Above are a few very rare promotional photos of American actor Steve McQueen motoring about on a Suzuki T20 racing motorcycle during a break in filming The Sand Pebbles in Taiwan. This guy just loved bombing around in fast machines, as we’ve documented here and here. These particular images were made in 1966 and appeared in the Japanese film Screen in 1967.
1937—Carothers Patents Nylon
Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.