In one of my favorite Agatha Christie Hercule Poirot TV productions, “The Adventure of the Clapham Cook,” the little Irish housemaid “Annie” speculates to Poirot that the missing cook has been carried away by “White Slavers.” This is an amusing little scene, intended, no doubt, to inject a bit of humor into the mystery. However, […]
This month marks the 77th anniversary of a World War II milestone few people know about. It’s the story of a Polish army captain named Witold Pilecki. At the conclusion of World War I, for the first time since 1795, Poland was reconstituted as an independent nation, but it was immediately embroiled in war with […]
On the day the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Bill Overstreet was working as a statistical engineer for Columbia Engineering and attending Morris Harvey College (now the University of Charleston) in Charleston, WV. Wanting to get in the Air Corps as a fighter pilot, Bill enlisted and did a lot of fast talking to get accepted […]
William Shakespeare (26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English :poet, :playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. Whether you’re a fan or not, you probably use many of his phrases on a regular basis — more than 400 years later. Ever […]
Whether it grows wild in a pasture or cultivated in the garden, the daisy has long been appreciated for its simple beauty. Daisies are an ancient flower. Hairpins decorated with daisies were found during the excavation of the Minoan Palace on the Island of Crete. Egyptian ceramics were decorated with daisies. The family Asteraceae, meaning […]
From its earliest days, America has been a nation of immigrants, starting with its original inhabitants, who crossed the land bridge connecting Asia and North America thousands of years ago. By the 1500s, the first Europeans, led by the Spanish and French, had begun establishing settlements in what would become the United States. The […]
The following is from an Army Aviator who takes us on a trip down memory lane: “It was just before Thanksgiving ’67 and we were ferrying dead and wounded from a large GRF west of Pleiku. We had run out of body bags by noon, so the Hook (CH-47 CHINOOK) was pretty rough in the […]
Based on the rhetoric surrounding her historic candidacy in 2008 and, in more recent months, leading up to the 2016 campaign, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Hillary Clinton was the first woman ever to run for the nation’s highest office. Far from it. Few know, though, the name of the woman who challenged the […]
Dale Robertson, the actor who made his name in television Westerns in the 1950s and ’60s, was born on July 14, 1923, in Harrah, Oklahoma, to Melvin and Varval Robertson. At the age of 17 while attending Oklahoma Military College he boxed in professional prize fights to earn money. In his junior year he was […]
The first version of “Yankee Doodle” is generally attributed to a British army physician, Dr. Richard Schuckberg, during the French and Indian War. It was a satiric look at New England’s Yankees. According to one story, Shuckburgh wrote the song after seeing the appearance of Colonial troops under Colonel Thomas Fitch, V, the son of […]