A Brief History On March 3, 2018, the track and field world lost one of its greatest runners when Roger Bannister died, the first person to run a mile in under four minutes. Prior to Bannister’s run in 1954, many people doubted that any man could break the “four-minute barrier.” Obviously, those doubters were wrong! Digging Deeper Bannister was involved in another historic race, this time in the finals of the 1500-meter run at the 1952 Olympics, in which he finished 4th, the incredible part being that all eight runners in that race broke the Olympic record for the 1500!…
Browsing: Arts & Entertainment
Read More
A Brief History On March 1, 1954, the US conducted its highest yield nuclear weapon test ever, the Castle Bravo test at Bikini Atoll, a blast of 15 megatons, which created the largest ever radioactive contamination event in US history, mainly due to the atomized coral spread for miles spiked with lithium-7. Digging Deeper The Castle Bravo test gives us a pair of major trivia facts, while some other perhaps more fascinating trivia items include: Names, especially name changes and bizarre names, including Frank Zappa naming his kids Moon Unit and Dweezil. His other children had to settle for Ahmet…
A Brief History On March 1, 2024, American sci-fi movie fans will be treated to the opening of the latest of the movies based on Frank Herbert’s 1965 novel, Dune. After the highly successful Denis Villeneuve 2021 reboot of the Dune story, the 2024 film, Dune: Part Two, is a sequel also brought to us by Villeneuve and with the same main cast. Digging Deeper Casting is indeed great, with Timothée Chalamet returning as the main character, Paul, and his frenemy/love interest Chani played by Zendaya. The all-star cast includes Christopher Walken, David Bautista, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler, Rebecca Ferguson,…
A Brief History On February 28, 1983, the 11-season journey of TV viewers finally came to an end with the airing of the final episode of M*A*S*H. An incredible audience of 110 million people watched the bittersweet finale, with their beloved characters planning their return to a non-war America. Digging Deeper A major downer in the episode was key character Hawkeye Pierce receiving psychiatric care due to extreme trauma caused by an incident where he witnessed a mother smother her own baby to avoid detection by a communist patrol. The rest of the episode is a blur eclipsed by this…
A Brief History On February 26, 1909, the Palace Theatre in London, England, boasted the first public showing of color motion picture film, a product called Kinemacolor invented by English hypnotist and magician, George Albert Smith in 1906. Digging Deeper Smith’s invention had been demonstrated to professionals prior to the public display, and the process used red/orange and blue/green filters with regular black and white motion picture film to give the colorized effect. Kinemacolor was used commercially from 1909 until 1915, because a rival, William Friese-Greene, sued for a patent of a process he called Biocolour and won his case…