History
Here we bring you the fascinating world of history: U.S. history; archeological, anthropological, natural, and evolutionary history; plus historical figures. To know where we are going we must first understand where we have been.
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A Quaker Woman Eavesdropped on British Soldiers Plotting a Surprise Attack—and Surreptitiously Warned George Washington
Laura Kiniry / Smithsonian magazine
During the American Revolution, women across the Thirteen Colonies took on a range of nontraditional roles. Some assumed control of family farms and businesses while their husbands and sons were off fighting. Others, known as “camp followers,” traveled with the Continental Army, serving as cooks, nurses and seamstresses. Still others became spies, gathering crucial intelligence behind enemy lines. In fact, women made ideal spies because they often went unnoticed—sexist stereotypes suggested they simply couldn’t understand war and its complexities.
Popular lore credits a figure identified only as Agent 355 with using hidden messages and other covert techniques to convey the movements and plans of British troops to George Washington’s Culper Spy Ring. But details of this anonymous woman’s actions are sparse, and the story is more myth than truth. Female spies whose exploits were more grounded in fact include Ann Bates, a Philadelphia-based schoolteacher who gathered intel for the British, and Nancy Hart, who disguised herself as a…Read more, and see video here.
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What Were the Biggest Empires in History?
Nate Barksdale – history.com
In 1886, artist Walter Crane created what became one of the most important maps in the English-speaking world. His Imperial Federation Map showed the British Empire’s territories in pink, surrounded by illustrations of colonized peoples and topped with banners reading “Freedom, Fraternity, Federation.” Karen Barkey, a sociologist at Bard College who studies how empires function, argues a different three-word definition might be more appropriate: “Empire,” she says, “denotes differentiation, inequality and hierarchy.”
Over thousands of years of recorded human history, empires have taken different forms, from ancient land-based empires to colonialist empires like the British to present-day forms of financial empire that don’t require much territory at all. To name the biggest empires in history, you first have to decide what you’re trying to measure. Read more here.
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The Real Count of Monte Cristo Was Alexandre Dumas’ Father, a Trailblazing Black General
Joel Sams / Smithsonian magazime
No one could have foreseen the rise of Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.
Born enslaved, he became France’s first Black general—a war hero, a champion of liberty and a pioneer of equality during the French Revolutionary Wars.
Dumas’ fall from grace, however, was swift. Fellow general Napoleon Bonaparte envied and feared him. His nation betrayed him. And more than a century after his death in 1806, the Nazis melted down his bronze statue to make materials for the war effort.
The general died when his son, the future novelist Alexandre Dumas, was only 3 years old. But the elder Dumas’ astonishing life formed the emotional core of his child’s most successful novel, The Count of Monte Cristo.
On March 22, a new television adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo will debut on Masterpiece on PBS. Ahead of the premiere of the eight-episode limited series, which stars Sam Claflin, Jeremy…Read more here.
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Did St. Patrick Really Drive the Snakes Out of Ireland?
Jordan Smith – history.com
If you’ve ever set foot in Ireland, you might have noticed the country is missing some wildlife that’s common nearly everywhere else: snakes. According to popular lore, that’s because St. Patrick drove snakes off the island in the fifth century. The true explanation, however, likely comes down to weather and geography.
What is the legend about St. Patrick and snakes?: In a dramatic account from centuries after his death around A.D. 461, St. Patrick stood on a mountaintop during a fast and banished snakes and other reptiles from Ireland and into the sea, thereby killing them. It’s commonly repeated in a simplified version that St. Patrick killed all the snakes in Ireland.
Did St. Patrick kill all the snakes in Ireland?: There’s no evidence that St. Patrick killed all the snakes in Ireland, nor did he chase them out of the country. In fact, he probably never even saw one…Read more here.
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