The quote “It became necessary to destroy the town to save it” refers to the bombardment of the city of Ben Tre, South Vietnam, during the Tet Offensive in 1968.
The army major who said it was unidentified.
Philadelphia lawyer Andrew Hamilton (c. 1676-1741), born in Scotland, was John Peter Zenger’s attorney during Zenger’s trial for seditious libel. He successfully defended the German-born editor’s right to print true accusations against the colonial governor of New York. The famous trial in 1735 was a landmark for freedom of the press.
The two commanders-in-chief Grant and Lee met at Appomattox Court House, but that was the name of a village in Virginia, not an actual courthouse. On April 9, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee’s surrender in the front parlor of a private house owned by farmer Wilmer McLean.
Harry Truman didn’t attend college. He was the only president in the 20th century without a college education.
Ratified in January 1964, the 24th Amendment made it illegal to deny a citizen the right to vote in a federal election for failure to pay a poll tax. This device had been used by Southern states since Reconstruction to prevent blacks from voting.
There are four stanzas in the song “America the Beautiful” by Katharine Lee Bates (1850-1929), originally published in 1895 and revised in 1904 and 1911. The stanzas begin respectively with these lines: 1. 0 beautiful for spacious skies 2. 0 beautiful for pilgrim feet 3. 0 beautiful for heroes proved 4. 0 beautiful for patriot…
The Tet Offensive was a general attack in January 1968 by North Vietnamese forces against South Vietnamese cities. Militarily, North Vietnam lost since they suffered heavy losses and failed to hold any city. But strategically North Vietnam delivered a severe blow to the U.S. by showing that the war was far from over and undermining…