A Defiant Dreyfus, Publically Degraded, Swears to Clear His Name From the Unjust Stain of Treason
When a Jewish French Army officer was publicly humiliated in a degradation ceremony, cries of “Judas” and “Kill the Jews” rained down upon him. In the crowd was Theodor Herzl...
Read moreThe 20th Anniversary of the Great Northridge Earthquake
The Great Northridge Earthquake of 1994 was largest to occur along California's infamous San Andreas Fault since the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906...
Read moreLincoln Declares He is Not a “Man of Great Learning, or a Very Extraordinary One...”
Presidents look to Lincoln as a model of virtue and dedication. This letter demonstrates that he saw himself as completely unexceptional; just a common man.
Read moreBeauty and the Beast: President Cleveland Writes a Love Letter to His Young Bride-to-Be
The girl was 21, the President 49; almost no one in the White House had an inkling. But not all presidential intrigues end in scandal: President Cleveland's led to the altar...
Read moreWashington, Dreading The Presidency, Feels As If He's Being Led To His Execution
The unanimous choice of “the people” had no choice at all. In this dark letter, Washington writes of his dread of the presidency: he feels as if he’s being led to his execution.
Read moreMark Twain Lists His Favorite Books For Children - and Himself
The great American humorist Mark Twain was vitally interested in reading, and here lists these books - for young people - which he felt most likely would keep them at it.
Read moreKennedy on His Historic Trip to Ireland: “It Couldn't Have Been Better. We Loved It”
John F. Kennedy's Irish heritage was, to him, no small thing. Ireland, he famously said, visiting there in 1963, "...is the land for which I hold the greatest affection."
Read moreThe Infamous "Jew Order" - the most sweeping anti-Jewish regulation in American history
New to bookstores this week is a landmark work about General Grant’s infamous 1862 Order No. 11.
Read moreBenjamin Harrison: The Earliest Known Example of a Typewritten Presidential Letter
When did presidents stop handwriting their letters, or have others write on their behalf? Up until, it appears, when President Benjamin Harrison sent out this first typewritten one
Read moreHad Even a Tiny Jewish State Been Established in 1937, Ben-Gurion Laments, Millions of Jews Would Not Have Died in the Holocaust
What Ben-Gurion was referring to was the British Peel Commission which had proposed, in 1937, the partitioning of the Mandate into Jewish and Arab states...
Read morePresident William Howard Taft, Heartbroken at the Loss of His Military Aide on the Titanic, Writes An Emotional Eulogy
Shortly before midnight on the fourth day of its maiden voyage, the greatest ocean liner in the world, built to be unsinkable, hit an iceberg...
Read morePresidential Enmity: Taft on Roosevelt and Roosevelt on Wilson
The idea of a Presidents Club, wherein the spirit of Kumbaya prevails, is a new notion, as these spirited Presidential letters reveal...
Read moreLincoln's Famous Letter to Young Fanny McCullough About Death, Loss & Memory
“All that I am or hope ever to be,” Abraham Lincoln famously said, “I get from my mother – God bless her.”
Read moreFranklin Pierce on The Death of His Dearest Friend, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Pierce and Hawthorne were profoundly attached to each other for almost all their lives. Here, a broken-hearted Pierce tells how only hours before he discovered Hawthorne’s body.
Read moreThe Only Known Evidence That JFK Knew to Fly: His 1944 Flight Logbook
The man who, for an entire generation embodied youth and vigor, would have been 96 this year. This pilot log is thought to be the only proof of this hitherto-unknown fact...
Read moreDoctor’s Report on Lincoln Assassination Discovered by Researcher
In this weeks’ coverage of the discovery at the National Archives of the report written by the first doctor to reach Lincoln after he was shot, an oversight was made...
Read moreRonald Reagan at the Berlin Wall
Ronald Reagan, standing in front of the Berlin Wall that divided Germany into free and communist sectors, spoke four words which would forever be identified with his legacy...
Read moreA Gift in Wartime: Lincoln Requests “A Map or Two” for His Youngest Son, Tad
By 1865, "Father Abraham" was burdened beyond imagination, having no respite from the war, nor comfort from his family, save his one personal joy, his little son, Tad...
Read moreA Band of Brothers: Custer and the Little Bighorn
When General Custer’s Cavalry was decimated by 1,000 Plains warriors– no one knows exactly how - at the Battle of Little Bighorn, an entire field of historical endeavor rose up.
Read moreA Jewish Soldier Writes Home: "The Battle of Gettysburg is Fought and Thank God The Army of the Potomac Has Been Victorious"
At Gettysburg, 170,000 men fought for three days in encounters so epic they are known by name. Gettysburg was the bloodiest battle of the Civil War and its turning-point...
Read moreExcessively Rare Ford Presidential Autograph Letter Written Just After His “Tough and Traumatic” Defeat By Jimmy Carter
As the man who was never elected President - nor Vice President - Ford wanted to be remembered, he said, as a dedicated, hardworking, honest person who served constructively.
Read moreAn Historic Memo: Truman Salutes Secretary of State Acheson’s Crucial Role in Going to War With Korea
Between the glory of victory in the Second World War and the agonized debacle of Vietnam, was the Korean War - which started what would last for thirty-five years: the Cold War.
Read moreSamuel Clemens Defines "Mark Twain"
Had the Civil War not interrupted Samuel Clemens' idyllic days as a Mississippi River boat pilot, it’s unlikely he ever would have lit out for the West – and become Mark Twain.
Read moreLincoln Suggests Suffrage for Some African-Americans, and a Century Later, JFK Comforts The Widow of a Slain Voting Rights Activist
A century apart, Lincoln and JFK deal with the same trouble addressed by Martin Luther King and 250,000 others who marched on Washington to redeem the promise of full civil rights
Read moreVice President Roosevelt Wires for News…. And Predicts McKinley’s Recovery
McKinley's assassination shocked everyone. Here, Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, though stunned, immediately wired for more information before rushing to the President’s side.
Read moreJohn Wilkes Booth Arranges With the Owner of Ford’s Theatre to Appear in a Play There - Which Abraham Lincoln Would Come to See
Famous people, as a general rule, do not become assassins. But John Wilkes Booth was different. The most adored actor of his day, his favorite role was spy...
Read moreLincoln, in a Prelude to the Lincoln-Douglas Debates, Shadows Douglas Around the State
Lincoln in 1858, challenged Douglas "for you and myself to divide time, and address the same audiences." What came of their debates, is the story told Between the Lines here...
Read moreLincoln Would Be Glad to See General Milroy “Were It Not That I Know He Wishes to Ask for What I Have Not to Give”
Lest anyone think that Lincoln's Gettysburg Address came out of thin air, one has only to look at the wonderful, if weary, elegance of his 25 words written to General Milroy...
Read moreWyatt Earp: An Incredibly Rare Letter
The most famous gunfight in Western history was at the OK Corral, Tombstone. That epic shootout was the reason why Wyatt Earp, 40 years later, wrote this incredibly rare letter.
Read moreAn Assistant Secretary of the Interior Tries to Stop the Annihilation of German Jews
"What was coming," Hitler declared, was "the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe." Few in the U.S. government were concerned, but Oscar Chapman was different...
Read moreLincoln Asks Grant, Not As President But As a Friend, For a Favor: Find a Place For His Son, Robert, on His Staff
Spielberg's film Lincoln has opened, raising some questions. One is about the relationship of Lincoln to his son, Robert - which looks difficult and strained. But was it?
Read moreA Last Thing Signed: John F. Kennedy Autographs a Dallas Newspaper on the Morning of His Murder
As President John F. Kennedy rode with his wife Jackie in an open limousine in Dallas, waving - three shots rang out from a nearby building...
Read moreWeizmann Thanks Clark Clifford for His Help In Getting Truman to Support and Recognize Israel
With U.S. recognition of the Jewish state on the line, little-known White House aide Clark Clifford worked tirelessly behind-the-scenes to bring about the creation of Israel.
Read moreAn Extraordinary Orville Wright Letter: How Watching Birds Led to Manned Flight at Kitty Hawk
How the Wright brothers invented the first airplane is told in this incredible letter, but an even more fantastic tale emerges: their success came from watching birds…
Read moreLincoln Writes the head of the New England Anti-Slavery Society
When on New Year’s Day, 1863, Lincoln signed his Proclamation of Emancipation, he was sure that he had done the right thing. If slavery was not wrong, he said, nothing was wrong.
Read morePresidential Pouring in the White House
Washington distilled his own; Lincoln "hated the stuff. It wasn't until Hayes, that the White House went dry - when 8.2 gallons was the per capita alcoholic consumption a year.
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