| 4 Nov 1946 |
Robert Mapplethorpe born in Queens. |
| 1986 |
Diagnosed HIV-positive. |
| 9 Mar 1989 |
Photographer/homosexual Robert Mapplethorpe dead from AIDS. His bullwhip will be missed. |
| Sep 1989 |
Senator Jesse Helms advocates defunding the National Endowment for the Arts: "If artists want to go in a men's room and write dirty words on the wall, let them furnish their own crayon. Let them furnish their own wall. But don't ask the taxpayers to support it." |
| 1990 |
The Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center and curator Dennis Barrie charged with obscenity over a Robert Mapplethorpe exhibit of 175 photographs. |
| 5 Oct 1990 |
After a ten-day trial, a jury acquits the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center of obscenity charges resulting from an exhibition of photographs by Robert Mapplethorpe. So, bullwhips up the ass are now officially A-OK. |
| 23 Sep 2003 |
Lead story on The Drudge Report: according to sources close to Mapplethorpe, he took several erotic photographs of the California gubernatorial candidate in the 1970s which have never been published. Apparently the artist "considered Schwarzenegger one of his favorite subjects." |
Favorite subject: Arnold Schwarzenegger.