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The Man Who Invented Christmas
Written by Chip Wood Saturday, 24 December 2011 http://www.thenewamerican.com/opinion/chip-wood/10330-the-man-who-invented-christmas During this season of massive over-commercialization, you may find it hard to believe there was a time when Christmas was no big deal. There were no stores full of toys, no songs playing 24 hours a day, and no Christmas trees with so many presents under them that they fill most of the room. In fact, there were no Christmas trees at all. For most of the 2,000 years since the birth of Christ, Christmas was not a special holiday. If it was commemorated at all, it was with a candlelight service at the local church or cathedral and a special…
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Dec 23, 1888: Van Gogh chops off ear
On this day in 1888, Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, suffering from severe depression, cuts off the lower part of his left ear with a razor while staying in Arles, France. He later documented the event in a painting titled Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. Today, Van Gogh is regarded as an artistic genius and his masterpieces sell for record-breaking prices; however, during his lifetime, he was a poster boy for tortured starving artists and sold only one painting. Vincent Willem van Gogh was born on March 30, 1853, in the Netherlands. He had a difficult, nervous personality and worked unsuccessfully at an art gallery and then as a preacher among…
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Sons of Liberty Dump British Tea Dec 16, 1773
On this day in 1773, a group of Massachusetts colonists disguised as Mohawk Indians board three British tea ships moored in Boston Harbor and dump 342 chests of tea into the water. Now known as the “Boston Tea Party,” the midnight raid was a protest of the Tea Act of 1773, a bill enacted by the British parliament to save the faltering British East India Company by greatly lowering its tea tax and granting it a virtual monopoly on the American tea trade. The low tax allowed the company to sell its tea even more cheaply than that smuggled into America by Dutch traders. Many colonists viewed the act as…
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On His Birthday, Remembering Mark Twain’s Gifts to The Atlantic
By Brian Resnick Now an American icon, the Huckleberry Finn author received his first big break in the pages of this magazine Over its 154 years, the pages of The Atlantic have hosted essays and commentaries from literary luminaries such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman, Arthur Miller, and Saul Bellow. But perhaps most culturally salient of them all is Mark Twain. Required reading for nearly all school children, Twain’s works are inextricably linked to American history. Today, on what would be Twain’s 176th birthday, his name and his work are still provocative. At the time of its publication, his most famous book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was a poignant satire of the South set against…
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Pilgrims With Shoe Buckles, and Other Thanksgiving Myths
By Ryan Lintelman Nov 23 2011, 10:35 AM ET 1 The holiday may be a hodgepodge of false ideas, but it still connects us to the American experience Smithsonian Museum of American History Many Americans share the experience of learning a story about the first Thanksgiving that bears only a passing resemblance to the historical truth. The classic narrative might go as follows: a group of religious separatists called Pilgrims sailed to Cape Cod on board the Mayflower in 1620. They landed on a rock they quickly named for their city of departure in England, Plymouth, and wrote an egalitarian compact to govern their new colony. The Pilgrims proceeded…
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These are the words that James A. Garfield spoke at Arlington Cemetery on May 30, 1868
In answer to a question I received today”Message: Gen. Garfield made a speech dedicating Arlington National Cemetery. Can you provide the text of that speech?” scroll down in article to These are the words that James A. Garfield spoke at Arlington Cemetery on May 30, 1868: ADRIAN MORGAN: WE SHOULD GUARD THEIR GRAVES WITH SACRED VIGILANCE: By Ruth King on May 30th, 2011 http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.9625/pub_detail.asp “We Should Guard Their Graves with Sacred Vigilance” Adrian Morgan, The Editor The first official celebration of Memorial Day began unofficially in the cemeteries of the south in the years immediately after the end of the Civil War. Here, ceremonies began where the graves of the…
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The Bible of King James: National Geographic
© Jim Richardson/National Geographic But by the mid-1600s the King James had effectively replaced all its predecessors and had come to be the Bible of the English-speaking world. As English traders and colonists spread across the Atlantic and to Africa and the Indian subcontinent, the King James Bible went with them. It became embedded in the substance of empire, used as wrapping paper for cigars, medicine, sweetmeats, and rifle cartridges and eventually marketed as “the book your Emperor reads.” Medicine sent to English children during the Indian Mutiny in 1857 was folded up in paper printed with the words of Isaiah 51 verse 12: “I, even I, am he that…
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Suburbia: Where America Lives
February 11, 2009 9:46 PM For CBS News Sunday Morning, Correspondent Richard Schlesinger talks to an expert on suburbia and two people who were in on it from the beginning. “Really, when we talk about the suburbs, we’re talking about America now, because we are now a suburban nation in the sense that really more people live in suburbs than live in cities and rural areas combined.We really are a totally suburban nation.” So says Ken Jackson of Columbia University, who has been studying the suburbs for 30 years and who has even written a book about them, The Crabgrass Frontier. “Most historians would say that up until 1920, we…
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Apple Icon With Steve Jobs Profile
STEVE JOBS IN SILHOUETTE The student came up the with idea when Jobs resigned, but it’s only since Jobs’ passing, that the design is getting attention. Courtesy Jonathan Mak Apple Logo Features Steve Jobs in Silhouette A Hong Kong student tweaked the Apple logo as a tribute to the company’s former CEO. Fri Oct 7, 2011 11:58 AM ET | content provided by AFP A Hong Kong design student said on Friday he was overwhelmed and felt “unreal” after his somber logo in tribute to Apple founder Steve Jobs caused a worldwide Internet sensation. The design, featuring Jobs’s silhouette incorporated into the bite of a white Apple logo on…
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Today in History November 11
World War I ends, 1918 American Revolution Poor leadership leads to Cherry Valley Massacre, 1778 Automotive The General Lee jumps into history, 1978 Civil War Confederate General Benjamin McCulloch is born, 1811 Cold War Soviet Union refuses to play Chile in World Cup Soccer, 1973 Crime Police make a grisly discovery in Dorothea Puente’s lawn, 1988 Disaster Skiers die in cable-car fire, 2000 General Interest Nat Turner executed in Virginia, 1831 George Patton born, 1885 Dedication of the Tomb of the Unknowns, 1921 Hollywood Interview with the Vampire debuts, 1994 Literary Louisa May Alcott publishes her first story, 1852 Music Donna Summer earns her first #1 pop hit with “MacArthur…
