History

It’s Halloween. And when many people think Halloween, they think Salem, Massachusetts. Because it’s basically our Mardi Gras. Want to know practically everything there is to know about Salem? From witches to how a Salem boy became a Chinese god, to where the Murder of the Century occurred, and including…

From Hardwood Floors News This is a NASA map of the Tree Canopy of the United States. It took six years to create, and lead to the determination that about one third of the US is currently forested. First thing that struck me – Wisconsin. Only the far northern part,…

I love old advertisements. It’s inevitable that when I’m researching one thing, I go off on tangents because I’ve discovered something else. This time it’s: INSTANTANEOUS CHOCOLATE – THE GREATEST INVENTION OF THE AGE. Yes, I’d support instant cocoa as one of the wonders of the modern age, especially the…

Aren’t these gorgeous? They are ancient Roman intaglios — tiny gemstones for rings or other jewelry. A person hand carved these figures into the stone. No laser. No sophisticated magnifying device. See how tiny? I love these. The craftsmanship amazes me. You can see many of these intaglios at the…

“You can just see the dice tower on the table, it has a little set of stairs for the dice to roll down.” – @RomanCaerleon, http://twitpic.com/7rxa04 This device prevented cheating by providing a uniform way by which the dice were thrown.

Say you’re reading a new non-fiction book. Say you’ve met the author. Say the topic is a special subject of yours. Not that you, like, obsess over it. Much. Not enough to make your relatives worried. You’ve just read every single piece of primary source material that you can find….

Look! It’s a piece of coffee history, one of my favorite kinds of history. And the honor of possessing the first coffee & chocolate license in Massachusetts – possibly in the colonies – goes to a woman:  Dorothy Jones in 1670. Yay for enterprising colonial women who know the value…

Chinese urinal 1830-1850 Container; Medical ceramic: hard paste porcelain, underglaze cobalt enamel, overglaze black enamel, iron slip Historical Deerfield

I originally published this Veteran’s Day/Remembrance Day post 2 years ago. Figure it could use a re-run, especially as this Remembrance Day is 11-11-11-11.  ——————— The Red Poppy is the symbol of Remembrance Day, 11 November. Remembrance Day was started in 1919 as Armistice Day, to honor the end of The Great War. The War to End Wars.Which came to…