Dear Gang, I'm having a little trouble with my Earthlink mail this evening, so if anyone has come here wondering why I haven't answered their messages yet, I am attempting to alleviate the problem.
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Birthdays: English King Edward VII, Stanford White, Marie Dressler, Ed Wynn, Claude Rains, Ann Sexton, Spiro Agnew, Tommy Dorsey, Dr. Carl Sagan, Whitey Herzog, Dorothy Dandridge, Dr. Herbert Kalmus the inventor of Technicolor film, Lou Ferrigno, Sisqo

In ancient Rome this was the Feast of Mania, like the Greek Anthesterion it was a time when the Gates of Underworld were said to be open and the shades of the dead could visit their old haunts. This is where we get the word Maniac.

1699- According to Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels this was the day Lemenual Gulliver was shipwrecked on the island of Liliput.

1911-The first Neon sign illuminated.

1964- First "Wizard of Id" comic strip published.

1965- "WHERE WERE YOU WHEN THE LIGHTS WENT OUT?" The first Great East Coast Blackout. A transformer near Rochester shorts out and the surge overloads station after station until the entire eastern seaboard from Boston to Delaware is in darkness for 12 hours. (nine months later there was a notable rise in the birthrate, there was nothing else to do....).

1966- In London Beatle John Lennon went to an art exhibit and met a Japanese avant garde photographer named Yoko Ono.

1981- The Screen Actor's Guild under President Ed Asner votes emergency moneys for striking PATCO air traffic controllers fired by the former SAG president, now U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

1979- National Public Radio goes on the air. The first US national news show with women as anchor reporters.

2004- The Jones Soda Pop Company of Seattle announced its new creation – Mashed Potato Flavored Soda. This was to follow up on their success last year of Roast Turkey and Gravy Soda.