Harry Marks was one of the foremost financial journalists of the late nineteenth century. He was also a man of few scruples, and his salacious love affair with Annie Koppel would be the center of a much talked about trial after he attempted to sue a rival for accusing him of fraud. This three-part series (read
Wendy Hamand Venet— One hundred fifty years ago today, General William T. Sherman arrived in Savannah at the conclusion of his March to the Sea. In a telegram sent on December 22, 1864, Sherman presented the city to President Abraham Lincoln as a Christmas gift. Because Savannah had little military
Harry Marks was one of the foremost financial journalists of the late nineteenth century. He was also a man of few scruples, and his salacious love affair with Annie Koppel would be the center of a much talked about trial after he attempted to sue a rival for accusing him of fraud. This three-part series (read
Harry Marks was one of the foremost financial journalists of the late nineteenth century. He was also a man of few scruples, and his salacious love affair with Annie Koppel would be the center of a much talked about trial after he attempted to sue a rival for accusing him of fraud. This three-part series tells the
In the harsh winter of 1944-45, the month-long battle for Bastogne, a town with a peacetime population of 4,000 and seven roads, claimed 23,000 American and 25,000 German lives. To commemorate the seventieth anniversary of the siege, which was part of the larger Battle of the Bulge, historian Peter Schrijvers, author of
Susan Hardman Moore— Thanksgiving, turkey, the last Thursday in November. By tradition, this national holiday replays the Pilgrims’ celebration of their first New World harvest. But arguably it owes as much to nineteenth-century patriotism as to anything that happened in Plymouth in 1621. Evidence about the “First Thanksgiving” is
Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, wrote a series of posts for the Yale University Press London Blog to explain how the inventors of ‘sanitary science’ nevertheless lived in what remained a notoriously filthy city. The book has just come out in the United States,
Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth, wrote a series of posts for the Yale University Press London Blog to explain how the inventors of ‘sanitary science’ nevertheless lived in what remained a notoriously filthy city. Some of these entries will be appearing here on the
Edward Strauss— The Battle of the Somme, which began on July 1, 1916, is generally said to have concluded on November 18 of that year. In a dispatch on December 29, 1916, General Douglas Haig, commander of the British Armies in France, summed up the battle’s accomplishments: “…The three main
Today is Roman Emperor Vespasian’s birthday. And while he may not be as famous as some of predecessors, Julius Caesar or Augustus, for example, his Flavian Dynasty would rule the Empire for nearly thirty years. And the vast construction projects enacted during this time would see the creation of some of Rome’s most