Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign has revived interest in little-known aspects (to non-Mormons, anyway) of Mormon history. The “Utah War" of 1857-1858 certainly qualifies as one. The "war," which was relatively bloodless (aside from the tangentially related Mountain Meadows massacre) and devoid of battles between the two sides, was highly unnecessary and was ultimately an incredible display of miscommunication and misunderstanding.

The Mormons, after a trouble-ridden past of persecution in Missouri and Illinois, had moved west and begun to settle in Salt Lake Valley, Utah, in the summer of 1847. Mormon religious beliefs and practices, amongst them polygamy (which was not practiced by all Mormons), had earned the Mormons the disgust and distrust of many Americans, setting the stage for continuing conflict. At the time Utah was an American territory, and though President Millard Fillmore made a concession in granting Brigham Young (a Mormon) governorship of the territory, a number of other federal officials were appointed to the territorial administration. This situation proved problematic as the officials frowned upon Mormon practices as alien, and in turn the Mormons did not enjoy the administration of these outsiders. The circumstances lead many officials to abandon their posts and leave Utah after clashing with Young over questions of administration.

Things came to a head around 1856-57. The Mormons had had a particularly bad experience with William W. Drummond, a federal appointee to the Supreme Court of Utah who criticized polygamists while leading a questionable lifestyle of his own. He cracked down on Mormon courts, which were being used by the Mormons in place of official government courts. Feeling threatened, Drummond eventually left Salt Lake City, as did his ally, Judge George P. Stiles, who also had a tumultuous relationship with the Mormons (who, in an effort to intimidate him, threatened to burn his law library).

Reports from the officials who left the territory reached the ear of the President James Buchanan. In that period, slavery and the question of popular sovereignty were hot and dangerous topics. Republicans equated Democratic support for popular sovereignty over slavery with support for tolerating Mormon polygamy and church-dominated territorial goverment. As such, Democrats, Buchanan included, were eager to prove otherwise, and with exaggerated reports coming in about the situation in Utah, Buchanan acted. Believing the Mormons to be in a state of rebellion, Buchanan appointed a new federal governor and new federal judges for Utah, and in June of 1857 ordered a military force of 2,500 men to be dispatched to protect the appointees and establish a federal military presence in Utah. However, Buchanan and his administration neglected to provide Young with neither advance official notification of his replacement, nor of the mission given to the task force. (Captain Stewart Van Vliet was sent ahead of the army to notify Young of the situation, but his information was not complete and as the army already was on the march, Young and other Mormon leaders were not convinced of the mission’s peaceful intentions.)

The end result was that Brigham Young, without formal instructions from the Buchanan administration, believed the approaching army to be one of conquest, sent to persecute and destroy the Mormons. Consequently, Young made preparations to hold off the federal forces and protect as many Mormons as possible. Young declared martial law, ordered defensive positions to be established and called up the Nauvoo Legion to fight the federals, but he was actually more predisposed to a strategy of destroying all resources before the army and retreating, rather than one of confrontation. There would ultimately be no genuine battles, though the U.S. army group, harassed by raiding Mormons, was stalled and suffered under horrible conditions throughout the winter of 1857-58. In the end, the standoff was brought to an end through negotiations in June of 1858. Young peacefully turned over his power to his replacement, Alfred Cumming.

The suspicious nature of Tycho Brahe's death in 1601, and Johannes Kepler's possible role in his end, constitutes one of history's greatest unsolved murder mysteries.  The question has produced many claims from the plausible to the extraordinary, but it appears that while Kepler may in fact have had some motive for killing his superior, the evidence does not definitively point to him.  Kepler's involvement is just one of three reasonable theories.  The second suggests that his death was accidental; the final theory proposing that the perpetrator was in fact his cousin, Erik Brahe, working as a part of a broader conspiracy.

Tycho Brahe (1546-1601) was the famous and gifted Danish astronomer of the sixteenth century who contributed to the beginning of modern astronomy.  He made key observations of Mars and many stars, using his own personal observatory but without the use of a telescope (which had yet to be invented), and argued for his own version of the Copernican model.  Towards the end of his life, Brahe gained a notable assistant for his work on Mars, Johannes Kepler (1571-1630).  However, the two did not enjoy a particularly friendly relationship due to Brahe's condescending attitude as well as his withholding of the mass of his data about Mars from Kepler.  While it may be unlikely that Kepler desired to kill Brahe for any insults suffered, some wonder whether if Kepler may have killed him to obtain his data, which Kepler needed to validate his own theories.  Indeed, Kepler's seizure of Brahe's work after his death confirms this suspicion for many.  But at the same time, Brahe's efforts to have Kepler made an imperial mathematician under Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II, in part to advance his own agenda, complicates these calculations as Kepler likely would not have eliminated his crucial, reputable supporter for the position if he truly wanted the job.

The common explanation for Brahe's death at the time—the one that Kepler himself put forth—was that at the banquet at the Holy Roman Emperor's court in Prague that Brahe attended several days before his death, Brahe desperately had to urinate but did not do so, not wanting to be leave and be impolite.  This caused some sort of urinary infection which killed him eleven days later.  This tale has been overshadowed by the 1991 discovery of high levels of mercury present in Brahe's body in the last few days of his life.  (As mercury is well known to be quite dangerous to humans, the discovery has in turn led to the belief that Brahe’s cause of death can be traced back to the kidneys rather than the bladder.)  For those who believe that Kepler killed Brahe, given the questionable story he offered, his physical proximity in Brahe's final days, and his actions after Brahe's death, the discovery of the mercury levels appeared to provide confirmation of a murder and even an indication of the murder weapon.

Joshua and Anne-Lee Gilder, authors of Heavenly Intrigue: Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe and the Murder Behind One of History's Greatest Scientific Discoveries and promoters of the Kepler-as-murderer theory have suggested that there was a second, heavier and ultimately lethal dose of mercury given by Kepler, who would have had access to Brahe's laboratory and chemicals.  However, the fact of mercury poisoning is not enough to convict Kepler.  Kepler could have been accidentally poisoned—it does happen, even today.  Brahe did deal with mercury and other chemicals in his experiments, and at the end he may have ingested mercury in the hope that it would cure him of the ailment that befallen him at the banquet.

Finally, there’s an even more thrilling plot proposed by Peter Andersen, who claimed that Brahe's Swedish cousin, Erik Brahe, at the behest of the Danish king Christian IV.  While Tycho had enjoyed the blessing and support of the previous king of Denmark, who had provided Tycho with the island on which he had built his research institute, his fortunes reversed after the ascension of Christian IV, who had Tycho's castle seized and destroyed.  This, in turn, prompted Tycho to seek the support of the Holy Roman Emperor at whose banquet he fell ill.  The exact cause behind Christian IV's blatant hostility is unknown, but a popular rumor of the time was that Brahe had had an affair with Christian's mother, posing a serious threat to Christian's legitimacy and security as king. Indeed, Erik Brahe, a most dissolute and disreputable figure, met with Christian IV and other enemies of Tycho shortly before Tycho fell ill, and his presence in Tycho's home in the final days of his life (especially after only having become familiar with Tycho earlier that year) and some very questionable entries in Erik's diary around the time point to him as a potential suspect.

While Kepler certainly could have killed Tycho Brahe, it’s also possible that Brahe’s own cousin did the terrible deed. And, of course, it really could have been an accident, prompted by Brahe’s own overly acute sense of decorum.  In the absence of more convincing and definitive evidence, it may never be known if Kepler had a role in his superior's downfall, or indeed if there was a role to be had at all.

There are many stories surrounding the invention of the martini, but it seems that the origins of James Bond's favorite beverage may never be definitively established.

The history of the martini can easily be traced back to the late nineteenth century, when it was first consumed and listed in bartending manuals.  The famous example of this was the drink's appearance in the 1887 manual of bartender Jerry Thomas, of the Occidental Hotel in San Francisco.  This has led to the belief that the drink originated at the hotel bar, possibly as early as the 1860s, where it would have been consumed by travelers heading to the nearby city of Martinez.

However, the city of Martinez has disputed this claim and has listed an alternate story on its website.  It suggests that the drink in fact originated in a prominent bar in Martinez, where it was known as a "Martinez Special." There it was served to a celebrating gold miner on his way to San Francisco, who, after enjoying the drink so much, delivered the recipe to San Francisco when he had to instruct a local bartender on how to make it.

The dispute between these two common theories has even gone beyond passing discussion, as the Court of Historical Review in San Francisco determined that the drink had been concocted in San Francisco.  In return, a court in Martinez overturned this decision.

Yet, others look to the Knickerbocker Hotel in New York, frequented by John D. Rockefeller, as the place of origin of the dry martini, in the early twentieth century. 

It seems safe to say the drink was invented in the middle to late nineteenth century, but exactly who invented the martini is likely to remain the stuff of legend.

Contrary to the popular view, the New Deal did not, at least depending on who you ask.  Some conservative economists believe the New Deal possibly extended its length.  What everybody agrees ended the Great Depression was World War II marked the end of the Great Depression.   Liberal economists point to the vast increase in government spending during the war as a reason for the end of the Depression.  (Of course, organized labor had its own plans for the recovery, and some economists still dispute the centrality of the war in ending the Depression.)

One may ask how on earth a war could bring economic prosperity to a nation.  War is a machination for destruction, not production.  Common results of war include the bombing of buildings and infrastructure, the loss of human lives and an emphasis on the production of war materiel rather than products that actually enhance a person’s status and happiness—like refrigerators, clothes, food, radios and medical advancements.

America was not bombed to pieces.  Besides the atrocities of Pearl Harbor, American land was untouched by the destruction that Europe, Northern Africa and Japan faced.

Factories were geared up and ready from the rapid construction of war materiel.  After the war these factories would transition to building more convenient appliances for Americans. 

Many feared that after the war, the Great Depression would resume.  Therefore, FDR had a long list of reforms he wished to implement.  Harry Truman, who succeeded him just prior to the end of the war,  advocated these reforms, but Congress wouldn't go along.  The New Deal had had long ago run out of steam.  As postwar economy boomed, the pressure for reform dissipated.

In the seventeenth century the Dutch built a wall in New Amsterdam in order to protect its borders from incursions from natives and the occasional pirates.  This same location soon became known as Wall Street; merchants began to reside there, and since the renamed New York was the first U.S. capital, the city and street garnered quite a prominent financial concentration which eventually spread to its legacy.  Because of the assembly of merchants and stockholders on the street, it became more prominently financially linked over the years, until it came to signify the prosperity of America in relation to the rest of the world.

But this bastion of capitalism was built on slave labor:

Slavery began in the city soon after the Dutch landing in 1609, and enslaved Africans became vital to the colony's economy. Africans built the first homes, brought in the first crops, turned an Indian path into Broadway, and built the wall at Wall Street. When it became the British colony of New York its bankers and merchants so successfully invested in the international African trade they made it the slave-traders' leading port. After the Revolution, with the city leading the way, slavery and its profits grew in the land of the free. A greater percentage of white households in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island owned slaves than in South Carolina. The world's first stock exchange opened in New York in 1792 and half of its 177 stockholders owned slaves. Africans were auctioned to bidders at Wall Street and other city markets. Forced labor made the Empire State.

On May 17, 1792 the Buttonwood Agreement was signed, which initiated a much smaller, less inclusive version of the contemporary New York Stock Exchange. And thus the American stock market was developed and elevated over the years.

According to Steven Fraser, in his book Wall Street: America’s Dream Palace, “it is that through the years Wall Street has inspired dreamsand nightmares deep inside American culture, leaving its imprinton the lives of ordinary as well some extraordinary people.”  Throughout American history, Wall Street has represented the most marvelous parts of our nation, like social mobility, but also the most inglorious, immoral aspects, like the unearthing of Ponzi schemes, and corrupt government aid to failing institutions.

Under Andrew Jackson, and throughout the rest of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Wall Street came to signify an essential part of the American Dream.  Those field hands that thrived in America, could always one day hope that they could climb the ladder to Wall Street, for the American Dream proclaimed that anything was possibly in such a free society, where everyone has equal access to wealth.

But images of cupidity are also conjured when we think of Wall Street, perhaps Steven Fraser again says it best when he states that “[t]oday’s crony capitalists can’t help but remind us of those Gilded Age financial aristocrats whose power was so great it threatened to undermine the basic institutions of democratic government.”  Certain perceptions of Wall Street overshadow the others with the fluctuations of the economy.

The development of the Internet can be traced back to 1958, when, in the shadow of the USSR's launch of the Sputnik satellite, the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) was established to research and develop new technology for the United States military.  During the 1960s, computers became increasingly more standard and smaller, the first online networks were established and the ARPA network program began in 1966. Throughout the period there was great theorizing and excitement over the problems, components, and potential military and academic applications of computer networking.

The culmination of these efforts and developments came in October of 1969, when the first ARPANET (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network) host-to-host (meaning independent network-to-independent network) connection was established between the University of California at Los Angeles and the Stanford Research Institute.  This first packet sharing connection between two networks became the cornerstone for what came to be known in the early ‘70s as the Internet.  It was not long until the connection began to be used for email and in 1976, the first commercial email service, Comet, was established.

Many confuse the World Wide Web, a network of Internet websites, with the Internet, a network of computer networks, but the World Wide Web would not come online until much later, in 1993.

So, where does Al Gore fit into all of this? As a congressman, Gore championed various telecommunications projects, including ARPANET, that laid the foundation for the modern Internet....

“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being first and foremost, and as such, I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole”

Malcolm X (El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz, born Malcolm Little) was an influential and inspirational figure to the Afro-Americans in the United States.  A powerful orator, excellent debater and willing to preach “The price of freedom is death,” led for his personality and teachings to be printed across the U.S. and the world.

There are three possible answers.  Three—because each on its own isn’t satisfactory.  Examining the motives behind the killing inevitably leads for more questions to be asked and before you know it, you’re in too deep.

Malcolm X’s countless speeches, debates, press conferences, letters and autobiography reveal many factors that could’ve contributed to his death.  Indeed, just as he had supporters, he also had many enemies.

Malcolm X, himself, commented in the last few pages of his autobiography on his possible death:

Every morning when I wake now, I regard it as a having another borrowed day.  In any city, wherever I go, making speeches, holding meetings of my organisation, or attending to other business, black men are watching every move I make, awaiting their chance to kill me, I have said publicly many times that I know that they have their orders.  Anyone who chooses not to believe what I am saying doesn’t know the Muslims in the Nation of Islam.

I know, too, that I could suddenly die at the hands of some white racists.  Or I could die at the hands of some Negro hired by the white man.  Or it could be some brainwashed Negro acting on his own idea that by eliminating me, he would be helping out the white man because I talk about the white man the way I do.

With this in mind, the three possible answers are as follows:

One, those who were convicted for his assassination were Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler and Thomas 15X Johnson.  This could imply they worked together on their own accord – no influence from outside power. However, all there were members of the Nation of Islam.

Did the Nation of Islam order his assassination? Malcolm X, during numerous press conferences claimed his life was at threat by the Nation of Islam.

Why?

He claimed that Elijah Muhammad had ordered his death simply because he had learned the truth—Elijah Muhammad was the father of eight children by four teenage personal secretaries.

The Nation of Islam had a figure in Malcolm who, judging by his speeches and expressions, truly believed in Elijah Muhammad and was willing to die for him, and represented the Nation of Islam at all times.  This should have been an advantage to them considering his vocal ability.  However, it was actually a disadvantage to Malcolm X—realised after his suspension from the Nation of Islam—as it created jealously and rivalry within the organisation.

After his pilgrimage to Mecca and his visits to various African nations, he began to have his own ideas on how to further the Afro-American movement.  He also converted to orthodox Islam, thus, gaining him international recognition and connections with Muslim leaders abroad. But this was a direct threat to Elijah Muhammad.

 Elijah Muhammad tore into Malcolm in his public speeches.  “Who was he leading?  Who was he teaching?  He has no truth!  We didn’t want to kill Malcolm!  His foolish teaching would bring him to his own end!”

‘We didn’t want to kill Malcolm!’?  This implies that they may not have wanted to, but they needed to and had to kill him.

Finally, federal government agencies could have been involved in Malcolm X’s death, if only in partnership with the Nation of Islam. A bold accusation, almost certainly not true, but Malcolm does mention in his autobiography that he was under constant surveillance by American agents. He met with African leaders like Nasser, Kenyatta, and Nkurmah, raising pan-African consciousness and drawing explicit parallels between racism in the U.S. and decolonization. That could’ve raised some hackles.

Vancouver Observer

It's sometimes funny, sometimes frightening, sometimes strange...but without a doubt, the Halloween candies always taste good.

Behind all the costumes, candies and pumpkins, there lies the strange story of Halloween...

A long time ago, Halloween was merely a celebration to symbolize the transition between the warm season to the cold season.  During this dark night, it was thought that all the dead, ghosts and ghouls, and the spirits of the night, would come back on the earth in order to haunt the living.  In 840AD, Pope Gregoire IV decided to establish the "the Day of the Dead" which was also known as, All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween).

One of the traditions which was started was the concept of the Jack o'lantern. To commemorate the legend ofthe Jack o’ lantern, who was said to be the man who gave his soul to the devil and doomed to walk in hell with a lantern, people from all around the world, would put a candle inside of a turnip. Many years later, the turnip was replaced by the pumpkin, because it was much easlier to hollow out....

Yahoo

...Lookups on "what is the history of Halloween" rose 220% on Yahoo!. Spooky searches for "the haunted history of Halloween" and "the true history of Halloween" were also scary-high.

Turns out, the modern-day tradition of outfitting yourself in a costume and going door to door for candy has some really ancient roots.

Originally, the festival came from the Celtic holiday Samhain, which means summer's end, and celebrated the end of fall and the beginning of winter. This day also marked the Celts' version of the new year — and the time, they believed, when the dead came back to roam the earth. (Insert spooky music here.)

Ancestors were honored, but evil spirits were warded off by lighting bonfires and wearing costumes to hide from them. Turnips carved with faces got placed in windows to scare off the unwelcome undead. People would go "a-souling," and in exchange for food and drink, pray for a household's dead relatives. In Scotland, spirits were impersonated by men wearing all white with veiled faces. Sound familiar?

The holiday is actually a mash of Catholic and Celtic beliefs. Oh, and Roman. Their version of the Celtic holiday was called Feralia, which honored their dead. The Catholics — who were beginning to influence the area by the 800s — contributed All Saints' Day, also known as All Hallows or Hallowmas. The name "Halloween" comes from the Scottish "All-Hallows-Even," meaning "the night before All Hallows Day."...

Samira Kawash in The Atlantic

Wherever you turn this October, candy beckons. Americans will spend an estimated $2 billion on candy during the Halloween season this year, and here's a fun fact from the California Milk Processors Board: "an average Jack-O-Lantern bucket carries about 250 pieces of candy amounting about 9,000 calories and about three pounds of sugar."

Phew. My molars are hurting just thinking about it. If treats are a temptation you hope to avoid, October is the cruelest month. And I can think of only one place in America where your Halloween composure is unlikely to be ruffled by endless quantities of cheap and glittering candies: the past.

Given the ubiquity of candy at this time of year, it is hard to imagine that 100 years ago, Halloween looked quite different from the candy debauch of today....

The Dark Ages is a popular label traditionally applied to the experience of Western Europe between the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the Renaissance.  Whether an exact date can be established for the fall of the Empire is debatable, but many suggest 476 AD, when the last (nominal) Roman emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was removed from the throne.  Establishing a beginning for the Renaissance is even more difficult, but most agree that, at the latest, the Renaissance was developing in the fourteenth century.

The term "Dark Ages" became a popular title in the eighteenth century, when many classical historians, notably Edward Gibbon, looked back to the glories of the Roman Empire, and despaired the violence, brutality and apparent lack of intellectual activity, which characterized the post-collapse era.  The period was thus "dark" for its lack of the lights of civilization and intellectuals, which had been replaced by feudalism and religious dominance.

Modern historical research, on the other hand, is quickly making the label Dark Ages irrelevant, as the beginning of the Renaissance is pushed further and further back in time.  Contesting the traditional interpretation of the Renaissance, many scholars, such as Charles Homer Haskins, contend that the Renaissance began earlier.  Haskins advocated the "Renaissance of the Twelfth Century."  More recent scholarship has examined the "Ottonian Renaissance" of the Holy Roman Empire in the 900s, and even looked further back to the "Carolingian Renaissance" under the first Holy Roman Emperor, Charlemagne, in the late eighth and early ninth centuries.  At the heart of this movement is the realization that though the fall of the Roman Empire was indeed dramatic, and followed with disintegration, feudalism, bloodshed and warfare, the lights of antiquity and intellectualism lived on in the monasteries of Europe. Essentially the Dark Ages may not have been quite as a dark as previously thought.