1948: An inversion layer settles over the rust belt town of Donora, Pennsylvania, trapping industrial pollution in the atmosphere. When it clears six days later, 20 people are dead, another 50 are dying and hundreds will live out their days with permanently damaged lungs.
Inversion occurs when the air near the ground is cooler than the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘William Gibson’
Oct. 26, 1948: Death Cloud Envelops Pennsylvania Mill Town
October 26th, 2010 |
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Sept. 7, 1948: Where the Rubber Is the Road
September 7th, 2010 |
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1948: A mile-long stretch of Exchange Street in Akron, Ohio, is the first in the United States to be paved with a rubber-asphalt compound.
Rubber was everywhere in postwar Akron. As the home of B.F. Goodrich, Goodyear, Firestone and General Tire, Akron called itself the “Rubber Capital of the World,” and the fortunes of the city [...]
June 14, 1948: TV Guide Prototype Hits N.Y. Newsstands
June 14th, 2010 |
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1948: A New York attorney sees the future of American pop culture and publishes the first incarnation of what will soon become TV Guide.
Lee Wagner had distributed movie celebrity magazines during the previous decade. But a few months before madcap comedian Milton Berle became a national sensation by hosting NBC’s Texaco Star Theater, Wagner [...]
“The Miracle Worker,†Starring Abigail Breslin, Closing On Broadway
March 29th, 2010 |
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Broadway’s been anything but kind to “Little Miss Sunshine.”
Abigail Breslin’s Broadway revival of The Miracle Worker is set to close next month, after it failed to win over critics and audiences.
The revival of William Gibson’s play about a young deaf and blind Helen Keller, played by Breslin, and her instructor, played by Alison [...]
March 17, 1953: The Black Box Is Born
March 17th, 2010 |
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1953: After several high-profile crashes of de Havilland Comet airliners go unsolved, Australian researcher David Warren invents a device to record cockpit noise and instruments during flight.
During the first half of aviation’s history, crashes rarely came with any answers. Even if an eyewitness saw an airplane crash, little was known of the cause or what [...]
The 16 Best Dystopian Books Of All Time
February 27th, 2010 |
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Dystopian novels—stories of the horrific future—are so common as to be almost forgettable. Here is a compilation of what I believe are the 16 greatest of the genre. I could happily list twice as many that are amazing, but these are the best. From the post-apocalyptic wasteland to deadly viruses to social malaise, all possible [...]
Visually-Impaired Actress Cast As Abigail Breslin Understudy “The Miracle Worker†On Broadway
December 10th, 2009 |
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Producers for a Broadway production based on the life of Helen Keller have quieted controversy from campaigners for disabled actors by casting a visually-impaired girl as Abigail Breslin’s understudy in The Miracle Worker.
Last month, the young Oscar-nominated star’s appointment as a deaf and blind girl was met with criticism from activists for people with disabilities. [...]
Abigail Breslin Helen Keller Broadway Casting Challenged By Advocacy Group
October 29th, 2009 |
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An advocacy group for people with disabilities is raining all over Little Miss Sunshine.
Abigail Breslin, the Academy Award-nominated star of the 2006 cinema gem Little Miss Sunshine, is set to play Helen Keller in her Broadway debut next March, but not everyone is happy about it. Breslin, 13, has been cast as the deaf-blind [...]