Jul 04 2026
The Fourth of July has inspired everything from parades and fireworks to songs, musicals, and movies. For classic-film fans, it is also a perfect excuse to revisit movies that explore different sides of American life—from Broadway showmanship and small-town celebrations to the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the complicated experience of coming home …
Jul 02 2026
Every July 2, World UFO Day offers a fitting excuse to revisit one of the strangest and most entertaining records to emerge from the first great explosion of rock and roll. In 1957, Arkansas-born rockabilly singer Billy Lee Riley released “Flyin’ Saucers Rock and Roll” on Sun Records. The record brought together two subjects that …
Jun 30 2026
Few songs seem to carry their own weather quite like Frank Sinatra’s “Summer Wind.” From its easy opening rhythm to the gradual swell of Nelson Riddle’s arrangement, the 1966 recording feels warm, breezy, and effortless. Yet beneath that relaxed surface is a song about something much less permanent: a romance that arrives with summer and …
Jun 29 2026
There may be no song that captures the cheerful strangeness of America’s Atomic Age quite as perfectly as Elton Britt’s “Uranium Fever.” Recorded in 1955, the country novelty song appeared at the height of a remarkable American craze. Prospectors were driving into the deserts and mountains of the West with Geiger counters in their vehicles, …
Jun 12 2026
The great Hollywood beach-party craze would not truly arrive until the 1960s, when surfing, bikinis, pop music, and teenage romance became a genre of their own. But the 1950s had already discovered that a stretch of sand could be one of the most versatile settings in the movies. Throughout the decade, Hollywood sent its stars …
Jun 08 2026
Born on this day, June 8, 1867, in Richland Center, Wisconsin, Frank Lloyd Wright became one of the most influential architects of the 20th century. Over a career spanning more than seven decades, he challenged assumptions about what an American building should look like, how rooms should connect to one another, and how architecture should …
Jun 03 2026
Born on this day, June 3, 1877, in Le Havre, France, Raoul Dufy became one of the great colorists of 20th-century French art. Sailboats move across brilliant blue harbors. Flags flutter above crowded streets. Racehorses circle paddocks beneath open skies. Musicians perform under chandeliers while fashionable spectators gather at regattas, casinos, concerts, and seaside resorts. …
Jun 02 2026
On June 2, 1904, British painter Frank Runacres was born into a world of art that would change almost beyond recognition during his lifetime. Modernism was already challenging academic traditions, abstraction would soon transform European painting, and British artists would spend much of the 20th century negotiating the space between experiment and observation. Runacres found …
May 31 2026
Born on this day, May 31, 1923, in Newburgh, New York, Ellsworth Kelly became one of the most recognizable abstract artists of the 20th century. His paintings can appear astonishingly simple: a brilliant red curve, a blue rectangle, a green panel, a black form against white, or several colors arranged across a wall. Yet Kelly’s …
May 28 2026
On May 28, 1966, Disneyland opened one of the most recognizable attractions ever created: “it’s a small world.” Guests boarded small boats and sailed through an impossibly colorful world populated by singing children, spinning flowers, playful animals, geometric buildings, and hundreds of tiny details set to a melody almost guaranteed to remain in their heads …
