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March 12, 2007
March 12th, 2007

Birthdays: Jack Kerouac, Billy "Buckwheat "Thomas, Darryl Strawberry, Edward Albee, Eugene Ormandy, Gordon McCrae, Liza Minelli is 59, Courtenay Vance, James Taylor, Al Jareau, Maurice Evans, Barbara Feldon- agent 99 in Get Smart, DeWitt Bodeen- writer of the 1942 film Cat People.

To the Zoroastrians of ancient Persia this was the Festival of Marduk, the God of Storms and the Underworld.

1796- After a two-day honeymoon at her place, Malmaison, Napoleon leaves Josephine
to go conquer Italy. And don't forget to pick up the Sunday paper on the way back!

1877-In Philadelphia, Sam Wanamaker was unsure just what kind of retail he wanted to go into, he just wanted his business to be big. So he opened a large building with different types of goods sold in separate departments. Wanamakers became the first true Department Store.

1928- THE SAN FRANCISQUITO DAM DISASTER- The second worst disaster to hit California after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire. Following up his triumph bringing water to Southern California by aqueduct, William Mulholland had designed several dams and reservoirs north of the city in the Santa Clarita Valley. On this night the largest of them exploded from basic structural weakness and sent a wall of water 30 feet high across the rural towns of Santa Paula and Fillmore down to Oxnard and the Pacific. 400 people drowned in their beds without warning. Mulholland took full responsibility for the disaster and resigned all his city offices. "I envy the dead" , he said. He died a few years later. Today when driving around the Valencia-Newhall area you can still see huge boulders with steel retaining rods sticking out of them. They are not natural rocks but chunks of the dam carried miles by the torrent of water.

1932-Disney short "Mickey’s Revue" featuring Dippy Dog, now turned into a new character named "the Goof" or Goofy.

1945-THE WAR OF HOLLYWOOD BEGAN-Throughout the 1930’s and 40’s several national unions battled studios and each other to represent Hollywood film workers. The Teamsters, the FWPC, the Brotherhood of Electricians. By 1945 only two remained, the IATSE and the CSU.(International Alliance of Theater and Screen Engineers and the Conference of Studio Unions) IATSE had a reputation of gangsterism and making cozy deals with the studio heads. The CSU, a much more militant group with past ties to communist organizations, was headed by a charismatic scenery painter named Herb Sorrell who had helped win the Disney strike for the cartoonists in 1941. Sorrel called several citywide strikes that paralyzed Hollywood in 1945, 46,and 47. President Richard Walsh of IATSE fought them and rioting in front of the studios was commonplace.

1951- Former Disney assistant animator Hank Ketcham was trying his hand as a print cartoonist. He had some success selling gags to the New Yorker Magazine. His baby son Dennis was a precocious infant. One day after smearing the contents of his diaper around the house his mother exclaimed to Hank-“ Your son is a Menace!” That gave Ketcham an idea. Today the first Dennis the Menace comic strip was published.

1955- BIRD DIED- Jazz genius Charlie "Bird" Parker had a lifelong drug addiction. Since the death of his infant daughter earlier that year his drug use had spiraled out of control. He was sleeping on the couch in the NY apartment of the Baroness du Rothschild-Konigswarter, a jazz supporter. He awoke to watch t.v.. While laughing at a juggler on the Dorsey Brothers Variety Show he died. The coroner said death was by heart failure, cirrhosis and pneumonia. He estimated Parker’s age at 65. He was really 34. When his band heard of his death they paused between sets to all shoot up with heroin in his honor. "Seems silly now, come to think of it." Said one musician later.

1969- Mrs. Robinson –a song written by two young folk singers named Simon & Garfunkel, won a Grammy award.

1969- Paul and Linda McCartney married.

1992- Warren Beatty married Annette Benning.

2000- Pope John Paul II officially apologized on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church for the Crusades, The Inquisition, 2000 years of Anti-Semetic persecution, the Fires of Smithfield, Bloody Mary, burning Jan Hus and Giordano Bruno at the stake, Silencing Galileo and Copernicus, the Thirty Years War, The forced conversions of indigenous peoples, ignoring the Holocaust, uhh. Did I leave anything out? Comedian John Stewart said Judaism officially apologized for the Barbara Streisand movie "Yentl."


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