Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 132
July 18, 2009
TODAY IN HISTORY: The "Glory" Charge –Fort Wagner
I did not hear right wing talking head Pat Buchanan's remarks on African American history the other day on MSNBC. According to an account on the Huffington Post, Buchanan and host Rachel Maddow had a hot exchange during which Buchanan said:
"White men were 100% of the people that wrote the Constitution, 100% of the people that signed the Declaration of Independence, 100% of the people who died at Gettysburg and Vicksburg, probably close to 100% of the people who died at Normandy. This has been a
July 16, 2009
Don't Know Much About "Holden Caulfield"
Holden Caulfield joining AARP! Now there's a thought.
The Catcher in the Rye was published on July 16, 1951. So the perennial 17-year-old, prep school dropout has hit his golden years. As another crop of high school students hits their summer reading list, J.D. Salinger's tale of adolescent alienation is probably still at the top. And as a recent court case proves, its author J.D. Salinger is still very protective of his personal privacy and his most famous character. Salinger was able to preve
July 15, 2009
Don't Know Much About Emerson
It's not often that a commencement speech to a class of six makes waves. But TODAY IN HISTORY, on July 15, 1838, Ralph Waldo Emerson managed that feat.
In what is known as the "Divinity School Address" a commencement speech made to the Harvard Divinity School's class of six, Emerson questioned Jesus' divinity, discounted biblical accounts of miracles, and argued that moral intuition was more important than religious belief. The leaders of the Harvard Divinity School –and most Protestant clergyme
July 14, 2009
TODAY IN HISTORY: Don't Know Much About Bastille Day!
Vive la France!
On July 14, 1789, an angry crowd stormed a state prison in Paris that stood as a symbol of royal tyranny. They surrounded the Bastille in order to seize the gunpowder stored inside. Troops fired on the rebels, but the people overpowered them. The bloody French Revolution had begun. The people of France have come to mark July 14 as their national holiday, the French version of the Fourth of July.
What else do you know about this celebration of "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity?"
Try
July 13, 2009
TODAY IN HISTORY: Civil War Draft Riots Tear Apart New York
On July 13, 1863, New York City was plunged into five days of deadly rioting over recently passed draft laws. More than a hundred people, most of them African-American victims of vicious mobs, died in the violence that tore across New York City.
WILLING TO FIGHT FOR UNCLE SAM BUT FOR UNCLE SAMBO!
That was a headline in a Pennsylvania newspaper in the summer of 1863. And it voiced an uncomfortable truth in Civil War America. Many people who believed that the Civil War was being fought for the pres
July 10, 2009
TODAY IN HISTORY: The "Monkey Trial"
It was the "trial of the century." On July 10, 1925, a courtroom in Tennessee was center stage in a contest pitting two courtroom titans against each other, arguing science versus religion on a grand scale, with the full cooperation of an enthusiastic pack of journalists more interested in a spectacle. In real fact, the trial began as a sort of small-town publicity stunt. But the argument at its center, between the Bible and Charles Darwin, still isn't settled in many minds.
The drama began when
July 9, 2009
TODAY IN HISTORY: A Very Significant Amendment
I know. The mere mention of Constitutional Amendments automatically sends most of us for the snooze button. But this one is different.
On July 9, 1868, the state of South Carolina ratified the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing the necessary three-fourths of the states to adopt this very significant Amendment as part of the law of the land. One of the "Reconstruction Amendments" ratified in the wake of the Civil War, it had far-reaching consequences in American history, touching o
July 8, 2009
A Very Dignified Slave Owner
Writing on the op-ed pages of the New York Times on July 7, 2009, David Brooks clearly touched a nerve. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/opinion/07brooks.html
His column, entitled "In Search of Dignity," discussed the good manners, civility and dignity possessed by George Washington. These attributes, Brooks believed, could be traced back to Washington's boyhood, when he scrupulously copied out maxims from the "Miss Manners" of his day, a book called Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Comp
July 7, 2009
Robert McNamara and the Vietnam War: A Reading List
For many Americans, the news of Robert McNamara's death at age 93 on July 6th brought back the whole cascade of difficult memories about what the war in Vietnam meant to this country.
Here is McNamara's New York Times obituary: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/07/us/07mcnamara.html?hp
But for many others, especially younger Americans, the Vietnam War has fallen into the "black hole" of American History and is as remote as the Peloponnesian War. For them and anyone else who needs a refresher course o
July 6, 2009
TODAY IN HISTORY: The Homestead Strike
As bedrock businesses, like the auto industry, are being transformed in the current economy, and American workers come under intense pressure, here's some "Hidden History" of another financial meltdown. In the late 19th century, labor and industry were fraught with conflict as American business soured. Only back then, the conflict turned deadly. On July 6, 1892, 3,800 striking steelworkers fought with strikebreakers in a daylong battle that left ten men dead. Their story is a somber reminder of
