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Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird hardly needs an introduction, as I expect everyone in the world has read it, or has seen the film starring Gregory Peck. (If you haven’t read it, perhaps you should.) Lee, incidentally, went to visit the film set, and had this to say about Peck: “an inspired performance. In some mysterious way, Gregory Peck’s Atticus Finch transcended illusion.” If that seems a tad clichéd and not especially insightful, then I’m afraid to say that this is the general tenor of the nonfiction pieces in The Land of Sweet Forever , alongside eight previously unseen...

In a photo provided by the then Attorney General’s office, Brian Ognjan straightens the tie of David Tyll at Tyll’s wedding.The two went missing on a hunting trip in 1985 and were last seen at the former Linkers Lodge about 5 miles west of Mio. (Courtesy of Detroit Free Press) ============================================================== * Forty years ago, two metro Detroit friends vanished after heading Up North to hunt * They never returned, launching a decadeslong mystery that focused on a ‘feral crew of hard-drinking brawlers’ * Two brothers were eventually convicted but bodies were never found. Police fear they were fed to...

Kazinform International News Agency reports that the intact burial of a Saka warrior has been discovered at the Karabie burial site in central Kazakhstan by researchers from the Karaganda Regional History Museum. The burial has been dated to the sixth or seventh century B.C. The deceased was found holding a bronze sword, or akinak, in the right hand. Decorated with images of steppe birds of prey, its blade is about 12 inches long. "This type of akinak, with such design, has not yet been found elsewhere in Kazakhstan. It reflects the high level of metallurgy and artistic taste of the...

The Bible is the most read book ever and the most translated book too. Today, the full bible can be found in 736 languages. This post is focused though on the Bible in English. The Bible in its entirety was not translated into English until the 14th century (middle English), with John Wycliffe’s translation in 1382. And since the 16th century, there have been around 900 versions translated into English (modern English). There are formal or “word for word” translations and also functional equivalent or “meaning for meaning” translations. According to The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association the top 9 best-selling...

In honor of Veterans Day today TCM will play The Best Years of Our Lives this afternoon at 5:00 p.m. (Eastern). I want to draw from my previously posted comments on the movie to recall it briefly with a little background provided by Mark Harris. Harris tells the highly improbable story behind the making of the film in Five Came Back, his excellent account of the prominent directors who volunteered to use their filmmaking skills in the armed forces during the World War II (John Ford, William Wyler, John Huston, Frank Capra, and George Stevens). Harris’s account of The Best...

A 48-year-old Davenport woman faces a felony theft charge for library materials overdue for 13 years, according to Scott County Court documents. Stacey Diehn faces a charge of second-degree theft, a Class D felony, court records show. According to a Scott County arrest affidavit, Diehn and a relative checked out library materials from the Davenport Public Library, 3000 Fairmount St., on April 3, 2012, and also on other dates, with April 19, 2012, as the last date of activity.

Fawlty Towers actress Prunella Scales has died aged 93, her family have confirmed. Scales was best known for playing hotel manager Sybil Fawlty, the long-suffering and domineering wife of Basil - played by John Cleese - in the classic British sitcom. The actress died "peacefully at home in London yesterday", her sons Samuel and Joseph said. They added that she was watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died. Cleese paid tribute, describing Scales as "a really wonderful comic actress". He said: "Scene after scene she was absolutely perfect."

367,442 views Oct 26, 2025 #worldwar2 #ww2history #ww2 Why one aircraft mechanic installed unauthorized piano wire in P-38 control systems during WW2 — and saved 80 to 100 American pilots' lives. This World War 2 story reveals how a six-inch piece of wire changed aerial combat in the Pacific. August 17, 1943. Technical Sergeant James McKenna, an aircraft mechanic with the Fifth Air Force at Dobodura airfield, New Guinea, watched another pilot prepare for a mission against Japanese Zeros. The P-38 Lightning was fast and powerful. But it couldn't turn with a Zero. The control cables had slack. A three-eighths...

Long before mass surveillance, social credit systems, and the algorithmic manipulation of truth became part of our daily lives, Russian writers were warning us. Not with data charts or manifestos—but with novels, plays, and poems that seemed to peer through the veil of their own turbulent times and glimpse something terrifyingly familiar: our present. ...They didn’t predict flying cars or space tourism. Instead, they foresaw how totalitarian regimes would manipulate language, how the human spirit could be engineered, and how the very idea of truth could be dismantled and rebuilt at the whim of the state. ...Yet, their work is...

A “very significant” unpublished story by Jack Kerouac described as “a lost chapter of the On the Road saga” has been discovered after languishing in the files of an assassinated Mafia crime boss for at least 40 years.

Molly Lee is talking to me about the tales her aunt Nelle, known to the world as Harper Lee, would weave for her when she was a little girl. "She was just a great storyteller," says the 77-year-old from her home in Alabama. That's an understatement if the success of Harper Lee's Pulitzer-prize winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird is anything to go by. Since its publication in 1960, when it was an instant hit, the book has sold more than 42 million copies worldwide Based around the story of Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape, it's...

Both attacks on free speech are devastating for academia, but in different ways.Crispin Sartwell retired as a philosophy professor in 2023. His most recent book is “Beauty: A Quick Immersion.”It didn’t take long for professors to point out that the right-wing wave of restrictions on expression, spurred by the Trump administration, is far worse than those characteristic of “the woke era.” After all, the woke restrictions were primarily internal, a matter of academic practice, as students, administrators and professors tried to eliminate any shred of skepticism toward diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. It was annoying — and devastating if you...

Everything appeared to be in slow motion - except the torpedo spearing through the water towards them at 30 knots. Only five minutes earlier, the USS Tang had been in the middle of a feeding frenzy that would secure its position as the most successful American submarine in the Pacific Ocean. But its last torpedo had turned sharply left - and was now coming straight back at the Tang. Of the 87 men on board that early morning in October 1944, as many as 50 were killed instantly when the torpedo hit. Of the survivors, most were injured. One of...

Our Troops Rock! Thank you for all you do! For the freedom you enjoyed yesterday... Thank the Veterans who served in The United States Armed Forces. Looking forward to tomorrow's freedom? Support The United States Armed Forces Today! ~ Hall of Heroes ~ Joseph R. Beyrle Info from here and here. Joseph R. Beyrle (August 25, 1923 - December 12, 2004) is thought to be the only American soldier to have served with both the United States Army and the Soviet Army in World War II. Born in Muskegon, Michigan, Beyrle graduated from high school in 1942 with the...

The story of John Chapman is officially coming to the big screen. Chapman is one of the biggest legends in the history of the United States military. The Air Force 24th STS (a Tier One unit) CCT was killed during the Battle of Takur Ghar in March 2002. All hell broke loose on a mountain during Operation Anaconda, and the SEAL Team 6 team Chapman was attached to retreated under heavy enemy fire. Chapman was left alone without backup or help. He fought to the brutal and bloody end, engaging enemy fighters before eventually dying from his wounds. The elite...

How a Syrian Desert Fort Rewrote Roman History | 10:27 toldinstone | 606K subscribers | 4642 views | September 26, 2025 Chapters 0:00 Introduction 0:46 History of Dura-Europos 2:11 Excavation 3:08 Military artifacts 5:15 Portyl 6:13 Religion and society 7:33 Synagogue 8:30 House church 9:20 The fall of Dura

Tim Kaine’s attack on Marco Rubio backfired, exposing his ignorance of natural rights, the American Founding, and the very Western civilization he claims to defend. The other day, Tim Kaine, a Democratic senator from Virginia (of all places), created a social media storm when he tried to score a few points by knocking Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio had apparently made a statement about man’s rights being granted to him by God, and that made Kaine unhappy. So, he responded: The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government but come from the Creator—that’s...

**Update at bottom of article** Mary Grace Westman has retained a criminal defense attorney. Mary Grace Westman, the mother of the transgender Minneapolis mass shooter and child killer Robin Westman appears to have fled and is not cooperating with police.

Throughout history, starting and then losing unprovoked wars has been a reliable way for dictators to forfeit their grip on power, either at the vengeful hands of the countries they targeted, via palace coups by disgruntled elites or occasionally even through uprisings by ordinary citizens weary of making sacrifices for a tyrant's deadly delusions. Within days of losing the Falklands Islands War to the United Kingdom in 1982, Argentina's General Leopoldo Galtieri, the leader of the embattled military junta that had launched the war to head off popular demands for new elections, resigned his office and started the process of...

Abandoned by his father to a troubled single mother; eventually raised by grandparents. He is then recruited from an Ivy league law school by shadow figures, a specific billionaire and a network of interests. He changes his name, writes a book about his life story, and with the support of the aforementioned – who eventually pays for a strategic campaign, becomes a Senator for 2 years before being quickly elevated into position in the White House.Many people reading that paragraph are familiar with the life story of Barack Hussien Obama. However, that paragraph is not describing Obama, that paragraph describes...