After World War II, a group of charities, with support from the US government, established the Cooperative for American Remittances to Europe, which sent supply packages to civilians throughout western Europe in an effort to help them rebuild. The CARE packages were successful not only in helping millions of Europeans survive the immediate aftermath of […]
Happy Martin Luther King Day
Martin Luther King Day was signed into law by Ronald Reagan in 1983 and first observed in 1986. Either in the spirit of nonviolent protest encouraged by Dr. King or in the spirit of political partisanship (depending on your point of view), many political and religious leader challenged the establishment of the federal holiday. Even […]
Columbus Day: Hotly Contested and Coldly Ignored
Perhaps no other holiday on the American calendar raises such contentious debate and such comfortable indifference. Christopher Columbus’s expedition of three ships from Spain landed on 12 October, 1492 in what are now called the Bahamas. That landing was followed by three other expeditions led by Columbus, the last of which included his son, Diego […]
