Footnotes

About Footnotes

What Footnotes is

Footnotes is a family of four history YouTube channels. The name is the brief: The small stories history left in the footnotes.

The four channels

Publishing schedule

DayChannel
MondayFootnotes of Freedom
TuesdayFootnotes of Medieval Life
WednesdayFootnotes of the Crown
ThursdayFootnotes of Medieval Life
FridayFootnotes of Statehood
SaturdayNo episode scheduled
SundayNo episode scheduled

A new episode is published every weekday. Saturday and Sunday have no scheduled episode.

Who it is for

Footnotes is for a general audience. History for curious viewers of all ages.

Footnotes of Statehood tells how each U.S. state got to statehood, clearly enough for every age. It sits with the other three channels on this same site.

Contact

Questions: footnoteshistorychannels@gmail.com

This website

An episode page is added when a video is published. The page embeds that video. Sources and further reading are listed only when they are supplied with the episode. This site does not use analytics, cookies, or trackers.

Image credits

The pictures are period works in the public domain. The home page hero is those four pictures placed side by side, with nothing else added. Copies live in this site; the source pages are below.

  • Home

    Four period works, one for each channel. Composite of the four channel pictures. 1786, 1588, 1784, and about 1412–1416. Public domain (each source work).

    The home picture places the four channel works side by side and adds nothing else: Trumbull’s 1786 Bunker Hill, the 1588 Armada Portrait, Buell’s 1784 map, and the Limbourg brothers’ June page.

  • Footnotes of Freedom

    The Death of General Warren at the Battle of Bunker's Hill, June 17, 1775. John Trumbull. 1786. Public domain.

    Painted in 1786, inside the Revolutionary years this channel covers (about 1763–1800). Trumbull had served in the Continental Army and painted the Battle of Bunker Hill, fought on June 17, 1775. This is that 1786 canvas, not a later reprint.

    Source

  • Footnotes of the Crown

    Elizabeth I (Armada Portrait). English school, formerly attributed to George Gower. 1588. Public domain.

    A royal portrait made in 1588, during Elizabeth I’s reign, to mark the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It is court art of a British monarch, painted in her lifetime.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Statehood

    A New and Correct Map of the United States of North America. Abel Buell. 1784. Public domain.

    Engraved in New Haven in 1784, the year after the Peace of 1783. It is the first map of the United States printed in America, and it names the states of the new union. That is the settlement and statehood era this channel covers.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Medieval Life

    June, haymaking, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Limbourg brothers. about 1412–1416. Public domain.

    An illuminated manuscript page from the early 15th century, inside the medieval centuries (about 500–1500). The June calendar page of this book of hours shows haymaking, ordinary farm labor beside a château.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Freedom

    Paul Revere. John Singleton Copley. 1768. Public domain.

    Painted in 1768, inside the Revolutionary years this channel covers (about 1763–1800). Copley painted the Boston silversmith Paul Revere from life, before the war.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Freedom

    George Washington. Charles Willson Peale. 1776. Public domain.

    Painted in 1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, by Charles Willson Peale, who served with the Continental Army.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Freedom

    The Bloody Massacre perpetrated in King Street Boston on March 5th 1770. Paul Revere. 1770. Public domain.

    A 1770 Boston engraving, printed and sold by Paul Revere, of the confrontation in King Street on March 5, 1770. It is a Revolutionary-era print, not a later re-engraving.

    Source

  • Footnotes of the Crown

    The Westminster Portrait of Richard II. Unknown. about the 1390s. Public domain.

    A late medieval portrait of the English king Richard II, made in his lifetime, about the 1390s. It is court art from the medieval end of the monarchy this channel covers.

    Source

  • Footnotes of the Crown

    Portrait of Henry VIII. Hans Holbein the Younger. 1537. Public domain.

    A Tudor court portrait of Henry VIII from 1537, painted during his reign by Hans Holbein the Younger.

    Source

  • Footnotes of the Crown

    Equestrian Portrait of Charles I. Anthony van Dyck. about 1637–1638. Public domain.

    A Stuart court portrait of Charles I on horseback, painted by Anthony van Dyck about 1637–1638, during the king’s reign.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Statehood

    Obverse of the Great Seal of the United States. James Trenchard. 1786. Public domain.

    James Trenchard’s engraving of the Great Seal, dated September 1786, from the decade when the states were forming a union.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Statehood

    Map of the United States of America. John Melish. 1822. Public domain.

    John Melish’s 1822 map of the United States, printed while new states were still being added to the union. It is a 19th-century map of the statehood era, not a later redrawing.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Medieval Life

    A watermill, from the Luttrell Psalter. Luttrell Psalter illuminators. about 1325–1335. CC0.

    A page from the Luttrell Psalter, an English manuscript of about 1325–1335, showing a watermill. It is medieval book art of ordinary work.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Medieval Life

    Two knights jousting, from the Luttrell Psalter. Luttrell Psalter illuminators. about 1325–1335. CC0.

    Another page of the same Luttrell Psalter, about 1325–1335, with two knights jousting in the margin.

    Source

  • Footnotes of Medieval Life

    October, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Limbourg brothers. about 1412–1416. Public domain.

    The October calendar page of the Très Riches Heures, illuminated by the Limbourg brothers about 1412–1416, showing field work in front of a castle.

    Source