Lee Wright

Business/tech entrepreneur and founder of The History List, The History List Store, History Camp, and the non-profit organization The Pursuit of History.

[History Dame @history_dame]

America at 250

On June 11, 1776, the Second Continental Congress takes a pivotal step toward American independence by appointing the Committee of Five to draft the Declaration of Independence.

Chosen for the task:
• Thomas Jefferson (Virginia)
• John Adams (Massachusetts)
• Benjamin Franklin (Pennsylvania)
• Roger Sherman (Connecticut)
• Robert R. Livingston (New York)

Jefferson, praised for his eloquent pen, was urged by Adams to take the lead on the first draft. After revisions by Adams and Franklin, the committee presented its work to Congress on June 28, history was just days away…

[Lee Wright @leewright]

Dig deeper into the story of her speech and I think you will find that there were no contemporaneous independent accounts of it. There was, as I recall, a woman from Ohio who wrote up the speech to sound the way she thought others expected African Americans to sound.

Truth’s first language was Old Dutch, and of course Sojourner Truth was a name she gave herself.

The museum of African American history has one of the CDVs she would sell to support herself. I love the line she had below her picture, “I sell the shadow to support the substance.” Another indicator that she probably never would have expressed herself in the words now attributed to her.

[Lee Wright @leewright]

@SabinHoward It’s really outstanding. And even more impressive in person. I thought I followed the project along the way, but apparently missed the 4.5 year battle to get it approved. Would you care to share what happened?

[John Rich🇺🇸 @johnrich]

I wonder who at The White House might be able to make this happen? This man has earned it, and what a GREAT thing he's doing for people in need around America! This is what "Love Thy Neighbor" is all about🇺🇸

[Rodney Smith Jr @iamrodneysmith]

Dear @WhiteHouse, my name is Rodney Smith Jr., founder of Raising Men & Women Lawn Care Service in Huntsville, Alabama. Through our 50 Yard Challenge, over 6,000 kids across the country have signed up to mow free lawns for the elderly, disabled, veterans, active-duty military, first responders, and single parents. With America celebrating its 250th birthday this year and me also being born on July 4th, I wanted to humbly ask if a few kids from our program and myself could travel to Washington, D.C. to help mow the White House lawn for this historic celebration.

More than anything, I want these kids to see how a simple act of service something as ordinary as mowing a lawn for someone in need can lead to extraordinary places. What better lesson in community service than showing them that helping others can take them all the way to our nation’s capital? I’d also love to bring my American flag-themed mower in hopes that the President might sign it, so I can later auction it off and donate 100% of the proceeds to a nonprofit supporting veterans. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to highlight the importance of service, patriotism, and the impact young people can have when they choose to make a difference. 🇺🇸

[Lee Wright @leewright]

@MassFiscal @SheriffLew Bravo!

[Lee Wright @leewright]

@GPAIndiana Bravo! Beautiful result. Such impressive work. So much to be proud of. Really great.

[Lee Wright @leewright]

@elonmusk Finally!

[Robert Sterling @RobertMSterling]

Yesterday, a Gold Star wife asked if anyone could send her a picture of her husband’s grave in Arlington.

Less than 24 hours later, @nicksortor didn’t just send her a video, he put flowers down.

There are lots of good people on this app. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

[Lee Wright @leewright]

And how interesting that they chose that name: “The name Arabella (also spelled Arbella) most famously refers to the 1630 flagship of the Winthrop Fleet that brought Puritan emigrants and the Massachusetts Bay Company charter to New England, paving the way for the Massachusetts Bay Colony.”

[History Dame @history_dame]

My newest tea towel that I got from @TheHistoryList!

Isn’t it grand?!

[The History List @TheHistoryList]

So happy you got it. It is really exceptional, essentially uncirculated and printed about a year after Dunlap printed the most important item of his career, our nation’s Declaration of Independence.

Thanks, again, for getting this. It is the finest piece of colonial currency I have ever owned and I’m very happy that it is now yours.

[Lee Wright @leewright]

From the last paragraph of the Declaration, one that few know and even fewer understand.

[The History List @TheHistoryList]

Announcing the most important shirt we have ever done. Recognizing the men who put their lives on the line by signing our Declaration of Independence. Made in America, of course.

[Hidden History @HiddenHistoryYT]

On the night of May 5, 1944, the USS Buckley, a destroyer escort barely a year old, was prowling the mid-Atlantic west of the Cape Verde Islands when her radar pinged something on the surface 20,000 yards out.

It was U-66. A German submarine that had been terrorizing Allied shipping for two and a half years, sinking 33 ships across two oceans. She was the deadliest U-boat still at sea.

What followed is the most unhinged naval engagement of WWII.

The Buckley closed in under a moonless sky. U-66's captain, exhausted and low on fuel, mistook her silhouette for the German supply sub he'd been desperately waiting to meet. He flashed a recognition signal. The Buckley flashed a random one back. It worked just long enough.

At 600 yards, the Buckley opened fire. The U-boat answered with her 37mm flak gun, shells screaming past the bridge. Tracers lit up the ocean. The Buckley's captain, Lt. Cdr. Brent Abel, made a decision that wasn't in any manual.

He rammed her.

The Buckley's bow rode up onto U-66's forward deck and stuck there, pinning the two ships together in the middle of the Atlantic. And that's when the Germans did something no one expected.

They tried to board the American destroyer.

U-boat crewmen, some in pajamas, some barefoot, some clutching pistols, leapt from their sinking submarine up onto the Buckley's deck like 18th-century pirates. What followed was something out of Hornblower, not 1944.

The Buckley's crew, caught at point-blank range with deck guns that couldn't depress low enough, fought back with whatever they could grab:

empty shell casings hurled like bricks coffee mugs from the galley fists and boots a Thompson submachine gun swung as a club after it jammed one sailor reportedly threw a full can of coffee that knocked a German cold

Gunner's Mate Jim Brown emptied a .45 into the boarders. Officers fired sidearms from the bridge wing. A German officer climbing aboard was shot in the chest and tumbled back into the sea. Another surrendered with his hands up, mid-leap.
The two ships ground against each other for several minutes. Steel screaming, men screaming, the Atlantic black around them.
Finally the Buckley reversed engines and tore free. Then, because the U-boat was still afloat and still dangerous, Abel turned around and rammed her a second time, crushing her conning tower and rolling her onto her side.
U-66 went down at 03:39. The Buckley fished 36 surviving Germans out of the water, including the men who, twenty minutes earlier, had been trying to beat her crew to death on her own deck.
American casualties: a few cuts, bruises, and one sailor with a sprained wrist from punching a Nazi in the face.

They made fresh coffee and sailed home.

[Lee Wright @leewright]

In his talk, he called it “friends and family” and referred to a couple of partners. Not sure where the claim of “$265k borrowed from his grandmother” came from.

The more interesting point is listening to Ken’s plea in 2013 for businesses to get involved in fixing Chicago, knowing that ultimately he realized that it wasn’t possible given the political climate and that he picked up and moved the firm to Florida.

[The Pursuit of History @PursuingHistory]

Good morning, Philadelphia. We are delighted to have yet another day here in Philadelphia in 1776 for “The Pursuit of History: The Road to Independence.” This morning, author Richard Vague talks to our group about financing the Revolutionary War. Later this morning: @APhilosSociety. This afternoon: @ConstitutionCtr.

In early November, we are headed to Trenton for “The British Empire Stikes Back.” Planning for Trenton began months ago.

[Mario Nawfal @MarioNawfal]

🇺🇸 Most Americans have never heard of Patriots Day, and almost no one outside the U.S. knows it exists.

Yet it’s one of the most action-packed holidays in the country, and it holds a lot of significance.

Celebrated only in Massachusetts and Maine, it marks the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the opening shots of the American Revolution.

Every year, on the third Monday of April (today), Boston holds its marathon at dawn, the Red Sox play a morning home game at America’s oldest ballpark, and reenactors fire muskets at each other in the suburbs.

In 2013, two bombs were detonated near the finish line, killing 3 people and injuring hundreds more.

The following year, Boston came back with record crowds lining the route, the city's defiance becoming as much a part of the day's identity as the race itself.

The world's oldest annual marathon, a sold-out ballpark, a 250-year-old battle, and the stubborn refusal to be broken, all on the same morning, all in the same city.

[Tammi Minoski 🟦 @TammiMinoski]

Built in 1707, the Buckman Tavern in Lexington, was a gathering place and the site of many important town meetings. Captain Parker and his militia gathered in this tavern in the early morning hours of April 19, 1775, to await the oncoming British Redcoat troops. #America250🇺🇸

[Lee Wright @leewright]

I simply don’t understand how they decided not to recognize the 250th, especially as part of their 100th, or recognize the 250th in any way whatsoever. … The missing 250th. @America250

[The History List @TheHistoryList]

Love the way @AmericanAir is really leaning into our nation’s 250th. And how clever of them to tie in their 100th. What vision. What creativity. Their management team and creative leadership, ad agency, events teams, PR agencies have really … Oh, wait … The missing 250th—again. … What a disappointment. Wasn’t it obvious to a company with _American_ in their name? @America250

[Today in History @TodayinHistory]

Today the Revolutionary War began in 1775.

“The fate of unborn millions will now depend, under God, on the courage and conduct of this army.”

George Washington