In the 1950s and 60s in New York, if you wanted your fortune told, you might have made your way to Times Square and found Pandora. She worked there for years, telling people about their futures. But she might not have mentioned her own past. Her real name was Edith Hyde, and she was the… Continue reading

When Norm Woodland was a Boy Scout in the 1930s, he learned Morse Code — he liked that kind of thing much better than other scouting stuff like camping and knot tying. They might not have used the term in those days, but Norm was a nerd. After he celebrated his 18th birthday (on September… Continue reading

There have been some strange taxes throughout history, but in 1698, one of the oddest ones was imposed on September 5. It was the “beard tax.” The Tsar of Russia at the time was Peter I (Peter the Great), who wanted to reform Russia to make it more like the modern European powers. He started… Continue reading

If you’d been around on September 4, 1923 and had one of those newfangled box cameras everybody seemed to be buying, you might have taken a photo of the USS Shenandoah on its first-ever flight. It was the first airship in the US (they’d been in use in Europe for quite some time). It was… Continue reading

Welcome to September 3, National Welsh Rarebit Day! It was originally called “Welsh rabbit”, even though it doesn’t contain any rabbit, and the ingredients probably wouldn’t even appeal to rabbits. It’s a pretty simple dish; basically just cheese on toast. The name has morphed into “rarebit” instead of “rabbit” because too many people were confused.… Continue reading

The day after September 2, 1752 — it was a Wednesday — was September 14. At least it was in Great Britain and all the British colonies. That was the day of the big switch from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar. The two calendars were off by 11 days at the time (the amount… Continue reading

In New Zealand, September 1 is Random Acts of Kindness day. Official suggestions about what you might do (randomly of course) includes washing someone else’s car or paying for the person behind you in a drive-through line. Out of 13 ideas for suggested activities, six of them have to do with transportation (they would be… Continue reading

Since August 31st is National Trail Mix Day, and also National Language Day (in Moldova), we should all practice saying “mix de trasee,” which is “Trail Mix” in Romanian. Why Romanian? Well, Moldova has its own language (Moldovan, obviously), but on a closer look, it turns out that Moldovan and Romanian are identical — the… Continue reading

Now that the pandemic is over and world travel is again a reasonable activity, you might decide to visit as exotic a location as you could find. Even one that might be pretty hard to find, like, for example, East Timor.  Timor is an island at the southern end of the island chains in southeast… Continue reading

Today is the anniversary of the opening of the Mount Washington Cog Railway. It was the first “rack railroad” in the world that used gears to make it possible to climb such a steep grade. The whole thing was a tourist attraction right from the start; there’s really no reason to visit the top of… Continue reading