One Day in August

"It's a truth of human nature that any void in our understanding tends to force open a Pandora's box of wild, seductive and intriguing theories." -- David O'Keefe, One Day in August 

Creditors & Debtors

Detail from The Burning of Neville's House, 1794, by Ray W. Forquer

"The conflict that Alexander Hamilton was taking up in the confederation Congress, and which he would pursue with increasing intensity to its climax in the 1790s, was really a conflict between creditors and debtors." -- William Hogeland, The Whiskey Rebellion

Gunpowder Plot

"With the taking of this oath of secrecy, the Gunpowder Plot proper was set in motion. From that day until Guy Fawkes's arrest in the early hours of 5 November 1605, it would be the quietly ticking accompaniment to the ongoing business of James's Council, to the Jesuit mission, to the thousand little ordinary actions of everyday existence up and down the country." -- Alice Hogge, God's Secret Agents

1791

Started reading Hogeland's book yesterday. The "hook" that drew me in, I think, was this line in the prologue. It was in the fall of 1791, when "gangs on the western frontier started attacking collectors of the first federal tax on an American product, hard liquor." That and the fact that it was enough of a problem to cause George Washington to raise an army of 13,000 soldiers to put it down. Oh what a peace-loving people we Americans are! :-)