The Americans at the outset of the Revolutionary War were outnumbered by the British in military capacity by 3 to 1, were poorly trained and had less arms power as well as financial resources at their disposition. The American advantage resided in that they were fighting on land they knew better than the British, familiar as they were with the wilderness of the terrain they themselves had populated and fought for against the Native Americans. The Americans also had excellent leadership for a young coalition of colonies: George Washington, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and Patrick Henry were among the great political, military, and ideological minds behind the American push for independence.
The revolution began in Lexington, Massachusetts on April 18, 1775, when British General Thomas Gage sent 700 soldiers to destroy guns and ammunition stored by the colonists in the town of Concord near Boston, provoking response from the colonists. The British also attempted to arrest two key leaders of the patriot movement, Samuel Adams and John Hancock. The colonists elected George Washington as Commander in Chief of the Continental Army and under his guidance entered the subsequent battle with the British on Breed’s Hill on June 17, 1775, today remembered as the Battle of Bunker Hill. 
On December 25, 1776, after a stalemate on the battlefront of New York, George Washington and 2,500 of his soldiers crossed the Delaware River at night and attacked British and Hessian forces. Washington and his troops overpowered the opposition suffering only six wounded soldiers and cemented the path towards victory for the Revolutionary forces. By March 1777, Washington’s army had routed the British out of most of New York and New Jersey back towards New Brunswick. 
A decisive battle was fought and won by the Americans in Saratoga on October 7, 1777 when the American forces under General Horatio Gates and General Benedict Arnold defeated General Burgoyne’s army. On October 17, 1777, about 5,700 of General Burgoyne’s men surrendered to the Americans and were sent back to England. This was the point at which the French government recognized the independence of the United States of America. By July 1778, the French would also declare war on Britain and ally themselves with the American effort. The British would be further threatened and put at a disadvantage in their counter efforts against the Americans when the Spanish also declared war on the British, though establishing no alliance with the United States, and other European countries such as Holland and Poland gave their support to American initiatives. The British, in turn, fought back allying themselves with various Native American tribes.
Though it today boasts a population of only 20,000, at its peak during the 14th century, the Bohemian town of Kutna Hora was the region’s second largest city next to the relative metropolis of Prague, some fifty miles away. In the subsequent centuries, that began to change as the city’s silver deposits ran dry and the consequences of the Thirty Years War decimated its populace.
While visitors the world over still visit Kutna Hora to marvel at one of Eastern Europe’s most lauded Gothic edifices, the Cathedral of St. Barbara, the town’s name has become virtually synonymous with its most well-known tourist attraction: the Chapel of All Saints adjoining the 14th century church, Nanebevzeti Panna Marie (“Church of the Assumption of the Virgin”) – which actually lies in the neighboring village of Sedlec, rather that Kutna Hora itself.
The gruesome saga of the Sedlec chapel begins in the 12th century, when Church orthodoxy scattered earth from Golgotha over their graveyard. Soon, throngs of nobility, anxious to secure burial beneath dirt culled from the site of Christ’s crucifixion, pushed the cemetery’s capacity to its limits. Burials continued abreast over the next three hundred years – through plague outbreaks and the Hussite wars - until the Church grounds grew to contain more than 40,000 graves.
In 1870, fearing unsanitary conditions (not to mention a lack of income from fresh burials), Church authorities commissioned local woodcarver Frantisek Rint to “do something creative” with the remains interred in the cemetery. Rising to the ghoulish challenge, Rint soon set about transforming the traditional chapel into an ossuary (known in the Czech language as a “kostnice”) – one that would come to be decorated with thousands upon thousands of human bones.
Using the remains of his countryman as his sole building material, Rint constructed four giant bells in each of the chapel’s four corners, an oversized coat of arms in tribute to Bohemia’s ruling aristocratic family, the Schwarzenbergs, and, at its center, a candle-bearing chandelier made out of every bone in the human body. Proud of his work to the last, Rist left his signature – in bone, of course – upon the steps of the chapel’s entrance.
Much like the catacombs of Paris, Kutna Hora’s Chapel of All Saints has come to be regarded as something of a masterful, albeit grisly, footnote in Europe’s grand architectural history. Despite its reputation as a ghastly tourist attraction, big business hasn’t been deterred from associating their name with the Czech township. Today, one of Kutna Hora’s largest employers happens to tobacco giant, Phillip Morris, which there operates one of its principal European processing facilities.
Tags: 14th Century, 1870, 40000 graves, Black Death, bohemia, Bootleg kits, Cathedral of St. Barbara, cemetery, Chapel of All Saints, church of human bones, Church of the Assumption of the Virgin, Cigar Barrel Humidors, Czech Republic history, Frantisek Rint, Golgotha, history of Czechoslovakia, History Store, human bone candelabra, kutna hora, medieval ossuary, Metal Model kits, Oak Barrels, ossuary at Nanebevzeti Panna Marie, Prague, Schwarzenbergs, sedlec kostnice, the plague
In 1838, William Lovette of London, England wrote was to become known as the “People’s Charter” advocating rights for all British men and fairness in elections and public office. What began as a letter writing campaign became a socialist movement across the nation, culminating in the riots of July 1839.
It was the 4th of July when the report of several Chartist meetings in Birmingham reached the metropolitan police. At the time, the industrial northern city of Birmingham had no police force of their own and worry had spread that the nightly meetings at an area of town known as the Bull Ring were a plot to revolt against the government. The first “riot” resulted in a clash between a few chartists and the police and the injury and arrest of a few individuals. At the end of July chartists revolted en masse and thousands marched to the Bull Ring, burned down buildings and clashed violently with police.
To a great extent, popular culture influenced and even controlled Britain’s Empire expansion in the 19th century. Novels, magazines, toys and songs all promoted the new colonial world, publicizing it as nothing had ever been before. Children, boys especially, were targeted by the large number of colonial manufactured material. The Boys Own Paper, released 12 times a year, was extremely popular with articles about science, history, sports and crafts. Parents greatly approved of the moral tone of this paper which encouraged the use of violence especially in a historical extent.
Popular culture was not only aimed at children. With the rate of education in Britain increasing and the improvements made to the printing press, literature was suddenly available for all. Writers and intellects published their views towards the colonies and the ‘savage natives’. In a paper written by Herbert Spencer called ‘The Primitive Man’, he claimed that aggression and violence were only seen in primitive cultures as it was a survival instinct not needed in the more advanced British society. While ‘White Man’s Burden’, a poem by Rudyard Kipling, described the burden placed on the white man to civilize the ‘inferior’ races. 
Candy is a popular treat around the world and PEZ is among the most well-known brands as much for the dispensers as for the candy itself. They are a perennial favorite among collectors and new characters are issued to keep up with the popular trends of the day. Though we are quite familiar with the interactive candy in our society the origin of PEZ is not widely known. 
Austrian Edward Haas developed his idea for a peppermint candy in 1927. The German word for peppermint is pfefferminz and he took the first, middle, and last letters of the word to form the name PEZ. Originally it was a breath mint but he decided to market it as an alternative for smoking. It was initially just carried in tin containers and the dispenser was released in 1948 as a more “hygienic’ way of eating the candies. The first dispensers resembled cigarette lighters and were an adult confection but looking to expand their market they brought the candy to the USA in 1952. In order to make the product more appealing to kids, character heads were placed on the dispensers and fruit flavors were introduced. Haas decided on the flavors of cherry, lemon, orange, and strawberry since he thought these would be the flavors kids would most prefer. 
