What happens when going around the world is no longer enough? On 28 September 1924, two Douglas World Cruisers returned to Seattle and completed the first aerial circumnavigation of the globe. The US Army Air Service expedition had begun on 6 April and lasted 175 days, covering roughly 27,550 miles. Four aircraft had set out; […]
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Some dates seem to acquire a literary life of their own, and 21 September has an unusually impressive collection of connections. We begin in 1866, with the birth of H. G. Wells. Wells became one of the defining figures of early science fiction, imagining time travel, invisible men and, most famously, an invasion from Mars […]
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What happens when two birthdays collide in Paris? You get Pink the Panther. On 8 September 1925, Peter Sellers was born in Portsmouth. Forty-four years later, on 8 September 1979, Alecia Beth Moore — better known as Pink — was born in Pennsylvania. That gives us a wonderfully simple Link Salad: Pink + Peter Sellers […]
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Some dates seem to have a theme running through them. 3 September is a day for turning. On 3 September 1967, Sweden carried out one of the most extraordinary changes in its motoring history. On Dagen H — Högertrafikomläggningen, the right-hand traffic reorganisation — the country switched from driving on the left-hand side of the […]
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On 23 August 1946, Keith Moon was born in Wembley. Twenty years later, on 23 August 1966, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 took the first photograph of Earth from the vicinity of the Moon. So, on Keith Moon’s twentieth birthday, a camera at the Moon turned around and looked back at Earth. Moon on the Moon. […]
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21 August brings together punk rock and one of the most audacious art thefts in history. On 21 August 1952, Joe Strummer was born in Ankara, Turkey. He would go on to become the frontman of The Clash, one of the defining bands of the British punk movement. Exactly 41 years earlier, on 21 August […]
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Today, 20 August, brings together two very different creative figures who were born on exactly the same date: rock singer Robert Plant, born in 1948, and Finnish-American architect Eero Saarinen, born in 1910. Plant was born in West Bromwich, in England’s Black Country, and grew up nearby in Halesowen. He would go on to become […]
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On 3 August 1811, two seemingly unrelated events took place. In the Swiss Alps, the Jungfrau was climbed for the first time by the Meyer brothers and two experienced mountain guides. Reaching one of Europe’s great Alpine summits required determination, skill and endurance. At the time, such an ascent was the preserve of only the […]
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🥗 Peter O’Toole, Oil and the Fires of History: The 2 August Link Salad 🎬 The Star of the Day: Peter O’Toole Some days in Linkology have one obvious starting point. For 2 August, that link is undoubtedly Peter O’Toole. Born on 2 August 1932, O’Toole became one of cinema’s greatest actors, but one role […]
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Happy birthday to Fatboy Slim! Few artists are as closely associated with Britain’s seaside culture as Norman Cook. His landmark 1998 album You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby became one of the defining electronic music albums of its era, before he transformed Brighton Beach into the venue for the legendary Big Beach Boutique in 2002. […]
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