Ralph DePalma was an Italian-American racecar driving champion, most notably winner of the 1915 Indianapolis 500. His entry at the International Motorsports Hall of Fame estimates that he won about 2000 races. DePalma won the 1908, 1909, 1910, and 1911 American AAA national dirt track championships and is credited with winning 24 American Champ car races.
Dean Moon brought a level of showmanship to the sport of drag racing. His cars not only went fast but looked good with signature Mooneyes decals, yellow paint and chrome plating. His team were well turned out in all white uniforms with the MOON Logo and cowboy hats.
François-Xavier Lalanne is best known for the sculptures of animals that he produced alongside his wife, Claude, under the moniker Les Lalanne.
Vicky de Lambray was a transvestite male prostitute, conman and thief who became a favourite of Fleet Street gossip columnists. In an essay called "London Grandeur" Phaedra Kelly says "Vikki's claim was that she would be the most famous transgenderist ever and die dramatically at the age of 30." De Lambray once changed his name by deed poll to Louis de Rothschild — hoping he would be confused as a Rothschild family member. The Rothschild family paid him ten thousand pounds to change it back again, which he did. Vicky de Lambray claimed he was addicted to the idea of becoming famous. He would regularly hire a Rolls Royce with the funds received prostituting himself in Shepherd Market in London's West End. He would place a large sign in the back of the Rolls, saying VICKY de LAMBRAY—ENTERTAINER, and drive for hours around central London or park outside Harrods. It was while working at Shepherd Market that de Lambray met the former head of MI6 Sir James Dunnet. During the assignation, de Lambray stole Dunnet's wallet and credit cards and was arrested after a few days while attempting to use Dunnet's credit card.
Serge Voronoff was a French surgeon of Russian extraction who gained fame for his technique of grafting monkey testicle tissue on to the testicles of men for purportedly therapeutic purposes while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The technique brought him a great deal of money, although he was already independently wealthy. As his work fell out of favour, he went from being highly respected to a subject of ridicule. In 1999, some speculated that the AIDS virus discovered in the 1980s entered the human population through Voronoff's transfer of monkey parts into humans in the 1920s.
The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."
The 2,500 year celebration of the Persian Empire consisted of an elaborate set of festivities that took place October 12-16, 1971 on the occasion of the 2,500th anniversary of the founding of the Iranian monarchy by Cyrus the Great. The intent of the celebration was to demonstrate Iran's long history and to showcase its contemporary advancements under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran.
Jean Bedel Bokassa was the military ruler of the Central African Republic from 1 January 1966 and the Emperor of the Central African Empire from 4 December 1976 until he was overthrown on 20 September 1979. Bokassa had been sentenced to death in absentia in December 1980 for the murder of numerous political rivals. However he returned from exile in France on 24 October 1986. He was arrested and tried for treason, murder, cannibalism and embezzlement. At the end of his life he proclaimed himself the 13th Apostle and claimed to have secret meetings with the Pope. He died of a heart attack on 3 November 1996 in Bangui, at the age of 75. He had 17 wives and a reported 50 children.
Truman Capote's legendary masked ball, at New York City's Plaza Hotel on November 28, 1966, was a hyped-up media event meticulously masterminded by the self-promoting, social-climbing author of In Cold Blood. Actress Candice Bergen was bored at the ball; Capote's elevator man danced the night away with a woman who didn't know his pedigree; and Norman Mailer sounded off about Vietnam. This frothy effort retreads ground already covered by Gerald Clarke, George Plimpton and Sally Bedell Smith, among others.
Mathias Rust is a German man known for his illegal landing near Red Square in Moscow in 1987. As an amateur aviator, he flew from Finland to Moscow, being tracked several times by Soviet air defence and interceptors. The Soviet fighters never received permission to shoot him down, and several times he was mistaken for a friendly aircraft. He landed on Vasilevski Spusk next to Red Square near the Kremlin in the capital of the USSR.