With the ongoing conflict between Donald Trump and the news media, including the President blocking the access of selected news outlets to the White House and vilifying journalists, it’s important to revisit the struggle for a free press since the early history of the United States and its role in a democratic society. [Read more…] about New York’s Historical Defenses of Freedom of the Press
Vietnam War
The 1970s on Long Island Experience
If you lived through the 1970s, you know the decade was about more than orange shag carpets, platform shoes, avocado-colored walls, oversized Detroit-made “land yachts” and spinning Saturday Night Fever or Grease on vinyl. The completion of the Long Island Expressway was followed by the 1973 OPEC Oil Embargo; the end of the Vietnam War in 1975 became the 1776 Bicentennial – the period was layered and complex.
Across Long Island, social, political, and demographic shifts fueled cultural and artistic innovation, even as new questions and vulnerabilities emerged. [Read more…] about The 1970s on Long Island Experience
Automatic Draft Registration to Begin in December
National automatic voter registration appears to be off the table, but men 18 and 25 will be automatically registered for military conscription, better known as “the draft,” beginning in December.
This according to the Selective Service System (SSS) which maintains the national database of men who can be forced to serve in the military during wartime. The automatic registration system was mandated in December 2025 as part of the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, passed by the Republican led Congress and signed by U.S. President Donald Trump. [Read more…] about Automatic Draft Registration to Begin in December
Martin Luther King’s Northern New York Legacy
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and if you lived through the 1960s, you’ll never forget that turbulent decade. Even turbulent is putting it mildly: weekly classroom drills for nuclear attacks (Get under my desk? What the heck is this thing made of?); riots over race, poverty, the draft, and the Vietnam War; the assassinations of JFK, King, and Bobby Kennedy; and so much more.
Martin Luther King Jr. was a leading figure of those times, beloved and hated nationally and internationally. Love him or hate him, he was remarkable. Against the worst of odds, he effected change through peaceful protest. The impact was clear, even here in Northern New York. [Read more…] about Martin Luther King’s Northern New York Legacy
Moving Day 1974: The Welches Begin Again in Vietnam
Early on July 6, 1974, my family and I boarded a China Airlines flight destined for the capital of the Republic of South Vietnam. I was just shy of my eighth birthday and delighted at the prospect of living in the same country as my father again. We’d been separated since July 1972 when he’d been transferred to Saigon, and we’d been given “safe-haven” on the island of Taiwan. [Read more…] about Moving Day 1974: The Welches Begin Again in Vietnam
First to the Front: The Life of Dickey Chapelle
This week on the Historians Podcast Lorissa Rinehart talks about her biography of female photojournalist and war correspondent Dickey Chapelle, First to the Front: The Untold Story of Dickey Chapelle, Trailblazing Female War Correspondent (St. Martin’s Press, 2023). [Read more…] about First to the Front: The Life of Dickey Chapelle
Teachable Moments Launch A New Book
Autobiographies are by far the most popular genre in literature. My experience mentoring over 150 adults in completing and sharing a “Life Map” project in a supportive group reinforces this fact. For many of these adults, their Life Map turned out to be one of their best learning experiences. And that in spite of the fact that for about eight percent of adults this “experiment” in self-writing and exploration came up against a “darkside event” or difficult life-chapter that put up a real roadblock. [Read more…] about Teachable Moments Launch A New Book
NY’s Air National Guard in the Vietnam War
The Air National Guard began flights regularly in 1966 to support Military Airlift Command operations to Japan and South Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
Other Air Guard elements supported aeromedical evacuation flights across the country to free up active duty Air Force resources for similar missions in Southeast Asia between 1965 and 1969. [Read more…] about NY’s Air National Guard in the Vietnam War
Helicopter Heroine: French General Valerie Andre
Valérie André is one of the great military aviators of the twentieth century. She was the first woman to fly a helicopter in combat and one of the first three helicopter medevac pilots. Flying more than 150 helicopter rescue missions during the French war in Indochina (including at Dien Bien Phu), and parachuting into the field twice, André was a trailblazer, a pioneer of flying helicopters in combat and an innovator of battlefield medicine, who risked her life to treat the wounded, whether they were French or Vietnamese, whether they were friend, civilian, or foe. [Read more…] about Helicopter Heroine: French General Valerie Andre
Active Dissent: 1970s College Protests in New York
On May 8th, 1972, New Paltz students went from dorm to dorm at the state university, pulling fire alarms, their reaction quick and spontaneous. Few students had television sets, but word spread quickly about President Nixon’s broadcast announcing he had ordered the mining of North Vietnam ports.
Just hours after Nixon’s address, around midnight, the college’s assistant director of housing placed a frantic call to campus security. [Read more…] about Active Dissent: 1970s College Protests in New York
The Agent Orange Trial: Long Island Legal History
We finish out our special three-part series on Long Island’s Vietnam veterans by looking at a second battle they faced in the years after the war: the effects of Agent Orange. By the late 1970s the effects of this chemical defoliant were becoming known and veterans began to mobilize. [Read more…] about The Agent Orange Trial: Long Island Legal History
Vietnam War Oral History Subject of Long Island History Project
On the next few episodes of the Long Island History Project, we are revisiting the Vietnam War through the eyes of three local residents, each with their own perspective on the conflict and its devastating aftermath. Today we hear from Oyster Bay resident Jack Parente who was drafted out of college and served in the Army’s 1st Calvary Division. These stories come to us through the work of historian Christopher Verga, who has been recording oral histories with veterans throughout the region. Chris walks us through Jack’s life as well as the process of conducting this type of historical research. [Read more…] about Vietnam War Oral History Subject of Long Island History Project
Historian Jill Lepore On Data Mining and Voter Manipulation
Jill Lepore’s book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future (Liveright, 2020) is an account of the Cold War origins of the data-obsessed, algorithmic twenty-first century.
Launched in 1959 by some of the nation’s leading social scientists, the Simulmatics Corporation mined data, targeted voters, manipulated consumers, destabilized politics, and disordered knowledge ― decades before Facebook, Google, and Cambridge Analytica. [Read more…] about Historian Jill Lepore On Data Mining and Voter Manipulation
Westmoreland: West Point’s Controversial Graduate
The grounds and buildings occupying the hallowed landscape of the United States Military Academy at West Point are adorned with statutes, plaques, and pictures of many of the nation’s most famous military leaders. The cemetery is a veritable who’s who of those who fought in our nation’s wars. Statutes of Patton, Eisenhower, and MacArthur stand outside West Point’s Library, Dining Hall, and Parade Grounds.
Inside Eisenhower Hall are pictures of some of its most notable graduates, including one who is often labeled one of the most controversial generals in American military history. There is also a plaque in his honor at Thayer Hall, the building that is named after the Academy’s first Superintendent, Sylvanus Thayer. [Read more…] about Westmoreland: West Point’s Controversial Graduate
A Trauma Surgeon Remembers the Vietnam War
This week on The Historians Podcast, Gus Kappler, M.D., recounts his service in Vietnam as described in his book, Welcome Home from Vietnam Finally: A Vietnam Trauma Surgeon’s Memoir.
Listen to the podcast here. [Read more…] about A Trauma Surgeon Remembers the Vietnam War
Vietnam Memorial Project Coming To Port Byron
The Wall That Heals, a 250-foot replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, along with a mobile Education Center, is coming to Port Byron on June 1 to 4, 2017 and will be open and free to the public.
The Wall That Heals honors the more than three million Americans who served in the U.S. Armed forces in the Vietnam War and its walls bear the names of the more than 58,000 men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice in Vietnam. [Read more…] about Vietnam Memorial Project Coming To Port Byron
New-York Historical Opens Art as Activism Exhibit
Long before digital technology made instant worldwide communication possible, political protests and calls for action reached the public through posters. Posted on walls and bulletin boards, slapped up on store windows and church doors, these works often featured bright colors and modernist art-inspired graphics, and were quickly mass-produced to inform communities, stir up audiences, and call attention to injustice.
This summer, the New-York Historical Society is presenting 72 posters dating from the early 1930s through the 1970s in Art as Activism: Graphic Art from the Merrill C. Berman Collection, on through September 13, 2015. [Read more…] about New-York Historical Opens Art as Activism Exhibit
New Book: A Dictionary Of Vietnam War Slang
On August 7th, the US marked the 50th anniversary of the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, the basis for the Johnson administration’s escalation of American military involvement in Southeast Asia and war against North Vietnam.
A new book, Vietnam War Slang: A Dictionary on Historical Principles (Routledge, 2014) by Tom Dalzell, outlines the context behind the slang used by members of the United States Armed Forces during the Vietnam War. [Read more…] about New Book: A Dictionary Of Vietnam War Slang
Remembering America’s Fallen In Every Community
There is a special group of people who are remembered by a society. These are the fallen, those who die in battle on behalf of something larger than themselves. In the Bible there is an infrequently used term “nephilim” from the verb “to fall.”
Based on the archaeological evidence, the Nephilim appear to have been part of group who were remembered in Canaanite societies in the Middle and Late Bronze Age (second millennium BCE). These fallen warriors were remembered in feasts and stories just as warriors who have fallen in battle are still remembered today. It’s part of the human experience. [Read more…] about Remembering America’s Fallen In Every Community
Kennedy Assassination 50th Anniv Events Planned
During the weekend of November 22, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Glens Falls (UUCGF) will present four free events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
“Over the course of the weekend, we aim to shine light on radical and dramatic changes JFK was planning in foreign policy, just prior to his assassination. Specifically, JFK was intending to withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. After the assassination these plans were reversed and kept secret from the public, and these decisions still affect us today,” Sally Strasser, a coordinator of the UUCGF events, said in announcement of the events. [Read more…] about Kennedy Assassination 50th Anniv Events Planned