When the clash over slavery between North and South erupted into the bloodshed of the U.S. Civil War, its violence mirrored what had been going on in the Kansas Territory the preceding decade. “Bleeding Kansas” was ravaged in the 1850s by deadly attacks from both pro- and anti-slavery forces, fighting each other to determine whether the territory would enter the Union as a slave or free state. John Brown, whose raid on the U.S. read more...
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When ex-president and general Dwight D. Eisenhower died on March 28, 1969, America lost one of its true heroes, a man who played an enormously important role in the nation’s history during the middle of the 20th century. A five-star general, Eisenhower was the Supreme Commander of the Allied forces in Europe during World War II. In 1951 he served as the first Supreme Commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. read more...
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On March 16, 1979, Hollywood released the blockbuster film The China Syndrome, depicting a frightening near-meltdown at a nuclear power plant. In an astonishing example of life imitating art, 12 days after the film’s debut a real-life nuclear accident occurred—one of the worst in the history of the industry—when the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant accident in Pennsylvania released radioactive steam into the atmosphere on March 28, 1979. It was publicity no Hollywood producer could ever dream up, but its environmental and public safety ramifications were real enough. read more...
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When reading the letters, poems and songs of the Civil War, it is striking how pervasive religious themes are. It seems everyone, from the highest politicians and generals to the common foot soldiers and the people back home still working the family farms, often expressed the Civil War as a religious struggle. read more...
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With peace in the Middle East and brotherhood between Arab and Jew still an elusive dream, it is worthwhile to remember the brave step taken on March 26, 1979, when Egypt and Israel signed the first peace treaty between an Arab country and the Jewish nation. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin signed the treaty that President Jimmy Carter helped bring to fruition. read more...
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Malcolm X, the fiery and controversial Black activist and leader, was assassinated by three Black Muslims as he was giving a speech in New York City on Feb. 21, 1965. The next day, Jules Loh, an Associated Press reporter, published an interview he had conducted with Malcolm X on March 26, 1964, during which the activist discussed his own possible assassination—but insisted Loh not publish his remarks. After Malcolm X’s murder, Loh felt freed of his promise and published this article the next day. read more...
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Pioneers on the Oregon Trail traveled through Indian country. While some of these encounters were peaceful, many were violent. Newspapers at the time printed lurid accounts of “bloodthirsty savages” attacking peaceful families, but occasionally a different point of view was presented. Such is the case with the following letter, printed in the July 26, 1852, issue of the Daily Missouri Republican (St. Louis, Missouri): read more...
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The protest march on Washington, a staple of the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s and an accepted form of demonstration today, received its inauguration on March 25, 1894, when socialist reformer Jacob S. Coxey led a group of unemployed laborers to the nation’s capital to demand economic aid from Congress. The official name of his group was the “Commonweal in Christ,” but it is better known as “Coxey’s Army.” read more...
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At 12:04 on the morning of March 24, 1989, the huge oil tanker Exxon Valdez smashed into Bligh Reef, ripping holes in its hull and spilling 10.9 million gallons of crude oil into the pristine waters of Alaska’s Prince William Sound. At its greatest extent oil covered 1,300 square miles. It was not the largest oil spill in history, but it occurred in an area teeming with life and had devastating environmental consequences. read more...
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The most moving accounts we have from the Civil War are often the letters soldiers wrote to their loved ones during that great conflict. When one of those letters was published by the writer’s home paper, the emotional response went beyond the soldier’s family to the greater community—Macon, Georgia, in the following example. This letter, simply titled “A Soldier’s Letter,” was written on March 24 and published in the May 7, 1862, edition of the Macon Weekly Telegraph: read more...
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I understand that when writing a blog, it’s necessary to show a picture and say a few words about yourself, so that people don’t think a nameless, faceless committee or advisory board is running the show. Here I am, a real person. My name is Tony Pettinato, and I live in Deerfield, Mass. I did my undergraduate studies in English at Oberlin College, my graduate work in Journalism at UC Berkeley, and have been a reporter for six newspapers. For the past fourteen years I have worked at NewsBank, six of those as a managing editor for the U.S. Congressional Serial Set project – NewsBank’s acclaimed effort that digitized and indexed twelve million pages of primary source documents – that gratified my lifelong interest in American history. And that led me to editing this history blog!
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