In 1983, construction workers who were building a new terminal at the Charleston Airport in South Carolina made an unusual discovery—pieces of a large fossilized skeleton, including parts of a skull and limb bones. Paleontologists from the nearby Charleston Museum were called in to investigate the find, and museum director Albert Sanders dispatched a team headed by staff member James Malcolm to excavate the skeleton.
Pelgornis skeleton on display at the Charleston Museum
The Wright Flyer III has been called “the first practical airplane”. Indeed, Orville Wright himself declared that “it was in the Flyer III that I really learned how to fly.”
Wright Flyer III on display at Carillon Historical Park, Dayton OH
Continue reading Icons of Aviation History: Wright Flyer III
After the adoption of the US Constitution in 1789, one of the first tests faced by the fledgling United States of America was a rebellion of farmers in Pennsylvania.
President Washington leads the militia to confront the Whiskey Rebellion
In 1909, an American newspaperman made an attempt to be the first to cross the Atlantic Ocean by air, in a dirigible originally designed for a failed expedition to the North Pole.
Walter Wellman on the “America”
Continue reading “Come Get This Goddamn Cat”: Kiddo’s Failed Trip Across the Atlantic
When we think of “antiwar movements”, we usually picture Vietnam, or perhaps the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the reality has been that most of the wars fought by the US provoked intense anti-war responses. And one of the first anti-war movements in the US centered around the War of 1812.
Continue reading “Mr Madison’s War”: Opposition to the War of 1812
Hidden History 