The Spanish-American conflict was a “splendid little war[1]” that marked America’s entry as an imperial power into world affairs.  Coincidentally that same splendid little war was the origin of the USS Potomac’s all-Filipino mess crew and...

Vice President Harry Truman liked to spend afternoons with a bourbon and branch at House Speaker Sam Rayburn’s “Board of Education” hideaway.   When he arrived on April 12, 1945, Rayburn told Truman to call Steve Early in the White House...

For fourteen years between1920 and late 1933, the United States was “dry.”   The 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, “Volstead Act,” prohibited alcoholic sales, manufacture, and consumption throughout the United States. Still...

Personal Advisor to FDR for the Great Depression and World War II (1912 Class President Grinnell College)   Next after FDR and his “little dog Fala,” the USS Potomac passenger with the most nautical miles was likely Harry L. Hopkins, the president’s valued...

Founding the United Nations in San FranciscoEighty years ago on June 25, 1945, the Charter of the United Nations was adopted unanimously in the San Francisco Opera House and signed the following day at Herbst Theatre Auditorium in the Veterans War Memorial Building. ...

Henry J. Kaiser, FDR’s DynamoSources: Freedom’s Forge:  How American Business  Produced Victory in World War II by Arthur Herman Henry J. Kaiser was described as “a dynamo” by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.  Kaiser became the symbol of America as the “arsenal of...