Friday, March 11, 2005
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
On March 11, 1818, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus was published. She was 21. In Shelley's tale, a scientist animates a creature constructed from dismembered corpses. The gentle, intellectually gifted creature is enormous and physically hideous. Cruelly...
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Monday, February 7, 2005
February 4th - Remembering My Joe.
February 4 is a special day to me, and I wanted to write this on the day itself, but an unusually busy weekend intervened. February 4 is the birth and death day of my grandfather, whose initials are J.J.B. He never wanted to be called by any grandfather name, so we all called him Joe. He was small...
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Monday, November 22, 2004
Important and Sad Day in History
At about 12:30 p.m. this day in 1963 President John F. Kennedy was fatally shot riding in a motorcade in Dallas, TX. Almost every American alive at the time remembers where they were when they heard the news. (I was sneaking out to lunch with a co-worker at a time we weren’t supposed to leave...
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Wednesday, November 10, 2004
Marines are Born, Hirohito crowned, Andersonville remembered.
Birthday of theologian Martin Luther, born in Eisleben, Saxony (1483), which is now located in Germany. Best known as the man who sparked the Protestant Reformation, he was also an amazingly productive writer. From 1516–1546, he published an article on religion every other week, for a total of more...
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Monday, November 8, 2004
Dracula, GWTW, and Doc Holliday
Birthday of Bram Stoker, born in Dublin, Ireland (1847). He worked his way up from civil service clerk to manager of Shakespearian actor Henry Irving, which fully occupied his life. One night, in 1890, he dreamed that a woman was trying to kiss him on the throat, and an elderly Count interrupted her...
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Sunday, November 7, 2004
Wars, Presidents, Bridges and Railroads
1861 Battle of Belmont, Missouri. Union forces under Ulysses S. Grant overran a Confederate camp at Belmont, Missouri, but were forced to flee when additional Confederate troops arrived. Although Grant claimed victory, the Union gained no ground and left the Confederates in firm control of that...
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Monday, October 25, 2004
Picasso, Lincoln Slams McClellan, and Definitely Not Mother of the Year
1415 During the Hundred Years' War between England and France, Henry V, the young king of England, leads his forces to victory at the Battle of Agincourt in northern France. 1748 Henry Fielding, author of the novel Tom Jones, was commissioned as justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex in...
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Picasso, Lincoln Slams McClellan, and Definitely Not Mother of the Year
1415 During the Hundred Years' War between England and France, Henry V, the young king of England, leads his forces to victory at the Battle of Agincourt in northern France. 1748 Henry Fielding, author of the novel Tom Jones, was commissioned as justice of the peace for Westminster and Middlesex in...
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Thursday, October 21, 2004
USS Constitution, Nashville Speedway, and Indians Get the Shaft
1532 German reformer Martin Luther declared: 'For some years now I have read through the Bible twice every year. If you picture the Bible to be a mighty tree and every word a little branch, I have shaken every one of these branches because I wanted to know what it was and what it meant.' 1692...
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Wednesday, October 20, 2004
Bela Lugosi, the Red Scare, and the Chicago World's Fair
1854 French poet Arthur Rimbaud born in Charleville, France. He published his first poem at age 16, and most of his best poems were written before he turned 20. Rimbaud was a sort of 19th century forerunner of the young, outrageous rebel. At fifteen, he entered a regional poetry contest. He was...
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