Constructed in 1816, Auburn Prison was the site of the first execution by electric chair.

In the War of the Currents, Thomas Edison (promoting DC power) and the team of George Westinghouse/Nikola Tesla (promoting AC power) were constantly trying to win support, projects, and public favor for their respective systems.

Edison was a crafty showman as well as an inventor, and he invented the grisly electric chair as a publicity stunt to promote fear in the public of AC power.

On May 9, 1860, the murderer William Kemmler became the first recipient of the new technology. Although it had been tested successfully on a horse at 1,000 volts, it did not work on Kemmler the first time. So they tried it again at 2,000 volts. The execution room filled with the smell of burnt flesh and singed hair. All total the execution took eight minutes.

In the end, AC power became the standard for electricity. The electric chair is still with us. In case you doubt his intentions, Edison was good enough to film his executions for commercial release.

view full location details...

Janis Joplin died at the Landmark Motor Hotel (currently known as the Highland Gardens) on Sunday, October 4, 1970 of a heroin overdose.

Earlier the previous evening, Joplin had been at Barney's Beanery with some cohorts. Joplin was apparently bummed out that she had been stood up by her friends recently, and had been given a particularly potent batch of heroin.

When Joplin failed to show up at her recording session at Sunset Sound Records on October 4, her producer Paul Rothchild visited the Landmark Motor Hotel. He discovered Joplin's body in her room (#105). She was 27 years old.

view full location details...

Although it was set in New York, the interior of the Pandora Theatre in 1993's self-referential turd The Last Action Hero, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and some dumb kid, was Los Angeles's Orpheum Theatre on South Broadway. Exteriors were shot in New York City at the Empire Theatre on 42nd Street.

view full location details...

Canaima National Park in south-eastern Venezuela was the inspiration for Paradise Falls in Disney/Pixar's Up. The filmmakers visited Angel Falls and the table-top mountains called tepuis when doing research for the movie. Tepui means "House of the Gods" in the local Pémon language. The largest tepui, in the western end of the park, is Auyantepui which translates to “House of the Devil” or "Devil's Mountain." Angel Falls though, the world's highest waterfall which drops over the edge of Auyantepui, was named after American Jimmie Angel who was the first person to fly over the waterfall in 1933. He crashed his plane when returning to the falls in 1937, and his 11 day survival before he found help was such a big deal in Venezuela that the Venezuelan government named the falls after him.

view full location details...

Davy Jones (actor/singer/musician, former member of the Monkees), was pronounced dead of a heart attack at Martin Medical Center on the morning of Wednesday, Feb. 29. Jones had been complaining of chest pains the previous night at his Indiantown, Florida.

Jones was initially an actor, appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show with the cast of Oliver! the same night the Beatles made their first appearance on that show (on February 9,1964). Later recalling that evening, Jones said:

"I watched the Beatles from the side of the stage, I saw the girls going crazy, and I said to myself, this is it, I want a piece of that."

From 1966 to 1971, Jones starred in the hit tv show The Monkees, a semi-parody sitcom version of The Beatles that created some fun tunes like "Last Train to Clarksville","Daydream Believer", and the psychedelic-inspired film (co-written by Jack Nicholson), Head.

view full location details...