Sometimes Keith hits it out of the park

Yeah, yeah he can be as dramatic as Glenn Beck but



sometimes he's actually right (unlike Mr. Beck.)


February 25, 1941 -
Another Preston Sturges' comic masterpiece, The Lady Eve, premiered in the US on this date.



Preston Sturges wrote the script in Reno, Nevada, while awaiting his third divorce.


February 25, 1945 -
Part of Roberto Rossellini Neo-realist classic war trilogy, Roma, città aperta (Rome Open City) opened in the US on this date.



Anna Magnani delivers one of the greatest performances in the history of world cinema in this film.


February 25, 1950 -
The comedy-variety program Your Show of Shows, starring Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca and Carl Reiner, debuted on NBC on this date.



Writers for the show included Mel Brooks, Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart. A common misconception is that Woody Allen wrote for Your Show of Shows; he in fact wrote for its successor program, Caesar's Hour, which ran from 1954 to 1957.


Today in History:
February 25, 1570 -
Pope Pius V excommunicates Queen Elizabeth I of England, for the sin of being a Protestant.

As Elizabeth was already the head of her own religion, Church of England,

this Papal Bull did not make her break stride.

February 25, 1601 -
Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, was beheaded following a conviction of treason. His plan to capture London and the Tower had failed.



He was the last person to be beheaded in the Tower of London. It was reported to have taken three strokes by the executioner to complete the beheading. Ouch!

Let this be a lesson to all you playas - never try to steal you girlfriends' country.

February 25, 1888 -
John Foster Dulles, Secretary of State to President Eisenhower, was born on this date.



Haven't we all made a fool of ourselves over John Foster Dulles.


February 25, 1922 -
Henri Landru, the notorious French serial killer known as "Bluebeard", guillotined for murdering ten women, and one boy. His motive was purely financial; by placing classified ads Landru lured selected women into his clutches, married them, and disposed of their bodies without a trace.



While denying guilt to the end, a drawing given to his attorney had written on the reverse, "I did it. I burned their bodies in my kitchen oven".

Charles Chaplin based his movie, Monsieur Verdoux on this case.


February 25, 1932 -
Austrian Adolf Hitler is granted German citizenship, to meet a "minor" technical requirement in order to run for president.



Hitler was thus able to stand against Hindenburg in the forthcoming Presidential election.


February 25, 1969 -
In Vietnam, a 25 year old Navy Lt., Bob Kerrey, took part in a SEAL raid in the Mekong Delta where over a dozen women, children and old men were killed in the village of Thanh Phong. Kerrey received a Bronze Star for the raid and later strongly regretted his actions.

Soon after the raid, Lt. Kerrey lost a leg at Hon Tam Island and was later awarded a Congressional medal of Honor. In 2001, the former Governor and Senator from Nebraska, publicly discussed his participation in the raid after Bui Thi Luom of Thanh Phong, the only survivor from her hut of 16, said, "Only civilians, women and children" were killed. Kerrey described the event in his 2002 memoir When I Was a Young Man.


February 25, 1983 -
Playwright Tennessee Williams found dead in his New York hotel room after he choked on a bottle cap during the night.

Once again, another victim of not reading the pill bottle label correctly.


February 25, 1996 -
Dr. Haing S. Ngor, the Cambodian who won the 1984 Best Supporting Actor Oscar for The Killing Fields, shot during a robbery attempt in the carport of his Los Angeles apartment.




And so it goes.