Two Lafayettes and One Wild Scheme

In mid-October 1824, a sixty-seven-year-old French visitor arrived in Richmond, Virginia. He had been in the United States since August 15, responding to an invitation initiated by President James Monroe and formalized by a joint resolution of Congress which read, in...

The Story Behind the Story

On April 28, 2026, Britain’s King Charles III visited the United States to join in the 250 th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence which separated 13 North American colonies from the British Empire. By all accounts his visit was a resounding success as he...

The Presidents’ Prayers

            It was June 6, 1944. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, stood on a beach on the Normandy coast of France. Hours earlier the largest armada ever assembled had launched the greatest amphibious invasion in...

Common Bonds of History and Lessons Learned

  Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip – Balcony of the Old State House, Boston, 1776        On July 18, 1776, exactly two weeks after the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence, Colonel Thomas Crafts stepped out onto the second-floor...

The Octogenarian Who Charged Into History

          Writing to newspaperman and publisher Hezekiah Niles in February 1818, former President John Adams asked and responded to his own question. “What do we mean by the American Revolution?” he asked. “Do we mean the American War? The Revolution was effected...

The Ideal v. the Real

        USA250-OC has taken as its basic philosophy a simple but profound observation – that America is the perfect idea: the United States of America is a work in progress. It pits the ideal against the real; principles against human action; the perfect against...