Category: 1800s
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History Daily: August 21
CONFEDERATE GUERILLAS MASSACRE 150 PEOPLE IN LAWRENCE, KANSAS Image: An artist’s depiction of the destruction of the city of Lawrence, Kansas, and the massacre of its inhabitants by Confederate guerrillas on August 21, 1863. (Wikimedia Commons.) The vicious guerilla war in Missouri rolls into Kansas. It triggers one of the most shocking acts of violence…
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History Daily: August 19
OUTLAW JOHN WESLEY HARDIN IS MURDERED IN TEXAS Image: John Wesley Hardin’s post mortem photo. (Wikimedia Commons.) On August 19, 1895, John Wesley Hardin, one of the most vicious and prolific killers in the American Old West, is murdered by an off-duty policeman in a saloon in El Paso, Texas. Born in Texas on May…
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History Daily: August 18
ROANOKE COLONY ABANDONED Image: 19th-century illustration depicting the discovery of the abandoned colony, 1590. (Wikimedia Commons.) On August 18, 1590, John White, the governor of the Roanoke Island colony in present-day North Carolina, returns from a trip to England to find the settlement abandoned. White found no evidence of the whereabouts of the 100 colonists…
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Angels of the Battlefields: Photos of Nurses During American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war in the United States fought between northern and Pacific states (“the Union” or “the North”) and southern states that voted to secede and form the Confederate States of America (“the Confederacy” or “the South”). The central cause of the war was the status of slavery, especially the…
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History Daily: August 17
BILLY THE KID KILLS HIS FIRST MAN Image: Billy the Kid 1880. (Wikimedia Commons.) Despite being a teenager at the time, on August 17, 1877, Billy the Kid shoots and injures an Arizona blacksmith who dies the next day. He was the infamous outlaw’s first casualty. Just how many men the Kid killed is unknown.…
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The Klondike Gold Rush. August 16, 1896.
Image: Klondikers carrying supplies ascending the Chilkoot Pass, 1898. (Wikimedia Commons) On this day in history, American prospector George Carmack, along with Skookum Jim Mason and Dawson Charlie – both Tagish First Nation members – discovered Yukon gold on Rabbit Creek (later renamed Bonanza Creek), a Klondike River branch that ran through both Alaskan and…
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History Daily: August 14
CHINA DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY Image: Chinese workers during World War I (Wikimedia Commons) On August 14, 1917, as World War I entered its fourth year, China abandoned its neutrality and declared war on Germany. From its beginning, the Great War was not restricted to the European continent; in the Far East, two competing countries,…
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History Daily: August 13
“HOUND DOG” IS RECORDED FOR THE FIRST TIME BY BIG MAMA THORNTON. AUGUST 13, 1952 Image: Big Mama Thornton (Wikimedia Commons) Elvis Presley’s “Hound Dog” (1956) is one of Rock and Roll’s most identifiable songs. It’s a song so closely associated with Presley that many have incorrectly accepted that Presley recorded it first. The story…
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History Daily: August 12
KING PHILIP’S WAR ENDS Image: Indians Attacking a Garrison House, from an Old Wood Engraving This is likely a depiction of the attack on the Haynes Garrison, Sudbury, April 21, 1676. (Wikimedia Commons.) On August 12, 1676, in colonial New England, King Philip’s War ended when Philip, chief of the Wampanoag tribe, was assassinated by a…
History Daily With Francis Chappell Black 