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. June 18, 1778 British evacuate Philadelphia After almost nine months of occupation, 15,000 British troops under General Sir Henry Clinton evacuate Philadelphia. The British position in Philadelphia became untenable …
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As a boy, George Washington strongly considered a career in the Royal Navy and studying geometry and celestial navigation. To improve his skills, he took up surveying using a set of surveyor’s instruments his father owned for his farm. Early in 1748, Washington accompanied George Fairfax and James Genn, the Royal Surveyor of Prince William …
For most of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries, the practice of home-brewing was common on most farms and homestead, but one beer style was almost exclusively the domain of noblemen and country gentlemen – the “coming-of-age” beer. These beers, typically extra stout, were brewed and laid down laid down when the son and heir …
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No one would suspect “little ole me” of being a spy — Ann Bates Ann Bates was Philadelphia schoolteacher with Loyalist sympathies. She was also married to a British soldier and gunsmith, posted in New York. At the British camp, she met Major Duncan Drummond, the intelligence chief for the British commanding general, who preceded …
Continue reading “Spy vs Spy: George Washington’s and King George’s Spies (#7)”
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. June 17, 1775 Battle of Bunker Hill. Well actually, Breed’s Hill… On June 13, 1775, the leaders of the colonial forces besieging Boston learned that the British were planning to send …
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Next time you hear some politician blaming China for all the problems in the world, remember our friends in the East India Company. Unregulated, government and military backed capitalist that they were, started a WAR in order to extract a trade balance with China. Even though Europeans were eager to acquire Chinese tea, silk, and …
The Black Freeman and his Slave were BOTH Spies! — Hercules and Cato Mulligan Many know Hercules Mulligan as a character in the play Hamilton and ironically, he is the only personae in that play who actually was black. He was also a very successful spy for the American cause. Mulligan was one of the …
Continue reading “Spy vs Spy: George Washington’s and King George’s Spies (#6)”
People began using pencils in Europe in the early 17th century. Graphite was discovered in England’s Lake District and it was soon discovered that this mineral made marks on paper and other surfaces that could be easily rubbed away. Early pencils were often a bit of graphite held in some sort of holder that allowed …
Continue reading “NO, We Didn’t All Write with Quills in the 18th Century. Some Used Pencils.”
In 1768, through careful observation and lots of computations, the Royal Society was able to compute the distance of the Earth from the Sun. Armed with this information, and using Newtons universal law of gravitation (1687), it should be possible to understand the behavior of the planets. There remained, however, just one problem. How much …
Continue reading “In 1797 Henry Cavendish Used Small Metal Spheres to Weigh the Earth”
Insurrections often are propagated upon misinformation. So too are the most recent band of domestic terrorist who like to hide behind our most sacred American institutions. In this series, I want to explore the Bill of Rights and why some of the hype and hyperbole thrown around by the extremist is not just wrong but …
Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 