Archives for the 'History' Category
Real Pirates at Field Museum
The Real Pirates are in your government; taxing, borrowing and spending too much.
Field Museum has some pirates, too.
Through October 25, 2009.
http://www.fieldmuseum.org/pirates
Chicago Tea Party
alternate link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bEZB4taSEoA
Today is Chicago Tea Party Day.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123975867505519363.html
Just say “NO!” to Big Government.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-04-14-biggovernment_N.htm
Update:
Representative Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, released a statement in response to “tea parties” being held on Tax Day.
Chicago Tribune: reports:
Meanwhile, U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, a Chicago Democrat, said in a statement that the protests were “an effort to mislead the public about the Obama economic plan” and called them “a shameful political stunt.”
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-ap-il-taxdayprotests-il,0,2920655.story
Here’s the entire press release by Jan Schakowsky:
http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/il09_schakowsky/pr_teaparties_04_15_09.shtml
Needless to say, we do not support the views of Jan Schakowsky.
Pirates Attack on Lake Michigan: Grand Haven, Beaver Island, Manitous Threatened by Marauders Causes Excitement
Pirates on Lake Michigan have attacked boats and towns during the 1800’s, wreaking havoc and mayhem in their search for booty in regions such as Beaver Island, the Manitous and Grand Haven.
WBBM Newsradio 780 reports:
CHICAGO (WBBM) – While the world watches the Somali pirate drama, there’s a story to be told of pirates right here on Lake Michigan.
Lake Michigan was home to a few pirates from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
The headline: Wholesale robbery by pirates on Lake Michigan. The date: October 10, 1855, in the New York Times.
The Times reported on people in the area around Saugutuck, Michigan, “thrown into the most intense excitement by the operations of a gang of marauders, who are reported to be Mormons from Beaver Island.”
But it wasn’t other ships that were attacked, it was land-based stores.
Half a century later – and almost 101 years ago – “Roaring” Dan Seavey took control of a Great Lakes cargo ship and sailed it to Chicago.
He reportedly got control of the 40-foot schooner Nellie Johnson in Grand Haven, Michigan, by out-drinking its captain and crew – then stealing it.
The Sun-Times reports that Seavey “found no fortune in his pirating: He was unable to sell the load of cedar posts in Chicago and was captured back near his home in Frankfort, Michigan.”
Youngest Briton to scale Everest killed – Was named “Adventurer of the Year” for global journey using only skis, sleds, sails and bicycles
Updated – More from National Geographic:
article 1
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video
CNN reports:
Rob Gauntlett, the youngest Briton to summit Mount Everest, died in a climbing accident along with another mountaineer in the French Alps, the British Foreign Office confirmed Sunday. Both were 21.
he bodies of Gauntlett and James Atkinson were found Saturday in the Mont Blanc area. Weather conditions were reported to have been clear and cold in Chamonix at the time.
Gauntlett scaled Mount Everest, the world’s highest peak, in 2006 just days after his 19th birthday, along with 19-year-old James Hooper, his Web site says. He shattered the previous British record set by Bear Grylls at the age of 23.
Last month, National Geographic Adventure magazine declared Gauntlett and Hooper “adventurers of the year” for their 26,000-mile journey from one of Earth’s magnetic poles to the other using only skis, sleds, sails and bicycles.
Gauntlett said on his Web site that completing the journey was his proudest moment.
“We had spent three months on a 60-foot yacht sailing across the world’s most brutal ocean. A year before I had done virtually no proper sailing, so to be thrown in at the very deep end was a little scary at times,” he admitted.
Diaries of swashbuckling hero who rescued Robinson Crusoe unearthed
Daily Telegraph reports:
A 300-year-old journal of a British explorer who saved the real-life Robinson Crusoe and defeated pirates of the Caribbean has been discovered.
