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January 2019

Historian James Horn, a frequent contributor to American Heritage, is President of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation. Portions of this essay appeared in his recent book, 1619: Jamestown and the Forging of American Democracy (Basic Books).

Jamestown settlement
An important turning point in American history occurred at Jamestown in 1619 as the first freely elected assembly met to make "just Laws" for the fledgling colony.

Jeffrey Rosen is a historian, law professor, and President and CEO of the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. His most recent book is William Howard Taft (Times Books), from which this essay is adapted.  –The Editors

Helen "Nellie" Taft, the wife of the President Taft, raised Constitutional questions when she insisted on keeping a Goeblin tapestry given her by the Empress of Japan.
Helen "Nellie" Taft, the wife of the President Taft, raised Constitutional questions when she insisted on keeping a Gobelin tapestry given her by the Empress of Japan.

Allied soldiers land at Anzio.
Allied soldiers land at Anzio.

In the predawn darkness of January 22, 1944, an amphibious force of 36,000 members of VI Corps, a joint U.S.-British command, and a part of Lt. Gen. Mark Clark’s combined U.S.-British Fifth army, was heading toward the German-held beach towns of Anzio and Nettuno, on the eastern coast of Italy, just 40 miles south of Rome.

The Germans weren’t expecting such an audacious operation. Since the previous October, German Field Marshal Albert Kesselring’s Army Group C had kept the Allies from advancing up the Italian peninsula by bottling up both Clark’s Fifth and Lt. Gen. Oliver Leese’s British Eighth Army below the Gustav Line, a formidable defensive line that ran the width of Italy and was anchored at Monte Cassino, 100 miles from Rome. 

The earliest car phone
The earliest car phone

After the telephone was developed in the mid-1870s, and radio at the turn of the century, it was natural to seek ways to combine the two, merging radio’s mobility with the telephone’s person-to-person capability and extensive network. Ship-to-shore radiotelephones were available as early as 1919, and the next decade saw the arrival of two-way radios for police cars, ambulances, and fireboats. These public-safety radios were mobile, but they were limited by the range (usually small) of the transmitter, and they connected only with fellow users, not with every telephone subscriber. Also, like all radio equipment of the day, they were big and clunky; Dick Tracy’s two-way wrist radio existed only in the funny pages.

Panamanians gather in the streets after the riots in 1964.
Panamanians gather in the streets after the riots in 1964. (Michael Rougier/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)

Few Americans know that January 9 is a national holiday in Panama, and even fewer know why. Today is Martyrs’ Day—commemorating an outbreak of violence between Panama and the United States in 1964. The confrontation left four Americans and twenty-two Panamanians dead, and it deeply strained U.S.-Panama relations. It marked the beginning of a process that would induce the United States to relinquish its rights to the Panama Canal in the decade that followed. And “it all began,” as LIFE magazine reported, “because there was one vacant flagpole at Balboa High School.”

Bruce Watson, a Contributing Editor of American Heritage, writes blogs for our website and his own at TheAttic.space.

Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress.
Jeannette Rankin was the first woman elected to Congress.

The drums of war were sounding when, in March 1917, Jeannette Rankin arrived in Washington DC.  As the first woman to serve in Congress, she was ready to fight for women’s suffrage, against child labor, and for families nationwide.  But war intervened -- twice.

The men of the 91st "Wild West" Division were from California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.
The men of the 91st "Wild West" Division were from California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah, Washington and Wyoming. 

Edward Lengel is a Contributing Editor of American Heritage, the author of eleven books, and the former historian of the White House Historical Society. His blogs can be found at EdwardLengel.com.

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