Curio Cabinet / Person, Place, or Thing

Happy belated birthday Dame Jane Goodall! This famed British primatologist and anthropologist turned 90 on April 3. Never one to sit on her laurels, she celebrated the auspicious occasion by releasing a short film in which she and other conservationists urged humanity to care for animals and the environment. It’s the same message that Goodall has been spreading since 1960 when, at 26 years old, she journeyed from England to Tanzania to study chimpanzees in the wild.
 
Goodall was born in London, England, in 1934, and showed great interest in animal behavior from an early age. She spent her free time observing bugs, mice, and other small, native creatures while taking notes and sketching them. Her ultimate aspiration as a child was to study animals in Africa in their native habitats. At 18, Goodall began working at Oxford University as a secretary and at a documentary film company while saving up funds for her eventual trip to Africa. In the late 1950s, Goodall traveled to Kenya for the first time, and soon started working for anthropologist Louis Leakey. Leakey specialized in early human ancestors, and he believed that the key to understanding their evolutionary path was a better understanding of extant great apes, such as chimpanzees. After all, chimpanzees are humans’ closest living relatives. Leakey also contended that previous chimp studies had been too limited in scope, and that a long-term study with field observation was necessary. Unable to commit to such a study himself, he sent Goodall to Gombe Stream Reserve in Tanzania to observe the chimpanzees.
 
In July of 1960, Goodall arrived at a camp in the reserve, situated on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Once there, she developed a dedicated routine to observe the chimpanzees. She would appear at the same time every day near their feeding area, allowing the apes to get acclimated to her presence. Over time, she was able to get closer and closer as they stopped seeing her as a threat. Eventually, she was able to earn their trust by bringing them bananas, forming what she called the “Banana Club.” During the time she spent practically living with the chimpanzees, she learned new information that disproved previous studies. For example, the apes weren’t herbivores as previously thought, but omnivores that ate insects and other mammals like baboons and antelope when the opportunity presented itself. They also appeared to communicate using around 20 “words” and had a complex social system.
 
Perhaps most importantly, Goodall discovered that humans weren’t the only animals that use tools. She observed chimps using blades of grass that they modified to catch termites out of their mounds. This discovery, along with her other observations, are shown in the documentary Miss Goodall and the Wild Chimpanzees (1965) and in her book, In the Shadow of Man (1971), both of which changed the scientific community’s understanding of great apes. Goodall’s book, in particular, helped prove that chimpanzees shared many behaviors with humans. One example of wordless communication between humans and chimps from In The Shadow of Man reads, “When I moved my hand closer, he looked at it, and then at me, and then he took the fruit, and at the same time held my hand firmly and gently with his own. As I sat motionless, he released my hand, looked down at the nut, and dropped it to the ground. At that moment, there was no need of any scientific knowledge to understand his communication of reassurance… the barrier of untold centuries which has grown up during the separate evolution of man and chimpanzee was, for those few seconds, broken down.”
 
Today, Goodall’s discovery of chimpanzees’ capacity for tool-use is considered one of the greatest ethological achievements of the 20th century. It has even opened the door to studies of other animals, like parrots, that are capable of similar feats. Since her groundbreaking fieldwork, Goodall has dedicated her life to conservation. In 1977, she co-founded the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation. For her contributions to science, she was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2003. It’s an impressive title for sure, but it doesn’t quite beat President of the Banana Club.

 
[Image description: A photo of Jane Goodall wearing a brown, turtleneck sweater and jacket in front of a floral background.] Credit & copyright: U.S. Department of State, Wikimedia Commons. This image is a work of a United States Department of State employee, taken or made as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain per 17 U.S.C. § 101 and § 105 and the Department Copyright Information.

If you’ve been online this week, then you’ve likely seen footage of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing after it was struck by a large container ship. The tragedy claimed several lives and is still under investigation. Yet, it’s far from the worst bridge collapse in modern U.S. history. That unfortunate title is still held by 1967’s Silver Bridge collapse in Point Pleasant, West Virginia—an incident that changed U.S. bridge safety forever.
 
Built in 1928 over the Ohio river, the Silver Bridge connected U.S. Highway 35 between Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Kanauga, Ohio. Named for the aluminum paint that covered its surface, the Silver Bridge was a suspension bridge, though with an unusual design. Unlike most suspension bridges, the Silver Bridge was supported by eyebars. These were flat, steel beams with round, holed ends connected via huge pins to form chains ranging between 45 feet and 55 feet in length. While unconventional, the design held up to decades of heavy traffic…until it suddenly didn’t. On December 15, 1967, a chain on one of the ends of the bridge snapped, causing it to tilt to one side. This happened at 5 p.m., when rush-hour traffic was backed up on the bridge. The tilt immediately sent unfortunate commuters sliding into the water. In the span of around one minute, dozens of cars fell 80 feet to the surface of the Ohio River, killing 46 people and injuring 9.
 
Following the tragic incident, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigated the cause of the bridge collapse and released a comprehensive report. However, the bridge had already been a source of concern to state officials for some time. From the very beginning, it was known that the eyebar chains could not be adjusted after the bridge was completed, meaning that any issues arising from the condition of the chains couldn’t be easily corrected. Still, it seemed that the bridge was well looked after. Inspections were carried out regularly by the private owner of the bridge until 1941, when it was purchased by the state of West Virginia. In 1965, state inspectors recommended $30,000 in repairs, which were completed by the summer of 1967. Just over a week before the bridge collapsed, the State Road Commission sent a maintenance engineer to check the bridge again. Yet despite these measures, a growing threat went overlooked. According to the NTSB report, the main source of the failure was an improperly cast eyebar which had been used in the construction of the bridge despite having a small crack. Over the years, corrosion caused the crack to grow (rust expands as it forms) until it failed catastrophically on December 15. The bridge also hadn’t been designed to handle the heavy traffic of the 1960s. By then, not only were there more cars on the road, the cars were much heavier than the Ford Model-Ts that the bridge was originally made to accommodate. The flaw in the eyebar had been visually inaccessible, so it went undiscovered despite all the inspections.
 
As tragic as it was, the Silver Bridge collapse did have something of a silver lining. It made headlines around the country, forcing President Lyndon B. Johnson to address aging infrastructure. A nationwide assessment found that many bridges were, much like Silver Bridge, designed and built in the 1920s, but with even fewer inspections to keep tabs on their condition. Some bridges had never even been inspected. Today, there are federal standards for bridge design and maintenance, but the sheer number of bridges still makes thorough, regular inspections difficult. Efforts to improve maintenance procedures and intervals are often met with political resistance due to funding, and many pieces of road infrastructure today could be ticking time bombs. When it comes to infrastructure safety, there shouldn’t be such a thing as a bridge too far.

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Just who was this Saint Patrick guy, anyway? Like all saints who went on to become holiday mascots (think Saint Valentine and Saint Nicholas) the real Saint Patrick’s life is steeped in legend. In fact, almost everything we know about his life comes from two works that Patrick wrote himself: his autobiography, Confessio, and a letter condemning what he saw as Britain’s mistreatment of Christians in Ireland. While some of Patrick’s stories might best be taken with a grain of salt, there’s no doubt that he became an extremely successful priest and missionary in his lifetime, and that he faced plenty of tribulations along the way.
 
The story of Saint Patrick gets strange right off the bat since, despite his fame as the patron saint of Ireland, he wasn’t actually Irish. Rather, he was born in Britain sometime around 450 C.E. to a family of Roman descent. His father was a wealthy deacon and local politician, but even his status wasn’t enough to protect a 16-year-old Patrick from being kidnapped by Irish raiders who broke into his family’s estate. The teen was carried off into slavery in Ireland, where he was forced to work for six years herding sheep. During his time in captivity, Patrick sought solace in his religion and became more devout as a result. According to Patrick’s own writings, he had a dream one night in which the Christian god told him that it was time to leave, so he fled his captors and returned to his family in Britain. After his return, another dream told him that he would one day return to Ireland as a missionary. Whatever his reasoning, Patrick did begin 15 years of religious training, at the end of which he was ordained a priest. Amazingly, he did indeed choose to return to the land where he had been enslaved to do the bulk of his religious work.
 
Although some legends claim that Saint Patrick introduced Christianity to Ireland, that’s almost certainly not true, since part of his job as a missionary and priest was working with Ireland’s already-Christian population. Unlike most foreign priests, Patrick was familiar with Irish traditions and rituals due to the time he’d spent there, which endeared him to Irish Christians. It also allowed him to better relate to the non-Christians he was trying to convert. Patrick put a Christian spin on Irish, pagan rituals, such as lighting bonfires during Easter instead of doing so to worship the Celtic gods. He is also credited with redesigning the typical Christian cross by adding a circle that represents the sun—a prominent Celtic symbol—to make the reverence of the symbol feel more familiar. This design came to be known as the Celtic cross, and it’s still in use today in regions with Celtic heritage. His influence and reputation in Ireland only grew after his death, and he was heralded as a saint by acclaim alone before the Catholic Church had a formal canonization process.
 
As with any Catholic saint, Patrick was credited for performing a number of epic feats and miracles. The most famous of these is his eradication of snakes from the island, though historically this seems unlikely since scientific evidence points to there being no reptiles at all on the island prior to modern times. Patrick is also credited with using a three-leafed clover, or shamrock, to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity to the Irish, though this was never mentioned in his own writings. Another story tells of Patrick fasting on a mountain for 40 days, until an angel came down to speak with him on behalf of God. The story goes that Patrick then made several demands of God, like allowing him to save more damned souls than any other saint, preventing the English from ever ruling over the Irish, and giving him the privilege of judging Irish souls during the Last Judgment.
 
While St. Patrick is still heavily associated with Irish culture, his feast day on March 17 is celebrated in many countries today. For many, St. Patrick’s Day is a fairly secular holiday in which revelers don green clothes and drink plenty of beer. This is particularly true in the U.S., where the holiday was first promoted by Irish immigrants in Boston in the 18th century. The first St. Patrick’s Day parade was held in Boston in 1737, and the tradition has spread to cities across the country. No need to be green with envy for the Emerald Isle—everyone has the luck of the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white engraving of Saint Patrick reading a bible and holding a staff while wearing a robe and tall hat.] Credit & copyright: Mattheus Borrekens, 1625-1670. Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

There are jailbreaks, and then there are jailbreaks. On this day in 1934, one of the most notorious criminals in U.S. history broke out of jail using only a self-made, fake gun. John Dillinger was a troublemaker long before this infamous feat, but he did become something of a legend afterward. In his time, he was even considered something of a folk hero, albeit a violent one.
 
John Herbert Dillinger was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, in 1903. He had a difficult family life that resulted in a tumultuous childhood. His mother died when he was only three, and he did not get along with his stepmother. In school, he frequently got into trouble and eventually dropped out at the age of 16. Hoping to reform their son’s ways by moving to a more rural area, his family relocated to a farm outside of Indianapolis, but to no avail. Despite his father’s efforts to distance him from city life, Dillinger still ventured into Indianapolis to work at a machine shop during the day, and drink in bars until all hours of the night. At age 20, Dillinger did take one serious crack at the “straight and narrow” life by joining the Navy…but after just a few months at his first station, he went AWOL and married 16-year-old Beryl Hovious.
 
Dillinger began his criminal career not long after getting married, though it got off to a rough start. In 1924, Dillinger and his friend, Edgar Singleton, assaulted and robbed a local grocer. Dillinger's used an iron bolt wrapped in cloth as his main weapon, but the grocer suffered only minor injuries. Dillinger was promptly identified, arrested, and sentenced to a whopping 10 to 20 years in prison. His wife divorced him while he was serving his sentence, and it seemed that Dillinger was a man whose violent actions had cost him everything. Far from learning his lesson, however, Dillinger made friends with other criminals while incarcerated and learned more about pulling successful heists. After making parole in 1933, Dillinger picked up right where he'd left off. Using what he’d learned from ex-military inmates who robbed banks with tactical precision, he began a crime spree for the ages. His first step was to break out some of his incarcerated friends: Harry Pierpont, Charles Makley, John Hamilton, Walter Dietrich, and Russell Clark. They, along with Homer Van Meter, formed the Dillinger Gang, and stole weapons by breaking into police stations. Their modus operandi was unusually meticulous; members of the gang performed reconnaissance before each robbery. They also posed as government officials to get an inside look at the daily operations of their targets, and even “rehearsed” by driving over their escape routes several times in advance.
 
During one of the gang’s robberies, Dillinger killed a police officer named O’Malley. The additional attention from the killing eventually caught up with him, and Dillinger was captured in January of 1934. While awaiting trial in Crown Point, Indiana, Dillinger carved a fake gun out of a wooden washboard and colored it with bootblack. Using the “gun,” he successfully escaped on March 3 of that year by taking a guard hostage (although his lawyer supposedly bribed some guards to aid in the escape) and fled to Chicago, where he underwent plastic surgery to hide his identity. In June, Dillinger was declared Public Enemy Number One by the federal government. Less than a month later, he met a fittingly violent end when he died in a hail of gunfire in a shootout with the FBI.
 
Oddly, in life Dillinger was considered a folk hero by some Americans, who celebrated him for holding up the “crooked banks” that they blamed for the country’s economic woes. Today, Dillinger is among the most famous of the bank robbers who plagued the U.S. in the early 1900s. Whether he was just a violent criminal or a champion of the people, one thing’s for sure: Dillinger knew how to whittle a convincing gun.

 
[Image description: Black-and-white mugshots of John Dilliner wearing a suit.] Credit & copyright: John Dillinger's 1924 mugshot from the Indiana State Penitentiary. Indiana State Penitentiary photographic records. Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

It may look tame, but trust us—you don’t want to take the plunge. The Bolton Strid, a narrow portion of the River Wharf running through the Bolton Woods in Yorkshire, England, is considered by many to be the world’s deadliest stream. Despite looking relatively calm and easy to jump over, the Strid has claimed many lives, giving it an almost otherworldly reputation.
 
The Bolton Strid gets the first part of its name from the 12th century monastery nearby, the Bolton Priory. “Strid,” on the other hand, means “turmoil” in Old English. The stream’s waters are not as gentle as they appear at first glance, and the Bolton Strid’s dangerous reputation has been known to locals for centuries. In the early 1800s, British poet William Wordsworth even wrote a poem called The Force of Prayer about the Bolton Strid, and an unlucky boy who fell in while trying to jump across it. The poem reads, in part, “The Boy is in the arms of Wharf, / And strangled by a merciless force; / For never more was young Romilly seen / Till he rose a lifeless corpse.” Over the centuries, countless people have similarly fallen victim to the Bolton Strid, many while trying to jump across it. More recently, in 1998, a couple drowned there on the second day of their honeymoon after heavy rains caused the water level to rise by five feet in less than a minute.
 
So, what exactly makes the Bolton Strid so dangerous? It's a combination of physics and psychology. The River Wharf, which is around 30 feet across for most of its length, narrows at the Bolton Strid significantly, until it’s only a few feet across. Below the seemingly-calm surface, the sudden narrowness causes water to be “squeezed” along much faster than it would normally flow. Over centuries, the turbulent water has allowed the Bolton Strid to gouge deep into the surrounding stone—perhaps as deep as 30 feet, though the exact measurement is still unknown. Some researchers have described the Bolton Strid as a full-sized river that is simply “turned on its side”, so that all of its danger is hidden below the surface. These dangers include not only the rushing current but also sharp rocks that aren’t visible from above. There are only a few, small clues that the stream isn’t what it seems. These include swirls of water on its surface (from hidden undercurrents), bubbles rising from the bottom (which are a sign of low water density that makes it easier for objects to sink), and an inability to see the bottom of the stream, even on a clear, sunny day. Ultimately, the fact that most people miss these subtle signs is what truly makes the Bolton Strid so dangerous. People are simply more willing to approach the calm-looking stream than they would be an obviously-raging river. Hence why there are so many stories of people trying to jump across the waterway. In fact, people still do jump across all the time, due in part to the stream’s now-famous reputation. For teens, leaping over the Bolton Strid is a surefire, albeit dangerous way to “prove their love” to a romantic partner.
 
The fact remains that no one who has ever fallen into the Bolton Strid has made it out alive, and many don’t make it out at all. No one is sure where their bodies go when they don’t emerge, but some experts believe that objects in the Bolton Strid are sucked into underwater caverns in the stony riverbed. Sure, you should never judge a book by its cover, but it also pays not to judge a river by its width.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white photo of The Strid taken in 1898.] Credit & copyright: Bolton Woods; The Strid. 1898. Rijksmuseum, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

If you were paying attention this past Valentine’s Day, chances are good that you saw at least one depiction of Cupid. He’s everywhere this time of year—on boxes of chocolates, bouquet wrappings, and of course cards. But Cupid wasn’t always the friendly little winged baby that he’s often depicted as today; there was a time when his heart-tipped arrows inspired terror and were part of dark tales involving madness and death. That’s because Cupid was originally Eros, the Greek God of carnal love.
 
Cupid’s mythological backstory went through plenty of changes over the centuries. One of the earliest mentions of Eros describes him as a primordial cosmological entity who emerged from the world egg. Another version of his birth describes him as the son of Nyx (the goddess of night) and Erebus (the god of darkness). He is sometimes portrayed as a sibling of Deimos, Phobos, and Harmonia, (gods of fear, panic and harmony, respectively). In other portrayals, he is the elder brother of Anteros, the god of requited love and avenger of unrequited love. However, the most popular tales of Eros portray Aphrodite, the goddess of sexual love and beauty, as his mother. In these stories, Eros is usually portrayed as a powerful, handsome young man with wings. His enchanted bow and arrows can impart an everlasting and irresistible carnal desire for another being, and they could affect both gods and mortals. His power wasn’t always used for good. Aphrodite, being a jealous goddess, often ordered her son to inflict his arrows on mortal women she grew jealous of, sometimes making them fall in love with animals. Yet, for a god who could so easily make others fall in love, Eros himself had quite the time trying to form a romantic connection of his own.
 
The tale of Eros and Psyche tells the story of Eros’s own quest for love. Most versions of the tale state that Aphrodite grew jealous of Psyche, a beautiful, mortal princess, and sent Eros to punish her with his arrows. Meanwhile, concerned that suitors never came to call on his daughter, Psyche’s father sought advice from the Oracle of Delphi, who told him to leave her at the top of a mountain, where she would meet her husband. This husband was said to be a monster, but Psyche went anyway to make her father happy. When she reached the summit, she was taken to a grand palace where she lived alone, only meeting her husband under the dark cover of night. When her sisters came to visit her, they—in their jealousy—convinced her to shine a light on her husband when he came to visit. One night, Psyche did just that, and revealed a most beautiful face—that of Eros himself. Eros, as it happened, had nicked himself with his own arrow while taking aim at Psyche. But the god was angered by the betrayal and flew away, leaving Psyche alone once more. Some versions say that Psyche remained alone forever, but in other versions she and Eros reconciled and Psyche went to live with Eros on Olympus.
 
Things changed for Eros around 146 BCE, when the Romans took over Greece’s city-states. Although they kept much of Greece’s mythology intact, they renamed the Greek gods and, in some cases, altered their stories and appearances. The Romans changed Eros’s name to Cupid, a word that resembles the Latin verb “cupere”, meaning “to desire.” Unlike Eros, Cupid was portrayed as a mischievous young boy. This is probably because many of Eros’s stories saw him carrying out the commands of his mother, which the Romans viewed as childlike. As Christian art grew popular in Italy, Cupid came to be depicted in an even younger form, taking on the baby-like appearance of winged cherubs that were popular in Christian art. Eventually, the only thing that set Cupid apart from other cherubs were his quiver and arrows. Don’t be fooled by their modern, cartoonish appearance, though. They pack a wallop.

 
[Image description: A round plate with Eros depicted on it, standing nude with wings and arms outstretched.] Credit & copyright:
Louvre Museum, Wikimedia Commons. 470 BC–450 BCE. This picture was shot by Marie-Lan Nguyen (user:Jastrow) and placed in the Public Domain.

In honor of Black History Month, we’re celebrating one of the greatest American writers of all time: Langston Hughes. A central figure of the Harlem Renaissance, Hughes is best remembered for his succinct, gripping poetry, but he also wrote novels, plays, and essays. His unique ability to combine themes of beauty and hope with truths about poverty and prejudice made his work an inspiration to millions.
 
James Mercer Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, on February 1, 1901. His childhood was complicated and impacted by racism from the start. His father, seeking to escape the violent, anti-Black racism of the U.S., divorced Hughes’ mother and left for Mexico when Hughes was an infant. His mother, unable to find steady work due to persistent prejudice, left him to be raised by his maternal grandmother until he was 13. An activist in her youth, Hughes’ grandmother instilled in him a sense of racial pride and responsibility toward the Black community. By the time he was a teenager, Hughes had already developed a passion for literature and had begun writing poetry, thanks in large part to his grandmother.
 
After high school, he briefly went to live with his father in Mexico and tried, unsuccessfully, to convince him to fund his education at Columbia University, where he wanted to study writing. It was during his time in Mexico that the young Hughes wrote one of his most famous poems: The Negro Speaks of Rivers. A part of the poem reads, “I’ve known rivers ancient as the world and older than the flow of human blood in human veins/My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” The free-verse poem, focused on the strength and beauty of Black heritage, was published in NAACP’s The Crisis Magazine, and caught the attention of critics. Although Hughes did attend Columbia University for a year, he paused his studies to travel around Europe and Africa to escape the racism he encountered at school and in the U.S. in general. After returning to the U.S., he finished his education at Lincoln University in Chester County, Pennsylvania, before making what was possibly the most impactful move of his life: he settled down in New York, in the historically Black neighborhood of Harlem.
 
Despite his first poem’s success, most of Hughes’ early work was poorly received by Black critics and almost universally ignored by white critics. Black critics disliked Hughes because he wrote about the lives of Black people in Harlem in a stark, forthcoming light, which they found unflattering. For example, the title of his second book of poetry, Fine Clothes to the Jew, referred to the at-the-time common practice of Black people pawning their expensive clothes to mostly Jewish-owned businesses during times of financial hardship. As Hughes once wrote of other Black writers in his autobiography, “In anything that white people were likely to read, they wanted to put their best foot forward, their politely polished and cultural foot—and only that foot.” Hughes’ lack of critical acclaim didn’t seem to bother him though, as he remained most interested in the lives of everyday Black people. Hughes was well-regarded by the working class, who found his writing relatable. Within a few years, he grew popular enough to become the first Black American to make a living from writing alone. However, this success also made him a target of the US government. His interest in communism, open criticisms of capitalism, and his unwavering support of civil rights for Black Americans earned him the ire of J. Edgar Hoover, and the government kept an extensive file on Hughes for many years.
 
Hughes did eventually win over the literary critics. In fact, he became one of the most significant figures in the Harlem Renaissance, an explosion of Black art and literature based in Harlem, which began in the 1920s. For his part, Hughes relentlessly portrayed the struggles of Black Americans and relayed their experiences to the world with dignity and solemnity. He became friends with other leading Black literary figures, like author Gwendolyn Brooks. Throughout the rest of his life, Hughes continued to travel the world as much as he could, and was as beloved on the international stage as he was scorned by the establishment in his home country. He may have lived in Harlem, but all the world was his neighborhood.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white photo of Langston Hughes smiling while wearing a suit.] Credit & copyright: Jack Delano (1914–1997), Wikimedia Commons, This image is a work of an employee of the United States Farm Security Administration or Office of War Information domestic photographic units, taken as part of that person's official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain in the United States.

Revolutions don’t come cheap, you know! On this day in 1787, a little-known American rebellion was defeated less than a year after it began. Its cause? Economic uncertainty following the Revolutionary War. With credit hard to come by and creditors making difficult demands, many people struggled to pay their bills once the war was over. Some lost their land, while others were thrown behind bars, and all the while, social unrest began to spread. When discontent turned to rebellion, the dissidents joined forces and were led by one man: Daniel Shays. Shays’ Rebellion, though brief, tested the stability of a newly-independent America.
 
During the war, businesses in America and Europe lent massive sums of money to the Continental Army. Once the war ended, they were hesitant to lend more money when they were still owed so much, and most demanded cash up front for goods and services rendered. Meanwhile, many farmers who had fought in the war struggled to make ends meet, as they had borrowed large amounts to start their farms and provide for their families. Ironically, the reason many people were in debt was because they themselves were owed money for their service in state militias and the Continental Army, which had often issued IOUs in lieu of pay. To help alleviate the situation, state governments began to pass pro-debtor laws that forgave loans or printed more money. One exception was Massachusetts, whose Governor, James Bowdoin, refused to pass such laws. This allowed businesses in Boston to seize land from farmers and throw debtors into prison. With so many people unable to pay their debts, the situation quickly became untenable. Beginning in 1786, Disgruntled farmers and other debtors began to hold special meetings, creating an atmosphere of rebellion akin to that of the early days of the American Revolution. Among the dissidents was Daniel Shays, a farmer who had served as a Captain in the Continental Army.
 
Shays had fought at Bunker Hill and had a decorated military career, but in the rebellion that would eventually bear his name, he was a reluctant leader. He feared that an uprising could threaten the new democracy he’d recently fought to form. Still, he was an active participant in debtors' meetings and protests from the rebellion’s start. Shays was present during a protest in Northampton when rebels blocked judges from entering a courthouse where debtors’ trials were to be held. Not long after, he led a group of 600 men to a courthouse in Springfield for a similar purpose. Shays’ calm demeanor, as he negotiated with General William Shepard to allow the trials to proceed as long as he and his followers were allowed to protest outside, helped make him the rebellion’s de facto leader. The arrangement worked in Shays’ favor, because even though judges could freely enter the courthouse, the court couldn’t find enough people willing to serve as jurors due to the public’s growing sympathies. With Shays seemingly at the helm, the dissidents began to be referred to as “Shaysites,” though their growing rebellion wouldn’t last long.
 
The Shaysites had divided a fledgling nation. Some viewed their cause as a continuation of the American Revolution, while others, like Sam Adams, considered them traitors and called for their executions. Perhaps taking note of the parallels, George Washington once wrote to a friend, “commotions of this sort, like snow-balls, gather strength as they roll, if there is no opposition in the way to divide and crumble them.” The snow-ball met its match in January of 1787 at the Springfield Arsenal, a federal armory where Shays and his men were headed to procure weapons. Waiting for them was General Shepard, who fired a volley of warning shots, followed by artillery. Two Shaysites died and another twenty were wounded. The rest scattered. On February 4th, the rebellion officially ended after troops led by former Continental Army General Benjamin Lincoln ambushed Shay and his remaining rebels as they made camp. Shays, along with most of the rebellion’s other leaders, fled to Vermont.
 
Luckily for Shays, John Hancock soon took office as Governor of Massachusetts, and issued pardons for him and his rebels. Still, Shays’ actions proved to many that a more decisive, centralized government was needed in the U.S. Following the rebellion, George Washington, who had led the nation through the war, was elected its first president. The U.S. also abandoned the Articles of Confederation and adopted the U.S. Constitution, written by Federalists like Alexander Hamilton, who favored a stronger federal government and weaker state governments. The ups and downs of the American Revolution are enough to make your head spin.

 
[Image description: A stone monument in a field with two small American flags, commemorating the last day of Shay’s Rebellion.] Credit & copyright: John Bessa, Wikimedia Commons. The author of this work has released it into the public domain.

Don’t lose your head! During the French Revolution, that advice was particularly prudent for France’s royalty and aristocracy, many of whom were executed by guillotine during the upheaval. Even the French king, Louis XVI, was killed on this day in 1793. The revolution is still remembered as one of the most violent in history, yet at its heart it was a matter of economics: specifically economic inequality between social classes.
 
During the latter half of the 18th century, France was struggling financially for several reasons. Chief among these was the country’s involvement in another revolution—the American Revolution—which had proven more expensive than they’d bargained for. Compounding the issue were years of bad weather and failed harvests that led food prices to rise. Even bread was unaffordable for many people. Yet, French royals and aristocrats continued to publicly flaunt their wealth even as lower classes starved.
 
The King of France, Louis XVI, wasn’t completely deaf to growing discontent among the masses, though. In 1787, he tasked his Controller General, Charles Alexandre de Calonne, to carry out financial reforms that would remove land tax exemptions from the aristocrats. The hope was, if they paid their fair share, more wealth would be available to everyone. When the Estates General (an assembly of three bodies representing the clergy, nobles, and the middle class) assembled at Versaille, the proposal was met with universal support from the middle class who made up 98 percent of the country’s population, but most nobles and clergy were against it. Thus, the representatives of the middle class and sympathetic nobles held a protest until, on July 9, 1789, the King formed a National Constituent Assembly, a single legislative body with more proportional representation.
 
However, rumors of an impending military coup had already begun to spread, and the resulting panic led people to storm the Bastille fortress to acquire gunpowder and other supplies on July 14, 1789. This marked the beginning of the French Revolution in earnest. What followed were years of political instability and upheavals. The king’s authority was greatly lessened by the National Constituent Assembly and he became a de facto prisoner of the aristocrats. Louis XVI even tried to flee the country in 1791, hoping to secure allies from abroad, but he was caught and brought back to Paris. Meanwhile, the feudal system was abolished and the Catholic Church’s landholdings were nationalized. The land was distributed to farmers and the middle class, creating tensions across the board.
 
To restore his authority, Louis XVI declared war against Austria, who were soon joined by Prussia. Together, the two armies crushed French forces and began marching toward Paris. When the French people saw the approaching forces, they believed that they were coming to act as counterrevolutionaries. French forces were eventually able to turn away the invasion, but the damage was done. Believing they had been betrayed by the aristocrats and their own King, the people began executing anyone they deemed to be an aristocrat or a member of the royal family. Louis XVI was tried and found guilty of high treason, then sentenced to death. The Reign of Terror had begun.
 
The Reign of Terror, which lasted 10 months, saw a number of violent changes to the regime. Maximilien de Robespierre, the radical revolutionary who led the Committee of Public Safety, ordered nearly 17,000 executions without trials before being executed himself in 1794. That, in turn, marked the beginning of the Thermidorian Reaction, which sought to counter the violence of the preceding year with more moderate measures. But public discontent arising from political corruption and inefficiency eventually led the new era to end as well, as Napoleon Bonaparte staged a bloodless coup against the unpopular government. In the end, the French had revolted against a king, started a representative government, then ended up under the rule of Napoleon, who would crown himself emperor.
 
It wasn’t all for nothing, though. The French Revolution gave birth to radical ideas of governance and led to a rise in French nationalism. Once divided by regional identities and cultures, the French people began to identify as one unified group, a trend that would be followed by other European nations. France is, of course, a democracy today, and the storming of the Bastille is celebrated as a national holiday. It’s nice to live in a time when political reforms don’t tend to lead to decapitation.

 
[Image description: An engraving portraying Louis XVI in white clothing standing on an execution stage surrounded by mounted soldiers. Executioners and a priest, wearing a black robe, stand near him.] Credit & copyright: 19th century engraving, Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain in its country of origin and other countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 100 years or fewer.

Who said that small towns weren’t interesting? New Harmony, a small town of less than 700 in southern Indiana, might seem like a low-profile place. Yet, it has one of the strangest histories of any town in the U.S. That’s because it was founded by the Harmony Society, a strange religious group that sought to make the town into an egalitarian utopia. They even built the country’s first public library and two labyrinths in the process.
 
The story of New Harmony began in faraway Germany, where Johann Georg Rapp and his followers broke away from the German Lutheran Church in the late 1700s to form the Harmony Society. Rapp, who declared publicly that, “I am a prophet, and I am called to be one,” was forbidden from gathering with his followers, called Rappites. After convincing his congregation to emigrate to the U.S., Rapp took a handful of his 10,000 or so followers and settled down in Butler County, Pennsylvania, to fulfill their own vision of utopia.
 
They named their town Harmony and generated income through farming and manufacturing, but decided to relocate to a climate more favorable for growing grapes for wine. So, in 1814, they left Pennsylvania for Indiana, and founded a new town they named Harmonie (sometimes called Neu Harmony) along the banks of the Wabash River. By this point, there were around 700 members in the Harmony Society, but 120 of them died while they were settling in their new home from malaria. Nevertheless, the second settlement to be called Harmony became a thriving economy, producing dry goods, wine, whiskey, and beer to trade with surrounding communities. At their peak, the Harmonists had 150 log homes, 20,000 acres of land, and a variety of retail buildings. However, the Harmony Society decided to relocate once again in 1824—this time, in search of land more suitable for manufacturing and commercial purposes. So they sold the settlement to a pair of business partners named Robert Owen and William Maclure for $150,000.
 
Owen and Maclure renamed the town to New Harmony, and they had plans of starting a utopia of their own. Despite their own immense wealth, they envisioned a society without social classes. They supported a variety of social causes, promoting free education, which led to the creation of America’s first public library as well as a public education system that accepted both men and women. In just a few years, Owen and Maclure attracted some of the most highly regarded academics, feminists, and naturalists, turning the small town into a haven of progressive thought and scientific research.
 
Unfortunately for them, the dream was not to last. By just 1827, the town became economically unsustainable under Owen and Maclure’s leadership, and the utopian society dissolved into a more conventional town. Meanwhile, the Harmony Society would face problems of their own. Returning east to Pennsylvania, they founded the town of Economy. They prospered for decades, but their community had one critical flaw: they were celibate. Without a new generation to carry on their beliefs or new converts, the Society began to dwindle. Eventually, infighting and schisms broke apart what little was left of them, and the community officially dissolved in 1905.
 
While the idealistic visions that shaped New Harmony’s origins may have faded, the small town is still an outlier of sorts. Despite its tiny population, New Harmony still attracts artists from around the country, and the town is dotted with sculptures and unique Harmonist architecture. Points of interest include the Roofless Church (a non-denominational, open-air church), the Atheneum (a visitors’ center designed by abstract artist Richard Meier) and not one but two mysterious hedge labyrinths built by the original Rappites. Appropriate, considering the town’s meandering history.

 
[Image description: A painting of a Harmonist imagining of what New Harmony could look like. It shows a walled, gated city near a river, with a family in the foreground.] Credit & copyright: F. Bate, London 1838. Wikimedia Commons. This work is in the public domain in the United States because it was published (or registered with the U.S. Copyright Office) before January 1, 1929.

Happy New Year! While plenty of us will be swigging champagne as the ball drops tonight, in Spain people will be popping a dozen grapes into their mouths as fast as they can. This tradition, called “las doce uvas de la suerte”, or “the twelve grapes of luck”, has been practiced for at least a century. Everything about it, from the type of grapes used to the exact timing of their consumption, has a special meaning and connection to Spanish history.
 
The tradition itself is pretty simple. On the last day of the year, called “Nochevieja,” revelers watch the clock count down to midnight on the Real Casa de Correos, a famous eighteenth century building in Madrid, either in person or on T.V. When the clock hits midnight, bells start ringing to mark the New Year. That’s when the grapes come in. The bell chimes 12 times in all, and participants must scarf down a grape with each chime. The bell doesn’t wait for them to finish chewing, so they’ve got to be quick in order to eat the full dozen by the final chime. Since the whole thing is so time-sensitive, grapes have to be counted out for each person ahead of time, so they’re ready to go. To that end, people who are watching the countdown usually carry their grapes in individual bowls. If a person manages to eat all 12 grapes before the final chime, they will supposedly enjoy good luck for the rest of the year (each grape represents one month of the upcoming year). If not…well, the grapes are at least a delicious variety of green grapes (also known as white grapes) called Aledo. Aledo grapes mature late in the year (they’re harvested around November and December), making them perfect for New Year’s Eve festivities. They also have a particularly decadent flavor due to the unique way they’re grown. While still on the vine, the grapes are wrapped in paper bags during the summer months to protect them from pests and disease. Since the fruits aren’t exposed to the elements, their skin remains tender, and their slow maturation allows them to develop a rich, sweet flavor and aroma.
 
Despite being a much-loved and much-practiced tradition, the history of the twelve grapes of luck is somewhat murky. There are many supposed origin stories, though. One of the best-known says that farmers in Alicante, Spain, where most of the Aledo grapes are grown, had a bumper crop one year in the early 1900s. Supposedly, they came up with the twelve grapes tradition to sell off the excess, and the practice stuck around through the years. Another story claims that the tradition started even earlier. In the 1880s, the Spanish middle class supposedly started emulating their French counterparts who were known for welcoming the New Year with champagne and grapes, and that somehow evolved into the Spanish practice as it exists today.
 
Did we mention that the twelve grapes of luck tradition has one more, slightly more intimate component? Those who are truly serious about securing luck in the new year claim that the tradition works best if you don red undergarments (socks, briefs, panties, etc.). Some people also insist that one must wash down the grapes with a glass of Cava (a Spanish sparkling wine) with a gold ring resting at the bottom. In the weeks leading up to Nochevieja, stores around the country are filled with Aledo grapes and red undergarments. The grapes are available fresh, of course, but they’re also sold seeded and skinless in cans (twelve to a can, of course) for convenience. What a grape way to ring in the New Year!

 
[Image description: A small bowl of white grapes.] Credit & copyright: manfredrichter, Pixabay

She wasn’t trying to start a revolution, but she wasn’t afraid to join one. Deborah Sampson was the first woman in U.S. history to receive a military pension—not as a spouse, but as a veteran. Born on this day 1760, Sampson disguised herself as a man and adopted a new identity to fight in the Continental Army. Later, she toured the newly formed nation as a lecturer.
 
Born in Plympton, Massachusetts, Sampson had a difficult childhood. Her father was lost at sea when she was just five years old, and her family struggled financially as a result. Starting from the age of ten, she worked as an indentured servant on a farm until she turned 18. Afterward, she found work as a schoolteacher in the summer and as a weaver in the winter while the American Revolutionary War raged on. But starting in the 1780s, as the war continued, Sampson tried to enlist in the Continental Army in disguise. Her first attempt ended in failure, leading to her immediate discovery and a scandal in town. That didn’t deter her, though, and her second attempt in 1782 was successful. Taking on the name Robert Shurtleff, Sampson joined the 4th Massachusetts Regiment. Her fellow soldiers didn’t catch on to her ruse and her true gender went unnoticed, although she was given the nickname “Molly” due to her lack of facial hair,
 
For 17 months, “Shurtleff” served in the Continental Army. Just months after joining, Sampson participated in a skirmish against Tory forces that saw her fighting one-on-one against enemy soldiers. She also served as a scout, entering Manhattan and reporting on the British troops that were mobilizing and gathering supplies there. Sampson’s cover was almost blown several times, but she was so determined to keep her secret that she even dug a bullet out of her own leg after she was shot, to avoid a doctor’s examination. This resulted in her living the rest of her life with some shrapnel in her leg. Unfortunately, she was found out after she came down with a serious illness. While in Philadelphia, she was sent to a hospital with a severe fever. She fell unconscious after arriving, and medical staff discovered her true gender while treating her. After being discovered, Sampson received an honorable discharge and returned to Massachusetts. In 1785, she married Benjamin Gannet, with whom she had three children. During this time, she did not receive a pension for her service, and she lived a quiet life. However, things changed as stories of her deeds spread due to the publication of The Female Review: or, Memoirs of an American Young Lady by Herman Mann in 1797. The book was a detailed account of Sampson’s time in the army. To promote the book, Sampson herself went on a year-long lecture tour in 1802. She regaled listeners with war stories, often in uniform, though she may have embellished things a bit. For instance, she claimed to have dug trenches and faced cannons during the Battle of Yorktown, but that battle took place a year before she enlisted. Nevertheless, her accomplishments were largely corroborated and even Paul Revere came to her aid to help her secure a military pension from the state of Massachusetts.
 
Today, Sampson is remembered as a folk hero of the Revolutionary War. After she passed away in 1827 in Sharon, Massachusetts, the town erected statues in her honor. There’s even one standing outside the town’s public library. It shows her dressed as a woman, but holding her musket, with her uniform jacket draped over her shoulder. In 1982, Massachusetts declared May 23 “Deborah Sampson Day” and made her the official state heroine. That seems well-deserved, given that she was the first woman to bayonet-charge her way through the gender barrier.

 
[Image description: An engraving of Deborah Sampson wearing a dress with a frilled collar.] Credit & copyright: Engraving by George Graham. From a drawing by William Beastall, which was based on a painting by Joseph Stone. Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain