More than any other event, it was John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry that lit the fuse of North-South tension and ignited the Civil War. Brown planned the raid for two years in advance, so it was no mistake that the first thing he did when he...
Making Your Own Ammunition Laura Ingalls Wilder described how Pa made his own bullets in Little House in the Big Woods. Isolated in the Wisconsin wilderness of the 1870s, the Ingalls family lived in a log cabin and had to make many things themselves...
How a Breach of Maritime Custom Changed United States Boundaries Who would have thought that one ship could have altered American history and redrawn United States boundaries? Or that hoisting a simple yellow signal flag might changed all that...
A landscape of odors…. Compared to canines, humans smell in black and white. We live in a world of sight and sound, words and letters. If you wrote a novel for dogs, you’d have to use smells – it would be a scratch-and-sniff book. Dogs find...
Technically, it wasn’t a crime. The Philadelphia shopkeeper was just looking for a way to make money, and as long as the United States hadn’t recognized the Confederate States of America, he could legally produce them. And they may have had done...
Germany’s Greatest Unsolved Mystery We know him as the “Fairy Tale King” and the “Swan King.” Some also call the “mad king of Bavaria,” but psychiatrists today debate whether he really was insane. He was the patron of Richard Wagner and the builder...
The Mississippi as the key to commerce Even if the Civil War never happened, and even if Robert E. Lee never became president of Washington and Lee University, we would still probably know him today. He changed American history not only as a general...
A whale sinks the Essex Directly towards the ship the sperm whale came, its tail churning the water and its body casting off a wake. As its massive head struck the port side of the Essex, the 87-foot-long whaleship shuddered, oak timbers splintered...
It can happen to anybody. Mark Twain had started several new books when it struck in 1878. His solution to writer’s block might surprise you. And the results probably surprised him. Mark Twain in Heidelberg Twain decided a change of scenery would...
It was a perfect murder. Well, almost. The victim’s body lay undetected for over 5,000 years, and even after it was discovered, it took a decade for scientists to realize they were dealing with a murder victim. Forensic analysis of the Iceman...
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