Your Maryland

In 1836, a young aspiring doctor from the colony of Maryland in Liberia came to Baltimore to study medicine, only to be met with prejudice and intolerance. 

In the spring of 1700, the pirate ship "La Paix" terrorized merchant ships in the Chesapeake region under an impressive blood red flag.

In February 1848, Chesapeake Bay boat captain Daniel Drayton was offered a few hundred dollars to go to Washington and pick up 76 people escaping from slavery and take them to freedom in Pennsylvania. Things did not go well.

In 1840, William Gilmor held a tournament, replete with jousting, a quintain, and guests clad in Medieval garb, at his Vineyard estate in Baltimore, which was located near 29th Street and Greenmount in the Waverly neighborhood in Baltimore.

Before he would be forever associated with the 1857 Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, Roger B. Taney defended outspoken Hagerstown abolitionist Jacob Gruber.

The story of William Othello Wilson, a native of Hagerstown who served as a "Buffalo Soldier" with the Ninth US Calvary fighting the Sioux at Pine Ridge before retiring to a "quiet life" back home in Maryland.

A little known story of one of the brave souls who helped to battle the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904.

During the War of 1812, Maryland militiamen, led by Joseph Stewart, captured the long boat belonging to the HMS Dauntless as it lay trapped in ice.

In 1906, Upton Sinclair causes an uproar when he publishes his book "The Jungle," a shocking expose of the conditions in the meat packing industry.

On January 30, 1956, a devastating fire broke out at Arundel Park during a church fundraiser and oyster roast.

During the Civil War, Hetty Cary, known as "the most beautiful girl in the South," supported the Southern cause with her fellow "Monument Street Girls" in Baltimore, moved to Richmond, and had a tragic, brief marriage to a Confederate general.

A little known story behind the scenes of the making of the Hollywood blockbuster "King Kong" and its ties to Maryland.

Before he made a name for himself in the vaudeville scene in New York, Eubie “Mouse” Blake got his start playing honkytonk music in the pool halls, saloons, and brothels of East Baltimore.

During the Revolutionary War, Charles Wilson Peale served with, and painted portraits of, many great leaders fighting for independence from England, including George Washington and Alexander Hamilton. 

On December 2nd, 1859, abolitionist John Brown met his end at the gallows in Charlestown, Virginia.

On November 19th, at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, one of America's greatest orators of the time, Edward Everett, gave a grand speech. But it was Abraham Lincoln’s brief address, consisting of only 272 words, which will be remembered forever.  

In 1893, Mary Garrett, daughter of B&O Railroad magnate John Work Garrett, used her fortune to fund the nation's first co-educational medical school at Johns Hopkins. 

In June, 1932, desperate veterans, who had been promised a "bonus" for their service in WWI with the Allied Expeditionary Forces in France, marched on Washington, DC, to demand payment.

In the 1870's, horse racing began at a track in Pimlico with a series of exciting sweepstakes races.

In 1851, Maryland farmer Edward Gorsuch formed a posse and tried to retrieve some runaway slaves that had fled over the Pennsylvania border. It did not end well.

In 1902, Joe Gans, a black boxer from Baltimore, became Lightweight Champion of the World. 

Francis Scott Key writes the Star Spangled Banner whilst aboard a truce ship in the harbor where he witnessed the bombardment of Fort McHenry.

In September 1814, after raiding and burning Washington, British troops turned their sites on Baltimore. They were met with great resistance from the Americans, and the planned invasion of Baltimore never took place.

  In 1848, Henry Grainger sent his young son George to be formally educated at St. Timothy's School in Catonsville. George's complaints may sound very familiar to parents all over Maryland as students return to school this week.

In August, 1776, 400 Marylander s of the “Dandy 5th” Regiment fought bravely to hold the American line in Brooklyn Heights, New York, while George Washington and his troops beat a hasty retreat after a disastrous encounter with the British. 

During the War of Independence, in the spring of 1778, the 28 gun British frigate “Mermaid” chose to surrender to a “nest of pirates” on the Eastern Shore rather than be taken a prize by the notorious French vice admiral Charles Hector D’Estaing.

On July 24, 1868, a great flood swept through the Patapsco River valley, causing great damage and loss of life.

Before he became a major league phenom, "Little George" Ruth learned about baseball, and life, with the help of Brother Mathias at St. Mary's Industrial School, a Catholic institution for "incorrigible" boys in Baltimore.

On July 3, 1863, Confederate officer Henry Kyd Douglas was wounded just south of Gettysburg and became first a patient and then a prisoner of Union troops and their allies.