Jellybeans

No matter how good jellybeans look like, they all taste terrible (just my opinion!). I hate jellybeans as much as I hate mangoes (long story why I don't like them). Either way, jellybeans go way back in Turkish history when it was part of the Turkish Delight (a family of confections that were based on on a gel of starch and sugar according to Wikipedia). Jellybeans were first introduced actually in 1861 during the Civil War, when a Boston confectioner William Schrafft urged people to give his jellybeans to the Union soldiers. When Union soldiers would get packages, they would often be filled with jellybeans. But it doesn't stop from there, jellybeans finally hit the public eye in 1905, when it was introduced in the Chicago Daily News. Jellybeans become popular and embedded in American culture in the 1930s when it was used during Easter. Jellybeans continued to be prominent when President Ronald Reagan would eat them to help him stop smoking his pipe according to candyfavorites.com.
Here's a really quick, but straightforward video over the history of jellybeans.

The Gatling Gun

Meet the Gatling Gun, a machine gun firing by an astounding 200 bullets per minute. It was created during the Civil War by Dr. Richard Gatling who purposely created the gun in hopes of ending the war because of the horror slaughter of people his weapons did according to inventors.about.com. According to Wikipedia, the Gatling Gun was the first successful machine gun used in combat. Although the Maxim gun, which was invented in 1884, beat the Gatling Gun due to the weapon being the first automatic machine gun, nonetheless, the Gatling Gun represented a giant step to firearm technology according to Wikipedia. The Gatling Gun was the skeleton makeup for the string of machine guns to come such as the M61 Vulcan (basically a multi-barrel Gattling Gun) that was created in World War 2.

This is a picture of the Gatling Gun that was used during the Civil War. It was also used around
Europe, Canada and Asia too. It was soon replaced by the Maxim gun. 

What Does Santa Clause Look Like?

For some reason, I still feel that Christmas fever still lingers around; even after New Year's. I still see people have their Christmas lights on their houses and other holiday decorations. I question if it's the matter of laziness or that they are still in the festive Christmas mood. Sorry kids, Santa Claus isn't coming to town until next years, that is if you were good all year. But I never really thought who came up with the depiction of Santa Claus, with a big belly, lives in the North Pole with Mrs. Claus, has reindeer and whatnot. To my surprise, the first depiction of Santa Claus came from Thomas Nast, an American artist during the Civil War Era. Today, drawings of Santa Claus and any relation to Santa Claus himself all are based off of Nast's depiction of Santa Claus. Nast's Santa Claus drawing changed American culture, such as the rise of popular Santa Claus advertisements created by the Coca-Cola Company in 1931 by the illustrator Haddon Sundblum. Nast's image of Santa Claus defined many modern day illustrations of Santa Claus. 

Drawn by Thomas Nast, this was the first picture
of Santa Claus. Nast based his drawing in Clarke
Moore's poem in 1822 "A Visit from Saint Nicolas".

"Hello, hello, can you hear me?"

Telegraphs, Samuel Morse's invention already had made an impact throughout the U.S. before the Civil War. But during the war, President Lincoln used the telegraph in order to communicate with generals because there was such a lack of communication. Because Lincoln was the first president to use the telegraph for communication purposes, he was called the "Technological President". Not only did Lincoln used the telegraph, but the future coming presidents also did too. He would use the telegraph daily whether it was talking to generals or to his wife and in total, Lincoln had sent about 1,000 T-mails. To some extent, many historians believe that Lincoln's T-mail and use of the telegraph as president actually helped him win the Civil War. Even though telegraphs were stumped by the invention of telephones in the 20th century, telegraphs were considered the first efficient way to communicate, especially in long distances. 

This is a picture of the U.S Military Telegraph Operators in
July 1863 according to Wikipedia. 

 

The Start of "No More Pain"

Despite of the unbearable, gruesome amputations soldiers had to face in the hospitals, did surgeons ever make light out of it? Although medical care during the Civil War held a terrible impression, it did in fact revolutionize a different take in medicine forever. A string of new methods, medicines and systems were invented. Anesthetics were developed in order to help control pain and manage it especially during surgeries. The founding of organized triage during the Civil War led to our modern day EMS or ambulance system. Surgeon Jonathan Letterman altered surgical procedures in the battlefield that are even used today in special cases whether it's heart attacks right on spot or bombings in a war zone. The emergence of these new technological advances in the Civil War gave a big step for the medical society and continues to prosper, especially in World War 2 when the development of penicillin and gas mask came. The Dawn of "No More Pain" had indeed started during the Civil War and helped us lead to new discoveries and advances one by one even up to modern day.  

Sources I used: 

http://news.discovery.com/history/us-history/civil-war-modern-medicine-1103311.htm

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/medicine_and_world_war_two.htm

"Say Cheese!"

Ever since my little sister joined Instagram and Snapchat, she's been literally taking pictures of everything and everywhere; flowers from the Chicago Botanic Garden, Papa John's Pizza and "selfies" (the word I despise the most even thought it just been added to Webster's dictionary). My sister's love of taking photos isn't any different though. Since the rise of social media websites and the advances of technology, people are starting to become photographers and vloggers. It's embedded in our American culture now because they document everything that's going on in their life, which includes war too and show the world about it. But exactly, is it relevant to the Civil War? That's because the Civil War according to history.com said that it was first war to be documented through a camera. Unfortunately, because the camera wasn't as much advance as our cameras today, taking and developing photos was a long process that cost time and chemicals. That's why usually pictures of Civil War would consist of landscapes and scenery, not pictures of soldiers fighting in the battle-field. It wasn't until the 20th century according to history.com, photographers are able to take photos easily in the battle-field. Below are pictures from the Civil War that were taken:

According to Wikipedia, this was the Red Army in Pre-Civil War.

A picture of trains in the Civil War that operated.

According to Massachusetts Commandery, Military Order of the Loyal Legion and the U.S Army Military History Institue this was a picture of the New York 164th Volunteer Infantry. 

"Saw Bones"

Just recently, I wrote a speech about the history of amputations to the future of it. I've always been a really big science nerd about human anatomy and chemistry, so like one can assume, I've researched day and night about amputations, the surgical process and how it all started. To my surprise, I found out that in the American  Civil War, the most common surgery was amputation. There was at an approximate of 60,000 partial or whole amputations performed in the war. Because of the many amputations surgeons had to performed, they were actually nicknamed "Saw Bones". But the one "Saw Bone", I want to focus mainly today goes by the name of Dr. Mary Edwards, the first woman surgeon ever in the U.S Military. What makes her prominent is the fact that she was the only woman in the Civil War to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. This medal is the highest honor given to a U.S citizen. She fought her away against the gender inequality and worked extremely hard. She basically gave an inspiration to women around the Civil War and continues to. Just by learning about her work and herself made me realize something very important. The American pysche, more specifically the women have a sense of hidden independence, bravery and risk-taking. Gender inequality and discrimination still continues today; women are paid less than men, what media and music culture portrays women as and the list goes on. And this can apply to women everywhere, not just American women. The assumption of women being dependent, frail and very weak characters is being crushed. It's even shown in history, like the Civil War. There were women who dressed up as a soldier and went to fight in the battle field, (reminds me of Mulan), became the "man" of the house and took charge of things their own way. The sense of independence is festered and continues to grow, a growth that can never stop. Here are my favorite moments in T.V Media that really reflect on breaking gender stereotypes. See?

Hunger Games: 

Legally Blonde:

The Princess and the Frog (Disney):

I picked this scene from the Princess and the Frog because regardless of how haggard and the many jobs she has, she still works hard to get her restaurant even though many people believe throughout the story a "woman of her background" can't run a big restaurant like that. Tiana is strong and only focuses on getting what she wants the most: her dad's restaurant. Once she get's her restaurant, she proves everyone that dreams are never impossible to reach.