As the United States lurches towards the end of the Trump Administration, I’m looking forward to a time when our leaders again think about working with the leaders of other countries, particularly other democracies, to advance shared goals. Today’s #stampoftheday – a 2-cent “Nations United for Victory” stamp issued on January 14, 1943 – highlights […]

I grew up singing many of Stephen Foster’s well-known songs, particularly “Oh Susanna,” “Camptown Races,” and “Old Folks at Home” (aka “Swanee River”). But I don’t remember ever thinking about (or being asked to think about) what I was singing, only that they were catchy and fun songs. But I digress and want to go

Of necessity, we distill our stories to the simplest facts. But when we do so we sometimes remove all the things that not only make them worth telling but also obscure the lessons that might be embedded within them. Consider, for example, Joshua Humphreys (who I’m writing about because he died on January 12, 1838).

Happy birthday, Alexander Hamilton! Given all the attention he’s gotten in recent years, I don’t think I can add much to the already rich narratives about Hamilton and his meaning for the 21st century. But I’ll try. As the images of today’s #stampoftheday show, Hamilton – who was an advocate of a strong national government,

If you’re going to wrestle with the weight of American history, Sam Houston is a good place to start. The namesake of the nation’s fourth most populous city, Houston – who is pictured on today’s #stampoftheday, a 5-cent stamp issued on January 10, 1964 – was a key leaders in the decades before the Civil

It is sobering to realize that when he gave the nation’s first-ever State of the Union address on January 8, 1790, George Washington offered 1,089 words, about as many as I used yesterday to discuss Millard Fillmore, the remarkably undistinguished 13th president of the United States. To honor his brevity and wisdom, today’s #stampoftheday is

Today’s #stampoftheday tells the story of an ambitious, xenophobic New Yorker connected with popular conspiracy theories who unexpectedly became president and then turns out to be one of the worst presidents in US history. The president in question is Millard Fillmore, who was born on January 7, 1800 and is pictured on a 13-cent stamp

Today, when violent right-wing fascists have attacked the US Capital, I find it heartening to see that on January 6, 1941, at a time when the Nazis and other fascists controlled most of Europe, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, used his State of the Union address to make a full-throated defense of democracy and freedom. Given

“Peanuts. He did something, probably a lot of somethings, with peanuts.” That, Gene Demby wrote on NPR’s “Code Switch” blog in 2014 was “basically the response I got when I asked people – my friends, folks on Twitter – what they knew about George Washington Carver.” “The details were hazy,” he added. “But folks remembered