TOM SITOS ANIMATION ALMANAC FOR JUNE 10,2024

Birthdays: Charles James Stuart “The Old Pretender”, Yamaoka Tesshu (1832- Japanese swordsman), Judy Garland, Saul Bellow, Hattie McDaniel, Frederick Loew (of Lerner & Loew), Howlin’ Wolf, Maurice Sendak, animator Dorse Lanpher, animator Harald Sieperman, Gina Gershon is 62, Leilee Sobieski is 41, Jean Triplehorn is 61, Jurgen Prochnow, Elizabeth Hurley is 58, the late Prince Phillip Duke of Edinburgh. 

1776- The great English actor David Garrick went on stage for the last time, playing in a benefit for The Decayed Actor’s Fund.

1847 –The Chicago Tribune begins publishing

1860- The Comstock Lode- Near Virginia City Nevada, Old Pancake McGaughlin hit a vein of silver so big and pure that it will eventually yield $300 million dollars worth of ore and make millionaires of men like William Randolph Hearst's father.

1865- Wagners opera Tristan und Isolde premiered in Munich. 

1902 - Patent for the window envelope granted to H F Callahan.

1910- The first Krazy Kat comic strip- Cartoonist George Herriman was doing a strip for Hearst called "The Family Upstairs". He was amused at the idea of a friendship between a cat and a mouse. So, Herriman put them in the corner playing marbles while the family quarreled. First an office boy and later editor Arthur Brisbane suggested they have their own strip. The immortality of the denizens of Coconino County follows, loved by the likes of H.L. Mencken, e.e.cummings, and Jacques Kerouac. Krazy herself explains:" It's wot's behind me that I am."

1921- Babe Ruth became top HR champ with #120 runs passing then champ Gavy Cravath. But the Bambino was just getting warmed up.  

1926- Artist Antonio Gaudi was run over by a streetcar while crossing in front of his famous cathedral in Barcelona. Construction begun in 1886, The Cathedral Sagrada Familia is still scheduled for completion in 2026.

1939 - Barney Bear, cartoon character by MGM, debuted..

1944- A USO troop was entertaining soldiers in Normandy from the back of a truck but they lacked a piano player. They called out to the G.I. audience if anyone could play. A shy cattle rancher’s son from Modesto California came up and played. He did so well his colonel ordered him out of the line and told him to form his own G.I. band. Dave Brubeck’s jazz career began.

1947- Sweden’s Saab motorcar company introduced its first model car. Saab in neutral Sweden had made planes and tanks for World War Two, but after the war was over, they recognized that combat was not a growth industry and they switched to autos.

1957- “Tom Terrific and Manfred the Wonder Dog” cartoon debuted on the Captain Kangaroo show.

1967- A week after finishing shooting the film Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Spencer Tracy sat in his kitchen one morning making himself a cup of coffee. He then had a heart attack and fell over stone dead. He was 67. His partner Katherine Hepburn found his body. She was so upset she was not able to watch the movie Guess Who’s Coming for years after..

1995-110,000 people jam Central Park in New York to see Disney's Pocahontas, up to then the largest audience ever to attend an animated movie premiere.