March 10, 1957 — Osama bin Laden born
The mastermind of the 9/11 World Trade Center attack was born in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (although some sources, notably the...
February 13, 2018
The Past
June 23, 1956 — Gamal Abdel Nasser becomes President of Egypt
Gamal Abdel Nasser was a colonel in the Egyptian army who wasn’t satisfied with the status quo of post-colonial Egypt....
February 21, 2018
October 7, 1955 — Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” is first performed
The greatest poem of the Beat Generation writers, and one of the finest of the 20th century, Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl”...
February 28, 2018
October 10, 1954 — David Lee Roth born
‘Diamond’ Dave Lee Roth is best known as the lead singer of Van Halen (or at least, the lead singer...
March 9, 2018
June 9, 1954 — Joseph Welch stops Joseph McCarthy in his tracks
Joseph McCarthy had been hunting the Reds under America’s beds for years when he turned his attention to the Army...
March 14, 2018
May 20, 1954 — “Rock Around The Clock” released
One, two, three o’clock, four o’clock rock… Rightly or wrongly, this is the song – and Bill Haley and his...
March 19, 2018
May 7, 1954 — Dien Bien Phu falls
The fall of Dien Bien Phu marked the unofficial end of French Indo-China. The French Far East Expeditionary Corps was...
March 24, 2018
January 20, 1954 — William Burroughs writes his first letter home from Tangier
Burroughs was inspired by the works of Paul Bowles to visit Tangier, and found it much to his liking. He...
March 29, 2018
December 6, 1953 — Nabokov finishes writing “Lolita”
Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel is one of the most controversial books of the twentieth century. Its subject matter – a...
April 1, 2018
September 1, 1953 — The Doomsday Clock is set at two minutes to midnight
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific publications in the world. Its first...
April 4, 2018
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