May 21, 2013 | 90 notes

When an Army of Artists Fooled Hitler Shortly after the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, two Frenchmen on bicycles managed to cross the perimeter of the United States Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and what they saw astounded them. Four American soldiers had picked up a 40-ton Sherman tank and were turning it in place. Soldier Arthur Shilstone says, “They looked at me, and they were looking for answers, and I finally said: ‘The Americans are very strong.’” Patriotic pride aside, the men of the 23rd were not equipped with super-human strength. They did, however, have inflatable tanks. Shilstone was one of 1,100 soldiers who formed the unit, also known as the Ghost Army. They were artists and illustrators, radio people and sound guys. Over the course of the war, they staged more than 20 operations and are estimated to have saved between 15,000 and 30,000 U.S. lives. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com. Photo by Arthur Shilstone Ed. note: Find out how one soccer team living in Nazi-occupied Kiev used the game to find hope here.

When an Army of Artists Fooled Hitler

Shortly after the D-Day invasion on June 6, 1944, two Frenchmen on bicycles managed to cross the perimeter of the United States Army’s 23rd Headquarters Special Troops and what they saw astounded them. Four American soldiers had picked up a 40-ton Sherman tank and were turning it in place. Soldier Arthur Shilstone says, “They looked at me, and they were looking for answers, and I finally said: ‘The Americans are very strong.’”

Patriotic pride aside, the men of the 23rd were not equipped with super-human strength. They did, however, have inflatable tanks.

Shilstone was one of 1,100 soldiers who formed the unit, also known as the Ghost Army. They were artists and illustrators, radio people and sound guys. Over the course of the war, they staged more than 20 operations and are estimated to have saved between 15,000 and 30,000 U.S. lives. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Photo by Arthur Shilstone

Ed. note: Find out how one soccer team living in Nazi-occupied Kiev used the game to find hope here.

May 7, 2013 | 55 notes

This Day in History: A German Torpedo Sinks the British Liner Lusitania, Killing 1,198 When the First World War began, in the summer of 1914, the Lusitania was among the most glamorous and celebrated ships in the world—at one time both the largest and fastest afloat. But the British passenger liner would earn a far more tragic place in history on May 7, 1915, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives. Among the prominent American victims were such luminaries of the day as the theatrical impresario Charles Frohman, the popular writer Elbert Hubbard and the very rich Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. But the list of passengers who missed the Lusitania’s last voyage was equally illustrious. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com for the stories of eight famous men and women who were lucky enough to dodge the torpedo. Ed note: Three years before the Lusitania sank, several notable people missed the Titanic, including a world-famous novelist, a radio pioneer and America’s biggest tycoons.

This Day in History: A German Torpedo Sinks the British Liner Lusitania, Killing 1,198

When the First World War began, in the summer of 1914, the Lusitania was among the most glamorous and celebrated ships in the world—at one time both the largest and fastest afloat. But the British passenger liner would earn a far more tragic place in history on May 7, 1915, when it was torpedoed by a German submarine off the coast of Ireland, with the loss of nearly 1,200 lives.

Among the prominent American victims were such luminaries of the day as the theatrical impresario Charles Frohman, the popular writer Elbert Hubbard and the very rich Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. But the list of passengers who missed the Lusitania’s last voyage was equally illustrious. - Continue reading at Smithsonian.com for the stories of eight famous men and women who were lucky enough to dodge the torpedo.

Ed note: Three years before the Lusitania sank, several notable people missed the Titanic, including a world-famous novelist, a radio pioneer and America’s biggest tycoons.

May 1, 2013 | 386 notes

Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Eating a Child The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl. Find out how researchers made this discovery at Smithsonian.com.

Starving Settlers in Jamestown Colony Resorted to Eating a Child

The harsh winter of 1609 in Virginia’s Jamestown Colony forced residents to do the unthinkable. A recent excavation at the historic site discovered the carcasses of dogs, cats and horses consumed during the season commonly called the “Starving Time.” But a few other newly discovered bones in particular, though, tell a far more gruesome story: the dismemberment and cannibalization of a 14-year-old English girl. Find out how researchers made this discovery at Smithsonian.com.

April 16, 2013 | 7 notes

The Latest from our Pulitzer Prize-Winning Blogger Gilbert King: Agony and Ecstasy at the Masters Tournament There were already whispers that Craig Wood was a bad-luck golfer when, in late March of 1935, he accepted an offer from Bobby Jones to play in his second Augusta National Invitational Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.  Known as the “Blond Bomber,” Wood had literally made a splash at the 1933 British Open at St. Andrews—he had tied Denny Shute for the lead after 72 holes, but lost in a playoff when his booming drive found the famous Swilcan Burn, a thin channel of water that cuts across the first fairway. At the inaugural “Masters” (as it would later become known), in 1934, Wood had lost to Horton Smith, who inconceivably holed two long putts on the final holes to win by a stroke. Later that year, Wood finished second in the 1934 PGA Championship, losing once again in a playoff to Paul Runyan, who just a few years before had been his assistant pro at Forest Hills Golf Club in White Plains, New York. Still, Wood, a native of Lake Placid, New York, was a polished and respected player when he arrived in Augusta in April 1935; a reporter described him as someone “who has so often had the door to opportunity slammed in his face.” By the end of the 1935 Augusta National Invitational, however, Craig Wood would be known as the most jinxed golfer the game had ever known. Continue reading at Smithsonian.com Editor’s note: Read more from King in this account of the true-life horror that inspired “Moby Dick.” Photo: Boston Public Library

The Latest from our Pulitzer Prize-Winning Blogger Gilbert King: Agony and Ecstasy at the Masters Tournament

There were already whispers that Craig Wood was a bad-luck golfer when, in late March of 1935, he accepted an offer from Bobby Jones to play in his second Augusta National Invitational Tournament in Augusta, Georgia.  Known as the “Blond Bomber,” Wood had literally made a splash at the 1933 British Open at St. Andrews—he had tied Denny Shute for the lead after 72 holes, but lost in a playoff when his booming drive found the famous Swilcan Burn, a thin channel of water that cuts across the first fairway.

At the inaugural “Masters” (as it would later become known), in 1934, Wood had lost to Horton Smith, who inconceivably holed two long putts on the final holes to win by a stroke. Later that year, Wood finished second in the 1934 PGA Championship, losing once again in a playoff to Paul Runyan, who just a few years before had been his assistant pro at Forest Hills Golf Club in White Plains, New York.

Still, Wood, a native of Lake Placid, New York, was a polished and respected player when he arrived in Augusta in April 1935; a reporter described him as someone “who has so often had the door to opportunity slammed in his face.” By the end of the 1935 Augusta National Invitational, however, Craig Wood would be known as the most jinxed golfer the game had ever known. Continue reading at Smithsonian.com

Editor’s note: Read more from King in this account of the true-life horror that inspired “Moby Dick.”

Photo: Boston Public Library

April 9, 2013 | 69 notes

The Worst Parade to Ever Hit the Streets of Boston On the eve of the Revolutionary War, loyalist John Malcom was tarred, feathered and dragged through the streets, just for arguing with a young boy It was in winter that this city of hills came into its own—at least if you were a boy. Streets normally crowded with people, horses, ox carts, and carriages became, thanks to a coating of snow and ice, magical coasting trails down which a youngster on his wooden sled could race at startling and wonderful speeds. On January 25, 1774, there were at least two feet of snow covering Boston. Runner-equipped sleighs glided across roads that carts and chaises had once plodded over, moving so silently across the white drifts that tinkling bells were added to the horses’ halters so that the people of Boston could hear them coming. The boys in theirs sleds did not have this luxury, however, and that afternoon a child approaching the end of his run down Copp’s Hill in the North End slammed into the 50-year-old customs officer John Malcom—that is, at least, according to one account. Continue reading at Smithsonian.com. Photo: The Granger Collection, NYC

The Worst Parade to Ever Hit the Streets of Boston

On the eve of the Revolutionary War, loyalist John Malcom was tarred, feathered and dragged through the streets, just for arguing with a young boy

It was in winter that this city of hills came into its own—at least if you were a boy. Streets normally crowded with people, horses, ox carts, and carriages became, thanks to a coating of snow and ice, magical coasting trails down which a youngster on his wooden sled could race at startling and wonderful speeds.

On January 25, 1774, there were at least two feet of snow covering Boston. Runner-equipped sleighs glided across roads that carts and chaises had once plodded over, moving so silently across the white drifts that tinkling bells were added to the horses’ halters so that the people of Boston could hear them coming. The boys in theirs sleds did not have this luxury, however, and that afternoon a child approaching the end of his run down Copp’s Hill in the North End slammed into the 50-year-old customs officer John Malcom—that is, at least, according to one account. Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Photo: The Granger Collection, NYC

April 4, 2013 | 33 notes

When New York City Tamed the Feared Gunslinger Bat Masterson Bat Masterson spent the last half of his life in New York, hobnobbing with Gilded Age celebrities and working a desk job that saw him churning out sports reports and “Timely Topics” columns for the New York Morning Telegraph. His lifestyle had widened his waistline, belying the reputation he had earned in the first half of his life as one of the most feared gunfighters in the West. But that reputation was built largely on lore; Masterson knew just how to keep the myths alive, as well as how to evade or deny his past, depending on whichever stories served him best at the time. Despite his dapper appearance and suave charm, Masterson could handle a gun. And despite his efforts to deny his deadly past, late in his life he admitted, under cross-examination in a lawsuit, that he had indeed killed. It took a future U.S. Supreme Court justice, Benjamin Cardozo, to get the truth out of Masterson. Some of it, anyway. Continue reading at Smithsonian.com. Photo: Library of Congress Ed note: Read more from this author as he digs into the history of the incredible Australian prison break of 1876.

When New York City Tamed the Feared Gunslinger Bat Masterson

Bat Masterson spent the last half of his life in New York, hobnobbing with Gilded Age celebrities and working a desk job that saw him churning out sports reports and “Timely Topics” columns for the New York Morning Telegraph. His lifestyle had widened his waistline, belying the reputation he had earned in the first half of his life as one of the most feared gunfighters in the West.

But that reputation was built largely on lore; Masterson knew just how to keep the myths alive, as well as how to evade or deny his past, depending on whichever stories served him best at the time.

Despite his dapper appearance and suave charm, Masterson could handle a gun. And despite his efforts to deny his deadly past, late in his life he admitted, under cross-examination in a lawsuit, that he had indeed killed. It took a future U.S. Supreme Court justice, Benjamin Cardozo, to get the truth out of Masterson. Some of it, anyway. Continue reading at Smithsonian.com.

Photo: Library of Congress

Ed note: Read more from this author as he digs into the history of the incredible Australian prison break of 1876.

April 26, 2012 | 145 notes

What Happened to the Single Autopsy Photograph of John Wilkes Booth? The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took the picture. It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown. Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Ed note: On this day in 1865, Booth was cornered in a Virginia barn and shot. He died from his wound the next day. Was Mary Surratt a Lincoln conspirator?

What Happened to the Single Autopsy Photograph of John Wilkes Booth?

The administration, led by Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, ordered that a single photograph be taken of Booth’s corpse, says Bob Zeller, president of the Center for Civil War Photography. On April 27, 1865, many experts agree, famed Civil War photographer Alexander Gardner and his assistant Timothy O’Sullivan took the picture.

It hasn’t been seen since, and its whereabouts are unknown.

Photo courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division

Ed note: On this day in 1865, Booth was cornered in a Virginia barn and shot. He died from his wound the next day. Was Mary Surratt a Lincoln conspirator?

April 25, 2012 | 142 notes

Theodore Roosevelt Was Shot in the Chest During a Speech and Kept Reading…Like a Boss Roosevelt spoke for more than an hour. Then he was rushed to the Johnston Emergency Hospital, where six surgeons prepared him on an operating table. Roosevelt insisted they were taking the wound, between the collar bone and the lower rib, too seriously. Photo: An X-ray of Roosevelt’s chest shows how close the bullet (embedded in rib on left) came to piercing his lung. Courtesy of the Library of Congress Ed note: We already knew Roosevelt was awesome but this just pushes him over the top.

Theodore Roosevelt Was Shot in the Chest During a Speech and Kept Reading…Like a Boss

Roosevelt spoke for more than an hour. Then he was rushed to the Johnston Emergency Hospital, where six surgeons prepared him on an operating table. Roosevelt insisted they were taking the wound, between the collar bone and the lower rib, too seriously.

Photo: An X-ray of Roosevelt’s chest shows how close the bullet (embedded in rib on left) came to piercing his lung. Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Ed note: We already knew Roosevelt was awesome but this just pushes him over the top.