Browsing: Lifestyle

A Brief History On May 23, 2013, the Interstate-5 bridge over the Skagit River collapsed suddenly, dumping two occupied cars into the river. Incredibly, not only did the occupants survive, they did not suffer any severe injuries. Often the results are much different and much more tragic. Today we discuss some of the famous bridge collapses through History, with an eye toward ones that are particularly deadly, interesting, or unique.  (See our previous article on August 1, 2007, “10 Famous Bridge Collapses.”) Digging Deeper 1. I-5 Bridge over the Skagit River, 2013. As stated above, this harrowing incident that dumped…

A Brief History On May 21, 2011, Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping had predicted that the world as we know it would end, with the return of Jesus Christ and the advent of the “Rapture,” followed by months of fire and brimstone resulting in the destruction of Earth. If you were paying attention on that date, you will note that the end of times did not in fact begin on May 21, 2011! Many people have predicted the end of the world or the end of the world as we know it, and so far, each has been wrong. Today…

A Brief History On May 19, 1845, Sir John Franklin set off from Greenhithe, England in command of two British Royal Navy ships, the HMS Erebus and the fatefully named HMS Terror, on a voyage of discovery searching for the final leg of what he hoped would be a Northwest Passage around Canada to the Pacific. The tragic expedition is chronicled on the outstanding AMC television series, The Terror, which first aired in March of 2018.  In the series, Irish actor Ciarán Hinds portrays Captain Sir John Franklin as seen in the comparative image above. Digging Deeper Since Franklin and…

A Brief History On May 14, 2018, we celebrate another one of those goofy pseudo-holidays, this time National Dance Like a Chicken Day, a day in which we acknowledge the superiority of that wedding reception standby (along with the Hokey Pokey), the Chicken Dance. Of course, we must also delve into what chickens are and how they are important to us. Digging Deeper Long before there was a Chicken Dance, people kept Chickens not for food, but for entertainment. About 5,000 years ago in Asia people started keeping the Red Junglefowl (perhaps crossbred with the Grey Junglefowl), the bird that…

A Brief History On May 8, 1794, Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, the man generally regarded as the Father of Modern Chemistry, was put to death on the guillotine during the Reign of Terror period of the French Revolution. It seems this man of noble birth who had such an enormous impact on the sciences of chemistry and biology was more than merely a scientist, but also a businessman and an agent of the Ancien Régime, the monarchy of France prior to the Revolution. Digging Deeper Born in Paris in 1743, Antoine was given a fine education (earning a degree in law…