On the afternoon of April 12, 1945, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the nation’s 32nd president, died of a cerebral hemorrhage. His life ended just as the great Allied victory in World War II that he had worked so hard for was in sight. In his remarkable and unprecedented four terms and 12 years in the White House, Roosevelt steered the nation through two of the greatest traumas in its history: the Great Depression and World War II. read more...
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The Civil War began at 4:30 in the morning of April 12, 1861, when Confederate forces began a 34-hour bombardment of Fort Sumter, held by Union forces in Charleston Harbor. The next day, anxious readers picked up their local papers to read the news many dreaded but most knew was coming: war had begun. The New York Herald began its war coverage with a front-page article featuring no less than 17 headlines! read more...
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U.S. soldiers from General George S. Patton’s Third Army liberated the Nazis’ Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945. They were horrified at the unspeakable cruelty they found at the camp, whose official purpose was to provide slave labor for German armament factories. The camp’s policy was to starve, beat, and work the prisoners to death, then burn their bodies and bring in fresh victims. read more...
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On April 10, 1861, Charleston, South Carolina, was a beehive of activity, bursting with excitement and preparation. A Union fleet was on its way to relieve Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor, and the Confederates were determined to attack the fort before its garrison could be strengthened. The opening shots of the Civil War were still two days away—the first mortar round was fired at 4:30 a.m. on April 12—but war fever already gripped Charleston. read more...
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At 4:30 in the morning of April 12, 1861, a mortar round was lobbed toward Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor—the shot that triggered the Civil War. One of the South’s leading newspapers, the Daily Picayune (New Orleans), had a correspondent posted on New York’s Wall Street in April of 1861. He makes it clear in his report of April 9 that the financial district knew war was looming. read more...
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The nation’s greatest trauma, the long, grueling and bloody American Civil War, essentially ended on April 9, 1865, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Lee’s surrender was not the official end of the war; there were still remnants of other Confederate armies scattered about, but his surrender carried enormous symbolic weight. The other Southern armies followed in short order, with the last Confederate army surrendering on June 23, 1865, in Indian Territory. read more...
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It was a long time coming, but American democracy took a big leap forward when the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified on April 8, 1913, giving the public the right to directly elect United States senators. Originally, the Constitution called for state legislatures to elect senators, but efforts to transfer this power to the public began in 1826 and remained fairly constant until success was achieved in 1913, when Connecticut became the 36th state to ratify the 17th Amendment. read more...
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When Hank Aaron hit his 715th home run on April 8, 1974, it was a historic achievement on two levels. For one, he broke what was considered the greatest record in all of sports, the 714 home runs hit by Babe Ruth, the “Sultan of Swing.” Aaron’s achievement was more than just a sports accomplishment, however—the vicious outpouring of hate mail combined with the adoring, buoyant support he received said a great deal about America as an African American broke a hallowed record set by a white man. read more...
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Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States (1829-1837), is an icon in American history. As a military leader he was so tough and determined that his admiring men called him “Old Hickory,” as he led the U.S. to important victories over the Creek Indians at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend in 1814, and over the British at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. As a president he fought for the rights of the “common man” and ushered in an era historians call Jacksonian Democracy. read more...
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The Confederacy was growing desperate in the spring of 1862. While it was holding its own in Virginia, the Western Theater had become a string of disasters. A young, relatively unknown Union general named Ulysses S. Grant won the first two major Federal victories of the war when he seized Fort Henry on the Tennessee River and Fort Donelson on the Cumberland River in February 1862. 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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