I call this next punch the goodnight kiss.
Virginia Mayo wasn't much of a boxer. In addition to being very light, she telegraphed her punches, like this haymaker roundhouse right she's about throw after winding it up from somewhere around Sausalito. Good thing she could act. She appeared in such classic films as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Flame and the Arrow, South Sea Woman, and, interestingly, in 1946 starred in both White Heat and Red Light. That sounds like a must-watch double bill, and despite the hundreds of vintage crime flicks we've seen, amazingly we've never seen those. So our night is all mapped out.
Well, yes sir, I can tend to your member too, I suppose, but you don’t look wounded. Above is a True Detective cover from August 1960, with a story about convicted rapist Caryl Chessman. Chessman had been executed in the California gas chamber several months earlier, but not before the U.S. Supreme Court heard his appeal. The case was complicated. Chessman was the Red Light Bandit, a rapist who preyed on motorists parked in secluded areas. Using what looked like a dome light to make them think he was a policeman, he would approach them, rob them at gunpoint and sometimes violate the women. At trial prosecutors used the Little Lindberg Law to argue for the death penalty. That law was written to punish criminals who kidnapped their victims. Chessman hadn’t done that, but he had dragged one girl a short distance away from her car. Prosecutors argued that this constituted kidnapping, and in so doing promptly gave anti-death penalty advocates a textbook example of death penalty abuse. The case became national news, but after ten years of various legal battles, Chessman finally met the executioner on May 2, 1960. Three months later, True Detective waded into the continuing uproar over abuse of the Little Lindberg Law to remind people that there were actual victims involved. Their article claimed that the end justified the means. We bet how you feel about that depends on how you feel about the legal system in general. But as far as how you feel about True Detective's cover art, we'll go out on a limb and assume you think it's as brilliant as we do.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1945—Mussolini Is Arrested
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini's fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable. 1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves.
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