Professor and author Noam Chomsky discusses the current "War on Terrorism" in the context of earlier perceptions of terrorism and national threat, including the Cold War and World War II.
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NBC Nightly News looks back at the Cuban Missile Crisis, showing how close America came to nuclear war with Russia in 1962.
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On the occasion of Eugene McCarthy's death, NBC explores the tumultuous year of 1968, when he challenged the Democrats to focus on Vietnam, the issue tearing the country apart.
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The granddaughter of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg discusses a documentary she has created for HBO that explores the question of whether they were really guilty.
NBC's Ann Curry interviews the author of Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage about the strategies and the combat at the Battle of Gettysburg.
Author Walter Isaacson discusses the life of Benjamin Franklin and his many contributions to the prosperity of colonial Philadelphia and his place in American history.
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This iCue Mini-Documentary describes the war that ignited between England and France when a young George Washington was drawn into a skirmish with French scouts. Control over the continent of America was at stake as the two world powers conducted a massive war in the colonies.
Why did armies, during the American Revolution and at other times, fight with lines of men standing near each other? Why did they not simply fight from behind cover?
The use of linear formations in European army infantries was one element of what military historians have called the "Military Revolution," though they have disagreed on the period within early modern history—the Hundred Years' War (13371453), 15501660, or 16601720—during which the tactic became most significant.
In linear formations, infantry troops, armed beginning in the late 17th century with bayoneted flintlock muskets, marched in columns until they were ordered by commanders to form lines, usually three-to-five men in depth, and charge enemy targets while firing in unison. The tactic did not require skilled marksmanship or out-of-the-ordinary heroics, but relied instead on well-drilled and disciplined soldiers delivering massive amounts of firepower.
Line charges, especially when accompanied by artillery fire that arrived at enemy lines just as the advancing soldiers came into firing range, could be decisive in battle. Defending armies, arranged in similarly cohesive lines, could respond with corresponding volleys of ammunition and fend off larger forces. Army size was greatly increased due to the institutionalization of linear formations within a framework of centralized bureaucratic organization, as was the impact of the military on societies.
Historian Guy Chet has discredited a popular "Americanization thesis" that attributed colonists in militias during the late 17th and early 18th centuries with adopting guerrilla warfare tactics learned in battles with Indians as more appropriate than linear formations for fighting in wilderness terrains. Chet finds a lack of evidence for the claim and maintains that contrary to popular belief, the initial victories of American forces in the first battles of the War of Independence were not due to so-called American tactics, but from the failure of the British forces to adhere to established tactics and strategies.
While guerrilla warfare did break out in the backcountry of the South during the final year of the Revolutionary War, both sides for the most part engaged in battles fought according to tactics developed during the Military Revolution.
Clifford J. Rogers, ed., The Military Revolution Debate: Readings on the Military Transformation of Early Modern Europe. Boulder: Westview Press, 1995.
Jeremy Black, European Warfare, 16601815. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Guy Chet, Conquering the American Wilderness: The Triumph of European Warfare in the Colonial Northeast. Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003.
The Victor Historical Society operates the Valentown Museum. The museum contains harness shop, grocery store, meeting room, and cobbler's shop period settings and military, textile, farming, household, railroad, trolley, blacksmithing, and other exhibits. Collection highlights include a wagon used in the Revolutionary War.
The society offers exhibits, archive access, craft demonstrations, and summer camps. Demonstrations occur May through early September. Appointments are required for archive access.
The Centre Hill Museum is a historic house museum. The 1823 residence is used to discuss its own history, including Presidential visits and its role in the Civil War. The interior houses decorative arts dating from 1700 through the 1900s. Collection highlights include a circa 1900 aviary of stuffed birds. The structure displays Greek Revival, Federal, and Colonial Revival elements.
The museum offers exhibits.