As an imposing fortress, Alcatraz island isolated inmates and imprisoned the most dangerous criminals like mob boss Al Capone. Yet after its closure in 1963, Alcatraz became the scene of occupying Freedom as Native Americans tried to take back land under a treaty with the US. How did an uninhabitable rock become the gateway to a bastion of freedom for American Indians?
Further Reading Troy R Johnson, The American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz: Red Power and Self-Determination. University of Nebraska Press: 2008. Eagle Adam Fortunate. Alcatraz! Alcatraz!: the Indian Occupation of 1969-1971. Heyday Books, 1992
Paul Chaat Smith and Robert Allen Warrior. Like a Hurricane: The Indian Movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: New York Press, 1996
Dean J Kotlowsi, "Alcatraz, Wounded Knee, and Beyond: The Nixon and Ford Administrations Respond to Native American Protest." Pacific Historical Review
Vol. 72, no. 2 (May 2002), pp. 201-227 Jack D Forbes, Native Americans and Nixon: Presidential Politics and Minority Self-Determination, 1969-1972. Native American Politics Series, No 2 Los Angeles: American Indian Studies Center, 1981
In 430 BCE, a plague swept through ancient Athens, killing thousands. It eventually claimed even the great Pericles. But what was it? In 1994, a group of historians and scientists banded together to find out, starting with the skull of one little girl.
From Marie Antoinette's fake peasant village to Robespierre's botched suicide, the French Revolution is full of fascinating stories that are often omitted from textbooks. Join Nathan and Christine for Part I of a two-part countdown of their favorite stories and events from this vibrant period.
Authors: Nathan and Christine
Further ReadingMcDougall, Christopher. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen. New York: Knopf, 2009.
Sears, Edward S. Running Through the Ages. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2001.
Zimmer, Carl. "Faster than a Hyena? Running May Make Humans Special." Science
306: 5700 (Nov., 19, 2004): p. 1283.
Further ReadingJudith Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women’s Work in a
Changing World, 1300-1600 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).
Peter Clark, The English Alehouse: A Social History, 1200-1830 (London:
Barbara Hanawalt. “The Host, the Law and the Ambiguous Space of
Medieval London Taverns,” in Medieval Crime and Social Control, ed.
Barbara Hanawalt and David Walace (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1999), pp. 204-223.
A. Lynn Martin, Alcohol, Sex and Gender in Late Medieval and Early
Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave, 2001).