DYK: Did you know? The fashion for wigs began with the Bourbon kings of France. Louis XIII (1601 – 1643) went prematurely bald and took to wearing a wig. By the middle of the century, and especially during the reign of Louis XIV. The Sun King, wigs were virtually obligatory for all European nobility and […]
NAME THAT TUNE by Joyce Ray Wheeler It happens frequently! On a busy morning of routine scheduling, I find myself almost inaudibly humming just a snatch of a tune. In fact, I don’t realize I am humming until all of a sudden I pause and ask myself “What is the name of that old tune? […]
LILY LIVERED – Means cowardly. People once believed that your passions came from you liver. If you were lily livered your liver was white (because it did not contain any blood). So you were a coward. The ancient Greeks used to sacrifice an animal before battle. The liver was regarded as a prime omen – if […]
Another forgotten story for women’s history month Webster, Massachusetts seems to be rather forward thinking for the time in allowing a girl to play on a boys’ high school baseball team. And what is amazing is that she was the STAR player. The story about Nellie Twardzik made it all the way to a deep south newspaper, […]
This photograph of Marilyn Monroe when she was posing for photographers while filming the The Seven Year Itch in September 1954 is probably the most shared of all her photographs. However, the film below may have been inspired by the 1901 film at the bottom of this page. Watch a lady get a surprise in this 1901 film. […]
Cotton farming was a major product at the Lake Dick Project in Arkansas but it was hard, grueling and back breaking work as can be seen in these photographs taken by Russell Lee in 1938. Young children often went to the cotton fields with their parents Overseer of Cotton pickers Day Laborers were hired as […]
I Want to Go Back to Michigan is a song by Irving Berlin composed in 1914. It was a moderate commercial success when it was first released and afterward became a staple on vaudeville. Billy Murray, a popular singer during the period when the song was first composed, recorded it for Edison Records in 1914. Its […]
These remarkable photographs taken by Russell Lee show farming equipment, techniques of haying and sorghum making in October 1938. How times have changed! Member of Lake Dick Cooperative Association, Lake Dick Project, Arkansas Cleaning vats used in production of syrup from sorghum, Lake Dick Project, Arkansas Stripping sorghum prior to crushing. Sorghum mill at […]
With news of the Zika virus, mosquitoes are in the news again. There was a time when they came close to stopping the growth and expansion of the United States and many other countries, especially port cities. Death toll in Philadelphia was over 5,000 On October 11, 1793, the death toll from a yellow fever […]
Did You Know? CHARLEY HORSE: The origin of these phrase is uncertain. In America it dates from a persistent story that the original Charley was a lame horse of that name that pulled the roller at the White Sox ballpark in Chicago near the end of last century. Another origin is: In 1640, Charles I of England expanded the […]
