Archive of America

The stories they forgot to teach you. 22 stories building to America's 250th. Backed by primary sources, free forever. Never Forgotten.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

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Eighty-two years ago. June 6, 1944. D-Day.

The largest seaborne invasion in human history. Over 5,000 ships. More than 11,000 aircraft. And tens of thousands of young men who would decide the fate of the free world before the sun went down.

This is what they did that day. 🧵

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

A brick building in Boston with a copper dragon above the door.

Freemason lodge upstairs. Secret meetings in the basement.

The Tea Party was planned inside. Paul Revere's midnight ride was launched from there.

Daniel Webster called it "the Headquarters of the Revolution."

Most people have never heard of it.

The Green Dragon Tavern.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

In 1767, Britain tried a new strategy. Tax the goods, not the paper.

Glass. Lead. Paint. Paper. Tea.

The women of the colonies organized spinning bees, refused British fabric, and shut their ledgers to British merchants.

Economic warfare. Led by women who never get credit.

The Townshend Trap and the Women Who Fought Back.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

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The freedom of the Western world turned on what they did that day.

Eighty-two years later, we owe them more than a moment. We owe them the memory.

Remember the stories.

Never Forgotten.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

1/
Eighty-two years ago. June 6, 1944. D-Day.

The largest seaborne invasion in human history. Over 5,000 ships. More than 11,000 aircraft. And tens of thousands of young men who would decide the fate of the free world before the sun went down.

This is what they did that day. 🧵

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

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Farm boys and factory workers and sons who had never left home. Many had never even seen the ocean before the war put them on a ship to cross it.

They knew the odds. And they went anyway.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

@EchoesofWarYT There are so many stories that we were never taught or were completely forgotten. If only we had Patriots today like this man and the others of his day!

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

They both felt they did the best they could given the tough circumstances they both faced. They felt heavy burdens and the weight of immense responsibility upon them. They also both stated they felt they did what was right with the best of intentions. Funny enough, Truman admired Grant's military prowess but was critical of his Presidency, rather ironic coming from another President who faced similar kinds of post War turmoil...

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

In 1765, a 120-year-old elm tree in Boston became the most dangerous place in the British Empire.

The Sons of Liberty hung their first effigy from its branches. A copper plate reading "Tree of Liberty" was nailed to its trunk. A flag pole was driven through its canopy.

In 1775, the British cut it down and burned it for firewood.

The Tree That Started a Revolution.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

Yorktown was 6 years later in 1781. America formed slowly for many years leading up to the revolution and the colonies found how much more similar they were with each other than they each individually were with Britain. Without Lexington and Concord, Yorktown would not have existed.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

@ChrisMartzWX Agreed! Andrew Jackson and U.S. Grant are the worst ranked on that list among pre-1900's Presidents. The modern day one's are quite laughable. I despise revisionist History!

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

I will agree, he didn't have great political acumen, but he was a General that knew the importance of taking care of his men. The similarities of running an Army and running a country are what helped him navigate through everything. His mis-steps that hurt him were the trust of people who were corrupt even though he himself was not.

Everything was against him, he was the only one at that moment in time that could have held the country together and did just that. If you truly look at his Presidency, the vast majority of things written negatively about him are a result of the revisionist history influenced by the "Lost Cause" in the late 1800's into the early 1900's. The reality was that he came into office at one of the toughest times in the history of our nation: Southern resistance, war weariness, Andrew Johnson's failed policies, the rise of the KKK, the early black rights movement, and more. He balanced firmness and leniency, in one of the most delicate eras we have experienced. He embedded important precedents for civil rights that could not be unraveled by President Hayes when he ended Reconstruction.

His leadership was crucial and Historians do not give him this credit here. He literally preserved the Union, advanced equality more than most contemporaries, and left a stronger republic than he inherited, despite all of the real flaws and the limits of that era. Holding this country together when it should have collapsed should alone put him in higher categories, not a single President in our History other than maybe George Washington could have kept the country together during this period.

[SmokeRngs @SmokeRngs_]

@ArchiveAmerica @BasedMikeLee Grant was not a good president or a bad one. He allowed bureaucrats and Congress to run roughshod over him. He had good intentions but no real political acumen. There's a reason his presidency is a large part of the Gilded Age. Extremely corrupt fed government at that time.

[Archive of America @ArchiveAmerica]

The fact that they have Ulysses S. Grant as a bad President tells you everything you need to know. Grant literally saved our country after the death of Lincoln and the disaster known as Andrew Johnson. Most people don’t realize how good he really was because of the propaganda campaign against him by former Confederates. This isn’t even getting into the other glaring modern choices or the ranking of Andrew Jackson. History told by people with narratives, hatred for who we are and revisionism are what create a horrible list such as this…