The 1950s
James Husband
Lituya Bay, 1958

The rumbling shook the sleeping boy’s father from his fading half-sleep on the berth of their single-masted sailing boat.  Bolting up and looking out the window, his eyes widened as he saw the still waters of the Alaskan inlet churn and rise into a monstrous, debris-strewn wave, easily fifty feet in height and heading straight toward their tiny craft.  The father tossed a life preserver at the groggy boy and said, “Son, start praying.”

Lituya Bay, 1958
The 1930s
James Husband
The Emu War

After the 1918 armistice ended the fighting of World War I, the Australian government instituted a program to buy and provide farming land for its returning soldiers, in order to reintroduce them back into civilian life.  In Western Australia, the government established 48 farming estates totaling almost 90,000 hectares, a little over 200,000 acres, in an area northeast of Perth, in the southwestern corner of the nation. Years later, the Great Depression of 1929 hit the area particularly hard, and when the land was invaded by a relentless and destructive pest, the Minister of Defense in Perth dispatched a machine gun crew, with less than stellar results.

The Emu War
The 19th Century
James Husband
Jakob Walter’s March Home

By 1812, Jakob Walter, although only 24 years of age, had already served in two campaigns as a foot soldier for the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.  Jakob and many other conscripts in the Grande Armée were ordered to undertake the famously ill-fated march on Moscow, after which the devastated remnants of Napoleon's fighting force were left to return to their homes on their own power.  Jakob's meticulous diary tells a tale of survival and perseverance during this nightmarish march against staggering odds.

Jakob Walter’s March Home
The 19th Century
James Husband
The Secret Surveyor of Tibet

By the early 1860s, the British and Russian Empires simultaneously attempted to spread their influence into Tibet, a region which was at the time still tenuously under the control of the fading Qing Empire in China.  Tibetan leadership, in an attempt to forestall culture erosion and retain its connections with the Chinese, closed its borders to Europeans of all sorts on penalty of death.  Captain Thomas G. Montgomerie of the Royal Engineers, tasked with the exploration and mapping of Tibet, developed a plan to use trained natives to surreptitiously take the measurements for which British agents, regardless of their talent or preparation, would be much more vulnerable to discovery.  After being asked for recommendations of loyal and talented locals who could be taught techniques in infiltration and surveying, British Education Officer Edmund Smyth suggested to Montgomerie a 33-year-old local schoolteacher named Nain Singh.

The Secret Surveyor of Tibet
The 19th Century
James Husband
Run For Your Life, John Colter

 

Aware that they were essentially invading and poaching on enemy land, Corps of Discovery veterans John Colter and John Potts remained hidden during the day in order to escape detection, setting their traps at night and gathering up their proceeds as the following dawn broke.  One morning, as the two men canoes up the Jefferson River, they heard a commotion above the elevated riverbank to the east.  Colter claimed that the noise was caused by Indians, but Potts insisted it was just buffalo, so they persisted up the river, whereupon they came face-to-face with a party of approximately 800 Blackfoot.

Run For Your Life, John Colter

Biography

George Palmer Ransom, American Patriot

George Palmer Ransom, American Patriot

On January 3, 1762, Samuel and Esther Ransom of Canaan, Connecticut, had a son, and they named him after Samuel's best friend and neighbor, George Palmer. In 1773, the family—both parents and eight children, including 11-year-old George—emigrated as part of a widespread migration of Connecticut settlers to what is now northeastern Pennsylvania, settling near the town of Wilkes-Barre in Wyoming Valley. In September 15, 1776, 14-year-old George enlisted with his father and brother-in-law into the 2nd Westmoreland (Wyoming) Independent Company to fight in the American Revolution. His first position there was to bury the dead.

Mr. Rogers Goes to Washington

Mr. Rogers Goes to Washington

In 1969, a cost-cutting measure by the US Congress threatened to slash the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Congress called for hearings on the matter and the issue rested on the testimony by children's television host Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers discarded the idea of simply reading the printed material and instead spent about six minutes speaking openly and honestly about the benefits of educational children's television to the US Senate Subcommittee on Communications headed by Sen. John Pastore (D-R.I.), who was, until that point, unfamiliar with Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. 

The Father of Scouting

The Father of Scouting

Frederick Burnham was born in 1861 on an Indian reservation in what is now Minnesota, the son of a Kentucky-born missionary and outdoorsman and his English wife, and a true product of the American west.. When Indians attacked their village during the Dakota War of 1862, Fred’s mother, knowing she couldn’t move quickly enough while carrying him, hid Fred in a corn shock while she fled to another homestead; Fred spent the night there under the stacked corn even as the Indians ran by, and upon his mother's return the following day, she found him unharmed and sleeping. Over the years, he inherited his father’s love and skill for outdoorsmanship, and became proficient in the use of a rifle by the time he was eight. Around 1870, Fred’s father slipped on some ice while carrying an armload of wood; the falling wood left him with serious injuries and a case of consumption from which he could not recover; the family moved to California, where Fred’s father died in 1873. The following year, Fred's mother decided to return the family to Iowa, but Fred, then 13 years old, considered himself responsible for the family, so he decided to stay in California, where he would call upon his frontiersman skills to earn money for their support.  

Henry Fielding's Journey

Henry Fielding's Journey

Henry Fielding was born in Somerset, England, 1707 to an aristocratic family which soon found itself out of money and out of luck. His mother died when he was ten, and his father, a General in King George's Army, died penniless not long after. At the age of 12, his maternal grandmother sent him to Eton for schooling, where he learned the art of writing, with an eye toward the satirical. In the summer of 1725, he and James Lewis, his servant, were involved in a brawl over Sara Andrews, a 15-year-old heiress with whom Henry was infatuated. Two months later, he convinced James to help him abduct Sara on her way to church along with another man named Andrew Tucker; they failed, and while the constables captured James not long after, Henry drew up some leaflets ridiculing Andrew and his family, posted them up about town, and then ran away.