November first, the day after Halloween, is the religious All Souls Day in the Catholic faith. In the Mexican culture, it has usually been marked with iconography of skeletons and other unearthly representations of dead family members as the centerpiece… Read More ›
History
Jackie Kennedy’s Surprise Party for Nancy Tuckerman, Her Confidential Friend of a Lifetime
She has never been fully credited with the lifetime of devoted friendship and trust she provided for her friend, who happened to be the world’s most famous woman, but public acclaim was always the last thing which Nancy Tuckerman sought…. Read More ›
The Never-Was McKinley Kittens: Neither Killed Cats (Cats in the White House, Part 4)
Presidents and First Ladies are often uncredited for many things which they do. And there are those who are blamed for many things they never did. Like the legend that Dolley Madison started the annual tradition of the Easter Egg… Read More ›
Ari & Jackie Onassis: X-Rated Movie, Nude Photos, the Kennedys & Paradise Lost (Part 5)
Forty-five years ago today, Sunday, October 20, 1968, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis. Many people still speculate about why she did. Often overlooked in the pondering is the fact that the wedding took place… Read More ›
The Foreign Feline of President Hayes: First Siamese Cat in the U.S. (Cats in the White House, Part 3)
The cat who lived in the White House as part of the family of President Rutherford Hayes and his wife Lucy is particularly significant on two accounts. First, the relatively brief life and times of the cat were well-chronicled during… Read More ›
The President Who Loved to Beam: “Smiling Cal” Coolidge
“He looks as if he’s been weaned on a sour pickle.” It was one of the most aptly memorable and highly quotable quips ever used to describe a President of the United States, attributed to no less than the daughter… Read More ›
California Oktoberfest: Authentically German, Utterly American
It’s that time of year again. Cincinnati makes sense. Upper Midwestern cities certainly. East Coast bastions of ethnic immigrant history absolutely. But Oktoberfest in Torrance, California? That small city in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County that’s home… Read More ›
First Family Photos on The Truman Balcony & the Myth Behind It
“If you can’t stand the heat,” President Harry Truman famously remarked about political life in Washington, “get out of the kitchen.” “And head to the balcony,” he might well have added. Last fall, President Obama made it quite clear. It… Read More ›
Five Presidents Who Went to War & Killed Themselves For It: LBJ (Part 5)
Lyndon B. Johnson and The Vietnam War It was under Truman in the early 50s that the U.S. sent its first military advisers into what had been known primarily as Indochina (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos) when under French colonial rule, in… Read More ›
Five Presidents Who Went to War & Killed Themselves For It: FDR (Part 4)
Franklin D. Roosevelt, World War II Even before he was permanently paralyzed by polio in 1921, Franklin D. Roosevelt had been inscrutable. He was sly in manipulating those around him with an infectious charm and wily in foreseeing long-range… Read More ›
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