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Trial of a sow and pigs at Lavegny. The Rationale Behind the Madness The notion of arraigning a barn swallow or bovine may seem utterly ludicrous today, but to medieval minds steeped in religious doctrine and folklore, it was a perfectly reasonable concept. The theological underpinning was that animals, having been granted a place in […]
Hiero of Syracuse calls Archimedes to fortify the city. By Sebastiano Ricci. The Context of the Siege By 213 BCE, the Second Punic War was raging, and Rome was embroiled in a life-or-death struggle with the Carthaginian general Hannibal, who had invaded Italy. Syracuse, a wealthy and strategically important city-state, had been a Roman ally […]
Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States, in 1862. “When the dogmas of a sectional party…threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a Government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation […]
Othniel Charles Marsh & Edward Drinker Cope. Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope: From friends to enemies The participants in this unusual conflict came from very different backgrounds and had many differences. Othniel Charles Marsh was born on October 29, 1831, near Lockport, New York. He was the third child of Mary Gaines Peabody […]
As the Second World War intensified, the Mediterranean became a critical theatre of operations for both the Axis and Allied powers. Control of the sea lanes in this region was vital for the supply lines of the British Empire and the Axis powers, particularly for Italy, which sought to dominate the eastern Mediterranean and secure […]
Rise to the Presidency Johnson was born into poverty and did not have the opportunity to attend school. Despite this, he apprenticed as a tailor and worked in various frontier towns before settling in Greeneville, Tennessee. Although he never received a formal education, he compensated by hiring others to read to him while he worked […]
The moon eyed people were supposedly nocturnal and could not see well during the day, they also supposedly had pale skin due to their lack of exposure to sunlight. Certain stone structures such as the one at Fort Mountain in northwest Georgia are associated with this legend. The Cherokee legend claimed that the moon eyed […]
Concept and founding of the LRDG The concept of the LRDG was born out of necessity. In 1940, the British Army faced the daunting task of navigating and fighting in the North African desert, a vast and largely unmapped region that stretched across thousands of square miles. Conventional military tactics were rendered ineffective in this […]
General John Gordon. “Slavery is only one of the minor issues and the cause of the war, the whole cause, on our part is the maintenance of the independence of these states….neither tariffs, nor slavery, nor both together, could ever been truly called the cause of the secession…. the sovereign independence of our states. This, […]
The morning after the Battle of Waterloo on June 19, 1815. By John Heaviside Clark. The Carnage of Waterloo: A Battlefield of Corpses The Battle of Waterloo was a clash of titans, with Napoleon’s Armée du Nord pitted against the combined forces of the Seventh Coalition, led by the Duke of Wellington and Prussian Field […]