The Polybius checkerboard, is a device invented by the ancient Greeks Cleoxenus and Democleitus, and made famous by the historian and scholar Polybius, a Greek historian noted for his work The Histories, which covered the period of 264–146 BCE. Polybius was well known to the Founding Fathers of the United States and was influential on …
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When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few. September 25, 1775 Arnold’s March through the Wilderness. Early in the American Revolutionary War, Colonel Benedict Arnold led a force of 1,100 Continental Army troops on an expedition from …
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Colonial Brewing during Fall FestColonial Pennsylvania Plantation3900 N. Sandy Flash Drive Ridley Creek State Park Newtown Square, PA 19073September 30, 202311:00am – 4:00pm Celebrate the fall season with Colonial Pennsylvania Plantation’s Fall Fest on Saturday, September 30! Enjoy colonial brewing by the Regimental Brewmeister demonstration, cider pressing, pottery making by Wallingford Potters Guild , music …
When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few. September 25, 1789 Bill of Rights On September 25, 1789, the first Congress of the United States adopted 12 amendments to the U.S. Constitution–the Bill of Rights–and sent them …
The shift from superstition to scientific study of meteorology began when proper measuring instruments became available in the mid-17th century. By the early 18th century, Daniel Fahrenheit produced accurate mercury thermometers calibrated to a standard scale that ranged from 32 to 96 degrees (i.e., from the melting point of ice to body temperature). Early work …
The Ottendorf Cypher, or Book Cypher, is a cyphertext is made up of numbers in groups of 3, and these numbers correspond to positions in a book (or other type of text). Most often the numbers refer to Line, Word, and Letter. To encode a message, the encoder needs only to find the word at …
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When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few. September 25, 1787 – a first of a series of fifteen essays arguing AGAINST the formation of a new US Constitution were published. The authors of these ANTIFEDERALIST papers …
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The Caesar cypher is one of the earliest known and simplest cyphers. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is ‘shifted’ a certain number of places down the alphabet. For example, with a shift of 1, A would be replaced by B, B would become C, and so …
When reenacting or acting as a historical interpreter, its good to have a few historical dates and stories to share. This series will publish a few. September 23, 1779 HMS Serapis captured by John Paul Jones On September 23, the Bonhomme Richard engaged the Serapis and the smaller Countess of Scarborough, which were escorting the …
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Going into the Revolution, Americans were at a huge disadvantage to the European powers when it came to cryptography, many of which had been using secret offices where sensitive letters were opened and deciphered by public officials for centuries. It was not uncommon for the messages of Revolutionary leaders and American diplomats to be intercepted …
Continue reading “Colonial Spymaster (#1) — Codes and Cyphers in the Continental Army”
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 