information you should have
The Louisiana Purchase was officially completed on 20 December 1803, when Napoleon Bonaparte handed over New Orleans and 828,000 square miles of French territory (never mind the pesky natives who had been on it for thousands of years) to the USA. The Americans had paid only sixty-eight million francs (about $250 million) to double their country. Why did Napoleon Bonaparte give… Read more Napoleon Sold the Louisiana Territory because Haitians Kicked His Butt
Jane Austen came into the world, considerably past her due date, on 16 December 1775 at Steventon Rectory. Her parents had been expecting her arrival for more than three weeks, and since she was the seventh child the stork had bequeathed to the Austen’s, they had been sanguine about their estimation of her appearance and… Read more Happy Birthday Jane Austen!
Ernest Renan, an incredibly important French historian, pointed out in his famous 1882 speech “Qu’est-ce qu’une nation?” (“What is a Nation?”) that “Forgetfulness, and I would even say historical error, are essential in the creation of a nation.” If you want to build a ideal of a nation, the concept of a nation that can… Read more Why Study History?
In my novel, Mansfield Parsonage, my heroine, Mary Crawford, loves Indian food. How, you may ask, is this possible in 1812? Its not like there were Indian restaurants in London that early in the 19th century! Well, there’s were you are going to be surprised. The first Indian restaurant in London was the Hindoostane Coffee House,… Read more Indian Food in Regency London
Anne of Demark was born the second daughter of King Frederick II of Denmark and his wife, Sophie of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, on 12 December 1574. In the 1580s, King James VI of Scotland sought the hand of a Danish prince in marriage. Demark was a stable and economically strong country, and Scotland would greatly benefit from… Read more Anne of Denmark
Ada Lovelace was born Augusta Byron, the only legitimate child of celebrated poet George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron and his wife, intellectual prodigy and heiress Anne Isabella Milbanke, on 10 December 1815. Lord Byron christened his daughter after his half-sister, Augusta Leigh, and nicknamed her Ada. Lord Byron would only see his daughter… Read more Ada Lovelace
Dear Bloggess, First, it feels a little weird to address you as The Bloggess when your name is really Jenny Lawson, but I cannot call you Jenny because that is too familiar for a gal from Kentucky and I cannot call you Ms. Lawson because that is too formal a way to talk to someone… Read more An Open Letter to The Bloggess About Mental illness
Mary, Queen of Scots, was born on 8 December 1542, the last child and only daughter of Marie de Guise and King James V of Scotland. Mary’s two elder brothers had died as infants, and now the tiny newborn was heir to the throne of Scotland. John Knox recorded the almost certainly mythical tale that… Read more Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary
Queen Catherine of Valois gave birth to the future King Henry VI on 6 December 1421 at Windsor Castle. The queen would have given birth like any other woman of her era, with midwives attending and with her ladies to assist them. Medieval midwives were, in spite of modern calumny about them, very good at… Read more Henry VI, Long Reigned and Lost All
Some historians, many historical novelists, and even Cardinal Thomas Wolsey himself, have blamed his displacement from King Henry VIII’s favor on the machinations of Anne Boleyn. Wolsey called Anne “the midnight crow” and seems to have been entirely convinced that it was her influence and hers alone behind his loss of position. However, his fall… Read more Cardinal Wolsey and the Midnight Crow
