Anniversaries

With the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing just two days away, NASA on Friday released the sharpest images ever taken of astronaut work sites on the moon, showing hardware and soil disturbances left behind by the 12 Americans who visited the lunar surface between 1969 and 1972. The images, taken over the last few weeks by cameras aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, include some of the 10-foot-tall landing structure called the descent stage.

There was a lot to cheer about Saturday in Canoga Park. The Los Angeles Police Department celebrated the opening of its 21st police station and launched the commemoration of the department's 140th anniversary. Although the station is in Canoga Park, near the intersection of Schoenborn Street and Canoga Avenue, a panel of city leaders chose to name it the Topanga station in recognition of the Gabrielino-Tongva Indian tribe, which once inhabited the San Fernando Valley.

On the morning of July 14, 1959, Sodium Reactor Experiment trainee John Pace received the bad news from a group of supervisors who had, he recalled, "terribly worried expressions on their faces." A reactor at the Atomics International field laboratory in the Santa Susana Mountains had experienced a power surge the night before and spewed radioactive gases into the atmosphere.

In his baggy shorts hanging below the knees, Puma sneakers and spiky hair, Wang Kangkang is hip to the present, clueless about the past. Although he comes often to see the nightly ceremony of the Chinese flag being lowered at Tiananmen Square, he doesn't know what happened here in 1989 and doesn't really care. "Well, it happened before I was born," the 19-year-old said, looking down at his sneakered feet as the crowd shuffled out of the vast expanse of concrete on a balmy evening.

With a rich history and a promising future, the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts will celebrate its 80th birthday Sunday with a dedication ceremony of its new $175-million home on campus. The school's most famous alum, "Star Wars" creator George Lucas, whose Lucasfilm Foundation provided $75 million for the new digs, plus $100 million for the school's endowment, will be on hand.

In what government and arts officials are calling the most ambitious commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall outside of Germany, a symbolic re-creation of the wall that once separated East and West Berlin will be erected across Wilshire Boulevard in November. The Wall Project, painted by professional and amateur artists, will close Sunday afternoon traffic on one of the city's busiest thoroughfares for three hours on Nov. 8 beginning at 3 p.m. The project involves the Culver City's Wende Museum and Archive of the Cold War, the city of Los Angeles, the German Consulate General in Los Angeles and other partners, and will be officially announced Thursday.

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were well on their way to a date with history, becoming the first men to set foot on another body in space. Events to mark the anniversary and commemorate the ever-thinning ranks of space-race veterans will include interviews with surviving Apollo astronauts and a Kennedy Center salute to the Apollo era. One highlight was the release Thursday of 15 newly digitized scenes of Armstrong taking his first steps on the moon.

Every Easter weekend for the last two decades, gay men have flocked to Palm Springs for Jeffrey Sanker's White Party. Poised to celebrate its 20th anniversary next weekend, it's equal parts dance, pool, costume and networking extravaganza and has grown from a smallish spring bash on the outskirts of acceptability to a mainstream party that attracts nearly 30,000 revelers.

It's all there: the well-known desk lamps, the original metal tube chairs and models of boxy white buildings. Ninety years after the founding of the Bauhaus school, a new exhibition in Berlin brings together the collections of three museums for the largest celebration ever of the most famous and influential school of avant-garde art and design in the 20th century.

They're singing the blues again at Folsom prison after officials canceled a concert marking the 40th anniversary of Johnny Cash's groundbreaking performance there, with the prison and the promoter blaming each other for the decision. The event, scheduled for Sunday, was canceled late Monday over security concerns and what officials called the changing demands of event organizers.