Kenneth C. Davis's Blog, page 71
November 4, 2015
11-11-11: Don’t Know Much About Veterans Day-The Forgotten Meaning
“The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.”
(This is a revised version of a post originally written for Veterans Day in 2011. The meaning still applies.)
Taken at 10:58 a.m., on Nov. 11, 1918, just before the Armistice went into effect; men of the 353rd Infantry, near a church, at Stenay, Meuse, wait for the end of hostilities. (SC034981)
On Veterans Day, a reminder of what the day once meant and what it should still mean.
That was the moment at which World War I –then called THE GREAT WAR– largely came to end in 1918. on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
One of the most tragically senseless and destructive periods in all history came to a close in Western Europe with the Armistice –or end of hostilities between Germany and the Allied nations — that began at that moment. Some 20 million people had died in the fighting that raged for more than four years since August 1914. The complete end of the war came with the Treaty of Versailles in June 1919.
The date of November 11th became a national holiday of remembrance in many of the victorious allied nations –a day to commemorate the loss of so many lives in the war. And in the United States, President Wilson proclaimed the first Armistice Day on November 11, 1919. A few years later, in 1926, Congress passed a resolution calling on the President to observe each November 11th as a day of remembrance:
Whereas the 11th of November 1918, marked the cessation of the most destructive, sanguinary, and far reaching war in human annals and the resumption by the people of the United States of peaceful relations with other nations, which we hope may never again be severed, and
Whereas it is fitting that the recurring anniversary of this date should be commemorated with thanksgiving and prayer and exercises designed to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations; and
Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
Of course, the hopes that “the war to end all wars” would bring peace were short-lived. By 1939, Europe was again at war and what was once called “the Great War” would become World War I. With the end of World War II, there was a movement in America to rename Armistice Day and create a holiday that recognized the veterans of all of America’s conflicts. President Eisenhower signed that law in 1954. (In 1971, Veterans Day began to be marked as a Monday holiday on the third Monday in November, but in 1978, the holiday was returned to the traditional November 11th date).
Today, Veterans Day honors the duty, sacrifice and service of America’s nearly 25 million veterans of all wars, unlike Memorial Day, which specifically honors those who died fighting in America’s wars.
We should remember and celebrate all those men and women. But lost in that worthy goal is the forgotten meaning of this day in history –the meaning which Congress gave to Armistice Day in 1926:
to perpetuate peace through good will and mutual understanding between nations …
inviting the people of the United States to observe the day … with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
The Library of Congress offers an extensive Veterans History Project.
The Veterans Administration website offers more resources on teaching about Veterans Day.
Read more about World War I and all of America’s conflicts in Don’t Know Much About History and Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents.
I discuss the role of Americans in battle in more than 240 years of American history in THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR: Untold Tales from Yorktown to Fallujah (Hachette Books and Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion paperback and Random House audio)
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
October 31, 2015
Don’t Know Much About® Halloween–The Hidden History
(Video directed and produced by Colin Davis)
When I was a kid in the early 1960s, the autumn social calendar was highlighted by the Halloween party in our church. In these simpler day, the kids all bobbed for apples and paraded through a spooky “haunted house” in homemade costumes –Daniel Boone replete with coonskin caps for the boys; tiaras and fairy princess wands for the girls. It was safe, secure and innocent.
The irony is that our church was a Congregational church — founded by the Puritans of New England. The same people who brought you the Salem Witch Trials.
Here’s a link to a history of those Witch Trials in 1692.
Rooted in pagan traditions more than 2000 years old, Halloween grew out of a Celtic Druid celebration that marked summer’s end. Called Samhain (pronounced sow-in or sow-een), it combined the Celts’ harvest and New Year festivals, held in late October and early November by people in what is now Ireland, Great Britain and elsewhere in Europe. This ancient Druid rite was tied to the seasonal cycles of life and death — as the last crops were harvested, the final apples picked and livestock brought in for winter stables or slaughter. Contrary to what some modern critics believe, Samhain was not the name of a malevolent Celtic deity but meant, “end of summer.”
The Celts also saw Samhain as a fearful time, when the barrier between the worlds of living and dead broke, and spirits walked the earth, causing mischief. Going door to door, children collected wood for a sacred bonfire that provided light against the growing darkness, and villagers gathered to burn crops in honor of their agricultural gods. During this fiery festival, the Celts wore masks, often made of animal heads and skins, hoping to frighten off wandering spirits. As the celebration ended, families carried home embers from the communal fire to re-light their hearth fires.
Getting the picture? Costumes, “trick or treat” and Jack-o-lanterns all got started more than two thousand years ago at an Irish bonfire.
Christianity took a dim view of these “heathen” rites. Attempting to replace the Druid festival of the dead with a church-approved holiday, the seventh-century Pope Boniface IV designated November 1 as All Saints’ Day to honor saints and martyrs. Then in 1000 AD, the church made November 2 All Souls’ Day, a day to remember the departed and pray for their souls. Together, the three celebrations –All Saints’ Eve, All Saints’ Day, and All Souls Day– were called Hallowmas, and the night before came to be called All-hallows Evening, eventually shortened to “Halloween.”
And when millions of Irish and other Europeans emigrated to America, they carried along their traditions. The age-old practice of carrying home embers in a hollowed-out turnip still burns strong. In an Irish folk tale, a man named Stingy Jack once escaped the devil with one of these turnip lanterns. When the Irish came to America, Jack’s turnip was exchanged for the more easily carved pumpkin and Stingy Jack’s name lives on in “Jack-o-lantern.”
Halloween, in other words, is deeply rooted in myths –ancient stories that explain the seasons and the mysteries of life and death.
You can read more about ancient myths in the modern world in Don’t Know Much About Mythology and more about the Salem Witch Trials in Don’t Know Much About History.
Don’t Know Much About Mythology (Harper paperback/Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
October 30, 2015
Speaking Nov. 1– Bar Harbor, Maine
Please join me on SUNDAY NOVEMBER 1 at the JESUP MEMORIAL LIBRARY in Bar Harbor, Maine for a discussion of THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR: 2-3:30 PM
For more Information and directions to the Library
The Hidden History of America At War-May 5, 2015 (Hachette Books/Random House Audio)
October 23, 2015
EVENT: October 29 -Camden (Maine) Public Library
Author Kenneth C. Davis will visit the Camden Public Library as part of “Discover History Month,” on Thursday evening, October 29, at 7:00 pm. Davis will be talking about his latest book, The Hidden History of America at War: Untold Tales from Yorktown to Fallujah, just published in May. Davis is also the author of Don’t Know Much About History, which spent 35 consecutive weeks on The New York Times bestseller list, and gave rise to the “Don’t Know Much About” series of books and audios. Don’t Know Much About History presents a complete survey of American history, from before the arrival of Columbus in 1492 right through the events of the past decade –from 9/11 through the election of Barack Obama and the first years of his administration.
The Hidden History of America at War is a unique, myth-shattering, and insightful look at war—why we fight, who fights our wars and what we need to know but perhaps never learned about 
the growth and development of America’s military forces. Starting with the founding of the nation and on through the war in Iraq, Davis provides an in-depth examination based on his belief that it is “nearly a moral imperative to understand war.” Arguing that from its earliest days, America has had an uneasy relationship with the military, Davis charts how our country’s military developed from a group of rag-tag “citizen soldiers” in 1775 to the high-tech, global and increasingly privatized organization it is today, and what we can learn from that transformation. Davis makes his case through rich storytelling and analysis of six landmark battles: Yorktown, Virginia – October 1781; Petersburg, Virginia – June 1864; Balangiga, Philippines – September 1901; Berlin, Germany – April 1945; Hué, South Vietnam – February 1968; and Fallujah, Iraq – March 2004.
“His searing analyses and ability to see the forest as well as the trees make for an absorbing and infuriating read as he highlights the strategic missteps, bad decisions, needless loss of life, horrific war crimes, and political hubris that often accompany war.” (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY-Starred Review)
October 21, 2015
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR-Speaking Calendar
List of Upcoming Speaking Engagements:
The lawn outside the Camden (Me.) Public Library and Camden Harbor
Thursday October 29 Camden Public Library Camden, Maine 7 PM
Sunday November 1 Jesup Memorial Library Bar Harbor, Maine 2-3:30 PM
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF AMERICA AT WAR: Untold Tales from Yorktown to Fallujah (May 5-Hachette Books/Random House Audio)
October 17, 2015
Don’t Know Much About Benedict Arnold and His Boot
Why is there a statue of Benedict Arnold’s boot?
Statue of Benedict Arnold’s Boot at Saratoga National Historical Park
There it is — part of the Saratoga National Historical Park in Saratoga, New York. The “boot” is actually anonymous, citing the “most brilliant soldier in the Continental Army.”
On October 17, 1777, the British under General Burgoyne surrendered to American rebel troops led by Horatio Gates in one of the most significant turning points of the American Revolution.
But there is no question this marker honors American history’s greatest villain.
History books like to make people into heroes or villains. And Benedict Arnold was easily characterized as a villain, the most notorious traitor in American History for his attempt to betray the patriot cause when he was in command of the strategic post at West Point, overlooking the Hudson River. But he might have been one of the nation’s greatest heroes. And that is what makes history so compelling. Not the black and white of dates and “facts,” but the more subtle gray complexities of ego, ambition and human frailty.
Born on January 14, 1741 in colonial Norwich, Connecticut, Arnold had a biography that reads like that of a character out of Dickens. The son of a wealthy, successful ship’s captain and merchant, young Benedict Arnold was born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He was sent off to the best boarding school by his father, owner of the finest home in town. Then it fell apart. Yellow fever took his sisters while he was at school. Alcoholism then took his father. The fall was stunning as the elder Arnold became the town drunk and lost his fortune. At 14, young Benedict Arnold became an indentured servant. As a teenager, he ran away on several occasions to try and join the British-American forces then fighting France in the French and Indian War. Through pluck and generous relatives, Arnold eventually became a wealthy young merchant himself and was soon immersed in patriot politics, even traveling to Philadelphia to observe the First Continental Congress.
When the fighting began in 1775, he led Connecticut’s militia to Boston to join the rebel army gathering there. Arnold soon won honors for his role in the capture of Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain. With George Washington’s approval, he led a daring but disastrous march through Maine to unsuccessfully attack Quebec. Later, he built a small navy to battle the British on Lake Champlain, helping save the patriot cause. But it was at Saratoga in October 1777 that he made his greatest contribution, leading a charge that turned the tide in what would become the most important American victory of the Revolution to that point.
During that charge, he was wounded in the leg and the injury caused a limp that would last his life. The statue recognizes Arnold’s wound and his central role in the victory at Saratoga without naming him.
Admired by Washington, Arnold also made a great many enemies. Seeing others promoted and advanced before him made him bitter and ultimately led to his fateful decision to join the British side.
After his plot was uncovered, Arnold did join the British side, fighting against his onetime countrymen. He led an assault on Virginia that nearly captured Governor Thomas Jefferson in 1781.
Arnold later moved to Canada and eventually to London where he died and was buried in June 1801 at the age of 60. His remains were accidentally –and fittingly?– moved to an unmarked grave.
You can read more about Arnold and his exploits in the chapter called “Arnold’s Boot” in America’s Hidden History and about the last day’s of the Revolution and Arnold’s role in The Hidden History of America At War.
The Hidden History of America At War (Hachette Books Random House Audio)
America’s Hidden History, includes tales of “Forgotten Founders”
October 14, 2015
Don’t Know Much About® “Ike”
Born on October 14, 1890 in Denison, Texas, Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States.
The greatest hero of World War II as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe and architect of America’s victory over Germany, Eisenhower was sought by both political parties, which hoped that he would join their ticket in 1948. President Truman even offered to run in second place as vice president if Eisenhower would join the Democratic ticket. He turned Truman down and then ran as a Republican in 1952, winning the first of two terms.
President Eisenhower (Courtesy: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum)
Milestones in Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Life
October 14, 1890 Born in Denison, Texas
1917–1918 Commander, U.S. Army Tank Training School
1932–1935 Senior military assistant to General Douglas MacArthur, U.S. Army chief of staff
1935–1939 Senior military assistant to General MacArthur in the Philippines
1941 Chief of Staff, Third Army
1942 Commanding general, U.S. Forces in Europe
1943–1945 Supreme commander, Allied Expeditionary Forces in Europe
1945–1948 Chief of staff, U.S. Army
1948–1950 President of Columbia University
1951–1952 Supreme commander of NATO Forces in Eu rope
1953–1961 Thirty- fourth president
March 28, 1969 Died at Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington, D.C., aged seventy- eight. (Eisenhower’s New York Times obituary)
Young Eisenhower at Camp Meade (Photo: US Army, Public Domain Source: Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum)
The Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum is located in Abilene, Kansas.
Fast Facts
✱ Eisenhower was the last president born in the nineteenth century.
✱ Ike played army football, but his career was cut short by a broken leg, and so he became a cheerleader instead. No pom-poms.
✱ Eisenhower was the first president to be constitutionally prevented from standing for reelection following ratification of the Twenty-second Amendment; the amendment originated, according to journalist Tom Wicker, “in the Republican Eighty- second Congress as partisan, posthumous revenge against a hated Democrat, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and his four terms.”
✱ The last two of the fifty states were admitted under Eisenhower: Alaska (January 1959) and Hawaii (August 1959).
✱ At seventy, Eisenhower was the oldest president at that time; the youngest elected president, John F. Kennedy, succeeded him.
✱ During his presidency, Eisenhower suffered both a heart attack and a stroke, and was temporarily incapacitated. However, news of both health problems was made public, unlike Woodrow Wilson’s stroke. The Twenty- fifth Amendment, which revised and clarified the rules of presidential succession and allowed for temporary disabilities, was not ratified until 1967, and while Vice President Nixon was acting as executive, he lacked real constitutional authority to do so.
Initially dismissed by historians as a complacent, “do-nothing” president who slept through eight years in office, Eisenhower has moved up the ranks in more recent historical judgments. In Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents, he received a “A” grade, although he is most faulted for his reluctance to be more forceful in the area of civil rights.
In early October 2014, a planned memorial to Eisenhower in Washington, D.C., which has been the subject of an ongoing controversy over its design, cost and size, received final approval from the National Capital Planning Commission. Conservative columnist George Will calls it a “monstrosity.”
Read more about Eisenhower’s life and administration in Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents. Eisenhower plays a prominent role in a chapter of my new book, The Hidden History of America at War: Untold Tales from Yorktown to Fallujah (Hachette Books and Random House Audio).
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion Paperback-April 15, 2014)
“A fascinating exploration of war and the myths of war. Kenneth C. Davis shows how interesting the truth can be.” –Evan Thomas, New York Times-bestselling author of Sea of Thunder and John Paul Jones
October 6, 2015
Columbus From Hero to Zero (#SSchat)
Once Columbus was an intrepid hero with a federal holiday in his honor. Not so much anymore.
Here’s the bigger question: How do we deal with changing attitudes toward one-time heroes who are being reassessed in the classroom?
Lowering the Confederate flag, changing currency, removing statues of Confederate leaders such as Nathan Bedford Forrest and Jefferson Davis.
Yale University is questioning the , high priest of white supremacy.
But if harsh treatment of American Indians and slavery have become unpardonable sins, what do we do with the other heroes of American history who are linked inextricably to America’s slaveholding past and genocidal Indian policies?
How far do we go in revising our hero-worship in this new mood of removing the stain of America’s original sin?
Most important how do we teach these changing attitudes? Here are some of the other questions we will ask:
Q1: It’s Columbus Day; How do you discuss Columbus and his role in your classrooms today?
Q2; Should we rename Columbus Day?
Q3: There is a move to add a woman to the ten dollar bill. Many argue that Jackson should go instead? Is this a classroom topic for you?
Q4: 5 of first 7 presidents, 10 of first fifteen were slaveholders. How do you deal with this issue as it relates to Presidents like Jefferson and Jackson?
Q5: Army bases are named for Confederate generals. Should they be changed?
Q6: Is the Geography textbook that called African slaves “workers” a topic of discussion in your classroom?
I hope you will join us for lively conversation.
Don’t Know Much About the Civil War (Harper paperback, Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About History (Revised, Expanded and Updated Edition)
New York Times Bestseller
America’s Hidden History
Columbus Day-The World Is a Pear
(Video edited and produced by Colin Davis; originally posted October 2011)
“In fourteen hundred and ninety-two/Columbus sailed the ocean blue.”
We all remember that. But after that basic date, things get a little fuzzy. Here’s what they didn’t tell you–
*Most educated people knew that the world was not flat.
*Columbus never set foot in what would become America.
*Christopher Columbus made four voyages to the so-called New World. And his discoveries opened an astonishing era of exploration and exploitation. But his arrival marked the beginning of the end for tens of millions of Native Americans spread across two continents.
In 1892, the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Columbus inspired the composition of the original Pledge of Allegiance and a proclamation by President Benjamin Harrison describing Columbus as “the pioneer of progress and enlightenment.” (Source: Library of Congress, “American Memory: Today in History: October 12”)
That was the patriotic American can-do spirit behind the Columbian Exposition—also known as the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893.
In 1934, the “progress and enlightenment” celebrated in the Columbus narrative was powerful enough to merit a federal holiday on October 12 – a reflection of the growing political clout of the Knights of Columbus, a Roman Catholic fraternal organization that fought discrimination against recently arrived immigrants, many of them Italian and Irish.
Once a hero. Now a villain. Cities and states around the country are changing the name of the holiday to “Indigenous People’s Day” or “Native American Day” to move this holiday away from a man whose treatment of the natives he encountered included barbaric punishments and forced labor. Seattle joined the move to swap Columbus Day
You can read more about Christopher Columbus, his voyages and their impact on American history in Don’t Know Much About History and Don’t Know Much About Geography.
The story of “Isabella’s Pigs,” and the role of Queen Isabella in the making of the New World, is depicted in America’s Hidden History
Don’t Know Much About® Geography (Revised and Updated Edition-Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
October 5, 2015
Who Said It? (10/5/15)
President Harry S. Truman
(Photo: Truman Library)
President Harry S. Truman in the first-ever televised address from the White House (October 5, 1947).
As post-war Europe struggled to recover, Truman asked Americans to refrain from eating meat and eggs on different days to help stockpile food supplies. The effort was mostly symbolic and was a prelude to the far more ambitious Marshall Plan which had a much greater impact on post-World War II Europe.
The food-saving program which has just been presented to you has my wholehearted support. I am confident that it will have the support of every American.
The situation in Europe is grim and forbidding as winter approaches. Despite the vigorous efforts of the European people, their crops have suffered so badly from droughts, floods, and cold that the tragedy of hunger is a stark reality.
The nations of Western Europe will soon be scraping the bottom of the food barrel. They cannot get through the coming winter and spring without help–generous help-from the United States and from other countries which have food to spare.
I know every American feels in his heart that we must help to prevent starvation and distress among our fellow men in other countries…
It is simple and straightforward. It can be understood by all. Learn it–memorize it–keep it always in mind. Here it is: One: Use no meat on Tuesdays.
Two: Use no poultry or eggs on Thursdays.
Three: Save a slice of bread every day.
Four: Public eating places will serve bread and butter only on request.
Complete Text and Source: “Radio and Television Address Concluding a Program by the Citizens Food Committee,” October 5, 1947. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project.
Read more about Truman and the post war world in Don’t Know Much About the American Presidents, Don’t Know Much About History and The Hidden History of America At War.
Don’t Know Much About® History: Anniversary Edition (Harper Perennial and Random House Audio)
Don’t Know Much About® the American Presidents (Hyperion Paperback-April 15, 2014)
