I haven’t made a history post in a while, so I thought I’d post another little known fact about St. Louis history.
On August 26, 1856 Benjamin Gratz Brown, a newspaper editor, future United States Senator, and future governor faced Thomas C. Reynolds, a United States district attorney and future lieutenant governor, on the field of honor. The duel was the outcome of several years of bitter political disagreements resulting from editorials published in the Missouri Democrat.
Brown strongly supported the emancipation of slaves and Reynolds sympathized with the slaveholders. The first planned duel was never fought because the near-sighted Reynolds could not agree to Brown’s choice of rifles at eighty paces.
A year passed, and tempers flared again. Brown accused Reynolds of not honoring the first challenge. Reynolds retaliated by “posting” Brown and publicly charging him with cowardice. Brown challenged and Reynolds accepted.
“But because dueling was now against the law in Missouri, the two men agreed to take boats to a small island in the Mississippi River, nicknamed “Bloody Island.” The two met in the morning and held their duel. But this was interesting in ways that we can’t understand in the 21st Century, it was truly an affair of honor,” said CEO of the Missouri Historical Society, Robert Archibald.
Brown was shot in the leg and limped for the rest of his life. Reynolds sustained no injuries.
Brown was elected to the United States Senate in 1863 and became Governor of Missouri in 1870. In 1872, he ran as the vice-presidential candidate on the ticket with Horace Greeley and lost to incumbent Ulysses S. Grant and Henry Wilson.
Reynolds was elected Lieutenant Governor of Missouri in 1860 and later served as second Confederate governor of Missouri.
Bloody Island continued to grow through the early 1800s and threatened to land-lock the levee and the harbor of St. Louis. So, the Army Corps of Engineers under Captain Robert E. Lee devised a system of dikes and dams that did away with the western channel and joined the Island to the Illinois shore. Throughout the nineteenth century, Bloody Island had been a popular rendezvous for duelists. The island appeared as dueling became popular in Missouri, and sank back into obscurity as pistols ceased to be an acceptable means of settling differences. (via KSDK)
Don’t you sometimes wish dueling was still legal? I could thing of a few people I’d like to challenge.
Getting My Master’s Degree
I received a flyer in my mailbox at school this morning for the University of Missouri’s online Master’s degree programs. One of the programs quickly grabbed my attention: Educational Technology. This is something I’ve really been interested in the past few years. I’m always looking at new tools that may be useful in the classroom, whether they be historical map overlays for Google Earth, timeline creators, or webquests. There are so many tools out there that would be great in the classroom. It motivates students in ways that standard lectures and worksheets can’t. So, after doing some research on MU’s site, I’ve decided this is definitely what I think my Master’s degree should be in. Now I just have to figure out how I’m going to pay for it.
St. Louis History: I Challenge You to a Duel!
I haven’t made a history post in a while, so I thought I’d post another little known fact about St. Louis history.
Don’t you sometimes wish dueling was still legal? I could thing of a few people I’d like to challenge.
What Will Happen to Flickr?
Ever since Microsoft began its attempt to takeover Yahoo I started thinking about the future of Flickr. That’s really the only Yahoo service I use (and I pay for). Microsoft does not have a good history with web services. Yeah, at the beginning of the web everyone had a Hotmail account, but they quickly fell behind in the times with that. They couldn’t keep up with the features and storage of other competitors, like Yahoo and Google. It seems that every attempt they’ve made has failed. Does anyone actually use Microsoft’s Spaces? Can anyone actually find anything via their Live Search? Personally, I think Microsoft’s Live search has to be the worst search engine out there.
I know thinking that Microsoft going in and breaking a winning formula (winning in the user’s views, not necessarily in the business sense) probably isn’t going to happen, but it is Microsoft. I don’t have much faith in them. No, they won’t rewrite Flickr to use ASP.NET or something crazy like that, but I do worry about what they can do to mess up Flickr. I also think that a lot of the passionate Flickr users, especially the ones that were there pre-Yahoo, will definitely not like the change of hands and move to a new photo service. I really wish Google would spend some time developing their Picasa and Picasa Web services, up the storage allotment, and make it a real competitor in the online photo storage market. It has great potential, and with Microsoft trying to take over Yahoo, now would be the perfect time for them to woo users. Of course, I may just be paranoid about what will happen to Flickr, but it’s a service I pay for and a place where I store my photos, so I do wonder about the future. Do I really want to feed my money and data to Microsoft? Not likely. If Microsoft buys Yahoo, will you stay with Flickr? Will you move somewhere else? If so, where?
15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense
Here is a great article article from Scientific American. It’s a shame when people throw away logic for fairy tales, myths, and fables. I have to wonder where this country is going. Seems each year a foaming at the mouth religious nut is attacking science and scientific facts. People really are clueless when religion gets thrown into the mix. How else do you explain how stupid people are for believing that dinosaurs and man walked side by side? I’m sick of it. There is a reason the time period where religion flourished and logic and reason subsided was called The Dark Ages. Then came the Enlightenment, an age of reason. Is America heading towards another Dark Age? If you’re religious, fine, that is your right, but don’t come preaching to me and don’t put it in the science class.
There’s a Whole Lotta Sleepin’ Goin’ On
So, at around 4:30 this morning Missouri and Illinois experienced an earthquake that registered 5.2 on the Richter scale. Everyone on the news and at work this morning was talking about it. I slept through it. Didn’t even wake me up slightly. I’m kinda bummed. Besides that tiny earthquake (around a 2) I experienced when I was like 10, I’ve never been in one. I would have liked to feel it a bit, just for the experience. It seems that no matter what nature throws at me, I can sleep through it. While in college, a tornado touched down on campus and caused a fair amount of damage. Everyone was talking about it. It made the news in St. Louis (I went to MSU in Springfield, MO) and my mom even called me to ask if I was ok. I had no idea what she was talking about and was upset she woke me up during my between-class nap. In the future nature, if you want to wake me up, you’re gonna have to try a little harder than a 5.2.