The great thing about Christmas is you can do it exactly the same as you did last time, every single year. Case in point: 1992's Home Alone 2: Lost in New York is basically and openly the same movie as 1990's megahit Home Alone. The main difference is that writer John Hughes and director Chris Columbus moved the setting from a Chicago suburb to Manhattan.

"I always try to write songs so that they could be read on lots of different levels, so you could appreciate them superficially and then if you go deeper you could see something else," Madonna told British TV's Jonathan Ross in 1992, promoting her Erotica album and Sex book. This was the puffing of a now frequently bared chest or maybe autofellatio from a woman who had recently told Vanity Fair, "I think I have a dick in my brain."

"Tom Cruise like I've never seen him!" is how Oprah Winfrey described it on May 23, 2005, at the top of an episode of her show that would go on to become its most memorable: the one with the couch jumping. She wasn't lying. Cruise was known for being guarded and tight-lipped about his private life, and his effusive display was enough to overshadow his career and to redefine his star status. Reporting on Paramount's decision to sever its 14-year production deal with Cruise in 2006, the New York Times described the post-Oprah events as, "Tom Cruise's yearlong metamorphosis from pure box-office phenomenon to pop-culture punch line."

Ten years ago today, the world lost TLC's Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes. She lived a crazy life—the "crazy" of her band's sophomore album, CrazySexyCool, referred to her—and died a crazy death. (If you can stomach it, the moments leading up to her fatal car crash are above, excerpted from the VH1 documentary The Last Days of Left Eye, which chronicled 27 days she spent in Honduras before her death.) Left Eye died exactly eight months after 22-year-old Aaliyah and for a period, it felt like the world of R&B was collapsing. The ‘90s had ended two years earlier, but where R&B is concerned, April 25, 2002 is the day they definitively died.

In the early morning hours of March 9, 1997, Biggie Smalls was shot and killed while sitting in a car at a stoplight in Los Angeles. Despite a profusion of theories, his murder has never been officially solved. That's fucked up.

Look: The Obama administration doesn't want to screw up the 10th anniversary of 9/11, okay? There's going to be quite a bit of focus around the world on the United States and its allies that day, and no one wants important government people going out and screwing something up or saying something stupid. So let's pre-forgive the administration for its nitpicky "9/11 instructions" (more like "guidelines") being sent out to bureaucrats both here and around the world.

MTV turns 30 today. Instead of taking it out for an overpriced dinner and making jokes about how it's old, we compiled this video with some of the high and low spots of the channel's history—from Madonna's infamous "Like a Virgin" at the first Music Video Awards to Puck on The Real World, Downtown Julie Brown, and Jersey Shore.

Bob Marley died on May 11, 1981. How will you celebrate this anniversary? Read one of the many fine books on Marley's life? Reflect on the amazing depth of his discography? Have lunch with Bunny Wailer? Start a revolution in Zimbabwe? Save the poor?

A hearty "Happy Anniversary—With Cream!" is in order for caffeine-'n-branding purveyor Starbucks, which is celebrating 40 years of not going out of business. On this blessed occasion, allow us to reflect on Starbucks' legacy of woe.

Former greatest president ever Ronald Reagan turned 100 yesterday, you may have heard. A bunch of old white people fêted him out at his ranch in California, shortly before the Super Bowl. But the best memorial to the Ol' Gipper wasn't delivered in Simi Valley. It was in the pages of Politico, and penned by weird Scottsdale porn scribe Rep. Ben Quayle:

Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of John F. Kennedy's inauguration. How did you celebrate? Nancy Pelosi, for one, posted a photo of her with Kennedy at an inaugural ball on January 20, 1961. It's the one on the left, duh.

Over the past six years, The Soup has recorded 300 freakin' episodes! To celebrate, the show dug out clips from the vault, convinced a few of their targets to send congrats, and brought back favorites like Sanjaya and Spaghetti Cat.

One of the great things about growing up down South is the unending, pathological celebration of the Civil War. Wait, not "great"; bizarre and disturbing. The 150th anniversary of secession is just weeks away. Party time! Right? Yea!

Happy birthday, The Daily Beast! By cannily reading the Zeitgeist, Tina Brown's managed to keep it running for two full years with nothing but her wits and untold millions of Barry Diller's money. She's entitled to brag, don't you think?

Contrived bullshit outrage over the fake Muslim takeover of America threatens to overshadow any sincere attempt at marking this year's anniversary of 9/11. We are inclined to agree with one commenter as to the crappiness of this particular 9/11.

Seventy years ago today, Germany began its bombing "blitz" that would devastate the city of London. Just in time for the anniversary, here's some rare new color footage of the bombing and its aftermath. Everything was very bomb-y. [AP]

Politico, the Beltway's go-to sociopath news outlet, has weighed all of Barack Obama's "options" for 9/11 this year and finds "few" good ones. There are apparently some grave political risks for Obama on 9/11 if he doesn't mourn properly.

This weekend marks the fifth anniversary of the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, which devastated the Gulf Coast and left hundreds of dead bodies floating in the wrecked streets of New Orleans. To celebrate, Katrina hero Michael Brown is "speaking out."

[Fans gathered yesterday at Graceland to mark 33 years since the "death" of Elvis Presley. Eight-year-old superfan Brandon Byrd poses here with Brazilian Elvis impersonator Mark Rio in Memphis. Image via AP]

Today is the 25th anniversary of the release of The Goonies. God, you're old. [WP]