Mulholland began looking throughout Southern California for an alternative supply of freshwater, but it was Fred Eaton who came up with a solution. On a camping trip to the Sierra in the early 1890s, Eaton had gazed down upon Owens Lake and thought about all the freshwater flowing into it and going to waste. Yes, […]
History
Posted inPodcasts, Quotes
The Business of Merchandising Pop Music
Brian Epstein was the manager of a family-owned business called North End Music Stores in Liverpool, England. He began hearing a lot about a new group called The Beatles, who were playing at the Cavern Club. So he went to hear them, and one day, proposed a management contract. The four lads, which included drummer […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Martin Luther King Jr.’s Stint as an Advice Columnist for Ebony Magazine
From September 1957 to December 1958, Martin Luther King Jr. penned a monthly advice column for Ebony magazine. The “Advice for Living” column addressed a wide array of subjects, from race relations to interpersonal relationships. Below is an excerpt from the September 1957 issue of Ebony:
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
Who Invented Skiing?
“Serik describes a hunt when Tursen skied down on a bounding deer, leaped on its back, grabbed its antlers, and wrestled it down into the snow, the animal kicking and biting. It is a scene that has been repeated for thousands of years in these mountains. Within the Altay, a handful of petroglyphs have been […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
When Heartbreak Turns Into Inspiration
“What Roosevelt sheepishly omits is that he started working on the book just after Thanksgiving as a way to cope with a broken heart. He’d fallen head over heels for Alice Hathaway Lee, a golden-haired girl with a sharp mind who loved to laugh. ‘As long as I live, I shall never forget how sweetly […]
Posted inNonfiction, Quotes
The Questions We Don’t Ask Our Grandparents
“We see our parents aging before our eyes, but we regard our grandparents as such oaks, their mortality not once entering our thoughts because they have always, to us, been old. By the time I began to realize the urgency of learning about him, he was gone. I never had the chance — or, to […]
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Playlist: Richard Feynman and 'The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out'
“How foolish they are to try to make something.” Here’s the classic 1981 BBC interview highlighting the work of theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, “The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” You can also read Feynman’s book of the same name. For further reading and viewing on Feynman: 1. The ‘Dramatic Picture’ of Richard Feynman (Freeman Dyson, […]
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Our Longreads Member Pick: The Faithful Executioner (Excerpt), by Joel F. Harrington
For this week’s Longreads Member Pick (sign up here to receive it), we’re excited to share an excerpt from The Faithful Executioner, a book by Joel F. Harrington, Professor of History at Vanderbilt University, published this year by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Harrington explains: “My book is based on the personal journal that German executioner […]
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In the 1940s, U.S. doctors led experiments that intentionally infected thousands of Guatemalans with venereal diseases. A closer look at how it happened, and who knew: John Cutler, the young investigator who led the Guatemalan experiments, had the full backing of US health officials, including the surgeon general. “Cutler thought that what he was doing […]