Best 293 quotes in «american history quotes» category

The Obama administration and the Democratic Congress have taken the biggest lurch to the left in policy in American history. There've been no - no Congress, no administration that has run this far to the left in such a small period of time. And there is a reaction to that.

There's not much place for the loyalists - especially the loyalists who left - in standard American history.

There have been times throughout American history where what is right is not the same as what is legal. Sometimes to do the right thing you have to break the law.

There was a time in American history when almost every white person knew who Aretha Franklin was.

There have been many amazing Presidents in American history, including George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, all of whom I greatly admire.

The whole westward expansion myth is seen as romantic. But its a joke, a blot on American history.

The wort terrorist attack in American history also brought out the best in our country...We are United as Americans.

This is the worst President ever. He [George W. Bush] is the worst President in all of American history.

...Venice has been the living future of contemporary American history since its inception.

The struggle between centralization and decentralization is at the core of American history.

Well, I'm a history buff, anyway. I love learning about different periods, especially in American history. I'm a fan.

We are going to have the candidate of food stamps, the finest food-stamp president in the American history, in Barack Obama, and we are going to have a candidate of paychecks.

$1,200, That was the price of a man in those days. Now you can call him black, or you can call him a slave, but he was a man nonetheless.

A city obsessed by its ghosts seems to be weighted down by a conflicted view of the past. Something close to melancholy: a weight it can't quite let go of, a lingering sadness. And though we don't often think of the United States in these terms, this melancholy is as much a part of our history as our triumphs.

Acknowledging that all our land was stolen from Native people feels like too great a burden, so we create an alternative reality that allows us to disengage emotionally from the truth.

All of these things about America—the independent spirit; freedom and liberty to think, express, and act; the promise of the potential for prosperity—have all been delivered to American citizens by our Founders and Framers, and secured by American soldiers, sailors, and airmen.

America first, Escape from Afghanistan

America is a great country, built by great people - you know what made them great - the spirit of freedom and a disregard for binding tradition.

American whale oil lit the world. It was used in the production of soap, textiles, leather, paints, and varnishes, and it lubricated the tools and machines that drove the Industrial Revolution. The baleen cut from the mouths of whales shaped the course of feminine fashion by putting the hoop in hooped skirts and giving form to stomachtightening and chest-crushing corsets. Spermaceti, the waxy substance from the heads of sperm whales, produced the brightest- and cleanest-burning candles the world has ever known, while ambergris, a byproduct of irritation in a sperm whale’s bowel, gave perfumes great staying power and was worth its weight in gold.

America, the Land of the __________ and the home of the __________? Truth is, you or I haven't a clue. You know I'm right.

Americans owe nothing to any man, they expect nothing from any man; they acquire the habit of always considering themselves as standing alone, and they are apt to imagine that their whole destiny is in their own hands. Thus democracy throws [a man] back forever upon himself alone, and threatens in the end to confine him entirely within the solitude of his own heart.

America, the only America that would endure, I believed now with a conviction as sharp as a knife turning in my breast, did not belong to Judge Thayer, or to Governor Fuller of Massachusetts, or to the President of the United States, who had refused a shoemaker and a fish peddler his word of clemency. The American that lent me its direction forever now was Lola's, and it was Bill Williams, and Mother's and Michael's, and mine; and I knew, with a terrible humility in the presence of their innocence, that it was Saco's and Vanzetti's as well.

A Most Dangerous Hurricane Columbus was aware of dangerous weather indicators that were frequently a threat in the Caribbean during the summer months. Although the barometer had not yet been invented, there were definitely other telltale signs of an approaching hurricane. Had the governor who detested Columbus, listened to his advice and given him some leeway, he could have saved the convoy that was being readied for a return trans-Atlantic crossing. Instead, the new inexperienced governor ordered a fleet of over 30 caravels, laden, heavy with gold, to set sail for Spain without delay. As a result, it is estimated that 20 of these ships were sunk by this violent storm, nine ran aground and only the Aguja, which coincidently carried Columbus’ gold, survived and made it back to Spain safely. The ferocity of the storm claimed the lives of five hundred souls, including that of the former governor Francisco de Bobadilla. Many of the caravels that sank during this horrific hurricane were ships that were part of the same convoy that Governor Ovando, had traveled with from Spain to the West Indies. However he felt about this tragedy, which could have been prevented, he continued as the third Governor of the Indies until 1509, and became known for his brutal treatment of the Taíno Indians. Having taken adequate precautions, Columbus’ ships fared somewhat better in that terrible storm, and survived with only minor damage. Heaving in their anchors, Columbus’ small fleet of ships left Hispaniola to explore the western side of the Caribbean.

An institution rooted in slavery cannot be the voice of our people.

Any fair consideration of the depth and width of enslavement tempts insanity. First conjure the crime--the generational destruction of human bodies--and all of its related offenses--domestic terrorism, poll taxes, mass incarceration. But then try to imagine being an individual born among the remnants of that crime, among the wronged, among the plundered, and feeling the gravity of that crime all around and seeing it in the sideways glances of the perpetrators of that crime and overhearing it in their whispers and watching these people, at best, denying their power to address the crime and, at worst, denying that any crime had occurred at all, even as their entire lives revolve around the fact of a robbery so large that it is written in our very names. This is not a thought experiment. America is literally unimaginable without plundered labor shackled to a plundered land, without the organizing principle of whiteness as citizenship, without the culture crafted by the plundered, and without that culture itself being plundered.

Throughout American history our presidents have invoked our nation's founding fathers. This is particularly true of recent presidents.

When I was in school, all our history books were American, so we learned American history, not Canadian history.

When you have the worst disaster in American history, you've got to be attuned to expectations,.

You know what? I didn't mess up about Paul Revere... In a shout-out, gotcha type of question that was asked of me, I answered candidly. And I know my American history.

A Conspiracy Theory that took hold was introduced by Anthony “Tony” Summers, the respected author of The Kennedy Conspiracy, published in 1980 and again in 1998 as “Not in Your Lifetime.” He believes that anti-Castro activists, funded by Mafia mobsters who had been ousted from Cuba, killed Kennedy. Summers believes that members of the CIA took part in this conspiracy and named the people he suspected. Summers also stated in an article published in the National Enquirer magazine, on October 25, 2013, that Lee Harvey Oswald didn’t act alone. The National Enquirer stated that Herminio Diaz, born in Cuba in 1923, had, in 1948, shot Pipi Hernandez, who was a Dominican exile employed at the naval base at Guantanamo. This killing took place at the Cuban Consulate in Mexico. In 1957, he was involved with an assassination attempt against President José Figueres of Costa Rica, who incidentally was a trained Army Ranger and a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point. According to JFKFacts published on May 27, 2014, General Fabián Escalante, the historian of Cuban State Security and Castro’s former bodyguard, said that the assassin Herminio Diaz, along with Eladio del Valle and three American mobsters: Richard Gaines, Lenny Patrick, and Dave Yara, were the shooters at Dealey Plaza.

A government offering such bounty to builders and lenders could have required compliance with a nondiscrimination policy. Instead, the FHA adopted a racial policy that could well have been culled from the Nuremberg laws.

Agustín Parlá Orduña was among the early Cuban aviation aces. He was born in Key West, Florida, on October 10, 1887, and received his early education there. After Cuba was liberated from Spain, the family returned to Havana, where he continued his education. On April 20, 1912, he received his pilot’s license at the Curtiss School of Aviation in Miami. On July 5, 1913, when the Cuban Army Air Corps was formed, Agustín Parlá was commissioned as a captain in the Cuban Armed Forces. On May 17, 1913, Domingo Rosillo and Agustín Parlá attempted the first international flights to Latin America, by trying to fly their airplanes from Key West to Havana. At 5:10 a.m., Rosillo departed from Key West and flew for 2 hours, 30 minutes and 40 seconds before running out of gas. He had planned to land at the airfield at Camp Columbia in Havana, but instead managed to squeak in at the shooting range, thereby still satisfactorily completing the flight. Parlá left Key West at 5:57 in the morning. Just four minutes later, at 6:01 a.m., he had to carefully turn back to the airstrip he had just left, since the aircraft didn’t properly respond to his controls. Parlá said, “It would not let me compensate for the wind that blew.” When he returned to Key West, he discovered that two of the tension wires to the elevator were broken. On May 19, 1913, Parlá tried again and left Key West, carrying the Cuban Flag his father had received from José Martí. This time he fell short and had to land at sea off the Cuban coast near Mariel, where sailors rescued him from his seaplane.

Although, approximately 2,800 of the Kennedy assassination documents have been released, only 52 files have not been previously seen. It comes as no surprise that President Trump held up releasing the remaining files, stating that his decision was reached on the advice of the CIA and the FBI. After over a half century, President Trump cited national security as the reason for the hold up and granted an additional 6 months for the Federal Agencies to review hundreds of documents, which will now be held back until March 12, 2018. The new release date is set for April 26, 2018. In a memo expressing his concerns raised by the intelligence officials, Trump wrote: “I am ordering today that the veil finally be lifted however, I have no choice but to accept those redactions rather than allow potentially irreversible harm to our nation’s security.” Journalists are poring over the documents but it will take some time before the released papers, many of which were hand written, will fully be understood. The concerns expressed, include Lee Harvey Oswald’s trip to Mexico City where he met with Cuban and Soviet Intelligence Agencies. Although Administration officials said that there is no cover-up and that the delay is just an effort to avoid compromising national security, suspicions that the government is covering up secrets about the case are bound to reappear. Most Americans still believe that someone other than Oswald must have been involved in the assassination and this delay in releasing all the documents just fuels the fire.

Although this may have been just another lie, his luck held out and two days later in the early hours of October 12, 1492, Juan Rodríguez Bermeo, the lookout on the Pinta, spotted a light and alerted the other ships by firing the signal cannon. Captain-General Juan de la Cosa, the owner of the Santa Maria, woke Columbus to notify him of this sighting. Rubbing his eyes, Columbus stated that he had seen the light a few hours earlier, thereby claiming in a rather unethical way, a lifetime pension for being the first man to sight land. When they went ashore later that day, Columbus named the island San Salvador. He mistakenly thought that he had arrived in the “Indies,” an early name for Asia, and thus named the indigenous natives “Indians.” Anthropologists believe that the first natives Columbus encountered on the island were Lucayan-Arawak Indians. In Columbus’ logbook, he noted that they had little knowledge of fighting and that they did not wear clothes. Apparently, they were exceptionally clean and washed themselves frequently. Although leery of Columbus and the scruffy newcomers with him, they were very polite and perhaps somewhat fearful of them. It was noted that the women stayed in the background and did most of the work around the village, whereas the men did the fishing. In contrast to these polite people, the members of Columbus’ crew were a rough and crass lot.

As the bus headed into the night, I noticed that the bench seat in the back of the bus was vacant. So I took my blanket and pillow, made my way to the back and stretched out. Rumbling along I was vaguely aware of the stops we made, but the night passed quickly. Eventually it started getting light outside, but looking around I saw that most people were still sleeping, including a Negro woman wearing a Navy uniform. She was a WAVE and must have boarded the bus sometime during the night. I had no idea where we were, but it didn’t matter as long as we were heading west. Slowly the passengers woke up and looked around, including the young Negro lady. I never had a problem talking to people, so, striking up a conversation, I discovered that she was going home to Oklahoma City. I told her about being a cadet at Farragut and that I was now heading to California for the summer. Time always goes faster when there is someone to talk to and we had the entire back of the bus to ourselves. The first inkling that something was wrong came when we got off the bus for a rest stop in Little Rock, Arkansas. The driver told me that it wasn’t fitting to sit in the back of the bus with a Negro. I was dumbfounded, and coming from the North, I didn’t understand. I tried to explain that this woman was wearing the uniform of her country, but it didn’t make any difference. That’s just the way it was in the South! We ran into the same kind of bigotry in the diner at our next rest stop, but before I could make an issue out of it, she hushed me up and explained that she just wanted to go home and didn’t need any problems. The two of us sat in the section for “Negroes Only,” where they served her but not this white boy, which is what I was called, along with other derogatory remarks. Never mind, I shared her sandwich and I guess they were just glad to get rid of us when we boarded the bus again. Behind me, I heard someone say something about my being a “nigger lover”.... Big as life, I sat in the back again! This time no one said anything and everything seemed forgotten by the time she got off in Oklahoma City. Another driver came aboard and took over. Saying goodbye to my friend, I got up and moved back to the seat I had had originally -- the one over the big hump for the rear tires!

A total of 779 prisoners have been held at Guantánamo since the facility was opened on January 11, 2002. Of those, 8 have died and 637 have been released or transferred. This left 134 inmates at Guantánamo at the end of 2014, however the number is constantly changing and as of January 2015 the official number of inmates remaining at the Guantánamo detention center was 127. Of these 127 detainees, 55 have been cleared for repatriation and are listed as being eligible to be transferred out. Some of the restrictions regarding the transferring of these prisoners have now been lifted, so they may be sent back to their home countries, provided those countries agree and are able to keep an eye on them. There are still problems regarding some of the more aggressive prisoners from countries that do not want them back. However, recently five of them were sent to the countries of Georgia and Slovakia. Another six detainees were flown to Uruguay over the weekend of December 6, 2014. There still remains a hard core of prisoners left incarcerated at the prison, for whom no release date or destination is scheduled. It is speculated that eventually some of them will come to the United States to face a federal court. Clifford Sloan, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy was tasked with closing the prison, said, “We are very grateful to Uruguay for this important humanitarian action, and to President José “Pepe” Mujica, for his strong leadership in providing a home for individuals who cannot return to their own countries.” Sloan added, “This transfer is a major milestone in our efforts to close the facility.” The question now is what will happen next under the Trump Administration? Presently there are still 41 men left, 15 of which are considered high value detainees. Five were to be moved out to cooperating countries during the Obama Administration but things happened too slowly and unfortunately they remained at Guantánamo. As of now the Trump plans are unclear, other than him saying that he wants to keep the detention center open and “load it up with some bad dudes.” Assuming that this happens, it is certain to bring on international protests!

At the top of the Palisades in Weehawken, New Jersey is a small park known as the Dueling Grounds. This Revolutionary War site, overlooking New York City to the east, and what had been Half Moon Bay to the north is where Alexander Hamilton, a founding father of the United States, was mortally wounded by a single shot from Aaron Burr’s dueling pistol on the morning of July 11, 1804. He died the following day in Greenwich Village, across the river in New York City. The duel was because Hamilton, the former secretary of the treasury, interfered with Aaron Burr’s bid for the presidency of the United States and again, by successfully opposing his candidacy for governor of New York. Burr’s vindictive retaliation cost Hamilton his life.

Besides the moral courage required to accept commissions in the Fifty-fourth at the time it was organizing, physical courage was also necessary, for the Confederate Congress, on May 1, 1863, passed an act, a potion of which read as follow: - Section IV. That every white person being a commissioned officer, or acting as such, who, during the present war, shall command negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare negroes or mulattoes for military service against the Confederate States, or who shall voluntarily aid negroes or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or conflict in such service, shall be deemed as inciting servile insurrection, and shall, if captured, be put to death or be otherwise punished at the discretion of the Court.

Between 1882 and 1968, more black people were lynched in MIssissippi than in any other state.

I was on one of my world 'walkabouts.' It had taken me once more through Hong Kong, to Japan, Australia, and then Papua New Guinea in the South Pacific [one of the places I grew up]. There I found the picture of 'the Father.' It was a real, gigantic Saltwater Crocodile (whose picture is now featured on page 1 of TEETH). From that moment, 'the Father' began to swim through the murky recesses of my mind. Imagine! I thought, men confronting the world’s largest reptile on its own turf! And what if they were stripped of their firearms, so they must face this force of nature with nothing but hand weapons and wits? We know that neither whales nor sharks hunt individual humans for weeks on end. But, Dear Reader, crocodiles do! They are intelligent predators that choose their victims and plot their attacks. So, lost on its river, how would our heroes escape a great hunter of the Father’s magnitude? And what if these modern men must also confront the headhunters and cannibals who truly roam New Guinea? What of tribal wars, the coming of Christianity and materialism (the phenomenon known as the 'Cargo Cult'), and the people’s introduction to 'civilization' in the form of world war? What of first contact between pristine tribal culture and the outside world? What about tribal clashes on a global scale—the hatred and enmity between America and Japan, from Pearl Harbor, to the only use in history of atomic weapons? And if the world could find peace at last, how about Johnny and Katsu?

Born into a world, beautiful. Landing in a terra firma of mud. A mind, innocent. A mind, free. That innocence corrupted. A life, having not taken a thousand breaths, torn asunder by the hardened teeth guiding this nation. Stand? For what?

Born on January 17, 1706, he inhabited this planet until April 17, 1790. His talents were many and he was known to be a polymath. Being a politician and a “Founding Father of the United States” was just one of what he was known for. An author, printer, inventor and freemason he is known to have invented the Franklin stove and bifocal eye glasses. He published the Pennsylvania Gazette and the Poor Richard’s Almanac. A founder of the University of Pennsylvania he also served as the first United States Ambassador to France and Governor of Pennsylvania. About 20,000 people attended his funeral. He was interred in Christ Church Burial Ground in Philadelphia near the fence so that he could be close to where the ladies walked. His wit and sharp mind gave us many of his quotes!

Born John Paul in Arbigland, Scotland on July 6, 1747, he started his seagoing career as an apprentice aboard the sail ship Friendship, commanded by Captain Benson. Paul sailed aboard British merchant ships as well as slave ships and there was even talk that he was even engaged in piracy. Up until now Paul sailed as a watch standing mate, but became the master of the Brig John after the Captain and Chief Mate died of yellow fever. On his second voyage as captain he had one of his seamen flogged so viciously that the man died. This led to his arrest; however he was later released on bail. John Paul skipped bail and left Scotland sailing as Captain on an English ship that had 22 guns, but again ran into trouble when he killed another seaman in a dispute over wages. With this he fled to Fredericksburg, Virginia leaving everything behind. To avoid capture he changed his name by tacking the name Jones onto his given name and joined the American Continental Navy. In December of 1775, now known as John Paul Jones and with the help of some political friends, Jones was commissioned a Lieutenant aboard the 24-gun frigate Alfred. Less than a year later he became the Captain of the Alfred.

But when they brought Sabira out, the crowd parted almost magically. A sea of hands rose faster than a swell and a bidding war commenced, amongst these civilized gentlemen who made their living off the backs of slaves.

Captain Joseph Frye One of the nicest parks in present day downtown Tampa, Florida, is the Cotanchobee Fort Brooke Park. The 5-acre park, which lies between the Tampa Bay Times Forum (Amalie Arena) and the mouth of the Hillsborough River at the Garrison Channel, is used for many weddings and special events such as the dragon boat races and the duck race. Few people give thought to the historic significance of the location, or to Captain Joseph Frye, considered Tampa’s first native son, who was born there on June 14, 1826. Going to sea was a tradition in the Frye family, starting with his paternal great-grandfather Samuel Frye from East Greenwich, Rhode Island, who was the master of the sloop Humbird. As a young man, Joseph attended the United States Naval Academy and graduated with the second class in 1847. Starting as an Ensign, he served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Navy until the Civil War, at which time he resigned and took a commission as a Lieutenant in the Confederate Navy. The Ten Years’ War, also known as “the Great War,” which started in 1868 became the first of three wars of Cuban Independence. In October 1873, following the defeat of the Confederacy and five years into the Cuban revolution, Frye became Captain of a side-wheeler, the S/S Virginius. His mission was to take guns and ammunition, as well as approximately 300 Cuban rebels to Cuba, with the intent of fighting the Spanish army for Cuban Independence. Unfortunately, the mission failed when the ship was intercepted by the Spanish warship Tornado. Captain Frye and his crew were taken to Santiago de Cuba and given a hasty trial and before a British warship Commander, hearing of the incident, could intervene, they were sentenced to death. After thanking the members of his crew for their service, Captain Frye and fifty-three members of his crew were put to death by firing squad, and were then decapitated and trampled upon by the Spanish soldiers. However, the British Commander Sir Lambton Lorraine of HMS Niobe did manage to save the lives of a few of the remaining crewmembers and rebels.

Carleton took issue with Steck’s advocacy on behalf of Natives and embarked on a campaign with military leaders on Capitol Hill that eventually forced Steck out of his job.

Castine predates the Plymouth Colony by 7 years and, being one of the oldest settlements in America, has a rich history. Founded during the winter of 1613 as Fort Pentagöet, named after the French Baron of Pentagöet, Castine is located in eastern Maine or “Down East,” as it is now popularly called. During much of the 17th and 18th centuries, the French Parish of Acadia included parts of eastern Quebec and the Maritime Provinces. The pine-forested land of French controlled Maine extended as far south as Fort Pentagöet and the Kennebec River. That same year, 1613, English Captain Samuel Argall raided Mount Desert Island, the largest island to be found in present-day Maine, thus starting a long-running dispute over the boundary between French Acadia and the English colonies lying to the south. In 1654, Major General Robert Sedgwick led 100 New England volunteers and 200 of Oliver Cromwell's soldiers on an expedition against French Acadia. Sedgwick captured and plundered Fort Pentagöet and occupied Acadia for the next 16 years. This relatively short period ended when the Dutch bombarded the French garrison defending Penobscot Bay and the Bagaduce River, thereby dominating Castine in 1674 and again in 1676. It was during this time that they completely destroyed Fort Pentagöet. After the Treaty of Breda brought peace to the region in 1667, French authorities dispatched Baron Jean-Vincent de Saint- Castin to take command of Fort Pentagöet. The community surrounding the fort served as the capital of this French colony from 1670 to 1674, and was named Castine after him.

Chebeague Island is the largest of the islands in Casco Bay, near Portland Maine. Everyone knew everybody else on the island, and if they were not related, they were friends, or at the very least knew everything there was to know about each other, including what they had in their stew pot at any given time. Most of the islanders, including the Kimberly family, were descendants of the “Stone Sloopers.” On Chebeague Island they built three wharves. The Stone Wharf, or Hamilton Landing as it was known, is still in use today. The one masted sloops, sometimes known as Chebacco Boats, sailed along the rocky Maine coast transporting granite and stone from Maine’s coastal quarries, to east coast cities as far south as Chesapeake Bay. The Washington Monument and many of the governmental buildings in Washington, D.C., were built of granite brought up the Potomac River by the Stone Sloopers. During the 19th Century, they also supplied rock ballast for the sailing ships that came into New England ports. The Stone Sloopers are also remembered for building Greek revival homes, which can still be seen on the island.

[Clyde Ross] was stationed in California. He found that he could go into stores without being bothered. He could walk the streets without being harassed. He could go into a restaurant and receive service.

Cohorting with a foreign power to overthrow the government or purposely aiding the enemy is an act of Treason!