The line “Why don’t you speak for yourself, John?” is a fabrication of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, found in his poem “The Courtship of Miles Standish” (1858).
Alden, Mullins, and Standish were all passengers on the Mayflower but were not known to be involved in a love triangle.
George K. Kennan, then a member of the State Department’s policy planning staff, wrote the pseudonymous article in the magazine Foreign Affairs that first outlined the policy of containing Soviet expansion in 1947.
The Yiddish word “chutzpa” meaning “gall, impudence” came over from Eastern Europe with the millions of Jews who immigrated to the U.S. beginning in the 1880s. By the 1970s, the Americanized term had taken on the positive connotation of “self-confidence, courage” and had made its way into British slang as well.
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…
From left to right, the U.S. presidents are carved on Mount Rushmore are George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Theodore Roosevelt.
Five people have held the post of secretary-general. With their countries of origin and terms of office, they are: Trygve Lie, Norway (1946-1952) Dag HarnmarskjOld, Sweden (1953-1961) U Thant, Burma (1961-1971) Kurt Waldheim, Austria (1972-1981) Javier Perez de Cuellar, Peru (1982–present)
Seoul was occupied by the North Koreans twice during the Korean War. The capital of South Korea fell to invaders from North Korea in June 1950, inciting President Harry Truman to commit American troops as part of United Nations forces sent to repel the invasion. U.N. forces recaptured Seoul on September 26, only to be…