The Watermelon War

In 1856, a street fight over a piece of watermelon began a process that would lead to the construction of the Panama Canal and the American domination of Central America for over a century.

Panama Railroad    photo from WikiCommons

The Toronto Circus Riot

“A clown and a fireman walk into a whorehouse…”

It sounds like the opening of an off-color joke. But in 1855, it was the beginning of an incident that changed the political structure of Toronto, Canada.

King Street in Toronto                                       photo from WikiCommons

The Peshtigo Fire of 1871

The deadliest fire in American history killed over a thousand people in the town of Peshtigo, Wisconsin. But the Peshtigo Fire is today largely unknown and forgotten–mostly because it happened on October 8, 1871–the same day as the much more famous Great Chicago Fire.

The Peshtigo Fire, a contemporary engraving                              photo from WikiCommons

The Hartford Convention

The War of 1812 had begun as a bitterly-partisan political conflict. The Federalist Party had opposed “Mr Madison’s War” right from the beginning. But in the end, it was the Federalist Party itself which was destroyed by the War.

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The Connecticut Old Statehouse