The U.S. Navy Ship USS Maine exploded in Havana Harbor, Cuba, sparking the Spanish-American war.
260 American sailors were killed and Spain had been acting cruel towards the Cuban natives so war was inevitable.
Turns out it was likely an accident that one of our biggest warships blew up in not so friendly waters but anyway the U.S. wiped the floor with Spain and gained some useful territory🇺🇸💥🦅
I worked for a newspaper for a number of years. A favorite weekly feature was where they would go back up to 100 years in their archives to post articles from back then. Fascinating stuff! I once discovered that I live roughly a mile from where my town was founded.
I love this stuff, I read it and teach it every work day. My final project for the seventh grade second report card will be NYC Revolutionary War sites, many of which still exist!
I will set my classes up into groups, they’ll do research, make posters, give a presentation. It should be fun if a bit challenging, behavior and effort are sometimes issues in the Southwest Bronx😄
"A favorite weekly feature was where they would go back up to 100 years"
I wish papers would do that nowadays, it's much more interesting than most current news. Once I was looking for an old American murder case and came across an article from the early 20th century about an upper class woman who had vanished while going on a road trip with her husband. Later it was revealed that she had left behind her family before to live the life of wood nymph. Weeks later she was found starved and dehydrated in some cabin in the woods, I believe. It was quite fascinating. It started out as possibly a murder case, but it turned into a sad story of mental illness.
Another story I discovered was that the infamous couple, Bonnie & Clyde, stopped here to refuel while trying to evade the law. The cops realized too late who they were. The gas station attendant had described Bonnie as, "...a hard looking woman." 😁
Talking about infamous killers, I didn't know until last year Lee Harvey Oswald actually stayed at a pension here in Rotterdam for two nights before boarding a ship back to the US. I decided to check it out on an evening stroll last summer. Nothing special, but it's a part of history, you know.🤷♀️
Timothy McVeigh, the guy who did the Oklahoma City bombing, stayed at a motel about a mile from where I used to live. I used to fish at the lake where he constructed the bomb. I went to school with the son of the guy who he rented the truck from. Too close to home. 🤔 There's more I don't want reveal because it would compromise my online anonymity.
He was way beyond hypocrisy. He wanted to be executed so he was full of self loathing and took it out on others, including completely innocent children.
I think we were looking for a reason to crush the Spaniards and send them limping off with their tail between their legs and that’s just what happened.
The lurid yellow journalism of the time pretty much convinced the public that the Spanish empire deserved a beating.
399 BC - Socrates was sentenced to death by the city of Athens for corrupting the minds of the youth of the city and for impiety. Sentenced to death by hemlock poisoning, he refused to accept the offer to escape and chose to respect the wishes of the state and willingly drank the hemlock.