We do not know the date of the first Easter. In fact, we are not even sure what year Jesus was crucified. I used 30 A.D. in my Western Civ class, but I have also seen 33 A.D. The idea of celebrating the Resurrection goes back to the early Read more…
On April 3, 1860 the most famous mail service in American History started. It went from St. Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. It normally took ten days (in comparison to 25 by way of stagecoach). The record was the delivery of Lincoln’s first inaugural address in March, 1861 in 7 Read more…
After losing the Battle of Salamis, Persian Emperor Xerxes left his army in Greece and returned home with his fleet. On the way, the fleet ran into a terrible storm and Xerxes’ ship was about to go under. He asked the captain what could be done and the Read more…
Some historians trace April Fool’s Day back to France in the late 16th Century. France converted to the Gregorian Calendar in 1582. Under the Julian Calendar, French people celebrated New Year’s Day on April 1 in conjunction with the spring equinox. With the switch, the French who continued that were Read more…
Today is the birthday of the first great African-American boxer. Live large today in his honor. Jack Johnson was born on March 31, 1878 in Galveston, Texas. His parents were former slaves. He was frail as a child, he would not stay that way. After only five years of schooling, Read more…
Maria Oktyabrskaya was one of ten children to a poor family. She married an officer in the Red Army in 1925. She joined the Military Wives Council and was trained to fire weapons and drive. When Germany invaded Russia, her husband was killed in fighting near Kiev in 1941. She Read more…
On March 29, 1885, Dr. John Pemberton brewed up the first batch of Coca-Kola in his backyard. In 1886, Atlanta pharmacist John Pemberton was working on a non-alcoholic “nerve medicine” to sell in his drug store. He boiled a concoction of herbs, coca leaves, and kola nuts (caffeine) in his Read more…
During WWII, the city of Leningrad was besieged by the German army for 872 days. Before the siege began, the zoo employees moved 80 animals to another city. These included black panthers, tigers, polar bears, a tapir, and a rhino. The crocodile was released into the river and never Read more…
On March 27, 1915, Typhoid Mary was arrested and sent back to quarantine after being on the lam for five years. Mary Mallon immigrated to America from Ireland at age 15 in 1883. She started as a domestic servant and moved up to cook. She cooked for some of the Read more…
On March 26, 1997, the last of 39 members of the Heaven’s Gate cult committed ritual suicide. In 1972, Marshall Applewhite met a nurse named Bonnie Nettles at a psychiatric hospital. Applewhite, the son of a Presbyterian minister, had been fired from his job as a music professor for Read more…