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James Dean was a two-time Academy Award-nominated American film actor. His status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled stereotypical high school rebel Jim Stark. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only three films, his entire output. His death at a young age helped guarantee a legendary status.

His mother died at an early age and his father was unable to care for him so Dean was sent to live with relatives in Indiana. After graduating from high school, he eventually went to UCLA where he majored in drama. Dean quit college and pursued acting full-time, moving to New York City where he appeared in several television shows. He gained admission to the legendary Actor’s Studio to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg. In 1953, Dean was cast in Elia Kazan’s adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden as awkward loner Cal Trask.

Dean quickly followed this film with a starring role in Rebel Without a Cause and appeared opposite Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson in Giant. He became interested in racing cars and purchased a Porsche 550 Spyder. On September 30, 1955, Dean was driving his Porsche to a sports car race at Salina, California. He was driving west on Route 466 near Cholame when a Ford Custom Tudor coupe crossed into Dean’s lane without seeing him. The two cars almost head on. Dean was taken to hospital and was pronounced dead on arrival. He was buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana.

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Jerry Lee Lewis is an American rock and roll and country music singer, songwriter and pianist. An early pioneer of rock and roll music, Lewis was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and his pioneering contribution to the genre has been recognized by the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Lewis began playing piano in his youth and his parents mortgaged their farm to buy him a piano. Influenced by a piano-playing older cousin, the radio, and the sounds from the black juke joint across the tracks, Lewis developed his own style, mixing rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, gospel, and country music. He paid his dues in clubs in Mississippi and became a part of the emerging rock and roll sound, cutting his first demo in 1954. During December 1956, Lewis began recording prolifically, both as a solo artist and as a session musician at Sun Records.

In 1957, Lewis recorded hit singles “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” and “Great Balls of Fire,” which was his biggest hit, bringing him national and international fame. During a May 1958 British tour, it was reported that Lewis’ third wife, Maya Gale Brown, was his first cousin once removed and only 13 years old. The publicity cause an uproar and the tour was canceled after only three concerts. The scandal followed Lewis home to America, and as a result, he was blacklisted from radio and almost vanished from the music scene. In 1989, a major motion picture based on his early life in rock and roll, Great Balls of Fire, brought him back into the public eye.

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The Battle of Lesnaya was one of the decisive battles of the Great Northern War. It took place on September 28, 1708 between a Russian army of 12,000 men commanded by Princes Repnin and Menshikov and a Swedish force of 16,000 men, under the command of General Adam Ludwig Lewenhaupt, at the village of Lesnaya, located on the border between Poland and Russia.

Lewenhaupt, one of Sweden’s foremost generals, was the commander of one of his country’s best armies, based at the Baltic Sea port of Riga. In the summer of 1708, King Charles XII of Sweden ordered him to march southward with most of his force and link up with Charles’ main army of 25,000 men based in Poland. The Russians observed these movements and decided the time was ripe to attack Lewenhaupt’s smaller force. Lewenhaupt was not fazed; no Swedish army had yet been defeated by Russians in eight years of war.

The battle itself was closely contested and both forces suffered heavy casualties. Late in the day, a snowstorm kicked up and the Swedes became disorganized. Lewenhaupt ordered his men to retreat. Menshikov ordered his cavalry to attack one more time and routed the Swedes. The Swedes lost 1,000 men and 4,000 missing in battle. Russian casualties totaled 1,111 killed and 2,856 wounded. The Russian victory at Lesnaya convinced their soldiers that they could defeat even Sweden’s best soldiers.

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The “Old 97” is a Southern Railway train officially known as the Fast Mail. It was en route from Monroe, Virginia to Spencer, North Carolina when it left the track at Stillhouse Trestle near Danville, Virginia on September 27, 1903. The wreck inspired a famous railroad ballad.

The wreck of Old 97 occurred when the engineer at the controls of engine number 1102 was operating the train at high speed in order to stay on schedule as it had a reputation for never being late. The train was substantially behind schedule upon leaving Washington and was one hour late upon arriving at Monroe. The engineer was instructed to get the Fast Mail to Spencer on time and had to increase the train’s speed to make up the time. The route between Monroe and Spencer was rolling terrain and there were numerous danger points due to the combination of grades and tight radius curves.

The engineer was unable to sufficiently reduce speed as he approached the curve leading into Stillhouse Trestle, causing the entire train to derail and plunge into the ravine below. Nine people were killed, including the locomotive crew. The Southern Railway place the blame for the wreck on the engineer, disavowing that he had been ordered to run as fast as possible to maintain the schedule. The wreck of the Old 97 serves as inspiration for balladeers, the most famous being the ballad first recorded by G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter.

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The Australia II is a 12-meter class yacht and the first successful challenger for the America’s Cup after 132 years. The boat was designed by Ben Lexcen and built by Stephen Ward. Alan Bond owned it and the boat was helmed by John Bertrand. Australia II featured an innovative winged keel design developed by Lexcen which helped make it very fast and manoeuvrable in many conditions.

This design feature was also the most controversial but legal part of the boat. As selection trials took place for the cup defence during the summer of 1983, it was unclear whether the keel design was legal within the strict rules governing the 12-meter class. Australia II was not the first boat to have a winged keel, though its success did much to make the concept popular. Also helping the Australians was new sail technology, finally equaling or exceeding that of the Americans.

Australia II represented the Royal Perth Yacht Club of Australia in its September 1983 challenge for the America’s Cup. The New York Yacht Club had held the cup since 1851, dominating challengers and sustaining the longest winning streak in the sport. Australia II came from behind to prevail four races to three. The victory on September 26, 1983 was a landmark event for the nation of Australia, not to mention the Royal Perth Yacht Club, and it eventually earned Australia II the ABC’s Wide World of Sports Athlete of the Year for 1983.

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William Faulkner was an American author and one of the most influential writers of the 20^th century. In 1949, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. His reputation is based on his novels, novellas, and short stories. Most of Faulkner’s works are set in his native state of Mississippi, and he is considered one of the most important “Southern writers,” along with Mark Twain, Flannery O’Connor, and Tennessee Williams among others.

Faulkner was raised and heavily influenced by the state of Mississippi, as well as by the history and culture of the South as a whole. When he was four-years-old, his entire family moved to the town of Oxford, the model for the town of “Jefferson” in his fiction. Mississippi marked his sense of humor, his sense of the tragic position of blacks and whites, and his characterization of Southern characters. Faulkner was living in New Orleans when he wrote his first novel, Soldier’s Pay, in 1925 after being influenced by Sherwood Anderson to try fiction.

From the early 1920, Faulkner published 13 novels and numerous short stories, the body of work that grounds his reputation and for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize at the age of 52. During this time, he wrote his most celebrated novels such as The Sound and the Fury, As I Lay Dying, Light in August, and Absalom, Absalom! In the early 1940s, film director Howard Hawks invited Faulkner to come to Hollywood to become a screenwriter for the films Hawks was making, most notably an adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep.

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Majestic 12 is the purported code name of a secret committee of scientists, military leaders, and government officials, supposedly formed in 1947 by an executive order of United States President Harry S. Truman. The purpose of the committee was to investigate UFO activity in the aftermath of the Roswell incident – the purported crash of an alien spaceship near Roswell, New Mexico in July 1947.

The primary evidence for the existence of a group named Majestic 12 is a collection of documents that first emerged in 1984 and which have been the subject of much debate. The existence of MJ-12 has some times been denied by some agencies of the U.S. government, which insist that documents suggesting its existence are hoaxes. Opinions among UFO researchers are divided. Some argue the documents may be genuine while others contend they are phony primarily due to errors in formatting and chronology.

In 1985, another document mentioning MJ-12 and dating to 1954 was found in a search at the National Archives. Its authenticity is also highly controversial. Since the first MJ-12 documents, thousands of pages of other supposed leaked government documents mentioning MJ-12 and a government cover-up of UFO reality have also appeared, sometimes collectively referred to as the “Majestic Documents.” The primary new MJ-12 document is a lengthy, linotype-set manual allegedly dating from 1954, called the MJ-12 “Special Operations Manual.” It deals primarily with the handling of crash debris and alien bodies.

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Pulp Fiction is a 1994 film by director Quentin Tarantino, who co-wrote it with Roger Avary. A crime drama with a non-linear storyline, the film is known for its rich, eclectic dialogue, ironic mix of humor and violence, and its host of cinematic and pop culture references. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Tarantino and Avary won for Best Original Screenplay.

The first element of what would become the script was written by Avary in the fall of 1990 with the initial inspiration being the three-part horror anthology film Black Sabbath by Italian filmmaker Mario Bava. After he finished making Reservoir Dogs, Tarantino returned to Pulp Fiction, working on the script in Amsterdam in March 1992. Avary joined him, contributing one of the stories and participating in rewrites as well as the development of new, linking storylines. Initially, Columbia Tristar planned to finance the film but its chief executive did not like the script and it was taken to Miramax who agreed to make it.

Pulp Fiction premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and caused a sensation, winning the top prize, the Palme d’Or. The film debuted in the United States on September 23, 1994 at the New York Film Festival. It received positive reviews from numerous publications, including Variety, the New York Times, and Newsweek. It wound by grossing $107.9 million in the U.S. and $213 million worldwide, easily surpassing its modest $8.5 million budget. The film launched Tarantino’s career and revitalized John Travolta’s, who received an Academy Award nomination.

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Born in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, Joan Jett is an American rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, producer, and actress. She is best known for her hit single, “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which was #1 on the Billboard charts from March 20 to May 1, 1982, as well as for her other popular recordings including “Crimson and Clover”, “Do You Wanna Touch Me”, “Light of Day”, and “Bad Reputation.”

Jett’s musical and songwriting approach is heavily influenced by the hard-edged, hard beat-driven rhythms common to many rock bands of her native Philadelphia, often featuring lyrics surrounding themes of lost love, criticisms of insincerity, the struggles and resolution of the American working class. Jett is one of the original members of The Runaways along with Kari Krome and Sandy West. Jett sang lead vocal, played rhythm guitar and wrote or co-wrote much of the band’s material. The Runaways were popular overseas but could not garner the same success in the United States.

After the band disbanded in spring 1979, Jett pursued a solo career in England and then later that year, moved to Long Beach, New York. Jett recorded her solo debut in 1980 but it was rejected by 28 major labels in the U.S. and so she released it independently – inadvertently becoming the first female performer to start her own record label. She soon formed the Blackhearts and went on to record “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” which in the first half of 1982 was #1 on the Billboard charts for seven weeks in a row.

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The Hobbit is an award-winning children’s book and fantasy novel by J.R.R. Tolkien, written in the tradition of the fairy tale. He wrote the story in the early 1930s to amuse his three sons. The book was published on September 21, 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald Tribune for best juvenile fiction.

The Hobbit has sold an estimated 100 million copies worldwide since first publication. The book is set in a time “between the dawn of Faerie and the Dominion of Men,” and follows the quest of home-loving Bilbo Baggins to win his share of the treasure guarded by the dragon. His journey takes him from light-hearted, rural surroundings into darker, deeper territory. The story is told in the form of an episodic quest: most chapters introduce a specific creature or type of creature. The prose adventure is interspersed with songs and poetry, many of which serve to lighten the tone otherwise frightening or dramatic scenes.

Critics have drawn parallels with Tolkien’s own experiences and the themes of other writers who fought in World War I. A sequel was requested by his publishers and Tolkien made accommodations for it while working on The Lord of the Rings. The Hobbit has never been out of print and its ongoing legacy encompasses many adaptations for stage, screen and radio.

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