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Recently my mother gave me a pile of yellowing papers from my childhood. Among them were some grade school report cards. It was a kick seeing these fossilized remains of my academic upbringing. I was an average student with a good attitude, dreadful in math, especially adding fractions. But I found amusing the teachers comments about my character: From my Fourth Grade Teacher in 1964, when I was 8 years old-

"Thomas is reading many history books. Perhaps something on the lighter side would broaden his interests..."

"Thomas is not as sure of himself as he should be when speaking in front of an audience. We are working on improving this." Whatever she did, it worked. Now you can't shut me up.

Thomas sometimes has trouble expressing himself in an original way on paper." I know some script editors who'd say I still do!

It's fun to look where we've come from, to better understand why we are who we are. And I still can't add and subtract fractions for shoot!
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B-Days: Georgia O'Keefe, Daniel Barenboim, George Bolet, William Pitt the Earl of Cheatham, Veronica Lake, Beverly D'Angelo- actress and former Scooby-Doo cel painter, Mantovanni, Ed Asner, Sam Waterson, Otis Armstrong, Petula Clark

1754- First use of the modern trombone. It was played at a child's funeral.

1828- Author Victor Hugo signs contracts with Gosselin's Publishing House to write a story about the cathedral of Notre Dame du Paris. He was paid 4,000 francs in advance, The HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME was the result.

1881- The American Federation of Labor AF of L formed under the leadership of former cigar-maker Samuel Gompers. In 1951 they merged with the CIO.

1907- The comic strip Mutt & Jeff debuted. The strip was so popular that it’s creator Harry “Bud “ Fisher became a celebrity and negotiated the first large backend deals.

1920- The League of Nations held it’s first meeting in Geneva.

1926- FIRST NETWORK BROADCAST- NBC hooks up 20 cities for a radio program "The Steinway Hour" with Arthur Rubinstein playing concert piano from the Steinway building penthouse on 57th St. in Manhattan.

1934- Animator Bill Tytla moved out west from New York and starts at Walt Disney's on a trial basis for $150 a week. He would create Grumpy the Dwarf, The Devil in Fantasia and Dumbo.

1979- ABC news announced they would broadcast a daily update of the Iranian Hostage Crisis. The late night show became Nightline.

1989- Disney's The Little Mermaid debuted. When it opened in Copenhagen, director John Musker and Ron Clements attended a gala and sat next to the Queen of Denmark. They agonized over what would be her reaction to the reworking of the unhappy ending in this great Danish work, but the Queen's reaction was "It's beautiful! Hans Christian Andersen never could write a decent ending..."

1990- It was revealed that the Grammy winning pop group Milli Vanilli didn’t sing on their own album but lip synced to the music.