the front is already erased but i know its from the US marine corps. i wanted to know the year is possible. or if they were bought or used by the marine...any info at all would be great :)

Sundown towns are usually discussed as part of America’s past, but a new study suggests that history may still be visible in the present.

Researchers compared more than 1.3 million White respondents across U.S. counties and found slightly higher levels of racial bias in counties that once had sundown towns.

The study cannot show that the history itself caused today’s attitudes. Still, I thought it was interesting that a weak signal could still be detected decades later.

How much do you think a town’s history still shapes its culture and attitudes today?

In May 1856, Brown and several followers pulled five pro-slavery settlers from their homes near Pottawatomie Creek in Kansas and killed them with broadswords. The victims weren’t in combat. Not all of them had personally participated in the recent attack on the free-state town of Lawrence that Brown cited as justification. There was no trial, no warning, and no real attempt to target people directly responsible for specific acts.

Three years later he raided a federal armory at Harpers Ferry with eighteen men, intending to spark a slave rebellion across the South. The first person killed during that raid was Heyward Shepherd, a free Black railroad worker who encountered the raiders and was shot.

Both of those details tend to get buried in the broader argument about what Brown represents.

His actual philosophical position was more coherent than people usually give him credit for. He argued that if American colonists had the right to take up arms against a government that denied their liberties, there was no principled basis for condemning enslaved people who did the same. In 1858 he wrote a Provisional Constitution for his liberation movement that explicitly invoked the Declaration of Independence. He wasn’t being rhetorical. He thought the Revolution had established principles the country had refused to honor and that violence was the logical consequence of that failure.

Frederick Douglass knew Brown personally, considered him one of the most committed abolitionists he had ever met, and still refused to join the Harpers Ferry raid because he thought attacking a federal arsenal would bring overwhelming military retaliation before any liberation movement could develop. He was right. But Douglass also said later that Brown had done more in dying than most men do in living.

Brown’s conduct during his trial shifted public opinion more than the raid itself had. He was calm, direct, and completely unrepentant about his intentions if not his failure. His address to the court before sentencing forced people to confront a straightforward question: slavery was legal and protected by the Constitution, while attempting to destroy it was a capital crime. Whether that made Brown a criminal or the law itself the problem was something Americans had to work out for themselves.

He was hanged on December 2, 1859. Sixteen months later the Civil War began.

The full historical record is at virtualwayback.com/blog/john-brown-hero-or-villain and you can talk directly to Brown on Virtual Wayback if you want to hear him make the case in his own words.

The question worth actually debating: does the moral clarity of Brown’s position on slavery change how you evaluate Pottawatomie, or are those two things entirely separate judgments?

--- 1867: Possession of Alaska was formally transferred from Russia to the United States. Secretary of State William Henry Seward engineered the purchase of Alaska for $7.2 million.

--- 1972: Clean Water Act became law in the U.S.

--- 1931: Thomas Edison died in West Orange, New Jersey.

--- 1939: Lee Harvey Oswald was born in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was just 24 years old when he shot President Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963.

--- "JFK Assassination". That is the title of the two-part episode of my podcast: History Analyzed. If you have an open and reasonable mind (meaning you are willing to listen and consider the evidence and arguments — there are some people that cannot be convinced no matter what evidence they are shown), I can convince you there was NO conspiracy. Lee Harvey Oswald killed President Kennedy and acted alone. Part 1 (41 minutes) covers the events of November 22-24, 1963, from Oswald shooting from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository to Jack Ruby’s assassination of Oswald and starts to systematically discredit the main conspiracy theories with direct evidence. Part 2 (47 minutes) dismantles the remaining conspiracy theories and demonstrates why the Warren Commission was correct in its findings. You can find History Analyzed on every podcast app.

--- link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7jv76tTd2RcLR8pH1oevrC

--- link to Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/jfk-assassination-part-1/id1632161929?i=1000568077449

On This Day, October 18, 1931, the world lost Thomas Alva Edison, the American inventor whose work helped transform how people lived, communicated, and experienced the modern world.

Edison died at his home, Glenmont, in West Orange, New Jersey, at 3:21 a.m.

But his story had begun far from the laboratories and international fame that would define his life.

Born in Ohio in 1847, Edison received only a short period of formal schooling. Much of his early education came from his mother, and his curiosity eventually led him into the world of telegraphy and electrical technology.

Rather than simply accepting how things worked, Edison spent years experimenting, testing ideas, and trying to make existing technologies more practical.

In 1877, he became internationally famous for the phonograph—a machine capable of recording and reproducing sound.

For the first time, people could hear recorded voices and sounds played back from a device.

It was a breakthrough that earned him the nickname “The Wizard of Menlo Park.”

Then came one of the most influential chapters of his career.

In 1879, Edison and his team developed a practical incandescent lighting system. His achievements went beyond the lamp itself: he also helped develop the electrical distribution equipment needed to bring electric lighting into everyday life.

In 1882, his Pearl Street Station in New York City began supplying electricity to customers, helping demonstrate how a central power system could serve homes and businesses.

His work also contributed to the development of motion-picture technology, improved batteries, and many other inventions.

But Edison’s career was not the work of one man alone. His laboratories depended on teams of skilled workers, experimenters, and collaborators whose contributions helped turn ideas into practical technologies.

By the end of his life, Edison had received 1,093 U.S. patents.

Yet even in his eighties, he had not stopped experimenting.

One of his final major projects involved searching for a domestic source of natural rubber. He tested thousands of plants, hoping to reduce American dependence on imported rubber for products such as automobile tires.

He was still pursuing this research when his health declined.

Then, in the early hours of October 18, 1931, his remarkable life came to an end.

His death was widely mourned. In tribute, President Herbert Hoover called for Americans to observe a moment of silence, and at 10 p.m. on October 21, many people and businesses across the United States briefly turned off their lights.

It was a symbolic gesture for a man whose life's work had helped make electric lighting part of modern life.

Thomas Edison was not responsible for every invention associated with his name, and many technologies he helped popularize had been developed by others before him.

But his ability to experiment, improve existing ideas, and build systems that could reach millions of people left an extraordinary mark on history.

He spent a lifetime turning experiments into inventions—and helped change the way the modern world lived.

The space shuttle Endeavour, which was retired from service in 2011, was transported on a modified Boeing 747 plane to its final home at the California Science Center in Los Angeles, but first made a stop in San Francisco and flew over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, creating an image that combines space engineering with civil engineering.

--- 1989: A 6.9 magnitude earthquake hit the San Francisco Bay area during game 3 of the World Series featuring the two local teams: the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics. (Note: I was working on the 16th floor of an office building in downtown Los Angeles at the time the earthquake struck. The miniblinds started tapping against my window. I realized it was an earthquake and turned on the radio to see where the epicenter was. When the news said that it was in the Bay Area, I knew this was serious since I could feel it over 350 miles/560 km away.)

--- Please listen to my podcast, History Analyzed, on all podcast apps.

--- link to Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6yoHz9s9JPV51WxsQMWz0d

--- link to Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-analyzed/id1632161929

I forgot I gave this to him. Just some history.

On This Day, October 17, 1777, one of the most extraordinary moments of the American Revolutionary War unfolded in Saratoga, New York. A British army laid down its weapons in one of the most important turning points of the American Revolution.

After months of fighting, British General John Burgoyne and his exhausted army faced a desperate situation.

Their mission had been ambitious: advance south from Canada, capture key positions along the Hudson River, and divide the rebellious American colonies from one another.

If successful, the plan could have dealt a devastating blow to the American struggle for independence.

But things did not go as planned.

American forces resisted the British advance in two major battles near Saratoga. The first took place on September 19, 1777, and the second on October 7.

Burgoyne's army suffered heavy losses, its advance stalled, and its hopes of receiving the support it needed began to fade.

Surrounded and with no reliable escape route, the British commander found himself running out of options.

Negotiations began.

Then, on October 17, Burgoyne's army marched out and surrendered its weapons to the American forces commanded by General Horatio Gates.

Nearly 6,000 British and German troops laid down their arms in a stunning defeat for the British war effort.

For the American revolutionaries, this was far more than a battlefield victory.

It proved that their army could defeat a major British force—and gave fresh hope to a revolution that was far from guaranteed to succeed.

But the consequences reached far beyond the battlefield.

Across the Atlantic, France saw an opportunity.

The American victory helped convince the French government that the revolutionaries had a genuine chance of defeating Britain. In February 1778, France formally allied itself with the United States, providing crucial military and financial support.

The war was no longer simply a struggle between Britain and its rebellious colonies. It had become a much wider international conflict.

That support would help pave the way toward the eventual American victory at Yorktown in 1781.

In 1783, Britain formally recognized American independence.

The surrender at Saratoga did not win the revolution by itself.

But it changed the course of the war and helped transform the American fight for independence into a cause backed by a powerful international ally.

One surrender. One turning point. A different future for a nation.

In February 1862 Capt. Quincy Gillmore was sent to Tybee Island to do what the experts said couldn't be done. Fort Pulaski's brick walls sat 1 to 2.5 miles away, and the thinking was that guns had no chance against heavy masonry beyond 1,000 yards. The Army's chief engineer, Joseph Totten, compared the fort to the Rocky Mountains. Robert E. Lee told the fort's commander, Col. Charles Olmstead, the Tybee guns couldn't open the walls at that distance.

Gillmore's men built 11 batteries at night, whispering and taking signals by whistle, and camouflaged the work before dawn. He had 10 experimental rifled cannon, and three key rifles fired from 1,640 yards. They opened on 10 April, and by 2:30 the next afternoon Olmstead gave up the fort. Gillmore was breveted brigadier general for it.

The lidar shows the five-sided fort right of centre, a triangular earthwork on its west side and the flat band of the moat around both.

1. Recent air photo of the same area, 2024
2. Fort Pulaski and its moat on Cockspur Island

Numbered pins on picture 2:
Pin 1: Inside the five-sided fort
Pin 2: The triangular earthwork west of fort
Pin 3: The flat moat band

Imagery: Coastal Regional Commission of Georgia (CRC), 2024.
Lidar: USGS 3D Elevation Program (3DEP), public domain.

On This Day, October 16, 1846, a landmark medical demonstration took place at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, USA, helping launch the modern era of surgical anesthesia.

Before reliable anesthesia became available, major operations were often terrifying ordeals. Patients could experience excruciating pain while surgeons worked under immense pressure to finish as quickly as possible.

Then came a dentist named William Thomas Green Morton.

Morton had been experimenting with ether, a chemical whose vapor could render patients unconscious or insensitive to pain. He believed it could transform surgery.

On that historic day, Morton administered ether to Edward Gilbert Abbott, a 20-year-old printer who had a vascular growth beneath his jaw.

The operation was performed by renowned surgeon Dr. John Collins Warren before an audience of medical professionals.

As Warren operated, Abbott showed no obvious signs of experiencing the severe pain normally associated with such a procedure.

When the operation was over, Abbott reported that he had felt no pain during the surgery.

Warren reportedly turned to the watching doctors and declared,

“Gentlemen, this is no humbug.”

Those words became forever associated with the demonstration.

News of the procedure spread rapidly, encouraging doctors around the world to investigate the use of anesthesia in surgery.

The breakthrough did not happen in isolation. Other physicians had experimented with pain relief before Morton’s demonstration, including American surgeon Crawford Long, who had used ether during operations in 1842.

Nevertheless, the public demonstration in Boston became a crucial turning point in the acceptance and development of surgical anesthesia.

Over time, anesthesia helped make longer, more complex operations possible and transformed the experience of surgery for countless patients.

Today, October 16, is commemorated as World Anaesthesia Day, honoring the medical milestone that helped change surgery forever.

The cups had 'AuH2O' on them.