Florence Nightingale Does the Math*

Florence Nightingale is best known for her heroic efforts in the Crimean War,** where she threw open windows, scrubbed filthy floors and equally filthy men,*** bullied doctors and officers on the spot, fought with the British Army’s military director, and saved lives. She returned home a heroine. Victorian Britain loved to celebrate a celebrity. Nightingale…

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James Joyce, the Comic Book

I was a low-grade comic book nerd as a child and well into my teen years. Not a dedicated collector, but an impassioned consumer of the stories and appreciator of the art form. I was equally happy in the Marvel and DC Universes, with an occasional foray into the world of Archie.* It didn’t take…

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Shin-Kickers From History: Constance Gore-Booth Markiewicz

On Easter Monday, April 24 , 1916, a group of Irish nationalists proclaimed the establishment of an Irish Republic and rose up in rebellion against British rule in Ireland.  Among them was Countess Constance Gore-Booth Markiewicz–revolutionary, politician, suffragette and social activist. Constance Gore-Booth was born in 1868 to a wealthy family of Angle-Irish Protestants, part…

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