Your Weekly Dose of History

     In recent decades, it seems that scammers and con-artists of all kinds are becoming more and more common – they have become a part of our everyday lives, though spam calls and Trojan horse attacks. However, it is of my opinion that despite becoming more prevalent, the art of scamming has entered a dark age compared to the scope and grandiosity of past swindlers. Don’t believe me? Let me introduce the subject of today’s discussion – that time when a guy made up a whole country. The Venezuelan War of Independence, a bloody affair lasting a mighty 13 years, featured some of the most well-known characters in South American history: Simón Bolívar, Cristóbal Mendoza, and José Antonio Páez. However, it also featured the main character of our story today – Gregor MacGregor, a Scotchman born in 1786, in Stirlingshire. Joining the army at the tender age of 16, and retiring from service seven years later, he would come to fight in the Venezuelan War of Independence after ...

"Andy and his prime minister": Painted lantern slide shows Andrew Johnson drinking with the devil (Liljenquist Collection) On March 4th, 1865, Andrew Johnson, soon to be pronounced the vice-president of the United States for his second term, gave one of the most infamous speeches in the history of inaugural addresses in American history. Why? Because right before his speech, he purported had – not one, not two, but three tumblerfuls of whiskey, un-watered and un-iced. Weeks before that fateful day, it seems that Johnson had been struck by an unknown illness. There were repots that said the illness was typhoid, though other reports claim that it was a cold. Whatever the case, Johnson was undeterred, and pressed on towards the capital. Later, during his brief stop at Cincinnati, it was said that Johnson actually gave a speech, which, though its contents are lost, we have a pretty good sense of the overall impression the speech gave. As the Manitowoc Pilot stated, ...