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A new series of $1, $2 and $5 banknotes were printed by the U.S. government in 1896. Known to collectors as the "educational series," the banknotes used classical art motifs to promote advancements in science. For example, the $5 silver certificate's design (shown below) highlighted the new importance that electricity brought to modern society. However, the naked breasts on the female figures sent some prudish folks into a tizzy. Some merchants and bankers in Boston considered the $5 bills to be obscene and refused to accept them--thus creating the term 'banned in Boston.' Despite the controversy, many banknote collectors consider the 1896 series to be the most beautiful ever produced by the U.S. government.
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1896
banknotes
numismatics
controversy
Added: 17th July 2011
Views: 1387
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
 
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Streaking was starting to become all the rage in 1974. It came to the forefront on Oscar night that year when 35-year-old Robert Opel streaked the Academy Awards. Opel, a photographer and art gallery owner, sneaked backstage posing as a journalist. (He had worked as a photographer for The Advocate, a gay/lesbian publication.) Opel ran naked past David Niven, flashing a peace sign while Niven was in the midst of introducing Elizabeth Taylor. Reactions from the audience members ranged from shrieks to gasps to laughter. Television audiences briefly saw only Opel's face and bare torso.
Unfazed by the unprecedented disturbance, Niven turned to the audience and quipped, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, that was almost bound to happen... But isn't it fascinating to think that probably the only laugh that man will ever get in his life is by stripping off and showing his shortcomings?"
The episode made Opel something of a celebrity. Producer Allan Carr even asked him to streak at a party for Rudolph Nureyev.
Opel was murdered on the night of July 7, 1979 during a robbery at his art studio.
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streaker
Oscars
David
Niven
Added: 15th August 2011
Views: 1081
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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If you can't beat 'em--ban 'em! The Little League World Series became a truly international event in the mid-1960s. Teams from Asia and Central America began travelling to South Wiliamsport, PA to compete against the best American teams. Embarrassingly for the Americans, the foreigners began to win regularly. So, of course, the only logical thing to do was to ban the foreigners! At the 1975 LLWS, only four teams competed--all regional champions from the U.S. Lakewood, New Jersey defeated the Belmont Heights Little League of Tampa, Florida in the championship game on August 23.
This was the only LLWS in which Little League banned all non-US clubs from the tournament. After a justifiable uproar of criticism, the ban on foreign teams was rescinded the following year. An American team did not win the LLWS again until 1982. Below is a photo from the 1975 tourney, showing Wilbert Davis of Tampa scoring a run. Davis was killed in action in Iraq in 2003.
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Little
League
baseball
xenophobia
Added: 10th September 2011
Views: 650
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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Dr. Joyce Brothers is known for being a television personality, psychologist and newspaper columnist. However, she first gained national fame in late 1955 by winning the jackpot on The $64,000 Question--a quiz program on which she appeared as a boxing expert. Originally she had not planned to choose boxing as her topic. However, the show's sponsors thought it would be an attention-grabbing gimmick to have a female answer boxing questions, so she agreed. A voracious reader, Brothers studied every reference book about boxing that she could find; she would later tell reporters that her good memory allowed her to accrue a wealth of information about the sweet science--so much so that she had no difficulty with even the toughest questions. When the TV quiz show scandals broke in 1959, Brothers insisted that she had never cheated, nor had she ever been given any answers to questions in advance. Subsequent investigations verified that she had indeed won her jackpot honestly. (No contestant on The $64,000 Question was ever proven to have cheated.) Brothers' success on The $64,000 Question earned her a chance to be the color commentator for CBS during a middleweight title match between Carmen Basilio and Sugar Ray Robinson. She thus became the first woman ever to be a boxing announcer.
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Dr
Joyce
Brothers
boxing
game
show
Added: 22nd September 2011
Views: 959
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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How many remember when a docu-science picture emerged on a theater screen years ago? I caught it as it had been relegated to showing in the neighborhood, playing to curious folks for days.
As you may know, many were bullish with the way it had been theorized, which still continues. Then, there was a lot of awareness to the topic, but nowadays, it seems that with day-to-day living, it has been dismayed by most as weak and simply ridiculous. A hoax! In truth, some of it, if not all, gave unanswered questions, which made it skeptical. Sure, it may of been researched for years, and the Swiss man responsible for all of it was cited for his specified hard work through the German production. But there were still those skeptics who found his intriguing views balderdash. Generations later, it is still being analyzed in science, now with much revaluation after all the disputes it had faced. Still, do you find it even slightly remotely possible with all the evidence?
*E*
Tags:
Rod
Serling
German
Documentary
December
1974
There
was
a
different
televised
version
shown
before
it
was
released
theatrically
-
Remember
that
?
Added: 20th October 2011
Views: 574
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Posted By: Electricland |
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As Halloween gradually comes to us yearly, I thought of something that may indicate more than pumpkins and ghosts. How about eggs. The connection? For starters, it made a fortune, with the being seen on the London stage in '73, but eventually crossing over finally in the later half of the Seventies. It was a high energy adaption that was unlike anything then. A big ghoulish step towards those that really found what it represented to themselves.... identification with the suffering extraterrestrials, including one who is an ax-murderer! It was supposed to be similar to a "B"-flick, all wrapped up refreshingly with weirdo-types and cursed aliens from years gone by. Now, it's known by many as a late-at-night event/presentation at the end of each October. But this is up to you. Have you seen it through the year? I remember going weekends in the '70s/ early '80s. How about you? Summer? Spring? It is as well known for irreparably changing people through the course of it's vivid story that revolves around delusional cannibals. Just think, it almost didn't happen for Richard. He had been fired from a different show then, and in desperateness, he had started a new beginning for himself with an idea. Question. Were you affected by its multifaceted story too? Or were you hit in the head with a bathroom paper-roll? So, with starting sometime in '76, it gradually became the longest-running night time screen event. Really. It'll never go out of fashion, as each year, it goes on and on. All beginning from a wooden stage platform, in dreary London, at the decadent Royal Court, way back in 1973. Still, the whole notion of it on a screen was ridiculous to some then. But, as I have stated, a few months later, a late night drawing at the Waverly Theater in NYC on April Fools Day '76 started it all up. Honestly, it had to be seen to be really understood. And now, with all that, it still carries on at various cities globally - indebted to ghoulish surprises that go lurking in the night. You have now been briefed. Like it? By the way, did you know that their are plenty of eggs in this film. Eggs? Yes. They were placed in various hidden spots, an Easter Bunny prank at the time. *E*
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Party
Library
of
Congress
Lipsticked
Mouth
Fans
RKO
Horror
1975
London
New
York
Curry
England
Richard
O
Brien
Comedy
Stage
Play
Added: 25th October 2011
Views: 560
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Posted By: Electricland |
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Jeanne Louise Calment (21 February 1875 – 4 August 1997) was a French woman who had the longest confirmed human lifespan in history: 122 years and 164 days. She resided in Arles, France for her entire life. Calment outlived both her daughter and grandson. She entered the Guinness Book of Records in 1988 as the world's oldest living person. On October 17, 1995 she became the oldest person ever, having surpassed the highly disputed case of Shigechiyo Izumi of Japan. Calment became the last living documented person to have been born in the 1870s when the Japanese super-centenarian Tane Ikai (born 1879) died on July 12, 1995, and was thence more than five years older than any other living human being until her death more than two years later. She outlived no fewer than 329 undisputedly verified super-centenarians. (A super-centenarian is a person who has attained 110 years.)
Calment's lifespan has been thoroughly documented by scientific study, with more records having been produced to verify her age than for any other case. She is the only person confirmed to have reached 120 years of age.
Calment came to prominence at age 113 in 1988 during a local observance of the hundredth anniversary of artist Vincent van Gogh's 1888 visit to Arles. The 13-year-old Calment had briefly met Van Gogh at her uncle's store where the Dutch painter had gone to buy art supplies. Calment unflatteringly remembered the famed artist as being ugly, unfriendly and rude! The photo below shows Calment celebrating her 121st birthday in 1996.
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Jeanne
Calment
122
oldest
person
Added: 14th December 2011
Views: 586
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Posted By: Lava1964 |
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