Among the things I learned this week:
* Alexandria, VA, has the longest running farmers’ market in the country. (Courtesy: Southern Living)
* The personal- and tactical-level experience of Stalin’s Soviet Union. (Courtesy: Orlando Figes’ The Whisperers)
* Clothes dryer’s thermal fuse (Courtesy: Personal experience)
* Fifty-six British gin distilleries opened during the past two years. (Courtesy: Economist)
Among the things I learned this week:
* James Garfield was the last president to be born in a log cabin. (Courtesy: Candice Millard)
* A woman, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, was the first Soviet citizen to meet a US president. (Courtesy: Wikipedia)
* In 1994, the United States banned the import of China-made assault weapons. (Courtesy: NYT)
Among the things I learned this week:
* Polo is a fun and fairly simple game, which is not to say it is simple to play. (Courtesy: Great Meadow Foundation)
* The Soviet Union denied requests for garlic experts to traverse the old Silk Road to collect garlic samples, because the areas commonly included missile bases. Beginning in 1989, though, requests were approved, and this opening up is a major source of “new” (i.e., rediscovered) garlic types. (Courtesy: The Valley Table)
* Vibrators were the fifth domestic appliance to be electrified. (Courtesy: NYer)