(Roughly) Daily

Your correspondent is headed to the other side of the International Blog-Post Line; so, while occasional missives may emerge over the next several days, regular service will resume on or around Memorial Day.

Lest readers be under-occupied in the meantime, the illuminating illustrations of Nathan Pyle:

Danger Quiz!

The Other Numbers

More at Pyle.

As we commit to continued self-improvement, we might recall that it was on this date in 1856 that a pro-slavery posse led by Sheriff Samuel J. Jones burned the Free-State Hotel, destroyed the equipment of two anti-slavery newspapers, and looted several other businesses in Lawrence, Kansas– an attack known as the “Sack of Lawrence.”  Abolitionist John Brown’s nearby Pottawatomie Massacre is believed to have been a reaction to this attack.

Five years earlier– on this same date in 1851– the nation of Columbia abolished slavery.

Ruins of the Free State Hotel after the attack