National Geographic History

from the editor

Our cover photograph was taken June 5, 1944, the night before D-Day. Surrounding Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower are the paratroopers of Company E, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment. They are listening intently to their commander as he speaks. The man opposite Eisenhower, with a Screaming Eagles patch and a tag with the number 23, is jumpmaster 1st Lt. Wallace Strobel. It is his 22nd birthday. Many have speculated as to what Eisenhower was saying to Strobel. Perhaps he was echoing his order of the day: “We will accept nothing less than full Victory.” But Strobel remembered something different. According to him, the topic was fishing. In interviews and his writings, Strobel said that Eisenhower asked his name and where he was from. Strobel answered, “Strobel, sir. Michigan.” The general replied, “Oh yes, Michigan.…

history

EXECUTIVE EDITOR AMY E. BRIGGS Deputy Editor JULIUS PURCELL Editorial Consultants JOSEP MARIA CASALS (Managing Editor, Historia magazine), IÑAKI DE LA FUENTE (Art Director, Historia magazine) Design Editor FRANCISCO ORDUÑA Photography Editor MERITXELL CASANOVAS Contributors IRENE BERMAN-VAPORIS, SUSAN BROWNBRIDGE, MARC BRIAN DUCKETT, VICTOR LLORET BLACKBURN, SARAH PRESANT-COLLINS, THEODORE A. SICKLEY, JANE SUNDERLAND, SOREN WALLJASPER VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER JOHN MACKETHAN Publishing Directors SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC PARTNERS YULIA P. BOYLE DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE AMY KOLCZAK PUBLISHER, NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC BOOKS LISA THOMAS Advertising ROB BYRNES Consumer Marketing and Planning RICHARD BROWN, STEPHANIE CASTELLANO, PAULA COMMODORE, MORGAN L. DECKER, ANDREW DIAMOND, SUSAN DIDONATO, KEVIN FOWLER, JASON GALLIGER, SUZANNE MACKAY, KATHERINE M. MILLER, WILLIAM H. MCBEE, CHRISTINA OLNEY, ROCCO RUGGIERI, JOHN SCHIAVONE, KATE SCOTT, MARK VIOLA, JANET ZAVREL Production Services JAMES ANDERSON, JULIE IBINSON, KRISTIN SEMENIUK Customer Service SCOTT ARONSON, TRACY PELT FOR SUBSCRIPTION…

deep freeze: london’s lost icehouse

Archaeologists from MOLA (Museum of London Archaeology) were carrying out a site investigation in the city’s wealthy Regent’s Park district when they made a chilling discovery: a massive brickbuilt chamber measuring 31 feet deep and 25 feet wide. They quickly determined that it was an icehouse, one of the biggest ever found in the city. The egg-shaped chamber dates to the 1780s and was used well into the 19th century to store blocks of lake ice brought in from Norway During the German Blitz in World War II, bombs destroyed the houses above but did no damage to the chamber below. Rubble from the destruction was used to fill the icehouse, hiding it for decades. Historians had long been aware that an icehouse was somewhere in the area, but they did not know…

innovater, influencer, debtor

1778 George Bryan Brummell is born in London to a middleclass family. His father is secretary to Lord North. 1799 Brummell inherits money following the death of his father in 1794 and becomes a trendsetter in London. 1816 After descending into debt, Brummell flees to France to escape his creditors and prison. 1830 Brummell becomes British consul in Caen after years in exile spent running up more debts in Calais. 1835 Having helped abolish his consular post a few years previously, Brummell is jailed for debt. 1840 After a mental breakdown, Brummell dies in an asylum in Caen.…

beau brummell, first male fashion icon

George Bryan “Beau” Brummell, described as the most famous and influential man in early 19th-century London, was the center of a revolution. He sparked change not with rhetoric or military might, but with innovations in masculine sartorial style and manner. Men copied what he wore, his mannerisms, and even his daily grooming routine. Today he is remembered as the world’s first dandy, but although his name became synonymous with the label, he didn’t inspire its creation. The Oxford English Dictionary, defining the term as one “who studies above everything to dress elegantly and fashionably,” traces its origins to 1780, just two years after Brummell’s birth. Nevertheless, Brummell became a symbol of a new masculine style, one that still dictates the way people dress today. The Making of a Tastemaker Born in London in…

sign language: meaning in motion

For millennia people with hearing impairments encountered marginalization because it was believed that language could only be learned by hearing the spoken word. Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, for example, asserted that “Men that are deaf are in all cases also dumb.” Under Roman law people who were born deaf were denied the right to sign a will as they were “presumed to understand nothing; because it is not possible that they have been able to learn to read or write.” Pushback against this prejudice began in the Renaissance. The first person credited with the creation of a formal sign language for the hearing impaired was Pedro Ponce de León, a 16th-century Spanish Benedictine monk. His idea to use sign language was not a completely new idea. Native Americans used hand gestures…