October 15th, 1859 is the anniversary of abolitionist John Brown’s raid against the federal armory in Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), in an attempt to start an armed slave revolt and destroy the institution of slavery. Although the raid failed, it inflamed sectional tensions and raised the stakes for the 1860 presidential election. Brown’s raid helped make any further accommodation between North and South nearly impossible and thus became an important impetus of the Civil War.
o o o
It is worth noting that SurvivalBlog has now surpassed 30,000 archived articles and columns since August of 2005. We’ve also quickly garnered over 22,000 comments on articles since we instituted commenting capability in April of 2017.