Browsing Category
1750-1900
Felix Hoffmann and the Discovery of Aspirin
The history of aspirin, or acetyl salicylic acid, presents to us legendary outlines, referring to the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates. More recently, aspirin was synthesized for the first time by the French chemist Charles Frederic Von…
Robert Smalls, War Hero and US Congressman
Freedom is a strange thing. Those of us born into it take it for granted. But for those born into slavery freedom is something they would never undervalue. Being a slave is bad enough, but worse is for a slave to see their child born into…
Citizen Train | The Story of America’s Strangest Entrepreneur
George Francis Train was born in Boston in 1829, but by the age of 4 he had lost his parents and siblings to yellow fever. So, he was brought up by his grandparents who had hoped their grandchild would become a Methodist minister. Instead,…
James MacPherson, Scottish Poet and Translator (or Fraud)
There’s a thin line between lying and creating, sometimes. Is the forger who creates new paintings in the style of the old masters any less of an artist than they were? His work is skillful, his subjects original, though he may match their…
Lady Jane Wilde (alias Speranza), Writer
“Great people” rarely come from a vacuum. Though genius can blossom on the hardest ground, it most often finds root on the fertile soil of supportive and almost-equally talented family members. Sadly however, the bright light of genius…
Sophia Jex-Blake, Ground-Breaking Doctor and Teacher
It takes a lot of courage to do something nobody has ever done before. There’s a reason why we describe it as “ground-breaking”. Once the ground is broken, it becomes easier for those who follow after you. Sophia Jex-Blake wasn’t the best…
Augustus Hervey, the English Casanova
The English have a somewhat undeserved reputation for being "cold fish" romantically. Their general stereotype is of reserve and aloofness, with none of the fire and passion that their Continental cousins like to display. But one man gave…
Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, Portrait Painter Extraordinaire
Art knows no boundaries, it is said. But before the mass media that arrived in the late 19th century, art in the main was a very upper class affair. And art itself became highly formalised in turn. The strictures that the early surrealists…
Ethel “Etta” Place, Western Woman of Mystery
In some respects, stories of America’s Wild West feel like a young country trying to build itself a mythology from scratch. Legendary figures like Wyatt Earp, Jesse James, Belle Starr and the Apache Kid had their exploits built up far out…
Edward Jordan | The White-Toothed Pirate of Carlow
Edward Jordan was born into a small farming family in Carlow in 1771. At the age of 16 his father died and he inherited the farm. Jordan also became a deputy receiver of rents for a local landlord, but he moonlighted as an organiser for the…