Tag Archive for ‘dontknowmuch.com’
Today in History: Murder in Mississippi
Did Mississippi Burning really happen? On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers were murdered in Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their bodies were discovered a few weeks later. Here’s is the original New York Times story about the crime: http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0621.html#article If Hollywood gets its way, the civil rights movement was saved when Gene Hackman and Willem [...]
Memorial Day and Hidden Wars
A few days ago, I saw the first article promising higher prices at the pump for Memorial Day. The traditional kickoff to the summer season always brings front-page stories about travel costs, traffic snarls, picnic tips, and what to wear at the beach. Can a bathing suit sale be far off? But this Memorial Day comes with darker news– the announcement that the United States military had surpassed more than 1,000 service members killed in Afghanistan, a war begun October 7, 2001 following the 9/11 attacks.
Highlights in the History of a Christian Nation
In a recent Fox News colloquy, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin explained America’s religious traditions to Bill O’Reilly. Discussing the National Day of Prayer in May 2010, both underscored their belief that America is a “Christian Nation,” founded upon Judeo-Christian principles and the Ten Commandments. Speaking of the Founders and the nation’s founding documents, Palin [...]
The Founding Immigrants (Revisited)
Scratch the surface of the current immigration debate and beneath the posturing lies a dirty secret. Anti-immigrant sentiment is older than America itself. Born before the nation, this abiding fear of the ”huddled masses” emerged in the early republic and gathered steam into the 19th and 20th centuries, when nativist political parties, exclusionary laws and the Ku Klux Klan swept the land.
More than Dots and Dashes
On this date, April 27 in 1791, Samuel F.B. Morse was born. If you remember your grade-school history –or you were a Boy Scout who learned “Morse Code”– his name is still familiar. He is credited with developing the telegraph. But there is something else about Morse that your schoolbooks probably left out. He wrote vitriolic anti-Catholic and anti-immigrant essays,
