 In tip top shape from stem to stern. 
Above is a promotional photo of Italian actress Edy Vessel, who was born in Trieste as Edoarda Wessellovsky, a fact that neccessitated a name change before she achieved reknown in such films as Psycosissimo and Federico Fellini's 8½. This photo from the French magazine Stop dates from 1962.
 The brightest light in Hollywood. 
Elke Sommer speeds through Hollywood during the late hours in this promotional photo from a 1963 issue of the French magazine Stop. She was famous at this point, having appeared in films in Europe, but she wasn’t yet the global icon she would become. In less than a year the hit comedy A Shot in the Dark would make her one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.
 French starlet Brigitte Bardot turned heads in Saint-Tropez more than half a century ago.                
Continuing the process of cleaning off our French shelf, we have an issue of the pin-up magazine Stop. This one, issue #18 from 1962, is devoted entirely to Brigitte Bardot, and inside you get studio and outdoor photography of the legendary sex symbol, plus production stills from several of her films.
The cover image of her in front of the Eiffel Tower is iconic, but the image in panel sixteen, just above, is one of the most famous ever made of her. It was shot by Willy Rizzo in Saint-Tropez during the 1956 production of Roger Vadim’s Et Dieu… crea la femme, aka And God Created Woman, and it pretty much sums up the quality of Bardot’s sex appeal.
Saint-Tropez was just a sleepy seaside village back then, so you can imagine what all those crusty fishermen in the cafés thought the first time they saw this woman walking barefoot along their waterfront. Mermaid? Tramp? Angel? Waif? Bardot had all those elements and more, which is a large part of why—in addition to her copious talent—she became such a transcendent star.
Today she remains in the public eye, if controversially, and it’s ironic that someone who once united people in their appreciation of her beauty, acting and singing is now such a polarizing figure. The above photo isn’t the only image that survives from that famed Rizzo session, so just for the fun of it, we’ve posted a few more below to help you dream about springtime.
   
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1945—Hitler Marries Braun
During the last days of the Third Reich, as Russia's Red Army closes in from the east, Adolf Hitler marries his long-time partner Eva Braun in a Berlin bunker during a brief civil ceremony witnessed by Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann. Both Hitler and Braun commit suicide the next day, and their corpses are burned in the Reich Chancellery garden. 1967—Ali Is Stripped of His Title
After refusing induction into the United States Army the day before due to religious reasons, Muhammad Ali is stripped of his heavyweight boxing title. He is found guilty of a felony in refusing to be drafted for service in Vietnam, but he does not serve prison time, and on June 28, 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court reverses his conviction. His stand against the war had made him a hated figure in mainstream America, but in the black community and the rest of the world he had become an icon. 1947—Heyerdahl Embarks on Kon-Tiki
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing. 1989—Soviets Acknowledge Chernobyl Accident
After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe. 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.
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