Tag: history
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Quisling: What’s in a name?
In July 2016 I visited the Norway Resistance Museum in Oslo, which told the story of Norway’s occupation by the Nazis during World War II. A name that kept popping up throughout the museum was Vikdun Quisling, the Norwegian politician who collaborated with Hitler and seized control of Norway’s government during the occupation. I wanted to…
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From defeat, not victory
In his book Washington’s Crossing, David Hackett Fisher writes about how the colonists responded to the dark days of the American Revolution in 1776: This great revival grew from defeat, not from victory. The awakening was a response to a disaster. Doctor Benjamin Rush, who had a major role in the event, believed that this…
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Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era
Got Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era as an unexpected Christmas gift from my dad. Given our shared appreciation for and history in the Northwoods of Wisconsin (though not in lumberjacking or songcatching unfortunately), this was a delightful read. It’s partly a reprint of Franz Rickaby’s 1926 collection Ballads and Songs of…
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Tipsy temperance titles
Here’s a Christmas gift idea for the alcoholics in your life: Working at a museum archives dedicated to the temperance and prohibition movements means I see books, pamphlets, posters, and other promotional/educational material like this all the time. I could put together an entire exhibit of temperance titles that are a) trying to be funny…
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Say hi to Mosul Eye
The AP has an incredible story about an Iraqi man named Omar Mohammed who courageously chronicled the savagery of the Islamic State as an undercover blogger, using the moniker Mosul Eye: For nearly two years, he’d wandered the streets of occupied Mosul, chatting with shopkeepers and Islamic State fighters, visiting friends who worked at the hospital,…
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Move it, McDonald’s
The replica of Ray Kroc’s first McDonald’s franchise in Des Plaines, Illinois, where I used to work, will be torn down next month: Kroc, considered by the company to be the founder of the modern chain, built his first restaurant in 1955 after franchising the brand from the original owners, Richard and Maurice McDonald. The…
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Google Past
This is the Google Maps Street View of my parents’ home. It’s from 2007, which is old by Google Maps standards. The current view looks very different ten years later. The house is a different color, the front lawn is now completely garden (more like a jungle at this point), and the tree on the…
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The Diary of a Young Girl
In my ongoing quest to catch up with the “high school reading list” books I missed the first time around, I listened to the audiobook of Anne Frank’s The Diary of A Young Girl and, holy crap, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised due to its reputation, but it’s kinda amazing. Not sure how much…
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The Kelloggs: The Battling Brothers of Battle Creek
In the summer of 2013 I interned at the Leo Burnett advertising agency’s corporate library and archives. In the course of my work I came upon boxes of original conceptual artwork and copy from the 1950s and ’60s of the famous brands Leo Burnett created: the Marlboro Man, the Jolly Green Giant, the Pillsbury Doughboy.…
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Agony and Hilarity in ‘The Iliad’
It was Ben Sasse’s The Vanishing American Adult that compelled me to finally read Homer’s The Iliad, one of those ought-to-read books that are easy to avoid because so many newer and less challenging books pop up in its way. But I’m glad I decided to dive in, even if it became my actual beach read over…
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Blitzed: Drugs in the Third Reich
Don’t do drugs, kids. But do give it up for whoever thought of the perfect double entendre title and cover for Norman Ohler’s Blitzed: Drug Use in the Third Reich. This topic is definitely not something I’ve heard about in the history books, as they say, so perhaps it’s fitting that Ohler is not a historian…
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The Bullies Pulpit
From Politico: More than 100 years ago a Republican president worried that America wasn’t doing enough to protect its most treasured wild and sacred places from over-development, mining and drilling. So Congress passed and President Teddy Roosevelt signed the Antiquities Act of 1906, giving presidents the authority to preserve imperiled mountains, forests, cultural treasures and…
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America in Five Cities
It dawned on me recently how the names and locations of the top 5 most populous cities in the United States tell the story of the nation: New York, in the east, with the English name, representing the history of our relationship with England. Los Angeles, in the west, with the Spanish name representing the…
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Ötzi-quel
This ongoing saga of Ötzi the Iceman fascinates me. I first learned of him from Radiolab a few years ago, but turns out we keep learning more about this mythic Italian mummy: The more scientists learn, the more recognizable the Iceman becomes. He was 5 feet 5 inches tall (about average height for his time),…
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Lucius Quintus Cincinnatus Lamar II
Part of the Cool Civil War Names series. In addition to being one of two people to serve in the U.S. House and Senate, a President’s Cabinet, and the U.S. Supreme Court, L.Q.C. Lamar was one of eight senators featured in Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy, which is one of those books you’ve…
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So Far Advanced
Here’s a funny bit in an otherwise unfunny but fascinating book called A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940. After Finland refused Stalin’s ultimatum, Russia initiated war and installed a puppet Finnish government that signed the “treaty” Stalin had wanted: The body of the treaty went on cheerfully to grant Stalin every concession…
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Tom, John, Abby & George
The fourth episode of the John Adams miniseries (“Reunion”) contains two of the best scenes in the show. The first is John hanging with Abigail and Thomas Jefferson in Paris. It’s fun to consider now how these titans of American history would have interacted in their time, before they achieved titan status: The second is…