Do you remember the Mad Magazine “Fold-Ins?” If so, you are a senior citizen like me. If not, this satirical piece — drawn by legendary artist Al Jaffee — was […]

I have three names: Steven Mark Winter. A German-born typesetter who emigrated to America, Hubert Blaine Wolfe­schlegel­stein­hausen­berger­dorff Sr., had 27 names, including Xerxes, Nero and Zeus.  He usually went by […]

Remember those essays you had to write in high school? The teacher wanted you to turn in a thousand words on “The Differences Between Direct and Representative Democracy,” single-spaced and […]

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth…” Thus begins the Bible, according to most English translations. Right off the bat, this brief narration separates itself from the Near-Eastern […]

What’s a black person to do? In 2016, NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the National Anthem, protesting police brutality against African-Americans, and he was booed and reviled. […]

On this day in 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space. Gagarin, a Soviet Air Force fighter pilot, was 27 years old when he orbited the earth […]

On this day in history, President Abraham Lincoln delivered his last public address, covering the complex topic of reconstruction. Two days after the surrender of Confederate forces, virtually ending the […]

On this day in history, tropical cyclone Olivia crossed over Barrow Island off the western coast of Australia, producing the world’s strongest non-tornadic wind gusts at 254 miles-per-hour. Olivia, a […]

On this day in 1939, Marian Anderson sang before an audience of 75,000 people at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. With the statue of the  16th President looming behind […]

On this day in 1945, pastor-theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged in Flossenburg, a concentration camp in the forests of Bavaria. The  39-year old Lutheran, indicted as a co-conspirator in the  […]