This haunting painting by John Singer Sargent (‘Gassed,’ 1919) shows the horrific consequences of Mustard Gas that nations used against enemy soldiers in the First World War. The hazy yellow skies permeate the atmosphere, as the wounded men make their way across the canvas, many blinded by the hydrochloric acid that survivors attested smelt of […]
The Unexpected Effect of Mustard Gas Read More »
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the United States through the Great Depression and the Second World War, winning four consecutive elections despite the fact that he was believed to have suffered from polio, aka infantile paralysis. His reliance on wheelchairs and other assistance to get around was something that his opponents thought would make him
FDR and his Work with the Polio Disease Read More »
Worlds End and Loyalsocks are magnificent and adjacent Pennsylvanian State Parks in the north-central part of the state. Thanks to the work of the Civilian Conservation Corps, Worlds End’s forests were replanted, and now Hemlock, Yellow Birch, and Red Maple join other tree species in a remarkably diverse ecology. The American environmentalist and state governor
Pennsylvania’s World’s End and Loyalsocks Park Read More »
May I introduce you to Min Chiu Li, a Chinese-American scientist to whom many of us owe our lives or the lives of loved ones? In the 1950s, Li figured out a critical aspect about how the disease cancer works, leading to the successful employment of chemotherapy.Min Chiu Li came to the United States to
Min Chiu Li and Finding Chemotherapy Read More »
In the remote grassy highlands of northern Ireland is the Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church. There, three disprate landmarks – a cross, a grave, and some special dirt – tell a story about hope for an end to suffering.From the Medieval past, the tenth-century Boho High Cross depicts scenes from the Biblical Book of Genesis
Northern Ireland’s Sacred Heart Roman Catholic Church Read More »
Ah, how to frame the life of Qiu Jin, the feminist martial artist who was beheaded by the last Chinese dynastic government for insurrection in 1907? I think this quote by Jack London best captures her spirit: “I would rather be ashes than dust! I would rather that my spark should burn out in a
Feminist Martial Artist Qiu Jin Read More »
Reading about the way the cigarette industry insidiously and effectively played the American public is like watching a horror movie. By now we all (I hope) know how major tobacco companies secretly designed strategies to hide information about the links between smoking and cancer, but reviewing the advertisements and internal corporate documents is like looking
How the Cigarette Industry Played the American Public Read More »
There are two common denominators of the three scientists featured in this image. First, Anthony Fauci, Harold Varmus, and J. Michael Bishop spent decades of their lives devoted to searching for elusive causes and treatment of disease. Fauci worked on HIV among other illnesses, and Varmus and Bishop on cancer (the pair won the Nobel
The Humanities and Scientific Advancements Read More »
The headline here says the world will end in 1843 — that’s Jesus you see up at the top of the page, literally returning to earth on some clouds to clean the world from sin.Of course, it didn’t happen. This was the belief of the American Baptist preacher William Miller, whose evangelical movement convinced as
American Baptist William Miller and the “Great Disappointment” Read More »
The Black Moshannon State Park is smack-dab in the center of Pennsylvania. It shares much of the history of so many other preserved natural areas in the state, in that the region suffered horribly from clearcutting and deforestation before the Civilian Conservation Corps of the Depression era replanted before the park’s founding in 1937.The park
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I extend this woman a formal invitation to my imaginary dinner party of Fascinating People I Want to Talk to. Here is Susanne Langer, and she is one of the most famous women philosophers in modern American history.I know: it’s a small club. But that shouldn’t detract from Langer’s accomplishments. Born in New York to
Susanne Langer – Art in Human Cognition Read More »
Ever hear of the philosophical puzzle called “the trolley problem”? It’s a famous way to make you realize that your instincts might not match up with your ideas about morality. Namely, most people would elect to throw a trolley switch that would take it off its course if it would kill only one person instead
Philippa Foot and “The Trolley Problem” Read More »
Finishing up this week’s theme of swearing in history, I turn now to the Victorian Age. In the 18th and 19th centuries, British and American elites became increasingly self-vigilant about avoiding words that might make them think about, you know, sex. And this took a lot of energy, so they ended up thinking about it
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure Read More »
In light of the times we are a-livin’ in right now, I thought it might be interesting to do a series this week on the history of conspiracy theories. The first photo you see here is one that just won’t go away, no matter how much evidence gets stacked against it time and time again.
The Rumored Protocols of Zion Read More »
Onto our third conspiracy theory in history for the week, which is the burning of Bridget Cleary. This takes us back to Ireland in 1895, when a man called Michael Cleary set his wife Bridget on fire because he believed that his “real” wife had been taken by fairies and replaced by a changeling. Several
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This week we are looking at famous cases of poisoning in history. We begin with the murder of Georgi Markov, who was killed by a small pellet of ricin aimed from an assassin’s weaponized umbrella.Georgi Markov was a writer, and had dissented from the authoritarian government of his homeland in Bulgaria. Using his talent as
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One of the most macabre and unintentional poisonings in history is the sad case of the Bradford sweets killings of 1858. Twenty people died and over 200 sickened when they ate candy that had accidentally been prepared with arsenic. Kind of makes whatever mistakes we might be doing on Zoom this week seem a lot
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Here is a member of the Selous Scouts, a group of special military forces active in the former African state of Rhodesia from 1973-1980. During the Rhodesian Bush War of decolonisation, the Selous Scouts represented the minority white government which struggled to keep power as the black majority fought for an independent state. The Selous
Selous Scouts from the African State of Rhodesia Read More »
In the entire history of the world, I challenge anyone to come up with a better name for a group of poisoners: may I introduce you to the Angel Makers of Nagrev.In the years immediately following the First World War, the small village of Nagrev in Hungary experienced an unusually large number of people –
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In our final post in this week’s series on poisonings in history, I am featuring Alan Turing’s death by cyanide. Turing was, of course, the famous father of theoretical computer science, paving the way for Artificial Intelligence in his development of the “Turing machine,” a mathematical model of computation that enabled much of what we
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