Railroad Towns

If you live in a town in the Midwest with East to West streets named after trees and North to South streets numbered, your town was most likely laid out by the railroad. Laying out towns was an important source of income for railroads by offering ready-made destinations for immigrants to buy tickets to and creating support locations for engines and crews. Once the town was populated, it created an ongoing income through delivery of supplies and shipment of produce.

The Redcoats Are Coming

Bet you didn't know that the red uniforms of British troops are related to bugs and pirates?

A red dye is derived from the dried bodies of cochineal beetles. The dye came from Mexico where the beetles were fed on prickly pear cactus. When a Spanish ship full of the precious dye was seized by the English, Queen Elizabeth used it to dye the uniforms of her troops as a sneer to the Spanish who only used the dye for luxury items and as a gift to the Catholic Church.

Super Highway

The Erie Canal, finished in 1825, shortened a three-week travel time from Lake Erie to New York City to one-week. Speeding the delivery of salt, grain, and meat, from inland, to that large city and carrying port of New York worldwide trade across the Great Lakes.

Before the completion of the Erie Canal, Philadelphia was the largest most prosperous city in the United States. The project was financed by bond sales when the president refused to finance the canal. Tolls quickly paid off the project. The canal was a great success and made New York the largest most prosperous city in the United States.

Stream a Lesson and Learn Something New

 Very informative and fun show free with Amazon Prime on Codebreakers. Highly recommended for classroom and home schooling use. Very useful for Jr. High and older students in math and history.

The Information Age Begins

Did you know that the encryption of critical information has been a primary concern far longer than you might think? With the beginning of the widespread use of the telegraph in 1861, critical information falling into the wrong hands became a problem for businesses and governments, which led to sending telegraph messages in code.

The New Vegetables

Lots of exciting changes were happening to European vegetables in the 16th century. Recently discovered plants were being introduced from the new world including: corn, potatoes, peppers, pumpkins, and beans. Breeders were also developing new improved varieties of well known plants. All of these changes greatly improved European diets. There are so many prints of vegetables from this period because they were new and exciting.

For example, the familiar sweet fleshy orange carrot did not exist before the 16th century. The Dutch  created a new larger and tastier vegetable by crossbreeding the smaller beet colored carrot of their day with a variety of wild carrots and a yellow mutant carrot.

Remember to eat your vegetables. They are healthy and played an important part in history.

Sun Storms

On September first and second 1859, a major solar storm made a direct strike on Earth. A solar storm consists of  a vast cloud solar plasma, a gas of electrically charged particles, flung from the sun explosively during sunspots. Very bright auroras were seen as far south as Colorado. Telegraph keys chattered on their own. Telegraph operators were shocked into unconsciousness. Telegraph lines sparked fires. At that time, there was little electrical infrastructure. Telegraph lines did not yet span the American continent.

A far smaller event in March 1989 blacked out the entire province of Quebec. Transformers blew up and electrical fireballs were seen to roll along power lines. Spectacular auroras were produced.

On July 23rd of 2012 a solar storm of similar size to the vast 1859 storm burst from the sun but fortunately missed the Earth entirely.