On November 19, 1863, President Lincoln spoke at the dedication of a national cemetery at Gettysburg. When the battered armies limped out of Pennsylvania after July’s brutal fight, they left behind them more than seven thousand corpses in a town with fewer than 2500 inhabitants.
Heather Cox Richardson
Lt. Alonzo Cushing and the Medal of Honor
Today, November 6, 2014, President Obama awarded First Lt. Alonzo H. Cushing of Wisconsin the Medal of Honor for heroism. Cushing kept to his post despite horrific wounds in his shoulder and abdomen, leading his men for ninety minutes until a bullet to his head killed him.
October 29, 1929: Wealth, Poverty, and the End of an Era
Monday, October 28, 1929 was opening night for New York’s Metropolitan Opera. Four thousand glittering attendees thronged to the elegant building on foot or in one of a thousand limousines to see Puccini’s Manon Lescaut…
The Seduction of Two Innocents: Comic Book Readers and Policy Makers
In 1938, Superman sped into this galaxy from the planet Krypton to save humanity. He and his superhero friends oversaw the chaos of the late 1940s, as America first fought WWII then struggled to adjust to demobilization…
Louisiana Purchase
On October 20, 1803, the Senate approved a treaty between the United States and the French Republic. This treaty was no small affair.
How an MIT Prank Became a Boston Landmark
The Harvard Bridge that spans the Charles River from Boston to Cambridge is getting new lights. An anonymous donor has given $2.5 million to illuminate the long flat stretch that takes Massachusetts Avenue across the river.
DDE and friends camping along the Smoky Hill River, c. 1904 (Photo: Eisenhower Presidential Library)
Eisenhower’s Scraped Knee
On this day, October 14, in 1890, Dwight Eisenhower was born. There are many interesting tidbits about Ike — like his problem with gambling, or his fascination with Gettysburg,
“Remember the Maine!”
On February 15, 1898, the U.S.S. Maine exploded in Havana Harbor. Although the spontaneous combustion of coal dust in the bunker beside the powder magazine probably touched off the explosion, a faction of Americans insisted that Spanish officials in Cuba had deliberately mined the ship.
What Grant’s Migraine Says about the Civil War
On April 8, 1865, General Ulysses S. Grant was having a hard night. His army had been harrying General Lee’s for days, and Grant knew it was only a question of time before Lee had to surrender.