History

Here we bring you the fascinating world of history: U.S. history; archeological, anthropological, natural, and evolutionary history; plus historical figures and military history. To know where we are going we must first understand where we have been.

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America’s 150th Birthday Celebration Was Deemed the Nation’s ‘Greatest Flop.’ What Went Wrong With the Sesquicentennial?

Meilan Solly / America’s 250th Anniversary / A Smithsonian magazine special report

A century ago, the first visitors to Philadelphia’s Sesquicentennial International Exposition—held to mark the 150th anniversary of the United States’ founding—waded through mud and wandered along unpaved sidewalks to reach the heart of the fairgrounds, only to find carpenters still at work on half-finished exhibition halls and gaping holes marking the spots where attractions had yet to be built.

Dining and shopping options were limited, and some of the few exhibits on view stretched the very definition of “entertainment.” One was a model Post Office where “you could go send yourself a letter and watch it get canceled,” says historian Thomas H. Keels, author of Sesqui! Greed, Graft and the Forgotten World’s Fair of 1926. “That was it.”

The 200,000-plus Shriners in town for their fraternal organization’s national convention realized that their parades and rallies were the main events planned for these early…Read more, see photos and video here.

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The Reinventions of the White House Lawn: Playground, Pasture, Stage

Laura Studarus – history.com

Every so often, the White House transforms its South Lawn into something unexpected. While best known as the backdrop to American political power, the grounds have doubled as high-stakes playing fields and performance spaces for over a century.

From “scandalous” pop concerts to full-scale youth baseball diamonds, the South Lawn has frequently been dug up, relined and reinvented in the name of recreation.

Family-Friendly Fun: In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson opened the White House lawn for the first major holiday celebration at the executive mansion. He invited the U.S. Marine Band to perform, a group Jefferson affectionately dubbed “The President’s Own.”

The party was revolutionary for its era. Jefferson’s presidential predecessors George Washington and John Adams were strict Federalists and believed informal protocol. Jefferson, a …Read more here.

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Archaeologists Have Found Something Unexpected Inside a 1,600-Year-Old Egyptian Mummy

By Stephan Blum, University of Tübingen, and Stefan Baumann, KU Leuven – ScitechDaily

An Iliad fragment discovered inside an Egyptian mummy shows how Homer’s influence extended across Roman culture, from imperial identity and education to everyday life in Roman Egypt.

Archaeologists have found something unexpected inside a 1,600-year-old Roman-era Egyptian mummy: a fragment of Homer’s Iliad. It wasn’t placed beside the body but inside the mummy’s abdomen. But the real surprise isn’t just where the fragment was found. It’s how it got there. To understand, we must go back—to the Iliad itself and to what it became in the Roman world.

In The Iliad, a poem shaped in the 8th century BC and attributed to Homer, the Trojan War does not end in triumph or renewal. It ends in devastation. The poem closes at the edge of collapse, with Troy reduced to a landscape of heroic ruin. Read more here.

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Theodore Roosevelt Survived an Assassination Attempt Because a Speech Tucked Inside His Pocket Slowed the Bullet. He Insisted on Delivering His Remarks Anyway

Ellen Wexler / Smithsonian magazinre

When Theodore Roosevelt took the stage on October 14, 1912, he was carrying an eyeglasses case and a typed manuscript in his vest pocket. The steel case was dented, and each folded page was punctured with two round holes. The cause of the damage was a bullet, which was now lodged inside the 26th president’s chest.

“Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible,” Roosevelt told the crowd. “I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot.”

The former president reached inside his vest and removed the 50-page manuscript, holding it up before his audience. The papers, he explained, had slowed the bullet, which broke one of his ribs. But it hadn’t hit any vital organs, instead stopping near his right lung. “The bullet is in me now, so that I cannot make a very long speech,” he said, “but I will try my best.”

The assassination attempt took place just weeks before the presidential election. Roosevelt, who was running as a third-party candidate, was about to deliver a campaign speech in…Read more, and see photos here.

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