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Humanity Life, Brooklyn, NY (2026)

03/14/2026

𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑠𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝑡𝑤𝑜 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑏𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑝𝑎𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑔, 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 “𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐴𝑟𝑡 𝑜𝑓 𝐿𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦” 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑎𝑢𝑡𝑦 𝑜𝑓 𝐼𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝐵𝑒𝑟𝑙𝑖𝑛’𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑚.

The United States of America is a nation of peace-loving warriors, who fight for our own freedom and that of our allies around the world. That’s why our songs tend to focus on battles and the military.

America also has a deep spiritual foundation. Refugees fleeing religious persecution arrived seeking the freedom to worship God as they pleased. With that goal, America’s ancestors declared themselves “one nation under God.”

One of our most beloved national songs suggests both of these aspects of our history, with themes of war and peace, and of freedom and faith. These speak to the heart of Americanism in times of disaster as well as victory, and in times of tragedy as well as triumph. This song is “God Bless America.”

𝐖𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐥𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐜

Irving Berlin wrote “God Bless America.” This famous composer and lyricist wrote the words and music for some of America’s favorite songs during the 20th century. He penned both the tune and lyrics to this patriotic song in 1918.

This occurred when he was in the Army during World War I, stationed at Camp Upton in Yaphank, New York. It was to be part of the r***e he was writing called “Yip, Yip, Yaphank!,” but he ended up cutting the song. This wartime anthem remained in the trunk for 20 years, perhaps because the armistice occurred shortly after he wrote it.

Two decades later, there were rumors of another push of German ambition for world dominance which had caused WWI. As Adolf Hi**er and his N**i Party rose to power, Russian Jewish immigrant Berlin was disturbed by the tyranny and oppression happening overseas.

He wanted to express these feelings in song without being overtly political or militaristic, since not even England had joined what would be World War II. Instead, he wanted to focus on peace and freedom by celebrating how Americans enjoy these blessings. It turned out that he already had just such a song.

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03/14/2026

𝐸𝑥𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑐𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑎𝑔𝑒, 𝑤𝑖𝑡, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑓𝑎𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑜𝑛 𝑑𝑖𝑠𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑦 𝑓𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑤ℎ𝑜 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑟𝑣𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑖𝑟 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤𝑚𝑒𝑛.

Of the 45 men who have served as U.S. presidents, four of them—Abraham Lincoln, James A. Garfield, William McKinley, and John F. Kennedy—died at the hands of an assassin. Others have escaped death or injury. In 1974, for example, an armed Samuel Byck boarded a Delta airliner in Baltimore and demanded that the pilots take him aloft with the intention of crashing the aircraft into the White House and killing Richard Nixon. When the pilots refused, he shot them, killing one, and then turned the gun on himself after being wounded by the police.

Three presidents were shot but survived their assassins’ bullets. Whatever we may think of Theodore Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan, and Donald Trump, the cool-headed courage and even humor that all three men demonstrated in the face of death makes an impression.

𝐀𝐧 𝐈𝐧𝐜𝐡 𝐀𝐰𝐚𝐲 𝐅𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐞

Most Americans are familiar with the now-iconic photograph of Trump surrounded by Secret Service agents after his attempted assassination at a political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Fist in the air, his right cheek streaked with blood from the wound to his ear, Trump shouted to the crowd and cameras, “Fight! Fight! Fight!”

Journalist and Trump acquaintance Salena Zito was seated four feet from the candidate, expecting to do an interview after his speech, when 20-year-old Thomas Crooks fired at the stage from a rooftop, clipping Trump’s ear, seriously wounding two other men, and killing another. Trump had turned toward a chart on the stage a split second before the assassin fired, just missing a kill shot.

Zito describes that moment in her book “Butler,” but what is equally revealing about Trump’s character was the grace he displayed in the aftermath of the shooting. Early the next day, he called Zito to make sure she was all right. After what he’d just gone through, Zito was shocked that he was calling to check on her status. She reassured him that she was fine.

Trump then telephoned her seven more times that day, with the calls totaling almost 90 minutes. He praised the treatment he had received in the local hospital, lamented the death of the man killed by the assassin, Corey Comperatore, asked several more times if Zito was all right, and praised those of his political enemies who had “reached out to make sure he was okay.”

In their last call of the day, Zito asked Trump outright what had made him turn to the chart at that exact moment. Like many people brushed by the cloak of death, Trump paused, then said: “God. The hand of God.”

Continues in comments.

03/13/2026

𝐼𝑛 ‘𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑊𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦,’ 𝑎 𝑔𝑢𝑛𝑠ℎ𝑜𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑙𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑚𝑜𝑏 𝑜𝑓 𝐵𝑜𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑛𝑖𝑎𝑛𝑠, 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑠 𝑎 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑏𝑜𝑦, 𝑙𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡𝑜 𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙.

Outside of Boston merchant Theophilus Lillie’s shop was a sign that read, “Don’t Buy From the Traitor.” The sign was hardly a glowing recommendation for the business, and it certainly wasn’t placed there by Lillie himself. But its placement was in keeping with a promise.

The Sons of Liberty had warned that “one of these Advertisements will be posted up at the Door or Dwelling-House of the Offender.” Lillie was an offender. He was, as Thomas Hutchinson, governor of Massachusetts Bay Colony, suggested, “a very inoffensive man, except in the offense of importation.”

Local merchants and traders had established the Boston Non-Importation Agreement in August 1768 to boycott English goods in response to the Townshend Act of 1767. The Act had placed a tax on colonists for glass, lead, oil, paint, paper, and tea, as a way of “defraying the charge of the administration of justice, and the support of civil government … and towards further defraying the expenses of defending, protecting, and securing the said dominions.” That is, the British levied the taxes to assert authority over the colonists.

Parliament’s reasons for taxes were undone by angry businessmen of colonial America’s largest port city. The Townshend Act was another piece of parliamentary legislation in a long line of acts that would ultimately bring the Americans to full rebellion. Signs placed in front of offending businesses were a small, yet visible example of the rising tensions with, and rebellion against, the mother country. But the sign placed in front of Lillie’s shop resulted in something much larger.

𝐀 𝐑𝐢𝐬𝐤𝐲 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧

Ebenezer Richardson, a neighbor of Lillie’s shop, wanted the sign destroyed. Doing so, however, came with its risks. When one of these signs was erected, it was typically accompanied with insult-hurling schoolboys. It was purported that Lillie’s sign was accompanied by “boys, small and great, and undoubtedly men, [who] had been and were encouraged, and well paid by certain leaders.” That this day was a Thursday, which was a market day and therefore a school holiday, ensured there were more boys on the scene than usual. Witnesses suggest there were between 60 and 300 boys gathered outside Lillie’s shop.

Richardson attempted to destroy the sign anyway. It was an unwise decision.

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03/13/2026

𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ‘𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦,’ 𝑤𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑠𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑑𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 ℎ𝑖𝑚𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑓 𝑡𝑜 𝑜𝑟𝑛𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑦, 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑎𝑡 𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑙.

On March 21, 1812, the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia (ANSP) was founded “for the encouragement and cultivation of the sciences, and the advancement of useful learning.” A year and a half later, one of the Academy’s most important contributors would be born.

John Cassin (1813–1869) was born in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, just outside of Philadelphia. His talent for drawing and his insatiable interest in nature would lead him to one of the most prolific careers in American ornithology. By his late teens, he was drawing exquisitely detailed works of plant life, which soon transitioned to birds. By the age of 20, he and several friends founded the Delaware County Institute of Science to create a space to discuss scientific matters. The Institute still exists.

Shortly after founding the Institute, Cassin moved to Philadelphia. He began his career there as a merchant, but eventually moved into illustrating. Bowen Lithographic, which was founded in 1838, proved a perfect fit for Cassin, as among its many illustrations, it also specialized in scientific drawings.

Cassin enjoyed a long career with Bowen, and the company became known, in ornithological circles, for its plate work publishing, including John James Audubon’s “The Quadrupeds of North America” and “Birds of America.” Bowen Lithographic soon became the preeminent publisher of natural history works in the United States.

Cassin rose through the company as an artist, and business manager, and, after John T. Bowen’s death, he was tabbed a partner in the company by Bowen’s surviving wife, Lavinia, in 1858.

𝐉𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐜𝐚𝐝𝐞𝐦𝐲

Just after his 29th birthday, Cassin became a member of the ANSP, and by the end of 1842, he was elected to be the honorary curator of the Academy. The position was “honorary” because it could not pay. The absence of payment, however, hardly mattered to Cassin, who remained in the position until his death.

Cassin found his time completely dedicated to ornithology at Bowen and at the Academy. The two positions certainly benefitted each other. His constant study of birds at the Academy and his connection with Bowen Lithographic eventually resulted in publication of some of his own works.

As more species of birds, both physical and illustrative, were sent to him, he became a leader in ornithology and may very well have been America’s most knowledgeable. He was never one to take what he received at face value. He studied, edited, and corrected whatever information was presented, whether they came from America or regions around the world. In just four years, the Academy gave him a lifetime membership “in consideration of moneys owing to him by the society.” For several years, from 1849 to 1852, he was the Academy’s corresponding secretary. He would later be elected as its vice president.

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03/12/2026

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑡𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑓𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒𝑟, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑖𝑛𝑣𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑒𝑛𝑡ℎ𝑢𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑐 𝑆𝑎𝑚𝑢𝑒𝑙 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑡 𝑏𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑚𝑜𝑟𝑒 𝑒𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑓𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑟𝑚𝑠 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑒𝑠—𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠.

Then when he was 16, his father sent him to the Amherst Academy in Massachusetts to study navigation after noticing his high aptitude. While attending school, he continued to experiment heavily with explosives.

Samuel C**t never claimed to have invented the revolver, but his ingenuity forever changed the way they were designed and manufactured. Throughout his life, C**t proved his ability to overcome failure. He also reinvented how fi****ms were made, marketed, and sold. Although he died before he could enjoy his fortune, the company he built continues to be a pioneer in the firearm industry today.

C**t was born on July 19, 1814 in Hartford, Connecticut to Sarah Caldwell C**t and Christopher C**t. His father owned a textile business. But all wasn’t easy. C**t experienced a troubled childhood. Of his eight siblings, at least three passed away young. Of his eight siblings, at least three passed away young. One of his sisters died of tuberculosis when she was 19 and another committed su***de. His mother died from tuberculosis when he was just 6 years old. Two years later, his father remarried.

At age 11, C**t was sent to Glastonbury, Connecticut where he was indentured to a friend who was a farmer. He became fascinated with guns after his grandfather, who served in Gen. George Washington’s Continental Army, gave c**t his old flintlock pistol.

During his time working and attending school in Glastonbury, C**t soon began reading a scientific encyclopedia called the “Compendium of Knowledge.” He grew fascinated with gunpowder and explosives. When he was 15, he moved to Ware, Massachusetts to work at his father’s mill. He learned machining techniques from the skilled workers and had access to tools and materials to make his ideas reality. One time, he advertised an event where he would blow up a raft in a local lake. The explosion missed the raft, but put on quite a show.

Later on July 4, 1830, C**t detonated an explosion that set a school building on fire. He was expelled.

𝐀 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞’𝐬 𝐏𝐚𝐭𝐡

Presumably angry, C**t’s father sent him to India on the brig Corvo. C**t learned the sea trade firsthand on his way to Calcutta. While acting as apprentice seaman, he became fascinated with the ship’s wheel. It spun freely, but then clicked into place with a ratchet. He got an idea that he could do the same with a pistol so that it could fire multiple times successively. Most guns during the era could only fire one shot at a time and took a decent time to reload.

When C**t returned home two years later, he put his idea for a new revolver to work. His father paid for him to design a rifle and a pistol. But when the pistol exploded when first fired, his father stopped funding C**t’s inventions.

Continues in comments.

03/11/2026

𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ‘𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦,’ 𝑤𝑒 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑎 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑔 𝑄𝑢𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑟, 𝑏𝑟𝑒𝑤𝑒𝑟, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑔𝑎𝑚𝑏𝑙𝑒𝑟 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑠𝑒 𝑔𝑖𝑓𝑡 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑛 𝑙𝑒𝑓𝑡 𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑘 𝑜𝑛 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 ℎ𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦.

Something particular stood out about Timothy Matlack. Indeed, there were many things, like the fact he loved to gamble, engaged with the lower and ruffian classes, and brawled whenever necessary (and sometimes seemingly when it wasn’t), all while being a Quaker. Certainly these characteristics stood out, but it was actually his writing style that would ignite his rise to prominence. It wasn’t his rhetoric, though, but rather the “looping flourishes” and the elegant style of his penmanship.

Matlack (1736–1829) was born in Haddonfield, New Jersey, into a family of Quakers. His father made a living as a merchant and brewer. A decade after his birth, the family moved to Philadelphia, where this revolutionary firebrand would find his place among a hotbed of revolutionaries.

𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐬

The young Quaker learned the business trade and earned money on the side, as well as a less than upstanding reputation by way of betting on horse races and cockfights. When he was 13, he signed his first contract as an apprentice for a local Quaker merchant. His signature demonstrated an elegance that was rather in opposition to his rough personality.

Shortly after this contract was signed, however, his family experienced immense hardship. His father’s debts resulted in the family’s brewery and much of their household goods being seized by the courts. A legal agreement did salvage the use of the brewery, but it would not be Matlack’s father in charge; it would be his elder half-brother. The humiliation proved too much for his father, who subsequently drank himself to death.

As his half-brother continued with the brewery and his younger brothers were sent to a school for charity cases, Matlack continued his apprenticeship, completing it in 1758. That same year he married Ellen Yarnall, the daughter of a Quaker preacher. At this time, the Americans were in the middle of the French and Indian War. In 1759, Benjamin Franklin, who was arguably Philadelphia’s most famous citizen, printed the Pennsylvania Assembly’s petition to King George II about the Native Americans. Franklin, aware of Matlack’s writing ability, hired him to pen the petition. It would not be his last such project.

Continues in comments.

03/11/2026

𝐼𝑛 ‘𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑊𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦,’ 𝑁𝐴𝑆𝐴’𝑠 𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑐𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑚 𝑎𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑒𝑒𝑡 𝑏𝑢𝑑𝑔𝑒𝑡 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑐𝑒𝑒𝑑𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑠𝑐𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑠.

On the evening of Aug. 13, 1898, Gustav Witt, the German astronomer and director of the Urania Observatory in Berlin, and his assistant, Felix Linke, planned to locate the asteroid, Eunike. It had been nine years since its last observation. By use of the observatory’s telescope and photographic plates, Witt and Linke scoured the images. They found Eunike, as well as another previously known asteroid, Althrea.

“We also found a third faint and indistinct trace,” Linke recalled in Scientific American magazine, “apparently made by a body in very rapid motion, for the length of the mark was about 0.016 inch, twice the length of the other traces.”

The German astronomers wondered if they had found a comet. The next night they pointed the telescope in the direction of the new discovery. Studying the resulting photographic plates, Witt and Linke concluded “the object was evidently not a comet, it was classed as an asteroid.” The asteroid was named 1898 DQ.

At the same time, in France, Auguste H.P. Charlois, working in the Nice Observatory, made the same discovery while studying his plates. The German and French astronomers had hit upon a major astronomical discovery. The 1898 DQ was the first Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) ever discovered. With this major first, Witt decided to add another first. Instead of giving it a female name, typically after a Greek or Roman deity, he named it Eros, after the Greek god of love.

𝐄𝐫𝐨𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐍𝐀𝐒𝐀

Upon further observation, Eros (433 Eros to be precise) proved to be about twice the size of Manhattan Island, at 21 miles long, 8 miles wide and 8 miles thick. This potato-shaped asteroid with a point farthest from the sun of 1.78 Astronomical Units (AU) and a a point nearest to the sun of 1.13 AU, rotates every 5 hours and 16 minutes. As a point of reference, an AU is approximately 93,000,000 miles—the average distance between the Earth and the Sun. The asteroid, also considered a minor planet, experiences extreme conditions, reaching a temperature of 212 degrees Fahrenheit during the day and -238 degrees Fahrenheit at night.

Continues in comments.

03/10/2026

𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑒𝑝𝑖𝑠𝑜𝑑𝑒 𝑜𝑓 ‘𝑊ℎ𝑒𝑛 𝐶ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝐶𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑡𝑠’ 𝑡𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑎𝑟𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑎𝑐𝑖𝑓𝑖𝑐 𝑂𝑐𝑒𝑎𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑎 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑢𝑖𝑛𝑒 ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑜 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑠𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑙𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑜𝑓 ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑠.

In October 1942, 52-year-old Edward “Eddie” Rickenbacker and his aide, Col. Hans C. Adamson, boarded a Boeing B-17 in Hawaii. They were accompanied by a sergeant returning from sickbay to his outfit in Australia and five crew members commanded by Capt. William Cherry. Secretary of War Henry Stimson and Gen. Henry “Hap” Arnold had asked Rickenbacker to make the trip and investigate the combat readiness of Army Air Force units in the Pacific.

In his younger days, Rickenbacker had won fame and applause for his daredevil exploits, first as a race car driver and then as a pilot in World War I, where he shot down 26 German aircraft, becoming America’s top ace and a recipient of the nation’s Medal of Honor. Torn between a career in the automobile industry and aviation, he eventually settled on the latter and became president of Eastern Airlines. His knowledge of aircraft and his connections to the military made him an ideal candidate for evaluating the readiness of the Army Air Force to fight the Japanese.

Rickenbacker had faced death on land and in air. Now he would face it in the water, where his enemy was the most implacable of adversaries: Mother Nature.

𝐋𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐃𝐨𝐰𝐧

Rickenbacker and the B-17 were bound for Canton Island, a coral atoll approximately 1,800 miles from Hawaii. There, the plane would refuel before completing its journey to Australia. But the estimated time of arrival at Canton found Capt. Cherry flying over nothing but ocean. Faulty equipment and possibly an inaccurate reading of wind speeds before departure had drawn the aircraft off course, and now they were lost and running out of fuel.

The men aboard prepared for the inevitable. They arranged pillows and mattresses to absorb some of the shock of the coming crash, laid out a stock of provisions and water, and readied the plane’s three rafts—two holding five men and the other held two—for launching. One of the crewmen grabbed two fishing lines. Rickenbacker, who was still dressed in a business suit and hat, snatched up a 60-foot-long length of line. All knew they would have just a minute or less to make their exit if they survived the crash.

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03/10/2026

𝐼𝑛 ‘𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑊𝑒𝑒𝑘 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦,’ 𝑎 𝑛𝑒𝑤 𝑑𝑜𝑙𝑙 𝑚𝑎𝑘𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑡𝑠 𝑑𝑒𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑒 1959 𝑇𝑜𝑦 𝐹𝑎𝑖𝑟 𝑖𝑛 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑌𝑜𝑟𝑘 𝐶𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑎𝑛 𝐴𝑚𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑐𝑜𝑛.

In 1956, Elliot and Ruth Handler arrived in Switzerland, their two children in tow. The family was on vacation, and with the demands of running a growing business, the couple were no doubt in need of some time away. The Handlers, however, were always keeping an eye out for ways to create new products. The previous year, they had invested $500,000—practically the total worth of their company—in advertising. Stepping inside a local Swiss store, Ruth came across something that would trigger a financial boom for the family-owned business.

In 1938, high school sweethearts, Elliot and Ruth, got married. Elliot was an innovative entrepreneur with a tireless work ethic. In this case, positives attracted, as Ruth was equally innovative and hardworking. Elliot began building furniture from Lucite and plexiglass, and Ruth became his salesman. The California couple quickly grew the business, even securing a contract with a leading manufacturer, Douglas Aircraft, which built many World War II aircraft.

𝐅𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐥

In 1945, Elliot and Ruth launched a new business with a friend and fellow WWII veteran (Elliot was in the United States Army), Harold “Matt” Matson. Harold and Elliot combined their names (Matt and Elliot) to create the name Mattel. Business operations were conducted out of the garage of the Handler’s Los Angeles home. The business was small in scope, making picture frames from those aforementioned plastics of Lucite and plexiglass. From the scraps of those frames, Mattel cobbled together furniture; but this time, it was dollhouse furniture. The toy accessories were a success, and the company maneuvered away from the picture frames to focus on the furniture.

The following year, in 1946, Matson, citing health issues, sold his shares to the Handlers and stepped away from the company. The Handlers looked to expand further into the toy industry. Their first toy released in 1947, the Uke-A-Doodle, a child-sized plastic ukulele, was a hit. The company quickly began to grow, expanding the size of their Los Angeles headquarters. As the 1940s gave way to the 1950s, the company expanded their toy music devices, which included music boxes and mini pianos. The kids’ musical instruments were selling in the millions and Mattel was making a name for itself.

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03/09/2026

𝐶𝑟𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑧𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑢𝑡𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑚𝑜𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑐, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐸𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝐶𝑜𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑔𝑒 𝑤𝑎𝑠 𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑔𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑐𝑟𝑎𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑏𝑎𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑝𝑜𝑝𝑢𝑙𝑎𝑟 𝑤𝑖𝑙𝑙, 𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑒𝑞𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑐𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑡.

“I think the Electoral College is an absurd 18th-century construct,” author David Remnick said in a 2016 interview with Spiegel International.

He’s not alone in that belief. It’s “made our society less and less democratic,” Pete Buttigieg said during his 2020 presidential campaign. Bayard Rustin, a 20th-century political activist, wrote that it’s “potentially very dangerous.”

Those on the other side of the debate, of course, disagree. “The Electoral College preserves the principles of federalism that are essential to our constitutional republic,” The Heritage Foundation has on its website. Allen Guelzo also expressed concern about danger, though for a different reason than Rustin. He wrote for National Affairs in 2018 that “simply doing away with the existing process without putting a new one in its place could create the biggest political crisis in American history since the Civil War.”

Why are the stakes so high? In the past 250 years, five of the United States’s 47 presidents have been elected after losing the national popular vote. John Quincy Adams, Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B. Hayes, George W. Bush, and Donald Trump (2016) were catapulted into office by—you guessed it—the Electoral College.

However, the Founding Fathers devised the Electoral College system to defend democracy, not to undermine it.

𝐒𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐭𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐚𝐥 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟕𝟖𝟕

Sept. 5, 1787, dawned cool and pleasant in Philadelphia, with partly cloudy skies. Members of the Constitutional Convention clustered in a closed meeting room in Pennsylvania’s State House to draft a new constitution for the young nation.

The republican government they were trying to build was unprecedented, and September was the fourth month of intense deliberation. One question they kept returning to concerned executive power. They needed a stronger central government than the one established by the Articles of Confederation, but what did that mean for the president?

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03/09/2026

𝐹𝑟𝑜𝑚 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑝𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝐽𝑎𝑦 𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑒𝑑 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑟𝑒𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐’𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛.

John Jay was a multitalented Founding Father who served for decades in different roles during America’s infancy. In baseball parlance, he was a utility infielder, working a variety of vital positions as needed.

A native New Yorker, Jay co-authored the Federalist Papers with James Madison and Alexander Hamilton; served as U.S. minister to Spain during the Revolutionary War; held the title of secretary of foreign affairs for five years; was the first chief justice of the Supreme Court; and successfully negotiated the Jay Treaty with Great Britain, helping avert war and facilitating a decade of peaceful trade.

He also served six years as New York governor and was the primary author of the New York state Constitution that provided the framework for the U.S. Constitution. Before that, he was a New York delegate to both the First and Second Continental Congresses and was named president of the United States in Congress Assembled on Dec. 10, 1778. It was during his 10-month term in that role that he came to understand what America needed to transition from a tenuous confederation government to the constitutional republic we have today.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐧 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐓𝐢𝐦𝐞

Jay was named to the presidency almost immediately after his election to the Continental Congress in 1778, as his peers saw him as a principled man whom they could trust. His probity, geniality, and cogency earned him respect and deference when controversial issues were debated.

When Jay assumed his duties as president of Congress, he had his hands full with a quarrelsome legislative body. That is, when delegates bothered to attend. During his tenure, Congress had high turnover among its delegates, and even when there were enough in attendance for a quorum, the delegates were ill-tempered and contentious. According to John Jay biographer Walter Stahr, Jay’s greatest contribution as president of Congress may have been preventing Congress from devolving into chaos.

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03/08/2026

𝐼𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑓 ‘𝑃𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑖𝑙𝑒𝑠 𝑖𝑛 𝐻𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑦,’ 𝑎 𝑃𝑟𝑢𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑖𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑡’𝑠 𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡𝑠 𝑜𝑛 𝑙𝑖𝑏𝑒𝑟𝑡𝑦, 𝑙𝑎𝑤, 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑤𝑎𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑡𝑜 𝑖𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑙𝑎𝑤.

Francis (Franz) Lieber (1798–1872) wept as he stared out his window in Berlin. Napoleon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée had just defeated the Prussian army at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt on Oct. 14, 1806. The French army was now marching in Berlin. The Napoleonic Wars would leave a lasting impression on the German boy; he would grow up to help defeat Napoleon and guide a young nation in formulating its military’s code of conduct.

Lieber, born in Berlin, was the 10th of 12 children born to an ironware dealer. In the spring of 1814, the man who had brought him to tears was defeated. Napoleon abdicated and went into exile at Elba. The teenaged Lieber had not been involved in the fight against Napoleon. But when the French military leader escaped from exile and roused his troops, Lieber did join the war effort.

It was his father who informed him and his brothers that Napoleon was back and that they were to fight. Lieber recalled,

“My heart beat high; it was glorious news for a boy of fifteen, who had often heard with silent envy the account of the campaigns of 1813–14 from the lips of his two brothers, both of whom had marched in 1813. … One of those, cured of his wounds, rejoined his regiment; another of my brothers and myself followed the call of government to enter the army as volunteers, though our age would have exempted us from all obligation.”

In 1815, near Waterloo, where Napoleon was finally defeated, Lieber was shot through the neck. He noted:

“I thought I should die and prayed for forgiveness of my sins as I forgave all. I recollect I prayed for Napoleon, and begged the dispenser of all blessings to shower His bounty upon all my beloved ones, and if it could be, to grant me a speedy end of my sufferings.”

He thought his prayer had been immediately answered as another bullet went through his chest. Despite these severe wounds, he recovered. By the end of his recovery, Napoleon was back in exile on the island of St. Helena, where he remained until death.

𝐈𝐦𝐩𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐈𝐦𝐦𝐢𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧

Lieber was caught up in republicanism and anti-monarchism that continued to sweep through Europe. He was arrested and sent to prison for several months. The authorities finally released him without ever giving him a trial. He was informed that his crimes had never been proved, but that he was considered a suspicious person.

In 1820, he received his doctorate in mathematics from the University of Jena. He remained opposed to monarchism but also was against communism and what he termed “democratic absolutism,” which enabled the majority to wield absolute power. He strongly advocated for German unity and believed it could only be achieved by a revolutionary leader. He would only see this achieved well after he immigrated to America.

Upon witnessing the progression of German unification in the late 1860s and early 1870s, he recalled, “I have this very moment read in the German papers that Bismarck said in the chamber the very thing for which we were hunted down in 1820 and 1821.”

Indeed, Lieber was constantly hassled by police surveillance and was refused public employment. Despite this, he was able to rub shoulders with some leading German intellectuals and historians, like Barthold Niebuhr, Leopold von Ranke, and Alexander and Wilhelm von Humboldt. He briefly moved to Greece, where he fought in the Greek War of Independence against the Ottoman Empire. He wrote of his experiences in “Journal in Greece,” published in 1823.

He was arrested again shortly after returning home to Germany. He then fled for London, where he got married. Then, in 1827, he immigrated to Boston.

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