A Brief History To take a step back from all the violent events we have recently covered, let us now celebrate some photographs taken by myself or family members in 2015 of wieners…well wiener dogs (Dachshunds), that is! Digging Deeper My mother took the above photograph of our Dachshund, Marie-Lousie, in February 2015 on a cold day in Ashland, Ohio. The above photograph was sent to my mother’s phone by my sister-in-law in March 2015. I took the above photograph at a gas station in Ashland, Ohio with my cellular phone in March 2015. This beautiful picture portrait taken in…

A Brief History On March 12, 1894, Coca-Cola, the preeminent soft drink on the planet, was first bottled and sold in Vicksburg, Mississippi by Joseph Beidenharn, a soda fountain operator who owned a candy store.  Previously sold by its creator the pharmacist John Pemberton who lived in Atlanta, Georgia and others under various formulas and names since 1886, it was Beidenharn who first bottled Coca-Cola.  A few years later, the first Coca-Cola bottling plant for mass production was founded in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Digging Deeper At first made with alcohol, the drink was marketed as an elixir or medicine that could cure…

A Brief History Various types of alleged supernatural entities are believed to have plagued people in Western Civilization from Ancient to Modern times.  Western Civilization includes not only Europe, but also places colonized by Europeans, including, for example, North America.  To that end, we begin by examining the earliest examples of perceived supernatural beings, such as the Minotaur from Ancient Greece.  From there, we address the Medieval and Early modern witch hunts that terrorized mostly women as well as a smaller number of men in England, France, and Germany, and the English colony of Massachusetts.  We ultimately conclude by covering…

A Brief History On March 11, 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Lend-Lease Act that allowed him to let American factories become “The Arsenal of Democracy” and equip the country’s Allies with American-built war materials. Digging Deeper This could be done on an enormous scale since U.S. wartime production was unhindered by fighting within its own borders and because all raw materials could be easily obtained (unlike in Germany and Japan). Among the major weapon systems provided to the Allies, mainly the Soviet Union, was one of the most under-appreciated fighter aircraft of World War II, the Bell P-39 Airacobra.  Sleek and lethal looking, this plane certainly…

A Brief History Whether pronounced “Lee-na” or “Lay-na,” Lena has never been a popular name in English-speaking countries, being more common in Germanic or Slavic regions.  Some of the more famous “Lenas” have one thing in common, however, at one point in time, they created a stir by going naked! In line with our series on women whose nudity had a historical, social or cultural impact, in this article, we present 5 Lenas who, by being unclothed, made the news. Due to the uncommonness of the name and the high rate of fame achieved with nudity by those called Lena, perhaps the…