Clik here to view.
Frank LLoyd Wright II, Kaufmann family & Fallingwater
Fallingwater, built directly over the fallsWikiI visited Pittsburgh for the first time in 1994 and one of the great day-tours was to Fallingwater. This home was near Mill Run in Pennsylvania,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Drs Jonas Salk & Albert Sabin's vaccines to defeat polio - guest post
Polio patients inside iron lungsGuardianBefore the mid-1950s, panic gripped countries as polio spread globally. Paralytic poliomyelitis caused an infection in the central nervous system, leading...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Great book on Australian art crimes by Mark Holsworth
“We have stolen the Pablo Picasso from the National Gallery”, said the ransom note sent to Victoria's Arts Minister Race Mathews in 1986. The Weeping Woman painting, bought by the National Gallery of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
See Chopin's last magnificent piano
Frédéric Chopin (1810–49) was born in Warsaw to a Polish mother and French father. He lived his short adult life in Paris and won worldwide fame as a composer and pianist of the Romantic era, who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Bye bye Miss American Pie - and football crowds?
When Brisbane Lions easily won an Australian Football match in front of their home crowd this week, thousands of people sang Bye Bye Miss American Pie joyfully, each time their team kicked a goal! I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Cremorne - the most beautiful "Queenslander" home in 2023?
Cremorne House in Hamilton Brisbanebuilt in 1905, expanded sincenews.com.auQueenslander Houses were built in an architectural style very popular throughout Queensland, from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Is Cremorne the most beautiful Queenslander home in 2023?
Cremorne House in Hamilton Brisbanebuilt in 1905, expanded sincenews.com.auQueenslander Houses were built in an architectural style very popular throughout Queensland, from Brisbane in the south to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ivan Milat and the Belanglo murders. Where were the psychiatrists?
ExamineIvan Milat (1944-2019) again. He was one of 14 children born to an impoverished migrant family, rural, isolated and gun obsessed. He’d shown psychopathic behaviour at a young age eg hacking...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Gin history, from medicine to community chaos to grand palaces
The first reference to a spirit flavoured with jenever-juniper was in C13th Flemish manuscripts. Bols family distillery opened in Amsterdam in 1575 and by the early 1600s, the Dutch were seriously...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Earlier questions from a fellow blogger - now rethought in 2023
In 2009 Willow from Willow Manor first asked the questions. 1. Are you a native Australian? How many generations of your family were born there? I was born and raised here - primary school, high school...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Disease and the "art" of medical illustration
Adolescent with severe untreated leprosy. Wellcome Library, LondonMany thanks to Will Self for cleverly reviewing a book that I would not have otherwise looked at. The medical images in Dr Richard...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The aristocratic daughters of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India
George 1st Earl Curzon of Kedleston (1859–1925) lived at his great ancestral home Kedleston Hall in Derbyshire. In 1886 he was elected MP for Southport, and later Under Secretary for India (1891-2) and...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating the United Nations - years of planning, successes and failures.
The League of Nations was an international organisation that started in 1920 (until 1946), out of the WW1 crisis. Based in Geneva, the League vowed to promote inter-national cooperation and preserve...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Shell shock from WW1 - terrible war neuroses or mere malingering?
Fiona Reid, Broken Men: Shell Shock, Treatment and Recovery in Britain 1914-30After WW1, tragedy continued for a lifetime for British families who never saw their men again. Even for those soldiers who...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Dealing with hoarding on tv and in real life.
Since the 2008, tough reality TV shows like Hoarders: Buried Alive opened hoarding to public inspection. The weekly shows presented the clear problem that afflicted families, but hoarding was clearly a...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Daniel Kahn's Hallelujah in Yiddish: as good as Leonard Cohen?
In one of the earliest posts that I wrote in this blog, I noted a very significant event in my life. In 1969, when I met my then-boyfriend now-husband, his first present to me was a book of Leonard...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The gorgeous Livraria Lello bookshop, in Porto Portugal
A few years ago, I had wanted to find the most beautiful bookshops in the world. Now examine a favourite in detail.Front façade todayBrothers José and António Lello, prominent cultivated members of...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The rise and fall of Romanian leader: Nicolae Ceaușescu.
Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej (1901-65) became a revolutionary post-WWI, joining the then outlawed Romanian Communist Party in 1930 and being sentenced to 12 years’ gaol. A member of the Romanian Communist...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Even multiple red flags (RFs) didn't protect Powell children from murder - USA
The first day Josh Powell had been investigated since his wife, Susan Cox Powell, disappeared in Dec 2009. Susan was reported missing when the family was living in West Valley CityUtah. That...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Art History students everywhere, visit Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth Tx
The Cardsharps, by Caravaggio, c1595Kimbell Art MuseumPortrait of May Sartoris, by Frederic Leighton, c1860Kimbell Art MuseumKay Kimbell (1886-1964), who made his vast wealth from grain and milling...
View Article