Category Archives: History

Once More into the Breach: Shakespeare, History, and Olivier’s 1944 Henry V.

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Feature Image: Movie poster in Spanish for Laurence Olivier’s 1944 Technicolor adaptation of William Shakespeare’s play, Henry V (1599). Produced in Ireland to serve as a British morale-boosting propaganda tool during WWII, the film achieved global distribution through theatrical releases and subsequent re-releases and is today frequently used in university studies (e.g., Cambridge Core) on cinematic Shakespeare. Photo: “Enrique V” by Kirby York is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Shakespeare’s Henry V was first published in 1600 in a quarto edition and in subsequent editions in 1602 and 1619. A more complete, reliable text was later published in the First Folio in 1623. Photo: “Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories & Tragedies [Title page]” by Boston Public Library is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Henry V in the Regement of Princes, c. 1411–1413. Henry V died in 1422 at the age of 35, likely from dysentery contracted in the unsanitary conditions of his military camp. In his will, he named his brother, John of Bedford, as regent for his infant son, the future Henry VI, who would not be crowned in his own right until 1437. Although the Treaty of Troyes had positioned Henry V to inherit the French crown, he never became King of France; Charles VI outlived him, preventing the succession. His son, Henry VI—often described as gentle, passive, and averse to violence and warfare—proved unable to sustain his father’s hard‑won claims. His authority in France collapsed, and at home he was deposed in March 1461 by the Yorkist Edward IV. A brief restoration in 1470 returned him to the throne, but only for months; Henry VI was permanently deposed and killed in May 1471. Public Domain.

William Shakespeare likely wrote Henry V in spring 1599. The play dramatizes the 28-year-old English king’s campaign to claim the French throne, culminating in his victory at Agincourt on October 15, 1415—a battlefield I visited in 1993, still largely unchanged after six centuries. Henry based his claim on his ancestor Edward III, and his triumph was aided by a France divided by civil war between Burgundians and Orléanists.

At the Battle of Agincourt (1415), roughly 80% of Henry V’s army were longbowmen—an overwhelming concentration of missile power that defined the fight. Henry deployed thousands of archers along his flanks and center, unleashing relentless, high‑velocity arrow storms that tore through the densely packed, heavily armored French ranks. Behind their sharpened stakes, these archers acted as an offensive engine, cutting down waves of advancing knights before they ever reached English lines. The result was one of military history’s most lopsided victories. Estimates suggest 6,000–10,000 French dead—including more than ninety nobles—against only a few hundred English losses. French formations collapsed, morale shattered, and an army that outnumbered the English by as much as six to one simply disintegrated. Agincourt proved that disciplined, trained, often low‑born archers could annihilate superior numbers of elite, armored cavalry. It didn’t just win a battle—it rewrote the rules of medieval warfare. Photo: “Enrique V (3)” by Kirby York is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

Entrée de Jeanne d’Arc à Orléans (“Entrance of Joan of Arc into Orléans”), painted in 1887 by the academic artist Jacques Scherrer (1855-1916), portrays Joan’s triumphant arrival in Orléans on May 8, 1429, after she lifted the city’s siege during the Hundred Years’ War. Her victory set in motion the campaign that culminated in the Dauphin’s coronation as King Charles VII at Reims on July 17, 1429. Public Domain.

Within fifteen years, Jeanne la Pucelle—Joan of Arc—led Orléanist and Armagnac forces to lift the siege of Orléans in 1429. Captured by Burgundians in 1430, she was handed to the English and condemned by their puppet ecclesiastical court before being burned in Rouen. Henry’s 1415 victory enabled the 1420 Treaty of Troyes, which disinherited the Dauphin, named Henry regent and heir to Charles VI, and arranged his marriage to Catherine of Valois, sister of the future Charles VII. On July 17, 1429, after Joan’s visions and military successes, she stood beside the Dauphin as he was crowned at Reims. By 1453, the French had expelled the English entirely from France.

The 1944 Technicolor film follows a performance of Shakespeare’s history play at the Globe in 1603 as it evolves toward a sharper, more realistic style. Laurence Olivier’s bold, experimental film adaptation—directing and starring in the title role—reimagined Shakespeare for the screen centuries after the play’s premiere. The production became a landmark of cinematic Shakespeare, celebrated for its visual flair and Olivier’s command of film technique, especially in the sweeping, meticulously staged battle sequences. (8) William Walton : Henry V : Touch her soft lips and part. Film clips. – YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnQl4Wj8NXc) – retrieved April 23, 2026.

The play Henry V emerged during an intensely creative year for Shakespeare and was likely among the first plays staged at the new Globe Theatre. Though often read as patriotic, it also probes the ethical and personal costs of war, exposing its brutality and questioning the justice of Henry’s campaign. Laurence Olivier’s 1944 Technicolor adaptation transformed the play into wartime propaganda to bolster British morale and later earned recognition as a landmark Shakespearean film. Its iconic score was composed by William Walton.

Henry V starred British actors Laurence Olivier as Henry V and Renée Asherson as Catherine of Valois. Photo: “Enrique V (2)” by Kirby York is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The original Globe Theatre opened in summer of 1599 in Southwark, London, built by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men which was the company William Shakespeare wrote for and part-owned.  It is widely believed that the first play by Shakespeare performed at the Globe was Julius Caesar, likely alongside Henry V and As You Like It. Today’s Globe Theatre in London is the third Globe. see – Globe Theatre | About us | Discover | Shakespeare’s Globe – retrieved April 23, 2026. Photo: “Shakespeare’s Globe” by Werkmens is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

50 years ago today: The Wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (November 10, 1975).

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FEATURE image: Edmund Fitzgerald in 1971. “Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971, 3 of 4 (restored; cropped)” by Greenmars is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

“Gordon Lightfoot” by Original uploader was Piedmontstyle at en.wikipedia is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot began releasing solo albums in 1966. The first six were on United Artists label and sold moderately well (up to 200,000 copies). Switching to Reprise in 1969 his debut album with the label, Sit Down Young Stranger, coincided with his first U.S. hit, If You Could Read My Mind, in 1970 and became Lightfoot’s first Gold album. This was followed by Lightfoot’s second Gold album (Platinum today) and no.1 single both called Sundown in 1974. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – a true story of an ore vessel named after a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, civic leader, that sank in a Lake Superior storm in November 1975 – was Lightfoot’s next big hit appearing on Summertime Dream, a 1976 album that has gone Platinum.1

On November 10, 1975, during basically the colliding of two freshwater storms on Lake Superior, the largest of the five Great Lakes, the SS Edmund Fitzgerald, in service since 1958 and, when launched, the largest ship on the Great Lakes at over 700 feet long, went down into deep waters. For a cargo ship that should have normally expected more decades of service, the sinking caused the loss of its entire crew of 29 men. At 7 p.m. on November 10, 1975, the Fitzgerald radioed another cargo ship, the Anderson, telling them that, despite losing their radar, they were “holding their own.” Shortly thereafter the Fitzgerald was lost.

“File:SS Edmund Fitzgerald wreck.png” by Oaktree b is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Location of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald wreck in Lake Superior approximately 17 miles (27 kilometers) north-northwest of Whitefish Point, Michigan. The ship now rests beneath about 535 feet (165 meters) of water and is considered a protected gravesite.2

Recovery Efforts involved the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard.

“The Bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by TheGreenHeron is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

Whitefish Point, located on the southeastern shore of Lake Superior in Michigan, houses the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which holds memorial events for the SS Edmund Fitzgerald each November. The wreck’s location, being 17 miles north-northwest of the point, places it beyond safe navigation lines, illustrating why the ship never reached shelter that fateful night. On a personal note, I have had the opportunity to visit the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum in Whitefish Point, Michigan that contains the bell from the SS Edmund Fitzgerald recovered in 1995.3

“Edmund Fitzgerald” by jpellgen (@1179_jp) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

The ultimate cause and circumstances of the wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald in Lake Superior remain a mystery, weather conditions surrounding the sinking are well known – extraordinarily severe storm conditions, including 60 m.p.h. winds, towering waves of 25-30 feet, and heavy thick ice, which impacted possible structural vulnerabilities of the large, nearly 20-year-old cargo ship. The exact sequence of the events leading to the sinking are also unknown, as no distress signal detailing mechanical failure was received, so that the wreck has been attributed to adverse weather and lake conditions that impacted the vessel suddenly.4

The disaster, unlike the other hundreds of shipwrecks that have taken place on the Great Lakes, has entered into American mythology with Gordon Lightfoot’s ballad The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, written within a couple weeks after the disaster that same November 1975. Though the song by a bestselling recording artist about a recent shipwreck carried some risk where it was too early to know every fact, the verses are meticulously based on news stories of the basics that were known. By Lightfoot’s 7th studio album, Don Quixote, released in 1972, the Canadian singer-songwriter had begun in earnest to explore nautical themes. The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, released in June 1976 on Lightfoot’s 11th studio album, Summertime Dream, stayed on the same course.

2025 01 06 Record – Gordon Lightfoot 7” by Blake Handley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Summertime Dream was released in June 1976 and peaked at no. 12 on the Billboard 200 (no. 1 on Canada Top Albums). The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald was the album’s second track and, in August 1976, became its second single peaking at no. 2 in the U.S. and no. 1 in Canada.

The song was getting local airplay from the album in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Its popularity led to its release as a single in August 1976 and became Lightfoot’s biggest and most unlikely hit record commemorating the sinking of a transport cargo ship with its lives lost from less than a year before. The six-and-one-half minute folk rock song reached no. 1 in Canada and no. 2 in the U.S. where it was kept out of the top spot by Rod Stewart’s Tonight’s the Night. After the song’s release, Lightfoot never lost contact with the surviving family members of that shipwreck. Gordon Lightfoot, who was born in a town on Lake Simcoe in Ontario, Canada, died less than 90 miles away on Lake Ontario in Toronto in May 2023 at 84 years old.

The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they called Gitche Gumee
The lake, it is said, never gives up her dead
When the skies of November turn gloomy
With a load of iron ore, twenty-six thousand tons more
Than the Edmund Fitzgerald weighed empty
That good ship and true was a bone to be chewed
When the gales of November came early

The ship was the pride of the American side
Coming back from some mill in Wisconsin
As the big freighters go, it was bigger than most
With a crew and good captain well seasoned
Concluding some terms with a couple of steel firms
When they left fully loaded for Cleveland
And later that night when the ship’s bell rang
Could it be the north wind they’d been feeling?

The wind in the wires made a tattle-tale sound
And a wave broke over the railing
And every man knew, as the captain did too
‘Twas the witch of November come stealing
The dawn came late, and the breakfast had to wait
When the gales of November came slashin’
When afternoon came, it was freezin’ rain
In the face of a hurricane west wind

When suppertime came, the old cook came on deck sayin’
“Fellas, it’s too rough to feed ya”
At seven p.m., a main hatchway caved in, he said
“Fellas, it’s been good to know ya”
The captain wired in he had water comin’ in
And the good ship and crew was in peril
And later that night when his lights went outta sight
Came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald

Does anyone know where the love of God goes
When the waves turn the minutes to hours?
The searchers all say they’d have made Whitefish Bay
If they’d put 15 more miles behind her
They might have split up or they might have capsized
They may have broke deep and took water
And all that remains is the faces and the names
Of the wives and the sons and the daughters

Lake Huron rolls, Superior sings
In the rooms of her ice-water mansion
Old Michigan steams like a young man’s dreams
The islands and bays are for sportsmen
And farther below Lake Ontario
Takes in what Lake Erie can send her
And the iron boats go as the mariners all know
With the gales of November remembered

In a musty old hall in Detroit, they prayed
In the Maritime Sailors’ Cathedral
The church bell chimed ’til it rang twenty-nine times
For each man on the Edmund Fitzgerald
The legend lives on from the Chippewa on down
Of the big lake, they call Gitche Gumee
Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early

“Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock” by Detroit District is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

SS Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock, Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan.

“DSC_6472” by Jim Sorbie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

NOTES:

  1. The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll, Third Edition (2001), p. 566.
  2. https://spectrumlocalnews.com/mi/michigan/news/2025/11/10/retired-ap-reporter-helped-cement-the-legend-of-the-wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald – retrieved November 10, 2025.
  3. https://fieldethos.com/wreck-of-the-edmund-fitzgerald/ – retrieved November 10, 2025.
  4. https://www.history.com/articles/edmund-fitzgerald-sinking-lake-superior – retrieved November 10, 2025.

PHOTO CREDITS:

Edmund Fitzgerald in 1971 – “Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971, 3 of 4 (restored; cropped)” by Greenmars is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Gordon Lightfoot guitar – “Gordon Lightfoot” by Original uploader was Piedmontstyle at en.wikipedia is licensed under CC BY 3.0.

map – “File:SS Edmund Fitzgerald wreck.png” by Oaktree b is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

bell – “The Bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald” by TheGreenHeron is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.

mystery – “Edmund Fitzgerald” by jpellgen (@1179_jp) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Summertime Dream album cover – 2025 01 06 Record – Gordon Lightfoot 7” by Blake Handley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

at MacArthur Lock – “Edmund Fitzgerald in MacArthur Lock” by Detroit District is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

lighthouse – PHOTO: “DSC_6472” by Jim Sorbie is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

250th Anniversary: The beginning of the American War for Independence started at the Battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, on the morning of April 19, 1775.

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PUBLISHED APRIL 19, 2025 7pm CT. Feature image: Lexington Minute Man, 1899, by H. H. Kitson (c.1863-1947) stands in Lexington Green west of Boston, Massachusetts. Although called Minute Man, the statue is meant to represent the local Lexington militiaman, colonists of many ages and backgrounds, who volunteered to be first responders to military and other threats. The actual “minute men” was part of an elite subset of militia who were young and fit and able to respond to the greatest danger and challenge. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

At the foot of the minuteman monument, visitors arrive in a steady flow, drawn to this enduring chapter of early American history. The bronze figure, rifle held in the classic Revolutionary‑era stance, recalls the citizen‑soldiers who first stepped forward to defend their towns. According to the National Park Service, the Minute Man National Historical Park—which includes Battle Road and its surrounding historic sites—welcomes more than 1 million visitors each year. see – Tourism to Minute Man National Historical Park contributes $102 million to local economy – Minute Man National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service) – retrieved April 19, 2025.

H.H. Kitson, sculptor of the famed Lexington Minuteman, was born in England and immigrated to the United States as a teenager. After studying art in Paris, he returned to New York in 1884 and moved to Boston two years later, where he established a studio, taught, married one of his students, and raised three children. The monument was commissioned in 1898 for $10,000 by railroad executive and U.S. Congressman Francis Brown Hayes, erected in 1899 facing the route of the British advance, and formally unveiled on April 19, 1900, for the 125th anniversary of the battle. Public Domain. see – https://monuments.freedomsway.org/monuments/minute-man-statue/ – retrieved April 19, 2025.

On April 19, 1775, local militiamen stepped out from Buckman Tavern beside the Lexington common and formed two lines to face the advancing British troops. Their stand resulted in the first casualties of the American Revolution. During our visit, we also learned that the phrase “sleep tight” comes from the rope‑laced frames that supported Colonial‑era mattresses. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Author’s wife on Lexington Green where the first shots of the War of American Independence were fired on April 19, 1775. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Also on April 19, 1775, the British approached the town of Concord where the American colonists sprang into action. After an alarm rider notified minutemen and militia, scouts were sent out to reconnoiter British movements. They heard the cackle of gunfire at Lexington Green and, learning of this martial situation, Concord prepared. The British advanced to Concord and the colonial militia strategically retreated past the North Bridge to watch what the British would do. Meanwhile the colonists were checking on the safety of their own military stores. With Concord effectively in British hands the Regulars moved out to take the town’s two bridges over the Concord River. The South Bridge was taken but the North Bridge proved more problematic. They crossed the bridge but encountered the colonists who had moved past it and into an elevated position. Loyalists in town informed the British where the colonists kept their military stores filled with supplies such as gun powder, cannon, shot, and flour. The colonists had their own intelligence network and had moved these stores to other hidden locations. At a farm where they thought the military supplies to be stored, the British forced a woman who lived there, one Rebecca Barrett, to make them breakfast as they searched the premises. But they found, as the colonists planned, nothing. Although there were kegs of gunpowder stored in the farm next door, the British didn’t go look.

DO NOT FIRE UNLESS FIRED UPON.

Meanwhile, the British held the two Concord bridges and waited for their search party to return. At the same time, the American colonists were getting a better look at their red-coat adversaries. As the Americans held a military council, their growing military presence forced the British who had crossed the bridge to retreat back to it. Armed militiamen were streaming in from several towns and formed a formidable front. As the British were setting fires in downtown Concord, the American colonists could see the flames rising from their position on the high ground. Because of these fires (the British were burning carriages) the Americans decided to march to the North Bridge so to cross into town to prevent the British from burning it down. Fully expecting a confrontation with the British, the militia companies loaded their weapons but were told not to fire unless fired upon. Approximately 400 militia men marched in order by company seniority down towards the North Bridge. There were less than 100 British guarding the bridge. With the coming American militia the British retreated around the bridge and considered this American action as an attack. There were a flurry of orders flying around the field of action to the point of chaos. The British debated marching into the field to meet the approaching Americans. They also debated ripping up the bridge so the Americans could not cross. They finally decided on a firing formation in the street at the base of the bridge.

SHOT HEARD ‘ROUND THE WORLD.

In the chaos the Americans arrived to the bridge. The British fired directly into the group and wounded and killed men. “The balls whistled well,” recalled a militia soldier. One American was shot through the throat. Another under and through the eye. One more through the heart. In a matter of seconds there were six total casualties. The Americans were then ordered:  “Fire, for God’s sake fire!” A hail of bullets was shot into the British. Three were killed and nine wounded.  Many of the British fled towards town. As the Americans chased the British, one militiaman struck a hatchet blow into the head of a wounded British soldier.

The British were quickly reinforced and ordered to march back to the bridge. But there was no more firing. The militia dispersed from the bridge though there was a huge influx of militia coming into Concord from several towns in all directions. The militiamen knew the terrain and its backroads and could converge quickly, directly and stealthily. Though the British asked for reinforcements (1,000 men) from Boston, nothing happened. The British retreated though Concord Bridge marked the beginning of a massive battle that raged over 16 miles along the Bay Road from Boston to Concord, and included some 1,700 British regulars and over 4,000 Colonial militia. see – https://www.nps.gov/mima/north-bridge-questions.htm – retrieved April 19, 2025.

The Minute Man statue of 1875, created by Daniel Chester French (1850–1931), was unveiled on April 19, 1875, during the centennial commemoration of the battles of Lexington and Concord. Set near the site where the first colonial militiamen fell in Concord, the seven‑foot bronze was cast from old Civil War cannons by the Ames Foundry of Chicopee, Massachusetts. Its stone pedestal bears the opening lines of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Concord Hymn, honoring the “shot heard round the world.”
BY THE RUDE BRIDGE THAT
ARCHED THE FLOOD,
THEIR FLAG TO APRIL’S
BREEZE UNFURLED,
HERE ONCE THE EMBATTLED
FARMERS STOOD,
AND FIRED THE SHOT HEARD
ROUND THE WORLD.
https://www.nps.gov/mima/learn/historyculture/the-minute-man-statue-by-daniel-chester-french.htm – retrieved April 19, 2025. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Daniel Chester French (1850–1931) was born in New Hampshire and, at seventeen, moved to Concord to be near Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Alcott family, where he received his first art lessons. After further study in Boston, he was only twenty‑one when he received the commission for The Minute Man. The statue was unveiled to critical acclaim in 1875, though French himself was in Europe studying art at the time. Upon returning to the United States, he worked in studios in Washington, Boston, and eventually New York City. In 1897 he purchased the Stockbridge, Massachusetts estate that became Chesterwood, his longtime home and workspace. Over the following decades, French produced major public monuments in Boston, Cambridge, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., and he is best known today for his Seated Lincoln in the Lincoln Memorial. He is buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord alongside Emerson, the Alcotts, and Henry David Thoreau.
https://www.nps.gov/mima/learn/historyculture/sculptor-daniel-chester-french.htm – retrieved April 19, 2025.

The author stands at the Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, a house on Monument Street with the Concord River just behind it and the North Bridge—now part of Minute Man National Historical Park—beside the property. Built in 1770 for Rev. William Emerson (1743–1776), the home later became central to the Emerson family line: William’s son, minister William Emerson, and his grandson, the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. The elder Rev. Emerson served as Concord’s minister, chaplain to the Provincial Congress in 1774, and later chaplain to the Continental Army; he watched the fighting at the North Bridge from his fields while his family witnessed it from the upstairs windows. Decades later, Ralph Waldo Emerson drafted his foundational essay Nature here, and during his stay in the mid‑1830s he proposed to Lydia Jackson before the couple moved to what is now known as the Emerson House. Author’s collection, July 1989.

John Hancock, 1770, by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) in the Massachusetts Historical Society. Public Domain.

Built in 1738, the Hancock–Clarke House at 36 Hancock Street in Lexington, Massachusetts—less than half a mile from Lexington Green—is the historic residence where John Hancock (1737–1793) and Samuel Adams (1722–1803) were staying on the eve of the Battle of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Samuel Adams, 1772, by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Public Domain. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/30881/samuel-adams?ctx=de17a5dc-0f39-480c-8e84-f4fc92f44030&idx=0 – retrieved April 19, 2025.

John Hancock and Samuel Adams attended the Massachusetts Provincial Congress in Concord on the evening of April 18, 1775, and spent the night in Lexington as guests of Rev. Jonas Clarke (1730–1805). Clarke, a Harvard graduate and Lexington’s pastor since 1755, feared the two leaders might be seized by the advancing British. In Boston, Joseph Warren (1741–1775) dispatched William Dawes (1745–1799) and Paul Revere (1734–1818) to warn them; arriving separately at the Hancock–Clarke House around midnight, both riders delivered the alarm before continuing on toward Concord. Hancock and Adams then left for Burlington, about a half‑hour away by horseback, to ensure their safety. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Old North Church, founded in 1723 as Christ Church, is best known for the night of April 18, 1775, when sexton Robert Newman and vestryman Capt. John Pulling Jr. climbed the steeple to display two lanterns. Their signal—alerting Paul Revere’s network that British troops were crossing the Charles River “by sea” toward Lexington and Concord—set in motion the opening moments of the American Revolution. see – https://www.oldnorth.com/ – retrieved April 19, 2025. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Inside Old North Church, visitors stand only a short walk from Copp’s Hill Burying Ground, where Increase Mather (1639–1723) and his son Cotton Mather (1663–1728) are buried. Both served as Puritan ministers whose era of leadership overlapped with the notorious Salem witch trials. Author’s photograph, July 1989.

Paul Revere, c. 1770, by John Singleton Copley (1738–1815), Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Public Domain. Unlike Copley’s formal portraits of Samuel Adams and John Hancock—both displayed in Boston’s Faneuil Hall—Revere’s portrait was long kept in the Revere family attic, disliked for its informality. After Revere’s fame surged with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1861 poem Paul Revere’s Ride, the painting was restored in 1875, though it was not publicly exhibited until 1928. Revere’s descendants donated it to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1930. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32401/paul-revere?ctx=00d797a8-0c5a-4d78-ba26-db22eb858902&idx=5 – retrieved April 19, 2025.

Author at the Paul Revere House in Boston with a work friend of my dad. March 1976. Author’s collection.

In November 1963 FOR “BILL OF RIGHTS WEEK,” President John F. Kennedy made a short film introduction addressing the nation on the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution that JFK called “the most extraordinary and detailed guarantees of individual liberty that any people on earth now possess.”

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FEATURE Image: “bill of rights day tribute” by Demetrios Georgalas aka brexians is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

On November 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy reminded his fellow Americans of the detailed guarantees of individual liberty found in the Bill of Rights that “perhaps we take for granted but which we are guaranteed in the United States Constitution…” “President John F. Kennedy” by U.S. Embassy New Delhi is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0.

In a letter dated September 24, 1963, Lawrence Speiser (1923-1991), Director of the Washington D.C. Office of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) expressed his encouragement and support to the idea of the President of The United States addressing the nation in that auspicious time and place to commemorate that year’s U.S. Bill of Rights week. The Bill of Rights are the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution that were created on September 25, 1789 and ratified by the states on December 15, 1791. As the president listed in his remarks, they guarantee individual rights and liberties to every citizen including “freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right of assembly and petition, the right of trial by jury, the right to be secure in one’s own home, the protection of due process of law and private property and public trials, and many other things…” President Kennedy agreed to make a two-minute movie trailer for national showing on television and in theaters during “Bill of Rights Week” to be held that year from December 15 to 21.

In his letter, the ACLU Director in Washington, D.C. acknowledged the important relevance of the Bill of Rights in his day as it was when originally written and adopted. Just months since President Kennedy’s June 11, 1963 Civil Rights speech to the nation (https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/historic-speeches/televised-address-to-the-nation-on-civil-rights – retrieved October 26, 2024) which advocated a fundamental support of the civil rights movement for Black Americans, and less than one month since the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the National Mall, ACLU Director Speiser pointed out to Kennedy’s Press Secretary in his letter the significance of the Bill of Rights to these actions: “Certainly the entire civil rights movement today for fair and equal treatment for Negroes has demonstrated the importance of basic freedoms of speech, press, religion and assembly as well as due process of law in attaining that ideal. The August 28th “March on Washington” was a massive demonstration in the time-honored tradition of a peaceable assembly to petition the government for a redress of grievance.”

On November 5, 1963, President John F. Kennedy recorded a short speech for Bill of Rights Day, which is celebrated on December 15. The speech was filmed at the request of the Council of Motion Picture Organizations and was distributed to theaters across the country. 

President Kennedy’s remarks from the Oval Office were filmed on November 5, 1963. They were to be broadcast nationwide in December 1963. A little over two weeks after Kennedy made these remarks, the 46-year-old president was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In President Kennedy’s remarks on Bill of Rights Day he related the history of how the document came to be created and formed: “After the Constitution was written it was felt that while this was an extraordinary document it did not provide the kind of guarantees for our individual liberties that a free country required. Therefore, under the leadership of James Madison, the first 10 amendments were adopted to the Constitution. We call them the Bill of Rights.“

James Madison (1751-1836), who became the 4th president of the U.S. for two terms starting in 1808, introduced the Bill of Rights on June 8, 1789. His amendments contained numerous restrictions on the federal government and would protect, among other things, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and the right to peaceful assembly. While most of his proposed amendments were drawn from the ratifying conventions, Madison was largely responsible for proposals to guarantee freedom of the press, protect property from government seizure, and ensure jury trials. President John F. Kennedy, 35th president of the United States, cited Madison in his remarks to the nation on November 5, 1963. “4 James Madison” by US Department of State is marked with Public Domain Mark 1.0.

The U.S. Bill of Rights comprises the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution adopted in 1791. The Bill of Rights specifically adds to the Constitution specific and detailed guarantees of personal freedoms and rights, clear limitations on the government’s power in judicial and other proceedings, and explicit declarations that all powers not specifically granted to the federal government by the Constitution are reserved to the states or the people. “The Bill of Rights” by eugevon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

President Kennedy pointed to the document’s profound meaning and relevance in the life of the nation – “We, The People.” Despite, or because of, the many struggles in the nation’s history, the Bill of Rights had proved vital and inseparable to the people in America – and mankind – in their guarantee of the sort of life its citizens seek to live and lead. “My fellow American citizens,” Kennedy said, “…They are the most extraordinary and detailed guarantees of individual liberty that any people on earth now possess. Because of the Bill of Rights, we are guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, the right of assembly and petition, the right of trial by jury, the right to be secure in one’s own home, the protection of due process of law and private property and public trials, and many other things that perhaps we take for granted but which we are guaranteed in the United States Constitution…”

“bill of rights day tribute” by Demetrios Georgalas aka brexians is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

50 years ago today: President Richard Nixon Resigns.

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Feature Image: Richard Nixon flashes his double‑V salute as he boards the helicopter moments after his resignation on August 9, 1974. “RICHARD NIXON FAREWELL” by manhhai is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

I was on one of my backpacking canoe trips into Quetico Provincial Park in Canada during the week of Nixon’s resignation on August 9, 1974. Up to that point the political theatre in the nation had been stoked to climax. That summer I was one of the first to get and read a copy of Bernstein & Woodward’s All the President’s Men published in June 1974.

Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s All the President’s Men traced the Watergate story from the June 17, 1972 break‑in through the cascading resignations of April 1973 — including Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman and Domestic Affairs Advisor John Ehrlichman — and culminating in Alexander Butterfield’s July 1973 revelation of the White House taping system. The book reconstructs the political machinery behind the scandal, detailing how two relatively junior reporters uncovered a widening pattern of abuses inside the executive branch. It also pulls back the curtain on the reporting process itself, recounting the behind‑the‑scenes battles over major stories and Woodward’s clandestine meetings with his source, Deep Throat, who helped steer them through a landscape shaped by secrecy, institutional resistance, and the power of the presidency.

The film, All the President’s Men, released in April 1976, was directly based on the 1974 non-fiction book of the same name and starred Robert Redford as Bob Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Carl Bernstein. “All the President’s Men, 1976” by thefoxling is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

In July 1972, Woodward and Bernstein searched the Library of Congress for evidence linking Watergate burglars to White House intelligence operations, yet found nothing after days of searching. Due to this lack of hard evidence, the story was kept off the front page, highlighting the initial lack of support for the investigation. The 1976 film All the President’s Men dramatizes this moment through a high-angle shot, visually emphasizing the pair’s isolation in exposing a massive, government-backed conspiracy.

Since it started in May 1974, I had been watching the congressional hearings as well as reading the newspapers mostly that summer on the fight over the White House tapes. On July 24, 1974 the U.S. Supreme Court in an unanimous decision said Nixon had to surrender the tapes and on July 27, 1974 the House Judiciary Committee voted for articles of impeachment of Nixon. This was coming to a head just days before I was getting ready to set out for a week in the wilderness by way of Madison, Wisconsin and Ely, Minnesota.

Members and staff of the House Judiciary Committee on July 27, 1974. Public Domain. The articles of Impeachment can be found here: https://watergate.info/impeachment/articles-of-impeachment/ – retrieved August 8, 2024.

Canoe trip group, August 8, 1974:

As we paddled, portaged, and set up and broke camp over a beautiful week in the wilderness, we were all aware that something extraordinary was unfolding in Washington. But with no radios or newspapers in the backcountry, we were cut off from the final act of Nixon’s presidency. Only when we returned to Ely, Minnesota for the trip home did we learn that Richard Nixon had resigned — the first, and so far only, U.S. president to do so. I’m standing at the center of the group, wearing the open‑collared green shirt. Author’s collection.

In an evening televised address on August 8, 1974, President Richard M. Nixon announced his resignation to be effective at noon on August 9, 1974. That day Nixon gave a farewell press conference in the East Room in mid morning before scores of White House staff and cabinet members joined by his wife, Pat, and two daughters, Julie and Tricia, with their husbands. Nixon was finally bowing to pressure from the public and Congress to leave the White House.

Portage, Quetico, August 1974: Between lakes and light, the work becomes its own kind of rhythm. Author’s photograph.

I didn’t see Nixon’s resignation speech when it happened. We were still on the canoe trip, deep in the woods, and the world felt very far away. But the next morning, back at the outfitter’s, a small television was on, and I caught his early‑morning press conference. Even then, I thought Nixon’s tone was maudlin and overwrought — a view I still hold, though with time it’s easier to see how skillfully he staged that final bit of melodrama.

In the days and weeks that followed, after years of political combat at the highest levels of government, the country felt both relieved and strangely unmoored, as if the ground had shifted and no one quite knew what came next. That sense of drifting didn’t last long. When President Ford pardoned Nixon on September 8, 1974, the national mood snapped back into focus. By then school had started again for me, and I was back on the football field, trying to keep track of plays and classes while the country tried to make sense of its own upheaval. Politics, like the season, regrouped quickly. The struggle resumed — loud, messy, determined — as if the nation needed that friction to feel like itself again so to make all right in the world by way of that struggle for it.

President Ford announcing his decision to pardon Nixon, September 8, 1974, in the Oval Office. Public Domain.

The author at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library in Yorba Linda, California, June 1994—nearly twenty years after Nixon’s resignation and just six weeks after his death on April 22, 1994, at age 81. Author’s collection.

June 1994. President Richard Nixon’s grave at the Nixon Library in Yorba Linda, California, set beside his childhood home. He is buried here alongside his wife, Pat. Author’s photograph.

Reporting work of Woodward and Bernstein has often been described as “maybe the single greatest reporting effort of all time” (Roy J. Harris Jr., Pulitzer’s Gold, 2007, p. 233). In 1976, the story they broke reached a mass audience through the hit film adaptation of All the President’s Men, with Robert Redford portraying Woodward and Dustin Hoffman as Bernstein. That same year, the two journalists published The Final Days, a sequel I read when it first appeared, which chronicled the collapse of Richard Nixon’s presidency — picking up where their earlier book ended and tracing the unraveling of the administration through its final, chaotic months.

FURTHER READING:

How Robert Redford Made ‘All The President’s Men’ Happen – retrieved Septemeber16, 2025.

The Fireworks of Versailles: How the World’s Most Advanced Pyrotechnics Have Lit the Sun King’s Palace Since the 17th Century.

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Feature image: 18 août 1674: feu d’artifice sur le Canal, 1676, by French Academy designer and engraver Jean Le Pautre (1618-1682). Flamboyant ephemeral architectures were erected at Versailles for a 17th century summer evening on the Canal that forms the base of elaborate pyrotechnics. Public Domain.

When the French Sun King, Louis XIV (reign, 1638-1715) made his decision to build a palace complex at Versailles, surrounded by the greatest gardens and waterworks the world had ever seen, fireworks (feux d’artifices), were an essential part of the grand entertainments which the king put on for the French court and the thousands of visitors who assembled to celebrate for various special occasions.

Louis XIV’s reign fused monarchy with light, a 17th‑century symbol of order, power, and divine radiance. The young king chose Versailles not because the marshy valley naturally suited his vision of a court devoted to spectacle, but because it carried the intimate imprint of his father, Louis XIII — the hunting lodge, the modest garden, the remembered landscape of childhood. What followed was not a palace adapted to its terrain, but a terrain forced to yield to an unprecedented royal design. The site’s limitations were absorbed, reshaped, and ultimately overwhelmed by the scale of the Sun King’s project, turning an unremarkable valley into the stage for absolute monarchy. PHOTO credit: “King Louis XIV, 1638-1715 / Roi Louis XIV, 1638-1715” by BiblioArchives / LibraryArchives is marked with CC BY 2.0.

For the next century, Versailles became the premier stage for royal light shows — vast productions of fireworks, illuminations, and night‑time spectacle. Though fireworks were first invented in China, it was Rome that embraced them in the 14th century and launched Europe’s courtly tradition of celebratory rockets. France quickly followed, importing Italian artists, architects, and pyrotechnic masters whose displays soon surpassed anything on the continent.

A key reason Louis XIV moved his court out of cramped Paris and the Louvre was to gain the space required for these grand outdoor entertainments. At Versailles, the king could stage the full range of divertissements du Roi — not only fireworks and illuminations, but elaborate festivals of music, dance, and theater that turned the gardens into a glowing extension of royal power.

Décoration du feu d’artifice et de l’illumination de la place de Louis XV, à l’occasion de la paix, et la dédicace de la statue équestre du Roi, le 22 juin 1763. Chez Louis-Joseph Mondhare (1734-1799), rue S. Jacques à l’hotel Saumur. Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Estampes et photographie. Public Domain. See – https://www.europeana.eu/en/item/9200518/ark__12148_btv1b8409645h?q=paix%20paris%201763 – retrieved July 14, 2024.

One of Versailles’ most spectacular celebrations came in 1770, when fourteen‑year‑old Marie Antoinette arrived from Austria to marry the heir to the French throne. Louis XV marked the occasion with days of festivities and a guest list numbering in the thousands. The scale was unprecedented: the French Academy of Sciences collaborated with the king’s bureau de Menus‑plaisirs to engineer a display capable of launching 20,000 rockets at once, followed by the coordinated illumination of 15,000 lanterns across the gardens. It was court spectacle elevated to scientific precision — a fusion of dynastic celebration, technological ambition, and the theatrical grandeur that defined Versailles.

Portrait of Archduchess Marie Antoinette, by Swedish-Austrian Martin van Meylens the Younger (1698-1770), c. 1768, Schönbrunn Palace, Vienna. Public Domain.

Les Grandes Eaux Nocturnes de Feu — Versailles’ midsummer night spectacular — turn the gardens into a blazing stage of water, light, music, and fire. A 2½‑hour promenade of illuminated fountains and baroque soundscapes builds toward the “de Feu” climax: monumental flame effects and a full pyrotechnic performance by Groupe F, France’s world‑renowned masters of fireworks.

Even today, crowds stream to Versailles just west of Paris, gathering to watch cutting‑edge pyrotechnics ignite the night above the palace. The modern displays play off the same elements that once dazzled the Sun King: the vast pools, canals, and fountains that mirror every burst of color and amplify the spectacle across the gardens’ sweeping geometry. In these moments, the waterworks and the fireworks merge into a single theatrical composition — a living continuation of the courtly entertainments that defined Versailles at its height.

SOURCES:

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/leading-lights-why-sydneys-nye-fireworks-pale-in-comparison-to-the-pyrotechnics-of-versailles-20161130-gt0dyj.html – retrieved July 11, 2024.

Les Jardins de Versailles, Pierre-André Lablaude, Editions Scala, 1998, pp. 38-39.

Three Films for Memorial Day: The Crossing (2000), Gettysburg (1993) and The (Fighting) Sullivans (1944).

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Memorial Day Ceremony – North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial – May 31, 2010. “Memorial Day Ceremony – North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial – May 31, 2010” by US Army Africa is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

The first national observance of Memorial Day occurred on May 30, 1868 following the U.S. Civil War. Commander in Chief John A. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued General Order Number 11 designating May 30 as a day of memorial “for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet churchyard in the land.” (see – https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/may-30/ – retrieved May 27, 2024). It is a day for visiting cemeteries and memorials to mourn the military personnel who died in the line of duty.

Films, music and literature about the people, places and events in history where military personnel as individuals and as a unit are asked to pay the ultimate price and make the greatest sacrifice for freedom are among some of the greatest stories ever told.

THE CROSSING. The American Revolutionary War (1775-1783)

Directed by Robert Harmon and adapted by Howard Fast from his novel of the same name, The Crossing stars Jeff Daniels as George Washington.

In December 1776 — barely six months after the Declaration of Independence — Washington’s Continental Army was collapsing. Starved of men, artillery, and supplies, the revolution hung by a thread. So Washington made the most dangerous decision of the war: he would gamble everything on a surprise strike at Trenton, where more than a thousand feared Hessian mercenaries held the town.

To reach them, his exhausted army would have to force a night crossing of the ice‑choked Delaware River and march toward what looked like a hopeless fight. Instead, the attack became the stunning, against‑all‑odds victory Washington had scarcely dared imagine.

Washington’s surprise attack on the Hessian garrison at Trenton on December 26, 1776, produced a stunningly one‑sided American victory. The Continental Army suffered almost no combat losses — none killed in action, two men who froze to death during the night march, and only five wounded, including a young James Monroe, later of Monroe Doctrine fame, who took a musket ball in the shoulder.

The Hessians, by contrast, were effectively destroyed as a fighting force: 22 killed (among them their commander, Colonel Johann Rall), 92 wounded, and about 920 captured.

Detail. NYC – Metropolitan Museum of Art: Washington Crossing the Delaware. “NYC – Metropolitan Museum of Art: Washington Crossing the Delaware” by wallyg is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

GETTYSBURG. The U.S. Civil War (1861-1865)

Directed by Ronald F. Maxwell whose screenplay is based on The Killer Angels, a novel by Michael Shaara, Gettysburg starred an ensemble cast including Martin Sheen, Tom Berenger, Jeff Daniels, Stephen Lang and Sam Elliott.

One of the Union army’s most respected senior commanders during the American Civil War was 42-year-old General John F. Reynolds (John Rothman) who was killed on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg at the very start of it. Reynolds was in command of the “left wing” of the Army of the Potomac commanded by Gen. George C. Meade and which included the cavalry division of 37-year-old Brig. Gen. John Buford (Sam Elliott).

Buford had occupied the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, with his “headquarters” atop the cupola of the Lutheran seminary. With light defensive lines he resisted superior numbers of Confederate infantry brigades along the Chambersburg Pike who were blind to the Union Army’s smaller numbers because Major General J. E. B. Stuart had gone missing.

When Reynolds’ I Infantry Corps arrived, he rode out ahead, met with Buford, and then accompanied some of his soldiers into the fighting. As Reynolds was supervising the placement of the 2nd Wisconsin, he shouted: “Forward men! Forward for God’s sake! and drive those fellows out of those woods.” At that moment Reynolds was shot by a sniper and fell off his horse to the ground with a mortal wound to the back of the head.

The death of Reynolds impacted his troops and fellow commanders deeply. At that particular moment, they realized that any one leader (and the Union army had been through several at the top), even if he had the necessary zeal, vision, and sense of purpose, would not be enough to win the fight to save the Union. It must be a coordinated effort. Reynolds, by supporting Buford’s decision to set up defensive resistance as well as engaging his infantry, even in death effectively chose Gettysburg as that hallowed battleground for the next three days.

Since Confederate numbers were superior on that first day, Union troops eventually retreated through town and rallied on Cemetery Ridge where General Meade and Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, with many others, entrenched on the high ground. They faced Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee (Martin Sheen), and Lieutenant Generals Longstreet, Ewell, and A.P. Hill, among others. In the 1993 film, Confederate Major General Henry Heth is played by Warren Burton who was born and grew up in Chicago and attended The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Heth was from a coal mining area near Richmond, Virginia.

At the Battle of Gettysburg the two armies suffered between 46,000 and 51,000 casualties. Union casualties amounted to 3,155 killed, 14,531 wounded, and 5,369 captured or missing. Reynolds’ body was immediately transported to his home-town of Lancaster, PA, where he was buried on July 4, 1863. Buford died 5 months later possibly of typhus in Washington, D.C. and was buried at West Point Cemetery in New York. Like Lincoln, Buford was born in Kentucky and grew up in Illinois (Rock Island). His father was a leading politician, but as a Democrat supported Stephen A. Douglas and opposed Abraham Lincoln.

Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg. “Lutheran Seminary, Gettysburg” by josullivan.59 is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.

THE (FIGHTING) SULLIVANS. World War II (1941-1945)

Directed by Lloyd Bacon based on a story by Edward Doherty, Mary C. McCall Jr., and Jules Schermer, The (Fighting) Sullivans starred Anne Baxter, Thomas Mitchell, Selena Royle, Edward Ryan, John Campbell, James Cardwell, John Alvin, George Offerman, Ward Bond and Trudy Marshall.

Released as The Sullivans in 1944, this 20th-Century-Fox drama film tells the true story of five brothers – George, Frank, Matt, Joe and Al Sullivan – who grew up in Waterloo, Iowa, and who were all killed in World War II when their ship, Juneau, was sunk in combat at Guadalcanal in November 1942.

The film is a tearjerker not so much because it is sentimental but that it is honest. The final scene where the naval officer who recruited the five brothers (Ward Bond) comes to the boys’ house to tell the tragic news to their parents (Thomas Mitchell and Selena Royle) and the youngest brother’s widow (Anne Baxter) and mother of his child is one of cinema’s best conveyances of the price paid in a world war that claimed 420,000 American lives.

Memorial Day Ceremony – North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial – May 31, 2010. “Memorial Day Ceremony – North Africa American Cemetery and Memorial – May 31, 2010” by US Army Africa is licensed under CC BY 2.0.