The Great American History Blog

George Washington bought William “Billy” Lee, his brother Frank and two other slaves in 1768.  Billy Lee was eighteen.  Frank became the...

War presented special problems for the world of ladies’ fashion in the Confederacy, as is best described in the words of General James Long...

     Matters of life and death converge at a cemetery.  In death, the everyday distinctions of race, class and religion disappear.  Cemete...

     A Bristol man recently claimed that he and a hunting companion encountered a Bigfoot type beast near Gum Hill in Washington County....

     According to this legend, a blood covered creature with jagged teeth and skin hanging from its’ body stalks Hollywood Cemetery in R...

Installation of the Sarcophagus for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier (from World War I) is seen here .  The Tomb sarcophagus was dedica...

Pohick Church was the parish church of George Washington.  Established in 1724 it was the first permanent church in the colony of Vir...

Memorial at Mount Vernon (Courtesy Library of Congress) Here descendants of Washington’s slaves gather at the memorial dedicated...

The Old Tomb At ten at night on December 14, 1799, George Washington, fearing premature burial, requested of his doctors to be “...

The Dickin Medal Maria Elisabeth Dickin was a British social reformer and animal welfare pioneer who founded the People’s Dispensary...

Throughout history animals have been used in warfare.  The Carthaginians used elephants against the Romans as early as 262 BC.  Things h...

Hartsdale Pet Cemetery America’s oldest pet cemetery was established in Hartsdale, New York, in 1896.  A veterinarian converted his ...

In her book, The Pivot of Civilization , Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood offered this prescription for eliminating th...

The official presidential anthem, Hail to the Chief , was first played in Boston to commemorate the birthday of George Washington, on Feb...

Archibald Butt was the military aide to both Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft.  Butt and his housemate (some say lo...

Alternate history is fictional history, in which an author changes some aspect of the past and sees how this change would have impacted ...

     Norbert Ealy, was a talented young man with a gift for words, and should have been one of Del Boca’s most eligible bachelors.  Unfo...

The Spaniards conquered Peru over the course of several decades in an atmosphere of civil war and chaos.  The Incas had just concluded a...