For nearly 50 years, Lorenzo Delmonico ran the foremost and largest restaurant in the United States. Nobody in the 19th century contributed more than he did to make the concept of fine restaurant dining a reality in America. Delmonico, born in Switzerland in 1813, went to New York at the age of 19 and worked […]
The Louisiana Purchase* Exposition took place in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1904. At the fair was the young Englishman Richard Blechynden, who represented the tea interests of India and Ceylon – now Sri Lanka. It was his job to popularize tea drinking in the United States. The weather that summer turned quite hot, and Blechynden […]
Few animals have such economic significance to mankind yet suffer from such a deplorable image as does the pig. As a domestic animal, it is a source of a wide variety of meats, high-quality leather, durable bristles for many kinds of brushes, and hundreds of medical products. At the same time, the pig is frequently […]
Frostbite is a common injury in winter weather, particularly when low temperatures are combined with wind. The nose, ears, fingers, toes, and chin are the most susceptible. The involved part begins to tingle or hurt mildly and then becomes numb. Frozen tissue usually ranges from distinctly white in light-skinned people to ashen grey in dark-skinned […]
Akio Morita, the chairman of Sony Corporation in Japan, wanted a radio he could carry with him and listen to wherever he went. From that small desire was born the Sony Walkman, a radio small enough to be worn on a belt or carried in a pocket. Not all product development, however, is so easy. […]
On 15 April 1912, the Titanic – at that time the world’s largest and most luxurious ocean liner – disappeared into the icy depths of the North Atlantic. Some 1,500 people died – more casualties than in any other marine disaster in peacetime history. After striking a huge iceberg, the 46,500-ton vessel sank in less […]
One of the most popular and exciting gymnasts to compete in the Olympic Games was the Romanian Nadia Comaneci. Fourteen-year-old Nadia burst on the Olympic scene when she competed in 1976 in Montreal against Olga Korbut, the great young Russian gymnast. Olga had won two gold medals in the 1972 Olympics, and she was going […]
Science and technology are getting a bad press these days. Increasingly scornful of the materialism of our culture, some people speak about returning to a simpler, pre-industrial, pre-scientific day. They fail to realize that the “good old days” 1 were actually horribly bad old days of ignorance, disease, slavery, and death. They I fancy themselves […]
Anger, fear, or the shock of sudden sorrow brings physical changes in our bodies. The digestion is shut down, the blood pressure is raised, the heart speeds up, and the skin becomes cold. If maintained over a prolonged period, this emergency status makes the body – and the personality – tight, dry and rigid. In […]
A strong wind had started up, whistling and moaning through the thick leaves, and frightening Sue and Anne. CRASH! They heard a loud smashing noise as a tree came down in a large gust. They took refuge under the gateway of a building and were not sure what to do. Sue doubted whether they would […]