Eric Hanson's Blog, page 12

Theft of the Mona Lisa

On this day in 1911 curators at the Louvre discovered that the Mona Lisa had been stolen. Among the suspects were the 32 year-old poet Guillaume Apollinaire and a 29 year-old not-yet-famous painter named Pablo Picasso. The tale appears on page 109 in A Book of Ages. Picasso appears ten times in the book, Apollinaire once. The painting appears twice, being stolen and being painted by da Vinci when he was 51.

Jesse James

On August 21, 1863, Jesse James rode with Quantrill's Raiders in their attack on the abolitionist community of Lawrence, Kansas. 150 men, women, and children were murdered. James was 15.

A Very Famous Childhood

On August 21, 1921, Christopher Robin Milne got a stuffed bear for his first birthday. He would receive a stuffed donkey for Christmas, and he already had a small stuffed pig, a gift from a neighbor. His father wrote humorous stories about fashionable Londoners, and successful plays that ran in the West End. His mother was attractive and very chic. They lived in Chelsea. Christopher had a perfect childhood in many ways. In a few years, through no fault of his own, he would be the most famous ch

Saul Bellow and Leon Trotsky

In August, 1944, Saul Bellow was in Mexico City. On the morning of the 20th he had an appointment with Leon Trotsky, but the communist leader was murdered before the two could meet. Bellow was 25 and hadn't become a conservative libertarian yet.

An Unknown from Illinois

On August 20, 1858, a beardless 49 year-old former one-term congressman named Abraham Lincoln met Illinois Senator Stephen A. Douglas in the first of seven three-hour debates. Douglas had a strong voice while Lincoln's was high pitched and tended to squeak, but Lincoln was almost a foot taller. Lincoln spoke out against the profitable institution of slavery. He lost the first debate and the Senatorial election, but he became a national figure.

Jerry Garcia Couture

In August 1992, 50 year-old Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia introduced a line of neckties. A month later he collapsed from exhaustion and was forced to cancel a tour, which tells you something about the rigors of fashion retailing. Garcia appears six times in A Book of Ages.

Pepys, Unexpurgated

On August 18, 1667, Samuel Pepys wrote in his diary "… being weary, turned into St Dunstan's church, where I hear an able sermon of the minister of the place. And stood by a pretty, modest maid, whom I did labour to take by the hand and the body; but she would not, but got further and further from me, and at last I could perceive her to take pins out of her pocket to prick me if I should touch her again..." Pepys was 34. This and other merry entries about the naval bureaucrat's sexual life would

Lolita

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita was published in America on this day in 1958, three years after its publication in France. The author was 59. The novel is about the relationship between a besotted older man and a young girl. It quickly went to the top of the bestseller list. The book's success paid for the Nabokovs' move to Switzerland, where the author lived out his life on the top floor of a luxury hotel. Nabokov appears [ :] in A Book of Ages.

Hendrix at Woodstock

On August 18th, 1969, Jimi Hendrix played The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock, New York. He was 26. He would die a year later, in London, from an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol. Hendrix appears four times in A Book of Ages.

Clinton Agonistes

On August 17, 1998, Bill Clinton became the first sitting President of the United States to be forced to testify in a criminal case of which he was the target. He was alleged to have lied about an affair while under oath. The interrogation by prosecutors went on for four hours in the Map Room in the White House, and the entire thing was videotaped and broadcast to the nation. Many of the questions were of a probing, extremely personal nature, which no one watching on television could imagine