Quite possibly the biggest fan of National Cookie Day (Photo by Peter Taylor) The next few days will take on a musical flavor. On Monday, jazz pianist Dave Brubeck turns 90, an event which will be celebrated with a new Clint Eastwood-produced documentary that will premiere on TCM. Brubeck (with saxophonist Paul Desmond) pioneered the cool West Coast jazz of the 1950s with such tunes as "Take Five" and "Blue Rondo à la Turk." He still tours regularly and his playing is as strong as ever. In 2009, he was awarded a Kennedy Center Honor, and this Sunday, the latest batch of those awards will be given to country singer Merle Haggard, Broadway composer Jerry Herman, choreographer Bill T. Jones, rock legend Paul McCartney, and the one and only Oprah Winfrey. Someone who probably should have received a Kennedy Center Honor, but didn't, was lyricist Ira Gershwin, born December 6, 1896. Ira was the brother of composer George Gershwin, and together they wrote scores of classic tunes (a bare-bones list of which would include "I Got Rhythm" "The Man I Love," "They Can't Take That Away From Me," and "Someone to Watch Over Me") that have become enshrined in the Great American Songbook. The first lyricist to win a Pulitzer Prize (for 1931's "Of Thee I Sing"), he died in 1983. Friday will mark the 42nd anniversary of Elvis Presley's "'68 Comeback Special." "The King" had been domesticated by his Hollywood career, turning out one bland movie after another, but this TV special brought back the "dangerous" Elvis of the 1950s -- in black leather! -- and led to the Las Vegas appearances and concert tours that continued until his death. Some historical events of note on Sunday. In 1848, President James K. Polk triggered the Gold Rush of '49 by confirming that gold had been discovered in California, and in 1945, the so-called "Lost Squadron" disappeared when five U.S. Navy Avenger bombers carrying 14 flyers began a training mission from the Ft. Lauderdale Naval Air Station, from which they never returned. Perhaps they were swallowed by the Bermuda Triangle, or perhaps they were just practicing their stealthy ninja training. Given that Sunday is also the Day of the Ninja, we think that one explanation is as likely as the other. Saturday will bring some birthdays in the world of entertainment. Not only will it be the 49th birthdays of actresses Daryl Hannah and Julianne Moore, it will also be the 80th birthday of legendary French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard. Godard was at the center of the French "New Wave" that took cinema by storm in the 1950s. Its gritty, in-your-face techniques have influenced directors as diverse as Quentin Tarantino, Martin Scorsese, Robert Altman, Steven Soderbergh, Brian De Palma, and Oliver Stone. Like Brubeck, Godard is still working. His latest movie, "Film Socialisme" was released in France in May, and another film (about the Holocaust) is rumored to be on the way. A filmmaker who couldn't have been more different from Godard was Walt Disney, whose 109th birthday falls on Sunday. Given the distance between Godard's Marxism and Disney's conservatism, one can only wonder what the two of them thought of each other. Perhaps the brainiacs at the Encyclopedia Britannica could tell us, since Sunday is also the 242nd anniversary of the first publication of that know-it-all compendium. Four holidays to finish out the old week and begin the new. Friday is the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, this year dedicated to "mainstreaming disability in the Millennium." Sunday is International Volunteer Day, which recognizes volunteers for their efforts and increases public awareness of their contribution to society. Monday begins Handwashing Awareness Week, something that's always a good idea, (especially after using the bathroom). Handwashing helps prevent the spread of disease, and if you're celebrating National Cookie Day Saturday, you won't get dirt all over your delicious cookies. Suggested Sites... Dave Brubeck.com - still going strong. George and Ira Gershwin - 's wonderful. Kenndy Center Honors - celebrating the lives of great American artists. Ask a Ninja - go on. Ask. Mayo Clinic: Hand Washing Do's and Don't's - who knew it was so complicated?

Directory categories: Jazz Pianists, Songwriters, Paranormal Phenomena, Disabilities, Volunteerism

Archived under: 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 19th Century, Actors, Aging, American History, Animation, Anniversaries, Award Shows, Awards, Baking, Biographies, Birthdays, Books, Broadway, California, Celebrations, Celebrities, Childrens Health, Communism, Communists, Composers, Cookies, Cooking, Country Music, Dance, Directors, Disability, Disappearances, Disease, Disney, Eating, Elvis Presley, Entertainment, Europe, Events, Filmmaking, Food and Drink, France, Gold, Gold Rush, Health, History, Holidays, In Character, Issues and Causes, Jazz, Las Vegas, Men, Movies, Music, Music History, Musicals, Musicians, Mysteries, Mythology and Folklore, Ninjas, Nostalgia, Oprah, Paranormal, Performing Arts, Presidents, Rock and Roll, Singers, Songs, TV, The Beatles, The West, United States, Urban Legends, Weird Stuff, Women

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Darn right we're thankful for Mister Rogers. Wanna make somethin' out of it? Thanksgiving is, for better or worse, a holiday identified with abundance. It's only appropriate, then, that the week leading up to Turkey Day is chock-a-block with events, anniversaries, and just plain oddities. But what are we waiting for? Let's go! We begin Monday with a couple of icons of the 1930s. In 1899, composer Hoagy Carmichael was born. Though musically untrained, Carmichael became enamored of ragtime and jazz at an early age, and went on to write such standards as "Stardust," "Georgia On My Mind," "The Nearness of You," and "Heart and Soul." In 1980, Mae West died at the age of 87. West was an actress who specialized in a shocklingly overripe and aggressive sexuality - in fact, she was arrested in 1927 on morals charges for her Broadway play, "Sex." To her dying day, she insisted that she was as sexually alluring as ever, even starring as an octogenarian sex symbol in 1978's "Sextette." On the opposite end of the sexual spectrum was the gentle and avuncular Fred Rogers, who donated one of his "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" sweaters to the Smithsonian Institution on this date in 1984. There's no report on what happened to his sneakers. Perhaps they were stolen by one of the host of shady characters we'll note over the next two days. For example, Monday is the anniversary of the 1718 death in battle of Edward Teach - better known as the notorious pirate Blackbeard, who terrified the West Indies. If not Teach, perhaps the culprit was Henry McCarty (aka William Bonney), who terrorized the American West as the thieving Billy the Kid (born November 23, 1859). Or maybe it was William "Boss" Tweed, the uber-corrupt boss of Tammany Hall who ran New York City in the 1850s and '60s, and was arrested and returned to Manhattan in 1876 after fleeing to Europe. If one were of such a mind, one might see the death of Blackbeard or the jailing of Tweed as evolutionary "thinning of the herds;" an appropriate thought, since Monday is the 141st anniversary of  the publication of Charles Darwin's book, "On the Origin of Species." Darwin's ideas are pretty deep, and are best contemplated by either a Rhodes Scholar or a comics geek – both of whom are in luck Monday, as not only will the 2010 Rhodes Scholarships be announced, but (following a computer meltdown earlier this month), tickets for next summer's San Diego Comic-Con will go on sale. If history is any indication, they'll sell out within minutes, so you've probably already missed your chance. (Or you could have, if the computers hadn't crashed again.) If that's the case, you may want to salve your hurt feelings with some television, perhaps even sinking to watching tonight's premiere of "Skating with the Stars." (Because there's nothing we need more than another eccentric actress falling on the ice in another phony reality competition.) On a serious note, for those of us of a certain age, November 22 will always signify the 1963 death of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas. Forty-seven years later, most of us still remember where we were when we heard the news. Suggested Sites... Hoagy Carmichael - an American original. Treasures of American Television - hi ho! It's where Kermit the Frog ended up. Crime Library: Henry McCarty: "Billy the Kid" - the Tru(TV) history. San Diego Comic-Con - maybe you can still get a ticket. National Archives: JFK Assassination Records - official documents related to the case.

Directory categories: Thanksgiving Recipes, Songwriters, Piracy, Evolution, U.S. Presidents

Archived under: 18th Century, 1920s, 1930s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 19th Century, Actors, American History, Anniversaries, Assassinations, Awards, Birthdays, Books, California, Celebrities, Charles Darwin, Children´s TV, Comic Books, Comics, Composers, Contests, Conventions, Crime, Criminals, Dead Celebrities, Education, Events, Evolution, History, In Character, Legal Cases, Murder, Museums, Music, Music History, New York, Old West, Pirates, Presidents, Reality TV, Science, Sex and Sexuality, Sweaters, TV, Texas, Thanksgiving, The West

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It's not enough that he has to hang from a broken ankle; he also has to hold his breath for three minutes and get out of a locked cage.That's scary. Even though this week is dominated by the spooky holiday at the end of it, let's see what's happening between now and then. Monday: We'll start with artists, in particular two who couldn't have been more different. In 1881, Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso, better known as just Picasso - was born in Malaga, Spain. In 1907, the flat perspectives and angular bodies of his "Les Demoiselles d'Avignon" - hit the art world like a bomb, and signaled the birth of cubism. Over the next 66 years, Picasso's creativity and originality were unrivaled, as he produced some 50,000 works and became the most famous artist in the world. (And, as a bonus, dressing as one of his canvases would make a fine Halloween costume.) On the other hand, we have Roy Lichtenstein, whose 87th birthday falls on Wednesday. In the early 1960s, Lichtenstein started copying panels from comic books, plagiarizing the original work of such (better) artists as Jack Kirby, Russ Heath, Tony Abruzzo, Irv Novick, and Jerry Grandenetti, rarely, if ever, giving the original artists credit - or any of the huge fees he collected. Thinking of more pleasant topics, we turn to leaf peeping, and remind you that we’re at the peak of the fall foliage season. Throughout the northern latitudes - especially in New England - tourists and natives are driving through the countryside watching leaves die and turn eye-popping shades of yellow, gold, and red. It seems like magic, which is appropriate, given that this is International Magic Week. Speaking of magic, tonight is the Broadway premiere of Alfred Uhry's play "Driving Miss Daisy," starring James Earl Jones, Vanessa Redgrave, and Boyd Gaines. Seems odd that a 23-year old play that spawned an Oscar-winning film has never appeared on Broadway, but that's showbiz. Jones and Redgrave are huge stars, but it's the birthday of one of the smallest: Billy Barty, born on this day in 1924. Barty was born with a form of dwarfism called cartilage-hair hypoplasia and stopped growing at 3'9". He started working in movies at the age of three, almost always playing a baby while still well into his teens, but in his adult years, he was a tireless worker for the rights of little people - and turned in a series of fine performances in such films as "The Day of the Locust" and "Foul Play." Tuesday: Today is the anniversary of the 1881 "Gunfight at the O.K. Corral" in Tombstone, Arizona. While the fight itself didn't actually take place in the corral, lasted only 30 seconds (although approximately 30 shots were fired in that time), and was essentially the result of a feud between the Earp and Clanton families, it's probably the most famous gunfight in Western history. It's the centerpiece of at least seven movies, and numerous television shows and novels. We also note a number of debuts today. First is the 1982 premiere of "St. Elsewhere." "St. Elsewhere" was one of the most innovative television series in history; it combined gripping medical drama with in-jokes, bizarre plot twists, and possibly the most notorious finale in TV history, when it revealed that the show's entire six year run had been the imaginings of an autistic teenager. That said, it remains at the center of all television series, as the "Tommy Westphall Universe" theory posits that "90 percent of all television took place in Tommy Westphall's mind." While we can't be certain that the "Back to the Future" trilogy takes place in Tommy's mind, we can be sure that, in the wake of Michael J. Fox's recent reappearance as Marty McFly, all three movies are making their Blu-Ray appearance today. In the world of sports, the NBA season opens tonight. We'll be turning our attentions to Boston, where the traitorous LeBron James will be playing his first official game with the Miami Heat against the even-more-evil Celtics. We'll also be looking toward the Staples Center, where your world champion Los Angeles Lakers will be receiving their championship rings before hosting the Houston Rockets. If that's too much basketball for you, you might consider a trip to Secaucus, New Jersey for a taste of Jewish culture at Kosherfest. (We assume the meat and dairy exhibits are kept in separate halls.) Wednesday: If Secaucus is just too darn far to travel, we suggest you snuggle up at home with a spud and some suds to commemorate both National Potato Day and American Beer Day, all while watching game one of the 2010 World Series, which begins tonight as the Texas Rangers travel to San Francisco's AT&T Park. Thursday and Friday: One team will win the Series and one will lose, but other winners and losers dominate the next two days. In the former column, we find Edith Head, born on October 28, 1897. Head was the Hollywood costume designer par excellence, designing wardrobes for over 400 films, garnering 35 Oscar nominations and eight awards. But Ms. Head isn't our only winner today. The American people scored a win in 1886, when the Statue of Liberty was unveiled on what had been Bedloe’s Island, but has been called "Liberty Island" ever since. Another winner is "The Sound of Music," the 1965 mega-musical that is (bafflingly to us) still staggeringly popular. In fact, adjusted for inflation, it’s still the third highest-grossing film of all time, having taken in the equivalent of more than $1.13 billion. So popular is it, in fact, that the cast will appear on Oprah Winfrey's show on Friday for a 45th anniversary reunion - including co-star Christopher Plummer, whose disparagement of the film as "The Sound of Mucous" is legendary. Sort of stuck between "winner" and "loser" was Anton LaVey, who died October 29, 1997. LaVey was a writer and occultist who founded the Church of Satan, but the Church itself was less about "devil worship" than about the material world and the individual. We assume Mr. LaVey left plans for a suitable funeral, but, regardless, Saturday will be your own chance to think ahead, as it's Create a Great Funeral Day. Firmly in the "loss" column is the tragedy that occurred due to the crash of the stock market on October 29, 1929, an event that plunged the planet into a Great Depression that only a world war was able to remedy. Saturday: The day before All-Hallow's Eve (aka "Devil's Night") gives us plenty of opportunities to celebrate. For example, it's the 72nd anniversary of Orson Welles and the Mercury Theatre's radio adaptation of H. G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds," a broadcast that scared the pants off a good portion of the country. Many who tuned in late became convinced that Martians had indeed invaded Earth and the end of the world was nigh. Given that Welles was famous for his ballyhoo, we wonder how much of the panic was hoped-for. Speaking of fear, we know we'll be glued to the tube this morning to watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert hold their "Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear" on the National Mall in Washington. (And we'll finish the day by tuning into "Saturday Night Live" to watch Jon Hamm return once more to his hosting duties.) Of course, the most terrifying prospect (unless you're a dentist) is the thought of all that candy tomorrow, accompanied by the prospect of toddlers hopped up on sugar. The antidote for this is a candy so horrid that no one would actually eat it. While the best solution is the worst of all candies (circus peanuts), the sweet in the number two position gets its turn in the spotlight today, National Candy Corn Day. Buy a big bag of the vile stuff and your kids will be begging for healthier treats. Sunday: Today is Halloween, which overshadows everything else, but there's still plenty more of interest. For example, the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Denver Broncos in London's venerable Wembley Stadium to demonstrate American football to the Brits one more time. (Though the way the Niners have been playing so far this season, it could turn Wembley into a chamber of horrors.) And since the dead will walk tomorrow, we note the anniversary of the body of the late Soviet leader Josef Stalin being moved in 1961 from its premium spot beside the preserved corpse of Lenin. Two of our own personal favorites passed in this day. In 1925, French silent film comedian Max Linder committed suicide with his wife. At his peak in the 1910s, Linder was almost as famous and as popular as Charlie Chaplin. He turned out a series of droll comedies that contrasted with the adventures of Chaplin's "tramp" character by portraying a sharp urban sophisticate. Unfortunately, Linder's film career was interrupted by World War I, and the subsequent health and mental problems he suffered from his service led to his death. On this day the following year, Harry Houdini died. Houdini was one of the greatest showmen of the Golden Age of Magic. While not the most skilled magician, he was unparalleled in giving his audience a full evening's entertainment, which included magic, escapes, and the exposure of fraudulent mediums. During his last week, Houdini suffered from appendicitis and fractured his ankle (and still performed his "Chinese Water Torture Cell" escape, which involved being suspended by his ankles) and  Despite a temperature of 104ºF and intense pain, he refused to be hospitalized until he collapsed on stage (and even then, he finished the show). After a week in Detroit's Grace Hospital, he died of peritonitis brought on by his ruptured appendix. Somewhere between horror and entertainment lies the musical "The Scottsboro Boys," which opens on Broadway tonight. One of the final collaborations between writers John Kander and Fred Ebb (the latter of whom actually died in 2004), the musical tells the story of nine black Alabama teenagers who were unjustly accused of raping two white women in 1931. The case became a cause célèbre, sparking years of trials, appeals, retrials, and Supreme Court rulings, ultimately ending in a series of convictions, pardons, and acquittals. After all that death and destruction, let's end the week on some lighter notes. For example, Halloween 1941 saw the completion of the sculpting of the faces on Mt. Rushmore. And today, in addition to being Halloween, is also, appropriately enough, National Knock-Knock Day, dedicated not only to those first jokes many of us learned, but also to the kids who'll be knocking on your door tonight - some of whom may well be collecting for UNICEF, since this is National UNICEF Day. See you in November! Suggested Sites... Les Demoiselles d'Avignon: Conserving a Modern Masterpiece - the Museum of Modern Art explains why the painting matters. Fall Foliage Viewing 2010 Coast to Coast - plan your own leaf-peeping tour. Studio International: Roy Lichtenstein - review of a 2004 exhibition that examines the plagiarism claims. O.K. Corral: A Gunfight Shrouded in Mystery - trying to unravel just what happened. Max Linder - biography of one of the founding fathers of film comedy.

Directory categories: Painting Masters, New England Travel, Broadway Shows, The American West, Magicians

Archived under: 1910s, 1920s, 1930s, 1960s, 1980s, 19th Century, Actors, Alcohol, American History, Anniversaries, Artists, Arts, Authors, Autumn, Baseball, Beer, Biographies, Birthdays, Broadway, Candy, Candy Corn, Celebrations, Celebrities, Charlie Chaplin, Comedians, Conventions, Dead Celebrities, Death, Devil, Disease, Entertainment, Events, Festivals, Fiction, Food and Drink, Football, Halloween, Harry Houdini, History, Hoaxes, Holidays, Homebrewing, Humor, In Character, Internet, Invention, Issues and Causes, Jack Kirby, Jokes, Joseph Stalin, Legal Cases, MLB, Magic, Media, Men, Moscow, Movie History, Movies, Music, Musicals, NFL, Nostalgia, Old West, Oprah, Orson Welles, Performing Arts, Plagiarism, Radio, Roadside Attractions, Russia, Scams, Shopping, Silent Movies, Sports, Stadiums, Statue of Liberty, Stephen Colbert, Stock Market, Suicide, Supreme Court, TV, The West, Tourist Attractions, Toys, Travel, United Nations, United States, Vintage, WWI, WWII, War, Westerns, Women, Writers

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The most famous shot in "A Trip to the Moon." Special effects have gotten slightly better in the century since. Welcome once more to The Spark, your weekly digest of events and happenings and information in the Yahoo! Directory to help you appreciate them more. As we begin this last Spark before the Labor Day holiday, we have to ask just where in the heck the summer went. Seems like it was Memorial Day about five minutes ago, and now kids are back in school and Fall is lurking around the corner. Anyway, let's look at the week ahead. Monday: It's a day for monsters and creators. In the former category, we have Benedict Arnold, who on this day in 1780, secretly promised to surrender the Continental Army's fort at West Point, NY, to the British. Arnold was an egomaniac, who was frustrated with the lack of attention he had received, and what better way to get attention than to commit treason? Speaking of outsized egos, we note that today would have been the 127th birthday of Huey Long, the "Kingfish" who ran Louisiana like a private fiefdom until he was gunned down in 1935. Long ruled the state as both governor and senator, and his campaign slogan of "Every Man a King" mixed populism and fascism in equal measure. But let us not mention only those who destroy, let's celebrate those who create. When thinking of monsters, one almost automatically turns to thoughts of Dr. Frankenstein and his creation, for which we owe thanks to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born in 1793, she wrote her novel, "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus," at the tender age of 18. And where would kids (and parents) be today without Babar? Laurent de Brunhoff (born in 1925), is son of Jean de Brunhoff, who created the elephant king, and who continued his adventures when his father died. Of course, those kids grow up to be teenagers and young adults, and where would they be without Robert Crumb, who turns 73 today? Crumb was in the vanguard of the underground comix movement of the 1960s, and he’s still active and creative, and his influence on modern pop culture is incalculable. And what would pop culture be without the Beatles? One hesitates to guess, but you can try to get a handle on it this week at the International Beatle Week in Liverpool, England. Of course, the Beatles played in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York when they made their American debut in 1964, and that theatre is today home to the Late Show with David Letterman, which made its own debut in "the Ed" in 1993. A nice contrast to end the day. Gazillionaire Warren Buffett hits the big 8-0 today, and out in the Nevada desert, Burning Man begins. The best thing we can say about Burning Man is that it gets all those people who want to go to Burning Man in one spot away from the rest of us. Tuesday: More monsters. In 12, Gaius Caligula was born. Though the surviving sources are incomplete, Caligula was one of the most notorious Roman emperors of them all, known for the stories of his cruelty, instability, and sexual perversion. (We won’t deal with them here, but you can find the stories easily enough.) But Caligula isn't the only monster we note. On this date in 1888, Mary Ann Nichols was murdered and became the first of known victim of Jack the Ripper. And, of course, in 1928, Berlin saw the premiere of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s "Die Dreigoschenoper" (known in English as "The Threepenny Opera"), with its main character, the vicious murderer Captain Macheath, better known as "Mack the Knife." In 1959, Bobby Darin had a huge hit with that song (which is really odd, when one considers it's about a mass murderer killing people), and Friday will see the 51st anniversary of that song being banned by WCBS radio in New York City. At the time, there had been a series of teenage stabbings in the city, and the station didn't want to those crazy teens any ideas. And while marijuana possession is small potatoes compared to all of the above, we see that, in 1948, actor Robert Mitchum was arrested in a Hollywood drug bust, and was eventually sentenced to 60 days in prison, a scandal which in those days threatened to kill his career, but nowadays would rate only a passing mention on "Entertainment Tonight." All this talk of criminals and murderers makes us long for a hero, and fortunately, in 1942, "The Adventures of Superman" radio series began airing on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Wednesday: All we have for today is that in 1902, George Melies’s "A Trip to the Moon," was released in France and became the world’s first science fiction film. Thursday: So, in 490 BCE, the Athenian army was at Marathon, battling with Persia. The herald Pheidippides was sent to Sparta for help. He ran the 150 miles in two days, but because of religious laws, the Spartans couldn't send any help, so he ran back. In spite of not having the extra troops, Athens won the battle. And poor Phidippides took off again, this time running the 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens to carry the news of the victory. He gasped out his last words, "We have won," and dropped dead of exhaustion. The lesson: do not underestimate the usefulness of warm-ups and warm-downs. In 1666, the Great Fire of London began in the wooden house of King Charles II's baker. By the time it ended three days later, more than 13,000 houses, including St Paul's Cathedral, had burned to the ground -- but amazingly, only six people had died. If you were living in England in 1752, tomorrow would have been September 14th. While most of the rest of the world had switched from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, the stubborn Brits had stuck to their guns. But, after nearly 200 years, there was an eleven-day discrepancy between the two calendars, and the English had no choice but to convert. There were actual riots, as people cried, "Give us back our eleven days!" But it was to no avail. Great Britain and her colonies were dragged kicking and screaming into the 18th century. Speaking of fighting against reality, in 1934, singer Russ Columbo accidentally shot himself to death. Columbo was a wildly popular singer and actor, and when he killed himself (with an antique gun that was supposedly unloaded), his friends thought the news would prove fatal to his mother, so for the last years of her life, those friends created an elaborate ruse, sending postcards and letters from far-off locations, and using his records to simulate a radio show. In 1944, Mrs. Columbo died, never suspected that her son had died a decade before. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: Let's talk about pioneers this weekend. First, there's Louis Sullivan, born in 1856. Sullivan is, for all intents and purposes, the man who invented the skyscraper. Since Chicago had had its own giant fire in 1871, Sullivan had the opportunity and the laboratory to erest steel-framed buildings that towered over anything built before. In 1833, 10-year-old Barney Flaherty answered an ad in "The New York Sun" and became the first world's first newsboy, which is why we celebrate Newspaper Carrier Day today -- at least for those relatively few Americans who still have newspapers carried to them. Sunday would have been the 163rd birthday of Jesse James. Jesse was not the first Western outlaw, but he was the first to become world famous while plying his dubious trade. 1885 saw the opening of the Exchange Buffet in New York City. It was the first self-service restaurant (read, "cafeteria") in the United States. We don't know if they served chocolate (we'd guess yes), but whether they did or not, it's World Chocolate Day Friday, so you can serve yourself and indulge. In 1888, George Eastman registered the trademark "Kodak" (for the clicking sound a camera's shutter makes) and received a patent for his camera that used rolled film. Eastman's "Brownie" camera came from the factory loaded with enough film for 100 photos. When the roll was complete, the customer would mail the whole camera back to the factory in Rochester, NY, where the pictures would be developed and sent back along with a new camera. Sunday is the 81st birthday of comedian Bob Newhart. Newhart is a two-time pioneer, having been in the forefront of the stand-up comedy revolution of the 1950s, when he transformed himself from "button-down accountant" to a comedian with the top-selling album in America. Then, in the '70s, his sitcom, "The Bob Newhart Show," set new standards for writing, ensemble acting, and just plain goofiness. The weekend before Labor Day always marks the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. While it's easy to criticize the telethon for its corniness and out-of-date show business aesthetic, it's impossible to deny Lewis's commitment and ability to raise money -- nearly a billion-and-a-half dollars since 1966. Lastly, we'll note the 98th birthday of the late avant-garde composer John Cage with 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Suggested Sites... United States Military Academy at West Point - for sale, cheap. Contact Gen. Arnold. Official R. Crumb Site - keep on truckin'. The Beatles - the core of the apple. Dangerous Minds: Early Technicolor - the good folks at Kodak bring you color movies from 1922. Jerry Lewis Telethon - mock him if you will, but he does good work.

Directory categories: Revolutionary War, Children's Literature, Rock and Pop Artists, Musicals, Running

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Phoebe Ann Mosey, aka Annie Oakley She could split a playing card through the side with a single shot, advocated for women to defend themselves with firearms, and was adopted by the Sioux holy man, Sitting Bull, who called her "Watanya Cicilla," or "Little Sure Shot." She was Annie Oakley, and she  was born this week nearly a century and a half ago. She become known worldwide for her sharpshooting skills and inspired numerous stage productions, films, and even a TV show. Perhaps the most well known of these was "Annie Get Your Gun," the musical written by Irving Berlin, Herbert Fields, and his sister Dorothy Fields. Unfortunately, that musical (which was also turned into an Academy Award-winning film) turned Annie from an independent young woman who dug her family out of poverty and shared in an equal partnership with her husband Frank Butler, into a lovesick hillbilly who threw a match just to snag her jealous and overly sensitive rival. Actually, it was Butler who was the love-struck one; he married Oakley inside of a year, and eventually gave up his own performing career to manage Oakley's as she toured with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. Oakley's road to stardom wasn't exactly smooth, however. At 26, she was challenged by a 15 year-old rival named Lillian Smith, who clashed with Oakley in everything from dress to choice of firearm. Smith eventually left the show, unable to command the same crowds, and Oakley returned. Later, Oakley was slandered by one of William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, with a false story that she had been arrested for stealing (to support a cocaine habit). She spent the next six years suing several newspapers for libel, winning 54 of 55 of her cases. In 1922, she was in a severe car accident with Butler, forcing her to wear a steel brace on her leg. In spite of that, she continued to set records following the accident, although eventually died of pernicious anemia in 1926. Since Annie Oakley, there have been other women known for their skill with weapons, including numerous fictional ones: Lara Croft, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Xena. But the real-life Annie Oakley was a pioneer and truly in a league of her own. Suggested Sites... Annie Oakley at PBS's American Experience - features biographies, pictures, and more. Annie Oakley at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center - information about Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill, and the show's other performers. Biography of Annie Oakley - from the Dorchester County Public Library. Women's History Month at the Smithsonian - exhibits, history, pictures, and more about women who made a difference. Biography of Calamity Jane - the frontier woman who gained notoriety for fighting Native Americans.

Directory categories: Annie Oakley, Buffalo Bill Cody, Annie Get Your Gun, Women's History, The American West

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