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To me the amazing thing about these stories is how easily these capsules became forgotten. History is a fragile thing. If you don’t record it properly it will be forgotten very quickly.
An evening pause: From the 1955 Jimmy Stewart film Strategic Air Command. The B-36, with both propeller and jet engines, was soon superseded, but the takeoff, as captured so well in the movie, is impressive. It was a big plane.
Hat tip again to Phil Berardelli, author of Phil’s Favorite 500: Loves of a Moviegoing Lifetime.
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I especially like the next to last picture of the Beatles.
DNA experts are now calling into question the recent DNA evidence that supposedly identified Jack the Ripper.
An evening pause: From 1977, some early electronic music.
An evening pause: He plays this with the verge and style of the best bluegrass fiddlers.
Hat tip again to Phil Berardelli.
An evening pause: A classic, and even better if you are familiar with the Marx Brothers movies.
Hat tip to Phil Berardelli.
Link here. The one about MTV was especially funny.
An evening pause: On the anniversary of one of the darkest days of both American history and Western civilization, this simple message echoing down from World War II tells us exactly what we should do.
Hat tip to Tim.
Excitement continues to build as archeologists dig deeper into a massive tomb discovered two years ago in northern Greece.
This past weekend the excavation team, led by Greek archaeologist Katerina Peristeri, announced the discovery of two elegant caryatidsโlarge marble columns sculpted in the shape of women with outstretched armsโthat may have been intended to bar intruders from entering the tomb’s main room. “I don’t know of anything quite like them,” says Philip Freeman, a professor of classics at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa.
The curly-haired caryatids are just part of the tomb’s remarkable furnishings. Guarding the door as sentinels were a pair of carved stone sphinxes, mythological creatures with the body of a lion and the head of a human. And when archaeologists finally entered the antechamber, they discovered faded remnants of frescoes as well as a mosaic floor made of white marble pieces inlaid in a red background.
Archeologists believe this tomb is connected somehow to Alexander the Great and could very well be the burial site of one of his relatives or close allies. They will not know more until they actually enter the tomb.
Link here. Many of these could easily be an evening pause, other than the fact that they don’t have visuals. If you want to get a feel for the beginnings of electronic music, check them out. The styles range from space music to jazzy. The sampling even includes the electronic music from Forbidden Planet (1956), one of the best science fiction films ever made. I have put one as an example below the fold.
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