30 September

James Dean

was an American actor. He is a cultural icon of teenage disillusionment, as expressed in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which he starred as troubled teenager Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his stardom were loner Cal Trask in East of Eden (1955) and surly ranch hand Jett Rink in Giant (1956). Dean’s enduring fame and popularity rest on his performances in only these three films, all leading roles. http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02734/jamesdean_2734235b.jpg

29 September

Ian McShane

is an English actor, director, producer and voice artist. McShane is best known for his television roles, particularly BBC’s Lovejoy (1986–94) and HBO’s drama series Deadwood (2004–06). McShane starred as King Silas Benjamin in the NBC series Kings, Bishop Waleran in The Pillars of the Earth, Tai Lung in Kung Fu Panda, and as Blackbeard in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. http://images4.fanpop.com/image/photos/20800000/Al-Swearengen-deadwood-20807760-1702-2560.jpg

28 September

Ed Sullivan

was an American entertainment writer and television host, best known as the presenter of the television variety program The Toast of the Town, now usually remembered under its second name, The Ed Sullivan Show.  The show was broadcast for 23 years from 1948 to 1971, it set a record for longest-running variety show in US broadcast history.

27 September

Marvin Lee Aday

is an American musician and actor best known by his stage name Meat Loaf. He is noted for the Bat Out of Hell album trilogy consisting of Bat Out of Hell, Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell and Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster is Loose.  Bat Out of Hell has sold more than 43 million copies worldwide.   After 35 years, it still sells an estimated 200,000 copies annually and stayed on the charts for over nine years, making it one of the best selling albums of all time.  http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w11/tabsman/meatloaf.jpg

26 September

Möbius Strip

is a surface with only one side and only one boundary component. The Möbius strip has the mathematical property of being non-orientable. It can be realized as a ruled surface. It was discovered independently by the German mathematicians August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing in 1858.

25 September

William Faulkner

was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi where he spent most of his life. Faulkner is one of the most important writers in American literature generally and Southern literature specifically. Though his work was published as early as 1919, and largely during the 1920s and 1930s, Faulkner was relatively unknown until receiving the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature.
http://a2.files.biography.com/image/upload/c_fill,g_face,h_300,q_80,w_300/MTE5NDg0MDU0OTYxNzUxNTY3.jpg

24 September

Compuserve

was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates. Since the purchase of CompuServe’s Information Services Division by AOL, it has operated as an online service provider and an Internet service provider. The original CompuServe Information Service, later rebranded as CompuServe Classic, was shut down 1 July 2009.                         http://cf.juggle-images.com/matte/white/280×280/compuserve-1-logo-primary.jpg

23 September

Typhoid Mary

was the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of the pathogen associated with typhoid fever. She was presumed to have infected 51 people, three of whom died, over the course of her career as a cook. She was twice forcibly isolated by public health authorities and died after a total of nearly three decades in isolation.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mallon-Mary_01.jpg

22 September

Smith, Moroni, & Golden Plates

are the source from which Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the faith. Some witnesses described the plates as weighing from 30 to 60 pounds (14 to 27 kg), being golden in color, and being composed of thin metallic pages engraved on both sides and bound with three D-shaped rings.  Smith said he found the plates on 22 September 1823, at a hill near his home in Manchester, New York, after an angel, Moroni, directed him to a buried stone box. Smith said the angel at first prevented him from taking the plates, but instructed him to return to the same location in a year.  In September 1827, on his fourth annual attempt to retrieve the plates, Smith returned home with a heavy object wrapped in a frock, which he then put in a box.  Though he allowed others to heft the box, he said that the angel had forbidden him to show the plates to anyone until they had been translated from their original “reformed Egyptian” language.  Smith dictated the text of the Book of Mormon over the next several years, claiming that it was a translation of the plates.  He did this by using a seer stone, which he placed in the bottom of a hat and then placed the hat over his face to view the words written within the stone.  Smith published the translation in 1830 as the Book of Mormon.

21 September

Tucker 48

was an advanced automobile conceived by Preston Tucker and briefly produced in Chicago in 1948. Only 51 cars were made before the company folded on 3 March 1949, due to negative publicity initiated by the news media, a Securities and Exchange Commission investigation and a heavily publicized stock fraud trial (in which allegations were proven baseless in court with a full acquittal). The most recognizable feature of the Tucker ’48, a directional third headlight (known as the “Cyclops Eye”), would activate at steering angles of greater than 10 degrees to light the car’s path around corners. At the time, 17 states had laws against cars having more than two headlights. Tucker fabricated a cover for the center light for use in these states.                                 http://chivethethrottle.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/tucker-car-20.jpg

20 September

Wovoka

was the Northern Paiute religious leader who founded the Ghost Dance movement. Wovoka claimed to have had a prophetic vision during the solar eclipse on 1 January 1889, that entailed the resurrection of the Paiute dead and the removal of whites and their works from North America. Wovoka taught that in order to bring this vision to pass Native Americans must live righteously and perform a traditional round dance, known as the Ghost Dance, in a series of five-day gatherings.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wovoka#mediaviewer/File:Wovoka_Paiute_Shaman.jpg

19 September

Will Cuppy

was an American humorist and literary critic, known for his satirical books about nature and historical figures. Cuppy’s best-known work, a satire on history called The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody, was unfinished when he died. Its humor ranges from the remark that, when the Nile floods receded, the land, as far as the eye can see, is “covered by Egyptologists”, to the detailed dissection, quotation, and parody, in the chapter on Alexander the Great, of the picture of Alexander as an idealist for world peace. The book’s appeal can be gauged by the fact that CBS broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and his colleague Don Hollenbeck took turns reading from it on the air “until the announcer cracked up.”   http://awyomingwomansthoughts.blogspot.com/2013/10/undefeated-by-romans.html

18 September

Clark Wissler

was an American anthropologist. He was the first anthropologist to perceive the normative aspect of culture, to define it as learned behavior, and to describe it as a complex of ideas, all characteristics of culture that are today generally accepted. Wissler was a specialist in North American ethnography, focusing on the Indians of the Plains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Wissler#mediaviewer/File:Clark_Wissler.jpg

17 September

Emperor Norton I

was a celebrated citizen of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 proclaimed himself “Emperor of these United States” and subsequently “Protector of Mexico”. the citizens of San Francisco celebrated his regal presence and his proclamations, most famously, his order that the United States Congress be dissolved by force and his numerous decrees calling for a bridge crossing and a tunnel to be built under San Francisco Bay.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Joshua_Abraham_Norton#mediaviewer/File:Emperor_Joshua_A._Norton_I.jpg

16 September

Blackwater

Blackwater USA was formed in 1997, by Al Clark and Erik Prince in North Carolina, to provide training support to military and law enforcement organizations. After working with SEAL and SWAT teams, Blackwater USA received its first government contract after the bombing of the USS Cole off of the coast of Yemen in October 2000. After winning the bid on the contract, Jamie Smith ran the program at Blackwater that trained over 100,000 sailors. On 16 February 2005, four Blackwater guards escorting a U.S. State Department convoy in Iraq fired 70 rounds into a car. The guards stated that they felt threatened when the driver ignored orders to stop as he approached the convoy. The fate of the car’s driver was unknown because the convoy did not stop after the shooting. An investigation by the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service concluded that the shooting was not justified and that the Blackwater employees provided false statements to investigators.

15 September

Cannonball Adderley

was a jazz alto saxophonist of the hard bop era of the 1950s and 1960s. Adderley is remembered for his 1966 single “Mercy Mercy Mercy“, a crossover hit on the pop charts, and for his work with trumpeter Miles Davis, including on the epochal album Kind of Blue (1959).  http://www.israbox.com/uploads/posts/2010-12/1291448542_cannonball-adderley-jazz-manifesto-2010.jpg

 

14 September

James Fenimore Cooper

was a prolific and popular American writer of the early 19th century. His historical romances of frontier and Indian life in the early American days created a unique form of American literature. Among his most famous works is the Romantic novel The Last of the Mohicans, often regarded as his masterpiece. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/James_Fenimore_Cooper#mediaviewer/File:James_Fenimore_Cooper_by_Brady.jpg

13 September

Phineas Gage

was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable survival of a rock-blasting accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain’s left frontal lobe, and for that injury’s reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining twelve years of his life.
http://www.philosophymatters.org/2013/04/phineas-gage/

12 September

Neil Peart

is a Canadian musician and author. He is the drummer and lyricist for the rock band Rush. Peart’s drumming skill and technique are well-regarded by fans, fellow musicians, and music journalists. His influences are eclectic, ranging from Jon Thomas, John Bonham, Michael Giles, Ginger Baker, Phil Collins, Steve Gadd, and Keith Moon, to fusion and jazz drummers Billy Cobham, Buddy Rich, Bill Bruford and Gene Krupa.

11 September

World Trade Center

RIP
http://tourists360.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/World-Trade-Center-3.jpg

10 September

Wolfgang von Trips

was a German racing driver and a son of a noble Rhineland family. He participated in 29 Formula One World Championship Grand Prix races, debuting on 2 September 1956. He won two races, secured one pole position, achieved six podiums, and scored a total of 56 championship points. At the 1961 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, his Ferrari collided with Jim Clark’s Lotus. His car became airborne and crashed into a side barrier, throwing von Trips from the car, killing him and fifteen spectators. At the time of his death von Trips was leading the Formula One World Championship.  https://spinsmag.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/wolfgang-von-trips-image-f1-02.jpg?w=680

9 September

Devil Anse Hatfield

was the patriarch of the Hatfield clan during the infamous Hatfield–McCoy feud which has since formed a part of American folklore. A Southern sympathizer, Hatfield formed a Confederate guerrilla fighting unit during the Civil War that he named “The Logan Wildcats.” In 1865, he was suspected of having been involved in the murder of his rival Asa Harmon McCoy. McCoy fought for the Union Army and was murdered by The Wildcats on his return home after the war. Hatfield had been home ill at the time of the killing, which was probably committed by his uncle, Jim Vance. This may have sparked the beginning of the notorious feud between the two families that claimed many lives on both sides. http://knoji.com/images/user/hatfield%20devil.jpg

8 September

Bernie Sanders

is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Vermont. Before serving in the Senate, he represented Vermont’s at-large district in the United States House of Representatives and served as mayor of Burlington, the largest city in Vermont. Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#mediaviewer/File:Bernie_Sanders.jpg

7 September

Grandma Moses

was a renowned American folk artist. She is often cited as an example of an individual successfully beginning a career in the arts at an advanced age. LIFE magazine celebrated her 100th birthday by featuring her on its 19 September 19 1960 cover.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kvxkdxhTxT1qaxihzo1_500.jpg

6 September

Luciano Pavarotti

was an Italian operatic tenor who also crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most commercially successful tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, gaining worldwide fame for the brilliance and beauty of his tone—especially into the upper register.
http://www.optixart.com/photos/Luciano_Pavarotti-1.jpg

5 September

Jack Daniel

an American distiller and the founder of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee whiskey distillery. Jack Daniel never married and did not have any children. However, he took his nephews under his wing – one of whom was Lemuel “Lem” Motlow (1869–1947). Lem, a son of Jack’s sister, was skilled with numbers, and was soon doing all of the distillery’s bookkeeping. In 1907, due to failing health, Jack Daniel gave the distillery to two of his nephews. Motlow soon bought out the other nephew and went on to operate the distillery for about forty years (interrupted between 1942 and 1946 when the U.S. government banned the manufacture of whiskey due to World War II). Motlow died in 1947.
http://www.movieposterskey.com/postersimages/jack-daniel-s-portrait.jpg

4 September

Albert Schweitzer

was a German—and later French—theologian, organist, philosopher, physician, and medical missionary in Africa, also known for his interpretive life of Jesus. Schweitzer, a Lutheran, challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by historical-critical methodology current at his time in certain academic circles, as well as the traditional Christian view.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Albert_Schweitzer#mediaviewer/File:Albert_Schweitzer_Nobel.jpg

3 September

“Nino” Farina

was an Italian racing driver. He stands out in the history of Grand Prix motor racing for his much copied ‘straight-arm’ driving style, his intelligence, his disregard for competitors, and his status as the first ever Formula One World Champion. In 1956 he made a half-hearted attempt at the Indianapolis 500, crashing in the process, only to break his collar bone after a crash at a minor race at Monza. Again, he recovered and later tried the Indy 500, but this time his teammate had a fatal crash while practicing in Farina’s race car. Farina decided to give up for good.
http://www.uniquecarsandparts.com.au/images/history/drivers/Giuseppe_Farina/Giuseppe_Farina_2.jpg

2 September

J.R.R. Tolkien

was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. Tolkien’s first civilian job after World War I was at the Oxford English Dictionary, where he worked mainly on the history and etymology of words of Germanic origin beginning with the letter W. In 1920, he took up a post as Reader in English Language at the University of Leeds, and became the youngest professor there.  While at Leeds, he produced A Middle English Vocabulary and a definitive edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight with E. V. Gordon, both becoming academic standard works for several decades. He also translated Sir Gawain, Pearl, and Sir Orfeo.  In 1925, he returned to Oxford as Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon, with a fellowship at Pembroke College.  During his time at Pembroke College Tolkien wrote The Hobbit and the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings.  He also published a philological essay in 1932 on the name “Nodens”, following Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s unearthing of a Roman Asclepeion at Lydney Park, Gloucestershire, in 1928.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien#mediaviewer/File:Tolkien_1916.jpg

1 September

Edgar Rice Burroughs

was an American writer, best known for his creations of the jungle hero Tarzan and the heroic Mars adventurer John Carter, although he produced works in many genres. Tarzan was a cultural sensation when introduced. Burroughs was determined to capitalize on Tarzan’s popularity in every way possible. He planned to exploit Tarzan through several different media including a syndicated Tarzan comic strip, movies and merchandise. Experts in the field advised against this course of action, stating that the different media would just end up competing against each other. Burroughs went ahead, however, and proved the experts wrong — the public wanted Tarzan in whatever fashion he was offered. Tarzan remains one of the most successful fictional characters to this day and is a cultural icon. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Edgar_Rice_Burroughs#mediaviewer/File:Tarzan_of_the_Apes.jpg

 

31 August

Rocky Marciano

was an American professional boxer and the World Heavyweight Champion from 23 September 1952, to 27 April 1956. Marciano is the only person to hold the heavyweight title and go untied and undefeated throughout his career. Marciano defended his title six times, against Jersey Joe Walcott, Roland La Starza, Ezzard Charles (twice), Don Cockell, and Archie Moore.
http://www.boxing360.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Rocky-Marciano.jpg

30 August

Burgess Shale

is one of the world’s most celebrated fossil fields.  It is famous for the exceptional preservation of the soft parts of its fossils. At 505 million years (Middle Cambrian) old, it is one of the earliest fossil beds containing soft-part imprints. The rock unit is a black shale and crops out at a number of localities near the town of Field in Yoho National Park and the Kicking Horse Pass. The Burgess Shale was discovered by paleontologist, Charles Walcott, on 30 August 1909. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Burgess_Shale#mediaviewer/File:Charles_Doolittle_Walcott_with_Workers.jpg

29 August

Nuclear Weapons Incident

Six AGM-129 ACM cruise missiles, each loaded with a W80-1 variable yield nuclear warhead, were mistakenly loaded on a United States Air Force (USAF) B-52H heavy bomber at Minot and transported to Barksdale. The nuclear warheads in the missiles were supposed to have been removed before taking the missiles from their storage bunker. The missiles with the nuclear warheads were not reported missing and remained mounted to the aircraft at both Minot and Barksdale for a period of 36 hours. During this period, the warheads were not protected by the various mandatory security precautions for nuclear weapons. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_United_States_Air_Force_nuclear_weapons_incident#mediaviewer/File:AGM-129A_-_2006_0306_b52_2lg.jpg

28 August

Tasha Tudor

was an American illustrator and writer of children’s books. Tasha Tudor illustrated nearly one hundred books, the last being Corgiville Christmas, released in 2003. Several were collaborative works with a New Hampshire friend Mary Mason Campbell. One of her most famous books is Corgiville Fair, published in 1971. The first of a series to feature anthropomorphic corgis, the book was extremely popular.  http://corgyncombecourant.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

27 August

Chief Black Hawk

was a war leader and warrior of the Sauk American Indian tribe in what is now the Midwest of the United States. Although he had inherited an important historic medicine bundle from his father, he was not a hereditary civil chief. Black Hawk earned his status as a war chief or captain by his actions: leading raiding and war parties as a young man, and a band of Sauk warriors during the Black Hawk War of 1832.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hawk_(Sauk_leader)

26 August

Will Shortz

is an American puzzle creator and editor, and currently the crossword puzzle editor for The New York Times. Shortz is the author or editor of more than 100 books and owns over 20,000 puzzle books and magazines dating back to 1545, reportedly the world’s largest private library on the subject.   http://www.crosswordtournament.com/images/willshortz2007.jpg

25 August

Friedrich Nietzsche

was a German philologist, philosopher, cultural critic, poet and composer. Nietzsche’s key ideas include the Apollonian/Dionysian dichotomy, perspectivism, the Will to Power, the “death of God”, the Übermensch and eternal recurrence. One of the key tenets of his philosophy is the concept of “life-affirmation,” which embraces the realities of the world in which we live over the idea of a world beyond. His radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth has been the focus of extensive commentary, and his influence remains substantial, particularly in the continental philosophical schools of existentialism, postmodernism, and post-structuralism.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche#mediaviewer/File:Nietzsche187a.jpg

24 August

Wilfred Thesiger

was a British explorer and travel writer. He is best remembered for his Arabian expeditions. and two crossings of the Rub al Khali or Empty Quarter, and travels in inner Oman. After all his travels were over, Thesiger returned to England in the 1990s and was knighted in 1995. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Wilfred_Thesiger#mediaviewer/File:WilfredThesiger.jpg

23 August

Free Republic of Franklin or the State of Frankland

was an unrecognized, autonomous “territory” located in what is today eastern Tennessee.  Franklin was created in 1784 from part of the territory west of the Appalachian Mountains that had been offered by North Carolina as a cession to Congress to help pay off debts related to the American War for Independence. It was founded with the intent of becoming the fourteenth state of the new United States.   Franklin’s first capital was Jonesborough.   After the summer of 1785, the government of Franklin (which was by then based in Greeneville), ruled as a “parallel government” running alongside (but not harmoniously with) a re-established North Carolina bureaucracy.   Franklin was never admitted into the union.  The extra-legal state existed for only about four and a half years, ostensibly as a republic, after which North Carolina re-assumed full control of the area.

22 August

John Lee Hooker

was a highly influential American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. Hooker was born in 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.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:JohnLeeHooker1997.jpg

21 August

Buford Pusser

was the Sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, from 1964 to 1970. Pusser is known for his virtual one-man war on moonshining, prostitution, gambling, and other vices on the Mississippi-Tennessee state-line. His efforts have inspired several books, songs, movies, and a TV series. After being elected sheriff of McNairy County, Tennessee, Pusser began to try to eliminate the Dixie Mafia and the State Line Mob.  http://bufordpusser.blogspot.com/p/pictures.html

20 August

Phyllis Diller

was an American stand-up comedienne, actress, and voice artist, best known for her eccentric stage persona and her wild hair and clothes. Diller was a housewife, mother, and advertising copywriter. During World War II, she lived in Ypsilanti, Michigan while her husband worked at the Willow Run Bomber Plant. In the mid-1950s, she made appearances on The Jack Paar Show and was a contestant on Groucho Marx’s quiz show You Bet Your Life. Along with Lenny Bruce, Bob Newhart, and Mort Sahl, Diller was part of the so-called “New Wave” comedians who began their careers after WWII and had no connections to vaudeville.                                                            http://thesuperslice.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/Phyllis_Diller_Allan_Warren.jpg

19 August

Coco Chanel

was a French fashion designer and founder of the Chanel brand. She is the only fashion designer listed on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century. Along with Paul Poiret, 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, is an icon.

18 August

B.F. Skinner

was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and social philosopher. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974. Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber, also known as the Skinner Box. He was a firm believer of the idea that human free will was actually an illusion and any human action was the result of the consequences of that same action.  http://drsophiayin.com/blog/entry/who-was-bf-skinner-an-inside-look-from-a-fellow-behavior-analysts-view

17 August

Mae West

was an American actress, singer, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades. Known for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in vaudeville and on the stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to become a comedienne, actress and writer in the motion picture industry. In consideration of her contributions to American cinema, the American Film Institute named West 15th among the greatest female stars of all time.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mae_West#mediaviewer/File:Mae_West_Allan_Warren.jpg

16 August

Charles Bukowski

was a German-born American poet, novelist and short story writer. His writing was influenced by the social, cultural, and economic ambience of his home city of Los Angeles.  His work addresses the ordinary lives of poor Americans, the act of writing, alcohol, relationships with women, and the drudgery of work. Bukowski wrote thousands of poems, hundreds of short stories and six novels, eventually publishing over sixty books.  The FBI kept a file on him as a result of his column, Notes of a Dirty Old Man, in the LA underground newspaper Open City.  In 1986 Time called Bukowski a “laureate of American lowlife”.  Regarding Bukowski’s enduring popular appeal, Adam Kirsch of The New Yorker wrote, “the secret of Bukowski’s appeal. . . [is that] he combines the confessional poet’s promise of intimacy with the larger-than-life aplomb of a pulp-fiction hero.”  http://thetrentwilkie.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/bukowski3.jpg

15 August

Woodstock

was held at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre (240 ha; 0.94 sq mi) dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to 18, 1969. During the sometimes rainy weekend, 32 acts performed outdoors before an audience of 400,000. It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular music history. Rolling Stone listed it as one of the 50 Moments That Changed the History of Rock and Roll. The festival is also widely considered to be the definitive nexus for the larger counterculture generation. Artists included Richie Havens, Ravi Shankar, Arlo Guthrie, Joan Baez, Country Joe McDonald, Santana, John Sebastian, Canned Heat, Mountain, Grateful Dead, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Janis Joplin, Sly and the Family Stone, The Who, Jefferson Airplane, Joe Cocker, Country Joe and the Fish, Ten Years After, The Band, Johnny Winter, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Sha Na Na, and Jimi Hendrix.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woodstock#mediaviewer/File:Woodstock_poster.jpg

14 August

Gary Larson

is an American cartoonist. He is the creator of The Far Side, a single-panel cartoon series that was syndicated internationally to over 1,900 newspapers for fifteen years. The series ended with Larson’s retirement on January 1st, 1995. His twenty-three books of collected cartoons have combined sales of more than forty-five million copies.  http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tvzrKTvZYlk/UB6SnGtGHTI/AAAAAAAAAV4/49gR4pscuco/s1600/Gary+Larson+1986.JPG

13 August

Alfred Hitchcock

was an English film director and producer. Often nicknamed “The Master of Suspense”, he pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person’s gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He framed shots to maximize anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing.  http://www.austinchronicle.com/binary/a09d/Hitchsilhouette.jpg

12 August

Sue

has a length of 12.3 meters (40 ft), stands 4 meters (13 ft) tall at the hips, and is estimated to have weighed more than 8.2 tons when alive. It was discovered in the summer of 1990 by Sue Hendrickson, a paleontologist, and was named after her. After ownership disputes were settled, the fossil was auctioned in October 1997 for US $8.36 million,the highest amount ever paid for a dinosaur fossil, and is now a permanent feature at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Illinois.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sue_(dinosaur)#mediaviewer/File:Sue_side_full_(Field_museum).png

11 August

Eiger

is a 3,970 meters (13,020 ft) mountain in the Bernese Alps in Switzerland. It is the easternmost peak of a ridge crest that extends across the Mönch to the Jungfrau at 4,158 m. The first ascent was made by the western flank on August 11, 1858 by Charles Barrington with guides Christian Almer and Peter Bohren. They started at 3:00 a.m. from Wengen. Barrington describes the route much as it is followed today, staying close to the edge of the north face much of the way. They reached the summit at about noon, stayed for some 10 minutes and descended in about four hours. Barrington describes the reaching of the top, saying, “the two guides kindly gave me the place of first man up.” Their ascent was confirmed by observation of a flag left on the summit.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eiger#mediaviewer/File:The_Eiger_In_Summer.JPG

10 August

Rin Tin Tin

was a male German Shepherd rescued from a World War I battlefield by an American soldier, Lee Duncan, who nicknamed him “Rinty”. Duncan trained Rin Tin Tin and obtained silent film work for him. Rin Tin Tin was an immediate box office success and went on to appear in 27 Hollywood films, gaining worldwide fame. Rin Tin Tin was responsible for greatly increasing the popularity of German Shepherds as family pets. The immense profitability of his films made Warner Bros. studios a success and helped advance the career of Darryl F. Zanuck. In 1929, Rin Tin Tin received the most votes for the first Academy Award for Best Actor, but the Academy determined that a human should win. http://www.silentsaregolden.com/photos2/RinTinTinphoto.jpg

9 August

Computer Bug

The term “bug” was used in an account by computer pioneer Grace Hopper, who publicized the cause of a malfunction in an early electromechanical computer. In 1946, when Hopper was released from active duty, she joined the Harvard Faculty at the Computation Laboratory where she continued her work on the Mark II and Mark III computers. Operators traced an error in the Mark II to a moth trapped in a relay, coining the term bug. This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book. Hopper was not actually the one who found the insect, as she readily acknowledged. The date in the log book was September 9, 1947.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_bug#mediaviewer/File:H96566k.jpg

8 August

Esther Williams

was an American competitive swimmer and actress. It was at Aquacade that Williams first attracted attention from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer scouts. MGM’s head, Louis B. Mayer, had been looking for a female sports star for the studio to compete with Fox’s figure skating star, Sonja Henie.[27] Williams signed her contract with MGM in 1941.  Pin-up photo of Esther Williams for the 12 October 1945 issue of Yank, the Army Weekly, a weekly U.S. Army magazine fully staffed by enlisted men.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Esther_Williams#mediaviewer/File:Esther_Williams_2.jpg

7 August

Memphis Minnie

was a member of the Frisian minority from the Netherlands, and was an exotic dancer and courtesan who was convicted of being a spy and executed by firing squad in France under charges of espionage for Germany during World War I.   She was a contemporary of dancers Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, leaders in the early modern dance movement, which around the turn of the 20th century looked to Asia and Egypt for artistic inspiration.
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Mata_Hari#mediaviewer/File:Mata-Hari_1910.jpg

6 August

Memphis Minnie

was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted from the 1920s to the 1950s. She recorded around 200 songs, some of the best known being “Bumble Bee”, “Nothing in Rambling”, and “Me and My Chauffeur Blues”.

5 August

Carmen Miranda

was a Portuguese Brazilian samba singer, dancer, Broadway actress, and film star who was popular from the 1930s to the 1950s. she appeared in an extravaganza from noted director Busby Berkeley called The Gang’s All Here. Berkeley’s musicals were known for their lavish production, and Miranda’s role as Dorita featured her number “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat.” An optical trick from the set behind her made the fruit-bedecked hat she was wearing appear even larger than humanly possible. By then, Miranda seemed to be locked into such roles as the exotic songstress, and her studio contract even forced her to appear at events in her trademark film costumes, which grew even more outlandish. One song she recorded, “Bananas Is My Business” seemed to pay somewhat ironic tribute to her typecasting.   By 1945, she had become Hollywood’s highest-paid entertainer and top female tax payer in the United States, earning more than $200,000 that year.  http://www.imdb.com/media/rm4114521856/tt0109381?ref_=tt_ov_i#

4 August

Louis Armstrong

was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Coming to prominence in the 1920s as an “inventive” trumpet and cornet player. With his instantly recognizable gravelly voice, Armstrong was also an influential singer, demonstrating great dexterity as an improviser, bending the lyrics and melody of a song for expressive purposes. He was also skilled at scat singing (vocalizing using sounds and syllables instead of actual lyrics). Renowned for his charismatic stage presence and voice almost as much as for his trumpet-playing, Armstrong’s influence extends well beyond jazz music, and by the end of his career in the 1960s, he was widely regarded as a profound influence on popular music in general.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Louis_Armstrong#mediaviewer/File:Louis_Armstrong_restored.jpg

3 August

Lenny Bruce

was an American stand-up comedian, social critic and satirist. He was renowned for his open, free-style and critical form of comedy which integrated politics, religion, sex, and vulgarity. His 1964 conviction in an obscenity trial was followed by a posthumous pardon, the first in New York State history, by then-Governor George Pataki in 2003. He paved the way for future outspoken counterculture-era comedians, and his trial for obscenity, in which – after being forced into bankruptcy – he was eventually found not guilty, is seen as a landmark trial for freedom of speech in the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Bruce#mediaviewer/File:Lenny_Bruce_at_the_Fillmore.jpg

2 August

Enrico Caruso

was an Italian operatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. Caruso also made approximately 290 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920. Caruso’s 1904 recording of “Vesti la giubba” from Leoncavallo’s opera Pagliacci was the first sound recording to sell a million copies.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enrico_Caruso#mediaviewer/File:CarusoPostcard.jpg

1 August

Jerry Garcia

was an American musician who was best known for his lead guitar work, singing and songwriting with the band the Grateful Dead.  Garcia performed with the Grateful Dead for their entire thirty-year career (1965–1995).  Garcia was well known for his “soulful extended guitar improvisations”, which would frequently feature interplay between he and his fellow band members.  His fame, as well as the band’s, arguably rested on their ability to never play a song the same way twice.

http://insighteditionscreative.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Jerry-Garcia-cover.jpg

31 July

Daniel Defoe

was an English trader, writer, journalist, pamphleteer, and spy, now most famous for his novel Robinson Crusoe. Defoe is notable for being one of the earliest proponents of the novel, as he helped to popularize the form in Britain, and, along with others such as Samuel Richardson, is among the founders of the English novel. A prolific and versatile writer, he wrote more than 500 books, pamphlets and journals on various topics (including politics, crime, religion, marriage, psychology and the supernatural). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Defoe#mediaviewer/File:Daniel_Defoe_Kneller_Style.jpg

30 July

Jimmy Hoffa

was an American labor union leader who vanished in late July, 1975, aged 62. He is widely believed to have been murdered. Hoffa became involved with organized crime from the early years of his Teamsters work, and this connection continued until his disappearance in 1975. He was convicted of jury tampering, attempted bribery, and fraud in 1964.He was imprisoned in 1967 and sentenced to 13 years, after exhausting the appeal process.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_hoffa#mediaviewer/File:James_R._Hoffa_NYWTS.jpg

29 July

Belle Boyd

or Cleopatra of the Secession, was a Confederate spy in the American Civil War. She operated from her father’s hotel in Front Royal, Virginia and provided valuable information to Confederate general Stonewall Jackson in 1862.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Boyd#mediaviewer/File:Belle_Boyd.jpg

28 July

Mike Bloomfield

was an American musician, guitarist, and composer, born in Chicago, Illinois, who became one of the first popular music superstars of the 1960s to earn his reputation almost entirely on his instrumental prowess, since he rarely sang before 1969 and 1970. Respected for his fluid guitar playing, Bloomfield knew and played with many of Chicago’s blues legends even before he achieved his own fame, and was one of the primary influences on the mid-to-late 1960s revival of classic Chicago and other styles of blues music. In 2003 he was ranked at number 22 on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. Super Session is an album conceived by Al Kooper and featuring the work of guitarists Mike Bloomfield and Stephen Stills, released on Columbia Records in 1968.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Session#mediaviewer/File:Supersession.jpg

27 July

Vincent van Gogh

was a post-Impressionist painter of Dutch origin whose work—notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty, and bold color—had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art. After years of painful anxiety and frequent bouts of mental illness, he died aged 37 from a gunshot wound, generally accepted to be self-inflicted (although no gun was ever found). http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh#mediaviewer/File:Vincent_Willem_van_Gogh_103.jpg

26 July

Mick Jagger

Great grandfather and rock legend in 2013.
http://freshindependence.com/swagger-with-mick-jagger/

25 July

Joaquin Murrieta Carrillo

was a famous figure in California during the California Gold Rush of the 1850s. According to historian Susan Lee Johnson “…a consensus that Anglos drove him from a rich mining claim, and that, in rapid succession, his wife was raped, his half-brother lynched, and Murrieta himself horse-whipped. He may have worked as a monte dealer for a time; then, … he became either a horse trader and occasional horse thief, or a bandit.”  http://www.vivacaborca.com/images/joaquin-topctr.jpg

24 July

Hiram Bingham III

was an academic, explorer and politician from the United States. He made public the existence of the Quechua citadel of Machu Picchu in 1911 with the guidance of local indigenous farmers. Bingham was not a trained archaeologist. Yet, it was during Bingham’s time as a lecturer – later professor – in South American history at Yale that he discovered the largely forgotten Inca city of Machu Picchu.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiram_Bingham_III#mediaviewer/File:Hiram_Bingham_at_Espiritu_Pampa_ruins_1911.jpg

23 July

Pee Wee Reese

was an American professional baseball player. He played in Major League Baseball as a shortstop for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers from 1940 to 1958. Reese’s nickname originated in his childhood, as he was a champion marbles player (a little “pee wee” is a small marble).  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Pee_Wee_Reese#mediaviewer/File:Pee_Wee_Reese_-_Gillette_commercial.jpg

22 July

Georges Lemaître

On July 23, 1894, the Parisian magazine Le Petit Journal organized what is considered to be the world’s first motoring competition from Paris to Rouen. Sixty-nine cars started the 50 km (31 miles) event that would show which entrants would be allowed to start the main event, the 127 km (79 mi) race from Paris to Rouen. The entrants ranged from serious manufacturers like Peugeot, Panhard, or De Dion to amateur owners; only 25 were selected for the main race.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto_race#mediaviewer/File:1894_paris-rouen_-_georges_lema%C3%AEtre_(peugeot_3hp)_1st.jpg

21 July

John Thomas Scopes

was a teacher in Dayton, Tennessee, who was charged on May 5, 1925 for violating Tennessee’s Butler Act, which prohibited the teaching of evolution in Tennessee schools. He was tried in a case known as the Scopes Trial. Scopes’s involvement in the so-called Scopes Monkey Trial came about after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) announced that it would finance a test case challenging the constitutionality of the Butler Act if they could find a Tennessee teacher willing to act as a defendant. By the time the trial had begun, the defense team included Clarence Darrow, Dudley Field Malone, John Neal, Arthur Garfield Hays and Frank McElwee. The prosecution team, led by Tom Stewart, included brothers Herbert Hicks and Sue K. Hicks, Wallace Haggard, father and son pairings Ben and J. Gordon McKenzie, and William Jennings Bryan and William Jennings Bryan, Jr. The case ended on July 21, 1925, with a guilty verdict, and Scopes was fined 100 dollars. The case was appealed to the Tennessee Supreme Court. In a 3-1 decision written by Chief Justice Grafton Green the Butler Act was held to be constitutional, but the court overturned Scopes’s conviction on a technicality: the judge had set the fine instead of the jury. The Butler Act remained until May 18, 1967, when it was repealed by the Tennessee legislature.  http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Scopes_Trial#mediaviewer/File:John_t_scopes.jpg

20 July

Guglielmo Marconi

was an Italian inventor and electrical engineer, known for his pioneering work on long-distance radio transmission[1] and for his development of Marconi’s law and a radio telegraph system. Marconi is often[quantify] credited as the inventor of radio, and he shared the 1909 Nobel Prize in Physics with Karl Ferdinand Braun “in recognition of their contributions to the development of wireless telegraphy”.                          http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Guglielmo_Marconi.jpg

19 July

Maurice-François Garin

was a road bicycle racer best known for winning the inaugural Tour de France in 1903, and for being stripped of his title in the second Tour in 1904 along with eight others, for cheating. http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maurice_Garin#mediaviewer/File:Tour_1903_10.jpg

18 July

Nadia Elena Comăneci

is a Romanian gymnast, winner of three Olympic gold medals at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and the first female gymnast to be awarded a perfect score of 10 in an Olympic gymnastic event. She also won two gold medals at the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow. She is one of the best-known gymnasts in the world.  http://www.librarising.com/astrology/celebs/images2/NOP/nadiacomaneci2.jpg

17 July

Juan Manuel Fangio

was a racing car driver from Argentina, who dominated the first decade of Formula One racing, winning the World Championship of Drivers five times 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[3] and holds the highest winning percentage in Formula One – 46.15% – winning 24 of 52 Formula One races he entered.   http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Juan_Manuel_Fangio#mediaviewer/File:Fangio.png

16 July

Orville Redenbacher

was an American businessman most often associated with the brand of popcorn that bears his name. He started his career selling fertilizer, but spent his spare time working with popcorn. In 1951, he and partner Charlie Bowman bought the George F. Chester and Son seed corn plant near Valparaiso, Indiana. Naming the company “Chester Hybrids,” they tried tens of thousands of hybrid strains of popcorn before settling on a hybrid they named “RedBow.” An advertising agency, however, advised them to use “Orville Redenbacher” as the brand name, advice that cost them $13,000.[2] They launched their popping corn in 1970, and Orville was suddenly everywhere. Redenbacher first appeared on national television in 1973—long before the commercials that featured him promoting popcorn. In an episode of the game show, To Tell the Truth, he stumped the panelists (Kitty Carlisle Hart, Bill Cullen, Joe Garagiola, and Peggy Cass), all of whom were shown enjoying samples of Redenbacher’s then-new novelty popping corn flavors, including chili and curry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orville_Redenbacher#mediaviewer/File:Orville_Redenbacher_1979.jpg

15 July

Jimmy Carter

When the energy crisis set in, Carter was planning on delivering his fifth major speech on energy; however, he felt that the American people were no longer listening. Carter left for the presidential retreat of Camp David. “For more than a week, a veil of secrecy enveloped the proceedings. Dozens of prominent Democratic Party leaders—members of Congress, governors, labor leaders, academics and clergy—were summoned to the mountaintop retreat to confer with the beleaguered president.” His pollster, Pat Caddell, told him that the American people simply faced a crisis of confidence because of the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; the Vietnam War; and Watergate. On July 15, 1979, Carter gave a nationally-televised address in which he identified what he believed to be a “crisis of confidence” among the American people. This came to be known as his “malaise” speech, although Carter never used the word in the speech. Carter’s speech was written by Hendrik Hertzberg and Gordon Stewart.
http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/jimmy_carter.jpg