Helen Keller was born on June 27, 1880 in Tuscumbia, Alabama. Her father had been a captain in the Confederate army and was running a cotton plantation at the time. She was a normal child until age 19 months when she caught what doctors called “brain fever”. It was Read more…
The Sepoy Rebellion was from 1857-1859. It is noted for some infamous atrocities by both the Indian rebels and the British colonialists. One of those incidents was the Siege of Cawnpore. Cawnpore was a garrison town for the British East India Company. Gen. Hugh Wheeler was in command of Read more…
Happy Birthday to one of the greatest woman athletes in American History. Two of the greatest athletes of the 20th Century were nicknamed Babe. One of them was possibly the greatest female athlete in history. She was born Mildred Ella Didrikson. Her parents were Norwegian immigrants. She grew up Read more…
If horses could talk. In 1868, a horse was bought by the U.S. Army and assigned to Fort Leavenworth for the famous 7th Cavalry. Capt. Myles Keogh picked the horse as his battle horse. In one of his first encounters with Native Americans in Kansas, he took an arrow Read more…
In 1337, the Hundred Years’ War began when French King Philip IV died and English King Edward III claimed the throne. On June 24, 1340, Edward’s fleet won the first major battle of the war at the port of Sluys. Sluys was one of the biggest ports in Europe Read more…
On March 23, 1939, the US submarine Squalus sank off the coast of New Hampshire. The sinking was due to a faulty air induction valve which caused the aft engine room to flood, killing 24 sailors and two civilians. The rest of the crew (32 sailors and a civilian) Read more…
In 1968, during the Cold War, the Soviet nuclear sub K-129 sank in the middle of the Pacific. It came to rest 16,000 feet down. Soviet attempts to locate it were unsuccessful and they gave up. A few months later, the USS Halibut, using a robot with cameras, was Read more…
The greatest ambush in military history took place on June 21, 217 B.C. Just one year earlier, Hannibal had crossed the Alps into Italy. After winning the Battle of the Trebia, Hannibal continued south and bypassed a Roman army under Flaminius. Scorching the earth as he marched, the Roman Read more…
The first national Mother’s Day was celebrated in 1914. Dads had to wait 58 years. In 1909, Sonora Smart Dodd, the daughter of a widower who raised six kids, began to push for a day to honor fathers after she heard a sermon about Anna Jarvis’ proposed Mother’s Day. Read more…
The Battle of Cherbourg was the second most famous naval battle of the Civil War. Second only to the Monitor versus the Merrimack. It marked the end of the most feared commerce raider, the CSS Alabama. The Alabama had been built in British shipyard and was sold to the Read more…