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August 17th, 2007 friday
August 17th, 2007

Birthdays: Davy Crocket, Mae West, Marcus Garvey, Sam Goldwyn- original name Schmuel Gelbfisz, then Sam Goldfish, Monte Wooley, Maureen O’Hara, Boog Powell, Belinda Carlisle, Guillermo Vilas, V.S. Naipul, Donnie Wahlberg, Sean Penn, Robert DeNiro is 64

1661- THE PARTY. Armand Fouquet, the first minister of Louis XIV (the Sun King) decided to throw the ultimate party and invite his royal master. Fouquet's new chateau Vaux leVicomte was so lavish, the dinner for 6000 guests so exquisite, the gardens so beautiful and the entertainment was provided by the playwright Moliere. Everything was so all around superior to anything anyone had done that the King responded by having Fouquet relieved of his offices and thrown in the Bastille. It seems King Louis didn't like being upstaged by his servants. Fouquet's immodest ambitions were no help either, his motto was "To what heights may I aspire?" Louis wanted to arrest him on the spot, but his mother said to do so would spoil a really nice party. So he waited two weeks then sent his chief of Musketeers Comte D’Artangnan to arrest Fouquet, The king's new minister Colbert was much more modest in his entertainments.


1908- D.W. Griffith signed a contract to begin directing movies for Biograph Pictures. He was paid $50 dollars a week plus royalties.

1941-Walt Disney and his artists leave on a goodwill tour of South America, underwritten by a $70,000 government grant. President Franklin Roosevelt was worried that some South American countries might be sympathetic to Nazis forcing the U.S. to worry about her backdoor. Argentine president Juan Peron wanted to build a statue to Mussolini in Buenos Aires and had Wermacht advisors for his army- to this day the Chilean and Brazilian army wears feldgrau -German field grey and goosestep marches. So FDR sent Nelson Rockefeller to give the Latin American countries whatever they wanted to keep them out of the world war. Among other things they wanted Donald Duck. It also helped settle the Disney animators strike at home, because without Walt boiling over Roy could make a deal in private. The Three Caballeros and Saludos Amigos result.

1962- The Beatles replaced drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr.

1969- The closing day of the Woodstock Rock Concert, Three Days of Peace and Music. Jimmy Hendrix did his now famous rendition of the Star Spangled Banner.

1984- The Walt Disney Company informed it’s chairman Ron Miller that they wanted his resignation. Disney had fallen to 14th in film box office by then. Miller was Walt Disney's son-in-law and was once a professional football player. Within two years of Michael Eisner taking power Disney was number one.

1985-The Hormel Meat Packing Strike, severely threatening the worlds supply of SPAM.

1992- Famed film director Woody Allen admits he is having an affair with Soon Yi Previn, the adopted daughter of his long time lover Mia Farrow. He is 60 and she is 21. But as the unrepentant Allen states: “The Heart wants what it wants.”


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