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NOVEMBER 17TH, 2010 Weds..
November 17th, 2010

Question: What is a zephyr?

Question: How many Oscars did Alfred Hitchcock win?
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History for 11/17/2010
Birthdays: Roman Emperor Vespasian 9 A.D, Il Bronzino, August Ferdinand Mobius-1790 the inventor of the Mobius Strip. General Bernard Montgomery, Rock Hudson, Danny DeVito, Peter Cook, Lorne Michaels, Isamu Noguchi, Lauren Hutton, Tom Seaver, Gordon Lightfoot, Les Clark, Lee Strassberg, Shelby Foote, Sophie Marceau, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Martin Scorcese is 67

1796- Russian Czarina Catherine the Great died at 67 years old of a stroke on the toilet, not crushed by trying to copulate with a horse as some scandalous rumors alleged.

1800- Following President Adams from their cozy homes in Philadelphia, Congress sulkily convenes for the first time in the half-finished Congress in the new Federal City. It was already being called Washington City D.C.. It was still mostly a damp muddy Virginia swamp. The only buildings up in operation were Congress, the Presidents Mansion and Conrads Tavern. Many complained that city planners Pierre L’Enfant and Benjamin Banocker had made the main avenues too big, that there will never be enough carriages and wagons to fill these roads. This first Congressional session couldn’t accomplish much, because there were not enough members present to make a quorum.

1853- San Francisco passed a law to put up street signs at the intersections of major streets.

1858- A Pennsylvania businessman named William Larimer founded a new town at the foot of the Rockies called Denver.

1869- The Suez Canal opened. The opera "Aida" was commissioned to be premiered for this occasion but Verdi missed his deadline by ten years.

1891- Polish pianist Ignaz Paderewski made his American debut at Carnegie Hall. Paderewski created the cliché image of the temperamental classical music master with long flowing hair combed straight back. Classical music became known as longhair music.

1926- The Chicago Black Hawks played their first game, beating the Toronto St. Pats 4-1.

1934- LBJ marries LadyBird . For you born after the 60's, President Lyndon Baines Johnson married Claudia Alta Taylor whom he nicknamed LadyBird Johnson. Their daughters were LucyBird and LindaBird, so everyone in the family had the initials LBJ.

1941- Ernst Udet was a top World War One flying ace who was convinced by Herman Goring into helping build the Nazis Luftwaffe. He was responsible for developing the Stuka dive bomber and it’s screaming vertical attack. But his conscience was troubled. One of the old First War Gallant Knights of the Air, he was depressed by the terror bombing of civilians and genocide his inventions were being used for. Sinking into drink and drugs, he finally shot himself. His last dinner that night he spoke of his adventures as a young ace with Von Richtofen the Red Baron, interspersing it with “Ahh, we were decent men then…”

1941- US ambassador to Tokyo Joseph Grew cabled Washington DC that he had heard disturbing rumors that the Japanese military was planning an attack on Pearl Harbor.

1959- The DeBeers mining company of South Africa announced the invention of synthetic diamonds.

1968- THE HEIDI GAME- NBC was broadcasting a football game between the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. The game was running late and would interfere with the broadcast of the movie "Heidi". The network heads felt with the Jets leading 32-29 with 65 seconds left, why disappoint the kiddies? So they pre-empted the rest of the game to start the movie. Oakland won 43-32 in a miracle comeback scoring the final touchdown in the final nine seconds. The embarrassed programmers had to answer nationwide firestorm of complaints from outraged football fans. So to this day on television no matter how dull a football game is, it is seen to its completion.

1973- In a television address to the nation about the expanding Watergate Scandal, President Richard Nixon uttered the famous phrase:” People want to know if their president is a crook, well, I am not a crook!”

1978- Our world was rocked by a disturbance in The Force more calamitous than the destruction of Alderon, It was "The Star Wars Holiday Special", a two-hour variety show on CBS, with Harrison Ford, Beatrice Arthur and Nelvana’s animated cartoon.

1988- Mrs. Benazir Bhutto elected Prime Minister of Pakistan.

1989- Don Bluth's animated film "All Dogs Go to Heaven." premiered. When the film premiered in London in Leicester Square the opening night tickets were distributed with a printing error on them, the last letter of the film's title was dropped off. So the title read “All Dogs Go to Heave.”

1993- US Congress voted for the free trade, job-killing bill called NAFTA.

1994- The Sony Corporation posted a $2.7 billion dollar loss from it’s first year owning a Hollywood movie studio. Yet despite a lot of industry jokes ( “What’s the difference between Sony Pictures and the Titanic?-answer: The Titanic had entertainment.”) By 1996 the studio was on top with blockbusters like “Men in Black”
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Question: director How many Oscars did Alfred Hitchcock win?

Answer: None. He was awarded the Irving Thallberg special Oscar in 1967.


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