The United States is one of those places in the world where freedom is not taken for granted. This does not mean we do not have our struggles…
Category: US History
Racism in History
According to Oxford Dictionaries Online, Racism is: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against someone of a different race based on the belief that one’s own race is superior.”…
Henry M. Stanley, explorer and journalist
Henry M. Stanley, explorer and journalist One is not too sure that modern schoolchildren are taught about persons like Henry Stanley, or for that matter Dr. Livingstone, with…
The reputation of Benedict Arnold
Even in 2015, some two hundred and fourteen years after his death, the name Benedict Arnold can inspìre in thinking Americans either an adverse or admiring reaction. “Traitor!’…
Further thoughts on the Ardennes Offensive
Shakespeare has generals dancing together in a suitably stately manner, on board ships in his play Antony and Cleopatra. The Battle of the Bulge, a nickname, properly called…
The importance of being Okinawa
In April, 1945, the 2nd World War was very far from over. A huge invasion of the French mainland was planned for June. Japan, however, was seen by…
The dry martini cocktail
The history of this cocktail is not without incident. It is a potentially lethal mixture of a raw spirit – gin – with a distillation of the vine,…
The father of Winston
Few people have any other mind’s eye image of Winston Churchill than that of a very old man, with a big cigar and perhaps an even bigger ego….
More thoughts on that Yalta Conference
In February, 1945, the second ‘Big Three’ conference took place at Yalta in the Crimea. The first had been in Teheran in Persia. What was agreed at Yalta…
The American Federation of Labor
‘Socialism’ or ‘Socialist’ are unclean words in the United States. This is why the other part of their two-party political system is called ‘The Democratic Party’ as opposed…