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Today is Rock Hudson's 100th birthday. With a career that spanned over three decades, he was one of the most prominent male stars during Hollywood's Golden Age. From his debut in a small uncredited part in Fighter Squadron (1948), he went on to achieve leading man status with acclaimed performances in films such as Magnificent Obsession (1954), All That Heaven Allows (1955), Giant (1956) — for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor — and Pillow Talk (1959). Tall, dark and handsome, he represented the Hollywood ideal of masculinity in the 1950s and 1960s, but societal norms of the time meant that his true nature had to be kept hidden from the public. In 1985, he became one of the first celebrities to reveal he had been diagnosed with AIDS, which claimed his life at the age of 59. At the height of the AIDS pandemic, the disclosure of Rock's diagnosis had a an immediate impact on the visibility of the disease and on the funding of medical research t...

In the early 20th century, the rise of Germany and the decline of the Ottoman Empire disturbed the long-standing balance of power in Europe, at the same time that unresolved territorial disputes and shifting alliances created rivalries and an arms race between the great powers. Growing tensions reached a breaking point on June 28, 1914, when the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne was assassinated by an young Bosnian Serb revolutionary, who intended to free Bosnia and Herzegovina from Austro-Hungarian rule. Austria-Hungary blamed Serbia, as the assassination team was helped by a Serbian secret nationalist group, and declared war in the following month. Russia immediately mobilised its troops in Serbia's defense, prompting Germany, who had an alliance with Austria-Hungary, to declare war on both Russia and its ally, France. The United Kingdom subsequently marched against Germany, leading to a widespread conflict.   Although the United States was a major supplier of war...

In the pantheon of fictional monsters, the zombie has been around for almost a hundred years. The first popular reference to these resurrected corpses dates back to the book The Magic Island , published by William Seabrook in 1929. Seabrook was an American occultist (and an alcoholic) who found success travelling to various parts of the world and publishing exaggerated accounts of witchcraft and satanism. Written after a trip to the Caribbean island of Haiti, The Magic Island supposedly details Seabrook's real-life encounters with the walking dead. The section dealing with zombies is titled «Black Sorcery» and it colourfully narrates a story a local told to Seabrook about voodoo rites used to revive the dead as soulless slaves to work in the sugar cane fields.   Now in the Public Domain, The Magic Island was praised by critics at the time of its original release for its characterization of the Haitian people and culture, as well as its exploration of voodoo. Although Seabrook...