Question: What is the origin of the term- A White Elephant?

Yesterday’s Trivia Question answered below: In Alfred Hitchcock’s 1954 film Rear Window, one of the people James Stewart spies on is in animation. Who is it?
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History for 12/7/2006
Birthdays: Willa Cather, Larry Bird, Piero Mascagni, Madame Tussaud-1761, Tom Waits, Johnny Bench, Louis Prima, Ted Knight –real name Wladsyslaw Konopka, Victor Kiam II, Noam Chomsky, Ellen Burstyn-real name Edna Mae Gilhooley, Eli Wallach, Harry Chapin,
Clarence Nash the voice of Donald Duck

43 B.C.- Marcus Tullius Cicero executed. The great orator/writer was a declared enemy of Julius Caesar, yet Caesar preferred to ignore him. After Caesar’ murder at the Ides of March Marc Anthony and Augustus were not tso forgiving, They drew up lists of all those to be aced and the old philosopher's name was at the top. He tried to flee by sea but got so seasick he went back to his estate. The death squad caught him trying to flee again and when he saw it was no use he bared his neck to the soldiers. Gaius Pompilius Linus, the centurion who slew him had been successfully defended by Cicero in the law courts. He brought Cicero’s head and hands to Mark Anthony who happily nailed them to the speakers rostrum in the Forum. Many years later When Augustus was an old man he caught his grandson reading Cicero’s writings. Augustus paused to read some verses, sighed and said:”A learned man, and a patriot.”

185AD- Emperor LoYang wrote of seeing a bright star that was probably a supernova.

1671- In London two scientists- Nehemiah Grew and Italian Marcello Malpighi presented their findings on plants that established the Science of Botany. That plants derive nutrients from the soil and grow from increased exposure to light and water and not because they are urged to grow by a “Vegetable Soul”. That they cannot grow in a vacuum. That stamens, pistils and pollen are sexual organs and the veins of a leaf function much like the veins and arteries of humans. Malpighi later went on to human anatomy and discovered the capillaries and the human tastebuds.

1775- A lieutenants’ commission in the new U.S. Navy was granted to a young Scotsman named Paul Jones, who sometimes called himself John Paul and we know as John Paul Jones. When Abigail Adams met him she was surprised at his small stature :” I could wrap him in wool and carry him in my pocket.” She said. He had been a prospering merchant captain until he stabbed a rowdy shipmate in Tobago and fled his ship. He wandered about looking for employment for 20 months until the American Revolution gave him a new identity. No one is sure why he adopted the surname Jones. Despite John Paul Jones’ successes against the British Navy the closed clique of New England Yankee privateers never quite trusted little Scotsman with the high voice, bad temper and big ego.

1869- The Davis County Savings Bank in Gallatin Missouri was robbed by some Clay County boys who began to get a reputation – Jesse James and Frank James. The bank manager Capt. Sheely was shot dead by another gang member Ed Anderson. Anderson had mistook him for a Yankee who had killed his brother Bloody Bill Anderson during the Civil War. While attempting to escape Anderson's horse bucked and dragged him 40 feet by a stirrup until he got loose.

1919- “Blind Husbands” premiered, the first film by Erich Von Stroheim. Originally a Viennese hat salesman, Stroheim cultivated his Germanic aristocratic image on the silver screen. The premiere issue of the New Yorker in 1923 glibly noted how “Mr Stroheim has grown a very stylish “Von” in the Southern California Sun”.

1925- Olympic swimmer Johnny Weissmuller set a world record in the 150 meter freestyle, one minute 25 and 2/5th seconds. He later went to Hollywood and was the star of the Tarzan movies.

1934- Aviator Wiley Post discovered the upper atmosphere air current called the Jet Stream.

1941-THE ATTACK ON PEARL HARBOR- At dawn on a quiet Sunday morning 360 Japanese planes surprise attack and sink most of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, causing 4,000 casualties. Simultaneous attacks are made on British and Dutch military posts in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore. The White House butler recalled a general telling President Franklin Roosevelt-“They got the whole G*ddamn navy!”
Japan had begun her previous foreign wars with surprise attacks: against China in 1891 and Russia in 1905. It had it's philosophical roots in the Emai school of Samurai, that of dealing a death stroke with one decisive blow. Americans were enraged by the "Day of Infamy" sneak attack, the US government was bracing for some kind of attack since July when FDR embargoed Japan’s steel and oil imports, but they couldn’t be sure where. Most experts expected a strike at Manila. Lt. William Higgins was awakened by the radar post on Diamond Head reporting hundreds of unknown planes headed towards them. His famous reply:" Well.....don't worry about it.."
The plan was masterminded by Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, Harvard class of 1926. He was anti-war and knew a war with America was a long shot. When he heard that the surprise was complete but delivered before the war declaration in Washington he said:" All I fear we have done is awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with terrible resolve." The fact that Japan had sent a special envoy to Washington named Kurusu to negotiate the crisis even while preparing this attack was even more maddening to Americans.
That evening President Franklin Roosevelt held an emergency cabinet meeting. Tearful crowds pressed against the fences of the White House and sang God Bless America and My Country Tis of Thee in the cold night air.

1945- The microwave oven patented.

1964- Height of student uprising at Berkeley College in California. Students won more liberalized curriculum and open teaching and created the first major student protest of the tumultuous 1960's and earned Berkely the national reputation of the the nations most radicalized school. The Oakland police were later nicknamed the Blue Meanies after the villains in the Beatles cartoon Yellow Submarine.

1974- The disco song “Kung Fu Fighting” by Carl Douglas hit #1 in the pop charts.

1995- The Galileo space probe reached an orbit around Jupiter.
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Today’s Trivia Question: In Alfred Hitchcock’s film Rear Window, one of the people James Stewart spies on is an animator. Who is it?

Answer- In the apartment on the right of Jimmy Stewart is the man at the piano called the songwriter. He is Ross Bagdassarian, aka David Seville, who created Alvin and the Chipmunks