Curio Cabinet / Person, Place, or Thing

The progenitor of the comic book.

Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird, it's a plane—it's a history of the man behind the first comic books! Before the caped crusaders and domino masks, the comic book was the invention of one not-so-mild-mannered publisher: Maxwell Gaines. But before we don our flamboyant gloves and utility boots, it's worth noting Gaines wasn't as into superheroes and villains as we would think.
 

Born Max Ginzberg on September 22, 1894, Gaines was known for his short temper and leg injury he sustained as a child. He worked as a teacher and haberdasher before landing his fated job as a salesperson at Eastern Color Printing in Waterbury, Connecticut. In 1933, during the Great Depression, Gaines came up with an idea to reprint the company's Sunday comic strips in half-tabloid format. These small pamphlets, designed by Gaines and sold at newsstands for just ten cents apiece, featured the four-color model and saddle-stitched spines that would become forever indicative of comic books.
 

Gaines' reprint publication, titled Funnies on Parade, consisted of newspaper comic strips featuring the get-rich-quick schemes of Bud Fisher's Mutt and Jeff and the adventures of Percy Crosby's fifth-grader Skippy. For the first time, audiences could clip coupons and mail those in with five cents to receive their own copy of Funnies, rather than pick it up at newsstands. The effort was so well received, Gaines went on to create the monthly publication Famous Funnies, which ran from 1934 to 1955 and is considered the first modern American comic book.
 

Bolstered by the sale of Funnies, Gaines began to look for an outlet to publish original material which he could own the rights to. In 1938, he received funding from National Allied Publications and Detective Comics CEO Harry Donenfeld, with one major stipulation: Jack Liebowitz, co-owner of National, would help establish the new All-American Publications to keep an eye on Gaines. The first monthly issue of All-American Comics was an anthology feature with multiple stories, including the debut of Sheldon Mayer's Scribbly Jibbet, the cartoonist. Gaines' publications went on to see the birth of a number of heroes during the Golden Age of Comics, like Superman and the Guardian of the Universe, Green Lantern, who appeared in All-American Comics issue #16. The high-speed superhero The Flash appeared in his very own series in 1940, and Themyscira-born heroine Wonder Woman made a splash in the bi-monthly All Star Comics issue #8 in 1941, later becoming a founding member of the Justice Society (later the Justice League) of America.
 

By 1944, years of spats between Gaines and Donenfeld caused the former to sell all of his shares of All-American to the latter. Donenfeld then folded All-American and National Allied publications into one company, Detective Comics, which later became known by its ubiquitous title, DC Comics. In that same year, Gaines founded Educational Comics as an alternative to superhero comics, which he thought would go out of style. EC published biblical stories and more light-hearted talking animal stories.
 

Just three short years later, in 1947, Maxwell Gaines passed away after a motorboat accident at Lake Placid, New York. His son, William Gaines—who by all accounts, Maxwell was incredibly cruel to—inherited EC Comics and become a legend in his own right by establishing the satirical Mad Magazine in 1952. Though Maxwell Gaines may not have a reputation as flashy as Stan Lee's, Robert Kirkman's, or Todd McFarlane's these days, his influence is felt everywhere: from the yellow, blue, red, and black dots of pre-computerized comic printing, to the biggest, most explosive action sequences in the latest comic-turned-Hollywood blockbuster.
 

Below: two of All American Comics' original publications, including two of the brand's original characters, the Green Lantern and Wonder Woman.
 

Image credit & copyright: Medium, Period Comics, DC Database
 

A suffragette forces President Wilson's hand on the 19th Amendment.

If "well-behaved women rarely make history," then the irreverent Alice Paul surely made a lot of history. The activist was one of the suffrage movement's most prominent figures, staging protests that were memorable, newsworthy, sometimes dangerous, and catalysts for changing public sentiments on women's votes. For the 99th anniversary of the 19th Amendment passing, we're taking a look at this brave and controversial figure.
 

Paul was born on January 11, 1885, in Mount Laurel, New Jersey, to Quaker parents. Her mother Tacie was a suffragette who brought little Alice to National American Women's Suffrage Association (NAWSA) meetings and raised her children to believe in gender equality. After Paul received her masters in social work at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, she traveled abroad to study at the Woodbrooke Quaker Study Center in Birmingham, England, in 1907. It was there that Paul met the notorious Pankhurst family, and joined the ranks of the militant suffragette faction, the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU).
 

The WSPU's motto was "deeds, not words," which Paul took to heart while learning how to engage in public displays of civil disobedience. In one instance on November 9, 1909, Paul and cohort Amelia Brown disguised themselves as cleaning women to enter London's Guildhall for the Lord Mayor's Day banquet. When the Prime Minister rose to speak during the meal, Brown threw her shoe through a window and both yelled "Votes for women!" before being arrested and sentenced to one month in prison.
 

After reportedly breaking some 40 windows in her various English protests—and completing her studies abroad—Paul returned home to the U.S. in 1910, joining the ranks of NAWSA. Paul managed to recruit over 8,000 attendees for the Women's Suffrage Procession which later paraded across Pennsylvania Avenue in an attempt to overshadow the event of the next day, President Wilson's inauguration on March 4, 1913. The bureaucracy of arranging the event was a nightmare in every respect: Washington D.C. officials refused NAWSA's permit requests, suggesting they take an alternate route. Even though the event was cleared to go at the last minute, the nearly half-a-million parade onlookers became a huge problem, with too few police officers to keep the marchers safe, and those attending doing nothing when riots broke out. After the parade, Paul would break away from NAWSA due to its short-sighted state referendum approach, and form the National Woman's Party to support constitutional amendments for women's votes and other rights.
 

Paul's next order of business was to arrange the "Silent Sentinels" in 1917, who dressed in white, held banners, and picketed the White House six days a week. As World War I broke out, the sentinels began to appear unpatriotic, leading to their trumped-up arrests for "obstructing traffic" in June of that same year. Alice Paul was among those incarcerated at the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia. When news got out that decent women (including elderly ones) were being force-fed, beaten, and thrust into the cold, the public turned on the war-time President Wilson. In response, Wilson did an about-face on the suffrage amendment, noting it was a noble "war measure."
After the passage of the 19th Amendment on August 26, 1920, Paul announced she would work towards the equal rights "Lucretia Mott Amendment," which would later take the nickname of the "Alice Paul Amendment." A tireless women's rights advocate, Paul went on to earn three more law degrees and establish the World Woman's Party in Switzerland in 1938. When she passed away in 1977, she left a legacy of tireless work for gender equality—and many window-repair bills for those foolish enough to challenge her work!

 

Image credit & copyright: Alice Paul Institute
 

Mankind becomes "noodlekind."

In 2000, Japanese citizens rated instant noodles as the country's greatest invention of the 20th century. Why all the love for the humble ramen package instead of the walkman, Akira Kurosawa films, or karaoke? Before the instant food became a 100 billion-servings-per-year industry, a staple of college dormitories, and the subject of the Cupnoodle Museum in Yokohama, it had a much more practical and vital purpose: feeding the starving masses in post-World War II Japan.

 

The origin of instant noodles begins with one person: Momofuku Ando. On a visit to Osaka in 1957, the failed textile businessman noticed hungry people all around, some dying from malnutrition and others waiting in long queues for bowls of ramen soup, a comfort food originally brought over by Chinese chefs in the 1880s. The post-war toll of food shortages was at its peak, and Japan's Ministry of Health was struggling to convince citizens to eat bread made from wheat flour provided by the U.S.
 

Ando realized that the Japanese people desired food that was more familiar, and set about experimenting in his home shed. His goal was to create a type of food that met five criteria: it had to be tasty, nonperishable, quick and easy to prepare, inexpensive, and safe to eat. After months of experiments, Ando happened upon his wife cooking with tempura oil, and noticed he could fry his noodles to extract the moisture from them, thereby dehydrating the noodles to give them a longer shelf life. The ramen also developed tiny cavities, which made it easy to pour hot water onto them in a quick rehydration process. On August 25, 1958, Ando had his new company Nissin Foods launch its first product: a bag of instant noodles called Chicken Ramen.
 

The quick and easy Chicken Ramen became a staple of mid-20th-century diets, but Anda was just getting started. On a trip to the U.S. in 1966, he found inspiration for his next great invention. In a business meeting, a group of managers divided up a block of Chicken Ramen into cups before adding hot water and dispersing the samples. Ando returned to Nissin with the intent to develop a one-handed cup of instant ramen. A lightweight, insulated polystyrene foam was chosen as the final material.
 

The first Cup Noodles went on sale in September of 1971, though the ¥100 price tag to ¥25 bags proved unattractive to consumers. To ramp up promotions, vending machines were built, though those did not compare to the free advertisement received throughout the 1972 Asama-Sansō hostage crisis. During the 10-hour televised stand-off with terrorists, Japanese National Police riot squads were seen eating the easily-transportable Cup Noodles, a heroic choice that sent the new noodles flying off of the grocery store shelves.

 

After half a century of feeding the world and reigning as a cultural icon, it was time for Ando to feed people who were out of this world: in July 2005, when Ando was 95-years-old, he saw the launch of his Space Ram noodles inside the shuttle Discovery. Astronaut Soichi Noguchi was the first to taste the treat, which had been modified with smaller noodles for quicker cooking and consumption, as well as a thicker broth to prevent it from escaping in zero gravity. It was quite the lifetime achievement for Ando, who was known for his persistence, inventiveness, and quirky ability to inspire "noodlekind" (his terminology) to greater heights.
 

Below: a silver statue of Momofuku Ando from the Yokohama Cup Noodle museum, a packet of the original 1958 Chicken Ramen, and a view of Space Ram with Soichi Noguchi enjoying the meal.
 

Image credit & copyright: Zula, Ogiyoshisan, Kanada-Ya, Nippon.com
 

A World War II hero saves thousands of lives.

Some war heroes have their mettle tested on the battlefield. Others, like architect and diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, prove themselves through humanitarian actions. The Swedish special envoy in Hungary saved countless Jewish lives in 1944—only to disappear without a trace the following year.

 

Wallenberg was born on this day in 1912 near Stockholm, Sweden. Raised by his mother and grandmother when his father died, Wallenberg eventually traveled to the U.S. to study architecture at the University of Michigan. He worked odd jobs and picked up a habit of hitchhiking while on vacation to explore the country, once writing, "when you travel like a hobo, everything's different.... you're in close contact with new people every day. Hitchhiking gives you training in diplomacy and tact."
 

After college, he found his American degree did not qualify him to work as an architect in Sweden, leading him to once again make big travel plans. He worked in Cape Town, South Africa, and later Haifa, Israel, before returning to Sweden in 1936 to take a job at the European Trading Company. The company's Jewish owner Kálmán Lauer found himself impeded by the Kingdom of Hungary's Nuremberg Race Laws in 1938, so he sent Wallenberg to Budapest to conduct business in the increasingly anti-semitic country.
 

As Wallenberg moved up the ranks in the trading company, the alliance between Hungary and Germany fractioned after the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943. Adolf Hitler ordered an occupation of Hungary in the following year with the intent to swiftly deport Hungarian Jews to concentration camps in Poland. Overseas, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the War Refugee Board (WRB) to assist civilian victims of the Axis powers. U.S. Treasury Department official Iver C. Olsen was sent to Stockholm to find ways of addressing the humanitarian crisis in Hungary. One of the people Olsen met on a relief committee was Kálmán Lauer, who recommended the services of Raoul Wallenberg.
 

On July 9, 1944, Wallenberg reached the Swedish embassy in Hungary and began distributing "Schutz-Passes" or protective passports to Jewish citizens. The paperwork identified the bearers as Swedish subjects awaiting repatriation, meaning they could not be deported. The plan worked; some 10,000 people were housed in 32 extraterritorial buildings and protected by diplomatic immunity—a space referred to as the "Budapest ghetto." In one instance, Wallenberg intercepted a train bound for Auschwitz camps, ignoring German orders as he calmly handed out passports to hands reaching out for them. He ordered those with papers to accompany him in his Swedish flag-marked vehicles, coolly leaving the scene without any intrusion from the German guards.
 

By the end of 1944, Soviet forces had captured Budapest from the Germans, setting their sights on Wallenberg as a potential spy for the Western Allies. On January 17, 1945, Wallenberg was ordered to General Rodion Malinovsky's offices to answer for his potential crime, of which he remarked, "I'm going to Malinovsky's ... whether as a guest or prisoner I do not know yet." Records released by the Soviet government in 1957 date a report back to July 1947, which alleges that Wallenberg died of a heart attack while imprisoned at the Lubyanka headquarters of the K.G.B. in Moscow.
 

Though his death remained a painful mystery for his family for decades, Wallenberg's legacy is anything but grievous. In total, Wallenberg and his associates saved the lives of some 100,000 Jews during World War II, with congressional Representative Tom Lantos, who was saved by Wallenberg, advocating for Honorary Citizenship in the U.S. in 1981—only the second recipient after Winston Churchill. Monuments in Wallenberg's memory have been erected around the globe, and a street renamed after him runs near the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. These and more are all remembrances that while Wallenberg may be gone, his great work is certainly not forgotten.
 

Image credit & copyright: Raoul Wallenberg Center
 

The "impossible" bill finds support in Washington.

If we think contemporary discussions about healthcare in the U.S. are complicated, the decades-long battle for Medicare would make our heads spin. President after president failed to pass bills for government-funded medical support for the elderly until a series of fortunate events in 1965 laid the groundwork for one of the biggest overhauls of Social Security benefits and healthcare this nation has ever seen.
 

Franklin D. Roosevelt was the first president to earnestly consider federal health insurance programs for the elderly. He intended to include healthcare reform in the Social Security Act of 1935, but dropped insurance component rather than jeopardize the bill. At the time, popular sentiment esteemed the doctor-patient relationship as the ultimate authority when it came to healthcare decisions. The idea of government intervention in that relationship was seen as an unnecessary problem—so much so that Time magazine ran a cover with the words "Nationalized Doctors?" in 1937.
 

As other first-world nations established universal health care systems in the ensuing years, the U.S. struggled to shake the ghost of nationalized medicine. President Truman's two proposals to improve upon Roosevelt's New Deal social safety nets were met with vehement and successful opposition from the American Medical Association (AMA). Ironically, the '50s saw the government promote the private healthcare system by subsidizing companies through corporate tax breaks for worker's insurance enrollment, even as support for federal insurance waned. Meanwhile, evidence from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare showed that elderly Americans required twice as much hospital care as those under 65.

 

When John F. Kennedy ran for President in 1960, he revived the moral debate for nationalized health care for the elderly. The AMA once again rolled out its defenses against "socialized medicine." This time the organization found an ally in congressional Democrat Wilbur Mills of Arkansas, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. Mills was known as a budget hawk who refused to let Medicare bills come up for a vote in his committee, blocking the chance of a final vote in the House. Despite the reputation, he compromised in 1960, helping pass the Kerr-Mills Act which created the Medical Assistance for the Aged program and allowed states to decide who could receive financial assistance for health care. The program proved incredibly cumbersome with only 28 states adopting it and only one percent of seniors covered under its benefits.
 

After JFK's death, President Lyndon B. Johnson won his 1964 election bid in a landslide, and the 295 new Congressional Democrats and 68 seats won in the Senate gave the liberal-progressive wing of the party a supermajority. Mills and other chairpeople, facing pressure from their own party, were no longer allowed to hold upvotes in their committees. The congressman conceded his loss and became determined to etch out a win for himself by meddling with the Medicare Act of 1965, adding legislation to contain costs and a combination of premiums and taxes to pay doctor bills.

 

On July 30, 1965, in Independence, Missouri, President Johnson signed the Medicare Act into law. With him that day was former President Truman, who then signed an application and became the first recipient of a Medicare card along with his wife Bess. It was a meeting of the minds, with Truman living to see the seeds of his legislation finally come to fruition—and LBJ radically changing the way the elderly and sick are cared for in our country. Despite countless attempts at privatization and restructuring the system, some 20 million people currently have these great legislators to thank for their access to potentially life-saving medical care.
 

Below: LBJ signing the Medicare Act of 1965 into law, flanked by First Lady Lady Bird on the left, and former President Truman and his wife on the right.
 

Image credit & copyright: Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library, U.S. National Archives
 

The fortress-turned-prison has its (demolition) day.

How does a building earn a bad reputation? In the case of the Bastille Saint-Antoine of France, once a defensive fortress against foreign invaders, it only took a turn as a symbol of tyrannical power and gross injustice. The Bastille was destroyed on this day 230 years ago, leaving behind a legendary history.

 

The Bastille's construction began during the Hundred Years War between France and England. At the time, French Monarchs had traditionally used the Louvre—yes, the art museum—as the main castle to defend Paris. The city swelled in population over time, however, and new defenses were needed to protect its new, vulnerable outskirts.
 

The Bastille rose from the ground piecemeal, initially as rudimentary battlements. First, two stone towers were built to protect the Porte Saint-Antoine, a gateway to Paris. Along with them, a 78-foot-wide ditch called a "bastide" or "fortification" was dug. A decade later, Charles V tasked his provost Hugh Aubriot with building six more towers and consolidating the military complex into a superstructure. Aubriot designed a fortress with 78-feet-tall walls and towers, crenelated walkways, and underground dungeons. Ironically, he later became one of the citadel's first prisoners in 1380, when trumped-up charges were brought against him for defending the city's Jewish population.
 

Over the next 200 years, the Bastille withstood waves of anti-French forces and traded rulership between countries several times. By Louis XIV's 43-year reign, the Bastille was a bonafide prison and held approximately 2,300 captives: enemies of the throne. The underground dungeons were saved for recaptured escapees while the mid-level tower rooms had basic furnishings and a stove or fireplace. The most elite of prisoners were allowed lavish accouterments in their quarters. One of the most famous inmates, the Marquis de Sade—a notorious writer and the namesake of sadism—was said to have arrived with a wardrobe, paintings, tapestries, perfumes, and 133 books (he was later taken away to an insane asylum 10 days before the storming of Bastille).
 

The French Enlightenment philosopher Voltaire, another famous Bastille prisoner, deemed the location a "palace of revenge"; other prisoners told of rotting away beside corpses in the underground pits. Voltaire himself lent credence to another famous prisoner of the time: the Man in the Iron Mask. The legend goes that the masked prisoner spent 34 years of his life in jail, dying in squalor at the Bastille for no other crime than being the illegitimate brother of Louis XIV. The Man in the Iron Mask became somewhat of a folk hero and martyr for prison abolishment, being the subject of a Three Musketeers story by Alexander Dumas and an epic poem by Alfred de Vigny.
 

As terrifying or macabre as some stories of the Bastille seem, it's likely that most were exaggerated. Immediately after its destruction in 1789, when revolutionaries looted it for gunpowder and weapons, bits of armor and a printing press were paraded and decried as instruments of torture. Just seven prisoners were being held at the time. A year later, all manner of French royalty and common folk came together to celebrate its destruction. The Siege of the Bastille was declared a holiday on July 6, 1880, and a fountain known as the Place de la Bastille was built in the fortress' place. It's like they say: if it's a broke historical place of oppression, don't fix it!
 

Image credit & copyright: PBS, Library of Congress
 

A 19th-century menswear influencer.

Love him or hate him, George "Beau" Brummell made an indelible impression on Western menswear. The 19th-century Londoner is credited with ridding gentlemen's wardrobes of frills and gold trims and leading them to conservative silhouettes in blue and black. Yet for all of the pretentious nonchalance he projected, Brummell's personal life was fraught with neurotic upkeep and the desire to pass as blue blood.
 

Brummell, born on this day in 1778, was groomed for greatness from an early age. His grandfather was a shopkeeper and hosted the aristocracy in his lodgings, while his father was a high sheriff in Berkshire. Brummell's father wanted more than middle-class wealth for his son so he sent the boy to Eton College in 1790, and later Oxford in Oxfordshire. Brummell showed little interest in education, though, and dropped out of Oxford after a year of studies. What he was really good at was dressing impressively and making witty remarks, often at the expense of others' feelings and reputations.
 

In 1794, Brummell joined the Tenth Royal Hussars as an officer to the Prince of Wales. A year later, Brummell's father passed away, leaving him a hefty inheritance of £20,000 (about $3.7 million in today's dollars). As a member of the prince's personal regiment, which consisted of aristocrats, the sum was a pittance and hardly enough to cover the excesses in dress and banquets that Brummell was expected to pay out of his own pocket. Regardless, Brummell rose in the ranks and found favor with the prince. He left the service as a high-ranking captain in 1798—in spite of evidence that he regularly disregarded his duties.
 

As a civilian in London society, Brummell's taste for fineries continued to grow. His wardrobe became notable for its conservative tailoring when compared with the courtly fashions adopted from baroque France. Gone were the powdered wigs and knee breeches in favor of a contrasting blue coat, cravat, trousers, and riding boots. Brummell claimed to spend five hours dressing each morning and shining his shoes with champagne. His excruciatingly meticulous "nonchalance" was summed up in his own style ethos: "To be truly elegant one should not be noticed," he once said. Even today, historians and fashion enthusiasts point to Brummell as the foremost celebrity influencer for menswear in the 19th-century, and his rules haven't been challenged much in conservative approaches to color and styling. He is also known for being an early dandy, or an inordinately fashionable character.
 

However, Brummell's snobbery eventually caught up with him. He was said to have lost the favor of the Prince of Wales, whom he once called "fat" after the royal failed to greet him in a party reception line. His gambling debts also mounted, causing him to flee to Calais, France, in 1816 to avoid creditors. His friend Lord Alvaney eventually found Brummell an appointment as a consulate at Caen, though the job fizzled out when the Foreign Office took his advice and got rid of the consulate (Brummell was hoping for a better position elsewhere, which never materialized). In 1835, he was sent to debtor's prison in Calais and later released with the aid of his English friends. By then, Brummell was a ghost of his former self: disheveled, dirty, and insane from syphilis he'd contracted years earlier. He was admitted to the Bon Sauveur asylum in Caen, where he spent the last few years before his death in 1840.
 

Very few people in the world can claim to have influenced anything for over 200 years, much less the way men wear clothing. If Brummell was alive today, we'd like to think he'd find the Mad Men and Pitti Uomo menswear convention trends to be charming imitations of his personal sense of style—even if he'd have a sharp witticism or two for those who end up on his worst dressed list.
 

Below: a portrait drawing of Beau Brummell in his signature outfit with a blue coat, tan trousers, and high boots.

 

Image credit & copyright: Granger / REX / Shutterstock
 

A Mesoamerican metropolis falls to strange invaders.

The Aztec capital Tenochtitlan (in modern Mexico City, Mexico) was the wonder of the pre-Columbian world. With waterworks that put Venice's to shame and neighboring pyramids rivaling those of ancient Egypt, it's hard to overstate what a cultural loss it was to the world when the city was looted, plagued, and razed to the ground by Spanish conquistadors.
 

The Aztecs, or the Mexica, as they called themselves, originally moved from a mysterious region called Aztlan, or "Place or Herons," and began building Tenochtitlan in 1325 C.E. According to legend, their god of war and the sun, Huitzilopochtli, had ordered them to settle on an island in Lake Texcoco, in the contemporary Valley of Mexico, and reclaim the neighboring swampland. The Aztecs struggled and battled against rival cultures in the valley, so their city's construction dragged on through the reigns of four kings.
 

Situated 7,000 feet above sea level, Tenochtitlan was constructed on a grid that was modeled off the adjacent ruins of Teotihuacan, a once mighty city in its own right. Interlocking street canals were woven across the grid, to accommodate rapid trade by canoe and to feed aqueducts. There were also apiaries, zoos, and other renowned attractions. The Aztecs' meticulous urban planning drew the awe of neighboring cultures, who paid tribute; and bright red and blue pyramids, white palaces, and bustling markets quickly rose above Tenochtitlan's skyline.
 

At the center of the city—the very heart of the Aztec Empire—was the Sacred Precinct, where priests presided over religious ceremonies. The Aztecs believed that sacrifice was necessary to preserve mankind and sustain the universe, including the rising of the sun and the growth of crops. Human sacrifices were made upon the pyramids in the Sacred Precinct, before an audience of 8,000 people who simultaneously bloodlet themselves. Some sacrifices were prisoners of war, but others gladly offered themselves up and were treated as gods incarnate until their final day.
 

Erecting Tenochtitlan on mushy marshland might've seemed like a terrible idea, but Huitzilopochtli had made a solid call. In the following centuries, the goopy shoals surrounding the city's walls provided an excellent safeguard against invasions, and also allowed for 360-degree canoe trade. The Aztecs possessed an army of skilled warriors to boot, but during international crises, they deferred to politicians who wisely brokered alliances with nearby city-states.
 

Of course, things changed at an astounding pace with the arrival of the Europeans. In 1519, two years after the Spaniards made first contact, Conquistador Hernán Cortés marched on Tenochtitlan with 400 soldiers. He conspired with neighboring tribes against the Aztecs along his way, and was mistaken as the Aztec's light-skinned god Quetzalcoatl upon his arrival. Leering at Tenochtitlan, a city of gold, Cortés composed himself until he was taken to King Montezuma. He then seized the king and his retinue as hostages. Montezuma died in captivity on June 29, 1520, and in the ensuing struggle, the Spaniards killed an estimated 240,000 people in their conquest of Tenochtitlan and, later, the entire Aztec civilization.
 

Cortés and the Spanish dubbed the ruins of the Aztec Empire the Viceroyalty of New Spain, with Tenochtitlan now known as Mexico City, which was then instilled with a sense of European classism. Today, 500 years later, Mexico City nevertheless succeeds in carrying the legacy of the Aztecs, with Nahua Culture and indigenous holidays, such as the Day of the Dead, persisting. Which gives us the feeling that Huitzilopochtli still presides over the region, watching—guiding Mexico City along into the future.
 

Image credit & copyright: DEA Picture Library/De Agostini/Getty Images
 

All the world's a stage at Shakespeare's theater.

In spite of its lofty associations, the Globe Theatre sure has a rascally origin story. One could even argue that the playhouse was "stolen," Regardless, it became the inaugural home of many Shakespearian plays, and has been world-renowned since its inception—even if it has suffered karmic "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" over the years.

 

The origins of the Globe start with the theater company most associated with William Shakespeare: the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later known as the King's Men). Named after its primary patron, the all-male company formed in 1594 and bounced between a few different playhouses before company director and impresario James Burbage secured the use of The Theatre in Shoreditch borough in London that same year.
 

When the lease on The Theatre went up in 1597, the landlord claimed ownership of the building with legal entanglements following soon after. During Christmas celebrations in 1598, carpenter Peter Street, accompanied by Lord Chamberlain players and friends, secretly dismantled The Theatre beam by beam. They hid the materials in a warehouse near the River Fleet until transportation could be arranged for the River Thames, where the beams would be reconstructed as the frame of the Globe Theatre.
 

After leading the heist of The Theatre, Street oversaw the construction of the Globe, which finished in 1599. The circular structure was approximately 100-feet wide in diameter and could seat 3,000 audience members in a large pit and surrounding galleries. The center stage had crimson and gold columns, and an overhead false ceiling ornately painted and nicknamed both "the heavens" for its sky motifs and "the shadow" for the shade it threw over pit audiences.
 

Shakespeare, who had been an actor in Lord Chamberlain's troupe since its inception, premiered Julius Caesar, Hamlet, and Twelfth Night at the Globe. To say the stage upon the Thames featured some of the most successful plays in human history is no overstatement. But even theatrical greatness isn't safe from accidents (or cosmological comeuppance): during a performance of Henry VIII on June 29th, 1613, a theatrical cannon misfired and fully ignited the building, causing Lord Chamberlain's Men to rebuild the location over the following year.
 

The original Globe accommodated another 30 years of productions, but in September of 1642 it could no longer hold off rising political unrest, puritanical fervor, and Parliamentary censorship. The British government ordered the closure of all London theaters, with the demolishing of the Globe occurring in 1644. Plays were deemed obscene wastes of time by those who clearly learned nothing from Shakespeare's examples of corruption and abuses of power.
 

When King Charles II took the crown during the English Restoration in 1660, the theatrical ban was lifted; however, it took another 300 years for actor and director Sam Wanamaker to lead an effort to reconstruct the Globe. The theater, renamed "Shakespeare's Globe," opened in 1999 about 750 feet away from the original site, and was modeled after academic research for historical accuracy. For the last 20 years, audiences have been treated to Elizabethan productions in a manner Shakespeare himself would have experienced them. With all the merriment, suspense, and tragedy, the play remains the thing that captures the conscience of all those who are watching!
 

Below: shots of the interior Shakespeare's Globe, including the "heavens" above the stage.
 

Image credit & copyright: Shakespeare's Globe, Shakespeare on Location
 

Two houses strive violently for the English throne.

Unfortunately for the Yorks and Lancasters, blood ran red and strong in the family. From May 22, 1455, to June 16, 1487, these two arms of the English royal family failed to resolve their differences to claim a unified monarchy. So they duked it out in a series of conflicts now known as the Wars of the Roses, a reference to the badges each house wore on their apparel: the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster.
 

The Wars of the Roses begins with feckless King Henry VI. His wife Queen Margaret of Anjou ruled in his stead as mental illness frequently left him unfit to govern. After years of Margaret's controversial rulership, Richard, third Duke of York, and his chief lieutenant Richard Neville, the Earl of Warwick, assembled a small army and assaulted London to oust Margaret. After a minor clash at St. Albans in 1455, the duke and earl snatched up a catatonic Henry VI, with York proclaiming himself the king's Lord Protector. He enjoyed the role for a year until Henry VI awoke from his stupor one day and returned Margaret to power. York was banished to Ireland but returned to England shortly after with a vengeance.
 

At the Battle of Northampton, York once again won the game of capture the king and became Henry VI's successor in 1460. Margaret retreated to Scotland and amassed a Lancastrian counterattack to reinstate her son, Edward of Westminster, as the rightful heir. She and the Lancaster forces slew York at the Battle of Wakefield in 1460, and a phony crown was placed upon his severed head in mockery as the countryside was pillaged.
 

But total victory eluded Margaret, as Londoners denied her rabble entry to the capital. She retreated north again while the Earl of Warwick aligned himself with York's son and heir, Edward, who he then coronated King Edward IV. Together, they defeated Margaret and sent her back into exile. But Edward IV and Warwick's promising bromance soured when the former married Elizabeth Woodville against the latter's wishes in 1464. They met in battle at Edgecote in 1469, with Warwick achieving victory. The two made amends shortly after, but Edward IV, carrying a grudge, declared Warwick a traitor a year later and chased him off.
 

Then something miraculous happened. Enemies of enemies became friends when Margaret and Warwick squashed their beef and teamed up against Edward IV. They raised yet another army under the Lancastrian banner and invaded England, managing to restore mad King Henry VI again. In response, Edward IV rallied the Yorkists and clashed with Warwick, this time at Barnet, where his old ally met death. Taking no chances with his antagonists, Edward IV then proceeded to kill Edward of Westminster (Margaret's son) at Tewkesbury and had mad Henry VI murdered shortly after. Edward IV, himself, died not long after his blood spree came to a close in 1483. In a karmic twist, his brother, Richard of Gloucester, had Edward IV's sons put to death before declaring himself King Richard III.
 

Naturally, Richard III's acts of nepoticide put him in poor standing. Months later, the Duke of Buckingham revolted in favor of crowning Lancastrian heir Henry Tudor. Richard III and Henry Tudor met in battle Bosworth Field, where the former was killed. The latter, crowned Henry VII the same day, decided it was high time to resolve the psychotic York-vs-Lancaster feud. He married leading Yorkist heir Elizabeth of York in 1486, and combined the badges of both houses to create a white rose with red trim dubbed the "Tudor Rose." It was an unnecessary act of amity. By that point, the male lines for both families had been bled dry!
 

Image credit & copyright: Hulton Archive / Getty Images
 

The first national gay rights group.

Before Stonewall, before Marriage Equality, and before Gay Pride marches, there was the Mattachine Society. In an era of fervid homophobia, the group managed to unite gay individuals to collectively demand their due rights. In celebration of Pride month, we're learning how the pioneering group brought the fight for LGBTQ rights from the streets—to the courtroom.
 

To get to the origins of the Mattachine Society's inception, we have to go back to Los Angeles in 1948—to the youth of activist Henry Hay. Surviving on unsteady jobs, he had agreed to participate in interviews for Doctor Alfred Kinsey's Sexual Behavior in the Human Male, a book released that year which delved into the unforeseen nuances of human sexuality. It was a revelation to those who were homosexual that they had significant numbers in the millions living in America, and were definitely not alone.
 

At the same time, police were ramping up arrests and fines for "vagrancy-lewdness" which were used to harass people accused of homosexual acts. Hay, armed with Kinsey's statistics, made attempts to organize his gay friends and acquaintances into some sort of political action group to fight back. In 1950, he finally articulated what no one else could, that homosexuals were "an oppressed cultural minority." The following year, Hay gathered like-minded individuals into a group named the Mattachine Society, after the French Renaissance secret fraternity who would appear in public dressed in masks and use satire to speak truth to power.
 

The society's first test came in February of 1952 with the trial of member Dale Jennings. According to his testimony, Jennings was followed one night by a thuggish-looking man who kept making awkward advances at him. When the man let himself into Jennings apartment, he proceeded to harass Jennings until handcuffing and arresting him. Jennings was expected to plead guilty to his charges, pay a fine, and discreetly return to his life—as was often the case when men were charged with violating vag-lewd laws. Instead, Jennings called Hay, who posted his $50 bail and encouraged him to fight in court.
 

What came next was an unprecedented turn of events: the Mattachine Society called on donors across the country to help fund Jennings' legal expenses. In the ensuing jury trial, Jennings openly admitted he was a homosexual, but denounced the charges as a form of sexual entrapment that violated the Fifth Amendment. The trial went on for three days, with Jennings' lawyer arguing "homosexuality and lasciviousness are not the same thing." In the end, the jury was deadlocked with 11 finding Jennings innocent, and the chairman of the jury dissenting. The city attorney refused to continue prosecuting the case and moved for a dismissal, which the judge granted. It was the first time anyone had admitted they were homosexual and been exonerated of a vag-lewd case in California.
 

With the news of Jennings' trial making its way across the nation, Mattachine Society chapters were started in a number of cities. At their peak, 27 groups took on the name and the causes. Unfortunately, the organization collapsed after its leaders were accused of communism by the House Un-American Activities Committee, and a number of conventions failed to address the central goals of the organization: were they focused on radical political organization, or integrating the more conservative and high-minded gays into normal American society?
By the '70s, Mattachine was no more, but other movements arose to take its place: the Compton Cafeteria riots in San Francisco, the Stonewall Inn riots in New York, and the first Gay Pride Parade in June of 1970. These movements built on the society's hard-learned lessons in solidarity, self-actualization, and jurisprudence to lead the charge for future generations. Today, We're honoring the society, its successors, and the LGBTQ individuals who stood up and protested against police and state violence directed at them.

 

Image credit & copyright: Kay Tobin / New York Public Library
 

The U.S. government forcibly removes thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homes.

There are perhaps few other moments in the United States' troubled history so compassionless and devoid of morality as the Trail of Tears. The forced relocation of Native American tribes began on today's date in 1830, when a Jacksonian Congress passed the Indian Removal Act. Despite ardent resistance from Native American leaders and ethical politicians, multiple tribes were systematically stripped of their homelands in the American South and led to an unknown future out West.
 

In the years leading up to the act, Congress was unsure what to do with Native American tribes remaining within state borders. For instance, white settlers had long sought the removal of the Cherokee from northern Georgia, where gold had been discovered. In 1830, President Andrew Jackson obliged settlers by signing the Indian Removal into law. It was a direct betrayal of the Cherokee Nation, who had sent 500 warriors to aid Jackson at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814.
 

Cherokee leaders took the State of Georgia to court, and across two landmark Supreme Court cases, some degree of tribal sovereignty was reaffirmed. Members of the Senate also challenged the Indian Removal Act, but the federal government, in an act of desperation, approached a small subset of Cherokee who were pro-removal and offered them riches in return for signing the dubious Treaty of Echota in 1835. These pro-removal leaders forfeited the Cherokees' ancestral land, and received death sentences from the rest of their tribe.
 

That same year, the U.S. government used the Treaty of Echota as grounds to lean into the removal process. Between 1830 and 1850, the Cherokee, Seminole, Creek, and Choctaw peoples were all forcibly removed. Violence broke out during the Creek War of 1836 and the Second Seminole War, but all resistance was promptly quashed. In total, some 46,000 Native Americans were removed and sent to Oklahoma in an act of systemic genocide. Of the Cherokee alone, up to 8,000 died along the way from disease, starvation, and illnesses related to extreme weather conditions. Many of the living did not complete the journey, as they were thrown in prison camps.Those who did actually arrive in Oklahoma were distraught to find a foreign and inhospitable land. Today, the path the tribes took from the South to Oklahoma is known as the Trail of Tears for all the weeping that took place along the way.
 

The Indian Removal Act freed up 25 million acres of fertile farmland for white settlers to occupy in Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Ever since, relocated tribes have suffered from multi-generational trauma, with widespread issues like poverty and addiction displaying that the wounds haven't healed, and likely never will. There are certainly times to be proud of U.S. culture and accomplishments. This isn't one of them.
 

Image credit & copyright: Robert Lindneux
 

Marilyn Monroe livens up President Kennedy's 45th birthday party.

"It's better to be absolutely ridiculous than absolutely boring," American actress, model, and singer Marilyn Monroe once said. Her tumultuous career was certainly chock full of wry innuendo, but one romp stands out from the rest. On May 19, 1962, Monroe sang President John F. Kennedy Happy Birthday in front of 15,000 people at New York City's Madison Square Garden. Or as one columnist put it, she made "love to the president in direct view of 40 million Americans."
 

The Kennedy White House had decided to put on the party as a fundraiser to pay off debts incurred from the 1960 election race. Billed as a celebration of Kennedy's 45th birthday, it would include performances from stars like Ella Fitzgerald, Maria Callas, Jack Benny, Peggy Lee, and Monroe. Rumors were already swimming that an affair had taken place between Monroe and JFK (and his brother Bobby, for that matter), and her appearance was sure to draw a crowd.
 

At the time, however, Monroe was struggling to repair her personal and public life. Another victim of her time, the actress was coming off a divorce from Arthur Miller, gallbladder surgery, and a stay at a psychiatric hospital. When she received Kennedy's personal invitation, she was in Hollywood filming scenes for the movie Something's Got to Give. The actress yearned to break out from her role as a sex symbol, but couldn't resist the temptation to vivify Kennedy's birthday. She furiously rehearsed her bawdy, upcoming performance over the next few weeks.
 

Naturally, Monroe arrived late to the fundraiser. The moderator of the event, actor Peter Lawford, took advantage of her absence by playfully introducing her as "the late Marilyn Monroe" over and over, gesturing to an empty spotlight for a few hyucks when he needed them. Lawford was in the midst of monkeying around when Monroe quietly shimmied out from a curtain behind him. At the podium, she shed an ermine overcoat to reveal a flesh-toned gown shimmering with 2,500 hand-stitched crystals: one so tight, it allegedly had to be sewn onto her body. Appalled gasps and ribald whistles rose from the audience, and once the clamor died down, Monroe began to sing Kennedy Happy Birthday.
 

Only, this wasn't your average birthday-wishing. Monroe's rendition was quiet, breathy, and steamy. Lasting all of a minute, it blended into a reworked version of Thanks for the Memory that achingly championed Kennedy's hard work and accomplishments. As Monroe finished, she threw her hands in the air and riled the audience while an enormous cake was brought out. Ever the joker, Kennedy took the podium, saying "I can now retire from politics after having had Happy Birthday sung to me in such a sweet, wholesome way."
 

Though Kennedy and Monroe had only spoken in passing at the fundraiser, speculations abounded that they were tangled in a prolonged affair. In reality, the two would never see each other again. In the following weeks, Monroe's mental health further deteriorated under the weight of objectification and consequent alcoholism. She died of an overdose just months later in August. Kennedy, of course, would be assassinated the following year in Dallas, Texas.
 

Today, the Happy Birthday, Mr. President performance has become something of a legend. The skimpy dress Monroe wore to the fundraiser sold for a whopping $4.8 million in 2016 to museum chain Ripley’s Believe It Or Not—making it the most expensive piece of clothing ever sold through an auction. In regards to the purchase, the CEO of Ripley's said of the dress to the Press Association: "We believe this is the most iconic piece of pop culture that there is."
 

Below: footage of Monroe serenading JFK on his birthday.
 

Image credit & copyright: Snap/Rex/Shutterstock