By RICH GRANT At just 36 miles in length, the Niagara is one of the shortest rivers in the world. And one of the most violent. Almost a million gallons of water cascade down the river every second, reaching speeds of 30 miles per hour. The river is actually not a river at all – it is the drainage runoff
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By RICH GRANT The little resort village of Estes Park sits at the edge of Colorado’s No. 1 attraction – Rocky Mountain National Park – nestled in one of the world’s most beautiful locations. Surrounded by snowcapped peaks with vistas in every direction, this small town has been attracting visitors for more than 150 years. World famous artists, best-selling novelists,
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By RICARDO CASTILLO If it’s Cinco de Mayo – in the United States, of course – it’s time to break out the tequila and celebrate. In Mexico, really, the date is just a faded memory of the 1862 Battle of Puebla against the French, who got walloped by a Mexican indigenous army – a minor speck in Mexican history. But
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By RICH GRANT On Sept. 7, 1876, six of the most notorious outlaws in the United States rode their horses over an iron bridge and entered the quiet little country town of Northfield, Minnesota. At the same time, two more bandits rode into town from the south. All of them wore long, white linen coats to hide the fact they
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By RICH GRANT It’s hard to pinpoint the attraction of Billy the Kid. Viewed in one light, he was probably a psychopath who gunned down a sheriff and two (maybe three) deputies in cold blood, as well as some other assorted enemies. He was an outlaw, a rustler, a hired gun and a murderer, who was himself shot dead at
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By RICH GRANT This much, everyone agrees on. At 3 p.m. on the cold, blistery afternoon of Oct. 26, 1881, Wyatt Earp, his two brothers Virgil and Morgan, and Wyatt’s friend John “Doc” Holliday set off down Fremont Street in Tombstone, Arizona. They walked side-by-side. Virgil Earp was the acting town marshal, the other men had been deputized. Each man
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By RICH GRANT The six-foot-two-inch female impersonator in the gold dress curled her finger at me across Duval Street and shouted, “Come on over, honey, the show starts in 15 minutes.” She was wrong. The “show” in Key West started about 180 years ago and it’s still going strong. This somewhat crazy tropical island, capital of the self-proclaimed Conch Republic,
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By RICH GRANT “When I first came here, almost 30 years ago, Vallarta was a fishing village of some 2,000 souls. There was one road to the outside world – and it was impassable during the rainy season.” So wrote American film director John Huston about his first encounter with the sleepy, isolated fishing village he was destined to change
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By RICH GRANT Feb. 22 marks the birthday of United States’ very first president, George Washington, a stately man renowned for his honesty, integrity and idealistic vision of democracy. But while much is known about Washington in his later years, it was during his earlier life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – the site which would eventually become the new nation’s first
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By THÉRÈSE MARGOLIS BAKU, Azerbaijan — When Tural Ganjaliyev was just 12 years old, he and his entire family were forcefully expelled from the only home they had ever known by invading Armenian troops. Ganjaliyev and his family were among the 800,000 Azerbaijanis (nearly half of whom were children) who were brutally evicted from their houses and land by Russian-backed
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