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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 The House passed them after a heated debate, but rescinded the fifth resolution the following day.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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In the early New England colonies, life was largely spent tending to essentials. But the colonists still managed a few laughs. Colonial pranks tended to be harmless, but still funny to those concerned.
If you were the victim of a chouse, a fetch or a jig, it meant you’d been tricked. Sometimes with ill intent, but often for laughs. A “rig” meant a “joke.” If someone ran his rig on others, it meant he’d made them the butt of his joke. If, on the other hand, the target caught on and spoiled th...
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Throwing a party in the 19th century was an exercise in extremes, ranging from Gilded Age glamour to grassroots get-togethers after a long day in the fields.
At the start of the 19th century, many Americans were part of rural agrarian communities where daily life revolved around farming, homemaking, and survival. In the ensuing years, industrialization and immigration made major impacts on the country. Social and economic divides became more stark, with wealthy families in urban areas enjoyi...
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Records are meant to be broken, but at least one weather-related event is unlikely to be bested anytime soon: the biggest snowstorm in American history, which dumped nearly 5 feet of snow on the Northeastern U.S. The aptly named Great Blizzard of 1888, also known as the Great White Hurricane, occurred in New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut between March 11 and 14, and saw as much as 58 inches (4.8 feet) of snowfall. That was in Saratoga Springs, New York, while Ben...
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On August 2, 1775, the Second Continental Congress wrapped up its summer session 250 years ago. Philadelphia’s heatwave that summer—described as “Very Close & Hot”—was too much for the delegates. “We have sat much longer than expected,” one Congressman grumbled. “We are all exhausted.”
The Congress had been working tirelessly since its session began on May 10, 1775. In just 12 weeks, the body accomplished an impressive list of tasks, many of which escalated the growing tension with Great Brit...
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On August 30, 1774, two Virginians arrived by carriage at George Washington’s home, Mount Vernon. It was Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton. Henry and Pendleton planned to spend the night at Mount Vernon, and on the morning of August 31, 1774, they would depart with Washington to go to Philadelphia and attend the First Continental Congress. These three Virginians would be joined in Philadelphia by Richard Henry Lee, Peyton Randolph, Benjamin Harrison, and Richard Bland to form the Virginia de...
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A giant wave of molasses once flooded the streets of Boston.
On January 15, 1919, more than 2 million gallons of molasses spewed through Boston’s North End in an event known today as the Great Molasses Flood. The incident occurred due to a faulty storage tank managed by United States Industrial Alcohol, a distilling company. The massive storage vat measured 50 feet high with a diameter of 90 feet, and was known to rumble and leak from the time it was built in 1915. These issues occurred in pa...
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I call it KARMA and the GATEWAY PUNDIT reports:
Netflix suspended three employees, including a transgender software engineer who tried to cancel comedian Dave Chappelle, for crashing a leadership meeting.Terra Fied, who identifies as queer and transgender, posted a long Twitter thread blasting Dave Chappelle’s Netflix show “The Closer” in which he tells transgender and gay jokes.
Netflix claims the queer/trans employee was not suspended for criticizing Chappelle.“It is absolutely untrue ...
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In the late 19th century, the American press found itself in the grip of a phenomenon known as “yellow journalism” — a sensationalized form of reporting that prioritized eye-catching headlines ahead of the cold, hard facts. These unverified claims sometimes had serious consequences, most notably in the case of the Spanish-American War.
On February 15, 1898, the USS Maine battleship exploded and sank in Havana Harbor in Cuba (a country controlled by Spain at the time). Within days, major newsp...
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Mulligan Stew, Aka "Community Stew"
Mulligan stew. It began in American hobo camps around the time of the Great Depression. It was referred to as a "community stew" because the hobos in the camps would usually contribute random ingredients that were available to them and combine them into a stew.
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