Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: June 18, 1940 saw two of the most famous speeches of the Second World War. With France virtually overrun by Nazi Germany and the British military in humiliating retreat, Winston Churchill gave … Continue reading The Appealing Weekly History Thread
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: On June 11, 1963, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức immolated himself in Saigon. Quang Duc was a legendary figure in Vietnamese Buddhism, having spent decades building the Mahayana faith across Indochina and … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread Protests
Of all of Richard Nixon’s men, Tom Charles Huston remains the most elusive. The lanky, bespectacled ideologue from Logansport, Indiana entered politics at an early age. At age 24, he chaired America’s largest conservative organization; at age 28, he became … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Education of Tom Charles Huston
Welcome to this week’s History Thread. This week’s topic: What subject do you want to learn more about? We all have gaps in our historical knowledge. Use this space to ask for information or reading/documentary/podcast recommendations on historical subjects you’d … Continue reading The History Thread Crosses the T
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! I don’t have much to say today, except that it’s the release date for Brenda Wineapple’s The Impeachers, a new book on Andrew Johnson that I’ve been looking forward to for ages. The New … Continue reading The Impeachable History Thread
Part Five in a series: see parts one, two, three and four. On March 7, 1949 the biggest trial of the Red Scare began. Four hundred New York City policemen formed a barricade around the Foley Square courthouse, where eleven … Continue reading How We Got Here: Blacklisting Was Our Business
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: Today is the 71st anniversary of Israeli independence. After a prolonged political and insurgent struggle with Great Britain, Israel was granted independence, becoming the modern world’s first Jewish state under the leadership … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread
Part Three in a series; see parts one and two. Robert Stripling was concerned. HUAC’s chief investigator didn’t trust Whittaker Chambers, their star witness in the case against Alger Hiss, feeling that even now he’d withheld some crucial evidence, for … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Fall of Alger Hiss
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: On May 7, 1763, Pontiac of the Ottawa tribe took a party of warriors to Ft. Detroit, initiating one of North America’s bloodiest Indian conflicts – Pontiac’s War. The war arose from … Continue reading The Rebellious Weekly History Thread
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Apologies for last week, I was too deep in research to start a thread. We will have an open discussion this week, so feel free to discuss any and all history-related topics. Today is … Continue reading The Fall of the Weekly History Thread
Part two in a series on McCarthyism and the Red Scare; part one here. Ironically, the House Committee on Un-American Activities owed its existence to a congressman who spent years on the Soviet payroll. Samuel Dickstein, known to the NKVD … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Passion of Whittaker Chambers
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Sadly, real-world events inspired this week’s topic: Lost historical treasures. Over the millennia places of incalculable worth to history have been lost to the sands of time, whether through deliberate destruction, carelessness or natural … Continue reading The Lost History Thread
In August 1945, a nondescript thirty-seven year old woman entered the FBI office in New Haven, Connecticut. It was, or should have been, a momentous occasion. The Second World War was finally ending, with Germany obliterated and occupied and Imperial … Continue reading How We Got Here: Elizabeth Bentley, Queen of the Red Scare
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! It’s the anniversary of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, the Nazi invasion of Denmark and Norway, and a variety of other historical events. I will declare this another open thread so feel free to discuss … Continue reading The History Thread Surrenders
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Discussion topic for this week: how much time do you invest in history? Do you work in a history-related field, or study it in school? Is it just a minor hobby or a lifelong … Continue reading The One-Eyed History Thread
In November 1919 the Saturday Evening Post published a short story entitled “Rose Alvaro, Entrante.” It depicts a shy, unsatisfied store clerk named Mayme who desires a drastic life change. “I was sick of myself,” Mayme tells a friend. “I wanted … Continue reading Things That Are Not: Pearl Curran and the Real Ghost
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: It’s Independence Day in Bangladesh, commemorating the beginning of their bloody struggle for freedom from Pakistan. When India and Pakistan were partitioned by the British, the latter was originally divided into West … Continue reading The Independent History Thread
One of history’s most unbelievable anecdotes involves the “Battle of Karansebes.” It’s a staggering, unbelievable tale cited as the epitome of military incompetence, with an Austrian army massacring itself through panic and drunken misunderstanding. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence that this … Continue reading Things That Are Not: The Army That Killed Itself
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: On March 19, 1853 forces of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace seized the city of Nanjing, China and established it as the capital of their Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Their leader, Hong Xiuquan, … Continue reading The Heavenly History Thread
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a good story outruns evidence, plausibility and fact. For two hundred years, readers have thrilled to the dance of the Barbados coffins, a classic ghost story so often repeated that it’s familiar even … Continue reading Things That Are Not: The Case of the Dancing Coffins
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! This week we’ll have an open thread so feel free to discuss what you will. Today’s picture: On March 5, 1770 a group of American rowdies in Boston attacked a small British detachment outside … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread Shoots People
