Tag Archives: United States

September 29

Breaking Boundaries in TV Drama

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On the 29th of September 2013, the long-awaited final episode of American drama Breaking Bad (2008-2013) was aired to U.S. television audiences. Vince Gilligan’s AMC TV series turned out to be a complex and complicated work of cinematic art. The most striking first impression is the film’s atmospheric intensity. The warm hues of the American southwest landscape with […]

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January 01

Alfred Stieglitz: Sexism at the Heart of Modern Art?

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On the 1st of January 1864, seminal photographer Alfred Stieglitz was born in Hoboken, New Jersey. Modern art historians believe that the equally prolific editor and art dealer did more than anyone else to bring European avant-garde art to the American public during the first two decades of the 20th century. The son of a […]

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December 25

The Story Of the First Christmas Ads

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The following excerpt about the age-old material significance of Christmas comes from Pulitzer nominated Prof. Stephen Nissenbaum’s The Battle for Christmas, (Random House, 1997): “If the domestic reform of Christmas began as an enterprise of patricians, fearful for their authority, it was soon being reinforced by merchants, who needed the streets to be cleared of […]

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December 18

Cliff Palace and the Ancient Pueblo People

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On the 18th of December 1888, Richard Wetherill, explorer, guide and excavator to-be, along with his friend Charlie Mason, both cowboys from Mancos, found Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde after noticing the ruins from the top of the highland. Cliff Palace is the largest cliff dwelling in North America, its structure built by the Ancient […]

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December 02

Dickens’ Love and Hate for America

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On the 2nd of December 1867, Charles Dickens gave his first public reading in the United States at the Tremont Temple, Boston where he read A Christmas Carol (1843) to an American audience for the first time. This was his second and final trip to the New World – three years later, after a long […]

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December 01

Christine Jorgensen: The First Transsexual Celebrity

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On the 1st of December 1952, the headlines on the front page of the New York Daily read: “Ex-GI Becomes Blonde Beauty: Operations Transform Bronx Youth”. They were announcing the ‘sex change’ of Christine Jorgensen (born George William Jorgensen, Jr.), the first ever person in the United States to have undergone sex reassignment surgery. The […]

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November 27

Bruce Lee: The philosopher and poet

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On the 27th of November 1940, Bruce Lee was born in San Francisco’s Chinatown, US. Mostly known for his acting career and his masterful martial arts roles in such movies as The Big Boss (1971), Fist of Fury (1972), Way of the Dragon (1972), Enter the Dragon (1973) and The Game of Death (1973), Lee […]

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November 02

Hite’s Sex Study that Aroused Feminists

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American-German sexologist Shere Hite was born on the 2nd of November 1942 in Missouri, U.S.A. In 1976, at the height of a second feminist wave in America, when she was still a young, unknown graduate student, she published The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality. The book sold some 50 million copies worldwide. […]

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