Want to learn more about the Fourth of July? Want to read the Declaration of Independence
Too lazy to read it? Have it read to you.
Discover the back story of the Fourth of July
Origin of Fireworks:
America the Story of Us: Declaration of Independence
This will be a quick post to tell you about the great book group I found on goodreads.com. It is for people who like to read history books. Every month the book group reads different books. You can choose to participate in all group reads or just in the ones that are reading books you are interested in.
The best part is the free books. Ever once and a while the group leader will receive free books from publishers. Around 30 copies are usually sent to him. He then ask who would be willing to read the book and participate in the group discussion online. If you agree you are put in the running to receive the book. No shipping fees, nothing. Just a free book with the understanding that you will participate in the discussion once it begins. I did this already once for Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch. It was a great read and the discussion was wonderful.
If this sounds like something you would like to do head on over to Goodreads History Book Club. Joining Goodreads is free and joining the history book club is free. Right now the free book that we are all reading is Enemies: A History of the FBI. It is not too late to join in the discussion on this book if you want to pick up the book yourself and join in the conversation. Everyone is welcome.
On July 9, we start reading Catherine the Great: Portrait of a Woman. You still have plenty of time to pick this one up. There are also other book readings going on in this group at the same time. So, have a look around and see if there is anything you are interested in. The Catherine read has already maxed out on the free books available, but join the group now so you don’t miss out on the next free book group read.
If you start reading the FBI or Catherine book as part of the online group read, please let me know on the goodreads discussion boards. I’d like to know if some history podcast listeners are out there. I will be reading the books right along with you.
I saw the in the app store and could not resist checking it out. After all it is free. And it seems like more and more people have iPads now.
As you can see from above it’s a completely separate app you will need to download, but it is free so if you have the space go ahead and download it.
That’s what it looks like and you can preview the content that will be available once you download too.
Once you download it will be available in an app that looks just like iBooks.
And here is a look at the content that you get for free.
You may be into superhero comics, action movies or Norse mythology we will cover it and help you learn more about it in this post. The movie Thor which came out today, May 6, 2011.
You can read the comics in 3 volumes all offered at amazon.com.
So there are the comics and movie, but what about the real mythology? There is a lot to learn there too. Start here with the wikipedia article. If that is not enough you can learn more from these books:
Tonight the President announced that Osama Bin Laden is dead. This is just a quick post to thank and congratulate the men and women of our armed forces and intelligence community for their exceptional work!
Every once and a while I try to stop by TED because they have really cool presentations there and you can watch them for free. One day a few weeks ago I did that and I stumbled upon this:
I thought this was very cool. He has some great videos up on youtube here are just some of them. Never mind, I can’t embed it here so you will have to use the link above to check it out.
Here is a new category on the blog. Movie reviews! So, Christian (a long time supporter of the website and podcast) sent me a link to an article about the astronaut Vladimir Komarov. So I was reading this and thought really? I guess I wasn’t the only one because quickly after the original post the put up another post addressing all the questions the first one created in the comments section.
So, now we don’t know what happened at all. But one of the comments on another site, I think digg, but I’m not sure said that the whole thing was debunked in the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon
And as mentioned in the NPR articles there is a book coming soon that may unveil some of the questions that we are seeing pop up. I myself, would really like to know what happened. Hopefully, Starman: The Truth Behind the Legend of Yuri Gagarin
Oh, and one more thing, on April 12, there is supposed to be a film coming out on youtube that will tell us more. See the link here.
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor passed away yesterday, Wednesday, March 23, 2011 at the age of 79. The two-time Oscar winner was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in February for symptoms of heart failure. Taylor is one of the most recognized film stars of recent history. She has been in around 50 films and also appeared numerous times in television programs. She is widely known for her 8 marriages and work with AIDS research fundraising.
Elizabeth was born with a mutation that caused double rows of eyelashes, which enhanced her appearance on camera.
Taylor was born in London, England on February 27, 1932 to her American parents Francis and Sara Taylor. Her father was an art dealer with a business in London. Her mother was an actress. Two years before her birth, her brother Howard was born. In 1939 the family moved back to the states, were Taylor began her career as a child actress. She would appear in her first movie, There’s One Born Every Minute at the age of 9.
Taylor helped raise tens of millions of dollars for AIDS research during her life. She created the Elizabeth Taylor Aids Foundation. Elizabeth had four children with three of her husband’s. She won Oscars for Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
“Though her loss is devastating to those of us who held her so close and so dear, we will always be inspired by her enduring contribution to our world. Her remarkable body of work in film, her ongoing success as a businesswoman, and her brave and relentless advocacy in the fight against HIV/AIDS, all make us all incredibly proud of what she accomplished,” says her son, Michael Wilding.
Text sources: http://www.notablebiographies.com/St-Tr/Taylor-Elizabeth.html, http://www.cnn.com/2011/SHOWBIZ/03/23/obit.elizabeth.taylor/index.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Taylor, http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000072/
On October 24, 1871 a police officer responding to shots fired entered a notoriously bad area of Los Angeles to find a Chinese man shot in the neck. He saw men fleeing the scene and followed them into a building. He was then shot in the shoulder. Hearing his cries a local business owner also rushed into the same building, after firing several shots into it. He too was shot his injury much worse, he died an hour later.
Soon a mob developed and started to lay siege to the building the fleeing men were held up in. 17 Chinese were hung from the local wagon shop roof.
This was the largest mass lynching in American history and I bet, like me, you have never heard of it. Thank you to Christian P. who brought this to my attention. The whole article can be found on laweekly.com.
This story is not over yet. It was later revealed that the officer that went to investigate the shots may have actually been going to rob from a rich Chinese business man. The officer turns out to be not such a great guy, many court cases were filed against him. For example some accused him of stealing valuable roosters to fight in his cockfighting side business. The officer was also a gambler and believed to be manipulating the voting. This thing is so screwed up! Eventually, several people are brought to court for the charges, but the case gets thrown out. Unbelievable.
The story gets better, and it is amazing that there has not been a book published about this incident yet. There is a chapter on it in A Companion to Los Angeles (Blackwell Companions to American History)
According to Wikipedia it is also briefly covered in The Brick People
Image credit: Marion Doss unrelated image of lynching.
I ran into some local history a few weekends ago while out with my family. We were visiting a popular garden shop here in the orange county and we saw a cool gazebo when I approached it I saw that it had a sign stating its local history. I posted those pictures a while ago on our Facebook page, but here they are for you incase you missed them there.
Originally this gazebo/bandstand sat in the middle of Town Square at Disneyland. Just before the park opened the bandstand was moved just to the left of the castle, because Walt was afraid it would get in the way of people seeing the castle. It was there on opening day July 17, 1955. Later the Carnation Garden’s Plaza would be built to permanent house all the musical performances. It was then that the bandstand was moved to Adventureland, in an area that would become known as Magnolia Park, near the jungle cruise. In 1962 the Jungle Cruise had an expansion and the Bandstand was donated to the city of Anaheim. Its last move was to Roger’s Gardens when the City of Anaheim asked them if they would like to have it.
Here is a cool video I found that gives a great overview:
text source: http://davelandblog.blogspot.com/2008/05/magnolia-park-bandstand.html, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disneyland
