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Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II of England is visiting the United States this week. Yesterday she visited the site of the World Trade Center in New York City and took part in a memorial service there for those who died in the 9/11 attack.

I didn’t know until yesterday that Queen Elizabeth II had served her country during World War II. In fact, the Queen is the last surviving head of state who served in uniform during that conflict.

Here is a photograph of Elizabeth Windsor, all of 17 or 18 years old at the time, changing the tire on a British army truck…

The future Queen of England spent a lot of time as a truck mechanic and driver, enthusiastically doing her part to defend England against the dark of war.

I’ve always thought Elizabeth II was a classy lady. Knowing this about her now, my admiration for her ...

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I’ve long been fascinated by the history of Christianity in places like India and Ethiopia. There exist today in western India congregations of the faithful that claim – with some evidence – to have been founded by the apostle Thomas in the years following the earthly ministry of Jesus. And then there is Ethiopia: a land where Christianity is said to have arrived courtesy of the eunuch chronicled in the Book of Acts, chapter 8.

Add another page to the intriguing history of the faith in that land long known as Aksum: the world’s oldest surviving illustrated Christian Bible has been found in an Ethiopian monastery. The Garima Gospels, printed on goatskin and written in the ancient Ge’ez language, is also said to be the oldest surviving book anywhere that still has the original binding.

So how old is this thing? The Garima Gospels have been dated back ...

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Fifty years ago today, on June 16th 1960, Alfred Hitchcock’s movie Psycho – considered to be one of the greatest and most groundbreaking horror films of all time – was released…

This was on TCM not long ago and I watched it again. Five full decades later and it still holds its own against anything that has come since.

In celebration of this momentous occasion, feel free to indulge yourself in an extra-long shower tonight....

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Well, this is it. In a little less than thirteen hours from now Lost will have aired its series finale “The End” and this most iconic television shows of the past decade will belong to the ages.

I had originally thought of doing a “Top 23 Lost Episodes” feature on this blog, but everyone and his brother is probably doing that today already anyway. So instead, how about we take a look at what many consider to be the best and most unforgettable final chapters of some classic television series. Will Lost‘s stack up to these? We shall soon see…

10. The Mary Tyler Moore Show: “The Last Show”

One of the funniest television comedies ever went out solid, on-top and just plain hilarious right up to the final moments! This is how to end a sit-com, people! And hey in retrospect, having Betty White in it made ...

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Of all the clever logos that Google has done to mark various occasions and moments in history, this is by far the kewlest. Tomorrow is the thirtieth anniversary of the debut of Pac-Man, and Google has a fully-playable Pac-Man logo up!

Use your keyboard’s arrow keys to move Pac-Man around the maze. Other than the customized Google design it plays EXACTLY like the arcade original: including 255 screens and the 256th “kill screen”. It even has the act breaks!

Thanks to Chad Austin for the heads-up! And hey, while we’re on the subject of celebrating video gaming’s first bona-fide hero, how about we also play “Weird Al” Yankovic’s never-officially released parody of The Beatles’ “Taxman”? Here’s a homemade music video of “Pac-Man”!

...

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Those were the words of one Harry R. Truman. He also assured reporters and visitors to his lodge that “No one knows this mountain better than me.”

The 83 year-old Harry Truman was speaking of Mount St. Helens in the state of Washington: the mountain on which he lived along with his 16 cats. For two months the long-quiet volcano had slowly been stirring in activity. Geologists became alarmed by the increasing swarms of small quakes and the appearance of a bulge on St. Helens’ north side: indication that lava was building up beneath. Many tried to convince him to leave, but Harry Truman refused to go. It was nothing to worry about, he swore up and down.

A few days later, at 8:32 a.m. on the morning of May 18th 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted. It was one of the most violent geological events in modern history. ...

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It’s hard to believe now, but Theodore Maiman’s discovery was turned down from scholarly publication when he first submitted it! At the time there was a lot of work being conducted on maser (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) and the journal Physical Review Letters thought that Maiman’s article was a retread of too many others. But before long researchers – and soon afterward the rest of the world – agreed that the laser which Maiman created on May 16th 1960 using a ruby rod was an entirely different gimmick. Fifty years later and lasers are everywhere around us: in CD and DVD players, in your doctor’s office, maybe even in your shirt pocket.

CNN has a great retrospective about a half-century of the laser. And if you want to know how a laser differs from a flashlight, HowStuffWorks hosts a terrific ...

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E-mails have flooded (pun shamefully intended) into my box since early Tuesday morning asking “Have you heard about Noah’s ark being discovered on Mount Ararat?!”

I’ve been following this story from the time it first broke. And I’ve been pondering it a lot, wondering what exactly to make of it, before adding my own two cents into the discussion at large…

In case you’ve missed it, a group of Chinese and Turkish researchers are claiming to have found a massive artificial wooden structure on the slopes of Mount Ararat in Turkey: the place which depending on how you translate the original texts, was the place where the ark of Noah landed after the worldwide deluge recorded in the Book of Genesis (some argue that it should translate into the “mountains of Ararat”, making the possible location of the Ark anywhere between Turkey and Iran).

Now, people have been looking ...

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The last time that the thermopolium in Pompeii, Italy enjoyed patronage was August 24th, 79 A.D. And then nearby Mount Vesuvius erupted and completely buried the city. The stylish snack bar was evacuated in such a hurry that the tip jar was even left behind.

As of this week and under new management (previous owner Vetutius Placidus having long since retired or worse), the thermopolium of Pompeii has reopened for the first time in 1,921 years, and is reportedly already enjoying a thriving business! The menu for the first day included sugary treats that Roman citizenry were known to enjoy, but from here on out the thermopolium will be serving up a more modern repast.

(And probably a good thing too, ‘cuz the “sell by” dates on the potato chips have no doubt long, long since expired.)

Click on the link above for more!...

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