Category Archives: Pop Culture

January 14

Summer of Love

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On the 14th of January 1967, The Human Be-In, an event in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park signalled the beginning of the Summer of Love, which turned the city’s Haight-Ashbury district into the centre point of American counterculture; the world that came to characterise this suburban union was “psychedelic”. Tens of thousands of people gathered […]

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January 09

The Bumsteads Are Us! The Story of Chic Young’s ‘Blondie’ Comic Strip

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On the 9th of January 1901, the American cartoonist Murat Bernard Young, better known as Chic Young, was born in Chicago, Illinois. His first comic strip The Affairs of Jane, about a low-budget film actress who dreams of becoming a real movie star, earned young Chic $22 a week. Unsurprisingly, upon receiving a phone call […]

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December 16

Denny Fouts – From Escort and Literary Muse to Gay Idol

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On the 16th of December 1948, Louis Denham Fouts died in Rome of a heart attack at the young age of 35 after years of excess – drugs, cigarettes, alcohol and a wild and promiscuous lifestyle. In the 1930s and ‘40s, he became notorious as America’s luxury gigolo, socialite and muse to literary greats such […]

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December 12

The Motel, Unsettling Icon of Popular Culture

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On the 12th of December 1925, Arthur Heineman opened the first recorded motel along Highway 101 just north of San Luis Obispo, California. As he couldn’t fit in the full name ‘Milestone Motor Hotel’ on the sign, he left it as ‘Motor Hotel’, which then came to be abbreviated as mo-tel. This first example of […]

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October 09

Che Guevara’s Revolution in Pop Culture

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On the 9th of October 1967 Che Guevara, an Argentinian Marxist revolutionary, and allegedly one of the most famous revolutionaries in the world, was executed. The execution took place in a little Bolivian village, La Higuera, which since then has become a pilgrimage destination for numerous Che Guevara followers. The use of the word ‘pilgrimage’ […]

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September 18

Franco Moschino: Anti-Elitist Haute Couture?

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On the 18th of September 1994, Italian fashion designer Franco Moschino died in Annone di Brianza, Italy. He is still seen as “the irreverent enfant terrible of the fashion industry who poked fun at the excesses of the 1980s with his “tongue in chic” designs, most memorably creating suits festooned with cutlery, jackets with faucet handles […]

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September 06

Feminism and Royalty: A Paradox

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On the  6th of September 1997, the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, took place in London. Two thousand people attended the ceremony in Westminster Abbey and the British television audience reached 32.78 million, one of the country’s highest viewing figures ever. Two billion people followed the ceremony worldwide, making it one of the most watched events in history. In death, […]

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