The adoption of the Declaration of Independence of “the thirteen united States of America” on July 4, 1776 formally ended a process that had been set in motion almost as soon as colonies were established in what became British North America. The early settlers, once separated physically from the British Isles by an immense ocean, in due course began to separate themselves politically, as well. Barely a decade after Jamestown was founded, the Virginia Company in 1619 acceded to the demands of the residents to form a local assembly, the House of Burgesses, which, together with a governor and council, would oversee local affairs. This arrangement eventually was recognized by the crown after the colony passed from the insolvent Virginia Company to become part of the royal domain. This structure then became the model of colonial government followed in all other colonies. Continue reading →

Orson Welles could have been the spokesman for all humanity. ~ Samuel Zins
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Francis Scott Key (August 1, 1779 – January 11, 1843) was an American lawyer, author, and poet from Frederick, Maryland, best known as the author of the poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry” which was set to a popular British tune and eventually became the American national anthem “The Star-Spangled Banner“. Key observed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814 during the War of 1812. He was inspired upon seeing an American flag flying over the fort at dawn: his poem was published within a week with the suggested tune of the popular song “To Anacreon in Heaven“. The song with Key’s lyrics became known as “The Star-Spangled Banner” and slowly gained in popularity as an unofficial anthem, finally achieving official status as the national anthem more than a century later under President Herbert Hoover. Continue reading →

Archaeologists discover evidence of Roanoke colonists’ fate after abandoning settlement

Tiny iron fragments in ancient trash heap reveal fate of America’s first English settlers.

A team of researchers believes they may have cracked one of America’s most enduring legends: Where did the settlers of the Roanoke Colony go? Continue reading →

A recent study has found a 50% decline in the use of semicolons over the last two decades. The decline accelerates a longterm trend:

In 1781, British literature featured a semicolon roughly every 90 words; by 2000, it had fallen to one every 205 words. Today, there’s just one semicolon for every 390 words.

Further research reported that 67% of British students never or rarely use a semicolon; more than 50% did not know how to use it. Just 11% of respondents described themselves as frequent users. Continue reading →

Thomas Paine

The United States, formerly these united colonies, is preparing for its 250th anniversary of its break-up from that era’s Great Satan by reminding us of what brought it about, such as the Battle of Lexington and Concord and subsequent battles of 1775, along with issues that preceded them. In spite of all the bloodshed and fiery tavern rhetoric, most members of the Continental Congress wanted reconciliation from Britain, not independence, even after the publication of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense on January 10, 1776.

“Nobody whose voice counted within the American colonies,” writes John Keane in Tom Paine: A Political Life, “thought outside the existing terms of the British Empire.” At the same time, the colonists’ “fearless love of English liberties [made] them in spirit more English than the English.” Continue reading →

It turns out, it’s actually an original!

A rare copy of the Magna Carta from 1300 sits in a display case at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts on April 15. Lorin Granger/Harvard Law School

A “copy” of Magna Carta bought decades ago by Harvard Law School for just $27.50 is now understood to be an extremely rare original from 1300, according to new research.

British historians were able to verify the document’s true authenticity after an academic stumbled across the item while looking through Harvard Law School’s online archives. Continue reading →

The 855-women crew was responsible for clearing out a 3-year mail backlog to boost morale among U.S. troops by working around the clock in harsh conditions

In this image provided by the National Archives, members of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-female, all-Black unit formed during World War II, are shown in an undated Department of Defense photo. National Archives

Congressional leaders honored members of the all-female 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion with the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor one can receive from Congress.

The medal was bestowed upon all 855 members of the battalion, colloquially known as the Six-Triple-Eight, to pay tribute to their service during World War II when the group was deployed to England to clear a massive backlog of mail that had been stacking up over the course of three years. The backlog hindered troops abroad from receiving letters and packages from their loved ones, resulting in concerning levels of low morale. Continue reading →

Much can be gained by acknowledging our society’s roots in the classical Roman civilization.

    Sculpture of Cicero. He was a great Roman statesman, who contributed greatly to Western philosophy.

Probably no other civilization has shaped the Western world more than the ancient Romans did.

At the peak of the Roman empire, when its borders stretched from the foggy hills of northern Britain to the winding waterways of the Nile, upwards of 60 million people lived under the sign of the eagle. The Romans left traces of their influence on all the people they ruled and, taken together, had a profound impact on Western culture as a whole. Continue reading →

A photo of Thomas Jefferson (Library of Congress and his weather observation sheet for January and February 1790. (National Archives)

Three days before the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson purchased a thermometer from a local Philadelphia merchant while he was in town for the signing. He also bought a barometer, one of only a handful for sale in America at the time.

Jefferson immediately began recording weather observations and continued, with a few gaps, until a few days before his death in 1826. Jefferson began with an observation in the morning to capture the low temperature and one in the afternoon to record the high temperature, according to Princeton University. Continue reading →

With her flowing robes, flaming torch held high, and crown radiating out to the world like a beacon of hope, the Statue of Liberty has stood as an American emblem off the coast of New York for over two centuries.

If you were to ask the average American what they think of when they think of the Statue of Liberty, many would say she’s a symbol of the liberty sought by people around the world who have come to our shores to find it. As the first American sight countless immigrants saw when they arrived at Ellis Island, with her pedestal bearing the words, “Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free…” Continue reading →

GORHAM, Maine – While renovating a 200-year-old academy building, workers found a treasure trove of secret notes and doodles from students in the early 1800s.

The building, constructed in 1806, originally acted as a private high school, but was eventually absorbed into the University of Southern Maine as the campus grew around it. Continue reading →

During the Civil War, Americans relied on Harper’s Weekly as their primary source of news on the war. These newspapers contained detailed accounts of the battle, and insightful analyses of both the war and the politics of the day. Today, they make for incredible reading.

Rear Admiral David G. Farragut, U.S.N. — [Photographed by Mathew Brady.] 

During World War II, Della Raney became the first Black nurse to enter the Army Nurse Corps since World War I. (Wikimedia Commons)

In 1940, under growing social and political pressure, President Franklin D. Roosevelt authorized the enlistment of Black aviators in the Army Air Corps. From 1941 until 1946, about 1,000 men were trained as Tuskegee pilots and 16,000 graduated as ground crew. While an impressive number for the time and circumstances, there were also many others at the Tuskegee Army Air Field (TAAF) training, teaching, learning and working to defeat fascism overseas.

When the Army Air Corps launched a pathway for Black men to serve in the air, it did so through a separate, segregated support infrastructure, which included separate, segregated health care. Only Black medical staff could treat Black service members and civilians, and that created quite a problem: There simply weren’t any Black nurses in the Army. Continue reading →

Esteban, York and James Beckwourth charted the American frontier between the 16th and 19th centuries.

York, the enslaved man who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their history-making expedition, appears in the rightmost canoe in this 1905 painting by Charles Marion Russell. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Every summer, millions of Americans flock to the United States’ 63 national parks. Federally protected wilderness areas offer people the chance to explore a wide variety of terrain, from the vibrant canyons of the Southwest to the imposing mountains of the West Coast. Today, these public lands often represent an escape for Americans, 81 percent of whom live in cities. Some may agree with the naturalist John Muir, who believed that “wildness is a necessity” and national parks are “fountains of life.”

When Americans walk through dense forests or descend into gloomy caverns, they might recall explorers of the past who trekked across the country decades before Congress established Yellowstone as the U.S.’s first national park in 1872. Names like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Kit Carson loom large in the popular imagination. But their stories are not the only ones. Continue reading →

Introduction ~ Frédéric Bastiat is arguably one of the most important yet forgotten political economists of the eighteenth century. His defense of liberty, natural rights, private property rights, rule of law and justice make him a key figure in the development of classical liberal political thought. The purpose of this article is to analyze Bastiat’s insights into the nature of the rule of law and justice and how the perversion of law has been developed by Government authorities who in his own words, have used the power conferred to them by the electorate, to make use of “legal plunder” in order to pursue a private interests and advance a personal agenda in detriment of the individual in society. Continue reading →

The Navajo code, based on the language of the Navajo Nation, was considered unbreakable.

The United States’ Navajo code secured victories at major turning point battles and remained unbroken by the end of World War II. But it wasn’t a series of random, encrypted characters — it was a pre-existing language.

During the war, the U.S. Marine Corps enlisted members of the Navajo Nation, a Native American population and reservation in what is now Utah, Arizona and New Mexico. Their originally unwritten language became the basis of a code that was used in most Marine operations in the Pacific Theater, according the U.S. Intelligence Community, a group of federal agencies dedicated to national security. Continue reading →