Pop Culture
HISTORY OF THE WHO’s TOMMY Fifty-three years ago today, on May 23, 1969, the British rock group The Who released the double-album rock opera, Tommy. Commercially the record went Gold in the UK and Double Platinum in the US. Several of the songs were released as singles that charted in the Top 20 in both…
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HISTORY OF FRIDAY THE 13TH If you’re reading this article to learn the history of Friday the 13th, you’re in luck. Or perhaps bad luck. No one knows, with any certainty, when it began or why it’s to be feared. However, there are lots of entertaining speculative theories about the topic. What is…
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HISTORY OF THE KING JAMES BIBLE Four hundred eleven years ago marked the publishing, at the request of the Anglican clergy, of what would become the Authorized Version of the Bible to wide acclaim. But there are three problems with that statement. While it is true that the King James Bible was published in 1611…
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While World Tai Chi Day started back in 1999, the history of Tai Chi goes back centuries. Learn the origins and history of this Chinese Martial Art.
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The Super Bowl™ is a territory acquisition athletic contest played on a fixed agrarian grid using, as a token, an inflated porcine prolate spheroid. Some will say it is the most important holiday of the year in America. While it is ostensibly a secular holiday, others argue it is truly a religious holiday. And there…
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HISTORY OF THE BEATLES On February 7, 1964, The Beatles landed at JFK Airport in New York. The airport had recently been renamed by a mourning country in honor of President Kennedy, who had been assassinated just 77 days earlier. The airport was now full of 4,000 greeters. Not realizing why there was such a…
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HISTORY OF PETER PAN All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again. So begins my favorite Walt Disney animated movie, Peter Pan, which debuted 69 years ago today on February 5, 1953. The original movie poster said: “It will live in your heart forever” …and indeed it has. Why was…
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HISTORY OF THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED On February 3, 1959, a plane crash occurred in Iowa during a snowstorm shortly after 1:00 AM, killing three young rock and roll singers who would go down in history: Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson. Their story would later be captured as “long,…
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HISTORY OF THE OLYMPICS While the modern Olympic Games go back to 1896, the ancient Olympic Games reach back as far as 776 B.C. and before. Though historians hang the beginning on that date, it seems the Games had been going on for several centuries before the 8th century B.C. Held initially in Olympia, Greece, the…
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HISTORY OF CHINESE NEW YEAR Today marks the beginning of the Chinese New Year. This is China’s oldest, longest, and most important social and economic holiday. Chinese New Year, which begins the first day of the Chinese lunisolar calendar. It starts this year on February 1, though the celebrations continue for around two weeks. Chinese…
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HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA DAY Did you know that the history of European Australia has ties to the American Revolutionary War? When the 13 American Colonies were part of the British Commonwealth, it was convenient for England to transport its convicts to the Colonies. Indeed, it was considered more humane to “transport” prisoners than to execute…
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HISTORY OF MACINTOSH: A 38 YEAR LOVE AFFAIR The now-famous Macintosh computer turns 38. When Apple President Steve Jobs launched this computer at the Flint Center on De Anza College campus on January 24, 1984, to the theme from Chariots of Fire, he called it “insanely great!” The $1.5M “1984” Super Bowl commercial filmed by…
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