history Archives - Ned Hardy

Picture of the Day

By Nick Lee November 2, 2026

The O’Halloran sisters, armed with poles and boiling water, fended off the officers evicting their family during the Irish Land War, 1889

The Second Irish Land Act of 1881 had attempted to give tenants more security by paving the way for rent reductions, guarantees of the same rent for periods of 15 years, and, in some cases, eventual proprietorship.

O’Callaghan had been charging the O’Halloran family £31, which the court ordered be reduced to £22-10 shillings, a sum the family maintained was unfair, since in their grandfather’s time the rent had been as low as £13-10 shillings.

They became one of the families to participate in the Bodyke rent boycotts, and in June 1887 they prepared to resist eviction from the land their family had lived on and tended for generations.

History

The Photos That Exposed the Dark Side of Gilded Age New York

By Nick Lee August 3, 2026

In the late 19th century, New York City was booming, but behind its growing wealth and towering buildings was another world entirely. Crowded into dark, poorly ventilated tenements, thousands of working class families and newly arrived immigrants lived in conditions that much of the city’s wealthier population rarely saw.

Photographer and journalist Jacob Riis set out to make those conditions impossible to ignore. Using the relatively new technology of flash photography, he ventured into tenements, lodging houses, alleys, and cramped apartments to document everyday life among New York’s poorest residents. His photographs became the foundation of his influential 1890 book, How the Other Half Lives.

More than a century later, Riis’s images remain an extraordinary and often unsettling visual record of a city divided by wealth, opportunity, and circumstance. These photographs offer a glimpse into the lives, homes, and streets that existed just beyond the view of Gilded Age New York’s more prosperous residents.

Photo

Picture of the Day

By Nick Lee January 22, 2025

August Landmesser: The Lone Man Refusing to Do the Nazi Salute, 1936

History rarely gives us a clean hero. Most of the time, it’s messy—full of contradictions, compromise, and fear. But every now and then, you stumble across someone whose actions cut through the chaos like a lightning strike. August Landmesser is one of those rare figures, and what makes his story so compelling is how quiet yet defiant his resistance was. No guns. No speeches. Just one man standing still while the world around him surged with madness.

History

JFK’s Harvard Application Essay Is Only 5 Sentences Long

By Nick Lee December 4, 2024

Why do you wish to come to Harvard?

The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better background and a better liberal education than any other university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have felt that it is not just another college, but is a university with something definite to offer. Then too, I would like to go to the same college as my father. To be a “Harvard man” is an enviable distinction, and one that I sincerely hope I shall attain.

April 23, 1935
John F. Kennedy

Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald – Everything You Wanted To Know About Lee Harvey Oswald’s Daughter

By Nick Lee July 5, 2022

Audrey Marina Rachel Oswald was born on October 20, 1963. She was born in Dallas’ Parkland Memorial Hospital. She was 33 days old when her father, Lee Harvey Oswald, was involved in the fatal shooting of then-President John F. Kennedy.

Dogs

The Story Of Sergeant Stubby, A Former Stray Who Became The Most Decorated War Dog Of WW1

By Nick Lee March 16, 2021

In 1917, bull terriers had no place in the war. Mascots were limited to sports teams and service dogs were limited to the police force. Strict regulations forbade animals from living on military grounds. It’s for these reasons that no one would have expected a stray mongrel to end up becoming one of the most decorated soldiers who served in the First World War. From Connecticut to the Allied front line in France and back again, one dog changed the course of history for its entire species.