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If you hang around here any length of time you realize that my Wordless entries are never entirely wordless......just more brief than normal. This is Countess Virginia Oldoini....more than likely the very first fashion/photography model.  She was also the mistress of Emperor Napoleon III and held the ear of many powerful people. I posted another picture of her earlier this week on my Facebook page.  Like it today! The Wordless Wednesday hub can be found here .

Ever wonder how those billionaires reach their goals? Education figures in there somewhere.... Put yours to work for you! Via: Grown Up Me

Last week I shared some information about the Washington Monument and the Pope's stone which was destroyed by the political party known as the Know Nothings. During my research I took a little side tour and found some interesting things about the panels that decorate the interior walls of the monument. As I advised in my earlier posts: In 1849, funds had begun to dwindle. The Society began the commemorative stone program where states could donate engraved stones that would go on the interior of the monument. The program got a little out of hand as more folks got involved. Stones began arriving from territories, groups, organizations and even a few individuals. The purpose of the program was to help all Americans feel a part of the memorial and more importantly to the society the stone donation program would cut the cost regarding the number of stones to be purchased. So, I thought I would post some of the bits of information I found on 13 of the stones since it is Thursday, and it...

A few years ago I paid homage to my Uncle Buck for his service to our country during the very early morning hours of June 6, 1944 by writing Gliding Into D-Day .   Feel free to obtain a little background if you wish by clicking through and reading it first. My uncle….Flight Officer Cyrus S. Carson…. was a glider pilot. Gliders were actually the first stealth aircraft used by the military. The Gibson Refrigerator Co. received contracts from the U.S. Army Air Force for the production of CG-4A troop carrying gliders, and was one of 15 companies to do so. Each glider was made up of 70,000 individual parts.   Gibson built over 1,000 of the nearly 14,000 CG-4A gliders constructed during the war. On the morning of June 6, 1944, Cyrus S. Carson was flying as pilot in command and John Winkler was flying co-pilot in a WACO CG-4A glider similar to the one I’ve posted below. Both men had graduated as second lieutenants from advanced flight training in 1943 from Lubbock, Texas. A WA...

I've tried to get back into the groove of active posting by sharing old pictures on my Facebook page for "History Is Elementary" in the evening over the last several days. What?  You don't "like" me on Facebook? Well, what are you waiting for? Look on the right sidebar and scroll down to find the Facebook "like" box and click that sucker pronto! There...don't you feel better, now? So, anyway, Tuesday night I posted this picture of the Washington Monument. Yes, I know.  It doesn't look right, does it?  At the point this picture was taken the construction had been suspended. In fact, the monument sat for 25 years with no action whatsoever. Of course, knowing that the above picture was taken in 1860 it would be very easy to surmise construction stopped because of the Civil War...and to a point, you would be right, but the war isn't the only reason why construction stopped. Work was suspended around 1854, six years prior to the first shot...

This article begins ….”For nearly 150 years, the story of the Hunley’s attack on the USS Housatonic has been Civil War legend. And it has been wrong.” Oops. Well, correcting myths, legends and poor history has been habit around here, so let’s dive in. In this case it isn’t so much intentionally reporting incorrect history or revising history to make it more interesting –it’s just that we didn’t have all the pieces of the puzzle.   As new pieces are scrutinized from the wreckage we have to adjust the story.... even if it’s been part of the story for over a hundred years. In this case eyewitness accounts at the time of the attack have been debunked because a piece of the Confederate submarine’s torpedo was found to be attached to its spar. This means the Hunley was much closer to the blast –within 20 feet.   You can read the whole thing here .   So far, the part of the romantic part of the story regarding Queenie’s coin has NOT been debunked, and for that I’m very glad. ...

Over the last couple of years I’ve immersed myself into a personal local history project involving researching and writing about the history of my home…..Douglas County, Georgia.   What started as a weekly column here at Douglasville Patch morphed into a blog called Every Now and Then located here .   I’ve learned several interesting things along the way, met some great people, and kept myself rather busy meeting a self-imposed Monday deadline each and every week……something I’m trying to get back to doing around here at History Is Elementary as well. One of the things I’ve tried to do in many of my postings is to connect local history to the larger picture of what was happening in Georgia   and in the United States at the same time. For example, recently I wrote about a couple who moved to Douglasville, Georgia in 1887.   Now in and of itself that’s NOT so remarkable, but the fact that the couple was from Chicago, Illinois caught my interest. Later as I began t...