In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln was torn: with the War Between the States raging, the clarion call to free the slaves was louder than ever. However, to do so, Lincoln feared a backlash from his own Union forces, who were more concentrated on the rebels then the abolitionists. In the end, the 16th President of the United States of America decided to take the higher moral ground, turning the crisis into a true war for liberty, and this culminated in what is now known as the Emancipation Proclamation.

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A few days ago, we wrote about the U.S. whooping cough outbreak -- which is the worst in 50 years.

Pertussis can prove deadly to infants and toddlers, but healthy adults aren't likely to succumb to this illness. (However, it's still a good idea to get a booster shot! Details here.)

Whooping cough cases have outright ballooned in Washington; state health authorities actually declared epidemic status earlier this year, there has been a 13-fold increase in diagnoses since 2011.

Washington -- though home to a lot of highly-educated, tech savvy people -- is also the epicenter of the U.S. anti-vaccination movement. Over the last few decades, more and more parents there have opted out of inoculating their kids against preventable illnesses. As some 90 percent of any population must be inoculated for vaccines to work -- AKA "herd immunity" -- many are blaming Washington's anti-vax camp for spurring the disease's spread.

Of course, this brings up some questions: What the hell is the anti-vax movement, anyway? Where does it come from and, perhaps most importantly, why don't people want to protect their kids?

To answer your queries, we've prepped a brief history...

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Eugene de Salignac, Department of Bridges/Plant & Structures

From October 7, 1914. Brooklyn Bridge showing painters on suspenders.

Hundreds of thousands of photos that offer snapshots of more than a century of New York City history are now publicly available online for the first time ever.

Together, they offer a close-up, gritty picture of the city's history and development, from detective photos of gruesome crime scenes to Depression-era shots of everyday life to the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Rebecca Nathanson

Back in December Runnin' Scared wrote that Billy's Antiques an Props "is one of the last remnants of the 'old Bowery.'" Now that remnant has become a relic as the green tent housing Billy's has been laid to rest. Saturday morning, the tent was taken down, the New York Times reported. In the afternoon, mourners came out to mark the event with song, eulogy and procession. The tent was placed in a coffin, which then was paraded around the surrounding area.

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Straight from the files of "Historical Shit That Can't Be Made Up," we woke up this morning to a pretty unbelievable email from the Thomas Jefferson Foundation with the subject line, "Taste: Chocolate at Monticello."

Oh my, we thought, before opening it. Surely someone in TJ's PR office might be sensitive to and knowledgeable enough of, er, certain Jefferson proclivities to be wary of harping about his "taste" for chocolate!?

Apparently not.

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One of the maps.

Today in subway porn we have a beautiful depiction of the ebb and flow and changing formats of the New York City subway map over the years. The only thing better than watching the map come of age to the inspirationally epic music in the video created by Gizmodo's Matt Toder back in December (Bowery Boogie reminded us of it today) would be actually holding one of those early 1900s parchments in our hands. Though, probably, we'd accidentally tear it or spill coffee on it and then get sued, so this is really better, anyway.

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via @maydersen

Last night Patti Smith was at the beleaguered Chelsea Hotel, playing what appears to have been a new-hotel-management-planned event to which tenants were not invited, but the architect and others were. New hotel management, for the record, is King & Grove, "a new lifestyle hotel brand defined by modern luxury with eclectic influences" (the photo at right is from last night's event). Tonight, Smith is scheduled to perform for the tenants, a move evoking a flurry of criticism from none other than her intended audience. "It's like a chocolate-covered cow pie," said Arthur Nash, 39, an archivist and writer who has lived at the hotel since 2005, to the New York Times. "It's momentarily sweet, but then you get right back to the cow pie."

Smith has outlined the reasons for her involvement on her website, but her performance at the apparent behest of new hotel management does seem a hard pill to swallow. As Jeremiah's Vanishing New York puts it, it's still "hard to accept that Patti Smith is working with the developers who are gut renovating the Chelsea and evicting its tenants."

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John Lindsay was the mayor of New York City from 1966 to 1973. That's definitely far enough in the past that you'd think his campaign materials would be long gone. Check out this photo, though:

Frank Jump

That's a Lindsay campaign billboard from the late 60s, recently uncovered on the corner of Bedford and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn.

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Everything you thought you knew about Santa may be a lie! According to the New York Historical Society, Santa is not, despite all of our assumptions, a native North Pole-ian, complete with North Pole-like ideologies, politics, and annoying habits. He's actually a sophisticated New Yorker hailing from West 23rd Street. They base this on the poem "A Visit from St. Nicholas," (you know, "Twas the night before Christmas, etc. etc.") believed to be written by theologian and Hebrew scholar -- and Chelsea resident, even if it wasn't called that at the time -- Clement Clarke Moore. Which seems to indicate that Santa is not, actually, real, but instead a figment of Moore's imagination. What are you telling us, New York Historical Society!?

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Attention everyone who likes their public transportation that much more when it comes with some history: Not only are the old-school subway trains back in business, there's a vintage bus making the rounds on the M42 route across 42nd Street for this week only. It will make three round-trip circuits a day from Monday through Friday between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., meaning it's probably not all that effective for your commute, actually. But it's nice to look at. (The video of the bus above is from 2007.)

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