For the residents of San Francisco, October 11, 1950 started out like any other day, with thick banks of autumn fog rolling in from the bay and across the city. By the afternoon, however, it became clear that something was seriously wrong. On that day alone, eleven patients were admitted to Stanford Hospital with pneumonia, fever, and serious urinary tract […]
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is one of the most important and celebrated American writers and wits in history. His keen observations and biting satires of 19th Century America remain beloved classics to this day, while his pithy quips will likely continue to infest our social media feeds for decades more to come. Yet despite Twain’s legendary intelligence and […]
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Shortwave radio signals, which occupy the radio frequency band between 3 and 30 megahertz, have the unique ability to bounce or “skip” off the earth’s ionosphere, allowing them to propagate over vast distances. This has attracted a devoted international community of shortwave radio enthusiasts, who exploit the unique properties of the medium to listen to and communicate with shortwave stations […]
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American gangster films of the 1920s, 30s and 40s have contributed a wealth of colourful slang to the English language, much of which is still floating around popular culture to this day: “sleeping with the fishes”, “concrete overshoes”, “G-man”, “Chicago typewriter”, “goon”, “big house”, “private dick”, “speakeasy”, “Chicago overcoat”, “ride the lightning”, “fuzz”, and many others. But while many of […]
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If you’ve ever worked in an office, chances are at some point you’ve had to interact with that coworker. You know the one: miserable, antisocial, constantly grumbling about every minor inconvenience. The one who never takes lunch with the rest of the staff, is constantly late or underperforming, and responds to even the most reasonable request with barely contained rage. […]
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On February 21, 1967, tragedy struck the Apollo moon landing program. During a dress rehearsal or “plugs out” test for Apollo 1 – the first planned shakedown mission of the new spacecraft – an electrical wire sparked and started a fire in the capsule. In the pressurized, pure oxygen environment of the cabin, the flames quickly raged out of control, […]
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At precisely 3 in the morning on January 17, 1991, a series of explosions rocked the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The explosions were exact and devastating, destroying Iraqi military radars, command bunkers, and communications hubs with surgical precision. Immediately, Iraq’s aerial defence system sprang into action, its 3,000 anti-aircraft guns saturating the air with explosive shells. But the 60 surface-to-air […]
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In modern boxing, unless your name happens to be Rocky Balboa, it is generally advised that you not try to block punches with your face and chin. Back in the early days of the sport in the 18th and 19th centuries, however, the idea of slipping or dodging a punch was so alien that most pugilists didn’t even consider it […]
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The game of soccer (henceforth referred to as football to satisfy my English sensibilities, though to be fair, it was the English who originally named the sport Soccer in its earliest days under somewhat codified rules and only abandoned that original moniker about a half century ago in favor of the more generic “Football”) is full of players who have […]
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These days, it seems that movie theatres will try just about everything to lure viewers away from the comfort and convenience of television and streaming, from 3D releases to giant IMAX screens to “4D” seats that shake and rock along with the onscreen action. And as theatres struggle to recover from the massive hit in attendance caused by the COVID […]
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When we think of Sparta, the first thing that comes to mind is the Spartan warrior. Unlike other historical warrior peoples like the Samurai, the Spartan warriors were pretty close to our imagined conception of them. They were manly warriors who were very muscular, fought wearing red capes, and holding big shields. They were the face of Sparta, to the […]
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On the morning of August 13, 1961, the residents of the German capital of Berlin awoke to find their city divided. At midnight, thousands of East German troops had fanned out across the city tearing up roads, erecting guard posts, and stringing barbed-wire barriers. The 43-kilometre border dividing communist East Berlin from the capitalist West had been sealed shut. Over […]
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On September 17, 1964, a cinematic juggernaut exploded onto film screens: Goldfinger, the third outing by Sean Connery as suave gentleman spy James Bond. While the two previous entries in the series, 1962’s Dr. No and 1963’s From Russia With Love had been successful, Goldfinger was an entirely different beast. The first true blockbuster of the franchise, it made back […]
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In today’s age of relatively stable international relations, it is hard to imagine the impact of something like the Mongol invasions. Starting in 1206, It was a trying time for those who initially witnessed them: mountains of skulls, burning cities, murder and pillaging on a wide scale. Even if Genghis Khan’ descendants became more urbane and grew closer to their […]
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Picture in your mind a classic Old West showdown. Two gunslingers slowly advance towards each other down a deserted street, their spurs gently clinking with every step. They stop and stare each other down, hands hovering over the six-shooters slung from their hips. All goes still as the tension rises, the silence broken only by the whine of a harmonica […]
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In this era of ubiquitous digital media, the idea of being unable to purchase our favourite music at a store that sells music sounds kind of ridiculous. But that was the unfortunate reality for millions of teenagers in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s wanting to listen to the coolest albums, all thanks to the introduction of the “Parental Advisory: […]
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In June 2021, Southern District of California Judge Roger Benitez made headlines when he struck down the state’s 30-year ban on assault weapons, concluding that: “Like the Swiss Army Knife, the popular AR-15 rifle is a perfect combination of home defense weapon and homeland defense equipment.” Benitez’s landmark decision was but one episode in the long-running political debate over gun […]
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Samuel Langhorne Clemens, aka Mark Twain, is one of the most important and celebrated American writers and wits in history. His keen observations and biting satires of 19th Century America remain beloved classics to this day, while his pithy quips will likely continue to infest our social media feeds for decades more to come. Yet despite Twain’s legendary intelligence and […]
Read more