A Brief History This article presents a list of floating islands in various types of fiction. Digging Deeper Literature The first floating island encountered in literature is the home of the four winds, Aiolia, as recounted in Homer’s Odyssey: Odysseus: We came to the Aiolian island (nesos Aiolios); here lived Aiolos, son of Hippotas; the deathless gods counted him their friend. His island is a floating one; all round it there is a wall of bronze, unbreakable, and rock rises sheer above it. — The Odyssey, 10.11 According to Pliny the Elder in his Natural History, c. 77–79 AD, there were floating islands on the Vadimonian Lake.2 Some other mythological…
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A Brief History On December 19, 1907, the Darr Mine disaster in Van Meter, Pennsylvania (Westmoreland County) killed a total of 239 miners, both men and boys. Incredibly, this tragedy was not even the worst mine disaster in the US that month! Today we list the 10 Worst Mine Disasters in US History, ranked by number of fatalities. Lucky for US miners, none of the worst US fatal mine accidents rank in the top 10 deadliest mine disasters in the world (the worst of all time being in Benxi, China, in 1942 when 1549 miners died in a coal dust…
A Brief History On December 15, 1956, Elvis Presley gave the last of 50 performances on Louisiana Hayride, a live Shreveport, Louisiana radio show. This event was the occasion that the famous line, “Elvis has left the building” comes from. In honor of this musical trivia, and the fact that Elvis himself sang a song with lyrics in German and in English (“Wooden Heart”), we list today 10 great tunes, some of our favorites, that feature English and at least one other language. Digging Deeper 1. “Wooden Heart”, Elvis Presley, 1960. This nice tune comes from the 1960 film, GI Blues,…
A Brief History On December 10, 1541, Thomas Culpeper and Francis Dereham were executed by King Henry VIII of England for having sexual affairs with the Queen, Catherine Howard, wife of Henry VIII! You would think common sense would keep anyone from risking their neck just to have sex with a particular person, but over the years, time and again, people let their lust overrule their logical thinking with predictable results. Here we list 10 of those time when people really made poor choices when it comes to love and sex. Digging Deeper 1. Catherine Howard marries King Henry VIII, 1540.…
A Brief History On December 6, 1969, the Rolling Stones used the motorcycle gang, the Hell’s Angels, as security for a concert. Doing so was a dumb decision, as chronicled in our previous article on December 6th What Were We Thinking? Dumb Decisions… and we have highlighted other bad choices in our articles of September 8th 10 Infamous Pardons, and April 23rd 10 Business Blunders. Today we list 10 more of those choices people have made that have proven (with 20/20 hindsight!) to be dumb decisions. (Note: No significance to the order listed.) Digging Deeper 1. Japan Attacks Pearl Harbor/Germany Declares…