Happy Birthday Tobey Maguire

I genuinely like Tobey's work, from Pleasantville to Seabiscuit and even in the Spider-Man films. I rather like the idea of a quiet, slender action star in a field typically dominated by arrogant muscle-bound airheads.

That's how I can justify calling attention to his birthday out of dozens of options; it has almost nothing to do with his hotness.

Okay, so it has something to do with his hotness, but just remember children: hotness without substance isn't enough anymore. Now more than ever before the only real hotness comes from talent.
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POPnews - June 27th

[On the face of it, Dark Shadows shouldn't have been nearly as successful as it was; combining the run-of-the-mill melodrama of a daily soap opera with some very unique supernatural goings-on and a considerable dash of old school Gothic bodice-ripping besides, Dan Curtis' attempt at livening up what was then the moribund field of daytime with some distinctly undead creatures - none of which were even mentioned in the show's 'bible', written by Art Wallace - has remained a cult classic to this day... There's even talk that the dream team of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp may combine their powers for the eighth time to resurrect it for the big screen - with Depp tipped to play the show's break-out character, the vampire Barnabas Collins!]

1358 - The Republic of Dubrovnik was established, under the terms of the Treaty of Zadar - which had been signed the previous February 18th by King Louis I of Hungary and Croatia and Archbishop Ivan Saraka at Visegrád; the treaty effectively divested the Republic of Venice of all its holdings in Dalmatia, among the richest of which was Dubrovnik itself.

1743 - At the Battle of Dettingen in Bavaria - during the War of the Austrian Succession - George II (shown, at right, on the obverse of a half-crown*) personally led troops into battle; it would be the last time a British monarch would command an army in the field, although he mainly did so in his role as Elector of Hanover rather than as King of England. For the record, His Majesty's men soundly defeated the troops of France's duc de Noailles and duc de Gramont in support of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI's Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, which had guaranteed the accession of Maria-Theresa as ruler of Austria and Hungary in 1741 - although they'd mainly done so to piss off France, who had long been opposed to the idea of a woman serving as sovereign**.  Both the Dettingen Te Deum and Dettingen Anthem were composed by George Frideric Handel immediately following the hostilities in commemoration and first performed in the King's presence that November; even more lastingly the gentlemanly refusal to treat wounded soldiers on either side as prisoners of war is said to have served as the forerunner of the Geneva Convention.

*Minted from silver seized from a Spanish treasure fleet off the Peruvian capital.
**In fact, ever since their King Philip V enthusiastically embraced the Salic Law (originally codified by Clovis I early in the 6th Century) in order to prevent the agnatic succession of his niece Joan in 1316.

1806 - The city of Buenos Aires was captured during the British invasions of the Río de la Plata.

1844 - Joseph Smith, Jr. - founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints - and his brother Hyrum Smith were murdered by a mob at the jail in Carthage, Illinois.

1898 - Canadian Joshua Slocum sailed into Newport, Rhode Island, having completed the first solo circumnavigation of the Earth onboard Spray, and having sailed some 74,000 km (46,000 miles) since their departure from Boston in April 1895.

1905 - Sailors mutinied aboard the Russian battleship Potemkin, an event later made even more famous in the film by Sergei Eisenstein.

1923 - Capt. Lowell H. Smith and Lt. John P. Richter performed the first ever aerial refueling, in a DH-4B biplane.

1941 - Nazi troops capture the city of Białystok during Operation Barbarossa.

1950 - The US - backed by the United Nations - decided to send troops to fight in the Korean Conflict.

1954 - The world's first nuclear power station opened at Obninsk, near Moscow.

1957 - Hurricane Audrey made landfall near the Louisiana/Texas border, eventually killing 500 people.

1966 - The daily soap opera Dark Shadows debuted on ABC-TV; it would eventually run for 1,225 episodes before it was taken off the air in April 1971.

1967 - The first electronic Automated Teller Machine (or 'ATM', as the kids have taken to calling them these days) was installed by Barclay's at Enfield Town, in North London; designed by John Shepherd-Barron for the printing firm De La Rue, its first user was Reg Varney, the popular star of ITV's successful sitcom On The Buses (shown at right, demonstrating the machine). Rather than a plastic card this early ATM took special cheques, and dispensed at most £10 with the aid of a four-digit PIN number, the concept of which had occurred to James Goodfellow as early as 1965... A year after Barclay's machine opened an American inventor from Dallas named Donald Wetzel created the networked ATM, and the world was changed forever. Of course the first such machine - which was merely mechanical and not electronic, as designed and built by Luther George Simjian - had been installed at a branch of City Bank of New York in 1939; that one, though, was removed after just six months when it failed to garner enough customer interest.

1973 - Juan María Bordaberry, President of Uruguay, dissolved Parliament and headed a coup d'état.

1976 - Air France Flight 139 (on a flight from Tel Aviv to Paris via Athens) was hijacked en route by the PLO and redirected to Uganda's Entebbe Airport... Operation Entebbe - originally called Operation Thunderball but later renamed Operation Yonatan for Sayeret Matkal commander Lt.-Col. Yonatan 'Yoni' Netanyahu* who was killed during the action - would later be carried out on the night of July 3rd-4th to rescue the hijacked passengers; the incident inspired several dramatizations, the most popular of which were Marvin J. Chomsky's Victory at Entebbe (1976) and Raid On Entebbe (1977), directed by Irvin Kershner.

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*The older brother of future Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.


1985 - America's fabled Route 66 - first opened in November 1926 between Chicago to Los Angeles - ceased to be an official highway, although traces of it have been preserved for the purpose of tourism.

1991 - Two days after Slovenia declared its independence the newly minted country was invaded by its former overlord, Yugoslavia, which sent in troops, tanks, and aircraft - provoking the Ten-Day War.

2003 - The United States National Do Not Call Registry - created to combat unwanted telemarketing calls and administered by the Federal Trade Commission - enrolled almost three-quarters of a million phone numbers on its first day.

2007 - Prime Minister Tony Blair formally submitted his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II. About five years too late, but there you have it...
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Gratuitous Brunette: Jason Schwartzman

In Hollywood terms, Jason Schwartzman's is a very noble lineage indeed...

The son of pop culture icon and perennial Trivial Pursuit (Silver Screen Edition) question subject Talia Shire* and the late producer Jack Schwartzman, today's lucky Gratuitous Brunette** represents a very fertile branch of the family tree that is Coppola.

His onscreen achievements include star turns in the 1998 film Rushmore*** and David O. Russell's I ♥ Huckabees, a romantic lead as Louis XVI which is as hapless as it is accurate opposite Kirsten Dunst as the title character in his cousin's Marie Antoinette, and such ensemble works as The Darjeeling Limited and Funny People among others; currently he's the star of the HBO series Bored to Death where he plays an unlicensed detective advertising himself on Craigslist. 

The rest of his time is taken up by music - as the drummer with Coconut Records and formerly of Phantom Planet - his new marriage (to designer Brady Cunningham), and whatever black magic he's practicing that helps him keep getting hotter and hotter...  (Hint: it seems to involve veganism.)

*Yo, Adrian!  Ring any bells?  How about If you touch my sister again, I'll kill you! Rat-tat-tat-tat!  No?  Seriously, maybe you need to get out less...
**Sarcasm, natch!  The Gratuitous Brunette is the world's singularly most underwhelming accolade - which is why it's typically accompanied by a strenuous sales pitch.
***In which he held his own opposite Bill Murray, whose career resurgence dates to this poem on celluloid by Wes Anderson - coincidentally (or not, depending on your outlook) the first film I ever bought a) on DVD, and b) from the Criterion Collection...
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POPnews - June 26th

363 CE - Roman Emperor Julian the Apostate was killed during a retreat from the Sassanid Empire following the Battle of Samarra; General Jovian was proclaimed Emperor in his place by the troops on the battlefield.

1284 - According to legend, the Pied Piper lured 130 children away from the German town of Hamelin.

1409 - Petros Philargos was crowned Pope Alexander V after the Council of Pisa, joining Pope Gregory XII in Rome and Pope Benedict XII in Avignon, causing a double schism in the Roman Catholic Church.

1541 - Spanish conquistador Francisco Pizarro was assassinated in Lima by Don Diego de Almagro, who was later caught and executed for the crime.

1819 - The bicycle was patented. History does not record when bicyclists first began to demand the right to ride their bicycles wherever they damn well please without consideration for others - such as on the sidewalk or inside public buildings (as they've been known to do in Vancouver at least) but at least one amateur historian (namely me) suspects it was immediately thereafter.

1857 - The first investiture of the Victoria Cross was held in London's Hyde Park; Queen Victoria herself awarded the prestigious medal for bravery to 62 out of 111 eligible veterans of the Crimean War that day, including one to Charles Davis Lucas who'd been the first to earn his (during the bombardment of Bomarsund). It has since been awarded 1351 times, with 94 of them going to Canadians.

1927 - The Cyclone roller coaster opened on Coney Island.

1934 - Apparently President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Credit Union Act, which aptly enough allowed for the establishment of credit unions.  You know...  Federally.

1945 - The United Nations Charter was signed in San Francisco by 50 of its 51 original signatories; only Poland had to wait, since they'd sent no delegate to the United Nations Conference on International Organization.

1959 - Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, and US President Dwight D. Eisenhower opened the St. Lawrence Seaway.

1963 - US President John F. Kennedy boosted morale in West Berlin by declaring 'Ich bin ein Berliner' in the partitioned area of that city; JFK's elegant Commie-bashing can be seen and heard above, but if it's as much like porno to you as it is to me, it's definitely NSFW.

1974 - At the Marsh Supermarket in Troy, Ohio, the Universal Product Code on a package of Wrigley's Juicy Fruit chewing gum became the first item ever to be scanned.

1975 - During a shootout on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota two FBI agents (Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams) and an American Indian Movement member named Joe Stuntz were killed; Leonard Peltier was later convicted of the murders following a controversial trial.

1976 - The CN Tower, the world's tallest free-standing structure on land, was opened.

1977 - The Yorkshire Ripper killed 16 year-old shop girl Jayne MacDonald in Leeds, changing the public's perception of the killer; she was the first of his victims who was not a prostitute, and with her death British women began to fear that any of them could be next.

1995 - Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani deposed his father Khalifa bin Hamad al-Thani, the Emir of Qatar, in a bloodless coup.

1996 - Irish journalist Veronica Guerin was shot and killed in her car by drug dealers while stopped at a traffic light on the Naas Dual Carriageway on the outskirts of Dublin; her story was told in a movie by Joel Schumacher, in which Guerin was played by Cate Blanchett.

1997 - The US Supreme Court ruled that the Communications Decency Act violated the First Amendment.

2003 - The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lawrence v. Texas that gender-based sodomy laws were unconstitutional.
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Remembering... Farrah Fawcett

Farrah Fawcett - the vivacious blonde who embodied Southern California beauty for millions of television viewers in the 1970s, before moving on to more serious work in the 1980s - died on this day in 2009 at Saint John's Medical Center in Santa Monica. She was 62.

Farrah* was already a famous face - thanks to the iconic poster you see at left** - when she was signed to the series that would make her a household name. Although she only appeared regularly as Jill Munroe in the first season of Charlie's Angels she'd made such an indelible mark in such a short time that even after being replaced by Cheryl Ladd producers Aaron Spelling and Leonard Goldberg couldn't divest themselves of her magic entirely; they made Ladd's character, Kris, Jill's sister. Following her departure, Farrah made six highly rated guest appearances in seasons three and four as part of her contract settlement.

A series of critical flops followed, so she did the most audacious thing possible... She went to New York, where she appeared Off Broadway in the play Extremities, written by William Mastrosimone, following Susan Sarandon into the role of a would-be rape victim who turns the tables on her attacker. This kind of thing is almost de rigeur today when resuscitating a flagging career, but at the time had been seldom tried - and I dare say never by a 'mere' TV star.

Farrah then turned in an Emmy Award nominated performance in the TV movie The Burning Bed, and followed that with a television version of Extremities; she would also portray Nazi hunter Beate Klarsfeld, Life Magazine photojournalist Margaret Bourke-White, Woolworth heiress Barbara Hutton in Poor Little Rich Girl: The Barbara Hutton Story, and convicted murderer Diane Downs in the miniseries Small Sacrifices.

Having always turned down the chance to pose nude in her 20s and 30s, at the ages of 48 and 50 Farrah appeared in Playboy, the former pictorial being responsible for the magazine's best-selling issue of the 1990s; not even a goofy, rambling appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman in June 1997 did much to diminish her appeal amongst her real fans - at least judging by the supportive crowd reaction! - who giggled along with her as she repeatedly stymied the curmudgeonly Letterman.

On a personal note, it's been interesting to me to observe how much fan attention she's been getting - especially during the last year of her life - from gay men. For someone supposedly all about sex appeal, what appeal could she have had apart from sex***? The secret, I think, is in how she triumphed over the attitudes that had once sought to belittle her; she was fearless, clearly - a quality much on display throughout her final illness, during which she confronted her considerable travails and fought back with everything at her disposal. In both Chasing Farrah and on Farrah's Story she did what she had always done - raised awareness of an important issue which was too little talked about - almost to her dying breath.

If I may be so bold as to paraphrase Charles Townsend at the close of each of those silly, golden episodes: Goodbye Angel...

*I simply cannot stand on formality and call one of the foremost icons of my childhood anything else right now.
**Which sold as many as 12 million copies, earning her more in royalties than her salary from Charlie's Angels!
***Aside from great hair, that is.
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"Freeek!" by George Michael

I can't very well publish two George Michael videos (on this, the occasion of his birthday) and not publish a third, now can I?  I mean, what kind of hat trick would that be?*

Released in March 2002 - a full two years before his album Patience - Freeek! rocketed to the top of record charts across Europe, aided no doubt by this super-sexy sci-fi-inspired video...  And yet Freeek! was just the first of six amazing singles from that album; it would be followed by Shoot the Dog, Amazing, Flawless (Go To The City), Round Here, and John and Elvis Are Dead - proof positive that despite his tabloid travails, George Michael remains an artist of the highest calibre.

*Technically, not a hat trick at all!

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"Too Funky" by George Michael

George Michael's sexuality had long been an open secret by 1992, when he recorded Too Funky - along with two other tracks* - for the AIDS/HIV charity album Red Hot + Dance; I mean, obviously this video could only have been made by a gay man. Seriously, just look at it!**

A n y w a y... The fact that his coming to terms with being gay represented a personal struggle for him and he wasn't simply remaining closeted for the sake of his career - or because he belonged to some crackpot religion founded by a closet case, as a strictly hypothetical for instance - kept many of the usual suspects (like Outlook magazine and its attack poodles Queer Nation) at respectful bay.

Nevertheless, it would be another half dozen years before the words would actually come out of his mouth, and then they only did so because he was caught in flagrante cliché with an undercover cop in a public men's room in Los Angeles...

*The provocatively-named (and -themed, given the state of his closetedness at the time) Do You Really Want to Know and Happy.
**Technically the video was directed by Thierry Mugler, and in it his own outrageous fashions adorn such catwalk stalwarts as Julie Newmar, Linda Evangelista, Tyra Banks, Beverly Peele, Nadja Auermann, Shana Zadrick, Emma Wiklund, Rossy de Palma, and Estelle Hallyday under the frenzied supervision of harried show organizer Lipsinka.  Still, methinks Mugler is no stranger to the mysteries of man-on-man love...

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"Careless Whisper" by George Michael

Even as the emerging phenomenon known as Wham! was poised to burn itself out in a flash of hairspray and teenaged caprice, it was becoming obvious that at least one of the members of the duo was in possession of the kind of talent which could potentially lead to something greater than even the sum of its very hunky parts. Longevity in the music business, though, is a very elusive thing indeed; it requires luck and very little else, as too many massive talents toiling away in obscurity can tell you.

Co-written jointly by George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley before they made it big with their 1984 album Make It Big, Careless Whisper exposed two essential elements which basically doomed Wham! to the dustbin even as it was peaking: the first of these was the incredible showmanship of George Michael, and the other was his dab hand behind the scenes, at the mixing board...

Now, no offense to George Michael - whose birthday it is today - but I've always found Ridgeley to be far and away the prettier of the two; in the video for Everything She Wants, for instance, Ridgeley's ease on camera and general yumminess allowed me to forego the purchase of porn for at least two years, despite the fact that I was 14 at the time. I believe, though, that it was George Michael's all around skills which allowed him access into the stratosphere of stardom while Ridgeley remains the ultimate 80s trivia footnote. After all, Michael first recorded Careless Whisper with legendary producer Jerry Wexler; unhappy with the result, George re-recorded the song, slapped an unforgettable saxophone riff onto the front of it, and the end result was strong enough to knock pop juggernaut Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood off the top of the UK chart after an incredible nine week run.

So while Careless Whisper may have within it the single cheesiest lyric in pop music - 'I'm never gonna dance again / guilty feet have got no rhythm...' - it was responsible for launching the career of one of the world's foremost male vocalists*...

*And probably played a significant part in the conception of countless babies besides!
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Happy Birthday George Michael

There comes a time in the life of many successful artists when their creative output trails off, and their celebrity becomes more important than their art; that's usually about the time their coverage on the Pop Culture Institute inevitably also tapers off and eventually disappears altogether...

So far there's no danger of that happening to George Michael, whose early work with Wham! set the stage for a hugely successful solo career, and whose solo career continues to move from strength to strength to this day. Four of Michael's solo albums - Faith, Listen Without Prejudice Vol. 1, Older, and Patience - have established him as a consummate songwriter, no less than other works - such as Songs from the Last Century - have shown him to be a gifted interpreter of other people's music, as well as highly accomplished in the subtle art of the duet, and a vocalist of stunning range and artistry.

Born on this day in 1963, Michael met his future collaborator Andrew Ridgeley at Bushey Meads School; a ska band they started called The Executive quickly gave way to Wham! in 1981, and while the band's fame was short-lived it was also white-hot. Their first album, Fantastic, gave them a massive overnight success in the UK, but it couldn't have prepared them for the success of 1984's Make It Big; on the basis of the insanely catchy earworm Wake Me Up Before You Go Go alone, Wham! were poised for superstardom. Their career, however, took a slightly different trajectory; Ridgeley was soon jettisoned in favour of Michael's own ambition, as evidenced by the 1984 single Careless Whisper, which was billed as being by Wham! featuring George Michael...

Ever since then he's walked the fine line between being an artist on his own terms and a piece of meat suitable for exploitation by his record label; his various tabloid battles over his sexuality and drug use have given the chattering classes their reasons to chatter, but in the end he's always come back to the music...
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Pop History Moment: "Another World" Went Off The Air

On this day in 1999 the final episode of TV soap opera Another World was aired after 35 years, after a total of 8891 episodes. Created by Irna Phillips along with William J. Bell and set in the fictional milieu of Bay City, the show followed the lives and loves of the city's residents, especially as they related to the Cory family, at the end personified by the inimitable Victoria Wyndham, who had played Rachel Cory from 1972 until the final episode.

Other standouts on the show were Douglass Watson as Rachel's suave husband Mac, Constance Ford as Rachel's mother Ada, Felicia Gallant (played by Linda Dano and initially modeled after Jacqueline Susann), superhot Stephen Schnetzer as Cass Winthrop, Vicky and Marley Hudson (good and evil twins once played by Anne Heche), and the greatest - or at least the campiest - villainess in the history of daytime television Cecile de Poulignac, played to the hilt by Nancy Frangione (with Charles Keating as Carl Hutchins coming a close second as villains go).

At the time of Another World's cancellation NBC was criticized for removing a show with a dedicated audience (despite dwindling ratings) from its daytime lineup in favour of something new and untried - the truly grotesque Passions, which lasted just eight years before viewers were put out of its misery.
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POPnews - June 25th

[The scene depicted in the Cornaro Window is the grueling test of wits that was the awarding of a 17th Century doctorate... There, in the Duomo di Padova and in the presence of University of Padua authorities - as well as the professors of all the faculties, the students, and the majority of the Venetian Senators, together with many invited guests from the Universities of Bologna, Ferrara, Perugia, Rome, and Naples - the Lady Elena spoke for an hour in classical Latin, explaining difficult passages selected at random from the works of Aristotle. It is said she was listened to with rapt attention, and when she had finished, received plaudits as Professor Rinaldini proceeded to award her with the insignia of the Doctorate, placing the wreath of laurel on her head, the ring on her finger, and an ermine mozetta around her shoulders. Uh... You GO girl!]
524 CE - At the Battle of Vézeronce, waged by the main claimants to the throne left vacant by the death of the Frankish King Clovis I - his four sons Childebert I, Chlodomir, Clotaire I, and Theuderic I - the Franks defeated the Burgundian King Sigismund, although Chlodomir was killed (tradition has it by Sigismund's brother Gundomar III).

1530 - The Augsburg Confession was presented at the Diet of Augsburg to the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V by the Lutheran princes and Electors of Germany.

1678 - Elena Cornaro Piscopia became the first woman awarded a doctorate of philosophy, a scene illustrated today in the Cornaro Window (designed by Louis Comfort Tiffany) in the West Wing of the Thompson Memorial Library at Vassar College.

1741 - Maria Theresa of Austria was crowned King of Hungary - not the first time a woman had reigned over Hungary, but nearly... Mary I was also queen regnant, twice, in the late 14th Century. Despite the Pragmatic Sanction promoted by her father - Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor - Maria Theresa's accession to the throne of Austria had caused the War of Austrian Succession (better known in North America as the Seven Years' War) which broke out in 1740.

1788 - Virginia became the 10th US state.

1876 - At the Battle of the Little Bighorn Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was killed, a rare First Nations victory during the Indian Wars for Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and Chief Gall.

1906 - Following their attendance at the premiere of the musical revue Mam'zelle Champagne, Pittsburgh millionaire Harry Thaw shot and killed prominent architect Stanford White at the roof garden of what was the second incarnation of Madison Square Garden (which White himself had designed and built); Thaw's ire was due to White's affair with Mrs. Thaw - better known as model and actress Evelyn Nesbit. The killing was fictionalized in the superlative 1975 novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow (which was later made into a movie and a stage musical) having already been the subject of the 1955 film The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, starring Joan Collins, Ray Milland and Farley Granger - which had as a creative consultant none other than Nesbit herself.

1938 - Dr. Douglas Hyde was inaugurated the first President of Ireland.

1944 - The Battle of Tali-Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought in the Nordic Countries, began as part of the Continuation War, the second of two wars fought between Finland and the Soviet Union during World War II.

1947- The Diary of Anne Frank was first published, in Holland, as Het Achterhuis; Anne's father Otto Frank had been given the diaries by Miep Gies, who had not only been instrumental in hiding the family but had later rescued the diary from the Gestapo.

1948 - The Berlin Airlift was instituted as a means to relieve the situation caused by East Germany's Berlin Blockade.

1950 - The Korean War began with the invasion of South Korea by North Korea - an action condemned by the United Nations.

1975 - Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi compelled President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed to declare a State of Emergency in India under Article 352 of the Indian Constitution, suspending civil liberties and elections following Mrs. Gandhi's conviction by the Allahabad High Court on charges of corruption 13 days earlier.

1991 - Croatia and Slovenia declared their independence from Yugoslavia.

1993 - Kim Campbell was chosen as leader of the governing Progressive Conservative Party of Canada and thus became the country's first female Prime Minister. In political terms she was a sacrificial lamb, though; at the next federal election later that year her party was so soundly defeated she even lost her own seat, to political newcomer (and my MP) Hedy Fry.

1996 - The Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia killed 19 American servicemen.

1997 - An unmanned Progress spacecraft collided with the Russian space station, Mir.

1998 - In Clinton v. City of New York, the US Supreme Court decided that the Line Item Veto Act of 1996 was unconstitutional.

2008 - Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe had his honourary knighthood stripped by HM The Queen.
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POPnews (UK) - June 24th

[As is usually the case with great works of infrastructure, the story of the building of the Humber Bridge is nearly as epic as the span itself... While plans for the structure were first drawn up in the 1930s - and then revised in 1955 - it wasn't approved until 1959 with the passage of the Humber Bridge Act (which had been promoted by the Kingston Upon Hull Corporation). It was the 1966 Hull North by-election, though, which finally cleared the way for the actual building to begin; the seat - vacated by the death of Labour MP Henry Solomons - was held by the government of Harold Wilson largely due to the promise of its eventual construction. Having retained the seat, Wilson then prevailed upon his Minister of Transport Barbara Castle to secure the funding. That took until July 1972, when work finally began; then, of course, there were the usual plethora of tea breaks... It took so long to build the bridge, in fact, that Christopher Rowe had time to write a song about it, which he fittingly entitled The Humber Bridge.]
1314 - The Battle of Bannockburn concluded the First War of Scottish Independence with a decisive victory by Robert the Bruce's Scottish forces; Scotland regained its independence in the aftermath of this battle, though the victory owed more to the ineptitude of Edward II than to the prowess of the Scottish King, who'd previously been soundly defeated by Edward I on a number of occasions.

1340 - At the outset of the Hundred Years' War most of the French fleet was destroyed by the English - commanded in person by King Edward III - at the Battle of Sluys, during which the French Admiral Hugues Quiéret was also slain.

1497 - Cornish traitors Michael An Gof and Thomas Flamank were executed at Tyburn in London for their part in that year's Cornish Rebellion against the rule of King Henry VII.

1509 - Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon were crowned King and Queen of England in a lavish double ceremony at Westminster Abbey.

1717 - The Grand Lodge of England - the first Grand Lodge (now the United Grand Lodge of England) in the tradition of Freemasonry - was founded at the Goose and Gridiron Ale House, in London's St Paul’s Churchyard; Anthony Sayer was elected to serve as the first Grand Master.

1902 - King Edward VII developed appendicitis, two days before his coronation; Sir Frederick Treves (with the assistance of Joseph Lister, 1st Baron Lister) performed a then-new life-saving operation, and the coronation went ahead a little more than six weeks later, making all those coronation souvenirs with the old date on them highly collectible.

1981 - The Humber Bridge - connecting Hessle in Yorkshire and Barton-upon-Humber in Lincolnshire over the Humber estuary near Kingston upon Hull - was opened to vehicle traffic, although it wouldn't be officially opened by HM The Queen until July 17th; upon its opening it would be the world's longest single-span suspension bridge for 17 years, until it was bested the Great Belt Bridge in Denmark. Currently the world's fifth-largest such bridge, it serves 120,000 vehicles weekly, who pay up to £2.70 in tolls each way.
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Pop History Moment: The Moscow Victory Parade

The Moscow Victory Parade was held on this day in 1945; it celebrated (in a typically sombre, hyper-serious, totally Russian kind of way) the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in what they called the Great Patriotic War. On that rainy day Joseph Stalin watched the massed might of the country march past him from atop Lenin's Tomb in Red Square.



I was labouring through the previous post when in the immense mental jumble of mostly nouns and dates came a single thought, like a piercing ray of light... I bet the Moscow Victory Parade is on YouTube. And whattaya know? It IS on YouTube. I so love it when that happens. In fact, I even have a name for it. I call it a 'Research Epiphany'.

This particular epiphany came when I read that the Moscow Victory Parade was the first event in Russian history to be filmed in colour. Let's face it - that's something I gotta see; after growing up with an essentially English view of World War II, I find it exhilarating to experience seemingly familiar events from an unfamiliar perspective. In fact, sharing that sensation is one of the chief raisons d'etre for this blog.
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POPnews - June 24th

[For years this lovely bit of water-coloured animation was the sign-off at the end of the programming day on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's national broadcaster. This version was always a favourite of mine, as I find it very stirring, so I thought I'd share it with you on the song's 129th anniversary.]

972 CE - The Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces, took place when that country's Duke Mieszko I defeated Odo I, Margrave of Saxon Ostmark.

1128 - At the Battle of São Mamede, near Guimarães, Portuguese forces led by Alfonso I defeated an army loyal to his mother Dona Teresa and her lover Fernando Perez de Trava; following the battle, Alfonso took to calling himself 'Prince of Portugal', and the battle is now seen as the first step towards an independent Portugal, which sovereignty was affirmed after the Battle of Ourique in 1139.

1374 - A sudden outbreak of St. John's Dance caused people in the German town of Aachen to experience hallucinations and begin to jump and twitch uncontrollably until they collapsed from exhaustion.

1497 - John Cabot became the first European in Newfoundland in nearly five hundred years when he landed, possibly at Cape Bonavista.

1535 - The Anabaptist state of Münster was conquered and disbanded following the Münster Rebellion; an attempt by Bernhard Knipperdolling to establish a theocracy there was met with harsh reprisals, as many of the radicals were later tortured and executed in the town square.

1571 - Manila, now the capital of the Republic of the Philippines, was founded by Miguel Lopez de Legazpi.

1692 - The city of Kingston, Jamaica, was founded.

1880 - Ironically enough, O Canada was first performed publicly in Quebec City as part of that city's St. Jean-Baptiste Day festivities.

1901 - The works of a talented but unknown 20 year-old named Pablo Picasso were given their first public exhibition at a cafe called Els Quatre Gats in his hometown of Barcelona.

1916 - Canadian Mary Pickford became filmdom's first million dollar lady by forming the Pickford Film Corporation within Famous Players.

1918 - Legend has it Canada's airmail service was instituted, between Montreal and Toronto.

1938 - A 450 tonne (496 ton) meteorite struck the earth in an empty field near Chicora, Pennsylvania.

1945 - The Moscow Victory Parade took place in that city's Red Square following the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War; it was the first event in Soviet history to be filmed in colour.

1947 - Kenneth Arnold made the first widely reported UFO sighting, near Mount Rainier, Washington.

1949 - The first television Western aired on NBC; Hopalong Cassidy starred William Boyd, who was uniquely qualified for the role - he'd played the character 66 times since 1935 in an enormously popular series of films.

1957 - The US Supreme Court ruled that obscenity is not protected by the First Amendment in Roth v. United States.

1983 - Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, returned to Earth safely as part of NASA's STS-7 Space Shuttle mission.

1985 - The Space Shuttle Discovery completed its mission - STS-51-G - which is today best remembered for having Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, the first Arab and first Muslim in space, as a Payload Specialist.

2002 - The Igandu train disaster in Tanzania killed 281, making it the worst train accident in African history.
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"The Remedy (I Won't Worry)" by Jason Mraz

Birthday wishes go out today to Jason Mraz, whose surname is the Czech word for 'frost' but whose career is anything but cold, thanks to his third studio album We Sing. We Dance. We Steal Things.... Mraz is precisely the sort of performer the Pop Culture Institute is pleased to support, since he's known for explicitly supporting the recording of concert bootlegs.

The Remedy (I Won't Worry) is the first single from his 2002 debut album Waiting for My Rocket to Come, and while it peaked at #15 in the US Mraz had to wait for his second album, 2005's Mr. A-Z to crack the Top Ten. He's seen here performing his first single on ABC-TV's Good Morning America in New York City.
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Monaco's Albert II To Marry Charlene Wittstock

After nearly three decades as the world's most eligible bachelor - resulting in countless column inches of speculation regarding a string of girlfriends* and the birth of two children out of wedlock** - His Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco has today announced his intention to marry his companion of four years, the South African-born former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock.  No date has been set for the impending nuptials, but by custom formal royal engagements in the jewel-like Mediterranean principality generally last at least six months.

The Prince and Wittstock have been seen together publicly since February 2006, when they attended the opening ceremony of that year's Winter Olympics together in Torino; they have also attended the Monaco Grand Prix, the Bal de la Rose, and the Princess Grace Awards Gala together.  Most recently they were seen together at the wedding of Sweden's Crown Princess Victoria and Daniel Westling - this past June 19th at Stockholm Cathedral - sparking rumours amongst royal watchers that the House of Grimaldi was about to add its newest member.

*Including (among others) Brooke Shields, Claudia Schiffer, Naomi Campbell, Kylie Minogue, and Telma Ortiz Rocasolano - the sister-in-law of Spain's Prince of Asturias.
**The eldest, Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, was born to Tamara Rotolo in March 1992; she was joined by a half-brother, Alexandre Coste, who was born to Nicole Coste in August 2003.

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"Touch Of Grey" by The Grateful Dead

Birthday wishes go out today to Robert Hunter, who wrote the Grateful Dead's most commercially successful song, Touch Of Grey, which the band first performed in 1982 and which later appeared on their 1987 album In the Dark; the video for the song - directed by Gary Gutierrez, who also worked with the band on The Grateful Dead Movie - is also the only video the band ever made. Coincidence?
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Happy Birthday Frances McDormand

The first movie I ever saw Frances McDormand in was Fargo (1996), which is not bad as these things go, since Fargo is one of the best movies I've ever seen*. What struck me most about the film, though, was how the Coen Brothers and their actors so expertly captured the North Dakota accent. I have some distant family in North Dakota, and even in Saskatchewan this is the regional accent; the area was heavily settled by Scandinavians, and 'Oh ya, they really do talk like that, sure'...

It was by no means her first role, nor would it be her last, but McDormand's star turn in Fargo defined her in ways that subsequent roles in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous and Curtis Hanson's celluloid vision of the Michael Chabon novel Wonder Boys never could. For one it pegged her as the kind of fearless actor who would don a fake pregnancy belly and mug her way through a very dark comedy while seeming preternaturally cheerful about what turns out to be some very gory goings-on indeed. Of course, the fact that she's married to the film's co-director Joel Coen might have something to do with the casting, but as for turning her performance as Marge Gunderson into a star turn - she did that all on her own!

McDormand was away from our movie screens for a few years in the middle of the decade, but re-emerged in a pair of films scheduled for release in 2008 - Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day, a period piece set in the years before World War II in which she plays the title character, was released in March; and Burn After Reading, yet another excursion into the exotic psyches of her husband and brother-in-law.  She is set to re-emerge in 2011 after a similar sabbatical, and I for one wish she would work more...

*The members of the Motion Picture Academy concurred; McDormand won the Oscar for Best Actress for her quirky, heartfelt performance of a small-town sheriff investigating some big time crime.
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In Memoriam: Alan Turing

If there's a lesson to be learned from the life of Alan Turing (and I believe there are many) it's that throughout history, nothing matters more to those in charge than the persecution of homosexuals. This is still true in the United States, where in recent years dozens of Arab language specialists have been thrown out of the military and the State Department for being gay; the momentary War on Terror, it seems, has been trumped by the ongoing War on Gays.

Turing - born on this day in 1912 - is considered the father of computer science, and was one of the team at Bletchley Park responsible for breaking the Enigma machine's codes during World War II; he was arrested for homosexuality in 1952, which led to his suicide by poisoning in 1954. Although he worried about the effect that homophobia would have on his legacy, it appears, in retrospect, to have been minimal. In fact, in recent years a memorial to him has been unveiled in Manchester's Sackville Park as well as another by sculptor Stephen Kettle at his old stomping grounds, Bletchley Park; additionally English Heritage has placed a Blue Plaque at two of his former London homes.

In the excellent 1996 BBC TV-movie Breaking the Code Turing was portrayed by Derek Jacobi.
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"Sign Of The Gypsy Queen" by April Wine

Birthday wishes go out today to Myles Goodwyn, front man of Canadian rock stalwarts April Wine; Sign of the Gypsy Queen appeared on the band's 1981 album The Nature of the Beast. Despite the fact that the single only made it to #57 in the US (and #16 in Canada) it remains a presence on radio in both countries and can be counted on to rock the house in concert as well.
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