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History of the Americas
Patriot, Soldier, Scout, Citizen | The life of Timothy Murphy
Timothy Murphy was born in 1751 in Delaware, Pennsylvania, the son of Donegal parents. Thomas and Mary Murphy left their Tirconnell home just months before Timothy was born. The Ireland they left was racked by penal laws, land agitation,…
Chester Burge, Slumlord and Murder Suspect
It speaks a lot to the integrity of a justice system when it finds somebody innocent based on the evidence, even when all involved are convinced of his guilt. The jury in Chester Burge’s trial for murder had every reason to find him guilty.…
Flogging a Dead Jockey | The Bizarre Death of Frank Hayes
The sport of horse racing has provided a plethora of historic moments throughout time. One such moment was produced on a racetrack across the Atlantic 95 years ago when a morbidly mad record was created by an Irish American by the name of…
Benjamin Lay, Outspoken Quaker Abolitionist
The story of the abolition of slavery in America is a long and tortuous one. Like many such stories it has its heroes and its villains. One group that almost always fell on the right side of history was the Society of Friends, better known…
Hugh Glass, American Frontiersman and Survivor
The American frontier was a place of legends, tall tales and wild stories. But among these stories were true tales of extreme human endurance and courage in the face of extreme conditions. One such story became a legend in its own right,…
Elizabeth “Nellie Bly” Cochrane Seaman, Intrepid Journalist
“Journalism”, as a concept, is an entirely new development of the last several centuries. Before the printing press led to mass literacy and the desire for “news”, there was no need for people to go and find it out. Over time it evolved,…
The Duelling President
There was a time when Presidents really were tough; they went to battle in the military, exchanged fire in duels, and fought—with fists—to defend their honour. This, really, wasn’t so long ago.
And then there is the 45th President of the…
Margaret Brown, the Unsinkable Lady
Lives are rarely defined by a single event, but memories of them often are. Margaret Brown was a woman who became best known as “the Unsinkable Molly Brown”, after she was one of the most high-profile survivors of the Titanic disaster. In…
Robert Smalls, War Hero and US Congressman
Freedom is a strange thing. Those of us born into it take it for granted. But for those born into slavery freedom is something they would never undervalue. Being a slave is bad enough, but worse is for a slave to see their child born into…
The Making of the American Outdoorsman
The American Outdoorsman has in many ways been manufactured by the societal and racial anxieties bred in modern industrial expansion. Faced with the need to re-establish cultural superiority, turn-of-the-century Americans borrowed an…