A Brief History On July 7, 1550, chocolate is thought to have been introduced to Europe from the Americas.  In the following article, the author will list the foods native to either the North or South American continents that had the most significance on a culinary scale when finally exported to Europe, Asia and Africa. These will be in no particular order of ranking but merely alphabetical. Honorable mentions go to the grains/seeds: Quinoa and Amaranth. This is because these two foods are gaining in popularity due to growing health-food trends that involve going gluten-free and vegan, however, they have…

A Brief History This article presents key events in the life of Joan of Arc and the Hundred Years’ War. Digging Deeper On August 2, 1343, Olivier Clisson, a French nobleman from Brittany, was convicted of treason in Paris and beheaded.  He had been fighting the British in the Hundred Years War, and when his success tapered off, he was criticized and accused of treason, perhaps to deflect blame from French losses. On August 26, 1346, at the battle of Crecy, English archers proved the superiority of the English Longbow over the combination of armored knights and crossbowmen fielded by the…

A Brief History On this day, July 6, 1893, the town of Pomeroy, Iowa, was almost completely destroyed by a massive tornado! Digging Deeper Named for landowner and congressman Charles W. Pomeroy (September 3, 1825 – February 11, 1891), the town’s history dates back to at least the 1870s when a railroad was planned to be built through the Iowa settlement.  As the town’s official website notes, this railroad “bridged the gap between small rural towns and larger cities” by taking “passengers to Fort Dodge and” hauling “cattle to Chicago.” After a couple decades of prosperity, tragedy descended upon the town on July 6, 1893.  In the heat…

A Brief History On July 1, 1874, E. Remington and Sons placed the first successful typewriter on the market, a model also known as the Remington No. 1 and invented by Christopher Sholes, Samuel Soule, and Carlos Glidden. Digging Deeper Not particularly easy to manufacture, the inventors had sold out to Remington after failing to easily produce the machine.  Remington did not find an immediate market, as the machines were costly to make and still had some shortcomings such as the inability to type lower case letters.  It did however, introduce the familiar QWERTY 4 row keyboard, which despite appearances made typing much faster than an ABCtype…

A Brief History On June 30, 1994, Tonya Harding was banned for life from participating in figure skating events.  She is currently competing on season twenty-six of Dancing with the Stars, titled Dancing with the Stars: Athletes.  The season premiered on April 30, 2018 on the ABC network.  The four-week season, the shortest ever, features a cast of current and former athletes. Digging Deeper Shortly before the 1994 national figure skating championships which were being held in Detroit, Nancy Kerrigan was hit in the knee in what would become known as the “whack heard round the world”. The attack was…