During a visit with my father to his beloved Ecuador a few years ago, we visited the family farm where he grew up. I noticed a group of strange trees. My dad explained that when he was feeling mischievous as a boy, he would take a discarded branch from…

We have all sorts of names for groups of animals. No doubt you’ve heard of a flock of sheep, a herd of cattle, or even a gaggle of geese. But some names may surprise you. A group of crows is called a murder. How about a congregation of alligators…

Even as country music legend Johnny Cash was approaching death, he was determined to keep making music. His final album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave, was recorded in the final months of his life. The title song, Cash’s version of a hymn by …

Jocelyn’s bestselling dish at her food stall was her congee. She’d stir the rice porridge very carefully until it had a smooth consistency. So, she was startled when a regular customer said, “Your congee tastes different. The texture …

The factories of Victorian England were dark places. Fatalities were high, and workers often lived in poverty. “How can the working man cultivate ideals,” George Cadbury asked, “when his home is a slum?” And so he built a new ki…

Have you ever been in the middle of telling a story and then stopped, stuck on a detail like a name or date you couldn’t recall. We often chalk it up to age, believing that memory fades with time. But recent studies no longer support that view. I…

On September 11, 2023—the twenty-second anniversary of the attacks against the United States—a stunning double rainbow graced the skies above New York City. Home to the Twin Towers, this city suffered the greatest losses in the attacks. Mor…

When Jay Speights of Rockville, Maryland, took a DNA test, nothing could have prepared him for the results he received. They contained a big surprise—he was a prince of the West African nation of Benin! Soon he boarded a plane and visited the cou…

A fire burned Balsora Baptist Church to the ground. As emergency workers and community members gathered after the blaze subsided, they were surprised to see a charred cross standing upright amidst the smoke and ashes in the air. A firefighter commented…

In 1960, Otto Preminger provoked controversy with his movie Exodus. Based on Leon Uris’s novel, it provides a fictional account of Jewish refugees emigrating to Palestine after World War II. The film concludes with the bodies of a young European-…