Actually, no one is postive when Beethoven was born. He was baptized on December 17, 1770 in Bonn, in what is now Germany, and his birthday is thought to be December 16, 1770. Beethoven was a bonafide musical genius who gave us some of our best-known classical music and who ironically went deaf later in
Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1862, Abraham Lincoln supposedly said “Is this the little woman who made this great war?” I found a secondhand paperback edition of Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin awhile back and decided to read it since it is one of the key books in U.S. history. It’s actually pretty short, 180
In this, the last half of the last month of 2015, people are beginning to pass judgment on the past year. Was it like the opening of Charles Dicken’s A Tale of Two Cities, both the best of time and the worst of times? Perhaps it depends on whether or not you’re a Republican
I was surprised to learn recently that the debate about who wrote the plays and verse attributed to William Shakespeare is still alive. My question “Who wrote Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets?” got 259,000 hits on Google. The main problem seem to be the lack of recordkeeping. We simply don’t know that much about the man,
You never know what you’ll find on the Internet. The most unusual website I’ve ever found is https://isitchristmas.com/ It answers the question “Is it Christmas?” in a very direct way. Be sure to check it on Christmas, although you will probably be disappointed.
You’ve heard a lot about 3D printers, but will there ever be the day when we can use them to print our clothes? A young lady named Danit Peleg thinks that day will be here soon. In a recent TED talk, she explains how a fashion school project let her to degisn and print some
The word barber comes from the Latin barba for beard, and even in early Rome they knew beards needed to be lubricated to be cut without pain. Water worked okay as long as it was held in place with soap. Special shaving soaps were being sold by the early 1800s. One of the first
Anyone who has ever owned a pet has probably wondered at one time or another what their companion has been thinking. How much do they understand? Do they have the same feelings, or do they just mirror our moods? I haven’t had a pet in fifty years, but my own theory is when an animal
I guess this is as good a time as any to repost my Christmas story — Thanks, Santa I guess I shouldn’t complain. I live in a nice house on a street with nice houses. I think our house is the nicest, two stories with a pool in back and a garage with room
What if the Confederate army had moved on Washington, DC after their victory at the first battle of Bull Run? I could give many examples of how history turned on a snap decision, a quirk, a timely death, a misunderstanding, or just dumb luck. One of my favorite history books is appropriately entitled What If?