american history





The Crowd in the Streets of Dallas

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Portions of this post were adapted from my book Here Lies America, which is about how the United States has memorialized its past tragedies as tourist attractions. (You can buy Here Lies America here.)   In the winter of 1910, Dallas was suffering a crime wave of purse snatchings and assaults. The police didn’t know… Read more »



A soldier who loved his sweetie to the bone

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Here’s a delightful anecdote: A Civil War soldier had his leg amputated, and while he recovered in the hospital, he carved this pin for his sweetheart out of his own leg bone. Who’s this lucky gal Lizzie, you ask? Well, we will never know, because he died of infection before he could tell the nurses…. Read more »



Lovely luncheon by General Worth’s tomb

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Near the northwest corner of Madison Square Park, in an concrete traffic triangle bordered by Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and 25th Street, a squat obelisk is encircled by an iron fence. You’ll never believe what lies inside.


The Modern Minstrels

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We don’t need minstrel shows or vaudeville now. We have YouTube. Are Sweet Brown and Antoine Dodson the newest version of the old minstrel show?


Disney Legend Bob Gurr on creating his Disneyland rides

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“Since Walt wanted the Matterhorn Bobsleds to open in just over a year later, along with a Submarine Voyage, a larger Autopia, and a Monorail, he asked if it could be built faster. He asked me to design a bobsled and two track layouts. He asked Arrow Development, Walt’s favorite outside manufacturer, to find a way. Arrow said bent up pipe would be the quickest way, thus it turned out to be the world’s first steel pipe coaster. See, Walt would know all about the various manufacturing possibilities and wound up inventing something new, just to get the attraction he wanted.”