About Christian McBurney

[Author’s note:  By the 1820s, circuses were becoming a popular form of mass entertainment. Traveling from small town to small town, they attracted increasingly large crowds.  The first elephants from …
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Recently, there has been a spate of Rhode Island history books published by smallstatebighistory.com authors. These are in addition to Untold Stories of World War II Rhode Island (History Press, …
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In last week’s article, I listed my top ten most interesting and amusing street names in Rhode Island. This article includes a list of fifteen honorable mention most interesting and …
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Here are my top ten most interesting and amusing street names in Rhode Island. The names of the persons who provided me with the idea for the name and related …
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As I poked around the photography division of the Navy History and Heritage Command last summer at Washington Yard in Washington, D.C., I was hoping to find more photographs for …
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In early October 1927, baseball sluggers Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig arrived at Providence to play an exhibition baseball game.  It was a memorable day for kids and adults alike.

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The Great Gale of 1815 was one of the three strongest hurricanes ever to hit Rhode Island. Communities throughout the state suffered damage. This article quotes from three histories containing …
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The Great Swamp Fight on December 19, 1675, in King Philip’s War, forever destroyed the power of the Narragansett tribe. What is less well known are earlier destructive raids, including …
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The letter penned by Sullivan Ballou, a major in the 2nd Rhode Island Infantry Regiment hailing from Smithfield, one week before he fought at the first Battle of Bull Run, …
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After a British fleet of seventy-one warships and transports entered Narragansett Bay on December 7, 1776, and the next day landed soldiers that occupied Newport, Rhode Island, as well as …
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