Marilyn Monroe Dress Sells For $4.6 Million

The dress worn by Marilyn Monroe in one of the most famous photos of her has been sold for $4.6 million. The image of Ms. Monroe’s white dress being lifted well above her knees by air coming from the subway below her is one of Hollywood’s most memorable. She wore the dress in the classic 1955 movie The Seven Year Itch. As the gust of wind lifted it, she said: "Oh, do you feel the breeze from the subway? Isn't it delicious?" The dress was sold by Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds, who bought all of Monroe's wardrobe in 1971. Ms. Reynold’s decided to sell it, along with hundreds more items of Hollywood memorabilia, because it became too expensive to keep. She had failed to find a museum that would look after the entire collection.

The auction price set two records. It beat the $1.26 million paid for the dress Monroe wore when she sang "Happy Birthday" to President John F. Kennedy, and it became the most expensive film costume ever sold. The legendary dress was created by designer William Travilla. He said: “I wondered what I could do with this most beautiful girl that Marilyn was to play to make her look clean, talcum-powdered, and adorable.” In fact, the wind-blown image further elevated Monroe as one of the biggest sex symbols ever. Bare flesh in movies was a rare commodity in the early 1950s. The photo of Monroe trying to keep her modesty intact by stopping the wind from revealing more of her legs made the movie a smash hit. (Breaking News English)

Greek Salad

Confusing Words

Emperor penguin from Antarctic on New Zealand beach

Did you hear about the penguin from the Antarctic that turned up thousands of miles away in New Zealand?
It sounds like a joke - but that's what's just happened.
A woman walking her dog on the beach saw the young emperor penguin, which are usually found in the Antarctic.
It's the first official sighting of an Emperor penguin in New Zealand in 44 years. It's thought the bird took a wrong turn when it was at sea hunting for food - and ended up getting lost!
The visitor has attracted crowds of onlookers, who are being advised not to disturb the penguin and keep their dogs on leads.
Experts say the bird is about 10 months old and 80cm tall.
Emperor penguins are the tallest and largest of all penguin species, growing up to 122cm high and weighing more than 34kg! (CBBC- Newsround)

Where Holiday Traditions Come From

Believe it or not, there was once a time when there was no Santa, no Christmas gifts, no menorah, no Valentine's Day, and no New Year's Eve ball drop. So where did they come from? Well, in the case of Christmas, the holiday we know now is believed to be a melding of both a celebration of the birth of Christ and earlier, pagan winter celebrations like Saturnalia, the Roman sun-god holiday of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti, and the Germanic Yule. (Life - Your World in Pictures)

The Truth About Climate Change

Stonehenge

Arnold Schwarzenegger

It was the ultimate testosterone-filled American Dream. A kid from a modest background in Austria moves to Hollywood, and turns a burgeoning career in bodybuilding into a series of increasingly successful movie deals -- and himself into a major Hollywood star. And, having conquered Tinseltown, he then marries into American royalty and is elected governor of California -- amid buzz of a a Constitutional amendment allowing him to run for the White House. In May 2011, much of that American Dream fell apart for Arnold Schwarzenegger when his wife, Maria Shriver, separated from him, and he admitted to having fathered a child with a member of his household staff. But in the beginning, there was just Arnold, his muscles, and his dreams of success. (Life - Your World in Pictures)

Carrot cake with lime mascarpone icing

Method
Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350ºF/gas 4. Grease and line a 22cm-square cake tin or a round equivalent with greaseproof paper. Beat the butter and sugar together by hand or in a food processor until pale and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks one by one, and add the orange zest and juice. Stir in the sifted flour and baking powder, and add the ground almonds, walnuts, spices and grated carrot and mix together well.
In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold them into the cake mix. Scoop the mixture into the prepared cake tin and cook in the preheated oven for about 50 minutes until golden and risen. You can check to see if the cake is cooked by poking a cocktail stick into it. Remove it after 5 seconds and if it comes out clean the cake is cooked; if slightly sticky, it needs a bit longer, so put it back in the oven. Leave the cake to cool in the tin for 10 minutes, then turn it out on to a rack and rest for at least an hour.
Mix all the icing ingredients together and spread generously over the top of the cake. Finish off with a sprinkling of chopped walnuts.

Ingredients                                                                             

• 250g unsalted butter, softened
• 250g light brown soft sugar
• 5 large eggs, preferably free-range or organic, separated
• zest and juice of 1 orange
• 170g self-raising flour, sifted
• 1 slightly heaped teaspoon baking powder
• 100g ground almonds
• 100g shelled walnuts, chopped, plus a handful for serving
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground cinnamon
• a pinch of ground cloves
• a pinch of ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• 250g carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
sea salt

For the lime mascarpone icing:
• 100g mascarpone cheese
• 200g full-fat cream cheese
• 85g icing sugar, sifted
• zest and juice of 2 limes
(Jamie Oliver)

Beijing, China: Center of the World

One of the world's oldest major capitals still serving as the national hub today, Beijing -- or Peking or Yanjing, depending on who you speak to -- is the heart and brain of China itself, and has been so for centuries. First settled about a quarter million years ago, it is home to some 20 million people over 3,000 square miles, and to so many temples and structures of great historical and cultural significance that it truly earns its nickname of the Celestial City. (Life - Your World in Pictures)

A World Divided

From 1961 to 1989, the Berlin Wall was the literal manifestation

of a world divided by the Cold War—a concrete barrier, eventually

12-feet high at points, demarcating East and West Berlin, and by

extension, the Soviet and Western worlds. Patrolled by armed

guards, eerily clean and white on its Eastern side, covered with

graffiti on its Western face, the Wall turned West Berlin into a

veritable island of democracy in the middle of a Soviet client state,

and served as a mute, and seemingly immutable, reminder of how

tenuous peace between East and West really was. (Life - Your World
in Pictures) 

Southpaws Throughout History

Even though they say only something like 10 percent of the world's population

is left handed, there has been a surprising amount of world leaders and iconic

figures throughout history who have been southpaws. On the list are Napoleon,

baseball slugger Reggie Jackson, and of course, U.S. President Barack Obama

(seen here playing ping pong with fellow lefty, British Prime Minister

David Cameron). (Life - Yur World in Pictures)