Battle of the 300 Champions

The battle of Thermopylae was memorably (if somewhat inaccurately) portrayed in the Hollywood movie “300”. But this was not the only time that ancient Sparta had depended upon a force of 300 hand-picked warriors.

Greek Hoplites          photo from WikiCommons

Making a “Canjo” One-String Guitar

How to make a workable musical instrument out of a stick, a guitar string, and an empty can.

Laika and Sputnik 2

In November 1957, just a month after the USSR’s successful Sputnik launch, a stray dog from Moscow named Laika became the first living organism to orbit the Earth, though she did not survive the trip. 

Cutaway engineering model of Sputnik 2, at the Cosmosphere Museum in Kansas. The radiation instrument package is at the top, the round radio transmitter and battery is in the middle, and Laika’s life support chamber is at the bottom.

The Canaanite God Baal

The Canaanite fertility god Baal is best-known in the West as a rival to the biblical god Yahweh.

A votive figurine of Baal, in the Museum of World Treasures, Wichita KS

Dinner in the WW1 Trenches

The First World War was the first large-scale “modern” mechanized war, in which the entire economic power of the country was focused onto the war effort. The bullets, artillery shells, poison gas, tanks, aircraft, bayonets and flamethrowers that were churned out in tremendous quantities made the life of the conscripts on the frontline trenches a living hell. At the same time, the industrial-level output for new modern canned foods meant that the men were supplied, at least semi-regularly, with a steady diet of food that was simple, cheap, and turned out in huge quantities.

British field kitchen         photo from WikiCommons