The four-year post-World War II economic recovery plan for Europe, known as the Marshall Plan, cost $13 billion.
The plan, enacted 1948-51, was named for its chief architect, U.S. Secretary of State George C. Marshall.
There were several practical reasons why the young Columbia graduate student Margaret Mead decided to do field work on Samoan adolescence. She thought her fluency in French and German would help her in the Polynesian island chain, and there were regular steamship stops there. More important, she wanted to know how much of human behavior…
The two Allied armies from America and Germany met on April 25, 1945, on the Elbe River at the town of Torgau. The Americans had been advancing from the west and the Russians from the east.
The Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed twice. The first Temple was razed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The second was destroyed by the Romans in A.D. 70.
H. L. Mencken said, “Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy”.
The Viennese founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud visited the U.S. only once, to receive an honorary doctor of law degree from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1909. Freud got sick eating American food and was unimpressed by U.S. culture. He later said, “Yes, America is gigantic, but a gigantic mistake.”
Joe Louis fought Max Schmeling twice. In their first encounter in 1936, before Louis became heavyweight champion, the German boxer emerged the winner. In 1938, now the world champion, Louis beat Schmeling in a one-round knockout that struck a symbolic blow to Nazi Germany’s claims of national and racial superiority. Louis’s initial loss to Schmeling…