February, 1917 : The Zimmermann Telegram

February 1917: When Britain and France had gotten to Autumn of 1917, they found themselves at the end of a rope financially speaking. They had spent a lot of money to prosecute the war against the Germans. And the Germans were preparing to announce to the world that they were about to re-start their policy of unrestricted submarine warfare. This meant that they would proceed to sink any ship of either the Allies, or their friends, any place that the found them. The Germans had come to figure that if the Americans were tied up with the Germans in submarine combat on one hand and had to deal with combat with the Mexicans on their southern boarder, then the Germans might prevail. The brits were frankly desperate to bring the the americans into the fray on their side.

Alfred Zimmerman,(right) the State Secretary for Foreign Affairs during a portion of Kaiser Wilhelm's reign, thought that this idea of dragging the Americans into the European war might just be the trick that would put them over the top against the Allies. The man who received the coded message, Ambassador Heinrich von Eckardt, was really hot to make this happen for his side. It would really shut down the Allies The text of the telegram read in part: "We intend to begin on the first of February unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavor in spite of this to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding, we make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: make war together, make peace together, generous financial support and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.Please call the President's attention to the fact that the ruthless employment of our submarines now offers the prospect of compelling England in a few months to make peace. Signed, ZIMMERMANN" This document was being reviewed by the director of British naval intelligence, Rear Admiral William Reginald Hall, the director of Naval intelligence. Hall

was a hot-tempered maverick who blinked his clear blue eyes so regularly that his colleaugues called him "Blinker." An American who worked with him called him the most cold blooded proposition there had ever been. His interrogations of German P.O.W.s were as ruthless as anything the Old Bailey had ever seen. ,,,,,To Bell, secretary of the United States Embassy in Britain it seemed at first incredible, and he thought that it was a forgery. But when he was convinced, Bell sent a copy to United States Amb. Walter Hines Page.

Page who then reported the story to President Woodrow Wilson (right) "Good Lord!" he yelled. "Good Lord!" One would think he had much more by way of anger, but whtever he felt he kept it to himself until any doubts as to the authenticity of the telegram were done away with by Zimmermann himself. At a press conference on 3 March 1917, he told an American journalist, "I cannot deny it. It is true." On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917.

FEBRUARY 4, 1937 Walt Disney Premiers "Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs."

In December 1937 Walt Disney (below), producer and the father of "Mickey Mouse" was in the mood for a great experiment. He had produced countless cartoon shorts over the years and found success in that area. But now he wanted to make a full length animated film. He had a ton of negative voices in Hollywood including his wife Lillian, telling him that no adult would sit through the entire feature-length cartoon about a lady and a bunch of dwarfs. But Walt was convinced it would work, so he stuck his neck out on up to borrowing 1.5 million dollars in order to get it done. So Snow White premiered in Hollywood on December 21, 1937, got a huge ovation for his work from his celebrity filled crowd which loved every minute of it. It was then released the following February 4 grossing 8 million - an unbelievably huge sum during a vast economic depression. This was most made by any film up to that time. Walt Disney was born in Chicago in 1901. In 1923 Walt joined up with the infant animation industry. All films came with a cartoon back then, and in 1928 Walt introcuced the world to Mickey Mouse in the first full length sound cartoon: "Steamboat Willie"(below) 1928. By 1934, Disney had won 4 Oscars for his cartoons, many in color. But he realized that the way to

really expand and diversify his product was with feature length cartoons. So one night in 1934, Walt took all of his best prodution men out to dinner and then brought them back to the studio. There, he related the entire "Snow White" story for them right down to the characters music that would play with them and some type of voice that they would have had. He really had it all laid it out of his mind. So the more the story took shape in Disney's head the more it took hold with his artists. The story had to be adapted storyboard form by the artists Dorothy Ann Blank, Richard Creedon, Merrill De Maris, Otto Englander, Earl Hurd, Dick Rickard, Ted Sears and Webb Smith. David Hand became the supervising director, and William Cottrell, Wilfred Jackson, Larry Morey, Perce Pearce, and Ben Sharpsteen directed the film's penetrating individual sequences. The story was based on a plot from Grimms fairy tales, and it went through any

number of changes while it was developed into a full blown story. For example staff writer Richard Creedon came up with the principal characters for the seven dwarfs, none of whom had names in the original story. Also the number of dwarfs went through several changes. But Disney wanted names that would express something about the indvidual characters of the dwarfs, hence "Doc", "Sneeezy", "Grumpy", etc.were born. Also there were changes in the character of the Evil Queen. Disney didn't want her to be crazy, or fat, but a "stately beautiful type" There were a number of changes in how the Queen was to have Snow White murdered. Eventually after many changes that had the Queen using a poison comb, it was decided that a poisoned apple was to be the weapon of choice, The object of the Queen's wrath was of course Snow White who was spoken and sung by 21 year old Adriana Caselotti (below). Adriana brought a very sweet voice to Snow White, both in

song and in dialogue, as a direct contrast to the darkness of evil Queen. Her version of "Some Day My Prince Will Come" by Frank Churchill was one of the hilights of the film. And I couldn't resist whistling along with "Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Home From Work We Go" by Frank Churchill, and Larry Morey. Of course, there were artists all over the place on this one. The main concept artist in this production was Albert Hurter who had final approval on everything: from the look on each character to the animals to the rocks surrounding the dark castle had to be approved by Mr.Hurter before it went into the film. That is just a hint of what went into the production of this magnificent film. The main point is that Disney got his baby out to the public.The film premiered at the Carthay Circle Theater on December 21, 1937, to an audience which was very receptive, and which contained some of the people who were most critical of its production. An audience contaning the likes of Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton and Judy Garland gave it a standing ovation. The American publication Variety observed that "[so] perfect is the illusion, so tender the romance and fantasy, so emotional are certain portions when the acting of the characters strikes a depth comparable to the sincerity of human players, that the film approaches real greatness." Following successful intial runs in New York and Miami, the film was put into general release all around the United States on February 4, 1937. It became the most sucessful sound film of all time. Of course it was eclipsed in this by "Gone With The Wind" (1939), but it did remarkably well in foreign releases such as England and Australia. The film was re-released during the War, and it did so well that Disney began the practice of re-releasing every ten years. Eventually with VHS, and DVD technology, and all manner of special editions,"Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" looks to be a permanent part of our cinematic firmament. ...Sources: = .............................................. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film)...... https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs................. https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/disney-releases-snow-white-and-the-seven-dwarfs..........https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/disney-releases-snow-white-and-the-sevendwarfs.......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Disney... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Caselotti......https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Albert_Hurter......https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grimms%27_Fairy_Tales