By now,the word has gone around that Roy Disney has passed away after a long battle with cancer. He was 79.


Roy was a unique individual; he was a mover and shaker who liked to listen to others. A billionaire who liked the company of creative people and seemed genuinely in awe of them. Around us animators, it's rare to find a photo of him when he wasn't smiling.

Don Hahn said Roy could have easily lived the life of a trust-fund playboy, but he liked work, he liked making things, he liked to compete and win. His other passion was racing yachts. Once Hendel Butoy, Scott Johnston and I sat with Roy in a limo bouncing through downtown Chicago. Roy launched into a detailed description of what America's Cup champion Dennis Conner did to be outmanuevered by Australia-1. Scott and I did our best to keep up with what he was saying.

Another time, I had lunch with a friend at a French restaurant near the studio. I dropped into a convenience store to get a cigar, when I felt a hand clap on my back" Hi Tom!" It was Roy, alone, in his old rumpled cardigan, and he had just bought his lunch- a pre-wrapped ham & cheese Roach-Coach sandwich. That's the way he was.

He always spoke of the Disney company not as "Mine", but as "We". He was modest about what he did, but without him there would never have been a Simba, Roger, Ariel, Genie, Belle or Tiana.

I mourn him as a friend, and for all he did for the art of animation. See ya, Roy.
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Quiz: Why is Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s husband, important to the way we celebrate Christmas?

Yesterday’s question answered below: One of the best known folks tales in Japan is about the 47 Ronin. What is a Ronin?
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History for 12/17/2009
Birthdays: Paracelsus (otherwise known as Nicholas Paracelsus Theophrastus Bombastus Von Hohenheim) the father of modern medical diagnosis, Antonio Cimmarosa, William Lyon Mackensie-King, Arthur Fiedler, Bob Guccione the founder of Penthouse, William Safire, Cal Ripken Sr., Ford Maddox-Ford, Erskine Caldwell, Tommy Steele, Bill Pullman is 56, Eugene Levy is 63, Giovanni Ribisi, Arman Muehler-Stahl is 79, Wes Studi, Milla Jovovich is 34, Sean Patrick Thomas, Bart Simpson- is 20

ROMAN FESTIVAL OF SATURNALIA-This festival of Saturn, the biggest holiday to the ancient Romans is one of the roots of Christmas. On this holiday Roman families got together, masters served their slaves and gave them a day off. People gave each other gifts in pretty colored wrappings. Romans also decorated the outsides of their houses with wreaths and lights to welcome the New Year -sound familiar? Most modern scholars agree that Jesus was probably born in July or August, but Christians began using the Saturnalia as the birth festival of Jesus as early as 335AD. It was made official by the Vatican in 885 AD. So at sunset shout "Io,Io, Saturnalia!" ancient Greek for Hail Saturn!

1777-VALLEY FORGE- When Lord Howe’s British Army called the Christmas Truce and beds down in Philadelphia, George Washington’s army made camp at Valley Forge. The severe winter and poor conditions made Washington’s Army lose as many men as if there had been a battle. 2500 out of 10,000 colonials do not survive to see Spring. Meanwhile the surrounding farmers sold their food to the British, who paid better.

1843- Charles Dickens "A Christmas Carol: A Ghost Story for Christmas" first published. In the 18th century and earlier the Christmas celebration was a more rowdy affair with public drinking, marching around in costumes “mummery” and mayhem more like today’s Mardi Gras. This is why the Pilgrims tried to ban it. The popularity of Dickens story of Scrooge, Marley and Tiny Tim did much to help Victorians change the nature of the Christmas celebration to a more intimate and pious observance among centered on the family. Dickens said he wrote the story to make some money capitalizing on the new fashions for family Christmas celebrations around the tree. American business tycoon J.P. Morgan had a family custom every Christmas Eve of reading A Christmas Carol to his kids, from the original manuscript.

1865- Schubert's Unfinished Symphony (#8) received it's world premiere. In 1822 Schubert wrote the first two movements and 8 measures for the 3rd (Scherzo) then gave the manuscript to a friend who kept it in a closet for 43 years.

1892- Peter Ilyich Tschaikowsky’s ballet “The Nutcracker” premiered at the Imperial Ballet in Saint Petersburg. One child dancer playing a candy cane in that first performance was a Georgian boy named Gyorgi Balavadajze- later American choreographer George Balanchine. Interestingly enough the two of his compositions Tschaikowsky liked the least were The Nutcracker and his 1812 Overture.

1903- THE AIRPLANE- Orville and Wilbur Wright make the first flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. For one minute a powered heavier than aircraft flew. Orville finished the day with a telegram to their father minding the bicycle shop back in Dayton Ohio: “ Success. Four Flights Thursday Morning against twenty-one mile an hour wind.. Inform press home for Christmas.” The news failed to get into most national newspapers. The Wrights themselves maintained a strict secrecy because they knew rivals like Glen Curtis, the French and Smithsonian professor William Langley were all close to inventing an airplane as well. The sensation of the airplane didn’t really become widespread until the Wrights demonstrated their plane in France in 1908 and around New York Harbor in 1909. In 1913 Curtis took Langley’s flying machine the Aerodrome out of storage and flew it to prove to the Smithsonian that the Wright Brothers were not the first. The bitter disputes lasted the length of their lives.

1917-HAPPY BIRTHDAY THE KGB! Lenin created the first Communist Secret Police, the Cheka, led by Felix Derszhinsky:” My thoughts induce me to be without pity.” In a few months the Cheka executed more people than the Czars’ police the Okrana did in all of the XIXth Century. The Cheka in Stalin’s time was called the OGPU, then NKVD, his executioners in the Great Purges. After Stalin their name was changed to the KGB, the great spy and Secret Police operation set to bedevil their counterparts in the west the CIA and MI5. The KGB was disbanded in 1991. Current Russian President Vladimir Putin was a KGB agent.

1928- Under orders from Josef Stalin, the Central Committee of the Soviet Union first declared that rural land belonged to the community. All landowners were enemies of the state. This began the War on the Kulaks- the name for middle class peasants who owned some farmland. The purges of Kulaks and famine from forced collectivization killed millions.

1939- THE GRAF SPEE- The world media in the opening weeks of World War II were dominated by news of an epic sea duel between the British Navy and a German battleship. The British pursued the Graf Spee across the Atlantic into Montevideo Harbor in neutral Uruguay. This day while the sun was setting radio broadcasters stayed on the air live and 250,000 spectators lined the shoreline to see if the Graf Spee would come out and fight. Instead the tropical quiet was rent by a huge explosion. Kapitan Zur See Langersdorf had scuttled his own ship. British intelligence had done a masterful job of fooling Kapitan Langersdorf into believing heavy naval reinforcements including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal were closing in on him, while in actual fact they were no where in the vicinity. All there was to try and stop the German battleship was three badly shot up light cruisers. After sinking the Graf Spee Langersdorf wrapped himself in a German flag and shot himself. Interestingly he didn't use a Nazis swastika flag but wrapped himself in the old German Imperial Navy ensign. He also as a rule refused to give the stiff arm Nazis party salute.

1944- the MALMEDY MASSACRE- The largest documented atrocity committed on U.S. troops in Europe in World War Two. During the Battle of the Bulge Nazi Waffen S.S. troops rounded up a large group of U.S. prisoners and machined gunned them all. 87 men of Battery B, 285th Field Artillery died. The atrocity stiffened U.S. resistance to the Nazis advance. The furor over President Reagan's laying a wreath at the Bitburg cemetery in 1985 was that some of the guilty SS of Malmedy were buried there. The commander of the massacre, Major Otto Wolf, did some prison time after the war and lived quietly until 1967, when he was found shot to death in his burning house, a smoking rifle in his hands like he was defending himself. Obviously someone had not forgotten.

1955- Carl Perkins awoke in the middle of a bad nights sleep and wrote Blue Suede Shoes, the first song to be a hit in Country, R&B and Rock n’ Roll charts simultaneously.” Well you can knock me down, step on ma face, etc.”

1962- The Beatles first hit "Love Me Do" enters the U.K. pop charts.

1969- Tiny Tim, the campy, ukulele strumming crooner, married his Miss Vicky, or Victoria Budinger live on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

1969- The US Air Force terminated Operation Blue Book, the investigation of UFO phenomena.

1989- Communist dictator Nicholas Cercescu ordered the Romanian Army to open fire on democratic protesters in Timisoara. Two thousand were killed. This incident pushed elements of the Army to turn their guns on the government. The Romanian Revolution was the most violent of the Communist regime changes. The people and army overthrew Cercescu, who was executed with his wife on live television on Christmas Day.

1989- The Simpsons, first debuted.

1999- The film Stuart Little premiered.

2001- Kellog, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of the Haliburton Corporation, was awarded a ten-year contract to provide the U.S. Army with everything from firefighting to building bases to serving meals. Soldiers won’t dig latrines, because KBR port-o-pottys will be there. A soldier couldn’t wipe his face with a towel that didn’t have a KBR logo on it. Vice President Cheney was a senior stockholder and former CEO of Haliburton.
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Yesterday’s Quiz: One of the best known folks tales in Japan is about the 47 Ronin. What is a Ronin?

Answer: A Ronin was a samurai who was not pledged to any one lord or castle. In Europe we called a knight not pledged to any lord a “ free- lance”.