The article, originally found on Medium, can be found here. The article is subtitled ‘A Boomer Professor talks to his students’ but it was clearly posted for a larger audience. What the article does, instead of connecting professor and students, is connect the generations — OR, really, illuminate the misunderstandings that these generations have […]
Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln were born on the same day in 1809 (today).
In 1886, French gas fitter Jean-Albert Dadas was admitted to a Bordeaux hospital suffering from exhaustion. Normally he led a quiet life, he told a medical student, but occasionally he would be overcome by anxiety and headaches and then find himself in a distant city, apparently having traveled there on foot. If the local police […]
“Civilization is a stream with banks. The stream is sometimes filled with blood from people killing, stealing, shouting and doing the things historians usually record, while on the banks, unnoticed, people build homes, make love, raise children, sing songs, write poetry and even whittle statues. The story of civilization is the story of what happened […]
JFK was diagnosed with Addison’s disease in 1947 and given less than a year to live. In October he was actually given last rites.
“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’” — Isaac Asimov
Reagan quit smoking easily, which can be an early sign of Alzheimer’s disease.
In 1931, George Bernard Shaw wired Winston Churchill: “Am reserving two tickets for you on opening night of my new play. Come bring a friend — if you have one.” Churchill wired back: “Impossible for me to attend first performance. Would like to attend second night — if there is one.”
On her way to the guillotine, Marie Antoinette stepped on the executioner’s toe. Her last words were “Pardonez-moi, monsieur.”
The Greeks believed diamonds were tears of the gods. The Romans thought they were splinters of fallen stars.
