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Elizabeth Nix

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The Worst Picnic in History Was Interrupted by a War

On July 21, 1861, Washingtonians trekked to the countryside near Manassas, Virginia, to watch the first major battle of the American Civil War.

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Meet Jack Jouett, the Paul Revere of the South

Paul Revere gets all the glory but he wasn’t the only one to make a daring late‑night ride to warn that the British were coming. In 1781, during the Revolutionary War (and six years after Revere’s ride), a 26‑year‑old Virginian, John “Jack” Jouett, made a dangerous, 40‑mile dash on horseback to Monticello, the home of […]

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British Royals Have Been Scandalously Marrying Commoners Since 1464

That’s the year when Prince William—who’s next in line after his father to become king of England—married Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge. Middleton’s great‑grandfather came from a family of coal miners and her parents were airline workers who wound up making a fortune as founders of a party‑supply business. But the tradition of […]

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Want to Rule an Uninhabited Island? Just Make Sure It Has Enough Bird Poop

Unlikely as it might seem today, bird poop was once a hot commodity. In the 19th century, guano—the excrement of seabirds and bats—was prized by American farmers as an effective natural fertilizer, full of nitrogen and phosphorous. In fact, in 1856 Congress passed the Guano Islands Act, giving any American citizen who discovered an uninhabited […]

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