We visited the newly renovated Virginia museum of History.

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The National D-Day Memorial is an impressive memorial. You should skip the free tours though.

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The Searing Memoir of the Battle to Integrate Little Rock's Central High by Melba Pattillo Beals

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I finished up the 1619 podcast yesterday, which is a companion to the 1619 feature from the NYT. I can't recommend this podcast series enough. It's only 5 podcasts, about 30 minutes each. A couple of things I learned, or in some cases maybe had reinforced.

1. At it's peak, slaves …

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I finished Bill Bryson’s book One Summer: America,1927 last night. It’s a highly entertaining tour of the ridiculous number of momentous events that happened over the summer of 1927.

So it is perhaps worth pausing for a moment to remember just some of the things that happened …

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What better day to visit the country’s newest civil war museum than July 4th?

The tldr; version is that this is a very well done museum. The focus is on telling the story of the civil war through the suffering of the people involved. And by people I mean …

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If you are younger than me you may have read this in school. I didn't read it until last night. It's a slim volume - only 110 pages. But it's enough. When the author was 15 he was rounded up in Hungary and shipped off to Auschwitz.

These 110 pages are …

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The Richmond Liberty Trail is Richmond's attempt to be like Boston with its Freedom Trail. I don't think Richmond is putting as much effort into their trail as Boston, and it shows.

The history along the six mile walk is certainly compelling, but we are locals and were hiking with …

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This article about current government expenditures to maintain monuments to racism is remarkable. At a time when basic government functions such as education and public safety are underfunded coast to coast, US government entities are spending millions maintaining pro-Confederate memorials and monuments to racism.

Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library …

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My son and I visited Petersburg National Battlefield yesterday. Visiting a civil war battlefield with a civil war expert makes the experience much better. I highly recommend it. Petersburg was basically Lee's last stand that turned into a 9 month siege in which Grant bet (correctly) that he could outlast …

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A few months ago my weekly email from Pledge Music featured a documentary about Bruce Dickinson's 1994 concert in Sarajevo. I didn't worry too much about what the film was, Bruce was involved so I click the button to support the project. The DVD arrived a couple of weeks ago …

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By C.S. Fly (1849–1901) - Tombstone 1881, Public Domain,

1. It only lasted 30 seconds
2. It didn’t occur at the OK Corral. It actually happened in a vacant lot at the other end of the block. I guess “Shootout at the Vacant Lot” doesn’t sound like a good …

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The Autobiography of Malcolm X has been on my Amazon wish list for years. A couple of weeks ago the price on the Kindle edition dropped to $1.99, so I finally bought it. I finished reading it last night. I don't know what I was expecting from the book …

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• 362 – Athanasius returns to Alexandria.
• 1437 – James I of Scotland is assassinated.
• 1804 – The first self-propelling steam locomotive makes its outing at the Pen-y-Darren Ironworks in Wales.
• 1842 – John Greenough is granted the first U.S. patent for the sewing machine.
• 1848 – Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist …

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Our original plan for Saturday was to drive up to Gettysburg and do a 9 mile battlefield hike. Then my son remembered that 11/19 was Remembrance Day (anniversary of the Gettysburg Address), and neither one of us was looking to deal with a crowd. So we stayed close to …

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Chancellorsville's Forgotten Front: The Battles of Second Fredericksburg and Salem Church, May 3, 1863 by Chris Mackowski and Kristopher D. White

2nd Fredericksburg and the Battle of Salem Church get overlooked in Civil War history because they were part of the more famous Chancellorsville campaign. This battle is of special …

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I just finished reading Walking With The Wind, A Memoir of the Movement by Congressman John Lewis. I'm embarrassed to admit how much I didn't know about the Civil Rights movement in the US. I'd blame it on a loophole that allowed me to skip the 2nd year of US …

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Students in Denver are protesting over a conservative assault on the history curriculum

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Thinking out loud on Memorial Day

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We visited 5 Civil-War battlefields around Richmond in a single day

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