On May 8th, 1587 Englishman John White, along with some 115 others (including his wife, his pregnant daughter Eleanor Dare, and his son-in-law Ananias Dare), left England for the Americas. The party arrived on Roanoke Island, off the coast of present-day North Carolina, just a few months later. It is here that the Roanoke colony was established in July 1587, with John as their governor. The group was short on supplies and…
History
Unbelievable True Story About the Fox Sisters, Spiritualism, & the Biggest hoax of the 19th Century
Many may not know that the religious movement that swept the world during the nineteenth century was essentially concocted by a couple of girls playing a trick on their parents some 173 years ago in Hydesville, New York. On March 31, 1848, Margaretta and Catherine Fox were home alone sewing carpet rags and scheming about what pranks they would pull on their friends on the following All Fools’ Day while their parents…
Finding Treasure in an Unlikely Place
Finding a new artifact to add to one’s One-Place Study is something I think we can all agree is exciting! While some “One-Placers” may have an overabundance of civil records, church records, newspaper articles, letters, photographs, etc. at their disposal (depending on where and when they are located), others may have to dig a little deeper, look a little harder, to find even an ounce of information about their places. For those…
Concepts of Proper Societal/Governmental Leadership
It is said that concepts of proper societal and governmental leadership were born in ancient societies, that principles from pagan religions can be seen in modern Christianity, and that even today’s approach to morality and ethics is owed, for example, to ancient Greek philosophers and others from that long-ago time. In thinking of the Mediterranean World and the origins of influential ancient societies such as Rome and Greece, particularly how it applies…
Italian Jews Who Survived the Shoah: A Critical Analysis Using Elements of Thought
Paul and Elder (2019) define eight elements of thoughts used in critical thinking: purpose, question at issue, information, interpretation and inference, concepts, assumptions, implications and consequences, and point of view. As these components are embedded in all reasoning, they are utilized here in deconstructing Picciotto’s 2016 “Italian Jews who survived the Shoah: Jewish self-help and Italian rescuers, 1943-1945.” This analysis begins with the matter of purpose – what was Picciotto trying to…
Hernan Cortes, Francisco Pizarro, & their Conquest and Settlement of Latin America
Hernan Cortes and Francisco Pizarro were quite parallel in their conquest and settlement of Latin America, though their lives had differed up until that point. Both born in the late 1400s, Cortes was a student studying law that left university for the promises of the New World, and Pizarro was a soldier and explorer. Yet, they would both lead the conquests and cause the fall of the Aztec and Inca empires, respectively.…