Category: American History
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History Daily: August 31
JACK THE RIPPER KILLS FIRST VICTIM Image: “With the Vigilance Committee in the East End: A Suspicious Character” from The Illustrated London News, 13 October 1888. (Wikimedia Commons.) On August 31, 1888, prostitute Mary Ann Nichols, the first known victim of the English serial killer “Jack the Ripper,” was murdered and mutilated in the Whitechapel…
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History Daily: August 29
WOMEN JOIN BRITISH WAR EFFORT On August 29, 1914, with World War I approaching the end of its first month, the Women’s Defense Relief Corps was formed in Britain. Though women’s rights organizations in Britain had initially opposed the country’s entry into World War I, they soon reversed their position, recognizing the potential of the…
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Ishi, the Last Surviving Member of the Native American Yahi Tribe, is Discovered Near Oroville, California. August 29, 1911.
Image: Ishi portrait. (Wikimedia Commons.) On this day in history, Ishi, who was described as the last surviving member of the Native American Yahi tribe, is discovered near Oroville, California. History Daily: 365 Fascinating Happenings Volume 1 & Volume 2 – August 29, 1911 By the early 20th century, Anglo-Americans had overwhelmed the North American…
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History Daily: August 28
EMMETT TILL IS MURDERED Image: Emmett Till (Wikimedia Commons) On August 28, 1955, while visiting family in Money, Mississippi, 14-year-old Emmett Till, an African American boy from Chicago, is viciously murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman four days earlier. His murderers—the white woman’s husband and his brother—made Emmett carry a 75-pound cotton gin…
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An Exhausted and Demoralized Sauk Leader, Black Hawk, Surrenders After Defeat in the Black Hawk War. August 27, 1832.
Image: Black Hawk, the Sauk war chief and namesake of the Black Hawk War in 1832. (Wikimedia Commons.) On this day in history, after capitulating to the Americans at the end of the Black Hawk War, an exhausted and demoralized Sauk leader, Black Hawk, surrendered to Indian agent Joseph Street at Fort Crawford (present-day Prairie…
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Italian-Born Anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are Executed for Murder in Boston, Massachusetts. August 23, 1927.
Image: Bartolomeo Vanzetti (left), handcuffed to Nicola Sacco (right). Dedham, Massachusetts Superior Court, 1923.This photo was taken in 1923 when Sacco was on the 23rd day of a hunger strike. (Wikimedia Commons.) On this day in history, despite worldwide protests in support of their innocence, Italian-born anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti are executed for…
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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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African American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker wrote a letter to Thomas Jefferson criticizes his hypocritical stance on slavery. August 19, 1791.
Image: Benjamin Banneker On this day in history, the accomplished American mathematician and astronomer Benjamin Banneker wrote a letter to then-Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson communicates prolifically with luminaries from around the world. Still, Banneker is unique among them: the son of a free Black American woman and a formerly enslaved African man from…
History Daily With Francis Chappell Black 