Why the Kid’s enduring popularity? More than 1,000 books and essays have been published about Billy the Kid. He competes with Genl. George Custer and Jesse James as the most-written-about character of the Old West. Why the Kid’s enduring popularity? What has so fascinated readers and viewers with this desperado of the Southwest to keep him[…]
Assisted by Native Americans, they moved – and fought. Introduction In 1861, as Confederate armies prepared to crush the Union, President Lincoln commanded only 13,000 men and officers. At this moment ragged immigrant invaders seeking asylum reached the southern border of Kansas. Surrounded in Oklahoma on three sides by slaveholding states, they found themselves defenseless when[…]
Fake news and smoking guns made the Kansas town a symbol of frontier lawlessness. Everywhere American popular culture has penetrated, people use the phrase “Get out of Dodge” or “Gettin’ outta Dodge” when referring to some dangerous or threatening or generally unpleasant situation. The metaphor is thought to have originated among U.S. troops during the[…]
Welcome to the kaleidoscopic universe of Wild West history, where outlaws return from the dead with vampiric regularity. By Daniel Buck Last summer, Wyoming Governor Matt Mead received an odd present from an Arizona businessman named Jerry Nickle: a just-published book promoting the idea that the author’s great-grandfather William Henry Long was none other than[…]
Since its beginnings in the Arabia of the 7th century CE, the religion of Muhammad the prophet had pushed against the borders of Christendom. Less than a week after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York on 11 September 2001, US President George W. Bush gave a remarkable speechabout America’s “Muslim Brothers and sisters”.[…]
The impact of political and social expectations on women in the Western world. By Dr. Max Barnish, et.al.Research FellowCollege of Medicine and HealthUniversity of Exeter Abstract In this perspective piece, we discuss the politics of fashion in the cultural West. We cover issues of social expectation and individual freedom. We comment on where society draws[…]
Examining different historical calendars and the origin of the western calendar. Principles of Historical Calendars Overview Most historical calendars have been abstractions of the major observable astronomical cycles, especially the sun and moon. Widely different cultures often wind up with similar looking calendars, and at first sight it might seem as if direct influence were[…]