Spices were known to Eastern peoples thousands of years ago. Arab traders artfully withheld the true source of these spices, however, and they became valuable items of commerce early in the evolution of the spice trade. The most notable uses of spices in very early times were in medicine and in the making of holy […]
Ours is the great generation of the short story. The growth of the newspaper, the development of the magazine, the universality of popular education with its increase in human curiosity – most of all, the increasing pace of modern life, its speed of living and competitive pressure – gave this literary type its greatest encouragement. […]
Several old jokes common amongst the scientific disciplines illustrate the difference between the mathematical mind and that of other disciplines. One goes as follows: An engineer, a physicist and a mathematician are all staying at a hotel one night when a fire breaks out. The engineer wakes up and smells the smoke; he quickly grabs […]
Interested in neither money, fame, nor power, Socrates wandered through the streets of Athens in the 5th century BC. He wore a single rough woollen garment in all seasons and went barefoot. Talking to whoever would listen, he asked questions, criticized answers, and poked holes in faulty arguments. His style of conversation has been given […]
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 […]