Birthdays: Meriwether Lewis ,Austrian Emperor Franz Josef II, Leo Slezak Shelly Winters, Caspar Weinburger, Roberto Clemente, Rafer Johnson, Enoch Light, Coco Channel, Roman Polanski, Patrick Swayze, Madeleine Stowe, Christian Slater, Edward Norton, Martin Mull,

Robert Redford, born Charles Robert Redford Jr, another actor who at one time wanted to be an animator, is 71
fame and Oscars are okay, but what I really wanted to do is make inbetweens on Ickle Meets Pickle!

Congratulations to former Disney animator Doug Lefler who has joined the Tim Burton club of Animators who become live action directors. His first big movie- THE LAST LEGION with Colin Firth and Ben Kingsley, opens this weekend. Can you think of other animators who are now directing live action?

325-a.d. Today is the Feast of Saint Helena. A Roman innkeeper's daughter in Eboracum- modern York England. There she happened to catch the roving eye of General Constantius Chlorus. They married and their son Constantine later made himself Caesar and made Christianity the official religion of the Roman World. It's debatable exactly when she was baptized, but she undoubtedly had a great influence on her son's decision. She was also instrumental in researching and defining the Christian holy sites in Jerusalem. She started the Christian fascination with holy relics.

1503-Pope Alexander VI the Borgia died. Some say he died of malaria , others that he poisoned himself accidentally while trying to poison someone else. The Borgia's enemies then take over the Vatican and end Caesar & Lucretia Borgia's reign of terror. The Pope had had seven children and at the time was sleeping with 16 year old Giulia Farnese whom he had painted as the Virgin Mary. People said the Alexander had sold his soul to the devil because at his death an ape appeared on his windowsill and water boiled in his mouth. Hmmm- proof enough for me. His 300 lb. corpse was so swollen with corruption that it had to be pounded into it's coffin with wooden wine corking mallets.

1573- In a vain attempt to cement a peace between French Catholics and Protestants, old Queen Mother Catherine De Medici married her daughter Margot to the Protestant Prince Henry of Navarre. Paris filled with Protestants and Catholics for the wedding. Street fighting and massacre broke out soon after. Henry survived and eventually became King Henry IV. Surprisingly, although Margot was dazzlingly beautiful and Henry was one of the horniest princes in Christendom, they didn’t get it on with each other. They kept separate courts and lovers, stayed friends and divorced amicably in 1605.

1896- 200 outlaws gather at Hole-In-The-Wall to form the "Wild Bunch".They never went all at the same time to a heist, it was more like a gunfighters guild. I wonder what the dues were?

1919- Tennessee becomes the last state needed to ratify the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution giving women the vote. The legislature was deadlocked but the tie was broken by one state senator who changed his mind. He wanted to please his mother.

1937- The Toyota Automobile Company was established as an offshoot of the Toyoda Motorized Loom Works. They changed the name Toyoda to Toyota because a Shinto priest told them the name would be luckier.

1939- The movie the Wizard of Oz released and made a star of Judy Garland. Frank Morgan, ther actor playing the Wizard, needed to wear a shabby old coat so a studio costume designer went through some L.A. thrift stores until she found the good candidate. When Morgan looked in the lining he discovered the coat was previously owned by L.Frank Baum, writer of the Oz stories. Morgan was first president of the Screen Actor's Guild, but stepped down when he was considered 'too left' to work with the Roosevelt administration. Lyricist Yip Harburg ( Somewhere over the Rainbow ) was later blacklisted as a communist. "And yer little dog ,too!!"

1950- Battle of the Bowling Alley- The US and South Korean Armies pushed up against the Pusan Perimeter score their first victory against North Korean regulars. It got it’s name because the North Korean tanks bottled up into narrow defiles by the land made excellent targets for waiting anti-tank artillery, bazooka and aircraft. Eyewitnesses said it looked like a “Bowling Alley in Hell.”

1953- The first MacDonalds Franchise restaurant opened in Downey California.

1956- Actress Vivien Leigh suffered a mental breakdown after a miscarriage.

1958 - "Lolita," by Vladimir Nabokov, published. The novel was rejected by four publishers before Putnams picked it up. It became a best seller and allowed Nabokov to quit teaching and focus on writing.

1958 - TV game show scandal investigation starts. Allegations that popular quiz shows like 21 were rigged turned out to be true.

1962 - Peter, Paul & Mary release their 1st hit "If I Had a Hammer"

1966- The Ice Slurpee was invented by two Dallas engineers for a failing Oklahoma ice cream store.

1977- The Xerox Company decided not to seriously market the Alto, the pioneering personal computer that had a graphic window interface and mouse long before anyone else. Xerox decided to stick with copying machines and disbanded their Palo Alto development team Xerox PARC. Most of their breakthroughs wound up in other computers like the Macintosh II and the IBM PC.

1977- The rock band the Police make their debut in a Birmingham nightclub. The lead singer Gordon Sumner started to get the nickname Sting from the black and yellow shirt he habitually wore.

1986 - John Tesh's first appearance on Entertainment Tonight.

1989- Publishing Tycoon Malcom Forbes flies 800 guests to Tangiers to celebrate his birthday. His birthday party cost $2 million. The soiree' comes to symbolize 1980's wealthy excess.

1999- TV psychic Kriswell predicted this date would be the End of the World.