Quiz: What is an eminence grise?
Yesterday’s Quiz Answered Below: Good King Wenceslas looked out, on the Feast of Stephen.” Who the heck is King Wenceslas, and what has he have to do with Christmas?
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History for 12/18/2022
Birthdays: Antonio Stradivari, Karl Maria Von Weber, Ty Cobb, George Stevens, Ozzie Davis, Diane Disney-Miller, Anita O’Day, Paul Klee, Betty Grable, Willy Brandt, Keith Richards is 80, Leonard Maltin is 72, Alyssia Sanchez-Vaccario, Ray Liotta, Katie Holmes is 44, Brad Pitt is 58, Steven Spielberg is 76, Billy Ellis is 21.
HAPPY HANNUKAH! - Tonight begins the Hebrew Festival of Lights commemorating the victories in 164BCE of the priest-general Judas Maccabeus (Maccabeus means the Hammer) against the Syrian Greeks. When the re-lit lamp in the purified Temple of Solomon burned for eight days on one day’s oil. Hanukah or Chanukah means Rededication.
1812- The first volume of stories Children’s and Household Tales by the Brothers Grimm came out. The world learns of Rapunzel, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
1917- Universum-Film AG (UFA) was founded as a consolidation of private film companies in Berlin.
1919- in France, composer Cole Porter married divorcee Linda Thomas. They stayed together all their long lives even though she knew that he preferred male companions.
1937- Mae West does a comedy routine on national broadcast radio with Don Ameche about Adam & Eve that was considered so suggestive CBS banned her from their network.
1956- TV Game show To Tell the Truth made its debut. Bud Collyier hosting, and panelists like Kitty Carlisle, Bennett Cerf, Orson Bean and Dorothy Kilgallen as panelists.
1961-" In the Jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps to-night… a winoweh, etc. " this song by the Tokens goes to #1 in pop charts.
1962- UPA’s Mr Magoo’s Christmas Carol directed by Abe Levitow, premiered on NBC. Songs by Jules Styne, who went on to write musicals like Funny Girl.
1964- DePatie-Frelengs The Pink Phink, the first Pink Panther cartoon short.
1966- Chuck Jones 'How the Grinch Stole Christmas' premiered.
1975- Rod Stewart announced he was leaving the band Faces, for a solo singing career.
1978- SAG strikes Hollywood again for residuals. (again...)
1983- The film of Jean Shephard’s A Christmas Story opened to tepid reviews and weak box office, but on cable and video sales it became an annual holiday classic. On Christmas Day many TV stations play it continually 24 hours straight.
1984- Christopher Guest married Jamie Lee Curtis at Rob Reiner’s house .
1984- Pixar’s first short The Adventures of Andre and Wally-B released in theaters. Directed by Alvy Ray Smith and animated by John Lasseter.
1997- Comedian Chris Farley was found dead in his Chicago apartment in the John Hancock Tower, surrounded by empty food containers and porn magazines. The chubby 31-year-old had been partying for 17 straight hours doing cocaine, heroin, vodka and crystal-meth. His last words were to an exhausted prostitute:" Please don’t leave me.” Farley idolized the late John Belushi, who had also died of drugs and hard living at age 31. One writer recalled a drunken Farley once turned to him and asked:" Do you think Belushi is in heaven?"
1988- Don Bluth’s The Land Before Time opened.
1998- Dreamworks the “Prince of Egypt”, opened wide in theatres.
2015- Star Wars VII, The Force Awakens opened. J.J. Abrams reboot of the old Star Wars franchise became a box office phenomenon. It earned $247 million in its opening weekend, and ended way over a billion and a half dollars.
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