It is November 3, 1920, the day after the US presidential election.

For the first time in eight years, Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

Nay-sayers and obstructionists have been given the keys to the car.

The First World War, which had claimed almost 117,000 Americans, is over.

And the people have chosen between competing prescriptions for maintaining the peace.

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In 1943, a large manor house near Portsmouth, England, became the headquarters of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay, the Allied naval commander for D-Day.

Ramsay’s job was to plan for and direct all of the vessels which would transport men and materials to the Normandy beaches.

It was a huge assignment.

Seven thousand ships and landing craft would be used on June 6, 1944, for the initial invasion.

And thousands more vessels, loaded with men and supplies, would follow in the days and weeks to come.

To aid in the planning, the Royal Navy contracted with a British jig saw manufacturer in secret to construct a very large wall map of the English Channel and adjacent coasts of England and France.

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It is the spring of 1935.

Thousands of farm families in the Upper Midwest are destitute and surviving on government ‘relief.’

But 203 families have accepted the government’s offer of help in making a fresh start on raw land in Alaska.

It means saying goodbye to everyone and everything they have ever known.

But desperate times call for desperate measures.

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The witness tree

By the end of the afternoon on September 17, 1862, six hundred twenty men from New York, Pennsylvania and Georgia lay dead or wounded at a stone bridge spanning the Antietam Creek in southern Maryland.

The carnage came as the men from New York and Pennsylvania mounted three attempts to cross the bridge as the men from Georgia, arrayed in fortified positions on the opposing hill, fired down upon them.

The fight went on for hours, until the men from Georgia, badly outnumbered, ran out of ammunition and withdrew.

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It is February 12, 1909, the one hundredth birthday of Abraham Lincoln.

It is a day of national celebration.

At 8:00 AM in New York City, cannon blasts from nearby military forts, battleships in the harbor and National Guard field batteries fired a birthday salute.

And civil rights leader Booker T. Washington delivered an address to the Republican Club at New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

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Reading the paper on Nov. 2, 1944.

British and Canadian forces attacked Walcheren Island, in the Antwerp harbor, yesterday to eliminate German coastal batteries blocking Allied use of the North Sea port.

During the day, American heavy bombers targeted the Ruhr industrial area in Germany, along with rail hubs.

The Army Air Forces announced it now has 74,500 aircraft of all types.

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It is June 1879.

Ulysses S. Grant, the former president, is in Berlin on his two-year world tour.

He has walked down the Unter den Linden, the wide boulevard that has long been the major street in Berlin, and through most of the city.

He has received a request for a meeting from Prince Otto von Bismarck, the German Chancellor, who had created a unified Germany eight years before.

So, Grant walked the short distance to Radziwill Palace, the office of the Chancellor, and surprised the Palace guards.

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It is Thursday, October 31, 1968.

President Lyndon Johnson has called Vice President Hubert Humphrey, the Democratic presidential nominee, on the telephone.

In one hour, at 8:00 PM that evening, President Johnson will announce a halt to US bombing of North Vietnam in a televised address to the nation.

After five months of secret meetings in Paris, representatives of North Vietnam and the US have reached an agreement on the structure of a peace negotiation.

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It is December 8, 1941.

Lucille Summers is writing to her brother, Harold, a Navy signalman aboard the USS Arizona in Pearl Harbor.

Dear Harold,

Well, it’s come hasn’t it?

Nothing else seems to matter right now, & every man on the street can talk of nothing else.

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It is May 1831.

A young French aristocrat has come to New York City, where he will begin a nine-month tour of the new United States.

The French Revolution has abolished the French monarchy and feudal system.

French society continues to evolve.

A new middle class is rising, bolstered by new ideas of freedom and equality.

Where will these ideas lead?

To gain insight, Alexis de Tocqueville has come to the place where notions of liberty and equality are forging a new nation.

When he returns to France, he will write the definitive book on American democracy.

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