An interesting historical story.
Alfred Nobel made a lot of money perfecting the blowing up of things. He came from a family of inventors. His father invented plywood. His brothers started the Russian oil industry. Alfred was not a happy man. He suffered from migraines, depression, and angina (for which he ironically took Read more
The Turtle Ships were used in the Seven Year War (1592-1599) between Japan and Korea. Although they had existed before 1592, Admiral Yi Sun-Shin improved the ship and used it to defeat the Japanese navy in several battles. The ships, called “kobukson” by the Koreans, have been called the Read more
John Paul Jones had already made a name for himself before his signature battle. His Ranger was part of the fledgling American navy. In 1778, he had conducted some daring and well-publicized raids on the British coast. In 1779, he came into port in France and was given the Read more
The youngest of the wonders is the lighthouse in the harbor of Alexandria, Egypt. It was built around 250 B.C. It stood 380 feet tall which made it only behind the great pyramids as the tallest structure on Earth. It was dedicated to Zeus Soter (the deliverer). It had Read more
This was a 110 foot statue of the god Helios that was located somewhere in the harbor of Rhodes. It was probably on a pedestal near the entrance. It almost surely did not straddle the entrance, as is sometimes depicted. It was made of bronze and took about twelve Read more
The temple was built as a tomb for a Persian satrap named Mausolus. It was located in what is today southwestern Turkey. It was completed around 353 B.C. by his wife Artemisia. It was made of white marble and was huge, possibly as tall as 45 stories. The Read more
James Bowie grew up in Louisiana. As a boy he tamed wild mustangs and rode alligators (you grab their upper jaw and gouge their eyes). He and his brothers made a lot of money in a scam with the infamous pirate Jean Lafitte. Lafitte would smuggle slaves in. The Read more
Patty Hearst was the granddaughter of newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. On Feb. 4, 1974 three members of the Symbionese Liberation Army broke into her apartment in Berkeley, California and abducted her. They beat up her fiancé and a neighbor who tried to help. They fired guns at Read more
You could argue the South lost the Civil War on Sept. 13, 1862. That was the day Corporal Barton Mitchell of the 27th Indiana Volunteers found a paper wrapped around three cigars at a campsite near Frederick, Maryland. The camp had been used by the Army of Northern Virginia a Read more
When the sculptor Phidias was exiled from Athens for suspicion of embezzlement in the sculpting of his statue of Athena in the Parthenon, he ended up in Olympia where he was commissioned to do the statue. It was 40 feet high even though seated on Read more