Rather than exploring a subject heading in the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection, this week’s deep dive is a celebration of Sophie Tucker, the self-billed “Last of the Red Hot […]

Now that summer is in full swing and national parks are seeing spikes in visitors, this week’s sheet music deep dive is dedicated to mountains and trails (not to be […]

Bastille Day is coming up next week, and although the Levy Sheet Music Collection doesn’t have any songs related to the French holiday, there are at least a dozen inspired […]

Fireworks have been around since the Han Dynasty in China (200 B.C.E.), when hollow bamboo sticks were thrown into fires to expand and eventually explode. Chemicals were soon added to […]

Animal lovers have been keeping birds as pets for hundreds if not thousands of years—they can be found throughout history from Egyptian hieroglyphs to homing pigeons, and in White House […]

This week, rather than diving into a unique subject heading from the Lester Levy Sheet Music Collection, I decided to share a teaser for an upcoming map project. Before Times […]

In 1793, Jean-Pierre Blanchard became the first to fly a balloon over the English channel. 8 years later, he took off from a Philadelphia prison yard in the first manned […]

The original Ferris wheel was unveiled at the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, designed by George Washington Gale Ferris Jr. Leading up to the fair, the revolutionary attraction was heavily […]

The temperance movement in the United States started in the 18th century, advocating for the abstention from alcohol and drugs. Organizations including the Anti Saloon League and Womens Christian Temperance […]

During my sophomore year of music school, I took a class in earth science. There I learned about the loudest sound in recorded history—the 1883 eruption of the Krakatoa volcano […]