A Lost Colony and the Lasting Mystery of Virginia Dare

  This popular and widely circulated 19th Century print purports to depict the christening of Virginia Dare.  Wrong on several counts.  She may have been christened, but there was no clergyman or deac

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The Original Bombshell—Mae West Introduced Americans to—Gasp!—Sex

                                               Mae West as we remember her best--blonde and brazen. She was a tiny lady, barely five foot tall.  It was more than her trademark Gay 90’s plumed hats tha

Chang and Eng—Sideshow Freaks Became Southern Aristocrats

                                                         Chang and Eng as young men on exhibition in Asia. On August 16, 1829 two young immigrant brothers arrived in Boston.   Nothing much unusual in

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An Unexpected Moral Lesson on a Cheyenne Shopping Trip with Mom—Murfin Memoir

                                   The clipping that jarred a memory. It didn’t take much to jar the memory.   Stored long ago and jammed tightly in the closet of a dusty recess of my mind, it fell to

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The Villasur Expedition—When Empires Collided on the Remote Great Plains

A color enhanced central section of the Native American buffalo hide paintings showing the last stand of the Spanish.  Historians call it a remarkably accurate depiction. Long ago and far away two emp

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