United States

  • The Great Colonial Hurricane of 1635

    Hurricanes are a part of life if you live on the Eastern Seaboard or Gulf Coast of the US or the Caribbean. What we tend to forget is these powerful storms have been around longer than the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. We discussed a few such hurricane in our posts about the 1900 Galveston Storm (Please see this post for more information:http://www.historynaked.com/great-storm-1900-galveston-hur…/ ) and one that destroyed the young city of New Orleans (Please see this post for more information: http://www.historynaked.com/founding-of-new-orleans/ ). There was even a hurricane that possibly stopped Washington DC from burning in 1814 (Please see this post for more information:http://www.historynaked.com/white-house-white-house-white/ ) However, hurricanes have been plaguing the…

  • The Dahlgren Affair

    In 1864 the American Civil War was still raging.  The capital of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, was still tantalizingly close to Union forces, but as of yet out of reach.  There on an island in the James River was Belle Isle, a holding pen for Union prisoners.  Like most Civil War prisons, it was not a fun place complete with disease and overcrowding.  Since prisoner exchanges had been called off in June of 1863, the number of prisoners at Belle Isle grew to staggering proportions.  There were thoughts that a raid on Belle Isle could not only free Union soldiers from abominable conditions and death by disease, but free up…

  • Typhoid Mary

    There were many ways to die in the overcrowded disease ridden cities of the late 19th century and early 20th century.  Typhoid was one the most terrifying ones simply because of the speed it could spread through a household.   It’s initial symptoms could be anything- fever and some abdominal cramping.  Then the fever got higher and blood clots formed under the skin.  The patient becomes delirious and the brain and the intestines hemorrhage.  The death rate was recorded anywhere from one in ten to three in ten.  It was frightening.  Doctors were building on the advances in the young science of epidemiology led by pioneers like Dr. John Snow.  (For…

  • The Current Wars

    AC/DC-  It’s not just a band.  It was the culmination of the struggle between two geniuses.  In the late 19th century, electricity was the hot new technology.  Thomas Edison had begun work with this field and in the 1870’s invented the first practical light bulb.  Arc lamps were used in cities on larger scales, but were not suitable for a business or a home.  Edison’s light bulb filled that niche.  To power all these new electric light bulbs, Edison created the investor-owned Edison Illuminating Company.  One problem.  These all used direct current or DC, which had a major drawback of a very short transmission range.  Customers had to be less…

  • The Fox Sisters

    Spiritualism was sweeping the United States in the late 1840’s.  As discussed in the book Occult America, this was the first chance for women to exercise any type of religious or political leadership.  There were many women who were involved with the Spiritualist practices of seances and spirit channeling.  The first American-born woman to become a recognized public preacher was Jemima Wilkinson or the Publick Universal Friend as she preferred to be called (For more on her, please see this post:  http://www.historynaked.com/publick-universal-friend/ )  The Fox Sisters were American women that took up the mantle o f Spiritualism and their legacy is shrouded in accusations of fraud. In March 1848, strange…