By: Christopher Johnson Glacial Park Conservation Area in McHenry County, Illinois–some 45 miles northwest of Chicago–is a stunning example of the Midwestern landscape. In the space of 3,400 acres, you hike through a restored prairie and past a bog and…
By James Aitchison We were touring Northern Ireland, my wife and I, tracing some of my Irish ancestors to the seaside town of Ballycastle. There, on the north-eastern tip of Ireland, we had booked a rather interesting cottage from the…
By James Aitchison It all began in 1775 when Swedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele invented a stunning new pigment — a green more vibrant, more luminous, than anything seen before. The secret? The miraculous new pigment was copper arsenite, also…
By James Aitchison In London, just five miles east of Buckingham Palace, a mysterious underground language has evolved. An English language wherein words such as “frog”, “soldiers”, “Aristotle”, “whistle” and “butchers” do not mean what they are supposed to mean!…
By James Aitchison Dictionaries tell us that Utopia means a place of ideal perfection. They also offer a secondary meaning: an impractical scheme for social improvement. Crushing poverty, social inequality and defeat in war drove thousands to start new lives…
By James Aitchison He was known as the king with the funny name, a self-appointed Muslim ruler who survived 55 assassination attempts, a dictator who fled to The Ritz in London and died in obscurity in France. And while history…
By James Aitchison He was born a British prince. His father was Queen Victoria’s youngest, brightest son. He was educated at Eton. Lewis Carroll, a family friend, dubbed him a “perfect little prince”. Yet he was denounced in Britain as…
By: James Aitchison Two men, both Edgars, born in the same year — 1875 — would become the most prolific authors of the twentieth century, creating two fictional characters that have never ceased to capture the world’s imagination — King…
By James Aitchison Long before Ian Fleming, John Buchan, Graham Greene, Eric Ambler, Len Deighton and John le Carré, there was Erskine Childers. His book, The Riddle of the Sands, published in May 1903, is arguably the first spy novel…
By James Aitchison Langston Hughes, the Poet Laureate of African America, had a great ear for rhythms and stress, able to propel ideas and demands for racial justice through urgent jagged verse, a “jazz” poet who harnessed popular music such…