Writer of Pop Culture

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This Day in Pop Culture

This Day in Pop Culture for March 1

Yellowstone, Captain America and Hitler.

March 11, 2020

2–3 minutes

1872: The First National Park

It was on this day in 1872 that Yellowstone not only became the first national park of the United States, it became the first national park in the world. Spanning an area of 3,468.4 square miles, Yellowstone is so big, it resides in three states: Wyoming (mostly), Montana and Idaho.

If you visit only one national park ever, this is the one to see. It has a little bit of everything including Yellowstone Lake (one of the largest high-elevation lakes in North America), Yellowstone Caldera (one of the largest dormant volcanos), Old Faithful (just one of the many geysers and certainly the most well-known), the Grand Canyon and hundreds of species of wildlife (including grizzly bears, wolves, elk and the largest bison population in the U.S.).

In pop culture, Walt Disney created a number of cartoon shorts featuring Humphrey the Bear and Ranger J. Audobon Woodlore who reside in the park. The fictional Jellystone Park was home to Yogi Bear and Ranger Smith. The Paramount Network is also home to the Kevin Costner TV series, Yellowstone. (Image: MikeGoad via Pixabay)

1941: Captain America Beats Up Hitler

When Joe Simon created the character in 1940, he originally created him as Super American. After deciding that there were too many “supers” out there already, he settled on the name Captain America.

Drawn by Jack Kirby, the character’s first comic book was first a product of Timely Comics before Marvel Comics. Although Captain America Comics #1 was available in December the year before, the cover date was March 1941.

Steve Rogers was a weak young man until injected with an experimental serum which made him super strong. He was given a super shield to help protect him. Planned as a patriotic superhero, the very first issue features the “Captain” punching Adolf Hitler. It sold close to one million copies but not everyone was a fan. Simon and Kirby received hate mail and some people protested outside of their offices.

Captain America was the first Marvel character to appear in film in 1944 and continued appearing in 77 other comic books and finishing up in September 1954. Captain America made a revival in 1963 in Marvel Comic’s Strange Tales #114 and he’s never really gone away since. (Image: Wikimedia)