President Franklin Pierce vetoed the use of federal land to raise money for social welfare. A wise and courageous decision, says Lawrence Reed on the FEE website.
Could Beethoven’s deafness have been caused by cheap wine?
Bust of Beethoven on Wakefield (U.K.) Opera House. Image by Tim Green, licensed by Creative Commons SA BY 2.0. New DNA analysis suggests it may have, Gina Kolata explains in the New York Times.
The link between the invention of eyeglasses and economic growth has been known for years, says Peter Coclanis.
A new book by Evan Osborne describes the surprising history of economic liberalism in China. Sam Gregg reviews Markets with Chinese Characteristics on Law & Liberty.
Previously unknown art has been discovered at the ruins of Pompeii, in a banquet hall with scenes illustrating the Trojan War, Reuters reports in the Jerusalem Post.
Scene from Pompei ruins, taken by Lyn Gatel y and licensed under CC BY 2.0. A taste of the troubling history of sugar. Read an excerpt from a book on Coca-cola from DelaneyPlace.com
Slaves cutting sugar cane. From Ten Views of the Island of Antigua. (London: 1823). In the Flickr.com British Library collection. (And my discussion of sugar plantations here. )
How Vietnam has moved toward capitalism in one generation is told by Rainer Zittelman in Reason.
A Wall Street Journal article on a possible “brokered” Democratic convention in 2024 describes the down-to-the-wire selection of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. Author is Edward Achorn. (Behind a paywall.)
The famed Eisenstaedt photo of a sailor kissing a girl in Times Square was almost banned from use by the Veterans Administration. Here’s the story of the photo and the story of the “woke” decision.
To make you smile: Howard Tanzman has collected initial press reactions to a group of musicians who gave concerts in the 1960s. Among them: “appallingly unmusical,” “like a group of disorganized amateurs,” “not just awful . . .god awful.” And they are . . .
A collective farm in the United States, sponsored by FDR? Yes. Amity Shlaes introduces the republication of Edward Banfield’s 1951 book about a collective farm in Arizona .
David Friedman
