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Just Like Us, Part 2
On November 29, 2023 by ElyseDo you ever stare at your boring bread box, your insipid ice cream or your uninteresting underwear and wistfully wonder how the other half lives? Wonder no more: the truth is, the experiences of the rich and famous are just as commonplace as yours and mine. If you couldn’t get enough of celebrities being ordinary
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Just Like Us, Part 1
On November 15, 2023 by Elyse“Stars—They’re Just Like Us!” Long before tabloid magazines started catching the rich and famous eating sandwiches and getting haircuts, the newspapers of yesteryear were already following them around. In an era when celebrity culture was just taking off, the subjects of these hard-hitting exposés were more often than not European royalty. It turns out they
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Clip of the Week: November 1, 2023
On November 1, 2023 by ElyseIt never hurts to ask: William Walsh, a pensioner, and the oldest living veteran of the [American] Civil War, wrote to Congress saying that his consumption of tobacco was increasing with his years. He said that he was utterly unable to gratify his desire for smoking unless he received an additional twelve dollars monthly. The
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Mind Your Manners
On October 18, 2023 by Elyse“Manners easily and rapidly mature into morals,” the politician Horace Mann is said to have declared. While the stories below suggest otherwise, there’s no denying that good manners can make all the difference in just about any situation. If you follow the etiquette you (hopefully) learned in preschool, you’ll go far—into the judicial system, that
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Clip of the Week: October 4, 2023
On October 4, 2023 by ElyseReason #37,852 not to wander into the wilderness alone: Mr. Farrier, the Colonial Secretary of Honduras [present-day Belize], while exploring the interior of the colony, was overtaken by a drove of peccaries, and was compelled to scramble up a tree, dropping his rifle in the performance. The whole pack gathered around his perch, grunting and
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The Un-Odyssey
On September 20, 2023 by ElyseWhat would’ve happened if, after the Trojan War, Odysseus had simply given up and not made the long, perilous journey home? The answer might lie in an anecdote from Scotland. . . Some short time ago, in one of the villages on the Firth of Forth, lived a lady whose husband had long before gone
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Clip of the Week: September 6, 2023
On September 6, 2023 by ElyseWho needs to get around with planes, trains, automobiles, boats or even legs? The Barcelona correspondent of the Daily Mail reports that Louis de Rougemont has been completely eclipsed by Captain Wall, the sea crocodile tamer. The latter wagered that he would cross the sea from the Island of Majorca to Valencia, a distance of
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Clip of the Week: August 23, 2023
On August 23, 2023 by ElyseTalk about a claim to flame. Folks, we have another world record: The other day, for the tenth time in his life, Joseph Maski, 103 years old, believed to be the oldest person in Chicago, was rescued from a fire which threatened to destroy the building in which he lived, at No. 8961, Superior Avenue,
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Insights in Iceland
On August 9, 2023 by ElyseAnother Wednesday, another post coming to you from a random corner of the world. You could be forgiven for thinking Second Glance History has turned into a travel blog. I promise we’ll resume our regularly scheduled programming of poison-detecting guinea pigs and singing dogs soon. But for today, join me in discovering how much more there