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August 4
August 4 is the birthday of John Fitch. He was a fighter pilot in WWII, based in north Africa. He and his squadron slept in tents, but being fighter pilots themselves, they felt pretty vulnerable to enemy fighter planes that could strafe the camp with machine gun fire. They didn’t have many resources to protect Continue reading
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In Top Form
At the Olympics (at least the winter version), some events begin at the peak of a mountain. All Olympic events are so competitive an athlete needs to deliver a peak performance in order to win a medal. A few of the athletes — and some of the fans — have a hairline featuring a widow’s Continue reading
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August 3, probably not Arbor Day
Back in 1941, Louis Koch, a retired businessman was from Evansville, Indiana, visited Santa Claus, another Indiana town. It’s not clear whether it had taken him until his retirement to first visit a town with an interesting name just 40 miles away, but maybe he’d been busy. He evidently brought some kids with him, or Continue reading
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“I’m not wearing a hat”
Hoods have been part of people’s wardrobes for a very long time. Long enough for some interesting etymology to show up. One interesting bit is “liripipe” — which is sometimes written as “liripoop”, although nobody seems to know why. If you wore a hood back in medieval England, you might have attached an ornamental dangly Continue reading
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Have some cake
What do a fancy crocheted border, a cake, and gentleness have in common? They’ve all been known as the same thing: “mignardise.” Pronounced “min-yar-dize”, it’s a word that dates back to the 1600s, and as the spelling suggests, it was borrowed directly from French. The original meaning of “mignardise” was gentle behavior — particularly in Continue reading
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Pierre Charles L’Enfant
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
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August 2
Subway trains are older than you might think. It was August 2, 1870 that the first one opened. It was in London, and would take you on a 1300 foot journey under the Thames, near the Tower of London. In 1870 there weren’t any electric trains yet (although they were very, very close to appearing). Continue reading
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One more round
Everybody knows what beer is, and how popular it’s been around the world for millennia. But the modern beer industry has spawned some accessories that are not quite as popular in general, but have such ardent fans and collectors that there are now English words to describe them. Take, for example, labeorphiles. These are people Continue reading
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The Maltese Gimmick
In some kinds of novels and movies, the plot rides on a special object that’s absolutely necessary for the story to work, but doesn’t really do anything at all — even in the story — and in some cases it doesn’t even appear. That object is a MacGuffin. He probably didn’t come up with the Continue reading
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Conquered Today
It was this date, in 30BCE, that the Roman leader Octavian took control of Alexandria, Egypt, which after that was part of the Roman Republic. Octavian went on to take control of the entire Roman Empire, and for various reasons (Rome was very complicated), was also known as Gaius Julius Caesar (Octavian was adopted by Continue reading
About Me
I’m Pete Harbeson, a writer located near Boston, Massachusetts. In addition to writing my own content, I’ve learned to translate for my loquacious and opinionated pup Chocolate Bossypaws. I shouldn’t be surprised, but she mostly speaks in doggerel. You can find her contributions tagged with Chocolatiana.
Check out my other blog, Techlimitics, where I’m grappling with the nature of simplicity.
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