During the forty-five months of World War II, the United States lost just under 1 percent of its adult male population; during the Civil War the casualty rate was somewhere between 4 and 5 percent; du...
And the University of Pennsylvania, he penned a memoir of his time in America. Shortly after marrying the twenty-eight-year-old Marie Brigitte Plunkett,
Robinson’s fierce quest for spiritual purity had been tempered by the realization that little was to be gained by arrogance and anger.
Faint heart never won fair lady, he wrote; neither did it ever pursue and overtake an Indian village.
By doing their best to destroy the Native people who had welcomed and sustained their forefathers, New Englanders had destroyed their forefathers’ way of life.
Wishing thee a short and prosperous voyage, with a full portion of happiness we remain thy friends. In
Without the discovery of Arnold's treason in the fall of 1780, the american people might never have been forced to realize that the real threat to their liberties came not from without but from within...
The whaleman’s rule of thumb was that, before diving, a whale blew once for each minute it would spend underwater. Whalemen also knew that while underwater the whale continued at the same speed and in...
The Pilgrims’ descendants have proven to be, if nothing else, fruitful. In 2002 it was estimated that there were approximately 35 million descendants of the Mayflower passengers in the United States,...
Modern survival psychologists have determined that this social—as opposed to authoritarian—form of leadership is ill suited to the early stages of a disaster, when decisions must be made quickly and f...
Lee wrote, [and] lament with you that fatal indecision of mind which in war is a much greater disqualification than stupidity or even want of personal courage. . . . Eternal defeat and miscarriage mus...
In the end, the Mayflower Compact represented a remarkable act of coolheaded and pragmatic resolve. They were nearing the end of a long and frightening voyage. They were bound for a place about which...
In 1634, smallpox and influenza ravaged both the Indians and the English in the region. William Brewster, whose family had managed to survive the first terrible winter unscathed, lost two daughters, F...
Custer wrote, I often think I would greatly prefer to cast my lot among those of my people adhered to the free open plains rather than submit to the confined limits of a reservation, there to be the r...
Atrocities were expected in both European and Native conflicts. And yet, the English had to admit that compared to what was typical of European wars, the Indians had conducted themselves with surprisi...
Without Massasoit’s help, the Pilgrims would never have survived the first year, and they remained steadfast supporters of the sachem to the very end. For his part, Massasoit realized almost from the...
Thomas Paine was so inspired by the heroism displayed at Fort Mifflin that he published an open letter to William Howe: 'You are fighting for what you can never obtain and we are defending what we nev...
This is also the story of two British generals. The first, Thomas Gage, was saddled with the impossible task of implementing his government’s unnecessarily punitive response to the Boston Tea Party in...
The sperm whales' network of female-based family unit resembled, to a remarkable extent, the community the whalemen had left back home on Nantucket. In both societies the males were itinerants. In the...
The Puritans believed that the identity of the Saints had long since been determined by God. This meant that there was nothing a person could do to win salvation. But instead of being a reason to fors...