San Jacinto Day

Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!

On April 21, 1836 the Battle of San Jacinto occurred and it was the last battle of the Texas Revolution. Texas won their independence from Mexico. 

Today is an official state holiday, but of course I still had to work :p (They don't really give anyone the day off...). An annual San Jacinto Day Festival and Battle Reenactment is held on the weekend before, on, or after (depending how the days fall) . This year the festival is on April 26, 2014 from 10am-6pm at the San Jacinto Monument.

2012

Now not only is there a battle reenactment at about the same time of the actual battle they do have both camps set up for you to walk through and ask questions about life in the 1830s. I have asked Santa Anna where his Yellow Rose of Texas was and he  didn't answer my question. I'm not sure if he was in role and didn't want to answer my question or if he didn't know what I was talking about. It could also be that I was in the 7th/8th grade when I asked. Lol! 

There is also vendors, the museum gift shop, entertainers, petting zoo, train ride, square dancers, among other things. 

If you've never been it is worth checking out. The best time to go to the top of the Monument is early in the morning when they open at 9am, during the actual Reenactment because everyone will be out there. They stop selling tickets around 5:30pm and the show runs hourly from 10am-5pm. Be prepared for a long day and lots of people. 

As for me, I won't be out there this year I've gone numerous times and will be at work. Have fun yall!

National Museum of American History-Washington, D.C.

Where do I even begin to write about the National Museum of American History?  This place is amazing! We drove up to meet friends in Georgetown for lunch (which if you are in the area, you must eat at Filomena Ristorante the food is to die for!) and make it over to the museum.

Caroline Scott Harrison's dress

We only got to see about 1/4 or a 1/3 of the museum. It is so large, and there is so many things to see. I had the biggest smile on my face the entire time I was there. It was like taking a kid into a candy store instead this was taking a mid 20's woman with a B.A. in history to the ultimate American history archive! 

As we walked in the first display was the The Star-Spangled Banner, the flag that inspired the National Anthem. The flag is over 200 years old and is quite a site to see. I wanted to take a picture of it sooooooo bad, but photography is not permitted.  I understand why they can't let pictures to be taken to preserve the flag, but they are nice enough to share pictures on their flickr page. Ok, ok we must move on to some other things now. 

Other things we got to see were the First Ladies dresses, pieces of the White House, debris from the Twin Towers after the 9/11 attacks, a piece of the Berlin Wall plus a few other things. I really wanna spend a full day or two walking around and seeing EVERYTHING! 

If you make it out to D.C. to see the museum plan on spending a few hours. There is so much to see and read, plus they have a pretty nifty gift shop. I plan to go back, hopefully soon while the cherry blossoms are in bloom.

This is my Civil Era type photo.

Admission to the museum is free and they are open 364 days a year (closed on Christmas Day) from 10am-730pm.

Houston Zoo-Houston, TX

While contemplating my next blog post I came across some pictures from the Houston Zoo. It's been a couple of years since I've been... I want to go feed the giraffes! Plus there is new babies at the zoo, and what is more adorable than a baby animal? This got me wondering on how the zoo came to the city and if there was any interesting story to its creation. 

The Houston Zoo had its early beginnings in 1922 with a bison named Earl. A fence was put around him and the park collected other birds and reptiles. At that time it was named Hermann Park Zoo. The first staff member was Hans Nagel who built up the collection and bought the zoos first elephant, Hans. Hans, the zookeeper, did lion and elephant shows. Only in Texas, would this story exist but he passed away on Zoo ground during a gun fight. 

In 1950, the Zoo expanded to add primates, an aviary and an array of other animals. They have an agreement with the city for a 50 year lease of the park. They have expanded the Zoo and brought in more animals. 

The nest time to visit the Zoo would be in the spring or fall just for the simple fact that our summers can be unbearable sometimes. 

I plan to make it out there soon to feed the giraffes, see the large cats, and the baby elephant. 

They are open from 9am-7pm; children under 2 are free, children 2-11 $11, adults $15, and senior citizens 65+ $8.50. 

The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe-Richmond, VA

"I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity."-Edgar Allan Poe

We went to Richmond, VA to go to a performance shop for my husband's truck that needed work and before heading back we stopped at The Museum of Edgar Allan Poe. 

I didn't know there was a museum until looking it up on one of my favorite apps History Here. Poe never lived in the building that the museum is in, but it is set up to reflect Richmond at that time. The museum hosts a large collection of manuscripts, personal belongings, first editions and a 3D model of Richmond from when he lived. 

Pictures were not allowed to be taken inside so sadly I have none to share but this one to the left. In the museum you get to learn of his life. They have relics from his boyhood bed, his truck, walking cane and even handwritten first copies of some of this work. 

It's interesting to learn more about him then the things you are taught in school. It would of been nice to have someone dressed up as him reading "The Raven" or a "Tell Tale Heart." I would visit it again next time I make it back to Virginia. 

Scholar Says He’s Found New Photo of Lincoln at Gettysburg

Abraham Lincoln’s appearance at Gettysburg on Nov. 19, 1863, has been remembered in the roughly 270 ringing words he spoke that day and exactly one undisputed photograph.

But now, a scholar is claiming he has identified another image of Lincoln from that occasion: a tiny, dark-suited speck in a wide shot of the crowd, his head slightly bowed.

Christopher Oakley, a professor of new media at the University of North Carolina, Asheville, made the discovery, which was reported in the October issue of Smithsonian magazine, while working with a group of students on theVirtual Lincoln Project. That project, which includes a detailed digital reconstruction of the Gettysburg ceremony, involved looking at the nine known photographs from that day, as well as the roughly 130 known photographs of Lincoln from other occasions.

It was while looking at a much-scrutinized photograph taken by Alexander Gardner that a familiar face, belonging to a figure standing near a man Mr. Oakley had newly identified as Secretary of State William Seward, leaped out.

“It sank in very quickly,” Mr. Oakley, a former Disney animator, said in a telephone interview. “I jumped back from my desk and did a little historian’s happy dance.”

Mr. Oakley is not the first person to spot Lincoln among the throngs in Gardner’s photograph. In 2007, an amateur historian named John Richter drew headlines, and some vigorous rebuttals, when he announced that a different figure on the left-hand side of the photograph — a stovepipe-hatted man on a horse, with his back turned to the camera — was Lincoln.

But the image examined by Mr. Richter was actually one of two very similar stereoscopic images taken by Gardner that day, which were made simultaneously with two different lenses set about three inches apart, and would result in a kind of 3-D image when combined through a viewfinder. It was while looking at a highly magnified detail from the less damaged left-hand image, only recently scanned by the Library of Congress (and which Mr. Richter had not examined), that Mr. Oakley found further evidence supporting his own claim.

The man on the horse, Mr. Oakley argues, cannot be Lincoln, since the new scan reveals that he is wearing epaulets, which Lincoln would not have worn. And his own positive identification of Lincoln has drawn tentative support from some prominent scholars, including some, like Harold Holzer, the chairman of the Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, who had previously supported Mr. Richter’s claims.

“It’s like ‘Law and Order,’ ” Mr. Holzer told Smithsonian. “You keep enhancing an image until you see the suspect.”

**This is an article from NY TIMES  I did not write it.**

Picture Update

I will fix the pictures on the other posts sooner rather than later. I have no idea what happened since I uploaded them on here and Blogger should have them in there system. I will look into it. In the meantime I shall share an article with you about Lincoln. 

Mayan frieze found-Holmul, Guatemala

GUATEMALA CITY (AP) — Archaeologists have found an "extraordinary" Mayan frieze richly decorated with images of deities and rulers and a long dedicatory inscription, the Guatemalan government said Wednesday.

The frieze was discovered by Guatemalan archaeologist Francisco Estrada-Belli, a professor at Tulane University's Anthropology Department, and his team in the northern Province of Peten, the government said in a joint statement with Estrada-Belli.

"This is an extraordinary finding that occurs only once in the life of an archaeologist," Estrada-Belli said.

The archaeologists were exploring a Mayan pyramid that dates to A.D. 600 in an area that is home to other classic ruin sites when they came upon the frieze.

"It's a great work of art that also gives us a lot of information on the role and significance of the building, which was the focus of our research," Estrada-Belli said.

The high-relief stucco sculpture, which measures 26 feet by 6 feet (8 meters by 2 meters), includes three main characters wearing rich ornaments of quetzal feathers and jade sitting on the heads of monsters.

The frieze, which was found in July, depicts the image of gods and godlike rulers and gives their names.

The dedicatory inscription "opens a window on a very important phase in the history of the classical period," Estrada-Belli said.

The inscription is composed of some 30 glyphs in a band that runs at the base of the structure.

The text, which was difficult to read, was deciphered by Alex Tokovinine, an epigraphist at Harvard University and contributor to the research project at Holmul, the site where the frieze was found.

View gallery."

This June 2013 photo released by Proyecto Arqueologico Holmul shows a detail of a high-relief stucco …

Tokovinine said the building was commissioned by Ajwosaj, king of the neighboring city-state of Naranjo, and vassal of the powerful Kaanul dynasty, the statement said.

David Stuart, an expert in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin, called Tokovinine's reading of the text "excellent."

But while the government statement called it "the most spectacular frieze seen to date," Stuart was cautious about using superlatives.

"It's really impressive," Stuart said in an email to The Associated Press. But he added, "I certainly wouldn't say this is the 'most spectacular' temple facade."

"There are other buildings in Maya archaeology that are just as magnificent, if not more so," Stuart wrote, pointing out the temple called "Rosalila" at Copan, Honduras, and a building excavated starting last year at the ruins of Xultun, Guatemala, which has not yet been uncovered in full.

Also Wednesday, Guatemalan President Otto Perez Molina presented the National Geographic Society with the Order of the Quetzal, Guatemala's highest award, for their research on the Mayan civilization.

Perez Molina thanked National Geographic for its support and said the society has "put on high the cultural heritage of the Mayan civilization."

Estrada-Belli is a National Geographic Explorer. His excavations at Holmul were supported by the Ministry of Culture and Sports of Guatemala and funded by the National Geographic Society and other Guatemalan and foreign institutions.

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Associated Press writer Mark Stevenson contributed to this report.

**This is an article from Yahoo! I did not write it. Link to article is at the beginning. **