Free Republic

On August 6, 1945, 30-year-old U.S. Air Force pilot Col. Paul W. Tibbets Jr. took to the sky in the Enola Gay, his Boeing B-29 Superfortress heavy bomber. His destination, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, was not an especially notable target. His payload, however, a single bomb nicknamed “Little Boy,” would change the course of history. True watershed moments in history are rare — the agricultural revolution is one such example, as was the Battle of Salamis, the advent of Jesus Christ, and the fall of Western Rome. Yet in the last 1,500 years, no two distinct epochs of time...

On July 4 at Mt. Rushmore, President Trump praised Walt Whitman, Mark Twain, and Louis Armstrong; it was a significant political and cultural speech, comparable to Trump’s speech extolling Western civilization at Warsaw in 2017. Trump also ordered a federal project called the Garden of National Heroes, mandating the artwork to be classical and “not abstract or modernist.” On the same day, The Washington Post published an article by a professor urging Americans to consider the global legacy of 1776 as furthering “white supremacy.” The Post wasn’t the only one. While major news outlets focused on the evils of America,...

For a century, Monument Avenue has showcased some of the Confederacy’s most revered figures. Soon, there will be a blank canvas. Over the past week, the Richmond Times-Dispatch asked demonstrators, residents, artists and community leaders what they'd like to see on the new Monument Avenue. There were suggestions of new statues, honoring a more inclusive set of heroes. Others wanted a space for performance or reflection, while some felt the empty pedestals should stay as a historical testimony of their own. One point of agreement was that it must be a communitywide conversation. Through restrictive covenants, real estate companies long...

President Trump delivered the speech of his presidency at Mount Rushmore Friday, a magnificent affirmation to Americans on their 244th national birthday that what they have always cherished is still cherished, along with a warning shot to those who hate and despise all the United States stands for. It was non-partisan -- there was no mention of Democrats or Joe Biden. It was inclusive - celebratory of people of all races, and celebratory in particular of the singularity of America being great for such diversity. It was also big-hearted, magnanimous, celebrating all the ranges achievements of the country. Yet it...

To find out how willing liberal Americans are to jettison the country’s cultural identity, I decided to ask what I thought were outlandish questions,' writes the survey author. 'The answers I received amazed me.' Seventy percent of self-identified “liberals” want to rewrite the U.S. Constitution “to a new American constitution that better reflects our diversity as a people,” according to survey results published in Quillette this week. Seventy-nine percent of self-identified “very liberal” respondents agreed with this suggestion. Seventy-six and 81 percent of “liberal” and “very liberal” respondents supported the idea to “Rebalance the art shown in museums across the...

Under fire from ignorant iconoclasts, the Emancipation Memorial shows a former slave 'exerting his own strength with strained muscles in breaking the chain which had bound him.' Black Lives Matter Protesters have threatened to tear down the Emancipation Memorial in Washington. District of Columbia Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton also called for the “problematic” statue’s removal from Lincoln Park, alleging the statue fails to note how enslaved African Americans pushed for their emancipation. Norton said former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass “expressed his displeasure” at its unveiling.In truth, Frederick Douglass predicted members of his race looking back at its...

The imagery couldn’t be more direct. Across the nation, rioting and unrest that has killed black Americans and destroyed black neighborhoods has included the defacement of historic monuments, including those to abolitionists.The last wave of monument destruction, in 2017, largely focused on Confederates and slave holders, erasing all the accomplishments of figures such as George Washington and Thomas Jefferson with a scarlet S, for slave-holder. This time, the ignorance has descended even further.The rioters are now tearing down and defacing memorials wantonly, apparently assuming that if someone is being celebrated that person is “probably a racist,” as the image...

At a time of such pain, it seems cruel to borrow more from the past. But COVID-19 and the tragedy in Oklahoma City raise similar questions that should stir us as a nation. Twenty-five years ago today, a young U.S. Army veteran named Timothy McVeigh parked a moving truck in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. At 9:02 a.m., McVeigh’s homemade truck bomb detonated, ripping a hole through the Murrah building and killing 168 people, 19 of whom were children. Sadly, this anniversary comes at a time when Americans are in the midst of another...

... In Debunking Howard Zinn, Mary Grabar has performed the absolutely necessary task that her title promises, and has done so with admirable energy, persistence, and relentless attention to detail, leaving Zinn’s already shaky credibility in utter ruins. She brings the intensive scrutiny of a jeweler’s eye to Zinn’s work, topic by topic, and shows in no uncertain terms how flawed and unreliable it is. But that is not all. She also shows us Zinn the man: An utter charlatan and naked partisan, an admirer of Stalin and Mao, a relentless self-promoter and self-mythologizer, and a media-savvy celebrity of the...

It isn’t an overstatement to describe The New York Times’ 1619 Project as a journalistic declaration of war against America. Many of the project’s historical claims are downright fabrications — but in the most decisive respect, that’s besides the point. The project’s leader, Nikole Hannah-Jones, has tried to brush off the criticism of many distinguished historians by claiming that such disagreement is how historiography always proceeds — as we learn progressively more, a new “narrative” challenges old ones. The 1619 Project, however, isn’t about new historical scholarship, and insofar as journalism is about the quest for truth, it isn’t quite...

On Wednesday morning on “Morning Joe,” Joe Scarborough dismissed a Princeton University professor’s explanation of Bernie Sanders’s electoral appeal despite Sanders’s open, lifelong admiration for socialist dictators.“Who is telling him to continue to defend Castro, to continue to defend the Sandinistas, to continue to defend the Soviets? I think he can check the [polling] crosstabs, it’s doesn’t play well in Charleston,” Scarborough said.“I think two things,” responded panelist Eddie Glaude Jr., chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. “One, I think it’s Bernie Sanders being true to his brand, that he’s consistent, he’s authentic, that...

“I think the important point to make about slavery is that it had existed for thousands of years without substantial criticism,” said the historian Gordon Wood in an interview last year. “But it’s the American Revolution that makes it a problem for the world. And the first real anti-slave movement takes place in North America. So this is what’s missed by these essays in the 1619 Project.” Mr. Wood is one of the country’s leading experts on the colonial era, and he was referring to a collection of New York Times articles published last summer that examine the role of...

It’s no secret that many of today’s students are ignorant of American history and of how American democracy works. According to a 2018 survey conducted by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, only 1 in 3 Americans would be able to pass the U.S. citizenship test. Clearly, the current education system—at the K-12 and college levels—has failed to do its job. And that includes the University of North Carolina system schools. According to the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA), none of the UNC system schools require students to take “a survey course in either U.S. government or history...

Only a month before, the top local newspaper had been promoting the fact that one of the 10 candidates seeking the Democratic nomination in an urban northeastern congressional district was also "one of the few women vet candidates for political office in the country." Even so, she lost the primary. Now, on the Fourth of July, the man who had defeated her was the principal speaker at the city's historic town hall. He was preceded by the mayor and introduced by his grandfather. He did not deliver the typical Democratic message. "Throughout the years, down to the present, a devotion...

Mary Grabar's book, 'Debunking Howard Zinn,' takes aim at the celebrated historian who is as influential as he is ideological and dishonest. Howard Zinn’s book, The People’s History of the United States, is one of the most famous American history textbooks ever written. His goal was to change the way Americans saw their own history by writing from the perspective of those he called “underdogs.” In doing so, he thoroughly distorts the true historical record and paints America as an inherently unjust nation.Mary Grabar believes that at the root of his agenda is a desire to see America turned into...

... California is one of many states to ask teachers and textbooks in recent years to cover the contributions of specific immigrant groups, including Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders, European-Americans and Mexican-Americans. These additions are part of the reason California books are almost always longer than their Texas counterparts. California’s Board of Education adopted an expansive 842-page social studies framework in 2016. Two years later, Texas’ school board streamlined its social studies standards, which are now laid out in 78 tightly compressed pages. Critics of California’s approach say that making state standards and textbooks longer and more inclusive can be overwhelming to...

We’ve all heard about the impact of “fake news,” but there’s something even more dangerous: teaching “fake history.” “If you think that it is outrageous that Democratic presidential candidates want to eliminate the southern border and that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez calls our detention facilities there ‘concentration camps,’ then you haven’t been reading and believing Howard Zinn’s best-selling ‘A People’s History of the United States,’” writes Mary Grabar, Ph.D. First published in 1980, “A People’s History” has sold more than 2.5 million copies and is in virtually every school district, university and local library. Zinn (1922-2010) chaired the history and social...

The British approach to its American colony in 1775 offers valuable lessons for historians and military professionals in the synthesis between the levels of wartime leadership and their effect on direct action at the tactical level. As such, it is worthwhile to reflect on the British experience in 1775, and how guidance from strategic and operational leaders had a dramatic impact on the opening stages of the conflict. A misalignment of desired objectives, a desire to exercise control down to the lowest echelon, and poorly executed direct leadership defined the British approach concerning the events surrounding Lexington and Concord on...

"Mr. Creator, will you tell me why the peanut was made?" -George Washington Carver & Successful Black Entrepreneurs George Washington Carver was born a slave during the Civil War, possibly in 1865, but there are no records. Within a few weeks, his father, who belonged to the next farm over, was killed in a log hauling accident. Shortly after the Civil War, bushwhackers from the Democrat South kidnapped infant George with his mother and sister. Moses Carver sent friends to track down the thieves and trade his best horse to retrieve them. The thieves only left baby George, lying on...

Camelot and King Arthur's Court, Knights of the Round Table, Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, Sir Galahad, and the search for the Holy Grail ... (The Holy Grail was Jesus' cup at the Last Supper.) Our imaginations soar with history and legend immortalized in "Idylls of the King," written 1859-85 by poet Alfred Lord Tennyson. Alfred Lord Tennyson embellished the medieval legend of the Lady of the Lake who gave the sword Excalibur to the courageous young King Arthur. Scenes of this were portrayed in Disney's 1963 animated musical fantasy movie, The Sword in the Stone. Born AUGUST 6, 1809, Alfred Lord...