The Copyright and the Commodore
February 4, 2023
From naval service to the first federal copyright. Maybe?
In Defense of Mobsters
January 27, 2023
Dillinger had the "Lady in Red." His associate, Henry Pierpont, had this lady in law.
In Defense of a Monster
January 20, 2023
Sometimes criminal defense work means you have to defend a monster.
Before Rosa
January 13, 2023
Rosa Parks set off a civil rights firestorm. Learn about the person who lit the match.
The Printer’s Legal Woes
December 23, 2022
The tale of the legal woes of the man who printed one of the world's most famous bibles.
How Bad Was It Really?
December 16, 2022
Every American law student knows Hawkins v. McGee...but is the "hairy hand case" much ado about nothing?
The Seventh
December 2, 2022
The complicated story of "Tokyo Rose," the seventh person convicted and sentenced for treason in the United States.
Webster’s World of Words
November 25, 2022
Noah Webster wove a web of words...and created the United States' first dictionary.
The Bequest
November 18, 2022
Who is John Smithson? And what does he have to do with preserving history?
She Did It Her Way
November 11, 2022
Suffragist and Temperance Movement leader Amanda Way predated many better-known figures of both movements...and did it her way.
Before Jackie
October 7, 2022
If Jackie Robinson was not the first African American MLB player...then who was?
Manumission Before Emancipation
September 30, 2022
Robert Carter III did something the Founding Fathers never did - he manumitted his enslaved people almost 100 years before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Legal Legerdemain
September 24, 2022
While Houdini was a magician by trade, he had several other interests such as film and aviation. He was also an innovator, seeking to improve existing items with an escapist twist. In 1921, Houdini invented a special diving suit which would allow wearers to get out of the suit faster if their air supplies failed by using a locking joint in the middle of the suit.
Counsel on Trial
September 16, 2022
On April 18, 1857, Clarence Darrow was born in Kinsman, Ohio. The name is likely familiar, as Darrow was one of the most famous lawyers of his day. In his early years as a lawyer, Darrow was involved in the Labor Movement, defending Labor leaders including Eugene V. Debs. Later in his career, he defended the infamous Leopold and Loeb, wealthy teenagers (18 and 17, respectively) who were accused of killing Bobby Franks, reportedly for “pure love of excitement. . . [and] the satisfaction and the ego of putting something over.”
A Reluctant First
September 9, 2022
In the early 1800s, as settlers from the newly-formed United States set forth into the lands west of the original colonies, their plans of manifest destiny were delayed by the people who had called those lands their home for many generations – the indigenous peoples of North America.