A Brief History On January 9, 2015, a funeral in Mozambique was the eerily appropriate venue for a disaster involving the favorite bubbly beverage of millions, or even billions, of people. The funeral goers were supplied with the local brew they call pombe, and sadly the beer was contaminated with a deadly germ called Burkholderia gladioli. Digging Deeper Beer has been a staple beverage and even food for many centuries, and generally speaking if consumed in moderation it can have beneficial effects on health. Like many other foods and drinks, when consumed to excess, bad things can happen. Or in…
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A Brief History On October 24, 2017, rock and roll and New Orleans jazz pioneer Antoine “Fats” Domino died. His 1949 song, “The Fat Man,” is considered by some to be the first rock and roll hit, selling over a million copies. Elvis Presley and the Beatles were fans of Domino, and Fats is not the only great person of considerable girth. Digging Deeper Another rock and roller, Chubby Checker, got his stage name from a comparison to Fats Domino! Yet another rock and roll great, Mama Cass Elliot, is enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and…
A Brief History On September 22, 1948, USAF pilot Lt. Gail Halvorsen began dropping candy via parachute to the children of Berlin. In 1948, the USSR tried to cut off West Berlin from supplies from the West, starving the population. Digging Deeper The US and its allies began an operation dubbed “The Berlin Airlift,” flying supplies of food, fuel, medicine, and other essentials to West Berlin surrounded by the Soviets and their East German lackeys. Halvorsen was one of those pilots of cargo planes, and when he noticed hungry faces of children lined up by the West Berlin airport, he…
A Brief History On August 30, 1974, the third World Population Conference was held in Bucharest, Romania. The first such conference was held in Geneva, Switzerland in 1927, the idea of birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, under the aegis of the League of Nations. Experts in health, food supply, fertility and other relevant subjects met to examine how many humans the Earth could sustainably host. Subsequent conferences have been arranged by the United Nations starting in 1954. Digging Deeper The conference spawned the International Union for the Scientific Study of Population, a subject fraught with religious, moral, and ethnic considerations. …
A Brief History On August 3, 2023, as with every First Thursday in August, Americans celebrate National IPA Day. If you are not a connoisseur of fine brewed malt beverages, namely beer and ale, you might not be familiar with IPA. Digging Deeper IPA is a product of the 1700s when long voyages to and from India were made by unrefrigerated British sailing ships. In order to have their precious brewski stay fresh, brewers, especially George Hodgson, concocted a brew that was bitter, hoppy, and crisp, that could survive the long voyages in wooden casks. The brew became known as…