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History of Labor Day: What’s Work Got To Do With It?
HISTORY OF LABOR DAY Labor Day is when we celebrate the process our mothers went through to deliver us at birth. Sorry, wrong holiday. Labor Day in the U.S. is the day we celebrate the achievements of the American labor movement. While it is still disputed whether Peter J. McGuire first proposed the holiday, the…
Read MoreHistory of I Have A Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr. – 60 Years Ago
HISTORY OF THE I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH It was 60 years ago that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. It continues to echo down the halls of history six decades later. On August 28, 1963, the occasion for his speech was the March on Washington at the…
Read MoreHistory of the 19th Amendment: Women’s Right to Vote, 103 Years Ago
HISTORY OF THE 19TH AMENDMENT: WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE Over a hundred years ago, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted. This prohibited both the Federal and State governments from denying the right to vote to citizens of the United States based on sex. Effectively, this meant that the…
Read MoreHistory of the California Gold Rush: How It Created the State
HISTORY OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH: HOW IT CREATED THE STATE On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald reported the news along the American East Coast of the California Gold Rush. It was not new news to those further West, as the gold rush had started in January and was publicized in San Francisco…
Read MoreHistory of Woodstock: Over 50 Years Ago
HISTORY OF WOODSTOCK August 15 marks the anniversary of the “3 Days of Peace & Music” held in 1969 at Max Yasgur’s 600-acre dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York, southwest of the village of Woodstock. This outdoor music event, despite thundershowers, gave voice to the counterculture youth generation of its time.…
Read MoreHistory of the 1st Moon Landing – Apollo 11: 54 Years Ago
HISTORY OF THE 1ST MOON LANDING: APOLLO 11 Fifty-four years ago today, at 3:17 Eastern Time, July 20, 1969, the first human stepped out of the Apollo 11 lunar module onto the moon. With the immortal words of the 38-year-old Neil Armstrong: “That’s one small step for (a) man, one giant leap for mankind.” …the…
Read MoreHistory of Independence Day: Was the Declaration of Independence really signed on July 4, 1776?
HISTORY OF INDEPENDENCE DAY Independence Day, or the Fourth of July, celebrates the adoption by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776, of the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming the severance of the allegiance of the American colonies to Great Britain. It is the most significant secular holiday in the United States, observed in all…
Read MoreHistory of Alexander Hamilton
HISTORY OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON Alexander Hamilton has gained new popularity in recent years, mainly due to the 2015 Broadway musical “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda. What’s the real story behind this enigmatic Founding Father?
Read MoreHistory of James Madison: Father of the Constitution
HISTORY OF JAMES MADISON Among the Founding Fathers, James Madison has justly been called “the Father of the Constitution.” One might think that the Constitution became active on July 5, 1776, but this is not how it happened. The American Constitution didn’t go into effect until almost a decade and a half after the Declaration…
Read MoreHistory of John Adams
HISTORY OF THE 4TH OF JULY: JOHN ADAMS Before John Adams became the first Vice President of the United States (under George Washington,) the second President of the United States, the first resident of the White House, and a writer of the Massachusetts State Constitution… he had a role during the Revolutionary War period as…
Read MoreHistory of the 4th of July: Thomas Jefferson
HISTORY OF THE 4th OF JULY: THOMAS JEFFERSON Perhaps no one person is more associated with the 4th of July in American History than Thomas Jefferson, probably because his hand penned the immortal Declaration of Independence. As my friend Clay Jenkinson — who has been portraying Jefferson for over 20 years — says in his…
Read MoreHistory of Father’s Day: the Beginning
HISTORY OF FATHERS DAY: the Beginning [NOTE: I wrote a more extended and serious version of this article for CBS.com several years ago. It has been published on their network of sites for major cities nationwide. You can find that article here.] Origin of Father’s Day The celebration of Father’s Day goes all the…
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