Christine Macy Introduction The World Exposition held in Chicago in 1893 holds a special place in the annals of American history. The first exposition held in the American West, its planning and exhibits represented not only a certain coming-of-age for the country, hosting an exposition that aimed to match that of Paris in size and […]

It is not only the burial day, but the very creation of the American Unknown Soldier in 1920 that requires a reconsideration of the view of the Soldier as an instrument used by the state for its own purposes; for everyone who mattered in that state and everyone among its important interlocutors had stood in […]

The accurate depiction of the spatial proximity of the two monuments on ancient coins, the descriptive name meta and the distinctive, conical form, ensured that, through the middle ages, Renaissance and beyond, the identity of the fountain as the Flavian Meta Sudans was never lost. The eighth-century Einsiedeln Itinerary refers to it by name, as […]

Although it traces its ancestry back to the leader of the Dutch sixteenth – century struggle for independence from Spain, William the Silent, the House of Orange dates its monarchy only from 1813. Willem I (reigned 1813-40) was authoritarian, but his son and grandson, Willem II (reigned 1840-49) and Willem III (reigned 1849-90) were unimpressive, […]

The lagoon and islands offered a wooded retreat set aside from the rest of the fair. Frederick Law Olmsted, who created this seemingly natural landscape out of tidal mud flats, intended it to be the only area of the fair without significant buildings. Surrounded by a lagoon and covered with bushes, flowers, and trees, the […]