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History

City Life

The 20 All-Time-Best Philly Names

We were thinking the other day about E. Digby Baltzell, the Penn sociology prof who coined the term “Wasp,” for “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant.” It would […]

City Life

12 Things You Might Not Know About Stephen Girard

Today is the 225th anniversary of the First Bank of the United States, which was founded by Congress in 1791 to stabilize the government and […]

City Life

11 Things You Might Not Know About Leap Year

Happy February 29th, also known as “leap day” — a lunar event created by humans to compensate for the fact that the earth doesn’t orbit […]

City Life

12 Things You Might Not Know About Philly and LSD

When news broke last weekend that a trio of kids at Villanova University went on bad LSD trips — two got arrested for dealing — […]

City Life

WATCH: That Time Ed Bacon Skateboarded Across LOVE Park

On Friday I wrote about how skateboarders turned LOVE Park into a great public place. The park is now being overhauled with a new design, […]

City Life

13 Things You Might Not Know About the Pine Barrens

Today is National New Jersey Day, which is a pretty peculiar thing for a day to be. We thought about celebrating by driving around a […]

City Life

11 Vintage 1890s Philadelphia Ads From the Archives of the Daily Pennsylvanian

Whether or not you enjoy my work, you have The Daily Pennsylvanian to thank/blame for it. I went into college not sure what I wanted […]

City Life

11 Philly Botanists (And One Bad Plant) You Might Not Know

Did you know that half the delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention here in Philly were farmers? Washington had Mount Vernon, and Jefferson had Monticello; […]

Sam Katz Philadelphia The Great Experiment Disorder
City Life

The Latest Installment of Sam Katz’s Philly Documentary Airs Tonight

Sam Katz has been making his documentary series, Philadelphia: The Great Experiment, for years now. He even used Kickstarter to raise money to fund it. […]

Memorial Hall dome before and after
City Life

140-Year-Old Leak in Memorial Hall Dome Finally Fixed

The City of Philadelphia has finally fixed a 140-year-old problem. After a nine-month repair job, the dome at Memorial Hall has been restored. A chronic […]

City Life

Scholastic Pulls Children’s Book Featuring Washington’s Slave in Philly

[Updated Tuesday, January 19th, at 4:38 p.m.] After both its author and its editor defended the title in the face of critical onslaught, Scholastic Books yesterday […]

Martin Luther King at Barratt Elementary School
City Life

WATCH: MLK Speaks at Philadelphia Middle School in 1967

On October 26th, 1967, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. came to Philadelphia for a “Stars for Freedom” show at The Spectrum featuring Harry Belafonte, […]

City Life

Ardmore Collector Has Previously Unseen Letter From Amelia Earhart

A previously unseen letter written in 1933 by groundbreaking aviator Amelia Earhart has been acquired by Ardmore-based Raab Collection, which recently purchased the document from a private […]

City Life

13 Black Philadelphians Who Were Trailblazers

Sure, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step — but somebody has to take that step. In honor of civil rights icon […]

City Life

11 Things You Might Not Know About: Philly’s Public Squares

They’re some of the most revered spaces in the city — the five open public squares William Penn laid out in the 1680s to keep […]