Ken Warby was born in 1939 — not on October 8; he’s not appearing here because of his birthday. It’s because Warby’s boyhood hero was Donald Campbell. To Donald Campbell, the most important thing was speed records — he set speed records (eight of them) for top speeds in cars and boats. He was following… Continue reading

Railroads are older than you think. That’s because when we think of railroads, we naturally envision a locomotive (diesel, electric, or steam powered) and railcars, all rolling on steel tracks. But what are the really essential parts of the system? Tracks, certainly, along with some kind of containers being conveyed along them in some way. … Continue reading

Although it might seem like it’s been around forever, the Instagram app was released exactly fourteen years ago today. It was available only for iPhones at first. An Android app came along two years later, along with a desktop version that works in a web browser. It appeared on Amazon Fire devices two years after… Continue reading

The most important thing about October 5 is that it’s World Teacher’s Day. It was first declared in 1994 by UNESCO (that’s the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization), UNICEF (the United Nations Children’s Fund — the E used to stand for “Emergency,” but now it doesn’t) and the ILO (that’s the International Labor Organization,… Continue reading

In these upsetting and degrading times, many people around the world think about escaping the ills of their own countries and emigrating to another. Even here in the US, people are thinking about moving to, in large part, Canada. Even though at the moment US citizens may  not be all that welcome in Canada. But… Continue reading

It’s October third; Happy Thanksgiving! No, really — this is the day George Washington proclaimed it was Thanksgiving in 1789. But (you knew there was a “but” coming) Washington’s proclamation was only for that one year. Thanksgiving as a national holiday showed up only occasionally after that, when whoever was President at the time thought… Continue reading

What’s on (October) second. Who’s on first, of course, and Tomorrow, the pitcher, will be the third, where you can find I Don’t Know, manning the infield catching Today…I mean, Today catching, and the last one, well, I Don’t Give a Darn. But the right fielder? We never find out his name.  As you’ve probably… Continue reading

In 1861, in spite of the part of the US Constitution requiring separation of government and religion, some religious leaders — including the Reverend Mark Watkinson of Pennsylvania — tried to convince the government that the nation’s official currency ought to include a religious statement. The US Civil War had begun and this was in… Continue reading

September 30 is the day, in 1954, that the USS Nautilus was commissioned. It was not only the world’s first nuclear submarine; it was the first nuclear-powered vessel of any kind. People in 1954 thought nuclear power was going to define the future. There were predictions that electricity was going to be free because nuclear… Continue reading

September 29, coincidentally, is the date of some surprising coincidences. Some of them have been purposeful, at least sort of. It was this date in 1990, for example, that the Washington National Cathedral was completed. It took a while to finish — the cornerstone was laid on exactly the same date, but in 1907. That’s… Continue reading