America Legend

Viet Nam may be the only war we ever fought, or perhaps that was ever fought, in which the heroism of the American soldier was accompanied by humanitarianism unmatched in the annals of warfare. And the humanitarianism took place during the heat of the battle. The GI fixed as he fought, he cured and educated and built in the middle of the battle. He truly cared for, and about, those people. What other Army has ever done that? Humanitarianism was America's great victory in Viet Nam.

La cantante folk e attivista sociale argentina, Mercedes Sosa, era un` artista di livello mondiale, la cui influenza andava ben oltre i confini della musica. Nella lista nera come una delle persone più pericolose per il regime in Argentina negli anni `70, diventò il punto di riferimento sotterraneo per i poveri e gli oppressi e un`icona della democrazia che combatté i dittatori del Sud America con la sua voce. Soprannominata ”La Voce dei Senza Voce”, Sosa emerse come leggenda e madre molto amata dell`America Latina.

The US Census Bureau defines the Midwest as consisting of a dozen states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Outsiders often deride the region, and for many who have never been there, America's heartland is just a bunch of "flyover states" with little influence, little history, and little interest.

Gear up for a frightful jaunt into the darkest reaches of the ancient Appalachians. Folk deep within Appalachian hollers lean close to share stories of the inexplicable with hushed awe. Monsters rumbling in the hills. Strange lights darting through the pitch-black night sky. Horrible occurrences, almost ineffable in their bizarre tragedy. "Tall tales," you might say. But tell that to the Flatwoods monster in Braxton County, West Virginia.

American Legends: The Continental Congress chronicles the history that led up to the formation of the First and Second Continental Congress, analyzes what each Continental Congress accomplished while meeting, and analyzes their legacy. You will learn about the Continental Congress like you never have before, in no time at all.

The Founding Fathers have been revered by Americans for over 200 years, celebrated for creating a new nation founded upon the loftiest ideals of democracy and meritocracy. But if the American Dream has come to represent the ability to climb the social ladder with skill and hard work, no Founding Father represented the new America more than Alexander Hamilton.

Over the course of 83 years, Paul Revere was one of the most prominent citizens in Boston, heralded for his silversmith work, his participation in the Sons of Liberty, and his service in the Massachusetts militia. Fathering 16 children by two wives, 11 of whom survived to adulthood, Revere supported his large family by doing everything from dentistry to casting church bells and engraving the most popular image of the Boston Massacre.

The name "Geronimo" evokes a number of different emotions. Those who believed in 19th century America's "Manifest Destiny" viewed Geronimo and all Native Americans as impediments to God's will for the nation. Descendants of people killed by "hostile" Natives certainly considered warriors like Geronimo to be murderers and thieves whose cultures and societies held no redeeming values.

Jim Bowie is one of 19th century America's most famous names, even if what's known about the man is more legend than fact. Like Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett, Bowie has come to represent the pioneering spirit of the frontier, along with the masculinity, machismo, and swagger that earned him a reputation for fighting. And like any good legend, he is perhaps best remembered for his death at the Alamo than for any aspect of his life. Bowie's death and the defenders' defeat at the Alamo, did not have a decisive impact on Texas' War for Independence.

Reagan's name is still relevant in American politics today, with every politician with an R next to his or her name trying to claim Ronald Reagan's conservative mantle. In the Republican presidential nomination debates in 2011, Reagan's name was invoked an average of over five times per debate, more than every other president combined. Meanwhile, Americans of all stripes continue to debate the merits of "Reaganomics" more than 30 years after Reagan was elected.

John Adams was one of his country's seminal Founding Fathers and one of its most experienced, distinguished diplomats and politicians. Few men in American history have a record anywhere near comparable, but one of them happened to be Adams's own son, John Quincy Adams. And yet, few Americans are familiar with him aside from the fact that he was his father's son and the sixth president of the United States.

As one of the most influential men of the 20th century, there is no shortage of adjectives to use when describing Woodrow Wilson's two terms as president of the United States. Wilson was a pioneer of the Progressive movement both before and during his presidency, becoming a populist champion a generation before Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

Before the United States of America even existed, the first American celebrity was Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790). In his career, Franklin was an author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. After having his hand in all kinds of community service in Philadelphia, and inventing important devices like lightning rods, Franklin used his unique status as an international celebrity to become the colonies' best diplomat.

Nathaniel Hawthorne needs no formal introduction for any American who took a literature course in high school. It's impossible to avoid reading one of Hawthorne's classics, particularly The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. Hawthorne could trace his family roots back to the Puritans of the 17th-century colonies, and he was clearly qualified to produce some of America's greatest historical fiction.

Dred Scott was an unlikely candidate to become the impetus and rallying cry of a brand-new political party in the mid-19th century. He was sold to US Army doctor John Emerson in St. Louis, Missouri. Emerson's commission brought him to the Wisconsin Territory in 1836, which was free territory where slavery was illegal. By 1840, Dred Scott had married another slave of Emerson's, and the couple had a child. Desperate to shake off the yoke of slavery, Scott sued for his freedom in Missouri, arguing that once he had entered free territory he could no longer be a slave.

A treasury of imaginative tales including: the Algonquin story of how Glooskap conquered the Great Bull-Frog; "The Meeting of the Wild Animals", a Tsimshian myth; "The Bear Man", a Cherokee legend; and more.

On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of 30 to 130 men boarded the tea ship Dartmouth and two other ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into Boston Harbor over the span of three hours in protest of the Tea Act of 1773. Agreement over what exactly happened ends there, but a number of legends have since popped up and become part of the common narrative. The urban legend that the people who boarded the ship dressed as Mohawks is not entirely true.

In September 1620, about 130 people set sail from Plymouth, England and headed west for a new land and new religious opportunities. Known colloquially as separatists or strangers, the group aimed to establish a new colonial settlement in the New World. But by the end of the following winter, half of them would be dead.

The famous "coonskin" politician was always more than the self-promoted backwoods Everyman. An astute and agile leader, Crockett would come of age during the Creek Wars, and die a hero at the battle of the Alamo in Texas. Today we can distinguish between the legend and the history of Davy Crockett, as we survey the facts of his life and the fantasies of more than a century of stories told in songs, films, and books.

When he died in 1904, most Americans who knew his people's story considered Chief Joseph a military genius and an "Indian Napoleon". This assessment of the Native American leader was based on a 1,500-mile odyssey during which he and his people left their reservation in the hopes of escaping to Canada, where the Nez Percé intended to join Sitting Bull and his Hunkpapa Sioux band. The real Chief Joseph was a gifted speaker and more diplomat than war leader.