22 POSTS.
FEATURE image: Paul Revere, c. 1770, by John Singleton Copley (1738-1815) in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. Public Domain. Unlike Copley’s portraits of Samuel Adams and another of John Hancock, both of which were displayed in Boston’s Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere’s portrait was relegated to the Revere family attic, disliked by his family after his death for its informality. With Paul Revere’s fame assured following the publication of “Paul Revere’s Ride,” a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) in 1861, the painting was restored in 1875 though not publicly displayed until 1928. It was given to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1930 by Revere’s descendants. https://collections.mfa.org/objects/32401/paul-revere?ctx=00d797a8-0c5a-4d78-ba26-db22eb858902&idx=5 – retrieved April 19, 2025. 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. | CORRIDORS: The Blog.
Beginning of the end of a life of violent crime: the story of John Dillinger’s first hideout in Chicago at 3512 North Halsted on March 3, 1934, to his being killed at the Biograph Theater on July 22, 1934, by the FBI.
FEATURE IMAGE: On March 3, 1934, John Dillinger (left in a mug shot) used the second floor of this three-flat building on Chicago’s north side as his first hide out after he and another criminal, murderer Henry Youngblood, drove directly here from a jail in Crown Point, Indiana following their break-out. In January 1934 Dillinger…
50 years ago today: The Wreck of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald (November 10, 1975).
FEATURE image: Edmund Fitzgerald in 1971. “Edmund Fitzgerald, 1971, 3 of 4 (restored; cropped)” by Greenmars is licensed under CC BY-SA 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…
Jazz-Age WEDDING DRESS with high skirts and sleeveless blouses, was flapper style à la mode and believed risqué. On June 7, 1924, Noling-Anderson nuptials took place in the bride’s family home at 1035 Ridge Avenue in Evanston, Illinois. The house still stands today.
Feature Image: On Saturday, June 7, 1924, Ruth M. Anderson was married in this sleeveless wedding dress (left) to William Noling in Evanston, Illinois. The dress is now on display in the Charles Gates Dawes House in Evanston. Dawes was Vice President of the United States from 1925 to 1929 under President Calvin Coolidge. Author’s…
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.
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.…
BELOVED HOMETOWN OF PRESIDENT RONALD REAGAN (1911-2004): DIXON, ILLINOIS.
Feature Image: June 2017. 4.37mb DSC_0785. The statue of Ronald Reagan by American sculptor Donald L. Reed in DIxon, Illinois, was dedicated on August 14, 2009. It is based on a photograph of Reagan when he visited Dixon in 1950 and rode a horse through its streets in a parade. The statue itself is nine…
BLOG PAGE FOR JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), 35th U.S. PRESIDENT.
FEATURE image: Portrait of President John F. Kennedy. “President John F. Kennedy” by U.S. Embassy New Delhi is licensed under CC BY-ND 2.0. On January 3, 1960—just one day after launching his historic campaign for the Democratic nomination—Senator John F. Kennedy sat down for a special broadcast of NBC’s Meet the Press. His entry into the race immediately…
Bessie Coleman, First Black Woman Licensed Aviator and Pioneering Civil Rights Figure, Born on This Day in 1892
FEATURE image: Contemporary poster of American aviator Bessie Coleman (1892-1926) along Bessie Coleman Street in the Gateway Gardens district at Frankfurt Airport in Germany. PHOTO CREDIT: DSC06136 Frankfurt Flughafen Gateway Gardens Bessie-Coleman-Straße” by X-angel is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Early Life in Texas Bessie Coleman, the first licensed Black female aviator, was born on January 26, 1892,…
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.”
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…
2024 & THE CALIFORNICATION OF EVERYWHERE, U.S.A.
FEATURE Image: “California” by Thomas Hawk is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0. Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris supporter in 2024. Author’s photograph. Sept 2024 8.96mb California as National Vanguard San Francisco Democrat and longtime U.S. House Representative Nancy Pelosi recently told Bill Maher on Real Time With Bill Maher (HBO) that California “is always in…
50 years ago today: President Richard Nixon Resigns.
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…
THOMAS PAINE (1737-1809), Author of “Common Sense” (1776) and “The Rights of Man” (1791), American revolutionary and founder, political theorist and writer, French revolutionary, philosopher.
FEATURE Image: Thomas Paine, by engraver William Sharp (1749-1824), after portrait painter George Romney (1734-1802), 1793. NGA, London. Public Domain. See – https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw35502/Thomas-Paine?LinkID=mp03422&search=sas&sText=thomas+paine&role=sit&rNo=6 – retrieved June 1, 2024. With the capture of Manhattan, British Army Commander in Chief William Howe sent Cornwallis to pursue Washington into New Jersey just sixty miles north of Philadelphia. Washington’s…
Rev. C.T. VIVIAN (1924-2020). American minister, author, and civil rights leader.
FEATURE image: Rev. C.T. Vivian. PHOTO: CC BY-SA 4.0 Rev. C.T. Vivian died on July 17, 2020 at 95 years old. Rev. Vivian was born in Boonville, Missouri, and migrated as a child with his mother to Macomb, Illinois. Rev. Vivian grew up to attend Western Illinois University (WIU) in Macomb, Illinois, where he worked as…
Watching U.S. PRESIDENTS.
FEATURE Image: “White House” by Diego Cambiaso is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0. “The advent of the new president changed everything. The Roosevelts transformed the White House as completely as the swift march of public thoughts and events had changed the country. No longer did the Executive Mansion resemble a medieval castle besieged by the forces of progress.…
August 28, 1963: the 72-minute MEETING AT THE WHITE HOUSE OF CIVIL RIGHTS LEADERS WITH PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY following the historic March On Washington for Jobs and Freedom.
FEATURE image: Civil Rights March on Washington, D.C. (Leaders of the march posing in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln, Lincoln Memorial.) by Rowland Scherman (b. 1937), for the U.S. Information Agency. Press and Publications Service. Public Domain/U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Sensing a national breakthrough for civil rights, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther…
CHIEF JOSEPH (c.1840-1904), Nez Percé leader.
FEATURE image: Portrait of Chief Joseph in native dress with ornaments, 1900, by Lee Moorhouse (1850–1926). Public Domain. INTRODUCTION. by John P. Walsh Joseph (1840-1904) was the leader of one of the Nez Percé tribes. The band amounted to about 200 people who lived in the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon. White settlers wanted their grazing…
UNITED STATES. Henry Miller (1891-1980), Author.
FEATURE image: Henry Miller, photographed by Carl Van Vechten, 1940. Public Domain. This work is from the Carl Van Vechtan Photographs collection at the Library of Congress. According to the library, there are no known copyright restrictions on the use of this work. As the restrictions on this collection expired in 1986, the Library of Congress…
MICHAEL BLOOMBERG (b. 1942). American businessman and politician.
FEATURE image: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “File:Mayor Michael Bloomberg (cropped).jpg” by Rubenstein is licensed under CC BY 2.0. Michael Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, and author. He is the CEO and majority owner of Bloomberg L.P, which he co-founded. Bloomberg was the mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013. His tenure was marked by…
UNITED STATES. LEE MILLER (1907-1977), Photographer, Surrealist, and Aesthete, Part 1: the Poughkeepsie years, 1907-1925.
FEATURE image: The Millers in 1920. Lee, Erik, Theodore, Florence and John. The Millers, Theodore, Elizabeth Lee, Erik, John and Florence, in 1923. By John P. Walsh In the first decades of the twentieth century it became increasingly common practice for established American families to reflect and display their personal lives as well as social…
Politics of Inclusion: ROBERT F. KENNEDY, 50 years Later (1968-2018).
FEATURE image: “‘Some men see things as they are, and say ‘Why?’ — I dream of things that never were, and say, ‘Why not?”” by gwilmore is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. PHOTO CREDIT: “No Known Restrictions: Robert Kennedy Speaks to Civil Rights Demonstrators at Justice Department by Warren K. Leffler, 1963 (LOC)” by pingnews.com is marked with CC PDM 1.0. By John…
UNITED STATES. Former Miss Denmark to Playboy Model DANE ARDEN (ELSA SØRENSEN) poses as a carhop in a 1950’s Glamour Photograph. Historical Context.
FEATURE image: “Galaxy Carhop” by JackAZ Photo is marked with CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. By John P. Walsh Dane Arden (1934-2013) was an international magazine model in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She was born Elsa Sørensen on March 25, 1934 in Copenhagen, Denmark. Following her win of the title of Miss Denmark as a teenager she went to live with…
INTERNATIONAL CRISES ACROSS A NUCLEAR AGE: On Donald Trump’s North Korea Crisis (2017) and John F. Kennedy’s Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).
FEATURE image: Hawker-Siddeley Blue Steel was started privately in 1954. A contract was placed in 1956 for a stand-off missile to carry a thermonuclear device with a 1 megaton yield by the British Ministry of Supply. Blue Steel was powered by two Armstrong Siddeley Motors that were ignited on launch and enabled the missile to…
WALTER CRONKITE (1916-2009), the “Most Trusted Man in America,” gives advice to the news media on what would be his 100th birthday.
FEATURE image: Walter Cronkite in November 1983 by photographer Bernard Gotfryd (1924-2016). Library of Congress. Public Domain. By John P. Walsh, November 4, 2016. INTRODUCTION The date of November 4, 2016 is American newsman Walter Cronkite’s 100th birthday. The CBS News anchor died in 2009 at 92 years old. Employed with CBS News since 1950, Cronkite…
PART 3 – MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND THE CHICAGO FREEDOM MOVEMENT: Marches and Rallies of Summer 1966.
FEATURE image: At Chicago’s City Hall, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Chicago Freedom Movement leaders, July 10, 1966. Following a speech in front of thousands at Soldier Field and a march downtown, Dr. King presented Mayor Daley with fourteen demands for a racially open city. August 5, 2016 – by John P. Walsh. Released…
PARTS 1 & 2 – MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. AND THE CHICAGO FREEDOM MOVEMENT: Coming to Chicago and the Start of the Campaign in 1966.
FEATURE image: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is joined (from left) by Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy, James Forman, Rev. Jesse L. Douglas, and John Lewis at a march for voting rights in Alabama in 1965. King would come to Chicago in January 1966. Fair Use. By John P. Walsh The first nonviolent civil rights…
Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968).
FEATURE image: “martin luther king” by caboindex is licensed under CC BY 2.0. (29.52 minutes) On Christmas Eve, December 24, 1967, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his Christmas Sermon on Peace and Nonviolence in his pastorate, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. It is also known as A Christmas Sermon on Peace and Peace on…
Nation Divided: Violent Crime and the “Renaissance of GUN OWNERSHIP” IN THE USA.
FEATURE image: “and more guns… 121228.223” by Patrick Feller is licensed under CC BY 2.0. By John P. WalshPosted December 6, 2014. updated: October 2, 2015;updated: February 14, 2018 (Parkland high school shooting — at least 17 killed, suspect in custody, Florida sheriff says). On a typical day in the United States, not all firearms (a.k.a. guns) are…
