The Cave of the Jaguar God
I love discoveries like these. It amazes me every time we discover something new about past civilizations. Archaeologists recently discovered more than 150 Maya artifacts in a series of caves Mexico’s...
Tag: history
The Catcher Was a Spy
Baseball season is just around the corner so it seems fitting to talk about baseball. More specifically, a mediocre baseball player that was known as the "brainiest guy in baseball." A guy that gradua...
Alphabet Evolution
I don't know how I missed this last year, especially since this is right up my alley, but Matt Baker at UsefulCharts published a chart on the evolution of the alphabet. Several times per week, if not...
The St. Louis Accent
Before there was a Hot in Herre, there was Highway Farty and carn on the cob. No, I'm not having a stroke, I'm referring to the dialect that I heard as a child growing up in St. Louis. Citylab recentl...
Finding Cahokia
Growing up in St. Louis, I learned about Cahokia Mounds in school. It's fascinating how little we know about the settlement that was once North America's largest city. If you grew up outside Missouri...
The Rise and Fall of Hollywood
YouTube channel Now You See It published a great video about the rise and fall of Hollywood. It's a short video, so it is quick, top-level analysis that doesn't get too deep, but it does do a great jo...
Prehistoric Wings Discovered in Amber
Scientists have recently discovered a pair of wings that belonged to dinosaur-era bird ancestors encased in amber. From The Verge: In a new study published in the Nature Communications journal this we...
The Best Rapper Alive, Every Year Since 1979
Complex magazine has come up with a list of the best rapper for each year since 1979. It's crazy when you look through the '90s and see how much talent existed in the hip hop community. That fact beco...
Color Footage of Berlin in 1945
I saw this video today on reddit and was blown away. The destruction is amazing and sad. I sent this to a coworker (who we may or may not give trouble for being German) and we discussed it briefly. Sh...
Lost City Discovered in Honduran Rain Forest
It is amazing that after all this time there are still cities being discovered. From National Geographic: An expedition to Honduras has emerged from the jungle with dramatic news of the discovery of a...
Prehistoric Skull Helps Complete the Human Story
Interesting article about a prehistoric skull found in North Israel may finally prove that Neanderthals and modern humans lived together. "It is the first direct fossil evidence that modern humans and...
Happy National Good Day Day
Today is National Good Day Day. What is National Good Day Day, you may ask. Well, my dear friend, it is a day we celebrate every year in honor of the most perfect South Central day ever observed, on J...
How White Flight Ravaged the Mississippi Delta
This article is absolutely fascinating and depressing at the same time. St. Louis has experienced its own form of White Flight with folks moving from the city to county,[footnote]Or even further West...
Rick Rubin Returns to His NYU Dorm Room for Def Jam's 30th Anniversary
Def Jam is 30 years old this year. Yes, 30. Rolling Stone sat down with co-founder Rick Rubin, returning to the very dorm room in which he started the label 30 years ago, to discuss how Def Jam began....
Jack the Ripper Unmasked
The British tabloid The Daily Mail is reporting that they have discovered the identity of famed serial killer Jack the Ripper. But now, thanks to modern forensic science, The Mail on Sunday can exclus...
The Greatest Speech in Sports History
Short. Classy. Optimistic. There has been no better speech in sports than the one given 75 years ago today from Lou Gehrig.
Dueling Good Days
As an amateur historian and hip hop aficionado, I found the research of what day in history is actually Ice Cube's "Good Day" fascinating. Murk Avenue breaks down the clues of Ice Cube's It Was a Good...
Chinese villagers 'descended from Roman soldiers'
This is absolutely fascinating. Tests found that the DNA of some villagers in Liqian, on the fringes of the Gobi Desert in north-western China, was 56 per cent Caucasian in origin. Many of the village...
Hip Hop History, Part III - Building the Empire
I've talked a bit about the history of hip hop music and how it quickly evolved into a profitable form of music, but no other company was able to capitalize on hip hop like Def Jam Records, and no oth...
Hip Hop History, Part II - The Beginning of a Dynasty
In my last post you learned a little about the beginnings of hip hop music as a business. While the song Rapper's Delight might have sold two million copies world wide, the industry still saw hip hop...