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President Obama was sworn into office on Sunday just before noon, officially beginning another four-year term. “I did it,” Obama said to the first lady, new bangs and all and his two daughters Sasha and Malia. Meet America'f first five presidents
“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.”
― Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
OPENING LYRICS to this song:
One man come in the name of love One man come and go One man come here to justify One man to overthrow In the name of love! One man in the name of love In the name of love!... Full lyrics here
Steven Spielberg's epic film about our 16th president and his battle to end slavery garnered plenty of votes for the 85th Academy Award and topped all other films with a total of 12 nominations, including best picture.
Here are show times at Franklin’s Marcus Showtime Cinema.
This is an outstanding, one-hour video lecture advocating limited representative government presented by Hillsdale College president Dr. Larry P. Arnnand serves as a companion video to Arnn’s book “The Founders' Key” by Dr. Larry Arn, president, Hillsdale College. W strongly recommend "The Founders' Key" to all our readers.
We met World War II veteran Lucy Cohn on an Honor Flight trip in May 2011. That experience had a profound experience on us and I think it will make an impression on you, too. Her story is here—Clay Broga –producer , “Honor Flight”
This is what Honor Flight is all about. One more thing.
Last week in a New York Times op-ed, Georgetown Law professor Louis Michael Seidman made the argument that the U.S. Constitution was the document that has made our nation broken with it’s “archaic, idiosyncratic and downright evil provisions.” Read full story…
On this day in 1789, America's first presidential election is held. Voters cast ballots to choose state electors.
Only white men who owned property were allowed to vote. As expected, George Washington won the election—John Adamscame in second and became the first vice president and was sworn into office on April 30, 1789. Here is how Washington’s swearing in in was depicted in the HBO mini-series “John Adams”
In our ongoing tibute to the men that built America, today we spotlight Scottish-born Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), an American industrialist who assembled a fortune in the steel industry and then became a major philanthropist. Carnegie worked in a Pittsburgh cotton factory as a boy before rising to the position of division superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1859.
Fond of saying "The man who dies rich, dies disgraced," Through self-dtermination Carnegie aquired a fortune, and then gave it away--Millions of dollars went to support education, a pension plan for teachers, and the cause of world peace. Most famous as a benefactor of libraries, he funded nearly 3,000 around the world. He preached the obligation of the wealthy to return their money to the societies where they made it—then added, says Carnegie's biographer, Joseph Frazier Wall, "a very revealing sentence. He wrote, 'and besides, it provides a refuge from self-questioning.’”
“The Richest Man in the World: Andrew Carnegie,” produced by Austin Hoyt and narrated by David Ogden Stiers, follows Carnegie's life from his impoverished origins in Dunfermline, Scotland, through his business career where he was on the cutting edge of the industrial revolution in telegraphy, railroads, and finally, steel. "The Richest Man in the World" traces the roots of Carnegie's philanthropy to his idealistic, egalitarian father, a skilled weaver displaced by the Industrial Revolution. But Carnegie's mother, Margaret, was a more dominant force in his life. Determined to overcome the shame of poverty and "get to the top," the frugal Margaret often advised young Andrew, "Look after the pennies, and the pounds will look after themselves." He lived with her until she died, and only then married, at age 51.
Carnegie's daughter, Margaret Carnegie Miller, publicly remembered her father as "a kindly, friendly, man. He always wanted to be remembered as one who loved his fellow men." In private, her thoughts were harsher. "Tell his life like it was," she urged his biographer. "I'm sick of the Santa Claus stuff."
Although Carnegie saw himself as a friend of the working man," says Hoyt, "the lives of his workers were not fairy tales where everything turns out all right." According to business historian Harold Livesay, "By the standards of his time, Carnegie does not stand out as a particularly ruthless businessman. But certainly by the standards of ethics and conduct to which we would like to hold businessmen today, he indeed operated extremely ruthlessly."
Welcome to part 2 of Hillsdale College’s 10-part lecture series: History 101: Western Heritage.
OVERVIEW
The Hebrew people are the source of a unique but vital contribution to our Western heritage. Rather than bequeathing to their cultural heirs magnificent innovations in art, architecture, political theory, and public administration as have the Babylonians, the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans, it is the treasure of sacred literature which constitutes the Hebrew legacy. The tradition of a monotheistic religion upon which Christianity would build, and out of which the modern world would emerge, has arguably served as the wellspring of Western civilization. If you missed Part 1 in this 10-part series, it can be found here.
ABOUT THE LECTURER
Mark Kalthoffis Professor of History and holds the Henry Salvatori Chair of History and Traditional Values at Hillsdale College where he has taught since 1989.
He completed his undergraduate study at Hillsdale College, where he majored in history, biology, and mathematics and graduated summa cum laude and class salutatorian in 1984. Dr. Kalthoff then earned the M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in the History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University, specializing in the historical relations between science and religion.
On Wednesday, December 5, 2012 we launched our tribute to the 150th anniversary of the American Civil War.
Mathew B. Brady (1822 - 1896) was a photographer, and became famous when he became the first American to shoot and document a war.
Brady’s 3,500 photographs taken during the Civil War provided the very first such record of any American war.
Brady’s pictures brought the real meaning of the fighting to the families at home. He took pictures of battles, of the wounded and the dying, of victories and defeats.
Prior to the Civil War Brady was best known for his portraits of presidents, celebrities, historic figures. History would remember him best for his photos of the American Civil War.
To heck with the spotted Owl.What about our nation’s historical sights?We have what we believe is a great gift idea for the history buff on your Christmas list, especially it they are Civil War history buff.According to The Civil War Trust, nearly 20 percent of America's Civil War battlefields have already been destroyed.Help save our history with a donation to Civil War Preservation Trust.
Today is the 71st anniversary of Japan's attack on Hickham Ford Island surrounding Pearl Harbor; drawing America into WWII. To comemorate this year's anniversary we are presenting “Pearl Harbor: 24 Hours After,” examining the pivotal events that occurred after President Roosevelt received the call that Pearl Harbor had been attacked on December 7, 1941. This History Channel HD documentary is approximately 90 minutes long.
The surprise attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu, Hawaii, by the Japanese precipitated the entry of the United States into World War II. The attack brought to a head a decade of worsening relations between the United States and Japan. Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, its subsequent alliance with the Axis powers (Germany and Italy) in 1940, and its occupation of French Indochina in July 1941 prompted the United States to respond that same month by freezing Japanese assets in the United States and declaring an embargo on petroleum shipments and other and other goods.
In addition to commemorating the 71st anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor; Yesterday, December 6, Americans also celebrated the 147th anniversary (1865) of the ratification of the 13th Amendment which abolished slavery in the United States.
There are over 70 parks in the National Park System which have resources that are related to the history of the Civil War and provide opportunities to tour the real places where this struggle occurred nearly 150 years ago.
In 1858, Abraham Lincoln warned that
"A house divided against itself cannot stand."
But at the time, most Americans were confident that the forces of cohesion in the young republic would continue to triumph over the forces of division.
General Ulysses S. Grant came to the attention of President Lincoln and the nation when in February 1862 Grant captured two Confederate garrisons on the Tennessee River, Fort Henry and Fort Donelson. "U. S." Grant got the nickname "Unconditional Surrender" Grant after he demanded unconditional surrender from the Confederate commander of Fort Donelson. When his superior in the West, General Henry W. Halleck, was transferred to Washington that summer, Grant took over command of the Union Army along the Mississippi River and began his career trajectory to command of the entire Union army in 1864.
Considered among the greatest of military memoirs, these two volumes were an immediate bestseller. With the help of his publisher, Mark Twain, Grant wrote to the last month of his life to leave a legacy for his family after being defrauded a year earlier of his estate.
Grant wrote his memoir out of financial necessity as a dying man; he completed the manuscript within days of his death.
The English colonists we call Pilgrims celebrated days of thanksgiving as part of their religion. But these were days of prayer, not days of feasting.
Our national holiday really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag tribe to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest. It's a reasonable rendition of the Pilgrim and Indian Thanksgiving history might have looked like.
Napolitano reveals how Teddy Roosevelt, a bully, and Woodrow Wilson, a constitutional scholar, each pushed aside the Constitution's restrictions on the federal government and used it as an instrument to redistribute wealth, regulate personal behavior, and enrich the government. These two men and the Progressives who supported them have brought us, among other things: -the income tax -the Federal Reserve -compulsory, state-prescribed education -the destruction of state sovereignty -the rise of Jim Crow and military conscription -prohibition and war.
Napolitano reveals how Teddy Roosevelt, a bully, and Woodrow Wilson, a constitutional scholar, each pushed aside the Constitution's restrictions on the federal government and used it as an instrument to redistribute wealth, regulate personal behavior, and enrich the government. These two men and the
Progressives who supported them have brought us, among other things: -the income tax -the Federal Reserve -compulsory, state-prescribed education -the destruction of state sovereignty-the rise of Jim Crow and military conscription -prohibition and war.
The Progressive Era witnessed the most dramatic peaceful shift of power from persons and from the states to a new and permanent federal bureaucracy in all of American history.
“To preserve ... independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude."
—Thomas Jefferson in letter to Samuel Kercheval, June 12, 1816