Who said, “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”?
H. L. Mencken said, “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”.
Three cities were destroyed when the volcano erupted. They were Pompeii, Herculaneum, and Stabiae, all southeast of modern Naples. When were the ruins of Pompeii discovered? Destroyed in A.D. 79, the city was not discovered until the late 1500s. Formal excavation did not begin until 1748.
An authoritative variorum edition of Emily Dickinson’s complete poems was not published until Thomas H. Johnson did so in 1955, nearly 70 years after Dickinson’s death. Dickinson (1830-86) died with over 1709 poems unpublished; shortly thereafter (in 1890-91), her friends Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel L. Todd began a tradition of publishing her poetry in…
“Make-Believe Ballroom” was a long-lived program of American popular music and ballroom music on New York radio station WNEW-AM. Begun in 1934 by announcer Martin Block, it ran until WNEW-AM went off the air on December 11, 1992. It was known for popularizing big band, swing, and jazz, and for its distinctive announcers, such as…
At least 146 women, mainly young immigrants, died in the sweatshop fire in the Triangle Waist Company that occurred on April 20, 1911. The sprinkler system was inadequate, the 500 female workers stood back-to-back on the crowded work floors, and the fire doors were kept locked to prevent theft. The company owners were later acquitted…
The U.S. government first adopt daylight saving time in 1918, during World War I. During daylight saving time, which currently extends from the first Sunday in April to the last Sunday in October, clocks are set ahead one hour to extend daylight hours into the late afternoon and evening.
It was Brooklyn-born Shirley Chisholm (1924), who was the first black woman elected to Congress from that borough in 1969. In 1972, she ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for president.