Animation Fun Facts for July 4, 2013

Birthdays: Jean Pierre Blanchard the balloonist-1753, George M. Cohan, Stephen Foster, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Calvin Coolidge, Rube Goldberg, Louis Armstrong, Edward Walker the inventor of the Lava Lamp, Mayer Lansky, Tokyo Rose, Louis B. Mayer, George Murphy, Emerson Boozer, Neil Simon, Mitch Miller, Eve Marie Saint is 88, Gina Lollabrigida is 86, George Steinbrenner, Ann Landers, Ron Kovic, Geraldo Rivera, Victoria Abril, Pam Shriver, Rene Laloux, Gloria Stuart 1883- Buffalo Bill staged his first Wild West Show in North Platte Nebraska. Bill and his partners took the show all over the US and played for the crowned heads of Europe until 1916.. 1905- Los Angeles developer Abbott Kinney had broke with his partners over the Santa Monica Pleasure Pier. He moved down the coast to some marshy wetlands and built a new community with canals, lagoons and gondolas. VENICE California opened this day. In 1925 the City of LA got rid of most of the canals and gondolas. Venice went on to be a seaside mecca for Beatniks, Hippies and weightlifters like young Arnold Schwarzenegger. 1914- First day of filming on D.W. Griffith’s “The Birth of an Nation.” 1926- Hungarian film director Mihaly Kertesz arrived in Hollywood. He changed his name to the more manageable Michael Curtiz and directed great classic films like Captain Blood and Casablanca. His brother Andre Kertesz lived in New York and became a famous photographer. 1956- MIT’s TX-1 Whirlwind computer added a keyboard to enter data. First computer keyboard.