I really enjoy passing on anecdotes, but one of the pitfalls is finding out fond anecdotes are not completely true or even completely false. The story of the taxis that were used to rush reinforcements to the Marne battlefield is one of the most famous stories from the start Read more…
Sidney Lewis was tall for his age and looked older than he was. What he was was 12-years-old. He snuck out of his home in August, 1915, and signed up for the British army. Recruiters often enlisted underage men. After all, England did not have a draft and needed Read more…
Edith Cavell was born in 1865. She was the daughter of a rector. She worked as a governess in Belgium and then returned to England to train as a nurse. She worked in hospitals in London and then became the Matron at Belgium’s first training hospital in Brussels. She Read more…
Samuel Woodfill’s father was a veteran of the Mexican War and the Civil War. Samuel enlisted in the Army in 1901. He saw action in the Philippines against guerrillas. His unit was involved in the Meuse-Argonne Offensive. On Sept. 26, 1918, His company was pinned down by machine gun fire Read more…
The Battle of the Somme is the epitome of the senseless slaughter of the Great War. It started on July, 1, 1916. Here are some interesting facts about the worst day in the history of the British army. The battle was preceded by a week-long artillery bombardment of 1.7 million Read more…
I still enjoyed teaching, even after 39 years, because I looked forward to telling anecdotes. But I also enjoyed telling jokes. I started each class with one of my story jokes. And occasionally I was able to squeeze one into a lesson. The joke below was told as part of Read more…
Anna Coleman Watts was born on July 15, 1878 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. She studied sculpture in Paris and Rome. Her first important work was called “Triton’s Babies”. In was displayed at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in San Francisco in 1915. It is now part of a fountain in Boston. 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 Great War ended on Nov. 11. It must have sucked to be the last American killed in the war. Especially since the death made no difference in the outcome. Germany was decisively defeated at this point and had agreed to a cease-fire called the Armistice. It was agreed Read more…
A dirt-poor farmer from Tennessee was the most decorated doughboy of WWI. Alvin York grew up in a two-room log cabin. He was one of eleven children. He grew up wild and loved to drink and party. His life changed after a friend was killed in a bar fight. Read more…