1981: Citing their socially destructive effects, Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos bans videogames in his country. Filipinos are given two weeks to hand over or destroy their game consoles.

Marcos was no stranger to imposing draconian solutions. The Philippines lived under martial law throughout the 1970s, Marcos' way of dealing with the increasingly radical elements — a restive university population and a resurgent Communist movement, mainly — that grew in opposition to his corrupt regime.

In this case, though, he was responding to pressure from parents and educators, who claimed that games such as Space Invaders and Asteroids were a "destructive social enemy, the electrical bandit" that was weakening the moral fiber of the young and turning them into a generation of obsessives.

While ample evidence exists — including testimonials from game players themselves — to support the argument that excessive videogaming can be both highly addictive and behavior altering, it's probably safe to characterize Marcos' reaction as a tad heavy-handed. It was not without its supporters, however, nor was the Philippines the only country to impose restrictions on videogames. Marcos' outright ban on all videogames, though, was unique at the time, at least in the so-called free world.

Just this year, Afghanistan's Islamic government proposed an absolute ban on videogames, while also considering the outlawing of dog- and bird-fighting, and billiards.

In the West, the violent content that is the central feature of so many games continues to prompt various restrictions. In the United States, for example, individual states have imposed sales restrictions on games deemed too violent or sexually explicit for younger gamers.

The videogame industry has been encouraged to be self-policing, and a ratings system exists, similar to what the movie industry uses. But enforcement is difficult, and the industry's policing efforts — in the face of such enormous profitability — have been half-hearted at best.

Source: Various

Unless you're a deeply geeky watch aficionado, a frequent patron of Barney's or a protesting student during the French labor strikes of the mid-1970s, then you've probably never heard of Lip. Time to get educated. Thirty-five years ago the European watch manufacturer pioneered some of the geekiest tech and most innovative design ever found in a timepiece. But all was not to be well for Lip. A volatile political and labor climate in France shattered the 141-year-old company and led to it being closed for nearly 15 years.

After numerous false starts, Lip was jump-started back to existence in the 1990s. Since then the watchmaker has enjoyed a quiet resurgence by returning to its nerdy roots and hiring back many of the original designers of these timepieces. These reissued watches are both technically and physically identical to their DeGaul administration-era counterparts. Here are a few of our favorites.

Left: Originally conceived in 1973 by Roger Tallon, designer of the TGV high-speed train, the Lip 200 "Dark Master" set the design standard that all Lip watches would follow for the next 30 years.

Another watch invented by Roger Tallon in 1975, the Lip Diode featured one of the first digital displays ever found on a timepiece.

A fairly radical departure from conventional design, the Baschmakoff Jump Hour was the 1972 brainchild of Prince Francois Baschmakoff, an illustrator and package designer hired by Lip. The jump hour displays concentric discs, and thin oblong cases have trickled into the design departments of many other watchmakers including Nixon, Diesel and Fossil.

Sure looks like it came straight outta the '70s, doesn't it? Wrong! The Lip Mythic is a new timepiece released in 2008. Don't worry though — it was inspired partially from another watch Tallon designed in 1972.

Also dreamt up by Tallon, the Fridge watch is designed to echo appliances (specifically refrigerators and iceboxes) that he grew up with in the 1930s.

Despite an ominous moniker, the Lip Mach 2000 "Mafia" was designed in 1973 as a more svelte counterpart to the Dark Master.