Michelle Chapman

Book lover, figure skating fan, history lover, half of the @PlantagnetShade podcast

[Boze Herrington, Library Owl 😴🧙‍♀️ @SketchesbyBoze]

The most disturbing anecdote in this essay is from a grade-school teacher saying that on their first day of school kids used to cry because they missed their moms, and now they cry because they don’t have their tablets. If this isn’t fixed, it means civilizational collapse.

[Danny Miller @DanielMillerEsq]

This is one of the most powerful videos I have ever seen. Inspired by the March of a Thousand Robes in Poland, retired and sitting judges in the United States walked down the streets of Columbus to stand up for the Rule of Law.

[ivy .✦ ݁˖ @rikasphere]

a drag path but it’s one of the most complete skaters ever who never made it to the olympics

[daily ice dance 💖 @icedancelems]

today's ice dance:
lim/quan's choreo hydroblade (GOE +2.25) at 2026 worlds, during their free dance to Adagio 💜

[ArchaeoHistories @histories_arch]

At 17, she was seduced by one of America's most powerful congressmen. He made her pregnant twice, abandoned both babies, then married someone else. So she sued him and destroyed his career...

Madeline Pollard loved books more than anything. She mastered Latin. Memorized Shakespeare. Dreamed of becoming a writer in an era when most women weren't expected to dream at all. Then her father died in 1876. The family's financial security died with him. Her mother was left with six children and no income. They mortgaged their furniture just to eat.

Madeline understood the brutal mathematics of being female in 1876: marriage meant survival. Everything else meant poverty and social death. But she still fought for an education.

On April 1, 1884, 17-year-old Madeline met Congressman William Breckinridge at a train station. He was forty-seven years old. Married. Father of five. One of the most powerful men in Kentucky—a former Confederate officer turned influential politician, brilliant orator, and pillar of respectability.

He was also charming, persuasive, and predatory. Three months later, Madeline mentioned in a letter that she couldn't afford tuition. Breckinridge visited her personally. What began as mentorship became manipulation. He seduced her. Promised to support her education. Urged her to move closer—first to Lexington, then eventually to Washington D.C. For nine years, they met in secret.

In Victorian America, a single sexual scandal could destroy a woman forever. Secrecy wasn't just discretion—it was survival.

In 1885, Madeline became pregnant. Breckinridge sent her to a home for unwed mothers and pressured her to give up the baby. The infant was placed in an orphanage. Where it died.

In 1887, it happened again. Another pregnancy. Another baby sent to an institution. Another death.

"A woman can't do more than that," she would later say—meaning she'd endured the maximum suffering her era could impose.

Breckinridge moved her to Washington, secured her government jobs, and let her use the name "Madeline Breckinridge Pollard"—a fiction that made their affair seem legitimate to anyone who noticed. Through all of it, she believed his promise: that one day, he would marry her.

When his wife died in July 1892, that day finally seemed real. They set a wedding date: May 31, 1893. Madeline became pregnant again—their third child. This time, Breckinridge promised to acknowledge the baby publicly. Then, weeks before the scheduled wedding, he quietly married his young cousin Louise Wing in a secret ceremony.

He told no one. Not friends. Not colleagues. Not Madeline.

She found out from newspapers.
Shortly after, she miscarried. That's when understanding crystallized: he had never intended to marry her. For nine years, she'd been useful—available, discreet, disposable. Now she was simply disposed of.
Most women in 1893 would have disappeared quietly. Victorian society demanded silence from "fallen women." Speaking publicly about sexual relationships outside marriage meant permanent social death. Madeline Pollard refused to disappear.

On August 13, 1893, she filed a breach-of-promise lawsuit against William Breckinridge for $50,000—an astronomical sum equivalent to over $1.5 million today. It was an act of pure defiance. She had nothing to gain financially and everything to lose socially. She would have to confess everything in open court—the affair, the pregnancies, the dead babies. She risked total ruin.

She sued anyway.

"I'll take my share of the blame," she said. "I only ask that he take his."

The trial opened March 8, 1894.
It lasted twenty-eight explosive days. Newspapers across America printed daily front-page coverage. Crowds packed the courthouse so tightly that people stood in hallways just to catch glimpses through doorways.

#archaeohistories

[Culture Explorer @CultureExploreX]

What an amazing and breathtaking photo…

Photo by Elle Lookbook…

[Jackie Wong @rockerskating]

Few can do a club program like Adam Rippon

[li @li4flip]

Everytime someone gives ilia credit for bringing the backflip back in this sport an angel dies like hello did we forgot that Adam did them even when they were illegal and he still won

[Jerry Thornton @jerrythornton]

They left home as boys 8 decades ago to go out and save the world. Last night they sat at the WWII Memorial together and celebrated their country's 250th. Still heroic.

[Election Wizard @ElectionWiz]

WATCH: The Boston Pops performs Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture with perfectly choreographed cannon fire from the U.S. military.

As God, country, and the composer intended.

[Today in History @TodayinHistory]

The Tall Ships parade in NY Harbor to celebrate America’s 250th!!

[Brandi Morin @Songstress28]

Trump stood at Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe — “Six Grandfathers,” aka Mount Rushmore — last night and told America that anyone who says it was built on stolen land is spreading “Marx’s lies about our heritage.” He said the people who “tell our children that we live on stolen land” are doing “something much worse than slandering our past” — they’re “attacking our future.” He called them “a band of thieves, radicals and lunatics.”
No, Trump. You’re wrong.
So let’s be direct about it, since you weren’t: Yes. The United States of America is stolen land. It was founded through genocide, oppression and dispossession of the people who were already here. That’s not a Marxist talking point. That’s the historical record, and here are the receipts…

Start with the ground he was standing on.
READ/SHARE MY PIECE ON INDIGENOUS INSIDER: https://t.co/Ey0IlCdLxy

[Guns&Gadgets @Guns_Gadgets]

The USS Constitution, aka Old Ironsides, is the world’s oldest commissioned war ship still afloat!

She was launched in 1797, one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794 and the third constructed. The name “Constitution” was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March or May for the frigates that were to be constructed.

Happy Independence Day America! 🇺🇸🫡
#america250 #america #independenceday #july4th

[Daily Step Sequences @stepsequence100]

I've always wanted to post Juulia Turkkila doing her tango diagonal step by herself on this page. Via @graciasNole

[Michael Beschloss @BeschlossDC]

Thomas Jefferson's handwritten draft of our Declaration of Independence (with revisions by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin), 1776:

[MP Arizona☀️🏳️‍🌈💙🌵🐕🐕‍🦺🫂💦🏜🐟🌴🎙🌎🌻♍️🌊 @AzPetrich]

He now wants the historic Cherry Trees that were gifted from Japan in 1910 REMOVED, along with the bike path so he can build a golf course.

Guy's! HE'S PLANNING ON CUTTING DOWN THE CHERRY TREES. THE FUCKING CHERRY TREES OF DC.

This better not happen.

[James Lucas @JamesLucasIT]

This is the only existing footage of Mark Twain.

It was filmed in 1909, and within a year, he was gone...

The man walking there, in the white suit with the cigar, and sitting outside at a table with his two daughters, is Samuel Clemens, the legendary writer the world knew as Mark Twain.

By 1909 he was one of the most famous men alive.

The footage was shot by Thomas Edison himself, who visited Twain at Stormfield, his home in Redding, Connecticut. It is in black and white, it flickers with age, and it is the only known film of Twain ever made.

The father of American literature has been gone for more than a century, but here, for a few flickering seconds, he is still alive.

[bella @michellekwanism]

with the 25/26 season officially ended i want to remind everyone of the best short program of the entire quad

[Brian Krassenstein @krassenstein]

Usha Vance just asked Trump if he has time to read.

Barack Obama: “Reading is the gateway skill that makes all other learning possible.”

Thomas Jefferson: “I cannot live without books.”

Donald Trump: “I usually read stories about myself”