http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvYXQFmOON8

Mount Rushmore carving began October 4, 1927 near Keystone South Carolina.  Mount Rushmore was sculpted by Danish-American Gutzon Borglum and his son, Lincoln Borglum.  The president faces were completed between 1934 and 1939.  Mount Rushmore has the faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. President Roosevelt was in attendance for the unveiling presented by Gutzon Borglum.

They settled on the Mount Rushmore location, which also has the advantage of facing southeast for maximum sun exposure. Robinson wanted it to feature western heroes like Lewis and Clark, Red Cloud,and Buffalo Bill Cody^, but Borglum decided the sculpture should have a more national focus and chose the four presidents whose likenesses would be carved into the mountain. After securing federal funding through the enthusiastic sponsorship of “Mount Rushmore’s great political patron”, U.S. Senator Peter Norbeck,^[7] construction on the memorial began in 1927, and the presidents’ faces were completed between 1934 and 1939. Upon Gutzon Borglum’s death in March 1941, his son Lincoln Borglum took over construction. Although the initial concept called for each president to be depicted from head to waist, lack of funding forced construction to end in late October 1941.

Mount Rushmore has become an iconic symbol of the United States, and has appeared in works of fiction, and has been discussed or depicted in other popular works. It attracts over two million people annually.^[1]

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Mount Rushmore: Thomas Jefferson Revealed appeared first on Witnify.

On November 29, 1864, Captain Soule and his company were with the regiment at Sand Creek, Colorado. A fellow abolitionist, Colonel John Chivington ordered the cavalry to attack Black Kettle’s encampment of Cheyenne and Arapaho there. Soule saw that the Cheyenne were flying the Union flag as a sign of peace, and, when told to attack, he and Lieutenant Joseph Cramer^[5] ordered their men to hold their fire and stay put. Most of Chivington’s other forces, however, attacked the camp. The resulting action became known as the Sand Creek massacre, one of the most notorious acts of mass murder in the United States history. Soule described what followed in a letter to his former commanding officer and friend, Major Edward W. Wynkoop:

The massacre sparked outrage and shock around the country. The Army began an investigation into the “battle,” and Soule formally testified against Chivington in a court of inquiry in January 1865. His testimony about the events at Sand Creek led, in part, to the Congress refusing the Army’s request for thousands of men for a general war against the Plains Indians.^[7

On April 23, 1865, Captain Soule, just married five weeks earlier to Hersa Coberly, was on duty as a Provost Marshal in Denver, Colorado, when several shots were fired at him. One of the bullets fatally struck him in the head, killing him almost immediately.

It was thought at the time by many that the killers were hired by men loyal to Chivington. One of Soule’s friends, First Lieutenant James Cannon, tracked one suspect, a 2nd Colorado Cavalry soldier named Charles Squier, down in New Mexico and brought him back to Denver to stand trial. Squier escaped, to be never again captured, and Cannon was poisoned. Squier, a veteran of the Civil War, received a hero’s burial when he died in 1869.

Source: Wikipedia

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Sand Creek Massacre: Silas Soule appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AuLLUFXQKEY

Howard Zinn was an American historian, author and social activist. He taught political science at Boston University and history at Spelman College. Zinn wrote more than 20 books, including his best-known A People’s History of the United States. In this video, Zinn discusses his book A Young People’s History of the United States and the importance of being honest in the retelling of history.

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Howard Zinn On Honesty In History appeared first on Witnify.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZqVWvGvVOc

Mary Rockefeller discusses searching for her twin brother Michael Rockefeller in Papua New Guinea in 1963.  Michael, who had recently graduate from Harvard, had headed to Papua New Guinea as part of an anthropological expedition. He had bought a catamaran, which sank off the coast.  He vigorously swam to what he hoped would be his safety, but, it is surmised, was killed when he reached shore and was subsequently cannabilized in the Asmat region of New Guinea. Mary Rockefeller explores the search and the pain and poignancy of twin grieving in her book Beginning with the End: A Memoir of Twin loss and healing.  She says it took her 27 years to come to terms with her twin brother’s loss.  Mary Rockefeller lectures on twin loss and grieving and worked with families after the 9-11 Tragedy.

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Michael Rockefeller’s Twin Sister Discusses His Death appeared first on Witnify.