In his day, John D. Rockefeller, Sr. was the richest man in the world, the Elon Musk of that era. He was reviled as a ruthless businessman, amassing a near-total monopoly in the oil business. And yet, he was also very religious and revered as a generous philanthropist who aided a wide variety of causes,
Is it a good thing when your employer takes an interest in your personal life? If you were an employee of the Ford Motor Company in the mid-1910s, you could expect a home visit from the Social Department, which employed investigators who checked for heavy drinking, gambling, and other immoral behaviors. Such was the progressive
Today it’s Elon Musk, Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. But in an earlier time it was Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, JP Morgan, and Andrew Carnegie. I became interested in this “earlier time” when I assisted with a social-studies class in the high school that was exploring this era. So I decided to
World War II history books tell you about the Normandy Invasion, and about all the amphibious landings in the Pacific Theater that led to the defeat of Japan. What they don’t tell you is exactly how these operations were planned and executed. It wasn’t as easy as sailing to an island and jumping off the
The Möhne dam the day following the attacks. Wikipedia Sometimes the wildest ideas turn out not to be so wild after all. Like designing an aerial bomb that skips across the water like a flat stone and blows up dams. That would be World War II’s Operation Chastise. On the night of May 16-17 1943,
I’ve always claimed so much of our past never makes it into the history books. This is especially true for stories about slavery. This being Black History Month, a recently published book gives another example of the ingenuity of slaves. William and Ellen Craft were a married couple, enslaved in Georgia but determined to escape
What is your approach to happiness? This subject came to my attention recently thanks to the cover article in the Jan 16-23 issue of Time magazine. This special section, entitled “The Happiness Revival Guide,” includes a brief article “Catastrophizing Doesn’t Have to Be Catastrophic” by Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania professor and coauthor of
Which U.S. Presidents have won the popular vote at least three times? Of course, Franklin Delano Roosevelt holds the record for four (1932, 1936, 1940, 1944). but there have been two others: Andrew Jackson (1824 before also winning the Electoral College and becoming President in 1828 and 1832), and Grover Cleveland (becoming President in 1884,
Her hat gives her away. At first glance, this seems like a typical group photo of a University of Missouri School of Medicine class in 1897. Then you realize there is a woman in the picture. Although the caption identified her as the “class secretary,” she is actually Anna Searcy, an orphan who was sent
It’s easy to be familiar with history’s great speeches, like President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. But have you ever thought about speeches that were written and, for whatever reason, never delivered? Jeff Nussbaum has. As a speechwriter himself, he has researched and authored Undelivered: The Never-Heard Speeches That Would Have Rewritten History. His underlying principle