A new biography on Eva Braun, Hitler's girlfriend, is coming out soon. Written by Heike Görtemaker, Eva Braun: Leben mit Hitler (Life with Hitler) might not be getting great reviews by the critics but this last paragraph of a rather harsh review really made me want to read more about this woman. From ForeignPolicy.com:
...there is a lot that Görtemaker and the rest of us do not know. With so little to go on, [Eva] Braun still appears to be more metaphor than flesh and blood. Her blankness is her defining characteristic. Braun can be, and was ... a stand-in for the unquestioning wives of the officers who carried out Hitler's orders -- even for the nation of Germany itself. Or, if you'd like to take it further, for the wives of politicians who stand by loyally as their husbands drag us into war, women who marry serial killers serving life sentences in prison, or every woman who defends the boyfriend who brutalizes her night after night. We don't understand these women, just as we still don't quite understand how that whole Nazi Germany thing happened, no matter how much we analyze the historical record.
The Cowpunchers: A cowpuncher (anyone who tended cows on horseback) in the old west often spent a good deal of their time on the trails moving cattle. Many times these groups would have a “trail cook” who would prepare meals. A favorite dish was chili and as early as 1828 trail cooks were serving this combination of pork, beef, chilies, oregano, and garlic to the cowboys. It didn’t require refrigeration and was easy to make. It also didn’t originally have beans, those came later.
The Prospectors: Many prospectors were foolish when they thought they could get rich during the California gold rush. Knowing nothing about the local vegetation and little about cooking, scores of men died from a lack of vitamin C, commonly known as scurvy. The condition could have easily been cured by eating any of the several plants that grew wild in the area. Prospectors ate mostly meat, bread, coffee, tea…and lots of alcohol.
The Soldiers: During the Civil War most soldiers didn’t have much to eat. What they did have a lot of was hardtack (stale cracker type bread given to soldiers in the North) and cornmeal (in the South). The most popular dish in both armies was actually quite similar. Northerner troops called it “skillygallee” and it was a mixture of crumbled hardtack and fried pork. The southern version of this dish combined cornmeal, fried bacon and water. The Confederate soldiers called it “coosh.”
The Slaves: Enslaved Africans can almost single handily take credit for what is today known as “southern food.” Some of these so-called comfort foods, like sweet potato pie, also have European or French influences, but others, like watermelon and okra, were actually smuggled into the States by captured Africans and grown in secret.
Maybole Castle was built around 1560 in Scotland. The black and white picture was taken 300 years later in 1864 and below that is how the castle looks today.
This picture was taken some time after 1894 when new buildings were added. Read more about Maybole castle here.
After supper she got out her book and learned me about Moses and the Bulrushers and I was in a sweat to find out all about him; but by and by she let it out that Moses had been dead a considerable long time; so then I didn't care no more about him, because I don't take no stock in dead people.
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn -- Huck, referring to the Widow Douglas, Chapter 1.
A lot of history is just dirty politics cleaned up for the consumption of children and other innocents. ~Richard Reeves
Oh, God. The Sixties are coming back. Well I've got a 12-gauge double-barreled duck gun chambered for three-inch Magnum shells. And - speaking strictly for this retired hippie and former pinko beatnik - if the Sixties head my way, they won't get past the porch steps. They will be history. Which, for chrissakes, is what they're supposed to be. ~P.J. O'Rourke
If one could make alive again for other people some cobwebbed skein of old dead intrigues and breathe breath and character into dead names and stiff portraits. That is history to me! ~George Macaulay Trevelyan
If you didn't know history, you didn't know anything. You were a leaf that didn't know it was part of a tree. ~Michael Crichton, Timeline
The lovers of romance can go elsewhere for satisfaction but where can the lovers of truth turn if not to history? ~Katharine Anthony
More history's made by secret handshakes than by battles, bills, and proclamations. ~John Barth, The Sot-Weed Factor
Sin writes histories, goodness is silent. ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Table - Talk
Every age has a keyhole to which its eye is pasted. ~Mary McCarthy, On the Contrary
Historical investigation has for its aim to fix the order and character of events throughout past time and in all places. The task is frankly superhuman. ~George Santayana, The Life of Reason
History is the transformation of tumultuous conquerors into silent footnotes. ~Paul Eldridge, Maxims for a Modern Man
History maketh a young man to be old, without either wrinkles or gray hairs; priviledging him with the experience of age, without either the infirmities or inconveniences thereof. ~Thomas Fuller
All that the historians give us are little oases in the desert of time, and we linger fondly in these, forgetting the vast tracks between one and another that were trodden by the weary generations of men. ~John Alfred Spender, The Comments of Bagshot
Take from the altars of the past the fire - not the ashes. ~Jean Jaures
Woe unto the defeated,
whom history treads
into the dust.
~Arthur Koestler, Darkness at Noon
The Abraham Trostle Farm United States Avenue in Gettysburg National Military Park, Pennsylvania.
The Abraham Trostle farm is famous for the large hole made by a Confederate artillery shell that is still visible today and a picture of dead horses in front of the barn that was taken after the battle. Located centrally on the battlefield, it was in the middle of severe fighting on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg.
In mid 1863 when fighting broke out near the farm, Abraham Trostle, his wife, Catherine, and their nine children lived here. They stayed on their property until the fighting got too close and they were forced to abandon their home.
The 9th Massachusetts artillery battery made a stand around the Trostle Farm on July 2, 1863. This was their first battle. Reportedly the troops took cover in the Trostle barn, waiting for the Confederates to get closer. As the rebel troops approached the 9th Massachusetts Battery opened fire. However, the rebels continued their advance until they had the battery trapped inside the building and began shooting the horses, who were still strapped to their harnesses. The 9th Massachusetts Battery continued to fight but in the end the remaining survivors fled, leaving behind their guns, the wounded and the dead. During this battle, the 9th Massachusetts Battery lost five of it's six guns and reportedly 80 of their 86 horses.
The Trostle family was never compensated for the damages to their property. They sold the farm to the US government in 1899.
More info: http://www.gettysburgdaily.com/?p=105 http://www.angelfire.com/pa4/gettysburg/trostle.html
