‘The Scream’ sells for record $119 million Edvard Munch’s famous painting goes for a scary $119,922,500 at a Sotheby’s auction. It’s a record for a work of art sold at auction. CNNMoney Reports Videos

  Although accounts of an aquatic beast living in Scotland’s Loch Ness date back 1,500 years, the modern legend of the Loch Ness Monster is born when a sighting makes local news on May 2, 1933. The newspaper Inverness Courier related an account of a local couple who claimed to have seen “an enormous animal rolling and plunging on the surface.” The story of the “monster” (a moniker chosen by the Courier editor) became a media phenomenon, with London newspapers sending correspondents to Scotland and a circus offering a 20,000 pound sterling reward for capture of the beast. Loch Ness, located in the Scottish Highlands, has the largest volume of…

“Anthony and Cleopatra” by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, 1885 Who Was Cleopatra? Mythology, propaganda, Liz Taylor and the real Queen of the Nile By Amy Crawford Smithsonian.com The struggle with her teenage brother over the throne of Egypt was not going as well as Cleopatra VII had hoped. In 49 B.C., Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII—also her husband and, by the terms of their father’s will, her co-ruler—had driven his sister from the palace at Alexandria after Cleopatra attempted to make herself the sole sovereign. The queen, then in her early twenties, fled to Syria and returned with a mercenary army, setting up camp just outside the capital. Meanwhile, pursuing a military rival who…

Many of us are familiar with the quote by George Santayana, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We may remember his sage advice in a different variation, since quotes, like whispers travelling through children’s’ ears, can be altered, or even restated and credited to another, but the gist has remained the same. If we choose to ignore past events and the lessons surrounding those events, then we will go down the same path of falls, bumps, and in extreme cases, catastrophic disaster. But this famous axiom is not simple to apply, as we discovered in the recent financial debacle of 2008. One reason for the…

The World Shakespeare Festival, the biggest celebration ever of the Bard and his work, begins in the United Kingdom on April 23, his birthday. Produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), the renowned theater company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon in England, the festival is an unprecedented collaboration among over 50 arts organizations from around the world. Offering almost 70 Shakespeare productions, the festival will run through November. What makes the festival extraordinary is the diversity of its productions: There will be performances of Shakespeare plays and other works inspired by Shakespeare’s plays, done in dozens of different languages by professional, semi-professional and amateur actors from dozens of different countries.  Andrew Shuttleworth,…

Elliott Landy From left, Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Richard Manuel, Garth Hudson and Robbie Robertson of the Band in Woodstock, N.Y. More Photos »  Levon Helm, Drummer and Rough-Throated Singer for the Band, Dies at 71 By JON PARELES Published: April 19, 2012 Levon Helm, who helped to forge a deep-rooted American music as the drummer and singer for the Band, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71 and lived in Woodstock, N.Y.    His death, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was from complications of cancer, a spokeswoman for Vanguard Records said. He had recorded several albums for the label. In Mr. Helm’s drumming, muscle, swing, economy and finesse…