U.S. Cavalry Museum Fort Riley, Kansas

Originally called Camp Center, Ft. Riley was established in the 1850s to provide protection to immigrants migrating westward on the Oregon and Sante Fe Trails. Its cavalry units policed the Kansas Territory during the pro and anti-slavery bloodshed that preceded the Civil War and it was the last home of General George Armstrong Custer before he met his fate at the battle of the Little Big Horn. The museum includes exhibits of cavalry activities from their early beginnings in the Revolutionary War up to their modern deployment in the Persian Gulf. It also features the work of outstanding military artists in both oil and bronze.

http://www.uoregon.edu/~mharrsch/USCavalry.html

Rough Riders Col. Theodore Roosevelt's 1st Volunteer Cavalry

The following is a point-by-point account
of the Rough Rider's Charge up San Juan Hill.
The numbers on the description below correspond
to the numbers on the map above. We thank Osprey
Publishing for their generous permission to reprint
this map taken from pages 74 and 75 of Angus Konstam's
San Juan Hill 1898: America's Emergence as a World Power

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/trrr.html

Zulu Dawn

The sun dawned bloodied...two great armies
met face to face...and the earth trembled to
the sound of the Zulu death chant!

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080180/

Shaka Zulu

The true story of the life and rise to power of
Shaka, the greatest Zulu leader in history.
Starting from his birth, this film takes us
through his difficult childhood, his taking by
force the leadership of the Zulu nation, and
then to his dramatic fall, due mostly to the
influences of the British colonialists

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093950/

Rough Riders

The real-life story of Teddy Roosevelt's role in the
Spanish-American war is re-told in this made-for-
television movie. Tom Berenger stars as Roosevelt,
who in 1898 formed his own volunteer calvary to go
into Cuba and fight the expansion of Spanish rule.
Thousands of men from all walks of life volunteered,
but Roosevelt honed the team down to over 500
fighting men. When they finally arrived in Cuba, they
faced a well-equipped Spanish army and squared off
in the famous Battle of San Juan Hill.

http://movies.msn.com/movies/movie/rough-riders/

55 Days at Peking

Diplomats, soldiers and other representatives of
a dozen nations fend off the siege of the International
Compound in Peking during the 1900 Boxer Rebellion.
The disparate interests unite for survival despite
competing factions, overwhelming odds, delayed relief
and tacit support of the Boxers by the Empress of
China and her generals.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056800/

The Sand Pebbles

Engineer Jake Holman arrives aboard the gunboat
U.S.S. San Pablo, assigned to patrol a tributary of
the Yangtze in the middle of exploited and revolution
-torn 1926 China. His iconoclasm and cynical nature
soon clash with the "rice-bowl" system which runs the
ship and the uneasy symbiosis between Chinese and
foreigner on the river. Hostility towards the gunboat's
presence reaches a climax when the boat must crash
through a river-boom and rescue missionaries upriver
at China Light Mission.

http://www.thesandpebbles.com/

Ingenious Applications of Steam Power

While manufacturers busied themselves with increasingly

successful farm steam engines, inventors were experimenting

with a host of steam machines many of them fascinating, some

of them zany, and a few of them bizarre. Here is a look at some

noteworthy steam devices culled from the pages of history.

http://www.steamtraction.com/archive/5520/

Ancient Technology

An entertaining page!


http://www.ancientskyscraper.com/801/index.html

Aortistan Campaign

The Northern Conspiracy group ran a colonial campaign which was set in
a fictitious, Africa-like continent during the period between 1870 -
1920...'ish. The campaign did have large battles, small battles, skirmishes
and lots of skulduggery and diplomacy.

We got yer steamboats, yer observation balloons, crazy turbaned dudes,
and even crazier Euro-dudes. Mountain Fortresses, Desert Oases, Lost
jungle Cities and Temples, and all manner of Victorian Derring-Do.

Attempts will be made to keep "bug-hunting" to a minimum.

There are eleven (11) commands in the beginning. There could be more if
the game is full and you beg convincingly enough. Money definitely talks.
At the start there are four colonial powers (British, German, French, American),
one existing empire (Kind of Turkish-like), five indigenous commands, and a
pirate, with varying degrees of technology and wealth. ( Desert Nomads,
Mountain Tribes, Jungle Tribes, Zulu's) You get the idea.

What was the object going to be? Well,.........The creation of an empire,
The conquest of a continent, A night away from the wife and kids, Free
pretzels, whatever !

http://thenorthernconspiracy.org/conspiracy/events/1999/Aortisan/

Independence Day Messages From John Adams

On July 2, 1776, after long and wrenching debate, the Continental Congress voted to declare independence from the Mother Country and the next night John Adams went back to his rooming house in sweltering, sticky Philadelphia to write, by candlelight, two of the most famous letters in American history. Addressing his beloved wife Abigail in far-away Boston, he exulted in the birth of a new nation:

The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forevermore.

You will think me transported with enthusiasm, but I am not. I am well aware of the toil and blood and treasure that it will cost us to maintain this Declaration and support and defend these states. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see the rays of ravishing light and glory. I can see that the end is more than worth all the means. And that posterity will triumph in that day’s transaction, even although we should rue it, which I trust in God we shall not…

It may be the will of Heaven that America will suffer calamities still more wasting, and distress yet more dreadful. If this is to be the case, it will have this good effect at least. It will inspire us with many virtues which we have not, and correct many errors, follies and vices which threaten to disturb, dishonor and destroy us. The furnace of affliction produces refinement, in States as well as individuals...But I must submit all my hopes and fears to an overruling Providence, in which, unfashionable as the faith may be, I firmly believe.

The prophetic nature of his vision still makes the heart race and takes the breath away, some 231 years later. Predicting “illuminations” (the 18th Century term for fireworks!) to celebrate Independence Day from “one end of the continent to the other” remains almost freakishly prescient. When Adams wrote those words, the colonies occupied only a narrow, intermittent strip of settlements along the eastern seaboard; the very notion of a true continental nation looked wildly implausible, all but unimaginable.

The one mistake in Adams’ view of the future involved his assumption that future generations would celebrate the Second of July (the date of the adoption of the resolution for Independence) rather than the Fourth of July (the date Congress approved the specific wording of the Declaration which Adams had helped his friend Thomas Jefferson to write.

The Great War (and "Back of Beyond")

Who on earth would want to wargame the First World War?

It's all suicidal charges, trenches and machine guns, isn't it?

Well, yes, of course it is .. if you only want to game the

Somme or Verdun, but the war was also fought in modern-day

Iraq, East Africa, the Balkans .. all over the place... and that's

not even adding on the Russian Civil War, which lasted six

years and stretched the fighting from the Baltic to the Pacific.

It all began with East Africa, when I built up a small German

Schutztruppe force, using 28mm Brigade Miniatures, Foundry,

Battle Honours and Copplestone Castings figures. Then came

the Turks, pictured below. The idea was, I could use them

against many of the British figures which people painted up

for East Africa, and they could also join in the Club's "Back of

Beyond" campaign, set in Central Asia in the 1920's. The picture

above is them storming a Bolshevik trench at Baku, while the

shots below show the army in the deserts of Palestine a few

years earlier. Johnny Turk is nothing if not versatile...

http://www.edinburghwargames.com/Great%20War.htm

The Heliograph Second Life Steampunk Blog

A very informative and entertaining blog!

http://voyagesofdrfabre.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html

The "Beagle"

a barque rigged privateer in the service of the crown

www.geocities.com/.../Underworld/7031/s1889.html

Paleo-Future

In his own words,"I take a lot of pride in providing
material you can't find anywhere else on the internet"

Very nice stuff indeed!

http://www.paleofuture.com/

Art By Keith Thompson

Keith Thompson's artwork gallery,
very inspiring stuff!

http://picasaweb.google.com/Pachanka/KeithWormwood

http://www.keiththompsonart.com

Miniature Wargaming In Sacramento

A beautiful scratchbuilt 15mm VSF robot, the "Firebelly,"

made by Mark C.

www.freewebs.com/mwssacto/news.htm

Our first Aeronef Battle in Austin

Ever since Mike Cannon from Wizards Workshop emailed me about

the possibility of stocking Brigade Games Aeronef models, we have

been hot to trot to get enough models painted to try it out. Friday

night was the night. The Aeronef rules are pretty simplistic but we

all agreed to try them unmodified for our first game. I showed up

with my Turkish fleet, Lance brought Russians and Francisco

brought his Argentinians. The painted models are just gorgeous.

I brought the uber sea-scape mat that I got from Terrain Mat and

Francisco made some really nice cloud models so the tabletop was

really convention-class pretty.

http://www.lshm.net/?p=276

The memories of our future: Steampunk in gaming

Dystopian futures make for more appealing adventures,
since such worlds to need more saving than other, more
sunny timelines. But despite the fact that most current
sci-fi games focus on the the bleaker possibilities (war
with aliens, oppressive governments, and the impending
doom of all humanity, to name a few), change is in the air.
A niche art style that draws on both the brute power of
steam-driven technology and the elegance of the past is
gaining popularity, and it could bring some fresh air to the
somewhat stale designs of modern games.

http://arstechnica.com/articles/culture/steampunk-video-games.ars/1

Akira Yamaguchi - Japanese Fantasy War Drawings

Wars are fought by armies of men, but equipment has
always been critical to their ability to perform in battle.
Now, imagine a time machine which could outfit Genghis
Khan with rocket launchers; or Napoleon with a division
of Panzer tanks -- that would change human history,
wouldn't it? Tokyo artist Akira Yamaguchi explores the
idea from a Japanese perspective with the hallucinogenic
history lesson that is his new exhibition, "Japan/China
and Japan/Russia Fantasy War Drawings."

http://www.brassgoggles.co.uk/brassgoggles/?p=317