Why Aren’t There Many Female Commercial Pilots?

Sarah T. asks: Why do you never see commercial airline pilots that are women? When it comes to gender disparity, the world of commercial airline piloting is one of the most skewed with a whopping 97% of all commercial pilots being male (4000 female commercial pilots vs. 130,000 male worldwide according to The International  Society of Women Airline Pilots).  Those […]

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This Day in History: July 10th

This Day In History: July 10, 1553 On July 10, 1553, Lady Jane Grey, the great-niece of King Henry VIII, ascended the throne of England as the result of a plot masterminded by John Dudley, Earl of Northumberland. Her “reign,” if you could call it that, lasted all of nine days until Mary Tudor and her supporters marched into London, […]

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This Day in History: July 9th

This Day In History: July 9, 1795 On July 9, 1795, James Swan, an American businessman and Revolutionary patriot, liquidated the debt the U.S. government owed to the country of France, agreeing to pay the sum of $2,024,899 (about $28 million today). James Swan was a native of Fife, Scotland and emigrated to Boston, MA in 1765 at the age […]

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This Day in History: July 8th

This Day In History: July 8, 52 B.C.E. On July 8, 52 C.E., Julius Caesar conquered a small fishing village in Gaul (modern-day France) called Lutetia Parisiorum, which over the centuries would become one of the most elegant and influential cities in the world. If you could look at those two cities side-by-side now, they would have little in common […]

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This Day in History: July 7th

This Day In History: July 7, 1983 On July 7, 1983, an 11-year-old American girl from Manchester, Maine began a two-week tour of the Soviet Union at the invitation of Yuri Andropov after she wrote the Soviet leader a letter expressing concern about the possibility of a nuclear war. The winsome little girl gave the Soviets a rare look at […]

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Bowling and the Ancient Egyptians

Guy H. asks: Who invented bowling? Bowling has a rather vague history, with a form of it possibly dating back as far as 5000 years to the ancient Egyptians. This story starts with the turn of the century archeologist  William Matthews Flinders Petrie, or simply Flinders Petrie. By 1895, he had already established himself as, perhaps, the world’s leading Egyptologist. 18 […]

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This Day in History: July 4th

This Day In History: July 4, 1826 On July 4, 1826, two old friends, and adversaries, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within five hours of one another, and the story goes that the messengers dispatched from the men’s homes to inform each of the other’s passing crossed on their somber journey. Jefferson and Adams were the last survivors from […]

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