A Brief History On August 9, 1854, Henry David Thoreau published his book, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, a book about his life with nature and self-reliance, a reflective story of his own philosophy of Transcendentalism. Digging Deeper A leading proponent of Transcendentalism was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who along with Thoreau and other Americans decried the then current state of society in what they saw as senseless conformity and instead urged people to find their own individual way in the universe. The Transcendentalists also developed an aversion to the institution of slavery. Emerson praised Plato, Moses, Jesus, Luther, Copernicus,…
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A Brief History On July 28, 2018, Australian yacht skipper Wendy Tuck made sailing history by becoming the first female skipper to win the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. Held every two years, this epic boat race is run by Clipper Ventures that supplies 11 identical yachts to skippers and crews to compete in since 1996, with only 2004 skipped. Digging Deeper A real test of skill and endurance, all participants are required to undergo a four-week training program before the race. The same year that Wendy Tuck made sailing history, British skipper Nikki Henderson became the youngest person…
A Brief History On July 27, 1996, at the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, a pipe bomb exploded killing 2 and injuring 111. The perpetrator was caught seven years later. This terrorist act is one of several Olympic incidents that go against the Olympic principles of ethics, comradery, peace, brotherhood and all that is good about humanity. Politics and hate have no place in the Olympic Games, but sometimes these factors intrude anyway. Digging Deeper Some incidents where the Olympic ideal was betrayed include: In 1972, the Munich Olympics were marred by a terrorist attack that cost 17 lives. In…
A Brief History On July 23, 1982, the set for the film, Twilight Zone: The Movie, became a real-life killing ground when actor Vic Morrow and two child actors were killed when a helicopter crashed into the actors. Despite revised safety rules after the incident, movies and TV remain a dangerous enterprise. Digging Deeper A recent example in 2021 is the set of Rust, a Western being made by Alec Baldwin, who accidently shot and killed a cinematographer with a real bullet when only blanks were supposed to be on the set. The Wrap quotes the AP as saying 43…
A Brief History On July 18, 1992, internet history was made when a photograph of the parody doo wop singing group, Les Horribles Cernettes, was posted on the World Wide Web, definitely the first WWW photo of a musical group and possibly the first photograph ever posted to the Web. Digging Deeper Calling themselves “the one and only High Energy Rock Band,” this female group was made up of employees of CERN, the European physics and nuclear research concern behind the Large Hadron Collider. The group was active from 1990 to 2012, and then resurrected for 2017 and 2020. As…