The History Thread discusses a cave-diver from Kentucky who knew a thing or two about hired goons. Continue reading The History Thread honours Floyd Collins

I’m polishing off my work presentation on the Underground Railroad for next month, so I’m deep into research when I have time. I thought I’d shoutout the work of Wilbur Henry Siebert, the Ohio educator who spent nearly six decades … Continue reading The Wilbur Henry Siebert History Thread

On this day in 1948, the Star Tiger, a Tudor IV passenger aircraft of British South American Airways, disappeared during a routine voyage between the Azores and Bermuda. The aircraft was carrying 31 passengers and crew, among them Air Marshal … Continue reading The History Thread Disappears

Over the past few days in the OT I’d commented on notorious historical figures and their linguistic abilities. I’ll try to compile some of that info into a single post. This was inspired by reading Bertrand Patenaude’s Trotsky: Downfall of … Continue reading History Thread: The Language of Dictators

Apologies for making the History Thread so erratic recently, work plus holidays has made it difficult to create anything substantial for you to examine. I’ll try to get things back to a regularly, hopefully weekly schedule starting the 23rd. Until … Continue reading The Farthest History Thread

The History Thread re-examines the life of controversial Roman Emperor Elagabalus. Continue reading The History Thread reconsiders Elagabalus

Hello, I planned to have one more Things That Are Not-type article this week for Halloween. Unfortunately, work has been extremely busy and tiring over the past few weeks, and looks to be for the coming future. I’m doing some … Continue reading The History Thread Prepares for Leave

I probably won’t be around too much today, but I wanted to put a thread up to inaugurate the Halloween season. Expect a return of Things That Are Not soon, I’ll be taking a look for historical myths and silly … Continue reading The Spooky History Thread

The post-WWII Red Scare is one of several historical topics I’ve revisited several times for this site. Here’s a chronological list of related columns, most of them written in 2019-2020, back when I was still trying themed series of articles. … Continue reading History Thread: The Avocado History of the Red Scare

As the weather (at least in this part of the world) heats back up to barely tolerable levels, I found a fun article by Tasha Marks of the British Museum, exploring the rise of ice cream in the 19th Century. … Continue reading The History Thread Cools Off!

Optional discussion prompt: What history subjects do you consider yourself most knowledgeable about, and how did you first become interested in them? Continue reading What Does The History Thread Know?

From 1912 through 1926, Japan was ruled by Emperor Yoshihito, better known as Taisho. The son of the legendary Meiji, who had “modernized” Japan and built it into a world power, Taisho was a weak man who suffered from chronic … Continue reading History Thread: Ito Noe and Taisho Feminism

Today is the anniversary of Emperor Hirohito’s surrender announcement, ending the Pacific Theater of World War II (although a formal surrender wasn’t signed until September 1st). Japan’s road to accepting defeat in the war was long and torturous, with the … Continue reading The History Thread Surrenders