Continuing from last week’s post about my January trip to Washington DC, I’d like to share my impressions and photos of the Library of Congress. For some reason, this building was open during the partial government shutdown and I’m so very glad it was. First off, the Library of Congress is located in the Thomas Jefferson Building. The building is called that because Thomas Jefferson sold his significant personal library to the United States after…
If at first you don’t succeed, blah, blah, blah … Regular and observant readers of The Pragmatic Historian may have noticed that I had an email subscriber form in a couple of spots on the website a while ago. I can’t tell you how long I had them available, but my supposedly occasional email newsletter was called TickTock. How incredibly uninspiring! I wasn’t keen on the name when I chose it, but I was trying…
Okay, I’m writing a super easy post tonight, which will go live tomorrow at 8:33 a.m. In contrast to the other blogs I’ve kept, with which I have written posts and published them immediately, with The Pragmatic Historian my goal has been to write posts ahead of time and schedule them. It was bound to happen sooner or later, but here I am on a Wednesday night after a full day of writing and editing…
I read a fascinating article from GQ on a gang of smash-and-grab wristwatch thieves. It’s called The Time Bandits of Southern California and in it writer Amy Wallace details how law enforcement cracked the case of a series of wristwatch burglaries at high-end retailers in California. The thieves targeted expensive wristwatches so they had a greater chance of a high monetary return on the risks they were taking. The article lists a number of brands…
This post went live at 8:33 a.m. Central Standard Time on November 5, 2018. Let’s step back in time a moment, shall we? Daylight Saving Time I’m writing this on the evening of November 3rd, on the eve of the end of Daylight Saving Time for 2018. For those of us in the United States who follow Daylight Saving Time, it officially ends at 2 a.m. on November 4th, but who wants to wait up…