Second Decade

Napoleon was the kind of guy who didn’t know when the party was over. Following his disastrous defeat in Russia in 1812 ... Read more

Hawaii, known to Westerners in the Second Decade as “the Sandwich Islands,” was a rich and vibrant place, and the 1810s ... Read more

 In the summer of 1817, residents of the coastal town of Gloucester, Massachusetts suddenly began seeing a mysterious cr... Read more

In the 1810s, the British penal colony of Australia, known then as New South Wales, was barely 20 years old. Already it ... Read more

The “Year Without Summer,” 1816, is one of those things that many people have heard of, but very few know anything subst... Read more

Though it started as a convenient dumping ground for Britain’s human refuse, the colony of Australia was not destined to... Read more

Despite being one of the longest-reigning British monarchs as well as wildly popular among his own people, King George I... Read more

What was the War of 1812? Which countries were involved? What were the stakes? Why is it so obscure? Why does it have su... Read more

In the summer of 1812 Napoleon’s France invaded Russia, ruled by Tsar Alexander I, with the largest army ever assembled ... Read more

“Waterloo” is a name so historic and iconic that it’s taken on more than its literal meaning—when we speak of someone “m... Read more

Originally built in the 1790s largely with slave labor, from the very beginning the White House was an eerie mirror of A... Read more

You’ve probably heard of Daniel Boone and “Grizzly” Adams, the quintessential frontier mountain men who helped forge Ame... Read more

If you’ve never heard of John Caragea and have no idea where Wallachia is, you’re certainly not alone. This look at the ... Read more

Iceland was, in 1809, a very different place than we think of it today. It was still a picturesque, craggy island belchi... Read more

Pressured by environmental change and the coming of European colonizers along the coasts, southern Africa in the 1810s w... Read more

For most of human history, Antarctica was more of a concept than a reality. Geographers from ancient times and voyagers ... Read more

For many people around the world, 1816 was the oddest summer they ever lived through. Snow from the previous winter was ... Read more

You may not have heard of David Ramsay, but if you lived in Charleston, South Carolina in the second decade, you would p... Read more

In the 1810s, St. John’s, Newfoundland was possibly the most remote and inaccessible corner of British America. Located ... Read more

In retellings of history, Napoleon’s brief return to power in the spring of 1815 is often portrayed as an audacious surp... Read more