Everyone knows Robert Fulton invented the steamboat, right? Wrong. The actual inventor was a sad sack named John Fitch. In the 1780’s, Fitch began to dream of a vehicle propelled by a steam engine. Land travel over the terrible roads of that time was unfeasible, but perhaps on water Read more…
Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin was born on August 30, 1797. Her parents were a famous feminist and a famous philosopher. She eloped at age 17 with the famous poet Percy Shelley. He was 21 and married. They had started their affair at her mother’s gravesite. Shelley’s wife committed suicide. They Read more…
If you think the South was racist and the North was not, think again. There was plenty of racism in the North during the Civil War. From July 13-16, 1863, rioting in New York City resulted in hundreds of deaths. The rioters were mainly Irish immigrants, who ironically were Read more…
Today is the birthday of one of the most fascinating figures in American History. If you live in New Hampshire, you probably have heard of John Stark. If not, you are probably saying “who?” Stark was a warrior. When he was 24 years old, he was on a hunting Read more…
In 415 B.C., the Peloponnesian War had been going off and on for 16 years. Neither Athens nor Sparta was winning. Athens decided to overturn the playing board by sending a fleet and army to attack the Spartan ally of Syracuse on the island of Sicily. The Sicilian Expedition Read more…
Althea Gibson was born to sharecroppers in South Carolina in 1927. Her parents moved to Harlem in the Great Migration in 1930. She dropped out of school at age 13. She spent some of her time street-fighting (her father had taught her boxing). That same year she started playing Read more…
The people of Pompeii and Herculaneum did not even know they were living near an active volcano. It had not erupted in 1,800 years. They did not realize the reason why the soil was so fertile was because of previous deposits of volcanic ash. They did not even have the Read more…
In August, 1914 the British Expeditionary Force faced off against the rampaging German army in Belgium. Outnumbered and outflanked, the British made a stand at Mons on Aug. 23. The rapid-firing British riflemen slaughtered the Germans and they were aided by divine intervention. At one point, ghostly figures armed Read more…
There were three battles between white soldiers and Indian warriors which resulted in the deaths of all the whites. One was the Battle of the Little Big Horn where Custer and all the men with him perished (although other units in the 7th Cavalry survived). Another was the Fetterman Read more…
On August 18, 1587 the first English baby was born in America. In 1587, 150 colonists set sail for what is today North Carolina and established a settlement on Roanoke Island. Two of the passengers were friendly Indians named Manteo and Wanchese who had been brought to England earlier. Read more…