Origin of Barbecue...
What could be more evocative of juicy, slow-cooked meat than the word barbecue? There are many stories about how it got started, but wherever such tales come from, they all refer to the same thing – cooking big pieces of meat. Anecdotes hold that the origin of barbecue is in the West...
Origin of Mardi Gras Beads...
The term Mardi Gras is synonymous with revelry and excess. It actually means Fat Tuesday in French and marks the end of the Carnival season that begins on January 6, or the Twelfth Night, of which feasting and celebration are mainstays. Ash Wednesday follows Fat Tuesday and this is when...
Origins of the Cold War...
The Cold War was a hostile rivalry that began in the late 1940”s between the USA and the Soviet Union. It ended when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The war was called “cold” because the two superpowers never engaged in direct military confrontation, threatening one...
The Origin of Bananas...
Did you know the most popular fruit in the world is the banana? Cultivated in the tropics, the origin of bananas has been traced back to Southeast Asia. According to horticulturists, the fruit first grew in Malaysia, but was farmed for the first time in Papua New Guinea. The banana tree...
Origins of Irish Republican A...
In 1867, after wilts and bacterial disease destroyed the crops of the dumbstruck the largely potato-dependant population of Ireland, a pressure group called the Fenians was formed but never succeeded in overpowering the Brits. After almost 49 years, the Irish Nationalist began to launch...