January - 2022

Bloody Sunday: 50 Years On

Thirteen people were shot dead and at least 15 others injured after members of the Army's Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside - a predominantly Catholic part of Londonderry - on Sunday 30 January 1972. The day became known as Bloody Sunday. It is widely regarded as one of the darkest days of the Northern Ireland Troubles. The events leading to Bloody Sunday About 15,000 people gathered in the Creggan area of Derry on the morning of 30 J

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The Proper Story of Mozart

Considering how influential he was and how much music he produced — more than 600 individual pieces — it's shocking to learn that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart lived to be just 35 years old. The music he produced is so beautiful and iconic that even people who would rather be tortured than listen to classical music are familiar with many of his works. But when it comes to the true story of Mozart's life, most of us think of the film Amadeus starring Tom Hulce and F. Murray Abraham

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The Animal Friends of Lord Byron

In 1805, when he became a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, the college authorities told Lord Byron that pet dogs were banned. He was so annoyed by the draconian rules that he brought a tame bear instead. He argued that as bears weren’t specifically mentioned in their statutes the college had no legal grounds for complaint. Where he acquired the animal isn’t clear but it may have been from a travelling menagerie. Byron won the argument against the college and the bear st

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The Japanese pornstar and ultranationalist that committed Kamikaze.

It was 1976, a notable year for aviation. In Europe, Air France and British Airways launched the Concorde supersonic aircraft. In the U.S., a former Air Force pilot became the first to fly a homemade plane around the world. In Japan, there was the first kamikaze attack in three decades. But it was not a simple dive-bombing: The pilot was a porn star who targeted a shadowy power broker with ties to organized crime. On March 23 of that year, Mitsuyasu Maeno flew a Piper Cheroke

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Jackson C Frank: The forgotten folk hero whose tragic life overshadowed his genius

Meet Jackson C. Frank, a folk singer who released just one album in 1965. His life was a tragedy: a boiler explosion at school killed 15 of his classmates and severely burned him. Later, his son died of cystic fibrosis. Then, while homeless, his eye was shot out in a random attack. Born in Buffalo New York in 1943, Jackson Carey Frank was 11 years old when he was injured in a fire at his elementary school in Cheektowaga. Jackson and his fellow classmates had been sitting in t

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The Cu Chi Tunnels of Vietnam

In order to combat better-supplied American and South Vietnamese forces during the Vietnam War, the Viet Cong (VC) dug tens of thousands of miles of tunnels, including an extensive network running underneath the Cu Chi district northwest of Saigon. Soldiers used these underground routes to house troops, transport communications and supplies, lay booby traps and mount surprise attacks, after which they could disappear underground to safety. To combat these guerrilla tactics, U

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The Story Of 'Mercedes Benz,' Janis Joplin’s Final Recording

Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz" is one of her most affecting songs, and it also happens to be the last recording she made before she died. Though it comes out of the gate seeming like a plea for a fancy car -- "Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes-Benz" is its first line -- the tune was actually intended to be an ironic rejection of materialism and the false satisfaction provided by money. There's plenty to read into Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz" -- and it's not inappropriate

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Bertrand Russell’s message to future humans: Facts matter, love is wise, hatred is foolish

This is timely insight from a 1959 interview with the philosopher Bertrand Russell about what he would say to a distant future generation of humans: “I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this: When you are studying any matter, or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only what are the facts and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to belie

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‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ : The Last Speech of Martin Luther King

The day before Martin Luther King Jr., was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4, 1968, he gave his final speech, known as ‘I’ve Been to the Mountaintop’ speech. Here’s the full text. By The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., MEMPHIS, Tenn./ April 3, 1968 Thank you very kindly, my friends. As I listened to Ralph Abernathy and his eloquent and generous introduction and then thought about myself, I wondered who he was talking about. It’s always good to have your closest frie

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How Dorothea Lange Photographed, Migrant Mother, one of the most iconic photos in American history

Dorothea Lange took this photograph in 1936, while employed by the U.S. government’s Farm Security Administration (FSA) program, formed during the Great Depression to raise awareness of and provide aid to impoverished farmers. In Nipomo, California, Lange came across Florence Owens Thompson and her children in a camp filled with field workers whose livelihoods were devastated by the failure of the pea crops. Recalling her encounter with Thompson years later, she said, “I saw

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When the Beatles Refused to Play Before Segregated Audiences on Their First U.S. Tour (1964)

When American rock and roll made its way to the UK in the 1950s and 60s, along with a burgeoning folk and blues revival, many young British fans hadn’t been conditioned to think of music in the same way as their U.S. counterparts. “Unlike racially segregated Americans,” for example, “the Beatles didn’t see—or hear—the difference between Elvis and Chuck Berry,” writes Joseph Tirella, “between the Everly Brothers and the Marvelettes.” They also couldn’t see playing to segregate

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Meet Pure Hell, the "First Black Punk Band” That Emerged in the 70s, Then Disappeared for Decades

In the mid-seventies, many people felt excluded from and disdained by the mainstream of rock and roll, which had largely come to represent itself as a straight white boys and girls club full of superrich rock stars. The narrow image fostered attitudes of implicit racism and homophobia that exploded in the 1979 “Disco Sucks” backlash. This despite the fact that rock and roll began as interracial music built on the flamboyantly ambiguous sexuality of Little Richard, the racy sh

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Former Slaves Interviewed in the 1930s talk about Slavery in the USA

"You can't hold a man down without staying down with him." — Booker T. Washington In 1999 ABC released a documentary based on a compiled a series of recordings made in the 1930s and 1940s by John Henry Faulk, recordings he had made of former slaves telling their stories. These priceless recordings had languished and gathered dust on the shelves of the Library of Congress since 1941. John Henry Faulk: "I remember sitting out on a wagon tongue with this old black man - complete

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Happy Birthday Mark Antony!

2105 Years Young Today! One of the last titans of the Roman Republic, Mark Antony’s legacy is almost as long lasting as it is far reaching. Not only was he a distinguished military commander, he also embarked on a doomed love affair with Cleopatra and helped bring about the end of the Roman Republic through civil war with Octavian. Here's a whistle stop tour through his life; He was something of a troubled teenager Born in 83 BC to a plebeian family with good connections, Ant

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The story of Hannie Schaft, The WW2 Resistance Fighter That Terrified The Nazis

Known among the Nazis as "the girl with the red hair," 24-year-old Hannie Schaft was so deadly that Adolf Hitler personally ordered her capture. Hannie Schaft was only a teenager when the Nazis invaded Poland. Less than a year later in 1940, German tanks rolled into the Netherlands. Schaft knew that the Nazis would terrorize her country — so she dedicated the rest of her life to taking down the Nazi occupiers. And that’s exactly what she did. For much of World War II, Hannie

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William Morris, the Facts

Who doesn't love a William Morris print, his life, his work and his legacy. There’s so much behind his work; from his inspirations and the pioneering processes that he achieved to print his fabric to his politics and literature and poems. But – what might you not know about him? Here are 10 quirkiest William Morris facts… 1. His nickname was Topsy After a character in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” 2. He was married with two daughters One of the most famous muses of all time, he marrie

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