morose in later years when Jackson's political enemies used the charge of adultery to attack him. Jackson fought duels and killed men over his wife's honor. By the time Jackson was elected, President Rachel was too ill to go to Washington and died just before the Inauguration. The widower President lived long but never got over his love for his Rachel.

1800- Thomas Jefferson welcomed French businessman Etienne Irenee¹Du Pont de Nemours to America. Monsieur Dupont had decided to move his business from revolution ravaged France and become an American. He founded the Dupont Chemical Corporation that today makes plastics and housepaints, but back then what was most important was he made gunpowder. During the American Revolution gunpowder was a precious commodity. Colonial women saved pigeon droppings and their own urine to concoct saltpeter. Almost all the high quality gunpowder had to be imported from France. The Dupont family continued to control America¹s petrochemical destiny way into the mid-twentieth century. And ladies could dispose of their urine in more sanitary ways.

1836- Texas General Sam Houston orders Jim Bowie to go to the Alamo and blow it up. Then bring the soldiers and the valuable cannon back to the main army to fight Santa Anna. But once there, Bowie was convinced by William Travis to disobey orders and defend the Alamo to the bitter end.

1904- Chekov's The Cherry Orchard opened in St. Petersburg.

1926- FATS WALLER KIDNAPPED-Harlem Jazz great ³Fats²Waller was in Chicago for a gig. On the street several gunmen grabbed him and dragged him into their limo and sped off to the lair of mob boss Scarface Al Capone. When he arrived there the terrified Waller was reassured by Capone that as it was Big Al¹s birthday all he wanted was for Waller to perform at his party. The bash lasted three days and the joint was really jumpin²! Waller left unharmed, and with a very fat paycheck as well, but resolved to stay in Harlem where it was safe.(-?).

1926- George Burns married Gracie Allen.

1929- First appearance of Popeye the Sailor in E.C. Seegar's comic strip the Thimble Theatre.

1935- In an address to Congress Franklin D. Roosevelt proposed national unemployment insurance. It had been a issue demanded by workers since Coxey's Army in 1895.

1949- The first VOLKSWAGEN BEETLES arrive in North America.

1949- The Goldbergs, a radio comedy show about a Jewish family in the Bronx, moved to television and became the first true sitcom. The show ended when Mrs. Goldberg was accused by the House UnAmerican Activities Committee of being a Communist.

1950- THE BRINKS JOB- Several small time hoods wearing Halloween masks entered a Brinks Armored Car office in Boston and stole $1,2 million in cash and 1.5 in securities. By 1953 one crook broke down and confessed just eleven days before the statute of limitations would run out.

1957- The first non-stop jet flight around the world. Three U.S. B-52 bombers took off from Edwards Air force base in California and by flying at supersonic speed and refueling in mid air circumnavigated the globe in a little over 48 hours. The mission was not intended to set a record or for any scientific value as to demonstrate that the U.S. could now go anywhere on the earth and drop a nuke on you. They cemented this idea by dropping a dummy bomb after passing over Malaya.

1961- Frank Sinatra¹s Ratpack had campaigned hard for their friend John F. Kennedy for president. Black entertainer Sammy Davis Jr. had worked particularly hard to help Kennedy win the African American vote. But Sammy had a preference for blond white actresses and had married one, May Britt in 1960. To fend off negative publicity this day JFK had his secretary Mrs. Lincoln telephone Sammy Davis and un-invite him to the President¹s Inaugural Ball. We¹re Liberal, but not that liberal. And uhh..thanks for the help. Dean Martin was so angry at this insult to his friend that he cancelled his appearance at the inaugural. In 1968 Sammy Davis angered the black community when he embraced republican Richard Nixon.

1961- President Dwight Eisenhower¹s farewell speech to the nation. He warned against the growing influence of the ³Military Industrial Complex².

1964- The first Porsche Carrera sportscar arrived in L.A.

1977- Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore was executed by firing squad in Utah for murdering an elderly couple. They pinned a paper on his chest with a heart drawn on it so marksmen could aim straight. Norman Mailor wrote the book ³Executioners¹ Song² about the event.

1994-The Great Northridge Earthquake rocked Los Angeles. 61 deaths and 20 billion dollars in damage. It was officially listed as 6.8 on the Richter Scale, although many rumors persist that in some areas it was as high as 7.2 . The epicenter was in the San Fernando Valleys so the valleys two major industries, animated cartoons and pornography, were temporarily disrupted.

1995- In a strange coincidence one year to the day after the Los Angeles earthquake a massive earthquake struck Kobe Japan. The Japanese place great resources and time in earthquake preparedness, yet this 7.2 quake toppled whole freeways, killed 5,000 and left 1 1/2 million people homeless. It was the worse natural disaster in Japan since the 1923 Tokyo quake.

2000-A Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton was offered for sale on E-Bay.
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Yesterday¹s Question: Question: Who said: “ there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."

Answer: Donald Rumsfeld. Soon, someone I won’t have to care about anymore.


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