The first Mickey Mouse comic strip was published by King Features Syndicate
and first appeared in The New York Mirror, as a daily on Monday, January 13,
1930. They were scripted by Disney himself for the first few weeks with assistant
Win Smith as the inker. Smith was succeeded by Floyd Gottfredson who drew the
strip for 45 years until his retirement.   

Floyd Guttfredson

Walt Disney with Mickey Mouse

Pioneer television comedian Ernie Kovacs was killed in an automobile accident in 
Los Angeles in the early morning hours of January 13, 1962. After a light southern California rainstorm, Kovacs apparently lost control of his Chevrolet Corvair Station wagon while negotiating a turn, and crashed into a power pole located at the corner
of Beverly Glen and Santa Monica Boulevards. He died almost instantly from chest
and head injuries. Kovacs was 42.

The first Sunday strip of “Peanuts” 

Charles Monroe Schulz (November 26, 1922 – February 12, 2000)

“Peanuts” is a syndicated daily and Sunday comic strip that was written
and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz. It ran from October 2, 1950, to
February 13, 2000 and continued in reruns afterward. The strip made
it’s debut in Sunday papers "Peanuts" debuted in Sunday papers
across the United States.

Arthur Wynne (above), a journalist from Liverpool, England, published what he
called a “word-cross” puzzle in the “Fun” supplement of the Sunday edition of the
New York World. It was the first crossword puzzle to be published. The name was
later changed to “crossword” and became a regular weekly feature in the World
and spread to other newspapers.

Robert LeRoy Ripley (December 25, 1890 – May 27, 1949)

Cartoonist, and armature anthropologist Robert Ripley first called his cartoon
feature, originally involving sports feats, Champs and Chumps, and it premiered
on December 19, 1918, in the New York Globe (above). He began adding items not related to sports, and in October 1919 he changed the title to Believe It or Not. When
the Globe folded in 1923, Ripley moved to the New York Evening Post. The popular franchise was later adapted into a wide variety of formats, including radio, television,
a chain of museums, and a book series.

August 1, 2003