Ninety years after its first screening and 100 years after the publication of the novel that inspired it, D.W. Griffith’s motion picture continues to be lauded for its cinematographic excellence and vilified for its racist content. The film came from Griffith’s personal vision, and as such it reflected the strengths and weaknesses of the man himself.
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Battle of Shepherdstown
The savage little Battle of Shepherdstown made for a bloody coda to the 1862 Maryland campaign.
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America’s Civil War: Guerrilla Leader William Clarke Quantrill’s Last Raid in Kentucky
When Confederate fortunes plummeted in Missouri, fearsome guerrilla leader William Clarke Quantrill and his band of hardened killers headed east to terrorize Union soldiers and civilians in Kentucky. It would be Quantrill’s last hurrah.
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Ambrose Bierce’s Civil War: One Man’s Morbid Vision
For Ambrose Bierce, the enemy was not really the gray-clad host at the other end of the field, but death, and the terror of death and wounds.
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USS Monitor: The Crew Took Great Pride in Serving on the Famous Ship
The crew of Swedish Inventor John Ericsson’s Monitor took great pride in serving on the renowned ‘cheese box on a raft.’
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Interview: General William C. Westmoreland
General William C. Westmoreland—widely identified as the embodiment of the American experience in Vietnam—recounts his military career and the Vietnam war during an interview in 1990.
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John Cabell Early Remembers Gettysburg
Major General Jubal Early’s nephew recalled the famous meeting on July 1 between his uncle and General Robert E. Lee during the 1863 invasion of Pennsylvania.
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Michie Hattori: Eyewitness to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Blast
Michie Hattori’s insistence on obeying her teachers saved her from the terrible effects of the atomic bomb blast at Nagasaki.
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RAF Officer Aidan MacCarthy’s Incredible Journey from Dunkirk to Nagasaki During World War II
RAF officer Aidan MacCarthy narrowly escaped the Nazis, spent three years in Japanese POW camps and survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
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J. Robert Oppenheimer and America’s Quest Build an Atomic Bomb
A gathering of many of the world’s greatest scientists in 1942, hosted by J. Robert Oppenheimer, laid the foundation for the development of the atomic bomb.