Showing results by author "Hourly History" in All Categories

Discover the remarkable life of Daniel Boone... Daniel Boone is one of those figures in American history whose life often intertwines with myths and legends. While numerous tall tales surround this American adventurer, many of his greatest feats are actually true. They are not merely artifacts of folklore—they genuinely happened. Daniel Boone really did blaze a trail through the Cumberland Gap into the western frontier. He really did become initiated as a member of the Shawnee (who gave him the name “Big Turtle”), and he really did serve under Revolutionary War General George Rogers Clark.

The Navajo, or Diné (“the people”), are the single largest group of Native American people in North America. Their traditional homeland, the Diné Bikéyah, stretched across the vast landscapes of present-day Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, defined by four sacred mountains that symbolized their spiritual and physical world. Yet their language and culture suggest that the Navajo actually originated in present-day Canada before migrating south toward New Mexico.

In 1874, Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer led a US Army expedition into the Black Hills of South Dakota, which was at that time under the control of the Lakota people. To the expedition members, this was unknown territory on the leading edge of the American frontier. The purpose of the expedition was not only to find a possible location for a fort and a route through the Black Hills to the Southwest but also to investigate rumors of gold deposits. Custer’s cavalry and infantry were accompanied by specialist miners and geologists whose role was to search for that gold.

Discover the remarkable history of the Battle of the Little Bighorn.... The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the massacre of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer and five companies of the U. S. 7th Cavalry in June 1876 is one of the best-remembered events of the turbulent period known as the Wild West. This defeat came as a stunning shock to most Americans. Before Custer’s Last Stand, there was a general assumption that in any full-scale battle between Native Americans and the U.S. Army, the army would prevail.

During the bitter winter of 1692/93, a group of young Puritan women in the colonial town of Salem, Massachusetts, accused more than 200 of their neighbors and fellow townspeople of using witchcraft to injure and torment them. This was an incredibly serious allegation that led to sensational court proceedings and ended with the execution of 19 people.

Discover the remarkable life of Joachim von Ribbentrop...

Millard Fillmore’s journey to the presidency was anything but conventional. Born into poverty in a log cabin in western New York state, he rose from humble beginnings through sheer determination and hard work. He reached all the way to the position of vice president when President Zachary Taylor suddenly perished in office. Fillmore may not have expected his sudden elevation to the presidency, but he rose to the challenge all the same, ready to tackle some of the most pressing matters of state from day one.

It is a verifiable fact that the Apostle Paul was one of the most prolific writers of the New Testament, making him one of the founders of the Christian religion that we know today. Although he came on the scene after Jesus Christ, it could be argued that Saint Paul played the second biggest role in the history of Christianity. This is rather fascinating, considering the fact that he began his career as one of the biggest persecutors of the faith.

What would become the nation of Yugoslavia was created in the turbulent period following the end of World War I in 1918, but ended 74 years later in the chaos of another war. In its relatively brief history, Yugoslavia endured invasion during World War II and a range of styles of leadership that included an autocratic king, an even more autocratic socialist dictator, as well as brief periods of parliamentary democracy.

Apartheid, a state-sponsored policy of discrimination and segregation, was introduced and brutally enforced in South Africa for more than 40 years. It led to thousands of deaths, mass arrests, torture of prisoners, and to the suspension of the most basic human rights for the majority of Black South Africans. How did this come to be, and how did a modern state come to enact and enforce a series of laws deliberately designed to ensure poverty and lack of opportunity for the majority of its population?

What do you think of when you consider the Middle Ages? Knights in armor and damsels in distress? Vikings plundering monasteries? Religious dissenters burning at the stake? The dead bodies piling up as war, famine, and plague devastated Europe? Think again. While all these are part of the tapestry of the medieval era, the threads of politics, personality and war, culture, religion, education and the arts are vastly more intricate and fascinating.

The Hittites lived among gods and kings and captivated the mysterious Sir Lawrence of Arabia, among many eager minds. Who were they? Simply warlike conquerors on a mission to impose Hittite power on the world? How did they become part of the elite highly-exclusive club of kings as great as Egyptian, Assyrian, and Babylonian empires of the second millennium BCE? They created a complex system of collective governance and changed the metallurgy of the ancient world. This mysterious empire remained the unknown fourth empire and thanks to their tradition of preservation we continue solving mysteries buried in their ancient past.

The Crusades are the prototype and epitome of the Holy War. The fight to take control of the city of Jerusalem, believed to be the most sacred Holy City to two distinct religions of Christianity and Islam, has lasted far longer than the two centuries of the Crusades, and its reach has extended far further than Europe and the Middle East.

The Akkadian Empire was one of the first empires in human history and certainly the first to involve the central government of a large, multi-ethnic populace. It also introduced things like the very first postal system and facilitated advances in science, art, and medicine. The heart of the empire, the city of Akkad, became the most important trading center in the ancient world and one of the largest cities in the world. Then, in a relatively short time, the empire disintegrated, and the city itself was abandoned.

Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad became famous for his popularization of an Afrocentric branch of Islam. In later years, however, the movement came under fire after critics pointed out that its ideology had very little to do with the mainstream faith. Nevertheless, Elijah’s words and teachings still managed to galvanize and capture the hearts of millions of disaffected and oppressed African Americans. During the movement’s heyday in the 1950s and 1960s, Elijah extended his hand to a downtrodden people in a way that few others could.

Violent confrontation between armed groups over the supply of illegal narcotics is something we commonly associate with criminal gangs in modern cities, but in the mid-19th century Great Britain went to war with Imperial China in order to continue to supply Chinese addicts with opium. The two wars that followed have become known as the Opium Wars, and they led to the utter defeat of China, the establishment of a British colony in Hong Kong, and the continuation of a narcotics trade that was worth millions of pounds each year to the British.

Once valued at close to seven trillion dollars by today’s standards, the Dutch East India Company, formed in 1602, became the world’s first multinational corporation. In the nearly 200-year reign of their empire at sea, the Dutch East India Company amassed unfathomable fortunes, laid the foundation of the modern globalized world, and built monopolies that controlled the economy of the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe and the East Indies.

The period from 1870 to 1900 in the US has become known as the Gilded Age, during which America was transformed almost beyond recognition. The Gilded Age was an era of entrepreneurs, inventions, industrial development, and new ideas. Most of all, it was a period of rapid and profound change that came at a high cost for the working class.

The most common depictions of Native Americans feature mounted warriors and iconic events such as the Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Wounded Knee Massacre. The best-known Native American leaders include Chief Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, and most people’s impression of such a leader includes the wearing of a feathered headdress. All these archetypes have one thing in common: they are all Sioux, and many are Lakota, one of the coalition of seven Sioux Nations.

The Great Depression was one of the most trying eras in American history. All aspects of the US were affected. After the stock market crash of 1929, the nation was thrust into a decade of turmoil and change - in government, the economy, and culture. Many of the changes brought about by the Great Depression remain today.