by david allan van nostrand | Nov 7, 2022 | Americana, Anthropology, The Wayback Machine
Say thanks this November 11th to a black veteran of the U.S. military Black soldiers served in the U.S. Army and Navy during the American Revolution and the War of 1812. In 1820, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, acting in his position as United States Secretary of...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 24, 2022 | The Wayback Machine, The world around us, Trivia
Eric Arthur Blair was born the son of an opium agent in Bengal, India in 1903 and brought up in an atmosphere of impoverished snobbery, what he called lower-upper-middle class. As a child he was known for his intellectual brilliance and for being withdrawn, morose and...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 3, 2022 | Americana, Social archaelogy, The 1960s, The Wayback Machine
Hollywood Squares was a popular game show on television in the 1960s, patterned on the pencil and paper game of tic-tac-toe. The studio set had nine small cubicles, stacked three high and three wide. Within each open-faced square sat a celebrity. The two contestants,...
by david allan van nostrand | Aug 1, 2022 | Fads, Human Behavior, The Wayback Machine
As P.G. Wodehouse once wrote, “What’s wrong with flies being in ointment, what harm do they do and who wants ointment anyway?” Perhaps he was unfamiliar with the following verse from the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Dead flies cause the apothecary’s ointment to send...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 25, 2022 | Items in the News, The Wayback Machine
Snow globes are transparent spheres of glass or plastic filled with a clear liquid and enclosing a miniaturized scene. Paperweights, ornaments, souvenirs and collector’s items, snow globes are little worlds that sit in the palm of your hand. Shaking the sphere...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 18, 2022 | Americana, Point of view, The Wayback Machine
Amos ’n’ Andy was one of the most controversial and polarizing shows in the history of the United States. television. History professor Joshua K. Wright, writing in Abernathy Magazine, asks an excellent question: Did this television series become a scapegoat for black...
