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10 Mysteries in American History. Each slide poses a question for which historians still do not have clear answers. See what you know about the issue before advancing to the next slide, which describes the event in question and offers some possible answers.
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Each slide poses a question for which historians still do not have clear answers. See what you know about the issue before advancing to the next slide, which describes the event in question and offers some possible answers.
The first English colony in North America was established in 1584 with a group of about 100 colonists. The site of the colony was the Outer Banks of North Carolina, strategically located to empower England to challenge Spain’s control of what is now the southeastern United States. One month after disembarking, Eleanor Dare gave birth to a daughter, Virginia, who was celebrated as the first English person born in North America. After about a year, the colony’s organizer, John White, returned to England to raise more supplies. When he returned, the colony’s site was empty; the only clue to their fate was the word “CROATAN” carved into the side of a tree. The most likely explanation seems to be that the settlers abandoned the colony to seek refuge with a group of Indians (presumably named “Croatan”), but there is no biological or archeological evidence. Not until 1607 did the English try again to build a colony in North America; the Jamestown colony in Virginia was more successful and later called the “first permanent English colony.”
On 19 April, 1775, British forces occupying the city of Boston marched out into the countryside. Their destination was Concord, which was the storehouse for the Massachusetts militia. The military governor of Boston, General Thomas Gage, was reacting to news that the Continental Congress had called for the training and organizing of militia in opposition to the Coercive Acts. The British regulars were unable to sneak out of Boston undetected, and a group of riders (the most famous being Paul Revere) alerted the militia, who intercepted the British at Lexington. After a brief standoff, the militia began to disperse when an unknown person fired a shot; whether the shooter was an American or an Englishman remain unknown. Thus began the first battle of the American Revolution.
The charge against Jefferson first appeared in Richmond newspapers shortly after Jefferson’s inauguration. The accuser was James T. Callendar, whom Jefferson had recruited as a smear merchant to undermine Alexander Hamilton and John Adams. Disgruntled with Jefferson, Callendar turned his vociferous pen against his former employer. Jefferson denied the charges. DNA evidence in the 20th century determined that Hemings’ descendants did have some relationship with Jefferson, but it was unclear whether Thomas or another relative, such as a brother or nephew, was the father.
The breakdown of the caucus system in 1824 led to a plethora of candidates: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Congressman Henry Clay, General Andrew Jackson, and Secretary of Treasury William Crawford. When the votes were tallied, Jackson had a plurality of votes, but not the necessary majority. The House of Representatives took up the runoff between Jackson and the runner-up, John Quincy Adams. Out of the running, Clay threw his support behind the like-minded Adams, who was declared the winner. Jackson’s outrage at being robbed of his election was magnified by the news that Adams appointed Clay to be the next Secretary of State. Jackson’s supporters cried foul and corruption, although Adams and Clay were natural allies and both qualified to hold the jobs to which they were appointed.
A radical opponent of slavery, John Brown was one of thousands of antislavery Northerners who moved into Kansas after that territory was opened to slavery with the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Brown first became a national figure in 1856 when he brutally murdered a family of proslavery settlers along the Osawatomie River. Over the next several years, Brown continued to support antislavery operations in Kansas by raising supplies and settlers, and by orchestrating slave escapes and raids on proslavery settlements. In 1859, he launched an abortive raid on the U.S. arsenal in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia with the intention of using to start a widespread slave revolt in the Shenandoah Valley. His attempt failed, and Brown was hanged for treason. Most Northerners dismissed him as a lunatic, although some radical abolitionists considered him a martyr in the holy quest to destroy slavery. Southern fire-eaters believed that Brown was symptomatic of the North’s antislavery agenda and seceded from the Union a year later.
The Knights of Labor was the most influential national labor union in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Its support for the lowest classes of workers led the KOL to be associated with some of the most radical elements of the workers’ rights activists, including socialists and communists. During the Haymarket strike in 1884 Chicago, a bomb was detonated and killed seven people. The identity of the bomber was never determined. Although Powderly denounced the incident, many people, particularly in Chicago, blamed the KOL for the bombing, and the union lost its influence.
In the early 1890s, Americans again became interested in the Cuban insurrection, which sought to free Cuba from Spanish control. Journalist William Randolph Hearst’s “yellow journalism” sought to sensationalize events on the island and shape public opinion. Under pressure to protect American property in Havana, President McKinley dispatched the battleship USS Maine to Havana harbor. On the night of 14 February, 1898, the Maine exploded, killing most of her crew. Although the true cause of the explosion was never determined, Hearst and other imperialists were quick to blame a Spanish mine (“torpedo” as they called it), and McKinley finally asked Congress to declare war on Spain. The Spanish-American War demonstrated that the United States had become a world player; as a result of the war, the U.S. seized territories around the world (most importantly Puerto Rico and the Philippines). Another important consequence was the rise of Theodore Roosevelt, who was elected Vice President in 1900 on his war service as a Rough Rider and became president when McKinley was assassinated.
In 1927, a pair of Italians, Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, were executed for armed robbery and murder. Their case began in the early 1920s, in the aftermath of the Red Scare and fervent anticommunism, when Americans were becoming concerned about the influence of “radicals” who had immigrated from southern and eastern Europe. The case became a national phenomenon; nativists (rural opponents of the “corrupting” influences of immigration) believed Sacco and Venzetti were guilty, while urban modernists believed that their real crime was being Italian and that the evidence against them was suspicious. This case is often used as an example of the conflict between the urban and rural, the new and the old, the traditional and the modern, that so characterized the 1920s.
It was no secret that U.S. President John F. Kennedy considered South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem incompetent in fighting the communist forces invading his country, and Kennedy desperately needed to demonstrate his resolve and determination in confronting communist after the fiascos in Berlin, Vienna, and Cuba. For his part, Diem felt that his power was threatened by Buddhist monks who began protesting against him in 1963, by which time Diem had already survived several coups and assassination attempts. A group of Vietnamese generals approached US ambassador Henry C. Lodge about planning another coup. Kennedy’s Washington advisors, including Robert S. McNamara and McGeorge Bundy, were lukewarm about such an effort, believing that while difficult, Diem was the best alternative. Nevertheless, the coup proceeded, and Diem was killed on 2 November 1963. Most Vietnamese – communist and noncommunist alike – suspected that the United States was behind the coup, and South Vietnam never recovered from the perception that its government was a puppet of the United States. While it is clear that Kennedy knew about the plans for the coup, there is insufficient evidence to know whether he ordered the coup or simply did nothing to prevent it.
On 17 June, 1972 a group of burglars were caught attempting to bug the telephones in the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate building. Investigations, led by The Washington Post, quickly linked the break-in to President Nixon’s re-election committee, and by extension, the President himself. Nixon denied any involvement, and as the investigation unfolded, frequently fired aides implicated by the scandal. His secretary revealed that Nixon kept taped recordings of his meetings, so the special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, tried to subpoena the tapes. After a protracted legal battle, Nixon finally surrendered them. The tapes proved that Nixon was involved in a coverup of administration involvement in the break-in, but the question as to whether Nixon knew about the breakin in advance was not addressed; the tape in question had an 18 ½ minute erasure. The scandal resulted in the only resignation by an American president and the transfer of presidential power to the unelected Gerald Ford.
