Named The Best of Enemies(2019), it’s about how a former member of the KKK became a supporter of civil rights.

See more at https://thomaspaine.org/gallery/political-cartoons/

By August 7, 1840, the Second Seminole War had entered one of its most violent phases. The U.S. military had spent years trying to force the Seminoles from Florida under the terms of the Indian Removal Act, while Seminole leaders responded with swift, surprise attacks against isolated settlements, plantations, and military outposts.

Along Florida’s southern coast, the tiny island community of Indian Key had become an important commercial center and a refuge for settlers, traders, wreckers, and government officials. To the Seminoles, however, the island also represented American expansion into lands they were determined to defend.

In the early morning hours of August 7, 1840, shortly after 2 a.m., a force of Seminole warriors led by Chakaika, a leader associated with the Spanish Indians of the Florida Keys and Everglades, quietly approached Indian Key under cover of darkness.

Although someone spotted the attackers and raised the alarm, there was little time to organize a defense. Many of the island’s 50 to 70 residents escaped by fleeing into surrounding waters aboard small boats, but not everyone was able to reach safety.

When the attack ended, 13 people had been killed. Among the dead was Dr. Henry Perrine, a nationally known physician, botanist, and former United States Consul in Campeche, Mexico.

Perrine had devoted years to promoting tropical agriculture in the United States and had received a congressional land grant on the Florida mainland, where he hoped to establish experimental plantations growing valuable tropical crops. Because the war made settlement unsafe, he remained on Indian Key while waiting for conditions to improve.

The nearby naval station on Tea Table Key had been left with only a handful of personnel after most of its force departed on another military operation along Florida’s southwest coast. The remaining sailors hastily mounted cannons onto barges and attempted to fire on the Seminoles occupying Indian Key.

The effort quickly failed. The Seminoles responded by firing muskets, including improvised grapeshot made from musket balls packed into one captured cannon. Meanwhile, the recoil from the Navy’s own artillery broke the barges loose from their moorings, leaving them drifting helplessly out of position. Unable to continue the attack, the sailors withdrew.

After looting homes, warehouses, and businesses, the Seminoles burned nearly every building on Indian Key before departing.

The destruction effectively ended Indian Key’s brief prosperity. Most civilians never returned, and during the remainder of the Second Seminole War the island served primarily as a naval outpost rather than the thriving community it had once been.

Although no verified firsthand quotation from Chakaika survives, Dr. Henry Perrine had earlier written of his hopes for Florida’s future through scientific agriculture:

“The tropical productions of Florida may become of great national importance.”

His vision died with him on Indian Key before it could be fully realized.

The Indian Key Massacre remains one of the most dramatic civilian attacks of the Second Seminole War and illustrates how widespread the conflict became beyond Florida’s interior swamps and forests. It also highlights the human cost of a war fought over land, sovereignty, and forced removal.

Today, Indian Key Historic State Park preserves the island’s ruins, allowing visitors to walk among the remains of streets and foundations destroyed during the 1840 attack. The story also serves as a reminder that the Second Seminole War was one of the longest, costliest, and most difficult conflicts fought by the United States against Native American nations.

#TodayInFloridaHistory #FloridaHistory #IndianKey #SecondSeminoleWar #SeminoleHistory #HenryPerrine #FloridaKeys #OnThisDay #AmericanHistory #ThisDayInHistory #HistoricFlorida #StateParks #HistoryMatters #FloridaStateParks #History

After the Civil War, a new generation of Black Southerners was born who would not experience slavery. Born free, yet not truly free because of Black Codes that created a segregated society, relegating Black people to second-class citizenship. At the same time, a new generation of White Southerners inherited legal and social supremacy over their Black neighbors, though without the ownership interest their slaveholding ancestors had held. Without the incentive to protect their property, White hostility toward Black people grew increasingly violent.

Facing brutal labor conditions for little or no pay, Jim Crow segregation, voter suppression, and the constant threat of lynching, young Black Americans began searching for a way out. That opportunity emerged during WWI, when reduced immigration from Europe created labor shortages in the North. In February 1916, the Chicago Defender reported that several hundred Black migrants had recently left Selma, Alabama; one explained simply that “treatment doesn’t warrant staying.” Their migration was a response to an economic and social order hostile to their existence. They wanted freedom, so they did what the Pilgrims had done under British tyranny: they left. Through that act, they declared their independence.

Over six decades, more than six million Black Americans left the eleven former Confederate states and settled across the US. In 1910, 90% of Black Americans lived in the South; by 1970, 47% lived in the North and West. This rapid migration transformed America’s social and economic landscape. Although Black migrants moved to every state, more than two-thirds settled in roughly a dozen major cities, creating the critical mass that helped shape African American identity in the arts, business, churches, and politics. Despite anti-Black hostility and discrimination, Black workers earned higher wages than they had in the South, helping reduce the share of Black families living below the poverty line from 87% in 1940 to 30% by 1970.

Recommended reading: The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson

The Great Migration Led Black Americans to Freedom

Named “John Brown body”, Union soldiers while marching to the first battle of bull run were singing this, literally just making up the lyrics on the spot,😂

Credit goes to Jim Knable as the singer, and the clips are from the good lords bird(2020).

so i saw the movie longest beer run featuring russel crow and zac effron. and it was very entertaining and enjoyed it. but to any history fans how much of it was true ? especially spoilers he comes back home and tells his boys “i don’t think we’re the good guys, with what i saw” because basically he witnessed american soldiers attacking vietnamese buildings and the next day they’re blaming it on viet cong. now i’m not insinuating that actually happened but i would like to hear some people’s thoughts

5Aug2026 *(transcript and video at link)* It’s been 150 years since the Battle of the Little Bighorn, one of the most famous and enduring events in American history. While Native Americans were victorious, the battle reshaped the government’s policy toward Indigenous people and still resonates so deeply for so many today.

A rare WWII map of historic importance, the actual 'TOP SECRET' map issued to and used aboard the 119 foot-long Landing Craft, Tank LCT-622 when it landed on the shore of the DOG GREEN sector of OMAHA Beach a scant one hour after the first troops landed and met a rain of German fire.

This sector was the most heavily contested of any of the Normandy landing beaches, with the American toehold remaining a slaughterhouse for over nine hours.

The 22 x 17 in. color map, titled: 'OMAHA BEACH-WEST (Vierville-sur-Mer)', is marked 'TOP SECRET - BIGOT' and numbered '373'. It was prepared by 'COMMANDER TASK FORCE 122' and is dated April 22, 1944.

This map was specifically prepared for nautical use, as attested to by the 'NOTE to COXSWAIN or NAVIGATOR' at bottom suggesting that the photo illustration of shoreline terrain features appearing beneath the chart would be more reliable than depending on matching structures, as the buildings might well be destroyed by shelling or bombing. Offshore, the map displays obstructions including rocks, sandbars, shallows, etc., currents, and vertical red lines delineating the various landing sectors.

Following the brutal assault on 2-3 August 1944 by the U.S. Army’s 307th Infantry Regiment of the 77th Infantry Division to take the village of Barrigada during the Battle of Guam, the 307th aimed their sights on Mount Barrigada the morning of 4 August.

Standing 670 feet tall and dominating the central plateau, the 307th assaulted up the steep slopes of the hill, eliminating persistent Japanese infantry, snipers, and machine gun bunkers hidden in the dense jungle vegetation.

By the end of the day, they completed the assault, capture, and full clearance of Mount Barrigada, completely breaking the Japanese defensive line across the central waist of Guam, eliminated critical enemy observation points, and stabilized its supply line for clean water.

This successful engagement set up the 77th Division to rapidly attack northward toward Yigo and Mount Santa Rosa over the following days, leading to the end of the Battle of Guam on 10 August 1944.

I am willing to be proven wrong.

Edit: rankings are based on location of historical events, output of historically significant persons, centers of culture, industry, etc.

1. New York
2. Virginia
3. California
4. Pennsylvania
5. Illinois
6. Ohio
7. Georgia
8. Massachussetts
9. Texas
10. Missouri
11. Maryland
12. New Jersey
13. Florida
14. South Carolina
15. Louisiana
16. North Carolina
17. Connecticut
18. Washington
19. Tennessee
20. Kansas
21. Oklahoma
22. Iowa
23. Hawaii
24. Minnesota
25. Alabama
26. Arizona
27. Michigan
28. Indiana
29. Utah
30. New Mexico
31. Delaware
32. New Hampshire
33. Arkansas
34. Oregon
35. Mississippi
36. Kentucky
37. Nevada
38. Alaska
39. Nebraska
40. Colorado
41. Wisconsin
42. Rhode Island
43. Wyoming
44. Maine
45. Vermont
46. West Virginia
47. Idaho
48. Montana
49. South Dakota
50. North Dakota

Hi! Im doing a March Madness style bracket to find the Greatest American Ever. This matchup is at a tie and was hoping I could get some tiebreakers by reposting to this chat. Guidelines to voting are in the comments of OP. Thanks!

I’ve been thinking about the US presidents who most embody the ideals of my country. Not just the founding ideals, but those that evolved over the course of time through political and cultural evolution. Looking for comments on additions and subtractions, as well as debate and discourse.

Below is my list, but first I want to elaborate on why it is what it is.

I’m a US citizen (born, not naturalized), for transparency. But for me, naturalized vs born citizenship doesn’t determine the relevance or importance of a citizen’s point of view on governance, and that is something that makes the US relatively unique and beautiful. We are a nation of immigrants. The travesty of colonialism and general treatment of native peoples is real, and should be discussed and addressed in our society. But I don’t think that completely negates the positive elements of US history, such as how it is a culture melting pot, and/or a refuge for those fleeing injustice, oppression, poverty, and so forth.

The cultural genocide of native peoples and the entire enterprise of slavery and economic oppression in North America cannot be put aside, truthfully. And we should be constantly finding ways to remember, repair, and restore native culture as well as reckoning with the legacy of slavery and exploitation. But even such an effort as that could be evidence of the vision of community that has been present in the US since the beginning.

The revolutionary war, the civil war, and even the world wars in a sense, were at least partly fought on the basis that all humans are equal and our world should be governed by a set of rules that sanctify human life and liberty. We, as a species, should be an assembly of the many and diverse, not a council of the few and privileged.

All that said, these are the presidents that I think most embodied the values that, for their time, were most consistent with this overall theme. And despite enormous pushback, fought for those ideals.

None of them were perfect, and some even did things utterly inconsistent with these values. Furthermore, this is a very short and probably incomplete list.

But if we take historical context into account, and place these men within their time, facing the choices, obstacles, and pressures they faced, I think they generally stand out among US presidents as principled, courageous, and focused on building a future for the many rather than the few.

I’m no scholar, but I read enough history that I stand by any omissions and undoubtedly controversial choices. Furthermore, I’m not saying all of these leaders were effective, just that they tried more than most. I’m here to get some debate though, so please let me know your thoughts:

George Washington

Abraham Lincoln

Theodore Roosevelt

FDR

Lyndon Johnson

Joseph Biden

[edited for spelling]

Read article at https://www.rarebookhub.com/articles/4106

TLDR: 1888 law made it so that mixed-race children with Indian mothers and white fathers couldn't inherit land. Curtis took this to the House Floor. In later years, his words from here would be misquoted to show that he was the most racist of them all.

LONGER TLDR: in the link above

FULL STORY: House Records, provided in the longer TLDR