Pictured here is a circular plaque, commemorating the location of Fort Duquesne in 1774. Today not even ruins remain, but the location is memorable, lying at the tip of a spit of land called “the Point,” right at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers in downtown Pittsburgh. As can be surmised from […]
History geek that I am, I unsurprisingly find athletic activities with antique lineages highly compelling. But getting a handle on what many early sports were like is difficult because evidence is lacking, and this is certainly the case with capoeira. The painting you see here is “Capoeira or the Dance of War,” by Johann
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In Medieval Europe, horses were highly valued animals, and great amounts of resources went into their care and training. Horses, like the one shown in this miniature painting (c. 1200-1210), would have mainly belonged to the aristocracy, who prized them not only for their labor, but their use in battle. Sources show that nobles
Yesterday I got to visit this home — it is where one Jennie Wade was shot and killed at the Battle of Gettysburg. You can actually still see the bullet hole in the doorway, made by the .58 caliber that killed her. Jennie Wade was 20 years old and (remarkably) the only civilian killed at
When you were a kid, did you learn that the first humans in the Americas crossed over the Bering land bridge about 12,000 years ago? Scholars have overturned this chronology completely, but it held away for many years in part because of this type of spear- or knife- head technology featured here, which is the
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What do all three of the women in these three images have in common? A: they each depict the American Revolutionary war heroine Molly Pitcher, and B: none of them are real. Real, as in, there was no OG Molly Pitcher historians can trace. Stories about about a woman called “Captain Molly” who served
This lovely ship was one sight you’d not want to have been privy to if you were a French person from the 14th century. The black hulls and the red sails were the mark of ships belonging to Jeanne de Clisson, aka “the Lioness of Brittany,” a noblewoman who became a pirate in the name
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In the beautiful Allegheny Mountains of West Virginia is The Greenbrier — a luxury resort where well-heeled tourists have visited for relaxation and networking since 1778. It is also the location of an enormous underground bunker created during the Cold War that could house the entirety of Congress in the case of a nuclear attack.
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My world history class today looked at the Mongols, and Jared Diehl brought in his actual Mongolian Composite Bow to show the class! It was really cool — I was surprised how lightweight it was. The fabric wrappings and the lines of the wood were also very elegant. Thanks, Jared!!
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In the Khentii Mountains of Mongolia, the almost 8,000 ft-peak Burkhan Khaldun lies: it is the legendary burial place of Genghis Khan, one of Eurasia’s most ambitious and brutal rulers. From a distance of 800 years, it is easy to allow awe rather than horror to surface as the primary estimation of the Mongolian warlord.
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Today Gabby and I got to visit the formerly secret bunker under the famous resort of Greenbrier, West Virginia! The 11,000 acres of this elite hotel/spa/golf course/plastic surgery/horseback riding (etc) resort was also a hidden cover for a nuclear fallout shelter designed to hold 1,000 members of Congress and their staff in case Washington DC
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This is George H.W. Bush, U.S. president from 1989-1993, and in 1995 he publically revoked his membership from the N.R.A., stating that the group “deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to my country. I resign as a lifetime member of the N.R.A.”. Context is relevant
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The association of a snake and a woman in peril bring to mind many images in today’s world — the story of the serpent tempting Eve, the snake as representative of the “don’t tread on me” anti- government control in the United States, and of course the bodily autonomy of women in peril with the
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These skeletons are part of a massive burial discovered in 2008, a find that put some metaphorical meat on the bones of our knowledge about a notorious state-sponsored killing known as the “St Brice’s Day Massacre”. Corroborated by two written sources that date from the time of the deaths, the St Brice Massacre happened on
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The woman you see in this 15th-c illumination is mounted on a warhorse, and leading a surprise attack upon her enemies — this is Joanna of Flanders (c. 1295-1374), and so famed were her military ventures that philosopher David Hume called her “the most extraordinary woman of the age”. Joanna, born into the nobility of
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This musical score is the 15th-century “Agincourt Carol,” and it celebrated the English victory at the eponymously named battle. The English have Agincourt as a celebrated place in their history, because the battle came to stand as an example of triumph against overwhelming odds. Also Shakespeare loved it. And it was fought 607 years ago
Slavery is a horrible human invention that has been around at least since the development of cities. And probably just as ancient were slave rebellions by those discontented with their situation, many of them ultimately failures, but nonetheless important for understanding the history of resistance to oppression. The Zanj Rebellion of 869-883 is a fascinating
The Chateau of Montségur might look Medieval, but it was actually built up on the destroyed ruins of the Medieval fortress where about 210 people belonging to the Christian Albigensian sect were burned as heretics in 1244. In the early 1200s, Pope Innocent III enacted an Inquisition — a legal investigation — to determine who
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The story of the Harlem Hellfighters (aka 369th Infantry Regiment) is one of the most epic accounts of heroism in wartime that doesn’t get talked about in U.S. history books. In the spring of 1918, two U.S. soldiers fighting on the Western Front successfully took on about 24 German forces in an early morning raid.
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This is a sword by Goro Nyudo Masamune (c. 1264-1343), considered to be the greatest swordsmith in Japanese history. His swords have a recognizable set of characteristics, one of the most famous being his skill in producing a quality called “nie” an appearance in the blade of Martensite (hard steel in crystal formation) embedded in
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