After her parents’ divorce, nine-year-old Alice Childress moved to Harlem to live with her grandmother. Despite her own lack of formal education, Alice’s grandmother encouraged young Alice to pursue her natural love for reading and writing. However, Alice had to drop out of school after her grandmother’s death. While working several low-paying jobs, Alice became …
In the gimmicky early days of rock and roll and the British Invasion, Honey Lantree stood out. Not because she was a woman in a field dominated by men. It was because she refused to be a “gimmick.” Honey wasn’t sitting behind a drum kit for The Honeycombs as a novelty. She was a very …
Abner Doubleday was a career officer in the Union Army during the Civil War, achieving the rank of 2-star General. In the early days of the war, Doubleday fired the first shot at the Battle of Fort Sumter. He also played a pivotal role in the Battle of Gettysburg. He was, however, relieved of his …
In 1859, Milton Bradley set up the first color lithography company in Springfield, Massachusetts. He began selling printed copies of a portrait of then-unknown, up-and-coming presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln. Soon, complaints from customers poured in, claiming that Bradley’s production was not an accurate representation of Lincoln. It seems that the candidate had grown a beard …
In a career that spanned six decades, Nancy Wilson made a name for herself singing jazz, rhythm & blues and pop hits in her own inimitable style. She won three Grammy Awards, her first two coming forty years apart. She was honored by numerous groups and organizations as a “song stylist,” a moniker that she …
Raise a big glass of milk and Pepsi to a career filled with great accomplishment.
“Well, the most terrible fear that anybody should have is not war, is not a disease, not cancer or heart problems or food poisoning – it’s a man or a woman without a sense of humor.” — Jonathan Winters My annual Christmas music compilation is available as a FREE DOWNLOAD at ge.tt for a limited time. …
In 1947, James Karen made his acting debut on the Broadway stage in Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. He went on to appear in over 20 more Broadway plays and over 200 films and television shows, plus a stint plugging the Pathmark supermarket chain that spanned several decades. James passed away in October 2018 …
As a child, Ettore Boiardi was taught to cook by his mother in his native Piacenza, Italy. He came to the United States at 16 and began working in the kitchen at the Ritz Carlton in New York City. Three years later, he found himself as head chef at the Hotel Winton in Cleveland, Ohio, where …
