Today, in 1909, Commander Robert E. Peary reached the North Pole! I am trying to figure out where I can get my hands on the other 22 volumes of The Pocket University readings, either digitally or in crappy old book form. LibraryThing has the complete list: I’ve clicked on a few, including the one containing
Found via a link at Ace of Spades Head Quarters. Here’s the quiz. I got a perfect score because I’m definitely over 40. Take the quiz. It’s the weekend. What else do you have to do?
From Internet Archive! Here’s the page.
Born this day in 1858, De Wolf Hopper. This is a great one! De Wolf was the man who made “Casey at Bat” famous, and became famous because of his rendition of the poem. The whole thing a series of “at the right place” moments. Wikipedia article (which needs help) on him here. Here’s the
Yesterday we turned the page on a new week in the GDR calendar. For whomever things were written aforetime were written for our knowledge. St. Paul Born yesterday in 1859 A.E. Housman. From that infallible source [thoughts rant on that infallible source here]: Alfred Edward Housman (/ˈhaʊsmən/; 26 March 1859 – 30 April 1936), usually known
Background on the Guide to Daily Reading. Today it’s L’Arrabiata by Johann Ludwig Paul Heyse who was born this day in 1830. Bullet point the 1st: What’s L’arrabbiata mean? From that infallible source– Arrabbiata sauce, or sugo all’arrabbiata in Italian, is a spicy sauce for pasta made from garlic, tomatoes, and dried red chili peppers cooked in olive
GDR: Guide to Daily Reading (in The Guide to Reading: The Pocket University Volume XXIII. Lyman Abbott, Asa Don Dickinson et al., eds. Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, New York. 1917). Interesting tidbit from 2013 here. This is a great book. Pick it up if you come across it. The second half of the
Found at Sky News. As a reminder, these folks are kin to George #3.
National Geographic Volume XXXVI Number Five, November, 1919 Not a pleasant story at all. And quite the contrast to the first half dozen or so pages of advertisements. Here’s the last sentence, spoken by the author’s traveling companion, a doctor, as their ship departed Ararat: “God bless America,” he said; “for America, with God’s help,
Most fools think they are only ignorant. Benjamin Franklin, 1748 He that makes an Ass of himself must not take it ill if Men ride him. Thomas Fuller, 1732 None is a fool always, everyone sometimes. George Herbert, 1640 Anybody who feels at ease in the world today is a fool. Robert Hitchens, 1959 Heh.
via American Digest. Well worth 11 minutes of your life.
Originally posted July 2, 2013. Reformatted. Contemporary commentary, if any, in blue. Grievance 17 of 27 For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent [From The Good Years: From 1900 to the First World War (Walter Lord, Harper & Brothers, Publishers, New York, 1960). How anyone could refer to the years that brought us the
In late June, 2013, I began my “study” of the Grievances. Originally published June 30, 2013. Contemporary commentary in blue. And no– I do not want to see one singe TL;DR in comments. 😉 As I mentioned the other day, I thought I might study The Grievances— the 27 specific gripes the Colonists had with
There is no more faulty method of discipline than that of severely punishing a child for some outbreak against moral or school law before a hearing has been given him… . Practical School Discipline–Applied Methods Part 2 , Beery, Ray C., 1917. That’s from one of the projects I’m working on at Distributed Proofreaders (DP).
Originally published June 28, 2018. Reformatted. Contemporary commentary in blue. Every American knows by heart how the Declaration of Independence begins. When in the Course of Human Events… I cannot recall what the circumstances were exactly six years ago, nor can I recall my state of mind, and I’m not inclined to go looking. But
The Week in Pictures . Powerlineblog.com
I don’t think that you can get a better sense of the sort of meaning than from what is in every bookshop in this city… . Douglas Murry via Powerline
I picked up The Literature of American History: A Bibliographical Guide (1902, reprinted 1966) and was skimming through the section on “Educational History,” and came across these two titles (grabbed screen shots at Archive dot org). Here’s the blurb in The Literature of American History: Together these two works, which are really companions, present a
June 6, 1944– Tonight’s communiqué just in from D-Day invasion headquarters summarizes the news. “Allied forces,” it says, “have succeeded in their initial landings in France; and fighting continues.” Lowell Thomas was the Walter Cronkite of radio. Beginning in 1930, he broadcast twice each evening on CBS radio. It was said that his voice had
Originally published June 12, 2013; formatting updated A bit of background about why I found this article so so so funny… . Yesterday I had occasion to learn a bit about Joseph Warren, who among other things, helped craft the Suffolk Resolves of 1774 which denounced Parliament after the Boston Tea Party. Paul Revere carried