Category: history
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The home of Jean Baptiste Point DuSable, Chicago’s first settler. Chicago’s Beginnings In the early 1800s, the city that we now know as Chicago, was a small community and an important center of the fur trade. The city began as a trading post where the Potawatomi would provide pelts and information to the traders in…
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By the year 1828, Chicago was in the midst of a great transformation that would take the lakeside village and literally reshape its horizon. The fur trade began shuttering its windows and closing its doors, and Chicago, along with the times, changed and grew accordingly. With the end of the fur trade, so would come…
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Hammurabi’s Legacy At the time of his death, Hammurabi, the sixth king of Babylon, had complete rule over the lands of Mesopotamia. The first few decades of his rule were peaceful, and during this period of respite from war, Hammurabi dedicated himself to the improvement of his capital in Babylon. Walls were made higher for…
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The British Museum, London Mesopotamia When we first think of modern-day Western Asia, our first thoughts are of a region barren of trees, a hot dry desert, a place of heat and sand, but it wasn’t always that way. History knows this region as Mesopotamia, the Land Between Two Rivers. It was a beautiful place,…
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The Black Hawk War The Black Hawk War, like other wars throughout history, was not fought because of hatred and love for violence, but rather, for land. The US government wanted to expand its territory, and the Native Americans wished to retain their homeland. Treaties were signed, often peaceably, and yet, those same treaties were…
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Massacre at Fort Dearborn University of Chicago Looking Back To recap my first installment, Mud Lake: The Future Home of Fort Dearborn, Captain Whistler, who planned and constructed the first real settlement at Fort Dearborn, was called back to Detroit in 1810. He was replaced by Captain Nathan Heald, who is best remembered for being…
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Mud Lake, 1833 Father Pierre Charlevoix The first historical mention of Chicago (in writing) can be found in a report written by Father Pierre Charlevoix in 1671; “Chicagou at the Lower End of Lake Michigan”. Father Charlevoix, a French Jesuit Priest, was also a historian and explorer. Some even say that he was a spy,…
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Travels through the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys are filled with scenic landscapes, views that might be passed by with nothing more than a second glance at the beauty they bestow. Upon careful inspection, you might notice the rolling slope of a hill; if you’re paying particular attention to the signs along the road, you might…
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Poulnabrone Dolmen, County Clare, Ireland. 4000-3000 BC- Dolmen means stone table Transition Before the onset of the New Stone Age, humanity lived in minuscule groupings without permanent homes. Their societies were mobile, endlessly making their way through new terrain as they pursued game and searched for edible plant life. It is hard to imagine their…
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Thousands of years ago, the Earth was a very different place. The northern part of the world was covered by thick sheets of ice; the animals were far larger than any we have ever seen, and they were covered in long wooly hair that afforded them warmth and protection. The ice and frigid cold caused…
History Belongs To Us 