One hundred seventy-five years ago, in January 1839, members of the Academy of Sciences in Paris were shown a unique photographic process that literally changed the world as we see it. The inventor, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre, called his discovery the “daguerreotype.” It was the first commercially successful form of photography. Later that year, a British inventor,…
Fort Niagara, located on the eastern bank of the Niagara River at Lake Ontario, was an early French fortress captured by the British in July 1759. It became a Loyalist base during the American Revolution, but was ceded to the United States at the end of the war, although not completely controlled by American troops…
President Abraham Lincoln was invited to speak at the dedication of the Soldiers’ Memorial Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on November 19, 1863. Notable orator Edward Everett was the first to speak that afternoon and delivered a two-hour address that was very well received. Lincoln followed with what is now one of the most notable speeches…
The assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the 35th president of the United States, is an iconic tragedy seared into the consciousness of anyone living that day: November 22, 1963. Even those who weren’t born yet, or were too young to remember the event, know the history, have seen the headlines, or have watched video footage…
Three new titles have been added to a Fold3 collection called Casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan Conflicts. Named for three separate military operations, each title includes the names and related personal and service information for over six thousand men and women who died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. While the three record sets include…
Every now and then we receive some terrific surprises in the files our FamilySearch partners are digitizing at the National Archives. Recently, several 19th-century photographs were literally brought to light as they’ve been tucked away for decades in the Civil War Widows’ Pension files. The photos and some interesting related documents and certificates have been…
“The education of a man is never completed until he dies” is a statement attributed to Robert E. Lee, whose education was completed in 1870 as death reached him only five years after surviving the U.S. Civil War as the head of the Army of the Confederate States of America (CSA). General Lee died in…
