One of my favourite history/story books for young children (about 4-8) is an old pre-70s Childcraft collection of hero tales titled Pioneers and Patriots.* Once upon a time and a time when I was looking for such a volume to recommend to others that would be easier to find than my oop volume, I looked through […]
1. What is it? We all know it, surely, but just in case, here is the version originally told: “When George was about six years old, he became the happy owner of a hatchet- of which, like most little boys- he was immoderately fond and was constantly going about chopping everything that came in his […]
How the story goes: In Ancient Greece the tyrant Dionysius reigned. He was wealthy and powerful beyond imagining. Once one of his courtiers, Damocles, was flattering the king about his wealth and power, and Damocles said if he could live like Dionysius for even one day, he would be happy. So Dionysius made arrangements for […]
In 1747 Franklin made what is generally considered his chief contribution to science. One of his correspondents, Collinson (a Fellow of the Royal Society and a botanist interested in useful plants, through whom the vine was introduced into Virginia), had sent to the Library Company at Philadelphia one of the recently invented Leyden jars with […]
from An Introduction to the History of Science, by Walter Libby, available free at Gutenberg: Dr. Wilkins, the brother-in-law of Cromwell, who is regarded by some as the founder of the Royal Society, removed to Oxford, as Warden of Wadham, in 1649. Here he held meetings and conducted experiments in conjunction with Wallis, Goddard, Petty, […]
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