The jaguar was the most feared – and revered – animal in ancient Mesoamerica. Members of pre-Columbian societies like the Maya and Aztec coexisted with jaguars in the jungles, bearing witness to their size, cunning, and aggression and incorporating them into their mythologies. Most of these cultures depicted the big cat in its natural form […]| The History Bandits
In 1991, an ownership group of Jacksonville businessmen and investors called “Touchdown Jacksonville!” submitted a formal application for one of the two franchises the NFL had announced were to be added. On December 6 the group held a public vote for local fans to select the name of their hopeful NFL expansion team, having just […]| The History Bandits
In the summer of 1820, a party of transatlantic sportsmen and adventurers made their way through the rocky scrubland of the Arkansas country’s Ozark Mountains on a passenger pigeon hunt. The plentiful birds roosted thick in the canopy of the forest, and on the first day of the expedition, the party of English gentlemen and […]| The History Bandits
In mid-October 1880, an early blizzard caught the Dakota Territory by surprise. Unbeknownst to the region’s thousands of new settlers, including a 14-year-old girl named Laura, this was the beginning of one of the most punishing winters in American history. Six months of incessant snowfall crippled fledgling pioneer communities like De Smet, home to Laura […]| The History Bandits
On June 17, 1957, Sam Battistone and Newell Bohnett saw the first fruits of their entrepreneurial vision ripen along Cabrillo Boulevard in Santa Barbara, California. Hoping to tap into blue-collar workers and middle-class vacationers, they opened up a joint-venture pancake and coffee house featuring moderate prices. Coffee sold for a dime a cup and a stack […]| The History Bandits
“Are you sure this railway can be built?” Henry M. Flagler, co-founder of Standard Oil and “Father of Miami,” posed this question to his chief aide, Joseph R. Parrott, in the winter of 1904. With Parrott’s affirmation, Flagler embarked upon an ambitious, unprecedented engineering feat to connect Key West, 130 miles south of Miami, with […]| The History Bandits
In the Twenty-First Century, is there a role for Heroes in History? A year or two ago, I was reading a book on the Texas frontier when I came across a quote that sounded familiar. The author was referencing someone from the early nineteenth century, quoting their opinion on the Indian wars and American expansion […]| The History Bandits
Since its dedication in 1831, Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts has welcomed visitors to its many thresholds. It has most principally separated the living from the dead, as the country’s first cemetery. Americans beforehand had buried their dead in church graveyards and municipal burial grounds located within city limits. Such plots became overly expensive, […]| The History Bandits
Ambrose Bierce, if we take him at his word, was unfazed by death. As a young Union soldier in the Civil War, he escaped it many times, seeing action at Shiloh, Chickamauga, and Kennesaw Mountain, where he received an almost fatal head wound. After the war, he built a career as a writer and journalist, […]| The History Bandits
The Significance of the Tennessee-Savannah River Route in early America: In February of 1701, a party of three Frenchmen lowered their birchbark canoe into the frigid headwaters of a snowmelt strea…| The History Bandits
