May 14, 2013

In 1930, Ruth Graves Wakefield and her husband Kenneth purchased the Toll House Inn in Whitman Massachusetts where they served traditional colonial meals. Ruth’s tradition was to serve homemade cookies that the travelers who stopped there could take home. While preparing chocolate cookies, she realized she didn’t have the baker’s chocolate she...

May 14, 2013

Mercuralia was a Roman celebration that was also known as the ‘Festival of Mercury’. Mercury, was a Roman messenger god whose attributes were mainly borrowed from the Greek god Hermes although there are myths regarding Mercury that are distinctly Roman. He was a god of trade, thieves, and travel. The name is closely related to merx, mercari, and...

May 4, 2013

Cinco de Mayo is observed mainly in the state of Puebla, Mexico in commemoration of the Mexican Army’s surprising victory over the French at the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862. The Mexican-American War, Mexican Civil War and the Reform Wars had left the Mexican Treasury near bankruptcy. President Benito Juarez suspended all foreign debt payments for two...

Apr 25, 2013

The following relates to a letter written by George Washington to his adopted daughter, Nelly Custis, on the subject of love: When Nelly was about sixteen years of age she attended her first ball, at Georgetown, and wrote a description of it to her foster-father at the seat of government. His response presents the Father of his Country in the attitude of an...

Apr 23, 2013

(1485-1547) Among the millions that from age to age are born into this world there arise in every generation one or two pre-eminent men and women who are objects of the wonder and the envy, the admiration and the hatred of their contemporaries, and whose names, after their deaths, stand out as landmarks by which we shape a course across the dark and doubtful...

Apr 22, 2013

SOURCE: THE TRIAL OF JESUS FROM A LAWYER’S STANDPOINT by WALTER M. CHANDLER OF THE NEW YORK BAR LAW “Now the Jewish law prohibited all proceedings by night.”—Dupin, “Jesus Devant Caïphe et Pilate.” “Be not a sole judge, for there is no sole judge but One.”—Mishna, Pirke Aboth IV. 8. “A principle perpetually...

Mar 31, 2013

SOURCE: THE TRIAL OF JESUS FROM A LAWYER’S STANDPOINT by WALTER M. CHANDLER OF THE NEW YORK BAR LAW “Now the Jewish law prohibited all proceedings by night.”—Dupin, “Jesus Devant Caïphe et Pilate.” “The testimony of an accomplice is not permissible by Rabbinic law both propter affectum and propter delictum, and no...

Mar 23, 2013

Patrick Henry’s ‘Give me Liberty, or Give me Death!’ speech was made to the Virginia Convention on March 23, 1775. Delivered at St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, the speech is credited with swinging the balance in convincing the Virginia House of Burgesses to pass a resolution that would deliver Virginia Troops to the Revolutionary...