Category: History

The Real Story of Revere’s Ride

In 1774 and the spring of 1775, Boston silversmith Paul Revere was employed by the Boston Committee of Correspondence and the Massachusetts Committee of Safety as an express rider to carry news, messages, and copies of important documents as far away as New York and Philadelphia.

On the evening of April 18, 1775, Paul Revere was summoned by Dr. Joseph Warren of Boston and given the task of riding to Lexington, Massachusetts, with the news that regular troops were about to march into the countryside northwest of Boston. According to Warren, these troops planned to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, who were staying at a house in Lexington, and probably continue on to the town of Concord, to capture or destroy military stores — gunpowder, ammunition, and several cannon — that had been stockpiled there (in fact, the British troops had no orders to arrest anyone — Dr. Warren’s intelligence on this point was faulty).

Revere contacted an unidentified friend (probably Robert Newman, the sexton of Christ Church in Boston’s North End) and instructed him to show two lanterns in the tower of Christ Church (now called the Old North Church) as a signal in case Revere was unable to leave town. The two lanterns meant that the British troops planned to row “by sea” across the Charles River to Cambridge, rather than march “by land” out Boston Neck.

Revere then stopped by his own house to pick up his boots and overcoat, and proceeded the short distance to Boston’s North End waterfront where two friends waited to row him across the river to Charlestown. Slipping past a British warship in the darkness, Revere landed safely. After informing Colonel Conant and other local Sons of Liberty about recent events in Boston and verifying that they had seen his signals in the North Church tower, Revere borrowed a horse from John Larkin, a Charlestown merchant and a patriot sympathizer.

While the horse was being made ready, a member of the Committee of Safety named Richard Devens warned Revere that there were a number of British officers in the area who might try to intercept him. About eleven o’clock Revere set off. After narrowly avoiding capture just outside of Charlestown, Revere changed his planned route and rode through Medford, where he alarmed Isaac Hall, the captain of the local militia. He then alarmed almost all the houses from Medford, through Menotomy (today’s Arlington) — carefully avoiding the Royall Mansion whose property he rode through (Isaac Royall was a well-known Loyalist) — and arrived in Lexington sometime after midnight.

In Lexington, as he approached the house where Adams and Hancock were staying, a Sergeant Monroe, acting as a guard outside the house, requested that he not make so much noise. “Noise!” cried Revere, “You’ll have noise enough before long. The regulars are coming out!” At this point, Revere still had difficulty gaining entry until, according to tradition, John Hancock, who was still awake, heard his voice and said “Come in, Revere! We’re not afraid of you” and he was allowed to enter the house and deliver his message.

About half past twelve, William Dawes arrived in Lexington carrying the same message as Revere. After both men had “refreshed themselves” they decided to continue on to Concord to verify that the military stores had been properly dispersed and hidden away. A short distance outside of Lexington, they were overtaken by Dr. Samuel Prescott, who they determined was a fellow “high Son of Liberty.”

A short time later, a British patrol intercepted all three men. Prescott and Dawes escaped; Revere was held for some time, questioned, and let go. Before he was released, however, his horse was confiscated to replace the tired mount of a British sergeant. Left alone on the road, Revere returned to Lexington on foot in time to witness the latter part of the battle on Lexington Green.

1775-

Joseph Warren sends Paul Revere to Lexington with a message for John Hancock and Samuel Adams, warning them that General Gage was planning to send troops to Concord. On his ride back to Boston, Revere stops in Charlestown, where he arranges with church sexton Robert Newman and vestryman John Pulling to have lanterns hanged in the steeple of the North Church to signal whether troops were moving by land (one lantern) or by sea (two lanterns).

Following Revere’s first ride to Lexington, patriots in Worcester, Massachusetts, relocate military supplies hidden in their town.

1775-
General Gage begins preparations to send an expedition to Concord, Massachusetts to seize and destroy military supplies hidden in the town. He issues orders to the Boston Garrison to select 700 light infantrymen and grenadiers for the mission. Despite Gage’s effort to keep the expedition a secret, the movements of ships and troops are noticed by the patriot spies in Boston and reported to Joseph Warren, head of the Committee of Safety.

On this day in 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant.

Lee showed up dressed in his best, looking like a dignified gentleman. Grant was covered in mud after riding all morning.

Before anything was signed, the two men spoke about their shared service in the Mexican War — a reminder that Confederates and Union soldiers were nonetheless countrymen tied by mystic chords of memory.

Grant did not create terms of surrender to humiliate the South. Grant and Lincoln understood that to unify the nation, you could not imprison half of it. Confederates were allowed to keep their sidearms and personal horses.

When Grant learned that Lee’s men were quite literally starving after having not eaten for days, he ordered 25,000 rations sent to them immediately. Lee said this would have “a very happy effect” on his men.

When Lee rode away after signing terms of surrender, Union soldiers cheered. Grant forced them to stop, reminding Union soldiers that Confederates were “now our countrymen” and there would be no cheering over their downfall. (In fact, days later when actual ceremonial surrender occurred, Union Gen. Josh Chamberlain reportedly ordered his men to salute passing Confederates as a sign of respect)

Lee also worked diligently to stop Confederates from waging guerrilla warfare, encouraging them to set their arms aside and return home and in peace. He was a titan in his own right.

If the spirit of 1865 had been driven by the urge to shame and punish, the Union would not have lasted. So many people today misunderstand that and as such, they try to rewrite America history.

God Bless America.

Besides being St Valentine’s Day, February 14 is also another important date

The patent for the 1911 pistol was issued on February 14, 1911.

The Colt M1911 pistol, designed by John Moses Browning, was patented under U.S. Patent 984,519, which was filed on February 17, 1910 and officially issued on February 14, 1911. This patent covered the semi-automatic, recoil-operated design that became the foundation for the M1911, a firearm that would later be adopted by the U.S. Army on March 29, 1911. 

How Many Historical Gun Laws Constitute a ‘National Tradition’?

The Supreme Court has explicitly stated that, in order for a modern gun law to be constitutionally sound, it must comply with the text of the Second Amendment as well as the history and tradition of gun ownership (and gun regulation). So far, though, the Court hasn’t given a whole lot of advice as to what constitutes a national tradition.

In Bruen, SCOTUS doubted that “just three colonial regulations could suffice to show a tradition of public-carry regulation,” but declined to state definitely what would suffice; both in terms of the number of laws as well as when those laws were put into effect. Is 1791 the most important date, since that’s when the Second Amendment was ratified; is it 1868, when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified; or are both equally important?

Pete Patterson, an attorney at Cooper & Kirk with an extensive background as a Second Amendment litigator, was asked about this by SCOTUSblog’s Haley Proctor for her 2A-focused series “A Second Opinion,” and his answer worth discussing.

What does it take to make a sufficient showing of a history of firearms regulation? How many laws or practices do you need, from what historical period, and how do we describe the tradition those laws represent?

These are all issues that are hotly contested, but I will give you what I think is the view most consistent with Bruen and Supreme Court precedent generally.

First, the relevant historical period should be centered on 1791, when the Second Amendment was ratified. The court has held in many cases that when provisions of the Bill of Rights apply to the states, they have the same meaning as they have against the federal government.

It should follow that the meaning was set in 1791, when those provisions were first ratified and applied to the federal government. To be sure, those rights were not incorporated against [applied to] the states until the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868, but that amendment did not purport to change the substantive meaning of the Bill of Rights.

This conclusion is consistent with the court’s practices, including its holding in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue that the laws of over 30 states from the second half of the 19th Century could not alone “establish an early American tradition” that would inform the meaning of the First Amendment’s establishment clause.

That makes sense, both from a legal and practical standpoint. As Patterson points out, there’s nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment that suggests any type of revision to the Bill of Rights. It’s purpose wasn’t to update the Bill of Rights, but to ensure that those rights were safeguarded against intrusion by state and local governments as well. And during the congressional debate over the Fourteenth Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms was front and center.

Second, what the government should have to establish is a limitation that was widely understood by Americans at ratification to qualify the scope of the right to keep and bear arms.

The common law frequently will be a primary resource in this inquiry, as that was law that was understood to be generally applicable. The common law is reflected in sources like case law and prominent secondary sources such as Blackstone’s Commentaries.

Of course, the focus should be on the prevailing American understanding rather than British understandings that Americans may have repudiated, so consulting American sources like Tucker’s Blackstone is an important part of the inquiry.

Statutes also play a role, of course, but the government should have to show that any statutes it relies on are consistent with the prevailing, general understanding and not a departure from it. That presumably is why Bruen repeatedly emphasizes that a handful of outlier statutes cannot establish a tradition of regulation.

I think its also important to note that the Supreme Court talked about a “national” tradition, not a state-specific or regional tradition. If three colonial-era statutes aren’t enough to suffice, then three statutes from one part of the country shouldn’t be enough either. This is particularly important when courts are considering laws adopted around the time the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, given that many southern states instituted laws restricting the right to keep and bear arms that might have been racially neutral on their face, but were hardly enforced in a colorblind fashion.

Patterson adds one more metric in determining a “national tradition.”

Third, the tradition should be described at a level of generality that is general enough not to make arbitrary distinctions, but specific enough not to risk eviscerating the right.

If readers are interested in the level-of-generality question, I recommend the brief my colleague John Ohlendorf filed in Wolford on behalf of professor [Joel] Alicea, which address that question at some length.

As an example of the need for the Court to address the level of generality that’s most appropriate, Ohlendorf cites the historical tradition recognized in Bruen of states prohibiting arms “in legislative assemblies, polling places, and courthouses.”

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On This Day: Washington orders Lee to defend New York

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Writing urgently from his headquarters, Gen. George Washington ordered Maj. Gen. Charles Lee to proceed to New York with “all possible speed,” warning that British ships fitting out in Boston were, in his estimation, bound for the city and aimed at seizing the Hudson River. Washington understood that New York was the strategic key to the continent: its loss would give the British command of the interior and open a direct corridor to Canada.

Though often at odds with Lee, Washington pressed him to act decisively, raising fresh volunteers, calling out New Jersey forces, securing military supplies, and disarming known loyalists.

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On This Day: Washington asks Connecticut to help defend New York

Cambridge, Massachusetts

Anxious over the fate of New York, George Washington wrote to Connecticut Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, warning that British ships fitting out in Boston were, in his judgment, bound for New York. Washington cautioned that if the British seized the city and the North River, they would command the country and reopen communications with Canada. He therefore “begged the favor” of Trumbull’s prompt assistance so he could dispatch Maj. Gen. Charles Lee with volunteers willing to join in fortifying and defending New York.

“There is great reason to believe that this Armament, if not immediately designed against the City of New-York is nevertheless intended for Long Island; and as it is a matter of the utmost importance to prevent the Enemy from possessing themselves of the city of New York, and the North River, which would give them the command of the Country, and the Communication with Canada.”

ON THIS DAY: COL. HENRY KNOX

“I beg the favor of you to interpose your good offices and interest in the matter, and to encourage men to go on this important business, and as expeditiously as possible, for counteracting any designs our enemies may have against us in that quarter—Every necessary expense attending their march and stay will be borne by the Public.”

Washington also wrote to John Adams, urging prompt attention to the situation and seeking his judgment both on the wisdom of the plan and on whether it fell within Washington’s authority as commander in chief. As events moved quickly, Washington awaited Adams’s counsel.

 

December 15, 1791

The first amendments to the Constitution were officially ratified on this day.
These first 10 are known as the Bill of Rights.

THE Conventions of a number of the States, having at the time of their adopting the Constitution, expressed a desire, in order to prevent misconstruction or abuse of its powers, that further declaratory and restrictive clauses should be added: And as extending the ground of public confidence in the Government, will best ensure the beneficent ends of its institution.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII
In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

The Capitol, Washington D.C. 12:30 p.m., EST December 8th, 1941

Mr. Vice President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives:

YESTERDAY, December 7th, 1941; a date which will live in infamy. The United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at solicitation of Japan, still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya. Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong: Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam. Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands. Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation.

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

But always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces with the unbounding determination of our people we will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire

Eighty-four years ago today, on Sunday, December 7th, 1941, the Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor and other military installations around Oahu.

Events leading up to the attack:

Several key events foreshadowed the attack in the early morning hours:

  • 6:10 a.m. — The USS Condor, a minesweeper, spots a periscope.
  • 6:45 a.m. — The USS Ward fires on a Japanese submarine, marking the first shot fired by American forces in World War II.
  • 6:53 a.m. — Ward radios Navy HQ, but decoding processes slow down its reception.
  • 7:02 a.m. — Radar station on Oahu spots an unidentified aircraft, but reports are ignored because a B-17 from California was expected to arrive.

The Imperial Japanese Navy, launching 414 attack and fighter aircraft from the fleet carriers, Hiryu, Soryu, Shokaku, Zuikaku, Akagi and Kaga, carry out what appears to be a surprise attack on the United States Pacific Fleet, Army and Marine air and ground forces at Pearl Harbor, and elsewhere on Oahu island, Hawaii.

Thanksgiving is a federal holiday in the United States celebrated on the fourth Thursday of November. Outside the United States, it is sometimes called American Thanksgiving to distinguish it from the Canadian holiday of the same name and related celebrations in other regions. The modern national celebration dates to 1863 and has been linked to the Pilgrims 1621 harvest festival since the late 19th century. As the name implies, the theme of the holiday generally revolves around giving thanks with the centerpiece of most celebrations being a Thanksgiving dinner.

In 1789, per a request by Congressional resolution, President George Washington proclaimed “a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.” In 1863, President Lincoln issued a proclamation making Thanksgiving an official annual holiday to be commemorated each year on the last Thursday of November.

To stimulate economic recovery following the Great Depression, in 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt moved the holiday to the second to the last Thursday of the month to extend the holiday shopping season.

To alleviate confusion, Congress passed H.J. Res. 41 (77th Congress) on October 6, 1941, to establish Thanksgiving Day as a legal holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. President Roosevelt signed the joint resolution into law in December of 1941, to take effect the following year

 

Constitutional Originalism, the Second Amendment, and the English Bill of Rights of 1689

Modern gun control proponents argue as though we live under the English Constitution, instead of the Second Amendment. Looking at the history of both Bill of Rights repudiates arguments that support gun control.

The English Constitution includes a right to keep and bear arms. However, it is written so that attempting to seize arms from the English Colonists in April, 1775 arguably was not violated.

Many of the delegates to our Constitutional Convention were versed in British law, with over two thirds of them having legal training, even if they did not make their livelihood from being lawyers. That would have been training in British law, because U.S. law was in its infancy, and the U.S. Constitution was not written when they were trained. This is an important fact to keep in mind when looking at the founding of the United States and the drafting of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The U.S. has a Constitution and amendments as a single document. England and the United Kingdom’s Constitution, on the other hand, is not a single document. Instead it is a variety of documents and precedent going back centuries ( the Magna Carta, for example, was written in 1215).  It is not uncommon for the U.K.’s Constitution to contain precedents that contradict each other.

At one point the English threw out the monarchy, though eventually it was restored. When it was restored one of the key documents established that the monarchy had to accept the authority of Parliament and the rights of their subjects. The English Bill of Rights of 1689 (EBR) codified those rights. It was signed by King William III and Queen Mary II as a condition of restoring the monarchy, and it is still considered part of the Constitution of many of the Commonwealth nations.

There are many parallels with the U.S. Bill of Rights, and many of the grievances the colonists had with the Crown were for violating English Bill of Rights. For example it includes freedom of speech, freedom from excessive fines and bail, no taxation without approval of the representatives in Parliament, freedom from cruel and unusual punishments, free elections, a right to keep arms, and other enumerated rights.

However, the right to keep arms is limited in such a way that it has allowed the U.K. to severely limit gun ownership.

The specific clause of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 is:
That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;

For reference the text of the Second Amendment is:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Let’s look at each section in comparison:

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of the free State” – this reminds the government that it was established by the efforts of the armed population, and they continue to be necessary for the security of the nation. Militia at the time meant the able bodied men who could be called on to defend the community, state, and country from bandits, form bucket brigades to fight fires, protect the nation from invaders, etc.  Well regulated at the time essentially meant competent; well trained, well organized, well equipped, and well disciplined. Justifications for their rights are covered earlier in the EBR.

The next sections have more direct correlations.  The EBR says, “That the subjects which are Protestants” where the Second Amendment says, “the right of the people.”

The colonists included many groups that the Church of England considered to not be Protestants. This includes the Pilgrims who were separatists from the Church of England, Roman Catholics who had fled England, and others. As such the colonists who were not specifically Church of England, did not have a right. The Second Amendment uses the people, extending to all of the colonists who were considered citizens.

The EBR says, “may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions” while the Second Amendment says, “to keep and bear Arms.”

The words “may” and “might” gives room for limitations, and limits it to arms for their defense. It also does not mention anything about being able to bear or carry them. The limits in the EBR allowed Parliament and King George III to justify the seizure of rifles and other arms the British government determined were not suitable.

The Founders didn’t want to provide our government with that same leeway. Further, many of the Founding Fathers had some experience in reading on history. They knew the massive technological shift that had been made in arms in just a few centuries. Some of them were likely aware of such firearms as the Cookson Repeater that was advertised in the Boston Gazette in 1756. Thomas Jefferson had obtained a Girardoni Air Rifle at some point, and later loaned it to the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

The point is, the Framers did not limit the language of the Second Amendment to firearms used or suited only for defense. We see echoes of this section and this argument in court filings supporting gun control currently when gun control proponents argue in support of “assault weapon” bans. Their argument can be summed up as the Second Amendment only protects arms the government deems suitable for self defense.

The Second Amendment does not only protect having or possessing arms, it includes the right to keep or bear them. It is not prefaced by “may”, which leads to the next section.

The next section illustrates the Founding Fathers really meant it when they wrote, “shall not be infringed.” The EBR says, “as allowed by law.” This leaves potential limits on the right to possess arms if Parliament passes a law. As we have seen in the 336 years since the EBR was signed, the U.K. and Commonwealth countries have severely limited the right by disallowing various arms by law, and adding other requirements. Those infringements include everything from gun registrations, strict licensing laws, storage mandates, and even outright confiscations.

The Founding Fathers had just lived through, and in many cases, directly participated, in a successful revolution where private arms played a significant part, and was essentially sparked by an attempt to seize arms from civilians who had organized themselves for their common defense.  Therefore it says, “shall not be infringed” as a direct counter to attempts to limit the right or seize arms from citizens.

Gun controllers, including the various gun control groups, and the anti-gun attorneys general in deep-blue states like my own native California, often argue like we still live under the English Bill of Rights of 1689. While it is part of the common law that U.S. law is based on, the experience of the American Revolution and the text of the Second Amendment repudiate their arguments.

The Heller decision states the interest balancing that gun controllers are trying to use in support of gun control laws was already done by the Second Amendment. In my opinion, it was done by refuting the language of the English Bill of Rights that placed government interests over the right of some of the U.K’s citizens to keep and bear arms.

Source documents:

Yale Law School’s Avalon Project publishes the text of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as part of their Constitutional documents project – https://avalon.law.yale.edu/17th_century/england.asp

University of Houston provides a summary of the Constitution Delegates – https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/constitution/constitution_overview_delegates.cfm

Heller decision comments about Interest Balancing – Heller, 554 U. S., at 635. Pp. 15–17. – https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep554/usrep554570/usrep554570.pdf

Having a fuller understanding of what makes up a large part of our history can give us a fuller understanding of what makes up a large part of who we are today.

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Itiner-e: A high-resolution dataset of roads of the Roman Empire

Abstract

The Roman Empire’s road system was critical for structuring the movement of people, goods and ideas, and sustaining imperial control. Yet, it remains incompletely mapped and poorly integrated across sources despite centuries of research.

We present Itiner-e, the most detailed and comprehensive open digital dataset of roads in the entire Roman Empire. It was created by identifying roads from archaeological and historical sources, locating them using modern and historical topographic maps and remote sensing, and digitising them with road segment-level metadata and certainty categories.

The dataset nearly doubles the known length of Roman roads through increased coverage and spatial precision, and reveals that the location of only 2.737% are known with certainty. This resource is transformative for understanding how mobility shaped connectivity, administration, and even disease transmission in the ancient world, and for studies of the millennia-long development of terrestrial mobility in the region.

Halloween, has its origins in the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain, which marked the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter.

It was believed that on this night, the veil between the living and the dead was thin, allowing spirits to return to earth.

It is said that Pope Gregory III established November 1st as ‘All Saints Day’ also called ‘All Hallows Day’ sometime in the 8th century. So, as the evening before would be ‘All Hallows Eve’ – ‘eve‘ being a contraction of evening – and even more contracted; Hallowe’en, we know how the name came to be.

200 Years Ago, the Erie Canal Opened and America Was Never the Same

It was derisively called “Clinton’s Big Ditch.” after the New York governor who pushed through the financing and drove the impossible idea of building a 363-mile canal connecting the Great Lakes with New York City.

DeWitt Clinton tried to get financing from Congress for his project, which Thomas Jefferson called “madness.” However, President James Madison believed that using federal dollars for a state project was unconstitutional and refused to sign the bill authorizing congressional funds.

America’s longest canal up to that point was 27 miles. Clinton was proposing the construction of a canal 13 times larger, much of it through wilderness, using Irish immigrant labor and, most astonishingly, without any trained engineers.

The original engineers were largely self-taught locals who designed and constructed the canal despite having never seen one before. According to History.com, they included “a few inexperienced surveyors and at least one local math teacher. ” The two chief engineers were Benjamin Wright and James Geddes, “lawyers by trade who learned how to survey by prosecuting land disputes.”

Only in America.

Construction began in 1817. Eventually, 9,000 strong backs, working with shovels, picks, and axes, dug the 363 miles of canal with 18 aqueducts and 83 locks to compensate for elevation changes en route.

The canal opened the Midwest to the East Coast, and the payoff was immediate.

The Conversation:

 Within a few years, shipping rates from Lake Erie to New York City fell from US$100 per ton to under $9. Annual freight on the canal eclipsed trade along the Mississippi River within a few decades, amounting to $200 million – which would be more than $8 billion today.

Commerce drove industry and immigration, enriching the canal towns of New York – transforming villages like Syracuse and Utica into cities. From 1825-1835, Rochester was the fastest-growing urban center in America.

By the 1830s, politicians had stopped ridiculing America’s growing canal system. It was making too much money. The hefty $7 million investment in building the Erie Canal had been fully recouped in toll fees alone.

The Erie Canal not only transformed America, but, by allowing for the export of massive amounts of Midwestern farm products to Europe, American farmers drove a large number of small farmers in Europe out of business. Many of them made their way to America.

Historian Daniel Walker Howe wrote in his book, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848, “The small capitalist farmers of North America hacked away at the economic base of the ruling landed classes in Europe more destructively than all the revolutionaries on the continent.”

The Erie Canal’s success set off a canal-building boom. Most were failures, but several were hugely successful, like the Ohio and Erie Canal and the Champlain Canal. Abraham Lincoln, like most politicians in the Midwest, was a big supporter of canals. Canals represented connections. Until the age of the railroad, canals were the only means of getting farm products from the prairie to larger markets.

Washington Post:

By lessening the commercial and political isolation of prairie farmers, the canal helped to populate the prairies by connecting them with Eastern markets. And by linking Americans living west of the Appalachian mountains to the Hudson River, it created New York City as a financial center. One day in 1824, Howe writes, there were 324 ships in New York harbor. One day in 1836, there were 1,241. Through the city’s port, America exported grain and revolution.

In 1986, New York’s U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, speaking in Buffalo, speculated that America’s 19th-century tsunami of immigration was “in considerable proportion” a result of “the huge wave of agricultural exports that began to reach Europe once the railroads reached our Middle West.”

The Erie Canal was hugely disruptive. Sleepy New York villages and towns like Syracuse and Rochester became major metropolitan centers. The flood of wealth injected into the nation by the Erie Canal proved to be very unsettling. It set off a religious revival that included the Second Great Awakening, a reaction to the economic dynamism and social reform movements of the 19th century.

In two decades, more freight was moving down the Erie Canal than was being floated down the Mississippi River from the Midwest to New Orleans. It would be an exaggeration to say that the Erie Canal created modern America, but it’s hard to imagine America today without it.