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 …
Category Archives: General history
Historical Tidbits — George Washington Elected President
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. February 4, 1789George Washington is unanimously elected President of the United States. With 69 electoral votes, Washington won the support of each participating elector. No other president since has …
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Historical Tidbits — US Supreme Court meets for the first time
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. February 2, 1790US Supreme Court meets for the first time under the new US Constitution at the Merchants Building in New York City. The Supreme Court was established in …
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New Amsterdam (present-day New York) becomes a city (2/2/1653)
Between 1626 and 1664, the main town of the Dutch colony of New Netherland was New Amsterdam, now called Manhattan. Peter Minuit, Director of the Dutch West India Company, met with Indigenous peoples and purchased Manhattan for trinkets equivalent to several thousand dollars today. The land was quickly settled. The colony of New Netherland extended …
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Guy Fawkes is Executed January 31, 1606 (Julian Calendar)
Remember, Remember, the Fifth of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot… Everyone remembers the infamous day (or should) when Guy Fawkes attempted to violently overthrow King and Parliament with 36 barrels of gunpowder and a lit fuse. Few people remember that this was the beginning of Fawkes demise not the end. He and his conspirators, Robert …
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US Marines in the American Revolution
Flag Raising at New Providence 28 January 1778 Shortly after his arrival at Georgetown, South Carolina, Captain John Peck Rathbun of the sloop Providence was informed by a merchant captain who had just returned from the Bahamas that the Mary had put into Nassau for repairs. The news immediately brought back memories of his brief …
Supply Chain Issues? — The Bread Famine in 18th-century France.
Yesterday, I was dismayed at the lack of stocking in my local Giant supermarket. Voltaire once remarked that Parisians required only “the comic opera and white bread.” But bread has also played a dark role in French history and, namely, the French Revolution. The storming of the medieval fortress of Bastille on July 14, 1789 …
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So You Think RENEWABLE Energy is a New Thing?
When George Washington was elected president in 1790, he chose Alexander Hamilton to be the first Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton served in this capacity until 1795 and during this time he set our modern banking system, establishing the federal budget process, and established the Bank of the United States. At the time, there were …
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The original “Doctor Death”
During the 1700’s, executions in France were public events where entire towns gathered to watch. A common execution method for a poor criminal was quartering, where the prisoner’s limbs were tied to four oxen, then the animals were driven in four different directions ripping the person apart. Upper-class criminals could buy their way into a …
Dirty Business and Politics are Often Bedfellows
We all think of Benjamin Franklin as a grandfatherly type who invented and published things, sort of that eccentric neighbor who was everyone’s friend, but there was a ruthless side to Franklin. In 1728, a printer named Samuel Keimer founded the Pennsylvania Gazette, the second newspaper ever printed in the colony. It did not do …
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Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 