Burton Stephen Lancaster was an American actor and producer. Initially known for playing tough guys with a tender heart, he went on to achieve success with more complex and challenging roles over a 45-year career in films and television series. He was a four-time nominee for the Academy Award for Best Actor, and he also won two BAFTA Awards and one Golden Globe Award for Best Lead Actor. The American Film Institute ranks Lancaster as #19 of the greatest male stars of classic Hollywood cinema.
The Defense Superior Service Medal (DSSM) is a military decoration of the United States Department of Defense, which is presented to United States Armed Forces service members who perform superior meritorious service in a position of significant responsibility.
Ulzana's Raid is a 1972 American Revisionist Western film starring Burt Lancaster, Richard Jaeckel, Bruce Davison and Joaquin Martinez. The film, which was filmed on location in Arizona, was directed by Robert Aldrich based on a script by Alan Sharp. It portrays a brutal raid by Chiricahua Apaches against European settlers in 1880s Arizona. The bleak and nihilistic tone of U.S. troops chasing an elusive merciless enemy has been seen as allegory to the United States participation in the Vietnam War.
Robert Burgess Aldrich was an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. An iconoclastic and maverick auteur working in many genres during the Golden Age of Hollywood, he directed mainly films noir, war movies, westerns and dark melodramas with Gothic overtones. His most notable credits include Vera Cruz (1954), Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), Autumn Leaves (1956), Attack (1956), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).
Walter Herman Wager was an American crime and espionage-thriller novelist and former editor-in-chief of Playbill magazine. The movie Telefon, starring Charles Bronson, was inspired by his novel of the same name. His book 58 Minutes was adapted into Die Hard 2, starring Bruce Willis.
By Dawn's Early Light is an HBO original movie, first aired in 1990. It is based on the 1983 novel Trinity's Child, written by William Prochnau.
In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S.. The gap in the ballistic missile arsenals did not exist except in exaggerated estimates, made by the Gaither Committee in 1957 and in United States Air Force (USAF) figures. Even the contradictory CIA figures for the USSR's weaponry, which showed a clear advantage for the US, were far above the actual count. Like the bomber gap of only a few years earlier, it was soon demonstrated that the gap was entirely fictional.
World for Ransom is a 1954 American film noir drama directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Dan Duryea, Patric Knowles, Gene Lockhart, Reginald Denny, and Nigel Bruce.
Bernard Adolph Schriever, also known as Bennie Schriever, was a United States Air Force general who played a major role in the Air Force's space and ballistic missile programs.
Apache is a 1954 American Western film directed by Robert Aldrich and starring Burt Lancaster, Jean Peters and John McIntire. The film was based on the novel Broncho Apache by Paul Wellman, which was published in 1936. It was Aldrich's first color film.
A Prize of Gold is a 1955 British Technicolor film noir crime film directed by Mark Robson partly filmed in West Berlin. The film stars Richard Widmark as a United States Air Force Air Police Master Sergeant motivated by love and compassion to begin a life of crime. It was based on the 1953 novel of the same title by Max Catto.
Ten Tall Men is a 1951 American adventure film starring Burt Lancaster about the French Foreign Legion during the Rif War in Morocco. Though co-written and directed by Willis Goldbeck, Goldbeck walked off the film due to disputes with Lancaster with the movie being completed by Robert Parrish. Credited as an associate producer, Robert Aldrich was a production manager on the film where he met Lancaster, which led him to direct Vera Cruz for him. Robert Clary made his debut in the film as an Arab batman. Portions of the film were filmed in Palm Springs, California. The story was released as a Fawcett Movie Comic #16 in April 1951.
The Peacekeeper is a 1997 action film directed by Frédéric Forestier, and starring Dolph Lundgren, Michael Sarrazin, Montel Williams, and Roy Scheider. The film follows U.S. Air Force Major Frank Cross, who is the only man who can prevent the president being assassinated. He must also prevent an impending nuclear holocaust. The threat is from a terrorist group, which has stolen the President's personal communications computer; it has the capability of launching the U.S. arsenal. The film was shot on location in the city of Montreal, Quebec.
Bombardier is a 1943 film war drama about the training program for bombardiers of the United States Army Air Forces. The film stars Pat O'Brien and Randolph Scott. Bombardier was nominated for an Oscar in 1944 for the special effects used in the film. It was largely filmed at Kirtland Army Air Field, New Mexico, site of the first bombardier training school.
First Strike is a 1979 film created by KRON-TV and Chronicle Publishing Company under the broadcast division name "Chronicle Broadcasting Company" in partnership with the United States Department of Defense and the RAND Corporation. The film discusses the United States Armed Forces strategy for dealing with nuclear warfare and became far better known when various clips were edited into the 1983 TV film The Day After.
Queen's Birthday Honours are announced on or around the date of the Queen's Official Birthday in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The dates vary, both from year to year and from country to country. All are published in supplements to the London Gazette and many are conferred by the monarch some time after the date of the announcement, particularly for those service people on active duty.
The Damascus Titan missile explosion was a 1980 U.S. nuclear weapons incident involving a Titan II Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM). The incident occurred on September 18–19, 1980, at Missile Complex 374-7 in rural Arkansas when a U.S. Air Force LGM-25C Titan II ICBM loaded with a 9-megaton W-53 nuclear warhead experienced a liquid fuel explosion inside its silo.
Michael Luciano was an American film and television editor with about forty feature film credits and many additional credits for television programs. From 1954 to 1977, Luciano edited 20 of the films directed, and often produced, by Robert Aldrich. Aldrich was a prolific and independent maker of popular films "who depicted corruption and evil unflinchingly, and pushed limits on violence throughout his career." Their early collaboration, the film noir Kiss Me Deadly (1955), was entered into the US National Film Registry in 1999; the unusual editing of the film has been noted by several critics. Luciano's work with Aldrich was recognized by four Academy Award nominations, for Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).
The 1946 New Year Honours in New Zealand were appointments by King George VI on the advice of the New Zealand government to various orders and honours to reward and highlight good works by New Zealanders, and to celebrate the passing of 1945 and the beginning of 1946. They were announced on 1 January 1946.
Terrence (Terry) Feehan is a retired major general in the United States Air Force and was the Director of Strategic Plans and Requirements, Headquarters Air Force Space Command, Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado. In that role he was responsible for developing strategy, doctrine and policy for the command's space and cyberspace operations. After his military retirement, he became a vice president at Northrop Grumman where he directed a variety of staff functions and served as a major program director.
