Animation Fun Facts March 6, 2013

Birthdays: Michaelangelo Buonnarotti, Cyrano De Bergerac, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Phil Sheridan, Lou Costello, Ivan Boesky, Ring Lardner, Gabriele Garcia-Marquez, Valentina Tereschkova the first woman in space, Tom Arnold, Kiri Te Kanawa, Rob Reiner is 66, Alan Greenspan, DC Mayor Marion Barry, Stephen Schwartz is 65, Ed McMahon, Will Eisner, Shaquille O’Neal is 41 1921- The film Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse premiered. The first Hollywood film to earn over one million dollars, and it made a major star out of Rudolf Valentino.. 1927- Fritz Lang’s film Metropolis opened in the US. 1978- Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt was shot and crippled by a lunatic. 1979- The film The China Syndrome premiered. It was about an accident at an American nuclear power plant.. Three weeks later the real Three Mile Island accident occurred, boosting the box office. " It's spooky, it's enough to make you religious" said star Michael Douglas. 1981- CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite retired. Dan Rather succeeded him after CBS learned ABC was offering Rather big bux to jump networks. Roger Mudd, who was thought to be the real successor to Cronkite, left the network to anchor the History Channel. Dan Rather was the CBS anchor until 2004. 1989- Time Inc. merged with Warner Communications to become Time Warner, the largest media conglomerate in the world. They were bought by AOL in 2000 but AOL proved to be dead weight and they resumed control as TimeWarner in 2003. In 2013, Time Warner announced they were spinning off Time Inc. as a separate company. 1998- The Big Lebowski opened in theaters. The Dude Abides…