An interesting historical story.
The most famous beard in American History almost did not come about. Prior to the Election of 1860, Abraham Lincoln was clean-shaven and frankly, ugly. Or, as more charitable observers put it, homely. Lincoln, ever the jokester, made light of his visage. He liked to tell audiences this story: Read more…
The only mass escape from a concentration camp occurred on Oct. 14, 1943. Sobibor was an extermination camp located in eastern Poland. As part of Operation Reinhard, trains full of Polish Jews were taken to the camp starting in May, 1942. In the next 18 months, 170.000-250,000 Jews were Read more…
Here is the story of a battle in the Korean War. A battle that was sadly typical of that war. By mid-1951, the Korean War was in a stalemate. Armistice negotiations had begun, but no end to the war was in sight. We now know there would be two Read more…
John was notoriously bad King of England. His rule was so bad that the barons revolted after John broke his promises made in the Magna Carta in 1215. The following year, John launched a whirlwind campaign to defeat them. He marched north to confront an invading Scottish army that Read more…
Robert Jenkins was a British ship captain. In 1731, he was pulled over for smuggling in the Caribbean. The Spanish captain abused him and cut off his left ear with his sword. Seven years later, he appeared before Parliament with his severed ear in a jar. Some politicians were Read more…
When I was teaching American History, I used to end each unit with a biography of a person the was a role model from that unit. For my WWI unit, the role model was Eddie Rickenbacker. He was born on Oct. 8, 1890. Here are the notes I gave for Read more…
The most serious concentration camp uprising occurred on Oct. 7, 1944 at Auschwitz-Bergen. The mutiny was by the Sonderkommandos. These Jewish men were forced to help with the gas chambers. Some of them worked the “changing room” where the victims had to disrobe and turn over possessions. Others had Read more…
By 1777, there was no love lost between the Patriots and the Redcoats. The British had recently routed Washington’s army at Brandywine and had taken the city of Philadelphia. The commander of the Continental Army felt he needed to do something to stop his losing streak so he developed Read more…
On Oct. 3, 1993, Master Sergeant Gary Gordon and Sergeant First Class Randy Shugart were part of a three-man sniper team that was supporting an attempt by Delta Force and Rangers to capture a warlord in Mogadishu, Somalia when two of the Black Hawk helicopters went down. Their chopper was Read more…
The killings of African-Americans in and around Elaine, Arkansas in 1919 is possibly the bloodiest racial incident in American History. On Sept. 30, 1919, black sharecroppers gathered in a church to discuss actions to improve their situation. These men were fed up with getting low prices for their cotton Read more…