In 1915, Henry Ford was having a pretty good year.The moving assembly line had reduced the time required to build a Model T from twelve and a half hours to ninety-three minutes.

A few decades ago, I heard Bill Gates give an interview about Microsoft's success. People think Microsoft is a technology company, he said. It isn't. It's a company that hires.

For a thousand years, the Byzantine Empire was the most sophisticated civilization on earth: unmatched wealth and institutions, brilliant diplomats, and a military that outlived Rome itself.

In 1911, two men raced to become the first to reach the South Pole. Robert Falcon Scott led the British expedition. He viewed the journey as a noble test of human courage.

Last weekend I read Waiting for Godot (pronounced “good-o”) for the first time. It’s a short play, 109 pages, that Samuel Beckett wrote in 1953. A story of two men, Vladimir and Estragon, sitting by a barren tree waiting for a man named Godot to arrive.

I have a friend who is chronically late. Not occasionally late. Structurally late. Everyone who knows her automatically assumes she’ll arrive ten to X minutes after the agreed time.