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Video games started as kids’ play in the minds of consumer groups and rating boards, but back in the radically square 8-bit arcade days, there were way more adults playing games than teenagers. An arcade game is coin-operated entertainment machine typically installed in public businesses such as restaurants, bars and amusement arcades. Most arcade games are presented as primarily games of skill and include arcade video games, Pinball machines, electro-mechanical games, redemption games, or merchandisers....

Mike Tyson, born on June 30, 1966, in Brooklyn, New York, is a name that will forever be etched in the records of professional boxing history. His career, particularly during the 1980s, left an indelible mark on the sport and captivated audiences around the world. Known for his explosive power, relentless aggression, and captivating personality, Tyson became a cultural icon during this era. Tyson’s professional career in the 1980s can be described as a whirlwind of success, dominance, and controversy....

In 1914, tactics would have been familiar to commanders of a century ago: troops moved in mass, artillery fired directly over open sights, cavalry scouted for the enemy and exploited opportunities for breakthrough and pursuit. Until the front lines stabilized, entrenched, and grew encrustations of barbed wire; whereupon it became a static war where it was almost impossible to break through more than the first line of the enemy’s trenches (usually three layers deep)....

In many countries, New Year’s Eve is celebrated by dancing, eating, drinking, and watching or lighting fireworks. The celebrations generally go on past midnight into New Year’s Day, 1 January. In the United States, New Year’s Eve is celebrated via a variety of social gatherings, and large-scale public events such as concerts, fireworks shows, and “drops”—an event inspired by time balls where an item is lowered or raised over the course of the final minute of the year....

A literary great analysis on war and its effects on humans (Paul Bäumer, All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Maria Remarque): “I want to help you. I want to help you… Stop that! Stop it! Stop it! I can bear the rest of it. I can’t listen to that! Why do you take so long dying? You’re going to die anyway. Oh, no. Oh, no. You won’t die....

One soldier has flowers on his uniform. Here’s the reason why “humanizing” the Nazis is important. If you make them out to be inhuman monsters in a way that you can’t relate to, you lose the lesson of history that any people can become them. Before the Nazi party took over Germany, they were just Germans who offered a solution to their political and economic problems to most people. They sold it well, they offered answers that were palatable to a people fed up with the ineptitude and bureaucracy of the Weimar Republic....

The opening words, “We, acting by command of and in behalf of the Emperor of Japan,” signified the importance attached to the Emperor’s role by the Americans who drafted the document. The short second paragraph went straight to the heart of the matter: “We hereby proclaim the unconditional surrender to the Allied Powers of the Japanese Imperial General Headquarters and of all Japanese armed forces and all armed forces under Japanese control wherever situated....

In 1900s England, a mother-of-four named Mary Ann Bevan developed acromegaly and took up the title of being “the ugliest woman in the world” as a way to provide for her children. This is her tragic story, a reminder of how cruel the world can be. The World’s Homeliest Woman wasn’t always the epitome of ugliness. Bevan was actually an attractive woman in her early years before she suffered from acromegaly....

The scientists used math and physics to calculate complex spacecraft trajectories, navigation and the orbits or spacecraft, and much more. The calculations were tedious and long. As for this photograph, probably the photojournalist asked them to fill the board with complicated-looking equations for the shot. These are general equations of motion, so nothing that you would not have in a printed sheet of paper. There are no “calculations” on that board, just reference equations....

In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 feature films, many of which are still widely watched and studied today. Hitchcock grew up in London’s East End in a milieu once haunted by the notorious serial killer known as Jack the Ripper, talk of whom was still current in Hitchcock’s youth two decades later. Although he had two siblings, he recalled his youth as a lonely one, with a father who was a stern disciplinarian; it is said that he once ordered Alfred to appear at the local police station with a note saying that he had been misbehaving, whereupon the sergeant on duty (at the request of Hitchcock’s father) locked him up for a few minutes, a sufficient length of time to give Alfred a fear of enclosed spaces and a strong concern for wrongful imprisonment, both of which would figure in his later work....

Originally, the kites were used for pleasure and entertainment, and later on for aerial reconnaissance on the battlefield. Interest in their development declined with the advent of powered flight at the beginning of the 20th century. Recreational man-lifting kites gradually gained popularity through the latter half of the 20th century, branching into multiple sports. Man-carrying kites were used in ancient China, for both civil and military purposes and sometimes enforced as a punishment....

In June dissatisfied Petrograd workers and soldiers, using Bolshevik slogans, staged a demonstration and adopted resolutions against the government. On July 3 protestors, motivated in part by the resignation of the government’s Kadet (Constitutional Democratic) ministers, marched through Petrograd to the Tauride Palace to demand that the Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies assume formal power. The Bolsheviks, initially reluctant, attempted to prevent the demonstration but subsequently decided to support it....

Arkady Bronnikov, regarded as Russia’s leading expert on tattoo iconography, recently released a collection of around 180 photographs of criminals locked up in Soviet penal institutes. Russian Criminal Tattoo Police Files, published by FUEL, is probably the largest collection of prison tattoo photographs to date, at 256 pages. In the 1930s, Russian criminal castes began to emerge, such as the Masti (suits) and the Vor v Zakone (rus. Вор в Законе) or Blatnye (authoritative thieves), and with that a tattoo culture to define rank and reputation....

These hovering mammoths were used for directing artillery, which required spotters and observation well beyond the visual range of ground-based observers. As much as planes were able to record enemy positions and movement on film, having real time spotters and observational balloon baskets linked to the ground by telephone was essential. It allowed the artillery to take advantage of increasingly large guns with vastly longer ranges. The first military use of observation balloons was by the French Aerostatic Corps during the French Revolutionary Wars, the very first time during the Battle of Fleurus (1794)....

Lifting large boulders, performing impressive feats of strength, and generally entertaining an audience with tricks and skill. The professional strongmen were a response to the Industrial Revolution. With the emergence of office work and factories, there was a growing concern as to how this new sedentary lifestyle was affecting the manhood of the country’s men. These erstwhile bodybuilders focused on lifting the heaviest weights they could rather than developing and polishing each muscle in their bodies....

His pictures of Marilyn offer a rare glimpse into the early days of an eventual pop-culture icon’s career when a young actress was unaware of what the coming years would bring. In a 1999 interview, Clark described the photo shooting: “She was almost unknown then, so I was able to spend a lot of time shooting her.” “We’d go out to Griffith Park [in Los Angeles] and she’d read poetry....

She was named by the American Film Institute as one of the greatest female stars of Classical Hollywood cinema. Before working in the cinema, Sofia Scicolone changed her last name to Lazzaro for work in the fotoromanzi, popular pulp magazines that used still photographs to depict romantic stories. Her first film role was as an extra, one of many slave girls in the American production of Quo Vadis? (1951). Under the tutelage of producer Carlo Ponti (her future husband), Scicolone was transformed into Sophia Loren....

The victims not only bore the brunt of revenge for Wehrmacht crimes, but they also represented an atavistic target as old as war itself. Rape is the act of a conqueror, the historian Susan Brownmiller observed, aimed at the “bodies of the defeated enemy’s women” to emphasize his victory. Most historians agree although the issue is contentious, that the majority of the sexual assaults on German female civilians were committed in the Soviet occupation zone; estimates of the numbers of German women raped by Soviet soldiers have ranged up to 2 million....

This wonder of the past was called the Mikiphone, a pocket-sized phonograph that let you carry your favorite tunes wherever you went. The Mikiphone, a portable phonograph small enough to fit in one’s pocket, was the brainchild of Hungarian siblings Miklós and Étienne Vadász. It entered mass production under a licensing agreement with Maison Paillard, based in Saint Croix, Switzerland. Maison Paillard, which traces its origins to a group of local watchmakers coming together in 1814, initially delved into crafting music boxes around 1860....

Three others were also shot – Press Secretary James Brady, Washington Police Officer Thomas Delahanty, and Secret Service Agent Tim McCarthy. Hinckley was armed with a .22 revolver with exploding bullets and was only ten feet away from Reagan when he began shooting. Fortunately, he was a poor shot and most of the bullets did not explode as they were supposed to. Hinckley’s first shot hit press secretary James Brady and other shots wounded a police officer and a Secret Service agent....