一般都公认,美国是世界上追求,和向往自由人们投奔的圣地。
标志着这方“自由之地”的自由女神,在哈德逊河的爱丽丝岛上,高举自由的火炬,紧握手中的宪法,面向东方,传播着伟大的民主理念。呵呵,很自豪的样子。
“10
Days That Unexpectedly Changed America”是一本有选择的,在美国历史上发生的故事,描绘出在伟大民主理念基础下美国一个自由之地的建成.
先生告诉我,经过一番周折,他翻译的这本书,由复旦大学出版社出版,在中国发行了。这本书所选的这些事件,因未出现在通行的历史教科书中而先为人知,但他们却出乎预料地。历史性地改变了美国。
我最感兴趣的是那篇发生在July
16 1939,爱因斯旦写信给罗斯福,一不小心造就了一个制造原子弹的”曼哈顿计划”,很富有戏剧性。
A companion book to The History Channel® special
series of ten one-hour documentaries10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America
pinpoints pivotal days that transformed our nation. For the series and the
book, The History Channel challenged a panel of leading historians, including
author Steven M. Gillon, to come up with some less well-known but historically
significant events that triggered change in America.
Together, the days they chose tell a story about the
great democratic ideals upon which our country was built. You won’t find July
4, 1776, for instance, or the attack on Fort Sumter that ignited the Civil War,
or the day Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. But January 25, 1787, is here.
On that day, the ragtag men of Shays’ Rebellion attacked the federal arsenal in
Springfield, Massachusetts, and set the new nation on the path to a strong
central government. January 24, 1848, is also on the list. That’s when a
carpenter named John Marshall spotted a few glittering flakes of gold in a
California riverbed. The discovery profoundly altered the American dream. Here,
too, is the day that noted pacifist Albert Einstein unwittingly advocated the
creation of the Manhattan Project, thus setting in motion a terrible chain of
events. Re-creating each event with vivid immediacy, accessibility, and
historical accuracy, 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America comes together
as a history of our country, from the first colonists’ contact with Native
Americans to the 1960s. It is a snapshot of our country as we were, are, and
will be.
Date
|
Eve
|
May 26, 1637
|
The Mystic
Massacre of the Pequot War
|
January 25, 1787
|
Shays' Rebellion in Western Massachusetts led by
Daniel Shays
|
January 24, 1848
|
The beginning of
the California Gold Rush also a time where
people were moving from east to west
|
September 17,
1862
|
The Battle of Antietam during the American Civil War
|
July 6, 1892
|
|
September 6,
1901
|
The assassination of President William
McKinley
|
July 21, 1925
|
The infamous Scopes
Trial in Dayton, Tennessee
|
July 16, 1939
|
Albert
Einstein sends his letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt urging him to explore
nuclear weaponry
|
September 9,
1956
|
|
June 21, 1964
|
Civil rights
workers James Chaney, Andrew
Goodman, and Michael Schwerner being murdered in Philadelphia, Mississipp
|