During the violent aftermath of the Civil War known as Reconstruction, a horrible massacre occurred on Easter Sunday, April 13, 1873, when white supremacists in Colfax, Louisiana, killed anywhere from 100 to 200 freedmen and black state militiamen who had barricaded themselves in the local courthouse. The exact number of fatalities will never be known, as many bodies were secretly buried or dumped into the Red River. This ugly incident was a microcosm of the political battles raging throughout the South. read more...
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Early 1861 was a confusing time in the United States. In February seven seceding states formed the Confederate States of America and seized federal forts and other property. By April rumors were sweeping the country about what Lincoln’s policy was going to be, whether an attack upon Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor was imminent, and fears that civil war was about to begin. Right at this time a surprisingly negative editorial was published in a Northern newspaper, declaring “We do not see any hope.” read more...
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President Thomas Woodrow Wilson won reelection in 1916 pledging to keep America out of World War I, which had been raging since 1914. However, Germany’s declaration of unrestricted submarine warfare in January 1917, and the publication of the “Zimmerman telegram” revealing a German plot to have Mexico and Japan declare war on the U.S., changed America’s position. On April 2, 1917, President Wilson delivered a powerful speech asking Congress to declare that a state of war existed with Germany, a request Congress—and the general public—embraced. read more...
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On April 6, 1973, Major League Baseball’s American League implemented a three-year experiment that became a permanent feature of the league: the designated hitter rule, allowing another player to bat for the pitcher. Since pitchers are normally weaker hitters than position players (since they focus more on pitching than batting practice, and because they do not play every day), this rule has supplied more offense to American League teams. However, baseball purists lamented the implementation of this rule and have opposed it ever since. read more...
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On April 7, 1862, the fierce fighting of the two-day Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee came to an end, with the Federal troops regaining the field and the Confederate army retreating all the way back to Corinth, Mississippi, from where it had started four days earlier with such high hopes. read more...
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By April 1863 the Civil War had been going on for two years, and many people in the South were approaching starvation. Foraging armies—both Union and Confederate—had depleted many areas of food and animals. A severe drought the year before had diminished harvests, contributing to the shortages felt in the spring of 1863. Adding to the misery was the high rate of inflation which drove most food prices beyond people’s means, compounded by speculators who took advantage of the situation by charging ever higher prices. read more...
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For eight years, Jesse James rode with a group of former Confederate guerrillas called the James-Younger Gang, robbing banks, trains and stagecoaches from their home base in Missouri. From 1868 to 1876 the gang, whose core members were brothers (Frank and Jesse James, and Bob, Cole, Jim and John Younger), had incredible success: every robbery attempt succeeded and the brothers were never captured although one, John, was killed. The more they got away with, the more the public became fascinated with their exploits—and newspapers responded to their readers’ interest. read more...
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The Connecticut Kansas Colony, an anti-slavery group led by Charles B. Lines in New Haven, Connecticut, was gathering supplies and funds in the spring of 1856 for their immigration to the Kansas Territory. The group knew they faced great danger; deadly clashes had erupted in “Bleeding Kansas” as pro- and anti-slavery forces fought to determine if Kansas would enter the Union as a slave or free state. The determined pioneers would need Bibles for their Kansas crusade—but they would need guns, too. read more...
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The American public was jolted the night of March 31, 1968, when, at the end of a nationally televised speech on the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Baines Johnson looked directly into the camera and solemnly, unexpectedly, declared: “I shall not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President.” No one was anticipating his withdrawal from the presidential election, but the subject of his televised speech, the Vietnam War, had a great deal to do with his decision not to seek another term. read more...
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During his presidency, Ronald Reagan was called the “Teflon President” because he could shrug off criticism and somehow avoid blame for the scandals that affected members of his staff. On March 30, 1981, Reagan showed he could shrug off something far more severe than blame: a would-be assassin, John Hinckley, Jr., fired six shots point-blank at the president as he was leaving the Washington Hilton Hotel after giving a speech. Somehow, despite the short distance, all six shots missed hitting the president directly. 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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