Browsing: Society

A Brief History On October 22, 1934, US FBI agents shot and killed infamous bank robber Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd in East Liverpool, Ohio.  Floyd is just one of the many robbers and murderers generally referred to as “gangsters” that became notorious during the decades of the 1920’s and 1930’s, an era that started with Prohibition, automobiles, and Tommy guns, making for an entirely new sort of mobile, deadly criminal.  Cars made robbers faster and more mobile than any previous period in history, and in part led to the development of faster and faster cars.  After World War I…

A Brief History On October 21, 1096, a Seljuk Turk army led by Sultan Kilij Arslan I massacred a Christian army from Europe, known as the People’s Army, ending the first of the religious wars known as the Crusades.  This particular “Crusade” is not considered an “official Crusade,” a distinction reserved for the Catholic Church sanctioned invasion of the Middle East (i.e., Holy Land) a year later. Digging Deeper The so called “People’s Crusade,” “Popular Crusade,” “Peasants’ Crusade” or “Paupers’ Crusade” was the work of a charismatic French monk called Peter the Hermit.  In keeping with the multiple names theme,…

A Brief History On October 19, 1864, military forces of the Confederate States of America invaded Vermont from a staging area in Quebec, Canada.  Although we have long been taught in school that the Gettysburg campaign was the last invasion of the North by the Confederate States, the St. Albans Raid proves that premise false.  Although not a “real” invasion by a large military force, the 21 cavalry soldiers involved on the side of the Rebels were in fact real soldiers of the CSA, men who had evaded capture in other campaigns and made their way North to Canada to…

A Brief History On October 16, 1916, Margaret Sanger (nee Higgins), nurse, writer, and sexual educator opened the first family planning (birth control) clinic in the United States.  While Sanger did not invent the idea of birth control or the methods, she was an activist for preventing unwanted pregnancy and was the first person to coin the phrase, “birth control.”  Humans, unlike any other known animal, have been trying to prevent unwanted pregnancies for thousands of years and have tried a variety of methods. Digging Deeper Probably the most simple methods of birth control came after it was realized that…

A Brief History On October 15, 1888, George Lusk, the chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, received a letter purporting to be from the infamous mass murderer known as “Jack the Ripper.”  Known through history as the “From Hell Letter,” this bit of mail remains one of the most famous letters of all time.  Perhaps because the letter included a piece of human kidney from a murder victim?  Today we look at 5 letters that remain of either great historical importance or of great human interest and/or amusement.  As always, please nominate the fascinating letters you would include on such…