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"America the Beautiful," 1893

In a brief essay that appeared ca. 1925, poet Katharine Lee Bates described her inspiration for writing "America the Beautiful," the poem that would evolve into one of the nation’s best-loved patriotic songs, during a trip to Pike’s Peak in 1893. Bates was a professor at Wellesley and had traveled west to teach a summer course in Colorado Springs. Bates and the other professors decided to "celebrate the close of the session by a merry expedition to the top of Pike’s Peak." They made the ascent by prairie wagon. At the top, Bates later wrote, she was inspired by "the sea-like...
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"Bleeding Kansas" and the Pottawatomie Massacre, 1856

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act overturned the Missouri Compromise, which stated that slavery would not be allowed north of latitude 36°30′. Instead, settlers would use the principle of popular sovereignty and vote to determine whether slavery would be allowed in each state. Supporters of both sides flooded into the territory of Kansas, where violence soon erupted between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers. In retaliation for the "sack" of the free-state town of Lawrence on May 21, 1856, the abolitionist John Brown led a brutal attack on a pro-slavery settlement at...
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"Food Will Win the War," 1917

Economics, World History

When most people think of wartime food rationing, they often think of World War II. However, civilians were encouraged to do their part for the war effort during World War I as well. This colorful poster by artist Charles E. Chambers was issued by the United States Food Administration to encourage voluntary food conservation. "Food Will Win the War" was the name of the campaign initiated by the newly appointed head of the agency, Herbert Hoover. Food was necessary not only to feed America’s growing Army, but to help relieve famine in Europe, in part to prevent the overthrow of...
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"I love you but hate slavery": Frederick Douglass to his former owner, Hugh Auld, ca. 1860

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Following his escape from slavery in Maryland to freedom in New York City in 1838, Frederick Douglass became a leader of the abolition movement and its best-known orator. His book Autobiography of an American Slave became a best seller and exposed the horrors of slavery. In this letter dated October 4, [ca. 1860], Douglass wrote to his former master expressing the desire to learn more about his own childhood and the children with whom he grew up. This letter also reflects Douglass’s capacity for forgiveness and is part of his lifelong quest, shared by all slaves, to establish...
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"Jefferson is in every view less dangerous than Burr": Hamilton on the election of 1800

Government and Civics

The presidential election of 1800 had resulted in a tie between the two Democratic Republicans, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr. The founders had not foreseen the rise of political parties and the effects that development would have on the operations of the Electoral College. As that body was created at the Constitution Convention of 1787, each elector had two votes to cast and had to cast his votes for different individuals. The candidate receiving the highest number would become president; the candidate with the second highest number would become vice president. (Only after...
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"Men of Color, To Arms! To Arms," 1863

After the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted on January 1, 1863, black leaders including Frederick Douglass swiftly moved to recruit African Americans as soldiers. "A war undertaken and brazenly carried on for the perpetual enslavement of colored men," Douglass wrote in Frederick Douglass’ Monthly , "calls logically and loudly for colored men to help suppress it." This broadside, endorsed by Douglass (third name in the first column) and other African American leaders, urges free African Americans to enlist, declaring "If we value liberty, if we wish to be free in this land. ...
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"Reelect Roosevelt—Friend of Labor," 1936

Economics, Government and Civics

This Democratic Party campaign poster from 1936 outlines some of the agencies and regulations Franklin Roosevelt put in place to try to solve the most urgent problems of the Great Depression. While it reminds laborers of how they have benefitted from the New Deal and encourages them to support Roosevelt’s reelection, it acknowledges that the Depression is not over and that "the unemployed still look for jobs." The "printer’s bug" in the lower left indicates that the poster was printed by a union shop. Excerpt DEEDS—NOT WORDS President Roosevelt has not given lip service to...
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"The President is murdered," 1865

At 10:13 p.m. on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending a play at Ford’s Theatre in Washington DC, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in the back of the head by John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln, unconscious and bleeding, was rushed across the street to a nearby house. Though doctors tended to Lincoln throughout the night, his wound proved fatal. The “Great Emancipator” died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15. The assassination of Lincoln was part of a wider plot that included the deaths of the vice president and the secretary of state. The man who intended to kill Andrew Johnson did not...
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"The whole land is full of blood," 1851

"The whole land is full of blood." These ominous words were uttered by James W. C. Pennington, a former slave and noted abolitionist, in the wake of Thomas Sims’s infamous trial. Sims had escaped from slavery in Georgia before being captured in Massachusetts in April 1851 and taken to court under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. The judge decided in favor of Sims’s owner, and the seventeen-year-old was marched through the streets of Boston by US marines before being returned to Georgia. The authoritarian nature and public spectacle of Sims’s case sent a resounding message to...
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“Columbia’s Noblest Sons”: George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, 1865

Art

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Abraham Lincoln’s death on April 14, 1865, stunned the nation. He was the first US president to be assassinated and the third to die in office. As Americans mourned, they also began to see him as a martyr and the savior of the Union. In eulogies and engravings, Lincoln was compared to George Washington. Printed in 1865, Columbia’s Noblest Sons features imagery that draws parallels between Washington and Lincoln. Columbia is crowning Washington and Lincoln with laurel wreaths, which were traditionally given to people who had won victories. Columbia was considered the female...
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“Defence of Fort McHenry” or “The Star-Spangled Banner,” 1814

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

In September 1814, Francis Scott Key, an attorney and DC insider, watched the American flag rise over Baltimore, Maryland’s Fort McHenry from a British ship in the harbor. Key had been negotiating the release of an American captive during the War of 1812 when the British attacked the fort. After twenty-five hours of heavy bombardment, Key was sure that, come dawn, the British flag would be flying over Baltimore. Upon seeing the American flag still aloft, he wrote, on the back of a letter, the first verse of what would eventually become the national anthem of the United States....
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“The war ruined me”: The aftermath of the Civil War in the South, 1867

In the aftermath of the Civil War, former slaveholders struggled to adjust to the economic conditions resulting from the end of slavery as well as the destruction of plantations and markets and the population loss. Many southern landowners fell into poverty as they faced depreciated land values and mounting debts. In 1867, farmer and preacher A. C. Ramsey of Alabama wrote to his brother-in-law, Dr. J. J. Wardlaw in South Carolina, describing his family’s economic struggle after the Civil War. He forcefully declares that “the war ruined me” and left his children with “nothing...
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A bond for the manumission of a slave, 1757

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1757, New York tavern keeper Eve Scurlock freed five slaves in her will, citing their fidelity, service, and good behavior. Among them was a woman named Ann, to whom Scurlock also willed money, clothing, and household items. Though Scurlock’s will provided for Ann’s and the other slaves’ freedom, a slaveholder’s willed manumission did not guarantee a slave’s freedom. In New York, a 1730 "Act for the [more] Effectual preventing and punishing the Conspiracy and Insurrection of Negroes and other slaves" required freed slaves to post a bond to the government to guarantee that...
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A brawl between Federalists and anti-Federalists, 1788

Government and Civics

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1787 and 1788, debates over the ratification of the Constitution took place in towns and villages across the country. To gain support, both Federalists and anti-Federalists held meetings and marches that sometimes became violent. In July 1788, Federalists marched through Albany, New York, and were stopped at Green Street by a group of anti-Federalists. According to this newspaper report, “a general battle took place, with swords, bayonets, clubs, stones, &c. which lasted for some time, both parties fighting with the greatest rage, and determined obstinacy, till at last...
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A British view of rebellious Boston, 1774

Art, Government and Civics, World History

In the years leading up to the American Revolution, both the British and the colonists used broadsides to influence public opinion. This broadside, “The Bostonian’s Paying the Excise-man, or Tarring & Feathering,” printed in London in 1774, is a British depiction of the Bostonians’ treatment of a British customs officer, John Malcom. In Boston in January 1774, John Malcom argued with Bostonian George Hewes over Malcom’s rough treatment of a boy in the street. Malcom struck Hewes with his cane and fled the scene. Word of the assault spread, and Bostonians congregated at...
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A Civil War soldier’s satirical take on the news, 1863

Art, Government and Civics

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Between battles, marches, and military exercises, Civil War soldiers spent their free time in camp playing music, writing and reading letters, and, for those with the skill, sketching scenes from the day. This unknown soldier’s sketchbook from 1863, “A Few Scenes in the Life of a ‘SOJER’ in the Mass 44th,” recounts the adventures of a soldier named “Gorge,” or “George,” and follows the movements of the 44th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry in New Bern, North Carolina. The cartoons satirize the war, army life, and the the way Northern newspapers reported the war. Newspapers,...
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A family torn apart by war, 1777

The Revolutionary War divided families. In 1774, eighteen-year-old Lucy Flucker married twenty-four-year-old Henry Knox. Lucy’s parents were powerful, wealthy Tories, and they were not happy with the match. Henry Knox was the son of an Irish immigrant. At the age of nine, he quit school to go to work when his father abandoned the family. Henry was also rumored to be a patriot. Lucy and Henry left Boston in 1775. Henry joined Washington’s army, and Lucy was left on her own for the first time in her life. When the British evacuated Boston after the siege in 1776, many loyalists...
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A former Confederate officer on slavery and the Civil War, 1907

9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

How can a soldier be proud of the country he defends while at the same time opposed to the cause he is fighting for? John S. Mosby, the renowned Confederate partisan leader, dealt with this moral dilemma years after the Civil War ended. Mosby despised slavery and believed the South had seceded to protect it. Yet he fought to defend the Confederacy, as he felt his patriotic duty to his nation outweighed all other factors. After the war, Mosby befriended General Ulysses S. Grant and joined the Republican Party, but firmly stated, “I am not ashamed of having fought on the side of...
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A Founding Father on the Missouri Compromise, 1819

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

In 1819 a courageous group of Northern congressmen and senators opened debate on the most divisive of antebellum political issues—slavery. Since the Quaker petitions of 1790, Congress had been silent on slavery. That silence was shattered by Missouri’s request to enter the Union as a slave state, threatening to upset the tenuous balance of slave and free states. The battle to prevent the spread of slavery was led by a forgotten Founding Father: the Federalist US senator from New York, Rufus King. When the Missouri debates began, King was completing a third term as US senator...
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A frightening mission over Iwo Jima, 1945

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click here for more information about Bob and to read more in this series. Soldiers rarely describe the details of battles in letters. During World War II, the discussion of events was prohibited by the military and censors were quick to remove anything they considered a risk to the safety and security of the troops. In addition, putting frightening...
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A Jamestown settler describes life in Virginia, 1622

Economics, Geography

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The first English settlers in Jamestown, Virginia, who arrived in 1607, were eager to find gold and silver. Instead they found sickness and disease. Eventually, these colonists learned how to survive in their new environment, and by the middle of the seventeenth century they discovered that their fortunes lay in growing tobacco. This 1622 letter from Jamestown colonist Sebastian Brandt to Henry Hovener, a Dutch merchant living in London, provides a snapshot of the colony in flux. Brandt, who likely arrived in 1619 in a wave of 1,200 immigrants, writes of his wife’s and brother...
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A Ku Klux Klan threat, 1868

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

This page contains language that may be offensive or inappropriate for some viewers. Reconstruction politics was a catalyst for widespread racism and hatred that freed people experienced throughout the South. The Ku Klux Klan, founded by a Confederate general in 1866, became known as the "invisible empire of the South" in which members represented the ghosts of the Confederate dead returning to terrorize African Americans and Republicans. Although it was a covert organization, the Klan’s displays of violence and intolerance were anything but discreet. Many murders and beatings...
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A map of the Louisiana Territory, 1806

Geography, Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

6, 7, 8

The 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France during Thomas Jefferson’s first term as president more than doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson’s next step was to learn all about this new territory of the United States. He chose Meriwether Lewis, a former army captain and his own private secretary, to lead the expedition. Lewis chose another army captain, William Clark, to join him and put together the team. Clark’s exceptional mapmaking skills proved invaluable, and he kept detailed records throughout the journey. They left St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1804 and reached the...
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A Mirror for the Intemperate, ca. 1830

Government and Civics

The temperance crusade against liquor consumption was a central element of reform movements of the antebellum period. It drew support from middle-class Protestants, skilled artisans, clerks, shopkeepers, free blacks, and Mormons, as well as many conservative clergy and some Southerners who were otherwise hostile to reform. This broadside, "A Mirror for the Intemperate," reflects the movement’s concerns that alcohol consumption led to economic waste, polluted youth, crime, poverty, and domestic violence. "A Mirror for the Intemperate," printed in Boston, ca. 1830, features...
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A northerner’s view of southern slavery, 1821

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Aurelia Hale of Hartford, Connecticut, offered her impressions of southern life in this letter of June 11, 1821. Hale, then about twenty-two years old, had recently traveled to Washington County, Georgia, to serve as a schoolteacher. Writing to her sister, she declared that the “manner of living” in the South was “better than at the North.” Georgians, she wrote, “differ in every respect from the Northerners, are much more agreeable, polite, attentive, and friendly.” Hale seemed to revel in southern gentility and aspired to a similarly privileged life, writing that since moving...
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A patriot’s letter to his loyalist father, 1778

In February 1778, Timothy Pickering Jr. received word from Massachusetts that his father was dying. An adjutant general in George Washington’s Continental Army, Pickering wrote his father this moving letter of farewell on February 23, 1778, from his post in Yorktown, Virginia. Born and raised in Salem, Massachusetts, a graduate of Harvard, and a successful lawyer, Timothy Pickering Jr. revered his father but disagreed with him on one critical issue: colonial independence from Great Britain. Timothy Jr. supported resistance to British rule, while Timothy Sr. remained a staunch...
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A perspective on the San Francisco earthquake, 1906

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906, a great earthquake broke loose, with an epicenter near San Francisco. Violent shocks punctuated the shaking, which lasted some 45 to 60 seconds. The earthquake was felt from southern Oregon to south of Los Angeles and inland as far as central Nevada. The city was then destroyed by a Great Fire that burned for four days. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of trapped persons died when South-of-Market tenements collapsed as the ground liquefied beneath them. Most of those buildings immediately caught fire, and trapped victims could not be rescued. A...
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A plan for a new government, 1775

Government and Civics

More than a decade before the Constitutional Convention in 1787—and months before the United States declared independence—John Adams wrote a plan for a new form of government for the American colonies. In it Adams described the basic structure of what would become American government, including the separation of powers. “A Legislative, an Executive and a judicial Power, comprehend the whole of what is meant and understood by Government.” The ideas presented in this letter had a profound influence on the state constitutions of Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, and ultimately,...
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A plea to defend the Alamo, 1836

Government and Civics

A decade of conflict between the Mexican government and US settlers in Texas culminated in 1836 with the siege of the Alamo and the Texas Declaration of Independence. On February 23, 1836, Lieutenant Colonel William Travis, Jim Bowie, and approximately 145 Texan rebels were in San Antonio, Texas, when several thousand Mexican troops began to advance on the town. They had the opportunity to retreat to safety, but Travis chose to secure his forces inside the Alamo, an old Spanish mission, and sent riders carrying a plea for reinforcements. In this letter addressed “To the...
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A political cartoon of Grant and Lee, 1864

Art, Government and Civics

During the first three years of the Civil War, a series of Union generals led the Army of the Potomac against Confederate General Robert E. Lee with little success. In March 1864, Abraham Lincoln appointed General Ulysses S. Grant commander of all Union armies. Grant came east to personally lead the Union forces in Virginia. Grant’s strategy focused on the destruction of Lee’s army, the Confederate economy, and Southern morale. Between May 5 and June 24, Union and Confederate troops clashed almost daily in relentless, brutal fighting. By June 24, when Grant settled into a siege...
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A proclamation on the suspension of habeas corpus, 1862

The doctrine of habeas corpus is the right of any person under arrest to appear in person before the court, to ensure that they have not been falsely accused. The US Constitution specifically protects this right in Article I, Section 9: “The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it.” Lincoln initially suspended habeas corpus in the volatile border state of Maryland in 1861 in order to try large numbers of civilian rioters in military courts and to prevent the movement of...
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A proposed Thirteenth Amendment to prevent secession, 1861

Government and Civics

In the wake of the presidential election of 1860 that brought Abraham Lincoln to the White House, the slaveholding states of the American South, led by South Carolina, began withdrawing from the nation. In the midst of this constitutional crisis, President James Buchanan, still in office until Lincoln’s inauguration in March 1861, tried to reassure the South that their slave property would remain safe, even under the incoming Republican administration. He asked Congress to draw up what he called an "explanatory amendment" to the Constitution that would explicitly recognize the...
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A report from Spanish California, 1776

Foreign Languages, Government and Civics

Fernando de Rivera y Moncada, military commander of Alta California, wrote this letter from Mission San Gabriel. Rivera y Moncada was instrumental in the development of missions in California and was in a sometimes-contentious relationship with Father Junipero Serra, the Father President mentioned in the letter. When Rivera y Moncada wrote this letter, he was returning to his headquarters at the Presidio of Monterey after a nine-month stay at the Presidio of San Diego. There he had supervised the hunt for the leaders of an Indian uprising that had destroyed Mission San Diego in...
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A report on the reaction to the Stamp Act, 1765

Government and Civics, World History

On March 22, 1765, the British Parliament passed the “Stamp Act” to help pay for British troops stationed in the colonies during the Seven Years’ War. It required the colonists to pay a tax, represented by a stamp, on various papers, documents, and playing cards. It was a direct tax imposed by the British government without the approval of the colonial legislatures and was payable in hard-to-obtain British sterling, rather than colonial currency. Further, those accused of violating the Stamp Act could be prosecuted in Vice-Admiralty Courts, which had no juries and could be held...
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A revival of religious fervor, 1744

Religion and Philosophy

The Christian History was a revivalist periodical founded by the Boston clergyman Thomas Prince in 1743 to report on the religious revivals sweeping across Europe and the United States. It was the first Christian periodical published in the United States, but lasted only two years. The revivals of that period were ignited by Jonathan Edwards, whose theology sparked renewed enthusiasm and emphasized human depravity, divine omnipotence, and a personal relationship with God. This period is often referred to as the “First Great Awakening,” although the term “Great Awakening” wasn’t...
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A secret agreement between pirate hunters, 1696

World History

Maritime trade and exploration in the colonial era created an environment ripe for piracy. One of the most famous pirates in history, Captain William Kidd, was commissioned by William III of England in 1695 as a privateer to hunt and capture pirates. Robert Livingston of New York engineered the arrangement, in which Kidd and Livingston were to receive a 10 percent share of the profits recovered from any treasure obtained from pirates. Privateers would turn over a tenth of their treasure to the king, a third to the Admiralty for doing the paperwork, and the remainder to the...
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A soldier on the battle for the Philippines, 1945

Geography

Witnessing the brutality of war and atrocities against civilians could overwhelm the most fair-minded of men. Sidney Diamond, an officer in the 82nd Chemical Battalion, wrote loving, humorous, and hopeful letters to his fiancée almost every day throughout his time in the army. Diamond enlisted in April 1942, interrupting his pursuit of a chemical engineering degree at City College in New York City. After training he was sent to the South Pacific in June 1943 and received a Silver Star and commendations for courage. In this letter, written on January 21, 1945, he expressed his...
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A soldier’s reaction to the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1945

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Lieutenant Bob Stone served as a bombardier in the 431st Bomb Squadron (Heavy), 7th United States Army Air Force in the Pacific. This Spotlight is part of a series of documents detailing the experience of airmen in World War II. Click here for more information about Bob and to read more in this series. On April 12, 1945, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died from a cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Spring, Georgia. He was sixty-three years old, had been elected to four terms, and served as president for twelve years. For many American servicemen, Roosevelt had been in office for...
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A soldier’s reasons for enlisting, 1942

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

"Our country is the entire world and mankind our countrymen!!!" In April of 1942, Sidney Diamond, a chemical engineering student at City College in New York, enlisted in the United States Army against the wishes of his friends and family. In this letter written upon his arrival at Fort Dix, New Jersey, Sidney described his reasons for joining the fight to his longtime sweetheart, Estelle Spero. "Stelle, I shall attempt, at least, to argue your thoughts of the unworthiness of the effort I am, through my own choosing, engaging in," he wrote. Sidney defended his decision by...
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A View of Savannah, Georgia, 1734

World History

5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

The colony of Georgia was founded in 1732 by James Oglethorpe, a British Member of Parliament. Oglethorpe planned Savannah as a place where the poor could come to make a better life. An attempt to produce a "classless society," this first settlement in Georgia did not permit slavery and limited how much land could be owned. As Oglethorpe’s involvement in the colony diminished, the colonists in Georgia asked to have slavery allowed in their colony. By 1750, Georgia had become a slave-holding colony like its neighbor South Carolina. This image of the year-old settlement in 1734...
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A World War II poster: "Starve the Squander Bug," 1943

Art, Government and Civics, World History

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9

Before he became world-renowned as Dr. Seuss for his children’s books and illustrations, Theodor Geisel worked for the US government during World War II designing posters such as this one, encouraging patriotism and investment. The Squander Bug character first appeared in British World War II propaganda to discourage careless spending. American posters, like this one, encouraged citizens to spend their money on war bonds to help fund the war effort. Bonds issued by the government helped finance military expenses and were also a way to remove money from circulation to help...
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Aaron Burr, fugitive and traitor, 1804

On July 11, 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr shot former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel in Weehawken, New Jersey. Nine days later he wrote this cryptic letter (partially in cipher) to his son-in-law, Joseph Alston. The year 1804 proved to be a difficult one for Burr, who was trying to revive his political career. Hamilton had led Federalists in opposing Burr’s nomination in the New York gubernatorial race. Powerful Democratic-Republicans like George Clinton, the New York governor, and his nephew DeWitt Clinton also worked against Burr. DeWitt, then the...
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Abraham Lincoln, Inventor, 1849

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

On March 10, 1849, Abraham Lincoln filed a patent for a device for "buoying vessels over shoals" with the US Patent Office. Patent No. 6,469 was approved two months later, giving Abraham Lincoln the honor of being the only US president to hold a patent. During his brief experience as a ferryman on the Mississippi River, Lincoln was stranded twice on riverboats that had run aground. His invention, "adjustable buoyant air chambers," would be attached to the sides of a boat. They could be lowered into the water and inflated to lift the boat over obstructions in the water. Lincoln...
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Abraham Lincoln's last letter to his wife, 1865

Government and Civics

This letter, written as the Union captured the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, demonstrates Lincoln’s active, hands-on commitment as commander in chief of the armed forces as well as his devotion to his family. It reads like a military dispatch, updating Mrs. Lincoln on the latest developments and noting that he was sending a “Copy to Secretary of War.” In late March 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant invited President Lincoln, his wife Mary, and son Tad to visit the Union headquarters in City Point, Virginia. The family arrived on March 24 and Lincoln spent much of his...
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Abstinence pledge card, 1842

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

Mathew Theobald, a Catholic priest in Dublin, Ireland, founded the Cork Total Abstinence Society on April 10, 1838. About sixty followers joined Theobald in swearing off alcohol completely and signed his abstinence pledge book. Meetings of the Society were held each Friday and Saturday night and after Sunday Mass. The Society’s ranks quickly grew, and within three months, Theobald had enrolled 25,000 new members in Cork alone; in five months, the number had increased to 130,000. Theobald traveled across Ireland, convincing thousands more to pledge teetotalism. In August 1842,...
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Address to the Nation Announcing Operation Desert Storm, 1991

Government and Civics, World History

On January 16, 1991, President George H. W. Bush announced the beginning of the military campaign to end an Iraqi occupation of neighboring Kuwait. The address was broadcast live on radio and television. It was the culmination of five months of lobbying by Bush for the United States to pursue a military response rather than economic sanctions against Iraq. Iraq’s army had invaded the small, oil-rich country of Kuwait on August 2, 1990, and quickly overwhelmed the Kuwaiti forces. Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq, wanted to control Kuwait’s oil supply and regain land that...
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African American soldiers at the Battle of Fort Wagner, 1863

On July 18, 1863, on Morris Island near Charleston, South Carolina, the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, a Union regiment of free African American men, began their assault on Fort Wagner, a Confederate stronghold. After the Civil War, a sergeant of the 54th, William Harvey Carney, became the first African American to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for taking up the fallen Union flag and carrying it to the fort’s walls. Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, the commander of the regiment, was killed in the charge, along with 116 of his men, and the Union forces failed to...
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Albert Einstein on the McCarthy hearings and the Fifth Amendment, 1953

Government and Civics

6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13+

During the "McCarthy hearings" of the 1950s, the government investigated American society and industry in an attempt to root out communist sympathizers. Among those investigated were scientists and scholars, who were called upon to appear before the committee to answer questions concerning their political affiliations. Some refused to testify, citing the Fifth Amendment. Rose Russell, a member of the Teachers Union of the City of New York, considered invoking of the Fifth Amendment in a letter to famous physicist and avowed socialist Albert Einstein in 1953. Einstein advised...
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Alexander Hamilton’s "gloomy" view of the American Revolution, 1780

Government and Civics

By October 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, Alexander Hamilton was discouraged by the apparent apathy of the American people and the ineffectuality of their elected representatives, as well as by the recent discovery of Benedict Arnold’s treachery. Hamilton, who was serving at the time as an aide-de-camp for General Washington, was an idealist, but he could also face reality, and much of it was dark. Working for the Commander in Chief plunged him into the country’s financial and constitutional problems. Congress, in its original form, lacked the power to tax;...
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Amelia Earhart to her former flight instructor, Neta Snook, 1929

Science, Technology, Engineering and Math

The first decades of the twentieth century brought a golden age of aviation. During this exciting period, many pioneering women defied traditional female roles to become pilots. Amelia Earhart is the most famous of this group of aviatrixes, but Neta Snook, the woman who taught Earhart how to fly, is often overlooked. Snook had been flying for four years, having made a living as a test pilot and a barnstormer, when she met Earhart in December 1920 at California’s Kinner Field, where Snook was a flight instructor. Snook later described her first impression of Earhart: "I’ll never...

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