POPnews - February 20th

[The fact that most of the Canadian engineers who worked on Canada's Avro Arrow supersonic jet fighter just happened to end up working for NASA on the American space program is no proof whatsoever that they were poached by the US government or that Canada's Conservative Prime Minister John Diefenbaker canceled the program on direct orders from the White House - effectively selling out Canada to the United States, which is at the core of that party's ideology. It's all just a huge coincidence, I'm sure.]
1547 - England's King Edward VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey.

1792 - The Postal Service Act, establishing the US Post Office, was signed into law by President George Washington.

1798 - Louis Alexandre Berthier removed Pope Pius VI from power after declaring the Roman Republic.

1810 - Andreas Hofer, Tyrolean patriot and the leader of a rebellion against Napoleon's forces in Austria, was executed.

1835 - An earthquake destroyed the Chilean city of Concepción.

1864 - The Battle of Olustee - the largest battle fought in Florida during the American Civil War - pitted the Union's General Truman Seymour against Confederate General Joseph Finegan, whose victory was nevertheless the third bloodiest of the war.

1872 - New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art opened at 681 Fifth Avenue in New York City; its original collection was the personal gift of a railroad executive, John Taylor Johnston.

1909 - The Futurist Manifesto of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti was first published in the French journal Le Figaro; it promoted the cause of Futurism, a kind of short-sighted progressivism which called for everything from the past to be discarded in favour of the new and modern.

1913 - Work began on Australia's new Federal Capital at Canberra, when King O'Malley drove in the first survey spike.

1921 - The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, starring Rudolph Valentino, premiered.

1931 - The US Congress approved the construction of the San Francisco - Oakland Bay Bridge by the state of California.

1933 - Congress proposed the Twenty-first Amendment to the US Constitution that would ultimately end Prohibition in that country.

1935 - Caroline Mikkelsen became the first woman to set foot in Antarctica.

1943 - The Parícutin volcano began to form in Mexico.

1952 - Emmett Ashford became the first African-American umpire in organized baseball when he was authorized as a substitute umpire in the Southwestern International League; Ashford later worked in the Pacific Coast League and reached the pinnacle of his career when he officiated at the 1970 World Series.

1959 - Canada's Avro Arrow program was controversially canceled by Prime Minister John Diefenbaker.

1962 - While aboard the Mercury Program's Friendship 7, John Glenn became the first American to orbit the earth, making three orbits in 4 hours and 55 minutes.

1991 - An enormous statue of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha was pulled down in Tirana.

2003 - During a Great White concert in the Rhode Island city of West Warwick, a pyrotechnics display set the club ablaze - killing 100 and injuring over 300 others.
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"Mirror In The Bathroom" by The (English) Beat

Birthday wishes go out today to Dave Wakeling, who as a member of The Beat* was at the forefront of the ska revival that came between the punk of the late 1970s and the synth-pop of the early 1980s. Wakeling later had a modicum of success as one half (with Ranking Roger) of General Public.
Mirror in the Bathroom originally appeared on the band's 1980 debut album, I Just Can't Stop It; the video - one of the earliest - shows the band in action as well as scenes of stupendous ordinariness from Thatcher's Britain.
*Known everywhere but in the UK as The English Beat.
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POPnews - February 19th

[Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood is the longest-running series in the history of American public television; originally aired on National Educational Television, it transferred to PBS in 1970. Produced until August 2001, PBS removed it from its official programming schedule in September 2008, although some renegade stations continue to air the goings-on in the Neighborhood of Make-Believe, where the despotic rule of King Friday XIII still teaches the children of liberals to recognize actual tyranny when they see it - unlike the lessons they might glean from Fox News.]
197 CE - Roman Emperor Septimius Severus defeated the usurper Clodius Albinus at the Battle of Lugdunum (near modern-day Lyon); it was the bloodiest battle ever fought between Roman armies, but the Emperor's victory over his foe - who was killed in battle - assured him an uncontested throne.

1594 - Having already inherited the throne of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth through his mother Catherine Jagellonica, Sigismund III of the House of Vasa was crowned King of Sweden, succeeding his father John III.

1600 - The Peruvian stratovolcano Huaynaputina exploded in the most violent eruption in the recorded history of South America.

1674 - England and the Netherlands signed the Peace of Westminster, ending the Third Anglo-Dutch War; one provision of note in the agreement transferred control of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam to England, at which time it was renamed New York.

1807 - Former US Vice President Aaron Burr was arrested for treason in Alabama and confined to Fort Stoddert for his part in the Burr Conspiracy.

1819 - British explorer William Smith discovered the South Shetland Islands, claiming them in the name of King George III.

1846 - Following its annexation by the United States, the Republic of Texas formally transferred power, and the State of Texas was born.

1847 - The Donner Party was rescued.

1864 - The Knights of Pythias were founded in Washington, DC, by Justus H. Rathbone.

1878 - Thomas Edison patented the phonograph.

1913 - For the first time prizes were included in boxes of Cracker Jack.

1937 - During a public ceremony at the Viceregal Palace (the former Imperial Residence) in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, two Eritrean nationalists named Abraha Deboch and Mogus Asgedom attempted to kill viceroy Rodolfo Graziani with a number of grenades; following the failure of the plot to kill Graziani he became known as 'the Butcher of Ethiopia'.

1942 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed executive order 9066, allowing the US military to relocate Japanese-Americans to internment camps.

1963 - The publication of Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique launched the reawakening of the Feminist Movement in the United States as women's organizations and consciousness-raising groups began to spread.

1968 - Mister Rogers' Neighborhood made its television debut; in all, 895 episodes were made before the show went off the air in 2001. An earlier incarnation, called simply Mister Rogers, began airing on the CBC in 1962; one of the puppeteers on that show was Ernie Coombs, better known (at least among Canadians) as Mr. Dressup.

1985 - The British soap EastEnders made its television debut in the UK as part of a rebranding effort by BBC1; it was an instant success.

1986 - The Soviet Union launched the Mir space station; it remained aloft until March 2001, at which point it de-orbited.

2001 - A museum dedicated to its bombing opened at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City; a national monument was opened on the site of the 1995 attack in October 1997.

2006 - The Rolling Stones gave a free concert on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for an estimated 1.3 million people.
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POPnews - February 18th

[Despite every effort to keep their wedding secret, pop singers Maurice Gibb and Lulu were mobbed by a crowd numbering nearly a thousand - mostly girls and young women - who swarmed around the green Rolls-Royce delivering the bride to St James' Church in Gerrards Cross, west of London; several children were reported injured in the ensuing scuffle by onlookers eager to catch a glimpse of the bride.]
1478 - George, the third Duke of Clarence, having been convicted of treason against his older brother King Edward IV of England, was privately executed in the Tower of London; the event is most famously (if inaccurately) depicted in William Shakespeare's play Richard III.

1797 - Trinidad was surrendered to a British fleet under the command of Sir Ralph Abercromby.

1861 - Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as the provisional President of the Confederate States of America in Montgomery, Alabama.

1865 - Union forces under Major General William T. Sherman set the South Carolina State House on fire during the burning of Columbia.

1885 - Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was published in America for the first time, having been available in the UK and Canada since December 1884.

1901 - Winston Churchill made his maiden speech in the House of Commons as the Member for Oldham.

1930 - While studying photographs he'd taken in January, Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto.

1932 - The Empire of Japan declared Manzhouguo (an obsolete Chinese name for Manchuria) independent from the Republic of China; there they established a puppet regime - better known as Manchukuo - under the nominal leadership of former Chinese Emperor Puyi.

1943 - The Gestapo arrested the members of the White Rose movement - among them Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans Scholl, Alex Schmorell, Willi Graf, and Christoph Probst; all were summarily tried before the Volksgerichtshof, found guilty by Chief Justice Roland Freisler, and executed for distributing anti-Nazi propaganda at Munich University. Other members included the Scholl's sister Inge, who managed to escape the pogrom and lived until September 1998, and their philosophy professor Kurt Huber, who didn't. Huber, like the others, was also arrested, tried, and executed by guillotine at Stadelheim Prison.

1948 - Eamon de Valera resigned as Taoiseach of Ireland.

1957 - Dedan Kimathi, a leader in Kenya's Mau Mau Uprising, was executed by the British colonial government.

1965 - The Gambia became independent from the United Kingdom in the presence of Their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Kent; initially a monarchy within the Commonwealth, in April 1970 the country became a republic under the auspices of that organization.

1969 - Lulu married Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees in a ceremony in Gerrards Cross; they divorced amicably in 1973.

1970 - The Chicago Seven were found not guilty of conspiring to incite riots at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

1983 - Thirteen people died and one was seriously injured in Seattle's Wah Mee Massacre, said to be the largest robbery-motivated mass-murder in US history.

1996 - London was rocked by IRA bombs.

2001 - FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested after he was caught spying for the Soviet Union, although his arrest wouldn't be announced for two days; he was ultimately convicted and sentenced to life in prison.

2003 - Nearly 200 people died in the Daegu subway fire in South Korea.

2005 - The United Kingdom banned fox hunting, hare coursing, and other sports in which domestic animals are used to hunt wild mammals.
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"I'm Gonna Be Strong" by Gene Pitney

Gene Pitney's influence as a songwriter casts a very long shadow indeed over American popular music; so why, then, have I chosen to feature him performing a song he didn't write on what should have been his 71st birthday? Well, because that's just what I'm like!

I'm Gonna Be Strong was originally written by Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil for Frankie Laine in 1963; it was Pitney, though, who made it a hit in 1964, using the same skills which made Town Without Pity such an era-defining smash in 1961. The first time I heard this song, of course, was when Cyndi Lauper included a version of it on her 1994 greatest hits compilation Twelve Deadly Cyns...and Then Some; as is usually the case with material as strong as this, it loses nothing in translation.

Pitney died in April 2006, in the midst of a UK tour.

*Which she'd earlier recorded with her band Blue Angel in 1980.
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Pop History Moment: Jeffrey Dahmer Was Jailed

On this day in 1992 serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer was jailed for life - actually 957 years or 15 concurrent life sentences - in the US for murdering and dismembering 15 young men and boys. He was sent to Columbia Correctional Institution where in November 1994 he was severely beaten alongside fellow inmate Jesse Anderson by Christopher Scarver; Dahmer died en route to hospital, while Anderson died two days later.

If you can stand the passive-agressively homophobic tone, here's the story told from a slightly more livid perspective; as usual, good old Wikipedia has a more reasonable approach.

Obviously, in this man we see the end result of growing up among religious fundamentalists. He got no help when he mutilated animals, he got prayer. When he felt himself beginning to desire other boys he got condemnation rather than the unconditional love promised by Jesus. Following his incarceration he became a born-again Christian rather than expressing remorse. It's easy to judge and despise and condemn such a person; why not do the challenging thing for once, and try to understand him?
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Gratuitous Brunette: Joseph Gordon-Levitt

At first he was just this little pipsqueak named Tommy Solomon on 3rd Rock from the Sun - a funny pipsqueak, with great comedy timing for a kid, but just a kid. Well, it's a funny thing about 13-year-olds... Four years later and suddenly they're 17. I remember the phenomenon well from high school - the short fat kid comes back from summer vacation a tall and thin babe.

Proving he's more than a pretty face, the brilliant work he did on 3rd Rock led him into some interesting theatre and movies - including the much-lauded (500) Days of Summer, opposite the even more lauded Zooey Deschanel - and I always say if you're going to be someone to watch, it doesn't hurt if you're something to look at as well.

Born on this day in 1981 he's now a completely safe age to ogle, which I'm sure I shall continue to do with impunity for many years to come...
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"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" by Green Day

Birthday wishes go out today to Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of pop-punk stalwarts Green Day, whose single Boulevard of Broken Dreams was just one of the great tracks on their seventh album, 2004's American Idiot.

Although it may be hard for people to believe now, Green Day provided the most high-profile criticism of the tyrant George W. Bush as he laid waste to the United States in his efforts to be elected President for the first time, following his judicial coup in 2000; while the press was sleeping the slumber of the overly-contented, Billie Jo and the boys were left to lead the charge alongside Michael Moore.
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Pop History Moment: The New Yorker Is First Published

On this day in 1925 Harold Ross and Jane Grant launched an entirely new kind of magazine, aimed at an entirely new kind of person - the New Yorker. More urbane than the average urbanite, possessed of a more-sophisticated-than-thou attitude - not to mention über-liberal - whether they actually lived in New York was irrelevant; if they couldn't come to Manhattan, Manhattan would henceforth be brought to them.

For more than eighty years, under the varying guidance of half a dozen editors, The New Yorker has remained the gold standard in magazine publishing; contrasting witty cartoons with serious journalism, relying on quality content rather than gimmickiness, you'd think the magpie on crack responsible for anything as ninnified as this blog would be averse to its quality, but you'd be wrong.

Not only do I hover over the girl at the corner store until she shelves it every Friday morning, only to devour every word of each issue as quickly as I can - cartoons first, of course, then articles, interspersed with poems - both The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker and The Complete New Yorker (eight decades' worth of issues on DVD-ROM!) have pride of place in the collection of the Pop Culture Institute.
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POPnews - February 17th

[Try as I might to find colour pictures to accompany POPnews, this week the Internet Photo Gods continue sending me black and white photos instead, meaning you the reader get yet another glimpse at this dull, lifeless surface; still, if this were another blog the dull lifeless surface you'd be looking at would be Paris Hilton... You're welcome!]
1600 - The philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake by the Roman Inquisition at Rome's Campo de' Fiori for teaching such despicable heresies as heliocentrism. Because that's what Jesus would have done.

1621 - Myles Standish was appointed the first military commander of Plymouth Colony.

1801 - An Electoral College tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr was resolved when Jefferson was elected President and Burr Vice President by the US House of Representatives.

1854 - The United Kingdom recognized the independence of the Orange Free State.

1864 - During the American Civil War the H. L. Hunley became the first submarine to engage and sink a warship, in this case the USS Housatonic.

1871 - The victorious Prussian Army paraded though Paris after the end of the Siege of Paris, the principal conflict of the Franco-Prussian War.

1904 - Giacomo Puccini's opera Madama Butterfly (with a libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa) premiered at the Teatro alla Scala in Milan. In the starring roles were Rosina Storchio (as Cio-Cio San), Giovanni Zenatello (as B. F. Pinkerton), and Giuseppe De Luca (as US consul Sharpless). It was, in fact, Puccini's first version of the opera, meant to be performed in two acts; after a disastrous opening, the show was rewritten into three acts, and thereafter flourished.

1913 - The Armory Show opened in New York City, displaying works of artists who were to become some of the most influential painters of the early 20th century.

1933 - The Blaine Act repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, ending Prohibition in the United States; it would be accepted as the Twenty-first Amendment on December 5th.

1936 - The world's first superhero, The Phantom, made his first appearance in comics.

1958 - Pope Pius XII declared Saint Clare of Assisi the patron saint of television.

1959 - Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes survived an air crash a few miles short of the runway at London's Gatwick Airport near the Sussex village of Rusper which killed 12 people.

1965 - As part of NASA's Project Ranger, the Ranger 8 probe was launched on its mission to photograph the Mare Tranquillitatis region of the Moon in preparation for the manned Apollo missions to come; the so-called 'Sea of Tranquility' would eventually become the site chosen for the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

1974 - Robert K. Preston, a disgruntled U.S. Army private, buzzed the White House at 2 AM with a helicopter stolen from nearby Fort Meade, Maryland; neither President Richard Nixon nor any of his family were in residence at the time.

1992 - A court in Milwaukee sentenced serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer to 957 years in prison on 15 counts of first-degree murder.

1995 - Colin Ferguson was convicted of six counts of murder for the December 1993 Long Island Rail Road shootings; he later received a 200+ year sentence.

1996 - In Philadelphia, world champion Garry Kasparov beat the Deep Blue supercomputer in a chess match.

2003 - The London Congestion Charge scheme began.

2008 - Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia.
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"Always" by James Ingram

Birthday wishes go out today to James Ingram, whose 1986 single Always - from his second album, Never Felt So Good - spins the usual soulful sounds that fans of his earlier releases like Baby, Come to Me (a duet with Patti Austin featuring the background vocals of Michael McDonald) and Yah Mo B There had come to expect from him alongside the synth-driven sound of the times.

Ingram later followed up this lesser-known offering with a pair of smashes, including Somewhere Out There (a duet with Linda Ronstadt featured in Steven Spielberg's 1986 movie An American Tail - directed by Don Bluth) and 1990's I Don't Have the Heart.
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Pop History Moment: The Rise of Fidel Castro

On this day in 1959 Fidel Castro was sworn in as the youngest Prime Minister in Cuban history, succeeding José Miró Cardona, whose own resignation from the position was considered sudden. Cardona was later appointed ambassador to Spain by Castro.

Castro's leadership of the 26th of July movement against the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista - originating in 1953 with an attack on the Moncada Barracks - has come to be known as the Cuban Revolution in the five decades since it occurred.

The image* accompanying this post makes reference to various plots by the US government to assassinate the only communist leader in the Americas by means of - among other things - exploding cigars. Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, and Reagan all gunned for him; now they're all dead and he's still alive. Good job there guys.

*On a personal note, the Pop Culture Institute only recently acquired its own copy of the October 1963 issue of Mad magazine shown at right... I mean, seriously. How could we not?
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POPnews - February 16th

[During the aptly named Ash Wednesday fires 2,080 sq. km (513,979 acres) in South Australia and 2,100 sq. km (518,921 acres) in Victoria burned in a single day, with 5,196 sq. km (1,284,000 acres) in all burnt throughout the 1982/83 season; Victoria had 47 deaths, with 28 in South Australia, and 2676 injuries reported in total.]
1279 - Portugal's King Afonso III died; he was succeeded by his son Denis.

1742 - Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, became British Prime Minister.

1804 - Stephen Decatur, Jr. led a successful raid from the ketch Intrepid in Tripoli harbor to burn the pirate-held frigate USS Philadelphia during the First Barbary War.

1899 - France's President Félix Faure died of a fit of apoplexy following an assignation with his mistress Marguerite Steinheil.

1918 - The Council of Lithuania unanimously adopted the Act of Independence, declaring Lithuania an independent state.

1923 - Howard Carter unsealed the burial chamber within the tomb of Egyptian Pharaoh Tutankhamun.

1934 - The Commission of Government was sworn in as form of direct rule for the Dominion of Newfoundland; the Commission governed until March 1949, when Newfoundland 'voted' to join the Canadian Confederation.

1936 - Democratic elections brought a leftist coalition called Popular Front to power in Spain, under the leadership of Manuel Azaña; a right-wing coup staged by Francisco Franco the following July not only unseated them but instigated the Spanish Civil War.

1945 - American forces landed on the Philippine island of Corregidor - at the entrance of Manila Bay - with the intent of recapturing it from the Japanese.

1957 - The so-called Toddlers' Truce - a controversial television closedown between 6 and 7 PM - was abolished in the United Kingdom.

1959 - Fidel Castro was sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba following the overthrow of dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1st.

1968 - In Haleyville, Alabama, the first 9-1-1 emergency telephone system went into service.

1983 - The Ash Wednesday bushfires in Victoria and South Australia claimed the lives of 75 people; they remained the worst wildfires in Australian history until those of 2009.

1985 - The terrorist organization Hezbollah was founded.

1986 - The Soviet ocean liner Mikhail Lermontov ran aground and then sank off New Zealand's Marlborough Sounds, resulting in the death of one crew member; resting at a depth of only 37 metres, the ship is now a popular reef for scuba divers.

1987 - The trial of John Demjanjuk, accused of being a Nazi guard dubbed 'Ivan the Terrible' in Treblinka extermination camp, started in Jerusalem.

1991 - Enrique Bermúdez, leader of the Nicaraguan Contras, was assassinated in Managua by person or persons unknown.

1993 - Australia's first woman Premier, Western Australia's Carmen Lawrence, was voted out of office; she was succeeded by Richard Court.

2005 - The Kyoto Protocol came into force, following its ratification by Russia.
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Happy Birthday Matt Groening

For merely creating Life in Hell, Matt Groening would have earned the eternal gratitude of the Pop Culture Institute; yet those koan-like drawings and their sharp dialogue were only the start... For creating The Simpsons, he's earned our slavish devotion as well, and that he could then complete the hat trick with anything as fine as Futurama has him well on his way to demigod status in our eyes...

All of which leaves me wondering what's next for the Oregonian (born on this day in 1954) whose gentle manner and abundant imagination has populated all of our lives, mainly with dozens of outstandingly blunt - and therefore unforgettable - yellow people.

That the candy-coloured world of Springfield often conceals a bitter or bad-tasting flavour makes it not only trenchant satire but also gives the show the potential to change the world. Tell me my faults and I will tell you you're wrong; show me my faults and make me laugh at them and just maybe I'll change my ways. For all his affable demeanour and studied ordinariness, this seems to be the message at the core of Groening's art, and I know I prefer it to the myriad judgements of religion.

As it is, The Simpsons looks poised to run forever; short of the simultaneous death or dismissal of all of the show's major voices, it seems as though Groening has not so much crafted a sitcom as created a perpetual motion machine, one that must keep moving forward with a shark's grace, feeding at the shoals of the very pop culture it so deftly and humourously skewers.
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"Souled Out" by Conor Oberst

Birthday wishes go out today to Conor Oberst, who was born on this day in 1980; musically and otherwise precocious, Oberst was writing and performing by the age of ten, releasing his own music at 13, and touring with Bright Eyes at 15.

Souled Out originally appeared on Conor Oberst's self-titled 2008 solo album.
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Pop History Moment: FDR Survives Assassination Attempt

[Here we see Anton Cermak, left, with then-Governor of New York Franklin Roosevelt, centre, and his son James Roosevelt, right, at the 1932 World Series in Chicago; FDR was at Wrigley Field on the evening of October 2nd to throw out the first ball of Game 4 during his campaign for the presidency.]
On this day in 1933, Giuseppe Zangara tried to assassinate President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt and ended up shooting Chicago mayor Anton Cermak instead; Roosevelt and Cermak were touring Miami's Bayfront Park at the time of the attack, where a memorial plaque marks the event today. Zangara's original plot had apparently involved killing President Herbert Hoover - since, to his way of thinking, all politicians were the same.

The diminutive assassin was seized by members of the crowd after he'd fired just one shot; in the ensuing melee he shot wildly four more times, injuring four more. Cermak (who was standing on the running board of the car at the time he was fatally wounded) died of peritonitis 19 days later, having famously said to Roosevelt en route to hospital: 'I'm glad it was me and not you, Mr. President'.

Zangara was executed in March 1933 after just ten days on Death Row when he was led to the Florida State Penitentiary's electric chair, Old Sparky; having confessed fully upon his arrest, Zangara remained unrepentant as he met his death.
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World City-Zen: St. Louis

Initially home to Mississippian Mound Builders, on this day in 1765 Pierre Laclède established a trading post on the Mississippi, upriver from the port at New Orleans, which he named for the 13th Century French King Louis IX. As the region changed hands from the Spanish to the French to the Americans, the growing settlement at St. Louis - located near where the Mississippi River and the Missouri River meet - made the colony of Louisiana ever more valuable.

The Louisiana Purchase, negotiated by US President Thomas Jefferson, added 2,147,000 sq. km (or 828,800 square miles) to the fledgling nation* in April 1803; it cost the United States $11,250,000, plus the cancellation of debts worth $3,750,000, for a total cost of $15 million. The transfer was celebrated at St. Louis in March 1804 on the so-called Three Flags Day (which actually took three days).

That wasn't, however, the only momentous event to occur in the city that year - not by a long shot... The Lewis and Clark Expedition departed the city in August 1803 and returned there on September 1806, having made it all the way to the Oregon Coast and back. Aided by the arrival of steamboat traffic in 1817, fur trappers like Ashley's Hundred could reach overseas markets from St. Louis rather than having to go all the way to New Orleans to trade in person.

Missouri became the 24th US state in August 1821, and its principal city was incorporated in December 1822; a fire in May 1847 burnt much of the city (already devastated by a cholera outbreak) to the ground. A steady influx of immigrants meant there was ample labour to rebuild, and quickly; while the Civil War did little militarily to impede the city's growth, it did shut down trade with the South. Fortunately the city's pivotal role as a trade depot to both the Union's army and navy kept it financially solvent during this time.

The Gilded Age, which followed the Civil War, saw the city become headquarters to various huge companies - Ralston-Purina and Anheuser-Busch to name just two - and the city's ambitions at the time were made manifest by two pieces of infrastructure in particular: 1874's Eads Bridge, the first bridge built across the Mississippi, and 1892's Wainwright Building, which lays claim to being the world's first skyscraper**. Home to both the 1904 World's Fair and 1904 Olympic Games - the first Olympics ever held in the United States - the city played a crucial role (culturally and otherwise) during Prohibition and the Great Depression, as much a home to jazz and the blues as it was bootleg hooch.

One of America's more interesting inland cities, the principal icon of St. Louis today is the Gateway Arch, which opened in July 1967.

*Just about doubling its size in the process!
**Both are still extant today.
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"St. Louis Blues" by Bessie Smith

In honour of the founding of Missouri's pre-eminent city, St. Louis, here's the Empress of the Blues herself, Bessie Smith, in a rare (and very raw) filmed performance of St Louis Blues (written by W. C. Handy) from 1929 - which is the only known film footage of one of the 20th Century's most powerful singers.
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POPnews - February 15th

[The most indelible image from the funeral of George VI, on this day in 1952, was the sight of Three Queens - mother, widow, and heir - watching from the platform at Paddington Station in heavy mourning as the body of the King prepared to make its final journey to Windsor Castle.]
399 BCE - Socrates was sentenced to death, having been found guilty of corrupting the minds of the youth of Athens; interestingly, Socrates was the subject of history's first recorded impersonation, having been roundly lampooned in Aristophanes' comedy The Clouds - a tribute which would later contribute to his downfall. Socrates' chosen means of death was drinking a mix of the poisonous hemlock, a demise to which Seneca paid homage at his execution in 65 CE and which I can't help thinking of whenever I find myself walking along Vancouver's Hemlock Street.

1637 - Ferdinand III became Holy Roman Emperor, having already become King of Hungary-Croatia, King of Bohemia, and King of the Romans.

1764 - The city of St. Louis, Missouri, was established by Pierre Laclède de Liguest.

1898 - The USS Maine was sunk in Havana Harbour, killing more than 260, and prompting the Spanish-American War; the cause of the explosion which sank the vessel (and the identities of its perpetrators) remains unknown. Throughout the hostilities that followed 'Remember the Maine' became a well-known battle cry.

1903 - The first Teddy Bear was produced by Morris Michtom; sales of the stuffed animal were so brisk that Michtom (originally proprietor of a candy store in Brooklyn) founded the Ideal Toy Company in 1907.

1906 - The UK's Labour Representation Committee renamed itself the Labour Party after winning 29 seats in the House of Commons, with Keir Hardie among the first members of the new party to take his seat.

1933 - Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate President-elect Franklin Delano Roosevelt at Bayfront Park in Miami; instead he shot Chicago Mayor Anton Cermak, who died 19 days later of his injuries.

1942 - The Fall of Singapore followed an invasion by Japanese forces, and when the British General Arthur Percival surrendered, about 80,000 Indian, British and Australian soldiers became prisoners of war; the largest surrender of British-led military personnel in history also prompted the Sook Ching massacre.

1952 - King George VI was buried in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle following a lying-in-state at Westminster Hall and a State Funeral; currently he rests in the George VI Memorial Chapel, alongside the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret.

1961 - Sabena Flight 548 crashed in Belgium, killing 73, including the entire US Figure Skating team, several coaches and family members.

1965 - The Canadian flag was adopted to replace the Red Ensign; the occasion is marked (or ought to be, anyway) as National Flag of Canada Day.

1971 - British currency was decimalized on Decimal Day.

1976 - The most recent Constitution of Cuba was adopted by a national referendum.

1980 - Television One and Television Two (formerly South Pacific Television) went to air for the first time as the newly created Television New Zealand.

1982 - The oil drilling rig Ocean Ranger sank during a storm off the coast of Newfoundland, killing 84 workers.

1989 - The Soviet Union officially announced that its attempted invasion of Afghanistan - begun in December 1979 - was over, with the last of its troops having left the country.

1991 - The Visegrád Agreement - establishing cooperation to move toward free-market systems - was signed by the leaders of Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland at a summit in the Hungarian castle town of Visegrád.

2003 - Between 8 million and 30 million people demonstrated for peace in more than 600 cities around the world, marking the largest anti-war protest in history.

2005 - YouTube went online.
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"Valentine" by Delays

And why not end Valentine's Day at the Pop Culture Institute with the song Valentine by Delays, which originally appeared on their 2006 second album, You See Colours?
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