Dan's Almanac
June 9, 2024: Being an Almanac of Movies for the Day, A Lawyer's Almanac, The Nixon List, A Carter Glossary, A Shakespearean Chronology, A Guide to the Presidents, and Editorials and Miscellany
Movies for the Day
Which of today’s three movies would you watch (June 9)?
A Love Affair: The Eleanor and Lou Gehrig Story (1978) was nominated for Emmys for Writing and Makeup. This TV movie is the off the field story of the legendary Yankee baseball player, born June 19, 1903, and his wife. **
My Wicked, Wicked Ways *** The Legend of Errol Flynn (1985) is a TV biopic of the legendary movie actor. It was nominated for Emmys for Art Direction and Hairstyling. Flynn was born June 20, 1909. The biopic is based on Flynn’s autobiography, seen below. **
Chased by Dinosaurs (2002-2003) is a Discovery Channel sequel to the miniseries, Walking With Dinosaurs (1999). This program has two episodes, Land of the Giants and The Giant Claw. It won an Emmy for Animation. Jurassic Park was released June 11, 1993. See also Sea Monsters (2003) and Prehistoric Park (2006). ***
A Lawyer’s Almanac
Current Tax Payment Act (1943)
Federal income tax withholding from paychecks was re-introduced by the Current Tax Payment Act of 1943 (June 9, 1943). See below a 1944 Form 1040.
The Nixon List
Wesley Swift (1913-1970)
Wesley Swift was a minister from Southern California who espoused a particularly pernicious form of white supremacy and he was a central figure in the Christian Identity Movement from the 1940s. He was born September 6, 1913, in New Jersey, and died October 8, 1970, in Mexico. He is shown below with his wife in December 1932. See Barkun, Michael, Religion and the Rascist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement, 1997; and Schambers, Jon F., Mystical Anti-Semitism and the Christian Identity Movement, 2000. In the so-called back alleys of politics, Swift supported Nixon in his Senatorial campaign in 1950 even though Nixon felt compelled to disavow asking for their support.
A Carter Glossary
James Mulligan (1920-1987)
James Mulligan was a cartoonist for The New Yorker Magazine from about 1952 to 1987. His first cartoon is reproduced below.
A Shakespearean Chronology
Benoit de Sainte Marie (d. 1173)
Benoit de Sainte Marie was a French troubador attached to the English court of Henry II. He is the undoubted author of the Roman de Troie written about 1160, an epic of the Trojan War in 30,000 to 40,000 lines, which turns the heroes of the classical story into figures of romance. In Benoit’s version of the epic story occurs the episode of Troilus and Briseida, from which Chaucer derived his Troilus and Criseyde and Shakespeare his Troilus and Cressida.
A Guide to the Presidents
Millard Fillmore (1800-1874)
President Millard Fillmore, the 13th President, was born January 7, 1800, in Summerhill, New York (see a log cabin located in Moravia, Cayuga County). Fillmore had a rough boyhood. He was apprenticed to the cloth trade but began to study law and earned a livelihood by teaching at Buffalo until qualified to practie law. He was a successful lawyer at Aurora and a founder of a firm which still exists today as Hodgson Russ LLP. He served in the New York Guard and saw service in the Mexican-Amercian War and the Civil War. Fillmore married his first wife, Abigail, in 1826. He served in the New York State Assembly from 1829 to 1831. A Whig, he was a United States Congressman from New York from 1833 to 1835 and from 1837 to 1843. From 1846 to 1874, he served as first Chancellor of the University of Buffalo, which he also co-founded. Today it is known as SUNY Buffalo (State University of New York). From 1848 to 1849, Fillmore was Comptroller of New York State. He was Vice President from March 4, 1849, to July 9, 1850, when he became President upon the death of President Zachary Taylor. He served as President from July 9, 1850, to March 4, 1853. On the slavery question, Fillmore was a moderate. On the one side he pressed forward in 1850 the fugitive slave law and other measures of compromise. On the other side, he had supported legislation for preventing the extension of slavery outside the existing slave States. His support of the Compromise of 1850 made him unpopular and he lost the Whig nomination for President in 1854 to Winfield Scott, who, in turn, was defeated by Democrat Franklin Pierce. The California Gold Rush had just started when Fillmore became President. Hundreds of thousands traveled to California hoping to find gold and get rich. Fillmore gave government money to build a railroad from the East Coast all the way to the West Coast, and bring back the gold. After the death of his wife Abigail, just 26 days after they left the White House, he remarried, to Caroline. Fillmore died March 8, 1874, at age 74, in Buffalo. He is buried at Forest Lawn in Buffalo. Fillmore is shown below.