…did anybody watch that documentary on facial castings of historical figures that aired a couple of nights ago? If you didn’t, it’s running again in early November.
If you didn’t catch it, they took life masks and death masks of notable individuals, scanned them into a computer, and added color and other enhancements to create three-dimensional representations of what these guys actually looked like. [...]
Archive for October, 2009
Hey, speaking of the History Channel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Abraham Lincoln, death masks, George Washington, John Dillinger, life masks, The History Channel on October 28, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
Evaluating Latschar
Posted in Civil War, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged Gettysburg, Gettysburg Museum and Visitor Center, Gettysburg National Military Park, John Latschar on October 23, 2009 | 4 Comments »
A reader left this comment on my previous post: “A bit off-topic, but what do you think of the NPS transferring Gettysburg Superintendent John Latschar to an in-house desk job after thousands of pornographic images were found on his work computer?”
It’s a fair question. I’ve got plenty of opinions about some of the recent changes at Gettysburg—the [...]
The History, Reality Show, UFO, Monster, and Conspiracy Channel
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged The History Channel on October 18, 2009 | 9 Comments »
One of the questions people ask me when they find out what sort of thing I do for a living is whether I watch the History Channel. They’re usually a little surprised when I tell them that I don’t watch it much at all. Part of it’s due to the fact that I just don’t watch as much [...]
God, human nature, the meaning of life, and all that stuff
Posted in Uncategorized on October 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I assume that most of you who make your way here—and I’m flattered that there are more of you than I ever thought there would be when I started doing this—do so because you’re interested in history. I try to respect that by keeping my posts focused on that topic. (I should add, though, that I really [...]
This just in: Columbus not as popular as he used to be
Posted in Colonial America, Teaching history, tagged Christopher Columbus on October 11, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Here’s an item from the AP on how today’s schoolteachers are giving their students “a more nuanced picture of Columbus than the noble discoverer often portrayed in pop culture and legend.”
Anybody else having a hard time thinking of instances in which Columbus has been ”often portrayed in pop culture” at all these days, let alone nobly?
If that’s [...]
Civil War at the Gap
Posted in Civil War, Museums and Historic Sites, tagged Civil War, Cumberland Gap on October 9, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When you hear “Cumberland Gap,” you probably think of Daniel Boone and the role the pass played in westward expansion. But the Gap has quite a Civil War history, too. It was the right anchor of the Confederacy’s defensive line in the West and changed hands four times.
This weekend Cumberland Gap National Historical Park is hosting a [...]
Cynicism in the classroom
Posted in American Revolution, Teaching history, tagged American Revolution on October 5, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
When I taught a course on the American Revolution last year, we spent a lot of time talking about the ideas that shaped American responses to British colonial policy in the 1760’s. There were several important ideological factors at work in American political thought during that period—a mistrust of power, a pervasive fear of conspiracies, [...]
Saving a Civil War site in Knoxville
Posted in Civil War, Historic Preservation, Tennessee History, tagged Civil War Knoxville, Knoxville on October 1, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
I was down in Knoxville this evening and picked up an issue of Metro Pulse, a weekly paper on life in and around the city. There was an interesting story on an effort to preserve a site associated with Longstreet’s unsuccessful attempt to take the city in the fall of 1863. Here’s an online version if you’d like [...]
