Tag: History Daily
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Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa is Stolen Right Off the Walls of the Louvre in Paris. August 21, 1911.
On this day in history, on a quiet, humid Monday morning in Paris, three men were hurrying out of the Louvre with what would become the most famous painting in the world. They were committing the “art heist of the century.” History Daily: 365 Fascinating Happenings Volume 1 & Volume 2 – August 21, 1914…
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History Daily:August 20
RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONARY LEON TROTSKY IS MORTALLY INJURED IN MEXICO CITY ATTACK Image: Leon Trotsky (Wikimedia Commons.) Born in Ukraine to Russian-Jewish parents in 1879, Trotsky became a Marxist as a teenager and later left the University of Odessa to help organize the subversive South Russian Workers Union. In 1898, he was arrested for radical activities…
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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…
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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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American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is put on trial in Moscow for espionage against the Soviet Union after his U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over USSR. August 17, 1960.
On this day in history, American spy pilot Francis Gary Powers is put on trial in Moscow for espionage against the Soviet Union after his ultra-sophisticated Lockheed U-2 high-altitude reconnaissance aircraft was shot down over Sverdlovsk in the Ural Mountains on May 1, 1960. Powers pleaded guilty to the charges and was sentenced to 10…
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History Daily: August 16
BABE RUTH DIES Image: Ruth at Yankee Stadium prior to the Yankees’ retirement of his jersey number. (Wikimedia Commons.) On August 16, 1948, baseball icon George Herman “Babe” Ruth died from cancer in New York City. Following his death, his body lay in state at Yankee Stadium, and thousands of people paid their last respects. He was…
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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…
History Daily With Francis Chappell Black 