Buster Keaton

1895 – 1966

Film & Entertainment

Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American actor, comedian and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent films during the 1920s, in which he performed physical comedy and inventive stunts. He frequently maintained a stoic, deadpan facial expression that became his trademark and earned him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".

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Contemporaries

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Igor Stravinsky

Georgia O'Keeffe

Georgia O'Keeffe

Charlie Chaplin

Charlie Chaplin

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Charles de Gaulle

Charles de Gaulle

Their World

Global Events

1896 First modern Olympic Games in Athens

1898 Spanish-American War

1903 Wright brothers achieve powered flight

1905 Einstein publishes theory of special relativity

1912 Sinking of the Titanic

1914 World War I begins

1917 Russian Revolution

1918 World War I ends; Spanish flu pandemic begins

1919 Treaty of Versailles signed

1920 League of Nations established

1928 Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin

1929 Wall Street Crash; Great Depression begins

1933 Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany

1936 Spanish Civil War begins

1939 World War II begins

1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor; US enters WWII

1944 D-Day: Allied invasion of Normandy

1945 Atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki; WWII ends

1945 United Nations founded

1947 India and Pakistan gain independence

1948 State of Israel established

1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted

1949 People's Republic of China proclaimed

1950 Korean War begins

1953 Watson and Crick discover DNA structure

1955 Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott

1957 Sputnik launched; Space Age begins

1959 Cuban Revolution; Castro takes power

1961 Berlin Wall constructed

1962 Cuban Missile Crisis

1963 Assassination of President John F. Kennedy

1964 Civil Rights Act signed in the United States

In Their Field

1895 Lumiere brothers hold first public film screening

1902 Melies releases A Trip to the Moon

1915 D.W. Griffith releases The Birth of a Nation

1920 The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari pioneers Expressionism

1927 The Jazz Singer: first feature-length talkie

1929 First Academy Awards ceremony held

1939 The Wizard of Oz and Gone with the Wind released

1941 Orson Welles releases Citizen Kane

1946 Cannes Film Festival established

1950 Kurosawa releases Rashomon; Japanese cinema gains world stage

1960 Fellini releases La Dolce Vita

1960 French New Wave: Godard releases Breathless