Browsing: Travel

A Brief History On March 16, 1621, only about 4 months after landing at Plymouth Rock and setting up their new colony in what was then called Plymouth Colony (now Massachusetts and Maine) the Pilgrims that had traveled across the Atlantic on the Mayflower had their first friendly contact with a Native person, and that contact came as quite a shock!  On March 16, 1621, Samoset, a member of the Abenaki Sagamore people simply strolled into the Pilgrim village and greeted the Pilgrims in English!  Samoset was not yet through with startling the colonists… Digging Deeper The first thing Samoset…

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A Brief History On March 15, 1493, Christopher Columbus made his triumphant return from his first voyage to the New World, a momentous occasion in human history and especially noteworthy for the Spanish Crown that he sailed for.  Today we look at 10 such Triumphant Returns, times when a person or a group of people made it back with an air of accomplishment, vindication, or victory, often with a page written in history about that very return.  No significance to the order listed, but feel free to add your own nominations to the list. Digging Deeper 1. Christopher Columbus, 1493.…

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A Brief History On March 5, 1496, in the wake of the tremendous news about the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the New World, King Henry VII of England granted “letters patent” to John Cabot, an Italian sailor and adventurer, along with his sons, to explore the world on behalf of the English Crown.  As Columbus was an Italian (Genoese) working for the King and Queen of Spain, so too was Cabot, an Italian originally from The Kingdom of Naples, employed by a foreign power.  Cabot became (probably) the first European since perhaps the Vikings in the 11th Century to…

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A Brief History On May 19, 2001, this site’s owner, Dr. Zar, then a student at the United Methodist Church affiliated Baldwin-Wallace College, departed from Ohio for France as part of a class trip.  Studying abroad is an excellent choice for many students. It gives them a chance to learn in a new place and learn new lessons that they might not have been exposed to if they’d only studied on their local campus. For Christian students, though, a semester abroad can be a chance to grow spiritually as well as academically. There are a few things that you can…

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A Brief History On February 26, 2013, a sightseeing hot air balloon over Luxor, Egypt, was carrying 20 passengers and the pilot when something went horribly wrong.  A leaking fuel line caused a fire to break out on the balloon when it was only a few meters off the ground, and the ensuing flames caused the balloon to rise dramatically.  Engulfed in flames, some passengers jumped out of the gondola to their deaths, while others stayed in the passenger compartment until the balloon exploded, killing 19 of the 21 people that had been aboard, the worst death toll in hot…

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