1960 Park Slope, Brooklyn He learned to read at 4, and he liked to draw his favorite cartoons. His mother encouraged art. At 7, he went to a private school. That year, he and his best friend made a children's book. Everything changed the next year. A car hit him, leaving him with a broken arm and internal injuries. While in the hospital, his mother gave him a copy of Grey's Anatomy. Soon after she was put in an institution. Despite the changes, he became fluent and literate in 3 lan...

1960 Park Slope, Brooklyn He learned to read at 4, and he liked to draw his favorite cartoons. His mother encouraged art. At 7, he went to a private school. That year, he and his best friend made a children's book. Everything changed the next year. A car hit him, leaving him with a broken arm and internal injuries. While in the hospital, his mother gave him a copy of Grey's Anatomy. Soon after she was put in an institution. Despite the changes, he became fluent and literate in 3 lan...

1892 Harvard They categorized the lights of the sky, more numerous than the sand of every beach - The "Harvard Computers". They classified the stars by color and connected colors to temperature. Another found a way to measure star sizes. Their greatest, Henrietta Leavitt, calculated distances. They went from hundreds to millions of light years. Just as Earth was no longer the center of the Solar System, the sun was no longer at the heart of the Milky Way. Humanity leapt from interstellar to g...

1892 Harvard They categorized the lights of the sky, more numerous than the sand of every beach - The "Harvard Computers". They classified the stars by color and connected colors to temperature. Another found a way to measure star sizes. Their greatest, Henrietta Leavitt, calculated distances. They went from hundreds to millions of light years. Just as Earth was no longer the center of the Solar System, the sun was no longer at the heart of the Milky Way. Humanity leapt from interstellar to g...

1962 Greenwich Village, NYC The Sensorama. For $6,000 USD, you could have a machine that created 3-dimensional peripheral vision, binaural sound, tactile and aromatic sensations. “Feelies”. Morton L. Heilig, U. Chicago grad and Fulbright Scholar, struggled to get financing for "the thing" but the grandson of a department store fortune funded a prototype. It was Aldous Huxley’s "all super-singing, synthetic talking, colored, sterophonic feely, with synchronized scent-organ accompaniment". The ...

1962 Greenwich Village, NYC The Sensorama. For $6,000 USD, you could have a machine that created 3-dimensional peripheral vision, binaural sound, tactile and aromatic sensations. “Feelies”. Morton L. Heilig, U. Chicago grad and Fulbright Scholar, struggled to get financing for "the thing" but the grandson of a department store fortune funded a prototype. It was Aldous Huxley’s "all super-singing, synthetic talking, colored, sterophonic feely, with synchronized scent-organ accompaniment". The ...

Paris, 1895 Auguste and Louis Lumiere's father had a photographic plate factory on the verge of bankruptcy. The boys saved the factory in 1884 and went beyond plates. They saw Edison's Kinetoscope - mechanical peepshow but the brothers wanted to merge animation with projection. By February 1895, they built a 3-in-1 camera that recorded, developed and projected moving pictures. In the basement of Salon Indien du Grand Café, they recreated moments of life with light. A train arriving,...

Paris, 1895 Auguste and Louis Lumiere's father had a photographic plate factory on the verge of bankruptcy. The boys saved the factory in 1884 and went beyond plates. They saw Edison's Kinetoscope - mechanical peepshow but the brothers wanted to merge animation with projection. By February 1895, they built a 3-in-1 camera that recorded, developed and projected moving pictures. In the basement of Salon Indien du Grand Café, they recreated moments of life with light. A train arriving,...

1926 Los Angeles "There must be thousands... alone like me, dreaming ... I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.” Years of abandonment, abuse, foster homes, an orphanage, and a marriage at 16. Hard and lonely. She found escape, through a giant screen filled with light and dreams. In 1946, Norma Jean Mortensen was broke but talked an LA studio into making photos for her dreams. Norma Jean became Marilyn. She fought the studios after struggle ignited into early success - sh...

1926 Los Angeles "There must be thousands... alone like me, dreaming ... I’m not going to worry about them. I’m dreaming the hardest.” Years of abandonment, abuse, foster homes, an orphanage, and a marriage at 16. Hard and lonely. She found escape, through a giant screen filled with light and dreams. In 1946, Norma Jean Mortensen was broke but talked an LA studio into making photos for her dreams. Norma Jean became Marilyn. She fought the studios after struggle ignited into early success - sh...

1912 Paris, Montparnasse Mariya Ivanovna Vassiliéva was going to study medicine, a privilege for a daughter of a prosperous Smolensk family but something happened. She discovered art. She changed studies in St. Petersburg in 1903. By 1907 she was in Paris, working as a news correspondent and studied at Ecole de Beaux-Art. 5 years later, "Marie Vassilieff" became the center of an art scene. Her new atelier's walls were covered with work from friends including Chagall, Modignliani, and Pic...

1912 Paris, Montparnasse Mariya Ivanovna Vassiliéva was going to study medicine, a privilege for a daughter of a prosperous Smolensk family but something happened. She discovered art. She changed studies in St. Petersburg in 1903. By 1907 she was in Paris, working as a news correspondent and studied at Ecole de Beaux-Art. 5 years later, "Marie Vassilieff" became the center of an art scene. Her new atelier's walls were covered with work from friends including Chagall, Modignliani, and Pic...

1914 France They thought home by Christmas but after 5 months of fighting they were still in the trenches killing each other. Something happened on the Western Front. Outbreaks of peace on Christmas Eve. By dawn, there were handshakes, cigarettes and carols. Rumors of "football" matches. Exhaustion and the need to recover the bodies of fallen comrades from the field. The trenches were close enough to hear each other. It’s hard to make war on the familiar. "mortal enemies together as friends f...

1914 France They thought home by Christmas but after 5 months of fighting they were still in the trenches killing each other. Something happened on the Western Front. Outbreaks of peace on Christmas Eve. By dawn, there were handshakes, cigarettes and carols. Rumors of "football" matches. Exhaustion and the need to recover the bodies of fallen comrades from the field. The trenches were close enough to hear each other. It’s hard to make war on the familiar. "mortal enemies together as friends f...

1948 Western Europe A global war had ended - millions were killed and there was a new secret war between 2 victors, each with plans. The plan would amount to 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product to rebuild 16 nations, to fund the reconstruction of half of Europe. Infrastructure, cities and industry would be rebuilt, trade barriers between neighbors lowered. In less than 4 years growth was higher than pre-war levels. There were other features - 5 percent of these funds were invested in a ne...

1948 Western Europe A global war had ended - millions were killed and there was a new secret war between 2 victors, each with plans. The plan would amount to 5 percent of the Gross Domestic Product to rebuild 16 nations, to fund the reconstruction of half of Europe. Infrastructure, cities and industry would be rebuilt, trade barriers between neighbors lowered. In less than 4 years growth was higher than pre-war levels. There were other features - 5 percent of these funds were invested in a ne...

1870 Wisconsin It was called the "Greatest Show on Earth" by its creator, who was called the "Shakespeare of Advertising" - the first to travel by train. The show would keep growing despite disaster, train wrecks and mishaps. Phineas Taylor Barnum, "P.T. Barnum" for short, made sure folks knew when the circus came to town. Barnum worked for 40 years at other things: A general store, a newspaper, a theater, museums filled with hoaxes, America's first aquarium and wax figure shows, promoti...

1870 Wisconsin It was called the "Greatest Show on Earth" by its creator, who was called the "Shakespeare of Advertising" - the first to travel by train. The show would keep growing despite disaster, train wrecks and mishaps. Phineas Taylor Barnum, "P.T. Barnum" for short, made sure folks knew when the circus came to town. Barnum worked for 40 years at other things: A general store, a newspaper, a theater, museums filled with hoaxes, America's first aquarium and wax figure shows, promoti...

1756, Holy Roman Empire "In the 4th year of his age his father...began to teach him.... He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of 5, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down." Joannes’ father was his teacher - it was the sounds from his music lessons which took root. Soon he was on tour, performing for royal courts. Munich, Paris, London, Amsterdam. When he turned 8, he wrote a symph...

1756, Holy Roman Empire "In the 4th year of his age his father...began to teach him.... He could play it faultlessly and with the greatest delicacy, and keeping exactly in time. At the age of 5, he was already composing little pieces, which he played to his father who wrote them down." Joannes’ father was his teacher - it was the sounds from his music lessons which took root. Soon he was on tour, performing for royal courts. Munich, Paris, London, Amsterdam. When he turned 8, he wrote a symph...

1892 Toronto Gladys Marie Smith's life was filled with drama in every sense of the word. There was a quarantine when she was 4. Her alcoholic father abandoned the family and died soon afterwards. Her mother took in boarders to pay bills. One boarder was a theatrical stage manager, and the Smiths became stage performers. Gladys had her first stage role at age 7. She took all roles offered. "I played scrubwomen and secretaries and women of all nationalities ... I decided that if I could ge...

1892 Toronto Gladys Marie Smith's life was filled with drama in every sense of the word. There was a quarantine when she was 4. Her alcoholic father abandoned the family and died soon afterwards. Her mother took in boarders to pay bills. One boarder was a theatrical stage manager, and the Smiths became stage performers. Gladys had her first stage role at age 7. She took all roles offered. "I played scrubwomen and secretaries and women of all nationalities ... I decided that if I could ge...

1605 London There were explosives found under Parliament's House of Lords, but the the Gunpowder Plot was foiled. When the word spread, many celebrated that James the 1st survived. The Plot was intended to replace his Majesty with a Catholic sovereign. Guy Fawkes and others were caught and executed, and over the years the day was remembered in fire. The kind of gunpowder meant to kill a King would make fireworks and celebration. Over the years, politics, power, parties burned away gratit...

1605 London There were explosives found under Parliament's House of Lords, but the the Gunpowder Plot was foiled. When the word spread, many celebrated that James the 1st survived. The Plot was intended to replace his Majesty with a Catholic sovereign. Guy Fawkes and others were caught and executed, and over the years the day was remembered in fire. The kind of gunpowder meant to kill a King would make fireworks and celebration. Over the years, politics, power, parties burned away gratit...