When we fail to teach the country’s boys and girls these stories — when we allow them to learn only selected portions of America’s history — they become easy marks for power-hungry adults espousing seductive white supremacy messages.

A great country is not afraid to look in the mirror.

So, look and make children learn all of it.

Knowledge is power.

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

The new, Trump-imposed obligation of US government workers

to report on their coworkers who fail to

‘toe the line’ on DEI matters

(and perhaps other things not yet announced)

takes a page from the Stasi playbook.

And as the German experience has shown,

the repercussions from this “snitch” directive

will last a lot longer than Trump will.

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

Reading the paper on January 25, 1941.

And finally…

The Cuban press has ridiculed the resolution a US senator introduced in Congress yesterday which calls for the admission of Cuba as a new American state.

In Havana, Cuban senators have requested a special session of the Cuban congress to craft an official response to the idea, calling it ‘offensive to Cuba’s national dignity.’

One Cuban newspaper suggested the Cuban congress instead petition the State of Florida to inquire whether they desired independence from the United States.

…everything old is new again.

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

Some words from Longfellow’s “The Building of the Ship,”

an allegorical poem treasured by Lincoln and FDR

in which a robust and resilient ship symbolizes

the nation’s passage through times of great adversity.

Thou, too, sail on, O Ship of State!

Sail on, O Union, strong and great!

Humanity with all its fears,

With all the hopes of future years,

Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

But then came this thing of beauty,

Fantasia,

a balm for the soul.

There is a place for things like that in dark times.

Against a backdrop of evil,

beautiful examples of human grace cast a very bright light.

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

In the words of Karl Marx:

“[The German philosopher Georg] Hegel remarks somewhere that all great, world-historical facts and personages occur, as it were, twice.

He has forgotten to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.”

Welcome to the farce.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

When I am tempted to lose faith in America,

I try to remember what we once did and what we once stood for.

I live in hope that our national character has not changed.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

It is April 14, 1906.

President Theodore Roosevelt has traveled to the grounds of the US Capitol

where he will lay the cornerstone of the Cannon House Office Building.

He had been reelected to office in a landslide sixteen months before

as the champion of progressive reforms

intended to regulate industry and mitigate the effects

of industrial capitalism on individuals and communities.

Now, in a new Gilded Age, Roosevelt’s words have renewed relevance.

The foundation stone of national life is,

and ever must be,

the high individual character of the average citizen.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

Reading the paper on January 18, 1942.

It is a dark time…

British and Japanese forces clashed in the mangrove swamps ninety miles from the British crown colony of Singapore yesterday, as the sixth week of the world war drew to a close.

Overhead, seventy Japanese aircraft bombed the city, inflicting 150 casualties, while British aircraft bombed Japanese landing barges as they approached Singapore by river.

Australian forces have managed to stem the Japanese advance along part of the front for the moment.

Recognizing the risk to Australia posed by the rapid advance of the Japanese invasion force, officials there have promised to send additional reinforcements into the fight.

[But it will be in vain. The British will surrender its 85,000 troops in Singapore to the Japanese in four weeks, in the largest British surrender in history.]

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe

A friend whose ancestor left Canton to work for the railroad

tells me her ancestor’s story has been passed down in her family

from generation to generation.

He is said to have traveled back and forth,

from Canton to California, several times,

bring back money which sustained the women, children

and elderly whom he had left behind.

Each retelling, my friend says, renews her family’s pride in being Chinese.

‘We built America, Brenda,’ she tells me, then smiles.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Get full access to History in Pictures at look.substack.com/subscribe