Tag Archive for ‘history’
Don’t Know Much About® Ansel Adams
Born today –February 20 in 1902– a man who changed how we see the world, Ansel Adams. It was the photography that launched a thousand calendars, posters, and greeting cards. You have seen his ethereal outdoor photography –maybe even if you did not know it. But you may not know about another side of his [...]
DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT ELECTING THE U.S. PRESIDENT? A Classroom Skype Invitation (ALL SESSIONS BOOKED)
The Presidential Election of 2012 is only about a year away. That makes this a good time to get a handle on America’s crazy quilt of election history and rules.
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 [...]
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.
