DECK THE HOLIDAY'S

    The holidays are filled with joyful emotions and honored traditions, including the playing of songs about snowmen, St. Nick, evergreen trees, and presents wrapped up with big bows. No matter how you celebrate the season, you'll hear these songs on the radio, T.V., at the mall, in the office, and just about anywhere music is played.     If you think the same songs are played over and over, you're right, but if this bothers you, consider the alternative: Christmas carols were banned in England between 1649 and 1660. Oliver Cromwell, serving as Lord Protector of Britain, believed Christmas should be solemn and also banned parties, limiting celebration to sermons and prayer services.     Lots of holiday songs are festive, many have spiritual overtones, and all are played so often that they are familiar no matter what your faith. But what do you know about how these songs were created and the people who wrote them?   ...

    In Irish folklore, the Banshees are known as the ancestral spirits of the Fairy world. Their history extends way back into the dim and mysterious past.     Banshees are among the oldest Fairy folk of Ireland, associated as strongly as shamrocks and potatoes. Banshees, also known as Bean-Sidhe, were appointed to forewarn members of Irish families of impending death. Her prescence alone brings no harm or evil, but to hear a Banshee in the act of keening is to have witnessed the announcement of the death of a loved one. The Banshee's wail pierces the night and its notes rise and fall like waves over the countryside.     It is said that Banshees never appear to the one who is to die but to their loved ones. In times gone by she was seen washing human heads, limbs or bloody clothing until the water was dyed with blood. Over the centuries this image changed. The Banshee now paces the land, wringing her hands and crying. Sometimes...

    Cheese Rolling has become an annual event in Stilton and every May Day hundreds of villagers and visitors make their way to the main street to watch the teams battling for the honour of being called the " Stilton Cheese Rolling Champions" . Stilton History and The Cheese The Bell Inn, where the rolling starts! Ancient Stilton     No one knows who lived here first - the earliest finds date from the time of the Roman occupation and are probably associated with the road that runs from London to the army fortress at Lincoln, which the Saxons later called Ermine Street.     For centuries this road seems to have been little used, the important route was the east-west road, Fen Street and Church Street, which is why our oldest building, the Church of St Mary Magdalene, is found away from the main road that now exists.     Stilton gets three mentions in the Doomesday Book of 1086 as three landowners, t...

Seal 2010 Seal 1931 Seal 1981 It all began in 1907 .     In the early 20th century, tuberculosis was the leading cause of death in the U.S. Physicians were experiencing the first signs of success treating tuberculosis in special hospitals called sanatoriums, and one of those facilities had fallen on tough times. The tiny Delaware sanatorium would have to close its doors if $300 dollars could not be raised to save it. One of its doctors explained the plight to his cousin, a Red Cross volunteer named Emily Bissell. Bissell was a veteran fundraiser, and she soon came up with a plan based on one that had worked in Denmark: She would design and print special holiday seals and sell them at the post office for a penny each. Seal 1907 Emily Bissell Expanding Mission     The tradition continued and grew year after year through World War I, The Great Depression and Word War II. As the American Lung Association's mission expanded t...

Number 5, Catacombs, Paris, France When Paris as a city was starting to grow, they needed more room for the settlers to live in, which meant that they needed to remove the Parisians who would not resist to move, in this case the dead. They removed all dead corpses, millions to be exact and took them and placed them along the dark passageways underneath the city where they lie till this day and have been given the name The Empire of the Dead. The Paris Catacombs attract over a million visitors a year who walk along the skeletons and remains that are left. Many of the visitors and guides who have visited the place have encountered many ghostly inhabitants that still roam and follow the visitors as they walk along the Catacombs. There have been many visitors who can't handle the tour and become very overwhelmed that the tour is cut short. It is also said that if you were to take pictures within the Catacombs they will reveal orbs and ghostly apparitions. There have also ...

The book that started it all     "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is an 1865 short story by Mark Twain , his first great success as a writer, bringing him national attention. The story has also been published as "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" (its original title) and "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County". In it, the narrator retells a story he heard from a bartender, Simon Wheeler, at the Angels Hotel in Angels Camp , California , about the gambler Jim Smiley . Twain describes him: "If he even seen a straddle bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get to—to wherever he going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road." Samuel Clemons aka "Mark Twain"     "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" is also the title st...