Odd WisconsinThe Wisconsin Historical Society presents Odd Wisconsin, to amuse, surprise, perplex, disgust, astonish, and otherwise engage you with the past.An Overwhelming Invasion of Maniacs- May 28, 2008 In late August 1862, a coalition of Sioux bands in Minnesota, angered by continuing white incursion and failure of the U.S. government to make payments authorized by treaties, attacked settlers and Indian Agencies southwest of the modern Twin Cities. In what came to be known as the Sioux Uprising, warriors of these bands attacked New Ulm and nearby villages, killing...http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/002122.asp Ezra Pound's Wisconsin Roots- May 23, 2008 No one did more to create modern American poetry than Ezra Pound (1885-1972). At a time when poetry in English had more in common with greeting card verses than with the intimate insights of Anne Sexton, Pound and a small group of confederates demanded reform in their 1913 Imagist Manifesto. Pound was the first, or nearly the first, to discover,...http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001381.asp The Spy Who Died in the Dells- May 15, 2008 After the Civil War, Belle Boyd was as famous as Paris Hilton and Britney Spears are today. Boyd was a Virginia teenager when the war broke out, and her sympathies naturally lay with her homeland. Union troops soon occupied her town and tried to raise the stars and stripes over the Boyd family home. Her mother protested, and when one...http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001220.asp The Voyageur with the Hole in his Side- May 8, 2008 When a shotgun blew a fist-sized hole in Alexis St. Martin's side on June 6, 1822, military physician William Beaumont was astonished that the young fur trader worker didn't simply die on the spot. Instead, he recovered -- though with a permanent opening through his muscle wall and into his stomach that required bandaging for the rest of his life....http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/odd/archives/001442.asp |