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On Christmas Eve in 1985, British Airways did something almost unimaginable today. It took four Concordes off revenue service, filled them not with paying passengers, celebrities, or transatlantic executives, but with its own staff, and sent them into the winter sky in close formation. This was not a VIP charter or a PR gimmick designed for headlines. It was an internal morale event wrapped inside a historic photoshoot, one of the most extravagant employee perks any airline has ever offered.

The most famous ‘tea party’ ever took place on the evening of December 16, 1773, in Boston Harbor, Massachusetts. The Sons of Liberty, led by Samuel Adams, writes The History Channel, rallied “against British Parliament and protested the Griffin’s Wharf arrival of Dartmouth, a British East India Company ship carrying tea. By December 16, 1773, Dartmouth had been joined by her sister ships, Beaver and Eleanor; all three ships loaded with tea from China. That morning, as thousands of colonists convened at the wharf and its surrounding streets, a meeting was held at the Old South Meeting House where a...

The Dec. 19 flyby of Comet 3I/ATLAS gives astronomers a rare chance to study only the third known interstellar object to pass through our solar system. VIDEO AT LINK............... Astronomers and skywatchers are hoping to spot interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS on Dec. 19 when it makes its closest — but safely distant — flyby of Earth. The comet has drawn global attention as only the third confirmed interstellar object observed passing through our solar system. According to NASA, Comet 3I/ATLAS will not pose any threat to Earth during its pass. The object is expected to remain about 170 million miles from...

The Obamas were supposed to meet with director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, the night they were allegedly killed by their son, Nick Reiner, in their home in Los Angeles. “We were supposed to be seeing them that night — last night — and we got the news,” Michelle Obama said on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” Monday night, when host Jimmy Kimmel asked how she was coping with the news of her friends’ murders. The former first lady said she and her husband were devastated when they learned that the legendary filmmaker and his wife, with whom they had been...

Professor Benjamin Pohl, a historian at the University of Bristol, claims the masterpiece was hung on the walls at St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, Kent.It was originally designed to provide mealtime reading for medieval monks at the abbey's new refectory, Professor Pohl claims.'Just as today, in the Middle Ages mealtimes were always an important occasion for social gathering, collective reflection, hospitality and entertainment, and the celebration of communal identities,' he said.'In this context, the Bayeux Tapestry would have found a perfect setting.'While the Bayeux Tapestry is widely regarded as one of the world's most important cultural treasures, very little is...

A jug holding a vast number of Roman coins was found during an excavation at a French village. (Image credit: © Simon Ritz, Inrap) Archaeologists in France have discovered three ancient storage jars brimming with tens of thousands of Roman coins. The vessels were buried in pits 1,700 years ago in the house floor of an ancient settlement, possibly as a type of safe or piggy bank. These three jugs, known as amphorae, were uncovered during excavations run by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (INRAP) in the village of Senon in northeastern France, and may contain a total...

Ferrari is exploring radical oval pistons that could shrink engines, boost efficiency, and reinvent how high-performance gas motors are designed for the next generation. =============================================================== Key Points * Ferrari patents oval, or "stadium-shaped," pistons to replace traditional circular designs. * The design could significantly shorten engines while maintaining displacement and cylinder count. * Oval pistons could also lower frictional losses, improve combustion efficiency and lead to engines that "breathe" better. =============================================================== Breaking Away from Tradition For as long as internal combustion engines have existed, pistons have been round. This wasn’t necessarily because circular shapes were optimal for performance. It was...

Some of the most ordinary words in English have origins that no one can explain. Among them: "dog", "big", "bird", "donkey", "boy", "girl" and "puzzle". In this episode, let's trace their earliest appearances, explore the theories behind them, and unravel why these everyday words became some of our language's greatest mysteries. The English words nobody can explain | 23:24 RobWords | 887K subscribers | 478,352 views | December 6, 2025 YouTube transcript (below) reformatted at textformatter.ai

For otherwise healthy plebs in the Roman world, survival depended on four Fs: farming (the sole source of food and money), fighting, family and friends. Everything else that made life worth living meant having some degree of political control over your own existence, which could be summed up in a fifth F: freedom, or political equality. But the elite had little time for such goodwill towards men. For the plebs, there was the rub. In the 20s BC Livy began writing a history of Rome from its foundation in 753 BC. It was first ruled by a series of seven...

In Slovenia, the ancient Pust festival happens each year before Easter to mark the end of winter. Locals wear masks and costumes to chase away winter and celebrate the coming of spring. Images of the festival captured by photographer Ciril Jazbec offer a glimpse into a ritual that has great significance for the community. The Little-Known Ancient Festival to Chase Away Winter | 3:10 BBC Global | 717K subscribers | 95,245 views | March 5, 2025

Some films are obviously Christmas movies, like Noelle. But that designation is not so clear cut for others. They may be set during the holiday season, and they may even touch upon Christmas themes, but does that mean they truly qualify in the traditional sense? …And the latest movie to take the stand in our great Christmas movie debate is hoping its season stock(ing) is about to go up. That’s right, it’s time to buy or sell holiday shares in Trading Places. How much of Trading Places takes place at Christmastime? Roughly 75% of Trading Places is set during Christmas...

Maria and the family fled Villa Trapp in Austria not by foot over the mountains – that would have taken them to Germany, not Switzerland – but by train to Italy (formerly Croatia), where Georg had grown up and earned a military pension

This is a chapter from my book, "Sleuthing The Scriptures". I wrote the book in late 2022. It's Christmas time again, so I am offering it to me fellow freepers. I pray you enjoy it. When you think of the first story of Christmas, it’s usually about Mary and Joseph looking down at their new born son in a manger, surrounded by barn animals and maybe a shepherd or two looking on. Angels singing praises of joy to the Lord Most High, and maybe even the star that is guiding the wise men from Babylon to the destination of the...

If you’ve been dreaming of a white Christmas, be warned that it might not become a reality. Many people have memories of watching the snow fall on Christmas Day—but data shows that, across the country, a white Christmas occurs less frequently than you might think. In general, if an area has widespread snow and persistently colder patterns leading up to Christmas, it could be a predictor of snow on Christmas. But while many people across the country might lament the white Christmases of their youth, the truth is that many places typically don’t see snow in late December—people just think...

Among its countless achievements, the song was named the 20th century’s most-played song on American radio and television by the BMI.Only the most momentous songs in pop history make it into the Grammy Hall of Fame, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Top 40 of Rolling Stone’s 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, and the Top 10 of the RIAA’s Top 365 Songs of the Century. But only one could achieve all that and be named the most-played song on American radio and television during the 20th century by the BMI. Its title? “You’ve...

The recent federal indictment of Dana Williamson — California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s former chief of staff — should come as no surprise: It’s the latest example of a thoroughly corrupt Sacramento political culture that afflicts both parties. But as bad as you may think the corruption is, I can tell you first-hand that it is much worse. For Democrats, supermajority status has resulted in a “might makes right” attitude of abusing their power to impose their will — and to help themselves. Worse, because Democrats control almost all the levers of state and local law enforcement (including the state attorney...

They decked the halls — and each other. A ritzy Nantucket Christmas celebration erupted into mayhem as men decked out in “Ralph Lauren and Burberry” traded blows just moments after Santa Claus made his appearance, according to shocking footage. The wild brawl broke out on Federal Street Saturday afternoon during the Massachusetts island’s 51st Annual Christmas Stroll, where hundreds had gathered to visit local businesses in one of America’s priciest small towns, the Nantucket Current reported. In dramatic video shared with the outlet, about a dozen men — ranging in age from 20s to 60s — were seen arguing and...

How did more than $3 million in Civil War era gold coins end up in a farm field, somewhere in Kentucky? Everyone from the Washington Post to USA Today to major TV news networks covered this story last summer when it first broke, but in this segment you'll hear for the first time from the Lexington coin dealer who brokered the sale of the coins when he was first approached by the farmer who literally stumbled upon them. You'll also hear from a UK professor about why she thinks the coins were buried in the first place, and from some...

An international team of researchers have successfully recovered and analysed ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies dating from approximately 1400 BCE to 400 BCE, including the first genome-wide data from three individuals. The study found that modern Egyptians share more ancestry with sub-Saharan Africans than ancient Egyptians did, whereas ancient Egyptians were found to be most closely related to ancient people from the Middle East and Western Asia. This study counters prior scepticism about the possibility of recovering reliable ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies. Despite the potential issues of degradation and contamination caused by climate and mummification methods, the authors were...