The Battle of Princeton

On January 3, 1777, George Washington outfoxed the British. A week before, his army had won one of the most remarkable victories of the Revolution. They had surprised and beaten Hessian mercenaries (German troops hired by the British) at Trenton, New Jersey. But British General Lord Cornwallis had marched on Trenton with about 8,000 redcoats, who were now positioned to attack Washington’s 2500 troops.

Instead of fighting Cornwallis, Washington decided to make a surprise attack on another British force. After midnight, the Americans slipped quietly away from their camp. They left their campfires burning so the British would think they were still there. Marsching sliently south and east around Cornwallis’ army the Americans headed utoward Princeton, 10 miles away. At daybreak, they attacked and defeated two British regiments.

The victories at Trenton and Princeton raised the morale of patriots throuout the country. And they caused the British to evacuate western New Jersey, leaving the Americans with an open supply route between Philadelphia and New York. Washington’s army moved into winter headquarters at Morristown, New Jersey, with renewed pride and confidence.

Washington almost lost many of his men just before the Battle of Princeton because their enlistment terms expired January 1,. The general’s personal appeals convinced tmost of them to stay on.

New Orleans

New Orleans is one of the most picturesque and interesting cities in the US In the section known as the French Quarter, or the Vieux Carre (old square), the pastel-colored houses with their courtyards and wrought-iron balconies seem more Latin American than North American. In another section, the Garden District, large handsome houses with broad verandas and white columns recall the era before the Civil War. Even the city’s cemeteries are different: Because much of the city is below sea level, the earth is too wet for burials, so the tombs all lie above ground. Famous for its fine restaurants, New Orleans is also the birthplace of jazz and the site each year of the famous Mardi Gras, the carnival that precedes Lent.


New Orleans is the southernmost Mississippi port, not far from the Gulf of Mexico. There cargoes are exchanged between seagoing vessels and the steamboats and barges of the Mississippi river system. Today the port of New Orleans handles more freight than any other US port.

New Orleans was established in 1718 by the French. In the 1760s it fell under Spanish control. Returned to France in 1800, the city was acquired by the US in 1803 as part of the Louisiana Purchase.

New Orleans was the original “Dixie Land,” so named for a ten-dollar bill with a large DIX (French for ten) printed on it that circulated in the city before the Civil War.

Peter Minuit Buys Manhattan

In the summer of 1826, Peter Minuit made one of the best deals in real estate history. He bought an island at the mouth of the Hudson River from Native American leaders for cloth, beads and other goods that would be worth about $24 today. The Native Americans called the island “Manhatta” – heavenly land. Today we know it as Manhattan, the heart of one of the world’s greatest cities, New York.
Minuit had been sent by the Dutch West India Company to take charge of the scattered Dutch settlements in present-day New Jersey and New York. Minuit decided to move most of the settlers to the southern tip of Manhattan. After buying the island, he built a crude fort and about 30 houses there. Minuit returned to Europe after five years, but the settlement continued to grow. Known as New Amsterdam, it became a busy port and the center of a thriving colony. It was renamed New York by the British, who seized it in 1664.

As for Peter Minuit, he returned to the New World in 1638, in the service of Sweden, and made another smart purchase. He bought land along the Delaware River from Native Americans. Today that land is the site of Wilmington, Delaware.

Peter Minuit was killed in a hurricane in 1638, while on a trading expedition to the West Indies.

The Johnstown Flood

In 1889 Johnstown, Pennsylvania was a busy little city on the
Conemaugh River, about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. In the 1850s, the state had constructed an earthen dam north of town, on a tributary of the river. A body of water, Conemaugh Lake, had formed behind the dam. Because people wanted to enlarge the lake for fishing, the dam was made higher –but unfortunately not stronger.

Heavy rains fell throughout the spring of 1889, raising every river and stream above flood stage. Then, on the afternoon of May 31, disaster struck. The dam suddenly gave way, and the waters of Conemaugh Lake roared down the narrow river valley. A wall of water – traveling at 40 miles an hour and carrying with it huge boulders, whole trees, and other wreckage – smashed everything in its path. Farms, factories, and most of Johnstown itself were swept away. For most victims, the only warning was the thunder of the water advancing upon them. Sixty acres of wreckage piled up against a bridge below Johnstown. Broken oil-tank cars exploded, setting fire to the rest of the wreckage , which burned for days. The Johnstown flood killed more than 2,200 people. It was one of the worst American disasters in the nineteenth century.

Because the lake at Johnstown had been enlarged for fishing, one writer summed up the flood in these words: “All the horrors that Hell could wish, such was the price that was paid for fish.”

Winslow Homer

Winslow Homer is regarded as one of America’s greatest artists. No other American painter has captured the power and beauty of the sea as effectively.


As a child in Massachusetts, Homer knew that he wanted to be an artist. He spent his free time sketching animals and people. When he was 18, he went to work for a lithographer (a printer of pictures).

And in his early 20s, he moved to New York to become a sketch artist for Harper’s Weekly, a popular magazine. Soon Harper’s sent him to sketch the soldiers and battles of the Civil War. After the war, Home taught himself to paint. At first he painted in oils, but later he used watercolors, too. He usually painted fashionable young women, carefree children and simple country scenes.

In the early 1880s, Homer spent time in an English fishing village. There he discovered the sea – the subject to which he would devote the rest of his life. When he returned home, he settled at Prouts Neck, Maine, on a lonely part of the coast. There he created his greatest paintings. Some, such as “Breezing Up,” show a friendly ocean. But many show the sea at its most turbulent, as though in combat with the courageious men who made their living there.

One of Homer’s most dramatic paintings, “The Gulf Stream,” shows sharks circling a boat that has been badly damaged in a storm. A single man lies motionless on the deck.   "The Gulf Stream" is pictured with this article.

Otis and the Elevator

In May, 1854, an amazing demonstration took place at the American Institute Fair in New York City. Elisha Graves Otis rode an open elevator to a great height. Then he ordered its lift cable cut. Onlookers gasped, expecting the elevator to plunge to the ground, but it stayed in place. Otis had invented and installed an automatic safety device for elevators. And he had risked his life to prove that it worked!
Born in Vermont in 1811, Otis manufactured wagons and carriages and then worked as a master mechanic in factories. The need for safe ways to install heavy machinery in factories led to his first experiments with “safety hoists” for elevators. Soon he invented the device that prevented an elevator from falling if its lifting cable broke.

The advent of skyscrapers in the 1870s led to a huge demand for Elisha Otis’ invention. Today, many US elevators are built by the Otis Elevator Company, which was founded by Elisha Otis’ sons. So the Otis nameplate is familiar to many people who live or work in tall buildings.

Elisha Otis also invented a steam plow, a rotary oven, railroad-car brakes, and a steam-driven elevator.

1814

In 1814, America had been at war with Great Britain for two years. The War of 1812 had begun largely because of British interference with American trade. During 1814, American army and navy forces won several battles that eventually brought peace between the two countries. But the most dramatic event of the war occurred in 1814 with the British attack on America’s capital city, Washington.


In August, 1814, a British force landed in Maryland, scattered the weak American forces there, and on August 24, marched into Washington. President James Madison and other government officials fled the city. Before she left, First Lady Dollley Madison rescued the portrait of George Washington that hung in the White House.

British General Robert Ross ordered Washington’s public buildings to be burned. The British piled furniture up in the White House’s drawing room and set it afire; the inside of the mansion was gutted. The Treasury and War Department buildings were burned next. When the British set fire to the Capitol, it’s interior was destroyed and its roof collapsed. Repairs to Washington took years. Not until 1819 was Congress able to meet again in the the Capito..

The only government building in Washington not burned in 1814 was the patent office; it’s precious drawings and models were sparred.

The Dutch in America

The Dutch – people from the Netherlands – came to America in two waves. The first wave came at the very beginning of the period of European settlement. These Dutch established the colony of New Netherland in 1624, only a few years after the English arrived in Virginia and Massachusetts.
They founded settlements along the Hudson River and on Long Island in present-day New York, and in nearby New Jersey. In 1626, Dutch settlers bought the island of Manhattan, at the mouth of the Hudson River, from local Indians. There they established the village of New Amsterdam (now New York City). It soon became a thriving town.

When the Dutch surrendered their colony to the English in 1664, hundreds of Dutch families remained. Descendants of those families – the Vanderbilts and the Roosevelts, for example – have played an important role in the nation’s history.

A second wave of Dutch immigrants began arriving in the nineteenth century. They came seeking more opportunity than the crowded Netherlands could offer. Many settled in Michigan and other Midwestern states. They were admired by their neighbors for their hard work and good sense. Today, one famous celebration of America’s Dutch heritage is the annual Tulip Festival in Holland, Michigan.

Many place names in southern New York State – Brooklyn, Harlem, Flushing, the Catskills, the Bowery – are based on Dutch words.

John Paul Jones

John Paul Jones has been called the “fightingest sailor in American naval history.” Born in Scotland, Jones sailed to America as a ship’s boy when he was 12 years old. He commanded merchant ships by the time he was 22. When the American Revolution began, he promptly joined the new Continental Navy. Ships under his command captured British vessels and made daring raids on English coastal towns.


Jones’ greatest victory occurred off the English coast on September 23, 1779. In command of an old watership, the Bonhomme Richard, Jones attacked the British frigate Serapis. The Serapis had more gunpowder and was much larger than Jones’ ship, but Jones drew close to the enemy and succeeded in hooking the two ships together with grappling irons. For three and one-half hours on a moonlit night, the two ships exchanged fire.

The Bonhomme Richard was burning and filling with water when the British called on Jones to surrender. His defiant response is famous: “ I have not yet begun to fight.” And fight on he did, until the captain of the battered Serapis surrendered. The Bonhomme Richard was too badly damaged to save. It sank after Jones and his men boarded the Serapis. But John Paul Jones had won one of the greatest naval victories of the Revolution.

After the American Revolution, John Paul Jones served as a rear admiral in the Russian navy.

North Carolina

From the stormy coast of the Atlantic to the highest mountain in the Appalachian range, North Carolina stretches 500 miles east to west.  It is the tenth largest state in population, yet it has no large cities, and most of its people live in or near small towns.  In recent years, the population grew rapidly as people moved there to enjoy its moderate climate and economic opportunity.

North Carolina was one of the original 13 states.  During the Civil War, thousands of its men died for the Confederate cause.  In 1903, the Wright Brothers chose its windy beach at Kitty Hawk to test their first airplane.  For much of its history, North Carolina was an agricultural state.  It is still the largest producer of tobacco.  But its largest business is textile production.   In the 1980s major electronics firms locates offices in the Research Triangle between Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh.

Each year, millions of vacationers visit North Carolina's Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which covers a huge area in the far western corner of the state.  Cape Hatteras National Seashore is also a major attraction.  It preserves a wild stretch of the Atlantic coastline where pirates once lurked.

No one is sure why North Carolinians are known as Tarheels.   Perhaps it is because their soldiers in the Civil War "stuck" during battle and would not retreat.

Peter Minuit Buys Manhattan

In the summer of 1626, Peter Minuit made one of the best deals in realestate history.  He bought an island at the mouth of the Hudson River from Native American leaders for cloth, beads, and other goods that would be worth about $24 today.  The Native Americans called the island "Manhatta" - heavenly land.  Today we know it as Manhattan, the heart of one of the world's greatest cities, New York.

Minuit had been sent by the Dutch West Indian Company to take charge of the scattered Dutch settlements in present-day New Jersey and New York.  Minuit decided to move most of the settlers to the southern tip of Manhattan.  After buying the island, he built a crude fort and about 30 houses there.  Minuit returned to Europe after five years, but the settlement continued to grow.  Known as New Amsterdam, it became a busy port and the center of a thriving colony.  It was renamed New York by the British, who seized it in 1664.

As for Peter Minuit, he returned to the New World in 1638, in the service of Sweden, and made another smart purchase.  He bought land along the Delaware River from Native Americans.  Today that land is the site of Wilmington, Delaware. 

Peter Minuit was killed in a hurricane in 1638, while on a trading expedition to the West Indies.

Santa Fe

Santa Fe is the oldest capital city in the United States.  It was founded in the winter of 1609-1610 by Spanish settlers from Mexico as the center of Spain's royal colony of New Mexico.

Four four centuries, the central plaza has been the heart of Santa Fe.  Today, Native American artisans sell their jewelry, rugs and pottery along the plaza's walls.  A monument in the plaza marks the end of the famous Santa Fe Trail, which brought trading caravans to the city from Missouri. 

The four hundred year old Palace of the Governors on the plaza is the oldest government building in the United States.  This sprawling structure now houses a museum of New Mexico's history. 

Santa Fe is one of the nation's most popular tourist destinations.  Visitors are attracted by the city's rich mixture of Spanish, Mexican, Indian, and American cultures.  Its spectacular setting at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; and its dry,sunny climate.  Tourists love exploring Santa Fe's picturesque streets and adobe buildings, dining in the city's superb restaurants, and shopping in its dozens of art galleries.  Annual events include the Santa Fe Opera, a chamber-music festival, a film festival, and the Fiesta de Santa Fe.

American troops took Santa Fe from Mexico without opposition in 1846.  During the Civil War, Confederate forces controlled the city for two weeks.

Baltimore

Baltimore’s fine harbor has always been the heart of the city. Shipping and shipbuilding thrived there before the Revolution. In the 1800s, sleek sailing ships called Baltimore clippers carried the region’s tobacco and flour to customers around the world. Goods of all kinds poured into the busy port first by wagon along the Cumberland Road and later on the nation’s first railroad, the Baltimore and Ohio.


In 1814, during the War of 1812, British troops bombarded Fort McHenry in Baltimore Harbor. To commemorate the event, Francis Scott Key, who witnessed the attack, wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Today, shops and restaurants line the rebuilt waterfront at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. Visitors can see ocean creatures at the National Aquarium and tour the Constellation, which was launched in 1797. It is the oldest US warship still afloat.

About half of Maryland’s people live in and around Baltimore The city is a manufacturing center for electronics, chemicals, and steel. It has more than 30 universities, including John Hopkins and its famous medical school. Several renowned art museums and a symphony orchestra enrich the city’s cultural life. Baltimore’s showplace stadium, Oriole Park at Camden Yards, is home to the Baltimore Orioles. Enthusiastic fans often wear orange, the team’s color; some even paint themselves orange!

Frederick Douglass

In 1841, at an antislavery meeting in Massachusetts, a tall young African-American named Frederick Douglass stood up to speak. He knew about slavery, for he had been born a slave and had escaped only a few years earlier. People were moved by the young man’s story and his eloquent delivery. In the coming years, Douglass became a national leader in the antislavery movement and the most famous African-American of his time. He was a hero to many, black and white. But those who favored slavery considered him a powerful enemy.

In 1845, Douglass published his life story. Millions read it. But his old master in Maryland threatened to have him returned to slavery. He sailed to safety in England, where he earned enough money to buy his freedom. He returned to the US a free man. For many years, he published an antislavery newspaper, The North Star, which was widely read in the North. He made hundreds of speeches condemning slavery. And he helped slaves escaping to Canada on the Underground Railroad.

During the Civil War, Douglass recruited blacks for the Union army. When the conflict ended , he continued to speak out for the rights of African-Americans and women. He died in 1895, and remained a hero to those who continued his fight against racism.

He also served as US minister to Haiti from 1889 to 1891.

Clipper Ships

“Never, in these United States,” wrote historian samuel Eliot Morison, “has the brain of a man conceived, or the hand of man fashioned, so perfect a thing as the clipper ship.”
The word “clip,” which meant simply “to cut”, later came to mean “to move quickly”.” So a clipper ship was a fast-sailing one.

Clipper ships were the fastest and most beautiful sailing ships ever built. Between 1845 and 1859, American shipyards produced nearly 500 of them. The speediest were the giant Yankee clippers. With their masses of sail, these long, slender ships could travel up to 400 nautical miles a day.

Clippers were first built to carry goods to and from China. After the discovery of gold in California in 1848, they carried prospectors and supplies from the East Coast, to the gold fields. Earlier, this 15,000-mile trip around the southern tip of South America took five months. But by the early 1850s speedy clippers such as the Flying Cloud had cut the time to three months. Clippers set other records, too. In 1849, the Sea Witch sailed from Hong Kong to New York in 74 days. In 1852, the Challenger raced from Japan to California in 18 days. And in 1860, the Andrew Jackson sailed from New York to Liverpool, England, in 15 days. But by then steamships, which did not depend on wind, were replacing the clippers. The era of these “greyhounds of the sea” were coming to a close.

Andrew Jackson

Andrew Jackson was called “Old Hickory” by the soldiers he commanded. Like the hickory tree, he was strong and tough. But his soldiers loved him, and so did the American people.

Born in the backwoods log cabin. Jackson fought in the Revolutionary War when he was only 13. When he was 14, Andrew Jackson refused to shine the boots of a British officer. The officer slashed him with his sword, leaving a permanent scar on Jackson’s head.

As a young lawyer he moved to Nashville, Tennessee, where he became a cotton planter, a Congressman, and a militia officer. During the War of 1812 against Britain, he commanded the victorious American troops at the Battle of New Orleans. That triumph made Jackson a national hero. Although he narrowly lost the presidential election of 1824, he won easily four years later.

During his eight years in the White House, Jackson used his powers to strengthen the national government and improve the lives of ordinary Americans. He firmly opposed those who believed that individual states could nullify (cancel) laws they didn’t like. He fought against the Bank of the United States, which he thought favored the rich. And he vetoed many bills that seemed to him to be undemocratic. Because he fought for the average man against the wealthy, Andrew Jackson was known as “the people’s president.”

Colorado

In 1806, Zebulon Pike journeyed west to explore the vast territory the U.S. had bought from France in the Louisiana Purchase. Crossing the Great Plains into present-day Colorado, he reached the spectacular Rocky Mountains and the snow-covered mountain that now bears his name, Pikes Peak.

More than 50 years later, gold was discovered nearby. Thousands of propectors set out for the region, determined to reach “Pikes Peak or bust.” Loggers, ranchers, and farmers followed the miners to Colorado, which became a territory in 1861 and achieved statehood in 1876.


Today, 80 percent of Colorado’s residents live in the central part of the state, in a band of rolling hills along the edge of the Rockies. Denver, the capital and largest city, is there. The area boasts comfortable summers and cold, unusually sunny winters, periodically broken by the famous “Chinook” wind. A hot dry Chinook, gusting down from the mountains, can raise temperatures 30 to 40 degrees in an hour. Many of Colorado’s old gold-and silver-mining towns are now ghost towns, but mining remains important in the economy as do ranching, farming, and manufacturing. So is tourism.

Colorado is famous for its dramatic scenery, splendid national parks and forests and glamorous ski resorts such as Vail and Aspen.

Colorado, the highest state, has an average elevation of 6,800 feet.

Memorial Day-2010

Today we honor and remember.....

Outside a broad downright rots the laughing luxury.

Cowboys and Cattle Drives

At the end of the Civil War, there were five million cattle in Texas, but the market for them was in the North and East. A steer worth $4 in Texas could be sold for $40 in those markets - if the cattleman could get the steer there. So Texas ranchers began using “cowboys” to drive their herds north to “cowtowns” on the railroad in Kansas. The great cattle drives began in 1866 and went on for 20 years. Their routes became famous: the Western Trail, the Loving Trail, and the Chisholm Trail. At the cowtowns – Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City – the steers were loaded aboard trains and sent to market.

Cattle drives were hard and dangerous work. Herds could be stampeded by lightening or thunder. There were flooded rivers to cross, but in dry times water was scarce. Cowboys had to guard against Indians and rustlers. The cowboys took their meals at the chuck wagon and at night slept under the stars. But in the end of the drive they could “cut loose”. In Dodge City, a cowboy wrote, “glasses clinked, dice rattled….violins, flutes, and cornets sent eager strains of waltz and polka…As the night sped on, the saloons became clamorous with….songs and laughter.”

The largest cattle drive on record took place in 1869, when 200 cowboys set out for Texas with a herd of 15,000 steers.

Stonewall Jackson

Stonewall Jackson died two years before the end of the Civil War, but he is remembered as one of the greatest commanders. He was Robert E. Lee’s right-hand man, famous for this brilliant tactics and bold strikes against Union forces.

Jackson was a graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He was promoted for bravery three times during the War with Mexico. He did not approve of slavery, but he was loyal to his home state, Virginia, and joined the Confederate Army when the Civil War broke out. He earned his nickname at the Battle of Bull Run in 1861. As his brigade withstood a Union onslaught, a fellow officer called out, “There is Jackson, standing like a stone wall.” Jackson next led a brilliant campaign in the Shenandoah Valley.

Although greatly outnumbered, he held off the Union force with a series of lightning strikes and well-fought encounters. He fought some of the war’s most important battles. In May, 1863, he won his greatest victory, at Chancellorsville, Virginia. But the battle had a tragic aftermath. Returning home from a scouting mission, he was mistaken for an enemy and shot by his own men. Jackson died eight days later. It was a bitter loss for Lee, who mourned, “I know not how to replace him.”

Jackson observed the Sabbath so strictly that he would not write a letter if he thought it might travel in the mails on Sunday.

Johnstown Flood

In 1889, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, was a busy little city on the Conemaugh River, about 60 miles east of Pittsburgh. In the 1850s, the state had constructed an earthern dam north of the town, on a tributaryof the river. A body of water, Conemaugh Lake, had formed behind the dam. Because people wanted to enlarge the lake for fishing, the dam was made higher – but unfortunately not stronger.

Heavy rains fell throughout the spring of 1889, raising every river and stream about flood stage. Then, on the afternoon of May 31, disaster struck. The dam suddenly gave way, and the waters of Conemaugh Lake roared down the narrow river valley. A wall of water – traveling at 40 miles an hour and carrying with it huge boulders, whole trees, and other wreckage – smashed everything in its path. Farms, factories, and most of Johnstown itself were swept away. For most victims, the only warning was the thunder of the water advancing upon them. Sixty acres of wreckage piled up against a bridge below Johnstown. Broken oil-tank cars exploded, setting fire to the rest of the wreckage, which burned for days. The Johnstown Flood killed more than 2200 people. IT was was one of the worst Amerivan disasters in the nineteenth century.

Because the lake at Johnstown had been enlarged for fishing, one writer summed up the flood in these words: “All the horrors that Hell could wish, such was the price that was paid for fish.”

The Whiskey Rebellion

One of the threats the new American nation faced in the 1790s came not from a foreign power, but from its own people. The threat became known as the Whiskey Rebellion, because it involved the refusal of farmers in western Pennsylvania to pay a tax on whiskey.

Each year the farmers made whiskey from their corn. A new national tax on corn liquor hurt their business. The farmers were used to paying local taxes, but they resented the national tax. They refused to pay it, and the federal tax collectors were attacked and driven away.
New President Georgia Washington knew there were far more at stake than the tax on whiskey.

He realized that the authority of the new national government was being challenged. It this protest succeeded, others would also defy the government’s laws. Washington called up the militia of four states and personally took command of an army of more than 13,000 soldiers in Pennsylvania. At this show of force, the Whiskey Rebellion ended 0without fighting. And the whiskey tax was soon being collected peacefully. Washington’s decisive action ended a significant threat to the young American government.

In putting down the Whiskey Rebellion, Georgia Washington commanded a force of soldiers larger than any he had led during the Revolution.

Indianapolis 500

The roar of 33 high-powered engines fills the air. Around the track, the cheers of 300,000 fans mix with the thunderous sounds of straining motors. Finally, after 500 miles of grueling, heart-pounding racing, one driver crosses the finish line as the winner of the world’s greatest autorace: the Indianapolis 500.

The first Indy 500 was run in 1911, just two years after former racer Carl Fisher built the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. At that time, many states were outlawing road races because bigger, faster cars made auto racing dangerous. Fisher built a 2.5-mile oval track where carmakers could more safely test new cars and racers could compete for prizes. The first Indy was won by Ray Harroun, whose average speed was 74.5 miles an hour.

Today, high-tech Indy cars, which cost up to $300,000, race around the oval at speeds averaging 160 miles per hour. Driving such fast cars requires quick reflexes, a steady hand, strong nerves, endurance, and more than just a little luck. But winning the Indy 500 guarantees a driver’s place in the history books, as well as racing’s largest prize. The record for most Indianapolis 500 victories – four – is shared by three drivers: Al Unser, A.J. Foyt, and Rick Mears.

In its early days, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway was paved with 3.2 million bricks. Today, Indy 500 driver’s race on an asphalt surface.

Great White Fleet

On December 16, 1907, thousands of cheering spectators jammed the shoreline of Hampton Roads, Virginia. They had come out to watch 16 snow-white battleships set sail on a historic around-the-world voyage.

The cruise of this Great White Fleet was President Theodore Roosevelt’s idea. He believed that the United States should “speak softly and carry a big stick.” He wanted all nations to know that the United States had become a mightly power. Because Japan was acting aggressively in the Pacific, Roosevelt was especially anxious to convince the Japanese that any attack on the Philippine Islands or other American territories would be a serious mistake.

The Great White Fleet’s mission was a huge success. The ships and their crews were welcomed enthusiastically everywhere, even in Japan. The impressive display of strength discouraged Japan from acting against American interests in the pacific and the United States was recognized throughout the world as a major naval power.

The Great White Fleet sailed more than 46,000 miles on its 14-month cruise.

Wordless: Touro Synagogue

This is an image from the inside of Touro Synagogue located in Newport, Rhode Island.

It is the oldest existing US synagogue.

Jewish immigrants escaping persecution from Spain and Portugal came to Rhode Island in 1658.

Visit the main page for the synagogue here

Other bloggers are participating in Wordless Wednesday. You can find them here

The Founding of the Boy Scouts

On a visit to London in 1909, Chicago publisher William D. Boyce became lost in a heavy fog. An English Boy Scout helped him to find his way. The Scout told Boyce about the Boy Scout movement, founded in England just a year earlier by army officer Robert Baden-Powell. Boyce returned home and founded the Boy Scouts of America in 1910. The new group adopted Baden-Powell’s motto, “Be prepared,” and his slogan, “Do a Good Turn Daily.”

Today the Boy Scouts of America have almost 4 ½ million members in five divisions: Cubs, Tigers, Webelos, Scouts, and Explorers. To become an Eagle Scout, the highest rank in scouting, a young man must have earned at least 21 merit badges. The organization’s goal is to improve its members’ self-confidence and competence and to foster leaders and good citizens. The program includes instruction and skillbuilding in a wide variety of fields, ranging from first aid to ecology. Members earn merit badges for their accomplishments in special fields, and thereby advance through the scouting ranks.

Camping and outdoor skills have always been important aspects of scouting. Every four years Boy Scouts from more than 100 nations gather for a giant camp-out known as the International Jamboree.

Amy Tan

In Amy Tan’s novel, The Joy Luck Club, a group of Chinese-American women meets regularly to play mah-jongg, a Chinese game played with small ivory tiles. The women all came to the U.S. from China years earlier, and have kept their Chinese traditions. Their old-fashioned ways embarrass the book’s heroine, the grown daughter of one of the women. Above all, she wants to be American. But as the women tell their touching and often tragic stories of their lives, the daughter begins to understand and appreciate her Chinese heritage.

Amy Tan’s Chinese given name, An-mei, means “blessing from America.”

The story is close to Tan’s own experience. Her parents come to California from China, and she grew up with many of the same conflicts faced by the young heroine of the book. Tan’s parents wanted her to have a successful live in American, but they hoped she would think of herself as Chinese. As a girl, Tan wanted only to blend into American society, but when she began to write stories in the mid-1980s, she brought her two worlds together. Her personal experiences enabled her to write movingly about the relationships between immigrant parents of their children.

The Joy Luck Club, Tan’s first novel, was a surprise best-seller in 1989 and later a successful movie. Her second book, The Kitchen God’s Wife, was also successful. And in 1995 she was back on the best-seller list with The Hundred Secret Senses, a novel about a Chinese-American woman and her Chinese half sister.

Wordless: The Athenaeum

This painting of George Washington is by Gilbert Stuart and is also known as The Athenaeum.
Yes, people realize it is unfinished.

The Athenaeum is the image of Washington we see on the dollar bill. Stuart and his daughters completed over 130 reproductions but the original, seen here, was never completed. The painting hangs in Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Don’t get this painting confused with Stuart’s other famous George Washington painting……
the Lansdowne portrait…the one Dolly Madison saved during the War of 1812.

Other bloggers are participating in Wordless Wednesday. You can find them here .

African Americans

Unlike immigrants from other lands, ancestors of most African-Americans came to America by force rather than by choice. One million arrived aboard slave ships between 1619 and 1808. As slaves, they were property that could be bought and sold. Often, families were divided up. Most slaves were forced to work hard and live in poor conditions, and many were badly abused.

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution freed all slaves when the North won the Civil War. But this freedom did not bring equality. Soon, many states enacted “black codes,” laws that kept African-Americans segregrated from “whites” for another 100 years. “Blacks” had to attend separate schools, drink from separate fountains, stay in separate hotels, and ride in the back of the bus.

Yet with courage and persistence, African-Americans have gradually gained legal rights to equal opportunity. Meanwhile, they have also made rich contributions to American culture most visibly in music, politics, and sports. Although prejudice still exists, African Americans have won recognition for excellence in every field.

Today, African-Americans make up 12 percent of today’s U.S. population.

Wordless: Boy Rescued From a Shark

This painting is titled A Youth Rescued From a Shark by John Singleton Copley(1778). It currently hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

The painting depicts the rescue of Brook Watson, a British merchant, soldier, and one-time Lord Mayor of London. At the age of 14 Watson was rescued from the shark attack as he was swimming the harbor at Havana, Cuba. He lost his leg from the knee down in the attack, and commissioned the painting to serve as a warning as well as the message that even the severest adversity can be overcome.

Other bloggers are participating in Wordless Wednesday. You can find them here

The Navajo

More than 500 years ago, a group of people migrated southward from Canada and Alaska to the present-day American Southwest. These newcomers, the Navajo, soon became the dominant tribe in the region.

Today, they are the largest Native American tribe in the United States.
When Spaniards and Mexicans arrived in the area in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Navajo fought to remain free. But the intruders changed the Navajo way of life. Sheep, introduced by the Spanish, became an important source of food, their wool was used in the weaving of colorful blankets and rugs. Horses allowed the Navajo to travel long distances. And Mexican silversmiths taught them how to make beautiful turquoise and silver jewelry.

When the U.S. acquired the region in 1848, the struggle over Navajo lands grew intense. Years of warfare and forced resettlement resulted in the death of thousands. Finally, in 1868, the government signed a peace treaty with the Navajo that returned a portion of their homeland.

Over the years, the tribe began to benefit from oil, gas, and coal that were found on its land.

Today, 150,00 Navajo live on a reservation that covers 25,000 square miles. The reservation is three times the size of Massachusetts! They maintain a strong sense of tribal identify while continuing to play an important role in the live of America’s Southwest.

Wordless: Lander's Peak

This painting is Landers Peak in the Rocky Mountains by Albert Bierstadt, a German-American painter. Bierstadt is known for large landscapes of the American West. In order to fuel his inspiration Bierstadt often traveled with westward expansion expeditions.

Bierstadt’s works are considered to be part of the Hudson River School---a group of painters that used Romantic details and almost glowing light (luminism).

You can see Bierstadt’s complete works here

Find other wordless images published by other bloggers here.

Adlai Stevenson

“I’m too old to cry, and it hurts too much to laugh,” Adlai Stevenson said when he lost the 1952 presidential election to Dwight D. Eisenhower. He was quoting Abraham Lincoln, but the comment was classic Stevenson – witty and painfully honest. Stevenson’s loyal supporters admired the liberal, intellectual approach to issues, but most voters preferred Eisenhower’s hero status, conservative politics, and folksy style.

Stevenson began his career as special counsel to the U.S. Navy Secretary during World War II. Later, he helped plan the first United Nations conference. And in 1948, he was elected governor of Illinois, soon getting national attention for reforms and modernizing highways, reorganized the state police, and doubled aid for education. Stevenson’s grandfather, also named Adlai, was Grover Cleveland’s Vice President. He was first to head the Democratic ticket in the 1952 election even though he had refused to campaign for the nomination.

Stevenson said that he would rather lose an election than “mislead the people by representing as simple what is infinitely complex.” That statement of principle turned out to be prophetic. He lost to Eisenhower in 1952 and again in 1956. From 1961 until his death in 1965, he served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N.