Category: History

The Unique Easter Tradition of an Aboriginal Village

This article is adapted from the treatment for the documentary film “Wawu: Divine Hope,” written by Australian director and producer Caden Pearson, who now works at The Epoch Times as a journalist. The Guugu Yimidhirr people of Hope Vale, an Aboriginal village in the far northeast of Australia, celebrate Easter with a unique week-long tradition held up…


A Tragedy Forgotten: A 1919 Boston Molasses Tank Explosion That Caused Death and Destruction

“Send all available rescue vehicles and personnel immediately,” Boston Police Patrolman Frank McManus managed to relay to dispatch through the call box located on the North End near the harbor. A bizarre tragedy was unfolding before his eyes and momentarily left him speechless. “There’s a wave of molasses coming down Commercial Street.” As the policeman…


How Resourceful Depression-Era Women Made Chicken Feedsacks Into a Fashion Statement

Farm and dry goods—such as oats, chicken feed, agricultural seed, flour, sugar, cornmeal, salt, dried beans, etc.—were typically bagged in generically-named feedsacks from the late 1800s through the 1950s. These feedsacks were sometimes called “chicken linen,” a country twist name that combined a common feedsacked product, chicken feed, with a generic household term, linen. During…


American Pioneer Adventures: Nelson Story Led The Longest Cattle Drive in History, from Texas to Montana

If you were to visit Virginia City, Montana, today, you’d find a town that looks much like it did in May 1863. That’s when a rich placer deposit of gold was discovered in Alder Gulch, the streambed behind the town. Miners returning from gold fields in Bannack, Montana, stumbled across the gold, and despite a…


African American Patriots | Building on the American Heritage Series

This film is only available in the US because of territorial licensing. Most history books fail to capture the impact of African Americans in our country’s founding era. From military heroes and elected officials to educators and religious leaders. – Feature Films: Cinema collection: epochcinema.com Epoch Original content: epochoriginal.com Feature Films: www.theepochtimes.com/featured-films Follow EpochTV on…


How Industrious Irish Immigrants Overcame Prejudice to Achieve the American Dream

When American poet Emma Lazarus wrote the iconic words that would be inscribed on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty—“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses”—she certainly had the Irish in mind. The Irish immigrants that arrived on America’s shores in the mid-19th century came with nothing more than the shirts on…


Currier and Ives, Two Illustrators Who Created Colorful Prints Found in Nearly Every Home in 19th-Century America

The impressive body of work by 19th-century lithographers Nathaniel Currier and James Ives is widely recognized today as hallmark Americana. Currier & Ives, as their business was known, specialized in producing inexpensive lithographic prints that were sold throughout the United States and in Europe, ranging from a couple dimes to $5, depending on size and…


How a Tough Texas Lawman Took Down the Notorious Criminal Couple Bonnie and Clyde

Frank Hamer was once asked how he felt about the 52 gunfights he was alleged to have participated in throughout his 45 years as a Texas lawman—and the 30 dead men these violent clashes accounted for. “The men I have shot down have all been criminals in the act of committing a crime or resisting…


A Man of Steel and Letters

“The whole trend of your mind seemed to be towards big things,” Andrew Carnegie’s childhood friend Tom David wrote him later in life. Carnegie rarely did anything small, especially once he amassed his fortune through steel. However, the captain of industry didn’t have grand or affluent roots. Carnegie was born in Dunfermline, Scotland, on November…


The Oldest Revolutionary War Hero

“Old Sam” Whittemore was about 80 when he encountered a British army of about 1,700. If a standard retirement age or the right to claim disability had existed in colonial America, Samuel Whittemore would probably not have felt these things were right for him. He was just one of the many minutemen who dropped his…