The TIME Magazine Vault

Jan. 23, 1950

‘The Thinking Machine’

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‘Letter From a Birmingham Jail’

Martin Luther King Jr. composed the famous explanation of his philosophy and tactics while imprisoned on April 16, 1963. TIME reprinted a portion of the letter when the magazine named King that year's Man of the Year.

"We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights," the letter read. "The nations of Asia and Africa are moving with jetlike speed toward gaining political independence, but we still creep at horse and buggy pace toward gaining a cup of coffee at a lunch counter. Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging darts of segregation to say, 'Wait.'"

Robert W. Kelley—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty

Jan. 18, 1960

The American Commuter

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Popeye: Zeichentrickfilm Von Seemann zu Seemann (Popeye The Sailor Meets Sindbad The Sailor)

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Jan. 17, 1929: Popeye Debuts

"One of the few surviving comic strips that are really meant to be funny is Segar's Thimble Theatre, starring Popeye," TIME noted in a 1940 story about the now-90-year-old sailor's success. "Thimble Theatre's first cast consisted of gawky Heroine Olive Oyl and her dimwit brother Castor. They straggled along for ten years before Castor Oyl one day in 1929 encountered Popeye on a dock. Cried Castor: 'Hey, are you a sailor?' Said Popeye dourly: 'Ja think I was a cowboy?' Since then over 600 commercial products have borne his name, including dolls, jewelry, fountain pens, wallpaper, soap, and 90 cinema shorts have featured him."

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Jan. 16, 1956