Usagi Tsukino, better known as Sailor Moon, is the superheroine protagonist and title character in the Sailor Moon manga series and anime adaptations. Usagi is introduced as a carefree, underachieving schoolgirl in Tokyo. She is initially believed to be an Earthling, but is later revealed to be Princess Serenity of the moon kingdom Silver Millennium. Usagi meets Luna who discovers that she is destined to save Earth from the forces of evil. Luna gives Usagi a broach to transform into Sailor Moon, and asks her to form the Sailor Soldiers, find their princess and protect the “Legendary Silver Crystal.” As Usagi matures, she becomes one of the universe’s powerful warriors and protects her adopted home planet, Earth, from villains who wish to harm it.
This 8-bit Sailor Moon was created at the request of my wife Heidi and her sister. Speaking of sailing (or at least ferries), Heidi and I are heading to Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juan Islands, to stay in an apartment in Eastsound for the next few days. It’s her birthday present from me.
Tetsuo Shima is the main antagonist of the manga and 1988 anime movie Akira. One of the youngest members of a motorcycle gang in Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo was once the best friend of leader Shotaro Kaneda. At the beginning of the story, Tetsuo is severely injured in a mysterious motorcycle accident, which causes him to display immense powers, including telekinesis, teleportation, mind-reading and a shield that allows him to breathe in space. Tetsuo’s mental instability increases with the manifestation of his powers. This ultimately drives him insane and destroys his friendship with Kaneda, who becomes his nemesis.
Note: I created 8-bit Tetsuo after the point in the story where he synthesizes an artificial, metal arm to replace his severed right arm. Also, today is 9/11. Last year on September 11, I published my 666th pixel art character, Nero. In 2012, I posted Augusto Pinochet on this day. That’s three villains in a row. But if you go back to 2011, on the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, I published Captain America. Because, ‘Merica.
Jackie Chan is a Hong Kong actor, action choreographer, comedian, martial artist, singer and stunt performer. In his movies, he is known for his acrobatic fighting style, comic timing, use of improvised weapons and innovative stunts. He is one of the few actors to have performed all of his film stunts. Chan has been acting since the 1960s and has appeared in over 150 films. An operatically trained vocalist, Chan is also a Cantopop and Mandopop star, having released a number of albums and sung many of the theme songs for the films in which he has starred. He was born on this day in 1954.
Note: Chan was the only child of Charles and Lee-Lee Chan and reportedly spent 12 months in the womb before being removed surgically at 12 pounds in weight. This can’t be true, unless it somehow is.
The 2014 Winter Paralympics, officially the XI Paralympic Winter Games, will be held from March 7-16, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. Ray of Light (Fire Boy) and Snowflake (Snow Girl) were selected as the two mascots of the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games. The story goes that Ray of Light flew down to Earth from a planet where it was always hot.
The 2014 Winter Paralympics, officially the XI Paralympic Winter Games, will be held from March 7-16, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. Snowflake (Snow Girl) and Ray of Light (Fire Boy) were selected as the two mascots of the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games. The story goes that Snowflake flew down to Earth from an icy planet.
The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, are currently taking place from February 6-23, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. The European Hare (designed by Silviya Petrova, Chuvashia) was selected as one of three 2014 Winter Olympic Games mascots. The other two mascots are the Amur Leopard (by Vadim Pak, Nakhodka) and the Polar Bear (by Oleg Serdechniy, Sochi).
The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, are currently taking place from February 6-23, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. The Polar Bear (designed by Oleg Serdechniy, Sochi) was selected as one of three 2014 Winter Olympic Games mascots. The other two mascots are the Amur Leopard (by Vadim Pak, Nakhodka) and the European Hare (by Silviya Petrova, Chuvashia).
The 2014 Winter Olympics, officially the XXII Olympic Winter Games, are currently taking place from February 6-23, 2014, in Sochi, Russia. The Amur Leopard (designed by Vadim Pak, Nakhodka) was selected as one of three 2014 Winter Olympic Games mascots. The other two mascots are the Polar Bear (by Oleg Serdechniy, Sochi) and the European Hare (by Silviya Petrova, Chuvashia).
Kublai Khan was the fifth Khagan (Great Khan) of the Mongol Empire, reigning from 1260 to 1294. He was the grandson of Genghis Khan. If one counts the Mongol Empire at that time as a whole, Kublai’s realm reached from the Pacific Ocean to the Black Sea, from Siberia to modern-day Afghanistan – one-fifth of the world’s inhabited land area. However, Kublai’s real power was limited to China and Mongolia. In 1271, he founded the Yuan Dynasty, which ruled over present-day Mongolia, China and Korea, and assumed the role of Emperor of China. Kublai was born on this day in 1215.
Note: Due to incredibly unlucky timing, Kublai failed to gain power over Japan, despite two Mongol invasion attempts. In 1268, Kublai demanded tribute from Japan, but Kyoto refused. The Mongols invaded Japan in 1274 with 700-800 ships, but a typhoon destroyed their armada. An even larger invasion was attempted in 1281, with a fleet of more than 4,000 ships and 140,000 troops. Stunningly, they met the same disastrous fate, losing up to 75% of their troops and supplies both times. The failed invasions marked the first use of the Japanese word kamikaze (“divine wind”). The massive typhoons also helped perpetuate the Japanese belief that they could not be defeated, which persisted until the end of World War II.
Freddie Mercury was a British musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist and lyricist of the rock band Queen. As a performer, he was known for his flamboyant stage persona and powerful vocals over a four-octave range. Mercury was born in Zanzibar in East Africa and grew up there and in India until his mid-teens. He has been referred to as “Britain’s first Asian rock star” and is widely considered one of the greatest male singers of all time. Mercury died of bronchopneumonia brought on by AIDS in 1991. He was born on this day 1946.
Prester John is one of my favorite historical/mythological figures. The legends of Prester John were popular in Europe from the 12th through the 17th centuries, and told of a Christian patriarch and king said to rule over a Christian nation lost amidst the Muslims and pagans in the Orient. Prester John was reportedly a descendant of one of the Three Wise Men and presided over a realm full of riches and strange creatures, including unicorns. His kingdom contained such marvels as the Gates of Alexander and the Fountain of Youth, and even bordered the Garden of Eden. Prester John was first imagined to reside in India, as tales of the Nestorian Christians’ evangelistic success probably provided the first seeds of the legend. After the coming of the Mongols to the Western world, accounts placed the king in Central Asia. But as the Mongol Empire collapsed, Europeans began to shift away from the idea that Prester John had ever really been a Central Asian king. Eventually, Portuguese explorers convinced themselves that they had found him in Ethiopia. The legend of Prester John affected several hundred years of European and world history by encouraging generations of Europe’s explorers, missionaries, scholars and treasure hunters to venture into India, Asia and Africa.
Prester John, the fabled king/priest invented by Crusader kingdoms, is basically the Forrest Gump of the Middle Ages (1100s-1500s). Dude was everywhere. For example, during the Mongol Empire, Prester John was identified as both Genghis Khan and a Nestorian Christian monarch defeated by Khan. The myth of Prester John was a comforting (if ethnocentric) symbol to European Christians of their religion’s universality, transcending culture and geography to encompass all humanity. Even the boneheaded Christopher Columbus cited the discovery of Prester John’s kingdom among the goals of his travels. Despite centuries of European exploration in search of treasure—and evangelizing the locals—the quest for the fictitious kingdom remained unfulfilled. But the legend served many medieval Christian kingdoms, and the Catholic Church, handsomely.
Fawzia Koofi is an Afghan politician and women’s rights activist. On the day she was born in rural Afghanistan, her mother set her under the blazing sun to die. Koofi was the 19th child of 23 in a polygamous family with seven wives, and her mother did not want another daughter. Despite severe burns, she survived and became the favorite child. Koofi is Afghanistan’s first female Parliament speaker and a noted activist for women and children’s rights. She has written two books about her experiences in Afghanistan under the exploitative rule of the Mujahideen and Taliban. There have been numerous attempts on her life—and her father, brother and husband have all been killed. Koofi has announced her intention to run as a presidential candidate in the 2014 elections in Afghanistan.
Koofi is an amazing woman with an awe-inspiring story. If you’re interested in watching her speak for a few minutes, she appeared as a guest on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on February 13, 2013.
Fauja Singh is a British centenarian marathon runner of PunjabiSikh descent. Born in India, he did not develop the ability to walk until he was five years old. He immigrated to England in the 1990s and ran his first marathon at age 89. Now 102 years old, Singh is a world record holder in his age bracket. His marathon record for age 90-plus, recorded in 2003 at age 92, is 5 hours 40 minutes. In 2004, Singh was featured in an Adidas advertising campaign alongside David Beckham and Muhammad Ali. On February 24, 2013 (just five weeks shy of his 102nd birthday), Singh retired from competitive running after completing the 10-kilometer Hong Kong marathon. He was born on this day in 1911.
Note: ESPN published a compelling Outside the Lines feature on Singh called “The Runner” on February 22, 2013. Happy April Fools’ Day!
Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese film director, screenwriter, producer and editor. Regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, Kurosawa directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. Throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, Kurosawa directed approximately one film per year, including a number of highly regarded films such as Rashomon (1950), Ikiru (1952), Seven Samurai (1954) and Yojimbo (1961). In 1990, he accepted the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement. He was born on March 23, 1910.
Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, which consists of stories about two different lovesick Hong Kong policemen, is one of my three favorite post-1980s films. (The other two are David Lynch’s Lost Highway and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The City of Lost Children.)
Sri Vikrama Rajasinha was the last of four kings to rule the last Sinhalese monarchy of the Kingdom of Kandy on the island of Sri Lanka. The Nayak kings were Buddhists who spoke Tamil. The king was eventually deposed by the British under the terms of the Kandyan Convention, in 1815, ending over 2,300 years of Sinhalese monarchy on the island. The island was incorporated into the British Empire.
Yes, Sri Vikrama Rajasinha really was the King of Kandy. I like to think he lived at the top of a gumdrop-adorned Kandy Mountain surrounded by kandy kane fences, referred to his palace as Kandyland and snacked on only the finest kandy korn. This information is not verifiable via Wikipedia. But I did find that the British Empire declared war on the Kingdom of Kandy in 1815 and the king was exiled to India, never to return. In a related story, Candy told me nothing really matters anymore.
Saint Nicholas was a 4th-century saint and Greek bishop in Myra (modern-day Turkey). Because of the many miracles attributed to his intercession, he is also known as Nikolaos the Wonderworker. He had a reputation for secret gift-giving, such as putting coins in the shoes of those who left them out for him, and thus became the model for Santa Claus (whose modern name comes from the Dutch Sinterklaas).
Ismail Enver Pasha was an Ottoman military officer and a leader of the Young Turk Revolution. He was the main leader of the Ottoman Empire in both Balkan Wars and World War I. Enver was considered the most powerful figure of the government of Ottoman Turkey or “the number one man in Istanbul.” He played a major role in the Armenian Genocide, in which over two million were killed during 1915-20. Enver was born on this day in 1881.
Note: Happy Thanksgiving! Be thankful you didn’t know this guy.
Utagawa Hiroshige was a Japanese ukiyo-e artist, and one of the last great artists in that tradition. Legend has it that Hiroshige determined to become a ukiyo-e artist when he saw the prints of his near-contemporary, Hokusai. As a low-ranked samurai, Hiroshige’s salary was insufficient for his needs and he initially used his artistic pursuits to supplement his income.
Sailor Moon – No. 789
Usagi Tsukino, better known as Sailor Moon, is the superheroine protagonist and title character in the Sailor Moon manga series and anime adaptations. Usagi is introduced as a carefree, underachieving schoolgirl in Tokyo. She is initially believed to be an Earthling, but is later revealed to be Princess Serenity of the moon kingdom Silver Millennium. Usagi meets Luna who discovers that she is destined to save Earth from the forces of evil. Luna gives Usagi a broach to transform into Sailor Moon, and asks her to form the Sailor Soldiers, find their princess and protect the “Legendary Silver Crystal.” As Usagi matures, she becomes one of the universe’s powerful warriors and protects her adopted home planet, Earth, from villains who wish to harm it.
This 8-bit Sailor Moon was created at the request of my wife Heidi and her sister. Speaking of sailing (or at least ferries), Heidi and I are heading to Orcas Island, the largest of the San Juan Islands, to stay in an apartment in Eastsound for the next few days. It’s her birthday present from me.