The Fox Sisters   In 1850, near Rochester, NY  13 year old and 15 year old sisters, Leah and Margaretta Fox started playing a joke on their mother, cracking their toes and dropping apples on the attic floor, convincing their mother and their neighbors ghosts were communicating with the girls.  Thus, started the modern era of the paranormal as the “rapping” craze swept the nation.      It did not take long before the girls were making money giving seances.  Their eldest sister took charge of them, and they never did tell their gullible parents the truth.  Though unmasked as "humbugs" early and repeatedly, the Fox sisters continued to hold seances.  They soon had competition. Dozens of imitators started giving seances, communicating with spirits "rapping" their answers back from the beyond. Young women in particular were “using society’s natural modesty” to conceal cracking their toes, or other gimmicks beneath long dre...

  What I Have Learned Writing This Blog      A little more than a year ago, while writing a magazine article on a different topic, I stumbled upon magazine and newspaper articles about the United States’ close call with war in a remote part of South America in 1858. Big news at the time; forgotten today.  “Dumpster diving” in the Library of Congress’ massive newspaper and periodical collection turned up all sorts of nuggets of forgotten history.  In fact, I could hardly open more than a few newspapers while looking for one obscure topic without finding several other mysteries.      There was just as much going on in the world between 1848 and 1868 as there was in the world between 1996 and 2016.  Yet, to the modern mind, there is practically nothing going on between 1848-1868 except the Civil War, and perhaps people might remember the 1849 Gold Rush and Commodore Perry opening Japan to trade.  I have learned how difficult it is...