Singer Brian's first duty with the band after Bon Scott's tragic death in Feb 1980. AC/DC at this point was nervous & uncertain about their future but Brian's distinctive raspy & gritty/gravel-voiced aggression clicked and all expectations were surpassed, completely erasing the initial jitters. From the opening track's ominous tolling bell meant as a solemn salute & farewell to their fallen comrade, to the closer's claim of defiant persistence, BIB was an instant hit of driving hard rock with some raunchy humor that saw an already sizeable fanbase grow larger still. It sold an impressive 5 million copies worldwide and from the immediate success, would go on to be one of the genre's milestone albums of the decade. Happy 45th Anniversary.

JUL 24, 1911: Yale University lecturer & untrained archaeologist Hiram Bingham re-discovers Machu Picchu, the 15th Century Lost City of the Incas (formerly called Vilcapampa) in the Andes mountain region of Peru where the last Incan Emporers found refuge from the Spanich conquistadors, and with most of its inhabitants having died from smallpox. The city had first been found by farmer Agustín Lizárraga in Jul 1902 and had families settled there due to the abundant fertile grounds. Between 1904-05, the families were moved on the promise of new more productive lands to leave Machu Picchu as a sacred place. Lizárraga died in Feb 1912. In 1909 after returning from a Pan-American Scientific Congress in Chile, Bingham travelled through Peru on an invitation to explore Incan ruins. In 1911, he organized an Expedition to search for the legendary capital which he thought was the city of Vitcos (Rosaspata) but later learned was Macchu Picchu which was believed to be unreachable. After the Expedition met local villagers, they were guided to a mountain top which was covered in the vegetation of thick jungle undergrowth except for cleared agricultural terraces used as vegetable gardens. Taking notes, measurements and observing stonework they moved to other locations until visitation brought them to the proper undisturbed spot. When he returned in 1912, 1914 and 1915, he was sponsored by the National Geographic Society which had played a significant role in publicizing his findings of the Lost City and its temple grounds to the world -- particularly through the magazine's 1913 special issue that published photographs such as ceremonial knives made from bronze, wooden cups, statues, pottery, jewelry, a charcoal inscription left by Lizárraga in 1902, and skeletal remains thought to be victims of human sacrifice. [Landowners had accused Bingham of stealing & smuggling the precious treasures but they had been obtained legally in accordance with an 1852 Civil Code law, and placed in a museum under the explanation of needing to be studied by experts in American institutions. Some critics argued the removals deprived Peruvian explorers of knowledge about their own history. Originally meant to be kept only 18 months, the dispute wasn't settled until Nov 2012 when the last of all the taken items was returned to Peru]. In 1916 during WWI, Bingham joined the military's Air Service. Beginning in 1922, he then entered politics and served as a Connecticut US Senator until 1933. He died in Jun 1956. In Dec 1983, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) designated Macchu Picchu a world heritage site. Today as Peru's most popular tourist attraction, it receives some 4500 visitors per day and upwards of 1.5 million every year, generating nearly $40 million annually.

JUL 23, 1992: Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger leads a Vatican Commission which establishes that the limiting of certain rights to homosexuals & non-married couples is not equivalent to discrimination on the same grounds as race or gender. In Oct 1986 as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), he sent a letter that condemned a previous liberal interpretation of another earlier CDF document's benign attitude on gay sexual ethics. His reasoning clarified that while the Catholic Church's position didn't particularly view the inclination of a homosexual as sin, the more or less strong tendency of its practice was an intrinsic moral evil that made the inclination itself an objective disorder. The letter also condemned homophobic speech & violence as deplorable and that Church pastors should denounce such treatment wherever it occurs. Ratzinger again repeated these views in 1992 and felt the principles should be extended into civil law, declaring again that sexual orientation was not equivalent to race or ethnicity and thus taking sexuality into account was not unjust prejudice. Ratzinger was made a Cardinal in Jun 1977 and went onto become Pope Benedict XVI in Apr 2005. As Pontiff, he made controversial speeches about gender roles & traditional heterosexual marriage saying how men needed protection from self-destruction and to adhere to the social role as set by the Creator. Such remarks were often heavily criticized by anti-Conservative LGBTQ groups as misogynist bigoted intolerance and although his words didn't always necessarily mention homosexuality or same-sex union by name, the interpretation of his submissive views would still be characterized by many as hateful hyperbole on par with his claiming they were an equal threat to world peace just as much as he considered abortion & euthanasia to be. He died in Dec 2022. Religious theological scholars continue to argue over the Bible's calling of homosexuality as Old Testament doctrinal purists recite its quote of "abomination", while they are pitted against new ecclesiastical revisionists who say the original Leviticus interpretation of disapproval/rebuke is a twisting of scripture.

R.I.P. Ozzy Osbourne. 1948-2025.

JUL 22, 1951: Russian space dogs Dezik and Tsygan become the first dogs to fly in space & safely return unharmed when they are launched into sub-orbital flight from the Kapustin Yar rocket complex east of Volgograd. The Soviet space program had used the animals to test whether human spaceflight was feasible. Female mixed-breed dogs were preferred due to their easier temperment, weight of 15lb, anatomical compatibilty with their outfitted module spacesuit (with acrylic glass bubble helmet), and for their endurance of long periods of inactivity. Dezik and Tsygan were sent in a Soviet R-1 missile (a copy of the German V-2 in WWII), experienced weightlessness for 4 minutes and fell back to earth in a parachute where they were then fed water, sausages & sugar by lead rocket engineer Sergei Korolev out of excitement for their survival. In Sept, Dezik was again sent to space with a dog named Lisa but both were killed when their parachutes failed to deploy. Shortly after, Tsygan was retired, adopted and went on to have 2 litters of puppies. Some 57 dogs on atleast 69 flights were sent to space between Jul 1951 to Feb 1966 with many flying more than once, and predominantly in pairs. [Laika in Nov 1957 flying in the Sputnik 2 was both the first solo dog and first creature to orbit the plant. She died in her capsule 5-7hrs into the flight from stress & overheating with the cause of death not made public until Oct 2002]. The dogs were flown to maximum altitudes of 62, 200 & 280 miles and were contained in pressurized cabins. Most survived but with 60% reportedly suffering from constipation & gallstones upon arrival back at base. Those that died (estimated at 15) were mostly through technical malfunctions. Other animals the Russians later sent into space were mice & rats, rabbits, monkeys & chimpanzees, and fruit flies.

WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Remar, Miranda Otto, Amber Valleta, Joe Morton, Wendy Crewson
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Released July 21, 2000 (Happy 25th Anniversary)
Dr. Norman Spencer is a university genetic research scientist married to Claire, a retired concert pianist who was in a serious, near-fatal car crash the previous year. Their daughter (Norman's stepdaughter) has just left home for college. Claire is bored & lonely and has taken to spying on the neighbors next door, the Feurs. With binoculars in hand, she is fascinated with the movements of the couple, and then convinces herself that the aloof Warren Feur is an abuser who has murdered his wife, Mary, when she seemingly vanishes without a trace. Sensing their own under-renovation Vermont home is inhabited by a forceful presence, Claire begins hearing voices and experiencing eerie incidents involving doors, mirrors, picture frames, their startled dog barking at the unseen -- and particularly unsettling -- seeing the face of a similar-looking young woman reflected in water (first in the nearby lake and later in the bathtub). Are the unexplainable voices & visions real, or is it all a projection of her subconscious, stirred up by a snooping obsession that got out of hand? When Claire tells her gruff workaholic husband of the occurrences, he is dismissive and emotionally unsupportive but she won't drop it, so he urges her to see a therapist. When she tells Doc that she believes a ghost is haunting her house, he advises making contact with the spirit. [Seriously. A trained & licensed professional psychiatrist is recommending to a highly vulnerable and suggestible patient, unstable & unhinging, that to probe her fears beyond being an extraordinary figment of imagination, damn the torpedoes and seek out this phantom by implement & procedure. Go on, indulge. Allow yourself to reach into the paranormal domain populated by scary boogeymen... Jesus. Welcome to 2000 and the new millennium].

Claire tells all to her flaky best friend, Jody, who provides the light comic relief in contrast to the brooding suspense. One ouija board later, the ladies hold a séance in the bathroom. But whatever this apparition, it will not go away. In her growing terror, Claire was sure that Mary's ghost was stalking her to reveal the truth of her death at the hands of foul play but that certainty proved false. The mystery of the unusual phenomena however reveals someone else entirely -- a girl named Madison Elizabeth Frank (introduced by Claire's computer turning itself on and the initials 'MEF' typing themselves repeatedly). The entity revs up in malevolence and now has a bone to pick with Norman, who in a few instances of observing spirit-possession take hold of his wife's body, himself begins wondering if his eyes & brain are playing tricks on him. Learning of Madison, Claire visits the girl's mother and accuses Norman of betrayal. He confesses having had an affair but when he broke it off, she threatened killing herself or Claire, and then disappeared. Jody knew about it too but said nothing fearing her bestie would harm herself and turn suicidal. Water now plays its deadly final hand as guilt drives Norman to the bathtub with a hairdryer to electrocute himself, and Claire to the wharf to drown herself. Husband is saved by wife, who in turn is saved by husband. A jewelry box that Claire spotted in the lake is retrieved by her and a key that she found earlier in a floor vent, unlocks it to reveal a clue as to what really happened to Madison. Norman tells the truth at last but when he pretends to call the police with information about the still-missing girl, Claire is attacked by him and in a relentless fight for her life, she races to keep from becoming another buried secret.

The storytelling has a clearly Hitchcock-style with its themes of doubt, delusion and deceit, obviously playing peekaboo with REAR WINDOW. As well, we also have one of Hitchcock's favourite framing mechanisms (besides using blondes as female leads): presenting the surface as an exterior mask before we unveil to reveal disturbing interior. (Hence the movie's title). On the outside, Norman (whose name alone in the Hitchcock-verse should be a dead giveaway that he is an illusion of innocence) and Claire look like a picture-perfect pairing but they have this considerable baggage underneath the coating of happiness, and what unravels leaves us with 2 people who are suddenly strangers to each other, unable to trust their partner. The direction makes good use of imagery and noise, and keeps you second-guessing with sudden turns. For those that might find WHAT LIES BENEATH contrived, I say the redemption lies in the more than effective acting. Michelle Pfeiffer as Claire is in almost every scene and does a great job making the viewer believe that Claire is heavily invested in everything happening to her. Her need to understand makes her sympathetic without overdoing it. Not an easy balance. The always reliable Harrison Ford as Norman is also solid in a satisfying departure from his more familiar 'reluctant-hero-swept-into-action' fare. Playing against type, he needs to be something other than what he seems and he pulls it off. In total, the movie is not altogether unpredictable and its trailers are far more to blame for ruining plot developments and character revelations, but this fault aside (thanks to marketing jackasses for the bad promo teasers), it's still very watchable enough to keep you hanging on -- and even as the restlessness begins to run off the rails, the resolution is reasonable.

JUL 21, 1951: In one of aviation's long history of missing aircraft, Canadian Pacific Air Lines Flight 3505 disappears while flying from Vancouver to Tokyo. The plane was a Douglas DC-4 four-engined transoceanic civilian commercial airliner which carried 31 passengers & 6 veteran crew operating on behalf of a United Nations combined Canadian/American airlift during the Korean War in which both air forces were part of a peacekeeping mission landing & dropping supplies, conducting urgent medivac rescues, and providing soldier & paratroop transport. In between the destination was a stopover in Alaska with weather reported to have been dense cloud cover, heavy rain & icing conditions. From this point onward nothing was heard from 3505 and there was never a distress signal. After an emergency warning was issued when it failed to report, an extensive search was carried out by both air forces, helicopters, patrol boats, and radar station sweeps all in freezing conditions of dangerous terrain but neither the plane, wreckage, or the occupants were ever found. Amidst speculation of navigational distortion from atmospheric interference causing mechanical failure, sabotage, Russian interception & even defection, the exhaustive search was called off in Oct, declared inexplicably lost. A vanishing that made no sense and baffled investigators, 3505 fueled cover-up rumors cloaked in ominous espionage plots hidden behind top secret classified files; clandestine technology experiments testing signal jamming with inadvertent fatal conseqeneces; and the carrying of other stealth cargo as part of covert military activity. The haunting mystery of what really happened became a quiet chilling footnote with many concluding the flight went down in a storm having crashed in an a tragic accident. In 1974, the UK's CAA (Civil Aviation Authority) stated 3505's cause could not be determined. In 2023, a privately funded scientific research team studying melting glaciers from an Alaskan National Park turned up physical remnants of human machinery (twisted aluminum beams, a battered wheel with treads of landing gear, and a partially intact fuselage panel with a CF- serial marking that was an exclusive designation reserved for Canadian aircraft) found in shattered blocks of ice. No official confirmation was given to the artifacts as they were considered too fragmented for conclusive identifaction, and no deeper excavation took place as the area was deemed too unstable. Later, some other debris (rusted buckles & a torn scrap of canvas) were photographed by the team with many analysts believing that although without irrefutable proof & evidence, the Alaskan glacier region is the closest possibility in a hope of discovering 3505's remains once & for all.

JUL 20, 1977: The CIA releases nearly 20,000 documents under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) revealing it had engaged in the illegal operations of mind-control experimentation in its Project MKUltra program. MK saw the administering of psychoactive drugs, amphetamines, heroin & mescaline used in interrogations often for forced confessions through brainwashing & psychological torture. The revelations were first revealed to the public in the 1975 Church Committee Senate hearings and President Gerld Ford's Rockefeller Commission of Inquiry into the practices of the Intelligence agencies. The exposures brought backlash & condemnation for the violations against individual rights and the CIA's abuse of power contrary to democratic principles. During this investigation, it was hampered by CIA director Richard Helms who scared from the Watergate scandal, had ordered files destroyed since 1973 from sworn testimony of direct participants speaking against him. MK had started in 1953 under its director Sidney Gottlieb and was halted in 1973 after 20yrs of especially using LSD alongside other methods such as hypnosis, sensory deprivation, electroshocking and sexual blackmail (such as Operation Midnight Climax's safehouse brothels equippied with one-way mirrors & prostitutes on the payroll). As well as co-ordination with the US Army Biological Warfare Laboratories (who had studied the captured records of Japan's infamous Unit 731 in WWII), the scope of activities extended into military institutions, hospitals, prisons, colleges & universities, and pharmaceutical companies all as front organizations. The 1977 cache exposed a long background including Nazi scientists in the early 1940's using barbituates, morphine & hallucinogens which the CIA's predecessor, the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) followed suit in 1943 to develop their own experiments that saw the US Navy's Project CHATTER in 1947 use LSD in its interrogations and recruitment of agents. In Apr 1953, CIA director Allen Dulles (brother of US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles) used mind control drugs & the scopalomine truth serum in response to the alleged 'Manchurian Candidate' techniques used by the Russians, Chinese and North Koreans during the Korean War. In the early 1950's, the CIA avoided criminal conduct prosecutions by using blacksites (detention camps) in West Germany, Japan & the Philippines for its use of torture and in Jan 1957, MK had outsourced its research to Canada under the direction of psychiatrist Dr. Donald Ewen Cameron in Montreal. Unethically using the guise of attempting to treat schizophrenia, anxiety disorders and clinical depression, his manipulative treatments on mental patients left many suffering permanent damaging effects such as amnesia, forgetting how to talk and urinary incontinence. By the 1960's the CIA & Department of Defense were carrying out experiments on American citizens and devising schemes to drug Cuba's Fidel Castro. As well, MK had created its MKSEARCH continuation branch in a joint venture with the US Army Chemical Corps. In Mar 1971 there were some 26,000 potential MK agents awaiting future screening and in MK's last year of 1973, the CIA were funding over 150 research subprojects. Due to its sinister nature and the destruction of most of its records, MKUltra has long been tied to conspiracy theories such as the Aug 1951 Pont-Saint-Esprit mass poisoning in France which was a foodborne illness incident that affected 250 people in the town, killing 7. [Ergot poisoning from contaminated rye flour in bread at a bakery was to blame but a controversial 2010 book claimed that American bacteriologist Frank Olson with the USBWL was involved in the event, and died in Nov 1953 after jumping out of a 10th-floor hotel window. In 1994, his body was exhumed & his death ruled a homicide with his family claiming he was murdered because of the moral crisis he underwent in questioning his work and that with his personal knowledge, he became a security risk with fears of him turning whistleblower]. Many famous subjects have been linked to MK including Jim Jones, Charles Manson, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, assassin Sirhan Sirhan, Boston crime boss Joseph 'Whitey' Bulger, beat poet Allen Ginsberg, author Ken Kesey, the Grateful Dead's Robert Hunter, and American tennis player Harold Blauer. In Jan 2025, 1200pgs of further declassified MK documents was released.

40YRS AGO TODAY

JUL 19, 64 AD: The Great Fire of Rome rages for 6 days (and a re-ignition that burned for another 3 more) resulting in widespread devastation & over three quarters of the city destroyed. The fire had started in merchant shops around the Circus Maximus chariot stadium as flammable stored goods had been ignited causing embers & flames to spread rapidly as they were carried by strong fanning night winds. Through narrow twisting streets & tightly packed apartment blocks, the conflagration expanded which drove many into open fields & rural roads outside the city. As vulnerable Rome had suffered a number of previous fires, the common place nature of the earlier disasters had led to the funding of a fire brigade, the demolition of buildings to create a natural fire break, and for the city's Curator Aquarum (Water Commissioner) to oversee the repairing of aqueducts, but looters & arsonists were reported to be acting in groups under orders, and intentionally prevented help by interfering with some fighting the inferno. Emporer Nero was said to be in the coastal town of Antium, 35 miles south of Rome, when the fire broke out. When he returned, he organized relief having brought in food supplies and opened gardens & public buildings as shelters to accomodate the surviving inhabitants, provided corpse removal, rebuilt infrastructure and raised taxation on the Empire provinces by devaluing Roman currency to cover the costs. The long-standing historical account of the Great Fire is that Nero had fiddled while the city was ablaze owing to his nature of being an impulsive tyrant having come to power in In Oct 54 AD at age 16. [Allegedly encouraged by his mistress Poppea, he had his mother Agrippina murdered and later dismissed his top advisor Seneca who had fallen out of favor and was forced to commit suicide. Poppea herself died in 65 AD rumored to have been kicked to death while pregnant but more likely from a miscarriage]. It is disputed whether or not he started the fire -- supposedly to clear space for a new palace Domus Aurea (Golden House) as well as his separate personal residence that included a 2.5 km² extension. Claims that he ordered the ruination have fed arguments in his quickness to rebuild in the ostentatious Greek style. The counterpoint to such treachery however is that even if Nero had greedy designs on ownership and urban planning for grand temples & statues, a deliberate fire at the expense of innocent lives lost still wouldn't have been necessary as he could've just easily requsitioned necessary land of which most was already in his possession. The enduring accusations have combined in 6 main stories: (1) Nero's intention was to destroy Rome by sending out men pretending to be drunk who set the fires while watching in his palace on the Palatine Hill, singing & playing the lyre. (2) The men were sent out and he watched from the Tower of Maecenas on the Esquiline Hill while singing. (3) The men were sent out and during the fires, he supposedly sang in stage costume from a private play. (4) The city's destruction was plotted allowing him to bypass the Senate and for the reconstruction to satisfy his extravagance & vanity. (5) Nero had started the fire and blamed the Christians out of his penchant for cruelty & punishment with many arrested and atleast 1000 killed either by crucifixion or torn apart by hunting dogs as spectator entertainment. (6) The fire was indeed an accident while Nero was in Antium and there was no conspiracy. Nero died in Jun 68 AD.

After a 22yr career, ¡AA! was the 14th & final studio album by the 3-chord New Yorkers. After this tour and its final show in Los Angeles in Aug 1996 that was filmed for the LP & video 'We're Outta Here!', the band officially broke up. ¡AA! was their 3rd album on Radioactive Records after leaving previous label Sire due to poor saless & lack of chart success. While bassist Dee Dee had left after 1989's 'Brain Drain', 6 of his songs appeared here alongside covers of TOM WAITS, JOHNNY THUNDERS, the hidden track 'Spiderman' and different versions of ¡AA! that included the band's bonus track covering the MOTORHEAD tribute to them, 'R.A.M.O.N.E.S'. The album cover art of 2 dinosaurs wearing sombreros is digitally altered from a painting of the creatures originally wearing yellow witch hats with guitarist Johnny adding that the dinosaurs are what they felt like. ¡AA! was an admirable bowing out that had recaptured some lost spark and thankfully did not end in embarassment. Happy 30th Anniversary. R.I.P Joey (Jeffrey Hyman), Johnny (John Cummings) and Dee Dee (Douglas Colvin).

JUL 18, 1925: Adolf Hitler publishes Mein Kampf (My Struggle) which outlines his political beliefs, ideologies, envisioned plans for Germany's future, and world conquest. Hitler began writing while imprisoned for his failed coup -- the Beer Hall Putsch -- in Munich in Nov 1923 of which he was tried for high treason and sentenced to 5yrs behind bars in Apr 1924 but released in Dec after serving just 9 months. The Nazis had gained their first national attention & propaganda victory and a 2nd volume was published in 1926 to which after intial slow sales, it surged & became a best seller in Germany following Hitler's rise to power in Jan 1933 earning him $1.2 million. [In 1928, he wrote a 200pg unedited transcript called Hitler's Second Book centering mostly on foreign policy and was written as a clarification due to misunderstandings of his objectivess. Only 2 copies of the document were made which were never published. Deemed highly secret, it was locked in a safe in an air raid shelter in 1935 and not found until 1945 by an American officer. It was only published in Munich in 1961, saw a pirated English version in New York in 1962 and was officially translated to an English version in 2003]. Hitler had originally wanted to title Mein Kampf 'Four and a Half Years of Struggle Against Lies, Stupidity and Cowardice' but was convinced to shorten it. As one of the world's most controversial volatile books authored by one of history's darkest figures, Mein Kampf's main thesis is antisemitism rooted in a Jewish world domination conspiracy twinned with the evil of Communism. Alongside his vitriol, the Weimar Republic and Socialists & Marxists destroying the parliamentary system are to blame for Germany's woes. His warped sense of obsession with Aryan superiority & ethnic purity are long tirades of destructiveness for laced throughout are several passages on racial laws, unification of all Germanic peoples, lebensraum (living space) in the East, heavy anti-Slav sentiment with the terminology "untermensch" (subhuman), and the justification for persecution & extermination. As it was written largley for his followers, after he became Führer, Hitler tried to distance himself from the book, dismissing it as "fantasies behind bars... If I had had any idea in 1924 that I would have become Reich Chancellor, I never would have written the book". During 1930's Germanmy, it was in high demand in libraries, frequently reviewed & quoted in newspapers, and given free to newlywed couples & soldiers. By 1939, it had sold 5.2 million copies in 11 languages. Considered a blueprint/manifesto that established the Holocaust because of its call for the annihilation of Bolshevism & Judaism, Mein Kampf's prevailingly overt racism was naturally criticized -- American journalist John Gunther called it vapid & vain of tedious length, Austrian scholar Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn said it was absurdist & lacking original thinking with no offering of innovative ideas, British writer George Orwell described the writing as often clumsy in continuous threatening manner, and fascist ally Benito Mussolini said it was, "a boring tome that I have never been able to read with little more than commonplace clichés". The biggest primary criticism has come from numerous translators commenting on Hitler's poor quality of barely a trace of language, hardly the faintest similarity to a thought and inability to express his opinions articulately -- all with the original unabridged German text that basically amounted to the book being an incoherent soup. The critics have also remarked on a deception that since previous translations corrected jumbled & rambling speech, this action in itself is a false impression to make Hitler appear as a cultured man who was coherent & gramatically correct in his reasoning. In conclusion, to make his text elegant when it never was is ultimately a sham. At WWII's end in 1945, the book had sold roughly 12 million copies but its existence & circulation would remain complicated. Atleast 4 English translations were made with not all receiving a formal seal of approval from the original Nazi Party publishers. Ater Hitler's death, his wealth & residence in Munich was left to the German state which passed to the Bavarian government who refused to allow any copying or republishing until Jan 2016 when the copyright expired and 85,000 copies were sold. Reprintings immediately prompted public debate & divided reactions from Jewish groups worried about neo-Nazi appropriation that would glorify Hitler & stir Holocaust denial. Some bookstores wanted an outright ban stating their adamant refusal to carry it while others such as local administrator/executives argued for limited access without advertisement. Currently, a 2-volume & 2000pg German annotated new edition of Mein Kampf contains some 3500 notes while a shorter 1000pg French edition has more side commentary than Hitler's actual full text. To date, the book is banned in Hitler's birth country of Austria, and while generally avoided is still promoted by several European right-wing extremist groups.

JUL 17, 1945: In WWII's last major gathering of the 3 main allied leaders, Winston Churchill joined by Joseph Stalin & Harry Truman all meet at a Conference in the German city of Potsdam (changed from the first-proposed location of Berlin) to decide the future of the recently defeated Nazi nation. The 2 previous Conferences of Tehran in Nov/Dec 1943 and Yalta in Feb 1945 had been military strategy gatherings and discussions for Europe's reorganization. [The other summits had been the Aug 1941 Atlantic Charter, Jan 1943 Casablanca, Aug 1943 First Quebec, Nov 1943 First Cairo, Dec 1943 Second Cairo and Sept 1944 Second Quebec. Other locations were Moscow, Washington, Bermuda and Malta]. Potsdam was in the Soviet-controlled sector of Germany who had unconditionally surrendered in May 1945. In a purpose to avoid the crucial mistakes of the 1919 Paris Conference, the big 3 (Britain, Russia & the USA) were set upon planning postwar peace and the governing of Germany to be divided into 4 occupation zones with the 4th power being France -- who having been excluded from the Conference had bitterly refused to accept any of its obligations to abide by agreements and reseverved the right to block any policy & institutional proposals that could lead to a future unified Germany. The original participants had changed as Truman had become US President after the death of Franklin Roosevelt back in Apr, and while during the talks, Churchill was defeated in a British general election as Prime Minster that saw his Conservatives (mostly in a coalition government for the war's duration) ousted and him being replaced by Labour's Clement Attlee. During Potsdam that also involved the allied foreign ministers, Truman was secretly informed of the Trinity atomic bomb test as part of the Manhattan Project's successful development. Always suspicious of Stalin, he still hinted to him about the creation & use of a new weapon against Japan but the Russian leader had already learned of the bomb through espionage & intelligence since 1941. Other items on the agenda included Poland and the Eastern Bloc satellite states remaining in a Communist sphere, the Baltic States remaining reincorporated in the USSR, Vietnam to be partitioned, the Russians to launch an invasion on Japanese-held areas, and co-operation with China's Chiang Kai-shek to outline Japan's surrender in Asia. From ensuing various declarations & councils, German demilitarization & disarmament was to be followed by a program of denazification with all fascist laws abolished & outlawed; war criminals to be put on trial that resulted in the Nuremberg proceedings from Nov 1945 to Oct 1946; Austria to also be divided into 4 occupation zones with the capitals of Berlin & Vienna similarly divided into 4 sectors; all former German annexations to be reversed; German populations in conquered countries subject to orderly & humane expulsion; the German judicial, educational & political system to adopt democratic ideals; war reparations to be received from the occupation zones, and German industrial war potential to be destroyed with aircraft factories & shipyards dismantled. Within 18 months of Potsadm, allied relations with the Soviets had soured considerably, and the diplomatic deterioration led directly to the emergence of the Cold War.

JUL 16, 1439: Medieval Britain bans kissing in an attempt to halt the deadly spread of bubonic plague that began around Jun 1348, fiercely swept through Asia, Europe and North Africa in the Middle Ages, and would come to be called the Black Death that by its end in 1353 wound up killing an estimated 50 million people. Symptoms of the plague inluded headaches; high fever & chills; skin discoloration; blackening of fingers & toes; chest pains; severe cough; nausea & vomiting of blood; swollen lymph nodes; painful muscle aches; and weakness & fatigue. 80% of victims died within 2-8 days after infection. The first quarantine is said to have began in 1377 (also the start of the intermittent Hundred Years War against France from May 1377 to Oct 1453) as people became more aware of the need for keeping distance from rampant transmission of the disease through bacteria. While the country had seen many major military victories, it was also grappling with territorial loss and a huge strain on resources. By the 15th Century, the fearful pandemic kept returning (also involving septicemic & pneumonic plague) in spontaneous outbreaks spread by fleas & rats with England in particular suffering mounting fatalities. In the Great Famine of 1438 with an already malnourished populace shattered by poor harvests and ruined immune systems, the further unhygienic environment contributed to entire families & villages being wiped out. King Henry VI ordered his prohibition as kissing was a common type of greeting that he wanted stopped, and to uphold his Catholic puritanism of enforcing moral order. As the Church was influencing societal norms & behaviors of the era, Henry chose to outlaw this specific expression of affection as twin extensions of religious adherence and concerns over public health. In attempting to curb inappropriate lascivious conduct, Henry's decree sparked a range of reactions from widespread uproar to clandestine romances -- all expressions of resistance against monarchical power intruding on individual private lives. In whisperings of the royal court, his piety may have had more to do with his awkwardness with women than the danger of germs. With the governmental intervention, it is believed that penalties for violation ranged from shaming to jailing. Many later argued that the kissing ban was an infringement on personal freedom and overstepped ruling authority thus defiantly testing the very boundaries between compliance & rebellion. Henry died in May 1471.

JUL 15, 2006: Microblogging social network platform Twitter is officially launched. First founded by tech entrepreneurs in Mar in San Francisco with the original proposed domain name twttr, the site's predominant purpose was created for the sharing of short text messages, pictures & videos in posts called "tweets" with user content also including direct messaging, video & audio calling, the creation of multiple-themed communities and job searching. Posts were initially limited to 140 characters but changed to 280 in 2017, and have been placed in 6 categories -- pointless babble, conversational, pass-along value, self-promotion, spam and news. As a project that was built on earlier separate templates such as MySpace then Facebook, and links to Flickr, Tumblr, Photobucket and Imgur, it would spawn growing competition in fellow rivals WhatsApp, Instagram, Snapchat and TikTok. The silhouette cartoon bird logo used rom 2012-23 was named "Larry the Bird" after the Boston Celtics player. Twitter began to shift its focus onto larger multimedia livestreaming programs in pro sports, politics extending into protests & civil dosobedience, music and celebrity entertainment. In May 2022, Twitter was fined $150 million by the Federal Trade Commission and the US Department of Justice for collecting users' contact details for use in targeted advertising. After Buisnessman Elon Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion in Oct 2022, he rebranded it 'X' in Mar 2023 and to date, its largest complaints remain that trending topic algorithms mishandles misinformation; spreads disinformation; intensifies trolling harassment, hate speech & antisemitism; fosters conspiracy theories; stifles journalists and allows for the proliferation of malicious fake accounts. As well, the company has been criticized for poor security and questionable privacy that enables hackers & phishing attacks, and is subject to ongoing debate about censorship in its allowance of pornographic content that has been blasted for ineffective flagging of child sexual exploitation and steerage to OnlyFans which caters to sex workers. In the courts, Twitter-X has been successful in winning lawsuits but has also had to pay settlements in the hundreds of millions for non-compliance with laws & regulations. In demographic ratios, X is used mostly by adults with users aged 12-17 making up just 2% of the traffic. Men dominate the platform by 61% compared to women at 39%. In racial breakdown statistics, whites are the largest group followed by black then hispanic/latino. Overall, the USA is the largest active country with Japan next then India. It is estimated that 15% of all Twitter accounts (approx. 48 million) are run by internet bots (automated software), and that atleast 500 million tweets are posted daily translating to roughly 6,000 tweets per second. Shared retweets & replies make up the vast majority of usage at 82%. After Facebook, Twitter is the highest used & most-visited electronic web-based platform in the world and is presently banned in China, Russia, North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Myanmar, and Venezuela.

JUL 14, 1983: Nintendo launches its popular Mario Bros. video game in Japan and the arcade & home entertainment versions are receiced to positive fanfare. The game features twin Italian plumber brothers Mario & Luigi (both in blue overalls & with bushy moustache but Mario in red cap and Luigi wearing green) who exterminate turtle & crab creatures emerging from pipes in a labyrinth sewer complex to which the animals are knocked upside down & kicked away. The brothers are running & jumping along platforms. As the enemies are defeated, higher phase levels increase with difficulty to which players can use spinning bonus coins, and players lose if making contact with fireballs or icicles. The ensuing Mario Bros. franchise actually began as a spinoff from Donkey Kong whose Jul 1981 debut was immediately following the success of Pac-Man in May 1980 that saw the video arcade revolution take off with surrounding games such as Space Invaders, Asteroids, Missile Command and Frogger. Mario first appeared in Donkey Kong as a carpenter (sometimes referred to as the 'Jumpman') in fitting with the construction site background of having to climb ladders & vines to run along beams while a huge gorilla drops barrels that Jumpman has to dodge by jumping over, and collecting items like a hammer to keep powering up. Once at the top beam, he has to rescue his damsel-in-distress girlfriend Pauline. Players begin with 3 lives which are lost if an obstacle is touched or Jumpman falls. Different accounts of how Jumpman became Mario are either an Italian-American landlord named Mario Segale had barged into a Ninentendo meeting at the headquarters in Kyoto and demanded rent resulting in the company staff naming him as the original mascot, or that Nintendo's President named the character after Seagle who was said to have been a recluse that no one had ever met. Before entering Japanese mass market production, Mario Bros. had first appeared at an arcade convention in Chicago earlier in Mar. with Nintendo owning the rights in Japan while licensing overseas to the Atari, Inc. developer/home computer system founded in Jun 1972 whose consoles would revolutionize the video game industry. Initial sales were modest with sales of arcade cabinets in the USA reaching 3800 in the first month but the quick rising purchasing of home cartridges for Atari's main rivals Commodore-64, ColecoVision (and bootleg versions for Intellivison & Sega) reached global millions. In Oct 2015, former SHAI HULUD (metalcore named after the sandworms in Dune) drummer Steve Kleisath set the world record for the Mario Bros. arcade version high score with 5,424,920 points. In Apr 2023, an animated movie was released whose international box office made $1.36 billion and today, the game's legacy has spawned numerous updated variations incorporating changes such as expanded graphics, voice actors, location settings, color schemes, soundtracks & new multi-features.

JUL 13, 1930: The inaugural FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association) World Cup is held in Uruguay that featured 13 teams (7 South American, 2 North American & 4 European) divided into 4 groups. Japan & Siam (Thailand) had withdrawn and Egypt had missed their travelling ship due to a storm in the Mediterranean. Only a small group of nations from Europe participated because of the difficulty of journeying to South America during the Great Depression making expenses problematic. Britain, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales -- whose bracket was known as the British Home Nations of specific group placement until 1984 -- had all resigned from FIFA due to a dispute over wages for amateur players. [The 4 countries missed the first 3 World Cups and didn't rejoin until 1946. As WWII had interrupted the 1940's, only England returned in the 1950 Cup held in Brazil. Scotland declined the invitation and the other 2 countries were eliminated in qualifying]. Soccer governing body FIFA had been trying to create an international competition for several years prior to 1930 for since 1921, President Jules Rimet had been proposing a global tournament. FIFA's partnership with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) saw them handling the soccer segments of the Summer Games in Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928. Uruguay was chosen as the host nation as they were celebrating the centenary of the country's first Constitution and were the 1928 Olympic champions having beaten Argentina 2-1 in a gold medal rematch final after both teams had previously tied 1-1 days earlier. While FIFA was founded in France in May 1904, the 1928 Games led to the formation of FIFA World Cup with the organization's Vice President Henri Delaunay proclaiming "International football can no longer be held within the confines of the Olympics". 1930 was the only Cup without countries having to qualify and all matches took place in Montevideo between 3 stadiums. The very first game played was a 4-1 victory for France over Mexico. The final was played on Jul 30 with Uruguay defeating Argentina 4-2. Both teams had faced each other back in 1928 and their repeat Cup final remains both the only one in FIFA to be contested by 2 Spanish-speaking sides & 2 South American nations. [The 1950 Cup of Uruguay beating Brazil 2-1 in an upset is wrongly considered the same circumstances as 1930 because it is infact the only FIFA tournament not decided by a 1-match final but instead a winner decided in a final group stage]. A total of 70 goals had been scored in all 18 matches including the first-ever Cup hat trick, and the awarded gold trophy was named the Jules Rimet Cup featuring Nike, the Greek goddess of victory with outstretched wings, it lasted until 1970 which was given to Brazil permanenty as having won the Cup 3 times. A new trophy was unveiled in 1974 and remains the current design of 2 human figures holding up the earth. Runner-up Argentina finished in second place with silver, followed by the USA in 3rd and Yugoslavia in 4th. As there was no 3rd place match (with some accounts saying Yugoslavia refused over anger at the refereeing of their semi-final match vs. Uruguay where they lost 6-1 and were particularly infuriated over a disallowed goal from a controversial offside call), both the American and Yugoslavian captains were given bronze medals. The last surviving player from the 1930 Cup final was Argentina's Francisco Varallo who died at age 100 in Aug 2010. In Dec 2010, a Serbian sports comedy movie was released about the formation of the Yugoslavian national team in Belgrade with Uruguay a distant dream. A sequel was shown in Jan 2014 about the team's preparation & making the trip over as underdogs showcasing their talent. Both movies were critically successful and extended into a 2-season TV run with each series consisting of 9 episodes. The 2030 World Cup jointly hosted by Spain, Portugal and Morocco will feature a special centenary celebration in Uruguay commemorating the 1930 inauguration (as well as matches held in Argentina & Paraguay).

JUL 12, 1995: In one of the few successfully predicted earthquakes in history, Chinese seismologists forecast the Myanmar-China earthquake which vastly reduced the number of casualties to only 11 people killed and 136 injured. Between Sept 1994 and May 1995, a cluster of small earthqaukes had registered on the border region (Myanmar having formally been Burma until the ruling military junta changed the country's name in Jun 1989) and anomalies such as changes to water levels & animal behaviour had been detected. In the days leading up to the mainshock, a series of precursor foreshocks occured measuring 5.5 and 6.2 on the richter scale and on the advice of scientists, an evacuation order was issued 30hrs before the mainshock struck -- which may have been triggered by increased stress changes in the Shan Plateau tectonic plate settings stemming from the Nov 1988 Lancang–Gengma earthquakes also near the border region which killed 939 people and injured 7700. While Myanmar experienced the greater volume of shaking intensity, the Yunann Province in Southwestern China was the hardest hit with estimates of the earthquake felt across 4000sq mi affecting 39 townships & over 2200 villages in 5 counties further impacting some 127,000 dwellings housing more than 577,000 people. Hundreds of schools, factories, hospitals, government offices, military bases & bridges were in critical need of repair and a state of emergency was declared. In total, over 100,000 homes in both countries were destroyed with 42,000 facing serious destruction, another 600,000 people impacted, and structural damage also reported to an electrical generator in Thailand leading to dams/reservoirs ordered for inspection. The earthquake's low death toll was attributed to the key factor of the early warning given prior to the event, and the surveying Yunnan Seismological Bureau was praised afterwards as their surveillance, tremor testing, reports & disaster assessments resulted in minimal loss of life. Other notable predictions (either depending on scientific basis or selection bias) include China Feb 1975, Peru Jun 1981, Greece Feb & Jun 2008, and Italy Apr 2009.

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JUL 10, 1985: A pair of French agents in diving gear and from a harbor in Auckland, New Zealand committ an act of state terrorism (officially named Opération Satanique) after the duo plant 2 bombs (limpet mines) on the hull of the Greenpeace flagship 'Rainbow Warrior' which was preparing for a protest voyage to a Franch nuclear test site in the South Pacific. The detonations were 7 minutes apart & blasted a hole the size of a car that resulted in the death of Portuguese-Dutch freelance photographer Fernando Pereira on board who drowned. The ship was partially sunk. The agents (Jean Camas & Jean-Luc Kister) were working for the French foregin DGSE intelligence agency and had struck against Greenpeace's long global conservationist stance in which the Rainbow Warrior had been active in several anti-whaling, anti-seal hunting, and anti-nuclear waste dumping campaigns throught the late 1970's & early 80's. France started nuclear testing on the Mururoa Atoll in an Archipelago of French Polynesia and in May 1985, the Rainbow Warrior had relocated 300 Marshall Islanders from an atoll heavily polluted by radioactive fallout from American nuclear tests since 1954. The ship had traveled back to New Zealand to next lead a flotilla of vessels to protest at Mururoa. The 2 bombers had gotten their information from 2 other agents (Dominique Prieur & Alain Mafart) providing reconnaissance posing as newlywed tourists who covertly monitored communications, gathered maps, inspected underwater equipment and delivered the mines when the docked Rainbow Warrior was open to public viewing. After the explosions and huge police investigation (also involving Interpol), Prieur & Marfart were arrested and although carrying Swiss passports, their true identities were revealed & traced back to the French government. A number of others in the DGSE team (12 overall but in different support roles) had escaped including a woman who left for Israel and managed to flee gain when she was tipped off, and a trio who were arrested in Australia but released before forensic tests could implicate them. They were picked up by a French submarine that took them away to safety. France denied responsibility but as the criminal attack was a breach of international law against sovereign territory, the ensuing scandal was a public relations disaster that led to the resignation of the country's Defense Minister and the head of DGSE being fired. Charged with arson, conspiracy, willful damage and murder, Prieur & Mafart pleaded guilty to manslaughter and in Nov 1985 were sentenced to 10yrs imprisonment. France threatened an economic embargo of New Zealand in the EEC (Europena Economic Coummnity) if the pair were not released -- which would have crippled New Zealand as it was dependent on agricultural exports from the UK. Due to pressure, the duo spent only 2yrs behind bars and were soon freed. [In Nov 2005, both pled guilty in a video recorded preliminary hearing and unsuccessfully tried to prevent the footage from appearing on New Zealand TV despite each having written books on the incident in 1995 & 1999]. After Prime Minster Laurent Fabius admitted the bombing was a sabotage plot (with claims that President François Mitterrand had approved it), France was forced to apologize and pay reparations of $13 million to New Zealand, as well as $2.2 million francs and an additional life insurance payout of $30,000 Dutch guilders to Pereira's family, and of $8.16 million to Greenpeace. The nuclear tests went ahead on Mururoa in Oct 1985 and were conducted 54(!) more times until the last blast in 1996. In Dec 1986, the Treaty of Rarotonga was enacted and signed by Australia, New Zealand, the Cook Islands, Fiji Islands, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, and Papua New Guinea among a handful of others declaring the South Pacific region a nuclear-free zone. In the Rainbow Warrior aftermath, Greenpeace held a benefit concert in Auckland, a memorial sculpture was built, and the ship was scuttled in Dec 1987 to serve as a dive wreck & fish sanctuary. A new ship was acquired and also renamed Rainbow Warrior earlier. In Sept 2015, Kister apologized on a TV program where he confessed his role.

JUL 9, 1762: Catherine the Great becomes Empress of Russia following the palace coup she launched against her husband, German-born Tsar Peter III. He was an unpopular & largely ineffective ruler who had angered the Army by returning conquered territory back to Prussia, stoking fears that he would return more in concessions, and having withdrawn forces from the Seven Years War (May 1756 to Feb 1763) that rendered recent victories & sacrifices, pointless. Having only been on the throne for 186 days, after he was overthrown he abdicated on Jul 9 and died under uncertain circumstances on Jul 17 either from a stroke according to his autopsy or from unconfirmed accounts of being strangled by a scarf. He was buried in St. Petersburg in Aug and her coronation was in Sept. Catherine's progressive reign was inspired by the Age of Enlightenment whose philosophical & intellectual movement brought a renaissance of science & culture that saw the founding of universities, theatres, and new cities allowing Russia to rise as one of Europe's great powers. Social & political ideas extended into financial reforms as the country's economic development was poor and her imposed regulations on industry helped modernize the labor force towards a middle class -- while the nobility of private landowners still exploited serfdom. She prioritized public health, established schools, was a huge patron of art & literature, and was indifferent to religion by choosing to assimilate Christians, Jews & Muslims through integration into the Empire, and by expropriating the lands of the Orthodox Church and in her secularization made the clergy dependant on the state for compensation. In diplomacy & foreign policy, a commercial treaty of trade with Britain was reached in 1766, victory achieved in the Russo-Turkish War (Sept 1768 to Jul 1774), signed a peace treaty ending the Russo-Swedish War (Jun 1788 to Aug 1790), gained huge partitions with the elimination of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, opened relations with China & Japan, and saw the colonization of Alaska. Russia's borders were extended with the absorption of Crimea, the North Caucasus, Ukraine & Belarus, and had set up the Northern Accord which was a partnership of Russia, Prussia, Poland & Sweden to counter the Bourbon–Habsburg League which was an alliance of France & Austria. Known for having taken many lovers, upon her death in Nov 1796 from suffering a stroke in her bathroom (supposedly falling off a toilet) and passing away unconscious in her bed, the famous persistent rumor of her having died after committing beastiality with a horse began circulating. This is largely attibuted to British & French satirical publications, and anti-Russian propaganda by German scholar Adam Olearius whose 1647 book Description of the Muscovite and Persian Journey took aim at invoking disgust for a supposed sex-with-animals tendency of Russians & the barbarous Asian traits attributed to this.

45YRS AGO TODAY

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JUL 6, 1942: In Nazi-occupied Holland during WWII, 13yr old Anne Frank and her family (4 people) in Amsterdam are forced into hiding where they take residence in a secret sealed-off section (annex) of a rear building warehouse that was concealed behind a bookcase leading up to an attic, and shared with the Van Pels family of 3 and then lastly joined by acquaintance Fritz Pfeffer. The annex was a building-addition and a relocation from father Otto Frank's Pectacon spice business he had started in 1938 as a managing director (his other main spice company was Opetka). The Franks were German-Jews who fled persecution from Germany in 1933 & 1934 but were horrified to find themselves trapped again after the invasion of Holland in May 1940. With the hiding space only occupying 450sq ft, all 8 had remained hidden for 2yrs until Aug 1944 when they were found by police, arrested by the Gestapo & deported to their deaths in concentration camps. [Anne & her sister Margot were sent to Auschwitz in Sept 1944 and then transferred to Bergen-Belsen in Nov. Margot died in Feb 1945 followed by Anne's death days later]. Of the hidden group, only Otto survived the camps. Anne had written a diary that she called 'Kitty' describing the family's everday life and it was found undisturbed. Otto returned to Amsterdam in Jun 1945 hoping to find his daughters and was given Anne's personal effects that had been kept by family friend & secretary Miep Gies. Moved by his daughter's wish to have been an author, the book was first published in Dutch in 1947 and then was translated into English in 1952 which was released as The Diary of Anne Frank which became an instant bestseller and translated into more than 30 languages. Many editions were censored as sections about Anne's strained relationship with her mother Edith and passages exploring her sexuality were removed. In 1955, the building was set to be torn down put public protesting prevented the demolition and a successful campaign turned it into a protected monument. In May 1957, the Anne Frank Foundation was founded resulting in restoration into a museum as growing interest was attracting visitors from around the world, and in the years after further renovations were part of an overall project of preservation & education. The most enduring mystery of the Frank tragedy has been who was the betrayer that led to the attic raid. Whether in agreement with German policy, greedy opportunism, or desperation to avoid possible death, the long list of culprits include a warehouse worker trying to extort more pay, a mysterious woman who phoned SD intelligence, a mysterious Dutchman who phoned police, a female Nazi collaborator whose relationship with an SS officer ended in Austria and upon returning to Holland became an informant particularly upset that her family was helping Jews, a Dutch Nazi who allegedly overheard Otto make a negative remark about the German war effort, a female Dutch Jew who was arrested and gave up the Franks to save herself from deportation as well as posing as a resistance member where her treachery led to the arrests of some 145 people (including one of her own brothers & his family) -- 84 of whom died in the Holocaust and resulted in her execution in Jan 1948, a frightened arrested burglar who cut a deal, and a member of the Amsterdam Jewish Council believed to have had a list of Jews hiding throughout the city who turned traitor to save his family and died under suspicion in Oct 1950. Many investigators & scholars have repeatedly debated the credibility of evidence from these theories. For the rest of his life, Otto became the custodian of Anne's famous legacy and with the help of Simon Wiesenthal through the years, both challenged & sued several Holocaust deniers who called the book a forgery. Otto died in Aug 1980 and in Jun 1999, Time magazine named Anne as one of the 20th Century's 100 most important people. Her story was brought to critical acclaim in a 1959 movie and numerous other adaptions. In Oct 2009, footage of Anne was found of her leaning out of a window to watch a neighbor's wedding in Jul 1941. She appears for 7 seconds in what is the only known existing film of her.

JUL 5, 1946: Former French nude dancer Micheline Bernardini becomes the first model to appear in a shocking brand new 2-piece swimsuit called the bikini which was named after the first public American post-war atomic weapons test (Operation Crossroads) in the Bikini Atoll which was a coral reef lagoon in the Marshall Islands, a part of Micronesia located in the Western Pacific southwest of Hawaii. While earlier versions of the 2-piece (halter top & shorts) had existed in the 1930's as well as loincloth variations/versions seen in some Tarzan films, by WWII the rationing of fabric saw appearances beginning to change into "scantily clad" as makers started removing skirt panels and Hollywood movie starlets such as Betty Grable, Rita Haywoth, Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Jane Russell,Jayne Mansfield, Marilyn Monroe & Esther Williams posing in similar provocative beachwear became favourite pinups. [In artwork, images can be traced back to ancient Roman mural panels]. The bikini's designer -- auto engineer Louis Réard -- advertised in the French Riviera of wanting to create the smallest bathing suit in the world which caused controversy because for the first time, it exposed the wearer's navel. The daring debut took place at the Piscine Molitor, a popular public swimming pool in Paris. 19yr old Bernardini's exposed midriff caused a scandalous sensation with the press, was especially popular among men, and she received some 50,000 fan letters. Réard's business soared and with European women quickly fond of the revealing fashion (especially with 18yr old Brigitte Bardot at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival followed soon after by Sophia Loren, Gina Lollobrigida, Anita Ekberg and Diana Dors), he would sell bikinis for 40yrs. In the interim, the Catholic Church declared it sinful, Communist groups condemned it as capitalist decadence, many in the media were prudish over the risqué clothing corrupting morals, prosecutors repeatedly sited indecent exposure, feminists criticized it as demeaningly sexist, France banned it from being worn on coastlines in 1949, Belgium banned it as did Spain & Portgual alongside Italy then Australia, Germany banned it from swimming pools until the 1970's, beauty pageants banned it from competitional display, Playboy and Sports Illustrated credited it with giving swimwear legitimacy, it produced the novelty hit 'Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini' in the summer of 1960, and it turned both Ursula Andress in 1962's Dr. No and Racquel Welch in 1966's One Million Years B.C. into iconic international sex symbols. Despite all the backlash, the bikini sold extremely well, beame a major component of female sports marketing, and would get even skimpier with the microkini. Réard died in Sept 1984.

H A P P Y  I N D E P E N D E N C E  D A Y

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