I’m sure you know Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press with moveable type in Mainz, Germany in the 1450s. But who brought the printing press to England? Credit is given to William Caxton, who was born sometime between 1415 and 1424, most likely in Kent, England. His career path was set when he was apprenticed
I’m sure you know of Betsy Ross, credited with making the first U.S. flag (https://www.ushistory.org/betsy/) and you may have heard about Molly Pitcher and the Battle of Monmouth (https://www.ushistory.org/Valleyforge/youasked/070.htm), but what else do you know about women and the Revolutionary War? In another example of history not making it into most history books, women played
I know that’s an old joke, but I thought of it while reading about how August 8 was the 135th anniversary of Ulysses S. Grant’s funeral. With all the talk about the statues of Confederate generals, I thought General Grant should have equal time. According to the print edition of The Writer’s Almanac (http://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/twa-the-writers-almanac-for-august-8-2020/): His
On Aug. 1, 1952, 23-year-old Black Women’s Army Corps Private Sarah Keys boarded a bus in Trenton, N.J. to travel to her home in Washington, N.C. for the first time since joining the military. When the bus stopped in Roanoke Rapids, N.C. just after midnight to change drivers, the new driver told Keys to give
I think at some point, every kid wants to be a firefighter. Part of the allure is getting to slide down a pole to reach the fire engines. That idea goes back to the 19th Century and the informal competition among fire companies to arrive first at a fire. This was doubly true for African
Many of our everyday practices have surprising origins. For example, the idea of serving a three-course meal — soup, main dish, and dessert — is actually credited to a Persian (some say Arab or Kurd) known to history as Ziryab. His full name is Abu l-Hasan Ali Ibn Nafi, and he was an educated North
If you are running a business, you would want to closely track your assets. How can you improve productivity? How can you increase an asset’s value? At what point does the cost of maintenance exceed the return? These are all important questions. Now, what if these assets you are tracking are people? Or, more accurately,
From The-Best-Man-For-The-Job-Might-Be-A-Woman Department : Archaeologists had always thought they had found the ideal Viking male warrior’s grave in southeastern Sweden. There were swords, arrowheads, and two sacrificed horses, so the interred must be a man, right? Then Stockholm University bioarchaeologist Anna Kjellström closely examined the warrior’s pelvic bones and mandible. To her, they seemed feminine. When none
Here’s something to think about during this Memorial Day weekend. In 1877, the first black man graduated the United States Military Academy at West Point. In 1940, the Army promoted a black to the rank of general. But the U.S. Navy was more bound to tradition. At the beginning of World War II, African Americans
It’s not unusual to regret one’s actions; in my life, it’s a semi-regular occurrence. But how many people actually come to regret their inventions? You might be surprised. One invention we’d all be better off without is the atomic bomb. Two of the principal figures in its creation were Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer.