Tag: WWII

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Arty Awesomeness Cautionary Tales Featured Video Clips

Beautiful Sand Animation by Kseniya Simonova

The words, they escape me. To describe Kseniya Simonova’s art as amazing is an understatement. Simonova won this year’s Ukraine’s Got Talent! show with a dramatic and beautiful sand animation that tells the story of her nation’s painful history during World War II. Her emotionally-charged piece moved the audience to tears.

Unfortunately I can’t understand the symbolism nor the lyrics to the music, but it certainly moved me in other ways. Have a look for yourself.

The 24-year old sand animator from Evpatoria has used her $1,000,000 Ukraninan Hryvnia prize to buy a house and to set up a children’s charity.

[Thanks for the tip, easy]

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Movies Video Clips

A Basterd’s Work is Never Done

It’s a tough job but some basterd has to get it done. From the acclaimed director Quentin Tarantino comes Inglourious Basterds, a war film/spaghetti western that sees Brad Pit as a Nazi-hating badass who seeking mighty vengeance against his foes, one skull-cracking hit at a time.

Here’s the trailer. The movie is due for release in the US in August 2009.

– via Giant Bomb.

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History Site Announcements

Birthday Girls & Boys – 13th January

orlando bloom

Hiya and HAPPY BIRTHDAY girls, boys & others. Have a grand day and I hope you don’t have to spend time with a bunch of feck arses like I do.

Also born on the 13th of January are:

  • 1777 – Elisa Bonaparte, younger sister of Napoleon I of France. Apparently she had a sharp tongue and used to tell Napoleon off quite a bit which caused their relationship to be strained at times, nevertheless he made her the Grand Duchess of Tuscany when he annexed it in 1807.
  • 1884 – Sophie Tucker, Russian-born performer who played piano and sang burlesque and vaudeville tunes, at first in blackface (i.e. like a “black sambo”). She said that theatre managers insisted on this blacked up disguise because she was “too fat and ugly” for audiences to endure otherwise. Her sense of humour was legendary, and she sang songs that acknowledged her heft, such as “Nobody Loves a Fat Girl, But Oh How a Fat Girl Can Love”. Her comedic style has influenced some of Hollywood’s funniest women including Mae West, Joan Rivers, Roseanne Barr, and Bette Midler.
  • 1898 – Kai Munk, Danish playwright, Lutheran pastor, and WWII martyr. Munk criticised Hitler and Mussolini’s persecution of Jews during WWII in a Danish newspaper, he was subsequently arrested and assassinated by the Gestapo.
  • 1927 – Sydney Brenner, South African born molecular biologist, huge fan of the soil round worm, and 2002 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine co-laureate.
  • 1935 – Mauro Forghieri, Italian automotive and mechanical engineer who designed the Ferrari 312 series. While he was Technical Director of Ferrari’s racing department, Ferrari won the driver’s F1 world championship title four times, with John Surtees (1964), Niki Lauda (1975 and 1977), and Jody Scheckter (1979). Ferrari also won the builder’s F1 world championship title eight times.
  • 1949 – Rakesh Sharma, Squadron Leader in the Indian Air Force, first Indian and 138th man to visit space.
  • 1961 – Julia Louis-Dreyfus, American actress, and daughter of a writer and a billionaire business executive. Julia started out her TV career by performing on Saturday Night Live from 1982 to 1985. She then went on to make a lot of money acting as Elaine on Seinfeld from 1990 to 1998. According to Jerry Seinfeld “She cracks you up without breaking your nuts” – apparently she can do the same thing to a peanut M&M.
  • 1977 – Orlando Bloom, English actor, Buddhist, tree hugger, dog rescuer, underwear model dater, Obama supporter. He is most well known for his roles as immortal elf-prince Legolas in The Lord of the Rings and blacksmith Will Turner in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. He was equally limp-wristed Troy and Elizabethtown, and only slightly better in Kingdom of Heaven. His is cute though.

Thanks for the info Wikipedia.

Let me know if you’d like me to add a friend, family member or little ol’ you to our daily birthday lists of (famous) people. Mail me names, years of birth, and what makes you or them famous.