Harkening to a Valentino Past

What about antiquity in ads from the 1960s?  There is a point in advertising when we shift from forward-thinking (or even present-thinking) to thinking backwards.  This Oldsmobile ad from April 11, 1969 is hardly the most prominent example of this, but it’s a start.

Faux Sixties Humility: Charlie Brown vs. Gen. Montgomery

How to find that exact apex of U.S. culture?  Let’s go a little farther out, bracketing it with two extreme points, one at the end of World War II and the other squarely in the funky late 1960s.  Somewhere between these extremes lies the exact tipping point. 1967:  Victims Rejoice The headline stating “Charlie Brown… Continue reading Faux Sixties Humility: Charlie Brown vs. Gen. Montgomery

Where Is the Missing $3 Million From the Lost Hawaii Clipper?

It’s strange enough that a boat-plane with $3,000,000 in cash would go missing. It’s also strange that it would be so underreported. PanAm Clippers were flying passenger boats that flew from mainland U.S. to China. Because of the Clippers’ limited range, the Clippers hopped from island base to island base, much like a toad hopping… Continue reading Where Is the Missing $3 Million From the Lost Hawaii Clipper?

PanAm Yankee Clipper Cutaway Drawing, ca 1930s

  This cutaway drawing shows the PanAm Yankee Clipper (B-314), which was built by Boeing on the base of an XB-15 bomber fuselage.  On December 21, 1937, Boeing delivered the first Yankee Clipper to PanAm. The Yankee Clipper was the result of over 6,000 engineering drawings, 50,000 parts, and one-million rivets.  But with such complexity… Continue reading PanAm Yankee Clipper Cutaway Drawing, ca 1930s

Kim Jong Il Houses and Compound

Even to me, it seems funny that you can locate the house of a feared dictator and killer and all-round Bad Boy merely by entering a few coordinates into Google Maps: Coordinates:  39.199569,126.020501 Google Maps