"1776" by David McCollough should be part of core curriculum in every US school

[CrusaderFrank]

Because they were listening to your calls in the good old US of A too.......just in case you were making any calls to a cave.

Did Rip Van Winkle wake you with his snoring? The Gubbamint has been monitoring e-traffic since Echelon and Carnivore.

In any event, if you're making a call to a satphone in a cave in Pashtun you should be watched closely.

So a nanny state makes Frank sleep better at night. Duly noted.

Like my old sig line says "If AQ is not free to commit mass murder, are any of us truly free?"

 

[ScottBernard]

I made a horrible mistake in my higher education pursuits.
Should have majored in a hard technical science, and most definitely minored in American history. I just can not get enough of it. Bizarre.
You can only do two things with a history degree. Either become a teacher or a writer. Neither of those prospects interested me in the slightest.
I have not read McCollough's books but that will change. My interests usually go for original texts of the era rather than present day historians. For some reason I just don't trust them.
Now, who can tell me about the "New Jersey Plan" and the "Virginia Plan" in accordance to the Federalist Papers? What is the relevance of John Locke to the framing of the Constitution?

 

[JW Frogen]

You can only do two things with a history degree. Either become a teacher or a writer. Neither of those prospects interested me in the slightest.

Three things, you can become a drunken security guard.

 

[Procrustes Stretched]

The book "1776" should be read by every American student, it is a wonderful fascinating account of the Continental Army and the war effort in that year.

It was a ragtag, undisciplined Army, but an Army of Americans, inventive enough to give Henry Know the go ahead to bring 120,000 pound of cannons from Ft Ticonderoga across lakes and hills down to the Continental Army in Boston.

From soaring moments of victory of the surprise cou de grace of seizing and reinforcing Dorchester Heights in a single night, forcing the British to flee Boston to the humiliating defeats in NY to the surprise attack on Trenton.

It is not a fairy tale, it is a tale of misery, defeat, humiliation interspersed with moments of genius and victory. In short, it is the tale of every human being and I highly recommend it!

And, no, the Hessian were NOT dead drunk celebrating Christmas.

P.S. I grew up in Throgs Neck and one day my brother found a cannon ball in the back yard, its about the size of a baseball and our little heriloom of the British landing there in 1776.