The name “Black Bart” is synonymous with outlawry. As a matter of fact, this name has belonged to not one but two notorious outlaws over the years. During the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy,” Bartholomew Roberts was known by the moniker of “Black Bart” and is considered to have been one of the most successful […]
From infamous gangsters like Al Capone, to notorious pirates like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach, there is something darkly fascinating about those criminally enterprising individuals who managed to make careers as outlaws and scoundrels. In this article, we’ll look at some of history’s most interesting criminals and their unique and dastardly legacies. 1. Black Bart Few character […]
Alcatraz Island in San Francisco, California is legendary for its time as the site of one of the most infamous prisons in history. The “inescapable” island once housed notorious gangsters such as Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. Against the foggy backdrop of the San Francisco Bay’s rocky shoreline, this prison became famous as […]
Is there anything that quite embodies the pioneering spirit of the United States better than the Gold Rush? In 1848, gold was found in the Sacramento Valley, beginning a series of events in which hundreds of thousands of prospectors and fortune-seekers would flock to the “Wild West” over the next several years in search of […]
In 1905, a dry lake bed in Southern California called the “Salton Sink” was filled with water once more as the Colorado River surged and newly constructed irrigation canals funneled the entire volume of the river into this low-elevation desert land. The event was an unprecedented once-in-a-lifetime failure in irrigation planning, and the result was […]
California, the Golden State, was first explored by Europeans in the sixteenth century when Spanish explorers began traversing the Pacific coastline. By the late-eighteenth century, the Spanish had established a series of missions which ran along the state which was referred to as “Alta California.” After a relatively brief stint as a Mexican province, California […]
