A Puritan rag published this day in history
On January 21st, 1789, the novel The Power of Sympathy by William Hill Brown was published in Boston. The book is widely accepted as the first American novel to be written and published. Before this, it is likely that American publishers were simply publishing European manuscripts.
The Power of Sympathy was written as a series of letters between the various characters and set out to warn the readers of the folly of following one’s sexual passions to their conclusion.
Cost of the novel
In 1789, the cost of a newly printed copy of The Power of Sympathy was nine shillings. At this point, the Congress of the United States had not gotten around to passing legislation regarding the use of coins and decimal currency within the country. …
This day in history
On this day in history, January 18th, 1788, the first ships of a British convict convoy landed at Botany Bay, Australia. The convoy was dubbed The First Fleet and had departed from Portsmouth, England almost a year earlier. The convoy was made up of eleven ships. Two Royal Navy vessels, six convict transports and three cargo ships filled with provisions.
A group numbering around 1,500 landed on the shores of Australia with the intent of building a new penal colony from scratch to house current and future convicts from the British Empire. …
The Second Mexican Empire was a disaster and led to the death of a powerful Austrian monarch
On June 19th, 1867, Emperor Maximilian I was stood in front of a Mexican firing squad. Staring down the barrel of fifteen rifles, Maximilian gave each member of the firing squad a gold coin — an old European tradition — and simply asked that they aim well. He was afraid that if they shot him in the face or missed their mark, his body would be mangled and cause a shock to his mother back in Europe.
Just before 7AM in the morning, the guns fired and Emperor Maximilian I of the Second Mexican Empire was dead.
Maximilian was not some crazed despot who had attempted to take Mexico through the force of his personality. He was the brother of Franz Joseph I of Austria, one of the most powerful monarchs in modern history and his efforts in Mexico had been wholly backed by Napoleon III of…
An ancient system that lingered into 20th century Quebec
Feudalism is often romanticized in modern pop culture. It was a system that people think back on only to remember mounted knights, regal lords, and the glory of a decentralized European continent ripe with adventure. In reality, it was a miserable system in which the few exploited the many in unfair and often brutal ways.
Feudalism is defined by the Canada History Project as:
“a system of political and social organization prevalent in western Europe during the Middle Ages (roughly 500–1450 AD). It was based on the relationship between a lord, who provided land and protection, and a vassal or serf, who pledged military and other services to his lord. …
An odd naming trope, a massive debt and the precursor to the American Revolution
The French and Indian War was a conflict fought between colonial assets of England and France alongside various local native tribes in North America beginning in 1754. This conflict did not feature much in the way of grand battles, high death tolls or physical destruction but its effects shaped the future of North America forever. It paved the way for men like George Washington, it established French-Canadian autonomy in Quebec and nearly drove two of the world’s largest powers to bankruptcy.
A note on names
One of the most confusing portions of the war itself was the naming trope that continues to befuddle people to this day. …
A small skirmish that marked the end of a massive series of conflicts
In the remote region of Bear Valley in the infant state of Arizona, two small groups of armed men were about to face off in a skirmish that neither side knew would be the last of its kind.
On one side were Yaquis natives who were armed with frontier rifles and supplies purchased with money gained working on American ranches and farms. The Yaquis’ real quarrel was with the Mexican state to the south at the time rather than the Americans.
On the other side were the Americans. A few dozen members of the 10th Cavalry of the United States Army, led by Captain Frederick H.L. “Blondy” Ryder, were stationed at a camp in Bear Valley on border patrol duty. The 10th Cavalry, whose members were also known in the region as buffalo soldiers, was a division with a long history of conflict with Native Americans on the western frontier. …
A thing of nightmares that lasted for over two decades
On a dreary November day in 1935, an anxious Egas Moniz watched as his protege, Dr. Pedro Almeida Lima, began to drill holes into the patient’s skull. The first patient was a woman who was slated to be cured of her depression. After the holes were carefully drilled, Dr. Lima injected pure ethanol into the woman’s frontal lobe to break down and eventually destroy the fibers that connected that part of her brain to the rest of its system.
This was the first leucotomy, and it was considered a resounding success by its creator, Egas Moniz. The patient was declared “cured” after seeing some symptoms of her depression alleviated after the surgery. …
A fascinating and bloody glimpse of ancient warfare
Warfare for humanity is nothing new. Whether you believe that humans arose from intelligent apes and began to bludgeon each other with branches or believe that the bloodshed started when Cain murdered Abel, it is clear that our ability to harm one another goes back a very long time. Even neanderthal skeletons have been found with blunt force trauma injuries suggesting that they too injured one another.
In spite of the universal nature of human warfare, the depths of time are often shrouded in myth and mystery. …
You might have already forgotten
2020 has been quite the year, one that many people will be glad to see the back of. The headlines have been dominated by the ongoing global pandemic, which has seen hundreds of thousands killed and millions infected. When we look back, 2020 is going to be the year of COVID-19 and the subsequent major response to the emerging disease. However, just because there is a pandemic does not mean the world stopped completely.
There were other significant events that were overshadowed by COVID-19, which have already started to fade from the memory banks. …
“If you fish and catch nothing, you have still caught a lesson.”
There is a dispute brewing between the United Kingdom and the European Union over fishing rights surrounding the British Isles. This is the latest in a long, long line of open water fishery disputes that have plagued nations for centuries. The latest Brexit-fueled disagreement over fishing rights, catch limits and territorial sovereignty have evoked comparison’s to the Cod Wars which took place in the 1960s and 1970s.
The present is often an echo of the past. So what were the Cod Wars? What kind of lessons can they teach us about problems today?
A watery background
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