TWE History-Related Blogs and Videos

A list of all blog posts and videos reflecting on historical events from The Water’s Edge.

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Updated: December 1, 2021 7:00 a.m.

James M. LindsayCFR Expert
Mary and David Boies Distinguished Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy

American Revolution and Early Republic

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere (April 18, 1775)
Battle of Lexington and Concord (April 19, 1775)
The American Crisis, No. 1 (December 19, 1776)
The Battle of Saratoga (October 17, 1777)
The Battle of Yorktown (October 19, 1781)
The Birth of the Bill of Rights (December 15, 1791)
The Pacificus-Helvidius Debate (June 29, 1793)
The Jay Treaty (June 24, 1795)
Washington’s Farewell Address (September 19, 1796)
War of 1812 (June 18, 1812)
The British Sack Washington (August 24, 1814)
The Birth of the Star Spangled Banner (September 14, 1814)

National Expansion

The Monroe Doctrine (December 2, 1823)
Abraham Lincoln and the “Spot Resolutions” (December 22, 1847)
A War “Unnecessarily and Unconstitutionally” Begun (January 3, 1848)
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848)

The Civil War, Gilded Age, and Progressive Era

The Trent Affair (November 8, 1861)
The Gettysburg Address (November 19, 1863)
The Korean Expedition of 1871 and the Battle of Ganghwa (Shinmiyangyo) (June 10, 1871)
The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 (May 6, 1882)
Enrique Dupuy de Lôme (February 9, 1898)
The Sinking of the USS Maine (February 15, 1898)
The Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (December 6, 1904)
The Taft-Katsura Memo (July 31, 1905)
The Tampico Incident (April 9, 1914)
The U.S. Invasion of Veracruz, Mexico (April 21, 1914)
Pancho Villa’s Raid on Columbus, New Mexico (March 9, 1916)

World War I

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand (June 28, 1914)
Austria-Hungary Issues an Ultimatum to Serbia (July 23, 1914)
Serbia Responds to Austria’s Ultimatum (July 25, 1914)
The Assassination of Jean Jaures (July 31, 1914)
Britain Declares War, the United States Declares Neutrality (August 4, 1914)
The Sinking of the Lusitania (May 7, 1915)
The Black Tom Explosion (July 30, 1916)
The Zimmerman Telegram (March 1, 1917)
Woodrow Wilson Asks Congress to Declare War on Germany (April 2, 1917)
America’s Entry into the Great War (April 6, 1917)
The Treaty of Versailles Rejected (November 19, 1919)

Interwar Period

The Ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment (August 26, 1920)
The Kellogg-Briand Pact (August 27, 1928)
Herbert Hoover Signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Into Law (June 17, 1930)
The Ludlow Amendment (January 10, 1938)

World War II

Churchill’s “Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat” (May 13, 1940)
Dunkirk, Operation Dynamo, and Churchill’s “Never Surrender” Speech (June 4, 1940)
FDR’s “Stab in the Back” Speech (June 10, 1940)
Winston Churchill’s “Finest Hour” Speech (June 18, 1940)
The Destroyers-for-Bases Deal (September 2, 1940)
FDR’s “Four Freedoms” State of the Union Address (January 6, 1941)
The Lend-Lease Act (March 11, 1941)
FDR’s “Shoot-on-Sight” Fireside Chat (September 11, 1941)
Charles Lindbergh’s Des Moines Speech (September 11, 1941)
The Battle of Attu (May 11, 1943)

Cold War

Sen. Arthur Vandenberg’s Conversion to Internationalism (January 10, 1945)
Ho Chi Minh’s 1945 Declaration of Vietnam’s Independence (September 2, 1945)
George Kennan and the Long Telegram (February 22, 1946)
Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” Speech (March 5, 1946)
The Fulbright Program (August 1, 1946)
The Truman Doctrine (March 12, 1947)
The Marshall Plan (June 5, 1947)
Joseph McCarthy’s Wheeling Speech (February 9, 1950)
NSC-68 (April 14, 1950)
Truman’s Decision to Intervene in Korea (June 27, 1950)
General Douglas MacArthur’s Speech to Congress (April 19, 1951)
The Bricker Amendment (February 26, 1954)
Nikita Khrushchev’s Visit to the United States (September 15, 1959)
JFK’s “Strategy of Peace” Speech (June 10, 1963)
John F. Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner” Speech (June 26, 1963)
The Fight over the Panama Canal Treaties (March 16, 1978)

The Cuban Missile Crisis

Andrei Gromyko Tells a Lie at the United Nations (September 21, 1962)
Maj. Richard Heyser Flies a U-2 Over Cuba (October 14, 1962)
The United States Discovers Soviet Missiles in Cuba (October 15, 1962)
JFK Learns that Soviet Missiles Are in Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day One) (October 16, 1962)
JFK Solicits Ike’s Advice (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Two) (October 17, 1962)
Andrei Gromyko Lies to John Kennedy (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Three) (October 18, 1962)
JFK Campaigns While the ExCom Debates Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Four) (October 19, 1962)
John Kennedy Fakes a Cold (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Five) (October 20, 1962)
John Kennedy Prepares to Tell the Nation About Soviet Missiles in Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Six) (October 21, 1962)
JFK Tells the World that Soviet Missiles Are in Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Seven) (October 22, 1962)
The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (October 22, 1962)
The OAS Endorses a Quarantine of Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Eight) (October 23, 1962)
Eyeball to Eyeball and the Other Fellow Just Blinked (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Nine) (October 24, 1962)
Adlai Stevenson Dresses Down the Soviet Ambassador to the UN (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Ten) (October 25, 1962)
John Scali Has Lunch, Khrushchev Writes JFK, Castro writes Khrushchev (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Eleven) (October 26, 1962)
Black Saturday - Near Calamities Abound as JFK Offers Khrushchev a Deal (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Twelve) (October 27, 1962)
JFK and Khrushchev Agree to a Deal (Cuban Missile Crisis, Day Thirteen) (October 28, 1962)
Secret Soviet Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Cuba (Cuban Missile Crisis, A Coda)
The Cuban Missile Crisis (links to the full series)

Vietnam War

Thich Quang Duc’s Self-Immolation (June 11, 1963)
The Vietnam “Coup Cable” (August 24, 1963)
The Gulf of Tonkin Incident (August 4, 1964)
Congress Passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (August 7, 1964)
The First U.S. Combat Troops Arrive in Vietnam (March 8, 1965)
General Westmoreland Says the “End Begins to Come Into View” in Vietnam (November 21, 1967)
The Pentagon Papers (June 13, 1971)
The Fall of Saigon (April 30, 1975)

Post-Cold War

Congress’s Vote to Authorize the Gulf War (January 12, 1991)
Juvenal Habyarimana’s Plane Crashes and the Rwandan Genocide Begins (April 6, 1994)
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (September 24, 1996)

Foreign-Policy Anniversaries

Foreign-Policy Figures

George C. Marshall (born December 31, 1880)
John Foster Dulles (born February 25, 1888)
Secretary of State Dean Acheson (born April 11, 1893)

Political Moments

Lessons from History Video Series

Lessons Learned: The Articles of Confederation (March 1, 1781)
Lessons Learned: Hitler’s Rearmament of Germany (March 16, 1935)
Lessons Learned: The Ludlow Amendment (January 10, 1938)
History Lessons: The Munich Agreement (September 30, 1938)
History Lessons: The America First Committee Forms (September 4, 1940)
Lessons Learned: Japanese-American Internment During WWII (February 19, 1942)
Lessons Learned: The Firebombing of Tokyo (March 9, 1945)
Lessons Learned: North Atlantic Treaty Signing (April 4, 1949)
Lessons Learned: General MacArthur’s Dismissal (April 11, 1951)
Lessons Learned: John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address (January 20, 1961)
Lessons Learned: Bay of Pigs Invasion (April 17, 1961)
Lessons Learned: The Seizure of the USS Pueblo (January 23, 1968)
Lessons Learned: The Tet Offensive (January 30, 1968)
Lessons Learned: LBJ Announces He Will Not Seek Reelection (March 31, 1968)
Lessons Learned: Richard Nixon Goes to China (February 17, 1972)
Lessons Learned: Nelson Mandela’s Release from Prison (February 11, 1990)
History Lessons: The Oslo Accords (September 19, 1993)
Lessons Learned: Tokyo Sarin Gas Attack (March 20, 1995)