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The pamphlet Common Sense, which Angelica mentions in "The Schuyler Sisters," was published anonymously in Philadelphia, on January 10, 1776. Within a few months, British expatriate Thomas Paine was known to be…
I'm happy that the there is now one figurative sculpture at the World Trade Center site: it honors the Americans who fought in the wake of 9/11. While construction on the…
Zig-zagging through the soccer games in Flushing Meadow one sunny Sunday, I came up behind this sculpture. Comments follow each photo. Note: "proper left" means "the statue's own left," rather than…
Dear Alexander, I'm having a torrid marriage with a man much, much younger than you, and our 30th anniversary is almost here. I need to take a week off to…
Not a news flash: it's a bad idea to unilaterally disarm, and hope the bad guys will be nice enough not to attack. This was written in 1919 - just after…
Last week I entered a Midtown office building's lobby merely for the sake of getting from 53th to 54th Street without walking up Madison Avenue at rush hour. In the middle of…
Last week I expressed my profound dissatisfaction at not being able to read in full a letter published in early 1776 in the Royal Danish American Gazette, which Chernow (p. 72) uses to…
"Paul Revere's Ride" is set on the night of the Battle of Lexington and Concord, April 1775. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote it in 1860 or 1861, just as the Civil War…
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) - poet, short-story writer, and novelist - was also a journalist and editor. When he became famous, his fellow journalists constantly badgered him. His recently rediscovered poem "The Press,"…
Have you stopped to think about the way "My Shot" builds on the opening number of Hamilton: An American Musical? It sets him up as a young hero eager to change the…
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