From Politico Magazine by Eric Scigliono: Time was, Michigan State University made national headlines mostly with its football and basketball teams. Then, more than 250 women accused Larry Nassar, a Michigan State physician and USA Gymnastics team doctor, of sexually… Read More ›
Month: March 2018
Hollywood and Communism: How Did ”The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” Support Marxist Ideology?
“I know what gold does to men’s souls.”[1]These sage words were spoken by Howard; a crusty old prospector who was far wiser than his ragged appearance suggested. This character in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre was speaking the words… Read More ›
The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson
From We’re History by Todd Arrington: ne hundred and fifty years ago today, on March 13, 1868, the U.S. Senate began the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson. A Tennessee Democrat who remained loyal to the Union during the… Read More ›
What Role Did Inflation Play in the Collapse of the Roman Empire
In the modern world, nation-states, empires, and civilizations are often compared to and judged by the perceived success of Roman culture. There is no doubt that Roman culture was successful and enduring, which has contributed to make Rome the “gold… Read More ›
How a $10 Billion Experimental City Nearly Got Built in Rural Minnesota
From Smithsonian.com by Lorraine Boissoneault: The future had arrived, and it looked nothing like what city planners expected. It was the early 1960s, and despite economic prosperity, American urban centers were plagued by pollution, poverty, the violence of segregation and… Read More ›
The Lessons of a School Shooting—in 1853
From Politico Magazine by Saul Cornell author of A Well Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America: This weekend, thousands of people are expected to gather in cities and towns across America for the… Read More ›
Kids Cheer Free: A History of Putting Kids in the Cheap Seats
From Sport in American History by Seth Tannenbaum: A new Major League Baseball season is about to get underway and, as it has for years, the game continues to struggle to pull in younger fans. Since 2006, the average age of… Read More ›
What was the impact of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572) on France?
The St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (1572) was one of the bloodiest episodes in Early Modern French history. It marked a turning point in the religious wars that devastated France from the 1560s to 1590s. The impact of the massacre was… Read More ›
“Shock from Loss”: The Reality of Grief in the First World War
From Nursing Clio by Brigdet Keown: On October 24, 1918, fifty-eight-year-old Elizabeth was admitted to the City of London Mental Hospital by her husband.1 He stated that she had been suffering for the past fourteen months with “shock from loss of… Read More ›
No, “liberal” and “progressive” aren’t synonyms and the differences matter.
From Democracy: A Journal of Ideas by Sean Wilentz author of The Politicians and the Egalitarians: The Hidden History of American Politics: What’s in a name? Franklin Delano Roosevelt called himself a Christian, a Democrat, and a liberal. He did… Read More ›
How a Reporter Uncovered the FBI’s Secret Use of a Famous Photographer to Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement
From History News Network by Marc Perrusquia author of A Spy in Canaan: How the FBI Used a Famous Photographer to Infiltrate the Civil Rights Movement: Bobby Doctor understood the movement came with peril. Eagerly, he dodged fists and boots while… Read More ›
How Did Themistocles Fall from Grace?
The epic series of battles between the Greeks and the Persians in the fifth century BC known as the Persian Wars, or Greco-Persian Wars (499-479 BC), in many ways solidified the Greeks’ place in world history and established many attributes… Read More ›
The odd objects looted from Washington DC in 1814
From BBC: Other than an off-colour tweet and subsequent apology by the British Embassy, the bicentennial of the punitive mission of 1814 that left the US capital in flames has received little attention this week. The burning was one of the final… Read More ›
Communications Companies Have Been Spying on You Since the 19th Century
From History.com by Becky Little: The revelation that a shady political consulting firm called Cambridge Analytica accessed data from 50 million Facebook users without their consent has rekindled debates about privacy and surveillance. Shortly after this news broke in March 2018, Americans also… Read More ›
Fake News and Election Meddling—1940s style
From History Net: Convention Hall in Philadelphia, a mammoth art deco building on 34th and Spruce often used for prize boxing bouts, simmered in the glare of television lights as Republican delegates gathered there in the fourth week of June… Read More ›
How Early Warnings About the Effect of Television on American Politics Came True
From Time by David Kaiser: When new technology or new economic innovations first emerge, smart people often sense where they might lead—even though their most profound consequences might be decades away. Karl Marx wrote large volumes about the consequences of… Read More ›
Why did the Gallipoli Landings fail in WWI?
The Gallipoli campaign was an amphibious landing in the Dardanelles Strait in modern Turkey, that sought to knock the Ottoman Empire out of WW I. The landings were exceptionally daring for the time, but they failed to achieve their objectives…. Read More ›
The Emergence of Urban Planning in the South, 1880-1930
From Tropics of Meta by Alex Sayf Cummings author Democracy of Sound: Music Piracy and the Remaking of American Copyright in the Twentieth Century: To take a bibliography of southern history on its face, one could conclude that urban planning… Read More ›
The 1952 Olympic Games, the US, and the USSR
From the Process History Blog by Erin Redihan author of The Olympics and the Cold War, 1948-1968: Sport as Battleground in the U.S.-Soviet Rivalry: The relationship between politics and international sport is fraught with tension and drama: the same qualities that make for… Read More ›
America’s ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ – Wendell Phillips
From History Today by Sarah Rijziger: Arabia Felix, or ‘Happy Arabia’, as the Romans called what is now Yemen, has always attracted explorers, despite being – or perhaps because it was – one of the most inaccessible places in the… Read More ›