Historian and Writer
Posts about miscellaneous history topics.
After Theodore Roosevelt won reelection in his own right during November 1904, TR impetuously announced he would not run for another term. His inner circle, particularly his wife Edith, would think the decision a mistake. However, once Theodore Roosevelt made a pronouncement, he intended to keep his word. Roosevelt picked his Secretary of War and former
On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther performed one of the most courageous acts of a church man in the Sixteenth Century. He nailed a protest, his 95 theses, to the door of the Wittenberg Church. His act directly challenged Papal authority and the practices of indulgences. Historically, it is often seen as the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.
In this episode, we will discuss the bitterness which drove Charles Earl Bowles to become the western outlaw Black Bart. Affiliate Message – If you have been thinking about blogging, this post will walk you through how I started blogging in 2013. The post contains my recommendations for your blogging journey. Main Content –
In American and Western European scholarship, most researchers place Josef (Iosif) Stalin along with Adolph Hitler as the most murderous dictators in Twentieth-Century history. Stalin killed or imprisoned millions of his own countrymen. The current Stalin debate does not dispute these murders. The debate centers on why Stalin carried out the communist party purges in the mid to late
After reading Theodore Roosevelt’s autobiography in high school, he became my favorite president. I own over 50 books on TR in my personal library. One of Roosevelt’s achievements grabbed my attention much more than his political and writing accomplishments. Roosevelt started out as a very sickly child but through the application of exercise and sport built himself into
“Great waves of German immigrants came to America between 1815 and 1860.”[1] In 1824, Gottfried Duden purchased a farm in present day Warren County. While he lived on the farm, he wrote Report on a Journey to the Western States of North America. Duden extolled the virtues of the Missouri River Valley and envisioned a New Germany springing
I first read about the Siege of Sidney Street in 40 Years of Scotland Yard by Sir Frederic Porter Wensley. The London Police were looking for the murderers of three policemen in December 1910. The suspects were members of a Latvian anarchist group, who had settled in London. On December 16, 1910, a local shopkeeper in
New York Police Lt. Charles Becker has been called “the crookedest cop in America”. Novelist Stephen Crane claimed he observed Becker as a young patrolman beating up prostitutes and taking change from them, when they would not pay him for allowing them to operate on his beat. The New York Board of Police Commissioners charged him with making false
Herman Rosenthal had the distinction of being hated equally by fellow gamblers and policemen. Rosenthal opened his gambling operation in 1910. Rosenthal refused to make payoffs to the police. He also did not play by the established norms of the New York City gambling community. As a result, New York City Police often raided his gambling house on West
On Monday, April 6, 1914, Richmond, VA Police Sergeant Phillip Neisz left his home to go on duty. Before leaving his home, he informed his wife that he was going to kill “that woman” and also threatened his wife. According to the Tuesday, April 7, 2014 edition of the Times Dispatch from Richmond, VA, Sgt. Neisz and his