November - 2020

Portraits of an American community of colour

c. 1904 Portrait of the Thomas A. and Margaret Dillon Family. Virginia-born coachman Thomas A. Dillon and his wife, Margaret, a domestic servant and native of Newton, Massachusetts, pose in the parlour of their home at 4 Dewey Street with children Thomas, Margaret, and Mary. A poster on the wall commemorates President Theodore Roosevelt’s visit to the Worcester Agricultural Fair in 1902. Born and raised in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, William Bullard worked as a phot

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The Literary Club formed by CS Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, otherwise known as 'The Inklings'

If you could name a writing group what better name than 'The Inklings'? That's what an informal group of writers that included C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien that met in Oxford, in the 1930s and ’40s were called. As Lewis’s brother Warren (“Warnie”) put it, “There were no rules, officers, agendas, or formal elections.” Lewis was the central figure, and others in it were mostly friends and university colleagues of his. Other members in addition to Lewis, Lewis’s brother, and To

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When Elizabeth Taylor introduced David Bowie to John Lennon

If you had to pinpoint the two most iconic figures from the history of British music, chances are the answer you would be met with is David Bowie and John Lennon. Their careers would help navigate the world of music into new directions and there was a strong commonality between them, a factor which made them kindred spirits from the moment that Elizabeth Taylor introduced them to one another. Lennon’s personal life was in a precarious moment around the time that he first met

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The Bloody Attempt to Kidnap Princess Anne

There were seven men in total who tried to stop Ian Ball, an unemployed laborer from north London, from kidnapping Princess Anne, Queen Elizabeth’s only daughter. A tabloid journalist, a former boxer, two chauffeurs and three policemen all faced off against Ball, but it was the princess herself, a force to be reckoned with in her own right, who kept Ball distracted from his goal, Around 8 p.m. on a March 20, 1974, Princess Anne and her husband of four months were heading towa

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The Glorious Yet Now Abandoned Constanța Casino

In 1903, local Romanian politicians agreed that it was time for the city of Constanța to have a modern casino, "...like those which inspired the French Riviera". The Liberal government at the time immediately approved the project. The project was awarded to Daniel Renard, a Romanian architect of French descent who lived in Constanța. Daniel Renard was 32 years of age and a graduate of the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. His proposal to build an Art Nouveau structure stirred co

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Kurt Vonnegut’s Letter to the Future Must Be Taken Seriously Today.

In 1988, Kurt Vonnegut wrote his famous Letter to the Future and addressed it to Ladies & Gentlemen of A.D. 2088. In it, Vonnegut expressed hope that people of the future would stop “choosing abysmally ignorant optimists for positions of leadership.” But alas! Thirty-two years after the letter was written, people seem to be exactly the same, yet the situation with climate, pollution, uncontrolled population growth, mass ignorance and aggression has worsened dramatically. It i

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Meet The African Chief That Leads a Double Life In Germany

Céphas Bansah works as a self-employed car mechanic in the German town of Ludwigshafen. But in his spare time, he oversees the development of his hometown – Hohoe, capital of Ghana’s Gbi Traditional Area – through WhatsApp and Skype. “Being a king is not a profession, it is my life’s work,” says the 70-year-old. “My happiest moments are when I can help in Ghana through my efforts here in Germany.” Technically, the Gbi Traditional Area is not a monarchy and the title Ngoryifia

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The Berlin Wall - Before And After

The Berlin Wall, in its existence as much as in its demise, was a symbol. Dividing East and West Germany for close to 30 years, the opening of the borders and subsequent reunification marked a change so big in people’s lives that many didn’t think they would see it happen in their lifetime. Here we look at how it has changed in the past 31 years.

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An Extraordinary Map of Battle Death-"Body Density Maps", 1918

At first glance this detailed and dense map looks foreboding and somehow off-putting--at least for me, and that was before I understood what the numbers represented. The blue numbers on this section of a larger map refer to soldiers killed on the battlefield of the 1916 Somme battlefield. It is the work of Lieutenant Colonel Arthur Messer (Assistant Director of Graves Registration and Enquiries in France), who undertook to record the crosses of the Fallen on the battlefield a

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Rubber Soul - After All These Years

Paul McCartney heard from a man in the United States referring to Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones as "good, but plastic soul". McCartney says that this was "the germ of 'Rubber Soul'". To modern ears, Rubber Soul and its pre-psychedelic era mix of 1960s pop, soul, and folk could seem tame, even quaint on a cursory listen. But it's arguably the most important artistic leap in the Beatles' career-- the signpost that signaled a shift away from Beatlemania and the heavy demand

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Marie Antoinette: The True Story Of The Controversial Teen Queen Of France

Crowned when she was only 18, Marie Antoinette was reviled for buying gowns and diamonds while her kingdom starved. But how much of her reputation was molded by propaganda? Queen Marie Antoinette was the last queen of France before the French Revolution took down the monarchy. Detestably nicknamed “Madame Déficit” by the public and her enemies at court, Marie Antoinette’s lavish lifestyle symbolized the unchecked extravagance of the French elite and led to her gruesome behead

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