Americas
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Kaskaskia- Illinois’ first capital
This is the strange sad tale of a once booming town in Illinois that ended up a ghost town in Missouri. Legend says it was due to a curse, and whether or not you believe in curses, it certainly seemed like Kaskaskia was plagued with bad luck. The village of Kaskaskia was founded in 1703 where the river of the same name flowed into the Mississippi. The Native American tribe of the same name migrated south with French missionaries and fur traders. The French settlers married the Native American converts to Catholism and settled in to building a thriving town. By 1711, agriculture had become more important than the original…
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John Lennon
Born in Liverpool to Julia (Stanley) and and Alfred Lennon on 9th October 1940. Named John Winston Lennon, his middle name in honour of his grandfather, his father missed his birth due to his duties as a merchant seaman. Alfred was often away during John’s early years, until 1944 when he disappeared, listed as AWOL. When he eventually returned six months later, he offered to stay home with Julia and John, but by now she was pregnant with another man’s child and refused. Alfred left. Shortly afterwards, following complaints to social services, John was given to Julia’s older sister Mimi and her husband Geoff to raise. When John was five…
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Robert Frost
“Nature’s first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf, So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day Nothing gold can stay.” I was introduced to Frost at a young age and the above poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay” is the earliest poem that I remember learning in school. It’s one of the only poems I can still recite word for word. I figured since today is National Poetry Day I would post about one of my favorite poets. Robert Frost was born in San Francisco, California, to journalist William Prescott Frost,…
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RMS Titanic
Probably one of the most famous ships of all time the RMS Titanic was at the time (before she tragically sank) a modern marvel, being the largest ship afloat. Her name Titanic was derived from Greek mythology and meant gigantic. Built in Belfast, Ireland, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Titanic was the second of three, the RMS Olympic was the first and the third was the HMHS Britannic. The Britannic would also tragically sink in 1916, after hitting a mine or torpedo laid by the German minelayer submarine U79 in a barrier off Kea during World War I (another post). They were by far the largest…
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Edgar Allan Poe: A Mystery Even in Death
One of the largest misconceptions about Edgar Allan Poe is that he was a supposed drug addict and alcoholic which led to his untimely and mysterious death. On a chilly October afternoon in Baltimore, Poe was seen spending time in a bar room before being found in a delirious state wearing ragged clothes – that were not his mind you – that led to a one-way trip to the hospital. While this has lead to many theories about what happened to Poe that afternoon, and in the following days, it has always been assumed that Poe was drunk and died of alcohol poisoning. Even though this has been popular theory…
