Birthdays-Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Kaiser Wilhelm II, Charles Dodgson-better known as Lewis Carroll, Eduard Lalo, William Randolph Hearst, Samuel Gompers, Jerome Kern, Skitch Henderson, Donna Reed, Bridgette Fonda, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Kate Wolf, Ross Bagdasarian a.k.a. David Seville- creator of Alvin and the Chipmunks, James Cromwell is 84, Mimi Rogers, Keith Olbermann, Frank Miller is 67, Patton Oswalt is 55
1307- Dante Alighieri got kicked out of Florence. Being exiled from politics left his mind free to concentrate on his poetry, like writing the Divine Comedy.
1888- The first magazine published of the National Geographic Society.
1900- In the Grand Hotel de Milan Opera composer Giuseppi Verdi died. He was 87. On his explicit instructions, no music was played at his funeral.
1910- Plumber Thomas Crapper died, the inventor of the indoor flush toilet. Besides making going more comfortable, his systems of valves and vents prevented waste odors and germs from re-entering the home. This did a lot to combat disease in the 19th century. When American troops were in Britain during WWI, they kept seeing his name on all the toilets, so they started calling them The Crapper.
1918- Warner Bros. Pictures incorporated. The Brothers Warner (originally Wonkolasser)- Sam Albert, Harry and Jack were the sons of Jewish immigrants who had moved from Poland in 1882 and after some time in Canada, set up a bicycle repair shop in Ohio. In 1903 Albert and Harry bought a movie theater and began showing flickers. After their move to Hollywood, their first movie was Five Years in Germany. Throughout the 1920’s their little studio survived making pictures with dog star Rin Tin Tin. They called him Their Little Mortgage Lifter, because the profits from his pictures paid their bills. Later they bought Vitagraph from animator James Stewart Blackton, and gambled on the new Sound technology. When they made The Jazz Singer with Jolson, Warner Bros became a major studio.
1918- The first Tarzan movie premiered. A silent film, the first Tarzan was named Elmo Lincoln.
100th Anniv 1925- IDITEROD- THE SERUM RUN BEGAN- At this time Nome Alaska was totally depended on supplies brought by sled dog teams. When a serious outbreak of diphtheria threatened to become a major epidemic, Alaska had only two airplanes, and they were boxed up for the winter. Governor Scott C. Bone decided to get the vaccination serum to Nome by a relay of twenty mushers in the depth of winter, temperatures averaging around -40 degrees Fahrenheit. This day the serum arrived by train at Nenana sealed in a metal cylinder wrapped in furs, and was loaded onto the first dog sled. Wild Bill Shannon called out to his malamutes and mushed down the frozen Tanana River into history. The lead dog was named Balto. It normally took a dog sled 20 days to cover the 650 miles, but these men did it in 5 days, 7 hours, limiting the epidemic to only 5 deaths.
The Iditarod dog race runs in memory of this.
1926- Scotsman John Logie Baird demonstrated his televiser system- the first true television image. The image was small, and resolution too weak and fuzzy to yet be more than a scientific curiosity. More potential was seen in American Philo Farnsworth’s system of radio-transmitted scan line images.
1927- Charlie Chaplin’s short comedy The Circus premiered.
1944- WAS WALT A RED? Walt Disney donated money and may have attended a tribute to cartoonist Art Young in New York who had died three weeks before. Art Young was a political lefty and a close friend of John Reed and Louise Bryant, founders of the American Communist Party. The F.B.I. noted the memorial to Young was sponsored by the socialist newspaper The New Masses and other attendees included progressives like Paul Robeson, Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway and Carl Sandburg.
Walt was already a founding member of the Hollywood Society for the Preservation of American Ideals, a group of conservative Hollywood celebrities meant to counteract the rampant Hollywood Liberals. Disney later became an F.B.I. informant, but like Reagan, it may have been after the F.B.I. reminded him of his attendance at this little soiree'....
1945- Bob Clampett’s short
Draftee Daffy.
1948- The Wireway Company announced the first tape recorder for sale using the new magnetic tape. It cost $150.
1961- The TV show Sing-a-Long with Mitch, premiered. Mitch Miller was a classical musician who had once played in the orchestra that premiered Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. Here he created a hit show where he encouraged people to sing with the TV as it was playing. He was famous for saying rock & roll was a passing fad and would soon be gone.
1961- The Twilight Zone episode, “The Invaders” Agnes Moorhead played an old recluse tormented by little aliens, who turn out to be American astronauts from Earth. Their flying saucer was the one from the 1954 movie Forbidden Planet recycled.
1984- HELP ME TITO! During the filming of a Pepsi commercial at LA’s Shrine Auditorium, a magnesium flash ignited singer Michael Jackson’s Jeri curl hair gel causing him 3rd degree burns on his scalp.
1994- The very first Marc Davis Lecture given at the Motion Picture Academy in Beverly Hills. Marc and Alice established a fund to sponsor an annual talk about the art and development of animation. Marc gave this first talk himself.
1997- First day shooting on the Cohen Bros. film The Big Lebowski- The Dude Abides.
