Washington, Lincoln, and FDR are generally regarded as the three greatest presidents in American history. Yet it seems as though Roosevelt doesn’t get praised quite as much or as often as the other two. Why not?
Catalog notes:
1945 Pulitzer Prize in Photography Winner Joe Rosenthal (American, 1911-2006) Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima (for Associated Press), 1945 Gelatin silver print, printed later 7-7/8 x 6-1/2 inches (20.0 x 16.5 cm) (image) 10 x 8 inches (sheet) ...
Few photographs are as instantly recognizable as Joe Rosenthal's Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima. Captured on February 23, 1945, during one of the most brutal battles of the Pacific Theater, the image depicts six United States Marines struggling together to raise an American flag atop Mount Suribachi.
What began as a tactical objective on a small volcanic island south of Tokyo became one of the defining visual symbols of World War II. The battle for Iwo Jima was fought at enormous cost. Following months of Allied advances across the Pacific, American forces launched an assault against a heavily fortified Japanese position defended by thousands of entrenched troops concealed within caves, tunnels, and concrete strongholds.
Days of naval bombardment and aerial attacks failed to fully neutralize the island's defenses, and Marines faced fierce resistance as they fought their way inland toward Suribachi.
Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal climbed the mountain alongside Marines and fellow photographers after hearing that a flag was to be raised at the summit. Arriving just in time, he witnessed a second, larger flag being hoisted and instinctively released the shutter. The resulting photograph captured a fleeting moment of collective effort rather than individual heroism, transforming an ordinary military action into an enduring symbol of sacrifice, unity, and perseverance.
Awarded the 1945 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, Rosenthal's image quickly became one of the most reproduced photographs in history. The photograph inspired the United States Marine Corps War Memorial in Arlington, Virginia, helped drive wartime bond campaigns, and came to embody the resolve of a nation at war.
More than eighty years later, it remains one of the most powerful and influential images ever created, representing not only victory, but the immense cost required to achieve it.
It’s gonna be a fight to the finish to make
it to year 251 and beyond for democracy; cheers
to the leaders who helped us get this far.
Rape, among other acts of wartime sexual violence, was frequently committed against female Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War. It was an aspect of the various human rights abuses perpetrated by the United States and South Korea, as well as by local Vietnamese combatants. According to American political scientist Elisabeth Jean Wood, the sexual violation of women by American military personnel was tolerated by their commanders.[3][4][5]: 65 American professor Gina Marie Weaver stated that not only were documented crimes against Vietnamese women by American soldiers ignored during the international legal discourse that occurred immediately after the conflict, but modern feminists and other anti-war rape campaigners, as well as historians, have continued to dismiss them
Read the latest: https://thomaspaine.org/the-sherman-copy
I just finished watching his interview on The Rest is History podcast and at the end he basically says you can make an argument for who comes next in ranking the best President, but Washington is #1.
Do you agree with this? If you don't, who do you have over him and why?
Finished this 54 mm metal miniature of a Continental Army soldier.
I went with a winter setting instead of the usual green terrain, imagining a soldier during one of the harsher campaigns of the Revolutionary War.
Any comments on the painting or historical details are welcome.
Who is a Founding Father you wish could’ve witnessed and therefore publicly spoke about a certain event? For me, a pretty common and simple one-Washington experiencing not just a true Civil War, but the passing of the 13th Amendment. I think he would’ve been like some CSA Officers in post war opinion, to be honest. Yes, publicly stating it was good. However, a lot of those guys including Lee said after the fact, after a loss, and what was law, that they support it. Actions speak louder than words but words were, again in my opinion, more important and honest in past generations. He would’ve supported its passage, but privately; reluctantly, and abided gracefully.
July 6, 1812: An American Commander Regrets a Lost Opportunity at St. Augustine
In the summer of 1812, as the United States entered its second war with Great Britain, another conflict was quietly unfolding along the nation’s southern frontier. Spanish Florida, officially neutral but increasingly caught between American expansion, British influence, and local rebellion, became the focus of a tense military standoff centered on the ancient walls of the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine.
HOn July 6, 1812, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Adam Smith of the United States Army recorded his frustration in a letter from his encampment outside the Spanish fortress, believing that the United States had missed its best chance to seize the city. His observations provide one of the clearest firsthand windows into a little-known chapter of Florida’s long and complicated road to becoming part of the United States.
By 1812, Florida remained divided into East and West Florida under Spanish rule, although Spain itself was in turmoil. Napoleon Bonaparte’s invasion of Spain had weakened Spanish authority throughout its empire, while Britain, Spain’s ally against France, maintained a growing presence in Florida.
American leaders worried that British forces could use Florida as a base of operations against the southern United States, especially after the outbreak of the War of 1812 in June. President James Madison’s administration also viewed Florida as a territory destined to become part of the expanding republic.
The unrest had begun months earlier during what became known as the Patriot War. In early 1812, a group of American settlers and Florida residents calling themselves the “Patriots” revolted against Spanish rule in East Florida. Although presented publicly as an independent uprising, the movement received covert encouragement, weapons, and logistical support from officials in the United States. Their objective was simple: overthrow Spanish authority and eventually bring East Florida into the Union.
To support the Patriots without formally declaring war on Spain, U.S. troops under General George Mathews and later Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Adam Smith moved into East Florida. The Patriots quickly captured Fernandina on Amelia Island and raised their own flag, but their advance slowed dramatically as they approached St. Augustine. Unlike the lightly defended settlements farther north, St. Augustine possessed one of the strongest masonry fortifications in North America.
The Castillo de San Marcos, completed by the Spanish in 1695 after more than two decades of construction, had already survived British sieges in 1702 and 1740. Built of coquina stone quarried from nearby Anastasia Island, the fortress absorbed cannon fire rather than shattering, making it one of the most formidable military structures on the continent. Anyone hoping to capture St. Augustine faced an imposing obstacle.
Lieutenant Colonel Smith believed that opportunity had briefly favored the Americans. Writing from his camp outside the Castillo on July 6, 1812, he lamented Washington’s hesitation:
“The Spaniards have not altered their conduct since the arrival of the one hundred black troops and it is difficult to determine whether they or the Patriots are the most inactive. It is unfortunate that the Government did not authorize the taking of the town immediately on my arrival before its walls. The Spaniards were then so panic struck and badly defended that it would have fallen an easy prey. If well defended now, the lives of many brave men will make its possession a dear attainment. However, if prompt measures are even now taken, I conceive the Garrison will not hold out long.”
Smith’s comments reveal both his military assessment and his growing frustration. He believed the Spanish garrison had initially been demoralized and vulnerable but had been allowed time to recover.
The arrival of approximately 100 Black soldiers, many of them free men or colonial troops serving Spain, strengthened the defense and complicated American calculations. Spain had long offered freedom to enslaved people escaping from the British colonies and later the United States in exchange for military service and loyalty to the Spanish Crown.
These Black soldiers represented a tradition that stretched back to Fort Mose, established in 1738 just north of St. Augustine as the first legally sanctioned free Black settlement in what is now the United States.
Despite Smith’s confidence that the fortress might still fall with decisive action, the United States remained cautious. The United States was already committed to a major war against Britain, and openly attacking Spanish territory risked provoking another international conflict.
President Madison had already recalled General George Mathews earlier in the year after Mathews exceeded his authority by effectively attempting to annex East Florida. The administration sought to distance itself from the Patriots’ more aggressive actions while still keeping pressure on Spain.
As weeks passed, the siege settled into an uneasy stalemate. The Patriots lacked the heavy artillery necessary to breach the Castillo’s thick coquina walls, while Spanish defenders remained safely behind one of the strongest fortifications in the Americas. British naval support for Spanish Florida further complicated the situation, and the Americans never launched the decisive assault Smith desired.
The failed siege became one of several unsuccessful American attempts to acquire Florida before diplomacy finally achieved what military force had not. Seven years later, in 1819, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams negotiated the Adams-Onís Treaty with Spain. Ratified in 1821, the treaty transferred East and West Florida to the United States peacefully while establishing the boundary between Spanish territory and the Louisiana Purchase.
Smith’s letter also illustrates the uncertain loyalties that defined Florida during this period. Patriots, Spanish regulars, free Black soldiers, Native American allies, British interests, and American troops all occupied the same landscape, each pursuing different visions for Florida’s future. It was not simply a contest between Spain and the United States but a struggle involving multiple peoples whose lives and destinies intersected in the ancient city of St. Augustine.
The events surrounding July 6, 1812, represent a pivotal moment when the territory might have changed hands years before it actually did. Smith believed a brief window existed when St. Augustine could have been taken by force, altering both the course of the Patriot War and perhaps the broader history of the War of 1812.
Instead, political caution prevailed over military opportunity. His candid letter captures the frustration of an officer convinced that hesitation had transformed an easy victory into a dangerous and costly prospect.
Today, the Castillo de San Marcos still stands over Matanzas Bay as the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States. Its survival through centuries of sieges, colonial rivalries, and changing flags reminds visitors that Florida’s path to statehood was neither quick nor inevitable.
The words of Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Adam Smith remain a remarkable firsthand testimony to one of the many moments when history might have unfolded very differently beneath the ancient coquina walls of St. Augustine.
#FloridaHistory #OnThisDay #StAugustine #CastilloDeSanMarcos #WarOf1812 #PatriotWar #SpanishFlorida #EastFlorida #MilitaryHistory #AmericanHistory #HistoricFlorida #SunshineStateHistory
Most people know about the Maya or the Aztecs, but far fewer have heard of Chaco Canyon in New Mexico.
Over 1,000 years ago, people here built massive stone structures in the middle of a harsh desert landscape. Some of these Great Houses had hundreds of rooms and were connected by long, unusually straight roads stretching across the region.
What I find interesting is that archaeologists also discovered evidence suggesting some buildings and features may have been aligned with solar and lunar cycles, showing that the people living here likely paid close attention to the sky.
Then comes the part that raises questions: around the late 12th century, the area gradually lost population and many of these major sites were abandoned.
Researchers point to a combination of long drought periods, environmental stress, and social changes, but it still leaves people wondering what life was actually like during Chaco’s peak.
Ancient North America had cities and engineering projects that many people never hear about.