A new biography of Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin says the first man in space violated British royal protocol during his visit to England in 1961.
The Guardian has the story that biographer Lev Danilkin claims Yuri Gagarin touched Queen Elizabeth’s knee during breakfast at Buckingham Palace.
Well, honestly, who hasn’t done that? I think it was part of the tour up until about 2003.
Call him Yuri Googarin. Russian astronaut Yuri Gagarin has been rightly saluted with a Google doodle on the 50th anniversary of the day he became the first human in space. (Google founder Sergey Br
Former Massachusetts governor and 2008 Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney announced today that he’s decisively almost to the point of running for the office of U.S. president again.
Today in 1951 United States President Harry S. Truman fired General Douglas MacArthur and relieved him of command of all U.S. forces in Korea.
There was a “police action” going on at the time, which is to say a war.
Sidney Lumet has died at age 86. The director of Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon and 12 Angry Men passed away of lymphoma at his home in New York.A few thoughts about Sidney Lumet from the back row:
Yesterday was the anniversary of the discovery of Kurt Cobain’s body, in 1994. He’d been dead a few days, due to a self-inflicted gunshot wound (they say).
Kurt Cobain and Nirvana were at the height of rock and roll success at the time. Then Kurt was dead and we were left with his grievous widow, Courtney Love, some poorly-recorded live performances and an eternity of the Cult of Kurt Cobain.
Michael J. Fox shares a light moment with his daughter, Esme, atop the Empire State Building on Friday. They were there to throw a switch lighting the building orange and white to raise awareness for The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.
Sweden has announced which internationally famous Swedes will appear on their new banknotes, scheduled for circulation sometime in 2014 or 2015.
A Maverick, a movie director, and a movie director who’s a maverick. All this and Sir David Frost too in today’s rare daily double of birthday twins.
Glenn Beck is ending his daily television show on Fox News.
Our new biography of Duncan Jones is now live. He’s the director of the sci-fi film Moon (2009) and now Source Code (starring Jake Gyllenhaal, as seen above on a Spanish poster).
“I always get on conference calls four minutes late, because it’s not so late that it [irritates people], but it’s just late enough to show how important I am.”Rainn Wilson,
Today is the birthday of English philosopher and royal pal Thomas Hobbes.
Filmmaker Werner Herzog has made a feature-length documentary about the caves and cave paintings in France’s Chauvet cave. The film is called Cave of Forgotten Dreams and examines paintings on the walls that date to around 30,000 years ago.
To hear Werner Herzog talk about his new movie, including the technical challenges he experienced filming in 3D for the first time, listen to this 19 minute podcast from the U.K.’s Picturehouse Blog.
U.S. President William Henry Harrison made history on this day in 170 years ago. How? He became the first president to die while in office.
“This will be my final campaign, at least as a candidate.”So said Barack Obama in an email to supporters this morning, announcing that he’s filing the paperwork to run for president in 2012.
4700 showed up for Charlie Sheen’s live show in Detroit last night. Not many stayed.
No, that’s not the sequel to The King’s Speech.
Angelina Jolie at age 15, in a portrait by photographer Harry Langdon. The shot was part of a large set of Langdon celebrity photos auctioned off last year; the group fetched a total of $122,000.Here’s Angelna Jolie as she looks 20 years later:
Today would have been the 53rd birthday of D. Boon, singer and guitarist for the San Pedro punk band Minutemen back in the 1980s. He died in 1985 at the age of 27, killed in a car crash.
Here’s a video of one of my favorite Minutemen songs, “This Ain’t No Picnic.” It’s funny, it’s short, it’s a typical Minutemen song in theme and execution and it stars their nemesis, then-president Ronald Reagan: