Weekend Links 1-29-21

Hard to believe that we are already a month into 2021. Where has this year gone? Brew up a good strong cup of coffee (or tea or whatever other beverage you prefer) and dive into this week's diversionary reading for the weekend.

Last December Major League Baseball announced they would recognize the seven leagues known as the Negro Leagues that played between 1920 and 1948 as "major" leagues. Now comes the hard part: verifying the player statistics from that era. 

A few not-so-serious suggestions how to read more books. 

Poirot at 100: the refugee detective who stole Britain's heart. 

No one has ever demonstrated a mastery of the English language as P. G. Wodehouse. Here are 9 words we have thanks to him. 

Need a reason to celebrate? Here are 18 unusual holidays from around the world. 

All Creatures Great and Small (currently airing on PBS) has become the perfect antidote for our pandemic plagued world. Here's a fascinating look at the folks that design this wonderful world. Also, is the village of Darrowby a real place? 

A brief history of the spelling bee. 

Finally, times are tough for everyone. But these letters highlight that some folks have figured out ways to use humor to deal with creditors. 

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Letters of Note (@lettersofnote)

Weekend Links 1-22-21

The fun thing about assembling these posts is discovering so many things that I did not know before. This week is no exception. Here's to a collection of very interesting and informative posts to take your mind off other things. 

Before becoming a politician Abraham Lincoln tried his hand at true crime writing.

A brief history of peanut butter. 

Did you know that native Alaskans are called sourdoughs?

Answering the important questions: why doesn't cereal come in resealable bags? Actually makes sense if you think about it. 

Edgar Allan Poe didn't just invent the detective story. He changed the literary world forever. 

Answering the important questions, part 2: why Cubs fans sing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" during the seventh inning stretch. 

The true story of a 1970 exhibition baseball game that honored Martin Luther King, Jr. At least 23 Hall of Famers played in the game. That's quite a collection of talent in one ballgame. 

If we ever get to travel again I would love to visit these places 

In praise of locked room mysteries. 

Was Walt Whitman a plagiarist? 

How a 1960s band helped promote Zip Codes. 

Weekend Links 1-15-21

 Here is your weekly roundup of interesting stuff to take your mind off the craziness that exists in our world these days. Here are a few interesting things I found:

A deep dive on what fonts are our favorites and why. 

History revealed: the story of how the Pentagon Papers came to be published. Really interesting to see the lengths reporters went to in order to bring the story to light. 

A League of Their Own told the story of the all to brief history of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League. Now one of the league's former players is spearheading an effort to build a museum to celebrate the women of baseball. 

Did you know there is an empty crypt underneath the U. S. Capitol? 

Picture this: the Mona Lisa didn't become famous until it was stolen in 1911. 

This is what I call commitment to one's craft: visit one of the last studios in the world that makes globes by hand. 

This week marked the premiere of All Creatures Great and Small on PBS. If the first episode is any indication this is exactly the sort of television viewing we need in lockdown. A review of the program here and here. 

Binge watching recommendation: Churchill's Secret Agents: The New Recruits on Netflix. In this series which is part reality competition and part history, 14 recruits are subjected to the same training that members of Britan's Special Operations Executive would have been subjected to during World War II. It is an excellent series and well worth your time. 

Finally, in case you had thoughts about how to leave the planet in the midst of all the chaos, we have some helpful advice:

Weekend Links 1-8-21

 Welcome to the first Weekend Links of 2021. I had high hopes that 2021 was going to be a better year than 2020 but already we are a week into the year and it has developed into something far stranger than 2020. The word unprecedented comes to mind when reflecting on the events of this week in our nation's capitol. Even that seems to be a severe understatement. We are in for some rough times ahead. Here's to hoping things getting better very soon. In the meantime, here are a few links of interest that I discovered during the last couple of weeks. 

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy gave a stirring speech announcing the United States' intention to go to the moon. Here is the story behind that historic address.

Try wrapping your brain around this: Swedish television is developing a series based on the fictional detective Sven Hjerson which was a creation of fictional detective writer Ariadne Oliver which was a character in several Agatha Christie novels. 

Speaking of Agatha Christie, a new novel speculates what happened to Ms. Christie when she disappeared in 1926. 

Meet the archaeologist who has assembled a collection of over 4500 beer cans.

When my girls were young they loved Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. We read it aloud so many times they memorized the text. However, not everyone was a fan when the book was published including a very influential New York librarian. 

An interview with Alex Rider star Otto Farrant on making season 2 of the series and his favorite James Bond. 

Vince Guaraldi is best known as the man who scored the Peanuts specials. Here's the story of how one of his most famous compositions, Linus and Lucy, became a jazz standard. 

A tribute to the man who wrote the most perfect sentences in the English language: P. G. Wodehouse.

Strange history: how homing pigeons helped the Allies win World War II. 

In addition to writing numerous Perry Mason novels, Erle Stanley Gardner was also involved in several cases getting wrongly accused criminals exonerated. This is one of those cases. 

It's been 25 years since Calvin and Hobbes left the comics pages. Here's why the strip still enchants us. 

The long, strange history of baseball's most curious rule: the dropped third strike.