October - 2020

Meet An 11th Generation Lincoln

The image above pairs the 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, with Ralph Lincoln, an 11th generation Lincoln and third cousin of the late president. The likeness is striking. It’s a powerful reminder that history lives among us. As William Faulkner once quipped, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” So, who is Ralph C. Lincoln? And what does it feel like to be a descendent of the 16th president? Ralph Lincoln shares a common ancestor with America’s 1

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Sorosis: The NYC Women-Only Club That Started An American National Movement

After being rejected by their male literary peers, women writers of New York City joined forces to create their own club called Sorosis — where men weren't allowed. In 19th Century America, women who pursued professional careers often faced relentless challenges in their field, stemming from deeply ingrained gender discrimination. But after the women’s suffrage movement began in earnest in 1848, women began staking their ground. Many of them created women-only clubs, gatherin

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Meet Matthew Henson, The First Black Explorer To Make It To The North Pole

Many have lay claim to being the first explorer to set foot in the Arctic. But few of them has as strong a claim to the title as Matthew Henson — an orphaned descendant of slaves with a thirst for adventure. Henson and the white explorer Robert E. Peary attempted to reach the Arctic Circle seven times before they succeeded in 1909, and Henson claims he was the first of their crew to reach the historic point. Yet, his incredible achievement went largely ignored for decades bec

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Horatio Nelson: From Frail Boy to National Hero

Often maggot-infested, the food was disgusting, living quarters were tiny and discipline was extremely strict, with the threat of lashing punishment by the cat-o’-nine-tails ever present. Winston Churchill would write of such life as “nothing but rum, sodomy and the lash.” Welcome to the 18th century world of the British Navy. No wonder there were few volunteers. Most crewmen – who might not see their families again for years – had been press-ganged into service. The Governme

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A Great Day in Harlem: behind Art Kane's classic 1958 jazz photograph

The young art director’s idea to photograph as many of the luminaries of the New York jazz scene as possible together for Esquire’s 1959 Golden Age of Jazz edition began his career as a photographer. Police closed the road to all but residential traffic, and 57 musicians duly assembled in Harlem between Fifth and Madison Avenues. The group included Dizzy Gillespie, Art Blakey, Thelonius Monk, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Charles Mingus, Gerry Mulligan and Count Basie. (From

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Map Sizes Proving I Have No Sense Of Scale

Maps, by their very nature, are big fat liars. Despite what the Flat-Earthers would have you believe, the world is indeed spherical, meaning any 2-D attempt to depict it has to be a distortion. One of the worst of these distortions is the famous Mercator projection, which makes Greenland look like Africa, despite it being a whopping 14 and half times smaller. If you're looking for more accurate world maps, James Talmage and Damon Maneice's The True Size Of app has you covered

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Daisugi, the 600-Year-Old Japanese Technique of Growing Trees Out of Other Trees

We’ve all admired the elegance of Japan’s traditional styles of architecture. Their development required the kind of dedicated craftsmanship that takes generations to cultivate — but also, more practically speaking, no small amount of wood. By the 15th century, Japan already faced a shortage of seedlings, as well as land on which to properly cultivate the trees in the first place. Necessity being the mother of invention, this led to the creation of an ingenious solution: dais

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The Woman Who Disguised Herself As A Man For Decades To Practice Surgery Before Women Were Allowed

When renowned surgeon Dr. James Barry passed in 1865, his housemaid Sophia Bishop made a startling discovery: Barry was biologically female. Bishop's screams alerted others in the house, and the undertakers quickly confirmed Barry's secret. The news spread across the British Empire. James Barry successfully hid the fact that he was a woman for decades - but why? Some see Barry as a trans pioneer, while others claim Barry only adopted the male persona because women were banned

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How Drugs Like Pervitin And Cocaine Fueled The Nazis’ Rise And Fall

Despite Hitler's anti-drug rhetoric, Nazi Germany used a little courage pill called Pervitin to take Europe by storm. It turns out it was pure methamphetamine. Just before meeting with Benito Mussolini in the summer of 1943, Adolf Hitler was feeling seriously ill. Still, he couldn’t ditch an Axis power meeting, and so Hitler’s personal physician injected the Führer with a drug called Eukodal — think oxycodone combined with cocaine — to perk him up. The physician took a signif

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The Glorious Inside of a 1926 Rolls-Royce Phantom

The car was commissioned by business baron Clarence Gasque for his wife Maude, a devotee of 18th-century French design, and it remains one of the most inspired examples of bespoke coachbuilding to this day. Referred to as the “Phantom of Love,” the car was customized by Charles Clark and Sons. The firm was under instructions by Gasque (the finance director for Woolworth’s in the United Kingdom) that the refined four-door should be more impressive than the Rolls-Royce Silver G

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The Story Of The Great Dictator

In the autumn of 1938, when the Munich Agreement was being signed in Europe, Charles Chapin was putting the finishing touches to the first draft of a script written in the greatest secrecy. Rumour had it that the creator of the Tramp had decided to make his first talking film. Moreover, it was said that he would be playing the part of a character inspired by Adolf Hitler. Finally, after the long and painstaking process of revising and then directing, Chaplin presented The Gre

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When Bob Marley and Johnny Nash played a school in Peckham together.

In March 1972, Bob Marley and Johnny Nash performed a free gig at a secondary school in south London (above) after a chance encounter with an art teacher in a central London nightclub. Keith Baugh tall’s about his role in the making of a legend and how he found himself taking these iconic photographs. ----------------------------------------- Photos and words by Keith Baugh In March 1972, Bob Marley and Johnny Nash performed a free gig at a secondary school in south London (a

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The valid reason why Van Halen asked for a bowl of M&Ms with all the brown ones removed backstage

Van Halen had one of the most oddly specific requests of tour riders: a bowl of M&M's, with all the brown ones removed was to be placed in the dressing room of every venue on their 1982 tour. For years, it was seen as complete folly — the band was making a ridiculous demand of concert organizers simply because they could get away with it. But the seemingly ludicrous request was actually a shrewd business move. (I was reminded of it while reading Ian Parker's excellent profil

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The Execution of Dafydd ap Gruffydd

Today is October 3rd, and on this date, in 1283, Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the Prince of Wales, was executed. Dafydd was one of four sons of Gruffyddd ap Llywelyn. His brothers were Owain, Llewelyn, and Rodri. Their father, Gruffydd, was surrendered as a hostage to the invading English King Henry III by his own brother, Dafydd, in 1241. He died whilst attempting to escape from the Tower of London in 1244 by way of tying his bedsheets into a rope and climbing out the window. Of cour

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Say Hello To The Man Who Saved The World

Everybody in the world born before October 27, 1962 probably owes their life to Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov. He was the Russian naval officer who, on this day, refused to fire a nuclear torpedo at an American aircraft carrier, thus averting the probability of a third world war and thermo-nuclear destruction across the planet. The confrontation was part of the Cuban missile crisis that had the world holding its breath for nearly two weeks. In May 1962, Soviet President Niki

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The Tragedy of Aberfan

It was a heartbreaking tragedy known across the world by the name of the South Wales village where it happened: Aberfan. On this day millions of cubic metres of excavated mining debris came thundering down a hillside, engulfing a farm, several houses – and Pantglas Junior school, where 116 young children died. In those days big lump coal was required for domestic heating so the waste and tailings – fine particles left after the washing process – was loaded onto rail trams and

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A Grim History of London's Speakers' Corner

October 14, 1855 — A carpenter mounted his soapbox on this day complaining about high food prices – and became the first recorded amateur orator to address a crowd at what was to become Speakers’ Corner in London’s Hyde Park. George Orwell later described the place as "one of the minor wonders of the world", where he had listened to "Indian nationalists, temperance reformers, Communists, Trotskyists, the Socialist Party of Great Britain, the Catholic Evidence Society, freethi

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10 Year Old Elvis Comes Fifth in Talent Show

Standing on a chair at a microphone, he sang “Old Shep” at the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, held in Tupelo. The show was broadcast over WELO Radio, though no recording of it now exists. Some reports say that he came second and won a prize of five dollars in fair-ride tickets. Interviewed years later, however, Elvis recalled that he came fifth and his most vivid memory of the day was receiving “a whipping from my Mama” for misbehaving. A photograph taken of some of

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