A Brief History On July 22, 1587, a detachment of English settlers landed at Roanoke Island, in what is now North Carolina, with the intention of establishing a colony. This group of colonists became famous as the mysterious “Lost Colony” of Roanoke, but prior to this infamous colonial failure, Sir Walter Raleigh and the English had made a previous unsuccessful attempt at establishing a colony at Roanoke, one that also resulted in the disappearance of the last English detachment at the colony. Digging Deeper After the voyages of Christopher Columbus, the Spanish had made numerous voyages of exploration and conquest…
Read More
A Brief History On July 20, 1779, Tekle Giyorgis I (meaning “The Plant of Saint George”) became Emperor of Ethiopia, a member of the Solomonic dynasty of Ethiopia. Between ascending to the throne on this day, and June of 1800, he would 5 more times be named Emperor, having lost his status each time previously for a total of 6 stints as Emperor, probably a World Record for times any person became Emperor! Digging Deeper As you probably guessed already from the name of the dynasty the Ethiopian Emperors supposedly descended from, it is the same Solomon one finds in…
A Brief History In 326 BC, Alexander III of Macedon, known more familiarly as Alexander the Great, having conquered the Achaemenid Empire of Persia, the largest empire within the ken of the Greeks of the time, turned his attention to the next great conquest, that of the fabled but little known land of India. What exotic people and riches awaited the greatest conqueror of ancient times? With only one way to find out, Alexander once more mounted his armies and stepped forward to the Indian sub-continent, transiting the famous Khyber Pass. Digging Deeper Alexander the Great was the premier conqueror…
A Brief History On June 19, 2020, several history-themed YouTube channels have collaborated with each other to present a playlist of videos dealing with the history of the Merovingian dynasty, a family of Frankish kings who ruled an area of modern France and Germany from the 5th to 8th century AD. Digging Deeper Please watch the full playlist below and we encourage you to also subscribe to all of the channels that participated in the collaboration for more great history-themed videos: Question for students (and subscribers) to ponder: What is your favorite video in the playlist? If you liked this article…
A Brief History On June 18, 2020, American movie fans will get to see the new major motion picture, 7500, a film set aboard a German jet airliner that is attacked by passengers seeking to take over the airplane for terrorist purposes. The tension as gut-wrenching life and death decisions are made are sure to cause inner turmoil as movie watchers carry on inner debates with themselves as to what they would do in the various impossible situations that develop. Digging Deeper With a modest running time of 92 minutes, the film starts out routinely enough, taking a few minutes…