Countdown to 250 - July 3

Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary with five days of banners depicting our country's birth and heritage. This one covers the signing of the Declartion of Independence, the Louisiana Purchase, the fall of the Alamo, Gettysburg, World War II, and the fall of the Berlin Wall.

John Adams, The First & Second Continental Congress & The Battle of Lexington-Concord

 

John Adams

Massachusetts chose John Adams to represent it as a delegate to the First Continental Congress. To say he was anxious about his abilities was an understatement. Adams wrote that he was “unequal to this business.” He didn’t think he had a strong enough mastery of politics.

Adams considered his responsibilities for nearly two months. He had many doubts about his abilities and those of his fellow congressmen. “We have not men fit for the times. We are deficient in genius, in education, in travel, in fortune, in everything. I feel unutterable anxiety.”

If that were true, the colonies were in it together. What they didn’t know about politics, parliamentary procedures, administering a government, and eventual war, they would learn.

The Massachusetts Committee for Congress rode out of Boston shortly after 4 p.m. on August 10, 1774. John Adams rode beside fellow congressmen Thomas Cushing, Samuel Adams, and Robert Treat Paine.

Their journey was a pleasant one.

Little Big Horn: The Battle That Changed The American West

 

General George Armstrong Custer

July 4, 1876. The United States was throwing the biggest birthday party it had ever seen.

 

Then the telegraph started clicking.

 

The reports drifted east from the Montana Territory. At first, they sounded like rumors. Then more dispatches arrived.

 

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer was dead. So were over 260 officers and men of the 7th Cavalry.

 

The New York Herald called it “the most appalling disaster that has ever befallen our arms upon the Plains.” The Chicago Tribune told readers that Custer and his command had been massacred. 

 

Newspaper extras sold almost as fast as the presses could print them. Crowds gathered outside newspaper offices, waiting for every new dispatch.

 

Nobody could quite believe it. George Armstrong Custer never lost a battle. Especially to Indians.

 

By 1876, Custer was one of the most famous soldiers in America. He’d graduated dead last at West Point. After the Civil War started, none of that mattered. Custer had a knack for charging straight at the enemy.

Countdown to 250 - July 2

 

Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary with five days of banners depicting our country's birth and heritage. This one covers everything from the signing of the Declartion of Independence to the fall of the TwinTowers and beyond.

Thomas Nast’s Uncle Sam: The Face That Defined America

 

Everybody knows Uncle Sam.

 

Tall hat. White beard. Pinstriped pants. Stern expression. He’s been recruiting soldiers, selling war bonds, and staring down America’s enemies for well over a century.

 

Most people assume he’s always looked that way.

 

He hasn’t.

 

The version we recognize today owes more to Thomas Nast than anyone else.

 

Working for Harper’s Weekly from the Civil War into the 1880s, Nast drew Uncle Sam hundreds of times. Every week seemed to bring another political fight, and Uncle Sam usually found himself in the middle of it.

 

That’s how he became real.

 

Before Nast, Uncle Sam was all over the map. One artist drew him as a merchant. Another made him look like an old Revolutionary War veteran. Sometimes he barely looked the same from one newspaper to the next.

 

Nast fixed that.

Countdown to 250 - July 1

 

Celebrating America's 250th Anniversary with five days of banners depicting our country's birth and heritage. This one starts with the discovery by Columbus, the Revolutionary War, the westward expansion on the Oregon Trail, and finally the landing on the moon.

Leon Czolgosz: I Killed President McKinley Because I Done My Duty

 

Leon Czolgosz

The Temple of Music was the most ornately decorated building at the Pan-American Exposition. It spanned 150 feet on each side, and the dome rose 180 feet into the air. Outside, the primary colors were blue and green. It boasted one of the largest pipe organs in the United States, and the arena had seating for 2200 guests. Each corner featured statues by Isidore Konti. At night, the building was lit up with a brilliant display of electrical illumination.

Two gunshots rang out on the afternoon of September 21, 1901.

Eyewitness, John D. Wells, writing in Collier’s Magazine said:

Suddenly I saw a hand shoved toward the President—two of them, in fact—as if the person wished to grasp the President’s hand in both of his own. In the palm of one hand, the right one was a handkerchief. Then there were two shots in rapid succession.

I stood stock-still. I saw Detective Foster strike upward the hand that would fire the third shot, and a soldier seize the man from behind and drag him down.”

The President “fell into the arms of Detective Geary. Mr. Milburn supported him from the other side. Just a few drops of blood spurted out and dropped on his white waistcoat.”

Seconds later, “I rushed to where the assassin lay prostrate on the floor. A dozen or more men, detectives, and guards were standing over him, striking and kicking him.”

The President observed the rough treatment given to the shooter and told nearby officers, “See that no one hurts him.”

Wells’ story closely follows the other accounts of the assassination.