7 unforgettable stories history forgot

Stories history forgot : This list is inspired by an excellent book I recently bought called “Lost to Time“. I strongly recommend you buy it if you want to read much more detail about the stories, people and places in this list. 7. Peshtigo: Fire in the Forest Most people reading this will be familiar with the Great Chicago Fire that killed hundreds and destroyed 4 square miles of Chicago, Illinois. However, most people don’t know that on the very same day a far worse fire occurred, in Peshtigo, Wisconsin. The October 8, 1871, Peshtigo Fire in Peshtigo, Wisconsin, is the conflagration that caused the most deaths by fire in United States history. On the same day as the Peshtigo and Chicago fires, the cities of Holland and Manistee, Michigan, across Lake Michigan, also burned, and the same fate befell Port Huron at the southern end of Lake Huron. By the time it was over, 1,875 square miles of forest had been consumed and twelve communities were destroyed. Between 1,200 and 2,500 people are thought to have lost their lives. The fire was so intense it jumped several miles over the waters of Green Bay, and burned parts of the Door Peninsula, as well as jumping the Peshtigo River itself to burn on both sides of the inlet town. Surviving witnesses reported that the firestorm generated a tornado that threw rail cars and houses into the air. Many of the survivors of the firestorm escaped the flames by immersing themselves in the Peshtigo River, wells, or other nearby bodies of water. Some drowned while others succumbed to hypothermia in the frigid river. 6. Gil Eanes: Passing The Point of No Return The name of Gil Eannes is hardly a household word; nor is that of the place associated with the Portuguese explorer, Cape Bojador. Nor indeed did Eannes discover the cape: the place had been known for many years. To journeyers of Eannes’s time, Bojador represented an unbreachable barrier, a point of no return, and it was the achievement of this reluctant hero to pass that invisible boundary, in 1434. In so doing, he opened new territory, not only on land but in the mind, and thus made possible the golden age of Portuguese exploration, with all its glories and horrors. At that time conventional wisdom maintained that the Sun was boiling hot at the Equator. Thus, even if a ship could get past Cape Bojador, the equatorial Sun would eventually burn it to powder. Furthermore, should a vessel somehow make it past all other hazards, its crew would most surely meet unspeakable monsters in the sub-equatorial region known as the Antipodes. By having the courage to risk his life (consequently opening up new worlds,) Eanes was effectively behind the European age of discoveries to come. He was, however, also in part to blame for what would become a thriving trade in slaves for centuries after. 5. Joseph Warren: Father of the Revolution Joseph Warren (1741-1775 AD) was regarded by many in his time as the true architect of the American Revolution. He was the key figure in one of history’s most famous tea parties. He wrote a set of Resolves that served as the blueprint for the first autonomous American government. He delivered a speech that sparked the first battles of the Revolutionary War. He sent Paul Revere out on one of history’s most famous rides. He was the only Patriot leader, prior to the Declaration of Independence, to risk his life against the British on the Battlefield (Sandler 55). And, remarkably, he has been largely lost to history. He was surrounded by names we are all familiar with, and yet his own name is barely ever heard these days. Interestingly, his brother went on to found Harvard Medical School, and fourteen US States have a Warren County named after him. 4. George de La Tour: Forgotten Master <img src="http://i2.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/473px-magdalen_with_the_smoking_flame_c1640_georges_de_la_tour.jpg?zoom=2&resize=315%2C400" srcset="http://i2.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/473px-magdalen_with_the_smoking_flame_c1640_georges_de_la_tour.jpg?zoom=2&resize=315%2C400" alt="473Px-Magdalen With The Smoking Flame C1640 Georges De La Tour" width="315" height="400" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" /> Georges de La Tour (March 13, 1593, Vic-sur-Seille, Moselle – January 30, 1652, Lunéville) was a painter, who spent most of his working life in the Duchy of Lorraine, (which was absorbed into France between 1641 and 1648,) during his lifetime. He painted mostly religious scenes lit by candlelight. After centuries of posthumous obscurity, during the 20th century, he became one of the most highly regarded of French 17th-century Baroque artists. In his lifetime he was known as the Painter to the King (of France), and was regarded as one of the greatest artists. Very little of his work survives and the reason for his obscurity is unknown, but thanks to the efforts of Hermann Voss, a German scholar, in 1915 his work was rediscovered. 3. Exercise Tiger: Testing D Day <img src="http://i1.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/765px-plaque_commemorating_those_killed_in_operation_tiger_crop.jpg?zoom=2&resize=550%2C431" srcset="http://i1.wp.com/listverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/765px-plaque_commemorating_those_killed_in_operation_tiger_crop.jpg?zoom=2&resize=550%2C431" alt="765Px-Plaque Commemorating Those Killed In Operation Tiger Crop" width="550" height="431" border="0" hspace="0" vspace="0" /> Exercise Tiger, or Operation Tiger, were the code names for a full-scale rehearsal in 1944 for the D-Day invasion of Normandy. During the exercise, an Allied convoy was attacked, resulting in the deaths of 749 American servicemen. The lack of widespread knowledge of this exercise was due to intentional efforts (unlike most others on this list). As a result of official embarrassment and concerns over possible leaks just prior to the real invasion, all survivors were sworn to secrecy by their superiors. Ten missing officers involved in the exercise had Bigot–level clearance for D-Day, meaning that they knew the invasion plans and could have compromised the invasion should they have been captured alive. As a result, the invasion was nearly called off until the bodies of all ten victims were found. With little or no support, from the American or British armed forces, for any venture to recover remains or dedicate a memorial to the incident, Devon resident and civilian Ken Small took on the task of seeking to commemorate the event, after discovering evidence of the aftermath washed up on the shore while beachcombing in the early 1970s. 2. America’s First Subway: New York’s Secret Subway In 1904, New York’s modern subway system was officially opened – changing the city forever. But what most people don’t know is that it was not the first subway. Because of terrible congestion on Broadway, Alfred Ely Beach (the young owner of the fledgling magazine Scientific American) conceived of an idea – to build an underground railway, which used a giant fan to propel and suck a railcar back and forth through a tunnel. Because of the corruption of the commissioner of public works, William Tweed, Beach had to get consent to build his tunnel by pretending it was to be a mail delivery system. Tweed (whose income was derived largely from city transportation) did not veto the request. Beach and a small group of men began digging a tunnel under Broadway in the dark of night. The entire enterprise was kept secret, as dirt was hidden in the basement of a building Beach bought for that purpose. The work went well, but just before they could complete their first line the press got wind and it became public. Beach’s team worked extra hard to finish the subway, and in grand style they opened to the public on March 1, 1870. He charged twenty-five cents per passenger to travel from Warren Street to Murray Street. It was a huge success – carrying over 400,000 passengers in its first year of operation. Unfortunately Tweed was outraged and vetoed future extensions to the subway. Tweed was eventually imprisoned for his corruption, and permission was given for Beach to resume work extending the subway, but unfortunately his private investors were fast disappearing, due to the beginnings of an economic crisis. The subway was not completed and remained hidden under the city completely sealed up (complete with the luxury car and machinery) until it was subsumed into the present City Hall Station. Here is the route of the subway on Google Maps. 1. House of Wisdom: Lost to time The House of Wisdom was a library and translation institute in Abbassid-era Baghdad, Iraq. It was a key institution in the Translation Movement, and considered to have been a major intellectual center of the Islamic Golden Age. The House was an unrivaled center for the study of humanities and for Islamic science, including Islamic mathematics, Islamic astronomy, Islamic medicine, Islamic alchemy and chemistry, zoology and Islamic geography. Drawing on Persian, Indian and Greek texts—including those of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates, Euclid, Plotinus, Galen, Sushruta, Charaka, Aryabhata and Brahmagupta—the scholars accumulated a great collection of world knowledge, and built on it through their own discoveries. Along with all other libraries in Baghdad, the House of Wisdom was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Baghdad, in 1258. It was said that the waters of the Tigris ran black for six months with ink from the enormous quantities of books flung into the river. The amount of knowledge lost that year is indescribable. It is even more surprising that while most people are familiar with the destruction of the library of Alexandria, few know about the loss of the House of Wisdom. Works Cited Sandler, Martin. Lost to Time. New York: Sterling Publishing Co, 2010. 55. Print Courtesy: http://listverse.com/ CLICK HERE to join our BBM Channel for faster updates

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