History Schmistory, July 8: Bonjour, Paris!
Sunday, July 10, 2022
951 – Paris was founded. At the time, it was occupied by the Germanic Franks. Thankfully they came up with an awesome name for the city — it could have been a bratwurst.
History Schmistory, July 4: AMERICAAA!
Monday, July 4, 2022
1776 American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence is adopted by the Second Continental Congress. There’s gonna be fireworks!
History Schmistory, July 3: A News Day for Norway!
Sunday, July 3, 2022
1767 – Norway’s oldest newspaper still in print, Adresseavisen, was founded and the first edition was published. They needed a way to adress-a the news-a to the peopla-a.
Hemingway in Paris
Tuesday, June 14, 2022
Ernest Hemingway came to Paris in the 1920s on Sherwood Anderson’s advice to go to Paris and meet Gertrude Stein. The advice began one of the most influential careers in the history of literature. Today, we fashioned a Hemingway Literary walk that began with his first apartment on Rue Notre Dame de les Champs and finished on the Left Bank at Shakespeare and Co., the bookstore that took its name from Sylvia Beach’s store of the same name. Here was our itinerary:
Hemingway in Paris Tour
171 boulevard du montparnasse Closerie des Lilias-Cafe featured in “The Sun Also Rises”
113 rue Notre dame des champs-Hemingway’s first apartment in Paris
74 Cardinal Lemoine-2nd apartment, where he lived longest, where Hadley had Bumby
Rue Mouffetard-Market streets which he described as “a cesspool.”
27 Rue des Fleurus-Gertrude Stein’s apartment & salon, featured in Woody Allen’s “Midnight in Paris.” It was here that young Hemingway met, and began to disdain, the ex-pat American literary society.
Luxembourg Gardens–Park where Hemingway caught a pigeon to eat
Les Deux Magots–Cafe where older Hemingway hung out after WWII
Shakespeare & co (rue odeon)–Original site of Sylvia Beach’s bookstore, now gone. Beach published James Joyces Ulysses which made her ground zero for the Lost Generation literary movement. When they weren’t drunk (and sometimes when they were), ex-pat American writers such as Fitzgerald and Hemingway were often found here. Interestingly, the site also features a plaque to American pamphleteer Thomas Paine, who lived there after the French Revolution.
Shakespeare & Co. (Left Bank)–Across from Notre Dame, bookstore that took its name from the original. Home to backpackers and writer wanna-be’s, the store stamps as books as proof that pilgrims have made the last stop on their Hemingway journey.
History Schmistory, June 5: Titus fit
Sunday, June 5, 2022
70Â –Â Titus & his Roman legions breach the middle wall of Jerusalem. Â Some people will do anything to get a famous arch named after them.
All The Countries of the World!
Friday, April 22, 2022
Check out our brand-spankin’-new video featuring EVERY COUNTRY on the PLANET!!
Culture Buzz: Savage Easter
Monday, April 4, 2022
In the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary it is an Easter tradition to torment women for the day. This typically includes dousing them with water and/or lightly spanking them. Seriously. Somehow, symbolically the ritual is meant to keep them young and fertile, derived from an old medieval tradition that probably should’ve stayed just that. Though most observe the tradition playfully, there are always a few who ruin it for everyone. So, to be safe, many ladies of Central Europe will justifiably choose to stay in this Sunday.
GO THERE! Easter has an Island?
Saturday, April 2, 2022
Easter Island is named so because Dutch explorer Jacob Roggeveen landed there on Easter Sunday in 1722. That’s all. Natives actually call this mysterious and isolated island Rapa Nui. But, we still think it would be a great place to go for an Eater egg hunt!
History Schmistory, March 30: Hank wants a new toy!
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
1533 – Henry VIII divorces his 1st wife, Catherine of Aragon, which leads to the creation of the Anglican church, lots of bloody history over the next hundred years, and several good Shakespeare plays.
History Schmistory, March 29: Beethoven Rolls Over!
Tuesday, March 29, 2022