| By J. Robert Parks | People have been holding sporting competitions since ancient times. In fact, you can argue that playing and watching sports are part of what makes us human. Think of the Greeks and their Olympics, the Mayans and their courtyard ball game. But in more recent times, the nineteenth century was … Read more
| By Gale Staff | Although history is reliant on facts, many misconceptions exist about well-known historical figures. Did George Washington have wooden teeth? Did Einstein fail math? As historians look at the past with a critical eye, they’ve found proof to debunk common myths that evolved over time and are now widely accepted. Myths … Read more
| By J Robert Parks | The history of Europe has been marked by devastating wars; some fought over religion, while some fought over nationalism. That history culminated in World War II, when the continent was embroiled in almost six years of warfare that left more than 50 million dead and many countries lying in … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | If you had told someone seventy-five years ago that between the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, one country would still be ruled by the communists in the twenty-first century, few people (at least in the West) would have guessed China. The Soviet Union had been ruled … Read more
| By Gale Staff | As someone who has sat through more than my share of movies about the Holocaust, I used to wonder why every year brought more and more of them. In the last several years, however, I’ve started to think maybe we need more reminders of that horrific scar on the twentieth … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | Unless scientists change the course of history (Galileo, Albert Einstein) or are fortunate to have a discovery that gets named after them (Werner Heisenberg, Daniel Bernoulli), few of them become household names. So it’s not surprising that even highly educated people might not have a clue who Donald C. … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | China has cultivated a civilization that sees itself in historical terms, and its leaders often justify their decisions by recalling the country’s history. That history stretches over millennia, but the People’s Republic of China was only founded seventy-five years ago this week, on October 1, 1949. Educators and librarians … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | The country of Haiti has been independent for more than two centuries, but for much of that time its people have suffered tremendously. They have been victims of hurricanes, earthquakes, foreign occupiers, dictators, and possibly worst of all, political chaos. In 1994, Haiti was in the midst of such … Read more
| By J. Robert Parks | Annelies Marie Frank, better known as Anne Frank, has become one of the most famous if not the most famous victim of the Holocaust. In August 1944, however, she was just a fifteen-year-old Jewish girl hiding with her family in the concealed rooms of an Amsterdam building, hoping against … Read more
| BY J. Robert Parks | The Turing test and the Turing machine are often mentioned in the history of computers and technology. Alan Turing, the inventor behind those ideas and many others, is less well known, however. This week marks the seventieth anniversary of his death at the young age of 41, when Turing, … Read more