October, 1969. It was a warm, muggy night in Leary, Georgia. Around 7:15 that evening, outside a local Lions Club, a group of men were gathered, one of them preparing to enter the meeting and give a speech. Suddenly, from out of the crowd, came a voice, it's owner's hand pointed at the sky. "Look!" … Continue reading “I’m Not Saying It Was Aliens, But…”

Happy Birthday to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, born on this day back in 1859! Though he is most well-known as the creator of beloved sleuth Sherlock Holmes, there was so much more to the famed writer than just his enduring literary works. Doyle was born in Edinburgh, Scotland to an alcoholic father and Irish Catholic … Continue reading Breaking Character

On May 7, 1915, one hundred and eleven years ago yesterday, the British ocean liner Lusitania was torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people drowned, including 128 Americans, such as Alfred Gwynne … Continue reading The Mystery of The Lusitania

There is perhaps no greater symbol of the emerging twentieth century than the humble automobile. Bicycle mechanics J. Frank and Charles Duryea of Springfield, Massachusetts, designed the first successful American gasoline automobile in 1893, then won the first American car race in 1895, capturing the public's imagination. They then went on to make the first … Continue reading Birth of A Rite of Passage

"And so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." One of the most beautiful sentences in American literature, ending one of the most beautiful books in all of American literature. And not just according to me, although I've made secret of my love for Fitzgerald's masterpiece, published on this … Continue reading Happy Birthday, Old Sport

The story, at first glance, seems harmless, at least by today's standards. It opens on the Arthur Shelby plantation in Kentucky as two enslaved people, Tom and 4-year old Harry, are sold to pay Shelby family debts. We then shift focus onto two protagonists; Tom, a strong, religious man living with his wife and three … Continue reading A Book and A War

In 1835, big changes started happening in Mexico. The country, which had won its independence from Spain in 1821 after more than a decade of fighting, The first constitution, known as the Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 which inaugurated the First Mexican Republic, was repealed. A new constitution, Las Siete Leyes, … Continue reading Remember the Alamo!

On this day back in 1939, a Nazi rally was held. That in and of itself is not surprising. The Nazi power was, after all, gaining rapid grounds and becoming wildly popular within Germany, with their fiery leader riling up both nationalist pride and antisemitic vitriol as his power grew. By this time, he'd already … Continue reading On American Soil…

On this day back in 1937, readers were introduced to George Milton and Lennie Small, two displaced migrant ranch workers moving from place to place in California searching for jobs during the Great Depression. The writer was a relatively new one, just gaining public attention with his previous novel, Tortilla Flat, but still a few … Continue reading “You ain’t gonna leave me, are ya, George? I know you ain’t.”

At a graduation ceremony at a church in Geneva, New York on January 23, 1849, Geneva Medical College in New York bestowed a medical degree upon Elizabeth Blackwell. A rather ordinary ceremony. A rather ordinary happenstance. Except it wasn't. For Blackwell was the first woman in the United States to receive a medical degree. And … Continue reading Bucking The System