1896 British America
The 1896 textbook The New Eclectic Series: Elementary Geography includes a map of British America - Canada - as defined by the British North America Act, 1867 which created the…
Correction Respectfully Requested
This map is displayed about halfway through the documentary Chernobyl: Secrets, Lies and the Untold Truths. Can you spot anything interesting? The Chernobyl nuclear disaster occurred in 1986, therefore the…
The Lost Cafe Schindler
An extraordinary memoir of a Jewish family spanning two world wars and its flight from Nazi-occupied Austria. Meriel Schindler spent her adult life trying to keep her father, Kurt, at…
Random Learnings #58
Today I needed to go to the First National Bank Building in downtown St. Paul, MN for a personal appointment. The external cladding of the north entrance I used screams…
Kraków Building Signs
You'll notice these extending from buildings throughout Kraków, Poland: triangular, metal signs with the building number prominent and the street name at the top or bottom. They contain lights to make…
Random Learnings #56
After the 1960 season, the American League Washington Senators became the 1961 Minnesota Twins, at least that's always been my understanding. Team ownership didn't change. Five regular position players from…
Cold War Polish Defector
The Polish Netflix series 1983 tells an alternative Cold War history: simultaneous bombings across Poland keeps the communist party in power until the present. Twenty years later, the truth unravels…
Lèse-majesté
Following the September 11 attacks, holding rational, fact-based discussions with regards to cause and effect, religious freedoms (or lack thereof), national security, what would constitute an appropriate response, or any…
Immaculate Inning and Spies
Sunday, Miami Marlin's pitcher Cal Quantrill pitched an immaculate inning, striking out three batters on nine pitches. Though exceeding rare at one time - none between 1928 and 1953 -…
Random Learnings #53
The Italian city of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) was the center of a controversy between Italy and the nascent state of Yugoslavia about its post-World War I control, called the…