Adela

  • The General Slocum

    On Wednesday, June 15, 1904 the ship was chartered for $350 by St. Mark’s Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Little Germany district of Manhattan. Over 1,400 passengers, mostly women and children, boarded the Slocum, which was to sail up the East River and then eastward across the Long Island Sound to Locust Grove, a picnic site in Eatons Neck, Long Island. Around 9:30 a.m. the ship began its doomed trip. As it was passing East 90th Street, a fire started in the Lamp Room in the forward section, possibly caused by a discarded cigarette or match. It was fueled by the straw, oily rags, and lamp oil strewn around the…

  • Founding of New Orleans

    La Nouvelle-Orléans (New Orleans) was founded May 7, 1718, by the French Mississippi Company, under the direction of French Louisiana Governor Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, on land inhabited by the Chitimacha.The first known residents of the New Orleans area were the Native Americans of the Woodland and Mississippian cultures. The expeditions of De Soto and La Salle passed through the area, but there were few permanent non-native settlers before 1718.Louisiana was claimed for Fran [...]

  • Scáthach “the Shadow”

    Scáthach (pronounced: scou’-ha, or skah ‘ – thakh) (Scottish Gaelic: Sgàthach an Eilean Sgitheanach), or Sgathaich, is a figure in the Ulster Cycle of Irish mythology. She is a legendary Scottish warrior woman and martial arts teacher who trains the legendary Ulster hero Cú Chulainn (Koo-hull-un or “coo-CHOOL-in) in the arts of combat. She is called “the Shadow” and “Warrior Maid” and is the rival and sister of Aífe or Aoife (ee-fa or AY-fah), both daughters of Árd-Greimne of Lethra. Texts describe her homeland as Scotland; she resided in an impregnable castle known as Dún Scáith, or “Dun Sgathaich” (Fortress of Shadows), on an island (thought to be the Isle…

  • Dragons

    The dragon is a legendary creature, typically with serpentine or reptilian traits, that features in the myths of many cultures. There are two distinct cultural traditions of dragons: the European dragon, derived from European folk traditions and ultimately related to Greek and Middle Eastern mythologies, and the Chinese dragon, with counterparts in Japan (namely the Japanese dragon), Korea and other East Asian countries. The two traditions may have evolved separately, but have influenced each other to a certain extent, particularly with the cross-cultural contact of recent centuries. The English word “dragon” derives from Greek (drákōn), meaning “dragon, serpent of huge size, water-snake”. The association of the serpent with a monstrous…

  • Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

    “Fast is fine, but accuracy is everything. In a gun fight… You need to take your time in a hurry.” Words couldn’t have been truer than those spoken by Wyatt Earp. A total of thirty shots were fired in thirty seconds in the most famous shootout in the history of the American Old West. I will of course follow this article up with more about Wyatt’s vendetta, and biographies of the key players, but for now I will concentrate on the infamous gunfight itself. Tombstone, Arizona is located near the Mexican border. The Earps arrived on December 1, 1879, when the small town was mostly composed of tents as living…