As the home of the Chicago hot dog, the Italian beef sandwich and definitely a place for city slickers, Chicago doesn’t immediately conjure up images of cowboys and vegetarians. But it should! The cowboys we all know and love were…
Chicago Part One: Stinky By Name, Trade Hub By Choice
Chicago: bustling metropolis…Windy City. But before it was the Windy City, it was the “stinky place”. And never particularly windy. Situated at the crossroads of North America’s great waterways, its geography destined it to be an economic hub of the…
The Other Lewis & Clark: The Red River GREAT RAFT
When a fledgling country, the United States, doubled its territory by purchasing most of France’s New World possessions, the race was on to explore the new land. While Lewis and Clark famously made it to the Pacific, another expedition led…
Mangareva: Medieval Silicon Valley in Paradise
Most of us today are accustomed to a counting system and entire units of measurement based on the number 10. The permanence of this system could make it seem a rule of nature, when in fact it was an arbitrary…
Biological Warfare: Catapulted Mongol Corpses
The Mongols exploded onto the world stage in the 1200s AD, soon to create the largest territorial empire the world has ever known. While famed for their brutality, it could be argued that these violent actions were part of a…
Griots: Flattery For-Hire, Tombs in Trees
#Griots #History #Education #Africa Griots are an ancient West African institution fulfilling a variety of roles, largely as praise givers and historians. Their main objective: tying their wealthy patrons to heroic luminaries of the past to boost their reputation. As…
Popular Literature, Names & Conquest: Fanciful Fiction and Place Names of the Americas
In 1492, the Kingdom of Spain defeated the last Islamic state on the Iberian Peninsula, in the same year that their representative, Christopher Columbus, discovered the Americas. The crusading zeal to expel the Muslims from Europe was easily shifted to…
Tipu Sultan: India’s Rocket Man and Tiger King
The world’s military history is the story of mismatched odds: superior firepower tends to win out. Occasionally, however, underdogs can surprise. Much as the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching several of humanity’s firsts in outer space, thereby demonstrating…
Le Godmiché Royal: The Royal Sex Toy
The French Revolution was an exciting time, when old systems like feudalism were abolished and new values of liberty and human rights took center stage. But for all this progressive change, women were still held back by patriarchal systems. In…
Rebetiko and the Mangas, Greece’s Hashish Singers
Due to horrific ethnic cleansing and genocide after World War I, ethnic Greek refugees from the Turkish mainland flooded Greek cities. In their new inner city environment, their traditional music stylings provided accompaniment for street criminals singing songs about their…