In my novel, The Puzzle People, I place one of my main characters, Stefan Hansel, at a pivotal point in the history of the Cold War. I place Stefan at the Bornholmer Strasse border crossing in East Berlin on the evening of November 9, 1989. The following YouTube video...
HISTORY BY THE SLICE--Washington socialite Rose Greenhow was arrested for spying for the Confederacy on August 23, 1861, 151 years ago today. Greenhow's information on Union troop movements was believed to have aided the Confederate victory at the first Battle of Bull...
Fighting the Union Army With Logs? One of the most effective weapons used by the Confederates against General George B. McClellan's army was the "Quaker Cannon"--simple logs painted black to look like cannons. These artificial cannons fooled the Union general into...
History By the Week: July 15-21 July 15, 1862â€â€The Confederate ironclad ship, CSS Arkansas, did severe damage to three Union ships at the mouth of the Yazoo River. The Arkansas, one of the first ironclad ships, went on to damage 16 additional ships, boosting...
History By the Week July 8, 1776--The Liberty Bell was rung to mark the reading of the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. The bell's inscription: "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof." (Leviticus 25:10) July 9,...
History by the Week July 1, 1863--Union and Confederate forces collided at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg lasted three days before General Lee retreated to Virginia. July 2, 1937--Amelia Earhart and navigator Frederick Noonan disappeared while...
History by the Week Here is what happened in history during the past week. June 24, 1948--The Soviets blockaded West Berlin, cutting off rail, road, and water access to the western sectors of the city. This led to the Berlin airlift, in which the U.S. and its allies...
The Civil War Followed Him From Beginning to End "The war began in my front yard and ended in my front parlor,"Â said Wilmer McLean. And he was right. The First Battle of Bull Run on July 18, 1861, technically was not the first battle of the Civil War, but it is...
Long Before The Beatles, There Was Elmer Just prior to the firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, triggering the Civil War in 1861, one of the most famous men in America was Elmer Ellsworth. Never heard of him? In 1861, everyone knew his name. This...
Why Is Brezhnev Kissing Honecker on The Berlin Wall? It's called "The Kiss"Â or "The Kiss of Death."Â And it is perhaps the most famous image that appears in Berlin's East Side Gallery--a nearly mile-long mile stretch of the Berlin Wall. What's left of the Wall,...