America First History

Every president has had some experience as a parent. Of the 43 men who have served in the nation's highest office, 38 have fathered biological children, and the other five adopted children. Each president's parenting style reveals much about his beliefs as well as his psychological makeup. James Garfield enjoyed jumping on the bed with his kids. FDR's children, on the other hand, had to make appointments to talk to him.

In 1819 John Adams came across a stunning story in his hometown Essex Register that he breathlessly described to his political frenemy Thomas Jefferson as “one of the greatest curiosities and one of the deepest mysteries that ever occurred to me…entitled the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. The genuine sense of America at that moment was never so well expressed before, nor since.”

When World War II broke out in Europe, the American army had no specialized division of mountain soldiers. But in the winter of 1939-40, after a tiny band of Finnish mountain troops brought the invading Soviet army to its knees, an amateur skier named Charles Minot “Minnie” Dole convinced the United States Army to let him recruit an extraordinary assortment of European expatriates, wealthy ski bums, mountaineers, and thrill-seekers and form them into a unique band of Alpine soldiers.

In 1938, a young German rocket enthusiast named Wernher von Braun had dreams of building a rocket that could fly him to the moon. In Ray, North Dakota, a young farm girl named Mary Sherman was attending high school. In an age when girls rarely dreamed of a career in science, Mary wanted to be a chemist. A decade later, the dreams of these two disparate individuals would coalesce in ways neither could have imagined.

More than any other people on earth, Americans are free to say and write what they think. The reason for this extraordinary freedom is not a superior culture of tolerance, but just 14 words in our most fundamental legal document: the free expression clauses of the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Anthony Lewis tells us how these rights were created, revealing a story of hard choices, heroic (and some less heroic) judges, and fascinating and eccentric defendants who forced the legal system to come face-to-face with one of America's great founding ideas.

On September 6, 1945, less than a month after the atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, George Weller, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, became the first free Westerner to enter the devastated city. Going into the hospitals and consulting the doctors of the bomb's victims, Weller was the first to document its unprecedented long-range medical effects. He also became the first to enter the nearby Allied POW camps, which rivaled those of the Nazis for cruelty and bested them for death count.

This is the history of George Washington who was a president, a general, and a Founding Father of a new nation. But, most of all, it is the story of George Washington the man. Many of the anecdotes related are true stories told by the people who were his own family and friends. This captivating history audiobook covers topics such as: she was horrified, from tranquility to turmoil, two if by sea, one shot starts the revolution, Canada to New Jersey, a year of hardship, and more.

The Olmecs lived thousands of years ago but you can still meet them, albeit imaginatively, through books. There are a lot to learn from history, and among which are lessons that need to be understood. Be amazed with how advanced the Olmecs were in building their society, in creating religion, and even in their beliefs or mythologies.

George Washington was famously unknowable, but Robert Middlekauff penetrates the mystique to reveal the fears, values, and passions that drove him. Rich in psychological details regarding Washington's temperament, idiosyncrasies, and experiences, this audiobook shows us a self-conscious Washington who grew in confidence and experience as a young soldier, businessman, and Virginian gentleman; and was transformed into an American patriot by the revolutionary ferment of the 1760s and 70s.

Nearly two centuries before Meriwether Lewis and William Clark began their epic trek to the Pacific coast, a group of three Spanish noblemen and an African survived shipwreck, famine, Indian attack, and disease to make the first crossing of North America in recorded history. Drawing on contemporary accounts and long-lost records, Robert Goodwin tells the amazing story of their odyssey through the American South.

1776. The early days of the Revolutionary War. It supposedly began with Thomas Hickey, a private in the Continental Army, and New York governor William Tryon. In an astonishing power grab, they plotted to kill Hickey's boss: a man by the name of George Washington. In the end, Hickey was caught, brought to trial, and found guilty. It would seem he became the first person in the new nation to be executed for treason.

John Jay was a master statesman and strategic diplomat who associated with all the great men of his day in the mid-18th century. However, his contemporaries said that he was modest and humble. They indicated that they could be at a party or gathering and guests had to coax him into discussing his role during the American Revolution or as the first Supreme Court Justice of the new nation.

In a shocking, never-before-told story from the vaults of American history, Tonight We Bombed the US Capitol takes a close look at the explosive hidden history of M19 - the first and only domestic terrorist group founded and led by women - and their violent fight against racism, sexism, and what they viewed as Ronald Reagan’s imperialistic vision for America.

An important, groundbreaking book - two decades in work - that tells the story of the unlikely but history-changing 28-year bond forged between Pauli Murray (granddaughter of a mulatto slave who, against all odds, as a lesbian Black woman, became a lawyer, civil rights pioneer, Episcopal priest, poet, and activist) and Eleanor Roosevelt (first lady of the United States from 1933 to 1948 and human rights internationalist) that critically shaped Eleanor Roosevelt's, and therefore FDR's, view of race and racism in America.

For America, the gun is a story of innovation, power, violence, character, and freedom. From the founding of the nation to the pioneering of the West, from the freeing of the slaves to the urbanization of the 20th century, our country has had a complex and lasting relationship with firearms. Now, in First Freedom, nationally syndicated columnist and veteran writer David Harsanyi explores the ways in which firearms have helped preserve our religious, economic, and cultural institutions for more than two centuries.

When the United States government passed the Bill of Rights in 1791, its uncompromising protection of speech and of the press were unlike anything the world had ever seen before. But by 1798, the once-dazzling young republic of the United States was on the verge of collapse. Suddenly, the First Amendment, which protected harsh commentary of the weak government, no longer seemed as practical. So that July, President John Adams and the Federalists in control of Congress passed an extreme piece of legislation that made criticism of the government and its leaders a crime.

With chapters on every woman who’s ever made it to the White House, Secret Lives of the First Ladies tackles all of the tough questions that other history books are afraid to ask: How many of these women owned slaves? Which ones were cheating on their husbands? And why was Eleanor Roosevelt serving hot dogs to the King and Queen of England? American history was never this much fun in school

"Hassler's history will survive as our most detailed narrative of the first day's battle, examining the day's action so minutely that no succeeding historian of Gettysburg will be able to ignore it. Hassler's book has solid virtues in addition to its thoroughness of detail: it offers a persuasive argument that the first day's events largely determined the eventual outcome of the battle...." ( American Historical Review)

Historians still agree about the date of Columbus' voyage. But did this European adventurer discover America? We now know that certain explorers from other parts of the globe set foot on American shores long before 1492: and that others may have done so. And "discovery" takes on a different meaning when the new land already has people living in it.

George Washington may be the most famous American who ever lived and certainly is one of the most admired. But although he has been heavily mythologized, it is no myth that the man who led America's fight for independence and whose two terms in office largely defined the presidency was the most highly respected individual among a generation of formidable personalities. In First and Always, celebrated historian Peter Henriques illuminates Washington's life, more fully explicating his character and his achievements.