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David Mamet is an American author, essayist, playwright, screenwriter, and film director. His works are known for their clever, terse, sometimes vulgar dialogue, and arcane stylized phrasing, as well as for his exploration of masculinity.

Mamet was born in Chicago, the son of a teacher and an attorney. He is a founding member of the Atlantic Theater Company and gained early acclaim for a trio of off-Broadway plays in 1976: The Duck Variation, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, and American Buffalo. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for Glengarry Glen Ross, which received its first Broadway revival in 2005. Mamet’s first produced screenplay was the 1981 production of The Postman Always Rings Twice. He received an Academy Award nomination for The Verdict a year later.

In 1987, Mamet made his film directing debut with House of Games, starring his then-wife, Lindsay Crouse, and a host of longtime stage associates. He has remained a prolific writer and director, assembling an informal repertory company for his films, including William H. Macy, Joe Mantegna, Rebecca Pidgeon, and Ricky Jay. Like independent filmmaker John Sayles, Mamet funds his own films with the pay he gets from credited and uncredited rewrites of typically big-budget Hollywood films like Wag the Dog and Ronin.

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Pong is a first generation video game released originally as a coin-operated arcade game by Atari Inc. It is based on the sport of table tennis and named after the sound generated by the circuitry when the ball is hit. Contrary to popular belief, Pong was not the world’s first video arcade game but it was the first video game to achieve widespread popularity in both the arcade and home console markets.

Pong was the first game developed by Atari and co-founder Nolan Bushnell hired Allan Alcorn despite having no experience with video games. To acclimate Alcorn to creating games, Bushnell gave him a project secretly meant to be a warm-up exercise. He asked Alcorn to create a simple game with one moving spot, two paddles, and digits for score keeping. Alcorn created his own designs because he felt that the basic game was too boring.

He added features to give the game more appeal. To construct the prototype, Alcorn purchased a black and white television set from a local Payless store and placed it into a four-foot wooden cabinet. In September 1972, Bushnell and Alcorn installed the Pong prototype at the local bar, Andy Capp’s Tavern and it was well-received the first night. By the end of March 1973, between 8,000 to 10,000 of the units had been sold, although, taking into account the large number of clones, it is estimated that over 100,000 coin-ops were sold.

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The Tehran Conference was the meeting of Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill between November 28 and December 1, 1943 in Tehran, Iran. It was the first World War II conference among the Big Three (the Soviet Union, the United States, and the United Kingdom) in which Stalin was present. The chief discussion was centered on the opening of a second front in Western Europe.

At the same time, a separate protocol pledged the three countries to recognize Iran’s independence. Most importantly the conference was organized to plan the final strategy for the war against Nazi Germany and its allies. The key Allied leaders met together only twice during World War II but when they did confer, their decisions changed the course of history. The first of these two conferences only came about after much pleading and threats from Roosevelt who wished to strengthen the cooperation between the U.S., Great Britain, and the USSR.

Roosevelt wanted this meeting so much that he was willing to make numerous concessions to Stalin, and the choice of location itself was a place more convenient to Stalin. Roosevelt arrived in Tehran with little bargaining power and in poor physical condition. In contrast, Stalin arrived jubilant and swaggering because of the USSR’s most recent victories in Eastern Europe. Churchill was calm and focused, hoping to promote his Mediterranean plan.

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Network is a 1976 New Hollywood drama film about a fictional television network, Union Broadcasting System, and its struggle with poor ratings. It was written by Paddy Chayefsky and directed by Sidney Lumet, and stars Faye Dunaway, William Holden, and Peter Finch.

Chayefsky and the producer Howard Gottfried had just come off a lawsuit against United Artists, challenging the studio’s right to lease their previous film, The Hospital, to ABC in a package with a less successful film. Despite recently settling this lawsuit, the two men agreed to allow UA to finance Network. After reading the script, UA found the subject matter too controversial and backed out.

Chayefsky and Gottfried shopped the script around to other studios and eventually found an interested party in MGM. Network premiered in New York City on November 27, 1976 with a wide release following shortly afterward. The film won four Academy Awards, including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, and Best Original Screenplay. In 2000, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. In 2006, the script was voted one of the top ten movie scripts of all-time by the Writers Guild of America, East.

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The Brinks Mat Robbery occurred when six robbers broke into the Brinks Mat warehouse at Heathrow Airport, England. The robbers thought they were going to steal three million pounds in cash, however, when they arrived, they found three tons of gold bullion worth 26 million pounds. Scotland Yard quickly discovered a family connection between a bank security guard and the robber.

Tried at the Old Bailey, Brian Robinson, who conceived the raid, and gang leader Michael McAvoy were each sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for armed robbery. Prior to his conviction, McAvoy had entrusted part of his share to an associate, Brian Perry, who recruited Kenneth Noyce to dispose of the gold. Noyce melted down the bullion and recast it for sale.

However, the sudden movements of large amounts of money through a Bristol bank came to the notice of the Treasury who informed the police. Noyce was placed under police surveillance and in January 1985, killed a police officer he discovered in his garden. Although, a jury found him not guilty on the grounds of self-defense, he was subsequently found guilty of conspiracy to handle the Brinks Mat gold. Three tons of stolen gold has never been recovered. According to the BBC, some have claimed that anyone wearing gold jewelry bought in the United Kingdom after 1983 is probably wearing Brinks Mat.

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The Battle of Solway Moss took place near the River Esk in the Scottish borders between forces from England and Scotland. When Henry VIII of England broke from the Roman Catholic Church, he asked James V of Scotland, his nephew, to do the same. James ignored the request and further insulted his uncle by refusing to meet with Henry at York.

Furious, Henry VIII sent troops against Scotland. In retaliation for the massive English raid into Scotland, James responded by assigning Robert, Lord Maxwell, the Scottish Warden of West March, the task of raising an army. An army of 15,000 to 18,000 Scots advanced south. Maxwell was never officially designated commander of the force but declared that he would lead the attack in person. However, he fell sick and never reached the scene of battle.

The Scots advance was met at Solway Moss by Sir Thomas Wharton and his 3,000 men. Sir Oliver Sinclair de Pitcairns declared himself to be the Scots’ chose commander. Unfortunately, the other commanders refused to accept his command and the command structure totally disintegrated. The battle was uncoordinated and resulted in few deaths, but the English captured 1,200 prisoners including Sinclair. James withdrew to Falkland Palace, humiliated and ill with fever. He died there two weeks later.

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D.B. Cooper is the name attributed to a man who hijacked a Boeing 727 aircraft in the United States, received $200,000 in ransom, and parachuted from the plane. He was not apprehended and despite hundreds of leads through the years, no conclusive evidence has surfaced regarding Cooper’s true identity or whereabouts, and the bulk of the money has never been recovered. Several theories offer competing explanations of what happened after his jump, which the FBI believes he did not survive.

On the day before Thanksgiving, a man traveling under the name Dan Cooper boarded a Boeing 727-100 Northwest Orient Flight 305 flying from Portland International Airport to Seattle. After the jet had taken off, he handed a note to a young flight attendant and told her he had a bomb and was hijacking the plane. Cooper demanded $200,000 and two sets of parachutes. The pilots informed the FBI who told them to cooperate with the man. The plane landed at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport once Cooper’s demands were met.

The plane refueled and took off with Cooper, the money, and the parachutes. Eventually, he lowered the aft stairs and jumped out of the plane never to be seen again. The nature of Cooper’s escape and the uncertainty of his fate continue to intrigue people. The case has baffled government and private investigators for decades with countless leads turning into dead ends.

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The second incarnation of Life magazine was created by Henry Luce with strong emphasis on photojournalism. It appeared as a weekly until 1972 and as a monthly from 1978 to 2000. It was the first all-photography United States news magazine and dominated the market for more than 40 years. The magazine sold more than 13.5 million copies a week at one point.

Life was so popular that President Harry S. Truman, Sir Winston Churchill, and General Douglas MacArthur all serialized their memoirs in its pages. Perhaps one of the best-known pictures printed in the magazine was the photograph of a nurse in a sailor’s arms, snapped on August 27, 1945, as they celebrated VJ Day in New York City. Luce gave as much space and importance to pictures as to words. This format was an instant classic: the text was condensed into captions for 50 pages of pictures.

The magazine was printed on heavily coated paper that cost readers only a dime. The circulation skyrocketed beyond the company’s predictions, going from 380,000 copies of the first issue to more than one million a week four months later. Life spawned many imitators, such as Look, which folded in 1971. Each week, during World War II, Life brought the war home to Americans and had photographers in all theaters of war, from the Pacific to Europe.

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The assassination of John F. Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States, took place in Dallas, Texas. He was fatally wounded by gunshots while riding with his wife Jacqueline Kennedy in a Presidential motorcade. The ten-month investigation by the Warren Commission, the U.S. House Select Committee on Assassinations, and other government investigations concluded that the President was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Just before 12:30 pm, Kennedy’s limousine entered Dealey Plaza and slowly approached the Texas School Book Depository head-on. When the Presidential limo turned and passed the Depository and continued down Elm Street, shots were fired at Kennedy with the great majority of witnesses recalling hearing three shots. Governor Connally, riding in the same limo, was also critically injured but survived. The staff at Parkland Hospital’s Trauma Room who treated Kennedy observed that he had no chance of survival and was pronounced dead at 1 pm.

The assassination is still the subject of widespread speculation and has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, none of which have been proven. In 1979, the House Select Committee on Assassinations found both the original FBI investigation and the Warren Commission Report to be seriously flawed. It also concluded that at least four shots were fired and that it was probable that a conspiracy existed.

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Rene Magritte was a Belgian surrealist artist who became well-known for a number of witty and thought-provoking images. Hew as born in Lessines, in the province of Hainaut, the eldest son of a tailor and a milliner. Magritte began lessons in drawing in 1910.

Magritte studied at the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels for two years until 1918. He worked as an assistant designer in a wallpaper factory and was a poster and advertisement designer until 1926 when a contract with Galerie la Centaure in Brussels made it possible for him to paint full-time. In 1926, Magritte produced his first surreal painting, The Lost Jockey, and held his first exhibition in Brussels in 1927.

Critics heaped scorn on the exhibition and, depressed by the failure, Magritte moved to Paris. He became friends with Andre Breton and got involved in the surrealist group. When Galerie la Centaure closed and the contract income ended, Magritte returned to Brussels and worked in advertising. His work was exhibited in the United States in New York City in 1936 and again in 1965 and 1992. Magritte died of pancreatic cancer on August 15, 1967 and popular interest in his work rose considerably in the 1960s. His imagery has influenced pop, minimalist, and conceptual art.

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