With Thanksgiving around the corner, cutouts of Pilgrims in black clothes and clunky shoes are sprouting all over the place. You may know that the Pilgrims sailed aboard the Mayflower and arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. But did you know their first Thanksgiving celebration lasted three whole days? What...

"The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month." That was the moment in 1918 at which they put a stop to the mindless killing of World War I with an Armistice. Back then, it was called the "Great War" or the "War to End All Wars" --...

Generally, we don't associate the iconic Penguin Books with "dirty books." And neither did a British jury. On November 2, 1960, Penguin won a landmark British publishing case when Lady Chatterley's Lover was deemed "not obscene" by a jury of three women and nine men. Penguin had published the novel,...

When I was a kid in the early 1960s, the autumn social calendar was highlighted by the Halloween party in our church. In these simpler day, the kids all bobbed for apples and paraded through a spooky "haunted house" in homemade costumes -- Daniel Boone replete with coonskin caps for...

"It's the -- the cross is the -- is the most common symbol of -- of -- of the resting place of the dead."

Those were the words of Associate Justice Antonin Scalia during a Supreme Court questioning session. The case involves a cross honoring veterans that has...

The headline was a shocker.

All Free Library of Philadelphia Branch, Regional and Central Libraries Closed Effective Close of Business October 2, 2009

I read about the possible closing of the Philadelphia Free Library -- in the city where Benjamin Franklin helped invent the public library in...

September 15, like September 11, deserves to be remembered. On this day in 1963, a murderous bombing took the lives of innocent Americans -- four children. The terrorist bombers were also Americans -- members of the Ku Klux Klan. In recording the bombing 20 years later, Howell Raines once wrote,...

That is completely misleading headline aimed at getting your attention. It worked.

On this date, August 26, in 1920, the 19th Amendment was ratified by the necessary two-thirds of the states.

"You've come a long way baby."

It was 233 years ago that the brilliant Abigail...

She was the town's meter maid. And yes, the Beatles had recently sung about "Lovely Rita." But this lady was not exactly lovely in her uniform. She was a plus-sized meter maid, and she was not "the most comely of maidens." All of that probably made her already unpopular job...

Does this sound familiar?

It started with a "DWB" -- "driving while black." On August 11, 1965, an all-too-frequent stop of a black man by a white police officer exploded into one of the worst urban riots in American history.

This one didn't end with a shared beer at the...

When Administrations Lie, Thousands Die.

dontknowmuch.com

That is today's history lesson on the 45th anniversary of passage of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution by Congress on August 7, 1964. Since the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and Vietnam War might as well be the Punic...

It's summer. Do you know where your IQ is?

For most school age kids, summer means vacation, camp, the pool. You know: A few months of fun. "No more teachers, No more books."

But that last part is not true. Summer also means the often dread Summer...

Every so often, news stories and other events converge to create a "teaching moment." This is one of those moments when you can curse the darkness or light a candle. I will try and shed some light.

Patrick Buchanan's recent "White men built America" rant on MSNBC (subject of an...

I did not hear right wing talking head Pat Buchanan's remarks on African American history the other day on MSNBC. According to an account on the Huffington Post, Buchanan and host Rachel Maddow had a hot exchange during which Buchanan said:

"White men were 100% of the people...

Writing on the op-ed pages of the New York Times on July 7, 2009, columnist David Brooks clearly touched a nerve.

His column, entitled "In Search of Dignity," topped the Times list of most emailed articles and drew hundreds on online comments, many of them laudatory. Brooks used...

For many Americans, the news of Robert McNamara's death at age 93 on July 6th brought back the whole cascade of difficult memories about what the war in Vietnam meant to this country.

Here is McNamara's New York Times obituary.

But for many others, especially younger Americans, the Vietnam...

Last evening, I had a thrilling experience. In a small, darkened room with the feel of a chapel inside the magnificent New York Public Library, I saw Thomas Jefferson's handwritten copy of his original draft of the Declaration of Independence. For me this was a "Grail Moment." Setting aside all...

In the third installment of my Independence Week Refresher Course, I focus on a man who most of us never heard of. But the United States of America exists, in part, because of his efforts.

Of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence, a few names are familiar....

Who you gonna believe? Mulder and Scully? Or your government?

Twelve years ago, on June 24, 1997, the Air Force released a report on the so-called "Roswell Incident." According to the Air Force, the "alien bodies" witnesses reported seeing in 1947 around Roswell, New Mexico were actually life-sized crash test...

Yesterday's blog was the beginning of a week-long refresher course on the Declaration of Independence.

In the run-up to the nation's birthday, here are some more things you "need to know" about the Declaration of Independence and the men who created it.

• It's not a "piece of paper."...