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It is January 30th, and 188 years ago today the nation was shocked by the first known assassination attempt on a sitting president of the United States. The attempt by Richard Lawrence on the life of President Andrew Jackson was, in itself, high drama, and his trial one of great attention. And yet, even an assassin turned out to be far less interesting than Washington Politics.
During the civil war, the manufacture of powder and explosives was often handled by the most vulnerable, young women and children, whose labor was needed when so many men had been sent off to war. On March 13, 1863, the confederacy experienced a munitions disaster, in the confederate capitol of Richmond.
The appeal of one strange object, which achieved dizzying popularity in my lifetime, and today lives on mostly for nostalgia, is not so difficult to explain. All you need to do is turn one on and wait.
