The cubicle. The three-walled cliche, surface to which so many Hang In There kitty cat posters are affixed, was invented in Ann Arbor. That’s right - the yoke around the neck of white collar workers everywhere was conceived and birthed in Ann Arbor. On State Street, no less. Here's the story of its invention and proliferation and how it came to be in Ann Arbor.

Music by Stepdad.

Further reading and photos from AADL's Oldnews

Birth of the Cube Farm from Ann Arbor Observer: Then & Now.

(This episode is for mature audiences only)

The two girls were peculiar, even for Ann Arbor in 1971. They looked college aged, maybe they were hippies. Nothing outwardly weird, but something definitely strange. They stood a few feet apart, face to face on the corner of State and Liberty. Some said they were looking at the moon. Others said they just stared at each other. Stared for hours and hours that cold November night. This is the story of those two peculiar girls. And one tragic night in November in 1971.

Music by Diego and the Dissidents

Further reading and photos from AADL's Old News

In the fall of 1975, a dozen U-M undergrads came together to launch a student-run concert program, Eclipse Jazz, which became a local music phenomenon.

Beginning with a performance by jazz pianist McCoy Tyner (of the John Coltrane Quartet) at the Power Center, Eclipse Jazz presented over one hundred concerts by the world’s finest jazz musicians over the next 15 years.

This event featured memories by many of Eclipse Jazz founders and was moderated by WEMU’s Michael Jewett. Scheduled panelists included Lee Berry, Tom Bray, Michael Grofsorean, Mike Landry, Ann Rebentisch, Jimmy (Max) Robins, and Max Dehn. The discussion also focused on what happened to Eclipse Jazz and why.

The panel also discussed the legacy of Miles Davis, whose genre-bending music helped inspire and propel both the members and audience of Eclipse Jazz. A new biopic about Davis, Miles Ahead, starring and directed by Don Cheadle, opens at the Michigan Theater on Friday, April 22.

This event is cosponsored by AADL and the Michigan Theater. Information and tickets for the Michigan Theater film may be found on the Theater’s website at michtheater.org.

"See 38 and a half tons ... 81 feet of fanatical fiendishness. See one of the ships in which two of our enemies volunteer to accept death in order to blow up their objectives. See this Japanese suicide submarine and realize what a vicious, tricky, desperate enemy our boys are fighting in the pacific. Let’s hit them harder. Let’s depth-bomb them to the bottom of the sea - let’s show them what an aroused, all-out America can do." The Ann Arbor News

On that Saturday, July 17, 1943, this honest to goodness captured Japanese suicide sub would roll through the streets of Ann Arbor in one of the weirdest parades in city history.

Music by Hollow & Akimbo

Further reading and photos from AADL's Old News

The Legendary Weed Contest of 1975 wasn’t just any contest. It was more than just a sweepstakes where the grand prize winner received one full-scale pound of Columbian smoking marijuana. It was a statement. A call to revolution. A brilliant marketing plan hatched during a smoke-filled discussion among the braintrust of the Ann Arbor Sun, looking for a way to increase the paper’s circulation.

Music by Chris Bathgate

Further reading and photos from AADL's Old News:

Contest winners announced
Legendary Weed Contest of 1975 ad
Prosecutor's Effort Fails to Halt Pot Giveaway
Prosecutor in court to halt pot contest

For a town as old as Ann Arbor, it has surprisingly few ghost stories. But in the late 1950s, the congregation of the First Methodist Church in Ann Arbor was pretty convinced they had a spirit on their hands. Caretakers sometimes heard footsteps late at night, but never spotted anyone in the church. Until the early morning hours of August 30, 1959, when they made a chilling discovery.

Music by People Get Ready

Further reading from AADL's Old News:
Initial Story
Bill of Health
Lim Gets Aid
Going Back to School
Graduating Saturday
Hit by Car
10-year retrospective
Retrospective after Cheng's Death

It started on April 30, 1949, when Cupid Bar rebranded itself as The Flame Bar, turning a popular downtown student watering hole into a slightly more popular downtown student watering hole. Almost 50 years later, The Flame would close, shuttering an Ann Arbor institution. It wasn’t Ann Arbor’s first gay bar, and certainly not its last, but The Flame played a major role in the lives of many among Ann Arbor’s LGBT community - for good and ill.

Music by Lightning Love

Further reading from AADL's Old News:
The Flame bar review
Death of Harvey Blanchard
The Flame Bought
The Flame Reopens on Liberty

At a time when daily print newspapers across the country are failing, the Michigan Daily continues to thrive.

Completely operated by students of the University of Michigan, the paper was founded in 1890 and covers national and international news topics ranging from politics to sports to entertainment. The Daily has been a vital part of the college experience for countless UM students, none more so than those who staffed the paper as editors, writers, and photographers over the years. Many of these Daily alumni are now award-winning journalists who work for the premier news outlets in the world.

Join us for a fascinating look at this groundbreaking newspaper with Stephanie Steinberg, editor of the new book In the Name of Editorial Freedom: 125 Years at the Michigan Daily, a compilation of original essays by some of the best-known Daily alumni about their time on staff. This inside look at the U-M newspaper is, according the former U-M President Mary Sue Coleman, “a unique window into the lives of students at the University of Michigan. Their stories are powerful and remind us of the magic of this place where students both are challenged and challenge others daily to change the world for the better.”

Stephanie was joined by Laura Berman, former Detroit News columnist; Chris Dzombak, senior software engineer for The New York Times; and Roger Rapoport, producer of the feature films "Pilot Error" and "Waterwalk" and author of the Michael Moore biography "Citizen Moore."

Local radio personality Martin Bandyke hosted this event, which included a book signing.

Muskegon claims him because he was born there. Ypsi claims him because, for most of his childhood, he lived in a trailer park on the outskirts of town. But it’s Ann Arbor - along with cocaine, meth, acid, booze, pills, AND ambition - that deserve the credit for turning James Newell Osterberg into Iggy Pop.

Music by FAWNN

On the night of March 20,1966, Frank Mannor’s six dogs started barking like they’d never done before. He went outside to shut them up and that’s when he saw what he saw. Something flying through the night sky. At first it looked like a shooting star, then it slowed. It changed color. And it landed in the woods a few hundred yards from his Dexter farmhouse.

Music by Diego & The Dissidents and The Dead Bodies.