William N. Byers – The Ohio and Iowa Years (1831 – 1854)
William Newton Byers, that paragon of pioneer pluck, burst forth from his mother’s womb on February 22, 1831, in West Jefferson, Madison County, Ohio. This wasn’t just any birth – it…
The Capuchin Crypt, Rome
The Capuchin Crypt is a small space comprising several tiny chapels located beneath the church of Santa Maria della Concezione dei Cappuccini on the Via Veneto near Piazza Barberini in Rome, Italy. It contains the skeletal remains of…
Lagniappe, “a word worth traveling to New Orleans to get”
A lagniappe is “a small gift given to a customer by a merchant at the time of a purchase” (such as a 13th doughnut on purchase of a dozen), or more broadly,…
Mouth of the Lion
Denunciation (from Latin denuntiare, “to denounce”) is the act of publicly assigning to a person the blame for a perceived wrongdoing with the hope of bringing attention to it. Notably, centralized social control…
Ezekiel Stone Wiggins (1839 – 1910) was a Canadian weather and earthquake predictor known as the “Ottawa Prophet”
He was also the author of several scientific, educational and religious works. Wiggins wrote the “Architecture of the Heavens containing a new theory of the universe and the extent of…