United States
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Christmas massacre in North Carolina
It was Christmas Day, 1929 in Germanton, Stokes County, North Carolina and a father of seven was out with his eldest son, shooting rabbits near their home just outside of town in Walnut Cove. At some point during the hunt, Arthur Lawson, then aged sixteen ran out of ammunition for his rifle. He asked his father if he could spare some, but Charles replied that he too was getting low, and gave his son some money, asking that he go into town and buy more for further shooting planned for that afternoon. Arthur set off for the walk into town from near their home at 2890 Brook Cove Road. There…
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The History of the Filibuster
(Admin note: Please refrain from discussions of a modern political context regarding this article on the filibuster. You can visit the author’s blog where such is relevant. Discussion of the historical context however is welcome as always. Thank you) If you’ve been watching the news at all, you have probably heard people mention something called the filibuster. We are not going to go into the implications and how it affects modern politics in this article. (If you want to see that discussion, wander over to my blog https://deconstructingus.com/2022/06/slavery-and-the-constitution/) Here we are going to focus on the history of it and how it came to be in our government. Technically speaking,…
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Graduation Traditions
Since it’s that time of year where students from all over receive their diplomas after years of hard work. We decided to do a short post on where some of the traditions actually started. The Graduation cap, which is sometimes called a mortarboard, due to the fact it resembled the mortar board used by bricklayers. The mortarboard is believed to have developed from the biretta. The Biretta is worn by Roman Catholic clergy and academics, typically in red or black, square, upright with three or four peaks. The Graduation tassel has been worn on graduation cap for centuries, In the last 40 or 50 years student started moving the tassel…
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The Ghost Girls
From its discovery in 1898, radium was considered a wonder of science. It glowed with an unearthly beauty. It delighted its discoverers, Marie Sklodowska Curie and her husband Pierre, who called it “My beautiful radium”. It was used in spas and clinics as a cure for everything from cancer to constipation. It was used in makeup, jewelry and paints. At the height of World War I, it was used to make the hands and dials of wristwatches glow in the dark. Girls all over the country flocked to make these watches as they paid up to three times what they could have been paid at any other wartime factory.…
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The New Madrid Earthquakes of 1811
New Madrid, Missouri was at the back end of nowhere. It was technically a respectably sized town on the Mississippi River between St. Louis and Natchez, but this was not a great achievement. In 1811, the population was about 1,000 people made up of farmers, fur traders and pioneers supplemented by French Creoles and Native Americans traveling on the great river. However, the events there beginning in 1811 shook the world. Literally. Related posts: September 11 Memorial and Museum USS Indianapolis – July 1945 The State of Franklin The Great Fire of 1910
