Here, on the Semiquincentennial of America, I found it fitting to write about Ken Burns, the filmmaker known for his documentary films and television series, many of which chronicle United States history and culture.
Ken Burns was born Kenneth Lauren Burns on July 29, 1953, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family that experienced both cultural richness and early tragedy, as his mother, Lyla Smith Burns, died of cancer when he was just eleven years old, an event that would later shape his sensitivity to themes of memory,
Entropy is the natural tendency for things to move from order to disorder over time.
Entropy is one of those scientific ideas that sounds intimidating until you realize people deal with it every single day without noticing. Entropy is the natural tendency for things to move from order to disorder over time. Left alone, organized systems gradually become less organized.
Four more losses to reflect on here in 2026…
These individuals were a professional baseball player, playing third base for the Atlanta Braves; a founding member, guitarist, and primary lead vocalist of Dr. Hook; a Movie and TV actress, older sister of Jamie Lee Curtis; and a pop singer, songwriter, record producer, and dancer.
The song was written by Dave Mason and first recorded in 1968 by Traffic.
“Feelin’ Alright?” is one of those rare songs whose identity has become almost as strongly associated with its most famous interpreter as with its original creator, a distinction that speaks to both the strength of the
One of the most famous reported phenomena was the temporary reversal of the Mississippi River’s flow.
The New Madrid earthquakes remain among the most extraordinary natural disasters in the history of North America, not only for their sheer intensity but for the way they reshaped both the landscape and the national imagination of a young United States. Centered near the small frontier settlement of New Madrid along the Mississippi River,
These places collectively embody a renewed appreciation for downtown life, where history and modern commerce intersect.
The phrase “Main Street USA” in its real-world sense refers not to a single location but to a network of historic downtown corridors that have long served as the commercial and cultural hearts of American towns. I grew up in Alpharetta, Georgia, where there was one main intersection. There you’d find City Hall,
Its cross-platform compatibility across Windows, macOS, and Linux systems helped establish it as a go-to solution for hobbyists, educators, journalists, and even some professionals.
Audacity is a free, open-source digital audio editor and recording application that has become one of the most widely used tools of its kind since its debut in the late 1990s. It was originally created by Dominic Mazzoni and Roger Dannenberg at Carnegie Mellon University, where it began as a research project exploring digital signal processing and audio manipulation.
One of the defining instrumental recordings of early 1960s surf rock.
The instrumental “Miserlou,” most famously associated with Dick Dale and his band Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, is one of the defining recordings of early 1960s surf rock, though its origins reach much further back into Mediterranean folk tradition. The melody itself is a traditional tune of Middle Eastern and Eastern Mediterranean origin,
The Rosetta Stone was unearthed in 1799 by French soldiers under Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Rosetta Stone is one of the most famous and consequential archaeological discoveries in human history, a fragmentary granodiorite stele that became the key to unlocking the long-lost language of ancient Egypt. Carved in 196 BCE during the reign of Ptolemy V Epiphanes, the stone bears a decree issued by Egyptian priests affirming the king’s divine status and generosity. What makes it extraordinary is not the content of the decree itself,
This “Stand Out Single” was a classic for the band Cream.
The 1968 single “White Room” backed with “Those Were the Days” stands as one of the defining releases by Cream during the final phase of the band’s brief but influential career, issued from their landmark double album Wheels of Fire. “White Room” was written by bassist Jack Bruce, who composed the music,
