Benny goes to Carnegie

Jazz has been called “America’s classical music,” This label both recognizes its American origins and makes a strong case that jazz is worthy of aesthetic consideration alongside music usually thought of as “classical.” In the current era, when programs of …

Molasses Tsunami

Fiery hot molasses floods the streets of Boston on this day in 1919, killing 21 people and injuring scores of others. The molasses burst from a huge tank in the heart of the city at the building of Purity Distilling, …

Fundamental Orders adopted in Connecticut

In Hartford, Connecticut, the first constitution in the American colonies, the “Fundamental Orders,” is adopted by representatives of the towns of Wethersfield, Windsor, and Hartford.
The Dutch discovered the Connecticut River in 1614, but English Puritans, under a grant from …

RIP Wyatt Earp

Nearly 50 years after the famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Wyatt Earp dies quietly in Los Angeles at the age of 80.

Wyatt Berry Stapp Earp was many things in his life: a city policeman, county sheriff, a teamster, …

The Circus comes to town

On this day, January 9th, Englishman Philip Astley stages the first modern circus in England.

All the things we associate with the circus: Trick riders, acrobats, clowns, trained animals, and other familiar have existed throughout human history, but it was …

A guitar for the King

There are several competing versions of the story, of what Elvis Presley really wanted for his birthday. Some say it was a rifle and others contend that it was a bicycle—both fairly typical choices for a boy his age growing …

To the Moon…

The Apollo lunar-landing program ends on December 19, 1972, when the last three astronauts to travel to the moon splash down safely in the Pacific Ocean. Apollo 17 had lifted off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, 10 days before.

The Apollo …

Prohibition Ends!

80 years ago today, the Twenty-first Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, repealing the Eighteenth Amendment and bringing an end to the era of national prohibition of alcohol in America.

The movement for the prohibition of alcohol began in …

What Does It mean to be a Veteran…

Today I had the privilege of speaking at Victory Elementary School in Portsmouth, Virginia on what it means to be a Veteran. This is what I said. I hope that it helped some understand what I feel it means to …

Deputy Dave’s Drink of the Day – Astronaut

Nearly four decades after he became the first American to orbit the Earth, Senator John Hershel Glenn, Jr., is launched into space again as a payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery. At 77 years of age, Glenn was the


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