Edward Weston at Rhyolite, Nevada Dody Weston Thompson, 1948 MoMA

Thank you to Bookshop Santa Cruz for featuring books authored by our conference presenters at the Central Coast Conference — "Seldom Heard History of the Civil War Era." The event was held in the Stanton Center Theater, on Monterey's historic Custom House Plaza [Pictured: Joseph from BSC] #Booksky📚💙

Last weekend was the 3rd annual installment of Central Coast Conference in Monterey, California. The event featured 12 presentations on "Seldom Heard History of the Civil War Era," sponsored by Woodbury Historical Tours (whtours.org). Pictured, Dr. Lorien Foote, on her book, Yankee Plague #BookSky💙📚

I like FBI Directors with prior experience in law enforcement but WITHOUT their own personalized branded bourbon. #CallMeOldFashoined

Saw my first Moon Tree today, in Monterey, California. "'This "Moon Tree' is a Coast Redwood grown from a seed that in January 1971 was carried to the moon and brought back to earth by Major Stuart Roosa, Command Module Pilot for Apollo 14." #MoonTree

I'm always excited to see new historical signage regarding Gaspar de #Portolá, his epic journey of 1769, and his encounters with native peoples along the way. This one is in San Mateo County, along the #Ohlone Portolá Heritage Trail.

Hasn’t whined about needing a ballroom to feel safe

WALLFLOWERS in Monterey Saturday night. The setlist for this tour is pretty cool. They played their breakout album—Bringing Down the Horse—from start to finish, commemorating the LP's 30th anniversary. Then they played their favorite Tom Petty album in its entirety—Long After Dark. #Wallflowers

April 27 birthday— "My later experience has taught me two lessons: first, that things are seen plainer after the events have occurred; second, that the most confident critics are generally those who know the least about the matter criticised." — Personal Memoirs (Photo: Ulysses S. Grant, 1864, LoC)

OTD in 1865, the paddle-wheel steamboat Sultana exploded & burned on the Mississippi River near Memphis—the greatest maritime disaster in US history. She was carrying upwards of 2,000 soldiers recently released from Confederate POW camps. Over half of them perished. www.sultanadisastermuseum.com

"what happens when we shift our analytical lens and recognize slavery not merely as an economic or legal arrangement, but as a system of continuous, organized violence?"

It is always such fun to talk with @feministkelly.bsky.social about history, books, and history books! Also, if FJT had had access to fonts, he would have love comic sans.

Lean Wolf by Leonard Baskin, 1973 Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Fort Worth, Texas

"Of the 30 people on board, only 3 reached the shore alive. Among the victims was likely a woman of African descent, around 20 years old. . . She was found interred with the other dead at Franklin Point. But [only] she was buried facedown—a very rare practice often associated with sinister deaths."

La Purisima Mission State Historic Park —Founded in 1787, the La Purísima Mission land holdings once covered nearly 300,000 acres. Bordered by the Santa Maria River in the North & the Gaviota coastline in the South, the land was home to the Chumash people & Spanish settlers www.lapurisimamission.org

"The Mar-a-Lago Mafia has taken American corruption to spectacular new heights." #MarALagoMafia

Adventures in #Geography Because Los Angeles is on the edge of the continent, it seems counterintuitive to learn there are SIX (count 'em, six) state capitals situated farther WEST than L.A: Honolulu, HI; Juneau, AK; Salem, OR; Olympia, WA; Sacramento, CA; and Carson City, NV. [Map: USGS]

John Muir, born on this date in 1838, in Dunbar, Scotland. He died in 1914 in Los Angeles. Portrait by Carleton Watkins, circa 1875. University of the Pacific. scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmp/168/

San Francisco National Cemetery, in the SF Presidio. #GoldenGateBridge

One hell of a burro. "Crude but beloved memoral to Prunes, a favorite pack burro, who apparently lived a long life despite its burdens, in the mines of Fairplay, Colorado." [Carol Highsmith, Library of Congress] Read all about Prunes here: southparkheritage.org/prunes-the-b...

"San Francisco is the place where most people were last seen." —Ambrose Bierce [Photo taken atop Nob Hill (from the Fairmont Hotel), looking toward the Golden Gate]

Camas Meadows, Clark County, Idaho — site of one of the clashes between the Nez Perce and the U.S. Army, August 20, 1877. (Photo by dw) — Read about the battle at Camas Meadows at this NPS site: www.nps.gov/nepe/learn/h...

U.S. [DEI] Navy "Group of Chinese recruits for the U.S. Navy taking their oath on top of a captured Japanese submarine." 10/28/1942 by AP. The sub (HA. 19) was captured following the attack on #PearlHarbor. On Oct. 27, HA. 19 began a nationwide tour in San Francisco's #Chinatown. SF Public Library

Spot on analysis. History is replete with examples of heads of state who were "thugs and murderers," but rarely have they been as corrupt, incompetent, and breathtakingly stupid—or as flagrantly complicit with our enemies—as the crime syndicate currently looting & dismantling the United States.

On its final flight, March 6, 1990, this SR-71 #Blackbird set a speed record by flying from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., in 1 hr, 4 min, and 20 sec (averaging 2,124 mph). It landed at Dulles and was presented to the Smithsonian. The #SpaceShuttle Discovery is visible in the background.

Today is the 251st anniversary of Paul Revere's midnight ride to warn the Minutemen of approaching British troops. I want to take a moment to share an excerpt from the Declaration of Independence's grievances against King George III. Remind you of anyone?

—OTD 251 years ago— Paul Revere's ride was immortalized in a mostly fictitious poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The Midnight Ride of #PaulRevere painting by #GrantWood, 1931 The Met

Dozens of magnificent churches were turned to rubble or burned in the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. But the FIRST and OLDEST one, Mission Dolores, was able to ride it out. IMAGE: #MissionDolores in 1906, International Stereograph Co., publisher. Library of Congress

120 years ago, things got a little wobbly in Baghdad by the Bay Library of Congress photo: [Two men cleaning street, horse-drawn wagon and damaged buildings in the background, after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake], 1906, by Arnold Genthe

120 years ago, the 1906 San Francisco #earthquake wreaked havoc throughout the Bay Area. South of the city, the #Stanford campus suffered significant damage. Photo: Fallen Louis Agassiz statue. Stanford University. Bear Photo Co., 1906. California State Library.

OTD in 1906: the Great San Francisco #Earthquake. After the quake (120 years ago), all that remained of the Alban Towne mansion atop Nob Hill were the ionic columns and entablature framing its front door. These "Portals of the Past" were later moved to Golden Gate Park, where they remain today.

OTD in 1862: President Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated #Emancipation Act into law. The act freed enslaved people in the district and compensated owners up to $300 for each freeperson. Image: Celebration in Washington, April 19, 1866, sketched by F. Dielman. Library of Congress

Timothy Snyder offers calm, clear-eyed, sagacious analysis.

Colonel Thomas's lecture will be presented in conjunction with the Brinton Museum exhibition, "The Unfinished War: The Battle of the Little Bighorn in Native American Art," on view April 17 through September 14, 2026.

Love me a good stump tree —Eureka, California

Gray and Gold by John Rogers Cox, 1942. The Cleveland Museum of Art ". . .the work was inspired by the landscape around Cox's hometown of Terre Haute, IN, nicknamed "The Crossroads of America" due to the junction of major north-south and east-west national highways" www.clevelandart.org/art/1943.60

The Doors of Perception — or, mundanely, an interior view of one of the surviving buildings in the ghost town of Bannack, Montana (now #BannackStatePark).

“To write honestly and with all our powers is the least we can do, and the most.” ―"On Writing" Eudora Welty was born OTD in 1909 in Jackson, MS (d. 2001). Her novel, "The Optimist's Daughter," won the 1973 Pulitzer for fiction. Painting by Mildred N. Wolfe, Nat. Portrait Gallery—Smithsonian, 1988

The Battle of the #LittleBighorn —150 years ago (in June). Start with the geography of the campaign. The 7th Cavalry left the Yellowstone River and moved up Rosebud Creek. From the Crow's Nest, Custer's scouts spied the Indian village. The troopers then followed Reno Creek down to the Little Bighorn

There's a lot going on in this San Francisco street scene. The photo was taken some years ago during the #BaytoBreakers, which my wife Anne and I have done a few times. You hate to see a piñata take up smoking. So dangerous.

— A Grave Miscalculation — Even though there were earlier hostile actions and acts of war by secessionists against the United States (the seizure of forts, shipyards, arsenals, and assaults around Pensacola), the firing on Ft. Sumter is widely considered the opening action of the American Civil War.

OTD 165 years ago Fort Sumter Animated Map April 12-14, 1861

165 years ago today, the Slaveholders Rebellion began in earnest when secessionists opened fire on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor. Painting: #FortSumter, South Carolina, by Thomas Kennet-Were, 1869 [University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center]

“the offensiveness may be a distraction from the destructiveness. A whole sector of mainstream media now functions as spirit mediums attempting to interpret Trump’s actions to try to fit them into the context of competent leadership and coherent and consistent agendas”

A free, multiday Tribal college symposium this week will tell the story of the Crow Tribe and the 1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn.

SELDOM HEARD HISTORY— I enjoyed chatting with Kevin Levin on Monday about the upcoming Civil War conference in Monterey, California (May1-3, 2026). Book your seats today to hear a fantastic lineup of talks by some outstanding historians. Thanks, Kevin @civilwarmemory.bsky.social

Uncle Billy Slept Here General Sherman's Quarters 464 Calle Principal, Monterey, CA. [Historic American Buildings Survey San Francisco Chronicle Library San Francisco, California Year Built: 1834 Photo Taken: About 1925] Library of Congress. #WilliamTSherman

Chaco Canyon is sacred. Chaco Canyon is holy. These places should not be drilled on. Raise your voice and public comment by tomorrow—to say NO to drilling in the Greater Chaco Landscape! eplanning.blm.gov/Project-Home...

OTD during the Great Slaveholders' Rebellion: — April 6, 1862: Battle of Shiloh — April 6, 1865: Battle of Sayler's Creek (Sailor's Creek) Photo 1: Ed Bearss gathering his thoughts during "Lee's Retreat to Appomattox" tour (2007). Photo 2: Stacy Allen, Illinois Monument, during a Shiloh tour (2018)

"Near the base of Old #Shiprock" Pennington & Rowland c1914 two Navajos on horseback Library of Congress