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January 25, 2009 Sunday
January 25th, 2009

Quiz- Composer Phillip Glass is currently writing an opera about the last days of Walt Disney, for the 2011 Season. Has there ever been an opera written before about someone connected to Animation?

Yesterday's Question answered below.

History for 1/25/2009
Birthdays: Temujin called The Genghis Khan, "Prince of Conquerers", Byzantine Emperor Leo IV the Khazar, Benedict Arnold, Carl Eller, Robert Burns, Somerset Maugham, Virginia Woolf, US Vice President Charles “Goodtime Charlie” Curtis, Edwin Newman, Jean Image, Dean Jones is 78, Ava Gardner, Etta Jones, Corazon Aquino, Anita Pallenberg, Gene Washington, Tobe Hooper is 66

1533- Henry VIII secretly married Lady Anne Boleyn already pregnant with the future Queen Elizabeth. Anne Boleyn was later called a sorceress because she had six fingers on one hand. Lusty King Henry has also had sex with her mother and her older sister Mary. And Yer Little Dog, Too!

1890- Newspaper reporter Nelly Bly ( Elizabeth Cochrane ) of the New York World is welcomed home after traveling around the World in 72 days. The stunt was inspired by the Jules Verne story Around the World in 80 days, which had became a hit stage play.

1945- The Rock Creek Report recommends mass additives of fluoride into American drinking water supplies. Tooth decay drops by 50%, however many right wing fringe groups see it as a Communist plot.

1947- Mobster Al Capone died at his home in Florida at age 48. He was released from Alcatraz Prison early because of ill health, his mind was being slowly destroyed by untreated syphilis. When another hood was asked if Al would resume leadership of the Chicago rackets he replied:” Big Al is nuttier than a fruitcake.” Capone lived his final days in seclusion at his estate on Biscayne Bay.

1959- Disney's " SLEEPING BEAUTY " opened. Despite earning the fifth highest box office for that year it finished $1 million behind what it cost to make. The animation staff had swollen to it's largest to finish the production. Its disappointing box office soured Walt Disney on feature animation. His low budget live action films like The Shaggy Dog and the Absent Minded Professor were much more profitable. After Sleeping Beauty was finished the Disney studio had a massive layoff, the staff roster dropping from 551 to just 75. Artists employed since "Bambi" and earlier found pink dismissal slips on their drawing tables when they came to work. The staff will not return to these same levels until 1990.

1960- Actress Diana Barrymore, the daughter of John Barrymore, overdosed on sleeping pills. The Barrymore family that had dominated the American theater since the 1850’s had a history of drug and alcohol abuse. Ancestor after ancestor drank themselves to death. Current leader of the family Drew Barrymore recovered after seeking rehab at age 12.

1961- John F. Kennedy has the first televised Presidential press conference.

1970- Robert Altman’s groovy movie M*A*S*H premiered.

1971- Charles Manson and his followers convicted of 27 counts of murder. They were all sentenced to the Gas Chamber but the death penalty had been abolished in California for the moment.

1995- Moscow radar detected a nuclear missile launch from Norwegian waters headed right for them. Russian President Boris Yeltsin and his cabinet had five minutes to decide if this was an accident or the dreaded First Strike, warranting a full retaliatory launching of all Russian missiles against the US.. They decided it was a mistake, and it turned out the missile was only a Norwegian weather satellite being fired into orbit. Similar nail biting incidents happened to Jimmy Carter in 1980 and off the US coast in 1986.
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Yesterday’s Question: What do you mean when you say you’re publishing or putting out a “j’accuse”..?

Answer to yesterday's trivia:
J'accuse ("I accuse") was an open letter published on January 13, 1898, in the newspaper L'Aurore by the influential writer Émile Zola.

The letter was addressed to President of France and accused the government of anti-Semitism and the unlawful jailing of Alfred Dreyfus, a French General Staff officer sentenced to penal servitude for life for espionage. Zola pointed out judicial errors and lack of serious evidence. The letter was printed on the first page of the newspaper, and caused a stir in France and abroad. Zola was prosecuted and found guilty of libel on February 23, 1898. To avoid imprisonment, he fled to England, returning home in June 1899.

As a result of the popularity of the letter, even in the English-speaking world, J'accuse! has become a common generic expression of outrage and accusation against a powerful person.


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