The American Story

Often our New Year’s resolutions are lighthearted, and usually, the flesh being weak, they are fleeting. Before Valentine’s Day or maybe even before Epiphany, we have slipped back into our old ways. …

At the time of the American founding, celebrations of Christmas in America varied widely, from Puritans and Quakers who shunned or ignored it, to other Protestants and Catholics who honored it in the…

President Kennedy told a special joint session of Congress that it was “time for a great new American Enterprise.”

December 7, 2021 is the 80th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor that brought America into World War II. It is one of many days in the American year that inspire reflection on the most…

After the American defeat in Vietnam in 1975, the communists confiscated the homes, businesses, property, and savings of those south Vietnamese supposed to be “counterrevolutionaries.” Hundreds of th…

Sarah Josepha Hale was born in New Hampshire in 1788. In an era when the average American life expectancy was forty years, she lived until 1879—91 years—and has been remembered by posterity primarily…

What makes Gettysburg America’s most hallowed ground? A delegation of Russian historians at the height of the Cold War seemed to know, when American historians had forgotten.

“Chesty” Puller was a Marine’s Marine. To this day, in Marine Corps boot camp, recruits are exhorted, “Do one more for Chesty! Chesty Puller never quit!” His combat service record is astonishing: he …

Until the election of 1860, the truths proclaimed in the Declaration of Independence had been the ground of American civic friendship, above all the central truth that all men are created equal. Fide…

The election of 1800 in America came after a decade of bitter and extreme party strife. Each side accused the other of aiming to overthrow the Constitution and preparing the way for tyranny. There wa…

Americans are being reminded how fragile and precious an achievement it is to establish the legitimate authority of government through peaceful and free elections. But there would be no ballots witho…

P.G. Wodehouse was one of the best writers in the English language in the 20th century and the funniest. He wrote nearly 100 delightful books, each one of which in perfectly orchestrated sentences, c…

There is more of Charlie Brown in most of us than there is Abraham Lincoln or Michael Jordan. We identify with his failures and suffer with him. But it isn’t just his failures. Charlie Brown is resil…

During peak hours, in the 300 block of Brand Boulevard in the city of Glendale, in what is called “Metropolitan Los Angeles,” you might see a line of eager people making their way into Porto’s Bakery…

The Declaration’s great American proclamation that “all men are created equal” and the first three words of the Constitution—“We the People”—are profoundly connected. The relation between these two i…

September 17 is Constitution Day in America because on that day in 1787, after 4 months of deliberations, the delegates at the Constitutional Convention in Independence Hall in Philadelphia proposed …

Twenty-one years have come and gone since September 11, 2001 became “9/11.” It is a day not just for mourning victims but for honoring heroes, those on Flight 93 and the many civilians and first resp…

Frederick Bailey was born into slavery in 1818. With determination, courage, some help from others, and good luck, he managed to escape to freedom when he was 20 years old. He made his way to Massach…

America’s greatest enemy is not the Chinese or the Russians, or some other foreign tyranny—though they might indeed kill us if we continue so fecklessly to defend ourselves. But what will they kill? …

Every year in August, the oldest synagogue in America—Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island—holds a public reading of a letter written by George Washington to the congregation early in his first t…