If you’ve been studying a subject for as long as I have, you may think there isn’t anything left to discover. I’ve been studying World War I and how it changed the lives of ordinary people since I was a teenager. When I embarked on writing A Tale of Two Nations: Canada. U.S. and WW1, […]
The San Francisco Earthquake of 1906
In the early morning of April 18, 1906, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake rocked San Francisco. Within minutes it became one of the most devastating natural disasters of the 20th century, coming just a few years after the Galveston Hurricane. (This post is a companion piece to Melina Druga’s WWI Trilogy, Angel of Mercy, Those Left […]
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Canadian-American Relations in the 1910s
Today Canada and the United States are loyal Allies. A century ago, however, there was no love lost between the nations. The reasons are long and complex, but we will touch upon two aspects of Canadian-American relations in the 1910s. (This post is a companion piece to Melina Druga’s WWI Trilogy, Angel of Mercy, Those […]
Villisca Ax Murder House
Today, it’s called the Villisca ax murder house, but in the early 1910s, it was known simply as the home of the Moore family. Villisca is a sleepy town in southwestern Iowa that became the scene of a gruesome crime the night of June 9, 1912. (This post is a companion piece to Melina Druga’s […]
Devil in the White City
I was excited to see that Erik Larson’s book Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America is in development to be made into a motion picture starring Leonardo DiCaprio. (This post is a companion piece to my WWI Trilogy, Angel of Mercy, Those Left Behind and Adjustment Year, […]
How the Other Half Lives
Once upon a time in America, a large number of people lived in abject poverty, out of sight and out of mind. (This post is a companion piece to Melina Druga’s WWI Trilogy, Angel of Mercy, Those Left Behind and Adjustment Year, available wherever eBooks are sold.) Photojournalist Jacob Riis’s 1890 book How the Other […]
Americans Who Served in WW1 Prior to April 1917
The United States joined World War I on April 6, 1917, and Americans fought their first major engagement in the Battle of Belleau Wood in June 1918. (This post is a companion piece to Melina Druga’s WWI Trilogy, Angel of Mercy, Those Left Behind and Adjustment Year, available wherever eBooks are sold.) The American Expeditionary […]
Bow to the Power of Mother Nature: Galveston Hurricane of 1900
On Sept. 8, 1900, a hurricane ripped through Galveston, then Texas’s largest city, and became one of the deadliest natural disasters in U.S. history. The city was important to the shipping industry and was a vacation spot for the wealthy. It also was technologically forward, introducing telephones and electricity before many other cities. (This post […]
WWI: Forgotten in the U.S. But Not Around the World
World War I is the most important event of the 20th century, setting into motion a second world war, the Cold War, and countless political and social revolutions. Most Americans know nothing about it including the fact that Veterans Day, November 11, was Armistice Day. To add insult to injury, there is no national World […]