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July 16, 1945
ALAMOGORDO, NEW MEXICO
The way the world thinks of war changed forever in 1945. On July 16 in Alamogordo, New Mexico, America exploded the world's first atomic bomb, sending a huge mushroom-shaped cloud high into the sky. The Manhattan Project, which was used to end World War II- was mostly led by German and German-Jewish scientists, who had escaped from Hitler's Germany.
In 1939, an American university professor named Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which he outlined the possibility of using a nuclear chain reaction for a bomb. After reading the letter, Roosevelt began the Manhattan Project in 1943. Only a few people knew of the project, which was headed by J. Robert Oppenheimer, an atomic scientist from Germany.
On August 6th and 9th of 1945, American planes dropped one atomic bomb each on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. The first bomb destroyed 80 percent of Hiroshima's buildings and killed about 80,000 people. The second bomb killed about 35,000 people. Japan surrendered to America after Nagasaki, but the people of Japan suffered failing health and horrible deaths for years afterward due to the effects of atomic radiation.
Einstein later regretted his letter to Roosevelt, but he feared the Nazis would develop an atomic weapon and use it on America. Many scientific and military people involved with developing the bomb did not want it to be used, feeling it was immoral.
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Right To Life: Whose?
January 22, 1973
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1863, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation sharply divided the American people over slavery. Then, one-hundred ten years later, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade divided America again, this time over abortion. With the possible exception of the Vietnam War, no single issue since slavery has caused such emotional upheaval and as many street demonstrations.
Voting seven-to-two in favor of abortion, the Supreme Court ruled that individual states could not prohibit abortions in the first three months, or first "trimester," of a woman's pregnancy and limited abortion restrictions in the second trimester. The justices wrote that they viewed abortion as an issue of privacy, protected by the Constitution.
The case came to the Supreme Court from Texas, where a woman who took the anonymous name of Jane Roe challenged that state's abortion restrictions. She had been pregnant, denied an abortion by Texas law, had the baby and gave it up for adoption, but still wanted to contest what she viewed as an unfair law.
Supporters of the ruling argue that a woman has a right to control her life and her body by choosing abortion. They say there are too many unwanted children coming into the world already. They argue for the "right to choose." Opponents of the ruling argue that a fetus is a human being and has rights under the law. They view abortion as murder and argue for the "right to life" of the unborn.
Supporters include almost all women's groups. Opponents are often conservative Christian groups. Continuing battles over this issue have taken each side to the streets: marching on Washington, D.C. by the hundreds of thousands, staging demonstrations at political conventions, blocking the entrances to women's health-care clinics where abortions are performed, and so on.
Since 1973, abortion has been a key issue in presidential races and the appointment of judges to the U.S. Supreme Court. In several abortion cases since 1973, the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of allowing the states more latitude to place their own restrictions on abortions. The 1989 ruling in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services is one of these cases. Based on this law, states like Pennsylvania have passed very strict limits on abortion while states like California have kept liberal abortion rulings.
The main restrictions states have voted to put on abortions are: parental consent for teens seeking abortions, consent by husbands of women seeking abortions, a waiting period for a woman to get an abortion, and limiting abortions to cases of rape or incest.
The Pole At Last!
April 6, 1909
THE NORTH POLE
Young Navy officer Robert Peary had two passions in life: the cold, barren landscape of the Arctic and the warmth that comes with great fame. In a letter to his mother he wrote, "I don't want to live and die without accomplishing anything . . ."
Born May 6, 1856, in Cresson, Pennsylvania, Peary set his life's course when he read a book on Greenland at the age of six. He led his first expedition there at the age of 30.
The Greenland ice cap is one million square miles of ice where all that can be seen are sky, sun, and ice -- but often the fog is so thick that even those can't be seen. Peary, with Christian Maigaard, made a sled journey into the interior, risking snow blindness and injury from falling into hidden crevasses or from wading through glacial streams. On the return journey, the two men tied their sleds together and used them like a boat to sail down a mountainside of ice. Rigging a sail, and with a hatchet as a rudder, they sped "down the frozen slope with a breathless rush," flying over 50-foot-wide gorges before arriving back at their base.
Peary returned to the Arctic again and again. In 1891 and 1892 he explored the northern coastline of Greenland and in 1893-95 and 1898-1902 made his first efforts to reach the North Pole. In his 1905-06 expedition, he came within 174 miles of the Pole.
In March 1909, Peary, almost 53 years old, made one last try to reach his life's goal. Joined by Matthew Henson, an African-American, and four Eskimos, Peary reached the North Pole on April 6. However, on April 1, fellow explorer Frederick A. Cook had announced that he had conquered the Pole in 1908. Experts have rejected Cook's claims and Peary's were not accepted by everyone. But a study released in 1989 supports Peary's rightful claim of heading the first expedition to reach the North Pole.
Peary retired in 1911 with the rank of rear admiral and spent the rest of his life writing a series of books on his Arctic adventures. He died on February 20, 1920, having gained the fame he had first sought as a youth.
εMaking The Most Of Mud
1608
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
In 1608, when the Spanish made Santa Fe the capital of their province of New Mexico and began building the governor's palace, they used an Indian building material called adobe, (sun-dried clay) instead of more typical European materials in traditional European architectural style. Today, adobe buildings can be seen throughout the American Southwest, especially in New Mexico.
Adobe has been used as a building material by people in desert areas for thousands of years, since in those areas there is little rain and freezing weather to melt or crack the hardened mud. The Egyptians and Babylonians used adobe; in America, the Pueblo Indians used it. Adobe houses are also cooler than those made of wood or stone.
To make adobe, sandy clay is mixed with water and small quantities of straw or grass, which holds the materials together. Adobe bricks are made by putting the mixture into wooden forms to harden. The hardened bricks are then baked in the sun for about two weeks.
íUnwilling Immigrants
1619
AFRICAN IMMIGRATION
In 1619, the first African slaves were sold in the Jamestown colony. Slavery, however, was not new. About 1442, Portuguese ships took some Africans as slaves and the Spanish quickly followed their lead and began to trade slaves as cheap labor to the New World. The British followed suit in 1562 and by 1600 the Dutch and French were involved in buying and selling people.
Slavery was common during the American Revolution. Thomas Jefferson had slaves on his plantation. In 1808, the importation of slaves from Africa was outlawed, but trading in slaves within America remained brisk. The South's agricultural economy was based on slavery and in 1860 there were 3.5 million slaves in America, and their numbers continued to grow.
The end of the Civil War gave African-Americans the first chance to freely move around America. Many migrated to northern cities where industries might offer jobs, but many stayed in the South to farm their own land under the sharecropper system, a system that kept them poor.
Unable to find the social acceptance and financial opportunities that other immigrant groups found in America, African-Americans remained second-class citizens for many years. Unable to vote and often untaught in reading and writing, they were at the bottom of America's social system.
The civil-rights and black-power movements of the 1950s and 1960s gave African-Americans new rights and a sense of identity. Some took African names of their ancestral lands from which their relatives had been taken as slaves. Some chose to return to Africa.
The racial riots of the 1960s -- and, more recently, of 1992 -- show that many African-Americans still do not feel they belong, or are wanted, in America. Nevertheless, more African-Americans are running for public office and winning government positions. Listed as America's fourth largest ethnic group in the 1980 census, African-Americans plan to make a difference.
\Native American Strength
May 8,1973
WOUNDED KNEE, SOUTH DAKOTA
During the Black Power movement of the 1960s, Native Americans began organizing and protesting for more Indian rights. Advocating Indian Power, the American Indian Movement (AIM) seized the village of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, in 1973, the site of a bloody massacre of Sioux Indians by the United States Seventh Cavalry in 1890. AIM demanded the return of lands taken from Indians by America in violation of treaty agreements.
During the 70-day Wounded Knee occupation, two Indians were killed and several were wounded in confrontations with about 250 police officers and FBI agents. The hamlet of Wounded Knee burned down in the process.
AIM continues to be a vocal and controversial organization with some 5,000 members located in chapters both in urban centers and on the reservations. The three best known AIM leaders are Dennis Banks, Clyde Bellecourt, and George Miller, all Ojibwa Indians, and the organization has taken the twin goals of civil rights for Native Americans and a revival of tribal religion. AIM members feel they must take part in the Sun Dance ceremony on the Pine Ridge reservation where Wounded Knee is located.
In the 1970s, Indian tribes in Maine, Massachusetts, and South Dakota sued the United States to recover lands taken from them by white settlers. The Passamaquoddy and Penobscot tribes in Maine settled, in 1980, for $81.5 million dollars from the federal government in exchange for their land. Also in 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the federal government must pay eight Sioux Indian tribes the sum of $122.5 million for lands seized from them in 1877.
In another victory for Indians, the Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that tribes can tax oil, natural gas, and mineral production taking place on their reservations. The case was based on a tax levied by an Apache tribe in New Mexico in 1976.
Today, a number of Indian tribes negotiate their own agreements with private companies for use of resources on tribal lands. Formerly, such negotiations were conducted by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Indians are, indeed, gaining more power over their lives.
5Alamo: Torn Over Texas
March 6, 1836
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
By 1830, more than 20,000 Americans were living and growing cotton in Texas on land that belonged to Mexico. These Americans had about 2,000 slaves to work the cotton, even though Mexico outlawed slavery. When the Texans' request to separate from Mexico was denied, they decided to secede.
In response, Mexico marched 6,000 soldiers to San Antonio in early 1836. An army of 187 Texans, led by Colonel William B. Travis, defended themselves from a Franciscan mission called the Alamo.
During 10 days of fighting, the Texans held off the Mexican assault. But finally, the Mexicans clambered over the Alamo's walls, killing all but three people: a woman, her baby, and a slave. Among the dead were frontiersmen Davy Crockett and the Bowie brothers.
At the battle of San Jacinto, later in 1836, the Texans -- now led by Sam Houston -- used "Remember the Alamo!" as their battle cry. This time the Texans won. They quickly ratified a Texas constitution and made Houston president of their new republic.
Texas asked to be made part of the United States, but President Andrew Jackson -- and then President Martin Van Buren -- hesitated, since Texas would be a slave state and this would upset the balance of states achieved by the Missouri Compromise. Also, making Texas a state could provoke war with Mexico.
Scarface Scars Chicago
February 14, 1929
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
America has a certain fascination with outlaws: Billy the Kid, Jesse James, and Bonnie and Clyde, for example. In the 1920s, violent gangsters led a wave of crime in Chicago and "Scarface" Al Capone was one of their most notorious leaders.
These were the days of Prohibition, the 18th Amendment to the Constitution banning the sale of liquor. Capone and other gangsters made fortunes bootlegging, smuggling, and distributing illegal liquor. They bribed a number of police officials to ignore their activities.
The gangsters turned Chicago into a crime capital, where they lived in high style, going around town in fashionable clothes and cars and frequenting nightclubs that featured illegal gambling.
On Valentine's Day in 1929, seven members of Capone's rival gang were machine-gunned to death in a Chicago beer warehouse. The attackers dressed in police uniforms, which drew a roar of outrage from the city's police commissioner, who declared a war on the criminals. While not officially charged, Capone was believed responsible for this St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
As depicted in the movie "The Untouchables," the war on gangsters was finally -- if temporarily -- won. In 1931, Capone was convicted for tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
▀The Rock In The Bay
1934-1963
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
We may never know for sure if anybody has ever escaped from the 12-acre island penitentiary of Alcatraz. While most of those who attempted to do so were shot or drowned in the San Francisco Bay, Frank Lee Morris, John Anglin, and Clarence Anglin successfully made their way to the edge of the water on June 11, 1962, then disappeared. Maybe they drowned and were swept out to sea -- or maybe not.
The barren island came to be called "The Rock," though the word "alcatraces" is Spanish for "cormorant." The water birds on the island reminded early Spanish explorers of the cormorants in Spain.
The island was used as a fort and prison during the U.S. Civil War, then as a military prison for those serving long sentences.
On July 1, 1934, it became a U.S. penitentiary, and housed only the most violent criminals, such as the notorious Al Capone and "Machine Gun" Kelly.
Alcatraz Penitentiary was closed in 1963 when it became too expensive to maintain.
zRussians Vs. Aleuts
1764
ALEUTIAN ISLANDS, ALASKA
When we think of early territory disputes between white settlers and Native Americans, we usually think of the Europeans and tribes like the Cherokee or Iroquois. Similar early disputes, however, took place between the Russians and the natives of Alaska and the Aleutian Islands.
Russia had an interest in this region because of the plentiful supply of animals that could be trapped for furs. The Russians' demands for more and more pelts led them to hunt in ways that violated the ancient practices of native Aleutians, who hunted for subsistence only.
In 1764, an Aleut uprising killed 10 Russians. The Russians stifled the uprising and subsequently relocated and divided Aleut families, much as Western European settlers relocated Native Americans in middle America. In 1791, there were 12,000 Aleuts; just nine years later, in 1800, only 2,000 remained.
δ The Greatest
1965
LEWISTON, MAINE
When Cassius Clay first announced his presence to the boxing world, winning the light-heavyweight gold medal at the 1960 Olympics, he was regarded as a formidable talent. He was also regarded as brash and media-savvy. As a young pro, "The Louisville Lip" and "The Mouth" became two of Clay's more well-known nicknames. He was noted for his pre-fight, rhyming predictions, in which he would inform the world of the round he would knock out his opponent.
But while Clay may have had a big mouth, he also had the ability to back it up. In 1964, before his title fight with Sonny Liston, Clay said his strategy was to "float like a butterfly, sting like a bee," a line that was most likely coined by Clay's corner man, Drew "Bundini" Brown. Clay then went out and captured the heavyweight title when Liston was unable to come out for the seventh round.
At the age of twenty-one, Clay converted to Islam and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. He and Liston squared off again in a controversial 1965 rematch. The winner was the same, though this time Liston did not even make it past the first round.
Ali's popularity grew, as he continued to batter opponents and delight his supporters with predictions and bon mots. But Ali caused a furor when he evaded the draft for the Vietnam War, citing religious and moral grounds. "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet Cong," he said, explaining his decision not to report for the draft in 1966. Ali was suspended as heavyweight champion through September 25, 1970.
Ali returned and engaged in many memorable bouts, particularly those with Ken Norton, George Foreman, and Joe Frazier, with whom he battled three times, winning twice, including the legendary "Thrilla in Manila," on October 1, 1975. Twenty-eight thousand people attended the fight in the Philippine Coliseum and 700,000,000 more in 68 countries watched via satellite. Ali and Frazier traded punches for fourteen rounds until Frazier's manager, Eddie Futch, refused to let his near-blind fighter respond to the bell for the last round. A gracious, exhausted Ali said that the fight was the closest thing to death he could imagine.
Almost single-handedly, Ali made boxing the commercial phenomenon it has become. At one point in his career, he was regarded as the most famous and popular human being on the planet, an athlete known and loved in the remotest corners of the world. At that point, Ali was more likely to be called by his most enduring -- and, naturally, self-appointed nickname: "The Greatest."
∩Gators In The Gulf
1987
LOUISIANA BAYOU
In 1987, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that the American alligator was no longer an endangered species. Today, alligators are so numerous in some Southern states that managed hunting of the animal is allowed.
Alligators are actually living fossils from the Age of Reptiles, millions of years ago. They live in wetlands and have a symbiotic relationship with this environment.
As predators at the top of their food chain, alligators help control the spread of rodents and other animals in marshes and swamps. They also eat dead animals.
Alligators dig "gator holes," using their mouths and claws to clear vegetation and, with their powerful tails, wallowing out a depression that fills with water in the wet season and stays full through the dry season. This hole provides water for fish, insects, turtles, birds, and other animals who can coexist with the alligator; this helps to preserve the food chain.
After breeding, the female alligator lays eggs, which she covers with debris and helps incubate for 65 days, then digs out the young once they hatch.
Alligators are the largest reptiles in North America. During their average 20-year life span, alligators can grow to 12 feet in length and weigh up to 700 pounds.
Bombs Bursting In Air
September 14, 1814
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
Just before the start of sporting events and conventions around America, children and adults stand and sing -- usually off-key -- the "Star Spangled Banner," America's national anthem.
The song was written by Francis Scott Key, an American lawyer, during the War of 1812. Key was watching a British attack on Baltimore's Fort McHenry and he saw fiery bombs explode in the air above the fort. He also saw a huge American flag, the star-spangled banner, flying over the fort. Standing there, Key wrote on the back of an envelope the words that are the basis of the anthem.
In 1931, almost 150 years later, Congress voted to make Key's song the national anthem. Band leader John Philip Sousa wrote a musical arrangement of the song in the 1890s for military use, and this version remains the one we use today.
"O say can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming.
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming?
And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
O'er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?
Suffragists Suffer No More
July 19, 1848
SENECA FALLS, NEW YORK
Women in America had accompanied men through all the trials, tribulations, and triumphs this country had to offer: the Revolutionary War, taming the West, recovering from the Civil War. Still, there was one place they could not go: the voting booth. Despite all their efforts to build America, equality was denied them.
The movement to give women the vote, or "suffrage," began during the fight against slavery, when women were told to sit in the balcony at a London abolitionist meeting. So, in 1848, a women's convention was held in Seneca Falls; its leaders were Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony. Together these women founded the National Woman Suffrage Association (NWSA).
Coming from Quaker backgrounds, Anthony and Stanton had the strong moral conviction necessary to pursue the suffrage cause. They fought hard and boosted the cause of women's rights to the national level. In 1920, Congress passed the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote.
┌An End To Valor
April 9, 1865
APPOMATTOX COURT HOUSE, VIRGINIA
Two great armies came to this peaceful Virginia village in April 1865 and, in the parlor of one of its citizens, wrote the final chapter in the bloodiest war in American history.
Confederate General Robert E. Lee was trying to escape the much larger Union Army under General Ulysses S. Grant after being forced to abandon Richmond and Petersburg on April 1, 1865.
For nine days, Lee tried to keep his ever-shrinking army together. At Sayler's Creek on April 6, he lost nearly half his army -- mostly captured -- along with many generals, including his own son, Custis.
On April 9, Lee -- with barely 9,000 fighting men left -- found himself completely surrounded. He agreed to meet with Grant to surrender his army. Lee rode to meet Grant in Appomattox Court House, dressed in his finest uniform and carrying his sword to surrender. Grant showed up in his field uniform -- all muddy from hard riding.
The two men and their aides met in the house of a man named Wilmer McLean. They engaged in some friendly talk before getting down to business. Grant treated Lee and his men most kindly, allowing them to go back home as long as they obeyed the law. Grant also allowed the officers to keep their weapons and all the men to keep their horses and mules for spring planting. Lee said this would have the best possible effect on his soldiers.
The actual surrender terms were written by General Ely Samuel Parker, Grant's military secretary and a chief of the Iroquois Indian Nation. After signing the surrender, Grant and Lee departed with a handshake. Grant ordered his men not to cheer the victory because they were all Americans now.
And Wilmer McLean, in whose house the surrender was signed, could now make a handsome boast. In 1861, he had been living near Bull Run in Virginia -- the sight of the war's first major battle -- when a shell landed near his front porch. McLean could now truly say that the war began on his front porch and ended in his parlor.
ÉOldest American Mountains
1933
TENNESSEE VALLEY, APPALACHIA
When Congress voted for the Tennessee Valley Authority and brought electricity to the southern Appalachian Mountains, they brought the 20th Century into the oldest mountains in North America. The Appalachians were formed between 435 and 250 million years ago.
Named after the Apalachee Indians, the Appalachian Mountains are second only to the Rockies in length within North America, running about 2,000 miles from Canada to central Alabama. It is possible to walk the length of the Appalachians on a trail that passes through 14 states; it is called the Appalachian Trail.
Mountain ranges that connect to form the Appalachian chain are the Notre Dame Mountains, White Mountains, Green Mountains, the Catskills, Blue Ridge Mountains, Allegheny Mountains, and the Great Smoky Mountains. This area separates rivers that flow into the Atlantic Ocean from those flowing into the Gulf of Mexico.
There are rich mineral deposits in these mountains and much mining. Coal mining is a major industry in the Kentucky portion of the Appalachians.
Early pioneers settled in these mountains and many stayed for generations. Sometimes the developments of the 20th Century passed them by. Some people in these areas are extremely poor, but they have also developed their own unique culture.
Bluegrass music, a form of dance called "clogging," moonshine whiskey, and religious sects that interpret the Bible in literal ways exist side-by-side with modern highways and movie theaters. With electricity from the Tennessee Valley Authority, conditions here improved somewhat, but pockets of Southern Appalachia remain behind much of America in development.
@American As Apple Pie
1993
WASHINGTON
Apple pie is referred to by housewives and politicians alike as the epitome of America, and many of America's apples are grown in the state of Washington.
Why is apple pie considered so American? Who knows, but one reason may be that apples were available for cooking by early New England settlers and are still available today, year round, at markets throughout America. While many of America's resources, like fish, have dwindled, apples have thrived.
There is even the legend of Johnny Appleseed, who is said to have walked across America sowing apple seeds from a sack by his side as he traveled.
The forerunners to apple pie were made by early colonists and had names like Apple Jonathan, Yankee Apple John, Apple Betty, and Apple Pandowdy. Sometimes these oven-baked sweets had stale bread as a base and some used biscuit dough. Maple syrup or sugar was usually used for sweetening; nutmeg and cinnamon for flavor.
Today the pie is served hot or cold, plain, topped with a slice of tart cheddar cheese, or a la mode (with ice cream on top, generally vanilla).
-Portals Of The Gods
1971
ARCHES NATIONAL PARK, UTAH
Arches, made a national park in 1971, has the world's largest concentration of natural arches; more than 200 dot the park's desertscape.
Just as master sculptors like Michelangelo worked slowly to carve their masterpieces, so wind, rain, snow, ice, and blowing sand have taken millions of years to carve the park's varying shapes. Adding to the intrigue of the forms is the red-to-pink-to-orange colors of the sandstone from which they are made.
Some of the arches stand up to 100 feet high and span as much as 291 feet across. The arches change shape daily as, unlike human sculptors, the elements never rest from their task of molding the landscape. So, what you see here today will be different in a few years. In fact, some things could be different in a few days if one of the arch's legs breaks and it tumbles down.
The arches are here because at one time the area was an ocean that receded and left a mixture of sand, silt, lime, and other materials that became a 500-foot-thick layer of sandstone, called Entrada Sandstone. The combination of materials in the Entrada is such that it erodes in irregular patterns, depending on the softness or hardness of the rock, to form the arches and pillars. The process has taken about 145 million years, and, of course, continues right now.
Armadillo: The Lunchbox Tank
1836
THE ALAMO, TEXAS
When Sam Houston was defending himself at the Alamo, the armadillo was protecting itself nearby. But then, the armadillo is always protecting itself.
The armadillo, not much bigger than a lunchbox, is covered with platelets on its midsection, has hornlike skin, stiff hoods on its shoulders and hips, and additional protection on its face, tail, and feet. The armadillo is always prepared for a predator. Humans, not animals, are its worst enemy.
Armadillo means "armed" in Spanish, and the animal's natural armor gives it a weight of about 17 pounds. It is so heavy that it will sink in water unless it inflates its stomach with air, and even this effort leaves just its nose showing above the water.
The armadillo originally crossed the Rio Grande, entering Southern Texas in prehistoric times. Today, the animal can be found in central Texas and in Gulf Coast states.
The armadillo eats ants and other ground insects and is classified as a meat-eater. Its official name is Dasypus novemcinctus.
#Driving Into The Future
October 1, 1908
DETROIT, MICHIGAN
At the turn of the century, a number of American inventors and their inventions significantly changed the world. Thomas Edison gave us electricity, the Wright brothers gave us airplanes, and Alexander Graham Bell gave us the telephone. Then there was Henry Ford and his Model-T car, which radically changed American life.
Born in 1864 to Irish immigrants, Ford became one of the richest and most powerful men in America. While others had already built automobiles, Ford made a car with a simple engine that people could afford. Making his first Model-T in 1909, he sold about 11,000 of them in one year.
Wanting everyone to have a car, Ford and his engineers developed the moving assembly line in order to mass-produce Model-T cars. This procedure allowed Ford to cut the price of Model T cars to an affordable $300. Ford Motors made 248,000 Model T's in 1914. Ford paid his workers five dollars a day, good wages at that time. Ford realized he had to pay good wages to keep workers contented at the boring assembly line and to allow them to buy the cars themselves.
Americans fell in love with cars and Congress provided funds to build highways. Roads were built throughout America and roadside services like restaurants, gas stations, and motels sprang up.
Detroit came to be called Motor City because of all the cars built there: Chrysler, Ford, Chevrolet, Packard, Studebaker. Ford himself wouldn't let his workers drive the cars of his competitors, and he fired anyone who did. He also managed to keep unions out of his plants until 1941.
Very conservative in politics, Ford was also known for his anti-Semitic views that he published in a newspaper. Ironically, Ford had a rabbi as a friend to whom he gave a new Model-T each year as a present. The rabbi, however, refused to accept the car once Ford started publishing his anti-Semitic paper. Later, Ford apologized for the things he said in his paper. Ford also thought most of his workers were lazy and unreliable and, as he got older, started a secret police at his factory. He died in 1947.
∩Painter Of Feathered Friends
1809
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
The illegitimate son of a white plantation owner and a Creole French servant, John James Audubon, became America's best-known painter of birds and their habitats. His work has helped naturalists document species of southern birds.
Audubon was born in 1785 in Santo Domingo, raised in France, and brought to Pennsylvania at age 18 to live on his father's farm.
In 1809, while in Pennsylvania, Audubon conducted experiments that proved migratory birds return to the same place each year. He tied a piece of silver thread to the legs of birds nesting near his home, then saw several of these banded birds return the following year.
Professionally, Audubon failed at several business ventures and even spent some time in jail for being in debt. While living in the South, he came to devote his time to hunting and painting birds while traveling in the Mississippi Valley and Louisiana. In 1826, unable to find an American publisher for his pictures of birds, Audubon went to London where he was able to publish "The Birds of America" with color reproductions of his artwork.
He roamed the Florida Keys in 1831 and 1832 in search of more varieties of birds. This journey led to his publishing "Ornithological Biography" with the help of his sons and "The Vivaporous Quadrupeds of North America."
His work is praised for its beauty, accuracy of detail, and its documentation of wildlife in parts of America before heavy settlement changed the habitats.
His legacy also includes the National Audubon Society, an organization dedicated to the study and preservation of wildlife (particularly birds) and natural resources. Founded in 1905 and named after Audubon, the society is one of the oldest and largest conservation groups in the world.
ÖThe Babe: Unlikely Slugger
1895-1948
BALTIMORE, MARYLAND
With his big stomach and spindly legs, Babe Ruth didn't look much like a great baseball player -- but, man, could he hit a ball!
As a boy, Ruth roamed the streets of Baltimore, chewed tobacco by age seven and drank whiskey by age 10. Worried about him, his parents sent Ruth to St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, where Brother Matthias befriended him, teaching him not only academics and good behavior, but also baseball.
Ruth was later selected for the Baltimore Orioles, but soon caught the attention of the Boston Red Sox, who bought his contract. Later the Sox sold him to the New York Yankees, where in 1920 he hit an unheard-of 54 home runs.
Revelations that Chicago White Sox players had taken money from gamblers had damaged baseball's reputation, but during this dark hour, Ruth's hitting helped keep up public interest in the game.
The Yanks let 40-year-old Ruth go at the end of the 1934 season, and he signed with the Boston Braves. In May, 1935, shortly after hitting home runs 712, 713, and 714, he announced his retirement. Ruth's home run record stood until 1974, when Hank Aaron hit his 715th ball over the fence in Atlanta.
=Good In The Badlands
1978
SOUTH DAKOTA
In the middle of land that seems ominous and harsh, nature has given mankind a glimpse into the mysteries of the past. Here, rocks carved and eroded by wind and water give us a record of the Eocene era of 37 million years ago. Actually, the oldest specimens of rock here are Pierre Shale which date back about 65 million years.
Amidst the rocks have been found fossil specimens of the animals who lived in the past. In fact, the Badlands have one of the richest fossil beds known to man. You may remember the opening scene of the movie "Jurassic Park," where the paleontologists were excavating a fossil; they were doing this in the Badlands.
During more recent periods of history, only several thousand years ago, the Badlands were occupied by the Sioux Indians. Today, the Lakota branch of the Sioux occupy the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation next to the Badlands National Park.
In 1929, Congress listed the Badlands as a National Monument and President Franklin D. Roosevelt made it official in 1939. In 1978, the Badlands were given national park status.
f Grilling Greatness
1990
ANYWHERE IN SOUTHWEST
From coast to coast and especially in the South and West, there is one form of cooking that Americans particularly love and that each area claims as its own: the barbecue.
Early Spanish explorers to the New World found the Native Americans grilling their meat outdoors. The Spanish called this cooking process "Barbacoa," and the English translated it to barbecue. The Spanish colonizers adopted the practice when they built their ranches in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. They preferred grilling beef since they raised cattle.
Other European settlers in the Carolinas and Gulf Coast areas copied local Cherokee and Creek Indians by barbecuing pork and chickens. Spanish Basque sheepherders in Nevada and New Mexico grilled lambs.
While the Spanish introduced the sauces associated with barbecue, each region boasts its own variety. There are simple marinades and honey-mustard sauces in the South and East Coast and red-tomato-based sauces spiced with chili peppers in the Southwest and California. Today, Asian-influenced sauces in Pacific areas contain a soy sauce base for teriyaki barbecues.
For large gatherings, a pit is sometimes dug in the ground and filled with wood, which burns all night to create a bed of coals. The meat is then hung from rods or laid on grills above the coals to cook, being turned as needed. For family barbecues, Americans use portable grills that can be wheeled out, filled with charcoal, or fueled by propane gas, and offer quicker, convenient cooking.
This form of cooking is also noteworthy as for many years it was a male occupation. In fact, for a long time there were no barbecue recipes in cookbooks because women didn't barbecue. This has changed over time but still, today, the weekend barbecue is often where the man of the house shows his cooking skills.
Care to give it a try? Here's a recipe:
Recipe: Barbecue Steak Teriyaki
2 lbs. flank steak
8 oz. can Apricot juice or nectar
8 oz. soy sauce
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
2 cloves garlic minced
Pinch dry prepared mustard
Place steak in shallow pan or dish. Mix all other ingredients together and pour over meat. Cover and let stand several hours or overnight in refrigerator. Remove and bring to room temperature before placing on barbecue over hot coals. Cook until done, slice diagonally across grain of meat in 1/2" slices and serve.
▀Angel Of The Battlefield
1882
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A wartime hospital full of wounded and dying men was no place for well-bred young ladies, not to mention a battlefield with all its horrors -- so said polite society in 1861. Fortunately for thousands of young soldiers in the Civil War, and all the wars since, Clara Barton didn't listen to polite society.
Born in Massachusetts on Christmas Day 1821, Clara Barton was working as a clerk in the Washington Patent Office when the war began in 1861. She wanted to help the war effort and soon was traveling with the Army, where she treated the wounded with such tenderness that she became known as "The Angel of the Battlefield." Nursing had been largely a male domain previously, but Clara's work opened up the field to women.
After the war, Clara continued her relief work and, in 1869, went to Geneva, Switzerland, as a member of the International Red Cross. In 1881 she organized the American Red Cross and served as its first president. She also served in Cuba with the U.S. Army during the Spanish-American War in 1898.
Clara Barton died on April 12, 1912, leaving behind a living monument -- the American Red Cross and the tens of thousands of volunteers who give of their time and money to help others in trouble.
─Base, Goal Or Ball
October 13, 1903
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Across America every Spring, millions of children dream of hitting a home run in Little League baseball -- and maybe someday hitting one in the World Series with a crowd roaring its approval as they round the bases.
The first World Series took place in Boston in 1903 -- the Boston Nationals beat the Pittsburgh Americans -- but baseball had been played in America since the 1830s. In 1834, a book was published in America called "Base, Goal or Ball." It described an English sport called "Rounders" that was played on a square field with four stones around which a player ran after hitting a ball. Later, the American version was called baseball.
Over the years, professional baseball players became heroes and youngsters collected and traded baseball cards with players' pictures on them. Players like Cy Young, Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Willie Mays, Joe DiMaggio, Hank Aaron, and Pete Rose were cheered by millions.
Today professional baseball is big business. The American and National leagues have fancy stadiums in cities around the country. Millions watch the World Series on television, and young and old continue to play the game on corner lots and in parks everywhere across America.
√ The Bloody Civil War
September 17, 1862
ANTIETAM CREEK, MARYLAND
The Civil War had several decisive battles that left thousands of men lying dead in American fields and woods.
The Battle of Antietam took place on September 17, 1862, when Confederate troops under General Robert E. Lee arrived at Antietam thinking they would surprise General George McClellan's Union forces. But Confederate papers outlining Lee's plans had fallen into Union hands, so McClellan expected Lee.
Instead of attacking Lee in one major swoop for a swift victory, McClellan had his men attack in small spurts that Lee's army threw back. By the end of the day, about 10,000 men from each side lay dead in what has been called the bloodiest day of the war.
A few days later, on September 22, President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation that declared all slaves in Confederate-held territory free after January 1, 1863. The Emancipation Proclamation strengthened Southern resolve to fight what they perceived as a Yankee threat to their way of life.
However, in the North there was a mixed reaction. The proclamation gave great heart to the abolitionists and paved the way for the enlistment of African-Americans into the Union Army, but many poor Northerners would not fight to free blacks whom they saw as a threat to their livelihood. Upon hearing of the Emancipation Proclamation, one entire Illinois regiment deserted and the Democratic Party, which opposed the war, gained many seats in the November 1862 Congressional elections.
The great strength of the Proclamation -- which really didn't free anyone and was probably unconstitutional -- is that it kept England from coming into the war on the Southern side. Great Britain would not fight to uphold slavery. In 1863, Lee invaded Pennsylvania and headed toward Gettysburg, thinking a victory here would give the army access to Washington, D.C. On July 1, 1863, Union troops fought Confederate troops who were searching for shoes. New troops came to each side's aide and by July 3 the Union army had pushed back the Confederate attempt to take the area. In the process about 28,000 Confederate and 23,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing. Lee retreated from Pennsylvania, escaping across the Potomac to regroup. Gettysburg is generally considered the turning point of the war.
On November 19th, Lincoln dedicated a military cemetery at Gettysburg, delivering his now famous "Gettysburg Address." Beginning with the words, "Fourscore and seven years ago..." the speech recommitted the government to its fight for freedom.
+Puritans And Bean Town
1630
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Once the joy of their arrival in the New World had passed, the Puritans settled into a somewhat somber existence in New England, particularly in Boston, their main city.
Their food was practical and basic. The Saturday night bean pot became traditional for this religious group.
Sunday was a holy day and no work was to be done except prayer. While eating was allowed on Sunday, cooking was not; this created a dilemma for the Puritan cooks who had to feed their families on Sunday. To solve this problem they turned to baked beans. They simmered the beans slowly all Saturday in a round earthen pot with a small opening on top that kept heat from leaving the food, keeping the beans somewhat warm for eating on Sunday.
For flavor, cooks added a little bacon and sweetening. At first they used "Indian sweetening," or maple sugar, to sweeten the bean pot. The Indians used maple sugar when they slow-cooked a native brand of beans in hot-stone pits. In the late 1600s, West Indian molasses arrived in Boston and the Puritans used it instead of the maple sugar in their beans. Because of this mixture of food and religion, Boston became known as "Beantown."
Care to make a pot? Try this recipe:
2 cups dried beans (pea or navy)
1/2 pound slab smoked bacon or salt pork
1 large onion, chopped
1/3 cup blackstrap molasses
1 tablespoon dry mustard
1 1/2 bay leaves
Salt and pepper, dash each
Tabasco, dash
Cover beans with cold water, bring to boil, and cook for one minute. Remove from heat, cover pot, and let beans sit in pot for one hour. After one hour, drain beans and put half of them in baking pot with onion, molasses, and seasonings. Add remaining beans and make hole in top layer for bacon, covering with light coating of beans. Add boiling water to top of beans, cover pot tightly and bake in 300 degree oven for 4 to 6 hours, melting fat and blending seasonings. Check pot at times and add more boiling water if it gets too dry. Removing pot lid for last 30 minutes will give beans a brown crust. Recipe serves 6 to 8 people.
1Beef: Sunday Night Dinner
1850
KANSAS CITY, KANSAS
Here, in the middle of America, is the source of food that has been the staple of the American diet for years. Kansas City is home to the world's largest cattle stockyards, the source of beef for much of the world. It is to Kansas City that all those lonesome cowboys on the range were headed with their herds in the days of the Old West and it is the destination of many modern cattle ranchers as well.
While today much of America has become concerned with eating less red meat, for many years a juicy roast beef was the standard Sunday night dinner for middle-class Americans. Served with steamed vegetables and potatoes laced with butter, the beef roast stood for the solid American family and home. At a time when almost all middle-class households had two parents, Sunday evening was a time for the family to be together and for the father to stand at the end of the table and carve the roast.
Roast Beef Recipe
4 pound rolled rib or sirloin-tip, Prime grade
(figure 2-3 servings per pound)
Preheat oven to 550 degrees. Have roast at room temperature and place fat side up on rack in shallow greased roasting pan. Put into oven and reduce heat to 350 degrees (use a meat thermometer, if possible). Cook for 20 minutes per pound for medium rare, a little longer if your roast is rolled.
h The King Of Swing
1934
PALOMAR, CALIFORNIA
On his first coast-to-coast tour in 1934, clarinetist Benny Goodman found audiences indifferent to his music. Then one night, in Palomar, California, Goodman threw caution to the wind and told his ensemble to "get as hot as you wish."
The group went to town, putting their all into numbers like "Sometimes I'm Happy," "The Sugar Foot Stomp," and "The King Porter Stomp." They brought the house down, went on to a triumphant engagement in Los Angeles, and, in 1935, got a booking at the Congress Hotel in Chicago.
It was during that Chicago engagement that Goodman's music first received the title "swing" in an advertisement. A Time magazine reviewer attending the performance gave Goodman the name he would keep forever, "The King of Swing."
Benjamin David Goodman was born in 1909 and raised in Chicago's Jewish ghetto, the son of a Russian tailor. He grew up listening to New Orleans jazz and studying the styles of King Oliver, Freddie Keppard, and Louis Armstrong. He learned to play the clarinet so he could accompany a group of jazz enthusiasts during informal jam sessions.
At age 16, he joined a jazz band led by Ben Pollack and made his first recording, "He's the Last Word," in 1926. Goodman soon formed his own band, a small group of hot-jazz performers known as the Benny Goodman Trio. It was one of the first interracial jazz groups.
Goodman, a brilliant, intensely rhythmic jazz clarinetist, brought the swing style -- a variation of New Orleans improvisational jazz -- to national acceptance. In 1937, when he started an engagement at New York's Paramount Theater, the house was mobbed by swing-happy youngsters who had to be kept in check by the police and fire departments. Over 20,000 passed through the box office during the first day of the engagement.
But not everyone was pleased with Goodman's music. The New York School of Music prepared a bill to make the performance of all swing music illegal and in an editorial in the Kansas Emporia Gazette, editor William Allen White described the new music as something that "squawked and shrieked and roared and bellowed in syncopated savagery."
Goodman was an intensely serious musician who was sometimes accused of being cold and indifferent to those around him. He toured all over the world and had roles in movies, television, and radio programs. He achieved great material success; he died in 1986.
=Did Betsy Make The Flag?
1777
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Was the first American flag bearing stars and stripes designed and sewn by Betsy Griscom Ross of Philadelphia?
The legend says George Washington and two others called at the little upholstery shop and asked Mrs. Ross to make a flag. Well, she had never made a flag, she replied, but would give it a try. Betsy examined a rough drawing the men produced and suggested five-pointed stars instead of the six-pointed stars on the drawing. They agreed, and Betsy made the flag.
Aside from the testimony of Ross's descendants, there is no evidence to support this popular story, but we do know that the United States Government gave Ross the contract to make its flags after the first national emblem was adopted on June 14, 1777. She and her family continued in the flag-making business until 1857.
ïBible Belt Is Fundamental
1920s
JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI
The "Bible Belt," a term coined by writer H.L. Mencken in the 1920s, is the area of America with a strong grouping of people who believe in the literal interpretation of the Bible. According to Mencken, the center of this belt was Jackson, Mississippi.
These conservative Christians have also been called "fundamentalists," a term that refers to their belief in the fundamental truth of the Bible's words; however, in some areas of America, "fundamentalist" has become a derogatory term used to refer to someone who doesn't support more contemporary views.
The Bible Belt covers rural areas of the Midwest and much of the South and Southeast. Bible Belt churches include conservative Baptist, Church of Christ, some Methodist, and other denominations like the Assemblies of God. A few of these conservative Christians only read the Bible and no other books, believing that all the information and wisdom they need to know in life is in the Bible.
Baptism is an important ritual in the Bible Belt. Traveling through the region, one can see preachers and church members standing in a river as the preacher baptizes them: the members are dunked in the water to physically demonstrate their faith. Baptism only occurs once in an adult Christian's life.
Conservative Christians are frequently politically conservative and support traditional morality. Some sects practice "speaking in tongues," in which a church member speaks unintelligibly and is thought possessed by the Holy Spirit. Far less common are the snake handlers, who believe their faith protects them from being bitten by poisonous snakes, which they handle in religious ceremonies.
`Romantic Views Of The West
1868
SIERRA NEVADA MOUNTAINS, CALIFORNIA
While his peers from the Hudson River Valley group of artists were painting landscapes of that part of New York, Albert Bierstadt went after views that were far more remote.
Beginning in 1858, Bierstadt made a number of trips West to explore the beauty of America. He went with a federal surveying group to California and came across Yosemite. The drawings and paintings he made while he was there and, from sketches, when he returned home, gave Americans in the East their first look at the majestic scenery of Yosemite and the West. The images were so magnificent that some viewers doubted their authenticity.
In pictures like "Among the Sierra Nevada Mountains," seen here, Bierstadt painted a vision of harmony between man and nature, rather than an image of nature being a hostile force for man to conquer. While still dramatic, the picture is peaceful.
Bierstadt and other artists like Frederic Remington and Charles M. Russell became known for their depictions of western lands and people and for documenting the Indian cultures, which would soon be nearly destroyed.
Stormy Bill of Rights
December 15, 1791
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
AMENDMENT I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
AMENDMENT II
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.
AMENDMENT III
No soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
AMENDMENT IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
AMENDMENT V
No persons shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.
AMENDMENT VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
AMENDMENT VII
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.
AMENDMENT VIII
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.
AMENDMENT IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
AMENDMENT X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
.Stormy Bill of Rights
December 15, 1791
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA
James Madison was worried that the United States' recently adopted Constitution did not guarantee the rights of its citizens and he pushed hard to get that changed. Finally, he persuaded Congress to adopt a Bill of Rights. Later, on December 15, 1791, 10 of the 12 became law as the tenth state, Virginia, ratified them.
Some provisions of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments to the Constitution) have caused little debate, while other provisions have raised many storms. In fact, you don't have to get past the First Amendment to see what we mean.
The First Amendment deals with (among other topics) freedom of the press and religion. But how far does the press's freedom extend? Is it absolute? Can a newspaper print military secrets that could endanger the lives of soldiers? Can a television reporter refuse to reveal her source for a story if a court needs more information from that source to give somebody a fair trial? On the other hand, a free society needs a free flow of information. If you put a lid on that information, do you establish a precedent that could endanger society? If you force a reporter to reveal her sources, will other people -- fearing exposure -- refuse to give reporters information in the future?
People have also questioned the extent to which the First Amendment protects religious freedom. If a religion uses illegal drugs in its observances, does the First Amendment protect that? Or is the purpose of the First Amendment to place a "wall of separation" -- as Thomas Jefferson once wrote -- between religion and the government? And if so, is the wall intended to protect religion from the government or the government from religion? If it is designed to protect the government from religion, does that mean the words "IN GOD WE TRUST" on our coins are illegal? Can a student speak of God at a public high school graduation ceremony? And if the student can't speak of God, does that violate his or her right to free speech, also guaranteed by the First Amendment? As you can see, the potential for disagreement is vast.
ÇAmerica Turns 200!
July 4, 1976
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
America threw herself a grand birthday party on this July 4, as she turned 200 years old. In 1776, America got the Declaration of Independence as her first birthday present. In 1976, America gave herself many parades, firework displays, pie-eating contests, and a pat-on-the-back for preserving the government in the face of many perils over the last 200 years.
¬Black Elk's Vision
1932
PINE RIDGE RESERVATION, SOUTH DAKOTA
The Pine Ridge Reservation is the present home of the Oglala Sioux of the Lakota Nation. Here is where the people of a holy man named Nicholas Black Elk came to live after losing their ancestral lands to white settlers and cavalry.
Published in 1932, the book "Black Elk Speaks" is Black Elk's recounting to John Neihardt, an oral historian and poet, of a great vision he had when he was nine years old. In this vision, a white cloud whisked Black Elk from Earth and into the heavens where he was met by a beautiful bay horse who served as his guide; he also was escorted by 48 other horses, 12 each for the West, East, South, and North. These horses took Black Elk to a tepee with a rainbow over its door. Inside this tepee were six ancient Grandfathers, or holy men, each of whom gave him a gift and a prophecy for the future. Before the vision ended, Black Elk seemed to experience the entire life cycle of Earth and of his people.
Although he had this vision at age nine, it took Black Elk most of his life to understand its meaning. In this book he recounts his understanding of the vision, and he also recounts the history of Black Elk's people from 1860 through 1890 and the massacre at Wounded Knee that winter.
Speaking in Lakota, translated by his son, Ben, Black Elk preserves for future generations the religion, ceremonies, and philosophy of the Oglala Lakota, Western Sioux Indians. He describes famous Indian warriors, like Crazy Horse, through Lakota eyes and values, giving white Westerners a different view of their own history. Strongly expressed is the Native American view of man's kinship and interdependence with all living things, a view recently adopted by environmentalists in America.
The cosmology and the hierarchy of various gods are also laid out by Black Elk as he describes, elaborates on, and interprets his boyhood vision. Seen here is an illustration of that vision.
6Singing The Blues
1912
MISSISSIPPI DELTA
When the Civil War ended and slavery was abolished, many blacks hired themselves out to do heavy manual labor or harvest crops on plantations. This was work for which they were trained. Their lives were not easy and both living and working conditions were bad. The "blues" developed out of this situation.
With almost no links to Western music traditions, the blues came from black folk music with its roots in Africa. The vocals of the blues came from field workers who sung solo and used many variations in delivery to ease the drudgery of the work and to express their frustration and fatigue. Generally, the themes of the blues are relationships between men and women. While called the blues, the songs sometimes express uplifting feelings and thoughts. The blues are rooted in everyday life; it is not religious music.
The blues brought some new elements to American music. First, they introduced the "blue note," the flattening or wavering treatment of a note at the third or seventh degree of a scale. The "blue note" has become standard in American rock music and gives listeners a deeper emotional feeling than standard playing of the note.
Second, the blues presented the use of an instrument as another voice in the song, not just as an accompaniment to the singer. Here, an instrument can seem to be singing and making a statement of its own. Third, the blues introduced a realism into American music as its subjects were everyday life and problems.
Some famous blues singers and musicians are Ma Rainey, Robert Johnson, and Mississippi John Hurt.
│Booker T. And Tuskegee
1881
TUSKEGEE, ALABAMA
Born a slave in 1856, and having worked as a janitor to finance his education, Booker T. Washington founded the first industrial training school for blacks with an entirely black faculty. Opened in 1881, the Tuskegee Institute grew to maturity following the turmoil of the Civil War and Reconstruction.
Washington was a skilled politician and, by 1900, Tuskegee Institute was the best-supported black educational institution in the country, thanks to Northern donations he solicited.
In the early 1900s, more liberal blacks viewed Washington as too accommodating to whites, saying he promoted his institute to whites as a way to keep blacks in the trades. Still, at a time when most blacks didn't have many educational opportunities, Tuskegee Institute offered hope of a way out of the sharecropping system that kept so many blacks so poor.
Washington played a large role in the politics of race relations, advocating acquiescence by blacks to whites in exchange for support in other areas. When the NAACP was founded in 1909, both black and white members opposed Washington as too complacent in the face of lynchings and other violence against blacks.
During his career, Washington wrote his biography "Up From Slavery," founded the National Negro Business League in 1900, was a dinner guest at the White House in 1901, and served as chief black advisor to Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. He died in 1915.
╕Bourbon: Corn Whiskey
1866
LYNCHBURG, TENNESSEE
In 1866, the Jack Daniel's Distillery became the first registered American distillery. Its product, Tennessee brand whiskey, is a truly American liquor, as is its famous cousin, bourbon.
When Scots-Irish immigrants settled in southern Appalachia, they brought with them the practice of making whiskey. Back home they made the drink from grains like rye, but in this new land they substituted the native corn -- making bourbon a uniquely American liquor.
Bourbon whiskey is part of Southern history and mythology. It is the basis of the mint julep, drunk by early Southern society at gracious plantations. It is also said to have fueled many great Southern politicians' flowery speeches.
Much less refined than Jack Daniel's and other commercial bourbons, is the whiskey called "moonshine." Brewed by backwoods folk in illegal stills, moonshine got its name because it was safest to make at night by the light of the moon.
äThe British Are Coming!
February 7, 1964
BRITISH IMMIGRATION
Immigrants had been pouring into New York City for 200 years when thousands of screaming teenagers waited at New York's Kennedy Airport for the Beatles, the newest and most influential British to come to America in some time. They played to a national audience on the Ed Sullivan television show.
In the 1960s, rock bands from England dominated and influenced the most American of art forms: rock 'n' roll music. Some say they conquered America. Well, their ancestors made room for them here many years prior.
In 1607, 100 British colonists settled in Jamestown, Virginia. Today, their descendants form the largest ethnic group in America and their language, English, is America's official language.
In 1620, the Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower at Plymouth, Massachusetts; they fled religious oppression in England for freedom of worship in America. In the 1600s, many people left England for America in search of religious freedom and business opportunities. They called their American home New England and, until the American Revolution, these immigrants were considered subjects of the British throne and paid taxes to the king of England.
While they fought their home country twice, in the American Revolution and the War of 1812, British immigrants eventually came to be on good terms with England. Today, rock band competition aside, England and America are strong allies.
The Bernstein Surprise
1943
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The audience groaned. The disappointed people had come that day in 1943 to hear guest conductor Bruno Walter lead the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a nationally broadcast performance -- but Walter was sick. Furthermore, Artur Rodzinski, the regular conductor, was on vacation. The only available conductor was Rodzinski's assistant, Leonard Bernstein.
Bernstein stood up, a bit nervous at first, but as the music began to flow, he forgot the audience and delivered a spectacular performance. When he finished, the surprised and delighted audience gave him a standing ovation. Bernstein became famous overnight!
Bernstein was born in Lawrence, Massachusetts, grew up in Boston, then graduated from Harvard in 1939. In 1958, he became Music Director of the New York Philharmonic, the first American-born and -trained musician to hold that important position.
During his lifetime he conducted more than 400 recorded performances and won nine Emmy Awards and 13 Grammy Awards. He was also acclaimed for his Young People's Concerts, which introduced many children to the wonders and beauty of music. His most famous composition is the American musical classic, West Side Story, which he wrote in 1957.
Shortly after the Berlin Wall in Germany was torn down in 1989, Bernstein was invited to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at Christmastime on both sides of the Wall. He used choral singers and orchestral musicians from all the countries allied against Germany in the Second World War. It may have been the mightiest performance ever of Beethoven's famous symphony.
For Bernstein, music was more than a job, or even a love -- it was his life. Bernstein once said, "I can't live one day without hearing music, without playing it, studying it, or thinking about it!"
End Of School Segregation
May 17, 1954
TOPEKA, KANSAS
In this Midwest town, a little girl named Linda Brown had to ride a bus five miles to school every day when there was a public school just four blocks from her house. Why? Because Linda was black and the school near her house was for whites only. The Topeka school system operated under the "Separate but Equal" policy that said separate schools of equal quality could be established for black and white students.
Finally, with the help of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), families like Linda's came together and sued the Topeka school system in a case called Brown v. Board of Education. The case went to the U.S. Supreme Court and, in 1954, the court ruled that "separate but equal" isn't, and is unconstitutional. It was a happy day for many blacks across America, as seen here.
"Separate but equal" never really provided equal facilities to blacks -- theirs were of inferior quality to the facilities for whites. Not only were schools segregated, kept separate -- but so were swimming pools, drinking fountains, buses, and other public facilities.
The change from segregated schools and facilities to integrated, or mixed, ones did not happen without a fight. In 1957, in Little Rock, Arkansas, the governor used the state's National Guard troops to keep black teenagers out of Little Rock Central High School. President Dwight D. Eisenhower then sent 1,100 military men to Little Rock where they directed the National Guard to protect blacks and allow them into the high school.
ªKing Of The Prairie
1894
YELLOWSTONE, MONTANA
In May 1894, Congress outlawed the hunting of buffalo in Yellowstone Park. This was the first step by the United States government toward protecting an animal that earlier American settlers had tried to eliminate.
Before white people arrived, buffalo were abundant on the plains and prairies. Indian storytellers recall the days when a person could ride a pony in one direction all day and always be with one herd of buffalo.
The Indians saw the large animals as kindred spirits who provided them with meat to eat and warm hides for protection against the harsh winters.
In 1830, estimates place about 40 million buffalo on the plains. But the systematic killing of buffalo by railroad workers and the pointless slaughter of the animals for sport (often, their carcasses were just left on the plain to rot) almost destroyed the herds. By 1893, there were probably fewer than one thousand buffalo on the plains.
Since 1894, attempts have been made to increase the number of buffalo in America. Today there are about 3,000 buffalo in Yellowstone National Park and the animal, while not considered endangered, is no longer a major source of food for Americans.
vVoice Of The Wilderness
1903
ALASKA
While his contemporary John Muir crusaded to preserve wilderness as a sanctuary for mankind's soul, Jack London wrote about wilderness as a raw and savage force that usually prevailed over man.
His novel, "The Call of the Wild," published in 1903, told the story of a ranch dog named Buck who, kidnapped, becomes an Alaskan sled dog and ultimately achieves mythical status as the great Ghost-Dog of Northland legend. In this picture, an Alaskan dog team is seen pulling two Eskimos on a sled in an icy windstorm.
In contrast to this book, in which a dog survives and learns to fend for itself, other London stories, like "To Build a Fire," show man dying in the North's inhospitable lands.
Despite discoveries of gold, oil, and a profitable fishing industry, Alaska has resisted development, perhaps due to its immense size and harsh winter weather. Today it remains the refuge of wolves, grizzly bears, and other totems of wilderness that have not survived in other parts of America. Here, the wild still calls to those who listen, and demands respect from all who visit. That voice can be heard in the works of Jack London.
ΣForeigners Or Americans?
October 14, 1992
CANADIAN IMMIGRATION
Beating the Oakland Athletics to win the American League playoffs, the Toronto Blue Jays became the first Canadian team ever to play in the World Series. Then they repeated this triumph by winning the 1993 Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. This was an interesting situation since Canada is a foreign country. Yet Canada was going to represent America in the most American of games, baseball. And Canada went on to win the Series!
Canadians and Americans have been immigrating to one another's countries for a long time. Since 1820, more than four million Canadians have settled in America. There are so many Canadians in Los Angeles that some people jokingly call it the second largest city in Canada.
For the most part, the American economy has offered more job opportunities than Canada. This has attracted people to move south in search of work. However, the plague of crime, pollution, and congestion in American cities during the 1980s and early 1990s has motivated some Americans to move north in search of a calmer way of life.
Another motivator for American immigration to Canada was the Vietnam War. Many young American men decided to resist being drafted into the Army and sought refuge in Canada. As a result, they were not able to return to America for many years. And, if they did return, they faced court trials and jail sentences. Finally, in 1977, President James Carter pardoned Vietnam draft evaders, allowing them to return home; though not all did.
UMary Paints Moms
1844
ALLEGHENY, PENNSYLVANIA
When Mary Cassatt was born in 1844, who would have guessed that this Pennsylvania girl would one day be a member of the group of French artists known as the Impressionists? To be included in this exclusive group as an American would be triumph enough, but to be a woman in this male group was quite a milestone.
While she never had children of her own, Cassatt was known for her art showing mothers and children in warm and tender moments.
Becoming an artist wasn't easy for Cassatt. In her day, women didn't have careers, but Cassatt convinced her father to send her to the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In 1866, she went to France to look at that country's museums. In 1872, Cassatt entered one of her paintings in the Paris Salon, a very important art show that only showed works selected by a group of judges. Cassatt's painting titled "On the Balcony" was accepted, as were four other of her works!
Then, Impressionist artist Edgar Degas asked Cassatt to join his group of artists who were applying paint to canvas in a new way. The Impressionists used bright colors and loved the way light fell onto people and buildings; they tried to show this world of light with brushstrokes of paint that were not always neat and tidy.
In 1892, Cassatt accepted the job of painting a huge canvas for the Woman's Building at the Chicago World's Fair. To paint this large picture, Cassatt lowered the canvas into a ditch so she could reach its top.
Today, Cassatt's pictures sell for a lot of money and are considered valuable pieces of any museum lucky enough to have one.
Central Americans Arrive
1988
CENTRAL AMERICAN IMMIGRATION
With continuing guerilla warfare in their homelands -- intensified by U.S. troops in Honduras supporting the "Contra" rebels of Nicaragua -- many natives of those countries decided to escape the increased violence and continuing poverty. So, they came to America. Also coming to America in the 1980s were natives of El Salvador and Guatemala, two other Central American countries where death squads, guerilla warfare, and political upheaval scared many people away.
As is almost always the case with new immigrants, Central American refugees have entered America at the bottom rung of the social ladder. Many Central American women have taken work as housecleaners or nannies for the children of affluent white families. The men often try to find work as day laborers or busboys in restaurants.
Major Southwest cities like Los Angeles are where most of these immigrants settle. Here they establish restaurants and other services that provide their community with the food and culture of their native lands.
Bowls That Carry A Culture
1000
AMERICAN SOUTHWEST
Sometime between the birth of Christ and the discovery of America, Indians living in present-day Southwest America discovered how to take clay from the earth and harden it through firing at high temperatures. When this happened, the Indians gave birth to an art form that they took to a high level; they also replaced woven baskets and containers with more solid ceramic ones in which they could cook food.
Southwest Indians today continue to make beautiful ceramics -- as seen here -- which are sold, sometimes for high prices, to collectors and museums. Different pueblos, or tribal living areas, throughout the region have different styles of ceramics and an expert can tell which pueblo a bowl came from by its color and style of decoration.
╗Chavez: Farm Workers' Rights
1962
DELANO, CALIFORNIA
In this small town in the San Joaquin Valley -- California's fruit basket -- Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta joined forces in 1962 to found the National Farm Workers Association, later known as the United Farm Workers (UFW). Delano is still the organization's headquarters.
As Mexican-Americans born to parents who did manual labor, Chavez and Huerta were no strangers to hard work. Throughout their native Southwest there was strong discrimination against Mexican-Americans.
Migrant workers from Mexico, an abundant source of cheap labor, were key to grape growers' profits. These workers lived in pitiful worker camps and often had to work the field without toilets or other facilities. They also made below minimum wage while doing hard stooping labor all day in the fields. These are the conditions the UFW fought to better. In turn, growers argued they needed cheap labor to turn a profit.
Major targets of the UFW were California growers of table and wine grapes. In 1965, the UFW with the AFL-CIO led a five-year boycott of table grapes, urging shoppers throughout the country not to buy or eat grapes.
In 1970, as a result of the boycott, many growers signed contracts with the UFW. However, vegetable growers signed contracts with the Teamsters in order to limit UFW power and, in 1973 when the grape contracts expired, grape growers also signed with the Teamsters. In protest, more than 10,000 farm workers walked out of the fields.
As a result of the strike and further boycotts against lettuce and Gallo wine, California Governor Jerry Brown established a collective bargaining law for farm workers in 1975. In 1977, the UFW and the Teamsters reached an agreement regarding union control of farm areas.
The UFW success is partly due to advocating principles of nonviolence as expressed by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1968, Chavez fasted for 25 days to emphasize the farm workers' nonviolent commitment.
Life for farm workers today is somewhat better, and the UFW continues to focus on new concerns, such as health hazards from pesticides used to spray crops, which are thought to cause cancer in the workers and their children.
Chavez died in his sleep in 1993. He was 66.
(Say Cheese!
1858
SHEBOYGAN COUNTY, WISCONSIN
In 1858, John J. Smith got Wisconsin's first cheese vat and began to make cheese at his home. Eventually he marketed his product out of state. Smith's business was the seed of today's huge Wisconsin cheese industry, which supplies cheese to all of America.
Wisconsin's gently rolling green hills provide a great home for dairy farms, and since the state's early days, Wisconsin has attracted European immigrants with a history of making cheese. Swiss cheese was one of the first specialty cheeses developed in Wisconsin and was named after its originators. Swiss cheese was similar to a cheese back in Switzerland called Gruyere. In 1869, the first Swiss cheese factory was established in Wisconsin.
Other ethnic groups made cheeses similar to ones they remembered from home. Italians made Mozzarella, the French made Blue cheese, the Germans reproduced their homeland's Muenster, and the Dutch produced Edam and Gouda.
Besides copying products from their homelands, Wisconsin cheese makers created original American cheeses like Colby and Brick.
As of 1990, there were almost two million cows in Wisconsin, about a third as many cows as people. These cows produce a yearly average of 13,531 pounds of milk, 74 percent of which goes to make two billion pounds of cheese each year.
éUrban Blues
1933
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
When large groups of blacks migrated north from the Mississippi and Louisiana Delta region, many went to Chicago and brought with them their music, called the Delta Blues. Like everything else, their music changed after being in the big city and it emerged as the Chicago Blues. By the 1930s, Chicago Blues were very popular and this popularity grew in the '40s and '50s.
Chicago Blues is high-spirited music that adds harmonica to guitar and keyboard, drumbeat, and later electric guitar and bass for a more powerful and sophisticated sound than its more low-key Delta cousin.
Chicago Blues are hard-edged and loud because Chicago is a hard-edged, tough industrial city in which you have to be more powerful and louder in order to be heard.
Some well-known musicians who play or have played the Chicago Blues are B.B. King, Junior Wells, Howlin' Wolf, and Muddy Waters.
æ.Chief Seattle's Letter
1853
PACIFIC NORTHWEST Chief Seattle of the Suquamish and the Duwamish, to Washington Governor Stevens, as recorded by Dr. Henry Smith in 1853:
Yonder sky, that has wept tears of compassion upon my people for centuries untold, and, which to us appears changeless and eternal, may change. Tomorrow it may be overcast with clouds. My words are like the stars that never change. Whatever Seattle says the great chief at Washington can rely upon with as much certainty as he can upon the return of the sun or the seasons. The White Chief says that Big Chief at Washington sends us greetings of friendship and goodwill. This is kind of him, for we know he has little need of our friendship in return. His people are many. My people are few. They resemble the scattering trees of a storm- swept plain. The great- and I presume- good White Chief sends us word that he wishes to buy our lands but is willing to allow us enough to live comfortably. This indeed appears just, even generous, for the Red Man no longer has rights that he need respect, and the offer may be wise also, as we are no longer in need of an extensive country.
There was a time when our people covered the land as the waves of a wind-ruffled sea cover its shell paved floor, but that time long since passed away with the greatness of tribes that are now but a mournful memory. I will not dwell on nor mourn over our untimely decay, nor reproach my pale face brothers with hastening it as we too may have been somewhat to blame.
Youth is impulsive. When our young men grow angry at some real or imaginary wrong, and disfigure their faces with black paint, it denotes that their hearts are black, and that they are often cruel and relentless, and our old men and old women are unable to restrain them. Thus it has ever been. Thus it was when the White Man first began to push our forefathers westward. But let us hope that the hostilities between us may never return. We would have everything to lose and nothing to gain. Revenge by young men is considered gain, even at the cost of their own lives, but old men who stay at home during time of war, and mothers who have sons to lose, know better.
Our good father at Washington- for I presume he is now our father as well as yours, since King George has moved his boundaries further north- our great and good father, I say, sends us word that if we do as he desires he will protect us. His brave warriors will be to us a bristling wall of strength, and his wonderful ships of war will fill our harbors so that our ancient enemies far to the northward- the Haidas and Tsimpsians- will cease to frighten our women, children and old men. Then in reality will he be our father and we his children. But can he ever be? Your God is not our God! Your God loves your people and hates mine. He folds His strong protecting arms loving about the pale face and leads him by the hand as a father leads his infant son- but He has forsaken His Red Children- if they really are His. Our God, the Great Spirit, seems also to have forsaken us. Your God makes your people wax strong every day. Soon they will fill all the land. Our people are ebbing away like a rapidly receding tide that will never return. The White Man's God cannot love our people or He would protect them. They seem to be orphans who can look nowhere for help. How then can we be Brothers? How can your God become our God and renew our prosperity and awaken in us dreams of returning greatness. If we have a common Heavenly Father He must be partial- for He came to His pale faced children. We never saw Him. He gave you laws but had no word for his red children whose teeming multitudes filled this vast continent as stars fill the firmament. No; we are two distinct races with separate origins and separate destinies. There is little common between us.
To us the ashes of our ancestors are sacred and their resting place is hallowed ground. You wander far from the graves of your ancestors and seemingly without regret. Your religion was written upon tablets of stone by the iron finger of your God so that you could not forget. The Red Man could never comprehend nor remember it. Our religion is the traditions of our ancestors- the dreams of our old men, given them in solemn hours of night by the Great Spirit; and the visions of the sachems, and is written in the hearts of our people.
Your dead cease to love you and the land of their nativity as soon as they pass the portals of the tomb and wander way beyond the stars. They are soon forgotten and never return. Our dead never forget the beautiful world that gave them being. They still love its verdant valleys, its magnificent mountains, sequestered vales and verdant lined lakes and bays, and ever yearn in tender and fond affection over the lonely hearted living, and often return from the Happy Hunting Grounds to visit, guide, console, and comfort them.
Day and night cannot dwell together. The Red Man has ever fled the approach of the White Man, as the morning mist flees before the morning sun.
However, your proposition seems fair and I think that my people will accept it and will retire to the reservation you offer them. Then we will dwell in peace, for the words of the Great White Chief seem to be the words of nature speaking to my people out of defense darkness.
It matters little where we pass the remnant of our days. They will not be many. The Indians' night promises to be dark. Not a single star of hope hovers above his horizon. Sad-voiced winds moan in the distance. Grim fate seems to be on the Red Man's trail, and wherever he goes he will hear the approaching footsteps of his fell destroyer and prepare stolidly to meet his doom, as does the wounded doe that heads to approaching footsteps of the hunter.
A few more moans. A few more winters -- and not one of the descendants of the mighty hosts that once moved over this broad land or lived in happy homes, protected by the Great Spirit, will remain to mourn over the graves of a people -- once more powerful and hopeful than yours. But why should I mourn at the untimely fate of my people? Tribe follows tribe, and nation follows nation, like the waves of the sea. It is the order of nature, and regret is useless. Your time will surely come, for even the White Man whose God walked and talked with him as friend, cannot be exempt from the common destiny. We may be brothers after all. We will see.
We will ponder your propositions and when we decide we will let you know. But should we accept it, I here and now make this condition that we will not be denied the privilege without molestation of visiting at any time the tombs of our ancestors, friends and children. Every part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem dumb and dead as they swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than to yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy-hearted maidens, and even our little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memories of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with invisible dead of my tribe, and when your children's children think themselves alone in the field, the store, the shop, upon the highway, out in the silence of the pathless woods, they will not be alone. In all the earth there is no place dedicated to solitude. At night when the streets of your cities and villages are silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with returning hosts that once filled them and still love this beautiful land. The White Man will never be alone.
Let him be just and deal kindly with my people, for the dead are not powerless. Dead I say? There is no death, only a change of worlds.
Chief Seattle of the Suquamish and the Duwamish upon the sale of his land two years later, in 1855:
The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?
Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.
We know the sap which sources through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the juices in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man, all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors. If we sell our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each ghostly reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water's murmur is the voice of my father's father.
The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give to the rivers the kindness you would give any brother.
If we sell our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell you our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.
Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.
This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.
One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.
Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival.
When the last Red Man has vanished with his wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be there? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?
We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother's heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children and love it as God loves you all.
As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know; there is only one God. No man, be he Red Man or White Man, can be apart. We are brothers after all.
íChili: Meal Of Fire
1850s
TERLINGA, TEXAS
Each fall, winners of regional contests arrive in the small town of Terlinga, Texas to compete in the World Chili Cook-Off.
Chili is abundantly served throughout the West where the strong rays of the Sun mature growing chili peppers from green to red.
The peppers' seeds are the source of the fiery heat the chilies generate in the mouths of those who eat them. For many, one bite of a bowl of chili, generously seasoned with the peppers, is the start of a lifelong love affair.
While chili peppers have been cultivated by Native Americans for as long as they have grown corn, the chili stew cooked in America today began with cowboys herding cattle in the West, around the 1850s.
When cowboys had been on the road a while, their meat could get a little rancid. So, in a pot they blended beans with the aging meat and threw in some chili peppers for flavor and to hide the taste of meat going bad.
Just as Italians boast of their families' special spaghetti sauce recipe, people in the West may wax poetic on their unique chili recipe. Chili is so popular that chili cook-offs are often held throughout the West as fundraisers for various community causes. As with the barbecue, cooking chili is often the arena for American men to display their talents -- perhaps due to their cowboy ancestors.
Chili Recipe
2 tablespoons butter
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove chopped garlic
1 1/2 pounds ground beef
1 cup canned tomatoes
3 cups canned kidney beans
1 teaspoon salt
1 small bay leaf
1 teaspoon sugar
1 to 2 tablespoons chili powder, depends how spicy you like
Melt butter in pan and add onion and garlic -- saute until onions are limp. Add the meat and cook, while stirring, until browned. Add all other ingredients, cover the pan, and turn heat low to simmer for one hour. Cook chili longer if you like it thicker. Top with shredded cheese, chopped onions, or crumbled crackers.
Ä
Looking For Gold Mountain
1855
CHINESE IMMIGRATION
About the same time gold was discovered in California, famine hit the Guangdong Province in southeast China. Hearing about California's Gim San, Gold Mountain, many Chinese men left for America hoping to make a fortune and return home a few years later to their loved ones. Few struck it rich and the rest needed to survive.
The Gold Rush in California and the Pacific Northwest increased the demand for railroads to connect these remote parts of America. Building railroads required lots of low-paid labor, which hungry immigrant Chinese provided. By 1880, there were about 300,000 Chinese in America, but few were warmly welcomed by Americans once the railroads were completed. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, the first time in American history that immigration restrictions were aimed at one ethnic group.
In the mid-1880s, America was in a post-Civil War depression and the Chinese became a target for American frustrations. In some Western towns, mobs attacked Chinese. In 1885, 28 Chinese were killed in Rock Springs; in 1887, seven white men killed 31 Chinese miners in northeast Oregon.
Some Chinese were forced onto boats returning to China and some left on their own. America's racist frenzy then subsided and the remaining Chinese settled into towns and cities to become productive citizens.
Discriminatory practices by real estate agents and homeowners prompted strong Chinatowns to develop, especially in San Francisco, New York, and Seattle. While most Chinese provided the base labor for fishing, canning, and laundry businesses, a few became doctors, entrepreneurs, clergy, and other higher-status professionals.
In 1943, immigration law changed and the Chinese Exclusion Act was repealed. Now, resident Chinese-American men could bring their women from home; their population until this time had been mostly male.
Wartime alliances in World War II benefited the Chinese. The Walter-McCarran Act, passed in 1952, allowed first-generation Asian-Americans to apply for U.S. citizenship. More Chinese entered fields that had been closed to them: medicine, corporate business, and politics. In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act eliminated blatant anti-Asian bias in U.S. immigration.
Authoritarian political crackdowns in contemporary China and political uncertainty in Taiwan and Hong Kong have increased Chinese immigration to America. Today, strong Chinese communities exist in the West, especially in Los Angeles, which has become a contemporary Ellis Island for the Pacific Rim. Descendants of the first wave of Chinese immigrants now excel in such fields as engineering, fields from which their forebears were barred.
╛Old World In New World
1967
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
How (and whether) to preserve one's culture and heritage once arriving in America is a challenge all immigrants face. Orthodox Jews from Eastern Europe have successfully met this challenge. As seen in this picture, they continue to live according to their religious beliefs in the middle of America's most frenetic city, New York.
This world is illuminated in "The Chosen," a 1967 novel by Chaim Potok, set in 1940s Brooklyn. Here the world of Hasidic Jews continues much as it has for generations back in Russia.
The book centers on a relationship that develops between Danny Saunders, son of Hasidic rabbi Reb Saunders, and Reuvan Malter, son of the less Orthodox David Malter.
"The Chosen" refers both to the Jews' view of themselves as chosen by God to carry on Jewish laws and to Danny being chosen by his father to inherit the mantle of rabbi to their congregation. Exposed to new ideas in America, Danny wants to be a psychologist, not a rabbi, and conflict develops between father and son. This conflict is played out against the end of World War II, the horror of the Holocaust and the birth and development of Israel.
Danny and Reuvan learn the importance of roots and community while expanding their world view. The Old World is shown to have wisdom and sustenance for anyone who takes on the challenges of the New World. Prayer shawls, Hasidic ear locks, and beards can and do have a place amidst skyscrapers and subways.
≈New England Soup
1993
PORTLAND, MAINE
As capital of this most Yankee of New England states, Portland could be said to rule over the region's coastal cuisine; however, that would be unfair to the other states who share this rich seafood heritage and a famous dish called New England Clam Chowder.
As made by the colonists, chowder differed from other fish soups because it used salt pork and ship's biscuits. Today most chowders don't contain biscuits, but generally have crackers sprinkled on top.
New England Clam Chowder is white and made with a chicken or fish stock that is slightly thickened with cream or milk. It is enriched with butter and onions, potatoes, and fresh clams. Generous dashes of salt and pepper give it zip.
A rival dish is Manhattan Clam Chowder, which has tomatoes added that give it a distinctive red coloring. Whether the practice of adding tomatoes originated in Manhattan is debatable. Chowders are rather easy to make and have warmed New England fishermen and city folk alike during cold winters.
f Family Feud At Fort Sumter
1861
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA
In 1860, following the election of Abraham Lincoln, South Carolina was the first southern state to carry out its threat to secede from the Union over the issue of state's rights, centering on whether states in the Western territory would be allowed to have slavery.
This crisis had come about because of the 1854 passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which said people in a territory could choose whether or not they wanted slavery. The Act all but repealed the Compromise of 1820, which had held the issue of slavery at bay for 30 years.
Nebraska was too far north to be affected, but Kansas became a battleground as settlers from the North and South poured into the territory and took up arms. For the first time, Americans killed Americans over the question of slavery.
The Act also destroyed the Whig Party. However, the Whig Party was reborn when the Abolitionists and Free-Soiler Democrats joined them in late in 1854 as the newly-formed Republican Party. It also led Abraham Lincoln to come out firmly against slavery and its spread to the free territories.
South Carolina's local military began to seize federal forts in Charleston's Harbor. Soon five more states (Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi) joined South Carolina in seceding from the United States. In February 1861, they formed the Confederate States of America.
The Confederacy adopted a constitution based on the U.S. Constitution but theirs stressed the right of states to make their own laws and to legalize slavery. Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee joined the Confederacy in 1861.
The North didn't allow the southern states to go their own way because it would have dissolved the United States of America. So the North with 23 states fought the South with 11 states in the terrible Civil War.
The war began on April 12, 1861 when Confederate forces attacked and forced Fort Sumter in South Carolina's Charleston Harbor to surrender. The Civil War lasted four years, ending in 1865 with the surrender of Confederate generals.
By the time the war ended, almost one million soldiers from South and North had died. Much of the South lay in ruins, with cities like Atlanta burned to the ground. With slavery abolished, the plantation system of agriculture died as well. Now the nation needed to heal and the South needed to be put back together.
]Coke -- All American Beverage
May 8, 1886
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Before there were diet drinks and bottled waters, there was Coca-Cola. Born at the end of the Civil War, Coca-Cola is the invention of Dr. John Styth Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist who made a caramel-colored syrup -- the basis of Coke -- in his backyard in 1886. Pemberton's local druggist mixed carbonated water with the syrup and served it as a soda fountain drink for five cents a glass.
Pemberton's associate, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name Coca-Cola, thinking two "C"s would make for attractive advertising. In 1893, the name "Coca-Cola" was registered with the U.S. Patent Office.
While the company changed ownership several times, the progress of Coca-Cola didn't slow down. In 1894, the first factory to manufacture Coke's syrup opened in Dallas, Texas and, by 1897, Coca-Cola was being drunk in every state and territory in America. Today, hundreds of millions of Cokes are drunk each day in more than 185 countries around the world.
Despite its popularity, Coca-Cola and other soft-drinks come under attack by parents concerned over children's eating habits. Although tasty, soft drinks don't provide the basic nutrients needed by growing children or by adults. Unfortunately, many people don't develop good eating habits and their diets are based on sodas and the greasy foods often consumed with them, such as French fries.
ûMost Exclusive Of Clubs
September 18, 1793
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On this date, President George Washington participated in a ceremony to lay the cornerstone for the Capitol building. Architect Stephen Hallet won a competition to design and construct the building, home of the legislative branch of government.
According to the founders' plan of separation of powers, the legislature consists of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Together, it proposes and passes federal laws, establishes lower federal courts and judges, and can override the President's veto with a two-thirds vote. In turn, the President can veto and the Supreme Court can make void Congress' legislation.
When drafting the Constitution, convention delegates were concerned with the issue of representation. Should there be an equal number of representatives from each state regardless of population or should the number of representatives be based on population? A compromise was reached. The Senate would have two representatives from each state, whatever the state's population. The House of Representatives would have proportional representation, based on the state's population. This holds true today.
In a final strange twist, the delegates devised the Electoral College, capable of electing the president and vice president. Their plan gave each state "electors" equal to the number of that state's senators and congressmen. The means of choosing "electors" was left to each state but their duties were the same: to vote for two men for president. The majority winner would be president and the runner-up, vice-president. If this process failed, the House of Representatives would decide on a president, with each state getting one vote.
«The People's Constitution
July 2, 1788
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
The Constitution of the United States took effect as the law of the land on July 2, 1788. When it was written, the United States Constitution was a revolutionary document: an attempt to establish a government based not on the hereditary right of a king or on the unrestrained power of the people, but on a foundational body of law.
Today, the U.S. Constitution is no longer unique. It has been used as a model for governments throughout the world, but it still stands as one of the few constitutions that have actually worked for an extended period.
This may seem odd since some others are virtual copies of the U.S. Constitution, but there is apparently more to a successful government than a well-written foundational document.
When the Constitution was adopted, the United States had a number of advantages. Many people were literate and the written word meant something to them. And many colonists came from England, where there was -- and is -- a parliament and a tradition of limited government. In addition, though their fervor had long since declined, the Puritans of New England had a history of respect for the written word -- in their case, the Bible. In fact, upon arriving in North America they had even drafted their own "constitution," called the Mayflower Compact.
The debate over the Constitution almost fell apart over two issues: slavery and the division of power among states. And after it was drafted, the battle over whether to ratify the document was just as intense. But once it was finally adopted, people respected the Constitution. And because it was respected, it has survived.
One of the beauties of the document is that it is short and easily understood. This means any citizen can read the Constitution and feel he or she has a basic understanding of how the United States is governed.
Notice as you read it how the Constitution divides governmental power among three bodies: the Executive (president), legislative (Congress), and judicial (federal courts). The idea behind this is that if one branch of government tries to grab too much power, the other two will get jealous and stop it.
Preamble.
We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessing of liberty to ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United States of America.
Article I.
Sect. 1. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and a House of Representatives.
Sect. 2. 1. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
2. No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.
3. Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this Union, according to their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a term of years, and excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States, and within every subsequent term of ten years, in such manner as they shall by law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each State shall have at least one Representative; and until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hampshire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five, New York six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, Virginia ten, North Carolina five, South Carolina five, and Georgia three.
4. When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the Executive Authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such vacancies.
5. The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other officers; and shall have the sole power of impeachment.
δ,Constitution-Part 2
July 2, 1788
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Sect. 3. 1. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years; and each Senator shall have one vote.
2. Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first election, they shall be divided as equally as may be into three classes. The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expiration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, so that one-third may be chosen every second year; and if vacancies happen by resignation, or otherwise, during the recess of the Legislature of any State, the Executive thereof may make temporary appointments until the next meeting of the Legislature, which shall then fill such vacancies.
3. No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained to the age of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he shall be chosen.
4. The Vice President of the United States shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.
5. The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a President pro tempore, in the absence of the Vice President, or when he shall exercise the office of President of the United States.
6. The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. When sitting for that purpose, they shall be on oath or affirmation. When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall preside: and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of two-thirds of the members present.
7. Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States; but the party convicted shall nevertheless be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and punishment, according to law.
Sect. 4. 1. The times, places and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.
2. The Congress shall assemble at least once in every year, and such meeting shall be on the first Monday in December, unless they shall by law appoint a different day.
Sect. 5. 1. Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own members, and a majority of each shall constitute a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each House may provide.
2. Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a member.
3. Each House shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may in their judgment require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either House on any question shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, be entered on the journal.
4. Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other place than that in which the two Houses shall be sitting.
Sect. 6. 1. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compensation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. They shall in all cases, except treason, felony and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their attendance at the session of their respective Houses, and in going to and returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either House, they shall not be questioned in any other place.
2. No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the emoluments whereof shall have been increased during such time; and no person holding any office under the United States, shall be a member of either House during his continuance in office.
Sect. 7. 1. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amendments as on other bills.
2. Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President of the United States; if he approves he shall sign it, but if not he shall return it, with his objections to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and proceed to reconsider it. If after such reconsideration two-thirds of that House shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with the objections, to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a law. But in all such cases the votes of both Houses shall be determined by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against the bill shall be entered on the journal of each House respectively. If any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a law, in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law.
3. Every order, resolution, or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill.
Sect. 8. The Congress shall have power
1. To lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
2. To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
3. To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian tribes;
4. To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
5. To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
6. To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
7. To establish post-offices and post-roads;
8. To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
9. To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
10. To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
11. To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
12. To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
13. To provide and maintain a navy;
14. To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
15. To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
16. To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
17. To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such district (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the Legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings; -- And
18. To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof.
Sect. 9. 1. The migration or importation of such persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person.
2. 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.
3. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed.
4. No capitation, or other direct, tax shall be laid, unless in proportion to the census or enumeration herein before directed to be taken.
5. No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State.
6. No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one State over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in another.
7. No money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time.
8. No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States: and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
Sect. 10. 1. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make any thing but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
2. No state shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and imposts, laid by any State on imports or exports, shall be for the use of the Treasury of the United States; all such laws shall be subject to the revision and control of the Congress.
3. No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another State, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
╣ Constitution-Part 3
July 2, 1788
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Article II. Sect. 1. 1. The Executive power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of four years, and together with the Vice President, chosen for the same term, be elected as follows.
2. Each state shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector.
The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot for two persons, of whom one at least shall not be an inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons voted for, and of the number of votes for each; which list they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have am equal number of electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately choose by ballot one of them for President; and if no person have a majority, then from the five highest on the list the said House shall in like manner choose the President. But in choosing the President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes of the electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them by ballot the Vice President.
3. The Congress may determine the time of the choosing the electors, and the day on which they shall give their votes; which day shall be the same throughout the United States.
4. No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.
5. In case of the removal of the President from office, or his death, resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said office, the same shall devolve on the Vice President, and the Congress may by law provide for the case of removal, death, resignation or inability, both of the President and Vice President, declaring what officer shall then act as President, and such officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed, or a President shall be elected.
6. The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services, a compensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the period for which he shall have been elected, and he shall not receive within that period any other emolument from the United States, or any of them.
7. Before he enter on the execution of his office, he shall take the following oath or affirmation:
"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Sect. 2. 1. The President shall be Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.
2. He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by law: but the Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of departments.
3. The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which shall expire at the end of their next session.
Sect. 3. He shall from time to time give to the Congress information of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of disagreement between them, with respect to the time of adjournment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers of the United States.
Sect. 4. The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.
Article III.
Sect. 1. The judicial power of the United States, shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the Supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, and shall at stated times, receive for their services, a compensation which shall not be diminished during their continuance in office.
Sect. 2.
1. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies to which the United States shall be a party; to controversies between two or more States; between a State and citizens of another State; between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or the citizens thereof, and foreign states, citizens or subjects.
2. In all cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction, both as to law and fact, with such exceptions, and under such regulations as the Congress shall make.
3. The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed.
Sect. 3.
1. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.
2. The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture except during the life of the person attainted.
NConstitution-Part 4
July 2, 1788
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Article IV Sect. 1. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general laws prescribe the manner in which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect thereof.
Sect. 2.
1. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States.
2. A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall on demand of the Executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.
3. No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.
Sect. 3.
1. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this Union; but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction of any other State; nor any State be formed by the junction of two or more States, or parts of States, without the consent of the Legislatures of the States concerned as well as of the Congress.
2. The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of any particular State.
Sect. 4. The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion; and on application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.
Article V.
The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress; provided that no amendment which may be made prior to the year one thousand eight hundred and eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses in the Ninth Section of the First Article; and that no State, without its consent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate.
Article VI.
Sect. 1. All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
Sect. 2. This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Sect. 3. The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by oath or affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.
Article VII.
The ratification of the Conventions of nine States, shall be sufficient for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratifying the same.
Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present the Seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the Twelfth. In witness whereof we have hereunto subscribed our names.
George Washington, PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY FROM VIRGINIA
NEW HAMPSHIRE -- John Langdon, Nicholas Gilman
MASSACHUSETTS -- Nathaniel Gorham, Rufus King
CONNECTICUT -- William Samual Johnson, Roger Sherman
NEW YORK -- Alexander Hamilton
NEW JERSEY -- William Livingston, David Brearley, William Paterson, Jonathan Dayton
PENNSYLVANIA -- Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Mifflin, Robert Morris, George Clymer, Thomas FitzSimons, Jared Ingersoll, James Wilson, Gouverneur Morris
DELAWARE -- George Read, Gunning Bedford, Jr., John Dickinson, Richard Bassett, Jacob Broom
MARYLAND -- James McHenry, Daniel of St. Thomas Jenifer, Daniel Carroll
VIRGINIA -- John Blair, James Madison, Jr.
NORTH CAROLINA -- William Blount, Richard Dobbs Spaight, Hugh Williamson
SOUTH CAROLINA -- John Rutledge, Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, Charles Pinckney, Pierce Butler
GEORGIA -- William Few, Abraham Baldwin
Attest: William Jackson, Secretary
&Field of Dreams And Food
1992
A CORN FIELD IN IOWA
Corn has been the food of sustenance for Native Americans as far back as records can be found. Some Native Americans refer to themselves as "children of the corn."
When European explorers and then settlers came to America, the native Indians gave them corn and showed them how to cook and eat it. The new inhabitants integrated corn into their own cuisine.
Throughout the heartland of America, as seen here, green fields of corn glisten in the prairie sun and the crop feeds people and hogs alike. In New Mexico, there is a blue corn used to make popular blue-corn chips and enchiladas. In the South and Southeast, corn fritters are popular. In the Pacific Northwest and New England, corn-on-the cob accompanies barbecues and clam bakes. While adults in bars everywhere enjoy corn-based bourbon whiskey, children and adults alike munch popcorn at movie theaters in large and small American cities.
In fact, corn is probably more truly American than apple pie but "Mom and corn" may not be as catchy a slogan as "Mom and apple pie."
▐Cotton -- The Fabric Of Slavery
1793
A SOUTH CAROLINA PLANTATION.
While abundant water sources gave New England the power needed to run textile mills as early as 1790, it was the South that provided the land and, through slavery, the cheap labor to make cotton the region's top source of income. For this reason the plant was called "King Cotton" and ruled the Southern economy, even after the Civil War.
In 1793, northerner Eli Whitney developed the cotton gin on a South Carolina plantation. The gin quickly and cheaply removed seeds from cotton. Previously, cotton had just been planted near the coast, the only place where cotton with easily-removable seeds could grow. Now, cotton could be grown inland as well, expanding the need for slaves to work the crops.
Cowboys -- Romantic Or Smelly?
1867
ABILENE, KANSAS
Formed in 1867, the Chisholm Trail was the route used by cowboys to herd cattle from Texas to Kansas. With public attention no longer focused on the Civil War, America's imagination latched onto cowboys and gave rise to stories and myths about the Wild West.
Later, fueled by Western films in the early- and mid-1900s, the cowboy became a kind of American folk hero. He symbolized American adventure and independence and could be seen as representing both good and evil.
On the good side were the John Wayne and Gary Cooper movie characters and many other "strong and silent" types in books who rode into town as strangers and saved residents from gunslingers.
On the bad side were the Jesse James and other outlaw types who fought the law and terrorized people as they robbed banks and killed for sport. At least that's the way the Eastern newspapers portrayed them.
In reality, cowboys were usually Civil War veterans, adventurers, and ex-slaves who worked 18-hour days, slept in their clothes or underwear for days without a real bath, and usually drank too much at the end of a cattle drive, causing a certain amount of public nuisance with noise and gunplay.
The heyday of cowboys was the 1870s and 1880s. By the 1890s, much of Western cattle lands were fenced in with barbed wire and cattle were being raised in the North, putting an end to cattle drives.
Western movies and books continued to be popular in America and around the world long after the end of the cowboy era. For many people, the image of cowboys and Indians represented America until just recently.
Currently, few Western movies are made. Perhaps the high-tech science fiction movies have taken their place as adventurous space explorers fight battles of good and evil in foreign galaxies.
gCoyote: American Howler
1993
EVERYWHERE, U.S.A.
Unlike almost any other American animal, the coyote -- known for the way it howls in late evening and early morning -- can be found in every state except Hawaii.
Native Americans thought the coyote arrived with the first man and woman and would outlast human life. The Indians admired the animal's shrewdness and ability to survive.
Coyotes are good predators and have learned to adjust to rapid changes in the environment and to new food sources. As people began to build cities and houses in its habitat, coyotes adapted and foraged less on wildlife and more on prey like cats. It is not unusual, for instance, to see a coyote trotting down a Los Angeles street that borders Griffith Park, a large nature preserve and park in the middle of the city.
Officially known as "Canis latrans," coyotes are about half the size of wolves. The average coyote weighs about 25 pounds and stands about two feet high.
After westward expansion by settlers, coyotes thrived on ranchers' cattle and sheep. The ranchers declared war on the coyote and it was almost eliminated. The coyote, however, bounced back.
bCraftsman Style
1908
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
During the 19th and early 20th centuries, architects in California were designing buildings of many different styles. Among the most interesting building types was the Craftsman style. The Craftsman-style house was made of wood and was well known for its gently sloping roof and overhanging eaves. The outside was covered with wood shingles or siding and for this reason, the Craftsman style was also sometimes known as the Western Stick style.
Seen here is the Gamble House in Pasadena, California. It is a famous Craftsman-style house built in 1908 by the brothers Charles and Henry Greene. The house is a beautiful two-story wood structure with projecting balconies, shaded porches, gently pitched roofs, and exposed beams. The entire exterior is covered with a wood shingle siding stained in the colors of nature. Since Charles Greene was a craftsman by trade, the Gamble House exists as a reflection of his love of materials and the way in which building elements are joined. He made sure that every tiny detail was carefully attended to, from the kitchen cupboards to the ceiling rafters.
âQuarrel Of The Gods
1902
CRATER LAKE NATIONAL PARK, OREGON
According to the early Native Americans who lived in this part of Oregon, the Chief of the "world above" and the Chief of the "world below" got into a major quarrel. As a result of their struggle, the earth in this area collapsed almost 2,000 feet and filled with water. Then the underworld god fled into these icy waters as the overworld god dropped a mountain top on the lake to block his opponent's surfacing.
Modern science says the volcanic cone of Mt. Mazama collapsed about 7,000 years ago and created this pristine blue lake, the deepest in America and the seventh deepest in the world. In the 1,500 years following the explosion, rain and melting snow cooled the molten pit and slowly it filled with water to make a lake that covers 20 square miles.
In 1902, President Theodore Roosevelt made the spectacular Crater Lake, first viewed by white men in the 1850's, into a national park.
Because of its great depth, Crater Lake is an exquisite and piercing shade of blue. Like other lakes, it breaks rays of sunlight into a prism and absorbs all its colors except blue. The deeper the lake, the purer the color of blue that is reflected.
Lining the lake's 35 miles of shoreline are cliffs that range in height of up to 2,000 feet, making it 4,000 feet from the cliffs' tops to lake bottom. Visitors to the lake must make a steep descent to its surface. The rim of the lake's cliffs is laced with deep green hemlock, fir, and pine trees that make a spectacular setting for the round blue gem of a lake in their center. The early Indians might have thought of Crater Lake as an engagement ring of the gods, if the giving of rings had been their custom.
Situated in the lake is Wizard Island, a volcano within the collapsed volcano, formed in a smaller explosion after the one that formed Crater Lake. Wizard Island has a 90-foot deep crater into which visitors can climb.
┴Witch Hunt Hysteria
1953
SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
First performed in New York in 1953, Arthur Miller's "The Crucible" deals with witchcraft trials that took place in 17th century Salem. When it opened, some viewed the play as a commentary on the search for Communists in America led by Senator Joseph McCarthy; the senator's hearings being compared to the witchcraft trials, both causing grievous pain to those accused.
Historically, 14 women and five men were hanged in Salem as witches in 1692. Statements that Satan had been seen talking to some of the accused were made by adolescent girls and their testimony was taken as fact. Those accused who did not confess to working with the Devil were convicted, imprisoned and, on occasion, killed. Ultimately, the governor of Massachusetts stepped in and put an end to the trials.
In the play, farmer John Proctor is accused of witchcraft. He takes the occasion to examine himself and acknowledge his faults, unlike his accusers. He also withstands the attempts by prosecutor Danforth to exploit him and, refusing to sign a false confession, he is hanged. His death affirms the values by which he stood, not the values of the time that condemned him.
While espousing purity and godliness, the Puritans of Salem were a political group with the same leanings toward power and weaknesses that affect other people. They were, however, unable to keep these in check at the time of the witch hunt.
Throughout American history, since Salem, there have been periods of hysteria and injustice. The internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, the Communist hunts of the 1950s and, most recently, the wave of emotional accusations of child abuse against school teachers and caregivers are examples.
YLittle Havana
1959
CUBAN IMMIGRATION
Situated just off the coast of Florida, Cuba in the 1950s was home to American businesses and catered to American tourists at its casinos. In 1959, when Fidel Castro ousted Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, things changed and a Communist dictatorship was installed. Many Cubans fled to America and most settled in Miami, the closest American city to their homeland. From 1959 through the 1980s, almost one million Cubans immigrated to America.
Known as Little Havana, after Cuba's capitol, the Cuban section of Miami is a center for immigrants and offers them a place for hot debates over how to oust Castro and return to their homeland, so close but out of reach.
In the late 1980s, Cuban style and music became popular in America through the television show "Miami Vice" and popular musical groups like the "Miami Sound Machine."
Battle Of Little Big Horn
June 25, 1876
BLACK HILLS, SOUTH DAKOTA
The most famous Indian battle in American history is the Battle of the Little Big Horn, also known as Custer's Last Stand.
Depicted in films and novels, the battle at the Little Big Horn River proved to be the death of U.S. Army General George Armstrong Custer and 265 men from his Seventh Cavalry Regiment.
Custer had been part of an army campaign to force Sioux and Cheyenne Indians off the plains and into the reservations. Gold had been found on Indians lands in South Dakota's Black Hills and now white men wanted that land for themselves. Indians were ordered off the lands but, refusing to leave, took to the warpath.
Going into the Black Hills, Custer had been warned that 2,000 to 4,000 Sioux and Cheyenne Indians were waiting for him there. Instead of a surprise attack, Custer led a full charge straight into the area. He met thousands of Indians, led by chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse, who closed off Custer's retreat. Only a half-Indian scout for Custer's group survived the battle; Custer and all his men died.
Back on the East Coast, newspapers interpreted the battle as a savage Indian attack on innocent Army personnel. The public responded by demanding war on the Sioux and soon the Army launched more ferocious attacks on the Indians.
a$Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776
In Congress, July 4, 1776, THE UNANIMOUS DECLARATION OF THE THIRTEEN UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
When in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.
We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.
That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient Causes; and accordingly all Experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to suffer, while Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long Train of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a Design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their Right, it is their Duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future Security.
Such has been the patient Sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the Necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The History of the present King of Great-Britain is a History of repeated Injuries and Usurpations, all having in direct Object the Establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid World.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public Good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing Importance, unless suspended in their Operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the Accommodation of large Districts of People, unless those People would relinquish the Right of Representation in the Legislature, a Right inestimable to them, and formidable to Tyrants only.
He has called together Legislative Bodies at Places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the Depository of their Public Records, for the sole Purpose of fatiguing them into Compliance with his Measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly Firmness his invasions on the Rights of the People.
He has refused for a long Time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and Convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the Population of these States; for that Purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their Migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the Tenure of their Offices, and the Amount and payment of their Salaries.
He has erected a Multitude of new Offices, and sent hither Swarms of Officers to harrass our People, and eat out their Substance.
He has kept among us, in Times of Peace, Standing Armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of, and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a Jurisdiction foreign to our Constitution, and unacknowledged by our Laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large Bodies of Armed Troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all Parts of the World:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us, in many Cases, of the Benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended Offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an arbitrary Government, and enlarging its Boundaries, so as to render it at once an Example and fit Instrument for introducing the same absolute Rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with Power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our Seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the Lives of our People.
He is, at this Time, transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of Death, Desolation and Tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty and Perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous Ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized Nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the Executioners of their Friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic Insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the Inhabitants of our Frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known Rule of Warfare, is an undistinguished Destruction, of all Ages, Sexes and Conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a Free People.
Nor have we been wanting in Attentions to our British Brethren. We have warned them from Time to Time of Attempts by their Legislature to extend an unwarrantable Jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the Circumstances of our Emigration and Settlement here. We have appealed to their native Justice and Magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the Ties of our common Kindred to disavow these Usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our Connections and Correspondence. They too have been deaf to the Voice of Justice and of Consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the Necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of Mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace, Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the World for the Rectitude of our Intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly Publish and Declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States; that they are absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political Connection between them and the State of Great-Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
JOHN HANCOCK, President.
Attest, CHARLES THOMSON, Secretary.
New Hampshire: JOSIAH BARTLETT, WILLIAM WHIPPLE, MATTHEW THORNTON.
Massachusetts-Bay: SAMUEL ADAMS, JOHN ADAMS, ROBERT TREAT PAINE, ELBRIDGE GERRY.
Rhode Island: STEPHEN HOPKINS, WILLIAM ELLERY.
Connecticut: ROGER SHERMAN, SAMUEL HUNTINGTON, WILLIAM WILLIAMS, OLIVER WOLCOTT
Georgia: BUTTON GWINNETT, LYMAN HALL, GEORGE WALTON.
Maryland: SAMUEL CHASE, WILLIAM PACA, THOMAS STONE, CHARLES OF CARROLLTON CARROLL.
Virginia: GEORGE WYTHE, RICHARD HENRY LEE, THOMAS JEFFERSON, BENJAMIN HARRISON, THOMAS NELSON, JR., FRANCIS LIGHTFOOT LEE, CARTER BRAXTON.
New York: WILLIAM FLOYD, PHILIP LIVINGSTON, FRANCIS LEWIS, LEWIS MORRIS.
Pennsylvania: ROBERT MORRIS, BENJAMIN RUSH, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, JOHN MORTON, GEORGE CLYMER, JAMES SMITH, GEORGE TAYLOR, JAMES WILSON, GEORGE ROSS.
Delaware: CAESAR RODNEY, GEORGE READ, THOMAS McKEAN.
North Carolina: WILLIAM HOOPER, JOSEPH HEWES, JOHN PENN.
South Carolina: EDWARD RUTLEDGE, THOMAS HEYWARD, JR., THOMAS LYNCH, JR., ARTHUR MIDDLETON.
New Jersey: RICHARD STOCKTON, JOHN WITHERSPOON, FRANCIS HOPKINSON, JOHN HART, ABRAHAM CLARK.
=Declaration of Independence
July 4, 1776
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
The delegates felt the weight of the moment. After deleting a phrase about the evils of slavery to satisfy South Carolina, the Continental Congress had unanimously adopted a declaration of independence stating that the 13 Colonies of North America had broken their political bond with Great Britain.
John Adams rejoiced, but wrote to his wife, Abigail: "I am well aware of the toil, and blood, and treasure, that it will cost us to maintain this declaration and support and defend these States. Yet, through all the gloom, I can see that the end is more than worth the means."
John Hancock, the president of the Congress, declared as he signed the document with a big, bold hand, "There, I guess King George will be able to read that."
Wary Benjamin Franklin -- with an eye on the war ahead -- said, "We must, indeed, all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately."
The Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson, is one of the most revered documents in United States history. In it is his dramatic and often-quoted sentence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."
As you read the Declaration of Independence, notice the power of the words. Like most great writers, Jefferson wrote simply, powerfully and briefly, with a touching introduction, followed by an impressive list of grievances, and ending with a dramatic summary and call to action.
╫Who Discovered America?
1513
THE FLORIDA COAST
Every school child learns the chant "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue" as part of the lesson that teaches how Christopher Columbus discovered America in 1492. Only he didn't.
In 1492, Columbus landed in the Caribbean islands, probably in the Bahamas. He thought he'd found a passage to the Indies. In subsequent trips he landed on several other Caribbean islands and thought he touched the mainland in what is now Venezuela.
However, it was Juan Ponce de Leon, another Spanish explorer, who, it is believed, first landed on North America at Florida on April 8, 1513. He was searching for the Fountain of Youth, fabled waters that would restore one's vigor. He failed to find it but he claimed this new land for Spain and called it Pasqua de Flores, due to the many flowers he found there.
Many other European explorers discovered and charted areas of the New World. Spaniard Vasco Nunez de Balboa first spotted the Pacific Ocean in 1513; Spaniard Hernando Cortes marched in Mexico City in 1519; Giovanni Verrazano, sailing for France, spotted New York harbor in 1524; and Hernando de Soto discovered the Mississippi River in 1542.
The explorers met friendly native Indians and discovered the tobacco plant, which the Indians smoked. Explorers took the plant back to Europe where smoking became popular.
The new country was named America after Amerigo Vespucci, who claimed to have discovered the country a year before Columbus; it is doubtful that he did.
2Want A Little Deli?
1993
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
Deli is short for delicatessen, and comes from the Greek word "delicatesse," meaning delicacy. A deli is a store where ready-to-eat foods -- especially foods of various ethnic groups -- are sold.
New York, home to many ethnic groups, has numerous delicatessens. Perhaps the best known are the Jewish and Italian delicatessens. Here, respectively, corned-beef sandwiches, matzo-ball soup, and knishes, or pizza, meatball sandwiches, and antipasto can be had for relatively low prices.
"Want a little deli?" is how people may ask each other if they are in the mood for this kind of food. Because of their close connections with ethnic groups, delicatessens are often meeting places for members of these same groups, who come to gossip and talk business or politics while sharing food from their home country.
Delicatessens are found in cities around America, but the most and the best are found in larger cities that are home to sizable ethnic populations. Los Angeles and Chicago both have lots of different ethnic groups and delicatessens.
VDenali: The High One
1917
DENALI NATIONAL PARK, ALASKA
Here in the Alaska Range rises Mt. McKinley. At 20,320 feet, it is the tallest mountain on the North American continent.
The native Indians called it "Denali," meaning the High One. Russian fur traders called it "Bulshaia Gora," or Big Mountain. Then, in 1896, a gold prospector called W.A. Dickey named it after President William McKinley, who championed the gold standard. In 1897, the mountain was proclaimed "America's rival to Everest."
Denali National Park's 1,939,493 acres hold more raw wilderness than any of the other national parks. In fact, access to the park and to Mt. McKinley is carefully controlled. A single gravel road winds through the park and there are few accommodations within it.
In the tundra blanketing the park's floor, grizzly bears forage for food and red foxes trot by. It is the only park with white Dall sheep and caribou. Golden eagles fly overhead. Sometimes a wolf puts in an appearance.
Often, McKinley's peak is shrouded in clouds. Visitors who see the snow-covered peak in the Alaskan sunlight count their blessings and never forget the sight. Unlike mountains in the lower 48 states, McKinley's slopes are not dotted with forests; they wear only snow and ice. Glaciers do their slow work of carving new shapes out of the terrain.
Since the air here is so pure, uncluttered by any soot from cities, it is easy to see clearly for vast distances. During summer there is a lot of time to look around as the far northern location of the park means it is light almost around the clock. On the other hand, winter brings almost continual darkness.
Hunger In Great Depression
1932
ACROSS AMERICA
In the worst year of the Great Depression, 1932, between 25 and 50 percent of the American work force was unemployed. People who had always been able to put food on the table suddenly found themselves standing in bread and soup lines like the one seen here.
People who had always been able to put a roof over their heads suddenly couldn't pay for housing and had to put all their belongings in their car or on their back and take to the roads looking for work.
Herbert Hoover was President at the start of the Depression and he didn't believe in giving direct financial aid to unemployed people, thinking such actions un-American. Homeless people, angry at the President, built themselves houses of cardboard boxes and called them "Hoovervilles."
In the Midwest, drought and winds caused once-fertile farmlands to go dry and turn to dust. Many farmers in what was known as the Dust Bowl -- Oklahoma, Texas, and other Midwestern states -- lost their farms and took to the roads with their families looking for work.
Once-profitable factories closed and put people out of work as well. Henry Ford closed one of his car factories and put 75,000 people on the unemployment line.
The Depression spread to Europe, which had not yet fully recovered from World War I. Unemployment and high inflation contributed to the outbreak of violence in European countries and set the stage for Adolf Hitler to come to power through a campaign of hatred and anger later in 1933.
For Americans, the first step out of the Depression was to elect a new president in 1932. When Franklin Delano Roosevelt ran as the Democratic candidate for President against Hoover, he promised Americans a New Deal. Fed up with Hoover, America elected Roosevelt and hoped his New Deal would really happen. It did.
xA Puzzle Of A Poet
1830-1886
AMHERST, MASSACHUSETTS
Most of Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" -- for example, "Because I could not stop for Death--/ He kindly stopped for me--." But this hardly does justice to her genius, which established her as one of the finest and most prolific poets in the American tradition.
Dickinson was one of three children born to Edward Dickinson, a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College in Massachusetts. Apart from a brief stint at Mount Holyoke Seminary, a trip to Washington and Philadelphia, and a stay in Boston for eye treatment, she almost never left the confines of her home. Refusing even to come downstairs to greet visitors, Dickinson's reputation as an eccentric spinster took a powerful hold on local imagination.
Despite her personal notoriety, almost none of her contemporaries knew of her poetry, and only two of her nearly 1800 poems were published while she was alive. Her father was a stern Calvinist, and though she rebelliously rejected his theology (which he took pains to shove down her throat), she obsessively explored timeless and abstract concepts in her poetry such as Life, Time, Nature, and Eternity--and, above all, the search for knowledge (to "know" is the most frequently used verb in her verse, appearing 230 times). Dickinson's poems tend to be short, consisting of four-line stanzas written in a spare style, punctuated with dashes, and with quirky innovations of word order, metaphor, and metonym.
Little is known of Dickinson's private life. The most popular explanation for her withdrawal from the world involves a hidden love affair, though with little certainty as to the identity of the beloved. After her death, her sister Vinnie found a box containing a whopping 900 poems tied together with twine; these were subsequently compiled and edited by Thomas Higginson, a former mentor and one of the few who had been admitted into the exclusive "society" (to use one of Dickinson's favorite metaphors) of her soul.
Her white dress still hangs in her closet at the Dickinson homestead in Amherst, evoking as much curiosity among visitors today as it did 100 years ago.
ÅReducing The Threat Of War
December 8, 1987
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It had been 42 years since the atomic bomb fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, showing the world the terrifying power of atomic energy. Since then, there had been a race by major world powers to arm themselves with advanced atomic and nuclear weapons. Many people thought the nuclear stockpiles were "overkill," since even one of the weapons would cause mass destruction. How could the superpowers, the Soviet Union and America, ever slow down the arms race and, maybe, turn it around and get rid of the weapons?
Finally, in December of 1987, President Ronald Reagan of the United States and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev of the Soviet Union signed the first major arms-control treaty, which focused on intermediate-range missiles.
While the treaty only reduced by four percent the combined warheads of America and the Soviet Union, it was a step toward peace and further disarmament.
╛American Theme Parks
1954
ANAHEIM, CALIFORNIA
Walt Disney opened Disneyland in 1954 near Los Angeles, which followed an American tradition of amusement parks dating from Coney Island in Brooklyn, New York. Disneyland differed from Coney Island in having a theme based on stock characters such as Minnie and Mickey Mouse. Soon, children around America, and around the world, begged their parents to take them to Disneyland.
Since then, theme parks have gained popularity, many of them located in the temperate South.
While Walt Disney opened Disney World in 1971 in Orlando, Florida, other parks based on less well-known themes also opened their doors.
In 1972, Opryland, USA opened in Nashville, Tennessee. Based on the popular country music show Grand Ole Opry, the park offered a variety of music as well as Southern foods like fried chicken, ham and biscuits and, in the musical theme, ice cream bars shaped like instruments.
Then country music stars got into the business. Dollywood opened at Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Owned by country music and film star Dolly Parton, the park used Dolly's life as its theme. A replica of the house in which she was born is on view as well as an outdoor stage that copies the back porch where Dolly and her family used to sing together. Situated in the Smoky Mountains, local crafts such as quilting and dulcimer-making are on view.
Joining Dolly are other country music stars: Conway Twitty has his Twitty City entertainment complex near Nashville, Loretta Lynn has Loretta Lynn's Dude Ranch in Hurricane Mills, Tennessee, and there is George Jones' Country Music Park near Colmesneil, Texas.
Following a different theme, Arkansas's Dogpatch USA is based on the hillbilly characters from the "Li'l Abner" comic strip and features Ozark Mountain culture. And in Houston, Astroworld plays off nearby NASA and space travel.
Finally, the latest themes for parks are religious ones. In 1977, Pentecostal television evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker opened their Heritage USA in Fort Mill, South Carolina. Dubbed "a spiritual Disneyland," the park has rides like "Jonah in the Belly of the Whale," a Christian broadcasting studio, and a halfway house for ex-convicts, as well as the world's largest wave pool.
▀How To Make Money
1862
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Did you know it is illegal in the United States to make paper with red and blue threads in it? It's true, and the reason is that the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing uses such paper to print money, and forbidding others to create that kind of paper makes it more difficult for counterfeiters to print fake bills. If you have good eyesight, you can see the threads by looking closely. Otherwise, use a magnifying glass to pick them out.
Other obstacles to counterfeiting are the composition of the paper, (which is kept secret, but is about 25 percent linen and 75 percent cotton), and the formula of the ink.
In creating bills, the basic image is first printed. Later the Bureau adds the serial number, Treasury Department seal, Federal Reserve Bank seal, and the signatures of the Secretary of the Treasury and the Treasurer of the United States. Paper money was first issued in 1862 by the U.S. Government as a special measure to help fight the Civil War.
)Keeping Communism At Bay
June 26, 1950
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On June 26th, one day after 90,000 North Korean troops, armed with Soviet weapons, crossed the 38th parallel to invade South Korea, President Harry Truman directed U.S. military forces to assist South Korea. This began the Korean War, which took 100,000 American lives and two million Korean lives.
The war came at a time when America was becoming more and more fearful of Communism. The fact that Communist China and the Soviet Union were backing the North Koreans added to American fears of a "Communist Takeover" of the world.
Led by General Douglas MacArthur, American troops spent three years fighting in Korea. The war ended in stalemate in 1953 with the North Koreans north of the 38th parallel, a border that still separates North and South Korea.
When Dwight Eisenhower became President in 1952, he stressed the need to fight Communism in Asia by saying the world, like a row of dominoes, would fall to Communism if one nation-domino fell. This philosophy was part of the reason America later became heavily involved in Vietnam.
Fighting For All Freedoms
1847
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
Through his newspaper called the "North Star," escaped slave Frederick Douglass became famous as a leader in the Abolition Movement, dedicated to the abolition of slavery. He began publishing the Rochester newspaper in 1847 and through it spoke out on behalf of freedom for all people, including women and blacks. He became famous throughout America and gave rousing lectures for his cause.
Born to a Maryland slave in 1817, Douglass learned to read from the wife of one of his masters. He taught himself to write. In 1838, he escaped by disguising himself as a sailor on a ship going to New York. He managed to reach Massachusetts, where he made an unplanned speech to an antislavery meeting in Nantucket. This began his long career in public life.
His autobiography, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass," was published in 1845. The book caused a sensation and Douglass, fearing he might be arrested as a fugitive slave, fled to England for two years. On his return he began publishing the "North Star," where he spoke out against the popular Mexican War as well as against slavery.
During the Civil War, Douglass served as an advisor to President Lincoln and spoke out for equal pay for black soldiers. After the war, he became ambassador to Haiti. He died in 1895.
ZFor Sale: A Man Or A Mule?
May 6, 1857
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Known as the Dred Scott decision, the court's ruling dashed hopes for settling the issue of slavery and reconciling the North and the South.
Dred Scott was a slave who moved with his master between Illinois, a free state, and Missouri, a slave state. When his master died in 1846, Scott sued for his freedom, saying he'd lived in states like Illinois where slavery was illegal.
The Supreme Court ruled first that blacks, whether free or slaves, were not citizens and so had no rights. Second and third, the court ruled that Scott was the property of his owner, much like a mule, and that property was protected by the Fifth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. This meant that property, even a slave, was protected anywhere in the United States, regardless of laws outlawing slavery in some states.
This decision split Northern and Southern Democrats and strengthened the Republican party, which grew angrier at slavery. People who had been loose supporters of slavery now tended to join the anti-slavery movement.
AAmerica's Low Point
1970
DEATH VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
At 280 feet below sea level, the spot of Badwater in Death Valley National Monument is the lowest point in America. With adjectives like "death" and "bad" tacked onto words, this area has lows other than elevation. This is harsh country, one that early settlers feared and those who had to cross it in summer never forgot or never survived.
Located along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains, Death Valley does not get the rain and moisture of the mountains' western slopes. While spring wildflower displays here are beautiful, summer temperatures and the lack of trees for shade make this place inhospitable to most forms of life. Still, the area has a beauty all its own and it became a national monument in 1970.
Giant sand dunes at Zabriskie Point, the view over Badwater from Dantes View and the colorful badlands of Furnace Creek Wash draw many visitors each year.
Most well-known to Americans may be the Harmony Borax Works that exist here. Begun in 1883, this successful plant used 20-mule teams to pull loads of borax, used in cleansers, to railroads for shipment around America.
Many abandoned mines dot Death Valley and park publications all warn against venturing into them. Like many wild and dangerous animals, Death Valley is a natural wonder to be treated with caution and respect.
┌I'll Take Manhattan
1626
DUTCH IMMIGRATION
In 1626, the Dutch traded about $24 (actually 60 dutch guldens) worth of trinkets and beads to the Canarsee Indians for the 22-square-mile island of Manhattan, known today as New York City. The previous year, the Dutch established New Amsterdam on the tip of Manhattan, marking the start of immigration from Holland to America.
Dutch immigrants, who joined the earlier settlers, helped establish New Jersey, Connecticut, New York, and Delaware.
╗Eagle Eye Of America
1782
THE NATION'S CAPITAL,
In 1782, the United States government adopted the bald eagle as the country's national symbol. The only eagle unique to North America, its majestic proportions and stature were probably seen as synonymous with the growing stature of the new nation.
The female of this species is larger than the male. A female bald eagle can have a wing span of eight feet and reach a weight of 14 pounds. The bird's distinctive white head markings only appear four to five years after its birth.
Bald eagles, officially called "Haliaetus leucocephalus," can live in the wild for 30 or more years, and while they soar over great distances, they usually return to within 100 miles of where they were raised. They build their nests in the tops of large trees near rivers or other bodies of water. These nests are often reused each year and weigh as much as 2,000 pounds. The birds feed on fish, but will also catch ducks, rodents, snakes, and other creatures.
It is thought that as many as 75,000 bald eagles once nested in the United States. Destruction of its habitat by settlers and agricultural chemicals like DDT killed many of the birds. In 1940, Congress, fearing that the bald eagle might become extinct, made it illegal to shoot, harass, or sell the birds. Then, in 1969, they were declared an endangered species.
Today, there are some 6,000 or more adult bald eagles in the lower United States. The birds are more common in Alaska and Canada.
ßAmelia's Last Flight
1937
PACIFIC OCEAN
There was nothing special about flying around the world, George Putnam told his wife Amelia. People had already done it.
Yes, Amelia replied, but nobody had ever done it at the Equator, where the distance around the earth is the greatest.
So Amelia Earhart set off on an epic flight. She was already the world's premier female aviator. She was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic as a passenger, and later became the first woman to fly across on her own. Other women had attempted the flight, but none had been successful and three had died.
Amelia was first inspired to take flying lessons after attending an air show in California. She became fascinated by the fun of flight and later wrote books about flying and taught about it at Purdue University, where she became known as the "Flying Professor."
But the round-the-Equator flight was to be her grand adventure. She flew her Lockheed Electra to South America with navigator Fred Noonan, then took off toward Africa. She and Noonan flew across the Atlantic Ocean to Africa; then stopped at Karachi (then part of India); Rangoon, Burma; Singapore; Surabaja, Indonesia; Port Darwin, Australia; and then to Lea, New Guinea.
The next stop was Howland Island, a flyspeck of land that would be their refueling stop on the way to the Hawaiian Islands. It was 2,556 miles away from Lea and surrounded by nothing but ocean.
The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Itasca was at the island to keep in radio contact, and at first everything seemed to go well. Amelia radioed she was making good progress and was within about 100 miles of the island. Later she radioed: "We must be on you, but we cannot see you. Our gas is running low."
After several more messages, she gave what she believed to be her position, then the radio went dead. The cutter Itasca, a battleship, an aircraft carrier with all its planes, and four destroyers searched for 16 days, they never found a trace of the missing Lockheed Electra or its brave pilot and navigator.
═East Europeans Leave Home
1880
EASTERN EUROPEAN IMMIGRATION
Beginning in 1880 and lasting into the 1920s, a heavy flow of Hungarian, Austrian, Czech, Yugoslavian, and Polish immigrants poured into America by ship. Poverty was one reason for the exodus, as well as the break up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and religious persecutions. World War I also provoked people to flee their homeland.
Twenty years later millions of people from these countries became displaced persons because of World War II, as their land was overrun again and again by battling armies. Many returned home after the war but others sought refuge in the United States.
More than 200,000 Hungarians would become refugees -- this time from Communism -- when they rose up in October 1956 to free their homeland which had been occupied by the Soviet Union at the end of World War II. The revolution was crushed by the Soviet Army in November. Many found safety and a new life in the United States.
Another phase of immigration from these countries began in 1968, when Soviet tanks marched into Czechoslovakia and crushed that country's freedom movement. When the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet Union dissolved in the early 1990s, people previously barred from emigrating went West in search of better jobs and lives. Some came to America. Also, the civil war in Yugoslavia that began in 1992 forced many people to flee their homes; most sought refuge in countries like Germany, but a few made it to relatives living in America.
ΘEdison Lights The Night
1879
MENLO PARK, NEW JERSEY
After two years, Thomas Edison finally saw the light. In 1877, he had begun studying how to make an electric lamp and within a year had performed 1,200 experiments. In 1879, after spending $40,000, he made a bulb using a carbonized cotton thread for a filament. It burned for two days in the vacuum bulb. Later he used carbonized cardboard and, finally, carbonized bamboo.
The bamboo model was the first economically feasible incandescent lightbulb.
His bulbs were first installed on the steamship "Columbia" and later in a New York City factory.
Edison was a prolific inventor, with 1,033 patents at the time of his death in 1931. Two others of his many inventions were the phonograph and the movie projector.
Gateway To America
1892
NEW YORK CITY
Beginning in 1892, the United States Bureau of Immigration began using Ellis Island to receive and screen immigrants to America. Sitting about a mile from Manhattan, in New York Harbor, Ellis Island has ushered in more than 12 million immigrants.
The bulk of immigrants passed through Ellis Island between 1892 and 1924. Here, many immigrants told their complex-sounding names like "Levindowsky" or "Ptakershek" to immigration officials who then Americanized, or shortened, the names to "Levin" or "Packer."
In 1943, Ellis Island served as a detention center for enemy aliens. In 1954, the facility closed and, in 1965, it became part of the Statue of Liberty National Monument. Ellis Island began a restoration process in the 1970s that lasted into the early 1990s.
¼Scraping The Sky
1931
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK
When completed in 1931, the Empire State Building was the tallest building in the world. The building, standing 1,245 feet high, was constructed during the Great Depression and became a symbol of confidence in America. It has remained a symbol of American greatness even though taller American buildings now exist.
The construction of such tall buildings, called skyscrapers, was made possible by the use of an interior skeleton of steel beams that support the building's weight. Previously, steel frames had only been used to construct bridges.
Steel-frame construction of tall buildings was used successfully in Chicago, beginning in 1884, with the 10-story Home Life Insurance Building. Then, Chicago architect Louis Sullivan used steel beams in a way that stressed the vertical nature of his buildings, making anyone looking at the building aware of its height.
Adding to the growth of American skyscrapers was the invention of the elevator in 1854 by Elisha Otis. The elevator was first used in a building in 1868, where it lifted people five stories.
Today, the skyscraper is a fixture of major cities around the world, symbolizing prosperity and growth.
├Boosting Barrio Youth
1988
EAST LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
In 1988, the feature film "Stand and Deliver" became a hit. The film told the inspiring story of Jaime Escalante, a math teacher at Garfield High School in east Los Angeles, an area troubled by the gang and drug problems found in inner-city neighborhoods.
Escalante's students became famous for their skill in advanced math and their success earning advanced college credit through the Advanced Placement Calculus Test.
Jaime Escalante was born in Bolivia in 1930; both of his parents were teachers, and he also became a teacher. He taught math and physics in Bolivia and moved to America in 1964, where he needed an American credential to teach. Escalante pursued his American credential while working as a busboy, a cook, and as an electronics factory technician.
In 1974, Escalante became a math teacher at Garfield High. Many of his students had been labeled as "unteachable" and "low achievers." Some were gang members. Escalante told his students he believed in them and that they could succeed if they tried. He made math interesting for his students and they responded to his passion with passing scores on the nation's most difficult math exam. In fact, Escalante's students alone accounted for a third of all Hispanic students in the U.S. who passed the AP Calculus test.
To reach more students, he joined with the Foundation for Advancements in Science and Education to create the Peabody Award-winning series "FUTURES...with Jaime Escalante." This instructional program shows students the many ways math is applied in life, in fields ranging from skateboard design to space exploration. In 1991, Escalante moved to Sacramento, California, to teach at Hiram Johnson High School.
SSwamped In Admiration
1947
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK, FLORIDA
By the time Spanish explorers discovered this wet and grassy part of Florida in the 16th century, Calusa and Tequesta Indians had been living here for centuries. Later, Seminole Indians of the plains fled the U.S. Calvary and sought refuge here.
Congress was a late admirer of this area, voting it a national park in 1947. Today, its 1,306,509 acres form the largest subtropical wilderness in North America.
The Everglades are a flat and marshy area, more accessible by boat than car. Within its boundaries are plains of saw grass, dark and tangled clusters of mangrove and cypress trees, stands of Caribbean pine, large beds of ferns, and the wildlife for which this park is famous: alligators and wading birds, among others.
While not reached by the ice of the Ice Age, the Everglades were flooded by glacial waters on several occasions. While underwater, deposits of limestone formed a hard white floor throughout the area. This hard surface is gently sloped and over it flow the waters of Lake Okeechobee, creating lime-rich mud where a variety of life thrives.
Spring and summer storms drench the area with rain, while dry autumns and winters leave only puddles and cracked mud flats in some areas. In these scattered puddles, alligators dig out their "gator holes" that fill in with seeping ground water. Other forms of wildlife seek out these gator-formed oases to survive the dry season, and the life of the area is renewed.
Nearer the ocean, where sea water meets fresh, thickets of mangrove trees grow in the briny swamp. This area is ideal for wildlife that don't require firm land to walk on. The roseate spoonbill is a wading bird with bright pink feathers that thrives in this milieu. Also wading around the mangrove is the crocodile. The Everglades are the only place in America where the crocodile can be found.
The Myth Of The South
1950
OXFORD, MISSISSIPPI
"I don't hate the South," says Quentin Compson in William Faulkner's, "Absalom, Absalom!" "I don't hate it! I don't hate it, I don't hate it!" Faulkner himself might have given the same answer to readers disturbed by his violent and gloomy vision of the region where he was born and spent most of his life. Faulkner's South is haunted by greed, incest, racism, insanity, and a nearly bottomless sense of loss. But it is also redeemed by hope, unexpected acts of kindness, and the heroic endurance of the human spirit.
Perhaps no writer has created a more detailed and fully realized imaginary world than Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Dozens of his stories are set in this mythical corner of northern Mississippi, as well as his greatest novels: "The Sound and the Fury," "Absalom, Absalom!," "Light in August," and "As I Lay Dying." The influential critic Malcolm Cowley has argued that Faulkner created nothing less than a symbolic history of the American South: "He is not so much a novelist . . . as an epic poet in prose, a creator of myths he weaves together into a legend of the South."
There is no shortage of violence or insanity in Yoknapatawpha County. In "A Rose for Emily," for example, a woman shares her bed for many years with the corpse of her former lover. The novels contain countless murders, fires, and scandalous affairs. But there is another side to Faulkner, one that documents the powerful endurance of suffering people, such as the Bundren family in "As I Lay Dying," who surmount daunting obstacles on their journey to transport a body to its final resting place. It is this side of his work that Faulkner chose to celebrate in his memorable Nobel Prize address in 1950. It is the writer's duty, he said, "to help man endure by lifting his heart, by reminding him of the courage and honor and hope and pride and compassion and pity and sacrifice which have been the glory of his past. The poet's voice need not merely be the record of man, it can be one of the props, the pillars to help him endure and prevail."
┘Fighting For Real Estate
1756
FORT DUQUESNE, PITTSBURGH
In 1753, a seven-year war began whose winner would gain prized, ocean-view property: America.
England (meaning the English colonies), and France were the bidders for this land, and the Indians -- sick of the colonists' dirty politics and defaults on promises -- fought alongside the French.
The first fighting took place at the French Fort Duquesne near what is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A small American group of fighters, led by a young George Washington, told the French they were trespassing on Virginia land and sent them packing.
The French, while outnumbered by the British, were better organized, more experienced fighters, and had the Indians as allies. The Indians preferred the French because they were more interested in trading for beaver pelts than the British and there were fewer of them. Both sides of the war fought savagely and scalp-taking was practiced by the British and the Indians.
In 1758, the British gained strength when new leadership in London poured money and men into the American war effort. Jeffrey Amherst, fighting for the British, used blankets from a smallpox hospital when negotiating with the Indians; subsequently, the Indians took sick and died.
With the fall of Montreal in 1760, England gained control of all America and Canada. The Treaty of Paris in 1763 brought the war to an official end. Americans had won the war for their King George III, whom they would fight against for independence 13 years later.
╙Alaska: The Last Frontier
January 3, 1959
CAPITAL: Juneau JOINED UNION: January 3, 1959 STATE BIRD: Willow Ptarmigan STATE FLOWER: Forget-me-not MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on Eskimo word "Alakshak" meaning "great lands" or "peninsula" 1992 POPULATION: 586,872 RANK IN POPULATION: 48 LAND AREA: 570,373 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 1 ECONOMY: Oil, gas, tourism, commercial fishing, lumber HISTORY: Native Eskimo and Aleut tribes inhabited the area before it was discovered by Vitus Bering, a Dane exploring for the Russians, in 1741. America bought Alaska from Russia in 1867. Gold was discovered in 1896 and the following Gold Rush drew many people -- mostly men -- to the area. Discoveries of oil and natural gas in 1968 led to a gold rush of another sort -- one to plumb these natural resources. The Trans-Alaska pipeline was built and completed in 1977 at a cost of $7.7 billion. The wealth of income from the sale of oil led Alaska to give money back to all its tax-paying residents. An oil spill by an Exxon tanker in Prince William Sound in 1989 damaged pristine coastline and led to battles between environmentalists and the oil industry. The beautiful scenery, many national parks, and wildlife are Alaska's main natural resources and tourist attractions.
≡Alabama: Camellia State
December 14, 1819
CAPITAL: Montgomery JOINED UNION: December 14, 1819 STATE BIRD: Yellowhammer STATE FLOWER: Camellia MEANING OF STATE NAME: Name means "tribal town" in Creek Indian language 1992 POPULATION: 4,135,543 RANK IN POPULATION: 22 LAND AREA: 50,750 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 29 ECONOMY: Pulp and paper, textiles, lumber, food processing, chemicals, steel, poultry, peanuts, agriculture, car tires, fishing HISTORY: Home to the Creek Indians. Spaniards first explored Alabama in the 1500s and later the French and English settled here. France gave its territory to England after the French and Indian War, but Spain held claim to the region around Mobile Bay until America won it in 1813. The Creek Indians lost their hold on the land due to General Andrew Jackson and the Indians walked the "Trail of Tears" to Oklahoma. Alabama was part of the Confederacy during the Civil War. In 1965, the Civil Rights Movement got its start in Montgomery when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white person.
\Arkansas: Land Of Opportunity
June 15, 1836
CAPITAL: Little Rock JOINED UNION: June 15, 1836 STATE BIRD: Mockingbird STATE FLOWER: Apple Blossom MEANING OF STATE NAME: French interpretation of a Sioux word "acansa," meaning "downstream place." 1992 POPULATION: 2,398,767 RANK FOR POPULATION: 33 LAND AREA: 52,075 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 27 ECONOMY: Soybeans, lumber, poultry, furniture, auto and airplane parts, bauxite mining HISTORY: Land of the Quapaw Indians, Arkansas was settled by the French in the 1600s, although Spanish explorer de Soto had passed through in 1541. Included in the Louisiana Territory, Arkansas became part of America with the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Arkansas seceded from the Union in 1861, although thousands of her citizens fought with the Union. In 1957, Little Rock was home to some major confrontations in the battle to desegregate America's schools.
îArizona: Grand Canyon State
February 14, 1912
CAPITAL: Phoenix JOINED UNION: February 14, 1912 STATE BIRD: Cactus Wren STATE FLOWER: Saguaro Cactus Flower MEANING OF STATE NAME: Spanish interpretation of "arizuma," an Aztec Indian word meaning "silver-bearing." Also based on Pima Indian word "arizonac" for "little spring place." 1992 POPULATION: 3,832,294 RANK FOR POPULATION: 23 LAND AREA: 113,642 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 6 ECONOMY: Tourism, mining, electronics, publishing, aircraft manufacture, agriculture HISTORY: Home to Indian cultures such as the Hopi, Apache, and Navajo for many years before the Spanish discovered the area in 1530s. Ruled by Spain until Mexico won its independence in 1821. America took the territory from Mexico during the Mexican-American War of 1848. Today, Arizona has one of America's fastest-growing populations, thanks to its warm climate. It is a mecca for golfers, with many luxurious golf resorts.
BCalifornia: Golden State
September 9, 1850
CAPITAL: Sacramento JOINED UNION: September 9, 1850 STATE BIRD: Valley Quail STATE FLOWER: Golden Poppy MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named by Spanish after Califia, a mythical paradise in a Spanish romance written by Montalvo in 1510 1992 POPULATION: 30,866,851 POPULATION RANK: 1 LAND AREA: 155,973 square miles SIZE RANK: 3 ECONOMY: Tourism, entertainment industry, electronics, aerospace, auto manufacturing, agriculture, fruits and vegetables, oil HISTORY: Indian tribes like the Chumash, Mohave, and Paiute lived peacefully in California's fertile lands for centuries before Spanish explorer Cabrillo saw it in the 1540s. The first of many Spanish missions was established in San Diego in 1769. Russians came down from Alaska to settle parts of northern California in the early 1800s. Mostly, California was under Mexican rule until America won the land in 1848 during the Mexican War. That same year, gold was discovered in northern California and in 1849 a massive Gold Rush brought people to the state. With three major ports (San Diego, San Francisco, and Los Angeles), California is an important area of trade with Asian Pacific countries. California is also home to Hollywood, the entertainment capital of the world; music, film, and television studios are centered here and draw scores of tourists, as do the state's beaches and surfing.
╪Colorado: Centennial State
August 1, 1876
CAPITAL: Denver JOINED UNION: August 1, 1876 STATE BIRD: Lark Bunting STATE FLOWER: Columbine MEANING OF STATE NAME: Taken from the Spanish for the "color red" and was applied to the Colorado river; the state also has lots of red rocks 1992 POPULATION: 3,470,216 POPULATION RANK: 26 LAND AREA: 103,730 square miles SIZE RANK: 8 ECONOMY: Electronics, tourism, snow skiing and mountain sports, aerospace, mining, agriculture, livestock HISTORY: This western state is the site of the 2,000-year-old Mesa Verde Indian cliff dwellings. Colorado was once Spanish territory. Eastern Colorado joined America as part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. The rest of Colorado followed by 1848, at the end of the Mexican-American War. Today, Colorado Springs is home to the U.S. Air Force Academy, whose students aim to soar high in the sky, like the many peaks over 14,000 feet in Colorado's Rocky Mountains. Colorado has some of America's most famous ski resorts: Aspen and Vail, among others.
Connecticut: Constitution State
January 9, 1788
CAPITAL: Hartford JOINED UNION: January 9, 1788 STATE BIRD: Robin STATE FLOWER: Mountain Laurel MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on Mohican and Algonquin Indian words for a "place beside a long river" 1992 POPULATION: 3,280,959 RANK FOR POPULATION: 27 LAND AREA: 4,845 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 48 ECONOMY: Insurance, submarines, aircraft engines, helicopters, tobacco, and fruit HISTORY: Adriaen Block, a Dutch explorer, came here in 1614, the first-known white person to do so. Settlers from Massachusetts started colonies in 1634 and won a battle in 1637 against the Pequot Indians. Connecticut was active in the Revolutionary War, fighting in the Continental Army. The prestigious Yale University is in New Haven and Hartford's "Courant" is America's oldest newspaper.
Delaware: First State
December 7, 1787
CAPITAL: Dover JOINED UNION: December 7, 1787 STATE BIRD: Blue Hen Chicken STATE FLOWER: Peach Blossom MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after an early Virginia governor, Lord De La Warr 1992 POPULATION: 689,214 RANK FOR POPULATION: 46 LAND AREA: 1,955 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 49 ECONOMY: Chemical industry, processed foods, agriculture HISTORY: Early Dutch settlers in the 1630s were killed off by local Indians, called the Delaware. Swedes followed a few years later and then new Dutch settlers arrived and took over in the 1650s. The area fell to England by 1664 and came under the rule of William Penn by the 1680s. Delaware was the first state to ratify the Constitution in 1787. While a slave state, Delaware did not join the Confederacy during the Civil War.
σFlorida: Sunshine State
March 3, 1845
CAPITAL: Tallahassee JOINED UNION: March 3, 1845 STATE BIRD: Mockingbird STATE FLOWER: Orange Blossom MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named on Easter 1513 by Ponce de Leon for Pascua Florida, meaning "flowery Easter" 1992 POPULATION: 13,487,621 POPULATION RANK: 4 LAND AREA: 53,997 square miles SIZE RANK: 22 ECONOMY: Citrus fruits, government, commercial fishing, tourism, electronics HISTORY: Seminole Indians were living here when Ponce de Leon found it for Spain in 1513. The French settled at Fort Caroline in the 1560s but were killed off by the Spanish in 1565, during their establishment of America's oldest permanent city, St. Augustine. Briefly held by England, Florida remained under Spanish rule until ceded to the U.S. in 1819. War with the Seminole Indians in the early 1800s led to the Indians' removal to Oklahoma by mid-century. Seceding from the Union in 1861, Florida was readmitted in 1868. Today, Florida hosts the Cape Canaveral space center and is the home for many retired people.
Georgia: Peach State
January 2, 1788
CAPITAL: Atlanta JOINED UNION: January 2, 1788 STATE BIRD: Brown Thrasher STATE FLOWER: Cherokee Rose MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named for King George II of England 1992 POPULATION: 6,751,404 RANK FOR POPULATION: 11 LAND AREA: 57,919 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 21 ECONOMY: Peanuts, processed chicken, home of Coca-Cola, communications, lumber -- specializing in resin from pine trees. HISTORY: Home to Guale and Muskagee Indians, Georgia was explored by Hernando de Soto for Spain and then settled by the British under General James Oglethorpe in 1733. Strongly Confederate during the Civil War, Georgia suffered much devastation. Atlanta was burned to the ground by Union troops under General Sherman, who then razed a 60-mile-wide swath of the state while marching to Savannah on the sea.
ÿHawaii: Aloha State
August 21, 1959
CAPITAL: Honolulu JOINED UNION: August 21, 1959 STATE BIRD: Hawaiian Goose STATE FLOWER: Hibiscus MEANING OF STATE NAME: Could be based on native Hawaiian word for homeland, "Owhyhee" 1992 POPULATION: 1,159,614 RANK FOR POPULATION: 40 LAND AREA: 6,423 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 47 ECONOMY: Lots of pineapple, sugar refining, tourism, government defense, film production HISTORY: Settled by early Polynesians around 500 AD, Hawaii was discovered by Englishman Captain James Cook in 1778. Christian missionaries came in 1820. Hawaii remained under native rule until 1893, when it became the Republic of Hawaii and, in 1900, became a U.S. Territory. The bombing of Hawaii's Pearl Harbor by the Japanese in 1941 prompted America's entry into World War II. A chain of volcanic islands stretching about 1,600 miles, Hawaii's eight main islands are Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, Lanai, Kauai, Niihau, Kahoolawe, and Molokai.
¿Iowa: Hawkeye State
December 28, 1846
CAPITAL: Des Moines JOINED UNION: December 28, 1846 STATE BIRD: Eastern Goldfinch STATE FLOWER: Wild Rose MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on Indian word meaning "beautiful land" 1992 POPULATION: 2,812,448 RANK FOR POPULATION: 30 LAND AREA: 55,875 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 25 ECONOMY: Corn, soybeans, oats, livestock, fertilizer, insurance, farm equipment, office furniture, auto accessories, construction materials -- cement, sand, and gravel HISTORY: Prehistoric home to Indians who built mounds on Iowa's plains and later home to Blackhawk and Iowa Indians, among others. Claimed for France by explorers Marquette and Jolliet in 1673, Iowa was part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Iowa became a relocation center for Indians moved there from their eastern homes in mid-1800s. Bloody fighting between Indians and whites in 1832 prompted removal of Iowa Indians to Kansas. Iowa strongly supported Lincoln during Civil War.
AIdaho: Gem State
July 3, 1890
CAPITAL: Boise JOINED UNION: July 3, 1890 STATE BIRD: Mountain Bluebird STATE FLOWER: Syringa MEANING OF STATE NAME: The name given Comanche Indians by the Kowa Apache Indians 1992 POPULATION: 1,067,250 RANK FOR POPULATION: 42 LAND AREA: 82,751 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 11 ECONOMY: Known for potatoes, tourism, processed foods, lumber, mining HISTORY: Acquired by the U.S. as part of the Louisiana Purchase, the first white explorers of Idaho were Lewis and Clark in 1805-06; however, the area had been the land of the Nez Perce Indians, among others. Fur traders and Mormons made bases in Idaho and the 1869 Gold Rush brought more settlers. War broke out between Indians and U.S. troops in the 1870s. Today, Idaho's northern wilderness areas have become the home base to groups of white supremacists and survivalists.
ßIllinois: Prairie State
December 3, 1818
CAPITAL: Springfield JOINED UNION: December 3, 1818 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Violet MEANING OF STATE NAME: Algonquin Indian for "warriors" 1992 POPULATION: 11,631,131 RANK FOR POPULATION: 6 LAND AREA: 55,593 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 24 ECONOMY: Home of the commodities market and grain exchange, iron and steel production, meatpacking, railroads, retail trade, agriculture HISTORY: Known to early fur traders and, in 1673, explored by Frenchmen Marquette and Jolliet, the area was home to Illinois Indians. England obtained the area after the French and Indian War in 1763. The growth of the railroads, and Chicago becoming a major rail switching yard, changed the nature and economy of Illinois in the late 1800s.
èIndiana: Hoosier State
December 11, 1816
CAPITAL: Indianapolis JOINED UNION: December 11, 1816 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Peony MEANING OF STATE NAME: "Land of the Indians" 1992 POPULATION: 5,661,800 RANK FOR POPULATION: 14 LAND AREA: 35,870 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 38 ECONOMY: Soybeans and grains, pigs, lumber, coal and limestone, auto parts, mobile homes, farm equipment HISTORY: Prehistoric Indian mounds exist here and, later, the area was home to the Miami Indians. Explored for France in 1679 by La Salle, Indiana was central in the fighting of the French and Indian War. In 1763, France gave the region to England, which then gave it to the U.S. after the Revolutionary War. U.S. troops defeated Miami Indians during 1790 fighting and, in 1811, General Harrison defeated Tecumseh's Indian confederation at Tippecanoe. Indiana today is known, among other things, for its great high school and college basketball teams.
6Kansas: Sunflower State
January 29, 1861
CAPITAL: Topeka JOINED UNION: January 29, 1861 STATE BIRD: Western Meadowlark STATE FLOWER: Sunflower MEANING OF STATE NAME: From the Sioux Indian for "south wind people" 1992 POPULATION: 2,522,574 RANK FOR POPULATION: 32 LAND AREA: 81,823 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 14 ECONOMY: Aircraft manufacture, wheat, processed foods, farm machinery, livestock HISTORY: Part of the Sioux Nation, Indians were roaming Kansas' plains with the buffalo for years before Spanish explorer Francisco de Coronado visited the area in 1541. Part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Kansas was explored by Lewis and Clark a few years later. The Santa Fe and Oregon Trails wove through Kansas and gave rise to the settlements of Forts Leavenworth, Scott, and Riley. A divided state over slavery, so much violence occurred in Kansas just before the Civil War that it got the nickname of Bleeding Kansas. Construction of the railroads in the late 1800s made Kansas' cities Abilene and Dodge City the end of Texas cattle drives and the point of departure for cattle to Chicago meatpacking houses.
?Kentucky: Bluegrass State
June 1, 1792
CAPITAL: Frankfort JOINED UNION: June 1, 1792 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Sunflower MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on the Iroquois Indian word "Ken-tah-ten," meaning "land of tomorrow" 1992 POPULATION: 3,754,715 RANK FOR POPULATION: 24 LAND AREA: 39,732 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 37 ECONOMY: Coal mining, tobacco, whiskey production, thoroughbred horse farms HISTORY: Iroquois Indians lived here before white settlers came to make their first homes west of the Allegheny Mountains in 1774. Frontiersman Daniel Boone made his name here as he blazed the Wilderness Trail through the area known as the Cumberland Gap to found Fort Boonesborough in 1775. There was constant fighting between Indians and white settlers in Kentucky, goaded on by the British, until the Revolutionary War. Pro and anti-slavery forces were both strong in Kentucky and the state supplied soldiers to both sides in the Civil War. Since the mid-1900s, the coal-mining areas of Kentucky have seen confrontations between mine owners and miners over union organizing, working conditions, and salaries.
┤Louisiana: Pelican State
April 30, 1812
CAPITAL: Baton Rouge JOINED UNION: April 30, 1812 STATE BIRD: Pelican STATE FLOWER: Magnolia MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named in honor of France's King Louis XIV 1992 POPULATION: 4,287,195 RANK FOR POPULATION: 21 LAND AREA: 43,566 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 31 ECONOMY: Tourism, oil and petroleum, agriculture, commercial fishing, food products (Cajun food is the hot new item) HISTORY: Land of the Choctaw and Atakapa Indians, Louisiana was explored by Spaniards Pineda and de Soto in the early 1500s. In 1682, LaSalle claimed the region for France and the first permanent settlement was established by the French in 1699. Spain regained control of the area in 1763, returned it to France in 1800, which then sold it to the U.S. in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase. French influence is strong in Louisiana with Creoles, descendants of the French-Spanish settlers, and Cajuns, descendants of French-Canadians (Acadians) who, in 1755, settled the bayous, or swampy areas, of the region. Louisiana was part of the Confederacy during the Civil War. Today, New Orleans hosts America's most festive Mardi Gras celebration and, along with the city's jazz heritage, draws many tourists each year.
ªMassachusetts: Bay State
February 6, 1788
CAPITAL: Boston JOINED UNION: February 6, 1788 STATE BIRD: Chickadee STATE FLOWER: Mayflower MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after local Indian tribe whose name means "large hill place" 1992 POPULATION: 5,998,375 RANK FOR POPULATION: 13 LAND AREA: 7,838 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 45 ECONOMY: Electronics, communications equipment, cranberries, trade, leather goods, wood products HISTORY: When the Pilgrims landed near Plymouth in 1620, local Massachusetts Indians helped them survive their first winter, introducing them to native foods like turkey, corn, and squash. Soon, relations with Indians changed and fighting between them and settlers was intense in King Philip's War in 1675-76, with the colonists winning. The Massachusetts towns of Boston, Concord, and Lexington were sites of key activity before and during the Revolution including: the Boston Massacre in 1770, Boston Tea Party in 1772, and "the shot heard round the world" in Lexington in 1775. One of the key figures in shaping America's early government and Constitution, America's second president, John Adams, lived in Massachusetts along with his wife, Abigail, who was an early supporter of rights for women.
AMaryland: Free State
April 28, 1788
CAPITAL: Annapolis JOINED UNION: April 28, 1788 STATE BIRD: Baltimore Oriole STATE FLOWER: Black-eyed Susan MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named to honor Henrietta Maria, wife of England's King Charles I 1992 POPULATION: 4,908,453 RANK FOR POPULATION: 19 LAND AREA: 9,775 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 42 ECONOMY: Oysters, crabs, clams, tourism, international shipping at Baltimore Harbor HISTORY: The Delaware Indians probably enjoyed Maryland's fresh seafood before Captain John Smith explored the area in 1608 for England. A British trading post was established in Chesapeake Bay on Kent Island in 1631 and Lord Baltimore was granted land in Maryland in 1632, soon after which British Roman Catholics settled near there. In 1649, the Maryland Assembly passed a Toleration Act granting religious freedom to Christians; however, a Puritan assembly in 1654-58 ended that freedom. Francis Scott Key wrote America's national anthem, "The Star Spangled Banner," while watching fighting with the British at Fort McHenry in 1814. Today, Maryland is home to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.
)Maine: Pine Tree State
March 15, 1820
CAPITAL: Augusta JOINED UNION: March 15, 1820 STATE BIRD: Chickadee STATE FLOWER: White Pine Cone MEANING OF STATE NAME: Assumed to be a reference to the state region being a mainland, different from its many surrounding islands 1992 POPULATION: 1,235,396 POPULATION RANK: 39 LAND AREA: 30,865 square miles SIZE RANK: 39 ECONOMY: Lumber and pulp paper production (almost 90 percent of the state is forest), lobster fishing, sardine cans, shoes, blueberries HISTORY: Micmac and Penobscot Indians probably fished Maine's coastal waters before white settlers discovered its bounties. Englishman John Cabot explored this area in the 1490s. Permanent English settlements began here in 1623 and the area became part of Massachusetts in 1691, becoming a separate state in 1820. The first naval fighting of the Revolutionary War took place in 1775 off the coast of Maine when colonists seized a British ship. Maine residents often call their region "Down East," a reference to sailing jargon for a certain wind direction; the bays off Maine's coast draw lots of sailors.
GMichigan: Wolverine State
January 26,1837
CAPITAL: Lansing JOINED UNION: January 26, 1837 STATE BIRD: Robin STATE FLOWER: Apple Blossom MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on Chippewa Indian word "meicigama" meaning "great water" and refers to the Great Lakes 1992 POPULATION: 9,436,628 RANK FOR POPULATION: 8 LAND AREA: 56,809 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 23 ECONOMY: Automobiles (Detroit is nicknamed "Motor City"), machine tools, airplane parts, agriculture, livestock, mining, tourism HISTORY: The first white person to view Michigan was French explorer Etienne Brule in 1618, followed by Jolliet, Marquette, and fur traders. The first permanent settlement began in 1668 at Sault Ste. Marie. Britain gained hold of the area in 1763. After the war, Michigan was the site of many conflicts between British and U.S. forces, each supported by various Indian tribes. In 1812, the British seized Fort Mackinac and Detroit; later America recaptured these sites, thanks to a battle on Lake Erie led by Commodore Oliver Perry. In addition to cars, Detroit was the home of Motown, a shortening of Motor Town, which became a highly successful music company that recorded black singing artists such as Michael Jackson and the Jackson Five, the Supremes, the Four Tops, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles. While today Motown Records is based in Los Angeles, its distinct sound made Detroit famous.
gMinnesota: North Star State
May 11, 1858
CAPITAL: St. Paul JOINED UNION: May 11, 1858 STATE BIRD: Loon STATE FLOWER: Lady's Slipper MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on the Dakota Sioux Indian word for "sky-tinted water," referring to the Minnesota River or the state's many lakes 1992 POPULATION: 4,480,034 RANK FOR POPULATION: 20 LAND AREA: 79,617 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 12 ECONOMY: Publishing (calendars and law books), trading (the Minneapolis Grain Exchange), forest products, iron ore, agriculture, livestock, tourism HISTORY: Also known as the "land of 10,000 lakes," Minnesota supported Santee, Sioux, and Dakota Indian fishermen. The region was explored in the 1600s by fur traders and missionaries from French Canada, just north of the area. In 1763, the British claimed the area east of the Mississippi River and this area went to the U.S. after the American Revolution. In 1803, the French portion joined America with the Louisiana Purchase. Sioux Indians revolted with bloody fighting in 1862 and were driven out of Minnesota. Today, Minnesota is a favorite destination for those seeking fishing and solitude on the state's many bodies of water.
WMissouri: Show-Me State
August 10, 1821
CAPITAL: Jefferson City JOINED UNION: August 10, 1821 STATE BIRD: Bluebird STATE FLOWER: Hawthorn MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after Missouri Indian tribe whose name means "town of the large canoes" 1992 POPULATION: 5,192,632 RANK FOR POPULATION: 15 LAND AREA: 68,898 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 19 ECONOMY: Aerospace, beer, agriculture, livestock, tourism HISTORY: Land of the Missouri Indians, the area was claimed by France after La Salle traveled here and French fur traders established Ste. Genevieve in 1735. Part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Missouri joined America and remained in the Union during the Civil War, although pro-slavery sentiment also ran high and state residents battled each other over the issue. Missouri played a major role in American history by becoming a rendezvous and departure point for pioneers traveling to the West. The Oregon and Santa Fe trails started in Independence and the Pony Express began in St. Joseph. American author Mark Twain forever immortalized the state, the riverboats and some fictional inhabitants named Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn in his books.
CMississippi: Magnolia State
December 10, 1817
CAPITAL: Jackson JOINED UNION: December 10, 1817 STATE BIRD: Mockingbird STATE FLOWER: Magnolia MEANING OF STATE NAME: Possibly based on Chippewa Indian words "mici zibi," loosely meaning great river 1992 POPULATION: 2,614,294 RANK FOR POPULATION: 31 LAND AREA: 46,914 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 32 ECONOMY: Cotton, rice, soybeans, pecans and sorghum, poultry, electrical and transportation equipment HISTORY: Long associated with the river of the same name that flows through the state, Mississippi was home to Choctaw and Chippewa Indians. Hernando de Soto discovered the area and the river for Spain in 1541. Frenchman La Salle followed the river up to its source in Illinois, claiming the area for France. The French established a settlement in 1699 near Biloxi. Britain claimed the region after the French and Indian War and America got it after the Revolution. In 1810, America got Spain's part of southern Mississippi. With an economy rooted in cotton and slavery, Mississippi was strongly Confederate and seceded from the Union in 1861. During the Civil War, Union troops destroyed much of Jackson and Meridian. Mississippi was late in becoming industrialized; it wasn't until the 1970s that the economy switched from tilling the soil to industry. The Mississippi Delta region of the state gave America the roots of blues music.
Montana: Treasure State
November 8, 1889
CAPITAL: Helena JOINED UNION: November 8, 1889 STATE BIRD: Western Meadowlark STATE FLOWER: Bitterroot MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on Spanish word for "mountainous" 1992 POPULATION: 823,697 RANK FOR POPULATION: 44 LAND AREA: 145,556 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 4 ECONOMY: Mining, lumber, tourism, livestock, agriculture HISTORY: Crow, Teton, and Plains Indians made Montana their home before the French explored the area in 1742. The U.S. acquired Montana as part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, after which Lewis and Clark explored this territory a few years later. Fur traders established forts here in the early 1800s and the state was the site of major fighting between Indians and U.S. troops between 1867 and 1877. The battle of the Little Big Horn in Montana was where General Custer had his "last stand." Mining of copper, silver, and zinc, among others, brought growth to the state. Today, Montana has become the home to a growing group of noted artists and writers who mingle with the ranchers and other Western folk who live here.
┐North Carolina: Tar Heel State
November 21, 1789
CAPITAL: Raleigh JOINED UNION: November 21, 1789 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Dogwood MEANING OF STATE NAME: Taken from "Carolus," the Latin word for Charles and named after England's King Charles I 1992 POPULATION: 6,842,691 RANK FOR POPULATION: 10 LAND AREA: 48,718 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 28 ECONOMY: Tobacco, textiles, furniture, commercial fishing, tourism HISTORY: Human habitation in North Carolina has been found dating back to 8,000 BC. Before white settlers, the area was home to Indian tribes like the Iroquois. In 1585 and 1587, Sir Walter Raleigh established two colonies on Roanoke Island; of these one vanished and the other returned to England. In 1660, permanent settlers arrived from Virginia. North Carolina fought with the Confederacy during the Civil War. North Carolina is known for being the place where man first took flight; on December 17, 1903, the Wright brothers flew their plane for 12 seconds at Kitty Hawk.
WNorth Dakota: Peace Garden State
November 2, 1889
CAPITAL: Bismarck JOINED UNION: November 2, 1889 STATE BIRD: Western Meadowlark STATE FLOWER: Wild Prairie Rose MEANING OF STATE NAME: Dakota is the Sioux Indian word for "friend" 1992 POPULATION: 635,927 RANK FOR POPULATION: 47 LAND AREA: 68,994 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 17 ECONOMY: Grains, farm equipment, mining, tourism HISTORY: Home to the Sioux Indians, North Dakota was explored by French trapper Pierre La Verendrye in 1738. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 gave America half of North Dakota; the other half came in 1818 from England. Reached in 1832 by Missouri River steamboats and by railroad in 1873, North Dakota was settled by Scottish and Irish immigrants, and later by Scandinavians. Farming has always been dominant in the state and today its plowed fields also house some of America's intercontinental ballistic missile sites.
uNebraska: Cornhusker State
March 1, 1867
CAPITAL: Lincoln JOINED UNION: March 1, 1867 STATE BIRD: Western Meadowlark STATE FLOWER: Goldenrod MEANING OF STATE NAME: Name based on an Oto Indian word that means "flat water," referring to the Platte River 1992 POPULATION: 1,605,603 RANK FOR POPULATION: 36 LAND AREA: 76,878 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 15 ECONOMY: Wheat, corn, rye, livestock, cattle, meatpacking, transportation equipment, instruments HISTORY: Home to Pawnee and other Plains Indians before Spanish and French explorers and fur traders visited the area. Part of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase, Nebraska's first settlement was at Bellevue in 1823. The 1862 Homestead Act opened the state to pioneers and immigrant settlers. Nebraska hosted the Oregon Trail and the transcontinental railroad began at Omaha in 1865. Today, Nebraska's high school and college football teams are among the best in the nation.
New Hampshire: Granite State
June 21, 1788
CAPITAL: Concord JOINED UNION: June 21, 1788 STATE BIRD: Purple Finch STATE FLOWER: Purple Lilac MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named in 1630 by Captain John Mason after his home county in England 1992 POPULATION: 1,110,801 RANK FOR POPULATION: 41 LAND AREA: 8,969 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 44 ECONOMY: Tourism, leather goods, electronics, plastics, maple syrup and sugar, fabricated metal products. HISTORY: Home to Mohawk and other Indian tribes before the English made a settlement in 1623 near the present port of Rye. Fighting between settlers and Indians continued until 1759 when the Indians were defeated. New Hampshire delegates were the first to vote for the Declaration of Independence in 1776. A state whose motto is "Live free or die," New Hampshire residents are fiercely independent. Today, the state hosts the first primary in each presidential election. The state's picturesque landscape, quaint covered bridges, and country inns draw many tourists each year, especially when the leaves change color in autumn.
ôNew Jersey: Garden State
December 18, 1787
CAPITAL: Trenton JOINED UNION: December 18, 1787 STATE BIRD: Eastern Goldfinch STATE FLOWER: Purple Violet MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after England's Isle of Jersey 1992 POPULATION: 7,789,060 RANK FOR POPULATION: 9 LAND AREA: 7,419 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 46 ECONOMY: Chemicals, commercial fishing, trade, fabricated metals, services. HISTORY: Home to Delaware Indians, who got along well with the early Dutch settlers who had founded New Netherland and the English, who took over and organized the area as an English colony in 1665. Many wars of the Revolution took place in New Jersey. The Civil War saw New Jersey remain with the Union, while many state residents supported the Confederate cause. During the Industrial Revolution of the 1800s, New Jersey was home to many manufacturing plants. Today, New Jersey hosts the Miss America Pageant at Atlantic City, where gambling at casinos is legal.
╛New Mexico: Land of Enchantment
January 6, 1912
CAPITAL: Santa Fe JOINED UNION: January 6, 1912 STATE BIRD: Roadrunner STATE FLOWER: Yucca MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named by the Spanish for lands north of the Rio Grande River 1992 POPULATION: 1,581,227 RANK FOR POPULATION: 37 LAND AREA: 121,364 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 5 ECONOMY: Tourism, agriculture, energy research, mining HISTORY: Indians lived here about 10,000 years ago; more recently the Navajo, Hopi, Apache, and Comanche Indians lived in New Mexico and, today, the Navajo have a large reservation in the state. In 1539, Franciscan Marcos de Niza and his black slave Estevan explored for gold in the area. Settlements began in 1598 at San Juan Pueblo and in 1610 at Santa Fe. New Mexico became a province of Mexico in the 1820s and trade along the Santa Fe Trail to Missouri began in 1821. New Mexico was won by the U.S. as a result of the Mexican War. During the Civil War, the Confederacy took much of the area. In the 1870s there were cattle wars. In 1945, Los Alamos was the sight of the first atomic bomb test, right before the weapon was used on Japan. Today, artists have established Santa Fe as a main center of galleries in America and the many Indian pueblos draw tourists as well.
Nevada: Silver State
October 31, 1864
CAPITAL: Carson City JOINED UNION: October 31, 1864 STATE BIRD: Mountain Bluebird STATE FLOWER: Sagebrush MEANING OF STATE NAME: Spanish word for "snow-clad" 1992 POPULATION: 1,327,387 RANK FOR POPULATION: 38 LAND AREA: 109,806 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 7 ECONOMY: Gambling, marriage and divorce, tourism, mining HISTORY: Home to Paiute and Shoshone Indians, the Spanish explored Nevada in 1776, but it was not until 1820 that white settlers and traders discovered the area. Kit Carson explored the Sierra Nevada and Great Basin in the 1840s and, in 1848, the U.S. acquired Nevada after the Mexican-American War. In 1849, Mormon Station became the first settlement. Discovery of large veins of silver in 1858 gave rise to a Silver Rush in towns like Virginia City. A rush of a different kind occurred after 1931, the year that gambling and quick divorces became legal. Cities like Las Vegas and Reno draw millions of tourists and conventioneers each year with top entertainment acts and gambling. Similarly, many people go to Nevada for quick marriages and for quick divorces. A very dry state with low annual rainfall, Nevada has few inhabitants and has become a dumping ground for government and industrial toxic waste -- something many Nevada residents are fighting.
≈New York: Empire State
July 26, 1788
CAPITAL: Albany JOINED UNION: July 26, 1788 STATE BIRD: Bluebird STATE FLOWER: Rose MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after England's Duke of York 1992 POPULATION: 18,119,416 POPULATION RANK: 2 LAND AREA: 47,224 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 30 ECONOMY: Foreign trade, fashion, broadcasting, publishing, tourism, finance, pharmaceuticals, toys and sporting goods, agriculture, theatrical production HISTORY: Home to Indian tribes like the Mohegan, New York was settled by the Dutch in 1614 near Albany after Henry Hudson discovered the area in 1609. In 1626, the Dutch settled Manhattan. England captured New Netherland in 1664 and many Revolutionary War battles were fought in the state. In the 1800s, New York became the receiver of millions of European immigrants who came to America through Ellis Island in New York harbor. Today, New York is the heart of American theater, with Broadway as its capital. In addition to the Broadway hits, hundreds of off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway plays are produced here.
<Ohio: Buckeye State
March 1, 1803
CAPITAL: Columbus JOINED UNION: March 1, 1803 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Scarlet Carnation MEANING OF STATE NAME: From the Iroquois Indian word for "good river" 1992 POPULATION: 11,016,385 RANK FOR POPULATION: 7 LAND AREA: 40,953 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 35 ECONOMY: Transportation equipment, grains, trade, metal products HISTORY: Home to Indians like the Shawnee, Ohio was visited by French explorer La Salle in 1669. Fighting between Indians and settlers existed throughout the Revolution and into the 1790s. U.S. forces under Commodore Perry defeated the British in the Battle of Lake Erie during the War of 1812. Ohio has been the home of eight U.S. presidents: William Harrison, Ulysses Grant, James Garfield, Rutherford B. Hayes, William McKinley, Warren Harding, William Taft, and Benjamin Harrison.
½Oklahoma: Sooner State
November 16, 1907
CAPITAL: Oklahoma City JOINED UNION: November 16, 1907 STATE BIRD: Scissor-tailed Flycatcher STATE FLOWER: Mistletoe MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on Choctaw Indian words for "red man" 1992 POPULATION: 3,212,198 RANK FOR POPULATION: 28 LAND AREA: 68,679 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 18 ECONOMY: Oil exploration, petroleum, publishing, grains HISTORY: The first white explorers in the area were Spanish. Oklahoma became part of the United States in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase. Plains Indians, like the Comanche and Osage, had hunted buffalo in this area for centuries. Then, in 1838, Cherokee Indians were forcibly removed from their Georgia homeland and relocated by U.S. troops to Oklahoma in a march called the "Trail of Tears." Oklahoma became known to white settlers as Indian Territory. It was home to the Cherokee, Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole -- known as the "Five Civilized Tribes." Homestead acts and land runs in the late 1800s opened Indian lands to white settlers and forced Indians out. Oklahoma was hit by drought in the 1930s and the dry, unfertile land forced many farmers to move away from Oklahoma in search of work. Oil revitalized the state economy.
τOregon: Beaver State
February 14, 1859
CAPITAL: Salem JOINED UNION: February 14, 1859 STATE BIRD: Western Meadowlark STATE FLOWER: Oregon Grape MEANING OF STATE NAME: Origin and meaning of name unknown 1992 POPULATION: 2,977,331 RANK FOR POPULATION: 29 LAND AREA: 96,003 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 10 ECONOMY: Commercial fishing, lumber and wood products, tourism, high technology HISTORY: Indians lived in Oregon 10,000 years ago and were fishing the state's waters for salmon when Captain James Cook sailed its coastline in the 1770s, looking for the Northwest Passage. Captain Robert Gray of America discovered the Columbia River in 1792, while Lewis and Clark explored it in 1805-06. Settlers began arriving in Oregon in 1843 on the famous Oregon Trail. The discovery of gold in the 1850s brought people to Oregon and those who stayed began to farm and ranch the area. Today, Oregon residents are among the most environmentally conscious of American citizens, taking great pride in their state's forests, lakes, and waters.
ÆPennsylvania: Keystone State
December 12, 1787
CAPITAL: Harrisburg JOINED UNION: December 12, 1787 STATE BIRD: Ruffed Grouse STATE FLOWER: Mountain Laurel MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named in honor of Admiral William Penn, father of the state's founder, William Penn 1992 POPULATION: 12,009,361 RANK FOR POPULATION: 5 LAND AREA: 44,820 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 33 ECONOMY: Steel, machinery, agriculture, foods, health HISTORY: Indians in this area greeted William Penn, who visited in 1861 to found a colony of religious freedom for his fellow Quakers. In turn, Penn included the Indians in his plan for building Philadelphia as a city of "brotherly love," where all would be accepted. Philadelphia has been called the "cradle of liberty," because it was the capital of the Colonies during the Revolution. It is here that states signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the U.S. Constitution in 1787. During the Civil War, Pennsylvania was the site of the terrible, and significant, Battle of Gettysburg. While one of the most industrial and modern of American states, Pennsylvania also is home to the Pennsylvania Dutch, or Amish, who continue to live as their ancestors have for hundreds of years.
GRhode Island: Ocean State
May 29, 1790
CAPITAL: Providence JOINED UNION: May 29, 1790 STATE BIRD: Rhode Island Red STATE FLOWER: Violet MEANING OF STATE NAME: Possibly named in honor of the Greek Island of Rhodes 1992 POPULATION: 1,005,091 RANK FOR POPULATION: 43 LAND AREA: 1,045 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 50 ECONOMY: Costume jewelry, textiles, silverware, electronics HISTORY: Home to the Narragansett Indians, Rhode Island began when Roger Williams was exiled from the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1636 for his belief in the separation of church and state. Anne Hutchinson, exiled from the Bay Colony in 1638, helped found the state. Stressing religious tolerance, Rhode Island gave refuge to Quakers and Jews when all around them were Puritans. Rhode Island was the first colony to declare independence from England and it refused to partake of the War of 1812. During the 1890s, wealthy industrialists like the Vanderbilts built magnificent mansions at Newport and these are still tourist attractions today. Present-day Newport is known for its yacht races which attract some of the best boats and crews in the world.
MSouth Carolina: Palmetto State
May 23, 1788
CAPITAL: Columbia JOINED UNION: May 23, 1788 STATE BIRD: Carolina Wren STATE FLOWER: Carolina Jessamine MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named in honor of England's King Charles I 1992 POPULATION: 3,603,227 RANK FOR POPULATION: 25 LAND AREA: 30,111 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 40 ECONOMY: Textiles, tourism, chemicals, clothes, agriculture HISTORY: Home to Indian tribes like the Pedee, South Carolina was explored by the French and Spanish in the 1500s, but never settled. In 1670, the English made the state's first settlement on the Ashley River and moved themselves to Charleston in 1680. South Carolina was the first state to secede from the Union and saw much fighting during the Civil War, beginning with Fort Sumter in 1861. Today, South Carolina's coastal beaches are home to luxurious resorts like Hilton Head Island and Myrtle Beach.
≡South Dakota: Coyote State
November 2, 1889
CAPITAL: Pierre JOINED UNION: November 2, 1889 STATE BIRD: Ring-necked Pheasant STATE FLOWER: Pasqueflower MEANING OF STATE NAME: Dakota is a Sioux Indian word for "friend" 1992 POPULATION: 711,154 RANK FOR POPULATION: 45 LAND AREA: 75,898 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 16 ECONOMY: Honey, oats, gold mining HISTORY: Indian fortresses have been found here dating to 1250 A.D. and South Dakota was home to Sioux Indians when French explorers arrived in 1743. Fort Pierre became the state's first permanent settlement in 1817. The discovery of gold in 1874 on the Sioux Reservation in the Black Hills brought people to the area. Fighting between newly arrived whites and native Sioux followed, which ended in the bloody massacre of Indians by U.S. troops at Wounded Knee in 1890. Discoveries of dinosaur fossils in the state's Badlands have excited scientists and drawn tourists; Mount Rushmore is another big tourist attraction. South Dakota is known as both the Coyote State and Mount Rushmore State.
∙Tennessee: Volunteer State
June 1, 1796
CAPITAL: Nashville JOINED UNION: June 1, 1796 STATE BIRD: Mockingbird STATE FLOWER: Iris MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after Cherokee Indian villages called "Tanasi" 1992 POPULATION: 5,023,990 RANK FOR POPULATION: 17 LAND AREA: 41,220 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 34 ECONOMY: Tobacco, chemicals, leather goods, textiles, electrical machinery, finance, insurance HISTORY: Home to Cherokee and Chickasaw Indians, Tennessee was visited by Spanish explorers in 1541 and by English traders around 1673. The first permanent settlement was by Virginians in 1769. Tennessee was the last state to secede from the Union and some 30,000 of its men fought for the Union. Nashville, the state's capital, is the home of the Grand Ole Opry, showcase of country music.
∩Texas: Lone Star State
December 29, 1845
CAPITAL: Austin JOINED UNION: December 29, 1845 STATE BIRD: Mockingbird STATE FLOWER: Bluebonnet MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on a word used by Caddo Indians meaning "friends" 1992 POPULATION: 17,655,650 RANK FOR POPULATION: 3 LAND AREA: 261,914 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 2 ECONOMY: Oil, cotton, cattle and sheep, tourism, commercial fishing, machinery HISTORY: Home to Comanche and Atakapa Indians, among others, Texas was first visited by Spanish explorers Cabeza de Vaca and Coronado in 1541. The Spanish settled near El Paso in 1682 and, while Americans settled in Texas in the early 1800s, the state became part of Mexico in 1821. Santa Anna then became ruler of Texas in 1835 and when Texans rebelled, Santa Anna attacked and destroyed their stronghold at the Alamo in 1836. That same year, Santa Anna was defeated and Texas proclaimed independence, soon becoming part of the U.S. Because of Texas's vast size, folklore has Texans doing everything bigger than in any of the other states: driving bigger cars, drilling bigger oil wells, etc. Texas cattle drives gave birth to the American cowboy in the late 1800s, and today the state hosts a different kind of travel: NASA Space Center where astronauts are monitored during their space missions.
TUtah: Beehive State
January 4, 1896
CAPITAL: Salt Lake City JOINED UNION: January 4, 1896 STATE BIRD: Seagull STATE FLOWER: Sego Lily MEANING OF STATE NAME: Taken from the name of the Ute Indians, whose name means "people of the mountains" 1992 POPULATION: 1,813,116 RANK FOR POPULATION: 34 LAND AREA: 82,168 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 11 ECONOMY: Tourism, aerospace research and construction, food products, electronics, agriculture HISTORY: Home of the Ute and Paiute Indians, Utah was first explored by Spanish monks in 1776. Most influential in the state's development were Mormon refugees from religious persecution in the East, who settled Salt Lake City in 1847. While others had shunned Utah's dry desert land, the Mormons made the land bloom through hard work. Admission of Utah to the U.S. was not achieved until after the Mormon Church ended its support of polygamy, the practice of a man having more than one wife. National parks like Zion, Arches, and Bryce draw many tourists each year and top filmmakers flock to the Sundance Institute in the mountains outside of Salt Lake City, where independent films are nurtured.
░Virginia: Old Dominion
June 25, 1788
CAPITAL: Richmond JOINED UNION: June 25, 1788 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Dogwood MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named for England's "Virgin Queen," Elizabeth I 1992 POPULATION: 6,377,141 RANK FOR POPULATION: 12 LAND AREA: 39,598 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 36 ECONOMY: Tobacco, peanuts, sweet potatoes, turkeys, hams, coal mining, tourism, textiles, government HISTORY: Home to Powhatan Indians, in 1607 Virginia received the first permanent English settlement in America: Jamestown. It is also the state where slavery was first introduced to America in 1619. Early American presidents, Thomas Jefferson and George Washington, had estates in Virginia, which draw tourists today.
╬Vermont: Green Mountain State
March 4, 1791
CAPITAL: Montpelier JOINED UNION: March 4, 1791 STATE BIRD: Hermit Thrush STATE FLOWER: Red Clover MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on "verts monts," French for green mountains 1992 POPULATION: 569,784 RANK FOR POPULATION: 49 LAND AREA: 9,249 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 43 ECONOMY: Maple syrup, tourism, dairy, furniture, computer parts, fishing rods, quarrying of marble and granite HISTORY: Home to Mohawk Indians, among others, Samuel de Champlain explored Vermont in 1609 and claimed it for France. After the French and Indian War, England took control of the region. Vermont was the first state outside of the original 13 colonies to join the Union. Today, Vermont is a major ski center on the East Coast.
«Washington: Evergreen State
November 11, 1889
CAPITAL: Olympia JOINED UNION: November 11, 1889 STATE BIRD: Willow Goldfinch STATE FLOWER: Rhododendron MEANING OF STATE NAME: Named after George Washington 1992 POPULATION: 5,135,731 RANK FOR POPULATION: 16 LAND AREA: 66,582 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 20 ECONOMY: Hydropower, aerospace, lumber and wood products, apples, wheat, commercial fishing HISTORY: Home to the Yakima and Spokane Indian tribes, among others, Washington was explored by American, Spanish, French, English, and Russians during the late 1700s and early 1800s. Fur traders helped shape the state, establishing Spokane House in 1810, and under John Jacob Astor, Fort Okanogan in 1811. In 1845, America and England agreed on the border between Washington and Canada. The discovery of gold in 1855 brought more people to the state. In recent years, Seattle has become one of America's most desirable cities to live in, with people moving there from other states.
>Wisconsin: Badger State
May 29, 1848
CAPITAL: Madison JOINED UNION: May 29, 1848 STATE BIRD: Robin STATE FLOWER: Wood Violet MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on an Indian word "Ouisconsin" believed to mean "grassy place" in the Cheppewa tongue 1992 POPULATION: 5,006,591 RANK FOR POPULATION: 18 LAND AREA: 54,314 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 26 ECONOMY: Milk, butter and cheese, lumber and wood products, livestock, transportation equipment, tourism, government HISTORY: Home to the Winnebago Indians, the French were the first Europeans to explore Wisconsin; Jean Nicolet seeing Green Bay in 1634, with fur traders following him. England took over Wisconsin in 1763 and didn't really leave until after the War of 1812. The growth of railroads, starting in 1851, brought more people to the area and helped farms and iron mines to prosper. Milwaukee is known for its beer, and the state for its cheeses -- the result of the city being home to many German and Scandinavian immigrants. Wisconsin has often led America in progressive social legislation: pensions for the blind and unemployment compensation, among others.
West Virginia: Mountain State
June 20, 1863
CAPITAL: Charleston JOINED UNION: June 20, 1863 STATE BIRD: Cardinal STATE FLOWER: Rhododendron MEANING OF STATE NAME: Like Virginia, named after England's Queen Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen" 1992 POPULATION: 1,812,194 RANK FOR POPULATION: 35 LAND AREA: 24,087 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 41 ECONOMY: Coal, tourism, plastic products, aluminum, steel HISTORY: West Virginia shared its early history with Virginia, of which it was a part until 1861. The secession from the Union gave Virginia's western counties the opportunity to form their own government and state. Coal played an important role in West Virginia's history, and in the history of America's labor movement. Bitter strikes by miners and subsequent violent confrontations with company security forces, shaped the state.
dWyoming: Equality State
July 10, 1890
CAPITAL: Cheyenne JOINED UNION: July 10, 1890 STATE BIRD: Meadowlark STATE FLOWER: Indian Paintbrush MEANING OF STATE NAME: Based on an Algonquin or Delaware Indian word meaning "large prairie place" 1992 POPULATION: 466,185 RANK FOR POPULATION: 50 LAND AREA: 97,105 square miles RANK IN SIZE IN UNION: 9 ECONOMY: Mining, oil, natural gas, tourism, recreation, wool HISTORY: The least-populated state in America, Wyoming was populated by Santee and Dakota Indians, among others, before white settlers arrived. Frenchmen were the first to come in 1743, and American John Colter explored Yellowstone Park in 1807. Wyoming became part of America in 1803 with the Louisiana Purchase. Forts Laramie and Bridger in Wyoming were main stops on pioneer trails heading West. Indian wars grew as settlers and railroads crept onto Indian lands. In 1869, Wyoming became the first state to give women the right to vote. With Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks and miles of uninhabited land, Wyoming is a favorite destination of sportsmen and tourists seeking some "Western flavor" on a dude ranch or by a quiet mountain stream.
RThe Natural Home
1909
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Known as the Robie House and completed in 1909, this Frank Lloyd Wright home is an example of the famous architect's "prairie style." Built with long, sweeping lines that hug the land, the house expresses the low-lying plains of America's Midwest.
Born in Wisconsin in 1867, Wright became one of America's foremost architects and, until he died in 1959, he continually pushed himself and world architecture into new and exciting shapes.
He was a student of Louis Sullivan, a Chicago architect noted for his airy skyscrapers. Sullivan believed that "form follows function." This means that the design of a building should flow naturally from the building's intended use. In the past, architects often imposed a popular design on a building so that, for instance, a skyscraper might look like a log cabin.
Wright believed that buildings should be "natural" and "organic" with free-flowing space, in which man could move around. Often, his homes used lots of natural wood and had large walls of glass which allowed nature outside the house to appear to be part of the house's inside. This interweaving of a building's interior and exterior is part of Wright's style.
Later in life, Wright moved to the Arizona desert where he designed buildings suited for that area's more spartan environment, always making use of natural materials.
⌡Home To America's Gold
1936
FORT KNOX, KENTUCKY
There's a reason why people, when asked for money, reply, "What do you think I am...Fort Knox?" Fort Knox, an army base, is best known as the home of America's gold, worth more than $6 billion. While people may dream of being as rich as Fort Knox, few ever achieve that status. Fort Knox became the gold depository in 1936 and during World War II it housed the United States Constitution and the Declaration of Independence for safekeeping.
It used to be that all of America's money was backed by gold, and that individuals could turn in their paper money for gold, if they wished. This ended in 1934, when America decided not to make gold coins and not to redeem paper money for gold. At the same time, the United States government took possession of all the country's gold, later putting it into Fort Knox.
Today, there is no longer one fixed price for gold. Instead, it is bought and sold in a market, much like stocks, with the price changing according to politics and the economy.
The Fourth On The Eighth
July 8, 1776
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
The first American Independence Day celebration was not on the Fourth of July, but the Eighth of July, 1776.
On the Fourth, the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence, telling the world that "these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be, Free and Independent States."
Four days later, in Philadelphia, there was a parade with cannons and the ringing of the Liberty Bell.
The next year Philadelphia celebrated again -- this time on July 4th with a parade, guns, bells, and fireworks. By the end of the Revolutionary War, soldiers returning home carried the idea of the celebration with them.
Since then, Independence Day is celebrated each Fourth of July throughout the United States with fireworks, games, and patriotic displays.
┘Franklin's Many Talents
1752
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Flying a kite in a lightning storm is dumb. But the first person to try that dangerous experiment was brilliant.
When Benjamin Franklin flew his kite in 1752, he wanted to know if lightning was electricity. He risked his life to find out that it is, then made good use of his discovery by inventing the lightning rod.
Franklin was born in 1706, the third youngest of 17 children. He was an accomplished printer and writer, he published a newspaper, an almanac, served as Philadelphia's postmaster, established the city's first library and fire department, reformed the police department, had the streets paved, and founded the city's schools. He studied ocean currents, invented bifocal lenses, and the Franklin stove.
He helped draft the Declaration of Independence and helped persuade France to aid the Americans during the Revolutionary War, thus ensuring its success.
But perhaps his crowning performance was at the Constitutional Convention. Big states wanted representation according to population, while small states wanted equal representation for each state. Franklin proposed the solution: two houses of Congress, one based on equal representation for each state and one based on population.
¢A Quarter Of Their Own
1836
FRENCH IMMIGRATION
The French Quarter in New Orleans is a famous tourist attraction. With its cast-iron balconies and courtyards, the Quarter hasn't lost the feeling of the French settlers who established it in 1836.
Early French explorers had established a base in Florida, but lost it to the Spanish. Later, Frenchman La Salle scouted America's Mississippi River and the Quebec region of Canada.
The French first started coming to America in 1685, when the Catholic-controlled French government persecuted French Protestants, called Huguenots. Most of these Huguenots came to South Carolina in search of religious freedom. A handful of French settled in Louisiana in 1699.
Then, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, the French Revolution motivated many to flee France for the newly developed United States of America. The French-owned Louisiana Territory drew many French immigrants to its capital city, New Orleans. The city retained its French flavor even after America bought the Territory in 1803.
In the 1980s, America began a love affair with French food and culture and the croissant -- staple of French bakeries -- became available at American supermarkets.
< Blazing The Way West
1750
IN THE AMERICAN FRONTIER
American history is forever linked with the settlement of the frontier -- and the frontier was always just west of the newest settlement. From 1750 through 1890, Americans left the safety of the Atlantic Coast states and traveled over mountain and stream, across river and desert, in search of fame, or fortune, or just a new start in life. It was the frontier which gave rise to how Americans like to look at themselves: rugged individuals who conquer all obstacles. It gave Americans their legends of adventure and romance and the desire to see what's over the next hill.
The people came west via wagon and cart, keelboat, and riverboat, by railroad, horse, and foot. They were explorers, mountain men, soldiers, missionaries, railroaders, cattlemen, sheepherders, and farmers -- all seeking different things from the land and all dooming forever the way of life of Native Americans, who ended up on land no one wanted, called reservations.
And with the men came the pioneer women, who suffered terribly from the never-ending hard work, childbearing, sickness, and fear of Indian attacks. Many lived a lonely life, where the nearest neighbor might be 40 miles away. But somehow they survived and brought civilization where there had only been wilderness.
And leading the way for all the settlers to follow were the explorers -- men like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett who would become world-famous, plus many others who accomplished much, but never achieved the same amount of fame.
Boone, born Nov. 2, 1734, in Pennsylvania, opened up Kentucky for settlement between 1767 and 1784. He founded towns, served in the legislature, and became the most famous hunter and explorer of his time. As new settlers moved into the land he had opened, Boone moved further west and finally died in Missouri on Sept. 26, 1820.
Davy Crockett was not an explorer, but was what most people thought a frontiersman should be like. Born August 17, 1786, in Limestone, Tennessee, he received little education, but became a skilled hunter, scout, and woodsman. He served under General Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians in Alabama in 1813-14, and was elected a colonel in the Tennessee militia. Davy was so popular that he was elected to Congress. It was in Washington that America first saw him dressed in buckskin clothes, a coonskin cap, and got to know his rifle called "Old Betsy." Defeated for re-election in 1835, Davy took some friends and headed for the new lands in Texas, then part of Mexico. In Texas he backed the American settlers in their revolt against the Mexican government and died with 184 other defenders of the Alamo at San Antonio on March 6, 1836.
Other famous "pathfinders" who led the way west included Army officers John C. Fremont and Zebulon Pike (for whom Pike's Peak near Denver, Colorado, is named); Kit Carson, who was Fremont's guide; Jim Bridger, who was king of the Mountain Men and set up Fort Bridger, an important stop on the Oregon Trail; and John Colter, who took part in the Lewis and Clark expedition and later discovered what is now Yellowstone National Park.
rMr. Watson, Come Here
1875
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, always had an interest in sound. His father taught deaf mutes to speak and Alexander himself taught music and speech.
After moving with his family to North America from Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1847, Bell opened a school in Boston for teachers of the deaf.
Because of his interest in sound, Bell performed experiments on electrically transmitting sound over distances, and at age 27 he had worked out the basic principles and obtained a patent. Then, in the summer of 1875, Bell communicated to his assistant Thomas Watson the first intelligible message over an electrical wire: "Mr. Watson, come here. I want you!"
The story is told that later in his life, Bell continued performing scientific experiments, but much to his annoyance he was often disturbed -- by his own invention, the telephone.
φThe Deutsch Become Dutch
1992
GERMAN IMMIGRATION
Driving through Lancaster County in Pennsylvania today, it is possible to see people living exactly as their German ancestors did almost 300 years ago. The Amish people of the Pennsylvania Dutch live without benefit of modern technology and dress in plain clothes for religious reasons, the same reasons that caused their people to come to America.
With war waging in Europe, Germans flocked to America around 1710, many of them settling in Pennsylvania, where William Penn had established a colony with religious tolerance. Calling themselves "Deutsch," German for "German," the name was shortened to "Dutch" and they became known as the Pennsylvania Dutch. They worked hard and developed a reputation as being great farmers.
In the 1720s, Swiss religious leader Jakob Ammann brought his people to Pennsylvania. They became known as the Amish, after Ammann. Believing that plain living brings people closer to God, the Amish today do not drive cars, have television, or wear modern clothes.
In the 1830s and between 1860 and 1892, there were two more large waves of German immigration. These Germans left home due to overpopulation, the desire to own their own land, and a search for political freedom. Many of this second and third wave of Germans had enough money to travel to the Midwest and buy land. They settled near Milwaukee, St. Louis, and Cincinnati. Some also settled in farming regions of Texas.
The 1980 Census listed Germans as the second largest ethnic group in America.
=Ultimate Battle Cry
1877
SAN CARLOS RESERVATION, ARIZONA
European settlers, beginning with the Pilgrims, established towns on Indian lands, causing conflicts with some of the natives. Europeans came to view Indians as savages out to kill them, not human beings with their own highly evolved cultures and religions.
It was true, though, that some tribes put a high value on battle skills. One of the most famous warriors was Geronimo, whose name has become a battle cry for fighters ever since.
Born in 1829 in what is now western New Mexico, Geronimo was a member of the Nednais tribe, a southern band of Chiricahua Apaches. In Apache he was called "Goyaale," meaning "the smart one." "Geronimo" is a Mexican name meaning "Jerome" in Spanish.
Around 1877, the U.S. government responded to white complaints about Apaches and herded Geronimo's tribe onto the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. Geronimo escaped from the reservation and led savage fighting by Apaches against U.S. troops in New Mexico and northern Mexico. In 1880, he was returned to the reservation.
In 1882, Geronimo and fellow Apaches escaped to Mexico's Sierra Madre Mountains, where they established camps from which they made raids on their opponents.
In 1883, Geronimo and his group surrendered to U.S. forces and were moved in 1884 to the White Mountain Reservation near San Carlos, Arizona. They escaped in 1885, but surrendered again the next year.
Geronimo was moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma in 1894. He took up ranching, appeared as a celebrity at the St. Louis World's Fair, and died in 1909.
Along with Indian warriors like Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapas, Red Cloud of the Oglala Sioux, and Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, Geronimo led his people to resist attempts by white people to steal their land and drive them onto reservations. Their attempts ultimately failed.
▐Fourscore and Seven...
November 20, 1863
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS: Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battle field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of it as that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate -- we cannot consecrate -- we cannot hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion for that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
░Emperor Norton's Bridge
1933 to 1937
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
In 1869, the Oakland Daily News published a suggestion by Joshua Norton -- a local eccentric known to himself as Norton I, Emperor of the United States and Protector of Mexico -- that a bridge be built across the Golden Gate just north of San Francisco, California.
Nobody took Norton's claim to a throne seriously, but his bridge plan had merit. Though it took a while, his idea caught on and construction began on the Golden Gate Bridge in February 1933.
The massive, bright orange structure was designed by bridge-builder Joseph B. Strauss. It is a mile long and features cables that can each hold 200 million pounds, 746-foot-high towers that are the tallest in the world, and a main span that is 4,200 feet long.
For 27 years after its completion in 1937, the $37 million bridge was the longest suspension bridge in the world. Today it is superseded by the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York Harbor.
BThere She Goes!
1952
A TEXAS RANCH, TEXAS
When the novel "Giant" was published in 1952, author Edna Ferber had already won a Pulitzer Prize for her book "So Big," about a high prairie farm wife and her son. Using the same vivid skills of storytelling and regional description that won her the Pulitzer, Ferber crafted a wonderful tale about the people and land of Texas in "Giant."
Later made into a hit movie starring Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean, "Giant" takes place on a two-and-a-half-million acre Texas ranch owned by Bick Benedict. Texas, its people and its customs, are viewed in the book through the eyes of Leslie Benedict, Bick's new bride from Virginia. It is through her eager, yet Eastern, eyes that we see the wide-open spaces, cattle herds, and oil gushers, and we are introduced to a unique way of life.
With most things done on a giant scale, Texas' unique circumstances have given it a personality all its own within the United States: close to Mexico and absorbing some of its flavor and people, influenced by cowboys who herd the cattle that first gave Texans their wealth, and landscaped with oil derricks that pump black gold from the earth and make instant millionaires of their owners.
Ferber has a knack for writing about different regions of the country and grasping each one's special quality and people, while entertaining as she goes. Those interested in learning more about Alaska should read her "Ice Palace." To learn about Oklahoma's land rush and oil boom, read her "Cimarron," and for insight into the making of fortunes in the 1880s, read her "Saratoga Trunk."
$Wildlife Home
1980
GLACIER BAY NATIONAL PARK, ALASKA
When George Vancouver explored Alaska's coast in 1794, Glacier Bay didn't exist. Instead of an inlet, Vancouver found a solid wall of ice hundreds of feet high with ice blocks crashing into the sea.
Since then, the glacial ice block Vancouver saw has retreated. Today we can sail more than 65 miles into an inlet to watch the ice's continuing changes. Here it is possible to get a glimpse of what life must have been like during the Ice Age.
Made a national park in 1980, Glacier Bay is home to the largest population of harbor seals on the Pacific Coast. Here, the adaptive seals give birth to their pups each Spring on the icebergs that drift through the bay.
The bay also hosts killer whales, who sometimes eat seals, and is the summer home for humpbacked whales, who migrate here each year from Hawaii. Humpbacked whales reach lengths of 50 feet and can weigh about 45 tons. Despite their huge size, the humpbacked whales tend to feed on tiny marine creatures, which they scoop up in large mouthfuls of seawater.
California, Here I Come!
January 24, 1848
SUTTER'S MILL, CALIFORNIA
While building a sawmill for Johann Sutter on California's American River, James Marshall spotted yellow flecks in the water. It was gold. Soon the word that gold had been found in California was in all the country's newspapers. In 1849, close to one-hundred thousand people rushed West to make their fortune. This was the great California Gold Rush and the people who went were called "Forty-niners."
Many people made the journey to California by land. Others made the trip by sea, journeying around the tip of South America or going to and from Panama by boat, or by taking a train between the Pacific and Atlantic coasts.
Over the next few years, over $200 million in gold was mined from California's hills. All that money and all those people led to the growth of violence among miners as people tried to steal each other's claims and gold.
The city of San Francisco grew dramatically from all the new people, as did the state. In 1850, one year after the "Forty-niners" arrived, California became the 31st state.
lGadfly To Big Business
1881
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
Headed by Samuel Gompers, workers came together in 1881 to form the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions. While smaller unions had gained some victories for workers during the previous 20 years, the 1880s marked the real growth period for American labor. Samuel Gompers, along with Eugene V. Debs, was a leading force in this movement.
Born in 1850 and a cigar maker by trade, Gompers focused his energies on New York's Lower East Side where "sweatshops," work areas with horrible conditions, existed. Gompers pushed for fewer hours, better wages, and safer work environments. At that time, mostly immigrant workers toiled long days for pennies. They worked in factories where unsafe equipment often took eyes and limbs of workers in job accidents, and lack of workers' compensation or insurance left them crippled and poor.
While Eugene Debs organized railway workers to strike for their rights, Gompers organized many different workers' unions into the American Federation of Labor (AFL). Gompers headed the AFL from 1886 to 1924 and successfully led strikes for eight-hour work days, the right of workers to bargain as a group, and safety reforms in mines and other work environments.
In 1886, the AFL had 150,000 members; in 1901 it had more than one million members. Gompers died in 1924. In 1955, the AFL joined with the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) to form the AFL-CIO, with 16 million members. Today, the AFL-CIO continues to represent workers in collective bargaining with employers and to work on behalf of workers' benefits, such as safe working conditions and health care.
¢Gone With The Wind
1936
PLANTATION DAYS IN GEORGIA
Published in 1936, 71 years after the end of the Civil War, "Gone With the Wind" chronicles the antebellum days of the Old South, its destruction during the war, and its subsequent "reconstruction." Author Margaret Mitchell won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for this romantic saga, which is one of the best-selling novels of all time. The book later became a hit motion picture.
The book's story centers around the mythical plantation Tara, home to the O'Hara family. Scarlett O'Hara, the beautiful and willful daughter of this plantation family, revels in all the dalliances of plantation life, completely oblivious to the politics that swirl around her. She awakens to real life when the Civil War tears her world apart, killing friends and family, and reducing her to poverty. General Sherman's destruction of Atlanta and the surrounding countryside are described, as are the influx of carpetbaggers who followed him.
Throughout the book, Scarlett has a romantic relationship with Rhett Butler, a dapper opportunist who is one of the few men in the South who sees through Scarlett's feminine wiles and admires her anyway. They marry, but Scarlett can never really let go of her longing for the Old South and in the end, she loses Rhett.
Today, it is possible to drive through Georgia, see the remaining grand plantation homes, and imagine what life was like there as described in "Gone With the Wind."
Blues And Spirituals Meet
1899
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
Traditionally, the term "gospel music" refers to any music of the church. In America however, the term generally refers to African-American music based in religion, but using some popular styles, such as ragtime and blues. American Thomas A. Dorsey is often considered the "father" of black gospel music.
Born in rural Georgia in 1899, Thomas Dorsey moved to Atlanta with his family in 1904. His father was a Baptist minister. Dorsey grew up playing music and started professionally at clubs throughout Atlanta. By 1916, he had moved to Chicago, where he became very involved in the blues, but retained his interest in spiritual music. In 1932, Dorsey gave up his popular music career and devoted himself to sacred music.
Working with major singers like Mahalia Jackson, Dorsey helped promote black gospel music and brought it into the world of popular music. Dorsey's songs became very popular during the Great Depression, when faith was sorely needed.
Unlike many other forms of music, American gospel encourages audience participation. This practice is based on the custom of "call and response" used by African slaves working on American plantations and later carried into their Christian religious services. The foreman, or minister, would call out a phrase or statement, and then the crew or congregation, would respond. This way, everyone was involved in the activity; there were no passive listeners.
Today, black gospel music remains a strong tradition in American music. It has been especially strong throughout the South, where many black people lived during and after the Civil War, and in large cities to which they migrated. Popular gospel groups, like the Andrae Crouch singers, have added sophistication to the form through their formal musical training.
ûDance Shows New Form
1935
NEW YORK CITY
An evening's dance performance used to mean seeing a ballet with gracefully pirouetting dancers in frothy costumes. While this form of dance is still prominent, in the 1930s a new style of dance emerged in America and became known as Modern Dance. Its most famous practitioner was Martha Graham.
Graham had her dancers make sharp angular movements instead of light and graceful ones. She dressed dancers in stark costumes of simple shape and understated color that called attention to their bodies. These movements, shapes, and colors allowed Graham's dancers to portray stark and simple emotions not often expressed in classical dance. Some of these emotions include fear, jealousy, anger, and hatred.
Assisting the development of Modern Dance, during and after Graham, was the growth of a new style of music that was less harmonious than that used in ballet. Instead of dancing to symphonies, Graham's dancers might move to a single cello or the clanging of bells. Composers in this genre include John Cage.
Today many dance troupes, such as Merce Cunningham's dancers and the group Pilobolus, follow in the tradition established by Martha Graham.
2Dust Bowl Disaster
1939
DUST BOWL OF OKLAHOMA
In the 1930s, drought and horrific dust storms turned the once-fertile agricultural lands of mid-America into virtual dust bowls and wastelands. Thousands of destitute farmers packed their families and belongings into and onto their cars and left their homes in search of agricultural work in central California. Their plight and the politics of that day are told in the novel "The Grapes of Wrath." Published in 1939 by California writer John Steinbeck, the book won the 1940 Pulitzer Prize. In 1962, Steinbeck won the Nobel Prize for literature.
In his book, Steinbeck champions the downtrodden migrants, as he follows the Joad family from Oklahoma to California. Tom Joad, eldest son, is the book's protagonist and his efforts to save his family are the core of the book's story, which went on to become a classic movie starring Henry Fonda in the role of Tom.
As Steinbeck writes in his book, "The moving, questing people were migrants now. Those families which had lived on a little piece of land, who had lived and died on forty acres, had now the whole West to rove in. And they scampered about, looking for work; and the highways were streams of people, and the ditch banks were lines of people."
Often called "Okies," a derogatory term, Dust Bowl immigrants like the fictional Joads did not get a warm welcome from California's farmers and politicians. The newcomers were herded into slum-like migrant camps, given low wages for back-breaking work, and treated like criminals. Much of this was an effort by local farmers to take advantage of a cheap labor pool and to prevent labor organizing that would raise wages. Much of it was the result of fear on the part of Californians who were faced with a huge influx of ragged families.
Whatever the cause, the result wasn't pretty. It shaped the development of the Midwest, which lost thousands of people and farms, and of California, which had to develop a new social order to handle the transplants. The problems faced by those from Oklahoma are not unlike those faced today by migrant workers from Mexico.
èBreakfast Of The South
1607
JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA
When English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1607, friendly Indians apparently greeted them with bowls of hot softened corn. The Indians called this dish "rockahominie." The settlers shortened this name to "hominy" and adopted this dish as part of their New World diet.
Hominy is made from dried, hulled corn kernels and grits are ground hominy. Together, hominy and grits are synonymous with Southern culture and are rarely found in the Northern part of the United States.
Traditionally, grits are served for breakfast and are often flavored with butter or gravy, baked with cheese or, sometimes, fried in bacon grease.
╞But It Looks So Cute
1876
KODIAK ISLAND, ALASKA
When California became a state in 1876, it put a picture of the grizzly bear on its flag. While the grizzly has been extinct in that state since the turn of the century, it still makes for a fierce state mascot. It would be an appropriate mascot for Alaska, where many of the bears live today.
"They're so cute," is how most people think of bears, but the grizzly is one bear you do not want to pet, or even get near. A grizzly bear can stand up to nine feet in height, weigh 800 pounds, run at 30 miles an hour, and crush a moose's skull with one swipe of its paw. Long sharp claws add to the reasons why humans should stay away from this animal.
Unlike black bears, a foraging grizzly is not afraid of animals or humans, and will attack them when hungry. Most of the bear's food is elk, deer, and cattle, as well as wild fruits and nuts, insects, and even fish when available.
Like other bears, the grizzly hibernates in winter, generally in high and remote north-facing slopes where it won't be disturbed.
Here it digs a den, lining it with evergreen boughs. During its winter sleep of five to six months, the grizzly gets no food or water. Amazingly, the grizzly lives off its accumulated fat.
Most grizzly births occur in January, and the hairless cubs weigh a pound or less at birth, requiring little milk for their small size. The cubs are dependent on their mother for almost a year and reach maturity in four years.
Protected by the 1973 Endangered Species Act, the grizzly bear is considered a success story as there are about 600 of the bears in the northern Montana Rockies, 300 or so in Yellowstone National Park, and a few in the Idaho panhandle. They are still prevalent in Alaska.
The Big Ditch
1919
GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, ARIZONA
When Congress made the Grand Canyon a national park in 1919, it ensured future generations the chance to gaze on this natural spectacle with the same awe that early Spanish conquistadors felt when first seeing it in 1540. Of course, Native Americans had been aware of the canyon for centuries.
The Hualapai lived within the canyon and believed a hero named Packithaawi made it when he struck deep into the earth with his knife to drain waters from a flood. The Havasupai, whose descendants live there today, also believed in an early flood and thought the river winding through the canyon carved its high walls. The Paiute thought the god Tavwoats cut the canyon to make a path to the land of joy beyond death; then he filled it with water so people wouldn't flee the troublesome present world for the pleasurable one beyond.
Scientists tell us that the Colorado River that runs through the Canyon's bottom is largely responsible for carving this vast gorge. Still, the Colorado River has only been in existence for 5-10 million years, and the canyon began about 65 million years ago. Natural uplifting of the earth's plateau contributed to forming the canyon. The complete story of this natural wonder is not known.
The size of the Grand Canyon makes other things seem insignificant. Consider these facts. To ride the stretch of the Colorado River running through the Canyon, is a journey of 277 miles. The distance between canyon walls bordering the river ranges from 18 miles, to less than one half mile. At times, the canyon reaches depths of 5,700 feet. Reaching the bottom requires a hike down a steep, narrow, and twisting trail. All of this within a park that really covers only 673,203 acres; not so large compared to other, less deep, parks.
The walls of the Grand Canyon expose millions of years of history, and the Colorado River has probably been running through this area for almost 10 million years.
Then there are the unique colors. Unlike peaks and valleys almost anywhere else, the Grand Canyon shows a brilliant palette of grays, browns, greens, ochres, deep reds, oranges, and golds.
For those who don't hike, burro rides are available to reach the canyon's bottom. Also, river rafting trips are scheduled through various sections of the Colorado River.
╟Inland Freshwater Seas
9000 BC
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
From the shores of this most modern American city, the view over Lake Michigan is impressive; the lake is so big one cannot see the opposite shore. This view is especially impressive, since it showcases an amazing piece of natural sculpting completed over 10,000 years ago.
Between 13,000 and 9,000 B.C., the massive glaciers of the northern ice cap receded. As they moved, these glaciers carved canyons where there were once stream beds. They flattened and compacted the earth as they went. Later, the melting glacial ice filled these newly formed troughs with water, making freshwater lakes.
The completed work of the glaciers is now appropriatetly known as the Great Lakes. Together, these five bodies of water cover more than 95,000 square miles. Named Lake Superior, Lake Michigan, Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Huron, the lakes are connected and continually fed by various rivers and straits. They drain from west to east, culminating in the St. Lawrence Seaway, which takes their waters out to the Atlantic Ocean.
The lakes are home to major American and Canadian cities, both sharing the lakes' shoreline and establishing ports for major trading and cargo ships: Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Chicago, Illinois; Detroit, Michigan; Cleveland, Ohio; Buffalo, New York; Toronto and Sault Ste. Marie of Canada, all share the lakes' shoreline.
Unfortunately, dumping of pollutants from these cities has caused damage to the lakes. One lake, Lake Erie, was pronounced "dead" a few years ago due to its inability to support aquatic life anymore. Concerted efforts by cities and people have brought renewed life to the lakes and strong environmental guidelines have been adopted to curtail further pollution.
íFrank Lloyd Wright's Design
1943
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The Guggenheim Museum in New York is home of one of the world's greatest collections of modern art. And fittingly, the building itself is a work of modern art.
Instead of the traditional rectangular building with various flat floors, architect Frank Lloyd Wright designed the museum as a six-story, circular, glass-domed structure with a spiral ramp surrounding a hollow core. This means art viewers can take the elevator to the top of the building and walk down the ramp to the bottom. There are no stairs to climb, no masses of rooms to get lost in, and no chance of missing a single piece of art.
The Guggenheim -- designed in 1943, but not completed until 1960 -- was one of the last major projects in Wright's remarkable architectural career.
Wright was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin, and studied engineering at the University of Wisconsin. After working as a draftsman, he set out on his own. His designs followed the work of other modern architects in rejecting the highly-ornamented design of the previous century, in favor of simplicity. These architects believed that the form of a building should harmonize with its function.
Much of Wright's early work is in what is called "Prairie Style." Buildings designed in this fashion reflect the flatness of the prairie in their low, horizontal appearance. Many of these structures were built in the Chicago area. Though he designed several commercial buildings, such as the Johnson Wax building in Racine, Wisconsin, one of his most famous works is the "Fallingwater" house on Bear Creek near Uniontown, Pennsylvania. Fallingwater is a low, horizontal house that incorporates a waterfall into the design.
╘Gumbo -- Southern Melting Pot
1992
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
If New Orleans is the melting pot of the South, then gumbo is the cuisine made in that pot. African, French, West Indians, Spanish, Native Americans, Irish, and others live, or have lived, in or around New Orleans. This makes for a temperamental environment and for gumbo, a spicy stew.
Acadians, who are French people from Canada, settled in the bayou swamps and were called Cajuns. Other European settlers who moved to the area were called Creoles, and the word later came to mean "homegrown." Gumbo is a Creole, or homegrown, soup but there is a Cajun version of the dish. The word gumbo is African and comes from "ngombo," a Bantu word for the vegetable okra.
Generally, gumbo is made with okra, powdered dried sassafras leaves, and also onions, celery, and bell pepper. After that the door is wide open to ingredients such as chicken, oysters, ham, sausage, shrimp, and crabs. Often hot red peppers or Tabasco sauce, made from these peppers, are used to spice the gumbo. The dish is usually served with rice.
Gumbo has other meanings besides food. The word also refers to black, sticky mud from the Mississippi river, and to a blending of French and African languages that is called "Gombo" French.
½Pigging Out In Virginia
1608
SMITHFIELD, VIRGINIA
In 1607, the English founded the colony of Jamestown in Virginia. Soon after, their stomachs growled for food. Responding to this sound, local Native Americans showed the colonists how to cure hams. The new Virginians learned these cooking lessons well. They brought some of their cured hams back to England, where they became very popular. Queen Victoria is said to have enjoyed Smithfield hams and apparently ordered six of them a week. Since then, Virginians have been curing, eating, and shipping cured hams around the world.
Today, the town of Smithfield, Virginia is famous for its Smithfield hams. Just south of Jamestown on the Chesapeake Bay, four companies make official Smithfield hams; the name refers to the method of curing the hams. A fresh ham is packed in salt for about 35 days. Then the salt is washed from the hams and they are peppered and hung from the rafters in a smokehouse for one or two days. Next, the hams are slowly smoked over a smoldering fire, a process that goes on periodically through the winter and spring. Finally the hams are sold.
Today, more than three million pigs are butchered each year in Virginia; that makes for over six million hams. Smithfield hams are expensive because they take so long to cure, unlike cheaper quick-smoke hams. A true Smithfield ham has a long shank, thick skin, and the meat has a deep red color. It also has a very salty taste that not everyone likes.
iHawaii Taming Paradise
1959
HAWAIIAN ISLANDS
Known for his historical novels, James Michener published one on Hawaii in 1959. Called "Hawaii," the book covers Hawaiian development from 854, when people from Bora Bora migrated here, through 1954 and the emerging of this American territory and soon-to-be state. Though the book is a mixture of fiction and fact, reading it can be an excellent way to get an understanding of the many foreign and competing forces that shaped this beautiful place.
Polynesian founders, New England missionaries, Chinese business people, and Japanese immigrants are all represented -- as are the dynasties they spawn in Hawaii. We are shown the native Hawaiians' worship of multiple deities and the fire goddess Pele, their abandonment of their religion at the coercion of Christian missionaries Abner Hale and John Whipple, Chinese immigrants Char Nyuk Tsin and Kee Mun Ki, and Japanese laborers Kamejiro Sakagawa and his friend Oshii, who is a fanatical supporter of the Japanese emperor.
Perhaps more than in any other state, Hawaiian people are a blend of their ancestors. Intermarriage between natives and newcomers has closely knit the various ethnic groups and the island's commerce. Hawaii is the American state closest to the contemporary powerhouses of Asia: Japan, China, and Southeast Asia.
Michener won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for his "Tales of the South Pacific." While sometimes not viewed as a major literary figure despite this prize, Michener is able to combine historical detail with a remarkable storytelling ability, in order to give readers both an entertaining reading and an understanding of a country.
┌Citizen Hughes
1945
LONG BEACH, CALIFORNIA
The huge wooden seaplane skimmed across the harbor at Long Beach, California, during the closing days of World War II in 1945. Its inventor, Howard Hughes, was at the controls and, try as he might, he could not make the aircraft, nicknamed the Spruce Goose, rise higher.
Finally, he set the plane back down on the water and taxied to its takeoff ramp. The Spruce Goose had flown for the first and last time. Hughes considered it a deathtrap and knew it was one of the few failures in his long, remarkable, and strange life.
Born in Houston, Texas, on December 24, 1905, Hughes grew up to be a tall, thin, young man who became one of the country's most successful businessmen, aviators, and movie producers. He became famous for doing things his own way and for keeping his business dealings highly secret.
He inherited the nearly broke Houston-based Hughes Tool Company from his father and made it extremely successful. While still in his 20s, and with a yearly income of $2 million, he went into the movie business and turned out many award-winning pictures.
At the same time, he designed airplanes and set many air speed records. He was nearly killed in several air crashes, but was never shaken in his belief that one day millions of people would travel daily by aircraft everywhere in the world.
In later life, Hughes moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where he owned many hotels and helped to make the city one of the top tourist spots in the nation. But he kept more and more to himself and few people ever saw him. He even conducted a press conference by telephone to say reports of his death were false.
Howard Hughes, one of the most successful and mysterious Americans of the 20th century, died on April 5, 1976.
QSouthwest Sleuth
1990
NAVAJO RESERVATION, ARIZONA
The 25,000 square miles that the Navajos here call the "Big Rez" takes in large portions of northeast Arizona and the northwestern corner of New Mexico. This reservation is the main staging area for the mystery novels of Tony Hillerman.
In "Coyote Waits," published in 1990, Hillerman manages to weave together a murder mystery, the Navajo view of the cosmos, Navajo religious beliefs, their ancient healing practices, and the myths surrounding the death of Butch Cassidy. Hillerman does this to both entertain with a great story, and to educate with information about former and continuing Indian life.
The receiver of the Navajo Tribe's Special Friend Award, Hillerman's writing gives readers a feeling for the buttes and red rocks that dot America's Southwest. He also imparts a feeling for how the laws and the customs of the Navajo and American government intertwine, conflict, and sometimes support each other.
His novels include, "Talking God," "The Ghostway," and "People of Darkness." His nonfiction includes, "The Spell of New Mexico" and "Indian Country."
Home Of American Culture
1912
HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA
In 1912, a group of independent film producers came west and established Hollywood. It was a place well-suited for film production: its warm climate allowed shooting all year, it was close to many beautiful locations, and it was close to Mexico in case any production got in trouble with the law.
At first an isolated area of orange groves and dirt roads, today Hollywood is the production center of film and television shows. Major studios such as Warner Brothers, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, and Sony (formerly MGM) are situated either in or near Hollywood. Supporting facilities for production are everywhere: film development labs, video editing studios, audio recording studios, etc.
Films and television are, perhaps, the premier art form of the 20th century, and they are also capable of influencing how we think, act, and speak. Seeing people larger-than-life on huge screens has a big impact on viewers.
Some, in politics especially, say Hollywood has too big an impact on viewers and that television in particular sends out messages of indiscriminate violence and sex that wrongly influence younger viewers.
This view of Hollywood played a big role in the 1992 presidential election, when incumbent Vice President Dan Quayle accused the television show "Murphy Brown" of glorifying the role of single mothers. Quayle said the show undermined American family values. His opinion created much debate and controversy throughout America, and in Hollywood particularly, which did not warmly receive these remarks.
'The American Dream
1867
NEW YORK CITY
For long-time American residents, as well as American newcomers, a common bond exists: belief in the American Dream. Core to the dream is the belief that anyone in America, with enough hard work and ingenuity, can make something of himself and become rich. This dream and this philosophy really took hold in America with the publication in 1867 of a book called "Ragged Dick," by Horatio Alger.
The first in a series of books, Alger's story laid the foundation for the rags-to-riches school of America. "Ragged Dick" tells of a poor orphan boy in New York City, who saves his pennies, works hard, and eventually becomes rich.
Because the American Dream has been true for enough people, it still holds appeal for others. There are many stories of people who step off an immigrant boat or plane in America with nothing but the clothes on their back. Taking low-paying jobs as janitors or other non-status work, these people slowly but surely save and work their way up to a big office, big house, and big car. Then, their children get a great education and become part of American society.
In recent years, competition for American jobs has become tougher. In addition, the prices of homes, cars, and education have climbed. It is harder today to achieve the American Dream, but people do make it.
░Riding Down The Mississippi
1885
ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER
Samuel Langhorne Clemens, born in Connecticut, took the pen name of Mark Twain. It is as Mark Twain that he became one of America's most-loved humorists and writers. He is known especially for his books based in the South along the Mississippi River. "Mark Twain" was a call yelled on Mississippi River steamboats to mark the river's depth. Twain, the writer, spent time as a steamboat pilot, cruising the Mississippi between St. Louis and New Orleans, and his feel for the waters and the region are in his books.
"The Adventures of Tom Sawyer," and "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," are two of his best-known works. These two are considered classics of American literature. Both works of literature depict the mischievous natures of young boys, their innocence, and America's freshness and rawness as a young, unsophisticated country.
"Huckleberry Finn" is also known as the first book in English to be written entirely in a vernacular: the patois speech of the runaway slave Jim, and Huck's southern dialect. Besides describing life in backwater towns, "Huckleberry Finn" deals with that day's issue of slavery and the continuing American problem of racism.
2Hula: Dance Of The Islands
1870
HAWAII
When people think of Hawaii, they usually picture beautiful beaches, orchids, and girls dancing the hula. While the hula is now primarily danced for tourists, it began as a means for Hawaiians to express their history and devotion to their gods.
Originally, the dance was sacred and only performed by select people, who were taught the dance by priests in a temple. The religious dances were then performed before the Hawaiian royal leaders. In their smooth movements, the dancers expressed the concerns of the Hawaiian people. The hula expressed themes of life and death, as well as the people's reverence for the beauty of the islands. Chanting, a form of storytelling, accompanied the dance, and sometimes a drum was used to accent the dancers' movements.
Eventually everyone was allowed to dance the hula and the dance became gay and lively, instead of ritualistic and religious. When missionaries arrived in Hawaii in the 1820s, many Hawaiians converted to Christianity and the hula was banned as suggestive. The hula declined, but was revived in the 1870s when King Kalakaua defied the ban and established hula schools. The hula received more publicity, when sailors on whaling and trading ships turned to hula girls for entertainment.
The Hawaiians adopted some of the foreigners' music into their culture. The Portuguese ukulele and foreign dance steps became part of the hula. The modern hula is a blend of the old traditions and new influences for the purpose of entertaining, with swaying hips, gently moving hands, and facial expressions of grace and charm.
═In Praise Of Black Life
1937
EATONVILLE, FLORIDA
Most books by major black American authors like James Baldwin or Richard Wright deal with the anger, isolation, and poverty of many blacks in America during the 1940s through 1960s. One notable exception is "Their Eyes Were Watching God," by Zora Neale Hurston.
Set mostly in the all-black town of Eatonville where Hurston grew up, "Their Eyes" celebrates black language, independent women, and the satisfaction of hard physical work. The novel's heroine, Janie Crawford, goes through two bad marriages before she finds herself, real love, and acceptance -- with a younger, and poorer, man named Tea Cakes. The book also describes life in one of the few self-governing, all-black American towns during the early 20th century.
The book's dialogue captures the black Southern dialect that later became the basis of rap music and contemporary black culture. As Hurston writes it, the language is musical and rich, expressing the many emotions of the main characters.
"'Twasn't 'cause Ah wanted tuh stay off lak dat, and it sho Lawd, wuzn't no woman. If you didn't have de power tuh hold me and hold me tight, Ah wouldn't be callin' yuh Mis' Woods," is how Tea Cakes describes a brief absence of his to Janie at one point in the book.
Born around 1901, Zora Neale Hurston died poor in 1960. In the 1980s, writer Alice Walker, also a black woman, revived interest in Hurston by using Hurston's works as inspiration for her own books, like "The Color Purple."
▄Storehouses Of Knowledge
1815
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Welcome to the America Adventure Library! You can use the card catalog in the library picture to find any topic you wish.
Just click on the card catalog drawer containing the topic you want to find, then click on the topic itself. America Adventure will take you right to a screen on that topic.
Though electronic libraries such as this one are new, books and libraries have been around for ages. The largest library in America is the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. It is housed in three buildings and has over 25 million books, the world's largest collection of maps, millions of drawings, posters, videos, audio materials and 41 million manuscripts!
The Library of Congress was first built in the early 1800s under President John Adams and was only for the use of members of Congress. The library building burned in 1814 and rebuilding of one of the present structures began in 1815.
Today, the library is open to anyone over 18 years of age.
ÉMachines Make Waves
September 4, 1807
NEW YORK CITY
While the South was growing cotton, changes in machinery were taking place in the North that would revolutionize American business. This period of history is called the Industrial Revolution, because of these changes. The steam-powered boat with paddle wheels made its first commercial trip on New York's Hudson River in 1807. It traveled at five miles per hour -- faster than sailboats -- and became a commercial success.
Machines were also used in the textile industry to spin cotton from the South into yarn and weave fabric at a much faster rate than could be done by hand. These mills employed children and women at low wages, and therefore made profits for the mills' owners.
Eli Whitney's cotton gin, another mechanical invention, revolutionized the picking of cotton and the southern economy. By the mid-1800s, steam-powered trains traveled the railroads of America bringing raw materials to northern factories and products to market. Eventually, with the abolition of slavery, many blacks headed north hoping to find jobs in factories.
The working conditions in the factories, such as long hours with no safety measures, gave rise to labor unions. In addition, tenement buildings grew up in the cities near the mills, providing cheap housing for the factory workers.
The Industrial Revolution lasted through the 1800s and was replaced by revolutionary advances in technology in the 1920s.
eI Am A Man: See Me
1952
NEW YORK CITY
In his 1952 novel "Invisible Man," Ralph Ellison gave voice to the feelings of many black Americans that they were not "seen" by American society. The book was published two years before the Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education to outlaw separate but equal education in America.
While the Civil War freed the slaves, it did not integrate blacks into the American mainstream. As did so many from this generation, the nameless protagonist of "Invisible Man" leaves the South for New York City. Here, he becomes a pawn for a political group, and he discovers that he is not seen as an individual human being. After becoming involved in a Harlem riot, he realizes that he must deal with people of both races. He also realizes that many people see him as a Black Man, and therefore his real nature is unseen by them -- he is invisible.
A quote from his book: "I am an invisible man. No, I am not a spook like those who haunted Edgar Allan Poe; nor am I one of your Hollywood-movie ectoplasms. I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids -- and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me."
Ralph Ellison was born in Oklahoma in 1914. Like the protagonist character in his book, Ellison grew up in the South, then later moved to New York City. In New York he met the leading black literary figures of that day, such as Richard Wright and Langston Hughes, who encouraged his own writing ambitions. In his works, Ellison eloquently describes the problems of American racism that continue to plague the country in all sectors.
}Immigration From Iran
1979
GOODBYE TO KHOMEINI
When Iran forced its leader, the Shah, into exile in 1979, it paved the way for the return of the Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini, spiritual leader to the Shi'ite Moslem community, became Iran's leader. He started a government dedicated to dismantling the Shah's modern reforms, and turning Iran into a fundamentalist, religious country with the Moslem Koran as the law of the land.
Khomeini tried and executed the Shah's followers. Because of this, many Iranians fled for their lives to America. The United States government had supported the Shah, therefore his followers felt they had a friend in America. Many Iranians had been studying at American universities during the Shah's rule, and suddenly found that they could not return home once he was gone.
In addition, a bloody war between Iran and Iraq during the 1980s caused more people to leave both countries.
8Luck O' The Irish
1845
IRISH IMMIGRATION
Every March 17th in cities around America, Irish-Americans celebrate St. Patrick's Day. There is a festive parade in New York City and many other towns. All around the country Americans wear green and toast one another with Irish coffee -- a coffee drink with Irish whiskey added to it.
The Irish began coming to America in the 1820s, when the lack of jobs and poverty motivated them to seek better opportunities abroad. Many Irish have done very well in America, perhaps due to the "Luck 'o the Irish."
Then between 1845 and 1847, a terrible disease struck Ireland's potato crop, upon which many people depended for food. Potato crops died, causing a terrible famine and about 750,000 people starved to death. This lack of food caused huge numbers of people to leave Ireland. As a result, about one-and-a-half million Irish came to America during the 1840s and 1850s.
Many of the Irish who came to America were poor. They remained in areas where they disembarked from the boats, such as New York and Boston. Later, a sizable Irish-American population developed in Chicago. Today, these three cities still have huge Irish-American populations, in which they established solid political bases. According to the 1980 census, the Irish and their descendants form the third-largest ethnic group in America today.
áDid Columbus Eat Pizza?
1905
ITALIAN IMMIGRATION
Many Italians who came to America settled in East Coast cities, like Philadelphia and New York. Here they opened stores and restaurants featuring foods from home. An Italian neighborhood was often called "Little Italy." These neighborhoods still exist in many cities today.
In 1905, Gennaro Lombardi owned an Italian restaurant in New York's Little Italy. He started to serve a food from Naples, Italy, and people loved it. Made from a flat, yeast bread baked with melted cheeses and tomatoes, the dish was called "pizza." Today, pizza is delivered to the doors of American homes throughout the country, but back then it was a way for immigrants to have a slice of home in their new country.
The first Italian immigrant to America was Christopher Columbus. Columbus has been credited with discovering America, although he actually never set foot on mainland America. It is unknown if he ever ate pizza.
Italy never colonized parts of America as did their neighbors Spain, France, and England. Instead, many Italians started coming to America in the 1880s to escape from the poverty at home. Besides pizza, Italians introduced America to opera and pasta.
LThe Colonies Begin
1607
JAMESTOWN, VIRGINIA
In 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh discovered and named the state of Virginia after Queen Elizabeth I of England, who was known as the Virgin Queen. Several attempts were made to establish colonies here, but none survived. The settlers either returned to England, died, or disappeared.
Then, on December 20, 1606, three British ships carrying 104 colonists left England for the New World. Chartered and commissioned by the Virginia Company, which was a group of private merchants, this expedition was the first venture by private enterprise to try to make a profit in America. The Virginia Company hoped to establish mines, then ship the findings home to England.
The colonists arrived in Virginia in May 1607. They made the poor choice of establishing their base in a swamp. They also were too late to get their crops started and, within a few months, 51 of the settlers were dead. Their first year was one of hunger and some settlers turned to cannibalism to survive.
Thanks to Captain John Smith, the colonists were able to establish relations with local Indians, led by Chief Powhatan. The Indians shared their food and taught the English how to plant native corn and yams. Unfortunately, relations between the settlers and Indians eventually soured, due to English aggressions toward the natives.
In 1612, the colonists began to grow a milder form of Jamaican tobacco, and this became Virginia's first successful cash crop. Soon, England was clamoring for tobacco from its American colony.
While business may have been successful, government was not. By 1624, more than half the settlers who had arrived in Jamestown were dead from starvation or Indian fighting. So in that year, the King changed Jamestown from a Virginia Company charter to a royal colony. The first attempt at a representative government was dead; long live the king!
╔Parading With Pride
1882
JAPANESE IMMIGRATION
This 1949 parade was Los Angeles's first post-World War II event to celebrate Japanese-American culture. It honors the Nisei, second-generation Japanese-Americans, who descended from the Issei, the first generation of Japanese to come to America. Japanese immigration to America began in 1882 with the Meiji Restoration.
The Meiji Restoration in Japan marked a time of Westernization and change. For the first time in two centuries, foreigners could enter Japan and Japanese citizens could leave. So, when America's Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred Chinese from providing America with cheap labor, the Japanese arrived to fill the void.
Many rice farmers in southwestern Japan were heavily taxed and hoped to make their fortunes in America. Also, jobless veterans from the Russo-Japanese War came to America when that war ended in 1905.
More than 30,000 Japanese went to Hawaii to work on sugar plantations between 1885 and 1894. In the 1890s and continuing until 1924, there was large-scale Japanese immigration to America's mainland. The Japanese call their first-generation immigrants "Issei."
Unlike the Chinese who first went to California to work on the railroads, many Japanese went directly to the Pacific Northwest where a huge fishing and timber industry needed their labor. Unlike the Chinese, Japanese immigrants included more women, so families could be started. Some women came with their husbands, others arrived as "picture brides," met by unknown future husbands on America's wharves. Their children, the second generation, are called "Nisei."
Independent Japanese started their own farms on unwanted pieces of land, turning them into productive truck gardens. They sold the produce at local markets. The Japanese were not competing with Anglo-Saxon farmers who tended row crops, such as wheat and fruit trees, that required no stoop labor. During the 1920s, Japanese farmers supplied 75 percent of Seattle's vegetables.
The 1924 Immigration Act cut the flow of Japanese immigration. Those already in America became educated and began to get prosperous jobs. Eventually Japantowns emerged. Most Japanese continued to practice the Buddhist religion of their ancestors.
On December 7, 1941, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, plunging the United States into war and dismantling the success of the Japanese-Americans. Responding to panic over security by America's military and anti-Japanese sentiment in the press, President Roosevelt signed into effect a document entitled "Executive Order 9066."
This order gave Issei and Nisei 10 days to sell their businesses, homes, and belongings. Then about 120,000 Japanese-Americans were rounded up into holding areas, and shipped to "relocation centers." These relocation centers were in desolate parts of America, such as Idaho and the barren eastern slopes of California's Sierra Nevada mountains. Sometimes families were separated in the process.
Starting in 1943, Japanese-Americans were freed from the centers, but most had difficulty restarting their lives. Those who had served in America's military benefited from the GI Bill of Rights and got an education. Third-generation Japanese-Americans, Sansei, also got an education and citizenship thanks to the 1952 Walter-McCarran Act.
Many of those who were incarcerated were politically vindicated when Congress voted in 1988 to apologize and make cash payments to Japanese-Americans for America's treatment of them.
Today, Japan is a strong economic power and many Japanese businesses have done well in America: Honda and Sony among them. Vibrant Japanese-American communities exist, especially in Pacific Coast cities like Seattle and Los Angeles, where Nisei Week celebrations like the one pictured here continue.
'Melting Pot Music
1923
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Just as New Orleans is the home of gumbo, a spicy stew that blends many ethnic foods, so it is also the home of jazz, music that combines sounds of very diverse origins.
Before and after the Civil War, New Orleans was the most cosmopolitan of southern cities. This is where "ragtime" music developed -- a blend of parlor, Creole, and Cajun songs -- as well as Caribbean and church music, with some brass band marches thrown in as well. This spicy music later became known as "jass" or "jazz." This music was popular all over America at the turn of the century.
Another form of jazz developed at the same time, and this form is complex and based on individual improvisational styles of players blended into one sound. King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band, pictured here, is considered one of the first true jazz bands. Playing in Oliver's band was the young Louis Armstrong, shown in front with a slide trumpet.
The jazz style of music became so popular that bands across America, and later the world, adopted it. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald called the 1920s the "Jazz Age." Jazz was identified with youth, sex, liquor, and a free style of living. Today, rock 'n' roll symbolizes much of this, but jazz remains a sophisticated and rich form of music whose masters are revered around the world.
ïIn Honor Of Jefferson
1943
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A grateful nation had honored Presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln with monuments, but Thomas Jefferson, one of the greatest givers and thinkers among the nation's Presidents, had gone unrecognized.
So, in 1934, Congress created a commission to plan a memorial for Jefferson as well. The monument was dedicated on April 14, 1943, Jefferson's 200th birthday.
The building is a circular white marble structure, surrounded with columns, and topped by a dome -- similar to the Pantheon in Rome and the Rotunda Jefferson designed for the University of Virginia. In the center is a black-granite sculpture of Jefferson.
q Pogroms And Brain Drains
May 14, 1948
JEWISH IMMIGRATION
When Israel became a state in 1948, it provided Jews around the world with a homeland to call their own. Israel came into being in answer to European Jewry's desperate need for safety from the massacre of Hitler's Nazi party, based in Germany. While Israel provided safe refuge to many Jews, so did America. Since Jews have been targeted for religious persecution for centuries, it is difficult to pinpoint a single country from which they emigrated. So we have selected Israel to symbolize Jews from around the world, and as a starting point to launch this discussion of Jewish immigration in America.
The first Jews arrived in New Amsterdam, present-day New York, in 1654 from Brazil, where the Catholic Church's Inquisition was underway. In 1821, the first Jewish settler arrived in Texas with Stephen Austin. In 1828, Jews began settling in Louisiana.
The first large wave of Jewish immigration, however, began in 1882, when Russians blamed the assassination of their czar, Alexander II, on Jews. This was the start of many pogroms, planned persecutions, against the Jews. This happened throughout Russia, but especially in the area known as The Pale, the Eastern European region. Jews throughout Russia tried to escape to Europe and America. Many arrived in New York and settled there, finding work in the garment industry. From this group of immigrants came some of the leaders of the motion-picture industry: Louis B. Mayer, Samuel Goldwyn, and Adolph Zukor.
The second large wave of Jewish immigration came during and after World War II. At the start of the war, many German and Austrian Jews who felt Hitler's threat, escaped to America. Some of these people were the top thinkers and scientists of Europe. Among them were scientist Albert Einstein and psychiatrists Erich Fromm and Sigmund Freud. Their leaving Europe was called a "Brain Drain," because so much intellectual power was leaving the country.
During the war, American laws limiting Jewish immigration prevented many from escaping Europe and emphasized the need for Israel. Later, the Displaced Person Act of 1948 and the Refugee Relief Act of 1953, opened America to the Jews who had managed to survive the war and the concentration camps.
The third big wave of Jewish immigration came in 1989 when Russia relaxed its laws prohibiting Jews from leaving the country. These people came to America and to Israel.
8Master Of The Money
1901
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
Known as "The Master of the Money," John Pierpont Morgan became the nation's foremost banker and one of the most successful industrialists in the age of the "Robber Barons."
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, on April 17, 1837, J.P. -- as he was known to the world -- grew up in the banking business where his father, Junius Spencer Morgan, had attained great success. After working for his father, Morgan set up his own bank in 1871 and became even more successful than his father.
In the 1890s, Morgan became very active in railroading, while also marketing federal securities on a massive scale. Both actions allowed him to build up a great personal fortune. In 1898, he entered the steel business and bought out Andrew Carnegie's company for $480 million. In 1901, he joined his new Federal Steel Company with several smaller firms. He then established U.S. Steel, headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, which has dominated the industry ever since.
Often pictured as a coldhearted banker running roughshod over the nation's antitrust laws, Morgan stayed within the law and was a conservative, cautious influence on American industry.
Morgan -- from 1893 to his death on March 31, 1913 -- was the driving force behind American capitalism in banking, railroads, shipping, the telegraph, the telephone, the new electrical industry, and of course, steel.
A great collector of art, Morgan gave many priceless works to the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. His collection of manuscripts and books can be found in the Morgan Library in New York City.
₧Court Of Courts
March 3, 1837
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In March of 1837, Congress voted to raise the number of justices on the Supreme Court from seven to nine, increasing by two the number of people who can have this most-elite of government positions.
Unlike members of the other branches of government, such as Congress and the President, the Supreme Court justices serve for life. Only death, retirement, or impeachment by Congress can end their jobs. The founders of the Constitution created this system for a reason; they figured that without the pressures of elected office and the need to please voters, justices would feel safe enough to seriously consider the issues before them.
The Supreme Court interprets and rules on the laws of America. Whether it is the issue of "separate but equal" between blacks and whites, abortion, or the way a person is arrested, the Supreme Court hammers out decisions on even the smallest points of the law that have constitutional consequences. As a check, Congress must approve presidential appointments to the court and has the power to make Constitutional amendments that nullify court rulings.
The one chief justice and eight associate justices vote on a case after they have heard both sides present their views. The majority vote determines the outcome.
With all this power, it is interesting that every day the justices walk among the tourists who are visiting the Supreme Court -- and are hardly ever recognized.
ïKing: I Have A Dream
1963
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
When the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. stepped up to the microphone at the Lincoln Memorial, he faced a sea of 250,000 people who had come to support his March for civil rights. Beginning to speak, Dr. King began to talk about the dream he had for a unified nation free of racism and blind to color. This famous "I Have a Dream" speech was followed in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act, and the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Dr. King later that same year.
Born in 1929 to a minister, and himself a Baptist minister from Montgomery, Alabama, King galvanized the civil rights movement, beginning with Montgomery's bus boycott in 1955. Preaching the ways of nonviolence as practiced by Gandhi in India, King led many marches for desegregation in the Southern towns and cities that had always discriminated against them. Facing police dogs, fire hoses, and hostile crowds, King and his followers calmly continued to walk for their beliefs.
While King preached nonviolence, violence sometimes did occur as those who opposed him attacked and, on occasion, killed civil rights workers. King also attracted the following of many Northern college students, who were taken with his doctrine of equality and justice. Busloads of students, black and white, poured into the Southern states during the summers and the holidays to support the local blacks in their efforts for civil rights.
In addition to open seating on buses, King fought for desegregation in all realms of life: restaurants, housing, schools, and the voting booth, where poll taxes and other devices were used to prevent blacks from voting.
On April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated while standing on the balcony of his Memphis hotel. His killer was James Earl Ray, an escaped convict. King's legacy and stature survive him. In 1983, King's birthday (January 15) was designated a national holiday.
Arts Keep Culture Alive
1954
KOREAN IMMIGRATION
While a small number of Koreans came to Hawaii in 1903, the real flow of Korean immigration to America came after the Korean War. American G.I.'s brought home war brides and Korean students came to American universities.
Unlike other Asian immigrants, many Koreans didn't leave home because of economic hardships. In fact, the Korean economy did well after the war. The lure of American education, the ever-present threat of fighting with communist North Korea, and the political actions by the South Korean government prompted many to start new lives in America.
Many Korean-Americans are professionals and are especially prevalent in engineering and banking. Koreans have also revitalized the neighborhood grocery store and taken over small businesses, such as dry cleaners.
Predominantly Christian, Koreans have established their own churches in America, which also serve as the focal point of their communities. Korean-Americans keep their heritage alive by continuing native customs, like Korean dances seen here.
ùLeif Gets Lost
1000
NORTH AMERICAN COAST
According to an Icelandic saga, Leif Eriksson set sail from Norway on a missionary trip to Greenland, which had been settled by his father, Eric the Red. However, Leif missed Greenland. But, after a long time, he encountered a fertile land with wheat, vines, and maple trees. Many believe he was the first European to discover North America.
When Leif returned to Greenland, others were inspired to go to the same land, which they called "Vinland." There they first traded with, and then fought, Indians or Eskimos. Though the land was fertile, the saga says they decided not to settle there because of the strife.
The story of Leif Eriksson's trip, which apparently occurred around 1000 AD, is bolstered by the discovery of a map drawn by a Swiss monk in 1440. It shows an island southwest of Greenland called Vinland, whose discovery is credited to Bjarni Herjolfsson and Leif Eriksson.
┐The Ring Of Freedom
July 4, 1776
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
For more than 200 years, the Liberty Bell has been one of the most visible symbols of American freedom. Made in England, the bell was brought to Philadelphia in 1753 and hung in the new Pennsylvania State House, which is now known as Independence Hall.
The bell is inscribed with the words "Proclaim Liberty throughout all the Land," which is a phrase found in the Bible (Leviticus 25:10).
On July 4, 1776, the bell was rung when the members of the Continental Congress signed the Declaration of Independence. This began an Independence Day tradition that was observed every year, except in 1777 and 1778, when the British captured Philadelphia and the bell was hidden for safe keeping.
The last time the bell was rung was in 1846, when a small crack in the bell grew so large that it could no longer be sounded. But it is still seen by millions of people each year when they visit Philadelphia's Liberty Bell Pavilion.
┴
Lindbergh: The Lone Eagle
1927
OVER THE ATLANTIC OCEAN
Though shy with people, Charles Lindbergh was not shy about flying. Lindbergh's transatlantic voyage thrilled the world.
Lindbergh was born in Detroit, Michigan, and raised on a farm near Little Falls, Minnesota. At age 18, he began attending the University of Wisconsin, but after two years he quit to become a daredevil stunt flyer.
In 1924, he enlisted in the U.S. Army, so he could train as a pilot. In 1925, he began flying mail between St. Louis and Chicago. While making the mail runs, he decided to attempt the premier aviation challenge of his day. New York hotel owner Raymond Orteig had offered $25,000 to the first person to fly nonstop from New York to Paris, and Lindbergh thought he could do it.
Several flyers had been killed or injured attempting the flight, but that didn't discourage Lindbergh. He persuaded nine St. Louis businessmen to finance a plane incorporating features of his own design. In their honor, he called the craft the "Spirit of St. Louis."
When it was finished, he flew the Spirit of St. Louis from San Diego to New York (with a stopover in St. Louis) on May 10-11, 1927. It was a record for the transcontinental flight.
Then, just before 8:00 a.m. on May 20, Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in New York and headed east across the Atlantic Ocean. He landed at Le Bourget Field, near Paris, on the evening of May 21.
Thousands cheered his arrival. The press called him "Lucky Lindy," and the "Lone Eagle." The French government awarded him the French Cross of the Legion d'Honneur and Great Britain gave him the Royal Air Force Cross. The United States also awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor and the first-ever Distinguished Flying Cross.
Later, Lindbergh flew a goodwill mission throughout Latin America and wrote about his transatlantic trip in his book entitled, "We." Unfortunately, his fame also brought him great heartache, by making his family an attractive target for criminals. In 1932, his son Charles was kidnapped and murdered.
Prior to the United States entry into World War II, Lindbergh criticized what he considered the country's drift toward involvement in the conflict. But after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Lindbergh gave himself wholeheartedly to the fight -- in fact, too wholeheartedly.
Lindbergh repeatedly -- and effectively -- flew combat missions in the South Pacific. The only problem was that he was a civilian, and therefore it was illegal for him to participate in military actions. With the tacit approval of local military commanders, he continued doing so until forbidden by higher authorities.
Lindbergh's "Spirit of St. Louis," shown here, is now on display at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C.
Little House -- A Big Hit
1932
WOODS OF WISCONSIN,
"Once upon a time, sixty years ago, a little girl lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin, in a little gray house made of logs." This is the opening sentence of Little House in the Big Woods. Published in 1932, it is the first in Laura Ingalls Wilder's series of books chronicling her upbringing in frontier America.
While written for young people, the books hold fascination for adults as well, because of the detailed descriptions of daily life in that time and place. Born in 1867 in the log cabin described in her book, Wilder's family later traveled by covered wagon throughout Kansas, Minnesota, and the Dakota Territory. On the prairie she met and married her husband. She wrote about all the stages of her life in her books.
Whether she's describing how children called their parents "Ma" and "Pa" (not "Mother" and "Father," or "Mom" and "Dad"), or how her Pa loaded his gun with gunpowder, or how her Ma squeezed a combination of carrot gratings and hot milk through fabric to make her homemade butter yellow, Wilder imparts a feeling for living and working in a time uncluttered by modern technology.
Laura Ingalls Wilder died in 1957, but her stories live on. In fact, the "Little House" books became the basis for a popular television series.
+American As A Log Cabin
1638
DELAWARE RIVER
Along with apple pie, the log cabin is often used as a symbol of America. The log cabin reached mythic status as the birthplace of President Abraham Lincoln, signifying his common American roots. It was also used by William Harrison in his successful 1840 campaign for the presidency. With a "log cabin and hard cider" slogan, Harrison portrayed himself as a man of the people.
Actually, the log cabin is an import from Finland, a land full of forests. When Finns came to Delaware in 1638, they brought their native architecture with them. It was a style of house that many pioneers and woodsmen built, because the materials were readily available. And while the log cabin had simple construction, although a little rough, it also gave them quick shelter, which was often needed.
The one-story log cabin is made of notched wood logs that are fitted together at these notches. The air spaces between the logs are then filled, or "caulked," with fire-hardened clay. The log cabin also has a large clay-plastered chimney, which warms the house.
ßBreed Brings Big Bucks
1867
ABILENE, KANSAS
When Spanish cattle brought to America by the conquistadors met and mated with cattle brought by European settlers, the result was the Texas longhorn steer. Now rare, the longhorn steer brought lots of money to cattlemen who herded them from Texas, then north to Abilene along the Chisholm Trail, which was established in 1867.
While the cattle brought $4 each in Texas, they brought $40 each in northern states, which made their owners very rich. For about 15 years, cattle drives herded the steer along the trail to railroad terminals in towns like Abilene and Kansas City. From there, the steer were taken to the slaughterhouses of Chicago.
Eventually, barbed wire fenced in the lands, ending the cattle drives. And, in time, other kinds of cattle were raised on farms closer to the railroad and meatpacking industries. Today, the Texas longhorn steer represents a colorful part of American history, and, like the buffalo of long ago, no longer moves in large herds.
EGreat American Land Deal
1803
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
Napoleon Bonaparte of France hoped to build an empire in the New World based upon the city of New Orleans and the country of Haiti. However, the Haitians rebelled and a large army sent by the French in 1802 was nearly destroyed by yellow fever.
Napoleon realized that he would have to abandon Haiti, and without Haiti he had little use for Louisiana. Facing a war with Great Britain, he needed both the troops and, even more, the money to fight the coming battles in Europe.
Napoleon got both the money and the troops when President Thomas Jefferson sent James Monroe and Robert Livingston to Paris to try to buy New Orleans -- or, at very least, to get free passage down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. The French quickly accepted and signed a treaty on April 30, 1803 -- selling much more than New Orleans to the Americans.
Jefferson was overjoyed. The purchase would double the size of the United States, open vast new lands for settlement, and make the Mississippi an American river. Jefferson knew that he might not have the power under the Constitution to buy the land without the approval of Congress, but it was just too good of a deal to pass up. The Senate later agreed with the President, and ratified the treaty on October 20, 1803. The attainment of this land was called The Louisiana Purchase.
By the treaty, America gained more than 800,000 square miles of land, extending from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains. All this land for less than $15 million! France handed over the territory to the United States on December 20, 1803.
B The American Emperor
September 2, 1945
TOKYO BAY, JAPAN
The representatives of the Imperial Japanese government surrendered to the victorious Allies on September 2, 1945, officially ending World War II. The Allied commander, General Douglas MacArthur, one of the most brilliant and controversial soldiers in history, ended the bloodiest war ever with four simple words: "These proceedings are closed."
This was a great moment for a soldier who had to abandon his own troops in the Philippines by order of the President just three and a half years before. His vow of "I shall return!" became a rallying cry for the American people. But then MacArthur had always believed he was destined to defeat Japan -- and destiny seldom failed Douglas MacArthur.
Born on January 26, 1880, he grew up on lonely cavalry posts in the West, while his father fought hostile Apache Indians. He graduated from West Point in 1903, with the highest grades in his class. As a young officer, he served as an aide to President Theodore Roosevelt, and saw duty in places as far apart as the Philippines and Mexico.
During World War I, MacArthur commanded a division and led his men up front. He was even "captured" by troops from another division who thought he was a German officer, since no American general would be that close to the front. After the war he did everything from heading the 1928 U.S. Olympic Team, to being named Army chief of staff in 1930. He retired in 1937, and then headed the new Philippine Army -- the islands then belonged to America.
In 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt recalled him to active duty. When the Japanese invaded the Philippines in December, MacArthur and his U.S. and Philippine army fought a gallant, but hopeless defense. MacArthur was ordered out in March 1942, and the islands fell in May of that same year.
MacArthur began a daring campaign using land, sea, and air power in which he outgeneraled and outfought the enemy. His one goal: return to the Philippines -- which he did on October 20, 1944.
After MacArthur accepted Japan's surrender aboard the battleship U.S.S. Missouri in Tokyo Bay, he became ruler of Japan, which he transformed from a fascist state into a modern, democratic nation.
In June 1950, Communist North Korean forces invaded South Korea and MacArthur took command of the United Nations troops there. Disagreeing publicly with President Harry Truman over how to fight the war, MacArthur was relieved of his command on April 11, 1951.
Returning home, MacArthur was hailed a hero and gave a dramatic speech before Congress where he closed with the famous line that, "old soldiers never die, they just fade away."
Shortly before his death on April 5, 1964, MacArthur returned one last time to his beloved West Point to address a new generation of cadets. There he summed up his life in the three words of the Academy's motto: "Duty -- Honor -- Country."
GMalcolm X And Black Power
1965
HARLEM, NEW YORK CITY
Published just before his assassination in 1965, "The Autobiography of Malcolm X" brought national attention to a man whose goals for fellow American blacks differed strongly from those of his contemporary, Martin Luther King, Jr.
While King advocated peaceful protests and sought integration of blacks into white society, Malcolm X took an angrier position and sought separate power for blacks as part of the black nationalism movement of the 1960s. Unlike King's message of love and harmony, Malcolm X spoke of black hatred for white society and the need to focus on black heritage. His message earned Malcolm X many black fans and caused anxiety in mainstream America, white and black.
Born as Malcolm Little in 1925, the future Black Power leader grew up in Omaha, Nebraska and later moved to Harlem, in New York City. From 1946 to 1956, he served time in prison; here, he became influenced by the Nation of Islam movement, also known as Black Muslims. He took the last name of "X," saying "Little" was a white-given name during his ancestors' slave days.
Later in life, Malcolm X made a pilgrimage to Mecca, which is the worldwide home of the Muslim faith. When he returned to America, he broke from the Black Muslims and formed the Organization of Afro-American Unity. Shortly after his message became less aggressive toward white America, Malcolm X was assassinated in a Harlem mosque. Two Black Muslim men were arrested and convicted for his murder.
Like Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton, and other militant black leaders of the 1960s, Malcolm X used his time in prison to educate himself and gain a focus for his life and his people. While mainstream blacks feared that these people's angry message would turn whites against them, many others welcomed the Black Power message and said they were tired of catering to whites for favors.
Malcolm X never gained the widespread acceptance or stature of Dr. King, but the 1992 making of a movie on his life by black film maker, Spike Lee, brought his name back to life, and brought the letter "X" to hats and T-shirts across America.
█The Interior National Park
1941
MAMMOTH CAVE, KENTUCKY
Since the mummy of a man killed 2,400 years ago was found in this cave, it is known for certain that people have been braving these dark caverns long before American settlers did. The ancient people turned to the cave for gypsum, which is believed to be used for ceremonial purposes.
Early settlers used the saltpeter (potassium nitrate) found in the cave to make gunpowder. When the saltpeter industry died out after the War of 1812, the cave became a focal point for tourists. When it became a national park in 1941, the cave was preserved for future generations to experience the sense of awe found here.
The park covers 52,419 acres and includes two rivers above ground. Parts of the cave are still unexplored. Mammoth Cave is a series of large, domed chambers and deep pits, connected by a maze of corridors and 144 miles of surveyed underground passages. When formed 340 million years ago, the cave's limestone was the bed of an ancient sea. As the land rose, water seeped into the rock and eroded the areas traveled through today.
Today, the total mapped length of the Mammoth Cave system is close to 300 miles, encompassing three adjoining cave areas: Flint Ridge, Proctor, and Roppel Caves.
Within the caves visitors will find stalactites dripping from ceilings like icicles and stalagmites that form on floors where water drips down. There are also delicate gypsum flowers that decorate cave walls.
In the depths of the caves live cave fish, blind and colorless in the darkness, bats, and other full- and part-time cave dwellers. The biggest problem here is finding food to eat, as the absence of sunlight means an absence of plant life. Some plant life is washed in by Spring floods and these are devoured by the cave's residents, who are then eaten themselves by larger residents.
The cave has attracted some notable visitors. The famous singer Jenny Lind performed a concert in these echoing interiors, and the actor Edwin Booth spoke the words from "Hamlet."
ÄWestward Ho!
1845
INDEPENDENCE, MISSOURI
Wagon trains heading west were a common sight in this Missouri town in 1845. It was here that many Easterners and other Americans gathered and joined groups to travel together along one of the famous trails to the West.
The Santa Fe Trail went from Independence to the Old Spanish Trail, which went into Los Angeles. The Oxbow Route headed from Missouri to California. Others headed out on the Oregon Trail to the Pacific Northwest; in 1845, an estimated 5,000 people traveled the Oregon Trail to Oregon's Willamette Valley.
All this traveling was part of the spirit of Manifest Destiny, a belief that it was God's will that Americans spread over the entire continent, to control and populate the country.
While the positive side of this belief was a surge of enthusiasm and energy for pushing West, the negative side was the belief that it was all right to destroy anything and anyone -- namely Indians -- who got in the way of this Westward motion.
In 1846, the United States declared war on Mexico and proceeded to win much of what is now the southwestern United States. This was also seen as part of America's Manifest Destiny.
¿Black Lists And Red Hunts
1950
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Not all America's notable people are heroes. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin announced that he held "here in my hand" a list of State Department men who were really Communist Party members and spies. Never actually showing this list, McCarthy played on American fears of Communist world domination and began a series of "witch hunts" that ruined many careers, which until his demise in 1954, gave him enormous power.
Many Americans from all professions were arbitrarily singled out as possible Communists, then asked to testify before McCarthy and the Senate Internal Security. Here they were asked, "have you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?" Even if a person answered "no," they were not believed. Sometimes the only way off the hot seat was to expose other people as Communists, satisfying the Committee's need to capture "the enemy."
Anyone who opposed the process could be branded as a "Communist sympathizer," and this led to "blacklisting." Blacklisting meant a person was considered undesirable for employment and any company who did hire them could be investigated by McCarthy's committee.
This process hit the entertainment industry particularly hard, perhaps because film, television, and radio personalities are so well known, and envied. Many writers, directors, and producers had their careers ruined and could not find work in Hollywood for a decade or more. Woody Allen's movie, "The Front" shows the situation of a blacklisted writer who tries to keep working.
Finally, in 1954, McCarthy started to attack members of the U.S. Army, which was close to heart of former general and now President Dwight Eisenhower. The Senate finally censured McCarthy and the Army struck back. They began their own investigation of wrongdoing within McCarthy's own staff. Before long McCarthy's power began to unravel and he lost public support. He died in 1957 of alcohol-related problems.
,All American Restaurant
December, 1948
SAN BERNARDINO, CALIFORNIA
When brothers Dick and Mac McDonald opened their southern California drive-in restaurant, they named it after themselves. Today, more than 12,000 restaurants in over 56 countries carry their name, and more than 22 million people eat at a McDonald's every day. Thanks to McDonald's, people around the world think American food is a hamburger, french fries, and a milkshake or soft drink. The restaurant's golden arches are as well known and as welcoming as the Statue of Liberty.
McDonald's became successful thanks to Ray A. Kroc, a salesman of food mixers. Kroc sold his mixers to the McDonald brothers, took an interest in their business, and began to franchise restaurants in their name. In 1961, Kroc bought out the McDonald brothers' share of the business, then started the Hamburger University in Elk Grove Village, Illinois. Here, students can earn a Bachelor of Hamburgerology, while studying the McDonald's way of running a restaurant, whose process is efficient and standardized. This allows customers to get their food fast and to ensure that all meals served at every McDonald's are the same. In fact, you can eat the same meal at every McDonald's in the United States and abroad.
McDonald's leads the fast-food business in sales. While many busy parents are grateful for the restaurants' delivery of fast and cheap meals to children, they are also concerned that a McDonald's meal is not very nutritious. Fried food and sodas do not build strong and healthy bodies. Responding to this criticism, McDonald's has added items, such as salads and grilled chicken sandwiches, to its menu. Still, the hamburger is what made McDonald's what it is today. It is the hamburger that keeps most people returning to the golden arches either on foot, or for really fast food, in the drive-through lane.
═Margaret's Coming Of Age
1928
NEW YORK CITY
With the publication of her book "Coming of Age in Samoa" in 1928, anthropologist Margaret Mead began a remarkable career that influenced many people beyond the social sciences she called home. "Coming of Age in Samoa," is Mead's study of a Samoan girl's adolescence. This led to her views that the problems of young people in modern Western cultures are not normal to all cultures and may be created by Western institutions, like schools and the family.
Born in 1901 in Philadelphia, Mead earned advanced degrees in psychology and anthropology at Columbia University. During her career, she conducted many field studies in such South Pacific islands as New Guinea, Bali, and Samoa. Mead probed to find whether Western cultural traditions of male/female, as well as adolescent behavior, were natural or whether they were taught by society. Mead concluded that society caused most behavior and that this behavior changed from culture to culture: for instance, men and women act differently in the South Pacific than in America, although each place considers their behavior normal.
Mead's work made a tremendous impact on the thinking of social scientists and greatly influenced the American women's movement of the 1960s. Mead was unusual for her time as she was a highly accomplished, independent career woman before many other women were having careers. Mead had several marriages and her last was to another social scientist, Gregory Bateson. Mead died in 1978.
£ Home Of The Ancient Ones
1906
MESA VERDE NATIONAL PARK, COLORADO
When Mesa Verde became a national park in 1906, it had already been over 600 years since the Indians who lived in the cliffs of this area vanished. Called the Anasazi, "Ancient Ones," by the Navajos, these cliff-dwellers had lived here for 800 years, growing beans and maize, rearing their children, and worshiping their gods.
Actually, another group of Indians called the Basketmakers, preceded the Anasazi, arriving at Mesa Verde around 550 A.D. Known for their skillful weaving of the yucca plant's fibers, the Basketmakers were able to grow corn, which gave them a reliable food supply and allowed them to stay in one place. They created a community.
Here, on top of the mesa, they found pinion pines and junipers, plenty of game, and natural springs for water. Their first homes were simple circular pits a few feet deep. Here they settled in. Eventually, they learned to make clay pots and these replaced their baskets for cooking and carrying water. Decorations of black designs on a white background became the trademark of Anasazi pottery. Coloring dyes came from local plants.
Later, these Indians were given the bow and arrow and the bean by traders who regularly came to their dwellings. Hunting was made easier with the bow and arrow. Beans were easy to grow. Now they had an improved diet, more strength, and more time for "leisure" activities. They built better houses.
Now, the Anasazi built their houses on the surface of the ground, rather than dug into the ground. These structures were the early stages of pueblos. Made from a mixture of mud, sticks, and stones over a framework of wooden poles and sandstone slabs, the houses became extended clan houses that had many rooms and could stretch for up to 150 feet.
The ways of the past were not completely abandoned; a hole was dug in one room of these clan houses. Here the men of the tribe did their religious devotions. These religious areas were called "kiva," as they are called today by the Hopi descendants of the Anasazi.
After a drought in the 11th century, the cliff-dwellers moved further north on the mesa to an area with more water. Here they began to build planned communities of stone. In the late 12th century, they began to build cities of stone in the alcoves of steep canyon walls.
They sought south and southwest-facing canyons, where they could get afternoon winter sun. Many of these dwellings can only be reached by climbing ladders or using handholds dug into the rock. These dwellings were a tremendous undertaking and required many hours of hard work leveling sloping floors, bringing stones up from the canyon floor, and carrying water, a jug at a time, up to make the mud needed for house walls.
The Anasazi never developed a written language so we do not know why they built these cliff dwellings. We do know that in 1276 a drought began that lasted for 23 years. The Anasazi left their cliff homes and never returned.
mThe Halls Of Montezuma
1846 - 1848
MEXICO CITY, MEXICO
The United States Marines raised the American flag over Mexico City -- the Halls of Montezuma -- on September 14, 1847, thus ending one of the nation's most successful and controversial wars.
Even today historians cannot agree on the reason why the Mexican-American War started. Some say Mexico started it because the U.S. annexed Texas in 1845, which Mexico still claimed despite the establishment of the Texas Republic ten years before. Others, however, say that America began the war, by stationing troops along the Rio Grande border between the two countries. Others say that the war was a plot by President James K. Polk to seize California.
Whatever the truth, on April 25, 1846, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande and attacked troops under General Zachary Taylor. Congress declared war in May, and Taylor invaded northern Mexico, winning victories over forces led by dictator General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.
Meanwhile, other troops under Colonel Stephen Kearny took Santa Fe and New Mexico. Then they marched into California, where American settlers under Captain John C. Fremont, had already declared their independence and set up the "Bear Flag Republic."
Finally, another American force landed at Veracruz on the Gulf of Mexico, took that city, advanced inland, and in a daring campaign -- completely cut off from supply or reinforcements -- took Mexico City.
On February 2, 1848, a peace treaty was signed at Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico handed over to the U.S. almost all of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. They also recognized the Rio Grande as the border between Texas and Mexico. The U.S. paid Mexico $15 million for the land and took over claims of American citizens against Mexico for property seized by that government.
Many Americans had opposed the war, including former President John Quincy Adams and future President Abraham Lincoln, who were both Congressmen, and a young Army officer named Ulysses Simpson Grant. Grant thought the war unjust, but he stayed in uniform and fought bravely. However, most Americans supported the war, which was fought entirely by volunteer soldiers.
*Border Town
1848
MEXICAN IMMIGRATION
When the Mexican-American War ended in 1848, America gained 500,000 square miles of Mexican territory, including all or part of the future states of California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Texas. Those Mexicans already living in these areas were offered U.S. citizenship and they, of course, eventually invited family members to join them. This was the first wave of Mexican immigration to America.
Then, the Mexican Revolution of 1910 brought political and economic instability to Mexico, prompting about 700,000 people to migrate to America over the next 20 years. Most recently, another wave of immigration from Mexico has occurred, beginning in the 1950s and continuing today. During this time, millions of Mexicans left poverty and high unemployment in Mexico in hopes of better jobs and wages in America.
Finally, there is the issue of America's shared border with Mexico, a border that invites much illegal crossing by Mexican day laborers and those seeking to permanently resettle in America. In border cities like San Diego, California and El Paso, Texas, customs officers and the Border Patrol work to stem the tide of illegal immigration.
This is a large issue in the Southwest as illegal immigrants, who are undocumented, often drive without license or insurance, work for very low wages leaving employers to make huge illegal profits, and sometimes seek health care and other services from publicly funded agencies.
Today much of the Southwest has a large Mexican population, which is forming an important political group as they wield their votes. So large is this population that many Southwest cities like Los Angeles, Albuquerque, and Phoenix offer bilingual services at government agencies and bilingual education in public schools.
Many people believe that Mexican immigrants and their offspring are still subject to discrimination in America. This results in difficulty getting good jobs. But this is changing, as Mexican descendants gain political office and create legislation that benefit their people.
Caught In The Middle
1975
MIDDLE EASTERN IMMIGRATION
In 1975, civil war broke out in Lebanon between Christians and Moslems. Religious war is not new in the Middle East, home to central shrines of the Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faiths. This civil war added more fuel to the desire of Middle Eastern peoples to seek a calmer way of life in other countries, America being one.
While some of these refugees have had money and training for good jobs, many have not had good educations and have entered American society by taking lower-level jobs, such as taxi drivers.
Also, America is rooted in the Judaic-Christian tradition and much of the Middle East is Muslim. While America allows all forms of religious worship, chances are most Muslims want to be in a country that favors their religion. Nevertheless, economic opportunity, schooling, and ease of crossing class boundaries, draws many to the United States. In recent years, the Islamic faith has become the largest growing religion in America, due to immigrants from Muslim countries.
╝Young Leads Young Religion
July 24, 1847
SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH
Fleeing from religious persecution in Illinois, a group of Mormons led by Brigham Young came to the Salt Lake Valley in the Summer of 1847. A desolate expanse of land, Young told his group that this was where they would build their new settlement and worship their Mormon religion. Today, that spot is the thriving Salt Lake City, capital of Utah, and headquarters of the Mormon Church (seen here). Utah is 70 percent Mormon and Mormon beliefs influence its politics.
Officially called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormon religion was born in Palmyra, New York in 1823. Here, an 18-year-old man named Joseph Smith told of his vision of an angel named Moroni who told him of a book made of gold leaves, revealing the true nature of the Christian Church and explaining the lost tribes of Israel. Though ridiculed by many, Smith did attract followers, called Mormons.
Smith and other Mormons were persecuted in New York and they moved to Ohio, and then to Missouri, where they were attacked and 17 Mormons killed. They then moved to Illinois, where they were promised peace to practice their new religion.
It was in Illinois that Smith said God told him that Mormons should practice polygamy, the taking by a man of more than one wife. This made non-Mormons hostile toward the Mormons.
In 1844, Smith declared himself a presidential candidate and Brigham Young was chosen to take over leadership of the Mormon Church. That same year, a mob killed Smith and his brother in Illinois. Two years later, in 1846, Young and his Mormons headed west facing much hardship along what came to be called the Mormon Trail; they landed in the Salt Lake area.
Finally, the Mormons found a place to practice their religion in peace. As for polygamy, some Mormons are known to practice it very quietly, even though it became officially illegal when Utah became a state -- American law outlaws the practice of a man having more than one wife.
pMaking Georgia Howl
November 15, 1864
ATLANTA, GEORGIA
After taking the important Confederate city of Atlanta, Georgia, on September 1, 1864, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, was left with a problem: What to do next?
Sherman's answer was brilliant, daring, and very dangerous. He would cut off all contact with the North and march his army of 68,000 veteran soldiers from Atlanta to Savannah, Georgia -- more than 300 miles away. With the reluctant approval of his superior and to the shock of professional soldiers around the world, Sherman had his troops burn Atlanta on November 15, 1864, and began his famed march.
His troops lived off the land and cut a 50-mile-wide sweep through the Georgia countryside, destroying everything of possible military value -- and a great many private homes as well -- freeing the slaves and stripping the land of every bit of food. The Southerners had no forces, except some cavalry and militia -- mostly old men and young boys -- to oppose Sherman's "bummers" as his troops were called.
By December 21, Sherman's army had taken Savannah and made contact with the Union fleet, which had been blockading the city. He offered the city to President Abraham Lincoln as a "Christmas gift" to the nation.
Sherman's March to the Sea remains as controversial today as it was in 1864, but one thing is certain: the Union general had lived up to his boast to "make all Georgia howl."
╨The Mighty Mississippi
1803
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
With the Louisiana Purchase, America gained land from France, through which ran the lower portion of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River flows through New Orleans and into the Gulf of Mexico. Therefore, Americans had easy access to the entire length of "Old Man River," the longest river in the United States.
Running 2,348 miles, the Mississippi begins in northwest Minnesota and, on its way south, drains almost all the plains between the Rockies and the Appalachian Mountains. The river is America's chief inland waterway and ships can travel it for more than 1,800 miles. At Cairo, Illinois, the river reaches its widest point: 4,500 feet.
The Mississippi River played a major role in the development of America, providing access to the country for Spanish and French explorers, pioneers and traders, and transportation for people living in Middle America.
It begins as a clear stream in Minnesota, and becomes a giant muddy river in the South, especially in the Delta regions of Mississippi and Louisiana where silt from the river's bottom mixes with the water to form levees. The famous Delta Blues musician, Muddy Waters, takes his name from this river.
The name Mississippi comes from Indian tribes who lived in the Mississippi Valley and it means "Big River." Indians who lived by the river included Illinois, Kickapoo, Ojibway, and Santee Dakota tribes in the north and the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Natchez, and Tunica tribes in the south.
δGlacier Point Meeting
1903
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA
In 1903, John Muir, an ardent crusader for preserving the Yosemite area as a national park, took President Roosevelt on a four-day tour through his beloved region. After the two camped on top of Glacier Point without tents in four inches of light snow, the President ordered the expansion of the Yosemite reserve and the next President, Taft, made it a national park.
Muir held similar influence over scholars, socialites, and financial tycoons throughout America and his passionate crusading for preservation of wilderness led him to be called the Father of the National Parks. Yet, while well-received in elegant salons around the country, Muir loved most to wander the mountains, sleeping on a bed of pine boughs in "one great bedroom of night" under the stars.
In reality, he -- along with 26 other northern Californians -- did "father" the Sierra Club in 1892. Dedicated to environmental causes, the Sierra Club today is 100 years old, has about 600,000 members and plays a strong role in environmental politics.
Born in 1838 in Scotland and raised in Wisconsin, Muir had no primary schooling after age 11 and only two-and-a-half years of college. Yet this passionate man, whose beard was as wild as the wilderness he loved, impressed scientists with his understanding of glaciers, engineering, and plant life.
Finding his way to California as a young man, Muir fell in love with the Sierra Nevada mountains, which he named the Range of Light. For him, wilderness was a religion that could purify the soul.
"The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness," Muir wrote. While he spent some years supporting himself as a ranch hand and sheepherder, he wrote constantly of the nature he experienced. His writings were published in books, magazines, and newspaper articles. As a result, he became known throughout America. He received honorary degrees from Yale and Harvard universities.
Today there is a Muir glacier and a John Muir Trail that traverses the Sierra Nevada, from Yosemite to Mt. Whitney. Also there is Muir Woods, which is a grove of redwood trees just north of San Francisco. His writings are still read and cherished by those who love wilderness and share Muir's sense of their spiritual value.
îBroadway Bound
1866
NEW YORK CITY
Ever since "The Black Crook" burlesque show took Broadway by storm in 1866, musicals have been part of American culture. Based on European burlesque shows, American musical comedies developed as a unique form of theater. Usually light in tone with a little humor, musical comedy has a definite story, told through dialogue and songs, and includes popular music and dancing.
The heart of the musical theater is New York City's Broadway, pictured here. This is where every dancer and singer dreams of performing and where most shows debut before touring America.
As musicals matured after World War I, they began to take on issues of the day such as racial discrimination in "Show Boat," and black culture in "Porgy and Bess." Often the songs from musicals entered the American popular culture. Famous composers and songwriters of musicals include George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, and Cole Porter.
The most successful and popular team of writer and composer in American musical history was Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Rodgers and Hammerstein created such classics as "Oklahoma!," "Carousel," "The Sound of Music," and "The King and I."
In the 1950s, the team of Lerner and Loewe wrote the hit "My Fair Lady." Bernstein and Sondheim created the wonderful "West Side Story." And later came "A Chorus Line," the longest-running musical in Broadway history: over 3,242 performances.
Today, the cost of producing musicals makes staging large elaborate productions a risky business. Some musicals cost over one million dollars to produce. Still, for many people seeing a Broadway musical is a goal when visiting New York.
New Meet Old Americans
1637
NEW ENGLAND
When the first English settlers arrived at Jamestown in 1609, and the Pilgrims came to Plymouth in 1620, they would have starved to death if local Indians had not befriended them. The Indians taught the settlers about native foods such as beans, corn, and squash. They also helped them to survive the first harsh winters in the New World.
However, peace didn't last long, and the violence that came led to the virtual extinction of some Indian tribes. Later in American history, tribes were forced from their homelands and onto reservations.
One of the early conflicts came in 1634, when eight colonists were murdered. The colonists believed this crime was committed by the Pequot Indians. As a result, this led to a war with the Pequot, which ended with a night attack in 1637 by colonists and their Indian allies on a Pequot village. Five hundred Pequot were killed.
Another war, this time with the Wampanoag Indians -- who had saved the Puritans at Plymouth -- is of disputed origin, but was marked by brutality by both sides. It ended with the death of Metacom (known to the British as King Philip), who was killed by the British.
The view that developed at this time of Indians as "the Enemy," persisted throughout the movement of Americans from the East to West Coast.
%TVA And The New Deal
1933
TENNESSEE VALLEY, SOUTH
During his first 100 days in office, President Franklin Roosevelt sent many pieces of legislation to Congress as part of his New Deal policy. One of these was the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA). This was for an electricity-producing dam, seen here during construction, that would improve the standard of living in one of America's poorest regions. The TVA gave rural people electric power for the first time, and controlled floods that had ruined crops and farms in the past.
The TVA was a radical step for government, because it created a federal electric project that competed with private industry. Later, the Tennessee Electric Power Company sued the government saying the TVA was unconstitutional. The Supreme Court voted in 1939 in favor of the government, and the TVA stayed in business.
Also as part of Roosevelt's New Deal, Congress created the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 1934, which put regulations in place for the stock market so, hopefully, a large market crash would not happen again.
Congress also created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), in order to protect savings up to a set amount of money, so people wouldn't lose all their money in a bank closure.
The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) put young men to work planting new forests across America. The Works Progress Administration (WPA) built new roads, hospitals, and schools throughout America. Some WPA projects were New York City's Lincoln Tunnel and Triborough Bridge, as well as the Bonneville and Boulder Dams. The WPA also employed many writers, musicians, and artists to document and decorate America.
The New Deal alone didn't pull America out of the Depression, but it gave people hope, rebuilt America's infrastructure, and gave many people jobs and meals.
╛Falling Between Borders
1683
NIAGARA FALLS, NEW YORK
"These waters foam and boil in a fearful manner. They thunder continually." This is how Louis Hennepin described Niagara Falls in a book he published in 1683. A Catholic priest, Hennepin traveled with the French explorer La Salle.
One of North America's prime tourist attractions with 10 million visitors a year, the Falls straddle the border between Canada and America on the Niagara River between Lakes Erie and Ontario. Niagara Falls is actually two falls: seen here is Horseshoe Falls, with about 85 percent of the water on the Canadian side, and the less torrential American Falls, in the state of New York. Horseshoe Falls is about 167 feet high and 2,600 feet wide. American Falls is about 176 feet high and 1,000 feet wide.
Niagara Falls flows through a gorge that deepens continually. Water flowing over the falls erodes about one inch of the underlying rock layers each year. The falls used to be seven miles downstream, but the erosion has moved them upriver toward Lake Erie.
Niagara Falls were named by the Indian tribes that lived in the area before Europeans arrived. The name "Niagara" is derived from the Iroquois Indian word "Onguiaahra," meaning "the strait."
6The Nisei 442nd Regiment
January, 1943
WASHINGTON, D.C.
After Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 in 1942, authorizing the roundup and relocation to detention centers of all Japanese-Americans. In January of 1943, the Secretary of War declared that Japanese-American men could serve in the American Armed forces, but in segregated units.
During the war, about 33,000 men, second-generation Japanese-Americans, called Nisei in Japanese, joined the army and fought in the Nisei 442nd Regiment. While their families were being held behind barbed-wire fences in America, Nisei men fought with bravery against the Germans, Italians, and in the Pacific, against the Japanese.
The Nisei 442nd became the most decorated group of soldiers in American history, with 3,600 Purple Hearts and 810 Bronze Stars, among other awards. While the rest of the army had a 15 percent rate of front-line desertions, the Nisei 442nd had no known desertions.
When the war ended, the Nisei soldiers returned to their families, most of whom had lost their homes and businesses during their forced relocation.
kFirst Americans
40,000 B.C.
NORTHERN ALASKAN COASTLINE
While the exact date is unknown, somewhere between 40,000 and 8,000 B.C., nomadic Mongolians crossed a land bridge that then connected Siberia with the North American continent at what is now Alaska. This was during the Ice Age and huge glaciers that covered much of North America had drawn on seawater to increase their bulk, thus lowering the oceans and exposing land that today is underwater.
These Asian migrants had black hair, reddish-brown skin, and dark eyes. They moved south and began to establish nomadic settlements throughout what is now North and South America.
They hunted moose, bison, and now-extinct species such as the woolly mammoth and the mastodon. For hunting, they used spears tipped with sharpened stones.
Around 1,000 B.C., some nomads in the Mississippi Basin began to cultivate a new form of maize, corn, that had come from Mexico. Growing crops meant they no longer had to wander in search of food, so they began more permanent settlements.
These people were the ancestors of the Indian tribes that white explorers encountered on arriving in America in the 1500s.
=O'Keeffe's Blooming Art
1949
ABIQUIU, NEW MEXICO
Georgia O'Keeffe, one of the best known of 20th century American artists, had a passion for remoteness and nature that is reflected in her paintings.
O'Keeffe was born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, and taught school in Amarillo, Texas. She studied art in New York City and married Alfred Stieglitz, famous for establishing photography as a legitimate art form. In 1949, three years after his death, she moved to Ghost Ranch, her home in Abiquiu, a town in northern New Mexico.
Though she had painted in New England, in the Southwest her art blossomed -- literally. She drew giant vivid flowers and leaves that appear somewhat mystical and even menacing. She captured the feeling of the desert in strong images of red rock and bleached bones painted in a precise, orderly, and intentionally simple style.
îOn the Road With Kerouac
1957
DRIVING THROUGH AMERICA
In 1957, Jack Kerouac published "On the Road," a fictional account of his real life road trips across America and of the San Francisco artist colony where he lived. Educated at Columbia University in New York, Kerouac heeded the call of the Beat Generation, a call that spoke of restless and primitive energy, jazz, and a rejection of suburbia. "On the Road" was a cry against the conformity of the Eisenhower years, and an expression of the restless urge to roam that runs deep in Americans.
The central characters of the book are Dean Moriarty, a true Beatnik who lives on the edge and can't be fit into a mold. He is the opposite of the "organization man" of that time, the corporate worker. Sal Paradise is Dean's friend, and Kerouac's alter-ego. Sal is more deliberate, more controlled than Dean.
"On the Road" became a kind of bible to the hippies of the 1960s, who took to the road in search of experience and a community not found in established America. The book also speaks of a yearning for open space and a desire not to be contained that is the essence of pioneers, cowboys, and visionaries throughout American history.
╧Willa Cather's Plains Life
1913
GREAT PLAINS, NEBRASKA
When "O Pioneers!" was published in 1913, it marked the arrival of a gifted writer, Willa Cather. This book is notable both for its unglamorous depictions of pioneer life on the prairies, and for its portrayal of strong pioneer women.
Most books about the West deal with the sensational, such as outlaws and posses, or the romantic, like covered wagons and cattle drives. "O Pioneers!" records in beautiful language the struggle of Swedish and Norwegian immigrants to survive in a new land. The book follows the lives of the Bergsons, as they establish themselves on the Nebraska prairie.
The haphazardness of the seasons and its impact on crops, the terrible droughts and blizzards, the endless expanse of sky overhead, and the spread of prairie in every direction the eye could see, are all conveyed in this book.
Today we can drive over this prairie in a day or two, or fly over it in a few hours. But back then, being on the prairie meant being in a world of its own. That environment shaped the people living there and formed the Midwest as we know it today.
As for the women, while East Coast women were wearing gowns and bustles, the book's heroine, Alexandra Bergson, is a single woman, who after her father dies, runs a farm and turns a profit. She is shown as more concerned with crops, than making herself attractive to men. In her day, such behavior by women was still not acceptable and considered suspect. Women weren't thought to have minds capable of doing hard business. Despite this, Alexandra perseveres, and in the end, marries her childhood sweetheart.
In 1923, Willa Cather won a Pulitzer Prize for her book, "One of Ours." Also notable is one of her most-loved novels, "My Antonia."
~Country Music Showplace
November 28, 1925
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
On November 28, 1925, the WSM radio station in Nashville began broadcasting a program of country-style music called the "WSM Barn Dance." Two years later, the program changed its name to "The Grand Ole Opry," and that is how it is still known today. In 1974, the Grand Ole Opry House (seen here) was built and this is where performances now take place. Thanks to the Opry, Nashville is known as Music City, U.S.A.
What makes the Grand Ole Opry unique is the style of music performed here. According to Opry founder, George D. Hay, it is music that "...sends forth the aroma of bacon and eggs frying on the kitchen stove on a bright spring morning." It is, he said, the music of the American people who labor for a living.
While fancy synthesizers have often taken over popular American music, country music still relies on its staples: guitar, banjo, fiddle, and other instruments of the people.
Some famous Opry performers include Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Tex Ritter, and the Weever Brothers. Performers often wore cowboy hats and overalls, and for women, full skirts, such as those worn at barn dances. Today, rayon and polyester fabrics are part of performers' wardrobes, but a distinctive style still sets them apart from performers in other areas of music.
If you visit Nashville, you can attend performances at the Grand Ole Opry on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
g
America's Robin Hoods
1865 - 1893
COFFEYVILLE, KANSAS
The years following the Civil War were a time of great unrest. It was an era that gave rise to the Western outlaws. They were bandits, gunfighters, and rustlers -- men guilty of a thousand crimes -- but they were also to become an important part of American folklore.
First among all these "American Robin Hoods" was Jesse James, who was born on September 5, 1847, in Clay County, Missouri. By 15, he was fighting in the Civil War with his older brother Frank, in the pro-Southern guerrillas led by William C. Quantrill. After the war, Jesse, his brother, and cousins Cole, Bob, and Jim Younger, formed a highly successful gang. They held up banks, stagecoaches, and trains, until 1876 when the gang was shot to pieces by the folks of Northfield, Minnesota, when they tried to rob two banks at once. The Youngers were captured and sent to prison. The James boys escaped and formed a new gang. Jesse was shot and killed by fellow gang members Bob and Charlie Ford, while straightening a picture in his own home. The Fords were pardoned by the governor. This outraged so many Missourians that Frank James was found innocent when he stood trial later that year.
Second only to the James Brothers in fame is William H. Bonney -- better known as Billy the Kid. Born in New York City on November 23, 1859, he moved to New Mexico as a youth and by the time he was a teenager was already into the short, bloody career, which would make him a legend. By 18 he had killed 12 men and was taking part in a bitter range war in Lincoln County, where he killed a sheriff and a deputy. Captured and sentenced to hang, Billy escaped from jail, killing two guards as he made his getaway.
Billy the Kid was shot to death on July 13, 1881, by Sheriff Pat Garrett, one of his oldest friends. He was just 22 years old when he died and had killed a man for every year of his life.
Other famous outlaws included John Wesley Harding, Sam Bass, Black Bart, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and the Dalton Brothers -- Bob, Grat, and Emmett. The Daltons were distant cousins of the Jameses and Youngers. And like them, tried to hold up two banks at once -- this time in their own hometown of Coffeyville, Kansas. The brothers and three other gang members were shot down in the streets by the people they had grown up with. Only Emmett, then 18, survived though badly wounded. He went to prison, but was pardoned by President Theodore Roosevelt and became a deputy marshal and a successful businessman in Los Angeles, California, where he summed up the sad life of the outlaw: "I made more money in one business deal than in all my years of robbing banks."
rPeople's Parks Of America
August 25, 1916
BLACK HILLS, SOUTH DAKOTA
Created in 1916, the National Park Service is a division of the Department of the Interior. Today, the National Park System includes 357 sites, covering more than 80 million acres; sites as diverse as Alaska's huge Gates of the Arctic park and South Dakota's Mount Rushmore (seen here).
The purpose of the Park Service is to preserve natural scenery, wildlife, and historic places, so future generations can enjoy them. This is a huge undertaking as the sites to be preserved are in all 50 states, as well as American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, Saipan, and the Virgin Islands.
The first national park was Yellowstone, in Wyoming, established in 1872. Among the most recent national historic site is Manzanar, established in 1992 along the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Southern California.
A vote by Congress is needed to make a new national park, but the President alone can make a national monument of a site already on federal land.
In the National Park Service's protection are the 50 national parks, which cover large and different areas of land; national monuments, which preserve one special place; national scenic trails, like the Appalachian Trail, which usually cover long distances, and national memorials, such as the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C.
There is usually a small fee to visit a National Park Service site.
Pearl Harbor Wake-Up Call
December 7, 1941
HONOLULU, HAWAII
For two hours on a peaceful Sunday morning, Japanese bombers carried out a surprise attack on the U.S. military fleet resting in Pearl Harbor. This action launched America into World War II. Beginning just before 8:00 a.m., bombs and torpedoes dropped on the battleship Arizona and killed 1,103 of the ship's 1,400 crew. A total of 18 ships were destroyed and about 2,400 people killed, before the planes returned to their carriers around 9:45 a.m.
The next day, Monday, President Roosevelt asked Congress to declare war on Japan, and it did. In response, Germany and Italy honored their treaty with Japan, and declared war on the United States.
Rationing of meat, cheese, shoes, and even items like nylon hose began in America. As men joined the armed forces, women at home took over their jobs in defense industries, where they worked as riveters, among other jobs. "Rosie the Riveter," a magazine cover by Norman Rockwell, showed a young American woman in such a factory. Rosie became an image of national pride.
Overseas, American soldiers fought the Japanese in the Pacific islands. They also fought the Germans and Italians in the woods of Europe and the deserts of North Africa. Generals such as George Patton, Douglas MacArthur, and Dwight Eisenhower led the troops.
One of the most successful of all military maneuvers was 1944's D-Day, the landing of about 150,000 Allied troops on France's Normandy Coast after crossing the English Channel. After D-Day, the Germans were driven out of France, and in 1945 the war came to an end.
¿Giving Form To Civilization
1955
NEW YORK CITY
After working a number of jobs for other architectural firms, I.M. Pei opened his own company in 1955. With a reputation for planning bold and modern buildings that relate to their environment, Pei and his firm have designed some of the most prominent and admired buildings in the world.
Born in 1917 in China, Pei's parents named him Ieoh Ming, meaning "to inscribe brightly." During his youth in Shanghai, Pei watched many buildings under construction and became interested in architecture. In 1935, Pei came to America and studied architecture and engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later at Harvard University. In 1954, Pei and his wife became American citizens.
With his own firm, Pei designed the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. The building has reddish towers that seem to blend with the red rock of the surrounding land. This project brought Pei much attention.
Among his other famous projects are the East Building of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., which has an outside waterfall that can be seen through the building's glass walls, giving the effect of a wall of water. Inside, rooms have geometric shapes and angles; outside, there are glass pyramids on the plaza. While very contemporary, many people think the East Building fits in with more traditional buildings around it.
Pei also designed the expansion of the Louvre Museum in Paris. Again, Pei came up with a contemporary solution in an attempt to work with the older-style architecture surrounding the museum. He built a glass pyramid standing 71 feet high in the Louvre plaza, which lets light into the museum's reception center below.
╚Greeting Immigrants
1899
PHILIPPINE IMMIGRATION
When Miss Philippines rode in the 1959 parade through the streets of Los Angeles, she was greeted by descendants of early Philippine immigrants, who began coming to America in 1899.
The United States won control of the Philippines in the Spanish-American War. Poverty was high in the Philippines after the war and Filipinos flocked to America. Because the Philippines were under American rule, they were able to bypass the usual immigration procedures.
Many Filipinos replaced the Japanese as laborers in Hawaii and on the mainland, especially after the 1924 Immigration Act. They worked in fields doing seasonal work and migrated throughout the West following the crops. They worked in canneries in Washington and Alaska. They washed dishes in hotels and worked as servants for wealthy whites. When Japanese-Americans were evacuated during World War II, Filipinos were among those who farmed the abandoned lands.
With a ratio of 300 Filipino men to one woman, Filipino existence in America was lonely. Some pastimes that cut the edge of loneliness were cockfighting (a tradition from home that was banned in America) and other gambling games.
While many Filipinos assimilated well in America, the economic pressures of the Great Depression helped increase American animosity toward them. This was a bitter surprise to the immigrants, who revered the principles of American democracy.
As non-citizens, Filipinos couldn't own land, and in 1934 the U.S. government restricted Filipino immigration as part of the Philippine Independence Act, which redefined Filipinos as aliens and set a quota on them of 50 immigrants a year.
As with the Chinese, World War II improved the condition of Filipino-Americans. After America liberated the Philippines in 1944, American attitudes toward Filipinos improved.
Immigration restrictions eased as G.I.s brought home war brides and Filipino students and professionals arrived. Their community thrived in America.
╛Pilgrims Reach Plymouth
December 1620
PLYMOUTH, MASSACHUSETTS
Dedicated to a brand of Christianity not influenced by the Catholic Church (as they felt the official Anglican Church was), British Puritans and their more radical cousins, the Pilgrims, were not happy with the reigning form of worship embraced by England in the early 1600s.
Seeking a safe place for their "purer" form of worship, 50 of these separatists joined 52 nonreligious travelers to sail to America in 1620 aboard a ship called the Mayflower.
After six weeks at sea, the Mayflower landed on Cape Cod at Plymouth. Due to a hard winter and pneumonia, 52 of the travelers were dead by spring. Luckily, friendly native Indians helped the settlers adjust to their new environment. These Wampanoag Indians were guests at the Pilgrims' first harvest celebration in 1621. This Thanksgiving dinner featured turkey, pumpkin, and corn. These are the same traditional Thanksgiving foods Americans eat today.
The survival of these early Pilgrims led to the Great Puritan migration between 1629 and 1642; during this time, between 14,000 and 20,000 settlers came to the New World. Most of the settlers were the Puritans bound for New England to escape religious intolerance in England.
>Old South Grandeur
1856
NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI
Antebellum architecture in America refers to the style of building that existed before the Civil War in the South. Here, wealthy plantation owners built magnificent estates on their land and in towns.
Pictured here is Dunleith, a townhouse built in 1856 in Natchez. During the antebellum years, Natchez was a center of wealth and culture, where many cotton barons had estates. Today, these homes still stand and give a view into a past way of life.
Dunleith is built in a style called Greek Revival, a style that exemplifies the Old South for many people. An important element to the Greek Revival style is a single facade of white columns that are two-stories high. Dunleith has a two-story facade on all four sides, the only house in Mississippi built this way.
It was also common in antebellum years for southern estates to be given a single-word name, like Dunleith. Perhaps the most famous estate ever is the fictional "Tara" in "Gone With the Wind." In this book, Tara is almost a character and represents a way of life that dies with the Civil War.
Poi: Hawaiian Dip
1600s
HAWAII
Though men generally haven't taken a big part in the preparation of American foods, Hawaiian men played a great part in making poi. This is because before modern equipment, the preparation of the recipe required some very heavy work at one stage of the process.
Poi, a Hawaiian-Polynesian dip, is made by cooking breadfruit, sweet potato, bananas, or the taro root, until it is soft enough to mash with water in a bowl. The cooked taro is very firm and has to be mashed very hard; in the old days the men did this using a stone on a pounding board. The man would moisten the board with water, place some taro on it, and pound it with short, quick strokes.
Poi is served in bowls or small dishes for dipping with fingers. The poi has the consistency of a smooth paste, which clings to the fingers for popping into one's mouth. Traditionally, Hawaiians preferred to let poi stand for a few days, until it fermented and turned sour. Today, poi is often served to tourists by large hotels at weekly luaus, Hawaiian feasts.
TPollock's Drippy Painting
1951
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
In the 1950s, Jackson Pollock created a stir in the art world by pioneering a radically new method of painting. Instead of touching the brush to the canvas, he placed the canvas on the floor, stood over it, and dripped paint onto it, often making sweeping, circular patterns. These "drippings" were not small -- they were wall-sized.
Pollock said, "I don't work from drawings or sketches. My painting is direct. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them." By putting the canvas on the floor, he said, he could also see the painting from all angles, even from inside it.
Of course, not everybody appreciated Pollock's drip technique. Time magazine, for example, called him "Jack the Dripper." Pollock was born in Cody, Wyoming, in 1912, studied art in New York, and died in an automobile crash there in 1956.
The Remarkable Mr. Adams
March 4, 1797
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Without John Adams there would be no United States of America. He was one of the first colonists to speak out against British oppression, led the fight in the Continental Congress for American independence, and was the first Vice President and second President of the United States.
In 1764 Adams, born on October 30, 1735, fell in love with and married Abigail Smith. At a time when it was thought that women were only capable of sewing and cooking and should, like children, be seen and not heard, Abigail was well-educated and outspoken. Adams was not threatened by having a wife as smart as he was. He relied on her wisdom and never failed to follow her good advice.
When he became America's second President in 1797, Adams tried to unite the country behind its new government. He was only partially successful, because of a political fight between Alexander Hamilton, who believed in a strong central government, and Vice President Thomas Jefferson, who believed in a weak one. It seemed everyone chose one side or the other. Try as he might, Adams could not get them to stop fighting.
Adams also had a real shooting war on his hands. In 1797, the French tried to bribe U.S. diplomats, which angered most Americans and a naval war with France began. To safeguard America, Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, but instead of protecting liberties, these laws threatened such rights as freedom of the press.
Adams ended the war in 1800, but had made so many political enemies that he was unable to run for a second term. He lived long enough to see his son, John Quincy, become President in 1825 and to become friends once again with Thomas Jefferson. Adams and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826 -- the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
_ The Tennessee Tailor
April 15, 1865
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Andrew Johnson was the only tailor ever to make it to the White House. Proud of his trade, he made his own clothes and would never pass a tailor shop without stopping in for a little chat.
Born in poverty on December 29, 1808, Johnson never went to school. As a young man he could barely write his own name. In 1827, he married Eliza McCardle, who was the daughter of a shoemaker. An educated woman, Eliza taught her husband arithmetic and how to read and write properly.
Johnson, ambitious to rise from his humble beginnings, entered the field of politics. A natural leader, he became champion of the small farmers and foe of the big slaveholding cotton planters. Soon he was a leader in the Tennessee Democratic Party and served as alderman, mayor, state representative, Congressman, governor, and U.S. Senator.
Remaining loyal to the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, Johnson was the only Southern senator not to resign his seat. In 1864, President Abraham Lincoln chose him to be his running mate. Thus in 1865, the ex-tailor became Vice President.
On April 14, 1865, Lincoln was killed and Johnson became America's 17th president. The Civil War -- which had caused the deaths of 600,000 Americans -- was nearly over. Johnson tried to carry on Lincoln's policy of being gentle with the defeated South. He backed the ending of slavery and pardoned Southerners, who had fought in the war.
Johnson ran into trouble with Republicans who wanted to punish the South for starting the war. In 1868, things reached the boiling point when Congress passed the Tenure in Office Act. This law said that the President had to get the permission of Congress to fire a cabinet member. Johnson said this was unconstitutional and fired his Secretary of War, Edwin M. Stanton.
The House of Representatives then impeached the President for "high crimes and misdemeanors." The Senate then tried Johnson, but failed, by just one vote, to remove him from office.
When his term ended in 1869, Johnson returned to Tennessee and rebuilt that state's Democratic party. In 1875, Johnson became the first President to be re-elected to the U.S. Senate, representing Tennessee. He died shortly afterwards on July 31, 1875.
Today he is remembered as a President of integrity and courage, who was also effective in carrying out a gentle reconstruction of the South.
δThe Gentleman Boss
September 19, 1881
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Chester Alan Arthur was a dandy who liked fancy clothes and high society and who was a loyal member of the Republican Party in New York. That loyalty paid off for Arthur with one well-paid political job after another. Unlike other politicians of his time, Arthur, called "The Gentleman Boss," was honest and efficient. Still, he was only collector of the port of New York in 1880, when the Republicans offered to make him their vice-presidential candidate to help James A. Garfield win the state.
Arthur, born on October 5, 1829, was deeply touched by the offer. "The office of vice president is a greater honor than I had ever dreamed of attaining," he said, and accepted the nomination.
President Garfield was shot on July 2, 1881 by a disappointed office seeker. In those days there was no civil service system, and whichever party was in power filled federal jobs with loyal campaign workers. This was called the "spoils system," after the war motto, "to the victor go the spoils."
When Garfield died, many reformers were shocked when they realized that Arthur, who had profited from the "spoils system" all his life, was now their 21st President. Arthur proved his critics wrong. He fought for the law that set up a Civil Service Commission and a merit system of hiring and promotion. He also prosecuted grafters in the Post Office and vetoed a bill against Chinese immigration, which he felt was racist.
Arthur found out that he was dying of an incurable disease and knew he would not live out a second term, so he did not seek the Presidential nomination in 1884. He died on November 18, 1886, just 21 months after leaving office, but even then he knew he had left the federal government a better institution than he found it.
0Little Ben
March 6, 1889
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Never was a president more skilled as an executive, nor more inept as a politician than Benjamin Harrison. These two opposing qualities fated him to a failed and largely forgotten 23rd Presidency.
Born on August 20, 1833, "Little Ben" as he was known, was the great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, grandson of President William Henry Harrison, and the son of an Ohio congressman. Despite his family tree, Harrison showed no interest in a political career as a young man.
As a lawyer before the Civil War began in 1861, he answered President Abraham Lincoln's call for volunteers to fight and became colonel of the 70th Indiana Infantry. He turned his farm boys into fine soldiers and himself into a good commander.
Following the war, he returned to the law and got involved in Republican politics, winning a seat in the U.S. Senate in 1880. He was defeated for reelection in 1886, but quickly set his sights on the Republican nomination for President in 1888 -- which he won on the eighth ballot.
Personally cold and aloof, Harrison was, however, an effective speaker and conducted a good enough campaign to beat incumbent President Grover Cleveland in the November election.
Reform-minded, Harrison got Congress to approve the Sherman Antitrust Act, outlawing business combinations (trusts) that wouldn't allow free trade. That landmark legislation is still the nation's principal antitrust law.
Harrison's leave-me-alone manner offended many Republicans, and a series of expensive federal programs led to major GOP losses in Congress in 1890.
Harrison still managed to get renominated in 1892, but was soundly defeated by Cleveland. A very disappointed man, he returned to his first love, the law, and continued in it until his death on March 13, 1901.
╫ Old Buck
March 6, 1857
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1819, James Buchanan was a successful young lawyer and in love with Ann Coleman, the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania iron manufacturer. The young couple got engaged, but broke off the romance because of a misunderstanding. Buchanan sought to clear things up, but Ann suddenly died and he was left heartbroken. He never married.
Buchanan, born in Pennsylvania on April 23, 1791, was to know many disappointments throughout his life, including his presidency during a time of grave crisis for America. He was America's 15th President.
In 1852, President Franklin Pierce named him ambassador to Great Britain. This was a lucky move for Buchanan, because it kept him out of the war of words between the North and South over slavery. In 1856, the fact that he had not made any public statements about slavery helped win him the Democratic nomination for President.
That November he won a narrow victory over John Fremont, candidate of the new Republican Party, and former President Millard Fillmore, the Know-Nothing Party candidate.
Buchanan's administration had hardly launched itself, before it was dragged into the slavery issue. Two days after his inauguration, the U.S. Supreme Court declared in the Dred Scott Case that a slave taken to free territory was still a slave. The President's support for this ruling cost him much political support, since many Northerners ignored the ruling and aided African-Americans in escaping from slavery.
Then in 1859, the U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry, Virginia, (now West Virginia) was seized by a group of anti-slavery men led by John Brown. He hoped to arm the slaves for a revolt against their masters so they could gain their freedom. The raid failed and Brown was executed by hanging. In the North, he was honored as a hero in the cause of freedom. Southerners were shocked and began arming for war.
Buchanan chose not to run for reelection in 1860, and the Democratic party split over slavery. As a result, Republican Abraham Lincoln, who opposed slavery, won the November election. This led the Southern states to leave the Union and set up a separate government called the Confederate States of America.
Buchanan remained president until March, but did little to prevent the oncoming Civil War. He spent his last days writing defenses of his administration before he died on June 1, 1868. For his inaction on slavery, historians have judged him very harshly and consider him to be one of America's worst presidents.
≡Read My Lips
January 20, 1989
WASHINGTON, D.C.
George Bush had a close encounter of the personal kind and lived to talk about it. Intensely patriotic, he joined the Navy in World War II at 18, and became that service's youngest bomber pilot. In 1944, he was shot down near the island of Chichi Jima and his two crewmen were killed. In his life raft, he was being pulled by the current toward the Japanese island, where he would certainly be killed.
It seemed that life would end for Bush when suddenly -- rising out of the Pacific Ocean -- came a United States submarine. The crew rescued the young Navy pilot. Grateful at being granted this second chance, "Poppy" Bush vowed he would make something of himself.
Born on June 12, 1924, George Herbert Walker Bush was the son of a wealthy banker and attended the best of schools. Following the war, he majored in economics at Yale University and was captain of its baseball team.
After graduation, he headed West to make his fortune in the Texas oil fields. He did just that, becoming a millionaire within the decade. Always interested in politics, Bush began taking part in local Republican politics in Houston, Texas. In 1966, he was elected to Congress where he supported the 1968 Civil Rights Bill, even though it was unpopular back home.
In 1971, President Richard Nixon named him United Nations ambassador and in 1972, he became chairman of the Republican National Committee. He defended Nixon over his involvement in the Watergate Scandal, when the President was accused of obstruction of justice. Finally, on August 7, 1974, Bush urged Nixon to step down. The President resigned the next day. That same year, President Gerald Ford named Bush the first U.S. representative to China since the Communists seized power in 1949. In 1975, Bush became director of the Central Intelligence Agency, where he restored morale and efficiency after years of political infighting.
Resigning in 1976, Bush sought the 1980 Republican presidential nomination, but lost to Ronald Reagan. But then, Reagan picked Bush to be the vice-presidential candidate. That team won a huge victory in 1980 and was reelected by an even larger landslide in 1984.
Receiving Reagan's blessing, Bush was nominated for President in 1988. Attacking his Democratic opponent, Michael Dukakis, as being soft on crime and defense, and repeating his convention pledge of "Read my lips: No new taxes!," he won a sizable victory in November.
Benefiting from the collapse of the Soviet Union, Bush, the nation's 41st President, acted decisively abroad. He reached agreements with the Soviet Union to reduce arms, intervened militarily in Panama in 1989, and deposed strongman Manuel Noriega. In August 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. Bush formed a unique alliance with nations around the world and dispatched more than 400,000 American troops to the Persian Gulf to defend Saudi Arabia. Iraq refused to withdraw, and on January 16, 1991, a massive Allied air assault was begun against Iraq and its forces in Kuwait. On February 24, the Allies launched a lightning-like attack and the Iraqis surrendered four days later.
Feeling at home in foreign policy, Bush shied away from the domestic areas, which became his undoing. Facing a mounting deficit spending crisis, Bush went back on his pledge of "no new taxes." The American people never forgave him.
He won renomination in 1992, but ran what many consider one of the worst campaigns in the nation's history against Democratic contender Bill Clinton, governor of Arkansas, and billionaire independent H. Ross Perot. In the end, Clinton became President with 43 percent of the vote.
In his last months in office, Bush dispatched U.S. forces to Somalia to ensure famine relief and pardoned those caught up in the Iran-Contra scandal from the Reagan years.
E Why Not The Best?
January 20, 1977
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The 1976 race between President Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, one-time governor of Georgia, was best summed up by T.V. personality Johnny Carson who said the election, "boils down to fear of the unknown versus fear of the known." It was Carter, the unknown, who stressed that he was not part of the Washington establishment -- this very fact helped to ruin his presidency.
Born James Earl Carter on October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia, he graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1946, and served as an engineer working with nuclear-powered submarines. He resigned from the Navy in 1953, following the death of his father, to take over the family's peanut-growing business.
He got more and more interested in politics and was elected governor in 1970. Then he began a longshot quest for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976. He built a commanding lead over his rivals by establishing solid support among Southern and black voters. The campaign was centered on the economy, the desire for change, and the personality of the two candidates. Carter started out with a big lead, but saw it fade away until he managed to win only a narrow victory.
Carter became the country's 39th President without any experience or particular desire to know about how Washington worked. And his campaign had been one of pointing out where others had failed, instead of what he would do. He quickly found that his warm smile would not convince Congress to do his bidding -- though the Democrats controlled both houses of Congress. He was not helped by inexperienced aides on Capitol Hill, who offended more than they influenced. Quickly, many came to think of his administration as focusing on symbolism -- for example, Carter carrying his own suitcases -- than substance, and the public began to turn against him.
He got a short breather in 1979, when his personal efforts brought peace between Israel and Egypt, which had fought three wars since 1948. However the end of his Presidency began on November 4, 1979, when Iranian militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held hundreds of Americans hostage. It got worse, when a rescue mission failed in April 1980. Then the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan and Carter ordered a U.S. boycott of the Olympic Games, which were to be held in Moscow, the capital of the Soviet Union.
Carter managed to win his party's nomination, but faced a formidable opponent in Republican nominee Ronald Reagan, one-time movie star and former California governor. Reagan launched a well-planned campaign that hit Carter for bad economic times and the weakness of the U.S. military. On election day, Reagan swept to victory. Carter spent his last months in office trying to get the hostages freed, but they were not released until a few minutes after Reagan was sworn into office on January 20, 1981.
║The Honest President
March 6, 1885
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When Grover Cleveland ran the first time for President, one newspaper gave its readers four reasons to vote for the Democratic nominee: 1. He is an honest man. 2. He is an honest man. 3. He is an honest man. 4. He is an honest man.
Stephen Grover Cleveland, the only chief executive to serve nonconsecutive terms -- 22nd and 24th Presidencies -- was an honest man, but honesty alone does not make a good president.
By 1863, Cleveland, born on March 18, 1837, was assistant district attorney in Buffalo, New York. Then he was drafted for military service in the Civil War, but paid another man to go in his place so that he could stay at home to support his mother and sister. After the war, he was elected sheriff, but devoted most of his time to his law practice.
Cleveland began his meteoric rise to the Presidency in 1881, when he became the reform mayor of Buffalo. He proved so successful that the Democrats nominated him for governor in 1882 and he handily won that race.
In 1884, the Republicans nominated veteran Senator James G. Blaine of Maine. The Democrats countered with the fresh face of Cleveland. The campaign that followed was a very nasty one, but in the end, Cleveland managed to win.
During his first term Cleveland ran into trouble, when he filled every federal office he could with "deserving" Democrats, rather than people of merit. He also rejected a package of veteran benefits; this hurt Cleveland a lot with powerful veterans' groups. Cleveland had not served in the Civil War and in the 1888 election, veterans supported Republican Benjamin Harrison, a Union general.
Harrison defeated Cleveland but made such a mess of his own Presidency that four years later, in 1892, Cleveland ran again and won.
On taking office for the second time, Cleveland had to handle a major economic crisis. In trying to prevent a national depression, Cleveland divided his own party. His use of federal troops to break up a strike against the Pullman Company in Chicago lost him the support of the Democrats. In 1896, the Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for president. Cleveland retired and continued pressing for government reforms until his death on June 24, 1908.
: Time For A Change
January 20, 1993
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1963, as a top high school student, William Clinton received a trip to Washington, D.C., and got to meet President John F. Kennedy. It was a defining moment in his life and awakened his interest in politics.
Born William Jefferson Blythe 3rd in Hope, Arkansas, on August 19, 1946, he was named for his father, who had died in an automobile accident six months before. His mother remarried when he was seven, and William took his stepfather's last name when a younger brother was born.
An excellent student, Clinton attended Georgetown University, then Oxford University in Great Britain, and finally Yale Law School. It was at Yale where he met his future wife, Hillary Rodham. During his college years Clinton avoided -- some say "dodged" -- the military draft and possible service in Vietnam.
Following law school, he became a professor at the University of Arkansas and by 1976, was the state's attorney general. In 1978, he was elected governor. Defeated for reelection after raising gasoline taxes for a new highway system, Clinton won back the governorship in 1982. Adopting a more moderate stance, he concentrated on improving the state's educational system.
Clinton was an advocate for a moderate position by the Democratic Party, instead of its more traditional liberal stance. Entering the presidential race in 1992, Clinton outlasted other candidates and became the Democratic nominee despite longstanding questions about his personal life.
During the campaign against Republican President George Bush and billionaire independent H. Ross Perot, Clinton stressed that it was "time for a change." He offered plans, for economic growth, health-care reform, reduced military expenditures, and handling of the deficit. He kept as his campaign motto: "It's the economy, stupid!"
In the end, Clinton won the Presidency with only 43% of the popular vote, but by a larger margin in the Electoral College.
The Democrats now controlled both the White House and Congress, and Clinton pledged to focus on the economy "like a laser."
Clinton named the First Lady to head a task force on national health reform, with the plan becoming highly controversial, even before the study was completed.
The country's 42nd President had promised a remarkable first 100 days, but most nonpartisan observers ranked it as mixed.
q Keep Cool With Coolidge
August 3, 1923
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The messenger walked briskly up the dusty road to the old farmhouse and pounded on the door. A few moments later he was admitted and found himself facing Vice President Calvin Coolidge.
Catching his breath, the messenger told Coolidge that President Warren G. Harding had died earlier that evening, which made Coolidge 30th President of the United States. Coolidge -- in keeping with his nickname of "Silent Cal"-- said little.
A little past midnight on August 3, 1923, John Calvin Coolidge took the oath of office in the same farmhouse where he was born on July 4, 1872. The oath was given by his father, a notary public, who read it by the light of a kerosene lamp. After shaking hands with his father and a few witnesses, Coolidge went back to bed.
Of course, Calvin Coolidge -- quiet, industrious, and tight with a buck -- always took things as they came. He had been a lawyer in Northampton, Massachusetts until 1910, when he entered politics full time. By 1913, he was president of that state's senate, its lieutenant governor in 1915, and its governor in 1918.
It was as governor that Coolidge stepped into the national spotlight. In 1919, the Boston police went on strike and the criminals took over the city; there was rioting, violence, and great property damage. Coolidge declared "There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime" and he called in the National Guard to restore order. The nation approved and Coolidge was picked to be Vice President, where he remained in the background until Harding died.
Adopting his own saying that "the business of America is business," Coolidge felt the nation needed to attend to local affairs, rather than worrying about big new public programs. This way of governing and a booming economy, made Coolidge very popular. He ran for election in 1924 with the slogan of "Keep Cool With Coolidge."
During his second term he continued his policies of limited government and limited speech. Coolidge became famous for one word answers to questions -- usually "no." He summed up his reluctance to talk by saying, "If you don't say anything you can't be called on to repeat it."
When his teenage son died of blood poisoning, Coolidge decided against re-election, declaring "I do not choose to run." After leaving office, he wrote his autobiography and died in Northampton on January 5, 1933.
╓ I Like Ike
January 20, 1953
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The injury to teenager Dwight Eisenhower's knee seemed minor at first, but it worsened until he was delirious with fever. It got so bad that at times it took two people to hold him down and the doctor wanted to amputate the leg.
Young Eisenhower loved football and baseball and made his older brother, Edgar, promise not to let the doctor take his leg. Edgar, a big, muscular athlete, obliged and stood outside his brother's door all day and slept across it at night, until Dwight was out of danger.
Dwight Eisenhower went on to be one of the greatest soldiers in history, one of America's greatest Presidents, and the most beloved hero of his time.
Born on October 14, 1890, Eisenhower grew up poor and sought an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, not because he particularly wanted to be a soldier, but because it was a free college education. That feeling changed when he raised his right hand and took the oath of allegiance. "... Suddenly the flag meant something," is how Eisenhower described this change.
During World War I, he sought to go overseas, but remained at home training recruits and becoming one of the early experts in tank warfare. Between wars he held various staff positions, but promotions were slow and Eisenhower was only a colonel when World War II broke out.
In June 1942, he was sent to England as Supreme Commander in charge of all the forces, except the Russians, fighting Germany. Eisenhower was a first-rate leader who knew how to act quickly and decisively.
With his boyish good looks and straightforward manner, he emerged as a true national hero. After the war, he wrote his war memoirs and became president of Columbia University in New York City. In 1950, he became the first commander of NATO -- the alliance of Western nations formed to stop Soviet aggression in Europe.
By 1952, the big question sweeping the land was: "Is Eisenhower a Republican or a Democrat?" Both parties wanted him for their presidential candidate. At last he chose the GOP, which appealed to his basic conservatism. Senator Richard M. Nixon of California was chosen to be his running mate.
Using the slogan "I Like Ike," he began a revolutionary political campaign by using airplanes for traveling far and fast and television for reaching millions of Americans in their living rooms. Eisenhower won in a landslide and became the nation's 34th President.
Adopting a moderate policy, Eisenhower sought to control inflation, limit spending, and keep the economy moving. In foreign policy, he concluded a truce that ended the Korean War, refused to send U.S. forces to aid the French in Vietnam, and kept up the policy of containment against the Soviet Union while trying to improve relations.
Despite a heart attack early in 1955, Eisenhower was reelected by a huge majority and continued his policies in his second term. In 1957, he used federal troops to enforce school desegregation in Little Rock, Arkansas, and signed the civil rights acts of 1957 and 1960. In 1958, the U.S. entered the space age with the launching of America's first satellite.
Leaving office in 1960, Eisenhower retired to his farm in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, where he wrote several books before dying on March 28, 1969.
The Forgotten President
July 9, 1850
WASHINGTON, D.C.
History remembers Millard Fillmore mostly for being America's most obscure president. For a century, his greatest claim to fame was having installed the first bathtub in the White House and even that wasn't true.
But then that is the story of Millard Fillmore's life -- living in the shadow of other, more famous men, as he struggled out of childhood poverty to the Presidency. With only six months' of schooling, Fillmore, born on January 7, 1800, was largely self-educated, but was still able to become a successful lawyer in Buffalo, New York.
Always interested in politics, he was elected to Congress at age 32 and became a Whig in opposition to President Andrew Jackson. Fillmore won the respect of his fellow Congressmen and became a power in the House of Representatives.
Trouble began for Fillmore in the 1840s, when he opposed the abolition of slavery and the immigration of Irish Catholics to America. These forces teamed up to defeat Fillmore's effort to be governor in 1844.
In 1848, when the Whigs chose Mexican War hero General Zachary Taylor as their candidate for president, Fillmore became his running mate to give geographical balance to the ticket -- Taylor was from the South, while Fillmore was a Northerner.
When Taylor died on July 9, 1850, Fillmore found himself America's 13th President. Fillmore worked hard in support of the Compromise of 1850, which tried to end the fight between North and South over slavery in the new lands won from Mexico.
Fillmore was praised for these efforts, but it all went sour when he supported the Fugitive Slave Law, which required that African-Americans who escaped to Northern states be returned to their masters down South. This action so divided the Whigs that they refused to nominate Fillmore in 1852.
He ran for President again in 1856 as the candidate of the Know-Nothing Party, which was anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant. He retired from public life and when he died on March 8, 1874, he had already been largely forgotten by the people he had once served as President.
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Boy Scout In White House
August 9, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Gerald R. Ford was the first true All-American ever to be president. A star center on the great University of Michigan's football teams of the early 1930s, he was named to the list of the outstanding players.
And that is the way Americans picture Ford: A "Joe College" type of guy -- the fellow everyone likes to hang out with. It was one of his strengths and one of his weaknesses as a national leader.
Born Leslie Lynch King, Jr. on July 14, 1913, his parents were divorced when he was two years old. Later his mother married Gerald R. Ford, who adopted the boy and gave him his name.
Ford was the very picture of the student-athlete in both high school and college, where he graduated with a B average. He then went to Yale Law School, where he paid his way through by coaching football and boxing. He got his law degree and finished in the top third of his class.
However, his law practice ended when World War II broke out. Joining the Navy, Ford saw combat against the Japanese as an officer on an aircraft carrier.
At the end of the war, he returned to Michigan to practice law. In 1948, he was elected to the House of Representatives as a Republican. He was re-elected 12 times. In Congress, Ford was elected Republican leader. But all that changed in 1973.
President Richard M. Nixon was under fire for having tried to cover up the 1972 burglary by agents of the Committee to Re-elect the President (C.R.E.E.P.) at the Democratic National Headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. Then, Vice President Spiro Agnew, accused of corruption, resigned on October 10, 1973. Nixon turned to the likeable Ford and chose him to be Vice President. Ford was quickly approved by Congress and sworn in on December 6, 1973.
Eight months later, the Watergate crisis peaked when the House Judiciary Committee voted that the President be impeached and Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974. Ford then became America's 38th President, and the first never chosen in a national election as either President or Vice President.
At first, Ford was well-received by the public, but he felt the Watergate mess must be put behind the country, so he pardoned Nixon. There were loud protests, but Ford maintained that he did the best thing for the nation. His troubles increased when a severe economic slump hit the country. He also became involved in a prolonged fight with the Democratic Congress.
The Republicans nominated Ford for President in 1976, although he faced a serious challenge from Ronald Reagan, one-time actor and former governor of California. The Democratic nominee, Jimmy Carter, former governor of Georgia, won a narrow victory over Ford.
Giant In A Wheelchair
March 4, 1933
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When New York's Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected President in 1932, America was hurting. The country hurt from the 1929 stock market crash, the failure of over 1,300 banks, and between 25 to 40 percent unemployment. This is the challenge that faced President Roosevelt, and as shown by history, he met it as America's 32nd President.
Crippled from boyhood polio, President Roosevelt ruled America from a wheelchair. Perhaps the courage he had to muster to fight this disease came to his side when fighting America's ills. Key to this fight was the line from his inaugural address: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." That line was probably taken from the writings of Henry Thoreau.
Roosevelt began his unprecedented, and never repeated, four-term administration with a series of radio broadcasts called "fireside chats." In these, the President told listeners about the economy and soothed their fears, restoring some confidence to America.
Next, he implemented the "New Deal" he promised in his campaign, establishing many new federal agencies that put people to work rebuilding America. The Works Project Administration (WPA) and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were two such agencies. His intervention into private business by government was not loved by everyone. Conservative Republicans hated him because of the business rules and regulations he promoted.
As if leading America out of the Great Depression was not enough, Roosevelt went on to lead America during World War II. Roosevelt presided over America's war effort almost to victory in 1945, when he died of a cerebral hemorrhage (April 12). The world mourned and even the Japanese, whom America was fighting, issued a message of sympathy for its enemy's leader.
6Last Of Log Cabin Presidents
March 6, 1881
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The crowd filled the wide square in Cincinnati, Ohio, on a hot summer day in 1880. Most were recent immigrants from Germany, who came seeking political freedom and a better life. This would be their first time to vote in a new land where few spoke German. The Republican candidate for president, James A. Garfield, stepped forward on the stage and addressed the crowd -- in German.
The crowd filled the air with cheers. Here was a candidate who spoke their language and in November, German-Americans voted for Garfield in huge numbers and helped him to win the presidency.
Garfield, born on November 19, 1831, understood the hopes and dreams of these new citizens for a better life in America, because although born in a log cabin in Ohio, he had dreamed and hoped to escape the poverty of his childhood.
A devoutly religious man -- he was a lay preacher -- Garfield became a teacher and then a lawyer. With the coming of the Civil War in 1861, Garfield, a Republican, joined the Union Army and rose to the rank of major general.
In 1880, he was elected to the U.S. Senate and entered the race for the Republican nomination for President. In a hard-fought contest against Senator James G. Blaine of Maine and former President Ulysses S. Grant, Garfield was nominated on the 36th ballot.
With Chester Alan Arthur as his running mate, Garfield won a narrow victory over his Democratic opponent and became America's 20th President. Garfield found he had to fill federal offices with political backers rather than people of merit. The government operated under the "spoils system" where federal workers got jobs based on party loyalty. There was no civil service system where all but a few top positions are filled through examination and merit.
On July 2, 1881, Garfield went to Washington's railroad station to begin a vacation trip. There Charles J. Guiteau, a disappointed office seeker, shot him. Garfield lived 11 weeks in great pain before dying on September 19, 1881. His death took away from the nation the kind of moderate, competent leader it needed.
⌡
Hero Of Appomattox
March 4, 1869
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On May 7, 1864 the bloodied and dog-tired Union Army slowly pulled itself out of the fiery horror of The Wilderness in Virginia. Seven times in the Civil War this great army had set off to capture the Southern capital of Richmond. Six times it had been beaten. Now it looked like there would be a seventh.
Slowly the blue-clad troops moved down the dark, dusty roads, which were lit here and there by blazing fires. At last every unit came to a crossroads -- one leading north, the other south. Mounted there was a dust-covered man on a dust-covered horse. Silent, with a cigar stuck between his lips, he ordered each unit south -- there would never be another retreat.
The soldiers began to cheer the quiet man -- Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant, the general who didn't know how to quit.
Three short years before, Grant, born on April 27, 1822, was considered a drunkard and a failure for having to work as a clerk in a store owned by his father. Now he was commanding general of the Union Army. In less than a year, he would end the war and three years later he would be President.
There certainly was nothing of a great soldier in his looks or bearing. He was under average height with a slight stoop to his shoulders, wore what was comfortable rather than regulation, and drank too much at times; but he also had great strengths: he was a doer, a man of action, and a person who didn't know how to lose.
With the end of the war, Grant was the greatest hero in the nation. In 1868, he ran on the Republican ticket for President and the votes of his veterans and free African-Americans gave him a victory. He was America's 18th President.
Although honest and sincere, Grant's inexperience made him a poor President. His friends took advantage of him for their own financial gains and made his administration one of the most corrupt in the nation's history.
Grant left the Presidency in 1877 to spend his remaining years in comfortable retirement. But in 1884, he fell upon hard times when his business partner stole all his money. Grant was flat broke and then found out he was dying of throat cancer -- from smoking cigars.
To provide for his family, the old general reached deep inside himself and found the strength for one last campaign. In a race against death, he began writing his memoirs. He finished them just five days before he died on July 23, 1885. The memoirs were a best-seller -- they are still in print today -- and made a fortune for his family.
The country did not forget Grant in death. Through public donations -- including those from many men he had fought against in the Civil War -- the people of the United States built a magnificent tomb in New York City, which became the final resting place for Grant and his wife.
%Back To Normalcy
March 6, 1921
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Warren Gamaliel Harding, a realist, knew he was not a great man, preferring to think of himself as "a man of limited talent from a small town."
Small-town America formed the basis of Harding's outlook on life and politics. Born on November 2, 1865, he was not a lawyer like most Presidents, but a newspaper publisher in Marion, Ohio.
A Republican, Harding got involved in state politics and was elected to the Ohio Senate in 1898 and then lieutenant governor in 1904. He lost a race for governor in 1910, but in 1914, became Ohio's first popularly-elected U.S. senator.
His Senate career was hardly dazzling. He introduced no important bills and would not cast a vote which might anger Ohio voters. But his ability to heal political wounds made him popular with the leaders of the Republican Party.
Harding ran for President in 1920, and when the convention deadlocked the party turned to Harding as a compromise candidate.
The nomination drew reactions like: "Well, at least he looks like a President." But in 1920, being the GOP nominee was as good as elected, since the Democratic Party was in shambles.
As America's 29th President, Harding knew his limitations as a leader and sought to do the best he could by appointing able people to his cabinet. However, he gave too much responsibility to his cabinet and this eventually destroyed his Presidency.
Harding's administration is best-remembered for its scandals. The most famous was Teapot Dome, in which the secretary of the interior accepted a $100,000 bribe to allow private businesses to drill for oil on federal lands. It got so bad that the famous humorist Will Rogers once asked Harding, "Mr. President, have you heard any good jokes lately?" "Yes," replied Harding, "and I appointed every one of them."
None of these scandals touched Harding, who was an honest man, but the worry put more strain on his already bad heart. To rest, Harding went on a trip to Alaska and stopped in San Francisco, California on his way home. There, on August 2, 1923, he died of a heart attack.
*Old Tippecanoe
March 6, 1841
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1811, Native Americans in what is now Indiana, made one last attempt to save their land from white settlement. They formed a strong confederacy under two Shawnee warriors, Tecumseh and his brother, The Prophet, and got ready for war.
Fighting the tribes fell to William Henry Harrison, a part-time soldier and full-time politician. In November, he camped along Tippecanoe Creek and was surprised by the Indians. In a wild battle, Harrison won a great victory over the Indians -- who lost their ancient hunting lands forever.
This battle made Harrison, who was born in Virginia on February 9, 1773, so famous it would help him win the White House almost 30 years later. In the War of 1812, Harrison was one of the few successful American generals as he won several victories over the British near Detroit, Michigan.
After the war he sat in Congress, but was ousted when Andrew Jackson and the Democrats swept to victory in 1832. Harrison had no money and ended up as a clerk in a county court in Ohio. But he wouldn't stay down for long and toured the Midwest during 1835, talking about his long-ago victories.
The public liked the old soldier and Harrison won the Whig presidential nomination in 1840. He picked John Tyler to run for Vice President. They would face incumbent President Martin Van Buren.
This was the first real presidential campaign complete with huge rallies, torchlight parades, songs, and even a popular slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too; Van, Van is a worn out man." The voters liked Harrison and elected him their ninth President.
March 6, 1841, inauguration day, was cold and rainy in Washington, D.C. but Harrison stood outside bareheaded and without an overcoat and spoke for 1-1/2 hours. It was his last speech, for he caught pneumonia and died on April 4, 1841.
üThe Dark-Horse President
March 6, 1877
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On September 14, 1862, Union troops attacked Confederate troops during a South Mountain, Maryland, Civil War battle. The Confederates were taking a licking until a tall, bearded officer on a white horse stood in the stirrups and ordered his Ohio regiment to follow him in a desperate attack upon the enemy.
The soldiers gave a loud cheer and followed their dashing colonel forward through shot and shell. The officer was wounded in the shoulder and fell from the saddle. He yelled to his men to leave him and charge the enemy; they went forward and won the day.
"Who is that gallant officer?," asked the Union commander. "Why, that is Hayes of the 23rd," came the answer. And Rutherford B. Hayes was marked for great things in the Army.
Hayes, born on October 4, 1822, lived up to the goal he set for himself as a young man -- "to maintain steady nerves if possible, under the most trying circumstances." He met that goal in a score of battles and left the Army as a brigadier general.
An early member of the Republican Party, he used his political connections and war record to get elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. He served three terms as governor of Ohio and in 1876, was nominated for President by his party to run against Democrat Samuel Tilden.
In the election, Tilden won 184 of the 185 electoral votes needed to win. Hayes had 165 votes. A total of 20 votes were in dispute. Congress created a special commission to settle the matter. The commission was composed of eight Republicans and seven Democrats and the committee voted 8 - 7 to give all the votes to Hayes, who became America's 19th President by one electoral vote.
Hayes, who died on January 17, 1893, proved to be a very good President. He restored the prestige of the office in the eyes of the people after the scandals of the administration of Ulysses S. Grant. His goal was "to wipe out the color line (which restricted the rights of African-Americans), to abolish sectionalism, to end the war, and bring peace." He was only partially successful, but was a century ahead of most people in his attempt to guarantee the civil rights of all Americans.
╩
A Chicken In Every Pot
March 6, 1929
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Herbert Hoover, America's 31st President, probably saved more lives than any person in history. His relief work in Europe following both World Wars prevented millions of people from starving to death.
So magnificent was his work that young Franklin D. Roosevelt exclaimed," I wish we could make him President of the United States. There couldn't be a better one." Thirteen years later, Roosevelt would oust Hoover from the Presidency saying he was a terrible chief executive.
Hoover was born August 10, 1874, in West Branch, Iowa. His father was the blacksmith. Orphaned at the age of eight, Hoover went to live with a wealthy uncle in Oregon. This allowed Hoover to study mining engineering at Stanford University, in California.
Upon graduation, Hoover began a career that took him all over the world on engineering projects and made him wealthy. When World War I started in August 1914, Hoover was in London.
As a Quaker, he was shocked by the war's slaughter and vowed to do all he could to relieve the suffering. He took over the Commission for Relief in Belgium, a country which had been almost entirely overrun by the Germans.
Hoover and his commission fed more than 10 million people and set up funds for postwar reconstruction. His efforts earned him the title of the "Great Humanitarian."
When America entered the war in April 1917, Hoover oversaw U.S. food production and distribution. With peace, he went back to Europe to head the American Relief Administration. His efforts made him one of the most popular people in America.
In 1921, President Warren G. Harding appointed him Secretary of Commerce. So brilliantly did he perform in his new post that he soon earned the nickname "secretary of domestic affairs," as he balanced individual initiative with the modern world of big business.
In 1928, he ran for President on the Republican ticket against Democrat Al Smith. Hoover campaigned on a theme of continued prosperity for all Americans and won easily.
The grand plans Hoover had for the nation crashed along with the Stock Market in October 1929. The Great Depression was something which Hoover never quite knew how to handle. He didn't move fast enough to save the nation's economy and what he did had the ring of too little and too late.
Hoover's standing with the American people fell, as millions lost their jobs. Although he was nominated for President in 1932, he lost in a landslide to Roosevelt. After World War II, he headed the European Food Program and again saved millions of people from starvation. As the years passed, the bitterness over the Depression faded and by the time he died on October 20, 1964, he was hailed as one of the greatest Americans of the 20th century.
¡Hero Of New Orleans
March 6, 1829
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Andrew Jackson so dominated the political life of America that his term as the seventh President became known as the "Age of Jackson." He was a self-made man who championed the common people and was founder of the Democratic Party.
Jackson, born March 15, 1767, was a proud man. That pride was there even when Jackson was a young boy during the Revolutionary War, when he refused to shine the boots of a British officer. The soldier struck the youngster across the head with his sword. Jackson carried the scar for the rest of his life.
He had a very bad temper and even killed men in duels, nearly getting killed himself. His wife, Rachel, was a calming influence on Jackson. He became a leader in Tennessee politics and a general during the War of 1812.
His victory over the British at New Orleans made him a hero, even though the battle was fought two weeks after the war ended, but before either side knew about it. He ran for President in 1824, but no candidate won a majority of electoral votes so the election was left up to the House of Representatives, which chose John Quincy Adams.
Jackson felt he had been cheated. He ran again in 1828, and this time won. His inauguration was a wild party as Westerners crowded into Washington. It got so out of hand at the White House that Jackson had to escape through an open window.
Once President, he began the "spoils system," where the winner got to name friends and supporters to federal jobs. This was a very corrupt system, which gave jobs to political friends, instead of to people who knew how to do the work. This led to the death of President James A. Garfield in 1881.
Jackson's great moment as President came with the federal tariff, which is a tax on imported goods to protect American industry. South Carolina opposed the tariff and refused to allow federal authorities to collect the tax. An angry Jackson declared he would collect the tax at bayonet point, if necessary. Congress backed the President and South Carolina backed down. Jackson won a great political victory.
Jackson left the Presidency in 1837, but remained a power behind the scenes in the Democratic party, until his death on June 8, 1845.
HJefferson's Legacy
March 4, 1801
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On the Fourth of July, 1826, 50 years to the day after the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson died. The same day, just a few hours later, John Adams spoke his last words and died: "Thomas Jefferson," he said, "still survives."
Jefferson and Adams had long been acquainted. In 1776, they were appointed to write the Declaration of Independence. Adams recalls that they argued about it, with Jefferson suggesting Adams write it and Adams saying Jefferson should. But Adams won the argument. A Virginian should write such an influential document, he said, and besides, "I am obnoxious, suspected, and unpopular. You are very much otherwise." And finally, Adams said: "You can write ten times better than I can."
So Jefferson wrote one of the most important documents in United States' history, a justification for the colonies to end their political ties to Great Britain.
After the American Revolution, the United States was governed by the Articles of Confederation. But, it was a failure. So a delegation sat down to write out a new governing document, the U.S. Constitution. Though Jefferson approved of the Constitution, he was disturbed that it contained no Bill of Rights. Later Congress created a Bill of Rights, including many of Jefferson's ideas, such as freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and trial by jury.
In 1801, Jefferson was elected President by the House of Representatives, becoming the third President.
During his Presidency, he bought the 828,000-square-mile Louisiana Territory from France, doubling the size of the United States, at less than three cents an acre.
In 1814, toward the end of his life, he was invited to become a member of the Board of Trustees of Albemarle Academy in Charlottesville, near his hilltop home of Monticello -- later to become the University of Virginia.
Jefferson designed the college's buildings, landscaping, wrote curriculum, and recruited faculty. Though there were other universities at this time, it was the first in the United States with no religious affiliation.
Forging The Great Society
November 22, 1963
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1954, Lyndon Baines Johnson, then Democratic majority leader of the U.S. Senate, suffered a heart attack. As he was recovering, his wife, Lady Bird, asked him what to do with two suits he had ordered -- a gray one and a dark blue one. Johnson told his wife to keep the blue one, because they could use it "no matter what happens."
That was Johnson -- always thinking out all the options before committing himself. That is one of the qualities that made him a great Senate leader, but helped to ruin him as President.
Born near Johnson City, Texas, on August 27, 1908, Johnson came from a family that was poor, but politically active. Graduating from college, young Johnson taught school for a year before becoming an aide to a Democratic congressman. In this post, he made many of the political contacts, which would be so useful in years to come. In 1937, Johnson was elected to Congress.
When America entered World War II, Johnson became the first member of Congress to join the military. After a short tour of duty against the Japanese in the South Pacific, he and other Congressmen in the military were recalled by the President.
Johnson really came of political age when he was elected to the Senate following the war. By 1955, he was majority leader and a real power in Washington.
He ran for President in 1960, and accepted the vice-presidential spot on the ticket when he lost the nomination to John F. Kennedy. The assassination of Kennedy on November 22, 1963, made him the nation's 35th President. He quickly proved to be a dynamic leader, launching his War on Poverty and getting Congress to pass strong civil rights legislation.
In 1964, he and vice-presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey, swept to victory over the Republican ticket headed by Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona. During the campaign, he promised not to become engaged in a war in Vietnam, but this was a very short-lived promise.
By February 1965, less than a month after his inauguration, the U.S. began bombing Communist North Vietnam. By year's end 180,000 troops were in South Vietnam; 700,000 by 1968.
As America got more involved in Vietnam, the nation became more divided. Many violent confrontations erupted between protestors and police. Johnson could not win the war and could find no honorable way out. On March 31, 1968 he announced that he would not seek reelection, but would work to reach a peace settlement.
Despite this, the war dragged on and Johnson left office in January 1969 a heartbroken man. Johnson said it best: "I knew from the start that if I left...the Great Society to fight that war...I would lose everything at home. All my hopes...my dreams." He died on January 22, 1973, just five days before the signing of the agreement calling for the U.S. to withdraw from Vietnam.
¥Old Man Eloquent
March 4, 1825
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A friend once described John Quincy Adams as "hard as a piece of granite and cold as a lump of ice." And so he was, unless it came to his country.
Born on July 11, 1767, he spent 70 years working for America. He started at the age of 11, when he went with his father, John Adams, on a diplomatic trip to France. When he returned to America at 18, to go to college, he spoke eight languages, had traveled throughout Europe, and was an experienced diplomat.
It was Adams who negotiated an end to the War of 1812 between America and Great Britain and was ambassador to England (a post held by his father and one which would be held by his son, Charles Francis).
In 1819, he became President James Monroe's secretary of state and most historians say he was "brilliant" in the job.
In 1825, he ran for President in a four-way race and no candidate received a majority of electoral votes. Under the Constitution, the decision would be made by the House of Representatives. Candidate Henry Clay backed Adams to keep Andrew Jackson from becoming President, and so Adams won. He was America's sixth President.
Jackson's backers were very angry and called it a "corrupt bargain." They set out to ruin his Presidency, which they did by not allowing anything he wanted to get through Congress. Adams grew more and more unhappy and was glad when his term ended in 1829.
In 1830, he was elected to the House of Representatives and served for 18 years. He was a leading foe of slavery and, with Representative Abraham Lincoln, opposed war with Mexico, which he considered "wicked." Adams died while making a speech against the war in Congress on February 23, 1848.
Exploring New Frontier
January 20, 1961
WASHINGTON, D.C.
While serving with the Navy in 1943, John F. Kennedy became a war hero when the ship he commanded -- PT109 -- was cut in two by a Japanese destroyer in the Solomon Islands. Although suffering from an injured back and malaria, Kennedy saved his surviving crew members and got them rescued. Kennedy was always modest about his wartime bravery. When a little boy asked him how he became a hero, his answer was "I had no choice -- they sunk my boat."
That was Kennedy humor at its best and it was one of the qualities which made the nation's 35th President such a successful politician. He used humor in attack and defense and it became as much part of his public image, as was his Boston accent or boyish smile.
The son of a wealthy Irish-Catholic family, Kennedy was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on May 29, 1917. Educated in the finest schools, Kennedy got his first experience in foreign affairs when his father became ambassador to Great Britain in 1936. He wrote his first book ("Why England Slept") in 1940. It detailed why Great Britain did not oppose the rise of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis prior to World War II.
Emerging from the war a hero, JFK, as he was known, ran for Congress in 1946, in a working-class section of Boston. They elected the wealthy young man three times and then the state of Massachusetts elected him a U.S. Senator in 1952.
In 1960, he put together an excellent campaign staff. Stressing his beliefs in an aggressive anticommunist foreign policy and a moderate liberal policy on domestic issues, he won his party's nomination on the first ballot. For Vice President, he chose Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas.
Kennedy's well-financed campaign received a much-needed boost when he did very well in a series of T.V. debates with former Vice President Richard M. Nixon, the Republican nominee. In the end, Kennedy won by a narrow margin and at 43 became the youngest man ever elected and the first Roman Catholic to be elected.
Starting his administration with a brilliant inaugural address, Kennedy told Americans to "Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country." He asked them to join him in a New Frontier, which would mean a defense second to none, and far-reaching programs on health care, housing, and civil rights.
Soviet leader Nikita Krushchev's attempts to expand Russian influence strained relations to the point of war. The Berlin Wall was built and guerilla movements around the world were supported. However, the worst crisis came in October 1962, when the U.S. discovered the Soviets were installing offensive missiles on the island of Cuba.
Kennedy ordered a naval and air blockade of Cuba and the world faced the very threat of nuclear war for 10 days. At last the Soviet Union backed down and removed its missiles and the U.S. promised not to attack Cuba. Using the crisis as a warning, Kennedy built up America's military and stepped up aid to a faraway country called South Vietnam.
Kennedy was already planning his run for reelection. In order to make peace within the warring Democratic party in Texas, he went there in November 1963. While riding in a motorcade in Dallas on November 22, he was assassinated. Vice President Johnson was sworn in as President later that day.
Θ
Lincoln: From Hick To Hero
March 4, 1861
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Abraham Lincoln is remembered as one of the United States' greatest Presidents, but that wasn't what people thought of him during the Civil War. Then he was an amateur, a hick, a tyrant, and a bungler. Not only did Southerners hate him, many Northerners did as well. They were sick of the slaughter of the Civil War. There were riots in the cities and it was very likely Lincoln would have been thrown out of office by a peace candidate. If not for General William Sherman's capture of Atlanta just before the presidential election, the United States might have become two countries.
Though it is well known that Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin and was mostly self-educated, he did not jump from the cabin to be the 16th President of America. By the time he became President, he was a successful lawyer with a high income. He had served in the Illinois State Legislature, the House of Representatives, and Senate. He became particularly prominent through his slavery debates with William Douglas.
Lincoln was tall and -- many thought -- rather homely. He even joked about it. When accused of being two-faced, he replied: "I leave it to my audience, If I had two faces, do you think I would wear this one?"
In 1860, Lincoln was selected as the Presidential candidate of the Republican Party. Though he won the election by carrying every Northern state, the South was furious at his stance against expanding slavery into the Western territory. The South withdrew from the Union. Lincoln tried to prevent a war between the North and South, but when Confederate forces in South Carolina fired upon the Union-held Fort Sumter, the Civil War began.
After the battle of Antietam, Lincoln gave his Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that slaves in the breakaway Southern states were free. Fearing that his proclamation would be overturned by legal means after the war, he pushed through a constitutional amendment to ban slavery forever, which was ratified in 1865.
Shortly before the fall of the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia, Lincoln had a disturbing dream. In it he wandered around the White House and heard people sobbing, but went from room-to-room and saw nobody. Then, in the East Room he saw a corpse surrounded by guards. "Who is dead in the White House?" he asked a soldier. "The President," he replied. Lincoln awoke and didn't get more sleep that night.
On April 14, 1865, just five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered, Lincoln and his wife, Mary, were watching the comedy "Our American Cousin" at Ford Theater in Washington, when John Wilkes Booth, a Southern sympathizer, came into his box and shot him in the back of the head. The funeral was held in the East Room of the White House.
¿Father Of The Constitution
March 6, 1809
WASHINGTON, D.C.
By 1786, James Madison knew that the Articles of Confederation, which governed America like 13 separate countries instead of one nation, was not worth the paper it was written on. He and other Americans, including George Washington and Benjamin Franklin, met in Philadelphia in 1787. There -- behind locked doors -- they wrote a new Constitution.
It was Madison, born on March 16, 1751, who gave America an independent court system, a strong Presidency, and the Senate and House of Representatives. So important was Madison in giving the U.S. its new form of government, that he was called "The Father of the U.S. Constitution."
He and other supporters of the Constitution (called Federalists) worked hard to get the backing of the people. They wrote a series of letters (the "Federalist Papers,") which appeared in newspapers to win support for the Constitution.
In 1809, Madison became America's fourth President and faced trouble with Great Britain. That nation would not allow U.S. ships to freely sail the ocean. He did not want war, but Madison finally gave in to the angry "war hawks" in Congress and the War of 1812 began.
Things did not go well for America as defeat followed defeat. In 1814, the British even burned Washington, D.C. President Madison's office became the saddle of his horse. The war was so unpopular that several New England states threatened to form their own country.
But then the war started going better for America. The British were stopped at Fort McHenry near Baltimore, Maryland. It is that fight Americans remember when they sing "The Star-Spangled Banner." The British then sought peace and the war ended on Christmas Eve 1814.
Madison worked hard to heal the wounds between Americans caused by the war and was largely successful by the time he left office in 1817. In his last years he worked with Jefferson to found the University of Virginia before he died on June 28, 1836.
┴ The Front-Porch Campaigner
March 6, 1897
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The last Civil War veteran to become President, William McKinley, born January 29, 1843, always credited the war for changing his life. In 1861, at the age of 18, he enlisted as a private in the 23rd Ohio Infantry. (The commander was future President Rutherford B. Hayes.) When he was discharged in 1865, he had risen to the rank of major and was a mature, responsible adult.
Becoming a lawyer, he opened a law office in Canton, Ohio in 1867, and two years later was county prosecuting attorney. In January 25, 1871, he married the love of his life, Ida Saxton. The tragic deaths of their two young children left Mrs. McKinley an invalid in 1875. For the last 26 years of his life, McKinley gave his time and his love to the care of his wife. The demands of caring for her reinforced McKinley's natural patience, which made him such a political success.
In 1876, McKinley ran for Congress as a Republican and for the next 14 years sat in the House of Representatives. A backer of tariffs on imported products to protect American industries, McKinley won the support of Ohio workers in election after election.
Defeated in the Democratic sweep of 1890, McKinley was elected governor the next year and by 1896, was the leading Republican candidate for President. Campaigning from his front porch (so he could remain close to his wife), McKinley spoke to more than 750,000 visitors and easily defeated the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan.
As America's 25th President, McKinley adopted an aggressive foreign policy, especially regarding Spain and its control of Cuba. McKinley urged Spain to give up the island, but this was rejected. The destruction of the U.S. battleship Maine at Havana, Cuba, on February 15, 1898, brought cries from the press and the people for war. On April 25, war was declared. When the fighting ended in August, the United States was a world power.
Americans approved of the war and in 1900, overwhelmingly reelected McKinley over Bryan, who was again the Democratic nominee. McKinley's vice president was Spanish-American War hero and governor of New York, Theodore Roosevelt.
On September 6, 1901, McKinley spoke at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. He was then shot by anarchist Leon Czolgosz. He died on September 14, and Roosevelt became President. One of the most important Presidents in the nation's history, McKinley's accomplishments have been overlooked, because of the great Theodore Roosevelt.
>Last Of The Cocked Hats
March 6, 1817
WASHINGTON, D.C.
James Monroe, born April 28, 1758, was the "last of the cocked hats" -- the last president to have served in the Revolutionary War, where he won praise from General George Washington as "a brave, active, and sensible officer." These were qualities that Monroe displayed throughout his long, productive life.
After the war, he studied law under Thomas Jefferson who became a second father to the orphaned Monroe. With Jefferson's backing, he served as a U.S. Senator; ambassador to France; governor of Virginia, and was President James Madison's secretary of state and secretary of war.
In 1816, Monroe was overwhelmingly elected America's fifth President. In 1820, he became the only President besides George Washington to be unopposed for reelection. The nation was so at peace with itself that it was called "The Era of Good Feelings." Monroe proved to be an excellent President and backed the Missouri Compromise, which settled for a short period of time the question of the expansion of slavery in the western states.
Monroe was a Southerner and a slave owner, but he also supported the movement to return free slaves to Africa. This effort had some success. The modern African nation of Liberia was founded by these former slaves; its capital, Monrovia, honors Monroe.
The President is best remembered for his 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which said that the United States would oppose -- by force if necessary -- any new colonies in the Western Hemisphere. Monroe did this to protect the new Latin American nations, which had just won their independence from Spain and Portugal.
When Monroe left office in 1825, he gave all Americans the heritage of an honest, hardworking, wise patriot, who put public service ahead of personal gain and left the nation a better place than he found it. Monroe died on June 4, 1831.
X The New Federalism
January 20, 1969
WASHINGTON, D.C.
During the 1952 presidential campaign, Richard M. Nixon, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, was haunted by charges that he had received lavish gifts and that businessmen had set up a special $18,000 fund for him. Dwight Eisenhower, the presidential nominee, insisted that the matter be cleared up.
In a televised speech, Nixon defended himself saying there was nothing wrong with the fund and that his wife didn't wear mink, but only "a respectable Republican cloth coat." However, he would not return a gift to his children, a dog called Checkers. The "Checkers speech" was a huge hit and Nixon remained on the ticket and the Republicans were swept into office.
As successful as his speech was, that was only one crisis in the career of one of the most controversial public men in the history of the nation. After nearly 50 years on the national scene, people tend to either love or hate him -- few can remain neutral.
Born in Yorba Linda, California, on January 9, 1913, Nixon grew up poor but excelled in school, which allowed him to go to college. He became a lawyer and practiced law, until he joined the Navy during World War II. Returning to California after the war, he entered politics and set the tone for other campaigns by charging his opponent was soft on Communism. Elected to Congress, he joined the House Un-American Activities committee where he captured the national spotlight in a series of "investigations" or "witchhunts" of Communist activities in America. In 1950, he won a race for the Senate and in 1952, was nominated for Vice President by the Republicans.
In 1960, he captured the Republican nomination for President. The campaign turned against him, when he lost a series of televised debates with his Democratic opponent, John F. Kennedy. Two years later, he lost a bid to be governor of California. Many thought his political career was at an end. However, Nixon began building up a remarkable debt of Republican I.O.U.s by campaigning for candidates. In 1968, he ran again and this time won the Presidency partly because the Democratic party had torn itself apart over the Vietnam War.
During Nixon's administration as America's 37th President, the U.S. withdrew from Vietnam and informally recognized Communist China, where he made a historic trip in February 1972. He also began his "New Federalism," in which he shifted federal programs back to state and local governments. Nixon and his Vice President, Spiro Agnew, easily won reelection by a landslide in 1972.
During the campaign, burglars working for Nixon's campaign committee broke into the Democratic National Headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., in search of information. White House attempts to stop the investigation of this affair were illegal. In July 1974, the House Judiciary Committee voted to impeach the President. On August 9, 1974, Nixon resigned his office and was succeeded by Vice President Gerald Ford, who had replaced Agnew. A month later, Ford pardoned Nixon, who accepted the pardon, but always claimed the mistakes were not criminal, but personal or political.
£Man From The Granite Hills
March 6, 1853
WASHINGTON, D.C.
No man ever became President with a sadder heart than Franklin Pierce. Just two months before his inauguration, Pierce and his wife saw their only son killed in a train wreck. He never recovered and it did not help that he served during a period which saw Americans kill Americans over the issues of slavery.
People had always expected great things from Franklin Pierce, who was born on November 23, 1804. Son of a two-time governor of New Hampshire, he was elected to the U.S. Senate at the age of 33 -- the youngest member of that body.
But that early promise began to fade rapidly. His record in Congress wasn't impressive and the only thing that set him apart from other Northern Democrats was his support for slavery.
In 1842, he resigned from the Senate and returned to private life, until 1846, when President James K. Polk appointed him a brigadier general in the Mexican War. He fought in Mexico, but his military career, like his Congressional record, wasn't very impressive.
This didn't stop his supporters back in New Hampshire from making him a war hero and backing him for President in 1852. When none of the big-name politicians could win nomination, the Democrats turned to Pierce as a compromise candidate.
As America's 14th President, Pierce tried to end the fight over slavery. But instead of helping, he hurt his own cause by endorsing the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This measure said settlers in these two territories could choose whether slavery should be permitted. This angered many Northerners and they formed the Republican Party.
By 1856, pro-slavery and free-soil settlers were killing each other in the Kansas Territory and the bloodshed on the plains destroyed Pierce's presidency, costing him any chance at renomination. Bitter over the rejection of his policies, his opposition to the Civil War made him one of the most hated men in the North until his death on October 8, 1869.
≡ Young Hickory
March 6, 1845
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When James Knox Polk, born on November 2, 1795, was nominated for President by the Democrats in 1844, many people in Washington thought the new telegraph had failed because they couldn't believe what came over the wires. The governor of Kentucky even exclaimed, "Polk! Great God, what a nomination!"
Given these feelings it is all the more amazing that Polk became one of America's most successful Presidents, as the U.S. expanded its borders to the Pacific Ocean as a result of the Mexican War and a treaty over the Oregon territory with Great Britain.
Polk was a loyal supporter of President Andrew Jackson ("Old Hickory"), who mentored the young Congressman. (Polk became known as "Young Hickory.") This friendship made Polk very powerful and in 1835, he was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.
By 1844, Polk had a chance to be the Democrat's vice-presidential candidate. But when no one could win the presidential nomination at the party's convention, they turned to a dark horse -- someone the other candidates could support. That was James K. Polk. Polk became America's 11th President.
Promising to serve only one term, Polk quickly set the goals for his presidency: a lower tariff, an independent treasury system, settling the Oregon question, and acquiring California from Mexico.
Oregon was the center of a dispute between the U.S. and England. Both claimed all the land which today makes up Oregon and Washington and British Columbia in Canada. The northern boundary was 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude and many Americans adopted the war cry of "Fifty-four Forty or Fight." But the President reached a peaceful settlement in which the territory was divided at the 49th parallel, which is the present U.S.-Canadian border.
But there was no peaceful settlement with Mexico. When that country refused Polk's demand to sell New Mexico and California, he got Congress to declare war in 1846. The Army, led by Generals Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott, forced Mexico to surrender in 1848. Mexico had to give up half its land including California, Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Nevada and Colorado.
But these new lands divided the nation over the question of slavery. Northern attempts to bar slavery from the territories led directly to the Civil War which would erupt in 1861.
Polk left office in March 1849 having accomplished all of his goals but leaving a badly divided country. Exhausted by his efforts, Polk died on June 15, 1849, less than three months later.
f From Actor To President
January 20, 1981
WASHINGTON, D.C.
On March 30, 1981, Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States, was shot and nearly killed outside a Washington hotel. Even though he had a life-threatening chest wound, Reagan joked with the doctors who were preparing to operate on him and came up with one-liners throughout his recovery including his greeting to his wife, Nancy: "Honey, I forgot to duck!" It is that sense of humor and an ability to stir the hearts of the American people, which made Reagan the President of the United States at an age when most people have retired.
Born on February 6, 1911, in Tampico, Illinois, he always projected the strengths of the small-town America of his childhood, even though he spent most of his life in big cities. He worked his way through college and gained success as a sportscaster before going on to Hollywood and movie stardom in 1937.
Reagan became involved in the new medium of television during the 1950s and began to understand its political power as few others did. Also, the once liberal Reagan began to get more and more involved in politics as a conservative Republican.
In 1966, he ran for governor of California and won. It was here the Democrats made the fatal mistake that would be Reagan's biggest ally in election after election: they underestimated him, thinking of him as just an ex-actor with simplistic views and no loyal supporters. Reagan used the media, his Irish charm, and humor to win millions of followers.
He tried, but failed to win the Republican nomination for President in 1976. He came back to sweep all other contenders aside and take the Republican nomination in 1980. He picked George Bush of Texas as his running mate. Throughout the campaign, Reagan kept hammering home one theme: "get the government off our backs." President Jimmy Carter, the Democratic nominee, did not know how to handle Reagan and saw his support fade. He lost by a landslide on election day.
Reagan launched a major campaign to restructure the economy and to rebuild the military. He conducted an aggressive foreign policy especially against the Soviet Union. Reagan proved skilled at forming coalitions with conservative Democrats to get most of his programs passed.
By 1984, the economy was bright, inflation low, and unemployment was going down. Few paid attention to the growing deficit. In this atmosphere, Reagan ran for reelection. The President adopted the theme of an America proud and optimistic, while Democratic nominee former Carter vice-president Walter Mondale, carried on a traditional campaign of attack. In November, Reagan won the most one-sided victory in American election history.
In his second term, Reagan faced his greatest crisis and accomplished his greatest triumph. The Iran-Contra Affair involved secret arms sales to Iran and diversion of the profits to the Contras, rebels opposed to the Marxist government in Nicaragua. Reagan rode out the storm in part by reaching a series of arms agreements with the Soviet Union, which was beginning to crumble.
Reagan quickly regained his popularity and campaigned successfully in 1988, to have Bush succeed him as President.
-
The Court Goes On Forever
March 6, 1909
WASHINGTON, D.C.
William Howard Taft wanted to be chief justice of the Supreme Court, never America's President. He became the only person ever to hold both jobs.
Born on September 15, 1857, in Cincinnati, Ohio, Taft fell in love with the law at an early age. At 21, he graduated college and became a lawyer. By the age of 30, he was a judge and at age 33, U.S. solicitor general -- the solicitor general represents the federal government in cases heard by the Supreme Court.
In 1892, he became a federal judge. For most lawyers this would be the high point of their careers; however, for Taft it was just the beginning.
In 1901, President William McKinley appointed him civil governor of the Philippines, which had been taken in the Spanish-American War. Taft was capable and efficient as he began to prepare the Filipinos for self-government.
Taft so impressed new President Theodore Roosevelt that, in 1904, he was named secretary of war. The two quickly became good friends and Roosevelt got him the Republican presidential nomination in 1908.
Reluctant to enter the race, Taft did finally run and defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan. As America's 27th President, Taft carried on Roosevelt's reform policies including "trust-busting," the breaking up of companies that controlled too much of any one industry. He also established an 8-hour day for federal workers and the income tax amendment to the Constitution.
However, there were more failures than triumphs in his administration. The problem was that "Big Bill" Taft, who weighed 350 pounds, was not much of a politician. And being a good politician is very important to being a successful President.
By 1912, Taft's failures caused a break with Roosevelt, who challenged him for the presidential nomination. When that failed, Roosevelt ran as an independent on the Bull Moose ticket. Most of the Republicans went with Roosevelt.
The divided party meant that the Democratic Party nominee, Woodrow Wilson, would win the presidency. Roosevelt came in second and Taft a poor third. Taft took the defeat in good humor saying, "I have one consolation. No one candidate was ever elected ex-President by such a large majority."
Following the election, Taft accepted a professorship at Yale Law School. In 1921, he was selected by President Warren G. Harding to be chief justice of the Supreme Court. Asked whether he preferred being President or chief justice Taft replied, "Presidents come and go, but the Court goes on forever." Taft remained on the bench until two days before his death on March 8, 1930.
█Old Rough And Ready
March 6, 1849
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Zachary Taylor was a most unusual soldier. While other generals rode big white horses and dressed in fancy blue uniforms with brass buttons, gold braid, shiny boots, and feathered plumes in their hats, Taylor wore old clothes, dusty well-worn boots, and a nonmilitary wide-brim hat.
He didn't look much like a general, but he fought like one and his troops loved Taylor and gave him his nickname of "Old Rough and Ready." And it fit, for Taylor, born November 24, 1784, was a soldier's soldier -- plain and simple. He had been one all his adult life when in 1845, he was ordered to occupy Texas after it became a part of the United States.
Texas had been an independent country since American settlers revolted against Mexico in 1836. Mexico wanted it back, but President James K. Polk wanted even more land from his southern neighbor.
Polk ordered Taylor to move to the Rio Grande, but no one knows if it was to stop an invasion or start a war. Whatever his orders, war broke out and Taylor won several big victories in Northern Mexico. This made him a national hero and a political threat to Democratic President Polk, who relieved him of command.
Angry, Taylor accepted the presidential nomination from the Whig Party and with running mate Millard Fillmore easily beat the Democrats in 1848. He became America's 12th President.
Although a Southerner and a slaveholder, Taylor opposed the expansion of slavery and during his brief presidency (March 5, 1849 - July 9, 1850) fought it in every way he could until he suddenly died.
For 140 years there were rumors that Taylor had been poisoned. There were many stories on T.V. about it, so in 1991 scientists examined his body and announced he had not been murdered.
The Rough Rider President
Sept. 14, 1901
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Born into a wealthy family in 1858, Theodore Roosevelt was a frail asthmatic who built up his body, until he was a superb athlete and adopted for himself a strict moral code and a love of the mind.
T.R., as he was called, graduated from Harvard and married the beautiful Alice Lee in 1880. It seemed a fairytale life awaited Roosevelt, but on St. Valentine's Day 1884 both his wife and his mother died. Brokenhearted, T.R. headed west to ranch in the Dakota territories. There he began a lifelong association with rough and tumble cowboys. The cowboys gained respect for T.R., an Eastern dude who wore glasses, when he singlehandedly tracked three rustlers in a blizzard and brought them back for trial.
When the Spanish-American War broke out in April 1898, T.R. helped organize the Rough Riders. They were a volunteer cavalry outfit consisting of wealthy young Easterners, cowboys from the West, Mexican-Americans from New Mexico, and Native Americans from what is now Oklahoma. The regiment became famous for its charge up Kettle Hill during the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba. T.R. led the charge and returned to the United States in July a national hero. By fall, he was elected Republican governor of New York.
Roosevelt was a reformer. He angered many of the political bosses, so in 1900, they nominated him as vice president to get rid of him. However in September 1901, President William McKinley was assassinated and T.R. became America's 26th President.
Roosevelt lost no time in putting his reform ideas, called progressivism, to work. He busted the powerful business trusts, which tried to control whole industries and backed mine workers in their strike against their employers. He was also the first environmental President, putting millions of acres of land into America's national forests.
Amazingly popular, T.R. was overwhelmingly re-elected in 1904. He began digging the Panama Canal and won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a war between Russia and Japan. He continued his attacks on the wealthy. Oh yes, he also managed to read a book each day.
In 1909, T.R. left the presidency and America a very different place than he had found it. In 1912, he ran again. When he couldn't get the Republican nomination, which went to incumbent president William Howard Taft, T.R. launched his independent Bull Moose candidacy.
So popular was T.R. that most Republicans went with him and the divided party made sure that Democrat Woodrow Wilson won the election with TR coming in second and Taft third.
By the time of his death on January 6, 1919, T.R. had already been rated as one of America's great Presidents. And that greatness was confirmed a few years later, when his face joined those of Presidents Washington, Jefferson, and Lincoln on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota.
Y The Man From Independence
April 13, 1945
WASHINGTON, D.C.
A few days after he became President upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt in April 1945, Harry S. Truman received a thick folder from General George Marshall. For the first time, Truman found out that the United States had an atomic bomb. Stunned, the 33rd President carefully read the report and knew his country had a weapon which could wipe out whole cities -- and it would be his job to decide if it would be used. No man in history ever had such an awesome decision. Quietly, he closed the folder, thanked Marshall, and accepted the terrible burden that had just been handed him. That was Harry S. Truman, the man from Independence, Missouri.
Born there on May 8, 1884, Truman was the only President this century not to go to college. Instead he had worked his family farm, until he served in France during World War I. Coming home, he opened a men's clothing store in Kansas City, but that failed in 1921.
Turning to politics, Truman became part of the powerful Democratic machine and was elected a judge in 1922, although he didn't have a law degree. In 1934, Truman became U.S. Senator.
Roosevelt chose Truman to be his Vice President in 1944. Truman took office on January 20, 1945; eighty-two days later he was President.
As soon as Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, longtime differences with the Soviet Union came to the surface over control of captured lands in Eastern Europe. In July, Truman, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met in Potsdam, Germany, but nothing was settled.
While there, Truman ordered the use of the atomic bomb against Japan. After the bombing of Hiroshima on August 6, and Nagasaki on August 9, Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945.
With the end of the hot war, the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union began. Adopting the policy of containment, Truman set the guide for American policy until the collapse of the Soviet Union four decades later. He also set up the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and NATO to protect it from attack by the Soviet Union.
On the home front, he instituted the broad social-welfare reforms, which had been put on hold because of the war. He also pushed for civil rights for African-Americans and desegregated the armed forces. His policies divided the Democratic Party and it looked like he would not win reelection in 1948. However, by staging the greatest comeback in political history, Truman won a narrow victory over Republican Thomas Dewey.
Communism -- at home and abroad -- dominated his second term. At home, Congress began a hunt for Communists, real or imagined, in everything from the government to the movies. In June 1950, South Korea was invaded by Communist North Korea bringing on the Korean War. The U.S. led the United Nations in the fighting. In 1951, Truman dismissed Gen. Douglas MacArthur for urging drastic military action including the bombing of troop assembly areas in Communist China; but much of the public supported the general.
Truman retired to write his memoirs and lived to see himself become an American folk hero before he died on Dec. 26, 1972.
rHis Accidency
April 4, 1841
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When is a president a president? That is the very real Constitutional question which faced John Tyler when he became America's 10th President upon the death of William Henry Harrison in 1841. Many in Congress said he was only an acting President, but Tyler said he was as much the President as if he had been elected. Congress finally agreed with Tyler.
But then political fights were nothing new to Tyler, born on March 29, 1790, who had been a maverick all his adult life. Born to a wealthy plantation family in Virginia, he was a strong supporter of states' rights, the belief that states have equal authority with the federal government, and the rights of slaveholders.
Tyler was a governor and a senator before he was nominated Vice President by the Whigs in 1840. On April 6, 1841, less than a month after the inauguration, Tyler, while he was playing a game of marbles with his children, received a message that the President was dead.
One crisis followed another and when Tyler vetoed bills to create a national bank, his entire cabinet resigned and the Whigs expelled him from their party. Thus, John Tyler became the only president without a political party and did not run for reelection in 1844.
Tyler returned to his Virginia plantation and helped raise his large family, he had 15 children, and took part in the fight between the North and the South over slavery.
In 1861, he supported the Southern states leaving the Union and became a congressman in the new Confederate States of America -- as the Southern states called their government -- but died on January 18, 1862 before he could take office.
hOld Kinderhook
March 6, 1837
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Martin Van Buren was the first President to be born a U.S. citizen and was one of the leaders in creating the Democratic Party.
Born on December 5, 1782 in Kinderhook, New York, he became such a power in state politics that no important decision could be made without the approval of "Old Kinderhook," his nickname. From this nickname comes the term "O.K."
Elected to the U.S. Senate in 1821, Van Buren became a major supporter of Andrew Jackson for President. This loyalty paid off when Jackson was elected because he named Van Buren secretary of state and in 1832, the Democrats' vice-presidential candidate.
Jackson and Van Buren swept to victory and four years later, in 1836, Van Buren received his party's nomination as President. He easily won the election to become America's eighth President, planning grand things for the nation.
But two things happened to destroy his administration. In trying to keep Southern Democrats happy, he supported the rights of slaveholders. This angered many Northerners -- called Abolitionists -- who had started a drive to end slavery in the United States. The other was the nation's first major depression. Called the Panic of 1837, it wiped out the savings of thousands of Americans as banks closed their doors because they had lost all their money.
Van Buren wouldn't allow federal aid to help the people overcome the tough times. The economy did get better but it left many Americans with bitter feelings toward their President.
Van Buren sought reelection, but was defeated by the Whig party candidate, General William Henry Harrison. In 1848, Van Buren made one more try for the presidency as the candidate of the Free-Soil Party, which opposed expansion of slavery into the land west of the Mississippi River, but finished a poor third. He then retired to his Kinderhook farm where he died July 24, 1862.
░No King George In America
April 30, 1789
NEW YORK CITY
In 1782, following the American Revolution, Colonel Lewis Nicola suggested to General George Washington that the army establish a monarchy and make him king.
It might have happened. Washington was loved by his troops; he had endured a difficult war with his men and they had little love for the Continental Congress, which had given them such inadequate support.
But Washington believed firmly in democracy, and was appalled at Nicola's suggestion: "Banish these thoughts from your mind," he replied.
Washington was born in 1732 in Virginia and served as an officer in the British army during the French and Indian War. In 1758, he was elected to Virginia's House of Burgesses, where he served for 15 years. With the advent of the revolution, he was made commander-in-chief of the army by the Continental Congress. One of the most famous pictures of him is an inaccurate work showing him crossing the Delaware River standing up in a boat -- not a very smart thing to do in a boat.
Following the war, he served as president of the Constitutional Convention and in 1789, was elected to be the first President of the United States. He was inaugurated in New York City, the only President not sworn-in in Washington, D.C.
Washington proved to be the perfect person for the job. He made the presidency a position of respect and loyalty, as he established a federal government out of what had been a loose collection of 13 states.
During his two terms in office, he put the U.S. on a sound financial footing, oversaw the passage of the Bill of Rights, crushed the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in Pennsylvania, and made the national government central to the life of the nation.
Washington's greatest service to the nation as President came in 1797, when with a shake of the hand, he turned over the office of the presidency and all its immense power to John Adams. With that single gesture he assured the peaceful change of the nation's highest office then and for all times.
Upon leaving office, Washington returned to his beloved Mount Vernon in Virginia there living the life of a gentleman farmer, until his death in 1799, already knowing he was "first in the hearts of his countrymen."
╙ The Princeton Schoolmaster
March 6, 1913
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In May 1865, the Civil War was nearly over. Confederate President Jefferson Davis sat gloomily in the rolling carriage near Augusta, Georgia. All around him rode Union cavalrymen, escorting him to prison. They passed near the house of a local minister, while inside an eight-year-old boy watched silently through a window. He would never forget what he saw. That boy was Thomas Woodrow Wilson, America's 28th President.
Born on December 28, 1856, Wilson grew up in a South ravaged by war. It was these days that formed Wilson's fierce love of liberty -- not just for countries but for individuals. Wilson took this love with him when he went to Princeton University. Becoming a writer and a teacher, he was Princeton's president by 1902, and made many educational reforms that were adopted throughout the nation.
In 1910, Democratic leaders in New Jersey got Wilson to run for governor. Easily elected, he reformed politics as he had education. Offering a reform package called "The New Freedoms," he ran and captured his party's presidential nomination in 1912.
When President William Howard Taft and Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt divided the Republican vote, Wilson won the presidency. Aided by a Democratic Congress, Wilson reformed the banking system, created loans for farmers, put controls on big business, limited how many hours children could work, and even passed an income tax.
Wilson's greatest struggle came not in America, but across the sea. In 1914, the First World War began and the President tried to keep the U.S. out of it. When the Germans used submarines to sink American ships, Wilson warned them that the U.S. would have to go to war if this action continued -- so the Germans stopped for a while.
In 1916, Wilson ran for re-election using the slogan "He kept us out of the war." Many Americans did not want to fight, so Wilson won a narrow victory over Republican Charles Evans Hughes.
Germany resumed all-out submarine warfare in 1917. Saying "the world must be made safe for democracy," Wilson sought and received a declaration of war from Congress. He got ready to fight a modern war by drafting millions of men for military service and putting controls on transportation, labor, food, fuel, and prices.
However, it was not just war that was on Wilson's mind, but the peace that would follow. He issued his famous "Fourteen Points," which called for freedom for all in Europe and a League of Nations to prevent future wars.
When the war ended in November 1918, Wilson led the Americans at the Paris Peace Conference. The French and British people hailed him as a hero; however, he failed to win much from the other Allied leaders who sought only revenge against Germany. He did get his League of Nations, so he signed the peace treaty.
However, a treaty must be approved by two-thirds of the Senate before it becomes law. Republicans refused to vote for the treaty unless some changes were made. This Wilson refused to do. Instead, he embarked on an exhausting cross-nation speaking tour to drum up support for the treaty. It was too much for him and he suffered a stroke which left him bedridden. Sadly, he had to watch his plans for a peaceful world slip away before his death on Feb. 3, 1924.
└You Can Go Home Again
1993
GULF OF ALASKA
Every fall the Pacific Salmon turns its collective nose north and, from points as far away as northern California, begins a journey back to its place of birth to spawn, or breed young of its own.
Sometimes swimming distances as far as 2,500 miles, the salmon go against tides and leap up streams against incredible odds. The fish don't feed during their journey and live off stored body fat. They must survive polluted city water, power dams, and the nets of fishermen. About one out of a thousand salmon survive the trek.
Once they do arrive at their place of birth, the female salmon agitates the bottom of the stream's gravel bed with her body to create a nest, or redd. Here she lays her eggs. Immediately, an attendant male salmon moves alongside her and fertilizes the eggs, or roe, with his sperm. The female then agitates her tail to rake some gravel loosely over the redd. The adult couple then repeat this process at several other sites, after which they die a few days later.
The new salmon, once hatched, carry genetic information telling them when to move downstream into the sea and after two to seven years, telling them when to start the long trip home to spawn. The fish are guided by their ability to detect the scent of the tributary river where they were born. Different species of Pacific Salmon migrate at different times and some travel during spring.
At migration's peak, 750,000 salmon enter the Gulf of Alaska each day.
<The Shaky San Andreas
October 17, 1989
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
At 5:13 a.m. on April 18th, 1906, an earthquake measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale shook San Francisco awake. Five more shocks struck in the next six hours, destroying roads, offices, and homes. Then, fire destroyed much of what the earthquake had spared. The culprit? The San Andreas fault line, which made itself known again when a quake measuring 7.1 struck San Francisco in 1989. Damage from this last quake is shown here.
Extending more than 750 miles from California's northern coast to the southeastern part of the state, the San Andreas fault is a major source of concern and conversation for Californians. It is also the reason some people would never consider moving to California.
According to "plate tectonics" theory, the earth sits on seven rigid plates and some smaller ones that are slowly, but continuously in motion. Rocks at the plates' edges are squeezed or stretched and when this force is very great the rocks rupture, causing an earthquake. The San Andreas fault sits on the boundary between two plates: the Pacific and the North American. These plates are slowly moving in different directions, causing periodic earthquakes.
The San Andreas fault is unique as it lies on the earth's surface and there are segments of the fault where one can actually see where the earth fractures.
a Amish Have Worthy Fun
1812
LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
German immigrants searching for religious freedom poured into Pennsylvania in 1812. They joined the Swiss pilgrims who followed religious leader Jacob Ammann to this area in the 1720s at the invitation of William Penn.
The new immigrants were known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, a shortening of "Deutsch," meaning "German," and they practiced the Amish way of life, named for their leader, Ammann.
The Amish today live as did their ancestors. They practice a strict religious way of life that shuns modern technology and celebrates community and plain fashion, food, and life. While their clothing is mostly gray and black, the Amish women are known for their lovely and colorful quilts.
Quilting reflects the Amish way of life. It is done by people working together, not by isolated individuals. While it is fun, it is not frivolous fun, since the quilts are of practical use to the community. It provides a time to visit and for people to stay in touch with their community.
While the Amish do not think of themselves as artists -- something they consider too worldly and self-centered -- non-Amish prize these quilts for their artistic value and craftsmanship. The quilts are sold around the country as a way to raise money for the Mennonite charitable groups. Mennonites are part of the Pennsylvania Dutch religious community who share the Amish beliefs, but who adopt some contemporary ways.
As for the cherished patterns and designs of the quilts, their origins are hard to document, but some think they reflect the natural beauty of the Amish land and the farms on which they live.
Making a quilt is a time-consuming process. Hundreds of tiny pieces of fabric are cut into planned shapes that will make the larger quilt design. Then the quilt top is stitched together and pretty designs are drawn lightly over the top's empty spaces as a pattern for stitching. Next, a quilt back, or lining, is made to fit the top. The lining is placed in a quilt frame and a layer of batting, the fluffy interior, is placed onto the lining and the quilt top is placed over this. The three layers are pinned together and quilting, the stitching that holds the layers together, begins.
The stitching is a long process that requires thousands of tiny, accurate stitches by the women. This labor of love and time is what makes the quilts so cherished and valuable.
Joplin Makes His Mark
1899
SEDALIA, MISSOURI
When Scott Joplin's "Maple Leaf Rag" was published here in sheet-music form, it marked the beginning of ragtime music as a national trend. "Maple Leaf Rag" came along at the time of player pianos and it sold about a million copies. In the 1970s, the music was popularized again when it was played in the movie "The Sting."
Ragtime developed around New Orleans in the late 1800s and then spread to St. Louis, Chicago, and New York, among other cities. Traditionally played on the piano, ragtime has a syncopated irregular beat in the right hand and a steady march-like beat in the left. The music combines bits of African-American plantation songs, Caribbean music, Cajun songs, and the folk tunes of wandering minstrels along the Mississippi Delta, among other sources.
It is upon ragtime that the modern popular music industry is based. Previously, American music was based on European models, but with ragtime it became based on Afro-American music and rhythms. Usually ragtime is happy and uplifting in its chords and sounds and it was good music for lively dancing. Ragtime was also the basis for the development of jazz.
hReconstruction And Racism
December, 1865
PULASKI, TENNESSEE
In December of 1865, Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery. That same month, a group of ex-Confederate soldiers in Tennessee met to form a secret society of white men, dedicated to resisting laws giving blacks the same rights as whites. Called the Ku Klux Klan, for "kuklos" -- the Greek word for circle, members wore white robes with hoods to hide their faces. Members claimed to be ghosts of dead Confederate soldiers.
This period of history is called Reconstruction, for efforts made to reconstruct the South from the destruction of the Civil War. The federal government, ruled by northern Republicans, required southern states to approve the Thirteenth Amendment, before rejoining the Union, and passed the 1866 Civil Rights Act, giving blacks citizenship in all states. There were about four million freed black slaves at this time.
At the same time, southern Democrats resisted these laws. Groups like the Klan fought blacks' having political power. They tried to scare blacks and moderate white Republicans whom they opposed. Coming out at night in their white robes and sometimes carrying fiery torches, Klan members beat and murdered people whom they opposed. Hanging by the neck from a tree was a common method of lynching opponents.
Some white targets of these groups were southern-born white Republicans called "scalawags" and people from the North called "carpetbaggers," who came south to make a profit during Reconstruction. Carpetbaggers traveled with all their possessions in a suitcase made of carpet material. They usually sought political office by gaining the votes of newly freed blacks.
While Reconstruction is long over, groups like the Ku Klux Klan still exist, and from time to time, commit acts of violence in the name of white supremacy, the idea that the white race is superior to other races.
∩Reservations
1824
WASHINGTON, D.C.
In 1824, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was established as part of the United States' War Department. Under President Andrew Jackson, America waged a war to relocate Indians from their eastern lands to the West. The Indian Removal Act of 1830, established Indian reservations, land given Indians by the government, along with financial assistance and protection. Of course, the Indians had to leave their homes to "take advantage" of this offer.
Today, there are 278 Indian reservations in America, serving 512 Indian tribes that are recognized by the U.S. government. The largest of these is the 16 million-acre Navajo Reservation in the Southwest, and the smallest is a ranch, or pueblo, of less than 100 acres. Of the close to two million American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts in the United States, almost one million live on or near a reservation. The rest live in cities or towns as regular American citizens.
Since 1849, the BIA has been part of the Department of the Interior and is headed by a presidential appointee. The BIA manages about 57 million acres of land held in trust by the United States for the Indians. This includes making business deals with companies that want to dig for oil or minerals on this land. Some tribes are working to take over this responsibility from the BIA and make their own business deals for their people. The BIA also funds federal schools on reservations, provides health care, and offers housing assistance to Indians. Since the 1970s, American Indians have pushed to have greater self-determination and less administration by the BIA.
While Congress granted U.S. citizenship to all Indians born in America, some states did not grant them the right to vote until as late as 1962. In addition to American elections, Indian tribes have their government and elections for tribal officers and issues.
Reservations have been a controversial issue with tribes, because their creation meant the loss of ancestral tribal lands and because the reservations isolate the tribes from the rest of American society. This isolation makes it harder for American Indians to move off the reservations and find good jobs in towns and cities. This isolation also contributes to depression and the abuse of alcohol among Indians.
âA Ride For Freedom
April 18, 1775
LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Paul Revere was not only the best silversmith in the colonies, he was also a great patriot. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on January 1, 1735, Revere became a leader of the Sons of Liberty in opposing British tyranny. He took part in many activities, including the Boston Tea Party in 1773.
In April 1775, the Sons of Liberty learned that the British were planning to send troops from Boston to Concord, Massachusetts, and arrest patriot leaders and seize powder and ammunition stored there.
Revere was chosen to carry the warning, but they didn't know which way the British would come, so a signal was arranged: Lanterns would be placed in the Old North Church tower -- one if by land, two if by sea. When the two lights appeared, Revere began his famous ride.
Through every town and village, he rode warning the Minute Men -- colonists who would turn out armed at a "minute's notice." Revere arrived in Lexington shortly before William Dawes, who had ridden by another route. He warned patriot leaders John Hancock and Samuel Adams to flee, and then with Dawes and Samuel Prescott, started for Concord, but was halted by a British patrol. Only Prescott managed to reach Concord.
Revere and his fellow riders had been successful. The British found the Americans armed and ready for a fight and the Revolutionary War began on April 18, 1775, at Lexington.
Always the patriot, Revere made musket and cannon balls during the war, and designed and printed the first Continental currency.
Revere's actions were the subject of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic, but not very accurate poem, "Paul Revere's Ride," published in 1863.
"Shot Heard Round The World
April 19, 1775
LEXINGTON, MASSACHUSETTS
Nobody knows who fired the "shot heard round the world," but it launched the American Revolutionary War. The shot was fired at Lexington in 1775. Here 73 British soldiers, marching to capture rebel guns and powder, met colonial farmers and townspeople called "Minutemen." The Minutemen were trained to be ready at a minute's notice to fight.
The British tried to march past the Minutemen when someone fired a shot. There was panic, the British returned fire and soon eight Minutemen were dead. In nearby Concord, Minutemen attacked British soldiers, killing 73 and wounding 174.
The Second Continental Congress met on May 10th, in Philadelphia, and voted Virginian George Washington as commander of the Continental Army.
The American Revolutionary War lasted eight years, ending in 1783, with the signing of the Treaty of Paris. Unlike the British, American soldiers were untrained and under-armed. Much like the Vietnamese whom the Americans fought almost 200 years later, the Americans had the advantage since the war was fought on their turf. They knew how to get around and could get support from local families.
Also, the French gave America lots of support with money and gunpowder. France didn't like England and wanted to get back at England for the French-Indian War.
╫Dancing For The Gods
1911
SANTA CLARA PUEBLO, NEW MEXICO
These Tewan Corn Dancers didn't dance for pure pleasure, they danced to ensure that their most important crop, corn, would be bountiful. Shaking the sleigh bells attached to their legs and stamping their feet, the dancers attempted to shake water down from the sky. Behind them, women wearing painted symbols of thunder and lightning, enhanced the dancers' attempts to get precious rain.
Dancing has always been part of Native Americans' religious and community life. It is a means of communication among themselves and with their gods. It is a way of expressing thanks, declaring war, and preparing for a hunt.
The breakup of most Indian nations by American government destroyed much of their culture and customs, including dances. Today, these dances are still performed at select tribal gatherings and for tourists. Younger Indians are making an effort to learn these dances from their elders, so the culture will not be forgotten and lost.
Roaring Twenties
January 29, 1919
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When Congress voted to pass the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, America became a country where buying or selling liquor could put you in jail. Called Prohibition for prohibiting liquor, the Amendment couldn't keep Americans from getting their hands on liquor and having a party. Women called "Flappers" had new short hair and dress styles and were dancing the wild new Charleston. People had new freedoms and nobody felt like letting one law slow them down.
Called the "Roaring Twenties" and the "Jazz Age," the 1920s were a time when women cut their hair in a new style called "The Bob," wore skirts that showed their legs for the first time, and millions of people became "criminals" for going to illegal bars to get a drink. Organized crime grew as it took control of distributing illegal liquor and crime figures like Al Capone were in the papers.
The movement to ban liquor grew from the temperance movement out West, where alcoholism and lawlessness were rampant after the Civil War and Gold Rush days. In 1874, the Women's Christian Temperance Movement formed to combine religious fervor with the fight against liquor.
Prohibition ended on December 5, 1933 when Congress voted to pass the 21st Amendment, making it legal again to buy and sell liquor.
┴America's Greatest General
1861 - 1865
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA
All night long Robert E. Lee paced the floor of his study in his home at Arlington, across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. He had just been offered the dream of any American soldier -- command of the U.S. Army. But the Civil War had just started and Lee was a Virginian.
With the coming of the dawn, Lee -- son of Revolutionary War hero General "Light Horse Harry" Lee -- made his decision. He opposed secession and slavery, but considered himself more a Virginian than an American, and could not raise his sword against his native state. He would fight for the South.
In his brilliant command of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, he came to be regarded as a great general, a great human being, and a hero to all Americans -- a man beloved by his own soldiers and respected by his opponents. Thanks to his skill, Lee time and again was able to defeat much larger Union Armies. His victories toll like a bell through American history: the Seven Days, Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Wilderness, and Spotsylvania. During the last year of the war, it was his leadership that kept the starving Confederate Army in the field.
Lee, born on January 19, 1807, was not like other generals: he seldom wore a weapon, would never shout or swear at others, he was polite, and had a kind heart. He once got off his horse during a battle to put a fallen bird back in its nest. Lee was so respected by his soldiers that they would remove their hats when he rode past and reach out just to touch his horse.
Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865 and spent the rest of his life working for the reunion of the nation. He refused offers, which would have brought him a great deal of money. Instead, he became president of little Washington College (now Washington and Lee University) in Lexington, Virginia. There he died on October 12, 1870, and was mourned by the entire nation -- North and South alike.
∞Founder Of The Dynasty
1859
OIL CREEK, PENNSYLVANIA
The ground rumbled under the flimsy-looking wooden structure erected over the rocky Pennsylvania countryside. The workers ran to safety and suddenly water, then oil, exploded from the ground in a high gusher. The first oil well in America was a success.
That success attracted the eye of young John Davison Rockefeller, who was full of ambition and saw that oil could be his highway to success and wealth. Rockefeller, born on July 8, 1839, in Richford, New York, quickly joined other ambitious young men in Cleveland, Ohio, and formed an oil company.
"I saw a marvelous future for our country," he said, "and I wanted to participate in the work of making our country great. I had an ambition to build." And build he did. He first took over the oil refineries in Cleveland and then the Pennsylvania oil fields themselves. By the 1880s, his company -- Standard Oil -- was the largest oil refiner in the world.
With Standard Oil he formed a monopoly that controlled more that 30 corporations and refined nearly 84% of all the oil produced in the U.S. Rockefeller had a personal fortune of over $1 billion.
In 1911, The U.S. Supreme Court held that Rockefeller's monopoly was illegal and ordered Standard Oil to be broken into 39 separate companies. Rockefeller retired that same year and devoted the rest of his long life to doing good works. He gave away nearly half his fortune to colleges, churches, medical research, and even established a foundation to see that his money went to help good causes after his death.
John D. Rockefeller -- the last of the great "robber barons" died on May 23, 1937, knowing that he was right: The nation -- in fact the whole world -- ran on oil and oil by-products like gasoline and aviation fuel.
?Continental Divide
November 15, 1806
PIKE'S PEAK, COLORADO
When Army Lieutenant Zebulon Pike saw it, he thought he'd discovered a mountain over 18,000 feet high. It was in an area the Indians called the "Rocky Mountains." Today, we know this mountain, now named Pike's Peak after him, is only 14,110 feet high and we also know it is not alone in its grandeur.
The Rocky Mountains are the largest mountain chain in North America, running more than 3,000 miles from New Mexico, up through Canada, and into Alaska. In Colorado alone, the Rockies have 46 peaks over 14,000 feet in height, some of which are pictured here.
Formed millions of years ago during an upheaval of the earth's crust, fossils of sea animals have been found on the mountains' slopes, as well as volcanic rock. Many Indian tribes once lived in these mountains: the Navajo, Shoshone, and Ute, among others.
The Rockies form the Continental Divide, separating rivers flowing west to the Pacific Ocean from rivers flowing east to the Atlantic Ocean. The Rockies are also the source for the Missouri, Rio Grande, Columbia, and Colorado Rivers.
Basically, six mountain ranges connect to make the Rockies: the Southern Rockies in New Mexico and Wyoming; the Middle Rockies include Wyoming's Grand Tetons and run into Colorado, Utah, and Montana; the Northern Rockies in Idaho to the Canadian border; the Canadian Rockies from the U.S. border into British Columbia and Alberta; the Selwyn Mountains and Mackenzie Range reach into northern Canada; and the Brooks Range in northern Alaska and the Arctic Circle.
The Rockies are a mecca for tourists who love them for their clear mountain streams and lakes, jagged snow-topped peaks, forested slopes, and great winter skiing.
During the westward movement of the 1800s, the Rockies were a barrier for settlers and pioneers to cross. The Oregon Trail was one route through them. In 1868, the first railroad through the mountains was built in the Wyoming Basin. Today, motorists can cross the Rockies on Interstate 80. Of course, you can always cross these mountains in a plane and look down on the many peaks spread out below.
ÜRock 'N Roll!
1954
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
Here, at Phillips' Sun Records studio, Elvis Presley recorded his first song in 1954. Known as rockabilly, and later as rock 'n' roll, Presley's sound combined elements of African-American rhythm and blues with white, hillbilly country music. This marked the birth of rock 'n' roll popular music.
As did its rhythm and blues relatives, rock 'n' roll played to the high spirits of young people and played heavily on sexual feelings, making it the first white popular music to do so. When Elvis played he shook his hips so hard, that television stations broadcasting him often cut his image at the waist, only showing his top half. Of course many parents were upset by this, and swore that rock 'n' roll would ruin their teenage kids. The kids loved it, and still do today.
Elvis Presley went on to fame and fortune, and later to an early death. He is buried at his Graceland mansion in Memphis. The rock 'n' roll industry shifted from Memphis to New York and Los Angeles in the late 1950s. Around 1963, the British invasion of groups, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones, brought a fresh sound to the music, though they also based their style on American, southern music forms and urban-based blues.
Today there are many splinter sounds of rock 'n' roll -- from Gothic Rock, to Heavy Metal, to Fusion, to Tech Rock. Still, the vitality of youth and sex that fueled the early music is still very much alive.
╩Small-Town America Scenes
1894
ARLINGTON, VERMONT
Although born and educated in New York City, Norman Rockwell lived much of his life in a small Vermont town and became famous for his illustrations showing human -- and often humorous -- situations from such small towns.
Rockwell was born in 1894, and studied at the Chase School of Art, the National Academy of Design, and the Art Students League. When many of his peers made art in the emerging styles of Picasso and abstract artists, Rockwell put his skills into realistic art with sentimental feelings.
Rockwell became famous and very popular for his cover illustrations for "The Saturday Evening Post" magazine. Showing such scenes as a small boy's visit to the family doctor and people saying grace before a meal, Rockwell embraced middle-class America and its values. This, while most American artists shunned the life and values of middle-class America, for the "sophistication" of major cities like New York.
Rockwell died in 1978.
╧A Seat Up Front
December 1, 1955
MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA
While the fight by blacks for civil rights had been going on for years, it took one middle-aged black woman with tired feet and a strong will to really get the battle going. Rosa Parks was that woman.
A seamstress in Montgomery, Rosa was returning from work one winter day and couldn't find a seat in the back of the bus, where blacks had to sit. As seen here, she took a seat near the middle and, as the bus filled with whites, refused to give up her seat. She was arrested for violating the city's transportation laws.
Four days later, on December 5th, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. led a bus boycott by Montgomery blacks. For more than a year, blacks walked, rode bicycles, drove or got a ride around the city rather than take the bus. Whites split on the issues. Some helped the blacks by giving them rides; others attacked the blacks.
The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the black boycotters in 1956, and after that blacks took any seat they wanted on buses. King went on to lead the Civil Rights Movement on other issues in other cities. In marches throughout the South and in Washington, D.C., blacks and sympathetic whites protested for an end to segregation in all areas of American life.
∞
Russians Get California Tan
1812
RUSSIAN IMMIGRATION
Most people's image of Russian immigrants is probably of women wearing babushkas arriving at Ellis Island in the late 1800s. While this picture is accurate of a huge wave of Russian immigration, the first Russians to venture to America did so on the other side of the continent almost 100 years earlier.
Named for their native Rossiya, Russia, members of the Russian-American company established Fort Ross in northern California in 1812; it was the southernmost outpost of a vast commercial hunting and trading company. Owned by Russia's tsarist government, the company had been doing business in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska for almost 100 years when the fort was founded.
Russian expansion into northwest America began in 1725, as part of that country's search for new areas in which to trap furs, a profitable Russian business. In 1741, Vitus Bering, a Danish explorer hired by Peter the Great, led an expedition that landed on American soil. Following him, a wave of Siberian traders and trappers rushed to the Aleutian Islands to ply their trade.
In 1808, the Russians founded Sitka in present-day Alaska as capital of their colony. From here traders moved south and eventually arrived at Fort Ross with a party of 25 Russians and 80 native Alaskans. Their purpose was to provide the colder northern Russian colony with food and sea otter pelts. They built the fort in the style of their homeland with a Russian Orthodox chapel as well. In 1841, the Russians disbanded their southern colony and sold Fort Ross. Russian immigration to the Pacific Coast subsided, when Russia sold Alaska to the United States in 1867 for $7 million.
The next wave of Russian immigrants came through New York in the late 1800s, when government pogroms attacked Jewish villages and the 1891 famine sent native Russians to America.
The Russian Revolution in 1917 also sent people running for shelter in America, as did the subsequent establishment of the Communist Party in Russia. Soon it became difficult to get permission to leave Russia. Many yearned for political, artistic, and intellectual freedom. Star ballet dancers like Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolph Nureyev defected, gave up their Russian citizenship, and sought safety in America, while on tours with the Bolshoi Ballet. Other defections followed and American dance companies and universities prospered from their arrival.
World Wars I and II added to the desire to immigrate as standards of living in Russia lagged far behind those of America. Still, dreaming of leaving Russia for America has always been easier than doing it. Leaving one's homeland, family, and friends -- perhaps never to see them again -- is a difficult choice to make, as is getting the money and necessary papers for leaving Russia.
φSacagawea: Guide To The Guides
1805
BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA
If you think going shopping for groceries with a small baby is hard, imagine going across the country without a car, supermarkets, or disposable diapers. That's just what an Indian woman named Sacagawea did between 1805 and 1806. She helped American scouts map and explore Western America, giving birth to a baby boy along the way.
Funded by Congress, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led an expedition into the unknown West of America from 1803 to 1806. Their goal was to collect scientific information about this uncharted land, to feel out business opportunities for the fur trade, and to judge the uses to which the West might serve politics and the military. They embarked on their trip following the purchase of the Louisiana Territory by America.
Starting in St. Louis, in the first year they made their way up-river and spent the winter of 1804 at a fort they built near present-day Bismarck in North Dakota. Next Spring, they headed west with a French-Canadian guide and his pregnant Shoshone woman companion, Sacagawea, to serve as guides and interpreters.
They crossed the Montana Rockies, built boats to go down the Columbia River, and reached the Pacific Ocean in November of 1805, near present-day Astoria. They returned by a different route to St. Louis, arriving there in 1806. Eventually, their route became the basis of the Oregon Trail, used by pioneers journeying west.
On their journey they covered about 4,000 miles and met grizzly bears, difficult and uncharted lands, and sometimes, hostile Indians. Through all this Sacagawea stayed by their side, newborn baby in tow. She was especially helpful in negotiating a deal for 30 horses with Shoshone Indians that allowed the party to cross the Bitterroot Mountains.
rSalmon Are Our Brothers
1907
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
How would you like to throw fish for a living? People do at Pike Place Market in Seattle. Immortalized in a Levi's Blue Jeans commercial, fishmongers here throw a customer's selected fish across adoring crowds to the man behind the counter who catches it on wax paper and wraps it. The most-thrown fish around here is surely salmon.
In most of America salmon is sold simply as "salmon." In the Pacific Northwest there are many kinds of salmon for sale: King, Chinook, Silver, Sockeye, Pink, Chum. This salmon can be had smoked, whole, filleted, or as chewy strips of salmon jerky.
While the famous Pike Place Market began in 1907, Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest had been feasting on and honoring salmon for centuries before European settlers arrived.
The salmon are famous for swimming downstream to the ocean and returning upstream yearly to lay their eggs and die. To the Indians, this cycle is a hallowed part of life. The Samish Indians have a First Salmon Ceremony, in which songs and prayers are given. To them, the salmon are their brothers who return and give of themselves so the Indians can live.
For the Indians, catching and cooking their salmon brothers is a highly evolved skill that they have mastered over the years. They can easily fillet a whole salmon, secure it on a green branch, and place it so it will cook evenly and quickly over the embers of an alder wood fire. They are also known for their skills in smoking the fish. So closely allied are the Indians with salmon that early white settlers apparently said they could smell an Indian was in the area by the salmon on his breath.
╔Hard To Drown
1992
GREAT SALT LAKE, UTAH
Just outside Salt Lake City, Utah, is a natural phenomenon called the Great Salt Lake. It is an inland body of water that is eight times saltier than the ocean, which gives it unusual properties.
The lake is so salty that swimmers can float in the water with no effort, the salt water keeping them up. Salt water is denser than regular water, making it harder to displace the water and sink. So the denser the water, the easier it is to float.
Because it is almost as salty as the extremely salty Dead Sea in Israel, the only life the Great Salt Lake can support is brine shrimp.
The reason for all this saltiness is that the Great Salt Lake is fed by many streams and rivers, but has no outlet. So, mineral salts that are carried into the lake stay there, giving it a 27 percent salt content.
The lake is 70 miles long and 30 miles wide, with an average depth of 13 feet. It is the largest American lake west of the Mississippi River.
¿Birth Of Birth Control
1916
NEW YORK CITY
Today's birth control and abortion battles actually began many years ago. In 1916, Mrs. Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. To advertise her clinic, Mrs. Sanger distributed 5,000 leaflets printed in English, Yiddish, and Italian that asked women if they could afford a large family and if they wanted to have more children.
Advocating the use of condoms, sponges, and diaphragms, Mrs. Sanger had previously published her birth control views in her newspaper, "The Woman Rebel." This paper was confiscated by the Post Office, after which she distributed a pamphlet called "Family Limitation." For this, she was indicted in 1914 for violating the Comstock Law, a vice law, and was sentenced to one month in jail.
Today we take birth control for granted, but then Mrs. Sanger was being very radical and courageous in expressing her views and acting on them.
Mrs. Sanger's advocacy of birth control was part of that day's larger women's movement fighting for the right to vote. Women wanted a say in the issues of the day and in the size of their families. They got the vote and the right to have birth control.
7From Fjords To Plains
May 17, 1868
SCANDINAVIAN IMMIGRATION
On May 17, 1814, Norway adopted its constitution, one that was inspired by the Constitution of the newly formed United States of America. During the rest of the 1800s, Norwegians and other Scandinavians immigrated to America, many settling in Wisconsin.
In 1868, the heavily Norwegian town of Stoughton began a Syttende Mai (17th of May) celebration in honor of their home country's constitution. Every year since then, Stoughton has a Syttende Mai festival on the Sunday closest to May 17th. As seen in this picture from a 1940s celebration, there are Norwegian dances, costumes, and foods as well as music.
Scandinavians first came to America in 1638, when people from Finland came to Delaware, where they built their native log cabins and saunas. The later immigration in the 1800s brought people who, like their German counterparts, had money and could afford to travel in search of land. These people came to the Midwest and farmed the plains of Nebraska as well as establishing Wisconsin's dairy farms and making the state's famous cheeses.
CChief Seattle: Realist
1855
SEATTLE, WASHINGTON
In 1855, Chief Seathl -- also known as Seattle -- of the Suquamish- and Salish-speaking tribes, signed the Port Elliott Treaty. This marked his official acceptance of life on a reservation for his people, specifically the Port Madison reservation. For the next 15 years, warfare took place between other Indian tribes and the U.S. Army as Indians resisted being moved onto reservations. Chief Seattle however, was determined not to let his people's blood be shed over something he felt was inevitable: the white man's victory over the red man in America.
Born about 1787, Seattle was a daring warrior in his youth, who later was convinced of peace being preferable to war. Influenced by missionaries, Seattle converted to Christianity and took the name of Noah. When white settlers came to the Northwest after the California Gold Rush, the Indians gave them a warm welcome and, in 1852, the whites named their small Puget Sound settlement Seattle, after the chief.
Chief Seattle is also known for his eloquence in describing the relations between whites and Indians in America. Seattle said the two groups were not friends and that the ways of whites were not the ways of the Indians. Specifically, Seattle cited the spiritual emphasis of Native American life, contrasted with the lack of spirituality in white America.
Sequoia: Big Red
1500 BC
SEQUOIA AND KINGS CANYON NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA
When the ancient Egyptians were building the pyramids, a seed started to grow in the California mountains; today, that seed is the mighty General Sherman sequoia tree. Estimated at between 2,600 to 3,500 years of age, the Sherman tree is one of the largest living things on earth.
Standing 272-feet high, measuring more than 35-feet across its base, and weighing about four-and-a-half million pounds, General Sherman is one of a number of giant sequoias that make up the Giant Forest within the Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park. The lowest branch on the Sherman sequoia is larger than the majority of trees east of the Mississippi.
Most sequoias have fallen to the lumberman's saw, but scattered groves and lone trees remain on the Sierra Nevada mountains' western slopes, at elevations between 3,500 and 7,500 feet. Here, the air is crisp, water is abundant, and winters are not too harsh. The sequoia's bark, sometimes almost two-feet thick, is a poor conductor of electricity -- protecting it from lightning, brush fires, and plagues of insects.
Sequoias do not die of old age; they die of shallow roots. These mighty trees do not have deep tap roots so, as they extend upwards their roots eventually cannot prevent them from falling over.
With cinnamon-colored bark and deep green foliage, a grove of sequoias is a wonderful sight. It is easy to walk through such a grove, because the tall trees block much of the sun's light from the forest floor, causing little to grow at the giants' feet.
TSequoyah: Beyond Sign Language
1821
CHEROKEE NATION, OKLAHOMA
As the mighty California sequoia trees rise out of the forest, so Sequoyah, the Cherokee Indian for whom the trees are named, rose out of his people to make his mark. Sequoyah developed an 86-letter alphabet for reading and writing the Cherokee language.
In the past, when Indians of different tribes assembled, they spoke in sign language because they could not understand each other's spoken language. With Sequoyah's alphabet, learning to speak Cherokee became possible. Cherokee is an Iroquois language that was spoken in Tennessee, Georgia, and other southern regions. Cherokee is also related to Mohawk, Oneida, and Seneca-Cayuga languages.
To create his alphabet, Sequoyah borrowed symbols from English grammar books and created other symbols as needed. Probably born around 1760, he would have been about 21 years old when he created this alphabet.
Interested in the general advancement of his people, Sequoyah went to Washington, D.C. in 1828, as a representative of western tribes. The Cherokee were a highly civilized tribe who had built roads, schools, and their own system of representational government when Sequoyah lived. Becoming farmers and cattle ranchers, the Cherokee were nonetheless labeled as "savages," and targeted for removal from their lands in 1835, under President Jackson.
Sequoyah died in 1843.
Priest Heads New Settlement
July 16, 1769
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
On a summer day in the Spanish territory of California, the first permanent Catholic mission was established in San Diego. The man in charge of the mission was Franciscan Father Junipero Serra. Father Serra was 55 years old at the time. He went on to build eight more missions along California's coast.
Born on the Mediterranean island of Majorca, Serra entered the Franciscan brotherhood in 1731. The King of Spain planned to make California a stronghold in its New World empire, and establishing missions and settlements was part of this plan. To do this, Serra and a group of soldiers and other churchmen traveled 2,000 miles to San Diego from Mexico.
Serra had to endure many physical hardships to implement the king's plan, and he had to convert native Indians to Christianity. While some atrocities against the Indians were committed in the name of conversion, Serra did make some positive and long-lasting contributions to the development of California.
Today, 21 missions stretch along California's coast from San Diego to San Francisco, including the original nine established by Father Serra. The development of towns, and later cities, in this area is linked to the missions' existence.
Serra made other contributions besides bringing Catholicism and Spanish culture to California. In 1783, a year before his death, Serra made the first American wine from vine cuttings brought from Spain and planted at the mission in San Juan Capistrano. Later, winemaking became a major California industry.
;Germans Called Dutch
1992
LANCASTER COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
Lancaster County is home to the Pennsylvania Dutch, a mix of "church people," such as Lutherans and Moravians, and "plain people," such as the Amish and Mennonites, many of whom refuse to blend with or adopt the conveniences of modern society.
The Pennsylvania Dutch are really Germans. "Deutsch" is German for "German" and in America the word was shortened to Dutch.
Due to their religious beliefs, the Amish live lives of hard labor, while many of their contemporaries sit all day in air-conditioned offices. They believe that living plain lives brings them closer to God. They are called Amish after the Swiss religious leader Jakob Ammann, who brought his people here in the 1720s.
The Amish till their fields by hand and mule, churn butter by hand, and use their bodies in ways most of us never do. As a result, their diet is heavy and full of starches, that supply them with the energy needed to fuel their lives.
Mounds of mashed potatoes and gravy, large slabs of meat and gravy, and huge slices of bread slathered with butter, form the basis of their cuisine. These meals are accompanied by a myriad of jams, spiced fruits, and pickled vegetables. In addition there are pies, which display the baking skills of the Pennsylvania Dutch women.
One unique Pennsylvania Dutch pie is shoo-fly pie, a molasses sponge cake that is baked in a crust. There is also a lemon and raisin pie that is baked when someone dies and thus is called a "funeral pie." "Preaching" pies are half-moon in shape and made for restless children at long Sunday services.
╨To the Moon And Beyond
December 6, 1957
CAPE CANAVERAL, FLORIDA
When the Navy's Vanguard rocket TV-3 was launched at the end of 1957, it held America's hopes to catch up to and overtake the Soviet Union's space program. Recently, two Russian satellites had orbited the earth: Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2. Well, the first Vanguard rocket lifted off the launch pad and exploded. After that, the Army took over the space program and literally got it off the ground.
On February 1, 1958, the Army launched Explorer 1, America's first satellite. Later the Navy managed to launch several Vanguard rockets after all. Early satellites measured X-rays, Earth's magnetic field and performed other experiments. Today, many satellites perform communications functions, allowing round-the-world phone connections and transmissions of global television programs.
In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced that America would put a man on the Moon by 1969. On July 20, 1969, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first humans to walk on the moon.
In 1981, America began to launch reusable spacecraft. Called space shuttles, these vehicles rode on the back of disposable launchers, which detached once out of Earth's gravity. The picture shown here is of a space shuttle launch.
America's space program received a major setback on January 28, 1986, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff, killing all seven astronauts on board, including two women. For two years after this disaster, America's space program shut down. Then, on September 29, 1988, the shuttle Discovery blasted into orbit and marked the program's rejuvenation.
Meanwhile, Voyager space probes took lengthy journeys through the solar system, sending pictures of other planets back to Earth.
╚The Future Of America
1993
SILICON VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
Beginning in the 1970s, many of the industrial jobs Americans had depended upon for generations began to disappear. Gone were the steel factories, auto plants, and shoe manufacturers. Some companies moved overseas, while others went out of business because they could not compete with imported goods.
If the United States was to survive as an economic giant, new industries would have to be found. Found they were in the area of high technology.
A whole new generation of inventors -- many of them working out of their own garages -- built whole new industries based around the computer. As the computer industry grew, the inventors moved out of their garages and homes and into more traditional plants, many located around San Jose, California. This area around San Jose is known as Silicon Valley.
Silicon is a sandlike element found extensively in the Earth's crust; it is used in making today's computers.
In the following years, the computer industry spread from supplying businesses to the point where tens of millions of Americans have personal computers in their own homes. Now almost all businesses operate with computers. Other high technology industries such as laser optics, genetic engineering, and robotics soon followed.
America leads the world in these new high technology industries, which have become vital to keeping the U.S. competitive in world markets and for making many existing industries competitive once again.
0Ain't I A Woman?
1827
NEW YORK STATE
Born into slavery in 1797 and named Isabella Van Wagener -- Wagener being her owner's last name -- this forceful woman was set free in 1827. In the 1840s, she took the name Sojourner Truth and drew crowds with her impassioned speeches about God's greatness and the evils of slavery. Never having learned to read or write, Sojourner dictated her autobiography, "The Narrative of Sojourner Truth," which she sold to support herself.
She also added women's rights to her agenda. During an 1851 speech to a women's rights convention, she roused the audience with the words, "Look at me! Look at my arm! I have plowed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me -- and ain't I a woman?" She continued working for the causes of rights for blacks and women until her death in 1883.
ΣSourdoughs And Their Dough
1849
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
When the California Gold Rush hit in 1849, prospectors from around the nation flooded into San Francisco en route to northern California's gold mining country. Besides stocking up on supplies like picks and gold-panning tins, the prospectors often made sure to get a bit of "sourdough starter" from which to make their bread. This starter, when carefully tended, was baked into a loaf of sourdough bread, while still leaving the prospector enough raw dough from which to make subsequent loaves. Such a flexible food product was so important to these prospectors that they often were called "Sourdoughs" for the starter they carried with them.
The tangy and crusty sourdough bread is found fresh-baked from San Francisco north through Seattle to Alaska, where prospectors took it in the 1890s when gold was found in the Yukon. Today, these tasty loaves are sold to restaurants and tourists, who often buy them at the airport to take home.
The key to a good starter is yeast and time. Today people use commercial yeast, but sourdoughs probably got their yeast from letting a grain or starchy vegetable, like a potato, ferment . . . producing yeast. The yeast is then "fed" with more starch or grain to develop gas. The starter is then used to make a "sponge," which increases the yeast's ability to expand particles of flour when it becomes bread dough. To make dough from sponge, flour and liquid are added.
While most people use sourdough starter to make bread, the original Sourdoughs sometimes used it to patch holes in their cabins and to treat their wounds. This bread really took them far and some people today claim their starter is 100 years old, passed down from a lone prospector and tended with care through the years.
¬War Refugees
1975
SOUTHEAST ASIAN IMMIGRATION
When the Vietnam War ended in 1975, hard times did not end for the people of Southeast Asia. While they no longer feared war, they now faced great hardships and terror at the hands of victorious Communists: the Viet Cong in Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the Pathet Lao in Laos.
While many supported the new rulers, many fled, fearing for their lives. Together they formed the largest short-term immigration of people ever to the United States. Between 1975 and 1985, 100,000 Southeast Asians a year came to America.
Unlike other Asian immigrants who came looking to make their fortunes, most of these immigrants came from refugee camps. Many escaped through jungles and drifted at sea in tiny boats, where they often fell prey to pirates. Those lucky enough to survive and arrive in America had to deal with emotional scars from their ordeal.
Many Vietnamese immigrants were highly educated, and their reverence for education, allowed their children to excel in American schools. Others were simple peasants.
Many of the Cambodian and Laotian immigrants were farmers from small villages with no previous knowledge of Western culture. Some from Laotian hill tribes, came from cultures that were untouched by the Industrial Revolution. Suddenly they were in large American cities where they encountered cars and had to adapt to the concept of jobs and other aspects of our society.
Considering the stress of their situations, many Southeast Asian refugees have adapted fairly well to America. While many settled along the West Coast, others found their way to Texas' Gulf Coast and other areas where they could practice the fishing and farming techniques of their homelands.
In some areas, the immigrants' ways became a source of friction to local Americans, particularly among those practicing a similar trade with traditional American techniques, like commercial fishing.
It has taken effort by the immigrants and local Americans to be able to live side-by-side and accept each other's customs. The Southeast Asians, meanwhile, work hard to preserve their heritage through communal organizations that teach native dances, songs, and language to their children.
▄Missions Are Their Mission
July 16, 1769
SPANISH IMMIGRATION
By establishing the first of a series of Catholic missions in San Diego, Spain declared its authority over California and the American Southwest. While having already established and then lost colonies in Florida as early as the 1560s, Spain was for a long time uncontested in its dominance of the Southwest. During the Mexican War of the 1840s, Spain lost control of this territory to America, but today the missions remain standing, as does much of the area's Spanish heritage. From Santa Fe, New Mexico through Los Angeles, California, there are historical remnants of Spain's conquests.
Still, Spain eventually focused most of its energy on successful colonizations of much of South America and Mexico.
╢ The Splendid Little War
1898
CUBA
Brutal rule by the Spaniards in Cuba outraged many Americans when they read blood-chilling reports in newspapers, like those owned by William Randolph Hearst. He and the other "press barons" urged America to intervene in Cuba with Hearst going so far as to tell artist Frederick Remington, who was in Cuba, to "provide the pictures, I'll provide the war."
President William McKinley resisted the war fever until February 15, 1898, when the battleship U.S.S. Maine mysteriously blew up in the harbor of Havana, Cuba, killing 250 sailors and marines. Even today no one is sure exactly why the ship blew up, but Spain was blamed and the U.S. declared war on April 25. It was one of the most successful and shortest wars in American history. Students left universities throughout the country in the Spring to fight and return in time for the Fall semester. The war also made the U.S. an international power.
The first blow was struck on May 1 by Commodore George Dewey, who destroyed a Spanish fleet at Manila Bay in the Philippines. In the Atlantic, a Spanish fleet made it into the harbor of Santiago de Cuba, where it was blockaded by the American fleet.
On July 1, the Americans successfully fought twin battles at El Caney and San Juan Hill. At San Juan Hill, Lieutenant Colonel Theodore Roosevelt led his famous "Rough Riders," who had left their horses back in Florida, in a wild charge up nearby Kettle Hill. The "Rough Riders" included many rich Eastern college boys, cowboys from the West, Native Americans from the Oklahoma area, and Mexican-Americans from New Mexico. Joining the "Rough Riders" in their charge was the black 9th U.S. Cavalry.
The decisive charge that won the battle was delivered by the black 10th U.S. Cavalry, which was led by the division commander, General "Fighting" Joe Wheeler, who had been a Confederate general in the Civil War.
With the Americans now on the hills overlooking Santiago, the Spanish fleet had to leave the harbor and try to break through the American fleet. At the battle of Santiago Bay on July 3, the Spanish fleet was destroyed in a short, but sharp fight. Two weeks later, Santiago surrendered to the American army. On July 25, another U.S. force, under General Nelson A. Miles, seized the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico.
Under the Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, Spain freed Cuba and handed over to the United States its colonies of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines in exchange for $20 million.
ÆSwing Your Partner!
1812
RURAL EASTERN KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS
While having roots in English and French dances, the square dance developed in America around the War of 1812. Square dancers move to instructions chanted by a caller and the couple, generally a man and a woman, is the basic unit of the dance. Four couples form a square and they perform a series of standard movements conducted by the caller. "Promenade Left" and "Swing Your Partner" are two such moves. Traditionally, a fiddle, banjo, or other string-instrument group provides the music.
Square dancing was part of community life in the South and later in the West. Dances were conducted at barbecues, corn shuckings, agricultural meetings, and other events.
Today we tend to think of square dancing as a Western event, with men wearing cowboy hats and women wearing cowboy handkerchiefs and the music may even have an electric guitar. Still, it developed in Appalachia.
Lady Liberty Lifts Lamp
October 28, 1886
NEW YORK CITY
For many people in America and abroad, the image that represents America and freedom is the Statue of Liberty. A present from France to America meant to honor democracy, the statue arrived in New York in 1885. The statue was dedicated in October of the next year. Standing at the mouth of New York City's harbor, the statue greeted immigrants on ships going to Ellis Island for admittance to America.
The work of sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, the Statue of Liberty looms more than 305 feet above the ground. The statue's iron framework was designed by Gustave Eiffel, builder of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. The statue's exterior is copper.
Funding for the statue ran out before the pedestal was built, so Joseph Pulitzer, a Hungarian immigrant, published editorials in his newspaper asking for donations. In response, many people sent in one or two dollars and finally $350,000 was raised to build the statue's pedestal.
Poet Emma Lazarus, asked to write something in honor of the statue, wrote a poem called "The New Colossus." The poem ends with the Statue of Liberty saying, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore; send these, the homeless, tempest tossed to me: I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
<Wall Street Loses Shirt
October 29, 1929
NEW YORK CITY
On Tuesday, October 29th, Wall Street's New York Stock Exchange experienced an unprecedented wave of panic selling of stocks. An earlier sell-off on the previous Thursday, "Black Thursday," combined with Tuesday's sales led to a collapse in stock prices and the loss of many American fortunes.
A few investors who lost all their money jumped to their deaths from office buildings. Others, as seen here, gathered in the streets outside the Stock Exchange to learn how much they lost.
The Great Crash marked a turning point between the optimism of the 1920s, the Roaring Twenties, and the pessimism of the 1930s, the period of the Great Depression.
After the crash, the American economy was a dead beast with many banks failing, as people ran to them to withdraw their savings. Without Federal Deposit Insurance, nonexistent then, many hardworking people lost all the money they had deposited into the bank.
Fear gripped the nation. The stock market crash was the biggest enemy the American people had to fight, while working their way back to economic health.
ù Little Lady Starts Big War
1852
BRUNSWICK, MAINE
Harriet Beecher Stowe had poured her heart into her anti-slavery book, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." But neither she nor her first publisher thought it would be a big success. The publisher was so doubtful, he wanted her to split the publishing costs with him, and all she hoped was that it would make enough money for her to buy a new silk dress.
But when the first 5,000 copies were printed in 1852, they sold out in two days. In a year the book had sold 300,000 copies in the United States and 150,000 in England. For a while it outsold every book in the world, except the Bible.
Within six months of its release, a play was made from the book which ran 350 performances in New York and remained America's most popular play for 80 years.
It might appear that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was universally popular, but this was certainly not true. Many people during those pre-Civil War days -- particularly defenders of the slavery system -- condemned it as false propaganda and poorly written melodrama.
Harriet did have strong religious views against slavery (When asked how she came to write the book, she replied: "God wrote it."), and she tried to convince people slavery was wrong, so perhaps the book could be considered propaganda. But if so, it was true propaganda, because it accurately depicted the evils of slavery.
Though she was born in Connecticut in 1832, as a young woman she moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, when her father accepted the presidency of newly founded Lane Theological Seminary. Ohio was a free state, but just across the Ohio River in Kentucky, Harriet saw slavery in action.
She lived 18 years in Cincinnati, marrying a professor at the college, Calvin Stowe. In 1850, they moved to Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, where Calvin taught religion. Then in 1851, despite her busyness as a mother, Harriet Beecher Stowe began her book.
Its vast influence strengthened the anti-slavery movement and antagonized defenders of the slave system. Some think it helped bring on the American Civil War.
In fact, when Abraham Lincoln met Harriet at the White House during the Civil War, he said, "So, this is the little lady who started this big war."
Stowe continued her anti-slavery writings through such publications as the "Atlantic Monthly," and "Christian Union." In 1853 she, published a "Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin," which gave the sources showing the authenticity of the horrors she described in the book.
▀American Way Of Life
1949
LONG ISLAND, NEW YORK
A house in the suburbs with a yard and a washing machine became the American Dream during the 1950s. It began in 1949, with the first community of prefabricated (ready-to-assemble) houses in Long Island. Selling for $7,900, each house had four rooms, a built-in television and a yard with a barbecue.
During the next 10 years, prefabricated suburban communities sprang up around America. The houses were affordable to young families, especially to men returning from the Korean War and ready to start a family and a business. Suburbs, by definition, were within easy commuting distance from a main city where work was conducted. Then, after work, people left the city and returned to their homes.
Known as the American Way of Life, the image of the suburbs was seen in television shows like "Leave It To Beaver" and "Father Knows Best." People around the world, seeing these shows, wanted to live like the Americans in the suburbs.
Today, the American Dream is out of the reach of many Americans. The price of property and homes has gone sky-high and not many people can afford to buy one. Instead, many people are buying condominiums. Still, people hold onto the Dream and hope that, someday, they will achieve it.
N A Tax On Tea? Never!
December 16, 1773
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
By 1732, there were 13 British colonies in America. The colonists were subjects of King George III and paid taxes to support England. After the French and Indian War, England owed a lot of money for war supplies, and expecting the colonies to help with repayment, passed several tax acts.
The Sugar Act of 1764 taxed sugar, coffee, and wine; the Stamp Act of 1765 put a tax on all printed matter, such as newspapers and playing cards. And the Townshend Acts of 1767 placed taxes on items like glass, paints, paper, and tea.
Americans were furious at these taxes and a new political slogan was born, "No taxation without representation." The colonists said that if they paid taxes, they should have a say in how their tax dollars were spent. Today we do have a say through our elected officials. But back then, the colonists had no elected officials and were at the mercy of the British parliament.
Rioting broke out in opposition to the Stamp Act, and colonists staged a boycott of products from England. English businessmen were hurt by the boycott and called for the act to be repealed; it was.
With the announcement of the Townshend Acts, more violence broke out. When British soldiers in Boston were confronted with an angry mob throwing ice and stones, they retaliated by firing their guns, killing five people. This was the Boston Massacre of 1770. Now colonists were really angry with England.
In 1773, England gave all rights of tea shipment to America to the East India Company. The East India Company could sell its tea at lower rates than American merchants, hurting American business. Three East India Company ships with tea arrived in Boston harbor and American patriots said they wouldn't let the tea come ashore.
During the night of December 16, 1773, about 150 men dressed as Indians, darkened their faces, and climbed on board the three ships in Boston harbor. They broke open all the boxes of tea and dumped the contents into the harbor's waters. This was the Boston Tea Party, as seen here.
England was furious at the colonists for dumping the tea and immediately passed more taxes on them. Of course this made the colonists even angrier and, in 1774, each colony sent a representative to the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, the groundwork was laid for the independence of America from England.
£The Trail Of Tears
October 1, 1838
CHEROKEE NATION, GEORGIA
"Removal" is a term usually applied to getting rid of a wart; it is also the term used by the United States government, under President Andrew Jackson, for removing Indians from their native lands.
Jackson had been a particularly fierce Indian fighter, beginning with his days during the Creek Indian War of 1814. He had pitted Indian tribes against each other, abandoned all of them, and made handsome profits speculating on lands taken from the Indians.
In Autumn of 1838, about 18,000 Cherokees of Georgia were forcibly rounded up by the U.S. Army. They were forced to travel through Tennessee and Kentucky, across the Ohio and Missouri rivers, and into Indian Territory west of the Mississippi River. This territory eventually made up the land which became known as Oklahoma.
Winter snows, summer heat, and drought took their toll. About 4,000 Cherokee were killed along the way from starvation, exposure, and disease. The Indians called this long march "The Trail of Tears."
President Jackson's removal plan went against the Supreme Court's ruling that Indians had legal rights to remain at their Georgia ancestral homes. Many people of that day did denounce the march, but it took place anyway.
Earlier removals had already targeted others of the "Five Civilized Tribes" in America's Southeast, the Cherokee being the last. Between 1831 and 1833, there was a removal of 15,000 Choctaws from Mississippi into land west of Arkansas, with Chickasaws and Creek Indians following soon after. Pneumonia and cholera took their toll on these traveling Indians, and once they reached the Indian Territory, thousands died of hardship, illness, and exposure.
▐Tecumseh Chafes At Settlements
1809
OHIO RIVER VALLEY
Unwilling to passively lose his homeland to white settlers, Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee Indian tribe began organizing Indians to resist American expansion. Tecumseh traveled from Wisconsin to Florida, working to unite about 10,000 Indians.
Working with Tecumseh was his brother, called "the Prophet," an Indian mystic, who advocated Indians returning to their native cultures and practices and rejecting white culture.
Gathering at the junction of the Tippecanoe and Wabash Rivers, the Indians entered a skirmish with the troops of General William Henry Harrison. While Harrison's troops suffered casualties, they drove back the Indians and broke their strength and confidence. Tecumseh's vision of a united Indian nation died.
Americans used this battle to fan anti-British and anti-Indian feelings. Congress said the Indian raid was a British scheme and fueled the fires for the upcoming War of 1812. Tecumseh died in that war's Battle of the Thames in 1813.
αNative American Mobile Home
1800
GREAT PLAINS OF AMERICA
For centuries, Native Americans of the Great Plains were a nomadic civilization. They moved around America following their source of food -- buffalo and other roaming animals. To suit their needs, they developed a transportable home that is recognized as classic Native American architecture: the tepee.
For the Indians, the everyday and the spiritual were intertwined and could not be separated. The tepee served the two important needs of shelter and religion.
Often made of buffalo hides supported by a wooden framework, the tepee was (and is) a circular structure. In Native American religion, the circle symbolizes the unity and harmony of all things on earth and heaven. So in their homes, the Indians integrated this spiritual belief.
With an opening in the side for entry, covered by a flap for warmth, and an opening in the top to let out smoke from cooking fires, the tepee served as both home and political meeting place. When a tribe was ready to move on, the tepees were dismantled and carried to the next place from which the Indians would hunt and fish.
Imagine seeing a meeting of an Indian nation, with thousands of tepees spread out across the plains. It must have been a very impressive sight.
▒Totems: History Standing Tall
1992
KETCHIKAN, ALASKA
The Indians of the Pacific Northwest and lower Alaska had no written language, so they carved their family history and tribal legends into tall poles of native cedar wood. Called totem poles, these artifacts had religious, ceremonial, and historical purposes.
The raven, a bird native to the area, was thought to be sacred by the Indians and they sometimes thought of themselves as the sons and daughters of the raven. For this reason, the raven with its strong beak and eyes is often carved on totem poles. The raven is usually carved near the top where it is seen in a protective position over the pole.
Sometimes a hat would be carved with a raven image, and then worn by a tribal leader or religious person. Perhaps the Indians thought the protective and sacred powers of the raven were transferred to the person wearing the raven hat.
Ketchikan is said to have more totem poles than any other place in the world.
J Miyatake: Documenting Disgrace
1942
MANZANAR, CALIFORNIA
Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. The next day, America declared war on Japan and, in 1942, President Roosevelt declared that all Japanese-Americans living within 500 miles of America's Pacific coast were enemy aliens and would be relocated to detention camps. Los Angeles photographer Toyo Miyatake was among those sent to Manzanar, a camp on the dusty eastern border of the Sierra Nevada mountains.
Born in Japan, Miyatake came to America with his family when he was 14. After graduating from public school in Los Angeles, Toyo eventually became a photographer and opened a studio where he did portraits. In 1942, Miyatake's entire family was moved to Manzanar. Because he thought the detention would be temporary, he didn't sell his studio or equipment. While enemy aliens weren't allowed to have cameras, Toyo managed to sneak a lens and a film holder into Manzanar, where he stayed for almost four years.
During his first year of detention, Miyatake got a camp carpenter to build him a camera that mounted his lens on a drain pipe with a long thread; rotating the pipe allowed him to move the lens back and forth to focus an image. Film and other equipment was hard to get, but one of his clients in Los Angeles managed to sneak him supplies. Taking care that nobody saw him, Miyatake took pictures of the camp for documentation.
The famous photographer Edward Weston was a friend of Miyatake and of the head of Manzanar. Weston influenced the camp director to allow Miyatake to open a studio to document family events like weddings, although a white person had to take the actual pictures, since policy didn't allow camp residents to have cameras.
Eventually there weren't enough white people available to take all the pictures needed, so Miyatake was allowed to do the actual photography himself. He became the official photographer of Manzanar and his pictures are rare documents of a sad period of American history.
In 1946 when the war was over, Miyatake returned to Los Angeles with his family and reopened his studio. Before he retired in 1976, his pictures of Manzanar were shown along with those of the famous Ansel Adams at an exhibit called "Two Views of Manzanar." Miyatake died in 1979, before the American government offered an official apology to all Japanese-Americans who suffered detention during the war.
ƒTycoons Build America
May 10, 1869
PROMONTORY POINT, UTAH
Perhaps no single incident better demonstrates the building of America by private industry than the linking of the East and West by railroad, completed here in Utah with the driving of the Golden Spike. Steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie, banker J.P. Morgan, oil man John D. Rockefeller, and railroad magnates like Cornelius Vanderbilt, Leland Stanford, and Jay Gould together dominated the American economy and America at the turn of the century.
Nicknamed "Robber Barons" by some, these men made vast fortunes by following business practices that were often legal in their time, but have since been made illegal. Some of them dealt in shoddy merchandise, manipulated the markets, and lied to investors. Some, while paying low wages, fought to ban workers' unions while they lived in luxurious homes.
These men industrialized America and changed it forever. Westward expansion and growth would not have happened so soon without the iron wills of these tycoons. They also changed the face of American business.
Since their time, laws have been passed to tame corporate excesses, but the measures have been only as effective as those who enforce them. Under President Theodore Roosevelt the trusts were largely broken up, but under President Warren Harding they gained back some of their lost power. Also, there has been a constant political debate on whether all monopolies are bad -- was the nation better with just one great big telephone company -- AT&T -- or many smaller companies? So far, no answer satisfies everyone.
Whatever the laws and the degree of their enforcement, the legacy of these powerful men lives on in the names of the companies they founded.
^Founding Of United Nations
1945
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
The League of Nations had failed. It was originally set up after World War I to help countries settle their disputes by discussion, instead of fighting.
But World War II had been brutal, so in 1945, with the war ending, representatives of 46 nations gathered in San Francisco, California to propose creating a new organization called the United Nations Organization. The organization became a reality in April, 1945, when delegates from 50 countries signed the World Security Charter, creating an international peacekeeping force.
The U.N. is ruled by a General Assembly in which each nation has one vote, and by a Security Council of 11 members, including five permanent members: the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, France, and China.
The U.N. Headquarters is in New York City, and the organization's Court of Justice is at The Hague in the Netherlands.
The headquarters, shown here, was built between 1946 and 1952 along New York's East River on land that was once occupied by slaughterhouses and industries. The land was given to the organization by John D. Rockefeller, Jr.
ÜA Time For Winter Patriots
1777
VALLEY FORGE, PENNSYLVANIA
The year of 1777 had been a mixed one for the American Army, struggling to win freedom from England. It had won a great victory at Saratoga, New York, which meant France would enter the war on the American side, but the British had captured Philadelphia -- the nation's capital -- and defeated General George Washington's Army in the battles of Brandywine Creek and Germantown.
To keep an eye on the British, Washington camped for the winter with his 11,000 men at Valley Forge, a village 25 miles west of Philadelphia. That winter camp -- which lasted from December 19, 1777 to June 19, 1778 -- became a symbol of the courage it took to win America's freedom.
The soldiers suffered terribly. They were hungry, their clothes in rags, many were without shoes -- when walking they left bloody footprints on the snow -- and there were not enough blankets. On top of it all, they were housed in huts that could not stop the chill wind from blowing through the cracks. By spring, 2,500 soldiers had died.
But the "winter patriots" who survived became a real Army, thanks to Baron Frederick von Stuben. Von Stuben was a professional German soldier, who taught the Americans how to fight like the British did. No longer would American troops have to hide behind trees or run away when the enemy charged. Von Steuben did a very good job, since Washington's Army never lost another battle against the British.
Today, Valley Forge is a national park where the memory of the sacrifices of those first patriots -- many of them teenagers -- are kept alive through daily tours, numerous monuments, and a camp built to look like it did during the Revolutionary War.
ÑThis Volcano Is No Mirage
1931
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
In 1931, Nevada legalized gambling. Soon after, Las Vegas became to that activity what Hollywood is to motion pictures -- the capital. The state of Nevada has 151,362 slot machines, with almost 100,000 of them in Clark County, home to Las Vegas. In 1992, Nevada reported gambling gross income of over $5.7 billion, of which $4.2 billion came from Clark County.
With so much money coming in, casino and hotel owners have catered to tourists' fantasies when designing their buildings. Circus Circus Hotel-Casino is a circus-tent-shaped complex with an entertainment park and a miniature Grand Canyon complete with river rapids. The Mirage Hotel features a dolphin pool, manmade volcano that spits fire and water (pictured here), and a tiger habitat. The Excalibur Hotel seeks to represent a medieval castle with turrets, court jesters, and a showroom with jousting knights.
To crown all this non-textbook architecture, the city of Las Vegas lights up at night, thanks to many, many miles of neon tubing. It is probably fair to say that Las Vegas is the neon capital of the world...with Tokyo's Ginza and New York's Times Square muttering protests.
With all this gambling, liquor, and party behavior, it is interesting that Las Vegas was originally established as a Mormon settlement in 1855. With the Mormon ban on alcohol and other "vices," it is remarkable that the city has made a 180-degree turn from its roots.
Opening The Mississippi River
July 4, 1863
VICKSBURG, MISSISSIPPI
This crucial Civil War campaign (April-July 1863) captured the last Confederate fortress on the Mississippi River, divided the Confederacy in two, and gave the Union complete control of the river. This victory, along with that at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, (July 1-3, 1863) tilted the war in favor of the North.
Union General Ulysses S. Grant was stopped five times in trying to capture the city, which sits on high bluffs overlooking the river, but he would not give up. He launched a sixth drive in April 1863. Northern gunboats and transports sailed past the city at night under heavy fire, while Grant's ground forces marched south down the west bank of the river. The troops were then taken across the river south of the city.
Although outnumbered, Grant began a brilliant two-week campaign in which he won a half-dozen battles and at the end had forced the Confederate Army under General John C. Pemberton, who had been born in the North, back into the Vicksburg defenses.
Beginning on May 18, Grant began a siege of Vicksburg. The soldiers and civilians in the city suffered terribly. They were forced to live in caves dug into the hillsides and reduced to eating horses, mules, and even rats. Pemberton surrendered the city on July 4, because he would get better terms on that day -- the nation's birthday -- than on any other.
The campaign made Grant a national hero, made Pemberton a hated man in the South, and so embittered the people of Vicksburg that the city did not celebrate the Fourth of July until World War II.
φ A Time For Healing
November 11, 1982
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL, WASHINGTON, D.C.
They came to Washington by the tens of thousands -- Vietnam veterans in old uniforms, their wives and children, parents of children long dead, and children who lost their fathers in the war. They came to the dedication of the most dramatic and somber of the nation's monuments -- the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.
Privately financed, the memorial is dedicated not to glorify war, but to salute those who died and to help heal the deep, lingering wounds among the American people.
And those wounds were very deep, especially among the veterans, many of whom had been called "baby killers" or spit upon by other Americans when they came home. Most veterans readjusted well to civilian life and one veteran, Albert Gore, became Vice President of the United States in 1993.
However, for others the war never ended. Nearly 100,000 young men had been disabled. They had lost arms or legs, had shattered spines, or were blinded. Others had problems with alcohol or drugs, or relived the war in their minds in what doctors call Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Others claimed to suffer from exposure to a chemical called Agent Orange. This was sprayed from the air on the thick Vietnam jungle to cause the leaves on the trees to fall off. The spraying often hit American troops and many of those suffered from skin rashes, breathing problems, reduced hearing and vision, terrible headaches, and even cancer. It is also suspected of causing birth defects among children of those veterans. The government insists Agent Orange does not cause serious illness or death.
It was to help heal the wounds of the Vietnam War that veteran Jan Scruggs came up with the idea for the memorial in 1979. One man's idea became a national drive in which a great deal of opposition had to be overcome while the vets tried to raise enough money to build their memorial. A national design contest was won by Yale architecture student Maya Ying Lin over 1,421 other entries.
The V-shaped memorial consists of two 250-foot walls of polished black granite sloping to the ground from a top height of 10 feet. The walls are inscribed with the names of more than 58,000 American men and women -- many of them teenagers -- who were killed or reported missing in the Vietnam War. Also placed at the site is a flagpole and a statue of three young combat soldiers placed so it seems as if they are looking for their own names on the Memorial. In 1993, a memorial was established honoring the women who served in Vietnam.
The Whole World Is Watching
August 29, 1968
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
When the Democratic Convention took place in Chicago, delegates came from around the country to pick a presidential candidate. Also traveling to Chicago were about 10,000 Vietnam War protestors, many of them students. While the convention was in progress, Chicago police attacked the demonstrators. Television cameras broadcast the violence as protestors and their supporters chanted, "The Whole World Is Watching."
The Vietnam War divided the nation, and families, and was an extremely unpopular war. The war began in the 1950s, when the French controlled Vietnam. America supported the South Vietnam government against the Communist North Vietnamese.
The American government believed in the Domino Theory, that a Communist takeover of one country would lead to the fall of others, like a row of dominoes. This prompted America to send soldiers to the Indochinese jungle. During the late 1960s, more American troops were sent to Vietnam.
At home, protests against the war centered at university and college campuses as students became politically active. Regular citizens, and later Vietnam veterans, joined peace marches calling for the war's end. President Richard Nixon, and later President Lyndon Johnson, saw the demonstrators -- mostly ordinary citizens -- as "outside agitators" and enemies of America.
In Vietnam, American soldiers faced the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese guerrilla fighters who knew their jungle battlefield and were often supported by Vietnamese villagers. Americans were not welcomed warmly in Vietnam.
When American troops left Vietnam in 1973, they returned home to fellow Americans who ignored them. Unlike previous wars where veterans were honored, Vietnam War veterans were seen as outsiders to society and they suffered much anguish as a result.
Hot! Hot! Hot!
1992
HAWAII VOLCANOES NATIONAL PARK, HAWAII
There is no place where the meeting of the prehistoric and the contemporary is more strongly stated, than the flowing of red-hot lava over the driveway and manicured gardens of an expensive Hawaiian home. For no amount of money or influence can hold back an erupting volcano.
Established in 1916, Hawaii Volcanoes National Park has two of the most active volcanoes in the world: Mauna Loa and Kilauea. Joining them are the inactive Mauna Kea, Kohala, and Hualalai. Ancient Hawaiians worshiped Pele, goddess of volcanoes, and believed her wrath caused the mountains' eruptions that destroyed their villages and agricultural lands.
Today we know that Hawaiian volcanic eruptions mark the growth of the land surrounding it, as the masses of molten lava spew from the volcano, and eventually harden into extended land masses.
Scientists now believe that hot spots lie in the ocean deep beneath the volcanoes. These hot spots spew out molten rock that rise to the water's surface and harden. After doing this for long periods of time, the hardened lava forms an island, like the Hawaiian Islands.
The caldera, the gaping hole atop a volcano, is a sight to see. Kilauea's is two miles wide and three miles long, surrounded by 400-foot-high cliffs. Inside is a desolate landscape of bumpy lava rocks and wisps of steam. At one end of the caldera is a 3,000-foot-wide hole that is 250 feet deep; from here comes the molten lava.
Eruptions have occurred on other of the Hawaiian Islands and the early Hawaiians believed this was due to Pele moving from one island to another.
Despite the presence of volcanoes, modern Hawaiian residents have built their wonderful homes within reach of volcanic destruction, and suffered losses because of it.
Not everything is destroyed by lava. Within weeks of lava's hardening, plants appear in hardened lava's cracks where moisture accumulates. Soon other plant life settles in, nurtured by the abundant tropical storms, and rain forests appear, as do unusual animal life.
≡Women Fight For Rights
August 26, 1920
WASHINGTON, D.C.
When a Tennessee Senator cast his vote for the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution, he created the right to vote for all American women. The amendment was proposed in 1918, by Representative Jeannette Rankin of Montana, the first woman elected to Congress. At that time, some states had already given women the right to vote, while others had not.
The movement for women's suffrage, from the Latin word for "vote," grew out of the abolition movement to abolish slavery in the 1840s. In that case, women were fighting for rights for blacks, but had no rights for themselves. They soon saw the strangeness in this situation and organized to do something about it.
A women's convention at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848, was the official start of the American women's movement. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott helped launch the movement. Women, like former slaves Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, worked with them. Susan B. Anthony also played an important role in getting women the vote.
It is hard to imagine how hard women had to fight for the vote that women today take for granted. Some women took drastic action, and in England women chained themselves to buildings and even burned buildings. When arrested and put in jail, the women went on hunger strikes that drew them public sympathy. American women soon followed the actions of their British sisters.
Women staged round-the-clock picket lines in front of the White House. Finally in 1918, a Republican Congress was elected, which had more liberal views than the former Democratic Congress. Two years later, they ruled in favor of Congresswoman Rankin's bill and women got the vote.
Over 70 years later, women began to really find their political strength, when more women began to run for office and the women's vote was sought by both political parties. "Women's Issues" like abortion, health care, child care, and sexual harassment protection have grown in importance and become part of most candidates' election campaigns.
îReturn To Basics
1854
WALDEN POND, MASSACHUSETTS
Published in 1854, "Walden," by Henry David Thoreau, is a somewhat fictionalized journal Thoreau kept during his stay at Concord's Walden Pond. Part of an American movement called Transcendentalism, the book stresses the importance of Nature, how the ordinary can be divine, and the necessity to see through illusions to reality.
Thoreau went to Walden Pond "because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life..." Here he reflected on America's passion for material possessions, business, and success. He views most of these as distractions that keep people from being fully alive.
Thoreau's message was taken up by anti-materialists of the 1960s, and most recently, by environmentalists. Today, Walden Pond as pictured here, still offers some room for reflection, but its surrounding area is threatened by developers who wish to subdivide it.
}Twilight's Last Gleaming
January 8, 1815
NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA
The War of 1812 started because Great Britain, which was at war with France, kept seizing U.S. merchant ships on the high seas and forcing American sailors into their navy. The English even got the Indians to attack frontier settlements in Michigan and Indiana.
Calling for "free trade and sailors' rights," the War Hawks in Congress, led by Henry Clay of Kentucky, got America to declare war in June 1812. The mainland fighting took place along the Canadian border, the Chesapeake Bay, and the Gulf of Mexico.
Also, the small American Navy won many fights at sea, with the most famous being those of the U.S.S. Constitution. This ship gained the nickname of "Old Ironsides," when British cannon balls bounced off its thick, wooden sides.
On land, the war went badly for America, with many defeats. The British even took Detroit, Michigan. Things got better in 1813, when Oliver Hazard Perry defeated a British fleet on Lake Erie and sent his famous victory message: "We have met the enemy and they are ours . . ." Detroit was recaptured by future president General William Henry Harrison, who then defeated the British at Thames River, Canada.
However, a British blockade so wrecked U.S. trade that the New England states even met to talk about leaving the Union, but nothing came of this.
In 1814, the British captured Washington, D.C., and burned the Capitol and the White House. However, the English fleet was repulsed at Fort McHenry near Baltimore, Maryland. It was this fight that inspired Francis Scott Key to write, "The Star Spangled Banner." The Americans then won a major naval victory on Lake Champlain in New York.
When news of these defeats reached British negotiators at Ghent, Belgium, they agreed to a peace treaty which was signed on December 24, 1814. The war had secured American independence and never again did Britain threaten the U.S. on land or sea.
Washington Didn't Want It
1833-1884
WASHINGTON, D.C.
While he was alive, George Washington managed to ward off attempts to create a monument to himself. It would be too expensive, he said.
But like it or not, in 1833, a private organization called the Washington National Monument Society, decided to go ahead and build a monument to the United States' first president, so it started soliciting funds and reviewing plans.
Eventually a plan based on a design by Robert Mills was accepted, and the cornerstone was laid on July 4, 1848. Then, finding the ground was too soft, the monument was moved to its present location.
In 1876, seeing the project would need more than private support, Congress voted to pay for the project. Work began in 1880, and the monument was finished on December 6, 1884 at a cost of about $1.2 million.
The Washington Monument is patterned after ancient Egyptian obelisks, though several times larger. It is about 555-and-a-half-feet tall and is covered with white Maryland marble, and topped with a small, cast-aluminum pyramid.
╧Watergate: Nixon's Waterloo
August 8, 1974
WASHINGTON, D.C.
It was a first in American history. President Richard M. Nixon resigned from office, rather than face probable impeachment hearings based on the Watergate case. As the Battle of Waterloo brought Napoleon to his knees, so the break-in at Democratic campaign headquarters in the Watergate building by Nixon's campaign committee proved to be the end of his administration.
More than the end of a presidency, Watergate brought the confidence of Americans in their elected officials and the political process to new lows. It began when seven employees of the Republican Committee to Re-Elect the President were arrested, while breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices in the capital's Watergate Office Building. They were trying to plant listening bugs in the office phones and obtain records on the Democrats' presidential campaign strategy.
Over the next two years, through investigative articles in The Washington Post and other publications, it came to light that high-level members of Nixon's administration had ordered the break-in and made efforts to cover up their involvement. The question remained whether Nixon ordered the break-in, though it was proved that he halted a Federal investigation of the affair, prompting his resignation.
It was also learned that Nixon recorded conversations he had with people in the Oval Office without their knowledge or consent. Asked to turn these tapes over to the House Judiciary Committee, Nixon turned over all but six he labeled as "missing." Two of the submitted tapes had mysterious erasures during key discussions.
Nixon was also investigated for tax evasion and forced to pay $400,000 in back taxes. Several members of Nixon's staff pleaded guilty to charges ranging from break-ins at other offices, lying during testimony to Congress, obstructing justice, destroying evidence, and paying "hush money" to keep witnesses quiet.
Watergate was a case of elected officials using the public resources and trust for their own benefit and violating the civil rights of those who got in their way. Watergate left the voting public feeling abused and cynical about all politicians. Because their trust was violated, cynicism stayed with the public for years afterward.
±Paradise No More
1992
WEST INDIAN IMMIGRATION
In 1492, Christopher Columbus discovered the island of present-day Haiti in the West Indies. As was the case with many islands in the West Indies, many of the native Indians were killed and black slaves were brought in to work agricultural lands owned by European settlers. To this day, the West Indies remain mired in poverty while providing luxurious vacation housing for tourists.
Since the 1970s, many West Indians have wanted to immigrate to America and about one million have made the move. Most of these people are looking for better jobs and lives, than those found at home. Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, the Bahamas, and Haiti each contribute many people to this immigration movement.
Haiti has been especially hard hit with poverty and political unrest. In 1957, Dr. Francois Duvalier became Haiti's president. Known as "Papa Doc," he ran the government like a dictator, while famine and poverty hurt his people. When he died in 1971, his son "Baby Doc" became president. He too was a dictator and his special police killed and tortured many citizens. During this time about one million Haitians left Haiti.
More political unrest in the early 1990s led many Haitians to come to America. In 1992, many climbed into rickety boats to escape their country. They reached America, but were not warmly welcomed. Reeling from an economic depression, America didn't want to deal with so many refugees and their needs. The Haitians were put in detention camps near Miami, and eventually put on boats and sent back to Haiti. While many Americans protested this move as racist and unfair, many other Americans felt there were not enough resources in America to feed and house people when many Americans were losing their jobs and their homes.
jA Whale Of A Meal
1992
NORTHERN ALASKA
While contemporary Eskimos can go to the store and buy Campbell's soup for dinner, some still dine on traditional Eskimo fare, like whale meat.
"Eskimo" is a name derived from an American Indian word meaning "eaters of raw meat." The land where Eskimos live is very cold and often covered with ice, so there is little wood with which to build a cooking fire. Thus, Eskimos often ate their meat and fish raw.
Whales are one of the few animals found in Eskimo country so, of course, it became part of the Eskimo diet. In addition to eating the flesh of the whale, Eskimos also enjoyed eating whale blubber, or fat. This blubber can also be burned as an oil in lamps, though it does not give off enough heat to be used as a cooking oil. A diet high in fat, like blubber, suited the Eskimos because their bodies needed to burn many calories to keep warm.
▄ Wonderful Wheat
1991
GREAT PLAINS, AMERICA
Asia has rice, Meso-America has maize, and America has wheat. Wheat is integral to the American diet. As Asians consume rice with most meals, so, each day, Americans eat wheat in one of its many forms: bread, cereal, pancakes, cookies, cakes, etc. In 1991, each person in the United States ate an average of 136 pounds of wheat flour.
Throughout the Great Plains of America, wheat is grown to feed this country and countries around the world. For this reason, America is sometimes called the "Breadbasket of the World."
In fact, wheat is as valuable as gold to the American economy. Sometimes foreign relations hang on wheat trade agreements.
There are six basic classes of wheat:
-- Hard Red Winter Wheat is the most plentiful kind and dominates U.S. exports. It is grown in Great Plains states and is used in breads and some sweet goods. Major importers are the former U.S.S.R., China, Japan, Morocco, and Poland.
-- Hard Red Spring Wheat has the highest percentage of protein among wheats and is used in breads. Most of this wheat is grown in Montana, the Dakotas, and Minnesota. Major buyers are the former USSR, Japan, Philippines, and Central America.
-- Soft Red Winter Wheat has low protein content and is used in cakes, cookies, and crackers. Grown mostly east of the Mississippi River, its major buyers are China, Egypt, and Morocco.
-- Durum Wheat is a hard wheat used mostly to make semolina flour for pasta. It is grown primarily in North Dakota and is exported mostly to Algeria.
-- Hard White Wheat is a newer class of wheat used in yeast breads, tortillas, and oriental noodles. Little of it is exported and it is grown in red wheat areas.
-- Soft White Wheat is grown mostly in the Pacific Northwest. Exported to Asia, it is used much as Soft Red Winter, but not in breads.
Chocolate Chip Cookies Recipe
2 sticks butter (1/2 cup)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups sifted flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup chocolate chip pieces
(add 1/2 cup chopped nuts if you want)
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cream the butter with fork until soft, then add the white and brown sugar, and beat until creamy. Beat in the egg and vanilla. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda and stir together; finally add the chocolate chips. Use a teaspoon to measure drops of the batter onto a greased cookie sheet, leaving space between the drops. Bake about 10 minutes, or until golden.
Presidents Sleep Here
1792
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The Constitution of the United States of America created three governing bodies: Executive, Legislative, and Judicial. The Executive branch is headed by the President, who lives in the White House.
The White House was built in 1792, and every President except for George Washington, has lived here. In 1814, during the War of 1812, the British burned down the White House. It was rebuilt, and with other structural improvements and rebuilding between 1948 and 1952, remains the official residence of Presidents.
In other countries at the time of the American Revolution, people were governed by a king or queen who inherited power and ruled for life. In America, citizens could elect their leaders and change Presidents every four years if they desired.
The President of the United States of America works with Congress to pass legislation, formulates foreign policy, and travels around the world to cement American relationships with foreign powers. The President also selects judges for the Supreme Court, but the Senate must approve these choices and doesn't always do so. Also important is the President's role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.
To deal with various issues, the President selects people to serve on his cabinet. These positions include the Secretaries of State, Defense, and Commerce.
Today, a President can serve for two four-year terms. President Franklin Roosevelt was elected to four terms. After that, Congress voted an amendment to the Constitution limiting the terms of the presidency.
Whooping It Up
1975
GRAYS LAKE NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, IDAHO
In 1975, the eggs of whooping cranes were placed in the nests of sandhill cranes at this Idaho refuge. The sandhills, thinking the eggs their own, reared the whooping crane chicks. This subterfuge was an attempt by the U.S. Wildlife Service to keep the whooping cranes from becoming extinct.
Unique to North America, whooping cranes ("Grus americana") stand about five feet tall, have sinewy necks, long legs, and a wing span of about seven-and-a-half feet. Their snow-white bodies are contrasted by jet-black wing tips and a red-and-black head.
Found in marshy areas with bulrushes and cattails, "whoopers" feed on crabs, frogs, and other small aquatic animals, but seldom eat fish. The cranes once nested from Illinois to southern Canada. In the winter, they migrated to an area between the Carolinas and Mexico.
When settlers turned their nesting areas into farmlands, the cranes disappeared from the plains and sought refuge in Canada. In 1941, only 16 of the birds arrived at their traditional wintering grounds in Texas.
Today the whooping crane is listed as an endangered species, with about 155 of the birds existing in America's wilds. Intensive education and research programs give promise of further increases in the crane population.
╖California Takes On France
1838
NAPA VALLEY, CALIFORNIA
In the 1830s, South Carolinian George Calvert Yount planted the first grapes in Napa Valley. In 1831, Charles Krug established his winery -- the oldest in the area -- and began to make European-style wine.
Other Europeans, learning about the valley's rich soil and mild climate, came to the area and established their own vineyards and wineries. Kornell and Domaine Chandon champagnes, Heitz Cellars, the Mondavi, and Beringer brothers wineries all added European charm and style to this northern California area.
Today, Napa Valley wines are known worldwide as solid competitors with their French cousins. In fact, in 1973, two California wines won first place at a Paris wine tasting.
So important is the wine industry to California that the University of California at Davis and California State University at Fresno both conduct research into the art of making fine wines.
Located about one hour north of San Francisco, Napa Valley and its surrounding county are home to over 110 wineries. Most offer tours and wine tasting and the surrounding towns such as Yountville, named after first vintner Yount, provide gourmet restaurants.
California's temperate climate has spurred the growth of wine making in other areas of the state, too. The Santa Ynez Valley near Santa Barbara in Southern California, the Edna Valley near San Luis Obispo, and the San Joaquin Valley in Central California all have thriving wine industries.
xGhost Dance Turns Deadly
December 29, 1890
PINE RIDGE RESERVATION, SOUTH DAKOTA
Injuries much more serious than wounded knees were inflicted at Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Reservation, home to the Sioux Indians. Between 150 and 300 Indians, mostly women and children, were killed by soldiers. The Indians had tried to surrender their guns to the army when a gun accidentally discharged, triggering violent shooting by the army and the resulting Wounded Knee Massacre.
Leading up to the massacre had been the rise among Indian tribes of the Ghost Dance, a religious movement started in 1888, by a Paiute Indian named Wovoka. The belief behind the Ghost Dance was that the world would soon end and Indians would inherit the earth, and the return of ancestors and buffalo who had died. Through frenzied dancing, Ghost Dancers felt they could glimpse this future where the world would be theirs. The Ghost Dance movement also preached rejection of white culture and alcohol.
The Ghost Dance spread in popularity among many Indian tribes and contributed to Indian militancy. The U.S. Army became alarmed at this trend and began to arrest Indian leaders. When Chief Sitting Bull resisted arrest, a skirmish led to the chief and 14 others being killed. Subsequently, 400 of Sitting Bull's followers fled to seek safety with Sioux Chief Big Foot. Then the military pursued Chief Big Foot's group, leading to the Wounded Knee Massacre.
8
America In World War I
April 2, 1917
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Saying that "the world must be made safe for democracy," President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress on April 2, 1917 to declare war on Germany. Congress voted 'yes' and America entered into the "Great War," later called World War I.
Fighting in Europe had been underway since 1914, when Archduke Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated while visiting the Serbian city of Sarajevo. The Austrian Empire declared war on Serbia, Russia came to Serbia's defense, Germany declared war on Russia and her ally, France, and Great Britain declared war on Germany when German troops invaded Belgium.
America under Wilson took a neutral position on the war and tried to stay out of it. In 1915, the ocean liner Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo and 128 Americans were among the 1,200 passengers who died when the ship sank. While the American public cried out, Wilson held the country back from war.
Over the next two years German boats attacked a number of American merchant ships, but America would not declare war. Then, in early 1917, two things happened which assured America's entry into the war.
First, the Germans once again began unrestricted submarine warfare, which President Wilson had warned would mean war with the United States. Second, was the British Secret Service releasing an intercepted telegram from German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmerman to the German ambassador in Mexico. Called the Zimmerman Telegram, it said Germany would help Mexico recover Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona from America, if Mexico would side with Germany, when America entered the war.
These two incidents made Americans so furious at Germany that the country joined the war. American troops fought mostly in France, but the war was fought with great slaughter in Italy, the Balkans, throughout Eastern Europe, and into what is today Saudi Arabia and Israel. The World War saw the first use of poison gases, such as mustard gas, as weapons. The American Army was in the field for just six months before an Armistice was agreed to on November 11, 1918.
The war ended with the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. About 130,000 American soldiers died in the war that took the lives of ten million people. Another 20 million people died of disease and starvation, among other causes.
Ultimately, the war determined which European nations would control the natural resources and wealth of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The gold and diamonds of South Africa, the other metals and rubber trees of the rest of Africa, and the oil in the Mideast were the final prizes to the war's victors.
▄A Fighter, A Fighter, A Fighter
1917-1918
THE WESTERN FRONT, FRANCE
When America declared war on Germany on April 6, 1918, to "make the world safe for democracy," the U.S. Army was far from ready to fight in France. There were only 150,000 men in the Army with few weapons and no training in modern warfare. A great army would have to be built before fighting the veteran German troops. Using the National Guard and the draft, the army would grow to nearly 4 million men, before the war ended on November 11, 1918.
But armies are made up of more than regiments, cannons, and machine guns, they are made up of real people -- Americans who went across the sea to fight for their country -- men like John J. Pershing and Alvin York.
John J. Pershing commanded these Americans. He was called "Black Jack," because he had been an officer in the black 9th U.S. Cavalry. Pershing, born September 13, 1860, had fought Indians in the West, Spaniards in Cuba, Moros in the Philippines, and Pancho Villa in Mexico. In France, Pershing opposed putting Americans into the ranks of the British and French armies -- Americans would only fight in an American army. He was successful and his army assured the Allies of victory. The only soldier Pershing cared to know was "a fighter, a fighter, a fighter."
After the war, he was promoted general of the armies, became the Army chief of staff, and wrote his memoirs. Although bedridden during World War II, Pershing's advice was sought and followed by the military leaders fighting another World War. His long life ended on July 15, 1948.
Alvin C. York, born in Pall Mall, Tennessee, on December 13, 1887, was a tall, lean farmer who was a dead shot with a rifle. But he was very religious and believed it was wrong to kill, so he tried to get out of military service. When drafted, he went because it was his duty, but he knew he could not kill. On October 8, 1918, York and his men captured a German machine-gun nest. When they came under fire, York charged the Germans trenches and using his skill as a sharpshooter, killed 25 of the enemy and took 132 prisoners. He did it to save lives -- the German guns were killing and wounding hundreds of Americans. York was awarded the Medal of Honor and became the greatest hero of the war. He died on September 2, 1964.
▌The Longest Day
June 6, 1944
OMAHA BEACH, NORMANDY, FRANCE
The Allied invasion of France (code named Operation Overlord) on June 6, 1944, was one of the largest military operations in history. The purpose was to drive out the German Army, which had occupied France for four long years.
The invasion, under the command of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, involved more than a million men and included Americans, British, Canadians, French, Poles, Dutch, Belgians, and Norwegians.
The Germans knew the Allies were coming, but were not sure where, so they spread their Army all along the coast of France, Belgium, and Holland.
Following two months of heavy bombing by Allied aircraft, and with bad weather looming, the Allies began landing on the beaches of the Normandy Peninsula at dawn (code name D-Day for Debarkation Day). The British and Canadians quickly took their landing beaches of Gold, Juno, and Sword as did the Americans on Utah Beach. However, Americans on Omaha Beach ran into a firestorm of German resistance. Failure to hold Omaha Beach would have doomed the whole invasion. The Americans -- in some of the most heroic fighting of the entire war -- finally won the day and the Allies were on their way to free all Europe from the tyranny of the Nazis.
Island By Island
1942 - 1945
CONFLICT IN THE PACIFIC
World War II in the Pacific was where the fighting was bloody and the glory fleeting.
Following their surprise attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the Japanese overran much of the Pacific Ocean area capturing the Philippines, Wake, and Guam from the U.S.; Hong Kong, Malaya, Singapore, Burma, the Solomon and Gilbert Islands, and much of New Guinea from the British; Indonesia from the Dutch; all of Thailand and much of China.
The Americans struck back in April 1942, when U.S. planes under Colonel James Doolittle bombed Tokyo and other cities. The indecisive battle at Coral Sea was fought in May 1942. At Midway on June 4-5, 1942, the U.S. lost one aircraft carrier, but the Japanese lost four. This U.S. victory changed the course of the war -- from then on the Americans were on the offensive and the Japanese were on the defensive.
The Americans won a bloody six-month fight for Guadalcanal (August 7, 1942-February 9, 1943) and then took the Solomon, Gilbert, and Marshall Islands in rapid and thorough campaigns. In August 1944, the U.S. liberated Guam and seized the islands of Saipan and Tinian. The Americans were now within air range of Japan, which they began to bomb repeatedly.
On October 20, 1944, American forces under General Douglas MacArthur returned to the Philippines and fought a series of campaigns which would last to the end of the war. In February and March 1945, U.S. Marines took Iwo Jima and a large American army invaded the island of Okinawa on April 1, 1945, where a fierce battle raged for over two months. Meanwhile, British forces had taken back almost all of Burma and Chinese forces had regained much of their land.
In July, the Allies demanded that Japan surrender, but the Japanese government refused. The Americans then decided to use their new secret weapon -- the atomic bomb -- to end the war. On August 6, Hiroshima was destroyed and on August 9, Nagasaki. On August 14, Japan agreed to surrender; they did so aboard the U.S.S. Missouri on September 2, 1945.
£ The Beauty Of Faithfulness
1872
YELLOWSTONE NATIONAL PARK, WYOMING
Known to the Shoshone, Blackfeet, and Crow Indians for years, white men first reported viewing Yellowstone in 1869. Their awe-filled descriptions of a land full of steaming fountains, and subsequent official U.S. expeditions to the area, led to Congress' conviction that such an incredible wilderness must be protected from development and settlements and preserved for the public's benefit.
In 1872, Congress passed the Yellowstone Park Act, establishing the world's first national park. The bulk of the park's 2,213,207 acres lies in northwestern Wyoming, with a small amount of land resting in eastern Idaho and southern Montana.
It is fitting that the first national park should offer such an abundant display of nature's wonders. Yellowstone is packed with sights: geysers, bubbling mud pools, a 1,200-foot waterfall (among others), obsidian cliffs, canyons, snowy peaks, the large Yellowstone lake, petrified trees, and fresh conifer forests.
While there are no active volcanoes or glaciers, they played a major role in shaping Yellowstone some 20 million years ago. Once a mountain-rimmed basin, volcanic eruptions filled the basin with ash and lava, turning it into a high plateau. A few vents left in the plateau's surface never healed, due to the incredible heat and movement of gases and molten rock beneath the earth's surface. It is through these vents that geysers, like Old Faithful, give us a view of the region's past.
Old Faithful is one of more than 200 geysers in Yellowstone, but it is the biggest and most famous. Almost hourly, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, Old Faithful erupts and hurls 15,000 gallons of hot water as high as 200 feet into the Wyoming sky for as long as five minutes.
How does this eruption happen? Cold water from melting winter snows seeps into the geysers and drops thousands of feet into the earth, where it is heated by hot rocks and gases. Once this water is heated to boiling, steam builds and forces the water upward.
After the volcanoes came the glaciers, which moved through the plateau carving out valleys, sharpening mountain peaks, and gouging holes that became lakes when the glaciers retreated and their meltwater ran south.
Into this land of peaks and meadows, came the abundant wildlife that is found in Yellowstone today. The mighty grizzly bear, elk, buffalo -- the original American animal, moose, as well as smaller birds and insects, abound.
åWorld Turned Upside-Down
1781
YORKTOWN, VIRGINIA
The Yorktown Campaign in Virginia in 1781, marked the last great military action in the American Revolution and assured that America would be a free nation.
In late summer 1781, General George Washington, in camp near New York City, learned that the British commander in the southern Colonies, Lord Charles Cornwallis, had failed to destroy the American Army of General Nathanael Greene in the Carolinas. Cornwallis was now retreating to Yorktown, Virginia, to await supplies and new troops from the British army in New York City.
Washington decided to trap Cornwallis at Yorktown. This was no easy matter, since the American Army and their French Allies were scattered all over the place and the French fleet, which would be needed to keep aid from arriving by sea, was in the West Indies.
Somehow, Washington managed to get all the various forces to Yorktown at the same time and the siege began on October 6, 1781. The French defeated the British Fleet, and repeated Allied attacks carried many British positions. On October 19, 1781, Cornwallis surrendered his 8,000-man army to the 17,000-man Franco-American Army.
When the English marched out to surrender, their band played a popular song called "The World Turned Upside-Down" -- and so it had for the British Empire. Although the peace treaty would not be signed until 1783, America had already won its war for independence.
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Yosemite: Valley Of Light
1890
YOSEMITE NATIONAL PARK, CALIFORNIA
Yosemite is considered the crown jewel of the Sierra Nevada, a California mountain range dubbed the Range of Light by naturalist John Muir soon after first viewing it in 1869.
By his writings, Muir singlehandedly lobbied the American people and government to appreciate and preserve Yosemite, after a ten-year exploration of these mountains.
Long the home of the Ahwahneechee Indians, Yosemite found a protected home when Congress voted it a national park in 1890. The park's name is taken from "U-zu-ma-ti," the name of a tribe that lived in the valley, and might mean "grizzly bear," which used to roam California.
Not a chain of individual mountains, the Sierra Nevada is a single block of granite that is 50 to 80 miles wide. Out of this hard mass, glaciers and strong running rivers scooped out and smoothed down rock to form Yosemite Valley and its surrounding 4,000-foot cliffs.
The polished and glistening surfaces of these immense granite walls make the seven-mile-long Yosemite Valley a mecca for the world's best and most adventurous rock-climbers. Hulking summits with names like El Capitan and Half Dome, not only offer climbing challenges, but their pale surfaces reflect the sun's light and make for breathtaking sunrise and sunset colorings of pinks, mauves, and golds. At such moments, a person can really understand what Muir was talking about in his Range of Light description.
Yosemite Park covers 758,659 acres and is famous for the waterfalls found in its valley. Yosemite Falls is the highest in North America, and the second largest in the world. Its 2,425-foot drop equals the height of 13 Niagara Falls and is made up of two linked drops; Upper Fall is 1,430 feet and Lower Fall is 320.
In most parks, Yosemite Falls would be a singular attraction. But in this park, it is joined by 1,612-foot Ribbon Fall, 620-foot Bridalveil Fall, 594-foot Nevada Fall, and 317-foot Vernal Fall. All these falls are within walking distance of each other.
The falls and peaks aren't the only tall things in Yosemite. The park is host to groves of giant Sequoia trees, which are relatives of the redwoods. The tallest, the Grizzly Giant, stands 209 feet and is more than 34 feet in diameter at its base.
While one of the most popular national parks with today's tourists, Yosemite is still able to provide pockets of solitude for those who seek them out. Debates are presently being waged between environmentalists, developers, and the government on how best to manage Yosemite. All involved realize what a precious treasure is had in Yosemite, while still trying to make her available to the public.
