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+4 +1
How a Notorious Abortionist Built a Drug Empire
Desperate 19th-century women, mistreated by the American medical establishment, risked black-market remedies and the wrath of Anthony Comstock’s moralizing thugs.
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+25 +2
Not the Confederate Flag
5 comments by rhingo -
+18 +2
The surprisingly uncomplicated racist history of the Confederate flag
In the wake of a horrific mass shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in which a young white man with an apparent history of racism is accused of killing nine black people during Bible study at a church, many are calling for the removal of the Confederate flag on statehouse grounds in South Carolina's capital. But the politics are tricky for Republicans in this conservative state. Last year, six in 10 South Carolinians said the flag should stay.
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+51 +2
This 1956 guidebook for black travelers is an important reminder of America's racist past
During the Jim Crow era, traveling in the United States for African-Americans was difficult and often dangerous. Motels and restaurants didn’t have to serve you if they didn’t want to. “Sundown towns”—places where it was unsafe to be black at night—dotted the nation’s geography. If you were driving around the country, the only way to know if you were safe was by word-of-mouth.
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+21 +1
An early expression of democracy, the US patent system is out of step with today's citizens
Founded in 1790, the Patent Office aimed to put innovation and entrepreneurship within reach of every citizen. Now, 225 years later, protesters say an out-of-touch system is doing more the opposite.
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+21 +1
“We Have Passed the Stage of Amateur Evil:” Scientists respond to the Atomic Bomb, August 6, 1945
On August 6, 1945, Eugene Cotton, a Lieutenant in the US Army Air Corps, wrote to his fiancée from his posting in California. Cotton was one of hundreds of thousands who, having left service in the European theater of the war, were slated to take part in a massive invasion of the Japanese islands in late 1945 and early 1946. He was 23 years old, a recent college graduate with a degree in physics, and had undergone training at both MIT and Berkeley before joining the Army...
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+26 +1
Wild West Ghost Town Emerges from Watery Grave
Drought conditions in the Western part of the United States have allowed an old Nevada town once submerged deep beneath Lake Mead to emerge from its watery grave. Founded in 1865, St. Thomas was initially settled by Mormons drawn by Muddy Creek, a tributary that flows into the Colorado River, located 22 miles away. When the Mormons left in 1871, outlaws — including horse thieves and cattle rustlers— moved in. The town was eventually settled by people attracted by the region’s prime farming land.
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+15 +1
That Supposed Map of Pre-Contact North America
There's a map making the rounds on Facebook right now, which is being shared as if it's a map of pre-contact North America. You can find it here. But it doesn't show pre-contact North America at all — it's trying to show what the boundaries of the First Nations & Inuit would look like in 2015 if contact had never happened. And it's not even an accurate representation of that alternative history: the borders it uses are borders that were formed, in part, as a result of European contact.
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+22 +1
On This Day in History Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry was Born
Oliver Hazard Perry was born August 23, 1785 and also died on August 23, 1819 from Yellow Fever. He was 34 years old.
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+19 +1
Freight Shipping History (infographic)
An Infographic Overview on The History of Freight Shipping.
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+14 +1
Springfield Museums poised to buy Dr. Seuss' boyhood home on Fairfield Street
Samuel N. Hanmer, chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Springfield Museums, said securing the Fairfield St. property is "just the beginning" as possible next steps are explored.
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+45 +1
How a Bloody Railroad Strike Paved the Way for Labor Day
It’s little more than a day off for shopping now, but when Labor Day was first observed, it wasn’t all fun and back-to-school sales.
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+22 +1
The True Story Of How One Man Shut Down American Commerce To Avoid Paying His Workers A Fair Wage
America's railroads -- and with them, its economy -- nearly ground to a halt in 1894 because one of the wealthiest men in American history decided to grow his own fortune on the backs of hungry workers.
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+23 +1
13th September 1814 - Key pens Star-Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key pens a poem which is later set to music and in 1931 becomes America’s national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The poem, originally titled “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” was written after Key witnessed the Maryland fort being bombarded by the British during the War of 1812.
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+28 +1
September 22nd 1862 - Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation
President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.
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+27 +1
23rd September 1806 - Lewis and Clark return
Amid much public excitement, American explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark return to St. Louis, Missouri, from the first recorded overland journey from the Mississippi River to the Pacific coast and back. The Lewis and Clark Expedition had set off more than two years before to explore the territory of the Louisiana Purchase.
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+27 +1
24th September 1964 - Warren Commission report delivered to President Johnson
President Lyndon B. Johnson receives a special commission’s report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, which had occurred on November 22, 1963, in Dallas, Texas.
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+29 +1
25th September 1959 - Eisenhower and Khrushchev meet for talks
Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev caps his trip to the United States with two days of meetings with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The two men came to general agreement on a number of issues, but a U-2 spy plane incident in May 1960 crushed any hopes for further improvement of U.S.-Soviet relations during the Eisenhower years.
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+17 +1
Wind Point Lighthouse
In 1870, the Lighthouse Board petitioned Congress for $40,000 to construct a lighthouse and fog signal on Racine Point, located three-and-a-half miles north of Racine and eighteen miles south of Milwaukee.
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+33 +1
5th October 1947 - First presidential speech on TV
On this day in 1947, President Harry Truman (1884-1972) makes the first-ever televised presidential address from the White House, asking Americans to cut back on their use of grain in order to help starving Europeans.
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