tom sito's animation almanac for march 20, 2025

 Question: What is cloisonne’?

 

Yesterday’s Question answered below: What did it mean to” be sent up the river?”

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History for 3/20/2025

Birthday: Roman poet Ovid 43BC, Napoleon’s son Napoleon II "l'Aiglon" The eaglet, Henryk Ibsen, Lauritz Melchior, Ray Goulding, Mr. Rogers, Bobby Orr, B.F. Skinner, Pat Riley, Sir Michael Redgrave, Edgar Buchanan, Holly Hunter is 69, William Hurt, Sheldon "Spike" Lee is 68, Carl Reiner, David Thewlis is 62, Hal Linden is 94, Chris Wedge is 68

 

Happy Spring!

 

 

1800- Alessandro Volta announced he had invented the electric battery.

 

 

1841- Edgar Allen Poe's The Murder's in the Rue Morgue first published in Graham’s Magazine. Called the first true detective novel. Poe referred to it as one of his "tales of ratiocination".

 Poe's detective C. Auguste Dupin was inspired by a real French sleuth named Jules Vinquoc who used disguises and scientific technique to solve crimes the Paris police could not solve. Dupin was the inspiration for Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot.

 

1852- Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" first published. It sold one million copies within six months. Based on the story of escaped slave Josiah Henson, the book was the first to treat the horrors of slavery directly. It portrayed slave families not as dumb brutes or happy minstrels but victimized human beings. Because of this book, Yankee soldiers referred to Southerners as women-whippers, and baby sellers. Mrs. Stowe said modestly: “I didn’t write it, God did. I just took dictation.” When she visited the White House President Lincoln greeted her with, “So here’s the little lady who started the big war.”

 

1899- In Sing-Sing prison Martha Place becomes the first woman in the U.S. to be electrocuted. She had killed her stepdaughter. Because Sing-Sing Prison in Ossining New York was situated up the Hudson River from New York City, the phrase to be” sent up the river” as meaning going to jail, became popular.

 

1903- Henri Matisse first exhibited at the Salon des Independents in Paris.

 

1931- Cantors Kosher deli opened in the Fairfax neighborhood of Los Angeles.

 

1932- The German airship Graff Zeppelin began a regular passenger service between -Cologne Germany to Buenos Aires Argentina.

 

 

1943-MGM's "Dumb Hounded" the first Droopy Cartoon.

 

 

1969-John Lennon married Yoko Ono on the Rock of Gibraltar.

 

1985- Libby Riddles became the first woman to win the Alaskan Iditarod dog-sled race. She would win it a total of four times.

 

1987- The U.S. food and drug administration finally approved AZT for use in treating the effects of AIDS. 

 

1991- In 1955 Walt Disney recorded Peggy Lee to sing “He’s a Tramp” for the film Lady and the Tramp. For that she was paid $3,500. In 1991, a judge ordered The Walt Disney Company to pay Peggy Lee $3.8 million for the songs she wrote and performed in the film. This additional income was from videocassette sales for a re-issue of the soundtrack. 

 

1992- Basic Instinct opened. Noir thriller directed by Paul Verhoeven, starring Sharon Stone, and Michael Douglas.

 

1999- Legoland opened in Carlsbad Cal.