On June 30, 1995, the movie Apollo 13 was released to theaters in the US. This epic film about the near-disastrous Apollo 13 lunar mission in April 1970 was directed…
The story behind “Dixie,” the blackface minstrel song that may have been stolen from black musicians…
The American Civil War is bracketed by two songs with lyrics that are familiar to most people. The metaphorical end of that war has become associated with The Band’s 1969…
“Power without responsibility – the prerogative of the harlot throughout the ages.”
In the decades before World War II, Stanley Baldwin was one of the most powerful politicians in the United Kingdom. He was the leader of Britain’s Conservative Party from 1923…
March 4th: a good day for famous presidential quotes – until 1933…
The date for the United States presidential inauguration was not specified in the original U.S. Constitution. In 1788, the Continental Congress set Inauguration Day as March 4. Then, in 1933,…
“It ain’t a fit night out for man or beast!”
I have a nostalgic fondness for one the most famous movie quotations uttered by the great comic actor W.C. Fields: “It ain’t a fit night out for man or beast!”…
“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.”
“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by the American-born British poet T.S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot), is one of the most famous poems of the 20th Century. It was…
“Man is descended from a hairy, tailed quadruped.”
The publication of Charles Darwin’s book On the Origin of Species in 1859 helped launch the modern science of evolution. It also created a firestorm of controversy, by suggesting that…
“There is less in this than meets the eye.”
On January 4, 1922, the New York Times published a review of the dramatic play Aglavaine and Selysette by the paper’s witty critic Alexander Woollcott. Woollcott had attended the premiere…
“Silent Night” – the origin and evolving words of the famous Christmas carol…
In 1818, during the annual Christmas Midnight Mass at the St. Nicholas Church at Oberndorf, Austria, the song we know as “Silent Night! Holy Night!” (or just “Silent Night”) was…
I’m dreaming of a white, gay, green, brown or red Christmas…
THE FAMOUS CHRISTMAS SONG: “I’m dreaming of a white Christmas Just like the ones I used to know. Where the treetops glisten and children listen To hear sleigh bells in…