A Brief History On February 14, 2005, a trio of former PayPal employees gave the world a great Valentine’s Day gift when they launched YouTube, the foremost video sharing website on the internet.  Less than 2 years later they sold the site to Google for $1.65 billion! Digging Deeper Originally a way for individuals to share videos on the net, the site now hosts video posted by large corporations as well as individuals, including BBC, Vevo, Hulu and CBS, et al.  Currently the second most popular website on the internet (Google is #1), you can find self-made videos by individuals…

A Brief History Historian Linda Hall asks, “Were Ancient women powerful or powerless?”1   One might refine this question to ask, “Were Ancient women famous for being naked powerful or powerless?”  The women listed below unquestionably wielded power on men and women alike despite and in some cases because of their physical attributes.  This article therefore explores some of Antiquity’s most famous women known for being naked and their influence on history. Digging Deeper 1)  Nefertiti (c. 1,370 B.C. – c. 1,330 B.C) Known primarily for the beautifully sculpted bust that is on display at the Egyptian Museum in Berlin, Nefertiti, wife of…

A Brief History On February 13, 1954, Franklin Delano Selvy, shooting guard/small forward for the Furman University (South Carolina) basketball team scored an NCAA Division I record 100 points in a game against Newberry College (South Carolina), a feat never matched in Division I play. Digging Deeper The 6’ 3” Selvy, known as Frank, hailed from Corbin, Kentucky and was born in 1932, presumably the reason he was so named.  (Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the 1932 US Presidential election the same month Selvy was born.) In a story right out of a book of Fairy Tales, Selvy was being honored…

A Brief History On February 12, 1909, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by a coalition of White Americans and African Americans.   The idea of this organization was conceived originally by 3 White civil rights activists, Mary White Ovington (Unitarian), William English Walling (wealthy, married Jewish woman), and Henry Moskowitz (Romanian Jewish immigrant to US) while meeting in New York.  The Race Riot of 1908 in Springfield, Illinois was the impetus for forming the NAACP. Digging Deeper (Note: February is Black History Month.) These Caucasian activists were convinced that White people would have to…

A Brief History On February 11, 1939, a prototype Lockheed P-38 Lighting twin engine fighter plane flew from California to New York in a then record 7 hours and 2 minutes.  This new US fighter plane was the fastest fighter in the world at this time, the first fighter to exceed 400 mph in level flight.  So what was wrong with it? Digging Deeper Normally our articles about military aircraft extol the virtues of the subject plane, but here we digress to look at the shortcomings and criticisms of this venerable aircraft, one of the creations of Clarence “Kelly” Johnson,…