Curio Cabinet / Person, Place, or Thing

This week, as the weather continues to warm, we're looking back on some of our favorite springtime curios from years past.
 
Bilbies, not bunnies! That’s the slogan of those in Australia who support the Easter Bilby, an Aussie alternative to the traditional Easter Bunny. Bilbies are endangered Australian marsupials with some rabbit-like features, such as long ears and strong back legs that make them prolific jumpers. This time of year, Australian shops sell chocolate bilbies and picture books featuring the Easter-themed marsupial. But the Easter Bilby isn’t just a way to Aussie-fy Easter. It helps bring awareness to two related environmental problems down under.
 
Bilbies are unique creatures, and some of the world’s oldest living mammals. They thrive in arid environments where many other animals have trouble surviving. Unlike rabbits, bilbies are omnivores who survive by eating a combination of plants, seeds, fungi, and insects. It’s no wonder that Australians are proud enough of this native animal to use it as a holiday mascot. As is fitting of such a whimsical character, the Easter Bilby was invented by a child. In 1968, 9-year-old Australian Rose-Marie Dusting wrote a short story called Billy The Aussie Easter Bilby, which she later published as a book. The book was popular enough to raise the general public’s interest in bilbies, and the Easter Bilby began appearing on Easter cards and decorations. The Easter Bilby really took off, though, when chocolate companies got on board and began selling chocolate bilbies right alongside the usual Easter Bunnies. Seeing that the Easter Bilby was quite popular, Australian environmentalists seized the opportunity to educate Australians about the bilby’s endangered status and the environmental problems posed by the nation's feral rabbits.
 
Bilbies were once found across 70 percent of Australia, but today that percentage has shriveled to 20 percent. Besides simple habitat encroachment, human life harmed bilbies in another big way: by introducing non-native species. Europeans introduced both foxes and domesticated cats to Australia in the 19th Century. Today, foxes kill around 300 million native Australian animals every year, While cats kill a whopping 2 billion annually. While it’s obvious how predators like foxes and cats can hunt and kill bilbies, cute, fluffy bunnies pose just as much of a threat. On Christmas Day in 1859, European settler Thomas Austin released 24 rabbits into the Australian wilderness, believing that hunting them would provide good sport for his fellow colonists. He couldn’t have foreseen the devastating consequences of his decision. From his original 24 rabbits, an entire population of non-native, feral rabbits was born, and they’ve been decimating native Australian wildlife ever since. These rabbits gobble up millions of native plants. This not only kills species that directly depend on the plants for food, it also causes soil erosion since the plants’ roots normally help keep soil compacted. Erosion can change entire landscapes, making them uninhabitable to native species. Unfortunately, rabbits helped drive one of Australia’s two bilby species, the Lesser Bilby, to extinction in the 1950s. Now, less than 10,000 Greater Bilbies remain in the wild.
 
When conservation group Foundation for Rabbit-Free Australia caught wind of the Easter Bilby, they took the opportunity to promote it as an environmentally-friendly alternative to the bunny-centric holiday. Their efforts led to more chocolate companies producing chocolate bilbies. Some even began donating their proceeds to help save real bilbies. Companies like Pink Lady and Haigh’s Chocolates have donated tens of thousands of dollars to Australia’s Save the Bilby Fund. Other Easter Bilby products include mugs, keychains, and stuffed toys. Some Australian artists create work featuring the Easter Bilby. Just like the Easter Bunny, the Easter Bilby is usually pictured bringing colorful eggs to children, and frolicking in springtime flowers. If he’s anything like his real-life counterparts, he’d sooner eat troublesome termites than cause any environmental damage. Win-win!

 
[Image description: A vintage drawing of a bilby with its long ears laid back.] Credit & copyright:
John Gould, Mammals of Australia Vol. I Plate 7, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain

".... .- .--. .--. -.-- / -... .. .-. - .... -.. .- -.--" That's Morse code for happy birthday! The inventor of the electric telegraph and Morse code, Samuel Morse, was born on this day in 1791. Tinkering and inventing were just two of Morse’s varied interests, but the story of how he invented the telegram involved both genius and tragedy.
 
Morse was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and attended Yale as a young man. As a student, he had a passing interest in electricity, but his real passion was for painting. He especially enjoyed painting miniature portraits, much to the chagrin of his parents, who wanted him to start working as a bookseller's apprentice. Despite the pressure, he remained steadfast in his pursuit of the arts, and eventually made his way to London to train properly as a painter. His painting The Dying Hercules became a critical success, and by 1815 he returned to the U.S. to open his own studio. The following year, though, the 25-year-old Morse was struck by a sudden and unexpected tragedy. While he was away from home, working on a portrait of Marquis de Lafayette, a pivotal figure in the American Revolution, Morse received word that his wife had fallen critically ill. He rushed home, but he was too late—his wife had passed away days before his arrival. Morse was understandably distraught, and the tragedy marked the beginning of his renewed interest in electricity. Specifically, he believed that the key to instant communication lay with electromagnetism.
 
Although Morse’s name would come to be forever associated with telegrams, he wasn't the first to invent them by any means. In 1833, Germans Carl Friedrich Gauss Wilhelm Weber created the first commercial telegraph. Meanwhile, William Cooke and Charles Wheatstone in England were working on a telegraph system of their own, but their version was limited in range. Morse himself only managed to create a prototype by 1834, yet by 1838—and with the help of machinist Alfred Vail—he was able to create a telegraph system that could relay a message up to two miles. The message sent during this demonstration, "A patient waiter is no loser," was sent in the newly developed Morse code, which Morse devised with the help of Vail. Morse applied for a patent for his telegraph in 1840, and in 1844, a line connecting Baltimore, Maryland to Washington D.C. was established. Famously, the first message sent on this line was "What hath God wrought!" Although Morse Code as created by Morse was adequate for communicating in English, it wasn't particularly accommodating of other languages. So, in 1851, a number of European countries worked together to develop a variant called the International Morse Code, which was simpler. This version would come to be adopted in the U.S. as well for its simplicity, and remains more widely used.
 
Both the telegraph and the Morse code remained the quickest way to communicate over long distances for many years, until the advent of the radio and other mass communication devices rendered them obsolete during the 20th century. The death blow to the telegraph—and subsequently, Morse code—as the dominant form of long distance communication came after WWII, when aging telegraph lines became too great an expense to justify in the age of radio. Morse code still had its uses with radio as the medium instead of the telegraph, but its heyday was long over. Today, telegraphs and Morse code have been relegated to niche uses, but it's undeniable that they helped shape the age of instant communication that we currently occupy. Word travels fast, but Morse made it faster.

 
[Image description: A photo of Samuel Morse, a mall with white hair and a beard, wearing a uniform with many medals.] Credit & copyright: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Samuel F. B. Morse, Attributed to Mathew B. Brady, ca. 1870. Gilman Collection, Gift of The Howard Gilman Foundation, 2005. Public Domain.

Tariffs, duties, customs—no matter what you call them, they can be a volatile tool capable of protecting weak industries or bleeding an economy dry. As much as tariffs have been in the news lately, they can be difficult to understand. Luckily, one can always turn to history to see how they’ve been used in the past. In the early days of the U.S., tariffs helped domestic industries stay competitive. However, they can easily turn harmful if they’re implemented without due consideration.
 
A tariff is a tax applied to goods that are imported or exported, though the latter is rarely used nowadays. Tariffs on exports were sometimes used to safeguard limited resources from leaving the country, but when the word "tariff" is used, it almost always means a tax applied to imports. Tariffs are paid by the entity importing the goods, and they can be either “ad valorem” or "specific" tariffs. Ad valorem tariffs are based on a percentage of the value of the goods being taxed, while specific tariffs are fixed amounts, regardless of the total value. It's easy to think that tariffs are categorically detrimental, but there’s sometimes a good reason for them. Making certain types of imported goods more expensive might help domestic producers of those goods stay more competitive by allowing them to sell their goods at lower prices. On the other hand, poorly-conceived tariffs can end up raising the prices of goods across the board, putting economic pressure on consumers without helping domestic industries. Tariffs used to be much more common around the world, but as international trade grew throughout the 20th century, they became less and less so. In the U.S., at least, many factors led to tariffs’ decline.
 
In 1789, the Tariff Act was one of the first major pieces of legislation passed by Congress, and it created a massive source of revenue for the fledgling nation. Tariffs helped domestic industries gain their footing by leveling the playing field against their better-established foreign competitors, particularly in Britain. By the beginning of the Civil War, tariffs accounted for around 90 percent of the U.S. government’s revenue. As Americans took up arms against each other, however, there was a sudden, dire need for other sources of government funding. Other taxes were introduced, leading to tariffs becoming less significant. Still, even immediately after the war, tariffs accounted for around 50 percent of the nation's revenue. During the Great Depression, tariffs caused more problems than they solved. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930 was intended to bolster domestic industries, but it also made it less feasible for those industries to export goods, hindering their overall business. By the start of World War II, the U.S. government simply could not rely on tariffs as a significant source of revenue any longer. Social security, the New Deal, and exponentially growing military expenditure among other things created mountains of expenses far too large for tariffs to cover. Thus, tariffs became less popular and less relevant over the decades.
 
Today, tariffs are typically used as negotiation tools between countries engaged in trade. Generally, tariffs are applied on specific industries or goods. For example, tariffs on steel have been used a number of times in recent history to aid American producers. However, the tariffs making the news as of late are unusual. Instead of targeting specific industries, tariffs are being applied across the board against entire countries, even on goods from established trade partners like Canada and Mexico. Only time will tell how this will impact U.S. consumers and U.S. industries. It’ll be historic no matter what…but that doesn’t always mean it will be smooth sailing.

 
[Image description: A U.S. flag with a wooden pole.] Credit & copyright: Crefollet, Wikimedia Commons. This file is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

You could say that he was a man of many words. While England is the motherland of English, every Anglophone country has its own unique twist on the language. American English wasn't always held in the highest esteem, but Noah Webster helped formalize the American vernacular and help it stand on its own with his American Dictionary of the English Language, published this month in 1828.
 
Webster was born on October 16, 1758, in West Hartford, Connecticut, to a family of modest means. His father was a farmer and weaver, while his mother was a homemaker. Though most working class people didn't attend college at the time, Webster's parents encouraged his studies as a young man, and he began attending Yale at the age of 16. During this time, he briefly served in the local militia and even met George Washington on one occasion as the Revolutionary War raged on. Unfortunately, Webster's financial hardships kept him from pursuing law, his original passion. Instead, he chose to become a teacher. In this role, he began to see the shortcomings of existing textbooks on the English language, all of which came from Britain. These books not only failed to reflect the language as spoken by Americans, but also included a pledge of allegiance to King George. As a grammarian, educator, and proud American, Webster believed that American students should be taught American English, which he dubbed "Federal English."
 
Thus, Webster set out to formalize the English spoken by Americans. He published the first of his seminal works, A Grammatical Institute of the English Language, in 1783. Also called the “American Spelling Book” or the “Blue-Backed Speller” for the color of its binding, the book codified the spelling of English words as written by Americans. When writing the book, Webster set out and followed three rules—he divided each word into syllables, described how each word was pronounced, and wrote the proper way to spell each word. Webster also simplified the spelling of many words, but not all of his spellings caught on. For instance, he wanted Americans to spell "tongue" as "tung." Still, he continued his efforts to simplify spelling in A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language, published in 1806. The book contained around 37,000 words, and many of the spellings within are still used today. For example, "colour" was simplified to "color," "musick" became "music," and many words that ended in "-re" were changed to end in "-er.” The book even added words not included in British textbooks or dictionaries. Webster’s magnum opus, American Dictionary of the English Language, greatly expanded on his first dictionary by including over 65,000 words. The dictionary was a comprehensive reflection of Webster's own views on American English and its usage, and was largely defined by its "Americanisms," which included nonliterary words and technical words from the arts and sciences. It reflected Webster's belief that spoken language should shape the English language in both the definition of words and their pronunciation.
 
Today, Webster is remembered through the continuously-revised editions of the dictionary that bears his name. His views on language continue to influence lexicographers and linguists. In a way, Webster was his own sort of revolutionary rebel. Instead of muskets on the battlefield, he fought for his country's identity with books in classrooms by going against the grain culturally and academically. Who knew grammar and spelling could be part of a war effort?

 
[Image description: A portrait of a white-haired man with a white shirt and black jacket sitting in a green chair.] Credit & copyright: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; gift of William A. Ellis. Portrait of Noah Webster , James Herring, 12 Jan 1794 - 8 Oct 1867. Public Domain, CC0.

Sometimes, you’re in the right place at the wrong time. The Pony Express was a mail delivery service that defied the perils of the wilderness to connect the Eastern and Western sides of the U.S. The riders who traversed the dangerous trail earned themselves a lasting reputation, but the famed service wasn’t destined to last.
 
Prior to the establishment of the Pony Express on April 3, 1860, there was only one reliable way for someone on the East Coast to send letters or parcels to the West: steamships. These ships traveled by sea from the East Coast down to Panama, where their cargo was unloaded and carried to the Atlantic side of the isthmus. There, the mail was loaded onto yet another ship and taken up to San Francisco, where it could finally be split up and sent off to various addresses. The only other option was for a ship to travel around the southern tip of South America, which could be treacherous. In addition to the inherent risks of going by sea, these routes were costly and time consuming. Mail delivery by ship took months, costing the U.S. government more money than they earned in postage. Going directly on land from East to West was also prohibitively dangerous due to a lack of established trails and challenging terrain. Various officials proposed some type of overland mail delivery system using horses, but for years none came to fruition.
 
Although the early history and conception of the Pony Express is disputed, most historians credit William H. Russell with the concept. He was one of the owners of Russell, Majors and Waddell, a freight, mail, and passenger transportation company. Russell and his partners later founded the Central Overland California & Pike’s Peak Express Company to serve as the parent company to the Pony Express. Simply put, the Pony Express was an express mail delivery service that used a system of relay stations to switch out riders and horses as needed. This wasn’t a unique concept by itself, as similar systems were already in use, but the Pony Express was set apart by its speed and the distance it covered. Operating out of St. Joseph, Missouri, the company guaranteed delivery of mail to and from San Francisco in 10 days. To accomplish this, riders carried up to 20 pounds of mail on horseback and rode California mustangs (feral horses trained to accept riders) 10 to 15 miles at a time between relay stations. Using this system, riders were able to cover over 1,900 miles in the promised 10 days. Riders traveled in any weather through all types of terrain on poorly established trails, both day and night.
 
Bridging the nearly 2,000-mile gap between U.S. coasts was no easy feat, and the Pony Express quickly established itself as a reliable service. However, just 18 months after operations began, the Pony Express became largely obsolete thanks to the establishment of a telegraph line connecting New York City and San Francisco. In October of 1861, the company stopped accepting new mail, and their last shipment was delivered in November. Despite its short-lived success, the Pony Express holds a near-mythical place in American popular history. Its riders were seen as adventurers who braved the elements through untamed wilderness, and they are considered daring symbols of the Old West. It might not be as reliable as the modern postal service, but it was a lot easier to romanticize.

 
[Image description: A stone and concrete pillar-style monument near the site of Rockwell's Station along the Pony Express route in Utah.] Credit & copyright: Beneathtimp, Wikimedia Commons

Rags to riches is an understatement. Madam C.J. Walker, the daughter of two former slaves, worked her way up the ladder of a prejudiced society to earn enormous riches as an entrepreneur. Today we're celebrating her birthday with a look back at her remarkable career.
 
As a young black woman living in St. Louis in the 1890s, Walker didn't start out looking for the "next big idea." She was eking out a living for her and her daughter as a washerwoman. It wasn't until she found a job as a sales agent with a haircare company that things started taking off. The role was personal for her, as she suffered from scalp rashes and balding. Plus, her brothers worked in the hair business as barbers.
 
Walker was successful selling other people's hair products, but employment was getting in the way of her dream. Literally: a man who visited her in a dream inspired her to start her own company, selling hair and beauty products geared towards black women. The Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, of which Walker was the sole stakeholder, made its fortunes on sales of Madam Walker’s Wonderful Hair Grower. 19th-century hygiene called for only infrequent hair washing, which led to scalp infections, bacteria, lice, and—most commonly—balding. Walker's Hair Grower combatted balding and was backed by Walker's own guarantee that she used it to fix her own hair issues. A marketing strategy focused on black women, a neglected but growing portion of consumers, was a key ingredient for success.
 
As the business grew, Walker revealed bigger ambitions. “I am not merely satisfied in making money for myself," she said. "I am endeavoring to provide employment for hundreds of women of my race." Her company employed some 40,000 “Walker Agents” to teach women about proper hair care. Walker stepped beyond the boundaries of her business as a social activist and philanthropist. She donated thousands to the NAACP and put her voice behind causes like preserving Frederick Douglass's home and fighting for the rights of black World War I veterans.
 
It's often claimed that Walker was America's first black female self-made millionaire. But when she passed away in 1919, assessors found out her estate totaled around $600,000. Not that the number matters at all, really; Walker's legacy is priceless. We're guessing the businessmen and women she inspired could more than make up the difference.

This governor has the gift of gab. On this day in 1775, about a month before the American Revolution began in earnest, orator Patrick Henry uttered one of the most famous sentences in American history: “Give me liberty or give me death.” Or did he? There’s still some scholarly debate as to whether Henry actually said those iconic words, but there’s no doubt that his speeches stirred American imaginations.
 
Born on May 29, 1736, in Hanover County in the Colony of Virginia, Henry’s childhood put him on a good path for a future orator. His father, a Scottish immigrant, had been educated at King’s College, while his mother came from a wealthy local family. Since his family’s wealth would pass to Henry’s older brother rather than him, he couldn’t afford a life of leisure. He was educated at home by his father, and in his late teens tried to open and run a store with his brother, though it quickly failed. For a time he helped his father-in-law run a tavern in Hanover, before beginning at-home studies to become a lawyer. Henry already understood the power of words and the persuasive force of good oration. He’d grown up watching passionate preachers during the religious revival known as the Great Awakening, which helped drive him toward his new profession.
 
After earning his law license in 1760, Henry’s wit and speaking ability made him a quick success. His most important legal victory came in 1763, in the sentencing phase of a case known as the Parson’s Cause. Since tobacco was a major cash crop in Virginia, many Virginian officials received their annual pay in tobacco. When a series of droughts in the 1750s caused tobacco prices to rise from two cents per pound to three times that much, the Virginia legislature stepped in to stabilize things. They passed the Two-Penny Act, which set the price of tobacco used to pay contracts at the usual two cents per pound. Clergy in the Anglican Church, which was sponsored by the British government, didn’t want their revenue limited by the Two-Penny Act. So, they appealed to authorities in England, who sided with them, overruling the Two-Penny Act. With the power of England behind him, Reverend James Maury of Hanover County, Virginia, sued his own parish for backpay and won. All that was left was to decide exactly how much backpay Maury was owed. That’s where Patrick Henry came in. Arguing on behalf of the parish vestry, Henry gave a passionate speech about what he saw as the greed of church officials and the overreach of Britain. By overturning the Two-Penny Act, he argued, the British government was exerting tyrannical power over the people of Virginia. Though some in the courtroom accused Henry of treason, the jury sided with him, awarding Maury just one penny of backpay. The case made Henry so popular that it gained him 164 new clients within a year.
 
Now famous for his fiery speeches and resistance to British power, Henry was elected to the Virginia legislature’s lower chamber, the House of Burgesses, in 1765. In 1774, Henry became a delegate to the First Continental Congress. His most famous speech came the following year, at the Second Virginia Convention, where members debated whether to add language to Virginian governing documents stating that the British king could veto colonial legislation. Henry instead proposed amendments about raising an independent militia, since he believed that war with England was imminent. On March 23, he delivered a fiery address saying, “Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace but there is no peace. The war is actually begun!” After arguing in favor of his amendments in more detail, he ended with the famous line, “I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”
 
In truth, we’ll never know if Henry actually uttered that famous sentence. His speech was never transcribed during his lifetime, but was pieced together from recollections of those present more than 10 years after his death. Regardless, we do know that Henry went on to become Virginia’s first governor in 1776, after the United States declared independence from England, and that he served until 1779. He was elected again in 1785, and served for two years. Though Henry is best remembered for a single speech, he made plenty of others, won plenty of legal cases, and served his newly-formed state and country in both peace and wartime. No one can say that he was all talk!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of Patrick Henry delivering his famous speech to other men at the Virginia Assembly. He has one hand raised, as do many of the audience members. On the ground is a paper reading “Proceedings of the Virginia Assembly.”] Credit & copyright: Published by Currier & Ives, c. 1876. Library of Congress. Public Domain.

Gangway! This Civil War battle didn’t take place on horseback, but on ships. While naval battles usually come to mind in relation to the World Wars, they were also part of the Revolutionary War and the American Civil War. In fact, the Battle of Hampton Roads, which ended on this day in 1862, was the first American battle involving ironclad warships.
 
Just a few days after the breakout of the Civil War on April 12, 1861, President Lincoln ordered a blockade of all major ports in states that had seceded from the Union, including those around Norfolk, Virginia. While in charge of maintaining the blockade at the Gosport Navy Yard in Portsmouth, Virginia, Union leaders got word that a large Confederate force was on its way to claim control of the area. The Union thus burned parts of the naval yard and several of their own warships to prevent them from falling into Confederate hands. Among them was the USS Merrimack, a type of steam-powered warship known as a steam frigate. The ship was also a screw frigate, as it was powered by screw propellers, making it quite agile for its time. When the ship was set ablaze, it only burned to the waterline. The bottom half of the Merrimack, which included its intact steam engines, sank beneath the surface of the Norfolk Navy Yard. Union troops in the area then retreated, and the Confederacy took over the area.
 
The Confederacy now controlled the south side of an area called Hampton Roads. This was a roadstead, or place where boats could be safely anchored, positioned in an area where the Elizabeth, Nansemond, and James rivers met before flowing into Chesapeake Bay. Determined to destroy the Union blockade that had cut them off from trade, the Confederates began pulling up remnants of recently-burned Union ships, including the Merrimack. Since the blockade included some of the Union’s most powerful ships, the Confederacy rebuilt the Merrimack as an ironclad warship, fitting an iron ram onto her prow and rebuilding her formerly wooden upper-deck with an iron-covered citadel that could mount ten guns. This new ship was named the CSS Virginia.
 
Word of the CSS Virginia caused something of a panic amongst Union officers, and they quickly got permission from Congress to begin construction of their own ironclad warship. The vessel was the brainchild of Swedish engineer John Ericsson, and included novel elements like a rotating turret with two large guns, rather than many small ones. They named their ship the USS Monitor.
 
The Battle of Hampton Roads began on the morning of March 8, 1862, when the CSS Virginia made a run for the Union’s blockade. Although several Union ships fired on the advancing Virginia, most of their gunfire bounced off her armor. The Virginia quickly rammed and sank the Cumberland, one of the five main ships in the blockade, though doing so broke off Virginia’s iron ram. Virginia then forced the surrender of another Union ship, the Congress, before firing upon it with red hot cannonballs, lighting it on fire. Already, more than 200 Union troops had been killed while the Virginia had only lost two crewmen. As night fell and visibility waned, the ship retreated to wait for daylight.
 
The Union quickly dispatched the Monitor to meet Virginia the next day. When the Confederates headed for the Minnesota, a grounded Union ship, Monitor rushed in to block her path. The two ironclads fired at one another, and continued to do so for most of the day, each finding it difficult to pierce the other’s armor. At one point, Virginia ran aground, but was able to get back into water just in time to avoid being destroyed. At another point, Monitor’s captain, Lieutenant John L. Worden, was temporarily blinded when his ship’s pilot house was hit with a charge. Monitor was thus forced to retreat, but neither it nor Virginia were damaged enough to render them physically incapable of fighting, so the battle ended inconclusively. Both sides claimed victory, but with the Union blockade still intact, the Confederacy hadn’t gained much ground. Eventually, the Confederacy was forced to destroy their own ship when they abandoned Norfolk, to prevent Virginia from falling into enemy hands. The Monitor sank in late 1862 when she encountered high waves while attempting to make her way to North Carolina. A pretty unimpressive end for such inventive ships.

 
[Image description: A painting depicting the Battle of Hampton Roads. Soldiers on horses look down a hill over a naval battle with ships on fire.] Credit & copyright: Kurz & Allison Art Publishers, 1889. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Public Domain.

You may remember the Alamo, but how much do you actually know about it? On this day in 1836, the Battle of the Alamo began. Many Americans (especially Texans) think of the battle as a heroic last stand fought by brave patriots. As with many violent historical conflicts, though, things weren’t quite as simple or morally black-and-white as movies and folk songs might lead us to believe.
 
The Battle of the Alamo took place during the Texas Revolution, a war for Texan independence from Mexico. While Mexican officials obviously took issue with Texas attempting to break away, they were also upset by Texans’ use of slaves, since Mexico was cracking down on slavery. Texans argued that their economy depended on slavery, with many of their wealthiest being cotton farmers. At first, as the staunchly abolitionist Mexican government tried to outlaw slavery in their territory, some of the colonists left. By 1835, however, tensions grew into armed conflict. By the time of the battle, Texans were emboldened by their previous victories against the Mexican army, especially after they’d managed to drive the Mexicans south of the Rio Grande. However, when Mexico retaliated by sending General Antonio López de Santa Anna north with thousands of soldiers, many of the Texan rebels quickly abandoned the ground they had gained. One of the few remaining garrisons was located in a former Spanish mission called the Alamo. The adobe structure was not suitable for defending against an attack, and few rebels remained. Nevertheless, the commanders of the fort, William Travis and James Bowie, stayed behind, hoping that reinforcements would be sent their way. In the weeks leading to General Santa Anna’s arrival at the fort, the two commanders sent impassioned letters to the Texas legislature asking for reinforcements, to no avail. The Texas government was brand new and not organized enough to mobilize a large fighting force. Even if they had been, it would have been extremely difficult to get enough troops to the Alamo before the Mexican army’s arrival.
 
Travis and Bowie were both well aware of the approaching army, but refused to flee. Neither of them had much military experience, and with the fort poorly equipped or laid out for a defense, the odds were truly against them. On February 23, 1836, General Santa Anna arrived with his troops, and a 13-day siege began. Among the Texan soldiers was former Tennessee congressman Davy Crockett and the families of the soldiers garrisoned there. Some popular, modern imaginings of the battle, such as 1960’s The Alamo starring John Wayne, depict it as a desperate last stand. Historical accounts paint a different picture, though. Rather than a fight to the last man, about half of the Texan rebels fled before the battle’s end, and most of them were skewered by Mexican cavalry. Crockett himself surrendered and was executed, while the families of the soldiers were allowed to leave unharmed. The battle also did little to delay General Santa Anna and his troops on their way to their larger mission: capturing San Antonio. He had promised the Mexican government that he would take the city by March 2, and it was captured on the 6th.
 
Today, the Battle of the Alamo and the purported courage of the men who died there is an integral part of Texas state history, but that history is often not told in full. Most accounts of the Alamo make little mention of slavery, even though Texans’ desire to keep slaves was one of their main reasons for wanting to break with Mexico. Most modern adaptations of the story also leave out the Tejanos, the settlers of Mexican descent who fought alongside the white Texans. History might seem like a thing of the past, but it’s always relevant to the present.

 
[Image description: A watercolor drawing of the ruins of the Alamo.] Credit & copyright: Ruins of the Church of the Alamo, San Antonio de Béxar, Edward Everett (1818-1903). Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas, Gift of Anne Burnett Tandy in memory of her father Thomas Lloyd Burnett, 1870-1938. Public Domain.

Did Aphrodite smile on you this Valentine’s Day? As the most romantic weekend of the year draws to a close, it seems only right to learn a bit about Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love. Also known by her Roman name, Venus, Aphrodite is remembered today as a beautiful, romantic figure…yet she wasn’t actually the goddess of romantic love. Rather, her dominion was over physical desire and lust. This made her a surprisingly dangerous figure in Greek mythology, as she was a character driven by jealousy and prone to driving mortals mad. Even the story of her birth is surprisingly violent.
 
Like all Greek gods and goddesses, Aphrodite has two origins: the historical and mythical. The worship of Aphrodite might have been introduced to ancient Greece from the Middle East, and, indeed, there are similar figures in other pantheons of antiquity. Namely, she is considered to have many similarities to Ishtar of Mesopotamia and Hathor of ancient Egypt. Regardless of how she came to be introduced to the Greeks, her mythological origins are a little more fantastical, to say the least. Unlike most of the other Greek gods, Aphrodite wasn’t descended from the King of the gods, Zeus, nor any of his siblings. Instead, her birth came about as a result of divine patricide. When the titan Cronus overthrew his father, Uranus, he castrated him and threw his dismembered body into the sea. There, from the blood and foam of Uranus, Aphrodite was born. Due to the circumstances of her birth, she was strongly associated with water and was sometimes worshipped as a sea goddess.
 
Aphrodite was most commonly depicted as a goddess of beauty, fertility, sexuality, and, of course, love. But the Greeks strongly distinguished between erotic love and romantic love, and Aphrodite was the goddess of the former. Romantic love was seen in a positive light, while erotic love was seen as a sort of madness. With this in mind, Aphrodite’s temperament in mythology makes much more sense. She was frequently depicted as fickle, jealous, and short-tempered. In fact, despite being the goddess of love, she wasn’t particularly loyal to her own husband, Hephaestus. Various stories feature her affairs with Ares, Adonis, and other figures, often ending in humiliation or tragedy. She was also jealous when it came to her son, Eros, who shared his mother’s affinity for love and sexuality. When he fell in love with the mortal Psyche, Aphrodite conspired to break the couple apart by forcing Psyche to complete a set of seemingly impossible trials. Aphrodite’s meddling once resulted in the ruin of an entire kingdom. The goddess, along with Hera and Athena, forced Paris of Troy, a mortal man, to judge which of them to be the most beautiful. After Troy chose Aphrodite, she blessed him by having Eros strike Helen, one of the most beautiful mortal women in the world, with one of his enchanted arrows, making her fall in love with Paris. Unfortunately, Helen was already loved by Menelaus, the king of Sparta. After Paris and Helen eloped by returning to the former’s home, Menelaus rallied the rest of the Greeks to wage war against Troy. Following a 10-year conflict, Troy fell to the Greeks, resulting in Paris’s death.
 
Today, Aphrodite is often depicted as much more benevolent, which makes sense given the lessened distinction between erotic and romantic love, and a more positive view of sexuality. Depictions of Aphrodite also change with evolving beauty standards, reflecting the ideal female form at various points in history. Perhaps the most famous portrayal of the goddess is in the painting, The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli, which takes inspiration from the story of her birth at sea. If you’ve never seen the painting, don’t worry; it’s much less graphic than the myth it’s based on!

 
[Image description: The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), a painting depicting Venus rising naked out of the ocean on a giant shell while flying winged figures blow wind toward her and woman on shore approaches with a blanket.] Credit & copyright: Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), Uffizi Gallery. Public Domain.

In the face of tyranny, sometimes it pays to be a Paine in the neck. British-American political writer and propagandist Thomas Paine was born on this day in 1737. Paine is known for being one of the most influential voices during the American Revolution, but he was also a strong supporter of the French Revolution.
 
Paine was born in Norfolk, England, to a Quaker father and an Anglican mother, and had limited access to education in his early life. While his abilities to read, write, and perform basic arithmetic allowed him to work several jobs, he had few opportunities for economic advancement. Paine also seemed to struggle with every trade he attempted. One of his earliest jobs was being an officer of the excise, which involved chasing smugglers to collect excise taxes on tobacco and alcohol. The job paid little, and Paine was dismissed from the position after he published a pamphlet arguing that higher pay for excise officers would lead to lower corruption. Paine’s fortunes changed in 1774, when he had a chance meeting with Benjamin Franklin. Franklin urged Paine to move to America, and he arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on November 30, 1774. There, he cut his teeth working at the Pennsylvania Magazine, owned by Franklin’s son-in-law, Robert Aitkin. During his tenure working with Aitkin, Paine published a number of articles under his own name and under pseudonyms. Being a steadfast abolitionist, Paine published African Slavery in America, an article that criticized and condemned the African slave trade.
 
Paine really began to make a name for himself when anti-British sentiment began to grow in the American colonies, along with calls for independence. In January, 1776, Paine anonymously published his most famous pamphlet, Common Sense, largely aimed at American colonists who were still undecided on the matter of independence. More than calling for sympathy, the pamphlet encouraged colonists to revolt against the British and to sever ties with the empire completely. Paine’s limited educational background might have actually contributed to his success. While his arguments were coherent and compelling, they appealed to a wider audience because of his tendency to speak and write in a plain, straightforward manner, forgoing the use of latin terms and phrases or philosophical allusions popular with more educated writers of the time. Upon being published, Common Sense sold 500,000 copies in a matter of months, and it was popular to read it aloud during public gatherings. Another popular pamphlet by Paine, The American Crisis, was published the same year, and it was promoted amongst American officers by George Washington himself. This pamphlet was aimed at bolstering the morale of the colonists as conflicts began to escalate in the American Revolution. It contained the now famous words, “These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.”
 
Despite his staunch support for the American Revolution, Paine had few friends left by the end of it. When he returned to Britain in 1787 and wrote The Rights of Man in favor of the French Revolution, he was tried for treason, forcing him to flee to France, where he was imprisoned, ironically, for opposing the execution of King Louis XVI. Paine was released thanks to the American ambassador to France, but he later openly criticized George Washington for failing to support him when he had claimed American citizenship to avoid prison. He eventually returned to the former American colonies, now called the United States of America, at the invitation of President Thomas Jefferson. Paine died in 1809, and only six mourners attended his funeral. For much of the following century, Paine was remembered as an instigator and poorly regarded. Today, though, he’s remembered as a leading thinker and writer who helped embolden everyday Americans. No Paine, no American Revolution!

 
[Image description: A painting of Thomas Paine wearing a black suit and white neckcloth sitting in a green chair.] Credit & copyright: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution. Laurent Dabos, 1761 - 1835. Public Domain, CC0.

Some historical events are like explosions—they happen in an instant. But others, even some of the most impactful, happen like a series of falling dominos. With events like these, it’s easier to see their true impact in hindsight. This month in 1933, one such event happened in Germany, when Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor by President Paul von Hindenburg. The political occurrences leading up to Hitler’s appointment, as well as those directly following it, fell perfectly in place to allow the Nazis to seize control of the country.
 
The end of WWI saw the end of the German Empire, and its successor, the Weimar Republic, was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles in June of 1919. The fledgling nation was made to accept responsibility and pay reparations to the parties involved in the war. Between the reparation payments and the debt accrued during the war, the Weimar Republic was in dire economic straits by the early 1920s. There was also plenty of social unrest in the wake of WWI, which gave rise to political extremism on both ends of the spectrum. On one side was the German Communist Party, which quickly gained popularity, while another emergent group was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, soon to be referred to as the “Nazis.” At first, the Nazis struggled to gain political ground or capture the public’s attention, though they had the support of their own paramilitary group, the Sturmabteilung SA (storm troopers), consisting mostly of WWI veterans. Then, in 1923, Adolf Hitler, a rising figure in the Nazi Party, along with WWI general Erich Ludendorff, made a failed attempt to overthrow the government in what would come to be known as the Beer Hall Putsch. Ludendorff was already a renowned war hero popular with many Germans, but the failed coup was Hitler’s first step toward political fame. Using the sudden burst of notoriety as a springboard, Hitler wrote his autobiography, Mein Kampf (My Struggle) by dictation while spending a year in prison.
 
When the Great Depression hit global markets at the end of the 1920s, the Nazi Party capitalized on the severe economic hardships facing everyday Germans. They blamed an ineffectual government, the communist movement, Jewish financiers, and modernist cultural movements for the decline of Germany. The party promoted the idea that minority groups, including Jews, immigrants, disabled people, and LGBTQ+ people were draining the nation’s wealth. By 1933, the Nazi Party had the largest single share of votes in parliamentary elections, and they began to throw sand into the governments’ gears, stymying any efforts by parliament to pass meaningful legislation. At the same time, they decried the passivity of parliament and the inefficiencies of democracy.
 
Then, in 1933, in a vain attempt to court Nazi support, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler chancellor of Germany. Hindenburg hoped that it would lead to the Nazi party’s cooperation in governance. Unfortunately, no such cooperation emerged. When Hindenburg died the following year, Hitler declared himself Führer (leader) of Germany and began the systematic dismantling of the country’s democratic apparatus. He then cemented his power by attacking or imprisoning his critics and rivals, including the Sturmabteilung SA, which he began to consider a liability due to their violent activities on the street. The systematic purge of Hitler’s enemies, including his former supporters from June 30 to July 2, 1934, came to be known as the Nacht der langen Messer (Night of the Long Knives). It was met with widespread support by the greater German populace. Throughout the rest of the 1930s, Hitler and the Nazi Party expanded their military in direct opposition to the Treaty of Versailles and began claiming neighboring territories based on the supposed populations of ethnic Germans living there. To avoid conflict, European leaders opted for a policy of appeasement in 1938, allowing Germany to claim Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland in exchange for a pledge not to seek further territory.
 
Of course, Nazi Germany didn’t stop at Czechoslovakia, which they invaded the following year. Soon came Poland and before long Nazi crosshairs were aimed at the rest of Europe. It took the Nazi Party almost 20 years, but they eventually came to hold absolute power by undermining the principles of democracy and eroding the safeguards that held it in place. While most see the Nazis’ rise to power as a cautionary tale, some modern dictators have used it as a playbook to be copied, making Nazi ideology a threat to this day.

For most people today, winter is either a time for fun activities like sledding, ice skating, and skiing, or a time of inconvenience, when streets are slippery, commutes are longer, and windshields need scraping. But not so long ago, winter was a truly dangerous time for average people, especially if they were traveling. No story illustrates that point quite as well as the tragic tale of the Donner Party, a group of pioneers migrating from the Midwest to California in 1846. Their attempt to survive a brutal winter in the Sierra Nevada is considered one of the darkest chapters from the time of westward expansion in America.
 
Before the completion of the first Transcontinental Railroad in 1869, traversing the U.S. was a dangerous, harrowing task. Journeys were made largely on foot with provisions and other supplies carried on wagons. There weren’t always well-established roads or reliable maps, making long-distance travel a particularly haphazard endeavor. Nevertheless, the allure of fertile farmland drew thousands to the West Coast, including brothers George and Jacob Donner, as well as James Reed, a successful businessman from Springfield, Illinois. The Donner brothers and Reed formed a party of around 31 people and set off for Independence, Missouri, on April 14, 1846. On May 12, they joined a wagon train (a group of individual parties that traveled together for mutual protection) and headed west toward Fort Laramie 650 miles away. For the first portion of the trip, they stayed on the Oregon Trail, which ended near present-day Portland, Oregon. The Donners and Reeds, however, were traveling to California, and intended to take the California Trail, which diverged from the Oregon Trail at two points between Fort Bridger and Fort Hall. However, instead of waiting for either of those better-established routes, the Donners and Reed opted to take what they believed was a shortcut on the advice of a guide they were traveling with named Lansford Hastings. This supposed shortcut, called Hastings Cutoff, was purported to cut 300 miles from the trip, which would have gotten the travelers to their destination months earlier than anticipated. Hastings Cutoff was heavily promoted by Hastings in his book, The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California, which contained advice and trail maps to the West Coast.
 
What the Donners and Reed didn’t know was that Hastings had never actually traveled his namesake shortcut himself. Contrary to his assertions, the shortcut actually added 125 miles to the trip. Hastings also didn’t join the Donners and Reeds, who parted ways from him at Fort Bridger. Electing George Donner as their leader, the Donners, the Reeds, and dozens more joined together to tackle Hastings Cutoff. The Donner party reached it on July 31, and initially made good time. But since Hastings Cutoff took them through largely untraveled wilderness, they faced severe delays, preventing them from crossing the Sierra Nevada before winter. On October 31, the party established a camp to survive the winter in the area now known as Donner Pass. By then, Reed and his family had set off on their own after he killed another man in the party. As winter set in, the Donner party built cabins for shelter, but they had little in the way of supplies, having lost most of their food during their previous delays. By December, they were trapped by heavy snow, and on the 16th of that month, 15 members of the party set out to find help. Most of the remaining survivors at camp were children.
 
The aftermath of the disastrous venture made headlines around the country. Only seven of the party members who set out for help survived, and of the original 89 members of the Donner party, 42 starved or froze to death. Sensational claims of cannibalism became the focus of the story after it was discovered that about half of the survivors had consumed the flesh of the dead after depleting their meager supply of food, livestock, dogs, and whatever leather they could boil. Among the dead were the Donner brothers and most of their immediate family. Today, the doomed expedition is memorialized through museum exhibits and the area where the Donner party spent their harrowing winter, which is now called Donner Pass. The next time you curse yourself for taking the wrong exit on a road trip, thank your lucky stars for GPS.

 
[Image description: Snow falling against a black background.] Credit & copyright: Dillon Kydd, Pexels