Things Noted Here and There

The National Library of Scotland has a collection of 1800 broadsides dating from 1650 to 1910. They are online, browsable and searchable by title, date, or word at"The Word on the Street." Researching body-snatching or transvestites? Not aproblem.

At Boston 1775, J. L. Bell has a series on women of Revolutionary Massachusetts: Mercy Otis Warren, Susan Mason, Ruth Otis, Abigail Paine, Margaret Thomas, and Dorothy Hancock.

Michael Hirsch,"A Luckless Nation," Newsweek, 3 November, ponders the"how lucky we were" meme – to have had George Washington at the first transfer of executive power, Lincoln at the crisis of civil war, FDR at the Great Depression and WWII, etc. When the Bush administration came to power, we were assured that experienced hands like Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, etc., would extend our good fortune. Ross Douthat at The American Scene says that it looks like our string of good luck ran out about that time.

Finally, who looks more like George Washington? Felix Mendelssohn or Strom Thurmond? Who looks more like Abraham Lincoln? Franz Kafka or Chevy Chase? Who looks more like Warren G. Harding? Franz Lehar or Madonna? Dr. History has the answers.