When the journalist Ernie Pyle was killed on April 18, 1945, during the battle of Okinawa, President Truman said: “No man in this war has so well told the story…
One of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) finest products is a radio show called “In Our Time.” Until recently, it was hosted by a Jack-of-all-intellectual-trades named Melvyn Bragg who, each…
On November 2, 1965, John Lindsay became the first Republican elected Mayor of New York City since Fiorello La Guardia in 1941 and the last until Rudolph Giuliani in 1993.…
In summer 1945, Japan’s war in China — which had consumed an estimated 20 million Chinese lives since 1937, the true beginning of World War Two — raged on. So…
Next Tuesday, it will be 80 years to the day since Japan officially surrendered and World War Two came to an end. Records show that 304,100 Minnesotan men and women…
In 1964, Lyndon Johnson was elected president with 61.1% of the popular vote, the highest share for any candidate since 1824. With this mandate, he enacted his Great Society program,…
Today is Minnesota Statehood Day, celebrating our state’s admittance to the union as the 32nd state 167 years ago. Over the last few years, I’ve written a number of articles…
On this day 160 years ago, Confederate General in Chief Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia surrendered to the Union Army of the Potomac under the Commanding General of the United States Army, Ulysses S. Grant.…
In the Winter 2024 issue of our magazine Thinking Minnesota, I wrote about the “Minnesota Miracle” of 1978 which saw, among other outcomes, the election of a tied state House,…
I write occasional articles about Minnesota’s history for our magazine, Thinking Minnesota. In the course of doing so, I often write more material than I have room for, as was…
A couple of years ago, for the centenary of the March on Rome that brought Mussolini to power in Italy, I had a stab at answering that tricky old question,…
On Wednesday, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan tweeted: The Pioneer Press article she retweeted explains: After a several-month consultation process, the Minnesota Historical Society has agreed to return the “Mankato hanging…
The bill Alpha News reports: Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation this week to establish an advisory council that would examine a possible reparations program. Introduced in the last days of the…
In the year to June, the Consumer Price Index increased by 9.1%, “the largest 12-month increase since the period ending November 1981.” Back then, the rate was declining from its…
As Americans celebrate Independence Day, there is renewed debate about the nature of that independence and of the men who declared it. The column below from the late Walter Williams…
In July 1921, the United States emerged from a depression. Though the economic statistics of the time were rudimentary by modern standards, the numbers confirm that it had been bad. By…
100 years ago today, and 142 years after the Declaration of Independence, American and British troops fought together for the first time at Hamel, in France. In the century since…