skip to main |
skip to sidebar
It was the British philosopher-scientist Joseph Priestly who discovered how to create seltzer water by dropping sulfuric acid onto chalk and encouraging the resulting carbon 
dioxide gas to dissolve into an agitated bowl of water. He speculated that drinking the water might ward off scurvy on Captain James Cook's voyage to the South Seas (he was wrong). Priestly continued experiments with gasses, and his Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air led to the discovery of photosynthesis. Priestly himself, in the course of his experiments discovered Oxygen (O2), and even predicted so-called "Oxygen Bars," where customers inhale the stuff in its pure form: "The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury."Priestly's philosophical writings, especially those detailing his committed materialism (though not atheism), his Unitarianism, and his strong support of the French Revolution in a country where it was anathema led to his forced emigration to Pennsylvania, where his theological friends Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson welcomed him. Upon his death in 1804, French scientist George Cuvier called him "the Father of Modern Chemistry".
Although the Phoenicians (or the Canaanites, as they're called when referring to their culture before 1200 BC) themselves reportedly had a rich literature, it was totally lost in antiquity. That's ironic, because the Phoenicians actually developed the modern alphabet and spread it through trade to their ports of call. The Phoenicians imported so much papyrus from Egypt that the Greeks used their name for the first great Phoenician port, Byblos, to refer to the ancient paper. The name Bible, or "the book," also derives from Byblos.
While malaria was virtually eliminated from the 'First' and 'Second' Worlds over 50 years ago by widespread use of DDT, in the Third World it is remained, and has been experiencing
a surge in recent years because of drug-resistant strains of the disease. In parts of Zambia, for instance, at any one moment more than 1/3 of all children under 5-years old are sick with the disease, which means a severe fever, brain swelling, convulsions, and often death for the victim.
Of the half-a-billion people each year who become infected with the disease, over a million die.
( cdcfoundation.org/bednets )
One of the points of contention between King George III and the colonists was further expansion into Indian territory. You see, it was in King George's best interest to keep colonists from building settlements further and further into native lands, since he couldn't afford a war with the Tribes and wanted to keep them happy. The settlers, however, continually wanted to push further West.
The Crown had used Easton, PA as a site for negotiating many of their treaties with the Indians, since it was at that time a "frontier town," and there had been a long history in PA of successful Indian treaties. The Rebels coming to power, however, was about to change that.
Here's what Mr. Washington wrote in 1779 in a letter to Major-General John Sullivan, whom he had ordered to stage a foray into Indian territory:
"The expedition you are appointed to command is to be directed against the hostile tribes of the Six Nations of Indians... The immediate object is their total destruction and devastation, and the capture of as many persons of every age and sex as possible. It will be essential to ruin their crops now in the ground, and prevent their planting more... do it in the most effectual manner, that the country may not be merely overrun, but DESTROYED."
Afterwards, General Sullivan's march through the Pocono Mountains into Iroquois territory in southern New York was described as "the Shades of Death" the purpose of which was "an undistinguished destruction and carnage."
"Yankee Doodle went to London
riding on a pony
Stuck a feather in his cap
and called it macaroni..."
But why macaroni?
It actually has nothing to do with pasta. The lyrics to Yankee Doodle are a hodgepodge of different choruses with varied origins. The first line, though, is probably a mockery by the British of the uncivilized Americans (...a mockery that the unpretentious Americans gladly took up themselves and incorporated into their own songs.)
It comes from the Italian word maccherone -- a boorish fool. Rich young men who had returned from Italy (it was fashionable at that time for young people to make a trip to Italy... much like many young Americans now undertake a EuroTrip as college students) began using the word to describe something fashionable; we might read 
the song as, "...Stuck a feather in his cap / and called it trendy."
The lyrics mean that the typical Yankee (the typical American) was so naïve that he thought he could be fashionable simply by putting a feather in his cap.
The word macaroni could also be used as a noun. A Macaroni (or a Dandy) was the 18th-Century equivalent of the 17th-Century Fop, a man who is overly fashion-conscious, urbane and almost effeminate. He was the forerunner of the modern Metrosexual.
The Macaroni Penguin, incidentally, also draws its name from this type of person, because penguins appear to be formally-dressed.
In 50 B.C. the Romans named a locale in the Western basin region of Germany 'Aqua Saltare' because of the bubbly, 'dancing water' that rose to the surface there. Today the region in Hessen is commonly referred to as (Nieder- & Ober-) Selters, and the ancient springs are still in use.
( http://www.oberselters.de/ )
dioxide gas to dissolve into an agitated bowl of water. He speculated that drinking the water might ward off scurvy on Captain James Cook's voyage to the South Seas (he was wrong). Priestly continued experiments with gasses, and his Experiments and Observations on Different Kinds of Air led to the discovery of photosynthesis. Priestly himself, in the course of his experiments discovered Oxygen (O2), and even predicted so-called "Oxygen Bars," where customers inhale the stuff in its pure form: "The feeling of it to my lungs was not sensibly different from that of common air; but I fancied that my breast felt peculiarly light and easy for some time afterwards. Who can tell but that, in time, this pure air may become a fashionable article in luxury."
