the revolution is not quiet

god i just love history so much okay i mean it’s so dynamic and beautiful and tragic but at the same time it can be so hilarious and amazing and if you just take a second to look at, i mean really look at it, not at the dates in textbooks because it’s so much more than dates, it’s people who were real and had happiness and sadness and quirks and they built everything that we are now and how could that possibly be boring? 

Thomas Jefferson’s proposed division of western U.S. territory into states, ca. 1784.

motherfucker thought he could slip a state named after himself in there

I mean in fairness he also gave his predecessors one each fucking “metropotamia” though? “equitasia?” what a fucking nerd

isnt equitasia where the my little ponies live

I can’t believe Thomas Jefferson was the first brony

I can

I’ve created a useful resource for English teachers.

never piss off a historian because we won’t let anything die, no matter how old

Historian checklist:

- Argumentative - Ever so slightly bitter - Opinionated - Self-righteous

We’re great, make friends with a historian today

[straight historian voice] they used fond language such as “my lover”, “my darling”, “i miss your arms around me”, “i wish i could marry you”, and “i miss your lips on mine”, though they were never proven to be in a relationship

who does polyphemus hate more than odysseus

nobody

guys please it’s a literature joke i need your support on this

places where you can feel especially close to history:

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.”

​Sometimes I wonder if our favorite historical figures look at us from the afterlife and say “that’s my person. That’s my person and I will guide them thru the next seventy-five years” and then there’s others that are more “you read my wife and I’s letters one more time and I will end you.”

If you ever find yourself saying “no one could be that stupid” you clearly haven’t studied history.

From George Washington to William Gordon, 8 March 1785

Founders online has this referring to this part of the letter:

The Independent Chronicle (Boston), 2 Dec. 1784, printed as a footnote to a letter on slavery an appreciation of John Laurens’s career and character. After recounting instances of Laurens’s extraordinary courage, the writer of the note asserted: “Those who were intimately acquainted with this young man, will rank his martial qualities, by which he was chiefly known, as lowest in the catalogue of his virtues.” The writer then goes on to speak of Laurens’s “clear discerning mind, that united the solid powers of the understanding with inflexible integrity” and to refer to him as a “noblest and most useful citizen … kindest and most affectionate friend … a generous and disinterested patriot.”

(via iafayettes)

I was not prepared for this 😭🤧

(via iwasthatlostcause)

Tea leaves collected from Boston harbor the morning after the Boston Tea Party. 

Label reads:

“Tea that was gathered up on the Shore of Dorchester Neck on the morning after the destruction of the three Cargos at Boston December 17, 1773.”

i’m so pleased that this means someone during the event was like “yeah this is probably gonna be historically interesting” and just ran out there with, like, what, a net? some cloth? fishing around in the fucking bay to collect tea to put in a bottle? you go, buddy

Good job, anonymous 18th century person.  Your commitment to historic preservation pleases me.

Salem, Massachusetts

Few American cities are so famous for a sordid past as Salem. Its nickname “Witch City” comes from the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, when 19 men and women were accused of witchcraft and hanged, and 150 more were arrested and charged. Today, this town of 41,000 residents throws one of the country’s biggest Halloween celebrations, including the annual Festival of the Dead which “explores death’s macabre customs, heretical histories, and strange rituals.”

Salem is also home to the Joshua Ward House, said to be one of America’s most haunted houses since being built atop the grave of the witch trials’ malevolent high sheriff. The grave was eventually relocated, but the ghostly phenomena persist.