“Water, water everywhere, And all the boards did shrink; Water, water everywhere, Nor any drop to drink.” — Samuel Taylor Coleridge 1798. The above line comes from Coleridge’s poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a tale about a seaman returning from a long adventure at sea who stops a man attending a wedding to […]
IS THE WORLD FACING A WATER CRISIS? Read More »
In the year 400 BC, the city state of Athens levied taxes on grains and other products brought to them from other regions through the port of Piraeus. This constituted the first known usage of tariffs to raise revenues for a government. The Athenians went a step further and blocked all other entry points, requiring
THE MAIN FUNCTION OF TARIFFS Read More »
The National Football League is considered one of the finest all-around sports leagues in the world. It dominates the American television airways on Sundays from September to December. Games are played in modern, state of the art stadiums, including some games each year played in European venues. The players are paid many millions of dollars
THE FORMATION AND GROWTH OF THE NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE Read More »
Imagine a world where virtually all energy was generated from sunshine in the form of electricity. Cars, trucks, ships, factories, cities, and all others would get all their energy supplies from an electrical supply point made out of solar cells that captured sunlight and turned it into electricity. Yes, this is in the future, but
THE FUTURE OF SOLAR POWER Read More »
In the Roman City of Pompeii, the morning of October 24, 79 A.D., probably seemed like the start of any other autumn day to the population as they went about their daily activities. Very few if any could imagine that a great cataclysm would befall the entire region within a few hours. Certain natural disasters
WHY DIDN’T THE PEOPLE OF POMPEII ESCAPE THE VOLCANIC ERUPTION? Read More »
Before the founding of Jamestown or Plymouth in North America by English settlers in the early 1600’s, there had been at least one other colony that had settled in North American, in Roanoke Island in what is now known as North Carolina in the USA. The usual difficulties prevailed for the Roanoke Island settlers, but
WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE LOST COLONY OF ROANOKE? Read More »
Saudi Arabia is often looked at as a vast desert that contains a major religious center and a huge amount of oil. Formerly sold to industrialized countries in crude form, the country has gradually taken over the entire industry by replacing most workers with Saudi nationals. Nowadays the products sold are not only crude oil,
IS SAUDI ARABIA TURNING GREEN? Read More »
Global warming is a fact of life today, and it brings with it another nemesis—rising sea levels. This condition is exasperated by the huge amounts of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels for energy. Efforts are being made in many countries throughout the world to reduce the consumption of
THE DANGER FROM RISING SEA LEVELS Read More »
The origins of the Declaration of Independence in America date back over 200 years before Columbus even discovered land in the Western Hemisphere and brought the news back to Europe. The Declaration is not only the culmination of a long series of major complaints sent back to King George III, but also a continuation of
HOW THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE CAME ABOUT Read More »
In the mid 1930’s a popular form of long-distance air travel was the rigid airship, or Zeppelin. Filled with lighter-than-air gasses, the airships could travel up to about eighty or ninety miles per hour and could stay aloft indefinitely crossing the Atlantic Ocean in about two or three days. But the glamour of airship travel
WHAT CAUSED THE HINDENBURG DISASTER? Read More »