Category Archive: Big Sensations
Message in a Bottle
Once, because I complained that I’d never received one, my mom sent me a telegram. I was in college at the time and it arrived in a regular envelope in my tiny mail box. While it wasn’t the romantic comunique…
Tulipomania
The tulips are blooming everywhere. You probably know something about the legendary obsession with tulips in old Holland and Flanders, a flowery fad based on bulb-price speculation that briefly drove the local economy in the mid-17th century—until the market crashed….
“It will be comely and decent to use a fork…”
French silk merchant Jaques le Saige was scandalized by the sight of men taking up forks to eat their dinner when visiting Venice in 1518. Forks were a symbol of decadence for centuries, unhealthy used in the 10th century in…
Dancing the Maxixe
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pd4rqf7_Mdg[/youtube] Between the scandalous Tango and the salacious Samba, there came the Maxixe, the early 20th century’s forgotten dance sensation. The Maxixe was just naughty enough to become popular worldwide between 1910 and 1915, but not naughty enough to be…
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