Standing with my son at the edge of Sarajevo’s Latin Bridge, where two bullets set the 20th century on fire, I could almost smell the gunpowder. Part 1 of a five-part series on bridges — what they join, what breaks them, and why we must keep building them.

The world lost a legend yesterday with the passing of Kancha Sherpa, the last living member of the 1953 British Mount Everest Expedition and, along with Jim Whittaker, the only living members of the 1963 American Mount Everest Expedition. I didn't know Kancha well, but was fortunate to spend a couple days with him in […]

My paternal great-great grandfather, James T. Norton (1844-1883), was a man of few words. Or, at least that’s what his journal from 1865 indicates. It’s been sitting near my desk for years. I’ve scanned the pages, faded scribbles in pencil recording minute datapoints about each day with little fanfare: weather, movement, rations, commands, engagements. Even […]

“Your great-great-grandfather, Frank Richmond Milnor, sat right here in 1858,” my grandfather said, pointing to an unremarkable spot near the riverfront in Alton, Illinois. “He was just twelve, listening to the seventh Lincoln-Douglas Debate.” My sister and I nodded, listening absently, the study of our rapidly-delaminating ice cream cones of greater focus and import than […]