Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Have fun and discuss what you will! Today’s picture: on October 23, 1739 Britain declared war on Spain. One of the 18th Century’s innumerable inscrutable imperial conflicts, the war stemmed in part from Robert … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread is All Ears
Hi, everyone. Sam here. Chris didn’t put up a HWGH this week, and in light of recent events, y’all clearly need a pick-me-up, so here’s part of a never-published manuscript I wrote many years ago called The Night Was Spent that suddenly seems … Continue reading How We Got Here: “A Nonexistent Piece of the Future”
Welcome to this week’s Things That Are Not, a limited series exploring historical mysteries and paranormal phenomena that simply aren’t true. Having explored the Bermuda Triangle last week, we’ll take a deep dive into an even stranger maritime misadventure. When … Continue reading Things That Are Not: The Philadelphia Experiment
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! Today’s picture: On this day in 1869, several men digging a well in Cardiff, New York discovered an unusual specimen: a ten foot tall man made of stone! Immediately dubbed the Cardiff Giant, it … Continue reading The Giant Weekly History Thread
Hi, everyone. Sam here. Chris didn’t put up a HWGH this week, and in light of recent events, y’all clearly need a pick-me-up, so here’s part of a never-published manuscript I wrote many years ago called The Night Was Spent that suddenly seems … Continue reading How We Got Here: “Change We Can Believe In”
Welcome to Things That Are Not, a limited series examining paranormal/supernatural mysteries and myths that have been debunked or discredited over the years. I thought this might be a nice break from political-themed articles, particularly with Halloween around the corner. … Continue reading Things That Are Not: The Raifuku Maru, from Tragedy to Myth
Hi, everyone. Sam here. Chris didn’t put up a HWGH this week, and in light of recent events, y’all clearly need a pick-me-up, so here’s part of a never-published manuscript I wrote many years ago called The Night Was Spent that suddenly seems … Continue reading How We Got Here: “The Revolution Starts Now”
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! I will forgo a discussion topic again this week so we can have…fun? Today’s picture: 51 years ago, Thurgood Marshall became the first African-American Justice on the Supreme Court. Marshall had a distinguished career as a civil rights lawyer, representing the NAACP in Brown vs. Board of Education among other cases. He became a circuit court judge under John F. Kennedy, then spent two years as Lyndon Johnson’s Solicitor General before Johnson elevated him to the Supreme Court. He served until 1991, when he was replaced by Clarence Thomas, who was then, and remains … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread is Sworn In
Welcome to this week’s history thread! Today’s topic: Democracy. Perhaps as much of a philosophical/political discussion as historical, but there are plenty of historical examples upon which to draw. Does democracy work? Is it the most desirable form of government, … Continue reading The Democratic Weekly History Thread
History Thread. Today’s picture: 120 years ago today marked the beginning of the Fashoda Crisis in modern-day Sudan. The Sudan gained independence from Britain and Egypt during the Mahdist uprising of the previous decade, leading a number of European nations … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread is Ready to Fight
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! This week will discuss unlikely alliances, be they political, military, dynastic, artistic, etc. Events make strange bedfellows, sometimes literally, so let’s celebrate them. Today’s picture: September 4 commemorates two more seminal dates in American … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread Makes the Deadliest Friend
On April 30, 1973, Richard Nixon announced a shocking political purge. As the Watergate scandal spiraled beyond Nixon’s control, he forced the resignations of his two closest aides, H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, beleaguered Attorney General Richard Kleindienst, and (less … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Saturday Night Massacre
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! This week will be another open thread, so feel free to discuss what you will. Today’s picture: Emmett Till was lynched on August 28, 1955. The fourteen year old Till, a Chicago native, was … Continue reading The Outraged Weekly History Thread
Part Six in a series; see Parts One, Two, Three, Four and Five Franklin Roosevelt fumbled his reelection mandate with a disastrous second term. Starting in 1935, the Supreme Court struck down many of his programs, particularly the National Recovery … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Trials of Sedition
August 24 is the generally accepted anniversary date of the catastrophic, 79 AD volcanic eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, which lies 5.6 miles (9 km) east of modern Naples (ancient Neapolis) in Campania, Italy. The eruption, which began around one o’clock … Continue reading The Eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD
Cats! Does the internet talk about cats enough? Are you sure? Betteridge’s Law dictates that if my question was a headline, that answer would be “no,” so in hopes of fixing that, here’s some trivia about some famous or historical … Continue reading Anonymous Historical Cats
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! The discussion theme is: damnatio memoriae and other historical erasure. In ancient Rome, the practice of damnatio memoriae involved a postmortem condemnation of Roman emperors or elites that could include seizure of property, the eradication of the … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread Has Been Erased
Part Five in a series; see Parts One, Two, Three and Four. Meyer Lansky had every reason to despise fascism. His family had survived pogroms in Tsarist Russia before emigrating to America; Lansky, as a youth in Manhattan, earned his … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Gentle Art of Nazi Punching
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! This week we’ll try having a discussion question for the first time in awhile (though don’t feel bound by it): pieces of historical writing that changed your worldview. Be it a book, an essay, … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread Writes, Strikes and Otherwise Causes Change
Part Four in a series; see Parts One, Two and Three. After Franklin Roosevelt’s reelection, his opponents grew more hysterical and conspiracy-minded. Father Coughlin, abandoning most pretenses of progressivism, now branded Roosevelt’s programs the “Jew Deal,” reproduced Joseph Goebbels’ propaganda … Continue reading How We Got Here: The Mad Legions of America
Welcome to this week’s History Thread! I’ll try coming up with discussion topics for future threads, but let’s again have fun talking about whatever. This week’s picture: On August 7, 1964 both houses of Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin … Continue reading The Weekly History Thread
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