Bluebirds of Happiness Sawiskera, the Spirit of Winter and Darkness, plagued the Iroquois people, daily banishing the sun and conjuring yearly icy eras of tribulation. One magical melody, however, could ward off the forces of Sawiskera. This musical potion emerged from the syrinx of the Eastern bluebird. Bluebirds are passerines, the order of perching […]
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April April is the cruellest month, breedingLilacs out of the dead land, mixingMemory and desire, stirringDull roots with spring rain. — T.S. Eliot, first lines of The Waste Land Some of English literature’s most recognizable and memorable opening lines arise from the last great long poem, The Waste Land. Part of the power
Chupacabras In March 1995, a strange occurrence transpired on the island of Puerto Rico. Residents found eight sheep dead. Eight is not an unprecedented number of animals to perish at the same time, but it’s certainly strange. Odder still, however, was the state of the sheep. They had been drained of all their blood.
Endurance We recently studied the Heroic Age of Antarctica, which featured major exploratory achievements and set the stage for Ernest Shackleton’s extraordinary tale of survival after the sinking of his ship, the Endurance. That account included a supernatural visitor during a treacherous trek across uncharted mountains. Researchers have since coined this phenomenon the Third Man
Third Man Factor Who is the third who walks always beside you?When I count, there are only you and I togetherBut when I look ahead up the white roadThere is always another one walking beside youGliding wrapt in a brown mantle, hoodedI do not know whether a man or a woman—But who is that
Fortitudine Vincimus When Part I of our tale completed, the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration neared a conclusion. Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott had successfully reached the South Pole. Veteran Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton, who had attempted to reach the pole, vibrantly declared that achievement did not end the era of investigation
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Antarctica’s Heroic Age During the Age of Exploration, which occurred roughly between the 15th and 18th centuries, humans believed a gargantuan continent covered most of the Southern Hemisphere. This landmass was known commonly as Terra Australis, Latin for “Southern Land.” The impetus for this notion did not arrive thanks to direct evidence of a massive
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Pi Day Much of the world at large renders dates with a method that appears alien to many Americans: DD/MM/YY. This approach avoids many ambiguities and, if we’re being honest, is most likely the superior technique. At least one indisputable data point in the date format wars, however, falls squarely in favor of the
Lunar Lasers Before 13 September 1959, no human-made object had ever touched an extraterrestrial body. On that date, Luna 2, the Second Soviet Cosmic Rocket, impacted the moon. Since then, numerous other spacecraft and various humans have visited our satellite. All told, nearly 500,000 pounds of Earth stuff adorns the surface of the Moon.
Keep On Your Quest “I was stamped as a weak child.” On 22 September 1939, Junko Tabei docked planet Earth at Miharu in Japan. The adults in her life considered her “frail. ” As an adult, she grew to the unimposing height of 4’9″. Yet at the age of 10, she ascended two mountains in
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