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The ancient Greeks unknowingly set the bar for environmentally friendly dining: The first napkins were edible pieces of soft dough, which were often fed to the dogs after a meal. Centuries before the widespread use of paper napkins, soft pieces of dough were cut into small pieces, rolled, and then kneaded at the table before being used to wipe people’s fingers and hands after eating. This dough was called apomagdalia, which refers to the doughy bread inside the crusts, also known as “the crumb.”...
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Patrick Henry wrote the following five resolutions against the Stamp Act and introduced them to the House of Burgesses on May 29, 1765. The House passed them after a heated debate, but rescinded the fifth resolution the following day. This iteration of the Virginia Stamp Act comes from a handwritten document that was found inside a small envelope that Henry included with his testament.
Author: Patrick Henry
Resolved, That the first Adventurers and Settlers of this his Majesties Colony and ...
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The doctors' riot was an incident that occurred in April 1788 in New York City, where the illegal procurement of corpses from the graves of the recently deceased caused a mass expression of discontent from poorer New Yorkers that was directed primarily at physicians and medical students.
Background
By the end of the American Revolution, roughly one-fifth of New York City's population was black, most of whom were slaves. Their low social standing allowed slaves' bodies to be buried only out...
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A self-proclaimed amateur archaeologist professes that mysterious granite stones found over the years by fishermen near the uninhabited Chandeleur Islands, located 50 miles east of New Orleans in the United States, are actually architectural artifacts from a 12,000-year-old lost city. Having visited the site 44 times, George Gelé, a retired architect, is convinced that he has found the remains of a submerged city predating the ancient Inca, Maya and Aztec civilizations of the Americas.
Ancien...
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The number 13 has long been considered unlucky in many Western cultures. Even today — in a world far less superstitious than it was in the past — a surprising amount of people have a genuine, deep-rooted fear of the number 13, known as triskaidekaphobia. For this reason, many hotels don’t list the presence of a 13th floor (Otis Elevators reports 85% of its elevator panels omit the number), and many airlines skip row 13. And the more specific yet directly connected fear of Friday the 13th, known ...
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Patrick Henry introduced a series of resolutions known as the Virginia Stamp Act Resolves, which argued that only the General Assembly had the authority to levy taxes on Virginia colonists.
Henry also argued that any attempts by the British government to tax Virginians without their consent were an attack on their rights.
Although the resolutions were controversial, most of them were passed by the House of Burgesses and published in newspapers throughout the American Colonies.
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A new find suggests farmers in the Bible lands built channels for irrigation long before historians thought they did, allowing for cultivated vineyards, olives, wheat, and barley.
By using walls to channelize and collect floodwaters, ancient farmers made the most of scant rainfall to grow crops in the desert. These techniques are still used today, like in this field outside the old city of Avdat, Israel.
The current thinking is that these desert denizens didn't practice agriculture before ...
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After Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson ascended to the presidency. Lincoln had selected Johnson, a former Democrat from Tennessee, as his vice presidential candidate because Johnson’s presence appeased southern sympathizers who desired a quick peace process. Johnson, however, fought constantly with the Republican majority in Congress. One of their major disagreements was over the federal government’s role in promoting social, political, and economic equality for former slaves and ...
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On the 2nd of July 1843 (on Sunday), an alligator appeared in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The alligator rained down from the sky, according to the Times-Picayune's newspaper clipping in New Orleans.
Weather Conditions on That Fateful Day
The article speaks about the weather conditions on that day, and it made use of the 1843 charm in doing so. It read that in Charleston, S. C., Sunday week was a day extremely bad for its heats, but during the night a thunderstorm relieved the weathe...
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The grandson of Napoleon Bonaparte's younger brother Jérôme, Charles Bonaparte lacked his famous relative's ambition for world domination yet displayed a talent for visionary authority that might have impressed the Little Corporal. In the late 19th century, Charles Bonaparte, then a lawyer from Baltimore, came into the orbit of fast-rising New York politician Theodore Roosevelt through their shared interest in civil service reform. Bonaparte later became President Roosevelt's secretary of the Na...
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United States-Mexican history
Also known as: Gadsden Purchase Treaty, Treaty of La Mesilla
Also called: Treaty of La Mesilla
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These are baseball’s most scandalous players, many of them convicted criminals. If I have forgotten anyone scandalous, please let me know in the comments. I have asterisked (*) the starter at each position.
The crimes herein range from bigamy and human trafficking to cattle rustling!
For readers in a hurry, my ALL-SCANDAL TEAM, composed entirely of hall-of-famers or “would have beens,” is: (C) Cap Anson (1B) Orlando Cepeda (2B) Rogers Hornsby (SS) Alex Rodriguez (3B) Pete Rose (RF) Shoeles...
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