In May, 1945, as German troops were surrendering on the other side of the world, Japanese troops were fiercely defending the only remaining barrier (Okinawa and the Maeda Escarpment) to an allied invasion of their homeland. The men in the 77th Infantry Division were repeatedly trying to capture the Maeda Escarpment, an imposing rock face […]
Steinway & Sons was founded by a German immigrant named Heinrich Engelhard Steinweg (later changed to Steinway) in 1853. Heinrich began building pianos in 1835, and by 1839 his reputation as a piano builder grew throughout the Braunschweig area. In 1850 Heinrich immigrated to the United States with his family, taking jobs with several different piano manufacturers. In 1853 […]
My children know that I love trivia, especially historical trivia. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from my eldest daughter asking “Did you know this, Mom?” Her e-mail read as follows: “The atom bomb was one of the defining inventions of the 20th Century. So how did science fiction writer HG Wells predict its […]
The first version of “Yankee Doodle” is generally attributed to a British army physician, Dr. Richard Schuckberg, during the French and Indian War. It was a satiric look at New England’s Yankees. According to one story, Shuckburgh wrote the song after seeing the appearance of Colonial troops under Colonel Thomas Fitch, V, the son of […]
From its earliest days, America has been a nation of immigrants, starting with its original inhabitants, who crossed the land bridge connecting Asia and North America thousands of years ago. By the 1500s, the first Europeans, led by the Spanish and French, had begun establishing settlements in what would become the United States. The Pilgrims […]
Born as a slave on February 29, 1840, at Norfolk, Virginia, William Harvey Carney was an African American soldier during the American Civil War. Born as a slave, he was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1900 for his gallantry in saving the regimental colors (American Flag) during the Battle of Fort Wagner in 1863. […]
During this short month, we celebrate the following: • American Heart Month • Canned Food Month • Great American Pie Month • National Cherry Month • National Grapefruit Month On February 1, 1884, the first portion, or fascicle, of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, […]
On a crisp, clear morning 104 years ago, thousands of British, Belgian and French soldiers put down their rifles, stepped out of their trenches, and spent Christmas mingling with their German enemies along the Western front. In the hundred-plus years since, the event has been seen as a kind of miracle, a rare moment of […]
When World War I broke out, the nation already knew “Fast Eddie” Reichenbacher as a skilled race car driver for General Motors. When America entered the war in 1917, his fame took second place to his patriotism. Eddie was among the first to enlist. It was during this time that Rickenbacker anglicized his last name […]
Here is an amazing story from a flight attendant on Delta Flight 15, written following 9/11/2001. This is not political. It is a little-known true story about 9/11. “On the morning of Tuesday, September 11, we were about 5 hours out of Frankfurt, flying over the North Atlantic. All of a sudden the curtains parted […]