It’s strange how imagination often becomes reality. In the 13th century, Leonardo da Vinci designed machines that were extremely similar to modern day machine guns, submersibles and helicopters. Jules Verne’s sci-fi novels, written in the 19th century, such as Around the World in Eighty Days, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and From the Earth to the Moon all had elements in them which were deemed quite marvelous, if not impossible, at the time when they were written. Fast-forward two centuries, and we find ourselves with the technology that allows us to travel around the world in much less than…

The country around was beset by a frightful monster, the Sphinx, a creature shaped like a winged lion, but with the breast and face of a woman. She lay in wait for the wayfarers along the roads to the city and whomever she seized she put a riddle to, telling him if he could answer it, she would let him go. No one could, and the horrible creature devoured man after man until the city was in a state of siege. — Edith Hamilton, from her book Mythology – – – This “frightful monster” appeared in the famous Greek tale…