Released in US theatres on this day in 1958 and billed as a double feature with the less memorable I Married a Monster from Outer Space, the science fiction horror film introducing Steve McQueen in his first leading role is premised on an amoeba like alien that arrives in a small Pennsylvania community via meteorite, growing larger as it incorporates living matter. Unable to kill the creature, they discover that chill paralyses it and rendering locomotion with pseudopodia impossible and the frozen Blob is airlifted to the North Pole—with the ominous pronouncement that they can stop the terror but not kill it, “as long as the Arctic stays cold.”
one year ago: the Chaos Computer Club (1981), medieval dog names plus the beach photos of Philip Barlow
two years ago: the Battle of Marathon, a sudden revelation plus more nearby abandoned places
three years ago: doom loops, traffic planning and civil engineering, Lascaux Cave rediscovered, flights to nowhere plus the invention of the written word
four years ago: Bonanza (1959) plus the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany (1990)