In the USA, at the start of the 1960s, telephones were generally the desk model with a rotary dial. Invariably in shiny black or possibly red, or “industrial” dark green.
Around 1962 or 1963, phone designers started thinking about the aesthetics of the apparatus itself. It was small enough to fit unobtrusively on a bed nightstand. It also came in the then-chic plastic colors of pink, sage green, shrimp, powder blue, aqua, butter yellow and others.
Around the middle of the decade, you started seeing the wall-mount telephone in people’s homes, installed usually in the kitchen. Its coiled receiver cord was often very long indeed, so the user could wander up to 50′ away from the hung chassis. By this time, the phones came in a much wider range of fashionable colors, such as tangerine, purple, chrome yellow, harvest gold, avocado, flame red, mint green and others.
Around 1968–69, many Americans switched out their rotary dial phones for the then-new “touch-tone” dialers.
Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund. At 450,295 square kilometres (173,860 sq mi), Sweden is the largest country in Northern Europe, the third-largest country in the European Union, and the fifth largest country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a total population of 10.4 million, the largest of the Nordic countries; and a low population density of 25.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (66/sq mi). 87% of Swedes live in urban areas, which cover 1.5% of the entire land area. The highest concentration is in the central and southern half of the country.
Sweden is part of the geographical area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in general mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. In spite of the high latitude, Sweden often has warm continental summers, being located in between the North Atlantic, the Baltic Sea, and vast Russia. The general climate and environment vary significantly from the south and north due to the vast latitudinal difference, and much of Sweden has reliably cold and snowy winters. Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested and includes a portion of the Scandinavian Mountains.
Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats (Swedish: Götar) and Swedes (Svear) and constituting the sea peoples known as the Norsemen. An independent Swedish state emerged during the early 12th century. After the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century killed about a third of the Scandinavian population, the dominance of the Hanseatic League in Northern Europe threatened Scandinavia economically and politically. This led to the forming of the Scandinavian Kalmar Union in 1397, which Sweden left in 1523. When Sweden became involved in the Thirty Years’ War on the Protestant side, an expansion of its territories began and eventually the Swedish Empire was formed. This became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, ending with the annexation of present-day Finland by Russia in 1809. The last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814 when Norway was militarily forced into a personal union, which peacefully dissolved in 1905. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining an official policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. In 2014, Sweden celebrated 200 years of peace, breaking even Switzerland’s record for peace. Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars and the Cold War, although Sweden has since 2009 openly moved towards cooperation with NATO.
Sweden is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, with legislative power vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. It is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides universal health care and tertiary education for its citizens. It has the world’s eleventh-highest per capita income and ranks very highly in quality of life, health, education, protection of civil liberties, economic competitiveness, income equality, gender equality, prosperity and human development. Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995, but has rejected NATO membership, as well as Eurozone membership following a referendum. It is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, the Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Åmål. The western part of Åmål, after the fire on the 9th of May, 1901. People and ruins
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During the Vietnam War, life for soldiers changed an extreme amount. Not only did their lives change, but they became a significant amount more difficult.
American soldiers were often young men who felt that they were serving their country and had never served in a war before. Because of this, they had no idea what they were fighting against. The Vietnam terrain was full of jungles, covered with booby traps and dense brush. There was constant heat, humidity, torrents of rain, and many different kinds of dangerous animals. The soldiers ended up becoming ill and injured due to the environment before the actual violence of the war even got to them.
In addition to this, soldiers had no idea what sort of enemy they were fighting, as the American Government had underestimated the Vietnamese. The Vietcong had a complex network of underground tunnels. The Vietnamese were very well supplied, and were extremely well prepared to the Americans. This caused even just finding the enemy to be difficult for U.S. forces. In villages, it was hard for American troops to determine who were the enemies, because even women and children could help build traps, or house and feed the Vietcong. Vietnamese mothers would often hand off their baby to an American soldier, or a little boy would walk up to a soldier, and a grenade would explode off the child. For reasons like this, Americans were forced to kill civilians even if they had no proof that they were for sure the enemies, because there was no definite way to tell. Because of this, U.S. soldiers were often yelled at as “baby killers”, causing frustrations with the fighting conditions of the war.
These issues in Vietnam caused soldier to suffer from low morale and become angry. Many fell into a fog of drugs. A majority began to smoke marijuana to try to ignore the horrors of the hell they were living in. The casualties of the men they had become close with hurt them more than they could handle. They fought for their country, yet their country did not support them. Their lives had turned into a nightmare, and the war in Vietnam could never be forgotten.
Sharon Vonne Stone (born March 10, 1958) is an American actress, producer, and former fashion model. Known for primarily playing femme fatales and women of mystery on film and television, she became one of the most popular sex symbols of the 1990s and is the recipient of various accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award and a nomination for an Academy Award. She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1995, and was named Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in France in 2005 (Commander in 2021). In 2018 she received the Gold Medal of the Italian Red Cross.
After modeling in television commercials and print advertisements, Stone made her film debut as an extra in Woody Allen’s dramedy Stardust Memories (1980) and played her first speaking part in Wes Craven’s horror film Deadly Blessing (1981). In the 1980s, she appeared in such pictures as Irreconcilable Differences (1984), King Solomon’s Mines (1985), Cold Steel (1987), and Above the Law (1988). She had a breakthrough with her part in Paul Verhoeven’s science fiction action film Total Recall (1990), before rising to international recognition when she portrayed Catherine Tramell in another Verhoeven film, the erotic thriller Basic Instinct (1992), for which she earned her first Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama.
Stone’s performance as a trophy wife in Martin Scorsese’s epic crime drama Casino (1995) earned her the best reviews of her career, the Golden Globe and an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. Her other notable films include Sliver (1993), The Specialist (1994), The Quick and the Dead (1995), Sphere (1998), The Mighty (1998), The Muse (1999), Catwoman (2004), Broken Flowers (2005), Alpha Dog (2006), Bobby (2006), Lovelace (2013), Fading Gigolo (2013), The Disaster Artist (2017), Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese (2019), and The Laundromat (2019).
On television, Stone has had leading and supporting roles in productions such as the ABC miniseries War and Remembrance (1987), the HBO television film If These Walls Could Talk 2 (2000), Steven Soderbergh’s Mosaic (2017) and Ryan Murphy’s Ratched (2020). She made guest appearances in The Practice (2004) and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2010), winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the former. (Wikipedia)
San Francisco in the 1970s was a global hub of culture. It was known worldwide for hippies and radicals. The city was heavily affected by drugs, prostitution and crime. Outcasts and the socially marginalized were attracted by a greater tolerance and acceptability of multi-cultures in the city. It grew as one of world’s biggest centres for the LGBT community and LGBT rights.
The Daily Mail described flamboyant 70s San Francisco as being characterized by “hippy street life when buskers, bongo players and impressive bouffants thronged the city by the bay.”
Here, below is a collection of 45 interesting color photographs of daily life in San Francisco were taken by photographer Nick DeWolf in August of 1971.
‘Affair in Trinidad’ is a 1952 film noir produced by Hayworth’s Beckworth Corporation, released by Columbia Pictures, and starring Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford.
The film is notable as Hayworth’s “comeback” film after four years away from Columbia, as a re-teaming of the Gilda (1946) co-stars, and for a fiery opening number danced barefoot by Hayworth to calypso music. Hayworth’s singing voice is dubbed by Jo Ann Greer, who later also sang for her in Miss Sadie Thompson and Pal Joey.
The film’s gross take at the box office exceeded Gilda’s by one million dollars.
Rita Hayworth (born Margarita Carmen Cansino; October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987) was a Spanish American actress, dancer, and producer. She achieved fame during the 1940s as one of the era’s top stars, appearing in 61 films over 37 years. The press coined the term “The Love Goddess” to describe Hayworth after she had become the most glamorous screen idol of the 1940s. She was the top pin-up girl for GIs during World War II.[1]
Hayworth is perhaps best known for her performance in the 1946 film noir Gilda, opposite Glenn Ford, in which she played the femme fatale in her first major dramatic role. She is also known for her performances in Only Angels Have Wings (1939), The Strawberry Blonde (1941), Blood and Sand (1941), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), Pal Joey (1957), and Separate Tables (1958). Fred Astaire, with whom she made two films, You’ll Never Get Rich (1941) and You Were Never Lovelier (1942), once called her his favorite dance partner. She also starred in the Technicolor musical Cover Girl (1944), with Gene Kelly. She is listed as one of the top 25 female motion picture stars of all time in the American Film Institute’s survey, AFI’s 100 Years…100 Stars.
In 1980, Hayworth was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease, which contributed to her death in 1987 at age 68. The public disclosure and discussion of her illness drew attention to Alzheimer’s, and helped to increase public and private funding for research into the disease.
These glamorous behind-the-scenes photos that captured Rita Hayworth while filming ‘Affair in Trinidad’ in 1952.
The Reliant Robin is a small three-wheeled car produced by the Reliant Motor Company in Tamworth, England. It was offered in several versions (Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3) over a period of 30 years. It is the second-most popular fibreglass car in history, with Reliant being the second-biggest UK-owned car manufacturer for a time.
Its steering wheel came off, its doors cracked in the wind, and it was voted the worst car ever. But the “plastic pig”, as it was called, was a good little product: a design classic, really. And it had a huge following that kept Reliant going for years. Some amazing people bought them, too – and even Princess Anne wanted one.
The Reliant Robin is staple material for comedian Jasper Carrott. However, perhaps two of the best known Reliants in British comedy are actually Reliant Regal Supervans — the dirty yellow van owned by the Trotter brothers in Only Fools and Horses, and the light blue van that always ends up getting tipped over, crashed into, bumped out of its parking space etc. by a British Leyland Mini in Mr. Bean.
Karlheinz Weinberger (1921-2006). Living in Zurich, Switzerland, Weinberger was a self-taught “amateur” photographer whose day job working in a factory warehouse allowed him to pursue photography seriously in his free time. In the late 1940s Weinberger began to publish his pictures for a gay magazine using the pseudonym of Jim, and later was a freelance photographer for a Swiss sports magazine. Working in relative obscurity, Weinberger produced all the prints featured in this exhibition in his home darkroom, and these have remained inaccessible until recent years.
According to The Selvedge Yard, in 1958, Karlheinz Weinberger met a member of a small band of teenagers and began photographing them both at his home studio as well as at the public parks and carnivals where they gathered. In post war Switzerland, these self-named “rebels” were comprised of working class boys and girls dissatisfied with the conservative and conforming culture of the day. Inventing their own code of behavior and dress they affected a powerful gang identity expressed by an affinity for like-minded American imports such as James Dean, Elvis, blue jeans and motorbikes.
Later, in the mid-60s, the rebels dissipated both physically and in spirit, while others carried on their youthful resistance to the status quo, forming clubs of “rockers” and “bikers” that Weinberger followed with his camera on their outings into the Swiss countryside. Their retreat from the urban setting to a self-imposed isolation in nature embodied a more inward revolt, one of self-destructiveness and self-mutilation.
Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is Queen of the United Kingdom and 14 other Commonwealth realms.
Elizabeth was born in Mayfair, London, as the first child of the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth). Her father acceded to the throne in 1936 upon the abdication of his brother, King Edward VIII, making Elizabeth the heir presumptive. She was educated privately at home and began to undertake public duties during the Second World War, serving in the Auxiliary Territorial Service. In November 1947, she married Philip Mountbatten, a former prince of Greece and Denmark, and their marriage lasted 73 years until Philip’s death in 2021. They had four children: Charles, Prince of Wales; Anne, Princess Royal; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; and Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.
When her father died in February 1952, Elizabeth—then 25 years old—became queen regnant of seven independent Commonwealth countries: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Pakistan, and Ceylon, as well as Head of the Commonwealth. Elizabeth has reigned as a constitutional monarch through major political changes such as the Troubles in Northern Ireland, devolution in the United Kingdom, the decolonisation of Africa, and the United Kingdom’s accession to the European Communities and withdrawal from the European Union. The number of her realms has varied over time as territories have gained independence, and as some realms have become republics. Her many historic visits and meetings include a state visit to the Republic of Ireland in 2011 and visits to or from five popes.
Significant events have included the Queen’s coronation in 1953 and the celebrations of her Silver, Golden, Diamond and Platinum jubilees in 1977, 2002, 2012, and 2022 respectively. Elizabeth is the longest-lived and longest-reigning British monarch, the longest-serving female head of state in history, the oldest living and longest-reigning current monarch, and the oldest and longest-serving incumbent head of state. Elizabeth has occasionally faced republican sentiment and press criticism of the royal family, particularly after the breakdown of her children’s marriages, her annus horribilis in 1992, and the death in 1997 of her former daughter-in-law Diana, Princess of Wales. However, support for the monarchy in the United Kingdom has been and remains consistently high, as does her personal popularity. (Wikipedia)
Planet of the Apes is an American science fiction media franchise consisting of films, books, television series, comics, and other media about a world in which humans and intelligent apes clash for control. The franchise is based on French author Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel La Planète des singes, translated into English as Planet of the Apes or Monkey Planet. Its 1968 film adaptation, Planet of the Apes, was a critical and commercial hit, initiating a series of sequels, tie-ins, and derivative works. Arthur P. Jacobs produced the first five Apes films through APJAC Productions for distributor 20th Century Fox; following his death in 1973, Fox controlled the franchise.
Four sequels followed the original film from 1970 to 1973: Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. They did not approach the critical acclaim of the original, but were commercially successful, spawning two television series in 1974 and 1975. Plans for a film remake stalled in “development hell” for over 10 years before Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes was released in 2001. A reboot film series commenced in 2011 with Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which was followed by Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014 and War for the Planet of the Apes in 2017. In 2019, Disney acquired the entertainment assets of 21st Century Fox including 20th Century Fox. That year, Disney announced further sequels to the 2011 reboot series are in production. The films have grossed a total of over US$2 billion worldwide, against a combined budget of $567.5 million. Franchise tie-ins include books, comics, video games and toys.
Planet of the Apes has received particular attention among film critics for its treatment of racial issues. Cinema and cultural analysts have also explored its Cold War and animal rights themes. The series has influenced subsequent films, media, and art, as well as popular culture and political discourse. (Wikipedia)
