July 4th Fun Facts

Tomorrow is the fourth of July!  Also known as eat, drink and set fire to flying objects day!   But, we should all have a little fun knowledge to share while waiting for the fireworks so remember some of these:
-31 places nationwide have “Liberty” in their name.  Iowa has the most with 4.
-74+ million americans [...]

This Day In History June 18th

Here are some nifty facts about today I thought were pretty cool.
1812
The War of 1812 began.
1815
Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by British, German, and Dutch forces.
1873
Suffragist Susan B. Anthony was fined $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872 presidential election.
1928
Aviator Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly across the Atlantic [...]

Tags: History, june

The World’s Oldest Printed Book

When Gutenberg made his printing press, the first book he printed with it was the Bible, which is now popularly known as the Gutenberg Bible. So you might be forgiven if you think the Bible would be the world’s oldest printed book, but that’d be an erroneous assumption.
Gutenberg wasn’t the first to realize that [...]

Hemingway’s Legendary Six-Word Story

Make sure you are firmly sitting down for if you have not seen it before, then you are about to read the shortest story you will ever encounter in your bleak, meaningless life:
“For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
According to legend, that is Hemingway’s six-word story and he referred to it as the greatest story he [...]

November 1st: Not Just NaNo Day

We all know today was the start of NaNoWriMo, which is in fact a ‘national event’.  We also know it is the day after Halloween.  But, did you know it is also the beginning of the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico?  Or National Day in Algeria?  Or World Vegan Day?  There are many [...]

History of Writing

Ever wonder how writing came to be?  Well…
There’s actually some debate to which civilization can properly claim writing developed there first.  Each of the world’s four major civilizations have a claim; that is, the Europeans, the Chinese, the Mesopotamians, and the Indus River Valley.

Tragedical Affects

First, I know ‘tragedical’ is not a word…but it should be.
Now, on with the story.   I was sitting in my Human Growth and Development class today, which is definitely in the top 5 most boring classes of my lifetime, and I (shock) was bored.  In our book, we have little pictures on the sides of [...]

The Hobbit Seventy Years Later

Seems I missed this, but yesterday was the seventieth anniversary of the first date of publishing of The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. Although fantasy existed before The Hobbit, it never came into its own until the book.

On This Day In History: August 27th

1776: British forces defeated the Continental Army at the Battle of Long Island in Brooklyn, New York.  The battle was the largest of the Revolutionary War and pitted General William Howe of the British against General George Washington, both of them military masterminds.
1883: The eruption of Krakatoa.  The eruption immediately led to massive tsunamis, and [...]

This Day In History: August 8th

1549: France declares war on England… and then promptly sues for peace
1588: In a stunning Naval battle that changed the course of history, English forces inflicted a crippling defeat upon the Spanish Armada.
1673: The Dutch recaptured New York City from the British during the third Anglo-Dutch War and this time decided to call it “New [...]