Summer Reading - A New Historical Theme Each Week!
US HISTORY
The Week of June 8-14, 2025
National Flag Week
National Flag Week is celebrated annually in the United States during the week of June 8-14.
Saturday, June 14th,
is
National Flag Day
and
the 250th Anniversary of the U.S. Army!
National Constitution Center "The History of the U.S. Flag" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UONq4YCF4R4
The Smithsonian Institute U.S. Flag Facts and the Star Spangled Banner https://www.si.edu/spotlight/flag-day/banner-facts
The Evolution of U.S. Flags (in 80 Seconds) video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcNq8bqkUBI
The American Flag for Kids https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXT44j5Ojpw
World War II - Pacific Theatre
FLAGS OF OUR FATHERS: A Young People's Edition
Review
From the Back Cover
In February 1945, American Marines plunged into the surf at Iwo Jima--and into history. Through a hail of machine-gun and mortar fire that left the beaches strewn with comrades, they battled to the island's highest peak. And after climbing through a landscape of hell itself, they raised a flag.
Now the son of one of the flagraisers has written a powerful account of six very different young men who came together in a moment that will live forever.
To his family, John Bradley never spoke of the photograph or the war. But after his death at age seventy, his family discovered closed boxes of letters and photos. In Flags of Our Fathers, James Bradley draws on those documents to retrace the lives of his father and the men of Easy Company. Following these men's paths to Iwo Jima, James Bradley has written a classic story of the heroic battle for the Pacific's most crucial island--an island riddled with Japanese tunnels and 22,000 fanatic defenders who would fight to the last man.
But perhaps the most interesting part of the story is what happened after the victory. The men in the photo--three were killed during the battle--were proclaimed heroes and flown home, to become reluctant symbols. For two of them, the adulation was shattering. Only James Bradley's father truly survived, displaying no copy of the famous photograph in hishome, telling his son only: "The real heroes of Iwo Jima were the guys who didn't come back."
Few books ever have captured the complexity and furor of war and its aftermath as well as Flags of Our Fathers. A penetrating, epic look at a generation at war, this is history told with keen insight, enormous honesty, and the passion of a son paying homage to his father. It is the story of the difference between truth and myth, the meaning of being a hero, and the essence of the human experience of war.
Our Flag Was Still There: The Star Spangled Banner That Survived the British and 200 Years―and the Armistead Family Who Saved It
Our Flag Was Still There details the improbable two-hundred-year journey of the original Star-Spangled Banner—from Fort McHenry in 1814, when Francis Scott Key first saw it, to the Smithsonian—and the enduring family who defended, kept, hid, and ultimately donated the most famous flag in American history.
Francis Scott Key saw the original Star-Spangled Banner flying over Baltimore’s Fort McHenry on September 14, 1814, following a twenty-five-hour bombardment by the British Navy, inspiring him to write the words to our national anthem. Torn and tattered over the years, reduced in size to appease souvenir-hunters, stuffed away in a New York City vault for the last two decades of the nineteenth century, the flag’s mere existence after two hundred years is an improbable story of dedication, perseverance, patriotism, angst, inner-family squabbles, and, yes, more than a little luck.
For this unlikely feat, we have the Armistead family to thank—led by Lieutenant Colonel George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, who took it home after the battle in clear defiance of US Army regulations. It is only because of that quiet indiscretion that the flag survives to this day.
Armistead’s descendants kept and protected their family heirloom for ninety years. The flag’s first photo was not taken until 1873, almost sixty years after Key saw it waving, and most Americans did not even know of its existence until Armistead’s grandson loaned it to the Smithsonian in 1907.
Tom McMillan tells a story as no one has before. Digging deep into the archives of Fort McHenry and the Smithsonian, accessing never-before-published letters and documents, and presenting rare photos from the private collections of Armistead descendants and other sources, McMillan follows the flag on an often-perilous journey through two centuries.
Our Flag Was Still There provides new insight into an intriguing period of US history, offering a “story behind the story” account of one of the country’s most treasured relics.
BETSY ROSS: ACCIDENTAL SPY by Marilyn Clay contains three brand new chapters making the book a total of 340 pages.
Betsy Griscom falls in love with John Ross while both young people are employed as apprentices at Webster's Upholstery Shop in Philadelphia.
Three years after the couple marry, a warehouse explosion kills Betsy’s beloved husband John. Betsy soon begins to wonder if the explosion was an accident or was the warehouse fire intentionally set by someone attempting to steal the Patriot weapons stored there? When the authorities refuse to investigate the crime, Betsy determines to uncover the truth, but finds herself deep in Philadelphia's dangerous and confusing underworld of spies and double agents. Ultimately she has no choice but to trust the wrong man, but will she lose her life, or the lives of those she holds dear, in the process?
BETSY ROSS: ACCIDENTAL SPY is a gripping tale of one woman’s courage during the pivotal year of 1776 in our nation's glorious history. "I made every effort to remain true to historical events, such as the first public reading of the Declaration of Independence, and battles fought in colonial New York and New Jersey. In my story Betsy interacts with real-life historical figures George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and her siblings, Sarah, Rachel and George, as well as her future husband, privateer Captain Joseph Ashburn. I consulted diaries and letters written by American Revolutionary generals and soldiers who lived then. I hope readers will enjoy imagining how Betsy's life 'might have been' in the year 1776, keeping in mind that the premise of my story is fictional. History does not substantiate that Betsy Ross ever engaged in any sort of covert activity." - author, Marilyn Clay
The Treason of Betsy Ross: A Woman of the Revolution Novel
Wendy Long Stanley
The story behind the legend...
Long before Betsy Ross became a national icon for making the first US flag, she was a quiet Quaker girl swept up against her will
by events leading to the American Revolution.
Philadelphia, 1770. Eighteen-year-old Betsy Griscom falls in love with a man her parents can’t accept—non-Quaker John Ross, whose family
has strong ties to powerful colonial government offices. Despite Betsy’s best intentions to stay within the safety of her Quaker world, Betsy marries John and dreams of an untroubled life with him and their future children.
Betsy’s hopes are dashed when the colonies begin to openly and violently rebel against the British crown. Taught to be peace-loving and non-violent, Betsy watches helplessly as her husband becomes a militiaman and joins the resistance movement, taking them closer and closer towards chaos and revolutionary war.
When shots ring out at Lexington and Concord, Betsy realizes she can no longer be neutral. She finds herself fully entrenched in the turmoil of America’s first civil war, inching closer to treason.
General George Washington Crossing the Delaware River on December 25, 1776
https://www.mountvernon.org/education/image-explore/explore-washington-crossing-the-delaware
George Washington Crossing the Delaware Interactive Painting
The Cold War years
1980 Winter Olympics The Miracle on Ice - US Hockey team vs. USSR Hockey Team
US Hockey team won!
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/raising-flag-ground-zero-second-look-180978592/
Raising the Flag at Ground Zero
National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institute https://amhistory.si.edu/starspangledbanner/pdf/ssb_lyrics.pdf
The United States National Anthem -
The Kennedy Center "The Star-Spangle Banner - The Story Behind the Song"
The Meaning Behind the 13 Folds of the American Flag 13 Folds for the 13 Colonies
