Nine months before the victory at Yorktown successfully ended what we now call the Revolutionary War, a critical turning point in the southern campaign occurred at the Battle of Cowpens in South Carolina. On January 17, 1781, General Daniel Morgan and his Continental forces met the British forces of Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton. Strategic advantages were incorrectly assessed by Tarleton, orders were misunderstood among his troops, and the firepower of Morgan’s militia, coupled with a rewarding attack by Colonel William Washington’s cavalry, brought the Continental troops to victory. Within an hour of the battle’s start, chaos had ensued and Tarleton retreated.

As Tarleton fled, he was chased by Colonel Washington, a second cousin of George Washington. Once Washington and his men caught up to Tarleton, hand-to-hand combat ensued. Washington’s bugler, an African American who remains unidentified, fired a pistol, essentially saving Washington’s life. At that point, Tarleton and his men fled to notify Cornwall of the defeat.

In the Papers of the Continental Congress, there is a letter written by General Morgan telling of his battle trophy—the captured standard of one of the defeated regiments. Morgan recounts that General Green asked him “to lay at the feet of congress the standard of the 7th British Reg’t. which fell into my hands in the action of the 17th Jany.”

According to the The Battle of Cowpens website, maintained by the National Park Service, the term cowpens is “endemic to South Carolina, referring to open-range stock grazing operations of the colonial period.” It was such a pasture where General Morgan encamped his troops on January 16, with forage for their horses. This field, known locally as “The Cowpens” was the site of the next day’s conflict and thus, a historic battle was named.

Santa visits orphans in England during World War II. Source: WWII US Air Force Photos

There’s no place like home for the holidays.

Celebrating at home with loved ones is part of any holiday tradition. Soldiers fighting on foreign shores in 20th-century wars added traditional touches to their celebrations away from home. Please enjoy a slideshow of Christmas and Hanukkah traditions from the front lines.

View our slideshow that highlights wartime service during the holidays.

John Muir

John Muir, naturalist and “Father of the US National Parks Service” was born on this day in 1838 in Dunbar, Scotland.  His family immigrated to the United States in 1849 where Muir grew up, attended college and developed a love for wilderness.

In a 1903 passport application, Muir gives details of his birth, immigration, naturalization and profession and also swears an oath of allegiance.

The application also contains a physical description of Muir and his iconic beard:

John Muir, physical description from 1903 passport application

Edgar Allen Poe’s final hours

This story was found in the The Chicago Tribune on October 30, 1875.
Edgar Allen Poe was found sleeping on a park bench, he was carried to a hospital.
When told by the nurse that he was in the care of good friends, he replied:

“My best friend would be the man who would blow my brains out with a pistol… O, God the terrible strait I am in! Is there no ransom for the deathless spirit?”

He slept but his health continued to diminish. He awoke during his final moments to say:

“Doctor, it’s all over. Eddie is no more.”

When asked to hope and trust in God he replied:

“Self-murderer, there is a gulf beyond the stream. Where is the buoy, life-boat, ship of fire, sea of brass? Rest, shore, no more!”

His eyes rolled upward into his head so that only whites balls could be seen. He twitched and then died. It was midnight.

UFO scares trick-or-treaters

Here’s a story from the Project Blue Book – UFO Investigations from 1957. Two teenage girls see a glowing egg-shaped object in the sky over Primrose Acres, a suburb of Annapolis, MD.

Across the country, others see the same thing including an engineer at White Sands Proving Grounds in New Mexico.

The US Air Defense Command says only 1.9 percent of these reported sightings end up in the “unknown” category.

Man driven to suicide after medium threatens to reveal his murderous past

After a spiritualist had promised to reveal the name of a murderer, Mike Nelson—long suspected of killing a wealthy farmer—became alarmed and killed his two daughters and himself.

The medium had already stated where the body could be found. Read the front page story in the Washington Post from 1905.

Lizzie Borden. What happened to her?

Seven years after her parents were hacked to death with an ax in their home, Lizzie Borden takes her $350,000 inheritance (about $9.4 million in 2010 dollars) and moves into a more elegant home just a mile away. Read the follow-up story about her in this Small Town Newspaper in Wyoming.

Bobbing for Apples during World War II

This photo comes from the World War II Air Force Photos. Men of the 70th Service Group, based at Essex, England, duck for apples at the Halloween party sponsored by the Aero Red Cross Club on October 29, 1943.

Starting in the mid-1910s, the 265-pound long distance swimmer from New London, CT began performing remarkable feats of strength and endurance in the water. Including:

• Towing seven men eight miles with his hands and feet tied.
• Swimming a mile with two men bound to him before getting caught in a whirlpool.
• Staying afloat after being wrapped in sailcloth and heavy rope.
• Swimming from Battery Park to Coney Island with hands and feet shackled.

When asked how he managed to keep from drowning in seemingly impossible situations he replied, “it’s just knowing how to breathe.”

Henry, also known as Harry or Buster, was a supremely confident athlete who later turned to coaching and briefly entertained a career as a boxer and wrestler.

(During our research we found news stories on the Web reporting his death from the Spanish Flu in 1918. However, there are news reports in our archives of him alive and well in 1919. Do you know what happened to Elionsky?)

Sources: Wikipedia, The New York Times and Footnote archives.

At the height of their success in 1917, more than 500,000 hand-powered Victrolas were being sold each year.

But Thomas Edison, who had invented the phonograph many years earlier, never understood what it could do best – entertain.

Seeing this opportunity, the Camden, NJ company emerged in 1901 with a different phonograph design. It played songs that were pressed on to flat records, which were easier to mass produce than Edison’s delicate wax cylinders.

Then the company then did something else Edison had been loathe to do – pay royalites to artists – which provided Victrola customers with a steady supply of new entertainment.

To capture more of the market, Victrola was offered in many styles and prices – from $25 to $1500 (about $260 to $16,000 in today’s dollars).

Songs in the 1920s cost about $1 – about the same as they do on Apple’s iTunes store. However, a dollar at that time had the same purchasing power as about $10 today.

Click the images to explore these vintage ads and many more on Footnote.

Explore the Footnote Newspaper Archives to find more about the news of yesterday.

Sources: Time Magazine, Victor-Victrola.com and Footnote archives.

This morning I was looking through some photos on the site and came into a section of photos taken in England of planes that had been damaged on missions, but still returned to base.

Here are a couple of examples:

Then I came across this one:

I did a little research and found a Missing Air Crew Report for this plane (one member of the crew was killed) and then found Footnote Pages, created from the Social Security Death Index, for the pilot, Lawrence DeLancey and the navigator, Ray Ledoux. I added a few web links and some stories about this amazing event to their pages.

Here’s the first image in the section of battle damaged planes in England. You can browse through the collection using the filmstrip at the bottom to look at other images.

You can view all the World War II Airforce images for free.

Today, I’ve resolved to tell you about one kind of record in the FBI Case Files. That record is an “Application for Exception from Classification of Enemy Alien.” It’s a mouthful.           

Read all about Beau’s discovery of Exceptional Records in the FBI Case Files from his blog.

You can easily embed any spotlight on your website.