Eyewitness to Pearl Harbor

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor.  Commemorative posts have already begun to fill the parts of the internet where history buffs hang out.  I suspect that you know the story.  I’m sure you know the historical consequences.  I’m not going to rehash the big picture.  Instead I’d like to share…

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Game of Queens

Several years ago, historian Sarah Gristwood’s Blood Sisters held me enrapt. She described the well-known events of the Wars of the Roses and the rise of the Tudor dynasty through the lives of the Plantagenet women. It was women’s history at its best* in that it not only told the story of often forgotten or…

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Mr. Eiffel Built More Than a Tower

Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel, the engineer who designed the Eiffel Tower, reportedly said “I ought to be jealous of the tower.  It is more famous than I am.” It’s probably true.  Eiffel was a world-famous engineer before he made the tower that bears his name, but not for the kind of things that make a man a…

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