65 items
The rivalry between Spain and England grew throughout the late sixteenth century. In the 1570s and 1580s, Sir Francis Drake led English attacks on Spanish vessels and raided Spanish settlements in the Americas. In 1588, Spain’s King...
Our Victorious Fleets in Cuban Waters, 1898
In 1898, the US Navy was small—especially compared to the navies of the European powers. The Navy had shrunk in the years after the Civil War, from more than 600 vessels at that conflict’s close to just forty-eight ready but aging...
Confirming governors for territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, 1901
President Theodore Roosevelt wrote this letter to William H. Hunt, the governor of Porto Rico (as Puerto Rico was known at the time), just twelve days after he assumed the presidency following President William McKinley’s...
Creating the Air Force, 1924
In this July 1924 letter to aviation pioneer and publisher Lester D. Gardner, Brigadier General William "Billy" Mitchell prophesied the coming tide of Japanese militarism. Concerned about Japan’s growing military power in the skies,...
A secret agreement between pirate hunters, 1696
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...
Alexander Hamilton’s "gloomy" view of the American Revolution, 1780
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...
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...
Harry S. Truman responds to McCarthy, 1950
In February 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy alleged in a speech in West Virginia that more than 200 staff members at the Department of State were known to be members of the Communist Party. During Harry Truman’s press conference on...
The British evacuation of Boston, 1776
On March 25, 1776, only eight days after the British evacuation of Boston, the Continental Congress authorized a medal, “George Washington before Boston,” to commemorate the event. During the war, Congress commissioned eleven medals...
World War II: Commemorating Pearl Harbor, 1941
Following the Japanese bombardment of the US Naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on December 7, 1941, the United States declared war on Japan and Germany and immediately mobilized the country for war. "Remember Dec. 7th!" is a...
Jefferson on the French and Haitian Revolutions, 1792
When Thomas Jefferson wrote this letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, three revolutions—the American, French, and Haitian—occupied the minds of these two renowned leaders. While the American Revolution had been won nearly a decade...
The Monroe Doctrine, 1823
President James Monroe’s 1823 annual message to Congress included a warning to European powers not to interfere in the affairs of the Western Hemisphere. This portion of the address is known as the Monroe Doctrine. The United States...
Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836
On March 2, 1836, Texas formally declared its independence from Mexico. The Texas Declaration of Independence was signed at Washington-on-the-Brazos, now commonly referred to as the “birthplace of Texas.” Similar to the United States...
Sir Francis Drake’s attack on St. Augustine, 1586
Five years after leading the first English circumnavigation of the globe in 1577–1580, Sir Francis Drake led a raid against Spanish settlements in the Caribbean including Santiago, Santo Domingo, and Cartagena, as well as St....
"Food Will Win the War," 1917
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...
The Cold War in the classroom, 1952
As the Cold War pervaded domestic as well as international spheres, Duck and Cover , an educational film produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration and Archer Productions Inc., showed children how to react in case of a...
Robert F. Kennedy on Vietnam, 1967
On May 15, 1967, CBS broadcast Town Meeting of the World , a program in which Senator Robert F. Kennedy of New York and Governor Ronald Reagan of California answered questions posed by the moderator, Charles Collingwood; students from...
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s First Inauguration, 1933
When Franklin Delano Roosevelt gave his first inaugural address on March 4, 1933, the nation was reeling from the Great Depression and was dissatisfied with the previous administration’s reluctance to fight it. Roosevelt declared that...
John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address, 1961
On January 20, 1961, John F. Kennedy was sworn in as the thirty-fifth President of the United States. His short, fourteen-minute inaugural address is best remembered for a single line: "My fellow Americans: ask not what your country...
Remember the Maine, 1898
On February 15, 1898, the battleship USS Maine exploded in Havana’s harbor in Cuba, killing nearly two-thirds of her crew. The tragedy occurred after years of escalating tensions between the United States and Spain, and the “yellow...
A report from Spanish California, 1776
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...
Franklin Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor Policy, 1936
On August 14, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt spoke at length on the state of international affairs in an address delivered at Chautauqua, New York. Roosevelt’s speech focused on maintaining peace in the face of increasing...
Literacy and the immigration of "undesirables," 1903
During the Progressive era, tens of millions of immigrants came to the United States from Europe to fulfill their American dream. During this period most came from southern and eastern Europe, particularly from Italy, Russia, and the...
Politics and the Texas Revolution, 1836
Texas’s fight for independence from Mexico was an uphill battle from the very beginning. Texians were outnumbered and outmatched by the much more powerful Mexican military, and the province was plagued by quarrels within its own...
Verses on Norwegian emigration to America, 1853
Between 1836 and 1865, approximately 55,000 Norwegians sailed to the United States. [1] Like most immigrants, they sought opportunities that didn’t exist at home—religious freedom, economic security, land ownership, and educational...
A British view of rebellious Boston, 1774
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...
A World War II poster: "Starve the Squander Bug," 1943
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...
A soldier on the battle for the Philippines, 1945
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...
The Doctrine of Discovery, 1493
The Papal Bull "Inter Caetera," issued by Pope Alexander VI on May 4, 1493, played a central role in the Spanish conquest of the New World. The document supported Spain’s strategy to ensure its exclusive right to the lands...
The surrender of New Netherland, 1664
The Dutch colonization of New Netherland (which included parts of present-day New York, Delaware, New Jersey, and Connecticut) began in the 1620s. From the outset, New Netherland was a multiethnic, multireligious society: about half...
Late seventeenth-century map of the Northeast, 1682
Like many other explorers, Henry Hudson stumbled upon North America almost by accident. Employed by the Dutch Republic to find a sea passage to the Far East, Hudson and the crew of his ship the Halve Maen landed at what is today New...
Carte de la Louisiane et du cours du Mississipi, 1718
This map of “la Louisiane” was published by French geographer Guillaume de l’Isle. It is the first detailed map of the Gulf Coast region and the Mississippi River, as well as the first printed map to show Texas (identified as “Mission...
Henry Knox’s Order of March to Trenton, 1776
On Christmas Day in 1776 the American Revolution was on the verge of collapsing. Since the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the American forces had been driven from New York City to Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and reduced...
Jefferson on British aggression, 1815
In this letter in defense of American nationalism, Thomas Jefferson denounced the blustering of certain members of the British House of Lords who blamed the War of 1812 on US aggression. Jefferson’s letter followed a report from James...
Eyewitness account of the sinking of the Titanic, 1912
Shortly before midnight on April 14, 1912, the RMS Titanic struck an iceberg roughly 400 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. Two and a half hours later, at 2:20 a.m., the ship sank with approximately 1500 people still on board. This...
Japan declares war, 1941
On December 7, 1941, two hours after the Japanese attack on American military installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, Japan declared war on the United States and Great Britain, marking America’s entry into World War II. The Japanese...
Physicists predict a nuclear arms race, 1945
This declaration of concern, written after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offers insight into the Manhattan Project, an atomic development program led by the United States. The "Preliminary Statement of the...
Victory Order of the Day, 1945
In March 1945 American and British forces moved eastward into Germany in large numbers, stopping at the Elbe River in mid-April in accordance with pre-negotiated agreements with the Soviet Union. The Red Army, meanwhile, had moved...
President Truman’s Farewell Address, 1953
It has none of the catch phrases or warnings of other, more famous presidential inaugural or farewell addresses, no cautions against permanent alliances or military-industrial complexes, no appeals to better angels or declarations...
Surrender of the British General Cornwallis to the Americans, October 19, 1781
These three documents—a map, a manuscript, and a print—tell the story of the surrender of British commander Charles Cornwallis to American General George Washington. In October 1781, the successful siege of Yorktown, Virginia, by...
JFK on the containment of Communism, 1952
In August 1952, as he was campaigning for the US Senate, John F. Kennedy addressed the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Federation of Labor. This manuscript is a draft of the speech Kennedy delivered before the influential labor...
Map of the New World, with European settlements and American Indian tribes, 1730
This map, "Recens edita totius Novi Belgii in America Septentrionali," depicts present-day New England, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and parts of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Created by Dutch mapmakers in 1730, the map reflects the...
The Province of Massachusetts Bay requests aid from Queen Anne, 1708
Queen Anne’s War (1702–1713) was the second of four great wars for empire fought among France and England and their Indian allies. This struggle broke out when the French raided English settlements on the New England frontier....
Landing of Columbus, 1492
This engraving depicts Columbus’s first landing in the New World, on the island he called San Salvador, on October 12, 1492. Columbus is surrounded by his men on the beach. Discussing the landing in his journal, Columbus wrote that he...
De Soto's discovery of the Mississippi, 1541
In 1539, Hernando de Soto led the first major European expedition into the interior of the southeastern North America, an area then known as La Florida. De Soto landed near Tampa Bay, Florida, with more than 600 men, and hoped to find...
Stephen Austin's contract to bring settlers to Texas, 1825
In order to settle Texas in the 1820s, the Mexican government allowed speculators, called empresarios, to acquire large tracts of land if they promised to bring in settlers to populate the region and make it profitable. Moses and...
Theodore Roosevelt on the sinking of the Lusitania, 1915
On May 7, 1915, the British passenger ship Lusitania , sailing from New York to Liverpool, was torpedoed by a German U-boat. The Lusitania sank, killing 1,195 people on board, including 123 Americans. The incident created sharp...
Recruiting posters for African American soldiers, 1918
These two World War I recruiting posters aim to encourage African Americans to enlist. In the first poster, “Colored Man Is No Slacker,” a black soldier takes his leave against a background of African American patriotism, self...
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