If we tried to have a revolution today, would we succeed? Do we have what it takes? I hear boasts at reenactments all the time and everyone thinks they have what it takes to rebel but are we willing to “dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another,”[1] or are we more likely …
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Surveying was a family business for Thomas Jefferson. Both he and his father Peter Jefferson were land surveyors for the King of England. Although Thomas Jefferson didn’t continue to survey as a profession, the skills he acquired as a surveyor were a solid foundation for his subsequent success. In the early 18th century, much of …
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 …
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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 …
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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 …
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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”
Spying for his Freedom — James Armistead “Lafayette” James Armistead was an enslaved African American who served the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War under the Marquis de Lafayette. Acting as a double agent, he reported the activities of Benedict Arnold after he had defected to the British, and of Lord Charles Cornwallis during …
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Michael Carver -- Historical Interpreter/Reenactor 