Someone posted this link to a story on facebook about Aethelmaer (Eilmer), a very interesting monk who lived at Malmesbury Abbey before the Norman Conquest who performed a very singular exercise in crafting a set of wings to put forth in flight from the tower at the Abbey. The remarkable thing...
The Discovery Age
Western historians refer to the period from the late 15th century through the 17th century as "The Age of Exploration" or "The Age of Discovery". These terms are obviously ethnocentric as they refer to the discoveries made by western Europeans primarily on the seas during the "A...
This is a subject that I like to research from time to time. Occassionally, as I run across a resource I may update this list. If you wish to contribute information, please include source and email nate at this domain.
Electronic mail was first "invented" in 1965 by Tom Van Vleck, and implemente...
When the Constitution was written a well trained militiaman could load and fire his musket 2 or 3 times per minute. Obviously unsuitable for personal protection beyond a single shot before an attacker could close with a knife, its main use was in a battle line where many other similarly armed men w...
The remains of a man who died 10,000 years ago were found in a cave in England in 1903 and a tooth from the skull was recently DNA sequenced to reveal the individual's dark skin and blue eye colour. The man, known as Cheddar Man was a member of Haplogroup U5. While other older skeletons found in...
I was first introduced to D&D in 1979 by some friends in school and was soon addicted. I spent inumerable hours creating maps and dungeons for my buddies to explore, and rolling up characters to populate my own worlds or to play in another kid's campaign. I played straight through high school bu...
This is a pet peeve of mine so I hope you'll forgive this rant. I found the following image in my G+ stream, and was digesting the quote and noticed it was attributed to Plato. I subscribe to the idea that quotations should be properly sourced, and there wasn't any mention of what book this was f...
It was just an image with an interesting quotation on it, an internet meme like any other but the author was purportedly Cicero. Being interested in ancient history, I knew there would likely be a better story around the quotation than the sugary sweet sentiment of the sentence taken out of cont...
To your request of my opinion of the manner in which a newspaper should be conducted so as to be most useful, I should answer, "by restraining it to true facts and sound principles only." Yet I fear such a paper would find few subscribers. It is a melancholy truth that a suppression of the press c...
If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of ever...