14 July

Matterhorn Disaster

The first ascent of the Matterhorn was made by Edward Whymper, Lord Francis Douglas, Charles Hudson, Douglas Hadow, Michel Croz, and the two Zermatt guides, Peter Taugwalder father and son on 14 July 1865. Douglas, Hudson, Hadow and Croz were killed on the descent when Hadow slipped and pulled the other three with him down the north face. Whymper and the Taugwalder guides, who survived, were later accused of having cut the rope below to ensure that they were not dragged down with the others, but the subsequent inquiry found no proof of this and they were acquitted.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Matterhorn#mediaviewer/File:Matterhorn_disaster_Dore.jpg

13 July

Carabinieri

is the national military police of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations. It was originally founded as the police force of the Kingdom of Sardinia. During the process of Italian unification, it was appointed the “First Force” of the new national military organization. Although the Carabinieri assisted in the suppression of opposition during the rule of Benito Mussolini, they were also responsible for his downfall and many units were disbanded by Nazi Germany, which resulted in large numbers of Carabinieri joining the Italian resistance movement. Since 2001, it has been one of the four Italian Armed Forces.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Carabinieri#mediaviewer/File:Carabinieri_sign.jpg

12 July

Australian Aboriginal Flag

is a flag that represents indigenous Australians. It is one of the official “Flags of Australia”, and holds special legal and political status, but it is not the “Australian National Flag”. It was designed in 1971 by Aboriginal artist Harold Thomas, who is descended from the Luritja people of Central Australia and holds intellectual property rights in the flag’s design. The flag was originally designed for the land rights movement, and it became a symbol of the Aboriginal people of Australia.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aboriginal_Flag_02.jpg

 

11 July

Boris Spassky & Bobby Fischer

In 1972, Bobby Fischer captured the World Chess Championship from Boris Spassky of the USSR in a match, held in Reykjavík, Iceland, publicized as a Cold War confrontation which attracted more worldwide interest than any chess championship before or since.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2009/aug/28/chess-perfect-fiction

10 July

Arlo Guthrie

is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice. Guthrie’s best-known work is “Alice’s Restaurant Massacree”, a satirical talking blues song about 18 minutes in length. His song “Massachusetts” was named the official folk song of the state in which he has lived most of his adult life.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Arlo_Guthrie#mediaviewer/File:Arlo_Guthrie_2007.jpg

9 July

Campbell Soup

A pivotal event was the 1964 exhibit The American Supermarket, a show held in Paul Bianchini’s Upper East Side gallery. The show was presented as a typical U.S. small supermarket environment, except that everything in it—from the produce, canned goods, meat, posters on the wall, etc.was created by six prominent pop artists of the time, among them the controversial (and like-minded) Billy Apple, Mary Inman, and Robert Watts. Warhol’s painting of a can of Campbell’s soup cost $1,500 while each autographed can sold for $6. The exhibit was one of the first mass events that directly confronted the general public with both pop art and the perennial question of what art is.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TAG_Andy_Warhol_Soup_Can_01.jpg

8 July

Area 51

also officially known as Groom Lake or Homey Airport, is a remote detachment of Edwards Air Force Base. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, the correct names for the Area 51 facility are the Nevada Test and Training Range and Groom Lake, though the name Area 51 was used in a CIA document from the Vietnam war. Other names used for the facility include Dreamland, and nicknames Paradise Ranch, Home Base, Watertown, and Groom Lake. The Special use airspace around the field is referred to as Restricted Area 4808 North (R-4808N). It is located in the southern portion of Nevada, 83 miles (134 km) north-northwest of Las Vegas. Situated at its center, on the southern shore of Groom Lake, is a large military airfield. The base’s current primary purpose is publicly unknown; however, based on historical evidence, it most likely supports development and testing of experimental aircraft and weapons systems.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Area_51#mediaviewer/File:Gisela_Giardino_-_Area_51_(by-sa).jpg

7 July

Florenz Ziegfeld, Jr.

was an American Broadway impresario, notable for his series of theatrical revues, the Ziegfeld Follies (1907–1931), inspired by the Folies Bergère of Paris. He also produced the musical Show Boat. He was known as the “glorifier of the American girl”. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florenz_Ziegfeld,_Jr.#mediaviewer/File:Florenz-ziegfield.jpg

6 July

$100,000 Bill

The $100,000 Series 1934 Gold Certificate featured a portrait of Woodrow Wilson. The notes were printed from 18 December 1934, through 9 January 9 1935, and were issued by the Treasurer of the United States to Federal Reserve Banks only against an equal amount of gold bullion held by the Treasury Department. The notes were used only for official transactions between Federal Reserve Banks and were not circulated among the general public. Photographic records show that at least seven 1934 $100,000 Gold Certificates are still in existence.
http://billjamie.com/picofweek/7-2-11-100000Bill.jpg

5 July

SPAM

Spam is a canned precooked meat product made by the Hormel Foods Corporation, first introduced in 1937. The labeled ingredients in the classic variety of Spam are chopped pork shoulder meat, with ham meat added, salt, water, modified potato starch as a binder, sugar, and sodium nitrite as a preservative. Spam’s gelatinous glaze, or aspic, forms from the cooling of meat stock. The product has become part of many jokes and urban legends about mystery meat, which has made it part of pop culture and folklore. Through a Monty Python sketch, in which Spam is portrayed as ubiquitous and inescapable, its name has come to be given to electronic spam, especially spam email.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Spam_2.jpg

4 July

Rube Goldberg

was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor. He is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rube_Goldberg_machine#mediaviewer/File:Rubenvent.jpg

3 July

Pete Fountain

is an American clarinetist based in New Orleans. He has played jazz, Dixieland and Creole music. Fountain founded The Basin Street Six in 1950 with his longtime friend, trumpeter George Girard. After this band broke up four years later, Fountain was hired to join the Lawrence Welk orchestra and became well known for his many solos on Welk’s ABC television show, The Lawrence Welk Show. Fountain was rumored to have quit when Welk refused to let him “jazz up” a Christmas carol. In an interview, Fountain said he left Welk because “Champagne and bourbon don’t mix.”  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Fountain#mediaviewer/File:PeteFountain2006.jpg

2 July

Nostradamus

was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous worldwide. He is best known for his book Les Propheties, the first edition of which appeared in 1555. Since the publication of this book, which has rarely been out of print since his death, Nostradamus has attracted a following that, along with much of the popular press, credits him with predicting many major world events.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostradamus#mediaviewer/File:Nostradamus_by_Cesar.jpg

1 July

Alfred Russel Wallace

was a British naturalist, explorer, geographer, anthropologist, and biologist. He is best known for independently conceiving the theory of evolution through natural selection; his paper on the subject was jointly published with some of Charles Darwin’s writings in 1858.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:ARWallace.jpg

30 June

Chevrolet Corvette

was introduced late in the 1953 model year. Originally designed as a show car for the 1953 Motorama display at the New York Auto Show, it generated enough interest to induce GM to make a production version to sell to the public. To keep costs down, GM executive Robert F. McLean mandated off-the-shelf mechanical components, and used the chassis and suspension from the 1952 Chevy sedan. The drivetrain and passenger compartment were moved rearward to achieve a 53/47 front-to-rear weight distribution. It had a 102-inch wheelbase. The engine was the same inline six that powered all other Chevrolet models, but with a higher-compression ratio, three Carter side-draft carburetors, and a more aggressive cam. Output was 150 horsepower. Because there was currently no manual transmission available to Chevrolet rated to handle 150 HP, a two-speed Powerglide automatic was used. 0-60 mph time was 11.5 seconds. To keep tooling costs in line, the body was made out of fiberglass instead of steel. First production was on June 30, 1953.  http://www.corvetteactioncenter.com/images/design/53model.jpg

29 June

Mikhail Baryshnikov

nicknamed “Misha” (Russian diminutive of the name “Mikhail”), is a Russian dancer, choreographer, and actor, often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers in history.  After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974 for more opportunities in western dance. After freelancing with many companies, he joined the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer to learn George Balanchine’s style of movement.  He then danced with the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became artistic director.

28 June

Tyson – Holyfield II

was billed as “The Sound and the Fury“, was a professional boxing match contested on 28 June 1997 for the WBA Heavyweight Championship.  It was one of the most bizarre fights in boxing history, after Tyson bit off part of Holyfield’s ear. Tyson was disqualified from the match and lost his boxing license, though it was later reinstated.  The fight took place at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The referee officiating the fight was Mills Lane, who was brought in as a late replacement when Tyson’s camp protested the original selection of Mitch Halpern (who officiated the first fight) as the referee.

http://sportschump.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Tyson-bites-Holyfield.jpg

27 June

U.S. Route 66

was one of the original highways within the U.S. Highway System. Route 66 was established on November 11, 1926—with road signs erected the following year.  The highway, which became one of the most famous roads in America, originally ran from Chicago, Illinois, through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona before ending at Santa Monica, California, covering a total of 2,448 miles (3,940 km).  It was recognized in popular culture by both the hit song “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66” and the Route 66 television show in the 1960s.  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/ROUTE_66_sign.jpg

26 June

Coney Island Cyclone

is a historic wooden roller coaster, that opened on June 26, 1927 in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York City.   On June 18, 1975, Dewey and Jerome Albert, owners of Astroland Park, contracted to operate it under an agreement with New York City.  It was completely rehabilitated and opened to enthusiastic crowds on July 1, 1975. Since that time, Astroland Park and the Albert family has invested millions of dollars in the upkeep of the Cyclone.   After Astroland closed in 2008, Carol Hill Albert, president of Cyclone Coasters, continued to operate it under a lease agreement with the city.  In 2011, Luna Park took over operation of the Cyclone. It was declared a New York City landmark on July 12, 1988, and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on June 26, 1991.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Coney_Island_2010_109.JPG

25 June

Clifton Chenier

a Creole French-speaking native of Opelousas, Louisiana, was  known as the ‘King of Zydeco’ which arose from Cajun and Creole music, with R&B, jazz, and blues influences.   He played the accordion and won a Grammy Award in 1983.   In 1984 he was honored as a National Heritage Fellow in 1989 was inducted posthumously into the Blues Hall of Fame,  in 2011,   The Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame, and in 2014, a Grammy recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award.  http://images4.mtv.com/uri/mgid:file:docroot:mtv.com:/crop-images/2013/08/08/clifton_chenier_credit_paul_natkin_1984_gettypre.jpg?enlarge=false&maxdimension=1300&matte=true&matteColor=black&quality=0.85

 

24 June

Juan Manuel Fangio

was nicknamed El Chueco (“the bowlegged one”, also commonly translated as “bandy legged”) or El Maestro (“The Master”), was a racing car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Championship of Drivers five times.  He won the World Championship of Drivers five times —a record which stood for 46 years until beaten by Michael Schumacher—with four different teams (Alfa Romeo, Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Maserati), a feat that has not been repeated. A member of the Formula 1 Hall of Fame,  he is regarded by many as one of the greatest F1 drivers of all time and holds the highest winning percentage in Formula One – 46.15% – winning 24 of 52 Formula One races he entered. Fangio is the only Argentine driver to have won the Argentine Grand Prix, having won it four times in his career—the most of any driver.

23 June

Stuart Fergusson Victor Sutcliffe

was a British artist and musician best known as the original bassist for the Beatles. Sutcliffe left the band to pursue his career as an artist, having previously attended the Liverpool College of Art. Sutcliffe and John Lennon are credited with inventing the name, “Beatals”, as they both liked Buddy Holly’s band, the Crickets. The band used this name for a while until Lennon decided to change the name to “the Beatles”, from the word Beat. As a member of the group when it was a five-piece band, Sutcliffe is one of several people sometimes referred to as the “Fifth Beatle”.

22 June

Cuyahoga River Fire

is located in Northeast Ohio in the United States and feeds Lake Erie. The river is famous for being “the river that caught fire,” helping to spur the environmental movement in the late 1960s. Native Americans called this winding water “Cuyahoga,” which means “crooked river” in an Iroquoian language.

21 June

John Lee Hooker

was a highly influential American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. Hooker was born near Clarksdale Mississippi, he was the son of a sharecropper, and rose to prominence performing his own interpretation of what was originally a unique style of country blues. He developed a ‘talking blues’ style that became his trademark. Though similar to the early Delta blues, his music was metrically free.  John Lee Hooker could be said to embody his own genre of the blues, often incorporating the boogie-woogie piano style and a driving rhythm into his blues guitar playing and singing. His best known songs include Boogie Chillen’ (1948), I’m in the Mood (1951), and Boom Boom (1962)—the first two reaching #1 on the Billboard R&B chart.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:John_Lee_Hooker#mediaviewer/File:JohnLeeHooker1997.jpg

20 June

Black Hole of Calcutta

was a small dungeon in the old Fort William in Calcutta, India, where troops of the Nawab of Bengal, Siraj ud-Daulah, held British prisoners of war after the capture of the fort on 20 June 1756.  One of the prisoners, John Zephaniah Holwell, claimed that following the fall of the fort, British and Anglo-Indian soldiers and civilians were held overnight in conditions so cramped that many died from suffocation, heat exhaustion and crushing. He claimed that 123 prisoners died out of 146 held. However, the precise number of deaths, and the accuracy of Holwell’s claims, have been the subject of controversy.  http://blackholekitimages.blogspot.com/2013/08/black-hole-of-calcutta.html

19 June

Shirley Ann “Cha Cha” Muldowney

also known professionally as “Cha Cha” and the “First Lady of Drag Racing”, is an American pioneer in professional auto racing.   She was the first woman to receive a license from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to drive a Top Fuel dragster. She won the NHRA Top Fuel championship in 1977, 1980 and 1982, becoming the first person to win two and three Top Fuel titles.  She has won a total of 18 NHRA national events.  http://images.hemmings.com/wp-content/uploads//2013/10/Shirley-Muldowney-2.jpg

18 June

Paul Neal “Red” Adair

was an American oil well firefighter. He became world notable as an innovator in the highly specialized and extremely hazardous profession of extinguishing and capping blazing, erupting oil well blowouts, both land-based and offshore.  http://fireworld.com/Portals/0/badge.jpg

17 June

Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch

was an American football running back and receiver for the Los Angeles Rams and Chicago Rockets, nicknamed for his unusual running style.  Hirsch was born in Wausau, Wisconsin.  He developed his running style by running cross legged over four square cement sidewalk blocks.  Hirsch played his first college season with the University of Wisconsin Badgers in 1942. His nickname was permanently affixed to him by Chicago Daily News sportswriter Francis Powers who, upon witnessing him play for the Badgers against the Great Lakes Naval Station in 1942, wrote “His crazy legs were gyrating in six different directions, all at the same time; he looked like a demented duck.”  http://grfx.cstv.com/schools/wis/graphics/5873_1.jpg

16 June

Geronimo

was a prominent leader of the Bedonkohe Apache who fought against Spain and Texas for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. “Geronimo” was the name given to him during a battle with Mexican soldiers.  Geronimo’s Chiricahua name is often rendered as Goyathlay or Goyahkla in English.   After a Mexican attack on his tribe, where soldiers killed his mother, wife, and his three children in 1851, Geronimo joined a number of revenge attacks against the Mexicans.   In 1886, after a lengthy pursuit, Geronimo surrendered to Texan faux-gubernatorial authorities as a prisoner of war. At an old age, he became a celebrity; appearing in fairs[5] but was never allowed to return to the land of his birth. Geronimo died in 1909 from complications of pneumonia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo

15 June

Alfred “Lash”LaRue

was a popular western motion picture star of the 1940s and 1950s. He had exceptional skill with the bull whip, and taught Harrison Ford how to use a bullwhip in the Indiana Jones movies. LaRue was one of the first recipients of the Golden Boot Awards in 1983.  http://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_large/12/124613/3108469-lash+larue+western+v1+%232+(2001_0)+-+page+2.jpg

14 June

Robert Lenard “Bob” Bogle

was a founding member of the instrumental combo The Ventures. He and Don Wilson founded the group in 1958. Bogle was the lead guitarist and later bassist of the group. In 2008, Bogle and other members of The Ventures were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Performer category.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ventures-Play-Telstar.jpg

13 June

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman

was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader, known as the “King of Swing”.   In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America. His January 16, 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall in New York City is described by critic Bruce Eder as “the single most important jazz or popular music concert in history: jazz’s ‘coming out’ party to the world of ‘respectable’ music.”   Goodman’s bands launched the careers of many major names in jazz. During an era of segregation he also led one of the first well-known integrated jazz groups. Goodman continued to perform to nearly the end of his life, while exploring an interest in classical music.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Benny_Goodman_-_c1970.jpg

12 June

Eldred Gregory Peck

was an American actor and one of the world’s most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s, Peck continued to play major film roles until the late 1970s.  He is best known for his performance as Atticus Finch in the 1962 film To Kill a Mockingbird, which earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor. He had also been nominated for an Oscar for the same category for The Keys of the Kingdom (1944), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947) and Twelve O’Clock High (1949). Other notable films he appeared in include Spellbound (1945), The Paradine Case (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), Moby Dick (1956) (and its 1998 miniseries of the same name), The Guns of Navarone (1961), Cape Fear (1962) (and its 1991 remake of the same name), How the West Was Won (1962), The Omen (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978).  President Lyndon Johnson honored Peck with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 for his lifetime humanitarian efforts. In 1999, the American Film Institute named Peck among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, ranking at No. 12.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Peck#mediaviewer/File:Gregory_Peck_in_Roman_Holiday_trailer.jpg

11 June

Peter Hayden Dinklage

is an American actor. Since his breakout role in The Station Agent (2003), he has appeared in films such as Elf (2003), Find Me Guilty (2006), Underdog (2007), the British film Death at a Funeral (2007) and its American remake of the same name (2010), The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (2008), A Little Bit of Heaven (2011), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), and Knights of Badassdom (2013). Since 2011, he has played Tyrion Lannister in the HBO series Game of Thrones, which earned him the Emmy and the Golden Globe Award for Supporting Actor in 2011.

10 June

Charles Arthur Burnett AKA Howlin’ Wolf

was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player. With a booming voice and looming physical presence, he is one of the best-known Chicago blues artists.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Howlin%27_Wolf_1972.JPG

9 June

Charles John Huffam Dickens

was an English writer and social critic. He created some of the world’s most memorable fictional characters and is generally regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian period. During his life, his works enjoyed unprecedented fame, and by the twentieth century his literary genius was broadly acknowledged by critics and scholars.

8 June

Nineteen Eighty Four

as literary political fiction and dystopian science-fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic novel in content, plot, and style. Many of its terms and concepts, such as Big Brother, doublethink, thoughtcrime, Newspeak, Room 101, Telescreen, 2 + 2 = 5, and memory hole, have entered everyday use since its publication in 1949.  Moreover, Nineteen Eighty-Four popularised the adjective Orwellian, which describes official deception, secret surveillance, and manipulation of the past by a totalitarian or authoritarian state.  http://flavorwire.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/1984-book-cover.jpeg

7 June

Homer A. Plessey

was the American Creole plaintiff in the United States Supreme Court decision in Plessy v. Ferguson. Arrested, tried and convicted in New Orleans of a violation of one of Louisiana’s racial segregation laws, he appealed through Louisiana state courts to the U.S. Supreme Court and lost. The resulting “separate-but-equal” decision against him had wide consequences for civil rights in the United States. The decision legalized state-mandated segregation anywhere in the United States so long as the facilities provided for both blacks and whites were putatively “equal”.

6 June

William Beaumont

was a surgeon in the U.S. Army who became known as the “Father of Gastric Physiology” following his research on human digestion.   On 6 June 1822, an employee of the American Fur Company on Mackinac Island, Alexis St. Martin, was accidentally shot in the stomach  from close range that injured his ribs and his stomach. Dr. Beaumont treated his wound, but expected St. Martin to die from his injuries.  Despite this dire prediction, St. Martin survived – but with a hole, or fistula, in his stomach that never fully healed. Unable to continue work for the American Fur Company, he was hired as a handyman by Dr. Beaumont.  Beaumont recognized that he had in St. Martin the unique opportunity to observe digestive processes. Dr. Beaumont began to perform experiments on digestion by tying a piece of food to a string and inserting it through the hole into St. Martin’s stomach.  Every few hours, Beaumont would remove the food and observe how well it had been digested.  This led to the important discovery that the stomach acid, and not solely the mashing, pounding and squeezing of the stomach, digests the food into nutrients the stomach can use; in other words, digestion was primarily a chemical process and not a mechanical one.  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/William_Beaumont_painting.jpg

5 June

The Orient Express was the name of a long-distance passenger train service originally operated by the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. It ran from 1883 to 2009 and is not to be confused with the Venice Simplon-Orient-Express luxury train service, which continues to run. The route and rolling stock of the Orient Express changed many times. Several routes in the past concurrently used the Orient Express name, or slight variants thereof. Although the original Orient Express was simply a normal international railway service, the name has become synonymous with intrigue and luxury travel. The two city names most prominently associated with the Orient Express are Paris and Istanbul, the original endpoints of the timetabled service.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aff_ciwl_orient_express4_jw.jpg

4 June

William Dennis Weaver

was an American actor, best known for his work in television, including his role as Matt Dillon’s trusty helper Chester Goode on the long-running western series Gunsmoke. He later played Marshal Sam McCloud on the NBC police drama McCloud, and appeared in the 1971 TV movie Duel, the first film of director Steven Spielberg.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Milburn_Stone_Dennis_Weaver_Gunsmoke_1961.JPG

3 June

Berna Eli “Barney” Oldfield

(3 June 1878 – 4 October 1946) was an American automobile racer and pioneer. He was the first man to drive a car at 60 miles per hour (96 km/h) on an oval at the Indianapolis State Fairgrounds in Indianapolis. Oldfield made a fine showing at the opening of the Indianapolis Speedway (August 19–21, 1909), in a Mercedes. In 1910 he raised the land speed record to 70.159 mph (112.910 km/h) in his “Blitzen Benz”. Later that year he drove to 131.25 mph (211.23 km/h), and used the car to break the existing mile, two mile (3 km), and kilometer records at the Daytona Beach Road Course at Ormond, Florida.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Barney_Oldfield#mediaviewer/File:Rc06258.jpg

2 June

Charles Robert “Charlie” Watts

is an English drummer, best known as a member of the Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band,^[1] a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Charlie_Watts.jpg

1 June

Andy Samuel Griffith

was an American actor, television producer, Grammy Award-winning Southern-gospel singer, and writer.   He was a Tony Award nominee for two roles, and gained prominence in the starring role in director Elia Kazan’s film A Face in the Crowd (1957) before he became better known for his television roles, playing the lead character in the 1960–1968 situation comedy The Andy Griffith Show and in the 1986–1995 legal drama Matlock. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Griffith

31 May

The Karnival Kid is a 1929 American animated short film directed by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks. It was produced in black and white by The Walt Disney Studio and released to theaters by Celebrity Productions. It is the ninth film in the Mickey Mouse film series, and the first in which Mickey speaks. (During his first eight appearances Mickey whistled, laughed, cried and otherwise vocally expressed himself.) Mickey’s first spoken words were in this cartoon, “Hot Dogs!” “Hot Dogs!”, the vocal effects being provided by composer Carl Stalling instead of Walt Disney. http://findingmickey.squarespace.com/picture/karnivalkid-title.jpg?pictureId=8356720&asGalleryImage=true

30 May

The first Fabergé egg was crafted in 1885 for Tsar Alexander III as a gift for his wife, the Empress Maria Fedorovna, It was an Easter Egg  to celebrate the 20th wedding anniversary.  The first Fabergé egg is crafted from gold and is called the Hen Egg.  Its opaque white enameled “shell” opens to reveal its first surprise, a matte yellow-gold yolk. This in turn opens to reveal a multicolored gold hen that also opens. The hen contained a minute diamond replica of the imperial crown from which a small ruby pendant was suspended, but these last two elements have been lost. http://www.mieks.com/eng/Other-Eggs/Quisling-Egg.htm

29 May

Harry Lillis”Bing” Crosby, Jr.

was an American singer and actor. Crosby’s trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bing_Crosby,_1942.jpg

28 May

Volkswagen was originally founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront).  In the early 1930s German auto industry was still largely composed of luxury models, and the average German rarely could afford anything more than a motorcycle. As a result only one German out of 50 owned a car. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1949_Volkswagen_pic7.JPG

27 May

Vincent Leonard Price, Jr.

was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic performances in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.  Price was born in St. Louis, Missouri, youngest of the four children of Vincent Leonard Price, Sr., president of the National Candy Company, and his wife Marguerite Cobb Wilcox.   His grandfather, Vincent Clarence Price, invented “Dr. Price’s Baking Powder,” the first cream of tartar baking powder, and secured the family’s fortune.  http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-C8_ayuj93TI/TdFKWwPF92I/AAAAAAAAGcw/brC4wCgztS0/s1600/vincent-price.jpg

26 May

James King Arness

(26 May 1923 – 3 June 2011) was an American actor, best known for portraying Marshal Matt Dillon in the television series Gunsmoke for 20 years.   Arness has the distinction of having played the role of Dillon in five separate decades: 1955 to 1975 in the weekly series, then in Gunsmoke: Return to Dodge (1987) and four more made-for-TV Gunsmoke movies in the 1990s. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/63/James_Arness_Matt_Dillon_Gunsmoke_1969.JPG

25 May

Star Wars

is an American epic space opera franchise centered on a film series created by George Lucas. The film series, consisting of two trilogies, has spawned an extensive media franchise called the Expanded Universe including books, television series, computer and video games, and comic books. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Star_Wars_Logo.svg

24 May

The nursery rhyme was first published by the Boston publishing firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon, as an original poem by Sarah Josepha Hale on May 24, 1830, and was inspired by an actual incident. The rhyme is also famous for being the very first thing recorded by Thomas Edison on his newly invented phonograph in 1877.  It was the first instance of recorded verse. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mary_had_a_little_lamb_2_-_WW_Denslow_-_Project_Gutenberg_etext_18546.jpg

23 May

Christopher Houston Carson

(24 December 1809 – 23 May 23 1868) — known as Kit Carson — was an American frontiersman and Indian fighter. Carson left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a mountain man and trapper in the West.  Carson explored the west to Spanish California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married into the Arapaho and Cheyenne tribes. He was hired by John C. Fremont as a guide, and led ‘the Pathfinder’ through much of California, Oregon and the Great Basin area. He achieved national fame through Fremont’s accounts of his expeditions and was featured as the hero of many dime novels.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kit_Carson_photograph_restored.jpg

22 May

Tokyo Skytree

is a broadcasting, restaurant, and observation tower in Sumida, Tokyo, Japan. It became the tallest structure in Japan in 2010 and reached its full height of 634.0 metres (2,080 ft) in March 2011, making it the tallest tower in the world, displacing the Canton Tower, and the second tallest structure in the world after Burj Khalifa (829.8 m/2,722 ft). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sky_Tree.jpg

21 May

Sea Dragon

is a junior wooden roller coaster located at the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in Powell, Ohio. Built by Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters (PTC) under famed designer John C. Allen, the roller coaster opened in 1956 as Jet Flyer. It was one of three junior wooden coasters that Allen designed shortly after becoming president of PTC in 1954 – the other two were Flyer at Hunt’s Pier and Valley Volcano at Angela Park. They were based on earlier designs developed by another legendary coaster architect Herbert Schmeck, who was Allen’s mentor.  Following the dismantling of the other two coasters in the late 1980s, Sea Dragon became the oldest roller coaster from John Allen to remain in operation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sea_Dragon_roller_coaster.jpg

20 May

Stephen Jay Gould

was an American paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and historian of science. He was also one of the most influential and widely read writers of popular science of his generation.  Gould spent most of his career teaching at Harvard University and working at the American Museum of Natural History in New York.   In the later years of his life, Gould also taught biology and evolution at New York University. https://mybanyantree.files.wordpress.com/2007/09/gould_stephen_jay-19870528037r2.gif?w=655

19 May

Thomas Edward Lawrence

, CB, DSO (16 August 1888 – 19 May 1935), known professionally as T. E. Lawrence, was a British Army officer renowned especially for his liaison role during the Sinai and Palestine Campaign and the Arab Revolt against Ottoman Turkish rule of 1916–18.  The breadth and variety of his activities and associations, and his ability to describe them vividly in writing, earned him international fame as Lawrence of Arabia, a title which was used for the 1962 film based on his World War I activities. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:T.E._Lawrence_With_Lawrence_in_Arabia.jpg

18 May

Shawn Timothy Nelson

(21 August 1959 – 18 May 1995) was a U.S. Army veteran and unemployed plumber who stole an M60A3 Patton tank from a United States National Guard Armory in San Diego, California, and went on a rampage on  destroying cars, fire hydrants, and a recreational vehicle before being shot and killed by police. http://icarusfilms.com/new2002/gifs/cul.jpg

17 May

Aristides (1872–1893) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse who won the first Kentucky Derby in 1875.  In 1875 the Derby was raced at a mile and a half, the distance it would remain until 1876 when it was changed to its present mile and a quarter.  The win was a $2,850 purse. http://origin-www.followhorseracing.com/6130.aspx

16 May

Marie Antoinette baptised Maria Antonia Josepha (or Josephina) Johanna (2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793), born an Archduchess of Austria, was Dauphine of France from 1770 to 1774 and Queen of France and Navarre from 1774 to 1792.  She was the fifteenth and penultimate child of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa and Emperor Francis I.  In April 1770, upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, Dauphin of France, she became Dauphine of France.  She assumed the title Queen of France and of Navarre when her husband ascended the throne as Louis XVI upon the death of his grandfather Louis XV in May 1774.   After seven years of marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the first of four children. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/87/Marie_Antoinette_1767.jpg

15 May

The McDonald’s Corporation is the world’s largest chain of hamburger fast food restaurants, serving around 68 million customers daily in 119 countries.  Headquartered in the United States, the company began in 1940 as a barbecue restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald; in 1948 they reorganized their business as a hamburger stand using production line principles. Businessman Ray Kroc joined the company as a franchise agent in 1955. He subsequently purchased the chain from the McDonald brothers and oversaw its worldwide growth. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/McDonalds_Museum.jpg 

14 May

Francis Albert

“Frank” Sinatra was an American singer and film actor. Beginning his musical career in the swing era as a boy singer with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra found success as a solo artist from the early to mid-1940s after being signed by Columbia Records in 1943.  Being the idol of the “bobby soxers”, he released his first album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra in 1946.  His professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, but it was reborn in 1953 after he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in From Here to Eternity. He signed with Capitol Records in 1953 and released several critically lauded albums.  Sinatra left Capitol to found his own record label, Reprise Records in 1961 , was a founding member of the Rat Pack and fraternized with celebrities and statesmen, including John F. Kennedy. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Sinatra_laughing.jpg

13 May

Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier, known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist. Cuvier was a major figure in natural sciences research in the early nineteenth century and was instrumental in establishing the fields of comparative anatomy and paleontology through his work in comparing living animals with fossils.  Cuvier’s work is considered the foundation of vertebrate paleontology, and he expanded Linnaean taxonomy by grouping classes into phyla and incorporating both fossils and living species into the classification.  Cuvier also is well known for establishing extinction as a fact—at the time, extinction was considered by many of Cuvier’s contemporaries to be merely controversial speculation. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuvier-1769-1832.jpg

12 May

George Denis Patrick Carlin

was an American comedian, writer, social critic, and actor who won five Grammy Awards for his comedy albums.  Carlin was noted for his black comedy as well as his thoughts on politics, the English language, psychology, religion, and various taboo subjects. Carlin and his “Seven dirty words” comedy routine were central to the 1978 U.S. Supreme Court case F.C.C. v. Pacifica Foundation, in which a 5–4 decision by the justices affirmed the government’s power to regulate indecent material on the public airwaves. One newspaper called Carlin “the dean of counterculture comedians.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jesus_is_coming.._Look_Busy_(George_Carlin).jpg

11 May

Eric Victor Burdon

(born 11 May 1941) is an English singer-songwriter best known as a member and vocalist of rock band the Animals and the funk band War and for his aggressive stage performance.   He was ranked 57th in Rolling Stone‘s list The 100 Greatest Singers of All Time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_animals.jpg

10 May

Sarah Osborne

(also variously spelled Osbourne, Osburne, or Osborn) (c. 1643 – 10 May 1692) was one of the first three women to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials of 1692.  She became one of the first accused of witchcraft in early 1692, when Betty Parris and Abigail Williams became ill with an unknown sickness.  Both girls claimed that Sarah Osbourne, along with the servant Tituba and Sarah Good, had been afflicting them. http://www.legendsofamerica.com/photos-massachusetts/witchcraft%20trial.jpg

9 May

Tenzing Norgay

born Namgyal Wangdi and often referred to as Sherpa Tenzing, was a Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer. Among the most famous mountain climbers in history, he was one of the first two individuals known to have reached the summit of Mount Everest, which he accomplished with Edmund Hillary on 29 May 1953.  He was named by Time as one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tenzing_Norgay.gif

8 May

Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin

(7 June 1848 – 8 May 1903) was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist largely unappreciated until after his death.  Gauguin was later recognized for his experimental use of colors and synthetist style that were markedly different from Impressionism. His work was influential to the French avant-garde and many modern artists, such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Gauguin_111.jpg

7 May

George Francis “Gabby” Hayes

(7 May 1885 – 9 February 1969) was an American radio, film, and television actor. He was best known for his numerous appearances in Western films as the colorful sidekick to the leading man.  He was the son of Elizabeth Morrison and Clark Hayes, and the nephew of George F. Morrison, vice president of General Electric.  Hayes did not come from a cowboy background; in fact, he did not know how to ride a horse until he was in his forties and had to learn for film roles.  He played semi-professional baseball while in high school, then ran away from home in 1902, at 17. He joined a stock company, apparently traveled for a time with a circus, and became a successful vaudevillian. Hayes married Olive E. Ireland, daughter of a New Jersey glass finisher, on March 4, 1914. She joined him in vaudeville, performing under the name Dorothy Earle (not to be confused with film actress/writer Dorothy Earle). Hayes had become so successful that by 1928 he was able, at age 43, to retire to a home on Long Island in Baldwin, New York. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dc/Gabby_hayes_1953.jpg

6 May

LZ 129 Hindenburg was a large German commercial passenger-carrying rigid airship, the lead ship of the Hindenburg class, the longest class of flying machine and the largest airship by envelope volume.  It was designed and built by the Zeppelin Company (Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH) on the shores of Lake Constance in Friedrichshafen and was operated by the German Zeppelin Airline Company (Deutsche Zeppelin-Reederei).  The airship flew from March 1936 until destroyed by fire 14 months later on 6 May 1937, at the end of the first North American transatlantic journey of its second season of service. Thirty-six people died in the accident, which occurred while landing at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey, United States.  Hindenburg was named after the late Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg, President of Germany from 1925 until his death in 1934. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Hindenburg_burning.jpg

5 May

Secretariat

(30 March 1970 – 4 October 1989) was an American Thoroughbred racehorse that in 1973 became the first U.S. Triple Crown winner in 25 years. He set race records in all three events in the series – the Kentucky Derby (1:59 2/5), the Preakness Stakes (1:53), and the Belmont Stakes (2:24) – records that still stand today.He is considered to be one of the greatest Thoroughbreds of all time. In 1999, ESPN ranked Secretariat the 35th best athlete of the 20th century, the highest ranking racehorse on the list.  He ranked second behind Man o’ War in The Blood-Horse’s List of the Top 100 U.S. Racehorses of the 20th Century. http://www.secretariat.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/sec_timecoverM.jpg

4 May

Thomas Henry Huxley was an English biologist (comparative anatomist), known as “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.  Huxley’s famous debate in 1860 with Bishop Samuel Wilberforce was a key moment in the wider acceptance of evolution, and in his own career.  Huxley had been planning to leave Oxford on the previous day, but, after an encounter with Robert Chambers, the author of Vestiges, he changed his mind and decided to join the debate.  Wilberforce was coached by Richard Owen, against whom Huxley also debated about whether humans were closely related to apes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:T.H.Huxley(Woodburytype).jpg

3 May

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, politician, diplomat, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He was for many years an official in the Florentine Republic, with responsibilities in diplomatic and military affairs.   He was a founder of modern political science, and more specifically political ethics.  He also wrote comedies, carnival songs, and poetry.  He wrote his masterpiece, The Prince, but no longer held a position of responsibility in Florence.  “Machiavellianism” is a widely used negative term to characterize unscrupulous politicians of the sort Machiavelli described in The Prince.   The book itself gained enormous notoriety and wide readership because the author seemed to be endorsing behavior often deemed as evil and immoral. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santi_di_Tito_-_Niccolo_Machiavelli%27s_portrait_headcrop.jpg

2 May

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer. His genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal. Leonardo has often been described as the archetype of the Renaissance Man, a man of “unquenchable curiosity” and “feverishly inventive imagination”. According to art historian Helen Gardner, the scope and depth of his interests were without precedent and “his mind and personality seem to us superhuman, the man himself mysterious and remote”. Born out of wedlock to a notary, Piero da Vinci, and a peasant woman, Caterina, in Vinci in the region of Florence, Leonardo was educated in the studio of the renowned Florentine painter Verrocchio. Much of his earlier working life was spent in the service of Ludovico il Moro in Milan. He later worked in Rome, Bologna and Venice, and he spent his last years in France at the home awarded him by Francis I. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Francesco_Melzi_-_Portrait_of_Leonardo_-_WGA14795.jpg

1 May

The Penny Black was the world’s first adhesive postage stamp used in a public postal system. It was issued in Britain on 1 May 1840, for official use from 6 May of that year and features a profile of the Queen Victoria.  The idea of an adhesive stamp to indicate pre-payment of postage was part of Sir Rowland Hill’s 1837 proposals to reform the British postal system; it was normal then for the recipient to pay postage on delivery.  A companion idea, which Hill disclosed on 13 February 1837 at a government enquiry, was that of a separate sheet that folded to form an enclosure or envelope for carrying letters.  At that time postage was charged by the sheet and on the distance travelled. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Penny_black.jpg

30 April

Alice B. Toklas (30 April 1877 – 7 March 1967) was an American-born member of the Parisian avant-garde of the early 20th century. She was born Alice Babette Toklas in San Francisco, California, into a middle-class Jewish family (her father had been a Polish army officer) and attended schools in both San Francisco and Seattle. For a short time she also studied music at the University of Washington. She met Gertrude Stein in Paris on September 8, 1907, the day she arrived. Together they hosted a salon that attracted expatriate American writers, such as Ernest Hemingway, Paul Bowles, Thornton Wilder, and Sherwood Anderson, and avant-garde painters, including Picasso, Matisse, and Braque.  Acting as Stein’s confidante, lover, cook, secretary, muse, editor, critic, and general organizer, Toklas remained a background figure, chiefly living in the shadow of Stein, until Stein published her memoirs in 1933 under the teasing title The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas. It became Stein’s bestselling book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_B._Toklas,_by_Carl_Van_Vechten_-_1949.jpg

29 April

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by James Rado and Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot.  A product of the hippie counterculture and sexual revolution of the 1960s, several of its songs became anthems of the anti-Vietnam War peace movement. The musical’s profanity, its depiction of the use of illegal drugs, its treatment of sexuality, its irreverence for the American flag, and its nude scene caused much comment and controversy.The musical broke new ground in musical theatre by defining the genre of “rock musical”, using a racially integrated cast, and inviting the audience onstage for a “Be-In” finale. Hair tells the story of the “tribe”, a group of politically active, hippies of the “Age of Aquarius” living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War.  Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents (and conservative America) to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifistic principles and risking his life. http://www.hairtribes.com/

28 April

The Mutiny on the Bounty was a mutiny aboard the British Royal Navy ship HMS Bounty on 28 April 1789. The mutiny was led by Fletcher Christian against their captain, Lieutenant William Bligh. According to accounts, the sailors were attracted to the “idyllic” life and sexual opportunities afforded on the Pacific island of Tahiti.  It has also been argued that they were motivated by Bligh’s allegedly harsh treatment of them.  Eighteen mutineers set Bligh afloat in a small boat with eighteen of the twenty-two crew loyal to him. Bligh survived and descendants of the original mutineers can be found on Pitcairn and nearby islands. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mutiny_HMS_Bounty.jpg

27 April

SS Sultana was a Mississippi River side-wheel steamboat that exploded on April 27, 1865 in the greatest maritime disaster in United States history. An estimated 1,800 of its 2,427 passengers died when three of the ship’s four boilers exploded and it sank near Memphis. This disaster was overshadowed in the press by other recent events. John Wilkes Booth, President Lincoln’s assassin, was killed the day before. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ill-fated_Sultana,_Helena,_Arkansas,_April_27,_1865.jpg

26 April

Lucille Désirée Ball (6 August 1911 – 26 April 26 1989) was an American comedienne, model, film and television actress and studio executive. She was star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy–Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show, Here’s Lucy and Life with Lucy, and was one of the most popular and influential stars in the United States during her lifetime. Ball had one of Hollywood’s longest careers. In the 1930s and 1940s she started as an RKO girl, playing bit parts as a chorus girl or similar roles and becoming a television star during the 1950s. She continued making films in the 1960s and 1970s.  In 1962, Ball became the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu, which produced many successful and popular television series such as “Mission Impossible” and “Star Trek”. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Lucille_Ball_in_Best_Foot_Forward_trailer.jpg

25 April

In mid-March 1953, using experimental data collected by Rosalind Franklin and Maurice Wilkins, James D. Watson and Francis H. C. Crick deduced the double helix structure of DNA.  Sir Lawrence Bragg, the director of the Cavendish Laboratory (where Watson and Crick worked), made the original announcement of the discovery at a Solvay conference on proteins in Belgium on April 8, 1953; it went unreported by the press. Watson and Crick submitted a paper to the scientific journal Nature, which was published on April 25, 1953.   Bragg gave a talk at the Guy’s Hospital Medical School in London on Thursday, May 14, 1953, which resulted in an article by Ritchie Calder in the newspaper The News Chronicle of London, on May 15, 1953, entitled “Why You Are You. Nearer Secret of Life.”

24 April

Hersheypark (known as Hershey Park until 1970) is a family theme park situated in Hershey, Derry Township, Pennsylvania, United States, about 15 miles (24 km) east of Harrisburg, and 95 miles (153 km) west of Philadelphia. Founded in 1906 by Milton S. Hershey, as a leisure park for the employees of the Hershey Chocolate Company.  The park opened its first roller coaster in 1923, the The Wild Cat, an early Philadelphia Toboggan Company coaster. In 1970, Hershey Park began a redevelopment plan which made the park into the new Hersheypark. The 1970s brought the first looping roller coaster on the East Coast, as well as a 330 foot tall observation tower, the Kissing Tower. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Hersheypark_sign_at_night%2C_2013-08-10.jpg

23 April

New Coke was the reformulation of Coca-Cola introduced in 1985 by The Coca-Cola Company to replace the original formula of its flagship soft drink, Coca-Cola (also called Coke).   New Coke originally had no separate name of its own, but was simply known as “the new taste of Coca-Cola” until 1992 when it was renamed Coca-Cola II. The American public’s reaction to the change was negative and the new cola was a major marketing failure.  The subsequent reintroduction of Coke’s original formula, re-branded as “Coca-Cola Classic”, resulted in a significant gain in sales.  This led to speculation that the introduction of the New Coke formula was just a marketing ploy; however the company has always claimed it was merely an attempt to replace the original product. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Newcokebottle2.jpg

22 April

Pravda is a Russian political newspaper associated with the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.  The newspaper was started by the Russian Revolutionaries during the pre-World War I days and emerged as a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union after the Russian Revolution.  The newspaper also served as a central organ of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and the CPSU between 1912 and 1991. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pravda_logo.png

21 April

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918), also widely known as the Red Baron, was a German fighter pilot with the Imperial German Army Air Service (Luftstreitkräfte) during World War I. He is considered the top ace of that war, being officially credited with 80 air combat victories. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RoteBaron.JPG

20 April

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, also referred to as the BP oil spill, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and the Macondo blowout, began on 20 April 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect. It claimed eleven lives and is considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, an estimated 8% to 31% larger in volume than the previously largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill. Following the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig, a sea-floor oil gusher flowed for 87 days, until it was capped on 15 July 2010.  The US Government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 million barrels (210 million US gal; 780,000 m³).  After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010.  Some reports indicate the well site continues to leak. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Deepwater_Horizon_offshore_drilling_unit_on_fire.jpg

19 April

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS (12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist and geologist,^[1] best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding.

18 April

Lucrezia Borgia (18 April 1480 – 24 June 1519) was the daughter of Pope Alexander VI and Vannozza dei Cattanei. Her brothers included Cesare Borgia, Giovanni Borgia, and Gioffre Borgia.  Lucrezia’s family later came to epitomize the ruthless Machiavellian politics and sexual corruption alleged to be characteristic of the Renaissance Papacy.   Very little is known of Lucrezia, and the extent of her complicity in the political machinations of her father and brothers is unclear. They certainly arranged several marriages for her to important or powerful men in order to advance their own political ambitions. Lucrezia was married to Giovanni Sforza (Lord of Pesaro), Alfonso of Aragon (Duke of Bisceglie), and Alfonso I d’Este (Duke of Ferrara). Tradition has it that Alfonso of Aragon was an illegitimate son of the King of Naples and that her brother Cesare may have had him murdered after his political value waned. http://www.notablebiographies.com/Be-Br/Borgia-Lucrezia.html

17 April

Ellis Island, in Upper New York Bay, was the gateway for millions of immigrants to the United States as the nation’s busiest immigrant inspection station from 1892 until 1954.  The island was greatly expanded with land reclamation between 1892 and 1934. Before that, the much smaller original island was the site of Fort Gibson and later a naval magazine. The island was made part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument in 1965, and has hosted a museum of immigration since 1990.  The peak year for immigration at Ellis Island was 1907, with 1,004,756 immigrants processed.  The all-time daily high occurred on April 17, 1907, when 11,747 immigrants arrived. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Climbing_into_America_Ellis_Island_by_Lewis_Hine.jpeg

16 April

Natural Bridges National Monument is about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the Four Corners boundary of southeast Utah at the junction of White Canyon and Armstrong Canyon, part of the Colorado River drainage. It features the second largest natural bridge in the world, carved from the white Permian sandstone of the Cedar Mesa Formation that gives White Canyon its name. The three bridges in the park are named Kachina, Owachomo, and Sipapu (the largest), which are all Hopi names. A natural bridge is formed through erosion by water flowing in the stream bed of the canyon. During periods of flash floods, particularly, the stream undercuts the walls of rock that separate the meanders (or “goosenecks”) of the stream, until the rock wall within the meander is undercut and the meander is cut off; the new stream bed then flows underneath the bridge. Eventually, as erosion and gravity enlarge the bridge’s opening, the bridge collapses under its own weight. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Owachomo_Bridge_-_Natural_Bridges_National_Monument_-_III.JPG

15 April

The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 was the most destructive river flood in the history of the United States.  The flood began with extremely heavy rains in the central basin of the Mississippi in the summer of 1926. By September, the Mississippi’s tributaries in Kansas and Iowa were swollen to capacity. On Christmas Day of 1926, the Cumberland River at Nashville exceeded 56.2 feet (17 m), a level that remains a record to this day, higher than the devastating 2010 floods. Flooding overtopped the levees causing the Mounds Landing to break with more than double the water volume of Niagara Falls. The Mississippi River broke out of its levee system in 145 places and flooded 27,000 square miles (70,000 km²).  This water flooded an area 80 km (50 mi) wide and more than 160 km (99 mi) long. The area was inundated up to a depth of 30 feet (10 m). The flood caused over $400 million in damages and killed 246 people in seven states. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1927_flood_Caernarvon_levee_dynamite_St._Bernard_Parish.png

14 April

RMS Titanic was a British passenger liner that sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on 15 April 1912 after colliding with an iceberg during her maiden voyage from Southampton, UK to New York City, US.  The sinking of Titanic caused the deaths of more than 1,500 people in one of the deadliest peacetime maritime disasters in modern history.  The RMS Titanic was the largest ship afloat at the time it entered service.  Titanic was the second of three Olympic class ocean liners operated by the White Star Line, and was built by the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast with Thomas Andrews as her naval architect.  Andrews was among those lost during the sinking. On her maiden voyage, she carried 2,224 passengers and crew. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/RMS_Titanic_sea_trials_April_2%2C_1912.jpg

13 April

Eugene Victor “Gene” Debs (5 November 1855 – 20 October 1926) was an American union leader, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW or the Wobblies), and five times the candidate of the Socialist Party of America for President of the United States.Through his presidential candidacies, as well as his work with labor movements, Debs eventually became one of the best-known socialists living in the United States. Debs’ speeches against the Wilson administration and the war earned the enmity of President Woodrow Wilson, who later called Debs a “traitor to his country.”  On June 16, 1918, Debs made a speech in Canton, Ohio, urging resistance to the military draft of World War I. He was arrested on June 30 and charged with ten counts of sedition. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Debs_Canton_1918.jpg

12 April

The Great Locomotive Chase or Andrews’ Raid was a military raid that occurred April 12, 1862, in northern Georgia during the American Civil War. Volunteers from the Union Army, led by civilian scout James J. Andrews, commandeered a train and took it northward toward Chattanooga, Tennessee, doing as much damage as possible to the vital Western and Atlantic Railroad (W&A) line from Atlanta to Chattanooga as they went. They were pursued by Confederate forces at first on foot, and later on a succession of locomotives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:DoV1-018_-_Mitchel_Raid.jpg

11 April

The Stone of Scone also known as the Stone of Destiny and often referred to in England as The Coronation Stone, is an oblong block of red sandstone, used for centuries in the coronation of the monarchs of Scotland and later the monarchs of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom. Historically, the artefact was kept at the now-ruined Scone Abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It is also known as Jacob’s Pillow Stone and the Tanist Stone, and in Scottish Gaelic clach-na-cinneamhainmarks.  At each end of the stone is an iron ring, apparently intended to make transport easier.  The Stone of Scone was last used in 1953 for the coronation of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. In 1296 the Stone was captured by Edward I as spoils of war and taken to Westminster Abbey, where it was fitted into a wooden chair, known as King Edward’s Chair, on which most subsequent English sovereigns have been crowned. Doubtless by this he intended to symbolise his claim to be “Lord Paramount” of Scotland with right to oversee its King. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Coronation_Chair_and_Stone_of_Scone._Anonymous_Engraver._Published_in_A_History_of_England_%281855%29.jpg

10 April

The original bell was a 16 ton (16.3-tonne) hour bell, cast on 6 August 1856 in Stockton-on-Tees by John Warner & Sons.  The bell was named in honor of Sir Benjamin Hall, and his name is inscribed on it.  However, another theory for the origin of the name is that the bell may have been named after a contemporary heavyweight boxer Benjamin Caunt.  It is thought that the bell was originally to be called Victoria or Royal Victoria in honour of Queen Victoria, but that an MP suggested the nickname during a Parliamentary debate; the comment is not recorded in Hansard. Since the tower was not yet finished, the bell was mounted in New Palace Yard. Cast in 1856, the first bell was transported to the tower on a trolley drawn by sixteen horses, with crowds cheering its progress. Unfortunately, it cracked beyond repair while being tested and a replacement had to be made. The bell was recast on 10 April 1858 at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry as a 13½ ton (13.76-tonne) bell.  This was pulled 200 ft (61.0 m) up to the Clock Tower’s belfry, a feat that took 18 hours. It is 7 feet 6 inches (2.29 m) tall and 9 feet (2.74 m) diameter. This new bell first chimed in July 1859. In September it too cracked under the hammer, a mere two months after it officially went into service. http://www.documentingreality.com/forum/attachments/f240/475644d1376817827-inside-big-ben-houses-parliament-london-uk-1920s-1950s-7513_gall_004.jpg

9 April

Marian Anderson: the Lincoln Memorial Concert is a 1939 documentary film which documents a concert performance by African American opera singer Marian Anderson (27 February 1897 – 8 April 1993)after the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) had her barred from singing in Washington D.C.’s Constitution Hall because she was black. Officials of the District of Columbia also barred her from performing in the auditorium of a white public high school. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt helped hold the concert at  Lincoln Memorial, on federal property.  The Easter Sunday performance was attended by 75,000. In 2001, this documentary film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

8 April

Aphrodite of Milos, better known as the Venus de Milo, is one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture.  Created sometime between 130 and 100 BC, it is believed to depict Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty (Venus to the Romans).  It is a marble sculpture, slightly larger than life size at 203 cm (6 ft 8 in) high. The arms and original plinth were lost following its discovery.  From an inscription that was on its plinth, it is thought to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch; earlier, it was mistakenly attributed to the master sculptor Praxiteles. It is currently on permanent display at the Louvre Museum in Paris. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/21/Venus_de_Milo_Louvre_Ma399_n4.jpg

7 April

The Teapot Dome scandal was a bribery incident that took place in the United States from 1920 to 1923, during the administration of President Warren G. Harding. Secretary of the Interior Albert B. Fall leased Navy petroleum reserves at Teapot Dome in Wyoming and two other locations in California to private oil companies at low rates without competitive bidding. In 1922 and 1923, the leases became the subject of a sensational investigation by Senator Thomas J. Walsh. Fall was later convicted of accepting bribes from the oil companies. Before the Watergate scandal, Teapot Dome was regarded as the “greatest and most sensational scandal in the history of American politics”. The scandal damaged the public reputation of the Harding administration, which was already severely diminished by its poor handling of the Great Railroad Strike of 1922 and the President’s veto of the Bonus Bill in 1922 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Teapot_WY_1.jpg

6 April

Leonard Bernstein was an American composer, conductor, author, music lecturer, and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim. According to Donal Henahan, he was “one of the most prodigiously talented and successful musicians in American history.”  His fame derived from his long tenure as the music director of the New York Philharmonic, from his conducting of concerts with most of the world’s leading orchestras, and from his music for West Side Story, as well as Peter Pan,Candide, Wonderful Town, On the Town and his own Mass.  Bernstein was also the first conductor to give numerous television lectures on classical music, starting in 1954 and continuing until his death. He was a skilled pianist, often conducting piano concertos from the keyboard. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e1/Leonard_Bernstein_1971.jpg

5 April

Marshall Amplification is a British company that designs and manufactures music amplifiers, speaker cabinets, as well as drums and other instruments.  It was founded by drum shop owner and Jim Marshall, and is based in Bletchley, Milton Keynes. Marshall’s guitar amplifiers are among the most recognised brands in amplification. They are known for their own specific sound (the Marshall “crunch”).  After gaining a lot of publicity, they were sought out by guitarists for this new sound, as well as the increased volume of Marshall amps compared to the amps that were being sold in the 1970s. Many of the current (and reissue) models continue to use vacuum tubes, not solid state electronics. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Marshall_Bass-State_B65.jpg

4 April

Ed “Big Daddy” Roth (4 March 1932 – 4 April 2001) was an artist, cartoonist, pinstriper and custom car designer and builder who created the hot-rod icon Rat Fink and other extreme characters.  Roth was a key figure in Southern California’s Kustom Kulture and hot-rod movement of the late 1950s and 1960s. https://www.ratfink.com/rat-fink-art.php

3 April

The Osborne 1 was the first commercially successful portable microcomputer, released on 3 April 1981 by Osborne Computer Corporation.  It weighed 10.7 kg (23.5 lb), cost $1,795 (USD), and ran the then-popular CP/M 2.2 operating system. The computer shipped with a large bundle of software that was almost equivalent in value to the machine itself, a practice adopted by other CP/M computer vendors. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/66/Osborne_1_open.jpg

2 April

The Church of the Nativity is a basilica located in Bethlehem, Palestinian territories. The church was originally commissioned in 327 AD by Constantine and his mother Helena over the site that is still traditionally considered to be located over the cave that marks the birthplace of Jesus of Nazareth.  The Church of the Nativity site’s original basilica was completed in 339 AD and destroyed by fire during the Samaritan Revolts in the sixth century AD.  A new basilica was built 565 AD by Justinian, the Byzantine Emperor, restoring the architectural tone of the original.  The site of the Church of the Nativity has had numerous additions since this second construction, including its prominent bell towers.  Due to its cultural and geographical history, the site holds a prominent religious significance to those of both the Christian and Muslim faiths. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bethlehem_Church_of_the_Nativity_(2007).jpg

1 April

The spaghetti-tree hoax was a three-minute hoax report broadcast on April Fools’ Day 1957 by the BBC current-affairs program Panorama, purportedly showing a family in southern Switzerland harvesting spaghetti from the family “spaghetti tree”.  At the time spaghetti was relatively little-known in the UK, so that many Britons were unaware that spaghetti is made from wheat flour and water; a number of viewers afterwards contacted the BBC for advice on growing their own spaghetti trees.  Decades later CNN called this broadcast “the biggest hoax that any reputable news establishment ever pulled.”

31 March

UNIVAC

is the name of a line of electronic digital stored-program computers starting with the products of the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation. Later the name was applied to a division of the Remington Rand company and successor organizations. The descendants of the UNIVAC line continue today as products of the Unisys company. UNIVAC is an acronym for UNIVersal Automatic Computer. href=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:UNIVAC-120_BRL61-0890.jpg

30 March

The attempted assassination of President

Ronald Reagan

occurred on Monday, March 30, 1981, 69 days into his presidency. While leaving a speaking engagement at the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C., President Reagan and three others were shot and wounded by John Hinckley, Jr.  President Reagan suffered a punctured lung and heavy internal bleeding, but prompt medical attention allowed him to recover quickly. President Reagan was shot in the chest and in the lower right arm. No formal invocation of presidential succession took place, although Secretary of State Alexander Haig controversially stated that he was “in control here” while Vice President George H. W. Bush returned to Washington.  Nobody was killed in the attack, though Press Secretary James Brady was left paralyzed and permanently disabled. Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity and remains confined to a psychiatric facility. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Reagan_shot.jpg

29 March

The Terracotta Army or the “Terracotta Warriors and Horses”, is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. It is a form of funerary art buried with the emperor in 210–209 BC and whose purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.  The figures, dating from around the late third century BC, were discovered in 1974 by local farmers in Lintong District, Xi’an, Shaanxi province.   The figures include warriors, chariots and horses. Current estimates are that in the three pits containing the Terracotta Army there were over 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which are still buried in the pits near by Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum. Other terracotta non-military figures were also found in other pits and they include officials, acrobats, strongmen and musicians. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Terracotta_army_xian.jpg

28 March

Pictures at an Exhibition – A Rememberance of Viktor Harmann is a suite in 10 movements composed for piano by Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.  Baba-Yagá  (The Hut on Fowl’s Legs) is the ninth movement. In Slavic folklore, Baba

Yagá

is a supernatural being (or one of a trio of sisters of the same name) who appears as a deformed and/or ferocious-looking woman. Baba Yaga flies around in a mortar, wields a pestle, and dwells deep in the forest in a hut usually described as standing on chicken legs. http://thisisthelittlelife.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Baba-Yagas-House.jpeg

27 March

The  Triple Handshake: Prime Minister Menachem Begin, President Jimmy Carter, and President Anwar Sadat after the signature of the Israel/Egypt Peace Treaty in Washington. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6d/Flickr_-_Government_Press_Office_%28GPO%29_-_THE_TRIPLE_HANDSHAKE.jpg

26 March

Printed in March 1812, this political cartoon was drawn in reaction to the newly drawn Congressional electoral district of South Essex County drawn by the Massachusetts legislature to favor the Democratic-Republican Party candidates of Governor Elbridge Gerry over the Federalists.   The caricature satirises the bizarre shape of a district in Essex County, Massachusetts as a dragon-like “monster.” Federalist newspapers editors and others at the time likened the district shape to a salamander, and the word gerrymander was a blend of that word and Governor Gerry’s last name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Gerry-Mander_Edit.png

25 March

“Howl” is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1955, published as part of his 1956 collection of poetry titled Howl and Other Poems.  Ginsberg began work on “Howl” as early as 1954.  “Howl” is considered to be one of the great works of American literature. It came to be associated with the group of writers known as the Beat Generation, which included Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Howlandotherpoems.jpeg

24 March

Harry Houdini was a Hungarian-American illusionist and stunt performer, noted for his sensational escape acts. He first attracted notice as “Harry Handcuff Houdini” on a tour of Europe, where he challenged police forces to keep him locked up. Soon he extended his repertoire to include chains, ropes slung from skyscrapers, and straitjackets under water. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Harry_Houdini.jpg

23 March

Theodore Roosevelt dressed in expedition attire. In 1909 he led an expedition party for the Smithsonian to Africa. On this trip, Roosevelt collected natural history specimens for the United States National Museum (now National Museum of Natural History) and live animals for the National Zoological Park. http://siris-sihistory.si.edu/ipac20/ipac.jsp?&profile=all&source=~!sichronology&uri=full=3100001~!9575~!0#focus

22 March

Peter Jeffrey Revson

(27 February 1939 – 22 March 1974) was born in New York City, the son of Julie (née Phelps) and Martin Revson   The nephew of Revlon Cosmetics industry magnate Charles Revson (1906-1975), he was an heir to his father Martin’s fortune (reportedly worth over $1 billion).  He was a young, handsome bachelor who was described as a “free spirit”. Revson was killed during a test session on 22 March 1974, before the 1974 South African Grand Prix in Kyalami. While driving the Ford UOP Shadow-Ford DN3, he suffered a front suspension failure, and crashed heavily killing him instantly. http://www.grandprix.com/gpe/drv-revpet.html

21 March

The Great New Orleans Fire (1788) was a fire that destroyed 856 of the 1,100 structures in New Orleans, Louisiana on 21 March 1788, spanning the south central French Quarter from Burgundy to Chartres Street, almost to the riverfront buildings.  The Good Friday fire started about 1:30 p.m. at the home of Army Treasurer Don Vincente Jose Nunez, 619 Chartres Street at Toulouse Street,less than a block from Jackson Square (Plaza de Armas). Because the fire was on Good Friday, priests refused to allow church bells to be rung as a fire alarm. Within five hours it had consumed almost the entire city as it was fed by a strong wind from the southeast. The fire destroyed the original Cabildo and virtually all major buildings in the French Quarter, including the city’s main church, the municipal building, the army barracks, armory, and jail. Only two fire engines were operational, and they were destroyed by the fire. Louisiana Governor Esteban Rodríguez Miró set up tents for the homeless. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:New_Orleans_fire_of_1788_map.jpg

20 March

The Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC, “United East India Company”) was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia.  It is often considered to have been the first multinational corporation in the world, and it was the first company to issue stock. It was also arguably the first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts,negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Dutch_East_India_Company.svg

19 March

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp  was an American gambler, Pima County Deputy Sheriff, and Deputy Town Marshal in Tombstone, Arizona, and took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which lawmen killed three outlaw Cowboys. To Wyatt’s displeasure, the 30-second gunfight defined the rest of his life. He is often regarded as the central figure in the shootout in Tombstone, although his brother Virgil was Tombstone City Marshal and Deputy U.S. Marshal that day, and had far more experience as a sheriff, constable, and marshal and in combat.

18 March

Fess Elisha Parker, Jr. was an American film and television actor best known for his portrayals of Davy Crockett in the Walt Disney 1955–1956 TV mini-series and as TV’s Daniel Boone from 1964 to 1970. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/38/Fess_parker_crockett_disney_television.JPG

17 March

The Mỹ Lai Massacre  was the mass murder of between 347 and 504 unarmed civilians in South Vietnam on March 16, 1968. It was committed by the U.S. Army soldiers from the Company C of the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd (American) Infantry Division. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Co_Luy_-_My_Lai_Massacre_Village_-_Vietnam_-_Monument_1.JPG Photo by Adam Jones adamjones.freeservers.com

16 March

The Oldsmobile Toronado was a two-door coupe produced by the Oldsmobile division of General Motors from 1966 to 1992. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/66Toronado.jpg

15 March

Sly Stone (born Sylvester Stewart), in Denton, Texas is an American musician, songwriter, and record producer, most famous for his role as frontman for Sly and the Family Stone, a band which played a critical role in the development of soul, funk and psychedelia in the 1960s and ’70s. In 1993, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Raised in Vallejo, California was the second of five children started out in gospel music.  Stone worked as a disc jockey at KSOL in San Francisco and began producing for San Francisco area bands (Beau Brummels, Bobby Freeman, and Grace Slick’s first band the Great Society).  Formed “The Stones” in 1966 and the rest is history.

14 March

A cotton gin is a machine that quickly and easily separates cotton fibers from their seeds, allowing for much greater productivity than manual cotton separation.The fibers are processed into clothing or other cotton goods, and any undamaged seeds may be used to grow more cotton or to produce cottonseed oil and meal. Although simple handheld roller gins have been used in India and other countries since at least 500 AD, the first modern mechanical cotton gin was created by American inventor Eli Whitney in 1793, and patented in 1794. It used a combination of a wire screen and small wire hooks to pull the cotton through, while brushes continuously removed the loose cotton lint to prevent jams. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cotton_gin_EWM_2007.jpg

13 March

Susan Brownell Anthony was an American social reformer who played a pivotal role in the women’s suffrage movement.  Born into a Quaker family committed to social reform, she collected anti-slavery petitions at the age of 17.   In 1856 she became the New York state agent for the American Anti-Slavery Society. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c4/Susan_B_Anthony_c1855.png

12 March

The fireside chats were a series of thirty evening radio addresses given by  Franklin D. Roosevelt between 1933 and 1944. and were the first media development that facilitated intimate and direct communication between the president and the citizens of the United States.  Roosevelt’s pleasant voice and demeanor helped him to become one of the most popular presidents ever, often affectionately compared to Abraham Lincoln.  On radio, he was able to quell rumors and explain his reasons for social change slowly and comprehensibly. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:FDRfiresidechat2.jpg

11 March

Johnny Appleseed was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, as well as the northern counties of present day West Virginia. He became an American legend while still alive, due to his kind, generous ways, his leadership in conservation, and the symbolic importance he attributed to apples. He was also a missionary for The New Church (Swedenborgian) and the inspiration for many museums and historical sights.

10 March

Martin Luther King was shot and killed by a sniper. James Ear; Ray. on 4 April 1968, while standing on the second-floor balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Martin_Luther_King_was_shot_here_Small_Web_view.jpg Photographer: Bob Jagendorf http://www.jagendorf.com/

9 March

Joseph Raymond “Joe” McCarthy was a Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy’s practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is used more generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_McCarthy.jpg

8 March

Joseph Paul “Joe” DiMaggio born Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio, nicknamed “Joltin’ Joe” and “The Yankee Clipper“, was an Italian-American Major League Baseball center fielder who played his entire 13-year career for the New York Yankees. He is perhaps best known for his 56-game hitting streak (15 May – 16 July  1941), a record that still stands.  DiMaggio was a three-time MVP winner and an All-Star in each of his 13 seasons. During his tenure with the Yankees, the club won ten American League pennants and nine World Series championships.  At the time of his retirement, he ranked fifth in career home runs (361) and sixth in career slugging percentage (.579). He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955, and was voted the sport’s greatest living player in a poll taken during the baseball centennial year of 1969. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joe_DiMaggio_1951_Spring_Training.png

7 March

Olav Bjaaland, Helmer Hanssen, Sverre Hassel, Oscar Wisting, and Roald Amundsen, departed base camp on 19 October 1911. They took four sledges and 52 dogs. Using a route along the previously unknown Axel Heiberg Glacier, they arrived at the edge of the Polar Plateau on 21 November after a four-day climb. On 14 December 1911, the team of five, with 16 dogs, arrived at the Pole (90° 0′ S).  Amundsen named their South Pole camp Polheim, “Home on the Pole.” Amundsen renamed the Antarctic Plateau as King Haakon VII’s Plateau. They left a small tent and letter stating their accomplishment at the South Pole camp. The team returned to Framheim on 25 January 1912, with 11 dogs. They made their way off the continent and to Hobart, Australia, where Amundsen publicly announced his success on 7 March 1912, and telegraphed news to backers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Aan_de_Zuidpool_-_p1913-160.jpg

6 March

The Battle of the Alamo (February 23 – March 6, 1836) was a pivotal event in the Texas Revolution.  Following a 13-day siege, Mexican troops under President General Antonio López de Santa Anna launched an assault on the Alamo Mission near San Antonio de Béxar (modern-day San Antonio, Texas, United States). All of the Texian defenders were killed.  Santa Anna’s perceived cruelty during the battle inspired many Texians—both Texas settlers and adventurers from the United States—to join the Texian Army.  Buoyed by a desire for revenge, the Texians defeated the Mexican Army at the Battle of San Jacinto, on April 21, 1836, ending the revolution. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alamo_Entrance.jpg Author:  Mattstone911

5 March

Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Che_Guevara_June_2,_1959.jpg

3 March

The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV or SSV) was an institution dedicated to supervising the morality of the public, founded in 1873.  Its specific mission was to monitor compliance with state laws and work with the courts and district attorneys in bringing offenders to justice.  The NYSSV pushed for additional laws against perceived immoral conduct. While the NYSSV is better remembered for its opposition to literary works, it also closely monitored the news-stands, commonly found on city sidewalks and in transportation terminals, which sold the popular magazines of the day. The NYSSV was founded by Anthony Comstock and his supporters in the Young Men’s Christian Association. It was chartered by the New York state legislature, which granted its agents powers of search, seizure and arrest, and awarded the society 50% of all fines levied in resulting cases. http://www.drugwar.com/inquisition.shtm

2 March

The Martha Washington Hotel is at 30 East 30th Street between Madison Avenue and Park Avenue South in the Rose Hill neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was built from 1901 to 1903, and was designed by Robert W. Gibson in the Renaissance Revival style for the Women’s Hotel Company. The hotel opened on March 2, 1903 as the first hotel exclusively for women, and serving both transient guests and permanent residents. On June 19, 2012 it was designated a historical landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission. The original name of the hotel was the Women’s Hotel, and subsequent names after “Martha Washington” include Hotel Thirty Thirty (2003), Hotel Lola (2011) and King & Grove New York (2012).

1 March

US Infantry, Bravo Company

US soldiers from Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division, prepare to move out after being dropped off by a Chinook helicopter at the combat zone during Operation Anaconda. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Anaconda-helicopter.jpg http://www.defendamerica.mil/images/photos/mar2002/pi030702a1.jpg

28 February

SS California

the first ship of the Pacific Mail Steamship Company. This ship was used between Panama and San Francisco between 1848 and 1894, when she was wrecked off the coast of Peru. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SS_California_Poster_Sharpened.jpg

27 February

Peter Jeffrey Revson

was an American race car driver who had successes in Formula One and the Indianapolis 500.  His professional racing career in the US took off in 1968  when he was part of the new Javelin racing program established by American Motors (AMC).  At the first Trans-Am Series attempt, the 12 Hours of Sebring, Revson and Skip Scott drove to a 12th overall and took 5th in their class.  In the 1969 Indianapolis 500 Revson was the top rookie finisher, placing fifth in the event. He drove a Brabham-Repco which experienced carburetor problems. During a post-race election, he was selected as runner-up for rookie of the year. For the year Revson achieved seven top five finishes in the TransAm series, driving a Mustang.  In 1970 he teamed with Steve McQueen to place second in the 12 Hours of Sebring.  The same year Revson drove with Mark Donohue in the Penske Racing AMC factory-team Javelins, in the SCCA Trans Am.  He piloted an L&M Lola Cars special and became a top contender in the Can-Am racing series.  Revson joined McLaren in 1971, becoming the first American to win the Can-Am Championship.  That same season he finished second in the Indianapolis 500 after posting the fastest qualifying time.  He competed in the Indy 500 each year from 1969–1973. In 1972, Revson was named to the McLaren Formula One team. He remained with the team for two years, winning the 1973 British Grand Prix and the 1973 Canadian Grand Prix. He moved to the Universal Oil Products Shadow in 1974.  He is the last American born driver to win a Formula One race (Mario Andretti, who won in later years, is a naturalized American).  His British Grand Prix victory made him the 50th World Championship Grand Prix winner. http://f1.imgci.com/PICTURES/CMS/400/401.jpg

26 February

John R. “Johnny” Cash

was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and authorwho was considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century.  Although he is primarily remembered as a country icon, his songs and sound spanned other genres including rock and roll and rockabilly—especially early in his career—as well as blues, folk, and gospel. This crossover appeal won Cash the rare honor of induction in the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and the Gospel Music Hall of Fame. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/02/JohnnyCashHouse1969.jpg Source  LOOK Magazine, April 29, 1969, p.72. Photo:  Joel Baldwin

25 February

Calaveras Skull

On February 25, 1866, miners found a human skull in a mine, beneath a layer of lava, 130 feet (40 m) below the surface of the earth, The skull was examined by Josiah Whitney, then the State Geologist of California as well as a Professor of Geology at Harvard University. Whitney had previously published a theory that humans, mastodons, and elephants having coexisted and the skull only served as proof of his convictions. After careful study, he officially announced its discovery at a meeting of the California Academy of Sciences on 16 July 1866, declaring it evidence of the existence of Pliocene age man in North America, which would make it the oldest known record of humans on the continent. The authenticity of the skull was immediately challenged. In 1869 a San Francisco newspaper reported that a miner had told a minister that the skull was planted as a practical joke. Thomas Wilson of Harvard ran a fluorine analysis on it in 1879 (the first ever usage of such on human bone), with the results indicating it was of recent origin.  It was so widely believed to be a hoax that Bret Harte famously wrote a satirical poem called “To the Pliocene Skull” in 1899. http://scienceblogs.com/laelaps/wp-content/blogs.dir/435/files/2012/04/i-3e2639952a86b8d4191a3d2cd17d92ce-calaveras-skull-front.jpg

24 February

“Miracle on Ice“

is the name in American popular culture for a medal-round men’s ice hockey game during the 1980 Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, New York, on Friday, 22 February. The United States national team, made up of amateur and collegiate players and led by coach Herb Brooks, defeated the Soviet Union national team, who had won nearly every world championship and Olympic tournament since 1954. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/DaveChristian.jpg

23 February

Remember the Alamo

When Mexican troops departed San Antonio de Béxar (now San Antonio, Texas) Texian soldiers established a garrison at the Alamo Mission, a former Spanish religious outpost which had been converted to a makeshift fort by the recently expelled Mexican Army. Described by Santa Anna as an “irregular fortification hardly worthy of the name”,the Alamo had been designed to withstand an attack by native tribes, not an artillery-equipped army.The complex sprawled across 3 acres (1.2 ha), providing almost 1,320 feet (400 m) of perimeter to defend.An interior plaza was bordered on the east by the chapel and to the south by a one-story building known as the Low Barracks. A wooden palisade stretched between these two buildings. The two-story Long Barracks extended north from the chapel.^[19] At the northern corner of the east wall stood a cattle pen and horse corral.The walls surrounding the complex were at least 2.75 feet (0.84 m) thick and ranged from 9–12 ft (2.7–3.7 m) high. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/40/Alamo_Entrance.jpg/925px-Alamo_Entrance.jpg

22 February

F. W. Woolworth Company

(often referred to as Woolworth’s, or Woolworth) was a retail company that was one of the original five-and-dime stores, setting trends and creating the modern retail model which stores follow worldwide today.The first Woolworth store was opened by Frank Winfield Woolworth on February 22, 1878, as “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store” in Utica, New York. Though it initially appeared to be successful, the store soon failed. Searching for a new location, a friend suggestedLancaster, Pennsylvania. Using the same sign from the Utica store, Frank opened his first successful “Woolworth’s Great Five Cent Store” on July 18, 1879, in Lancaster, PA. http://spfaust.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/carbondale_woolworths.jpg

21 February

Carolina Parakeet

(Conuropsis carolinensis) or Carolina Conure was a small green Neotropical parrot with brilliant yellow head, reddish orange face and pale beak . It was found from southern New York and Wisconsin to Kentucky, Tennesseeand the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic seaboard to as far west as eastern Colorado. It lived in old-growth forests along rivers and in swamps. It was called puzzi la née (“head of yellow”) orpot pot chee by the  Seminole  and kelinky in Chickasaw. Though formerly prevalent within its range, the bird had become rare by the middle of the 19th century. The last confirmed sighting in the wild was of the ludovicianus subspecies in 1910. The last known specimen perished in captivity in 1918 and the species was declared extinct in 1939. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conuropsis_carolinensis_male_Ulaval.jpg   Taxidermied Carolina Parakeet. Teaching and research collections, Laval University Library.  Photo Cephas

20 February

Amanda Blake

nicknamed “the Young Greer Garson,”she became best known for her 19-year stint as the saloon-keeper Miss Kitty on the television series Gunsmoke from 1955 until 1974. http://ctva.biz/US/Western/Gunsmoke_66-67_5_AmandaBlake.JPG

19 February

Phonograph

was invented in 1877 by Thomas  A. Edison at age 30. While other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edison’s phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a tinfoil sheet phonograph cylinder, and could both record and reproduce sounds. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Edison_and_phonograph_edit1.jpg

18 February

Elm Farm Ollie

was the first cow to fly in an airplane as part of the International Air Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. On the same trip, which covered 72 miles in a Ford Trimotor airplane from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. Elm Farm Ollie was reported to have been an unusually productive Guernsey cow, requiring three milkings a day and producing 24 quarts of milk during the flight itself.   Wisconsin native Elsworth W. Bunce milked her, becoming the first man to milk a cow mid-flight.   Elm Farm Ollie’s milk was sealed into paper cartons which were parachuted to spectators below. Charles Lindbergh reportedly received a glass of the milk. http://mustardmuseum.com/images/0blogs/elmfarmollie-photo1.jpg

17 February

Kasparov emerged the victor winning three games, drawing in two, and losing one to Big Blue.  A year later, in a rematch, Big Blue won. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/02/on-this-day-garry-kasparov-faces-off-with-deep-blue/253230/#slide4

16 February

USS Triton, a United States Navy nuclear-powered radar picket submarine, was the first vessel to execute a submerged circumnavigation of the Earth (Operation Sandblast), doing so in early 1960 under the command of CaptainEdward L. “Ned” Beach, Jr. The only member of her class, she also had the distinction of being the only Western submarine powered by two nuclear reactors. Triton was the second submarine and the fifth ship of the United States Navy to be named for the Greek god Triton. At the time of her commissioning in 1959, Triton was the largest, most powerful, and most expensive submarine ever built, at $109 million excluding the cost of nuclear fuel and reactors ($873 million in present-day terms). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:USS_Triton_SSRN-586_Anaconda_ad.JPG

15 February

In early 1947, a Bedouin boy  found a cave after searching for a lost animal. He stumbled onto the first cave  (Q1) containing scrolls from two thousand years ago. The scrolls were removed from the cave and were shown to Mar Samuel of the Monastery of Saint Mark in April 1947 and the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls was made known. The location of the cave was not revealed for another 18 months, but eventually a joint investigation of the cave site was led by Roland de Vaux and Gerald Lankester Harding. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dead_Sea_Scrolls_Before_Unraveled.jpg

14 February

James Knox Polk (November 2, 1795 – June 15, 1849) was the 11th President of the United States(1845–1849). Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. A Democrat, Polk served as the 17th Speaker of the House of Representatives (1835–1839) and Governor of Tennessee (1839–1841). Polk was the surprise (dark horse) candidate for president in 1844, defeating Henry Clay of the rival Whig Party by promising to invade and annex Texas.  Polk was a leader of Jacksonian Democracy during the Second Party System. He’s also known for invading and annexing roughly half of the Mexican Republic. Polk was the last strong pre–Civil War president, and he is the earliest of whom there are surviving photographs taken during a term in office. He is noted for his foreign policy successes. He threatened war with Britain over the issue of which nation owned the Oregon Country, then backed away and split the ownership of the region with Britain. When Mexico rejected American annexation of Texas, Polk led the nation to a sweeping victory in the Mexican-American War, which gave the United States most of its present Southwest.

13 February

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http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Rita_Lake_Charles_radar.gif

12 February

Charles Robert Darwin, FRS 

(12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was one of the greatest minds of the 19th century and a preeminent scientists.  He was also an English naturalist and geologist,  best known for his contributions to evolutionary theory.  He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestors, and in a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6f/Editorial_cartoon_depicting_Charles_Darwin_as_an_ape_%281871%29.jpg

11 February

Tahrir Square

was the focal point of the 2011 Egyptian Revolution against former president Hosni Mubarak.The 18-day revolt centered in the square provided the Egyptian Armed Forces an opportunity to remove Mubarak from power on Friday, 11 February 2011, when the president officially stepped down from office.The announcement that Mubarak had passed all authority to the Council of the Armed Forces was made by longtime intelligence chief and new vice president Omar Suleiman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tahrir_Square_-_February_9,_2011.png Photo: Jonathan Rashad

10 February

HMS Dreadnought

was a battleship of the Royal Navy that revolutionized naval power. Her entry into service in 1906 represented such a marked advance in naval technology that her name came to be associated with an entire generation of battleships, the “dreadnoughts.” Dreadnought was the first battleship of her era to have a uniform main battery, rather than having a few large guns complemented by a heavy secondary battery of smaller guns. She was also the first battleship to be powered by steam turbines, making her the fastest battleship in the world at the time of her completion. Her launch helped spark a naval arms race as navies around the world, particularly the German Imperial Navy rushed to match her in the build-up to World War I. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/62/HMS_Dreadnought_1906_H61017.jpg

9 February

Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevsky

was a Russian novelist, short story writer, essayist and philosopher. Dostoyevsky’s literary works explore human psychology in the context of the troubled political, social, and spiritual atmosphere of 19th-century Russia. He began writing in his 20s, and his first novel, Poor Folk, was published in 1846 when he was 25. His major works include Crime and Punishment (1866), The Idiot (1869), and The Brothers Karamazov (1880). His output consists of eleven novels, three novellas, seventeen short novels and numerous other works. Many literary critics rate him as one of the greatest and most prominent psychologists in world literature. Portrait of the Writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky by Vasily Perov, 1872, Oil on canvas. The Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3c/Dostoevsky_1872.jpg

8 February

Hollywood Walk of Fame

comprises more than 2,500 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along 15 blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California. The stars are permanent public monuments to achievement in the entertainment industry, bearing the names of a mix of actors, musicians, directors, producers, musical and theatrical groups, fictional characters, and others. The Walk of Fame is administered by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and maintained by the self-financing Hollywood Historic Trust.

7 February

Abbey Road

The cover image was a  photograph of the band on a crosswalk outside the studios EMI Studios taken on 8 August 1969 by Iain Macmillan.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/Street_sign_for_Abbey_Road%2C_in_Westminster%2C_London%2C_England_IMG_1461.JPG

6 February

Nesta Robert Marley 

was a Jamaican singer-songwriter who achieved international fame through a series of crossover reggae albums.  Starting out in 1963 with the group the Wailers, he forged a distinctive songwriting and vocal style that would later resonate with audiences worldwide. The Wailers would go on to release some of the earliest reggae records with producer Lee Scratch Perry. After the Wailers disbanded in 1974, Marley pursued a solo career which culminated in the release of the album Exodus in 1977 which established his worldwide reputation.  He was a committed Rastafarian who infused his music with a profound sense of spirituality. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bob-Marley.jpg

5 February

Myra Maybelle Shirley (AKA Belle Starr)

was born as  on her father’s farm near Carthage, Missouri. She was known as May to her family. Her father was John Shirley. Her mother, Eliza Hatfield, was related to the Hatfields of the famous family feud.In the 1860s her father sold the farm and moved the family to Carthage, where he bought an inn and livery stable on the town square. May Shirley received a classical education and learned piano, while graduating from Missouri’s Carthage Female Academy, a private institution that her father had helped to found. In 1880 she did marry a Cherokee man named Sam Starr and settled with the Starr family in the Indian Territory.  There, she learned ways for organizing, planning and fencing for the rustlers, horse thieves and bootleggers, as well as harboring them from the law. Belle’s illegal enterprises proved lucrative enough for her to employ bribery to free her cohorts from the law whenever they were caught.  In 1883, Belle and Sam were charged with horse theft and tried before “The Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker’s Federal District Court in Fort Smith, Arkansas; the prosecutor was United States Attorney W. H. H. Clayton. She was found guilty and served nine months at the Detroit House of Corrections in Detroit, Michigan. Belle proved to be a model prisoner and during her time in jail she won the respect of the prison matron, while Sam was more incorrigible and was assigned to hard labor. In 1886, she escaped conviction on another theft charge, but on December 17, Sam Starr was involved in a gunfight with Officer Frank West.Both men were killed, while Belle’s life as an outlaw queen—and what had been the happiest relationship of her life—abruptly ended with her husband’s death. On February 3, 1889, two days before her 41st birthday, she was killed. She was riding home from a neighbor’s house in Eufaula, Oklahoma, when she was ambushed. After she fell off her horse, she was shot again to make sure she was dead. Her death resulted from shotgun wounds to the back and neck and in the shoulder and face. Legend says she was shot with her own double barrel shotgun. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Belle_Starr_and_Blue_Duck.jpg

4 February

The Nauvoo Temple

was the second temple constructed by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Latter-day Saints made preparations to build a temple soon after establishing their headquarters at Nauvoo, Illinois in 1839. On 6 April 1841, the temple’s cornerstone was laid under the direction of Joseph Smith, Jr., the church’s restorer. Sidney Rigdon gave the principal oration. At its base the building was 128 feet (39 m) long and 88 feet (27 m) wide with a clock tower and weather vane reaching to a total height of 165 feet (50 m).  The Nauvoo Temple contained two assembly halls, one on the first floor and one on the second, called the lower and upper courts. Both had classrooms and offices in the attic. The Nauvoo Temple had a full basement which housed a baptismal font. Because the Saints had to abandon Nauvoo, the building was not entirely completed. The basement with its font was finished, as were the first floor assembly hall and the attic. When these parts of the building were completed they were used for performing ordinances (basement and attic) or for worship services (first floor assembly hall). The Nauvoo Temple was designed in the Greek Revival style by Mormon architect William Weeks, under the direction of Smith. Weeks’ design made use of distinctively Latter-day Saint motifs, including Sunstones, Moonstones, and Starstones http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Nauvoo_Temple_by_C.C.A._Christensen.png

3 February

Charles Hardin “Buddy” Holley 

(7 September 1936 – 3 February 1959), known professionally as Buddy Holly, was an American singer-songwriter and a pioneer of rock and roll. Although his success lasted only a year and a half before his death in an airplane crash, Holly is described by critic Bruce Eder as “the single most influential creative force in early rock and roll. His works and innovations inspired and influenced contemporary and later musicians, notably The Beatles, Elvis Costello, The Rolling Stones, Don McLean,Bob Dylan, Steve Winwood, and Eric Clapton, and exerted a profound influence on popular music. Holly was one of the inaugural inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Holly No. 13 among “The 100 Greatest Artists of All Time”. Holly was offered a spot in the Winter Dance Party, a three-week tour across the Midwest opening on January 23, 1959, with other notable performers such as Dion and the Belmonts, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson.  He assembled a backing band consisting of Tommy Allsup (guitar), Waylon Jennings (bass) and Carl Bunch (drums), and billed them as The Crickets. Following a performance at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa, on 2 February 1959, Holly chartered a small airplane to take him to the next stop on the tour. There was a snowstorm, and the pilot, Roger Peterson, was not qualified to fly by instruments only.  Holly, Valens, Richardson and the pilot were killed en route to Moorhead, Minnesota, when their plane crashed soon after taking off from nearby Mason City in the early morning hours of February 3. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Buddy_Holly_cropped.JPG

2 February

William Henry Pratt (AKA Boris Karloff)

Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939). His popularity following Frankenstein was such that for a brief time he was billed simply as “Karloff” or “Karloff the Uncanny.” His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch, as well as the narrator, in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). He also had a memorable role in the original Scarface (1932). http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f9/Boris_Karloff_as_The_Monster_in_Bride_of_Frankenstein_film_trailer.jpg

1 February

Clark Gable

Despite his reluctance to play the role, Gable is best known for his performance in Gone with the Wind (1939), for which he gained a Best Actor Oscar nomination. Carole Lombard may have been the first to suggest that he play Rhett Butler (and she play Scarlett) when she bought him a copy of the bestseller, which he refused to read. Butler’s last line in Gone with the Wind, “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn,” is one of the most famous lines in movie history. Gable was an almost immediate favorite for the role of Rhett with both the public and producer David O. Selznick. But since Selznick had no male stars under long-term contract, he needed to go through the process of negotiating to borrow an actor from another studio. Gary Cooper was Selznick’s first choice.^[22] When Cooper turned down the role of Butler, he was quoted as saying, “Gone With the Wind is going to be the biggest flop in Hollywood history. I’m glad it’ll be Clark Gable who’s falling flat on his nose, not me.”   http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Clark_Gable_as_Rhett_Butler_in_Gone_With_the_Wind_trailer_cropped.jpg

31 January

Pearl Zane Grey 

(31 January  1872 – 23 October 1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the American  frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book and was first published by Harper & Brothers. Considered by many critics to have played a significant role in shaping the formula of the popular Western genre, the novel has been called “the most popular western novel of all time.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ZG_Riders_of_the_Purple_Sage_Cover.jpg

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Waikiki_Beach,_Oahu,_Hawaii,_USA10.jpg

30 January

The Beatles’

rooftop concert was the final public performance of the English rock group the Beatles. On 30 January 1969, the band, with keyboardist Billy Preston, surprised a central London business district with an impromptu concert from the roof of Apple headquarters at 3 Savile Row. In a 42-minute set, the Beatles played nine takes of five songs before the Metropolitan Police Service forced them to stop. http://nowasmuchasever.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/beatlesontheroof1.jpg

29 January

Henry Louis “H. L.” Mencken

was an American journalist, essayist, magazine editor, satirist, critic of American life and culture, and scholar of American English.  Known as the “Sage of Baltimore”, he is regarded as one of the most influential American writers and prose stylists of the first half of the twentieth century. Many of his books remain in print. He commented widely on the social scene, literature, music, prominent politicians, pseudo-experts, the temperance movement, and uplifters.  A keen cheerleader of scientific progress, he was very skeptical of economic theories and particularly critical of  anti-intellectualism,  bigotry,  populism,  fundamentalist Christianity, creationism, organized religion, the existence of God, and osteopathic/chiropractic medicine. In addition to his literary accomplishments, Mencken was known for his controversial ideas. As a frank admirer of German philosopher Nietzsche, he was not a proponent of representative democracy, which he believed was a system in which inferior men dominated their superiors. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:%22H.L._Mencken%22_-_NARA_-_559126.jpg

28 January

Lego

is a popular line of construction toys manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company in Billund, Denmark.  The company’s flagship product, Lego, consists of colorful interlocking plastic bricks and an accompanying array of gears, minifigures and various other parts. Lego bricks can be assembled and connected in many ways, to construct such objects as vehicles, buildings, and even working robots. Anything constructed can then be taken apart again, and the pieces used to make other objects.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:LEGO_logo.svg

27 January

Mikhail Nikolaevich Baryshnikov

is often cited alongside Vaslav Nijinsky and Rudolf Nureyev as one of the greatest ballet dancers in history. After a promising start in the Kirov Ballet in Leningrad, he defected to Canada in 1974 for more opportunities in western dance. After freelancing with many companies, he joined the New York City Ballet as a principal dancer to learn George Balanchine’s style of movement. He then danced with the American Ballet Theatre, where he later became artistic director. Born to Russian parents in Riga, Latvia, Baryshnikov began his ballet studies there in 1960. In 1964, he entered the Vaganova School, in  Leningrad.  His parents were Alexandra (a dressmaker; maiden name, Kisselova) and Nicholai Baryshnikov (an engineer).

http://boysballet.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/daniel-ulbricht-nycb.jpg

26 January

The Cullinan

diamond was found in 1905 in the Premier Mine near Pretoria, South Africa. The rough stone was cleaved into 9 large stones and 96 smaller stones. The two largest stones, Cullinan I (106.04 carats = 530.2 gr) adorns the scepter of the crown jewels of England and Cullinan II (317.4 carats = 63.48 gr) adorns the banner of royal crown of England. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cullinan_copie_(R%C3%A9publique_d%27Afrique_du_Sud).jpg

25 January

Felix Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March”

in C major, written in 1842, is one of the best known of the pieces from his suite of incidental music (Op. 61) to Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is one of the most frequently used wedding marches, generally being played on a church pipe organ.  At weddings in many Western countries, this piece is commonly used as a recessional, though frequently stripped of its episodes in this context. It is frequently teamed with the “Bridal Chorus” from Richard Wagner’s opera Lohengrin, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedding_March_(Mendelssohn)

24 January

John Adam Belushi

was an American comedian, actor, and musician. He is best known as one of the original cast members of the hit NBC sketch comedy show Saturday Night Live.  Belushi died on March 5, 1982 in Hollywood, California after overdosing on a mixture of cocaine and heroin (a ‘speedball’) at the age of 33. He was posthumously honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, on April 1, 2004. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jake_Blues_(John_Belushi).JPG

23 January

Apollo 5 

was the first unmanned flight of the Apollo Lunar Module (LM), which would later carry astronauts to the lunar surface. It lifted off on January 22, 1968, with a Saturn IB rocket on an Earth-orbital flight.  The Saturn IB worked perfectly, inserting the second stage and LM into a 163 x 222 km orbit. The nose cone was jettisoned and after a coast of 43 minutes 52 seconds, the LM separated from its adapter, with a 167 x 222 km orbit. After two orbits, the first planned 39 second descent engine burn was started, but aborted by the onboard guidance computer after only 4 seconds. Shortly before launch there was a suspected fuel leak and a decision was made to delay arming the engine until the time of ignition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apollo_5_on_pad.jpg

22 January

Aristotelis “Telly” Savalas

was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Telly_Savalas_Kojak_1973.JPG

21 January

Richard Pierce Havens

was an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. His music encompassed elements of folk, soul, and rhythm and blues.  Born in Brooklyn, Havens was the eldest of nine children.He was of American Indian (Blackfoot) descent on his father’s side, and of the British West Indies on his mother’s. His Woodstock appearance in 1969 catapulted him into stardom and was a major turning point in his career. As the festival’s first performer, he held the crowd for nearly three hours.  In part, Havens was told to continue playing, because many artists scheduled to perform after him were delayed in reaching the festival location with highways at a virtual standstill. He was called back for several encores. Having run out of tunes, he improvised a song based on the old spiritual Motherless Child that became Freedom. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2c/Richie_Havens_1972_Hamburg.jpg

20 January

In Old Arizona

is a 1929 American Western film directed by Irving Cummings and Raoul Walsh, nominated for five Academy Awards, including Best Picture. The film, which was based on the character of the Cisco Kid in the story The Caballero’s Way by O. Henry, was a major innovation in Hollywood: it was the first major Western to use the new technology of sound and the firsttalkie to be filmed outdoors. The film made extensive use of authentic locations, filming in Bryce Canyon National Park and Zion National Park in Utah, and the San Fernando Mission and the Mojave Desert in California. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Inoldarizona.jpg

19 January

The Lisa 

was a personal computer designed by Apple Computer, Inc. during the early 1980s for the ridiculously low price of $9,995 in 1983. It was the first personal computer to offer a graphical user interface in an inexpensive machine aimed at individual business users. Development of the Lisa began in 1978.  The 5 MB ProFile was Apple’s first hard drive, and was introduced in September 1981 at a price of US$ 3499. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Lisa.jpg

18 January

The Sopwith Camel

was a British First World War single-seat biplane fighter introduced on the Western Front in 1917. Manufactured by Sopwith Aviation Company, it had a short-coupled fuselage, heavy, powerful rotary engine, and concentrated fire from twinsynchronized machine guns. Though difficult to handle, to an experienced pilot it provided unmatched manoeuvrability. A superlative fighter, the Camel was credited with shooting down 1,294 enemy aircraft, more than any other Allied fighter of the war. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sopwith_Camel_at_the_Imperial_War_Museum.jpg

17 January

English Camel Troopers

In 1913, between Berbera and Odwein in Somalia, a group of English camel troopers was attacked by 2000 dervishes. There were 50 fatalities and casualties among the English. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Engelse_kameelruiters_-_English_camel_troopers.jpg

16 January

Bonanza 

is an NBC television western series that ran from 12 September 1959 to 16 January 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series (behind Gunsmoke), and within the top 10 longest running, live-action American series. It continues to air in syndication. The show centers on the Cartwright family, who live in the area of Virginia City, Nevada, bordering Lake Tahoe. The series stars Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, Michael Landon, and later, David Canary.

http://www.tv-intros.com/b/bonanza.jpg

15 January

Democratic “Jackass”

The most common mascot symbol for the party has been jackass or the donkey.  Andrew Jackson’s enemies twisted his name to “jackass” as a term of ridicule regarding a stupid and stubborn animal. However the Democrats liked the common-man implications and picked it up too, so the image persisted and evolved. Its most lasting impression came from the cartoons of Thomas Nast 1870 in Harper’s Weekly. Cartoonists followed Nast and used the donkey to represent the Democrats, and the elephant to represent the Republicans.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Democraticjackass.jpg

14 January

Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino 

was a Mexican radio, television, theater, and film actor. He had a career spanning seven decades, and was known for many different roles. During the mid-1970s, Montalbán was a spokesman in automobile advertisements for Chrysler, including those in which he extolled the “soft Corinthian leather” used for the Cordoba’s interior.  From 1977 to 1984 he played Mr. Roarke, the host character in the television seriesFantasy Island http://stadium.weblogsinc.com/autoblog/hirezpics/76cordoba_montalban.jpg

14 January

Uluru (Ayers Rock)

is an inselberg, or island mountain, found in the Northern Territory near Alice Springs – in the middle of Australia’s Outback. It is a large sandstone rock formation that the aborigines of the area hold sacred. Uluru (Ayers Rock) changes colors throughout the day; this is its base at sunset. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_World_Factbook_-_Australia_-_Flickr_-_The_Central_Intelligence_Agency_(25).jpg

13 January

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp

(March 19, 1848 – January 13, 1929) was a gambler, Pima County Deputy Sheriff, and Deputy Town Marshal in Tombstone, Arizona, and took part in the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral during which lawmen killed Tom and Frank McLaury and Billy Clanton.  Two others, Ike Clanton and Billy Claiborne fled the gunfight.  Earp was at different periods in his life a teamster, buffalo hunter, bouncer, saloon-keeper, gambler, brothel owner, pimp, miner, and boxing referee.

12 January

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi 

was born Mahesh Prasad Varma and obtained the honorific Maharishi (meaning “Great Seer”) and Yogi as an adult.He developed Transcendental Meditation,In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Maharishi achieved fame as the guru to the Beatles and other celebrities.

11 January

Carroll Hall Shelby 

was an American automotive designer, racing driver and entrepreneur. He was best known for his involvement with the AC Cobra and later the Mustang-based performance cars forFord Motor Company known as Shelby Mustangs which he had done since 1965. His company, Shelby American Inc., founded in 1962, currently sells modified Ford vehicles, as well as performance parts. Shelby was born in Leesburg, Texas, to Warren Hall Shelby, a rural mail carrier, and his wife, Eloise (Lawrence) Shelby.  Shelby honed his driving skills with his Willys automobile while attending Woodrow Wilson High School in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Wilson in 1940. He was enrolled at The Georgia School of Technology in the Aeronautical Engineering program. However, because of the war Shelby did not go to school and enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps, serving in World War IIas a flight instructor and test pilot. He graduated with the rank of staff sergeant pilot.

10 January

Gabrielle Bonheur Chanel 

(19 August 1883 – 10 January 1971) was a French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. She was the only fashion designer to appear on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century.  Chanel was credited with liberating women from the constraints of the “corseted silhouette” and popularizing the acceptance of a sportive, casual chic as the feminine standard in the post-World War I era. A prolific fashion creator, Chanel’s influence extended beyond couture clothing. Her design aesthetic was realized in jewelry, handbags, and fragrance. Her signature scent, Chanel No. 5, has become an iconic product. http://www.femalefatal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/chanel1.jpg

9 January

Edouard Beaupré

(9 January1881 – 3 July 1904) was a giant, wrestler, strongman, and a star in Barnum and Bailey’s circus.  Beaupré was the eldest of 20 children. Beaupré did not appear abnormally large at birth, and for the first three years of his life, his growth was relatively normal. However, Edouard’s growth rate then increased dramatically, so much so that by age nine he was six feet tall, and by the age of 17 his height was recorded at 7 feet 1 inch (2.16 metres).  He died at 23, the consequences of over secretion of growth hormone and the physiological cost of such growth.

8 January

Elvis Aaron Presley 

was an American singer, musician, and actor. One of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as “the King of Rock and Roll”, or simply, “the King”. On 10 January 1956, Presley made his first recordings for RCA in Nashville.  Extending the singer’s by now customary backup of Moore, Black, and Fontana, RCA enlisted pianist Floyd Cramer, guitarist Chet Atkins, and three background singers, including Gordon Stoker of the popular  Jordanaires  quartet, to fill out the sound. The session produced the moody, unusual “Heartbreak Hotel”, released as a single on January 27.

7 January

Bronislau “Bronko” Nagurski

was a Canadian-born American football player. He was also a successful professional wrestler, recognized as a multiple-time world heavyweight champion. A  time-honored and perhaps apocryphal story about Nagurski is a scoring gallop that he made against the Washington Redskins, knocking two linebackers in opposite directions, stomping a defensive halfback and crushing a safety, then bouncing off the goalposts and cracking Wrigley Field’s brick wall. On returning to the huddle for the extra point try, he reportedly said: “That last guy hit me awfully hard.” During his football career, he built a second athletic career as a professional wrestler and became a major box office attraction. Nagurski defeated Tag Tagerson in his ring debut. Hitting his peak in the late 1930s, Nagurski won a limited version of the world championship by defeating Dean Detton on June 29, 1937; but he finally achieved full recognition with his first National Wrestling Association world title by defeating Lou Thesz on June 23, 1939. http://www.sikids.com/photos/26934/joe-posnanskis-top-32-all-time-rbs/14

6 January

John Birks “Dizzy” Gillespie

was born in Cheraw, South Carolina, the youngest of nine children of James and Lottie Gillespie. James was a local bandleader, so instruments were made available to the children. Gillespie started to play the piano at the age of four. Gillespie’s father died when the boy was only ten years old. Gillespie taught himself how to play the trombone as well as the trumpet by the age of twelve.  In the 1940s Gillespie, together with Charlie Parker, became a major figure in the development of bebop and modern jazz. He taught and influenced many other musicians, including trumpeters Miles Davis, Jon Faddis, Fats Navarro, Clifford Brown,Arturo Sandoval, Lee Morgan, Chuck Mangione. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dizzy_Gillespie01.JPG

5 January

Nellie Tayloe Ross 

was an American politician, the 14th Governor of Wyoming from 1925 to 1927, and director of the United States Mint from 1933 to 1953. She was the first woman to be elected governor of aU.S. state, and remains the only woman to have served as governor of Wyoming.  She was a staunch supporter of prohibition during the 1920s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nellie_Tayloe_Ross.jpg

4 January

Burj Khali

https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=875&bih=717&q=burj+khalifa+images&oq=Burj+Khalifa&gs_l=img.1.8.0l10.1798.1798.0.4010.1.1.0.0.0.0.26.26.1.1.0….0…1ac.1.32.img..0.1.25.9kjryfiW0Tw#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=gt3rYK9-YwWkxM%3A%3B-c8VUX8MGdmLSM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Fsites.psu.edu%252Falmugren%252Ffiles%252F2013%252F12%252Fkhalifa.jpg%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Fsites.psu.edu%252Falmugren%252F2013%252F12%252F09%252Fburj-khalifa%252F%3B1920%3B1200

3 January

Lick Observatory

is the world’s first permanently occupied mountain-top observatory. The observatory, in a Classical Revival style structure, was constructed between 1876 and 1887, from a bequest from James Lick.

2 January

Isaak Yudovich Ozimov

was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Isaac_Asimov_on_Throne.png

1 January

Great Hall of the Second Ellis Island Immigration Station

The flags feature 46 stars and were used for four years (July 4, 1908 – July 3, 1912).

This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID det.4a25609.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:4a25609a_original.jpg

31 December

Blue Moon

is an extra full moon that appears in a subdivision of a year, either the third of four full moons in a season or, recently, a second full moon in a month of the common calendar.  Due to the rarity of a blue moon, the term is used colloquially to mean a rare event, as in the phrase “once in a blue moon”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:December_2009_partrial_lunar_eclipse-cropped.jpg

 

30 December

Ellas Otha Bates

(December 30, 1928 – June 2, 2008), known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American R&B vocalist, guitarist and songwriter (usually as Ellas McDaniel).  Born in McComb, Mississippi and moved to the South Side of Chicago.  Inspired by John Lee Hooker, he started playing on street corners. McDaniel adopted the stage name Bo Diddley.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BoDiddley1997.jpg

29 December

29 December

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour

AKA Madame de Pompadour (29 December 1721 – 15 April 1764) was a member of the French court and was the official chief mistress of Louis XV from 1745 to her death.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:J.-_M._Nattier_Pompadour.jpg

28 December

Osceola

born as a Creek, became an influential leader of the Seminole in Florida. Of mixed parentage: Creek, Scots-Irish, and English, he was raised as a Creek by his mother. They migrated to Florida when he was a child, with other Red Stick refugees after their defeat in 1814 in the Creek Wars.  In 1836, Osceola led a small band of warriors during the Second Seminole War, when the United States tried to remove the tribe from their lands in Florida.  He became an adviser to Micanopy, the principal chief of the Seminole from 1825 to 1849.  Osceola led the war resistance until he was captured in 1838 when he was lured to a US fort under the guise of  peace talks.  He died a few months later in prison at Fort Moultrie in Charleston, South Carolina, of an internal infection or malaria.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Osceola#mediaviewer/File:Osceola_of_Florida,_Drawn_on_Stone_by_Geo._Catlin,_from_his_Original_Portrait_WDL180.png

Exhibit in the Huntington Museum of Art, Huntington, West Virginia, USA.

27 December

Cave of Swallows’

mouth is an ellipse 49 by 62 m wide.   The floor of the cave is a 333 meter (1092 ft) drop from the lowest side of the opening, with a 370 meter (1,214 ft) drop from the highest side, making it the largest known cave shaft in the world, the second deepest pit in Mexico and perhaps the 11th deepest in the world.  A skyscraper such as New York City’s Chrysler Building could easily fit wholly within it.

http://www.roguelifediary.com/2012/12/03/major-destination-cave-of-the-swallows/

26 December

The Soufrière Hills

volcano became active in 1995, and has continued to erupt ever since. Its eruptions have rendered more than half of Montserrat uninhabitable, destroying the capital city, Plymouth, and causing widespread evacuations.  Only about one third of the pre-eruption population remains.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SoufriereHillsVolcano.jpg

National Science Foundation, Barry Voight

25 December

Humphrey DeForest Bogart

(25 December 1899 – 14 January 1957) was an American actor and is widely regarded as an American cultural icon. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema.  Bogart starred with Katharine Hepburn in the film The African Queen in 1951, directed by his friend John Huston. The novel was overlooked and left undeveloped for fifteen years until producer Sam Spiegel and Huston bought the rights.  Spiegel sent Katharine Hepburn the book and she suggested Bogart for the male lead, firmly believing that “he was the only man who could have played that part.”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Humphrey_Bogart_in_The_African_Queen.jpg

Licensing information :http://www.sabucat.com/?pg=copyright and

http://www.creativeclearance.com/guidelines.html#D2

24 December

Christopher Houston “Kit” Carson

left home in rural present-day Missouri at age 16 and became a mountain man and trapper in the West.Carson explored the west to California, and north through the Rocky Mountains. He lived among and married into theArapaho and Cheyenne tribes.  Carson was a courier and scout during the Mexican-American war from 1846 to 1848, celebrated for his rescue mission after the Battle of San Pasqual and his coast-to-coast journey from California to deliver news of the war to the U.S. government in Washington, D.C.  In the Civil War he led a regiment of mostly Hispanic volunteers on the side of the Union at the Battle of Valverde in 1862. He led armies to pacify the Navajo, Mescalero Apache, and the Kiowa and Comanche Indians. He is vilified for his conquest of the Navajo and their forced transfer to Bosque Redondo where many of them died. Breveted a general, he is probably the only American to reach such a high military rank without being able to read or write, although he could sign his name.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Kit_Carson_photograph_restored.jpg

United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpbh.00514

23 December

Dragnet

is perhaps the most famous and influential police procedural drama in media history. The series gave audience members a feel for the boredom and drudgery, as well as the danger and heroism, of police work. Dragnet earned praise for improving the public opinion of police officers.  Actor and producer Jack Webb’s aims in Dragnet were for realism and unpretentious acting. He achieved both goals, and Dragnet remains a key influence on subsequent police dramas..

http://sunnycv.com/steve/filmnotes/images3/1967dragnet-badge.jpg

22 December

The Shoe Bomber’s Shoe

One of the shoes of Richard Reid.  FBI forensic results indicated Reid’s shoes contained 10 ounces (283 g) of C-4 plastic explosives, enough to blow a hole in the plane and cause it to crash.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Richard_Reid_explosive_shoe.jpg

http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2005/july/shoe_bomb071805

21 December

Pan Am Flight 103

(also known as the Lockerbie bombing) was a Pan Am transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport that was destroyed by a bomb on Wednesday, 21 December 1988, killing all 243 passengers and 16 crew members.Large sections of the plane crashed into Lockerbie, Scotland, killing an additional 11 people on the ground.

http://commons.esc.edu/dbritton/files/2011/04/pa103.jpg

20 December

Elizabeth II

is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states, known as the Commonwealth realms, and their territories and dependencies, and head of the 53-member Commonwealth of Nations. She is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and, in some of her realms, carries the additional title of Defender of the Faith.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7e/Queen_Elizabeth_Toronto_2010.jpg

 

19 December

19 December

Godspeed

under Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, was one of the three ships (along with the Susan Constant and the Discovery) on the 1606-1607 voyage to the New World for the English Virginia Company of London.  The  journey resulted in the founding of Jamestown in the new Colony of Virginia.

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/161362main_image_feature_682_ys_full.jpg

18 December

Spanish II Stradivarius

(1687-1689) on exhibit at Palacio Real de Madrid.  Stradivari’s instruments are regarded as amongst the finest bowed stringed instruments ever created, are highly prized, and are still played by professionals today. Only one other maker, Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù, commands a similar respect among violinists. However, neither blind listening tests nor acoustic analysis have ever demonstrated that Stradivarius instruments are better than other high-quality instruments or even reliably distinguishable from them.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stradivarius_violin,_Palacio_Real,_Madrid.jpg

17 December

Aztec Calendar Stone

Mexica sun stone, Stone of the Sun (Spanish: Piedra del Sol), or Stone of the Five Eras, is a large monolithic sculpture that was excavated in the Zócalo, the main square of Mexico City, on 17 December 1790.  It was discovered while Mexico City Cathedral was being repaired. The stone is approximately 12 feet (3.7 m) in diameter and weighs approximately 24 tons.  Mexican anthropologist Antonio de León y Gama (1735-1802) remarked that the Sun Stone showed that the Aztecs had knowledge of geometry to be able to carve the stone symmetrically and it showed they also had knowledge of mechanics to be able to move the stone from its quarry to its final destination.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aztec_calendar_stone.jpg

Photo by by George and Audrey DeLange, http://www.delange.org/Becan/Becan.htm

16 December

William Frederick “Billy” Gibbons

(born 16 December 1949) in Tanglewood, a suburb of Dallas, Texas.  His father was an orchestra conductor and concert pianist who worked for Samuel Goldwyn at the MGM studios.  Gibbons formed ZZ Top in late 1969, which then quickly settled on bassist/vocalist Dusty Hill and drummer Frank “Rube” Beard, both being members of the band American Blues.  After honing their trademark blues-rock style, they released the aptly titled ZZ Top’s First Album on London Records in 1971.  They have the distinction of being among a very small group of bands with a 40-year-plus history that still has all of its original members.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Billy_Gibbons_ZZ_Top_BBK_Live_2008_I.jpg

Alberto Cabello from Vitoria Gasteiz

15 December

Gone with the Wind

is a 1939 American epic historical romance film adapted from Margaret Mitchell’s Pulitzer-winning 1936 novel and produced by David O. Selznick, of Selznick International Pictures. Set in the 19th-century American South, the film tells the story of Scarlett O’Hara, played by Vivien Leigh, and her romantic pursuit of Ashley Wilkes (Leslie Howard) who is married to his cousin, Melanie Hamilton (Olivia de Havilland), and her marriage to Rhett Butler (Clark Gable). Set against the backdrop of the American Civil War and Reconstruction era, the story is told from the perspective of white Southerners.  The production of the film was troubled from the start. Filming was delayed for two years due to David O. Selznick’s determination to secure Clark Gable for the role of Rhett Butler, and the “search for Scarlett” led to 1,400 women being interviewed for the part.  At the12th Academy Awards held in 1940, it received ten Academy Awards (eight competitive, two honorary) from thirteen nominations, including wins for Best Picture, Best Director (Victor Fleming), Best Adapted Screenplay (posthumously awarded to Sidney Howard), Best Actress (Vivien Leigh) and Best Supporting Actress (Hattie McDaniel, becoming the first African-American to win an Academy Award). It set new records for the total number of wins and nominations at the time. The film was immensely popular, becoming the highest-earning film made up to that point, and retained the record for over a quarter of a century. Adjusted for inflation, it is still the most successful film in box-office history.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Poster_-_Gone_With_the_Wind_01.jpg

14 December

Muntadhar al-Zaidi

shouted  “This is a farewell kiss from the Iraqi people, you dog” and threw his shoes at then-U.S. president George W. Bush during a Baghdad press conference. Al-Zaidi suffered injuries as he was taken into custody and some sources said he was tortured during his initial detention.There were calls throughout the Middle East to place the shoes in an Iraqi museum,but the shoes were later destroyed by US and Iraqi security forces to prevent this.  Al-Zaidi’s shoeing inspired many similar incidents of political protest around the world.

Photograph taken at the Museum in TriBeCa, New York City. 17 March 2013 by Tgd85

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bush_Shoe_Throw.jpg

13 December

Ephraim McDowell

(17 November 1771 – 25 June 1830) was an American physician.  On 13 December 1809, Dr. McDowell was called to see Jane Todd Crawford in Green County, Kentucky, 60 miles (97 km) from Danville.  Her physicians thought that Mrs. Crawford was beyond term pregnant. Dr. McDowell diagnosed an ovarian tumor.  He then described her condition and that an operation for cure had never been performed. He said that the best surgeons in the world thought it impossible. Mrs. Crawford said she understood and wanted to proceed. Dr. McDowell told her he would remove the tumor if she would travel to his home in Danville. She agreed and rode the sixty miles on horseback. On Christmas morning, 1809, Dr. McDowell began his operation. The surgery was performed without benefit of anesthetic or antisepsis, neither of which was then known to the medical profession. The tumor Dr. McDowell removed weighed 22.5 pounds (10.2 kg). He determined that it would be difficult to remove it completely. So he tied a ligature around the fallopian tube near the uterus and cut open the tumor. He described the tumor as the ovarium and fimbrious part of the fallopian tube very much enlarged. The whole procedure took 25 minutes. Mrs. Crawford made an uncomplicated recovery. She returned to her home in Green County 25 days after the operation and lived another 32 years. This was the first successful removal of an ovarian tumor in the world.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ephraim_McDowell.jpg

http://ihm.nlm.nih.gov/images/B29869

12 December

Francis Albert “Frank” Sinatra

(12 December 1915 – 14 May 1988) was born in Hoboken, New Jersey.  He was an only child of Italian immigrants.   Sinatra did not graduate from high school, in fact, he only attended 47 days and was expelled for rowdy conduct.  He worked as a delivery boy for the Jersey Observer newspaper and a riveter in the shipyards.  He began singing for tips at eight, standing the bar at a local Hoboken nightclub.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Frank_Sinatra_laughing.jpg

11 December

Robindro Shaunkor Chowdhury AKA Ravi Shankar

(7 April 1920 – 11 December 2012)s the best known contemporary Indian musician.  In 1956, he began to tour Europe and the Americas playing Indian classical music and increased its popularity there in the 1960s through teaching, performance, and his association with violinist Yehudi Menuhin and rock artist George Harrison of the Beatles. Shankar engaged Western music by writing concerti for sitar and orchestra and toured the world in the 1970s and 1980s. From 1986 to 1992 he served as a nominated member of Rajya Sabha, the upper chamber of the Parliament of India. Shankar was awarded India’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, in 1999, and received three Grammy Awards. He continued to perform in the 2000s, sometimes with his younger daughter, Anoushka. He was posthumously awarded two Grammy awards in 2013, one for lifetime achievement, another for The Living Room Sessions Part 1 in the world music category.

http://echoofindia.com/sites/default/files/citizenjourno/anchor%20pic_2.jpg

10 December

Red Cloud

was one of the most capable Native American opponents the United States Army faced, he led a successful campaign in 1866–1868 known as Red Cloud’s War over control of the Powder River Country in northeastern Wyoming and southern Montana.  Red Cloud was born near the Platte River, near the modern-day city of North Platte, Nebraska.  His mother, Walks As She Thinks, was an Oglala Lakota and his father, Lone Man, was a Brulé Lakota chief.  The Lakota are a matrilineal society in which the children belonged to the mother’s clan and people.  Red Cloud was mentored as a boy by his maternal uncle, Old Chief Smoke (1774–1864) who played a prominent, major role in the boy’s early-mid life and brought him into the Smoke household when his parents died around 1825.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Red_Cloud_-_NARA_-_285554.jpg

This media is available in the holdings of the National Archives and Records Administration, cataloged under the ARC Identifier (National Archives Identifier) 285554.

9 December

Emmett Leo Kelly

(9 December 1898 – 28 March 1979) was an American circus performer, who created the memorable clown figure “Weary Willie”, based on the hobos of the Depression era.  “Weary Willie” was a tragic figure: a clown, who could usually be seen sweeping up the circus rings after the other performers. He tried but failed to sweep up the pool of light of a spotlight. From 1942–1956 Kelly performed with the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, where he was a major attraction, though he took the 1956 season off to perform as the mascot for the Brooklyn Dodgers baseball team. He also landed a number of Broadway and film roles, including the role of “Willie” in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). He also appeared in the Bertram Mills Circus.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emmett_Kelly_1953.jpg

8 December

Diego María de la Concepción Juan Nepomuceno Estanislao de la Rivera y Barrientos Acosta y Rodríguez

(8 December 1886 – 24 November 1957) known as Diego Rivera  was a prominent Mexican painter. His large wall works in fresco helped establish the Mexican Mural Movement in Mexican art. Between 1922 and 1953, Rivera painted murals  in Mexico City, Chapingo, Cuernavaca, San Francisco, Detroit, and New York City.  Rivera was born in Guanajuato, Mexico to a well-to-do family. Rivera began drawing at the age of three on the walls of his room. His parents, rather than punishing him, installed chalkboards and canvas on the walls.

7 December

Pearl Harbor Attack

Photograph taken from a Japanese plane during the torpedo attack on ships moored on both sides of Ford Island shortly after the beginning of the Pearl Harbor attack. View looks about east, with the supply depot, submarine base and fuel tank farm in the right center distance. A torpedo has just hit USS West Virginia on the far side of Ford Island (center). Other battleships moored nearby are (from left): Nevada, Arizona, Tennessee (inboard of West Virginia), Oklahoma (torpedoed and listing) alongside Maryland, and California. On the near side of Ford Island, to the left, are light cruisers Detroit and Raleigh, target and training ship Utah and seaplane tender Tangier.  Raleigh and Utah have been torpedoed, and Utah is listing sharply to port. Japanese planes are visible in the right center (over Ford Island) and over the Navy Yard at right. U.S. Navy planes on the seaplane ramp are on fire.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Attack_on_Pearl_Harbor_Japanese_planes_view.jpg

6 December

Altamont Speedway Free Festival

was a rock concert held at the Altamont Speedway in northern California, between Tracy and Livermore. It featured, in order of appearance: Ike and Tina Turner, Santana, The Flying Burrito Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with the Rolling Stones taking the stage as the final act.  The Grateful Dead were also scheduled to perform, but declined to play shortly before their scheduled appearance due to the increasing violence at the venue.”That’s the way things went at Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the festival, didn’t even get to play,” staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote in a detailed narrative on the event,terming it in an additional follow-up piece “rock and roll’s all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong.” Approximately 300,000 people attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a “Woodstock West.”The event is best known for having been marred by considerable violence, including the death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two caused by a hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal. Four births were reported during the event.Scores were injured, numerous cars were stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage

5 December

George Armstrong Custer

(5 December 1839 – 25 June 1876) was a United States Army officer and cavalry commander in the American Civil War and the Indian Wars. Raised in Michigan and Ohio, Custer was admitted to West Point in 1858, where he graduated last in his class. However, with the outbreak of the Civil War, all potential officers were needed, and Custer was called to serve with the Union Army. Custer developed a strong reputation during the Civil War. He fought in the first major engagement, the First Battle of Bull Run. His association with several important officers helped his career, as did his success as a highly effective cavalry commander.  Custer was on hand at General Robert E. Lee’s surrender. After the Civil War, Custer was dispatched to the west to fight in the Indian Wars. Custer and all the men with him were killed at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876, fighting against a coalition of Native American tribes in a battle that has come to be popularly known in American history as “Custer’s Last Stand.”

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Custer3.jpg This image is available from the United States Library of Congress‘s Prints and Photographs division under the digital ID cwpb.05341

4 December

Montreux Casino (Casino Barrière de Montreux)

is a casino located in Montreux, Switzerland, on the shoreline of Lake Geneva. It has served as the venue for the Montreux Jazz Festival and was rebuilt following a 1971 fire memorialized in the Deep Purple song “Smoke on the Water.” We all came out to Montreux on the Lake Geneva shoreline / To make records with a mobile – We didn’t have much time / Frank Zappa & the Mothers were at the best place around / But some stupid with a flare gun burned the place to the ground / Smoke on the water, fire in the sky… http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8a/Picswiss_VD-45-13.jpg http://www.picswiss.ch/04-VD/s-VD-04/sVD-45-13.html Roland Zumbühl (Picswiss), Arlesheim (Commons:Picswiss project)

3 December

“Bouncing Betty”

is a large cylindrical bounding anti-personnel mine. The mine’s body is metal with a distinctive five-pronged head. The central prong has a hole that is attached to a trip wire. The inner body of the mine has a main charge surrounded with approximately 1,000 steel cubes, below which is a steel wire connecting it to the base of the mine. When the mine is triggered a small charge launches the mine into the air approximately 45 cm before the steel wire is pulled taut, the jolt of which pulls a striker into the detonator. A secondary time fuse triggers the mine after three seconds if it has not detonated after being triggered.  The fragments produced by the mine are lethal to a range of 25 meters, and are capable of penetrating light armor.

http://maic.jmu.edu/ordata/FullImage.asp?image=images\H\H1295UP002.JPG

2 December

Joseph Raymond “Joe” McCarthy 

(14 November 1908 – 2 May 1957) was an American politician who served as a Republican U.S. Senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957. Beginning in 1950, McCarthy became the most visible public face of a period in which Cold War tensions fueled fears of widespread Communist subversion. He was noted for making claims that there were large numbers of Communists and Soviet spies and sympathizers inside the United States federal government and elsewhere. Ultimately, his tactics and inability to substantiate his claims led him to be censured by the United States Senate. The term McCarthyism, coined in 1950 in reference to McCarthy’s practices, was soon applied to similar anti-communist activities. Today the term is generally in reference to demagogic, reckless, and unsubstantiated accusations, as well as public attacks on the character or patriotism of political opponents.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_McCarthy

1 December

Nancy Witcher Langhorne

(19 May 1879 – 2 May 1964) born at the Langhorne House in Danville, Virginia, to Chiswell Dabney Langhorne and Nancy Witcher Keene.  She moved to England in 1905 and married an Englishman. Her second husband, Waldorf Astor, was born in the United States but his father had moved the family to England when Waldorf was twelve and raised his children as English aristocrats.  After marrying Waldorf, Nancy moved into Cliveden, a lavish estate in Buckinghamshire on the River Thames that was a wedding gift from Astor’s father, and began her life as a prominent hostess for the social elite. The Astors also owned a grand London house, No. 4 St. James’s Square, which is now the premises of the Naval & Military Club.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Astor

30 November

The Crystal Palace

was a cast-iron and plate-glass building originally erected in Hyde Park, London, England, to house the Great Exhibition of 1851. More than 14,000 exhibitors from around the world gathered in the Palace’s 990,000 ft² (92,000 m²) of exhibition space to display examples of the latest technology developed in the Industrial Revolution. Designed by Sir Joseph Paxton, the Great Exhibition building was 1,851 feet (564 m) long, with an interior height of 128 ft (39 m).  Because of the recent invention of the cast plate glass method in 1848, which allowed for large sheets of cheap but strong glass, it was at the time the largest amount of glass ever seen in a building and astonished visitors with its clear walls and ceilings that did not require interior lights, thus a “Crystal Palace”. After the exhibition, the building was rebuilt in an enlarged form on Penge Common next to Sydenham Hill, an affluent South London suburb full of large villas. It stood there from 1854 until its destruction by fire in 1936.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crystal_Palace_from_the_northeast_from_Dickinson%27s_Comprehensive_Pictures_of_the_Great_Exhibition_of_1851._1854.jpg

29 November

Louisa May Alcott

(29 November 1832 – 6 March 1888) was an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and its sequels Little Men and Jo’s Boys.  She grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless, her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the pen name  A. M. Barnard. Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott’s childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well received and is still a popular children’s novel today. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. She died in Boston.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Louisa_May_Alcott_headshot.jpg

28 November

Arthur Griffith

(31 March 1872 – 12 August 1922) was an Irish politician and writer, who founded and later led the political party Sinn Féin. Most historians opt for 28 November 1905, as a founding date because it was on this date that Griffith first presented his ‘Sinn Féin Policy’. In his writings, Griffith declared that the Act of Union of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800 was illegal and that, consequently, the Anglo-Irish dual monarchy which existed under Grattan’s Parliament, and the so-called Constitution of 1782 was still in effect. Its first president was Edward Martyn.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cf/Arthur_Griffith_071022.jpg

27 November

Lester Joseph Gillis AKA George “Baby Face” Nelson

( 6 December 1908 – 27 November 1934) was a bank robber and murderer in the 1930s.  Gillis was better known as Baby Face Nelson, a name given to him due to his youthful appearance and small stature. Usually referred to by criminal associates as “Jimmy”, Nelson entered into a partnership with John Dillinger, helping him escape from prison in the famed Crown Point, Indiana Jail escape, and was later labeled along with the remaining gang members as public enemy number one.  Nelson was responsible for the murder of several people, and has the dubious distinction of having killed more FBI agents in the line of duty than any other person.  Nelson was shot by FBI agents and died after a shootout often termed “The Battle of Barrington”.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Baby_Face_Nelson_1931_mug_shot.jpg

26 November

William Barclay “Bat” Masterson

(26 November 1853 – 25 October 1921) was a figure of the American Old West known as a buffalo hunter, U.S. Marshal and Army scout, avid fisherman, gambler, frontier lawman, and sports editor and columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0c/Bat_Masterson_1879.jpg

25 November

Chief Morning Star AKA Dull Knife

represented his tribe at the signing of the Treaty of Fort Laramie. Following “Custer’s Last Stand” at the Battle of Little Bighorn in 1876, Morning Star allied with the Sioux and other tribes against the United States. However, after a disastrous raid (the Dull Knife Fight) by American soldiers in which 153 lodges were destroyed and 500 war ponies captured, most of the Cheyenne were eventually forced to surrender. They were transported to the Indian Territory inOklahoma. Dull Knife (Tah-me-la-pash-me), Chief of Northern Cheyennes at Battle of Little Bighorn; full-length, seated. Halftone of photograph.  National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, BAE GN 253.  File is available at NARA: http://www.archives.gov/research/native-americans/pictures/select-list-096.html. ARC Identifier 530912 / Local Identifier 111-SC-87732 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Dull_Knife.jpg

Altruism Manipulated?

http://a57.foxnews.com/global.fbnstatic.com/static/managed/img/fb2/news/660/371/Typhoon%20Haiyan.JPG?ve=1

24 November

Charles “Lucky” Luciano

born Salvatore Lucania (24 November 1897 – 26 January 1962), was an Italian-born American mobster. Luciano is considered the father of modern organized crime in the United States for splitting New York City into five different Mafia crime families. He was the first official boss of the modern Genovese crime family. He was, along with his associate Meyer Lansky, instrumental in the development of the National Crime Syndicate in the United States.

Mugshot of Charles Luciano taken 2 February 1931, New York County District Attorney Case File 211537.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lucky_Luciano_mugshot_1931.jpg

23 November

Boris Karloff

AKA William Henry Pratt (23 November 1887 – 2 February 1969), better known by his stage name Boris Karloff, was an English actor.  Karloff is best remembered for his roles in horror films and especially for his portrayal of Frankenstein’s monster in Frankenstein (1931), Bride of Frankenstein (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939), which resulted in his immense popularity. His best-known non-horror role is as the Grinch, as well as the narrator, in the animated television special of Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). He also had a memorable role in the original Scarface (1932). For his contribution to film and television, Boris Karloff was awarded two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

22 November

Cutty Sark

was destined for the tea trade, then an intensely competitive race across the globe from China to London, with a substantial bonus to the ship that arrived with the first tea of the year.  Her first round trip voyage under captain George Moodie began 16 February 1870 from London with a cargo of wine, spirits and beer bound for Shanghai.  The return journey with 1450 tons of tea from Shanghai began 25 June, arriving 13 October in London via the Cape of Good Hope. The ship completed eight round trip annual journeys, but the Suez Canal had opened to shipping in 1869 just as Cutty Sark was being launched.  In the end, of course, clippers lost out to steamships, which could use the shorter route through the Canal and deliver goods more reliably, if not quite so quickly, which proved to be better business. Clippers were designed to make best use of the strong trade winds around the African coast route and could not use the shorter route through the canal and Red Sea.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cutty_Sark_(ship,_1869)_-_SLV_H91.250-164.jpg

21 November

Rebecca Felton

(10 June 1835-24 January 1930) was the most prominent woman in Georgia in the Progressive Era, and was honored by appointment to the Senate.  She was sworn in November 21, 1922, and served just 24 hours. 87 years old, 9 months, and 22 days, she was the oldest freshman senator to enter the Senate.  As of 2013, she is also the only woman to have served as a Senator from Georgia. Felton criticized what she saw as the hypocrisy of Southern men who boasted of superior Southern “chivalry” but opposed women’s rights, and she expressed her dislike of the fact that Southern states resisted women’s suffrage longer than other regions of the US.  She wrote, in 1915, that women were denied fair political participation “except in the States which have been franchised by the good sense and common honesty of the men of those States—after due consideration, and with the chivalric instinct that differentiates the coarse brutal male from the gentlemen of our nation. Shall the men of the South be less generous, less chivalrous? They have given the Southern women more praise than the man of the West—but judged by their actions Southern men have been less sincere. Honeyed phrases are pleasant to listen to, but the sensible women of our country would prefer more substantial gifts.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Rebecca_L._Felton.png

20 November

Essex

was an American whaling ship from Nantucket, Massachusetts. The ship, captained by George Pollard, Jr., is widely known for being attacked and sunk by a sperm whale in the southern Pacific Ocean in 1820. The crew spent months at sea before the final eight survivors were rescued; first mate Owen Chase and cabin boy Thomas Nickerson subsequently wrote accounts of the ordeal. The incident served as inspiration for Herman Melville’s 1851 novel, Moby-Dick.

http://darthdevious.blogspot.com/2011/10/ship-of-month-3.html.

19 November

Ford Edsel

The Edsel’s most memorable design feature was its trademark “horsecollar” or toilet seat grille, which was quite distinct from other cars of the period. According to a popular joke at the time, the Edsel “resembled an Oldsmobile sucking a lemon”. The Edsel offered several innovative features, among which were its “rolling dome” speedometer, warning lights for such conditions as low oil level, parking brake engaged, and engine overheating, as well as its Push-Button Teletouch transmission shifting system in the center of the steering wheel (a conventional column-shift automatic was also available at a reduced price). Other Edsel design innovations included ergonomically designed controls for the driver and self-adjusting brakes (which Edsel claimed as a first for the industry, even though Studebaker had pioneered them earlier in the decade). The Edsel also offered such advanced safety features as seat belts (which were available at extra cost as optional equipment on many other makes) and child-proof rear door locks that could only be opened with the key.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Edsel_1959_grille.jpg

18 November

Touchtone telephone

The futuristic Touchtone telephone with long extension cord for the handset.

http://farm3.staticflickr.com/2786/4204516126_16470c34c7.jpg

17 November

The Suez Canal

(Arabic: قناة السويس‎ Qanāt al-Sūwais) is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea. Opened in November 1869 after 10 years of construction work, it allows ship transport between Europe and Asia without navigation around Africa. In 1854 and 1856 Ferdinand de Lesseps obtained a concession from Sa’id Pasha, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, to create a company to construct a canal open to ships of all nations. The company was to operate the canal for 99 years from its opening.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Suez_canal_30.55N_32.28E.jpg WorldWind, Landsat 7 30.55N 32.28E

16 November

William Christopher Handy

was born in Florence, Alabama. His father was the pastor of a small church in Guntersville, another small town in northeast central Alabama. Handy wrote in his 1941 autobiography, Father of the Blues, that he was born in the log cabin built by his grandfather William Wise Handy, who became an African Methodist Episcopal (AME) minister after emancipation. The log cabin of Handy’s birth has been saved and preserved in downtown Florence. Handy remains among the most influential of American songwriters. Though he was one of many musicians who played the distinctively American form of music known as the blues, he is credited with giving it its contemporary form. While Handy was not the first to publish music in the blues form, he took the blues from a regional music style with a limited audience to one of the dominant national forces in American music.

http://sharing.woodtv.com/sharewlin//photo/2012/09/28/ap-wc-handy_20120928105914_640_480.JPG

15 November

Classic NBC logo

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/Nbc_studio_tour_bookmark_1935.JPG

14 November

 Oscar-Claude Monet

was a founder of French Impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement’s philosophy of expressing one’s perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.  The term “Impressionism” is derived from the title of his painting Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), which was exhibited in 1874 in the first of the independent exhibitions mounted by Monet and his associates as an alternative to the Salon de Paris.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Monet_049.jpg

13 November

AK-47

is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova  (Russian: АвтоматКалашникова). It is also known as Kalashnikov, AK, or in Russian slang, Kalash.  Even after six decades the model and its variants remain the most widely used and popular assault rifles in the world because of their durability, low production cost, availability, and ease of use.   More AK-type rifles have been produced than all other assault rifles combined.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AK-47_type_II_Part_DM-ST-89-01131.jpg (Photographer Cpl. D.A. Haynes)

12 November

William “Pudge” Walter Heffelfinger

(20 December 1867 – 2 April 1954) was an American football player and coach.  He is considered the first person to play American football professionally. Heffelfinger, a three-time All-American, played for Walter Camp at Yale University in 1889, 1890, and 1891.He then played amateur football for the Chicago Athletic Association (for which he was compensated with “double expenses,” as was a common practice at the time).

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pudge_heffelfinger.jpg

11 November

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

stands on atop a hill overlooking Washington, D.C. One of the most well-attended sites at Arlington National Cemetery, the tomb is made from Yule marble quarried in Colorado.  It consists of seven pieces, with a total weight of 79 short tons (72 metric tons). The tomb was completed and opened to the public April 9, 1932, at a cost of $48,000.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Tomb_of_the_Unknowns_Guard.jpg

10 November

Sir Henry Morton Stanley, AKA John Rowlands

(28 January 1841 – 10 May 1904), was a British journalist and explorer famous for his exploration of central Africa and his search for missionary and explorer David Livingstone. Stanley is also known for his discoveries in and development of the Congo region in Africa.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Henry_Morton_Stanley_1.jpg

9 November

Cullinan diamond

is the largest gem-quality diamond ever found, at 3106.75 carat (621.35 g, 1.37 lb) rough weight.  It is about 10.5 cm (4.1 inches) long in its largest dimension, it was found 26 January 1905, in the Premier No. 2 mine, near Pretoria, South Africa. The largest polished gem from the stone is named Cullinan I or the Great Star of Africa, and at 530.4 carats (106.1 g) Along with the Second Star of Africa also cut from the original diamond, the Great Star of Africa is among the Crown Jewels of the UK.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Star_of_africa_.jpg

8 November

Abraham “Bram” Stoker

(8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dracula1st.jpg

7 November

Fiorello Henry LaGuardia AKA Fiorello Enrico La Guardia

(11 December 1882 – 20 September 1947) was the 99th Mayor of New York for three terms from 1934 to 1945 as a Republican. Previously he had been elected to Congress in 1916 and 1918, and again from 1922 through 1930.  LaGuardia, a Republican, appealed across party lines, and was very popular in New York during the 1930s. As a New Dealer, he supported President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat, and in turn Roosevelt heavily funded the city and cut off patronage from LaGuardia’s foes. La Guardia revitalized New York City and restored public faith in City Hall. He unified the transit system, directed the building of low-cost public housing, public playgrounds, parks, and airports.  He reorganized the police force, defeated the powerful Tammany Hall political machine, and reestablished merit employment in place of patronage jobs. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9f/Fiorello_LaGuardia_140x190.jpg

6 November

John Philip Sousa

(6 November 1854 – 6 March 1932) was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known primarily for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as “The American March King”.  Among his best-known marches are “The Liberty Bell”, “The Thunderer”, “The Washington Post”, “Semper Fidelis” (Official March of the United States Marine Corps), and “The Stars and Stripes Forever” (National March of the United States of America). http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/JohnPhilipSousa-Chickering.LOC.jpg

5 November

Guy Fawkes

(13 April 1570 – 31 January 1606), AKA Guido Fawkes, was a member of a group of provincial English Catholics who planned the failed Gunpowder Plot of 1605.  The plotters secured the lease to an undercroft beneath the House of Lords, and Fawkes was placed in charge of the gunpowder they stockpiled there. Prompted by an anonymous letter, authorities searched Westminster Palace during the early hours of 5 November, and found Fawkes guarding the explosives.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Guy_Fawkes_-_Theater.jpg

4 November

Walter Leland Cronkite, Jr.

(4 November 1916 – 17 July 2009) was an American broadcast journalist, best known as anchorman for the CBS Evening News for 19 years (1962–81). During the heyday of CBS News in the 1960s and 1970s, he was often cited as “the most trusted man in America” after being so named in an opinion poll. He reported many events from 1937 to 1981, including bombings in World War II; the Nuremberg trials; combat in the Vietnam War;Watergate; the Iran Hostage Crisis; and the murders of President John F. Kennedy, civil rights pioneer Martin Luther King, Jr., and Beatles musician John Lennon. He was also known for his extensive coverage of the U.S. space program, from Project Mercury to the Moon landings to the Space Shuttle. He was the only non-NASA recipient of a Moon-rock award. Cronkite is well known for his departing catchphrase “And that’s the way it is,” followed by the date on which the appearance aired.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/35/Cronkite_at_Columbia_Remembrance.jpg

3 November

Annie Oakley

(13 August 1860 – 3 November 1926), born Phoebe Ann Moses,was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Oakley’s amazing talent and timely rise to fameled to a starring role in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar. Perhaps Oakley’s most famous trick was her ability to repeatedly split a playing card, edge-on, and put several more holes in it before it touched the ground, while using a .22 caliber rifle, at 90 feet (27 m).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/17/Miss-Annie-Oakley-peerless-wing-shot.jpg

2 November

Hughes H-4 Hercules

(also known as the “Spruce Goose“; registration NX37602) is a prototype heavy transport aircraft designed and built by the Hughes Aircraft company. The aircraft made its only flight on November 2, 1947, and the project never advanced beyond the single example produced. Built from wood because of wartime restrictions on the use of aluminum and concerns about weight, its critics nicknamed it the “Spruce Goose”, despite it being made almost entirely of birch rather than spruce. The Hercules is the largest flying boat ever built and has the largest wingspan of any aircraft in history.  Length 218 ft. 8 in., Height 79 ft. 4 in., Wingspan 320 ft. 11 in.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:H-4_Hercules_2.jpg

1 November

Seabiscuit

was a champion Thoroughbred racehorse in the United States. A small horse, Seabiscuit had an inauspicious start to his racing career, but became an unlikely champion and a symbol of hope to many Americans during the Great Depression.  Seabiscuit was foaled from the mare Swing On and sired by Hard Tack, a son of Man o’ War.  Seabiscuit was named for his father, as hardtack or “sea biscuit” is the name for a type of cracker eaten by sailors

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Seabiscuit_workout_with_GW_up.jpg

31 October

The Mount Rushmore National Memorial

is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States. Sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum, Mount Rushmore features 60-foot (18 m) sculptures of the heads of four United States presidents: George Washington (1732–1799), Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826),Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) and Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)

Source=Library of Congress[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3c21165] |Date=c1932. |Author=Rise Studio, Rapid City, S. Dak. Copyright not renewed. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mount_Rushmore_unrestored.jpg

30 October

Jack Roosevelt “Jackie” Robinson

was an American baseball player who became the first African American to play in Major League Baseball (MLB) in the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color barrier when the Brooklyn Dodgers started him at first base on April 15, 1947.

Published in LOOK, v. 19, no. 4, 1955 Feb. 22, p. 78. This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division under the digital IDppmsc.00047 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Jrobinson.jpg

29 October

New Jersey Coast After Hurricane Sandy

Aerial views of the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy to the New Jersey coast taken during a search and rescue mission by 1-150 Assault Helicopter Battalion, New Jersey Army National Guard, Oct. 30, 2012.

Photograph Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen/U.S. Air Force/New Jersey National Guard. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Sandy_New_Jersey_Pier.jpg

 

Blackfish, Panda Cams & the Bottom Line

http://www.orcahome.de/tilikum.htm

28 October

Jonas Salk

was an American medical researcher and virologist. He discovered and developed the first successful inactivated polio vaccine. He was born in New York City to Jewish parents. Although they had little formal education, his parents were determined to see their children succeed. While attending New York University School of Medicine, Salk stood out from his peers, not just because of his academic prowess, but because he went into medical research instead of becoming a practicing physician.  Until 1957, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation’s history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis, with most of its victims being children.

Magazine cover photo of Jonas Salk taken by Yousuf Karsh specifically for Wisdom Magazine.  Dr. Jonas E. Salk (left) and photographer Yousuf Karsh of Ottowa calm the fears of a youthful volunteer for the polio inoculation, prior to taking the cover portrait for “WISDOM” in Doctor Salk’s laboratory in Pittsburgh. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jonas_Salk_(cover_of_Wisdom_magazine,_August_1956).jpg

27 October

Lockheed U-2, “Dragon Lady“

is a single-engine, ultra-high altitude reconnaissance aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF) and previously flown by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). It provides day and night, very high-altitude (70,000 feet / 21,000 m), all-weather intelligence gathering.  The U-2 has also been used for electronic sensor research, satellite calibration, and communications purposes.  Early versions of the U-2 were involved in several events through the Cold War, being flown over the Soviet Union, China, Vietnam, and Cuba. In 1960 Gary Powers was shot down in a CIA U-2A over the Soviet Union by a surface to air missile. Another U-2 piloted by Major Rudolf Anderson, Jr. was lost in a similar fashion in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U2_Spy_Plane_(5781189429).jpg

26 October

Pony Express

was a mail service delivering messages, newspapers, mail, and small packages from St. Joseph, Missouri, across the Great Plains, over the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada to Sacramento, California, by horseback, using a series of relay stations. During its 18 months of operation, it reduced the time for messages to travel between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts to about 10 days.  From April 3, 1860, to October 1861, it became the West’s most direct means of east–west communication before the telegraph was established and was vital for tying the new state of California with the rest of the country.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Stamp_US_Pony_Express_25c.jpg

25 October

Johann Strauss II

was an Austrian composer of light music, particularly dance music and operettas. He composed over 400 waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, and other types of dance music, as well as several operettas and a ballet. In his lifetime, he was known as “The Waltz King”, and was largely then responsible for the popularity of the waltz in Vienna during the 19th century.  Some of Johann Strauss’s most famous works include The Blue Danube, Kaiser-Walzer, Tales from the Vienna Woods, and the Tritsch-Tratsch-Polka. Among his operettas, Die Fledermaus and Der Zigeunerbaron are the best known.

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24 October

Solidarity

is a Polish trade union federation that emerged on 31 August 1980 at the Gdańsk Shipyard under the leadership of Lech Wałęsa. It was the first non-Communist Party-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. Solidarity reached 9.5 million members before its September 1981 Congress (up to 10 million)  that constituted one third of the total working age population of Poland.  In its clandestine years, the United States provided significant financial support for Solidarity, estimated to be as much as 50 million US dollars.  In the 1980s, Solidarity was a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement, using the methods of civil resistance to advance the causes of workers’ rights and social change.  The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of political repression, but in the end it was forced to negotiate with the union.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Znaczek_solidarno%C5%9Bci.jpg

23 October

Women’s Suffrage in the United States

The demand for women’s suffrage began to gather strength in the 1840s, emerging from the broader movement for women’s rights. In 1848, the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women’s rights convention, passed a resolution in favor of women’s suffrage despite opposition from some of its organizers, who believed the idea was too extreme. By the time of the first National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850, however, suffrage was becoming an increasingly important aspect of the movement’s activities.  The first national suffrage organizations were established in 1869 when two competing organizations were formed, one led by Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and the other by Lucy Stone. After years of bitter rivalry, they merged in 1890 as the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA) with Anthony as its leading force.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pre-election_suffrage_parade_NYC.jpg

22 October

Cuban Missile Crisis

was the closest the world ever came to nuclear war. The United States armed forces were at their highest state of readiness ever and Soviet field commanders in Cuba were prepared to use battlefield nuclear weapons to defend the island if it was invaded. Luckily, thanks to the bravery of two men, President John F. Kennedy and Premier Nikita Khrushchev, war was averted.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hyde_Park_Protesters_October_1962_during_the_Cuban_Missile_Crisis.jpg

21 October

Vietnam War Protest in Washington, D.C.

by Frank Wolfe, October 21, 1967. A protest sign reads “GET THE HELLicopters OUT OF VIETNAM.”  A large demonstration organized by the National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam, a crowd of nearly 100,000 met at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. and at least 30,000 people then marched to the Pentagon for another rally and an all night vigil. Some, including Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Allen Ginsberg, attempted to “exorcise” and “levitate” the building, while others engaged in civil disobedience on the steps of the Pentagon. These actions were interrupted by clashes with soldiers and police. In all, 647 arrests were made.  When a plot to airdrop 10,000 flowers on the Pentagon was foiled by undercover agents, some of these flowers ended up being placed in the barrels of MP’s rifles, as seen in famous photographs of the event.  Norman Mailer documented the events surrounding the march, and the march on the Pentagon itself, in his non-fiction novel, The Armies of the Night.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vietnam_War_Protest_in_DC,_1967.gif

20 October

John Rackham

commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century (Rackham is often spelled as Rackam or Rackum in historical documentation, and he is also often referred to as Jack Rackham). His nickname derived from the calico clothing he wore, while Jack is a diminutive of “John.”  Active towards the end (1718–20) of the “golden age of piracy” (1650–1730) Rackham is most remembered for two things: the design of his Jolly Roger flag, a skull with crossed swords, which contributed to the popularization of the design; and for having two female crew members, Mary Read and Rackham’s lover Anne Bonny.

http://rpgreenhalgh.blogspot.com/2013/06/new-music-part-19-sunrise-festival-2013.html

19 October

Hurrican Wilma

was the most intense tropical cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic basin. Part of the record breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season, which included three of the six most intense Atlantic hurricanes ever (along with #4 Rita and #6 Katrina), Wilma was the twenty-second storm, thirteenth hurricane, sixth major hurricane, fourth Category 5 hurricane, and second-most destructive hurricane of the 2005 season. A tropical depression formed in the Caribbean Sea near Jamaica on October 15, and intensified into a tropical storm two days later, which was named Wilma. After heading westward as a tropical depression, Wilma turned abruptly southward after becoming a tropical storm. Wilma continued intensifying, and eventually became a hurricane on October 18. Shortly thereafter, extreme intensification occurred, and in only 24 hours, Wilma became a Category 5 hurricane with winds of 185 mph http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hurricane_Wilma_200510191915.jpg

http://www.nnvl.noaa.gov/cgi-bin/index.cgi?page=items&ser=109903&large=1

18 October

Regency TR-1 transistor radio

was the first commercial transistor radio, which debuted October 18, 1954. Designed by Texas Instruments and IDEA, the TR-1 had a superheterodyne circuit with only 4 transistors: a combined local oscillator/mixer, two IF amplifiers, and one audio amplifier. Within one year of release, TR-1 sales approached 100,000. The transistor radio was the most popular communications device in history, with billions manufactured during the 1960s and 1970s. Courtesy of Steve Kushman. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Regency_transistor_radio.jpg

17 October

Mother Teresa

said “By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian. By faith, I am a Catholic nun. As to my calling, I belong to the world. As to my heart, I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.” Picture taken in India by Evert Odekerken in 1988. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mother_Teresa.jpg

16 October

Birth Control Review

was a lay magazine established and edited by Margaret Sanger in 1917, three years after she coined the term “birth control” to describe voluntary motherhood or the ability of a woman to space children “in keeping with a family’s financial and health resources.”.  Sanger published the first issue while imprisoned with Ethel Byrne, her sister, and Fannie Mindell for giving contraceptives and instruction to poor women at the Brownsville Clinic in New York.^[Sanger remained editor-in-chief until 1928, when she turned it over to the American Birth Control League. The last issue was published in January 1940.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BirthControlReview1923.gif

15 October

LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin

was a German-built and -operated, passenger-carrying, hydrogen-filled, rigid airship which operated commercially from 1928 to 1937. It was named after the German pioneer of airships, Ferdinand von Zeppelin, who was a count (Graf) in the German nobility. During its operating life, the airship made 590 flights covering more than a million miles (1.6 million km). It was designed to be operated by a crew of 36 officers and men.at Lakehurst, New Jersey

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:1929-Packard-and-the-Graf-Zeppelin.jpg

14 October

Cuban Missle Crisis

Map of the western hemisphere showing the full range of the nuclear missiles under construction in Cuba, used during the secret meetings on the Cuban crisis. From the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cuban_crisis_map_missile_range.jpg

13 October

Ebola

viral particle showing the characteristic filamentous structure of a Filoviridae. The viral filaments can appear in images in various shapes including a ‘u’, ‘6’, a coil, or branched resulting in pleomorphic particles. The filaments are reported to be between 60-80 nm in diameter, the length of a filament associated with an individual viral partial is extremely variable with Ebola particles of up to 14,000 nm in length being reported. An average length, which may represent the most infectious particles is in the region of 1000 nm. The first electronmicrograph of Ebola was 13 October 1976 by Dr. F.A. Murphy, now at UC Davis, who was then working at the CDC. The nucleocapsid structure consists of a central channel, 20-30nm in diameter, surrounded by helically wound capsid with a diameter of 40-50nm and an interval of 5nm. 7nm glycoprotein spikes spaced 10 nm apart from each other are present within the outer envelope of the virus which is derived from the host cell membrane. Each viral particle contains one molecule of single-stranded, negative-sense RNA, which encodes the seven viral proteins.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s Public Health Image Library (PHIL), with identification number #1833 http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ebola_virus_em.png

12 October

USS Cole

Port side view showing the damage sustained by the Arleigh Burke class guided missile destroyer USS Cole (DDG 67) on October 12, 2000, after a suspected terrorist bomb exploded during a refueling operation in the port of Aden, Yemen. USS Cole is on a regular scheduled six-month deployment. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Defense.gov_News_Photo_001012-N-0000N-002.jpg

11 October

Phrenology

was a pseudoscience primarily focused on measurements of the human skull, based on the concept that the brain is the organ of the mind, and that certain brain areas have localized, specific functions or modules.Developed by German physician Franz Joseph Gall in 1796, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century, especially from about 1810 until 1840. The principal British centre for phrenology was Edinburgh, where the Edinburgh Phrenological Society was established in 1820.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/114145257/vintage-graphic-head-phrenology-diagram?ref=market

10 October

The King and I

is a musical, the fifth by the team of composer Richard Rodgers and dramatist Oscar Hammerstein II.  It is based on the 1944 novel Anna and the King of Siam by Margaret Landon, which is in turn derived from the memoirs of Anna Leonowens, governess to the children of King Mongkut of Siam in the early 1860s.  The musical’s plot relates the experiences of Anna, a British schoolteacher hired as part of the King’s drive to modernize his country.  The relationship between the King and Anna is marked by conflict through much of the piece, as well as by a love that neither can admit.  The musical premiered on March 29, 1951, at Broadway’s St. James Theatre. It ran nearly three years, then the fourth longest-running Broadway musical in history, and has had many tours and revivals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Yul_Brynner_and_Gertrude_Lawrence_in_stage_musical_The_King_and_I.jpg

9 October

 The Washington Monument

is an obelisk on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., built to commemorate George Washington, once commander-in-chief of the early Continental Army and the first American president.  The monument, made of marble, granite, and bluestone gneiss, is both the world’s tallest stone structure and the world’s tallest obelisk, standing 555 feet 5 ¹⁄₈ inches (169.294 m) tall.  Taller monumental columns exist, but they are neither all stone nor true obelisks.  Construction of the monument began in 1848, was halted from 1854 to 1877, and was finally completed in 1884.  The hiatus in construction happened because of co-option by the Know Nothing party, a lack of funds, and the intervention of the American Civil War.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WashMonument_WhiteHouse.jpg

8 October

CATS

is a musical composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, based on Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T. S. Eliot, and produced by Cameron Mackintosh.  The musical tells the story of a tribe of cats called the Jellicles and the night they make what is known as “the Jellicle choice” and decide which cat will ascend to the Heaviside Layer and come back to a new life. Cats also introduced the song standard “Memory”. Directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, Cats first opened in the West End in 1981 and then with the same creative team on Broadway in 1982. It won numerous awards, including Best Musical at both the Laurence Olivier Awards and the Tony Awards. The London production ran for twenty-one years and the Broadway production ran for eighteen years, both setting new records. Actresses Elaine Paige and Betty Buckley became particularly associated with the musical. One actress, Marlene Danielle, performed in the Broadway production for its entire run (from 1982 until 2000).
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3e/CatsMusicalLogo.jpg

7 October

Emma Darwin

was the wife and first cousin of Charles Darwin, the English naturalist, scientist and author of On the Origin of Species.  They were married on 29 January 1839 and were the parents of 10 children, three of whom died at early ages.  She was born at the family estate of Maer Hall, Maer, Staffordshire, the youngest of seven  children of Josiah Wedgwood II and his wife Elizabeth “Bessie”.  Her grandfather Josiah Wedgwood had made his fortune in pottery, and like many others who were not part of the aristocracy they were nonconformist, belonging to the Unitarian church.  Charles Darwin was her first cousin; their shared grandparents were Josiah and Sarah Wedgwood, and as the Wedgwood and Darwin families were closely allied, they had been acquainted since childhood.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Emma_and_Leonard_Darwin.jpg

6 October

Kon-Tiki

was the raft used by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl in his 1947 expedition across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands. It was named after the Inca sun god, Viracocha, for whom “Kon-Tiki” was said to be an old name. Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. Although most anthropologists as of 2010 had come to the conclusion they did not, in 2011, new genetic evidence was uncovered by Erik Thorsby that Easter Island inhabitants do have some South American DNA, lending credence to at least some of Heyerdahl’s theses. His aim in mounting the Kon-Tiki expedition was to show, by using only the materials and technologies available to those people at the time, that there were no technical reasons to prevent them from having done so. Although the expedition carried some modern equipment, such as a radio, watches, charts, sextant, and metal knives, Heyerdahl argued they were incidental to the purpose of proving that the raft itself could make the journey.
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5 October

Monty Python’s Flying Circus

(known during the final series as just Monty Python) is a British sketch comedy series commissioned by David Attenborough, created by the comedy group Monty Python and broadcast by the BBC from 1969 to 1974. The shows were composed of surreality, risqué or innuendo-laden humour, sight gags and observational sketches without punchlines.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Python-Foot.png

4 October

Cheap Thrills

is the second album from Big Brother and the Holding Company and their last with Janis Joplin as primary lead vocalist. In 2003, the album was ranked #338 on Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.  Big Brother obtained a considerable amount of attention after their 1967 performance at the Monterey Pop Festival and had released their debut album soon after. Cheap Thrills was a great success, hitting #1 on the charts for eight nonconsecutive weeks in 1968. Columbia Records offered the band a new recording contract, but it took months to get through since they were still signed to Mainstream Record.

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3 October

Captain Jack

was a chief of the Native American Modoc tribe of California and Oregon, and was their leader during the Modoc War.

2 October

Gordon “Sting” Summer

Sting gained his nickname after he performed wearing a black and yellow sweater with hooped stripes while onstage with the Phoenix Jazzmen. Bandleader Gordon Solomon thought that the sweater made him look like a bee, which prompted the nickname “Sting”. In the 1985 documentary Bring on the Night he was addressed by a journalist as “Gordon”, and replied: “My children call me Sting, my mother calls me Sting, who is this Gordon character?” In a 2011 interview for Time magazine, he stated: “I was never called ‘Gordon’. You could shout ‘Gordon’ in the street and I would just move out of your way.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sting_ThePolice_2007.jpg

1 October

Louis Leakey

was a British paleoanthropologist and archaeologist whose work was important in establishing human evolutionary development in Africa, particularly through his discoveries in the Olduvai Gorge. He also played a major role in creating organizations for future research in Africa and for protecting wildlife there. Having been a prime mover in establishing a tradition of palaeoanthropological inquiry, he was able to motivate the next generation to continue it, notably within his own family, many of whom also became prominent. Leakey was the first Director of the Kenya National Museum.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Louis_Leakey.jpg

30 September

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hoover_Dam_HDR.jpg

29 September

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1a/Khruschev_shoe_fake.jpg

28 September

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Thomas_Crapper_Toilet_Horta_Museum_Branding.jpg

27 September

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Einstein_1921_by_F_Schmutzer.jpg

26 September

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M%C3%B6bius_strip.jpg

25 September

John Bonham, drummer for Led Zeppelin http://th07.deviantart.net/fs28/PRE/i/2008/167/c/a/John_Bonham_Background_by_captainjohn.png

24 September

Cover from “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jim_Henson_Muppets.jpg

23 September

The Phantom of the Opera 1925 film poster.

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Phantom_of_the_opera_1925_poster.jpg

22 September

http://www.playbillvault.com/images/cover/M/a/Marcel-Marceau-on-Broadway-Playbill-03-83.jpg

21 September

http://mormonsoprano.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/joseph-smith-and-angel-moroni.jpg

 

20 September

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ferdinand_Magellan.jpg

 

19 September

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steamboat_Willie1928.jpg

18 September

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/11/jimi-hendrixs-70th-birthday-experience/

17 September

The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is an American nonprofit organization  founded in 1871 that promotes firearm competency, safety, and ownership, as well as police training, marksmanship, hunting and self-defense training in the United States. The NRA is also one of the United States’ largest certifying bodies for firearm safety training and proficiency training courses for police departments, recreational hunting, and child firearm safety. The organization publishes several magazines and sponsors marksmanship events featuring shooting skill and sports.

http://www.nrastore.com/nrastore/ProductDetail.aspx?c=2&p=PD%2021964

16 September

Miami Vice is an American television crime drama series that was produced by Michael Mann for NBC. The series starred Don Johnson as James “Sonny” Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Ricardo “Rico” Tubbs, two Metro-Dade Police Department detectives working undercover in Miami.  Unlike standard police procedurals, the show drew heavily upon 1980s New Wave culture and music. The show became noted for its heavy integration of music and visual effects to tell a story.  It is recognized as one of the most influential television series of all the time.  People magazine stated that Miami Vice “was the first show to look really new and different since color TV was invented”. http://epguides.com/MiamiVice/logo.jpg

15 September

Marco Polo

(15 September 1254 – 8-9 January 1324) was an Italian merchant traveler from Venice whose travels are recorded in Livres des Merveilles du Monde, a book which did much to introduce Europeans to Central Asia and China. Along with his father and uncle, Niccolò and Maffeo, they embarked on an epic journey to Asia, returning after 24 years to find Venice at war with Genoa; Marco was imprisoned, and dictated his stories to a cellmate. He was released in 1299, became a wealthy merchant, married and had three children. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Marco_Polo_portrait.jpg

Higher Education http://mdsuburbanhomes.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/money.jpg

White Coat Hypertension http://www.cartoonstock.com/cart.asp?basket=yes&pricingCalculator=yes&now=7921#license

Huey Pierce Long http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:HueyPLongGesture.jpg This image is available from the US Library of Congress digital ID cph.3c11008 Here’s Looking at Euclid Cartoonist Paeco Todd.