The History Guy

The rover called “spirit” became known for its, well, spirit, continuing to perform its mission for more than twenty five times its expected lifespan. Nearly fifteen years since its last message to earth, Spirit deserves to be remembered.

244 years ago, in a little known event of the American Revolution, the people of Richmond Virginia would learn the true extent to which the former American hero had changed sides.

After Apollo NASA conducted a set of studies for a manned mission around Mars. More than half a century later, we are still far from the goal of sending people to our planetary neighbors. But sometimes the most interesting history is the history of what might have been.

A 2019 edition of the Philadelphia Tribune notes: While you may find it hard to believe, of all clothing, socks are the oldest type of clothing that is still in use today.

Whenever you mention Civil War recipients of the Medal of Honor you quickly tend to hear the caveat that the medal had little meaning at the time. It is a fair complaint in a number of obvious cases. But that doesn’t mean that extraordinary acts of bravery did not occur.

In 1933, an Englishman was in the lounge of a hotel in Peiping when he was informed that a delegation from the recently declared Turkic Islamic Republic of East Turkestan wished to see him. In a brief meeting, the Englishman - a Muslim convert whose family was known for their pickle company - had accepted their offer to become King; he renamed his potential kingdom “Islamestan”.

1917 was not a good time to lose fleet assets to peacetime accident. The nearly forgotten story of a navigational error that endangered two US Navy vessels and resulted in dramatic rescues and extraordinary salvage operations deserves to be remembered.

The grand story of Michigan Central station is a story of a city, a nation, and history almost lost, that deserves to be remembered.

The 1900 fight for the Union Park Ball Grounds is a story that would be too strange to be believed, if it didn’t actually happen.

The American Revolutionary War in the Mediterranean: Menorca 1781.

Of 374 graduates of the US Military Academy Class of 1942, seventy would not survive the war. Their stories deserve to be remembered.

Seventy years ago the world faced the very real threat of a nuclear confrontation that involved an operation with the dramatic title “King Kong.” Which then, changed Chinese cuisine in America.

The belief in Vampires or Vampire-like beings well predates the modern era, and superstitions about them ran deep. Those beliefs extended even to the modern era, when “vampire panics” led people to exhume corpses they thought were somehow affecting the living.

What is generally considered to be the first successful, daylight bank robbery in the United States during peacetime occurred in Liberty, Missouri on February 13, 1866. But were Frank and Jesse James involved?

Of the 374 graduates of the US Military Academy class of 1942, seventy-nearly one in five- would not survive the war. Their names are engraved on a marker at the academy. Their stories deserve to be remembered, and I am committed, so far as my meager voice can, to tell the stories of all seventy. Volume 2: James Edmund Buckley, Austin Patrick Byrne, James Madison Caviness, Jr. , Keith Grayson Chatfield , Richard Robert Clark, William Burr Clark ,Phillip Marshall Costain.

Its uses are vast and varied, but its risks are greater than some understand. It has been embroiled in politics and even war. It is, perhaps, the most interesting pharmaceutical in history.

Texas, California, and Vermont were all independent for a time, and the state of Hawaii was a kingdom for nearly a century before US interests overthrew the monarchy. Much lesser known was the short lived Republic of Florida.

At some point, someone in history bit into a plant, felt like their mouth was on fire, and said “more.” Were they brave? Stupid? Or just hungry? In fact, humans have a uniquely warm relationship with our flame-favored fruit, a history that says much about what it means to be human.

The Ford Rouge River plant has been used to produce 28 vehicle models, and continues to be used -today manufacturing aluminum Ford F-150 bodies. But, little remembered today, the factory was not originally built to make automobiles, but to manufacture ships for the US Navy.

A cow with a name produces more milk than one without. And that might not be the strangest thing about moo juice, a decidedly odd part of human history.

One classmate wrote in the alumni newsletter: "Ask any member of ‘42 and you will find it unanimous in feeling that many of our finest gave their all in World War Two." Volume 3: John Ott Sanders Damron, Kenneth Earl Dyson ,Thaddeus Francis Dziuban ,William Hampton Edwards , Joseph Richard Elliott, Charles Campbell Ettlesen, Byron Arthur Evans

Like most states of the Union, the creation of Nevada’s boundaries was as much a matter of politics as of geography.

The Des Moines Register reported in 1990: "When Edouard Izac died earlier this year, few remembered the Iowa native or knew that he was a hero of his country.” As is often the case, the nation forgets its heroes almost as quickly as they rise.

Known as the Eighty-years War, fighting between Spain and various separatist forces would give rise to some of history’s most fierce and feared pirates.

"Science can find no greater valor in its annals of investigation and sacrifice than that of Ada Blackjack.”

The astonishing story of two women and two children trapped after an avalanche in the Piedmont region of Italy in 1755 is a tale of true history almost beyond belief.

The loss of the HMS Eurydice in 1878 is a story of tragedy, of mystery, and of enduring legend. Sailors still say the ship still haunts the waters around the Isle of Wight .

Not too far from my house, in the town of East Alton, Illinois, there is a historic marker to an almost forgotten part of local history. It commemorates a stockyard that only stood for a few years. The East Alton stockyards were an important way and gathering station for horses, being sent on a long and perilous journey to war.

A chilling story of the coldest days of the Cold War whose ending may warm your heart.

On March 31, 1942, the crew of the Standard Oil company's tanker T.C. McCobb would experience a first for the Second World War, and what came next would represent the risks faced by the merchant seamen caught in the middle of the vast Battle of the Atlantic.

Would the world of ecommerce today even be possible were it not for humble inventions from our past? Before the world could embrace online ordering, products needed protective packaging.

The death of William Henry Harrison had significant consequences, including the collapse of a major political party. And the story of how he died that most of us learned in school is almost certainly false. In fact, he might well have been the victim of a serial killer of presidents- the water in Washington DC.

At 10:58 am on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, the 50 year old daughter of the former Lord Chancellor of Ireland stepped out of a crowd, drew a revolver, and shot Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini in the face. Had she done so a decade later, she might have been hailed as a hero. Had she been a better shot, history might have been different. To be clear, noting a failed suicide attempt by a would be assassin 100 years ago is not meant to encourage self-harm.

In the end, tens of thousands of soldiers, including 40,000 British, were left in France, captured fighting the battles that had allowed that "Miracle at Dunkirk" to happen. They could not have known, at the time, the extent of their sacrifice.

On April 14, 1881 the rough and tumble boom town of El Paso, Texas was true to its wild reputation as the six-gun capitol of the world.

The Royal Yacht Britannia, a floating palace turned tourist attraction, launched on April 16, 1953, represents a long tradition.

The Doolittle Raid wasn’t just an operation of the Army Air Force. The Navy made its own plans, took its own risks, and has its own story that deserves to be remembered.

The Clipper ship Nightingale had a history as bold and contradictory as the century in which she sailed.

A lesser known subplot of the War Between the States was the Union effort to deprive the confederacy of salt. It is difficult to overstate how much the shortage of salt in the Confederacy contributed to the ultimate Union victory.

This video was released a year ago, but owing to an upload issue, only showed 1/4 size. I release this corrected version to commemorate the anniversary of the day the Murdock's left Los Angeles to being their trip.

Global vehicle counts estimate that there are an excess of two billion, some estimate as many as 3.5 billion, unique license plates on earth today.

We don’t know all that much about Conrad of Montferrat, but we do know that his death was murder most foul. It is a medieval murder mystery that deserves to be remembered.

With parades held from New York to San Francisco to Nokomis IL, patriotic fervor swept the nation over a date little remembered today. The Centennial Celebration of Washington’s Inauguration deserves to be remembered.

The Cold War was not just a time of heightened tensions and global competition, but a period of rapid technological growth and scientific advancement. In laboratories all over the world, scientists were working on other breakthroughs, including in a new and largely untouched section of science: discovering new elements. Thankfully the transfermium wars did not go nuclear, even though they were fought over nuclei.

Grant's strategy for 1864 included the bruising Overland Campaign. The bloodshed of the campaign of attrition began on May 5, in a field in Virginia.

On the seventh of May, 1798, In a little remembered battle, a vastly outnumbered force of British sailors and marines faced down a substantial French invasion fleet in what might be described as a dress rehearsal for an invasion of the British isles. The Battle of the Îles Saint-Marcouf represents one of those brave stands where the few stood against the many.

In the early morning hours of May 9, 1837 the steamboat Ben Sherrod, traveling from New Orleans to Louisville, caught fire. The public was shocked as details of the tragedy emerged,. The tragedy of the burning, sinking, and explosion of the Ben Sherrod should never have happened.

The strange nexus of North Dakota, Honduras, the Cayman islands, and potatoes set the stage for the great spud scam of 1986.

While America said “Remember Pearl Harbor,” in Australia they said “Avenge the Nurses.”

The story of the first Victoria Cross to be awarded to an Australian in the Great War deserves to be remembered.

On May 21, 1941, more than six months before the US entry into the war, the SS Robin Moor became the first US flagged merchant ship to be sunk by a German U-boat, all part of the long path towards US entry into the largest war in human history.

When the Ethiopian Empire found itself near total destruction at the hands of a Muslim power, the Portuguese found a reason to send military aid, in a little remembered battle for the fate of Christian kingdom in far-off Africa.

On May 26, 1981, during night operations off Pensacola, Florida, a Marine Corps EA-6B "Prowler" crashed on the deck of the Nuclear powered Aircraft carrier USS Nimitz, igniting a fire and causing a string of explosions that resulted in the death of 14 members of her crew.

Patent S-5292X, “Improvements in method and means for utilizing nuclear energy” by John Von Neumann and Klaus Fuchs and is a story of two brilliant scientists, of one of the greatest scientific programs ever undertaken, and of Cold War espionage and intrigue.

Some 250,000 people came to California via the overland California Trail between 1841 and 1869. But someone, of course, had to be first.

Kentucky was the first US state west of the Appalachian mountains. But statehood for a Commonwealth of irregular shape would result in contention and change for decades.

Midway is one of the most well known and discussed battles of the Pacific War. But far less known was that, at the same time, another Japanese carrier group was attacking another US held island some 1800 miles away.

In June, 1944 the Big Red One and its 16th Infantry Regiment were again the tip of the spear as the allies assaulted fortress Europe.