Fela Kuti’s ghost loomed large at the New York Public Library when Jeff Daniels and Lea Michele announced the nominees for the 64th annual Tony Awards. “Fela!” the musical about the Nigerian-born musician received 11 nominations, taking it head to head with old faithful “La Cage Aux Folles” for the most Tony Award nominations.

This weekend’s opening of “Iron Man 2” marks more than 70 years for Marvel, a company that’s grown from a two-bit pulp-fiction print house into a modern business monster. For anyone who’s ever loved comics, Iron Man is not just the spectacle of the movie, but a reminder of days spent in dusty bookstores thumbing through print portals to other worlds. As for the movie, well, it’s a well-oiled money-making machine.

Acting meets accounting fraud? Dancing to the tune of financial deception? An Arthur Andersen-styled musical featuring Jeff Skilling, bean-counters gone bad and manipulative energy traders hardly seems the stuff for a song-and-dance stage hit.

Exactly 30 years ago, one of the world's best directors of all time, Alfred Hitchcock, died in Los Angeles. Or so we’ve been told. For all we know, he might be somewhere between worlds, plotting his next mystery wrapped in an enigma inside a riddle.

Gordon Brown's latest gaffe is a classic example of a politician under pressure, fighting for his political life. And he's not the first, or the last, to forget his microphone is still on.

Exactly 200 years ago, the man many consider the greatest composer of all time, wrote a little piano piece that has since become well-known to just about everyone else living on this planet. The man: Ludwig van Beethoven. The piece: Für Elise.

Hollywood legend Al Pacino has turned 70 and is celebrating a tour-de-force acting career by not letting up. The Oscar winner and star of “Scent of a Woman”, “The Godfather” and “Scarface” will spend this year filming “Mary, Mother of Christ” with Peter O’Toole and Camilla Belle. Let's peer back into his remarkable career.

It’s been 20 years since the Hubble Space Telescope blasted into space, taking mankind’s collective scientific dreams on a journey that’s been anything but smooth sailing. In fact, it’s been more like a soap opera in space, studded with high drama, broken equipment, a bleary-eyed primary mirror and a dramatic Shuttle rescue mission. But also, some awe-inspiring images and a much better understanding of the Universe.

The man who followed Marx's teachings with a proletarian revolution, Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov Lenin, was born exactly 140 years and two days ago. Although he was a creator of the largest-ever state in Earth’s history, his was a comparatively short life that ended after 54 tumultuous years; loved by a large chunk of humanity and reviled by an even bigger one.

South African zef-rap duo Die Antwoord were a hit on Saturday at one of the most prestigious music festivals on Earth. Typically, they gave no interviews…or rather, everyone thought they gave no interviews, until a twenty-minute clip appeared on Boing Boing. Watch it and cringe.

It’s been a long road from Mowbray Kaap. But now that Freshlyground are singing the Fifa 2010 anthem (with Shakira), they could just hit the big time. And maybe local artists will stop complaining about their lack of opportunities during the World Cup.

Kirk: “Scotty – I need more power, we have to get to Mars before the midterm elections!”
Scott: “Captain – the engines kanna take any mora strain”
Kirk: “Scotty – the other captains are gathering, telling me that we’re not moving fast enough and that the people of Florida are revolting...”

From seedy earthly crimes to unearthly theories about spacemen and the origins of life, Erich von Däniken has done and undone most things, and amassed a fortune – all before his 75th birthday.

Men had died in space programmes before Apollo 13, and men and women have perished since. But Apollo 13’s victory over mechanical failure became an enduring legend of the extraordinary ingenuity of humans to improvise their survival in truly life-threatening circumstances.

Meinhardt Raabe, the man who, as the Munchkin coroner, proclaimed that the Wicked Witch of the East was “really most sincerely dead”, has also died at the age of 94.

The former manager of the Sex Pistols, the New York Dolls and the man considered by many to be the godfather of punk-rock, Malcolm McLaren, died in Switzerland on Thursday. Despite his Scottish name, he was a London Jewish guy of many talents and an impresario of some genius.

After Malema’s eviction of a BBC journalist from a press conference, whose reaction made the most sense – the National Press Club’s or the ANC Youth League’s? We’ll leave the answers to you.

After a few weeks of public humiliation, the Roman Catholic Church is now effectively having to choose its corporate model: will it be Toyota or the makers of Tylenol?

Deep under the French and Swiss Alps, a beast finally came to life on Tuesday. It cost $10 billion to build and is supposed to help solve humanity's fundamental questions about life, the universe and everything. Or, according to various prophets of doom, it could also destroy life, the universe and everything.

Donald Frey, the man who created the Mustang, the stylish, yet affordable Ford that became an automotive icon in the 1960s and 70s, died this month at the age of 86. The Mustang, of course, became one of the most successful product launches in automotive history.

On its own terms, Wednesday’s online campaign protesting the ANC Youth League’s disregard for media freedom has been an unqualified triumph. The day has also been an important one for South African social media. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if there could also be a real-world victory?  

Over the last 100 years the global movie realm has been inhabited by many heroes and artists. But few of them could honestly count themselves in the same league as the genius from Japan, Akira Kurosawa.

The show is a modern-day Citizen Kane, according to its director Larry Charles. Yeah, maybe he’s biased, but when you’ve got the guy behind the Fake Steve Jobs franchise writing the pilot episode, it’s hard to be a doubter.

For years, the enemies of the globe’s biggest power were clearly, and visibly, recruited from the Muslim countries, or were in some way connected to them. But, as the latest incidents show, terrorism’s front-line soldiers could also come from the places that are as American as apple pie.

There appears to be something profound about a design method that copies nature, even for people who aren’t big fans of reflexology or wheatgrass. Maybe, just maybe, biomimicry can do YOU a favour.

A decade in the making, Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom sequel “Love Never Dies”, opened this week in London to some decidedly unfriendly reviews. Later this year, it will transfer its “magic” to New York City.

On March 10 1959, Tibetan nationalists rose up against their Chinese occupiers in a revolt that was quickly crushed. During the week of March 10 to March 14 2008, the Tibetans exacted a bloody revenge. It’s an anniversary the world now watches closely.

It's a bad joke, but we'll repeat it anyway. Q: How do you tell Chuck Norris's age? A: Cut him in half and count the rings. The man who almost beat Bruce Lee in battle is seventy-years-old on Wednesday, would you believe. We at The Daily Maverick wanted to be the first to wish him happy birthday.

Poland's Ryszard Kapuscinski was once voted the greatest journalist of the twentieth century, even though the factual ambiguity in his books had long been debated. A new biography appears to confirm the great writer's blurring of the divide between reportage and fiction. Should we think less of him?