Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973)
(via citystompers1)
On this day, 15 July 1942, British military scientists exploded an anthrax bomb on Gruinard island in Scotland near a group of 15 sheep. 13 of the sheep eventually died. It was one of a series of biological warfare experiments carried out on the uninhabited island which had been requisitioned by the government during World War II.
The experiment fed into Operation Vegetarian, a plan to drop linseed cakes laced with anthrax in fields in Germany to infect and kill cattle. Five million of the cakes were produced, but as they were only to be used in response to a German biological attack which never materialised, they went unused and were destroyed after the war. Prime minister Winston Churchill also ordered half a million anthrax bombs from the US.
Gruinard island remained contaminated and uninhabitable until the 1980s, when a group calling themselves “Operation Dark Harvest” began demanding the government decontaminate it, and left contaminated soil outside the Porton Down military research facility, as well as another package of uncontaminated soil outside the Conservative party conference.
Later in the decade decontamination efforts began and in 1990 the island was declared safe, although some scientists caution that it may still be dangerous as anthrax spores can live for hundreds of years. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1761878157330660/?type=3
“The ignorant man’s position and character is this: he never looks to himself for benefit or harm, but to the world outside him. The philosopher’s position and character is that he always looks to himself for benefit and harm.” – Epictetus, The Enchiridion
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Open Society Tries To Stage A Counterrevolution In Cuba -
From January 2021 – important background to the counter-revolutionary provocations in Cuba and the role of the U.S. Nonprofit-Industrial Complex as an arm of the imperialist state.
Yesterday’s work outfit for New Comics Day: SOULS kitty tee, black & leopard joggers, Skechers Twinkle-Toes light up unicorn wing sneakers. #ootd #fafafafafashionbeepbeep #EverydayFashion #CheapAssChic #kittytee #souls #skulls #joggers #leopardprintisaneutral #CatAndJack #BlackCatHoodie #skechers #thebestsneakersintheuniverse #twinkletoes #unicornwings #glitter #lightupshoes #ComicShopGirl #PunkRockGirl #casualpunk #summerpunk #over50style #agingdisgracefully #MyStyle
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On this day, 15 July 1954, the right-wing dictatorship of general Francisco Franco amended the 1933 vagrancy law to criminalise homosexuality. The amendment also authorised the detention of all those convicted under the law in labour and concentration camps (content note: sexual violence).
Over the next 25 years, around 5,000 LGBT+ people would be imprisoned – mostly gay and bisexual men and trans women. They were housed in specialist prisons in Huelva and Badajoz, and in a camp in Fuerteventura, Canary Islands, and many were subjected to brutal sexual violence, and medical abuse like electric shock treatment.
Most of those prosecuted for breaching the law were working class, and historian Pablo Fuentes told the Guardian that it was “not uncommon to hear homosexuals from the upper classes and the aristocracy speak about the Franco period as a great time.”
After Franco’s death in 1975 and the subsequent fall of the dictatorship, political prisoners were released, but LGBT+ prisoners were not.
The homophobic law was eventually overturned in 1979, although those imprisoned because of it were not recognised as victims of Francoism and awarded compensation until 2009.
Learn about Franco’s rise to power in the Spanish civil war in our podcast episodes 39-40: https://workingclasshistory.com/2020/06/17/e39-the-spanish-civil-war-an-introduction/
Pictured: Silvia Reyes, one of those persecuted under the law. https://www.facebook.com/workingclasshistory/photos/a.296224173896073/1761690650682744/?type=3
(via everythingfox)
My latest for Bloody Disgusting! I loved doing this piece tracking the development of Universal’s The Mummy through the '90s, which kicked off with Clive Barker. That’s fairly well known, but his infamous pitch actually started a little earlier as his original idea for Hellraiser III. I love the weird game of Hollywood Telephone and constant changes of hand that allowed something like this to happen, to go from Hellraiser III to Barker’s The Mummy, which Universal did NOT go for, then to George Romero’s, Mick Garris’ Joe Dante’s and finally Stephen Sommers’ The Mummy. But just looking at the roadmap, a journey that ended at Sommers’ massive, beloved blockbuster began life as Hellraiser III and that is pure and wonderful and wild.
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