Dec 29, 2020

From August to the last week of December, as David McCullough writes, “1776 had been as dark a time as those devoted to the American Cause had ever known.” As the year ended, despite the stunning and historic victory at Trenton the day after Christmas, there was good reason to fear that Washington’s army would...

Dec 22, 2020

By summer 1776, the most powerful navy in the world was conveying the greatest British expeditionary force in history across the ocean to suppress the American rebellion. George Washington’s ragtag Continental Army seemed no match for this great force. They suffered one defeat after another. Winter was coming on....

Dec 15, 2020

John Wayne began life as Marion Morrison in Winterset, Iowa. After his family made its way to L.A., and an injury sidelined him from USC football, he began working full-time as a prop man for movie studios. His natural strength, good spirit, good looks, and determination carried him through nearly a decade of...

Dec 8, 2020

Among the countless millions of human events postponed, rescheduled, or cancelled in the long hard year 2020, one was a gathering scheduled for an eight square mile volcanic island in the Pacific Ocean. The gathering was to be a “Reunion of Honor” commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of...

Dec 1, 2020

Abigail Adams recorded that when her husband and Thomas Jefferson visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, Jefferson fell upon the ground and kissed it and John Adams cut a chip from Shakespeare’s chair. Jefferson and Adams both revered Shakespeare, as did Abigail, and they all understood how necessary it was for a free...