Edgar Allan Poe Wrote A Short Story Based On An Actual Murder

The poet and author, Edgar Allan Poe, worked several jobs in or around New York City during his life. While he was there, Poe, along with other writers and reporters, frequented a tobacco shop owned by a Mr. John Anderson. Surprisingly, many of John Anderson’s customers were not venturing into his shop for the fine selection of cigars. Instead, most of the men were lining up to talk to Anderson’s star employee, the twenty-year-old Mary Rogers. Young Mary was a woman of legendary beauty, and the promise of catching a glimpse of her was more than enough enticement to lure in an eager crowd. Edgar Allan Poe was not the only famous writer who was lured by her beauty into the tobacco store; James Fenimore Cooper and Washington Irving also took the bait and went to see Miss Rogers.

  ((Newspaper Clipping) Mary Rogers, the cigar girl, murdered at Hoboken, July 25, 1841 via The New York Public Library Digital Collections)

During the time she was working at John Anderson’s tobacco store, Mary Rogers lived in a New York City boarding house located on Nassau Street, which was run by her mother. On a fateful day, Mary voiced her desire to travel from New York to New Jersey. The reason that she gave to her family and to her fiancé, a certain Daniel Payne, was that she wanted to meet up with relatives. Therefore, on Sunday, July 25, 1841, Mary Rogers set off from her home to undertake what would become a one-way journey.

The United States Government Experimented With Camels In The 19th Century

George H. Crosman is credited as the first man to suggest that camels could be a valuable asset if utilized by the U. S. military in dry, desert regions of the United States. He first brought up this point in 1836, when he was a lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He claimed that camels would be unaffected by America’s most arid climates, and would also require less feed or water than the horses and mules already used by the government. Despite these fair points, Lt. Crosman’s ideas were rejected and shelved by the United States for more than a decade.

In 1847, after Crosman achieved the rank of Major, he once again brought up the idea of caravans of camels traveling westward, through the plains and deserts of the new lands claimed or conquered by the United States in North America. This time, Crosman fully convinced Major Henry C. Wayne, who conveniently worked in the Quartermaster Department. Maj. Wayne forwarded the idea to the War Department and to Congress, where it fell on the sympathetic ears of Mississippi Senator Jefferson Davis, the future president of the rebellious Confederate States of America. At the time, Davis did not yet have enough clout to bring Crosman’s dream to reality, but the senator did not forget the suggestion.

The Killer WWII Dogs Of Cat Island

During the Second World War, all the warring countries were looking for an edge in their war effort, be it through machinery and science, new methods of personnel training or, unfortunately, even experimental drug-use. While most military research and development funding went to the tried and true necessities, such as weaponry, tanks, airplanes and ships, the war-torn countries of the world were also open to investigating more abnormal methods of warfare. Looking for any and every way to win the war, some countries invested their resources into turning mankind’s furry, four-legged best friends into trained man-killers.

During WWII, A United States Serviceman Became A Serial Strangler In Australia

(Photograph of Edward Leonsky taken prior to 1942, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

Private Edward Joseph Leonski, also known as Eddie, was one of around 15,000 U. S. military personnel stationed in Melbourne, Australia in 1942 during the midst of World War II. Yet, unlike the other thousands of U.S. troops, the twenty-four-year-old Edward Leonski was a serial killer who would go on a murder spree, ending the lives of three innocent women.

There Was An Incredible Amount Of Military Technological Advancement In the Decades Leading Up To World War I

(75mm pack howitzer M1920, c. 1921 [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

By the end of the 19th century, into the early 20th century, the weapons of warfare were evolving at an alarming rate. Guns, explosives and machines were becoming increasingly more lightweight, powerful and exponentially more deadly. The tragedy of the situation was that very few people knew just how devastating many of these new weapons would be when a major war broke out. True, there were many wars in the years before World War One— such as the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the Boer Wars (1880-1881 and 1889-1902), the Spanish-American War (1898), and the Ruso-Japanese War (1904-1905). Yet, in these wars, countries often remained doubtful about the new weaponry in their arsenals, and were still in a phase of experimentation and implementation. By the start of WWI in 1914, however, most major powers had adopted the latest guns, artillery, explosives, ships and planes, resulting in a Great War the likes of which the world had never before seen.

U. S. General William T. Sherman Was Shipwrecked Twice In One Day During One Odd And Unbelievable Adventure

(General William Tecumseh Sherman from 1865 in front of a sinking ship painted by painting by Willy Stöwer (* 1864; † 1931), [Public Domain] via Creative Commons)

In early 1853, William Tecumseh Sherman was a captain of the United States Commissary Department, but he was looking for a change in profession. Around this time, some buddies sent Sherman an invitation to join a banking venture named Lucas, Turner & Co. Sherman enjoyed, and was comfortable in, his military life, but admitted that he would not mind a higher wage. Therefore, he petitioned his superiors for leave to journey to California to meet with his potential business partners and assess their banking operation.

From his location in New Orleans, Sherman boarded a steamship heading toward Nicaragua. Once he had arrived there, the passengers took smaller boats across the Nicaragua River and Lake, and made the rest of the voyage to San Juan del Sur by mule.

Now the passengers were ready to depart Nicaragua for California. Sherman boarded the propeller ship, S. S. Lewis, which Sherman later remembered was commanded by Captain Partridge. For the voyage, Sherman was given his own stateroom with three berths located on the deck of the ship. Little did Sherman know, however, just how dramatic his sea voyage upon the S. S. Lewis would turn out to be.

Strange, But Successful—The Inchon Landing

This extremely effective military operation turned the tide of the Korean War.

War After War

At the end of World War II, Japan lost control of the empire it had acquired throughout the Pacific Ocean. One of the regions that gained freedom after WWII was Korea. Like much of the rest of the post-war world, Korea was divided between communism (in the north) and capitalist democracy (in the south). Though Japan had been expelled from Korea, and World War II was over, peace did not last long—in June, 1950, North Korea invaded the south, catching the South Korean military inexcusably by surprise.

(With her brother on the back a war weary Korean girl trudges by a stalled M-26 tank, at Haengju, Korea. c. June 9,1951. Maj R. V. Spencer, USAF, [Public Domain-US] via Creative Commons)

The Successful Failure of Pearl Harbor

Though Pearl Harbor was a victorious surprise attack for Japan, they missed their most vital targets.

Ascent Of An Empire

The Pearl Harbor attack, a day in which thousands of lives were tragically lost, will continue to ‘live in infamy’ within the hearts and minds of many citizens of the United States. The attack’s position of high notoriety has only recently been usurped by the horrendous terrorist attacks of 9/11. Like the al-Qaeda atrocity, the attack on Pearl Harbor first shocked the American population, and when their minds were cleared of the immediate grief, quickly unified the United States for war.

(Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii on December 7, 1941, just as the USS Shaw exploded, owned by the US government, [Public Domain-US] via Creative Commons)

Military Coups and Massacres in Indonesia

The Rise of the Suharto Regime and the Unimaginable Mass Murder of Around 1,000,000 Indonesians

The Quagmire of Independence

The Indonesian people began making huge leaps and bounds toward independence in one of the most tumultuous centuries in recorded history—the 20^th century. In that bloody span of 100 years, there were two World Wars, a Cold War of ideologies, and numerous contained wars, where the United States, the Soviet Union and China battled it out within smaller, allied states, such as Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan. It was a time when every nation believed their own philosophy to be superior, and all countries were pressured to pick sides—Allies or Axis, NATO or Warsaw, capitalist or communist. Unfortunately for Indonesia, this was the world stage that their country was thrown into when they declared their independence.

(President Sukarno in Washington D.C. in 1956, photographed by Warren K. Leffler, U.S. News & World Report [Public Domain in U.S.], via Creative Commons)

The Artist That Painted Britain Orange and Red

The 18^th century revolutionary arsonist—Jack the Painter

Centuries ago, one man terrorized the streets of Britain. Fearful citizens organized into patrols to keep their cities safe. The King, government councils, and even private citizens, offered monetary rewards for the capture of this particular individual. The alias of this perpetrator was Jack. This was not Jack the Ripper—no, this was Jack the Painter, who went on a rampage of arson in 1776.

(Illustration of Scottish John the Painter circa 1777 [Public Domain], via Wikimedia Commons)

Strange, But Successful, War Tactics—The Wandering Soul of Vietnam

The Psyops successful failure in the Vietnam War

A Culture of Resistance

In the 19^th century, Vietnam was under French colonial rule, but the Vietnamese were never a country content with occupying powers. Vietnam has one of the most impressive military records of any country in existence—for hundreds of years, the powerful Chinese Empire ruled the Vietnamese lands in Southern Asia, but Vietnam broke free of China and even repelled the Mongols of Kublai Khan.

 

(Ho Chi Minh c.1946, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons (user Palosirkka))

Strange, But Successful, War Strategies—Japan’s WWII Bicycle Infantry

The Japanese literally pedaled their way to victory in the Battle of Singapore

(Bicycle-mounted Japanese troops in the Philippines c. 1941-1942, via Creative Commons)

The military has always recognized the necessity of speed and mobility in waging effective warfare. This need was fulfilled from antiquity until around the First World War by cavalrymen on horseback. When the World Wars arrived, horses were quickly exchanged for more mechanical means of mobile warfare. Tanks, armored personnel carriers and powerful aircraft replaced the role of the horseman. In the brief, frenzied transition period of the outdated horse cavalry into the mechanized military of today, many machines were put to the test. Just as aircraft designs progressed from tri-planes, to bi-planes and finally jets, the military ground forces also developed many iterations of machines to improve upon the mobility of the horse. One of the least remembered replacements of the horse was the bicycle, and few countries used the bicycle better in war than the Japanese.