For years I dreamed of having the sort of massive oak slab that would dominate a room—no more child's desk in a trailer laundry-closet, no more cramped kneehole in a rented house.
These were very early abacuses, which developed around 4,000 years ago into the more traditional style of beads threaded onto rods and set into a frame.
King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands said that he recently ended his role as a regular " guest pilot" after 21 years with the national airline's fleet of now-outdated aircraft.