Intermediate Spanish Stories

The following episode includes graphic content that may not be suitable for some audiences. Listener discretion is advised. During the month of October, during the Halloween season, I have put together a series of the most terrifying horror Halloween movies, where you will hear about the creepy monsters all wearing their iconic masks that hunt you in your nightmares. This is the last story. This i...

The following episode includes graphic content that may not be suitable for some audiences. Listener discretion is advised. During the month of October, during the Halloween season, I have put together a series of the most terrifying horror Halloween movies, where you will hear about the creepy monsters all wearing their iconic masks that hunt you in your nightmares. This is the second story. This...

The following episode includes graphic content that may not be suitable for some audiences. Listener discretion is advised. During the month of October, during the Halloween season, I have put together a series of the most terrifying horror Halloween movies, where you will hear about the creepy monsters all wearing their iconic masks that hunt you in your nightmares. This is the first story.   Thi...

Before you start on this second part, please listen to E52, part I: Cesar Chavez Co-founder of the United Farm Workers Association, Dolores Clara Fernandez Huerta is one of the most influential labor activists of the 20th century and a leader of the Chicano civil rights movement.   Born on April 10, 1930 in Dawson, New Mexico, Huerta was the second of three children of Alicia and Juan Fernandez, a...

Cesar Chavez  (March 31, 1927 – April 23, 1993) was an American labor leader and civil rights activist. Along with Dolores Huerta, he co-founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), later to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) labor union. Born in Yuma, Arizona to a Mexican-American family, Chavez began his working life as a manual laborer before spending two years in the United States N...

On  February 6, 2023, at 04:17, local time, a 7.8  earthquake struck southern and central Turkey and northern and western Syria .  making it the largest in Turkey since the 1939 Erzincan earthquake of the same magnitude, and jointly the second-strongest recorded in the history of the country, after the 1668 North Anatolia earthquake . The confirmed death toll stood at 57,658: 50,399 in Turkey, and...

Fort Ord is a former United States Army post on Monterey Bay on the Pacific Ocean coast in California. In its prime, Fort Ord was once one the most coveted military training grounds in the U.S. Founded in 1917, Fort Ord was the first stop for many new recruits in many different wars such as WW2, Korea, and Vietnam. The fort closed in 1994 due to Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action. Most of...

The día de Los Reyes is better known as the feast of Epiphany in English.  Los Reyes Magos – known as the Three Wise Men, or Three Kings in English – are three men who followed the North Star to the town of Bethlehem to welcome baby Jesus into the world. Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltasar traveled from a faraway place to gift the Son of God with gold, incense, and myrrh. While children in everywhere re...

As we approach the end of another year it is important to reflect on the experiences that one has lived, it is important to analyze the success you obtained and your failures, it is also important to make plans, and set goals to achieve new purposes, you have to put energy into things that are worthwhile, dedicate time to yourself and the people you love in life.  While some wait until January 1 t...

On the evening of 8 December 1980, English musician John Lennon, formerly of the Beatles, was shot and fatally wounded by an obsessed fan outside of the Dakota, his residence in New York City.  John Lennon and Yoko Ono returned to the Dakota Apartments at approximately 10:50 p.m. As Lennon passed by, he glanced briefly at Chapman, appearing to recognize him from earlier. Seconds later, Chapman dre...

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack , was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination near the end of his third year in office. Kennedy was the youngest person to assume the presidency by election. He was also the youngest president at the end of hi...

During the month of October, during the Halloween season, I have put together a series of the most terrifying and creepy real-life ghost stories, where you will hear about the unexplained paranormal and supernatural occurrences that have stained the pages of the history of the United States. This is the last story This is part 3 of the Halloween Special 2022 Series For over 100 years, Gettysburg,...

During the month of October, during the Halloween season, I have put together a series of the most terrifying and creepy real-life ghost stories, where you will hear about the unexplained paranormal and supernatural occurrences that have stained the pages of the history of the United States. This is part 2 of the Halloween Special 2022 Series Inside The Real Amityville Horror House And Its Story O...

During the month of October, during the Halloween season, I have put together a series of the most terrifying and creepy real-life ghost stories, where you will hear about the unexplained paranormal and supernatural occurrences that have stained the pages of the history of the United States. This is the first story. This is part 1 of the Halloween Special 2022 Series The Salem witch trials were a...

The 1994 Northridge earthquake that struck the densely populated San Fernando Valley in southern California, U.S., on January 17, 1994, was the third major earthquake to occur in the state in 23 years and was the state’s most destructive one since the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the costliest one in U.S. history. The earthquake occurred just after 4:30 AM local time along a previously und...

The Pacific Northwest Coast is a geographic region in western North America bounded by the coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west. Though no official boundary exists, the most common conception includes the U.S. states of California, Oregon , Washington , and the Canadian province of British Columbia . Few areas of the United States are as diversely beautiful as the Pacific Northwest. You...

The 1992 Los Angeles riots, were a series of riots and civil disturbances that occurred in Los Angeles County, California, in April and May 1992.  The unrest began in South Central Los Angeles on April 29, after a jury acquitted four officers of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) charged with using excessive force in the arrest and beating of Rodney King. This incident had been videotaped an...

This is part 2 of the National Park Series Being dwarfed by Earth’s most massive tree , the giant sequoia, fills you with wonder. It’s hard to believe that a living thing can be so enormous and old. Also known as Sierra redwoods , the largest of these trees live in California’s rugged Sierra Nevada mountain range. Some of the largest surviving giant sequoia groves can be seen in Sequoia and Kings...

This is part 5 of the Leyenda Series Hundreds of years ago, when the Aztec Empire dominated the Valley of Mexico, it was common practice to subject neighboring towns and to require a mandatory tax.  It was then that the chief of the Tlaxcaltecas, bitter enemies of the Aztecs, weary of this terrible oppression, decided to fight for his people’s freedom. The chief had a daughter named Iztaccihuatl:...

The Linda Vista Hospital was first established in 1904 as the Santa Fe Coastlines Hospital, a prospering healthcare facility dedicated to servicing employees of the Santa Fe Railroad. During the early decades of the 20th century, the hospital flourished as did Los Angeles' surrounding Boyle Heights neighborhood. East LA was slowly transformed into a less affluent area, and the number of viole...

Cinco de Mayo is a yearly celebration held on May 5, which commemorates the anniversary of Mexico's victory over the Second French Empire at the Battle of Puebla in 1862, during the Franco-Mexican War. led by General Ignacio Zaragoza. While it is a relatively minor holiday in Mexico, in the United States, Cinco de Mayo has evolved into a commemoration of Mexican culture and heritage, particul...

A California hotel reminiscent of the lodge in the horror film The Shining has had a long history of paranormal activity and what are believed to be ghostly guests. The Padre Hotel in downtown Bakersfield first opened its doors in 1928, and the Spanish colonial revival structure has been the setting for a series of deaths and related tragedies through the years. According to local archives, exampl...

Nestled in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains near Bakersfield is Sharktooth Hill. First documented by William P. Blake in 1853, Sharktooth Hill is one of the most significant Miocene fossil sites in the world Sharktooth Hill is a middle Miocene marine exposure of the Round Mountain Silt unit of the Temblor Formation. Using magnetic stratigraphy data, the age of this unit is estimated to...

Acapulco, a beach resort town on Mexico's Pacific coast, is set on a large bay backed by high-rises and the Sierra Madre del Sur mountains. Made famous by the jet set in the 1950s and ’60s, it's known for its high-energy nightlife, beaches, and golf. The screen of the Flores theater projected that night the short entitled The passion for billiards. The astonishment of the large audience...

When the rain began drenching the California landscape in December 1861, none of the state’s 500,000 residents could have imagined the devastation that was about to strike the region. Just a few months earlier, the farmers and ranchers of California had been praying for rain to spare their parched land from the two previous decades of exceptionally dry weather. The Great Flood of 1862 began in lat...