He was born two-months premature on November 30, 1835 as Samuel Langhorne Clemens. His home town was Florida, Missouri. His father was a self-educated lawyer who ran a general store. At age 4, the family moved to Hannibal, Mo. His father died when Samuel was 11 of pneumonia. He was Read more
Recently I posted on the Battle of the Washita and posed the question “was it a battle or a massacre?” I think most would agree it was a battle, although one-sided and unfair. A similar question, but with a different response, could be applied to the Sand Creek Massacre. Read more
Heraclitus was a famous Greek philosopher. He lived from 535-475 B.C. He believed that the Universe was constantly changing, hence his quote: “No man ever steps in the same river twice”. He formulated the “unity of opposites” which is the belief that the Universe consists of paired opposites. Heraclitus Read more
In 1868, Gen. Philip Sheridan was determined to end the Native American raids on American settlements on the Great Plains. He decided a winter campaign would catch the Indians hunkered down in their camps. He decided George Custer was the right man for the job. Unfortunately, the “Boy General” Read more
She was born Carrie Amelia Moore on Nov. 25, 1846. Her father was a slave-holding plantation owner in Kentucky. Her mother had mental problems, which may explain some of Carrie’s future actions. She got married at age 21 to an alcoholic doctor who had served in the Union Army. They Read more
The D.B. Cooper case is the only unsolved hijacking case in American commercial aviation history. The flight was from Portland to Seattle on Nov. 24, 1971 (Thanksgiving eve). A nondescript male in his mid-40s passed a note to a stewardess. The note read “I have a bomb in my Read more
He was born Henry McCarty on Nov. 23, 1859 in the Irish tenements of New York City. As a teenager, his family moved to Wichita and eventually New Mexico. After his mother died of tuberculosis when he was 14, his life took a turn for the worse. He went from Read more
The most famous pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy was born Edward Thach (more likely than Teach) in Bristol, Great Britain in 1680. He was a privateer (a legally sanctioned pirate encouraged to attack enemy shipping) during Queen Anne’s War. When the war ended he joined a pirate named Read more
Henrietta Robinson was born on Nov. 21, 1834. She came from a wealthy Quaker family. She learned business and finance from her father and grandfather. At age 13, she took over as accountant for her family business. At age 20, her father bought her an expensive wardrobe of dresses to Read more
On August 12, 1819 the whaling ship Essex set sail from Nantucket, the whaling capital of America. The voyage was supposed to last more than two years. On board were 21 men and a rookie captain named George Pollard, Jr. Two days into the voyage, a squall wrecked one Read more