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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883
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Charles Apple

Charles Apple

Current Position: designer editor

Charles Apple joined The Spokesman-Review in 2019 as a design editor. He designs weekly Further Review pages that cover subjects such as the history of comics, William Shatner, Tiger Woods, autism spectrum disorder and even how to get your Spokesman-Review aboard the International Space Station. Apple has worked for papers across the nation, large and small. He is considered an informational graphics guru, winning countless international awards and his work consulting and training newsrooms around the world.

Email
charlesa@spokesman.com

All Stories

News >  Further Review

The creation of ‘America the Beautiful’

One hundred and twenty-five years ago, Wellesley College English professor Katharine Lee Bates published a poem inspired by a cross-country railroad trip and a climb to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. That poem would later be set to music to become “America the Beautiful.”
News >  Further Review

Mir: The first International Space Station

For more than 15 years, Mir floated 200 miles above the Earth, making 86,331 orbits and providing a laboratory where 105 astronauts and cosmonauts – including 82 non-Russians – learned how to work and live in space.
News >  Further Review

A history of the printing press

The opening of a new state-of-the-art printing facility in Spokane Valley is the culmination of 581 years of printing technology, going back to Johannes Gutenberg, who developed the first real printing press in Mainz, Germany.
News >  Further Review

Control of House and Senate since 1900

Will the Republicans retain control of the Senate after Election Day in November? Or will Democrats wrestle it away from them and run both chambers on Capitol Hill? It’s way too early to say. Here’s how control of the House and Senate have shifted over the past 120 years:
News >  Further Review

UFOs over Washington: The first report of ‘flying saucers’

On June 24, 1947 – 73 years ago Wednesday – automatic firefighting system company owner and licensed pilot Kenneth Arnold of Boise, flying from Chehalis to Yakima, spotted nine large metallic-looking objects flying rapidly near Mount Rainier. It would be the first of many reports of “flying saucers” or unidentified flying objects from around the world.
News >  Further Review

The history of the World Wide Web

On June 23, 1980 – 40 years ago tomorrow – English computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee of CERN, a physics lab in Switzerland, began working on a project he called ENQUIRE. This work would eventually evolve into hypertext, HTML and the World Wide Web.
News >  Further Review

Father’s Day turns 110

On this date 110 years ago, Spokane’s churches and businesses took time to celebrate their fathers. Here’s how a Spokane daughter sold area residents on the idea and then took Father’s Day national:
News >  Further Review

What is Juneteenth and why we celebrate it

While America celebrates its birthday on July 4, African-Americans celebrate another Independence Day on June 19 – today – the day in 1865 that enslaved African-Americans in Galveston, Texas, were told they were free.
News >  Further Review

How German rocket scientists took us to the moon

In 1944, German rocket scientists developed the world’s first guided missiles and used them against Belgium, France and England. After the war ended, the U.S. Army brought those scientists on board and set them to work developing missiles for our side. Their work would eventually help put America on the moon.
A&E >  Music

Alanis Morissette’s ‘Jagged Little Pill’ turns 25

A quarter-century ago Friday, Canadian pop singer/songwriter Alanis Morissette released her third album which veered away sharply from her previous outings, more into grunge and angst-rock. It would go on to sell 33 million copies in the U.S., win five Grammy Awards and define a generation of independent female musicians.
A&E >  Movies

The 50 best-selling movies of all time, adjusted for inflation

Are you missing movies yet? So far this year, we should have been enjoying “Mulan,” the 007 flick “No Time to Die”and “Black Widow” with Scarlett Johansson and we should be getting ready to go see “Wonder Woman 1984” with Gal Gadot. Instead, we’re all binge-watching TV and wishing microwave popcorn was as good as theater popcorn.
News >  Further Review

The career of cartoonist Stephan Pastis

Stephan Pastis chucked a nine-year career practicing law in California to draw a pun-filled comic strip starring a pig, a rat and a goat and, more recently, to launch a series of successful “illustrated middle-grade” children’s books. Here’s a look at the master of daily comic strip puns:
News >  Crime/Public Safety

A week of protests across the country

The horrific death of a Black man in police custody in Minneapolis ­– and the slow rate at which the wheels of justice seemed to turn afterward – ignited a firestorm of protests around the country this weekend. Here’s a look at some of the major happenings:
A&E >  TV

The birth of cable news

Once upon a time, you could watch TV news in the mornings (think NBC’s “Today” show), in the evenings and maybe again at night. The rest of the time, you relied on radio or newspapers. All that changed 40 years ago today with “the 24-hour news cycle” brought on by the creation of CNN.
A&E >  Music

53 essential No. 1 disco hits

Forty years ago Sunday, “Funkytown” by Lipps Inc. hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, becoming the final big hit of the disco era. Here’s a look at 53 essential No. 1 disco hits to help you remember how to shake, shake, shake your booty.
News >  Further Review

1940: The evacuation from Dunkirk

Eighty years ago today, Britain began an enormous rush to pull its troops out of France. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill feared this would become known as the greatest military disaster Britain had ever seen. Instead, it would be one of its most heroic moments.
A&E >  Movies

Weird movie coincidences

In the drama business, sometimes art imitates life. Often that’s intentional (think biopics and historical dramas). Sometimes, it’s not. But even more strangely, sometimes LIFE imitates ART. Now, THAT can be an opportunity to get awfully freaked out.
News >  Further Review

Eruption of Mount St. Helen’s

At 8:32 a.m. on May 18, 1980, all the rumblings, the trembling, the minor earthquakes, the bulges in the mountain and the occasional venting of steam led to an enormous eruption that generated the thermal energy equal to 26 megatons of TNT, hurled ash 15 miles into the air, killed 57 people and caused more than $1 billion in damage.
A&E >  Books

‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz’ turns 120

Playwright, chicken farmer and children’s book author L. Frank Baum published “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” 120 years ago Sunday. The book would sell out its first run of 10,000 copies in eight months and go on to sell a total of 3 million copies before it fell into the public domain in 1956.