February 14, 2024
by Building The World
0 comments
Valentine’s Day celebrates love in all its many wonderful forms and cultural traditions. But the greatest lover of record, according to DNA, might be Genghis Khan. According to DNA tracing, over 16 million people are related to the legendary Mogul … Continue reading
December 31, 2023
by Building The World
0 comments
New Year’s Eve is often celebrated by popping a cork, releasing bubbles of hope for health and happiness. This year, cork your name into a bottle, sending your greetings and wishes into the future. Who knows who might pop the … Continue reading
June 19, 2023
by Building The World
0 comments
As we celebrate and honor Juneteenth, here, written and spoken by poet Maya Angelou, is “Still I Rise.” Angelou, Maya. “Still I Rise.” Building the World Blog by Kathleen Lusk Brooke and Zoe G. Quinn is licensed under a … Continue reading
March 31, 2019
by Building The World
0 comments
31 March 2009. Astronaut Wakata Koichi wrote what may be the first poem ever written by a human being in space. Wakata Koichi floated into view on the computer monitor at JAXA, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, (counterpart to NASA) at … Continue reading
March 20, 2019
by Building The World
0 comments
Color is associated with spring, perhaps nowhere more brilliantly than in India. In the land of the Taj Mahal, the iconic edifice famously inlaid with jewels like lapis lazuli and rubies, spring’s celebration of Holi invites people to bedeck each … Continue reading
February 14, 2017
by Building The World
0 comments
Where did the Valentine Heart icon come from? Perhaps Cyrene. When the ancient Greeks were told by the Oracle of Delphi to leave drought-stricken Thera (present-day Santorini), pioneering migrants sailed to Libya, settling in Cyrene because of its moist, fertile land. … Continue reading
October 13, 2016
by Building The World
0 comments
Bob Dylan (who changed his birth name to honor the poet Dylan Thomas) won the Nobel Prize for Literature today. It is the first time the prize has been awarded to a songwriter; although many would argue that Bob Dylan … Continue reading
May 24, 2016
by Building The World
0 comments
Baghdad was designed in three concentric circles drawn in the sand by founder Caliph al-Mansur, who named the new capital “Madinat as-Salam” or “City of Peace.” As Toynbee observed in Cities of Destiny, urban centers possess cultural magnetism. Boston is showering … Continue reading
June 30, 2015
by Building The World
0 comments
When Wordsworth talked about the magic of a “spot of time,” the poet may not have imagined what digital challenges would be required by the adjustment of modern clocks to the world’s slightly irregular rotation. June 30, 2015, will have … Continue reading
May 29, 2015
by Building The World
0 comments
“I love a sunburnt country,” wrote poet Dorothea Mackellar, OBE, about Australia where “a pitiless blue sky” parched farms and withered forests in a drought so long and severe that the Murray River, part of the Murray and Murrumbidgee irrigation … Continue reading