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. March 16, 1780 Battle of Guilford Courthouse The Battle of Guilford Court House was fought at a site which is now in Greensboro, North Carolina. A 2,100-man British …
Author Archives: Michael Carver
A Gentle Reminder from the Regimental Brewmeister
I brew beer for events and with very few exceptions (generally fundraisers), I GIVE beer to reenactors (especially soldiers and camp followers). All I ask is that you drink responsibly and RETURN THE BOTTLES. These bottles are expensive and difficult to find. Sure, I could use cheap disposables but that disrupts the image we want …
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Historical Tidbits
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. March 15, 1783 Newburgh Address General George Washington, having learned that his officers planned to meet to discuss a fiery petition to mutiny if Congress failed to provide them …
Beer Recipe: Air and Exercise — Rattleskull
“Air and Exercise” = being whipped with a Cat-o-Nine-Tails. Prior to the arrival of Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben, American officers often imitated their British peers. In a rather startling example, George Washington once lobbied congress for permission to allow 500 lashes — “Air and Exercise”– as punishment to maintain discipline the Continental soldiers! Congress …
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Moonshiners @ Fort Mifflin
March 13 — All Day We survived! There were times I was not sure this would come off. Not the best planned event but we survived. I want to express a very special thanks to: Chuck Faust and the Donegal Township Riflemen, 6th PA Regt, 3rd NJ, and 1st Delaware.Wendy Lucas and the 1NJVGreg O’BrianSandi …
Eli Whitney Patented the Cotton Gin on March 14, 1794
In 1794, U.S.-born inventor Eli Whitney patented the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionized the production of cotton by greatly speeding up the process of removing seeds from cotton fiber. By the mid-19th century, cotton had become America’s leading export. Despite its success, the gin made little money for Whitney due to patent-infringement issues. Also, …
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Happy π Day
Pi (often represented by the lower-case Greek letter π), one of the most well-known mathematical constants, is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. For any circle, the distance around the edge is a little more than three times the distance across. Pi has interested people around the world for over 4,000 years. …
THE BILL OF RIGHTS: A BRIEF HISTORY #8
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 …
Ben Franklin DID NOT Invent Daylight Savings Time!
Well, today we lose an hour of sleep to the interest of commerce. Don’t worry, you will get it back in November. Before the middle of the 19th Century, keeping time was more of an art than a science. Time pieces and clocks were available, even common in certain circles but they were notoriously inaccurate. …
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Basic Colonial Brewing #18 — Proof your Whiskey, Sir
When it comes to arcane historical terms for spirits and other alcohol, proof is one of the frustrating ones. In our modern vernacular, with the blessing of modern analytical chemistry as support, we simply think of “proof” as two times the alcohol by volume (ABV). But why is this measure even a thing? After all, …
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