4-day annual celebration also boasts vendors selling food, comics, homemade crafts, and other merchandise, as well as discussion panels, auctions, a costume contest, and a variety of other events throughout the weekend. The first such celebration was organized by local civic clubs and took place in June 1979. The local newspaper is named The Metropolis Planet, inspired by The Daily Planet, the fictional paper in the Superman comics and other Superman media. The real town of Metropolis is portrayed in one Superman comic-book story, "Superman #92", in a story titled "Massacre in Metropolis!" (which is continued into "Adventures of Superman #515"), as a town whose citizens idolize what is to them the real-life Man of Steel. A villain named Massacre arrives in the town, having gotten lost and thinking he was in the "other" Metropolis, the large city where Superman actually lives. He attacks a security guard and threatens many citizens in order to get proper directions to Superman's Metropolis. In popular culture The 2005 album Illinois from indie musician Sufjan Stevens features a track entitled "The Man of Metropolis Steals Our Hearts." In Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel series Southern Victory, the second volume American Front has Metropolis as the scene of a Civil War battle between Union and Confederate forces in 1914. Notable people Dale Anderson, Maryland politician; born in Metropolis. Buddy Hall, member of pocket billiards Hall of Fame; born in Metropolis. Christopher Jackson, Actor and Musician, Famous for playing George Washington in the original Broadway cast of Hamilton; born in Metropolis. Curt Jones, creator in 1987 of Dippin' Dots ice cream. Annie Turnbo Malone, businesswoman and philanthropist, founder of the black beauty culture and Poro College. Moxie Manuel, pitcher for the Washington Senators and Chicago White Sox. Oscar Micheaux, pioneering African-American filmmaker and author. John Riegger, Champions Tour golfer. Jack Smith, driver with NASCAR. John Steele, WWII paratrooper made famous in the movie The Longest Day (1962). Robert Franklin Stroud, convicted murderer the Birdman of Alcatraz, is buried in Metropolis. Ben Taylor, first baseman for the St. Louis Browns, Detroit Tigers, and Milwaukee Braves; born in Metropolis. Hawk Taylor, catcher for the Milwaukee Braves, New York Mets, California Angels, and Kansas City Royals; born in Metropolis. Betty, Jean and Joanne Weaver, sisters who played in the All-American Girls Professional Baseball League in the early 1950s. Patrick Windhorst, Illinois state representative and attorney. See also List of