On September 24, 1964, the Warren Commission presented its long-awaited report. The exhaustive 888-page document outlined the Commission's investigation into the assassination of President John F Kennedy. Though the Commission's own members and even President Lyndon B Johnson professed their confidence in the Commission's findings, the report also fueled the fires of multiple conspiracy theories.
Plenty of famous authors have written masterpieces from behind bars: Miguel de Cervantes began Don Quixote while doing time for tax irregularities in Algiers, while Fyodor Dostoyevsky narrowly missed his date with a firing squad, allowing him to write Notes from the Underground.
On August 22, 1746, three men were executed for high treason at Kennington Common. They wore Highland costume. The government showed some mercy, allowing the bodies to hang for fifteen minutes (instead of the usual three) before they were desecrated. The execution of Donald MacDonald, Jack Nicholson, and Walter Ogilvie in many ways represented the demise of the Jacobite movement, which had begun many decades earlier.
How does a bookseller become a decorated general in the United States Army? General John Ellis Wool did exactly that, distinguishing himself in three consecutive wars: the War of 1812, the Mexican-American War, and the American Civil War. By the time he began service in the Civil War, General Wool was already 77 years old.
On March 4, 1681, William Penn was granted a large swath of land southwest of New Jersey. He named it "Sylvania," (Latin for "woods"), and King Charles renamed it Pennsylvania in honor of Penn's father. Within three years, Pennsylvania had its first printing press. The first American publication may have been printed in Massachusetts in 1639, but Philadelphia soon emerged as a major publishing center. By the time the Liberty Bell rang on July 8, 1776, the city was already a bustling center of both politics and printing.
On June 16, 1812, an unlikely group of kindred spirits gathered for a meal. Though they came from different social circles and occupations, they shared a common love of books. That night, this group of bibliophiles unwittingly started what is now the oldest bibliophilic society in the world. The occasion for their dinner? The auction of a famed bibliophile's personal library.
Creativity flourishes in a number of environments. Some writers find their inspiration by the ocean, in a cabin with a mountain view, or in a bustling coffee shop. Others just need isolation and plenty of spare time. This is why it’s no surprise that many great pieces of literature were composed during an author’s stint in exile. Here are some literary favorites and the stories behind their worst downfalls and greatest successes.
Reginald Skelton made the world a little bigger for the people of his time. During a period when not much was known about Antarctica, he joined an expedition that opened doors for further explorations and scientific discovery. His work and photography gave the public a glimpse of an uninhabited continent.
Peter Hardman Burnett was a man of contradiction. A bank president and an adventurer, an abolitionist and a racist, Burnett was also the first governor of California and the first man to resign that office. Despite his mixed legacy, Burnett’s life was nothing if not interesting.
In 1853, industrialist and social reformer Robert Owen witnessed a seance by American medium Maria Hayden. The experience convinced him of the existence of an afterworld and the ability of the dead to communicate with living. Hayden had converted Owen to Spiritualism. Owen was not the only leading figure to embrace Spiritualism; years earlier, Alfred Russel Wallas, who co-discovered the theory of evolution, wrote a book called Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (1896), and British Prime Minister Arthur Balfour became a member of the British Society for Psychical Research, founded in 1893.
