In school, we were taught that the colonial settlers were thoroughly admirable — hardy yet devout, hard-working and keen on personal liberty, bringing civilization to an untamed continent. The reality, it turns out, isn’t quite so trim and tidy.
Anthropologists have uncovered strong evidence of cannibalism among the Jamestown settlers. The evidence consists of human remains that appear to date from the “starving time” — the winter of 1609-10, when beleaguered settlers were crowded into a fort and under attack by local Indians. The bones are of a 14-year-old girl who, based upon marks to her skull, appears to have been butchered after she was dead and stripped of meat for the remaining settlers to consume as they desperately sought to stay alive.
Interestingly, there were written accounts of cannibalism that date from the early days of Jamestown, including accounts of starving settlers digging corpses out of the ground to eat their flesh and a crazed husband who killed his pregnant wife and salted her flesh to preserve it for later consumption. Of course, we weren’t taught any of that in our American history classes, but the recent forensic studies serve to corroborate the early written accounts.
So much of what we have learned about America has been air-brushed and sanitized — and for what purpose? Why try to make early settlers into saint-like creatures rather than recognizing that they often acted out of desperation, anger, jealousy, greed, and other base human emotions? No one condones cannibalism, but the true story of Jamestown’s “starving time” tells us a lot more about how far people will go to survive in a desolate wilderness than whitewashed tales of prim colonists praying over tables groaning with food.
The Constitution will leave Boston Harbor tomorrow for a 10-minute deep water cruise under the power of the sails on its towering masts. Its tour will commemorate 
That seems like a lot of money, until you start to think about it. This particular volume was published in 1789, and was prepared specifically for George Washington. George Washington! It’s nice to know that, not only did we once have leaders like George Washington, but they also read and carefully annotated their personal copies of the Constitution. (Of course, the linked article describes the book as being in almost pristine condition, which might mean that George Washington didn’t crack it for leisure reading all that often.)
The Father of our Country beat out Napoleon Bonaparte, Irish leader Michael Collins, Erwin Rommel, the crafty Desert Fox of World War II, and Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, a World War I opponent and the father of modern Turkey, among a number of other candidates.
Fort Sumter, located in the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina — the epicenter of the rebellion — became one of Lincoln’s first challenges. The day after his inauguration, Lincoln received a message from Major Robert Anderson, the commander of the fort’s garrison of less than 100 men, announcing that Fort Sumter was equipped with only six weeks’ supply of food. Anderson’s message presented the new President with an impossible choice. At the time, many southern states — including important border states like Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee — had not yet formally decided whether to secede. If Lincoln withdrew the garrison, wouldn’t that constitute a recognition that the Confederate States were no longer part of the Union and encourage the rebels? And if Lincoln tried to aid the garrison, wouldn’t the confrontation that was likely to result inflame the passions of the citizens of the uncommitted states and throw them over to the Confederate cause?
At 4:30 a.m. on April 12, 1861, the Confederate batteries opened fire. Some citizens of Charleston cheered, others wept and prayed. A few hours later, the Union forces returned fire. The battle continued for more than 30 hours, until buildings inside the fort were aflame and it became clear that restocking the fort would not be permitted. On April 13, Anderson surrendered the fort, and 
There is something terribly final about the death of the last human being to personally experience a war. With Buckles’ passing, we lose the last American who was there during the awful carnage of trench warfare, the horrors of poison gas attacks, and the deadly charges across no man’s land into the teeth of barbed wire, machine gun bullets, and fortified bunkers. No more Americans will be personally tormented by nightmares of the deaths of their comrades during The Great War.
I never met Reagan — although I did watch from the House gallery as he gave one of his State of the Union speeches — and I can’t relate any personal anecdotes about him. I can say, however, that Reagan, more than any other recent political figure, has demonstrated how the judgments of history and hindsight can be radically different from the viewpoints of the moment.
Now some historians are reconsidering Coolidge, who served as President from the death of Warren Harding in 1923 until 1928, and arguing that he should be ranked as one of America’s greater Presidents. A 
I mention Pearl Harbor not merely because today is the 68th anniversary of the bombing, but because I think our national response to the attack is worth remembering. Under President Roosevelt’s leadership, America — which was horribly unprepared for war — geared up for an enormous struggle, fought a two-front war that featured bloody battles on virtually every continent, and eventually forced its enemies to accept unconditional surrender. America did not ask for war, but when war was thrust upon it, it accepted that burden, made the necessary sacrifices, fought the war, and won.
According to the text available on 
