Tag: history

  • Cannon, Howitzers, Mortars—Oh My!

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    Brendan Barry
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    For the last two days I have been writing about the Fort Pitt Museum and some infographics, environmental graphics, diagrams, and dioramas that help explain the strategic value and thus history behind the peninsula at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers. In particular, we looked at Fort Duquesne, the French attempt to…

  • Fort Pitt

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I discussed some of the work at the Fort Pitt Museum in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Specifically we looked at Fort Duquesne, the French fortification that guarded the linchpin of their colonies along the Saint Lawrence Seaway and the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. In 1753, the royal governor of Virginia dispatched a British colonial military…

  • Diagramming and Diorama-ing Fort Duquesne

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    Brendan Barry
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    Pittsburgh exists because of the city sits at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers. As far back as the early 18th century, English and French colonists had recognised the strategic value of the site and as imperial ambitions ramped up, the French finally wrested control of the area from the English and…

  • Hidden Cities in the Amazon

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    Brendan Barry
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    Who did not like Indiana Jones growing up as a kid? Or better yet, stories of explorers like Heinrich Schliemann, who discovered the lost city of Troy? The ancient world boasted a number of civilisations that no longer exist. But not all lost civilisations date back thousands of years. A recent article in Nature details…

  • Slaveholders in the Halls of Congress

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    Brendan Barry
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    Taking a break from going through the old articles and things I’ve saved, let’s turn to a an article from the Washington Post published earlier this week. As the title indicates, the Post’s article explores slaveholders in Congress. Many of us know that the vast majority of antebellum presidents at one point or another owned…

  • Revolution Number…

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    Brendan Barry
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    Nein? Last week we ended the week with a Friday post looking at Covid-19 cases. And they are not trending in the right direction, to put it mildly. Now I’m not sure I like the Covid post being on Friday, but it also doesn’t make sense on Mondays any longer given the lack of data…

  • Philadelphia’s Changing Skyline

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I mentioned how I spent Monday researching some old family properties in Philadelphia. In some cases the homes my family owned still stand. But, in many others the homes have long since been replaced. But that’s the nature of city development. That got me thinking about an article published earlier this month at Philadelphia…

  • Substandard Housing in Philadelphia

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    Brendan Barry
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    I took a holiday yesterday and headed down the street to the Philadelphia City Archives, which houses some of the oldest documents dating back to the founding of the colony. But I was there primarily to try and find deeds and property information for my ancestors as part of my genealogy work. When I walked…

  • Bodies Buried Under Spring Garden

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    Brendan Barry
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    Okay, technically not Spring Garden Street, but a strip mall along one of Philadelphia’s main arterial city streets. Luckily these aren’t some victims of a serial murderer, but rather the result of Philadelphia being an old city (for the United States). As this article from the Philadelphia Inquirer explains, the bodies were discovered during excavations…

  • Biden’s English Ancestry Revisited

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last week I posted about an article in the BBC on the English ancestry of American president Joe Biden. And these types of article are a bit pro forma, famous person has an article about their personal ancestry with a family tree attached. Interestingly, this article did not, just the timeline I mentioned and a…