The Vintage News Mar 6, 2018 E.L. Hamilton Photo:xlibber/FLickr CC By 2.0 An ancient Roman ring likely inspired J. R. R. Tolkien to create the Ring of Power, also known as One Ring, at the center of his beloved epic saga, The Lord of the Rings, and its prequel, The Hobbit. Forged by the Dark Lord Sauron to enslave … Read more
The Vintage News Jun 22, 2018 Andrew Pourciaux A good spy needs many things: wits, courage, intelligence, and strength of heart. Many would believe that two functioning legs would also be necessary when it came to spying, especially during World War Two, when communication was extremely limited and mobility was of the utmost importance. Yet Virginia … Read more
The Vintage News Jun 22, 2018 Alex .A During the winter season of 1995, one of the world’s most impressive advertising campaigns ever was launched. A fleet of Coca-Cola trucks bedecked with twinkling Christmas lights rolled across our television screens. The trucks in the very first Coca-Cola Christmas Caravan weren’t even real–it was just three custom-made full-size … Read more
The Vintage News Jun 22, 2018 Steve Palace Johnny Cash’s distinctive tones have stirred the soul of many a listener. His music is powerful and honest, and those qualities were most in evidence on 1964’s Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian (Columbia Records). One of its tracks, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes,” paid tribute to the Native … Read more
The Vintage News Jun 4, 2018 Martin Chalakoski She was a well educated and pragmatic daughter of an impoverished Prussian prince who grew into the longest-ruling female leader of the Russian empire and one of the most celebrated Russian rulers of either gender. Under her reign, the empire was vastly expanded and grew in strength to … Read more
The Vintage News May 11, 2018 Nancy Bilyeau Photo:Andrew Smith / Medmenham Abbey / CC BY-SA 2.0 History does not record a single event of interest that took place within the abbey walls while Cistercian monks actually inhabited Medmenham between 1204 and 1536. It’s what happened to a woman around the time of its founding and … Read more
The Vintage News Mar 22, 2018 Stefan Andrews When people started using mechanical clocks during the 14th and 15th centuries, they were introducing a relatively new concept of counting the time. Mechanical clocks, like the one of Salisbury Cathedral, were game-changers, since before then people didn’t cut the day into 24 slices. There were the “temporal … Read more
