A weekly thread about the past
Didn’t have time for a proper write-up this week, but it’s the anniversary of John Wilkes Booth’s death at the hands of Boston Corbett, himself a noted lunatic who castrated himself after a flirtation with prostitutes, survived several years of … Continue reading A Demented History Thread
Jamison “Jam” Handy was a remarkable man. Born in Philadelphia, Handy relocated to Chicago in his teen years where he worked variously as a reporter, cartoonist and advertising man. In his youth, Handy was an accomplished swimmer and athlete; twenty … Continue reading History Thread: A Brief History of Coily the Spring Sprite
History don’t stop just because Agnew ain’t here. Get yappin’. Continue reading The Slapdash History Thread of 4/12/22
I didn’t have time to put together a proper header this week, which is just as well. The next few weeks will be busy in Agnewland, so I’ll need some Avocado help maintaining the thread! On two of the next … Continue reading The History Thread Looks Ahead
In October 1888 Ambrose Bierce published a short story, “Charles Ashmore’s Trail,” in the San Francisco Examiner. Bierce’s tale concerned a sixteen year old boy from Troy, New York who left home one snowy evening in 1878 to retrieve water … Continue reading History Thread: Three Missing Olivers
I did not have time for a detailed write-up this week but I came across a fascinating article investigating (and debunking) one of the most famous ghost photographs of all time: the ghosts of the SS Watertown. If, like me, … Continue reading History Thread: The Case of the Phony Sea Specters
Military incompetence is a common subject for popular history. Humans are nothing if not fallible, and studying our failures can be more illuminating than tired, propagandized tales of glorious victory. Hence well-received, engaging books like Cecil Woodham-Smith’s The Reason Why (1953), Russell … Continue reading History Thread: Charles Fair’s From the Jaws of Victory (1971)
In 1920 Chicago was a city of 2.7 million souls, swollen with returning Great War veterans, Eastern European immigrants and Black migrants from the South. The city gained a reputation as an area of tumult, corruption and violence. In July … Continue reading History Thread: Tracking The Ragged Stranger
I was born in 1990. I was born right on one of those era-dividing lines, even though I didn’t know it at the time and wouldn’t realise it until I began studying history as a teenager in the years after … Continue reading The History Thread Stands With Ukraine
Spiro Agnew was a man of many talents. A modestly effective Baltimore County executive, he became a race-baiting Governor of Maryland and Richard Nixon’s alliteratively-insulting Vice President, raining hellfire on hippies, reporters, activists and “radiclibs.” As Vice President, he was … Continue reading History Thread: The Literary Genius of Spiro T. Agnew
As I languish in my exile with only beef jerky and books to keep me company, here is a History Thread. Enjoy yourself but be warned to wash your hands after every post lest you join the Legion of the … Continue reading A Plague-Ridden History Thread
On this date in 1904, the Japanese Imperial Navy launched a surprise attack on the Russian Pacific Fleet at Port Arthur (modern day Lushunkou, China), initiating the Russo-Japanese War. Admiral Togo Heihachiro, Japan’s brilliant naval leader, planned to incapacitate the … Continue reading The Surprise History Thread
I didn’t make a thread in advance today because I had a doctor’s appointment. But it wrapped up sooner than expected, so accept this history thread. My one, my only weekly thread (that will last beyond this spring). If it’s … Continue reading The Persistence of the History Thread
Been reading a lot of biographies lately, so this seemed like a quick and easy prompt for the History Thread. What are some of your favorite biographies or memoirs? Least favorites? Looking for recommendations? This thread is for you. Continue reading The Biographical History Thread
In the 1810s, the British Empire’s domain in Africa consisted of coastal enclaves on the continent’s west and south. Having previously profited off the Transatlantic Slave Trade, British officials of Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) were now … Continue reading History Thread: MacCarthy’s Macaroni Massacre
It’s only human to wonder how things might have gone differently. And historians, or history buffs, have spent an inordinate amount of time wondering how events from the distant past might have differed. From fictional works like The Man in … Continue reading The Alternate History Thread
As I’ve mentioned in some of the past History threads, I’ve been doing a dive into some of the design aesthetics catalogued by folks at the Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (CARI). While I’m currently just coming out of the 70’s … Continue reading The 00’s Aesthetic History Thread
It’s almost the end of another year. As America’s existential crisis continues and a pandemic rages across the world history can be, well, not always comforting but at the very least a welcome distraction from the horrors of our day-to-day … Continue reading The Year-End History Thread
What could history possibly matter to someone who is forced to relive the same month of their life, over and over again? For those of us who haven’t contracted with an alien ferret, though, it remains a source of endless … Continue reading The Homura History Thread
Eleftherios Venizelos had a vision for Greece. As young man on Crete, he had led a rebellion against its Turkish rulers in 1897, triggering British intervention and the island’s union with Greece. As Foreign Minister in the 1910s, he engineered … Continue reading History Thread: The Glass General and the Burning City
Braddon, Russell. The Siege: The Full, Horrifying Account of the Kut Disaster. New York: Viking Press, 1970. Originally published 1969. 352 pp. Some wars are so ill-conceived and badly-waged that even when successful, they seem a colossal waste. The Crimean War fascinates me … Continue reading History Thread: Russell Braddon’s The Siege (1969)
