In this day and age, newspapers rarely print fiction. Of course, there is the occasional magical story written by a third grade class that appears every once a week in the Arts and Entertainment section of the paper, but for the most part, fictional stories of real substance are not published in newspapers anymore. This was not the case in the 1800's. Appearing in The Valley Star each week was...
The United States of America and President Theodore Roosevelt worked for years to gain access and control of a small isthmus in Panama. The isthmus gave the U.S. a strategic advantage over other countries, not just militarily but commercially as well. After long talks and many treaties the Republic of Panama agreed to meet. The United States agreed upon allowing the Republic of Panama to maintain...
Mary Church Terrell, a writer, lecturer, and educator, was the first African American to serve on the Washington, D.C. Board of Education. She took office in the spring of 1895 and stayed until 1901. She later returned to the Board from 1906-1911. In a Washington Post article on April 6, 1895, Terrell is specifically mentioned as “a colored woman' whose appointment “will suit a...
A son’s personal triumph announced in a Western Union telegram to his father marked the successful induction of aviation in America. It exemplified the power-driven zest for new machinery in the early 1900s. “Received by Bishop M. Wright on December 17, 1903, from his son Orville Wright”, the document explained briefly the accomplished experiment conducted by the young pilot. The telegram...
In the spring of 1865, slavery successfully ended in the United States when the Confederate army surrendered. All slaves in the Confederacy were freed by the Emancipation Proclamation set by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, which said that slaves in Confederate-held areas were free. Slaves in the border states and Union controlled parts of the South were freed on December 6, 1865, by the Thirteenth Amendment....
On February 7, 1904 people watched as Baltimore city was engulfed in flames. In the aftermath of the massive urban fire, city residents and officials made important changes. Standards in fire fighting equipment were created. Emergency plans and procedures were established. The city modernized buildings, making them more fire resistant. During the fire, companies assembled from various towns and...
Booker T. Washington was an African American educator and political activist. Although born a slave in 1856, he and his family were later emancipated but still lived in poverty. Determined to get an education, Washington started work at the age of nine to put himself through school. After his extensive education, Washington would later be chosen to be the first head of what is now Tuskegee...
In his poem A March in the Ranks Hard-Prest, and the Road Unknown, Walt Whitman described one of the most haunting memories of his medical career: “Then before I depart I sweep my eyes o'er the scene fain to absorb it all, / Faces [sic], varieties, postures beyond description, most in obscurity, / some of them dead, / Surgeons operating, attendants holding lights, the smell of...
In a letter to the New York Times, Morrison Swift wrote, “A question that many are asking with a great deal of interest is what effect the great socialist gains in Germany will have upon this country.” Morrison Swift wrote letters to the editor of the New York Times many times before. Swift, a writer, social activist, speaker, and pamphleteer, focused on social and political...
The names of Orville and Wilbur Wright are synonymous with flight and are best known for being the first to achieve powered flight on December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk North Carolina [1]. Most of us can even visualize the black and white photographs or the sketched images of the Wright Flyer with Orville Wright lying on his stomach at the controls for the 12 second of flight. However what most people...