Don’t Know Much About® Constitution Day

On September 17, 1787, 39 delegates to the Constitutional Convention meeting in Philadelphia, voted to adopt the United States Constitution. This is Constitution Day.

Don’t Know Much About® St. Augustine — Hidden History of America’s “Oldest City”

On September 8, 1565, a group of Spanish sailors, soldiers, priests and colonists landed in Florida and celebrated mass –the “beginning” of Christianity in America, as St. Augustine’s boosters tell us. This is the founding day of what is called “America’s oldest permanent European settlement.” The Spanish colonists were led by Admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles. But just what were Menendez and his 800-strong group doing in Florida?

“The Blood and Sweat Behind Labor Day” (CNN.com)

“To most Americans, the first Monday in September means a three-day weekend and the last hurrah of summer, a final outing at the shore before school begins, a family picnic.

But Labor Day was born in a time when work was no picnic. As America was moving from farms to factories in the Industrial Age, there was a long, violent, often-deadly struggle for fundamental workers’ rights, a struggle that in many ways was America’s “other civil war.”

Don’t Know Much About the 19th Amendment

Ninety-one years ago, on AUGUST 18, 1920, Tennessee ratified the 19th Amendment, giving it the needed number of states to become part of the U.S. Constitution. Finally, all American women could enjoy the basic right of citizenship. It was a victory in a long struggle for “suffrage” fought by the “Suffragists.”   Who were the [...]

Labor Pains: A Don’t Know Much About Minute

Don’t Know Much About the “Negro Riots” in Watts

The recent urban riots in London that spread to other parts of England beg an obvious question: Can it happen in America? Of course, it has already happened in America, more than once

Don’t Know Much About Thoreau

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. On August 9, 1854, Henry David Thoreau published Walden: Or, Life [...]

“Is there hope for America in era of broken trust?”

We are in an era of broken trust. The deep divisions in Washington, evident most recently in the wrangling over the debt ceiling, drove this home. Opinion polls in the wake of the debate confirmed the worst news for the Beltway Crowd: Confidence in Congress has plunged to an all-time low.

Don’t Know Much About® The Gulf of Tonkin Attacks

When Administrations Lie, Thousands Die. That is today’s history lesson on the date of a controversial “attack” on the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin off the cost of North Vietnam. That attack led to the passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution a few days later and America’s deepening involvement in the war [...]

Historical Libraries, Societies and Museums: “Beam me IN!”

“BEAM ME IN, SCOTTY!” Apologies to Captain Kirk and Star Trek. I know it’s really, “Beam me UP, Scotty.” For more than 20 years, I have been traveling the country, visiting museums, historical societies, bookstores, libraries and teacher conferences to share my love for history, geography and all the subjects I have covered in the [...]