Roman arches were constructed for purpose of announcing and commemorating a victory in a major military conflict. For six hundred years they were the ways and means to bring the victory back to the Roman people. But their original purpose began to shift along with the very fabric of authority in Rome. Celebrating a Major […]
DID ROMAN ARCHES HAVE A PURPOSE OTHER THAN CELEBRATION? Read More »
Most Christians throughout the world celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ as being on December 25 of the year. But looking through the Scriptures and other related texts, biblical scholars have had a difficult time in confirming the actual month and year of Christ’s birth, much less the actual date. What Year Was It? Herod
EXACTLY WHAT MONTH AND YEAR WAS JESUS CHRIST BORN? Read More »
Edgar Allan Poe was widely renowned as being one of the first great writers of the horror genre. His work paved the way for many others to come along, even to this day. He lived an up and down life of victories and defeats, seemingly one after the other. As he wrote many mysteries, there
EDGAR ALLAN POE’S MYSTERIOUS DEATH Read More »
On the night of October 8, 1871, a seemingly innocuous fire began in a barn to the southwest of the central part of the city of Chicago, Illinois, known as the Near West Side. By the end of the next day, a major portion of the city including the downtown business district lay in ashes.
THE GREAT CHICAGO FIRE, OCTOBER, 1871 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 »
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 »
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 »
An economic boom usually occurs wherever oil is discovered. State and local governments in particular come out on top, and the growth in the area generates much in the way of income for local businessmen and real estate developers. But in the case of the Prudhoe Bay oil fields in north Alaska, the impact to
THE OVERALL IMPACT OF THE TRANS-ALASKA PIPELINE Read More »