If you travel by air, you’re probably as annoyed as everybody else with the way airline travel has descended to the lowest levels of service, carry-on space, food, and other things. Airlines once provided much better and more inclusive service. On the other hand, you might appreciate the lower air fares you can often find… Continue reading

You’ve probably heard of the Bering Sea, the region of the northern Pacific Ocean that separates Asia from North America. The narrow part of the separation is the Bering Strait. In the Bering Strait, near the Asia or western side, you can find Bering Island. And if you travel east from Bering Island, across the… Continue reading

Some cities grow organically, but others are designed. One of the “designed” cities is Washington, D.C., the US capital. It was designed based on the L’Enfant Plan, created by Pierre Charles L’Enfant, who was born August 2, 1754 in Paris.  L’Enfant’s father, also named Pierre, was a professor at the Royal Academy of Painting and… Continue reading

If you think today’s politics includes some unusual characters, wait until you hear about Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn. He was born July 31, 1909 in Tobelbad, which at the time was in Astria-Hungary and is now part of Austria. Kuehnelt-Leddihn was personally brilliant, fluent in eight languages and able to read seventeen more. He started writing… Continue reading

Today is the anniversary of the birthdays of not one but two major movie stars from the very early days of the US film industry. Theda Bara was born July 29, 1885, and Clara Bow was born on the same day twenty years later.  Theda Bara was born Theodocia Burr Goodman, in Cincinnati in the… Continue reading

Have you ever thought about how people might seem to fall into a few types, psychologically speaking? If so, you may have experienced the synchronicity of connecting with the collective unconscious, where the ideas of Carl Jung resonate. Especially today, the anniversary of his birth in 1875 in Switzerland.  Jung was one of the first… Continue reading

Today is quite possibly the anniversary of the birth of George Peele, who may have written a number of famous plays in 1500s England, may have collaborated with Shakespeare, and might have written a play that Shakespeare used as a basis for the play King John. Peele might have had red hair. He might have… Continue reading

We should have a party — but keep it confidential, with a very carefully vetted guest list — because today is the anniversary of the birth of Madame X.  Madame X was not her real name, of course. She was born Agnes Meyer in 1889, in a small town in Illinois in the US. Her… Continue reading

If you buy a popular product, at least in the US, there’s a chance that if it sounds like it’s named after someone (like Mrs. Butterworth’s maple syrup, or Francesco Rinaldi Italian foods), there was either no such person or sometimes a completely unrelated person. For example, the Dr. Pepper carbonated drink might be named… Continue reading