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The Big Bang.
The first amoeba appeared. After it spilt, the first half lived with a potentially infinite life span, and it may still be alive.
The skeletal remains of a female Hominen, Ardi, were discovered in Ethiopia in 1994.
Early evidence of Homosapiens, the first modern humans having evolved from their hominin predecessors, was found in 2017 in a cave in Morocco, Northern Africa.
Although previously the earliest known remains of the Denisovan human relatives were found in China, dating to 160,000 years ago, older bones were found in Denisovan cave in Siberia,Russia in 2022.
A Neanderthal molar was extracted from a cave although it is believed that Neanderthals first appeared much earlier in history.
Humans began moving out of Africa, traveling to Europe and Asia.
A Neanderthal cave painting was discovered in 2021 in Spain.
Having crossed the Bering Strait land bridge and across the Strait by boat, going back and forth between Asia and North America, the peoples who became Native Americans arrived in the Western Hemisphere.
Beginning of the continuous Homo sapiens in England.
The Lenape Tribal Nation had been well established in eastern North America.
Slave trading in Sumer in Mesopotamia.
The Bantu Migration spreads through Bantu culture, language, and technology, such as agriculture and metallurgy from West Africa throughout the south and southeastern portions of the African continent.
Slavery as an institution was written into the Hammurabi Code of Mesopotamia.
The Nok Culture, known for their iron smelting skills and terracotta sculptures, flourishes in West Africa.
Moses receives the Ten Commandments after delivering the Israelites from Egyptian slavery.
Early mention of Israel was inscribed on the Merneptah Stele, but religious literature tells the story of the Israelites going back as far as c. 1500 BCE.
The Mapuche people inhabited Chile.
The first Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Babylonians.
Cleopatra VII Philopator becomes Queen, and therefore Pharaoah, of Egypt, where women had equal rights with men, including the right to own property.
Creation of Christianity upon the death of Jesus.
Russian culture begins with the establishment of Kievan Rus by the Viking Oleg of Novgorod.
Genghis Khan creates the first Mongol Empire, which included much of China.
The Mapuche people in Chile halted the expansion of the Inca Empire allowing most of Chile to be independent.
The first ghetto was created in Venice, Italy, when Jews were forced to live in a confined area at night but allowed to go about their daily business within the city provided they wore either a yellow hat or yellow badge.
The Spanish invaded Chile as part of the conquest of Peru.
Ellen's ancestor, Andrew Willet, a Calvinist minister, is born.
Ellen's ancestor, William Tuttle, was born in Northampton England.
American slave trading and slave holding began when the first enslaved African people from Angola land in Jamestown, VA.
Ellen's ancestors, William Tuttle and the Tuttle family arrive in New Haven on the ship The Planter.
Thomas Pell bought a large tract of land from the Swanky Indians, including what is now Hart Island.
Virginia passed the "One Drop of Blood Rule", the first law in America to codify that any percentage of Black ancestry meant that someone was Black.
The Carolina Province was officially founded by eight Lord Proprietors.
Ellen's 8th great grandmother, whom we only know as Mrs.Swain, a member of the Lenape Tribal Nation, married Richard Swain but dies in 1683 after giving birth to Abigail Swain in Nantucket, MA.
New Orleans was founded by the French.
Carolina Province officially split into North and South Carolina by the English Crown.
Zachariah Burwell signs Articles of Association in Philadelphia, PA.
A number of Ellen's ancestors (two Tuttles,two Burwells, and Bell and one Sellers) fought in the American Revolution.
Ellen's ancestor, Zachariah Burwell Sr., served with Washington's troops during the Whiskey Rebellion.
The United States purchased Louisiana and a large swath of the North American continent for $15M from Napoleon, Emperor of France.
The German Coast Uprising was a slave revolt in parts of Louisiana where two people were killed and 95 enslaved Black people were executed.
The first major Chinese immigration to America
Bernardo O'Higgin and Jose de San Martin defeated the Spanish and created an independent Chilean state.
The American Civil War, which saw seven of Ellen's ancestors from the Burwell and Courtney lines fight for the confederacy and, at least, one ancestor, John Andrew Hood, fight for the Union Army.
First Confederate POW's arrived on Hart Island. 235 soldiers would die there.
The Ku Klux Klan was created in Pulaski, TN.
Federal laws were enacted during the Reconstruction Era to provide civil rights protections to the freed Black slaves in the US South.
Virginia becomes the first state in America to segregate its school system, enacting a law barring Whites and Blacks from attending the same school.
Compromise of 1877 resulted in the acceptance of Rutherford B. Hayes as the 19th American president and the withdrawal of federal troops from the former Confederate states, allowing the southern states to oppress freed Black slaves without interference of the northern states or the federal government.
Tsarist Russia, a period of tragic history, involving violent antisemitic pogroms, resulting in many Jews, including Ellen's father's family, to flee Russia to America.
Ida B. Wells, on a speaking tour of Britain, called out the White Women's Christian Temperance Union, a suffragette movement, for failing to acknowledge the lynching of Blacks in America.
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a civil rights organization in the United States, was formed as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for Black Americans.
Sun Yat-Sen led the Xinhai Revolution of 1911 at the beginning of a turbulent century of wars and slaughter in China.
The Great Migration during which six million Black Southerners relocated to urban areas in the North and West.
The 19th Amendment to the US Constitution was passed, giving women the right to vote.
The Wall Street Crash started the Great Depression.
Many of Ellen's ancestors served in the US Army during World War II, including Ellen's father, Sidney Kalmanowitz (Kaye), five Courtneys, one Tuttle and six Burwells.
Ellen's uncle, Jan Peerce (Arturo Toscanini's favorite tenor), sang with Toscanini in Madison Square Garden to protest fascism.
Ellen's father, Sidney Kaye, bought the Russian Tea Room.
Ellen's uncle Jan Peerce, was the first Jew to sing in a synagogue behind the Iron Curtain, and is credited with launching the Soviet Jewry Movement.
Ellen's father, Sidney Kaye, dies and her mother, Faith Stewart-Gordon, takes over running the restaurant until 1996. Faith was a trailblazer in an industry still dominated by men.
Ellen C Kaye and Ethan Fein wrote the song "No Women Died Today" about the dearth of obituaries of women in newspapers around the world.
The New York Times began a series of obituaries called "Overlooked No More" which wrote about women who had died since 1851, but whose obituaries were never published.
On January 6, in an attempt to disrupt the US Congress, the peaceful transition of power from one administration to another, and overturn the 2022 election, a large mob of protesters rioted, breaching the US Capitol grounds and building causing extensive damage, injury, and death, before law enforcement was able to disperse the mob and secure the building, allowing the election certification process to continue and be completed.
The Vatican repudiated the "Doctrine of Discovery" which was used to justify colonialism through the issue of a series of papal bulls authorizing the colonial powers to seize land and enslave or destroy indigenous populations through forced assimilation.
All my life I looked forward, but in my late fifties I found myself looking back to the stories that made my world and the worlds of my ancestors. This is our project, Old Bones Odyssey. Like my Puritan ancestors who arrived in the colonies in 1635 on a ship called The Planter, we’re embarking on an odyssey. Like my Russian Jewish grandparents who came through Ellis Island in the late nineteenth century, we’re setting sail for parts unknown. We’re exploring American history through a small portal that takes us into my genetic and philosophical family tree. Each of us comes from a fascinating jumble of people. Each life traces a map that leads us to today.
Our aim is discovery. To gain a deeper understanding of our world and our country right now.
We’re creating a different kind of family tree: a philosophical one, made of ideas, thoughts, beliefs; accepted, rejected, swallowed whole, discarded, maintained, nourished and destroyed.
Of love found, simmering hatreds, adoration, ancient feuds, hidden desires, religious wars, long buried resentments, deep seated enmities, loyalty, transcendence, harsh disappointment, disillusionment and hope.
We’re all made up of philosophical family trees with ideas dangling off the branches. Call it a Thought Tree, an Idea Tree, a Dreams Lost And Found Tree. The beliefs of my ancestors are intriguing to me. The good ideas. The bad ideas. How they lived and what traces are left in the family I knew growing up. What vestiges of these ideas are still running through the laws and minds of our country creating the context of our current version of America.
Old Bones Odyssey – EP
Liner Notes
The Brand New Universe – EP
Liner Notes
Where does a story begin? Like an endless matryoshka doll. Wherever we start we want to know what came before.
It’s the toss of a coin. How your life plays out. Adventure, ruin, comfort, hunger. Wild seas, deep deserts, cruel cities, new worlds.
These seekers’ songs are stories of leaving home, being on the run, longing for a new home, a safe place where you can rest your weary soul. And keep your children safe.
“NO WOMAN DIED TODAY” STREAMING NOW “I woke up this m...
“NO WOMAN DIED TODAY” STREAMING NOW “I woke up this m...
“NO WOMAN DIED TODAY” STREAMING NOW “Tell me who deci...
“NO WOMAN DIED TODAY” STREAMING NOW “If women are hal...
“NO WOMAN DIED TODAY” STREAMING NOW “If women are hal...
“BUSTER BLUE EYES” STREAMING NOW “He played the clari...
“BUSTER BLUE EYES” STREAMING NOW “Blue music, blue st...
“BUSTER BLUE EYES” STREAMING NOW “Blue hurricane, blu...
“BUSTER BLUE EYES” STREAMING NOW “Dreamers who hide i...
“LOVERS ON HORSEBACK” STREAMING NOW! “Building a home...
“LOVERS ON HORSEBACK” STREAMING NOW! “How they rode, ...
“LOVERS ON HORSEBACK” STREAMING NOW! “I love Diane’...
