The Farnsworth House was designed and constructed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe between 1945 and 1951. It is a one-room weekend retreat in what was a rural setting, located 55 miles southwest of Chicago's downtown, on a 60-acre estate site adjoining the Fox River, south of the city of Plano, Illinois; the steel and glass house was commissioned by Edith Farnsworth, M. D. a prominent Chicago nephrologist, as a place where she could engage in her hobbies—playing the violin, translating poetry, enjoying nature. Mies created a 1,500-square-foot structure, recognized as an example of International Style of architecture; the retreat was designated a National Historic Landmark in 2006, after being listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2004. The house is owned and operated as a historic house museum by the historic preservation group, National Trust for Historic Preservation. In celebration of the 2018 Illinois Bicentennial, the Farnsworth House was selected as one of the Illinois 200 Great Places by the American Institute of Architects Illinois component and was recognized by USA Today Travel magazine, as one of AIA Illinois' selections for Illinois 25 Must See Places.

Ludwig Mies van der Rohe was retained by Dr. Edith Farnsworth to design a weekend retreat during a dinner party in 1945; the wealthy client wanted to build a special work of modern architecture, toward the end of construction, a dispute arose between architect and client that interfered with its completion by the architect. Farnsworth had purchased the riverfront property from the publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Robert R. McCormick. Mies developed the design in time for it to be included in an exhibit on his work at MOMA, the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1947. After completion of design, the project was placed on hold awaiting an inheritance from an ailing aunt of Farnsworth. Mies was to act as the general contractor as well as architect. Work began in 1950 and was completed in 1951; the commission was an ideal one for any architect, but was marred by a publicized dispute between Farnsworth and Mies that began near the end of construction. The total cost of the house was $74,000 in 1951.

A cost overrun of $15,600 over the approved construction budget of $58,400, was due to escalating material prices resulting from inflationary commodities speculation. Near the completion of construction, Mies filed a lawsuit for non-payment of $28,173 in construction costs; the owner filed a counter suit for damages due to alleged malpractice. Mies' attorneys proved that Farnsworth had approved the plans and budget increases, the court ordered the owner to pay her bills. Farnsworth's malpractice accusations were dismissed as unsubstantiated, it was a hollow victory for Mies, considering the painful publicity that followed. The conflict between the architect and the client resulted in an unfinished site and an unfurnished interior; the construction of a teak wardrobe closet and the system of bronze-framed screens to enclose the deck porch were completed to Mies' designs by his former employee, architect William Dunlap, a local millworker who mediated between them. Mies never spoke publicly about their rumored relationship.

Edith continued to use the house as her weekend retreat for the next 21 years hosting architectural notables visiting to see the work of the world-famous architect. Writing about the conflict in 1998, author Alice T. Friedman asserted that "here is no evidence to suggest that sought to have her behavior challenged by the'inner logic' of Mies's unyielding architectural vision. In 1968, the local highway department condemned a 2-acre portion of the property adjoining the house for construction of a raised highway bridge over the Fox River, encroaching upon the original setting of the design. Farnsworth lost the court case, she sold the house in 1972. In 1972, the Edith Farnsworth House was purchased by British property magnate, art collector, architectural aficionado Peter Palumbo, he removed the bronze screen enclosure of the porch, added air conditioning, extensive landscaping, his art collections to the grounds, including sculptures by Andy Goldsworthy, Anthony Caro, Richard Serra. At the time, the interior was furnished with furniture Mies designed in the 1930s, but, produced more by Knoll, as well as designs by Mies' grandson, Dirk Lohan, a Chicago architect Palumbo commissioned for the house.

In 2001, Palumbo struck a deal with the state of Illinois, which agreed to buy the house for $7 million and open it full-time to the public, but state officials withdrew from the deal in early 2003, saying $7 million was too much to spend at a time of financial crisis. After owning the property for 31 years, Palumbo removed the art and put the property up for sale at Sotheby's in 2003, raising serious concerns about the future of the building. Preservationists and contributors from around the world, including the Friends of the Farnsworth House, began a concerted preservation and fund-raising effort to keep the house on its original site. With this financial support, the National Trust for Historic Preservation and Landmarks Illinois were able to purchase the house in Dece

Hida ruins is a group of archaeological sites containing the ruins of late Yayoi to early Kofun period settlements located in what is now part of the cities of Myōkō and Jōetsu, Niigata in the Hokuriku region of Japan. The site includes the Hida ruins ), Fukiage ruins and the Kamabuta ruins ); the Hida ruins were designated a National Historic Site of Japan in 1977 and the Fukiage ruins and Kamabuta ruins followed in 2005. The Hida ruins in the city of Myōkō are located in a flat area on a hillside ridge with an elevation of 40 meters, on the southwestern edge of the Kubiki Plain, are divided into three areas; the foundations of 47 pit dwellings were discovered, with each dwelling having a diameter of between eight and ten meter for the larger, or 2 meters for the smaller on the north slopes of Mount Momoko, clustered into three groups. They attracted scholarly attention as they appear to have been abandoned at the end of the Yayoi period or start of the Kofun period, were excavated by the University of Tokyo from 1955-1958.

In 2005, the Fukiage ruins in the city of Jōetsu was added to the National Historic site designation. This was a village ruin from the middle Yayoi period, with a large scale workshop for making jadeite balls, which were used as pestles for grinding; the number of jadeite balls excavated is one of the largest in Japan. In addition, numerous stone knives and copper products that are rare in this area have been discovered. Kamabuta ruins was a large village from the end of the Yayoi period to the beginning of the Kofun period. Many earthenware shards from distant areas, such as Omi to the west and the Kanto region to the east have been found. By its proximity to a river, it is though, it is about a 10-minute drive from Arai Station on the JR Shinetsu Main Line to the Hida Ruins. List of Historic Sites of Japan Myōkō city official site Jōetsu city official site

Greenwich Presbyterian Church and Cemetery is a historic Presbyterian church and cemetery located at 9510 Burwell Road in Greenwich, Prince William County, Virginia. It was started in 1859, is a one-story, gable-roofed brick church building in the Gothic Revival style, it features two pointed-arched front doors, decorative buttresses on the side walls, large, arched windows on the front and side walls. It has a wooden church tower with a louvred belfry and a shingle-covered spire topped by a weathervane; the adjacent cemetery has at least 100 headstones and includes the graves of several American Civil War soldiers, including Captain Bradford Smith Hoskins, a colorful Englishman who rode with Colonel John S. Mosby, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989

Steven D Grossman was a singer-songwriter from the early 1970s whose debut album Caravan Tonight is distinguished as being the first album dealing with gay themes and subject matter to be released on a major label. Stephen Holden of Rolling Stone hailed it as "one of the most auspicious singer-songwriter debuts of the'70s."Grossman was influenced by Joni Mitchell and the album is much in the style of singer-songwriter Cat Stevens, as opposed to the then-current glam Bowiesque fashion of gay artists such as Jobriath. Performers on the album included Eric Weissberg, best known for his recording Dueling Banjos for the 1972 movie Deliverance. Grossman died in 1991, aged 39, of an AIDS-related illness. Caravan Tonight has yet to be released on CD although a cover version of the title track by model and occasional singer Twiggy has. Singer songwriter Mark Weigle created a duet of Out with Steven Grossman on his Out of the Loop CD in 2002. Grossman recorded a second album shortly before his death and this was released on CD in 2011 entitled "Something in the Moonlight.

Caravan Tonight Something In The Moonlight http://www.queermusicheritage.com/grossman.html http://www.queermusicheritage.com/GROSSMAN/grossmanLP1.mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5YKADrQcvY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfGZnutsqH0

Skeeter Bonn was a singer and guitar player on several national country music radio programs and had several singles on RCA Victor in the 1950s. He was known as the "pickin' and singing' boy", he was born in 1923 in a small settlement in Fulton County, Illinois. At age 13 he left the family farm for nearby Canton, he joined the United States Navy in 1942, married Mary Louise Strode of Canton in 1945, received an honorable discharge from the Navy in 1946. He won a singing championship in Illinois in 1949, by 1951 he was on the Iowa Barn Dance Frolic on WHO in Des Moines, Iowa. After that he was a regular on the WLS National Barn Dance from Chicago, WLW Midwestern Hayride from Cincinnati, WWVA Jamboree from Wheeling, West Virginia. In addition to his ten or so singles on RCA Victor, he had a single on Sims Records, No. 325 "Let Me Be The One", backed with "Off To Vietnam"

SS Soesterberg was a Dutch-owned cargo steamship, built in Belgium in 1927 and sunk by a U-boat in 1940 in the Battle of the Atlantic. Antwerp Engineering Co Ltd, of Hoboken built the ship, completing her in April 1927, her owner was Stoomboot Mij Hillegersberg NV, who named her after the town of Soesterberg in the province of Utrecht, registered her in Amsterdam and appointed Vinke & Co of Rotterdam to manage her. Soesterberg had six corrugated furnaces with a combined grate area of 93 square feet that heated two 180 lbf/in2 single-ended boilers with a combined heating surface of 3,632 square feet; the boilers fed a three-cylinder triple expansion steam engine, rated at 214 NHP and drove a single screw. After the German invasion of the Netherlands in May 1940 Soesterberg remained in Allied service, making transatlantic crossings between Canada and Britain. In June 1940 she sailed in Convoy OB 174 from Liverpool to Nova Scotia. In July she returned from Halifax to Liverpool in Convoy HX 59 with a cargo of pit props.

Early in September she sailed with Convoy OA 208 from Methil in Scotland to Halifax. Early in October she sailed from Chatham, New Brunswick, carrying 790 fathoms of pit props bound for Hull, she went via Nova Scotia, where she joined Convoy SC 7 bound for Liverpool. SC 7 left Sydney on 5 October. At first the convoy had only one escort ship, the Hastings-class sloop HMS Scarborough. A wolf pack of U-boats found the convoy on 16 October and overwhelmed it, sinking many ships over the next few days. At 0122 hours on 19 October SC 7 was about 102 nautical miles west by north of Barra Head, Outer Hebrides when German submarine U-101, commanded by Fritz Frauenheim, fired three bow torpedoes at the convoy. Frauenheim followed this two minutes with a stern torpedo, he hit two ships: Assyrian with a bow torpedo, Soesterberg with the stern torpedo. The explosion on Soesterberg wrecked her starboard lifeboat; the other survivors abandoned ship: three DEMS gunners on a liferaft, the rest in the port lifeboat.

A headcount showed. The Master and the First Officer re-boarded the ship in search of them, but concluded they had been killed on watch below; the two officers returned to the lifeboat. The now abandoned Soesterberg remained afloat and drifting. Soesterberg collided with Assyrian's stern suddenly turned upright. Shortly thereafter Soesterberg sank, spilling her cargo of pit props, several of which fell on survivors of the Assyrian; this wrecked most of their liferafts, but the survivors clung to the floating pit props as they awaited rescue. Six of the 25 men aboard Soesterberg had been killed. One of her stokers survived the sinking and was rescued by a lifeboat from the Empire Brigade, sunk by Otto Kretschmer's U-99 in the same Wolfpack attack; the Grimsby-class sloop HMS Leith rescued the various survivors and landed them at Greenock