San Francisco doesn’t have a public school named after John C. Fremont, who was court-martialed for mutiny on January 31, 1849. But if it did, it probably would have been on the list of more than 40 schools that the city’s board of education wants to rename. However, San Francisco – and many other places—have […]

Maybe it’s something in the water or perhaps it’s the famous fog but San Francisco, apparently, has a thing for name changes. One hundred and seventy four years ago today, the Alcalde (or mayor) of a hamlet called Yerba Buena changed its name to San Francisco, which already was what the adjacent bay was called.

Another day and another tarnished hero appears in my #stampoftheday annals. This time it’s John James Audubon, the famed ornithologist, naturalist and painter. Audubon, who died on January 27, 1851, appeared on a 3-cent stamp that was one of the 35 picturing “Famous Americans” issued in 1940. As I’ve noted in previous posts while many

How could a stamp issued in 1935 mark the centennial of a state that didn’t officially join the union until January 1937? And could the stamp provide some useful ideas to help Joe Biden manage the pressure of being president? Those are the questions behind today’s #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued in November 1935 that

I haven’t seen the eyes of Isabella Gibbons, which look out from the exterior wall of the new Memorial to Enslaved Laborers at the University of Virginia. But reviewers say they are haunting, in part they are so lightly etched in the stone that they are only clearly visible at dawn and dusk. They also

What are the Argonauts doing on a stamp about the California Gold Rush? I’m asking because today’s #stampoftheday, a classic 3-cent stamp, issued on January 24, 1948 to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the discovery of gold in California, pictures Sutter’s Mill where, it notes, “James W. Marshall’s Discovery Started Rush of Argonauts.” “Argonauts?” I

“I thought this was supposed to be a work of fiction,” a member of my book group wrote just before we met to discuss Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America.” Published in 2004, the book imagines that Charles Lindbergh defeated Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election and, naturally, how that affected a Jewish family

Four years ago today my wife, several neighbors, and I drove to the Alewife MBTA station to take a Red Line train to the Women’s March protest in downtown Boston. Although we tried to get an early start, the station’s lobby already was full of people trying to buy Charlie Cards, go through turnstiles and

Today, three days before Joe Biden takes office, is a good time to take a moment to reflect on one of the more shameful episodes in American foreign policy-the overthrow of the sovereign government of Hawaii on January 17, 1893. To mark that anniversary, the #stampoftheday is a 3-cent stamp, issued in October 1937, that