"That's "Hedy," not "Hedley!" Tuesday: As mysterious as Dorothy Kilgallen's death on November 8, 1965, is the 1965 blackout that overtook much of the Northeast United States and Ontario, Canada on this day. While the official cause was a series of mistakes and blown relays, there were also reports of UFOs near some of the power stations. We don't necessarily believe the reports; we're just saying ... Not all of the Northeast was affected, however, and a full moon that night kept things surprisingly safe, with New York City reporting only five instances of looting. When one speaks of New York, it's difficult to not think of Stanford White (whose 157th birthday falls on this day). White's distinctive architectural fingerprints can still be found all over Manhattan more than a century after his death. Such structures as the Municipal Building, the Washington Square Arch, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art – not to mention many of the millionaires' mansions on Fifth Avenue - were his designs. While White's firm designed things to be built, it's a demolished object that we take special notice of today, as it's the 21st anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. The wall itself was the literal dividing line between East and West Berlin, constructed to keep East Germans from escaping the Communist regime. When that government fell, so did the wall. Something that irriatated those killjoy East German officials was rock music, and on this day in 1967, the first issue of "Rolling Stone" was published. While "Rolling Stone" was originally dedicated to rock, pop, and blues music and musicians – and those are still its primary focus – it's expanded in the decades since to become one of America's most respected magazines, known for its reporting on politics and entertainment. Speaking of respect, we throw a little of it to the creative community today as it's Inventor's Day, celebrated today because it's the birthday of actress Hedy Lamarr. Lamarr was not only one of the most glamorous and beautiful actresses of the 1930s and '40s, but was also something of a scientific genius. In 1942, she was granted a patent for a communication system that would "hop" frequencies in order to make radio-guided torpedoes harder to detect. While the technology went basically unused until the '60s, today it forms the basis for wi-fi networks and cell phones. Suggested Sites... November 9th, 1965 Blackout - sometimes Occam's Razor is a UFO. New York Architecture Images: McKim, Mead, and White - a century later, still some of Manhattan's most beautiful buildings. The Fall of the Berlin Wall: A Personal Account - the wall came a-tumblin' down. Hedy Lamarr Foundation - devoted to cultivating both brains and beauty. 5 Surprising Inventions From Famous People - Isaac Newton invented the cat door?

Directory categories: Electricity, Berlin, Rock and Pop Musicians, Magazines, Classic Hollywood Actors

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The most famous shot in "A Trip to the Moon." Special effects have gotten slightly better in the century since. Welcome once more to The Spark, your weekly digest of events and happenings and information in the Yahoo! Directory to help you appreciate them more. As we begin this last Spark before the Labor Day holiday, we have to ask just where in the heck the summer went. Seems like it was Memorial Day about five minutes ago, and now kids are back in school and Fall is lurking around the corner. Anyway, let's look at the week ahead. Monday: It's a day for monsters and creators. In the former category, we have Benedict Arnold, who on this day in 1780, secretly promised to surrender the Continental Army's fort at West Point, NY, to the British. Arnold was an egomaniac, who was frustrated with the lack of attention he had received, and what better way to get attention than to commit treason? Speaking of outsized egos, we note that today would have been the 127th birthday of Huey Long, the "Kingfish" who ran Louisiana like a private fiefdom until he was gunned down in 1935. Long ruled the state as both governor and senator, and his campaign slogan of "Every Man a King" mixed populism and fascism in equal measure. But let us not mention only those who destroy, let's celebrate those who create. When thinking of monsters, one almost automatically turns to thoughts of Dr. Frankenstein and his creation, for which we owe thanks to Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, born in 1793, she wrote her novel, "Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus," at the tender age of 18. And where would kids (and parents) be today without Babar? Laurent de Brunhoff (born in 1925), is son of Jean de Brunhoff, who created the elephant king, and who continued his adventures when his father died. Of course, those kids grow up to be teenagers and young adults, and where would they be without Robert Crumb, who turns 73 today? Crumb was in the vanguard of the underground comix movement of the 1960s, and he’s still active and creative, and his influence on modern pop culture is incalculable. And what would pop culture be without the Beatles? One hesitates to guess, but you can try to get a handle on it this week at the International Beatle Week in Liverpool, England. Of course, the Beatles played in the Ed Sullivan Theatre in New York when they made their American debut in 1964, and that theatre is today home to the Late Show with David Letterman, which made its own debut in "the Ed" in 1993. A nice contrast to end the day. Gazillionaire Warren Buffett hits the big 8-0 today, and out in the Nevada desert, Burning Man begins. The best thing we can say about Burning Man is that it gets all those people who want to go to Burning Man in one spot away from the rest of us. Tuesday: More monsters. In 12, Gaius Caligula was born. Though the surviving sources are incomplete, Caligula was one of the most notorious Roman emperors of them all, known for the stories of his cruelty, instability, and sexual perversion. (We won’t deal with them here, but you can find the stories easily enough.) But Caligula isn't the only monster we note. On this date in 1888, Mary Ann Nichols was murdered and became the first of known victim of Jack the Ripper. And, of course, in 1928, Berlin saw the premiere of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s "Die Dreigoschenoper" (known in English as "The Threepenny Opera"), with its main character, the vicious murderer Captain Macheath, better known as "Mack the Knife." In 1959, Bobby Darin had a huge hit with that song (which is really odd, when one considers it's about a mass murderer killing people), and Friday will see the 51st anniversary of that song being banned by WCBS radio in New York City. At the time, there had been a series of teenage stabbings in the city, and the station didn't want to those crazy teens any ideas. And while marijuana possession is small potatoes compared to all of the above, we see that, in 1948, actor Robert Mitchum was arrested in a Hollywood drug bust, and was eventually sentenced to 60 days in prison, a scandal which in those days threatened to kill his career, but nowadays would rate only a passing mention on "Entertainment Tonight." All this talk of criminals and murderers makes us long for a hero, and fortunately, in 1942, "The Adventures of Superman" radio series began airing on the Mutual Broadcasting System. Wednesday: All we have for today is that in 1902, George Melies’s "A Trip to the Moon," was released in France and became the world’s first science fiction film. Thursday: So, in 490 BCE, the Athenian army was at Marathon, battling with Persia. The herald Pheidippides was sent to Sparta for help. He ran the 150 miles in two days, but because of religious laws, the Spartans couldn't send any help, so he ran back. In spite of not having the extra troops, Athens won the battle. And poor Phidippides took off again, this time running the 26.2 miles from Marathon to Athens to carry the news of the victory. He gasped out his last words, "We have won," and dropped dead of exhaustion. The lesson: do not underestimate the usefulness of warm-ups and warm-downs. In 1666, the Great Fire of London began in the wooden house of King Charles II's baker. By the time it ended three days later, more than 13,000 houses, including St Paul's Cathedral, had burned to the ground -- but amazingly, only six people had died. If you were living in England in 1752, tomorrow would have been September 14th. While most of the rest of the world had switched from the Julian Calendar to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582, the stubborn Brits had stuck to their guns. But, after nearly 200 years, there was an eleven-day discrepancy between the two calendars, and the English had no choice but to convert. There were actual riots, as people cried, "Give us back our eleven days!" But it was to no avail. Great Britain and her colonies were dragged kicking and screaming into the 18th century. Speaking of fighting against reality, in 1934, singer Russ Columbo accidentally shot himself to death. Columbo was a wildly popular singer and actor, and when he killed himself (with an antique gun that was supposedly unloaded), his friends thought the news would prove fatal to his mother, so for the last years of her life, those friends created an elaborate ruse, sending postcards and letters from far-off locations, and using his records to simulate a radio show. In 1944, Mrs. Columbo died, never suspected that her son had died a decade before. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday: Let's talk about pioneers this weekend. First, there's Louis Sullivan, born in 1856. Sullivan is, for all intents and purposes, the man who invented the skyscraper. Since Chicago had had its own giant fire in 1871, Sullivan had the opportunity and the laboratory to erest steel-framed buildings that towered over anything built before. In 1833, 10-year-old Barney Flaherty answered an ad in "The New York Sun" and became the first world's first newsboy, which is why we celebrate Newspaper Carrier Day today -- at least for those relatively few Americans who still have newspapers carried to them. Sunday would have been the 163rd birthday of Jesse James. Jesse was not the first Western outlaw, but he was the first to become world famous while plying his dubious trade. 1885 saw the opening of the Exchange Buffet in New York City. It was the first self-service restaurant (read, "cafeteria") in the United States. We don't know if they served chocolate (we'd guess yes), but whether they did or not, it's World Chocolate Day Friday, so you can serve yourself and indulge. In 1888, George Eastman registered the trademark "Kodak" (for the clicking sound a camera's shutter makes) and received a patent for his camera that used rolled film. Eastman's "Brownie" camera came from the factory loaded with enough film for 100 photos. When the roll was complete, the customer would mail the whole camera back to the factory in Rochester, NY, where the pictures would be developed and sent back along with a new camera. Sunday is the 81st birthday of comedian Bob Newhart. Newhart is a two-time pioneer, having been in the forefront of the stand-up comedy revolution of the 1950s, when he transformed himself from "button-down accountant" to a comedian with the top-selling album in America. Then, in the '70s, his sitcom, "The Bob Newhart Show," set new standards for writing, ensemble acting, and just plain goofiness. The weekend before Labor Day always marks the annual Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon. While it's easy to criticize the telethon for its corniness and out-of-date show business aesthetic, it's impossible to deny Lewis's commitment and ability to raise money -- nearly a billion-and-a-half dollars since 1966. Lastly, we'll note the 98th birthday of the late avant-garde composer John Cage with 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence. Suggested Sites... United States Military Academy at West Point - for sale, cheap. Contact Gen. Arnold. Official R. Crumb Site - keep on truckin'. The Beatles - the core of the apple. Dangerous Minds: Early Technicolor - the good folks at Kodak bring you color movies from 1922. Jerry Lewis Telethon - mock him if you will, but he does good work.

Directory categories: Revolutionary War, Children's Literature, Rock and Pop Artists, Musicals, Running

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Look! Up in the sky! It's the Burj Dubai! Who remembers Victor Lustig? Anyone? Well, let me enlighten you: Victor Lustig was the confidence trickster supreme who managed to sell the Eiffel Tower to a deeply insecure Parisian businessman without actually owning it himself. What Lustig knew even then was that people lose all sense of perspective and reason when it comes to owning the largest erection on the block. Man's (or is it mens'?) fascination with tall buildings is long-standing and well-documented. Just as the ancient Egyptians sought to construct larger and more dominating edifices to honor their eponymous leaders, so ever since has man chased and coveted the bragging rights that come with the moniker "The World's Tallest Building." Indeed, it seems as though having or owning the highest-profile flamboyant skyscraper is still the quintessential statement of economic strength and intent. Sadly, this endeavor has become considerably more problematic in recent years. Previous skyscrapers to be guardians of the title "The World Tallest Building" have included, at various times, the Chrysler Building, the CN Tower, and the Empire State Building. And while not without their setbacks, these building projects have been on the whole successful; using their fame to draw plenty of visitors, as well as being able to sell their commercial real estate fairly comfortably. Not so for many modern competitors in the skyscraper race: grand and impressive Pyongyang's Ryugyong Hotel may be, it's lain empty and incomplete for the majority of its life. Worse still, while it would have been the world's tallest building (if had it been completed on time and to specification), the delay and partial abandonment of the project meant it was overtaken by other skyscrapers long before it neared completion. This week is supposed to mark the opening of an equally controversial project in the oil-rich construction playground of the United Arab Emirates: the Burj Dubai. Despite already being home to such architectural wonders as the Burj al-Arab Hotel and the Palm Jumeirah, the Emirate of Dubai has long been pursuing the claim of having the world’s tallest building. So keen are the Emiratis in fact, that the building itself is rumored to have undergone numerous mid-project redesigns to beat off subsequent usurpers to its crown. But why stop there? The designers have even made the steel top extendable as a passive-aggressive warning to those hoping to top the mighty Burj Dubai! I can see the stand-off now: "You think you can go higher than us? Well, why don’t you just try it?" What was it that Freud said about psychological meaning behind a fascination with tall buildings? I'll get back to you on that ... Suggested Sites... Burj Dubai - official site of the UAE's latest must-see architectural feat The World Tallest Skyscrapers - timeline of the race for the sky. UAE Tourism - government site with handy information for tourists looking to peruse the Burj.

Directory categories: United Arab Emirates, Empire State Building, Dubai Travel Guides, Skyscrapers, Eiffel Tower

Archived under: Architects, Architecture, Buildings, Chrysler Building, Dubai, History, In Character, Middle East, North Korea, Skyscrapers

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The forest-mimicking columns inside Gaudi's temple La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona, Spain (Photo by Juan Salmoral) If there is any one principle that resonates through the work of architectural legend Antoni Gaudí, it's that nothing beats the beautiful ingenuity of Nature. Born on this day in 1852, Gaudí was infatuated with the natural world. He immersed himself in nature's forms -- from sea shells to mushrooms. Organic shapes inspired Gaudí's stunningly original monuments in and around Spain's cultural mecca, Barcelona. His bizarre buildings are wrought with swirling ceilings, gill-like window vents, molten façades, ruffled rooftops, and whimsical chimney creatures. Even the structural elements of Gaudí's buildings take on surreal, nature-inspired forms through tree-like columns, bone supports, helicoid staircases, and rib-shaped rafters. Despite his innovations, Barcelonians didn't think much of him during his lifetime. Aside from the few rich clients who adored (and funded) his artistry, most civilians -- and frankly, most of Gaudi's colleagues -- scoffed equally at his major works. Nevertheless, the Catalan creator of biomorphic curves eventually earned posthumous praise from master architects and artists, solidifying his status as a forefather of Modernism. Suggested Sites... Casa Battló (1905-1907) - Gaudí's gaudy apartment, inspired by sea forms. Casa Milà (1905-1907) - Gaudí's undulating building called "The Quarry." Parque Guëll (1900-1914) - Gaudí's park, featuring his home, bridges, mosaics, terraces, and sculptures. La Sagrada Familia (1882-2026?) - his massive masterpiece-in-progress, full of cave forms and unforgettable towers. NYC Grand Hotel Plans (1908) - Gaudí fans proposed his design for the new World Trade Center.

Directory categories: Antoni Gaudi, Master Architects, Barcelona Local Guides, Art Nouveau

Archived under: 19th Century, Antoni Gaudi, Architects, Architecture, Arts, Birthdays, Buildings, Creativity, Design, Europe, History, Regional, Spain, Tourist Attractions

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Central Park, NYC (Photo by Oquendo) Being a New Yorker (if not by birth, then at least by choice), I couldn't imagine my life without Central Park. One of the few truly green respites in a seemingly endless sprawl of concrete, steel, and glass, Central Park is where New Yorkers assemble to collectively slow down, relax, replenish, and breathe. If Times Square is the heart of NYC, then Central Park is certainly its lungs -- supplying much-needed oxygen to a bustling body constantly on the go. This weekend we celebrate the birth of the man considered to be "the founder of American landscape architecture and the nation's foremost parkmaker," Frederick Law Olmsted. Olmsted started his career as a journalist, which provided him the opportunity to travel throughout the U.S. and abroad, sparking his interest in public gardens and parks. He partnered with English-born architect Calvert Vaux to enter the Central Park design contest and they were awarded the job in 1858. They followed Central Park with Brooklyn's Prospect Park and continued to work together off and on for the rest of their careers, although Olmsted's larger than life personality and social standing often overshadowed Vaux's contributions. Olmsted's legacy includes (among many others) the Niagara Reservation (the country's oldest state park) in Niagara Falls; the Emerald Necklace in Boston; the Belle Isle Park in Detroit; Washington, Jackson, and Midway Plaisance Parks in Chicago; and Montebello Park in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada. His fundamental design principle, born out of his observations of social class structure around the world and his vehement opposition to slavery, was that his parks and gardens should be accessible to all citizens regardless of social standing. This egalitarian ideal, taken somewhat for granted today, was revolutionary in Olmsted's time and helped to plant his reputation as America's preeminent landscape architect. Suggested Sites... National Association of Olmsted Parks - coalition of design and preservation professionals, historic property and park managers, scholars, municipal officials, citizen activists, and representatives of numerous Olmsted organizations around the United States. The Frederick Law Olmsted Society - dedicated to sustaining Olmsted's vision for Riverside for generations to come. Calvert Vaux Preservation Alliance - preservation advocacy group for the architectural and landscape design work of Calvert Vaux. CentralPark.com - features extensive information on NYC's Central Park and The Central Park Zoo. Central Park Conservancy - private, not-for-profit organization founded in 1980 that manages Central Park.

Directory categories: Frederick Law Olmsted, NYC's Central Park , Landscape Architecture, Land Conservation, Parks and Public Lands

Archived under: 19th Century, Architects, Architecture, Biographies, Birthdays, Design, Environment, History, Landscaping, Nature, New York, Outdoors, Parks, Tourist Attractions, Trees

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