“Blessed is the rebel. Without him, there would be no progress.” – Hugh Hefner

“Blessed is the rebel. Without him, there would be no progress.” – Hugh Hefner

During the 1950s, Richard P. Knerr and Arthur K. “Spud” Melin manufactured slingshots, boomerangs, and paddleballs in their Wham-O toy factory in the Los Angeles suburb of San Gabriel.

July 17, 1955, was intended as an invited-guests-only, media-oriented day to celebrate the long-awaited opening of Disneyland.

In Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice remarks to the Cheshire Cat, “I don’t want to go among mad people.”

In Lewis Carroll’s 1865 classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Alice remarks to the Cheshire Cat, “I don’t want to go among mad people.”

“Write me a story that first-graders can’t put down.”

In 1982 Eddie Murphy returned the nearly forgotten Gumby character to popularity.

In 1964, weary of railing against censorship and other ongoing battles, creator Rod Serling chose not to oppose the third cancellation of his series The Twilight Zone.

Hollywood gossip columnist Hedda Hopper once saw James Dean as an obnoxious attention-seeker in the Marlon Brando vein (she abhorred Brando) and even labeled Dean “another dirty shirttail actor.”

Bill Haley and His Comets recorded the first rock ’n’ roll hit: “Crazy, Man, Crazy,” a now-forgotten piece of swing-based fluff that employed teen-oriented catchphrases of the day (“solid,” “crazy,” “gone”).

In 1946 a Massachusetts DuPont chemist-inventor named Earl Tupper introduced “Poly-T Wonder Bowls.” They were polyethelene food-storage containers that varied in size and came in unusual pastel hues.

Barbara Handler Segal has recalled strangers saying to her, “So you’re the Barbie doll!”

While numerous historians have portrayed Davy Crockett as a brave folk figure, many others have blasted him as being a self-serving con artist.

While numerous historians have portrayed Davy Crockett as a brave folk figure, many others have blasted him as being a self-serving con artist.