A Historical Perspective  

History is the social genetic code of who we were, who we are, and ultimately, who we will become.

On this date in 1771, two large groups of armed North Carolinians were camped about six mile away from each other in what is now Alamance County.
"The mining interest of the state is now only second to the farming interest." So wrote a reporter from the Western Carolinian of Salisbury in 1825. There was enough demand by 1830 for a Charlotte-based Miners' and Farmers' Journal to begin publication.
"If you would understand anything," wrote Aristotle, "observe its beginning and its development." Without a solid grounding in the history of our state, North Carolinians cannot hope to chart the right course for the future.
If you ever get the chance to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC, you will be forever affected by what you see and learn there, and you will be moved by a quote you see hanging near one of the exhibits.
As we march further into the proverbial "Book of Life," and as we close the Chapter of 2011 and open the Chapter of 2012, it is tradition that we examine the lives of notable people that have passed on before us.
On March 23, 1775, Patrick Henry delivered one of the most important speeches in our country's history.
A pet peeve of mine has long been how poorly we treat history in our school system, and, subsequently, the periodicals that represent who we are.
We don't need the Supreme Court to tell us its interpretation of the Constitution. We have the very words and writings of the very men who drafted our Constitution and created our government.
QUESTION: Is it true that both California and Texas have such a right in the agreements they signed to join the Union?
I was struck by how many people want to learn such topics but just don't know where to go to be educated or how to trust that they will be taught the right stuff. But one question that came up almost every class period and by every group was this: "Do the states have the right to secede?"
I guess I learned the Pledge of Allegiance way back in 1946 when I was in the first grade. I am sure I didn't really understand the implications but it didn't take long before I could recite it from memory.
Timeline of Events Leading to the Revolutionary War and beyond to its conclusion, and through the anti-climatic birthing pains.
The English Bill of Rights was clearly a precursor to our US Bill of Rights.
WHEN in the Course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth.
Responding to abusive detention of persons without legal authority, public pressure on the English Parliament caused them to adopt this act, which established a critical right that was later written into the Constitution for the United States.
The Petition of Right of 1628 is a statement of the objectives of the 1628 English legal reform movement that led to the Civil War and deposing of Charles I in 1649.
As might be expected, the text of the Magna Carta of 1215 bears many traces of haste, and is clearly the product of much bargaining and many hands.
There are many people who overlook the brilliance of the US Constitution. They argue that it is outdated and unfit to adequately govern such a modern nation as ours in the 21st century.
If we look back on our grade school education, we remember being taught the very fundamentals of what went on at the Constitutional Convention.
Happy Anniversary America !! This year, 2011, celebrates 218 years since the British signed the Treaty of Paris in 1783, formally abandoning any claims to the United States.
It was discreetly referred to as Operation Overlord - the final push into Fortress Europe through the inflexible sea wall, built by the Nazi overlords, just a spare few miles from the free shores of Great Britain, where the entire United States Expeditionary Force was stationed.
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