Creative History

In late August of 1485 the streets of London were packed with thousands of people awaiting the coronation of King Henry VII.  On the 22nd of that month King Henry’s Tudor army had defeated the last remaining forces loyal to the House of York and King Richard III at Bosworth Field thereby bringing an end to the bloody Wars of the Roses and making Henry the new King of England. Soon thousands of victorious soldiers and vanquished prisoners of war would arrive in London and swell this teeming mass of humanity, which already numbered perhaps in the tens of thousands, even further.  And already, even prior to the climactic Battle of Bosworth Field, many soldiers on both sides had been deemed too sick to fight on account of a new and mystifying disease that both armies  simply dubbed, “The Sweat”. “The Sweat” first arrived and struck without warning during the heat of high summer and it painfully killed thousands that it infected within a mere matter of hours.  It mowe...

  On February 16, 1918 the naval collier USS Cyclops  set sail from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and headed north on her way to port in Baltimore, Maryland. She was carrying approximately 11,000 tons of manganese ore.  Manganese, designated Mn on the periodic table of elements, is a metallic chemical element.  It is an important element in the manufacture of stainless steel and a necessary part of munitions manufacture which was vital to the war effort of the United States and its allies during the First World War. At the time, there were conflicting reports regarding the cargo capacity of the USS Cyclops .  Some reports stated that the Cyclops could only safely transport approximately 8500 cubic tonnes of cargo, and that she was dangerously overloaded with 11,000 tonnes of manganese ore aboard upon leaving Rio on that fateful day of February 16, 1918.  Though, it must be noted that previously, the Cyclops had been documented as having safely carried cargo ...