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The Devil And Daniel Webster
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" (1936) is a short story by American writer Stephen Vincent Benét. He tells of a New Hampshire farmer who sells his soul to the devil and is later defended by a fictionalized Daniel Webster, a noted 19th-century American statesman, lawyer and orator. The narrative references real events in the lives of Webster and his family. The story appeared in ''The Saturday Evening Post'' (October 24, 1936) and was published in book form by Farrar & Rinehart the following year. The story won the O. Henry Award. The author also adapted it in 1938 as a folk opera, with music by Douglas Stuart Moore, a fellow Yale University alumnus. Plot summary Farmer Jabez Stone, from the small town of Cross Corners, New Hampshire, is plagued with unending bad luck. He finally says, "it's enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil!" The next day, he is visited by a stranger, identified as " Mr. Scratch", who offers to give him seven years of prosperity in ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
WikiProject Novels
A WikiProject, or Wikiproject, is an affinity group for contributors with shared goals within the Wikimedia movement. WikiProjects are prevalent within the largest wiki, Wikipedia, and exist to varying degrees within Wikimedia project, sibling projects such as Wiktionary, Wikiquote, Wikidata, and Wikisource. They also exist in different languages, and translation of articles is a form of their collaboration. During the COVID-19 pandemic, CBS News noted the role of Wikipedia's WikiProject Medicine in maintaining the accuracy of articles related to the disease. Another WikiProject that has drawn attention is WikiProject Women Scientists, which was profiled by ''Smithsonian Magazine, Smithsonian'' for its efforts to improve coverage of women scientists which the profile noted had "helped increase the number of female scientists on Wikipedia from around 1,600 to over 5,000". On Wikipedia Some Wikipedia WikiProjects are substantial enough to engage in cooperative activities with outsi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loyalist (American Revolution)
Loyalists were refugee colonists from Thirteen Colonies, thirteen of the 20 British American colonies who remained loyal to the British Crown, British crown during the American Revolution, often referred to as Tories, Royalists, or King's Men at the time. They were opposed by the Patriot (American Revolution), Patriots or Whigs, who supported the revolution and considered them "persons inimical to the liberties of America." Prominent Loyalists repeatedly assured the Government of the United Kingdom, British government that many thousands of them would spring to arms and fight for the Crown. The British government acted in expectation of that, especially during the Southern theater of the American Revolutionary War, Southern campaigns of 1780 and 1781. Britain was able to effectively protect the people only in areas where they had military control, thus the number of military Loyalists was significantly lower than what had been expected. Loyalists were often under suspicion of t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jury Nullification
Jury nullification, also known as jury equity or as a perverse verdict, is a decision by the jury in a trial, criminal trial resulting in a verdict of Acquittal, not guilty even though they think a defendant has broken the law. The jury's reasons may include the belief that the law itself is unjust, that the prosecutor has misapplied the law in the defendant's case, that the punishment for breaking the law is too harsh, or general frustrations with the criminal justice system. It has been commonly used to oppose what jurors perceive as Rule according to higher law, unjust laws, such as those that once penalized runaway slaves under the Fugitive slave laws in the United States, Fugitive Slave Act, prohibited alcohol during Prohibition in the United States, Prohibition, or criminalized Vietnam War draft, draft evasion during the Vietnam War. Some juries have also refused to convict due to their own prejudices in favor of the defendant. Such verdicts are possible because a jury has ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Salem Witch Trials
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in Province of Massachusetts Bay, colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Not everyone who was accused during that time had a known residency; around 151 people, nearly half that were accused, were able to be traced back to twenty-five different New England communities. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging (fourteen women and five men). One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in the disease-ridden jails. Arrests were made in numerous towns beyond Salem Village (known today as Danvers, Massachusetts, Danvers) and its regional center Salem, Massachusetts, Salem Town, notably in Andover, Massachusetts, Andover and Topsfield, Massachusetts, Topsfield. The grand juries and trials for this capital crime were conducted by a Cour ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Hathorne
John Hathorne (August 1641 – May 10, 1717) was a merchant and magistrate of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and Salem, Massachusetts. He is best known for his early and vocal role as one of the leading judges in the Salem witch trials. Hathorne was absent from the list of men appointed to the Court of Oyer & Terminer in June 1692. That court relied heavily on the spectral evidence, examinations, interrogations, and affidavits previously conducted by Hathorne, co-signed by Jonathan Corwin, and recorded by Rev. Samuel Parris and/or Ezekiel Cheever Jr. On September 22, 1692, the date of the final eight executions, Hathorne was present at a meetingSewall Diary with Stoughton and Cotton Mather to discuss using court records in a new publication designed to promote the trials. Unlike Samuel Sewall, Hathorne is not known to have repented for his actions. He was a patrilineal ancestor of writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. Life Hathorne's father, Major William Hathorne, was among the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Benedict Arnold
Benedict Arnold (#Brandt, Brandt (1994), p. 4June 14, 1801) was an American-born British military officer who served during the American Revolutionary War. He fought with distinction for the American Continental Army and rose to the rank of major general before defecting to the British in 1780. General George Washington had given him his fullest trust and had placed him in command of West Point, New York, West Point in New York Colony, New York. Arnold was planning to surrender the fort to British forces, but the plot was discovered in September 1780, whereupon he fled to the British lines. In the later part of the war, Arnold was commissioned as a brigadier general in the British Army during the American Revolutionary War, British Army and placed in command of the American Legion (Great Britain), American Legion. He led British forces in battle against the army which he had once commanded, and his name became synonymous with treason and betrayal in the United States.#Rogets, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blackbeard
Edward Teach (or Thatch; – 22 November 1718), better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him. Teach captured a French slave ship known as , renamed her '' Queen Anne's Revenge,'' equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. He became a renowned pirate. His nickname derived from his thick black bear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pilgrims (Plymouth Colony)
The Pilgrims, also known as the Pilgrim Fathers, were the English settlers who travelled to North America on the ship '' Mayflower'' and established the Plymouth Colony at what now is Plymouth, Massachusetts, United States. John Smith had named this territory New Plymouth in 1620, sharing the name of the Pilgrims' final departure port of Plymouth, Devon, England. The Pilgrims' leadership came from religious congregations of Brownists or Separatists who had fled religious persecution in England for the tolerance of 17th-century Holland in the Netherlands. These Separatists held many of the same Calvinist religious beliefs as Puritans, but unlike Puritans (who wanted a purified established church), Pilgrims believed that their congregations should separate from the Church of England, which led to their being labelled Separatists. After several years of living in exile in Holland, they determined to establish a new settlement in the New World and arranged with investors to fu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plymouth Colony
Plymouth Colony (sometimes spelled Plimouth) was the first permanent English colony in New England from 1620 and the third permanent English colony in America, after Newfoundland and the Jamestown Colony. It was settled by the passengers on the '' Mayflower'' at a location that had previously been surveyed and named by Captain John Smith. The settlement served as the capital of the colony and developed as the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts. At its height, Plymouth Colony occupied most of what is now the southeastern portion of Massachusetts. Many of the people and events surrounding Plymouth Colony have become part of American folklore, including the American tradition of Thanksgiving and the monument of Plymouth Rock. Plymouth Colony was founded by a group of Protestant Separatists initially known as the Brownist Emigration, who came to be known as the Pilgrims. The colony established a treaty with Wampanoag chief Massasoit which helped to ensure its success; in this ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Morton (colonist)
Thomas Morton (c. 1579–1647) was an early colonist in North America from Devon, England. He was a lawyer, writer, and social reformer known for studying American Indian culture, and he founded the colony of Merrymount, located in Quincy, Massachusetts. He is the author of ''New English Canaan,'' an anti-Puritan work which could be considered the first book banned in the United States, as it was banned by the Puritans in colonial times. Biography Mount Wollaston Morton took a three-month exploratory trip to America in 1622, but was back in England by early 1623 complaining of intolerance among ruling elements of the Puritan community. He returned in 1624 as a senior partner in a Crown-sponsored trading venture aboard the ship ''Unity'' with his associate Captain Wollaston and 30 indentured young men. They began trading for furs on a spit of land belonging to the Algonquian tribes. Morton immediately began selling liquor and firearms to the Indians, disregarding the laws ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Dale
Sir Thomas Dale ( 157019 August 1619) was an English soldier and colonial administrator who served as deputy-governor of the Colony of Virginia in 1611 and again from 1614 to 1616. Dale is best remembered for the energy and the extreme rigour of his administration in Virginia, which established order and in various ways seems to have benefited the colony, although he was criticised for high-handedness. He is also credited with the establishment of Bermuda Hundred, Bermuda Cittie, and the Cittie of Henricus. Biography Early career From about 1588 to 1609, Thomas Dale was in the service of the Low Countries (the Netherlands and parts of modern Belgium) with the English army originally under Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Because of his ability and ambition, he became friends with many people in positions of authority. In 1599 Thomas Dale was recruited by the Earl of Essex for England's army and was knighted by King James to become "Sir Thomas Dale of Surry" on 16 June 16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wampanoag
The Wampanoag, also rendered Wôpanâak, are a Native Americans in the United States, Native American people of the Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands, Northeastern Woodlands currently based in southeastern Massachusetts and formerly parts of eastern Rhode Island.Salwen, "Indians of Southern New England and Long Island," p. 171. Their historical territory includes the islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Today, two Wampanoag tribes are federally recognized: * Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe * Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah). Herring Pond Tribe is a historical Wampanoag Tribe located in Plymouth and Bourne, Massachusetts The Wampanoag language, also known as Massachusett language, Massachusett, is a Southern New England Algonquian language. Prior to English contact in the 17th century, the Wampanoag numbered as many as 40,000 people living across 67 villages composing the Wampanoag Nation. These villages covered the territory along the east coast as far as ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
