The Peculiar Truth about the Bagpiper at Dunkirk
December 1941: Operation Archery was underway. British commandos came ashore at Vaagso, Norway to battle German troops. An experienced and indefatigable soldier led the way. While he played the bagpipes. The siege was over in ten minutes. By that time, Mad Jack Churchill already had a well-earned reputation for bravery and eccentricity on the battlefield. He became famous for entering combat against machine guns and hand grenades with nothing more than a sword, a bow and arro
4 days ago3 min read
The Peculiar Truth about the Boy in the Runaway Balloon
October 15, 2009: CNN cut away from a mid-afternoon presidential meeting to announce breaking news. High above Fort Collins, Colorado a large weather balloon was sailing away with the breeze. That in itself wasn’t newsworthy. But the news anchor revealed something shocking. The uncontrolled balloon had a passenger - a six-year-old boy named Falcon Heene. For the next 90 minutes, Americans were fixated on the live video images of a runaway balloon high in the sky carrying an e
Jun 23 min read
The Peculiar Truth about Pythagoras’ Weird Life
Even those of us with no proficiency at mathematics have probably heard of the Pythagorean theorum. It’s a fundamental geometry formula involving right triangles, and the man who conceived it was an Ancient Greek polymath named Pythagoras. He lived from 570 to 495 BC. He was an early adopter of the belief that earth is round, and he identified Venus as the evening star. He also conceived of the music of the spheres, the theory that the planets produce music that humans cannot
May 263 min read
The Peculiar Truth about Lindbergh’s Dark Side
Charles Lindbergh was an American hero. In 1927, he gained fame as the first pilot to fly solo and nonstop across the Atlantic. Ticker tape parades were given in his honor. Then in 1932, he and his wife suffered the widely publicized kidnapping and murder of their child, which was called the crime of the century. In 1935, Lindbergh and his wife Anne left their native United States to live in the English countryside. They relocated to an island off France, and Lindbergh spent
May 193 min read