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.jpg) Construction of Grant's Canal, as depicted in Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper Grant's Canal was a military project to construct a canal through a bend in the Mississippi River opposite Vicksburg, Mississippi, during the American Civil War. Control of Vicksburg and the Mississippi was considered crucial by both the Union and the Confederacy. In June 1862, Union officer Thomas Williams was sent to De Soto Point with his men to dig a canal to bypass the strong Confederate defenses around Vicksburg. Disease and falling river levels prevented completion, and the project was abandoned until January 1863, when Ulysses S. Grant took an interest. The upstream entrance of the canal was moved, but heavy rains and flooding interfered with the project. Work was abandoned in March, and Grant eventually used other methods to capture Vicksburg. In 1876, the Mississippi changed course, cutting across De Soto Point near the route of the old canal and isolating Vicksburg from the river. The city's river access has since been restored. Only a small section of the canal survives. (Full article...)
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Fushimi Inari-taisha is the main Shinto shrine of the Japanese deity Inari Ōkami, located in Fushimi-ku, Kyoto. It sits at the base of a mountain, also named Inari, located 233 metres (764 ft) above sea level. The site's earliest structures were built in 711 on the Inariyama hill in southwestern Kyoto, but the shrine was re-located in 816 on the request of the monk Kūkai. It gained imperial patronage during the early Heian period and the main shrine structure was built in 1499. This photograph shows a torii path at Fushimi Inari-taisha with a hanging lantern. Each of the shrine's roughly 10,000 torii (gates) was donated by a Japanese business, and approximately 800 of these are set up in rows, as depicted here, that give the impression of entering a tunnel. Photograph credit: Basile Morin Recently featured: White-cheeked honeyeater - Ethel Reed - Eastern chipmunk |
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