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.