Historical Highlights #042

Happy Friday. This week’s historical highlights feature artifacts from the Canadian War Museum, an annotated map of Middle Earth, a silent film of Edgar Allan Poe, Elizabethan plants, and more.

The U.S. National Archives has redesigned DocsTeach.org, its site featuring student activities using primary sources from American history. Read about it here.

In this ten-minute video, you get a peak into the vault of the Canadian War Museum to see artifacts from their new exhibit, Deadly Skies  Air War, 1914 – 1918.

A rare map of Middle Earth annotated by Tolkien himself goes on display for one day only.

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Tolkien relied on maps to write his books—and cared a lot about how his fans saw Middle-earth. (The Tolkien Estate Limited 2016)

The sister of Canadian civil rights icon Viola Desmond has donated family documents to the Cape Breton University archives.

In the fifth annual “Mostly Lost” film festival, the Library of Congress uses crowd sourcing to identify films from the silent era. 

Speaking of silent films, “The First Biopic of Edgar Allan Poe: 1909 Film by D.W. Griffith Shows the Horror Master Writing ‘The Raven.'”

If you’ve ever wondered what plants the Elizabethans had in their gardens, this article is for you.

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Dianthus (pinks). Esther Inglis. Octonaries upon the vanitie and inconstancie of the world. Manuscript, 23 December 1607. Folger Shakespeare Library.

“Dressed for diplomacy: How the Queen’s fashion strengthens foreign ties”

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The Queen wore a Maple Leaf brooch in Ottawa on Canada Day 2010. The brooch originally belonged to the Queen Mother, who loaned it to Princess Elizabeth for her visit to Canada in 1951. Queen Elizabeth later loaned the brooch to the Duchess of Cambridge for her first trip to Canada. (Chris Jackson/Getty Images)

Finally, for fans of Lost in Translation: “10 Extremely Precise Words for Emotions You Didn’t Even Know You Had”

I hope the weekend brings you sunny skies, but if the weather doesn’t cooperate at least these historical highlights provide some reading and viewing material to pass the time. 🙂

Update: Don’t miss these “Father’s Day Gift Suggestions from the Patent Files” of the U.S. National Archives.

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