This image shows the moment before one Herman Maestas from Las Vegas, New Mexico, was hanged. In the background, you can see several men who had claimed a fence to get a better look at the event. And this was in 1894, decades after an 1835 law had been passed, which actually limited the viewers […]
Public Hangings in 19th-Century New Mexico Read More »
This is the stuffed body of the most famous messenger pigeon of the 20th century: Cher Ami. Now his little taxidermied self resides in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, but in 1918, Cher Ami helped save the lives of 194 American Soldiers who had gotten separated from their larger group during the Meuse-Argonne offensive
Cher Ami the Most Famous Messenger Pigeon of the 20th Century Read More »
I am not particularly enamored by the story of the Titanic, which sank on April 15, 1912. To be sure, I think it was a grave tragedy: 1,517 passengers died after the boat hit an iceberg. Yet I never felt pulled by the Romance of the luxury ship, nor engaged with the minutiae about the
Charles Joughin and the Titanic Read More »
“Pets are humanizing,” wrote James Cromwell, “They remind us we have an obligation and responsibility to preserve and nurture and care for all life.” Room 8, the cat featured here in this portrait next to the classroom after which he was named, exemplifies this beautifully. In 1952 this stray, gray-striped tabby strolled into the Elysian
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Trofim Lysenko, the Stalinist-era biologist who tailored his scientific ideas to suit the Soviet communist party. Denying natural selection and arguing that character traits developed in a parent’s lifetime could be passed onto offspring (like Lamarck), Lysenko put the study of biology in the Soviet Union back by decades. Many actual scientists he competed against
This is Sequoyah, a Cherokee American who lived from about 1770-1843 and is a rare example of an illiterate person who created a written language. Sequoyah was born in what is now Tennessee and demonstrated skill in a wide variety of crafts: he made jewelry, invented better dairy farm equipment, and forged iron. Observing the
Sequoyah and the Cherokee Alphabet Read More »
Tonight Shippensburg University welcomed guest lecturer Wawa Gatheru, a leader in the contemporary U.S. environmental justice movement. She had many interesting things to say, but since I am an historian, I especially appreciated her discussion of how the legacy of American slavery has led to environmental inequity today. Wawa Gatheru pointed to two ways this
Wawa Gatheru Speaks at Shippensburg Univeristy Read More »
This newspaper clip reflects a horrific story about the only anti-Semitic blood libel to occur in American history. Blood libels against Jews began in the Middle Ages. Totally unfounded in any degree of fact, they falsely accused people who were Jewish of killing Christian children and using their blood for Passover food rituals. The horror
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Is this a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes or just an apt demonstration that the value of money only has a value that we humans collectively give it? Folks, may I present to you the sole remaining copy of a stamp (that we know of), and the most expensive piece of paper in existence
Treskilling Yellow Read More »
If you can read Latin, you might want to stop right here and scroll away. If you don’t know Latin, here’s the sentence to stop if you are squeamish, before I tell you what it says. Ready? “Hic liber Waltonus cute compactus est This book was bound in Walton’s skin.” As the discipline of Peptide
Anthropodermic Books Were Made from Human Skin Read More »
This picture of the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, is not only beautiful but also scientifically important. It was taken by British scientist Arthur Eddington (1882-1944), and was the first physical test of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Of course, in retrospect, over 100 years later it might seem obvious that massive objects
Eclipses and the Theory of Relativity Read More »
Who doesn’t love a good ghost story? The tale of the Greenbrier Ghost of West Virginia is among the finest in 19th-century American history, and I think it deserves more attention. As you can see in the second slide, the ghost, Elva Zona Heaster Shue (first image), is commemorated on a West Virginia state historical
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The Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia is definitely worth visiting. It was a unique and highly influential prison, and the current site now has first-rate displays with the buildings intentionally kept in a state of semi-decay. The ambience perfectly matched the subject. Once the USA’s largest prison, Eastern State Penitentiary opened in 1829 with
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The image you see here conjures up the Biblical Satan, but it originates from a 19th-century Christian socialist and has everything to do with a niche occultic revival rather than Biblical ideas about the devil and dark forces. In fact, the illustrator, Eliphas Levi, believed that all religions came from an ancient primitive source, and
Baphomet and 19th century Ideologies Read More »
She looks wide-eyed in this picture to me, but Milunka Savic was the opposite of an ingenue. This 20th-century Serbian fought in the Balkan Wars and the First World War, and in World War II spent time in a Concentration Camp. She cleared these hurdles with chutzpah to spare and is the most decorated female
This tiny bottle contains a unique substance: a perfume called _Fougère Royale_ created by the master perfumer Paul Parquet back in 1882. The line has since been discontinued or altered, so the smell in this bottle might actually be found nowhere else on the planet. This perfume, and 400 other unique fragrances, make up only
This is a photo from 1943 of a detention hospital for infected women in Leesville, Louisiana. And I’m about to deliver a really sad story about the U.S. government’s treatment of women during the 20th century. This is about a series of laws that came to be known as “The American Plan,” and they resulted
Chamberlain-Kahn Act of 1918 Read More »
Meet one of Ireland’s most prolific composers, Ina Boyle. Never heard of her? Even in her lifetime, as she was churning out chamber music, choral pieces, concertos, and symphonies, most of her work was never performed, so you’re not alone. But she wrote more classical music than any other Irishwoman up through the mid 20th-century.
M.C. Escher, “Angels and Demons,” part of a series called “Capturing Infinity,” 1960. Escher worked on consultations with several mathematicians to develop much of his artwork.
I would have liked to have met this man, who was as eccentric as this visage here implies. This is none other than Paul Erdös, a Hungarian mathematician who published more papers than any other to date (over 1,500) and worked with so many other scholars (he co-authored with over 500) that math geeks know
