The Forgotten History Blog

Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh president of the United States (and only ever to resign), famously came into office promising to end the unpopular war in Vietnam he had inherited from President Johnson. But instead Nixon cranked up the heat in Vietnam, intensifying the conflict and secretly expanding it into Laos and Cambodia.

While Nixon publicly exalted American troops who he said were bravely fighting for the cause of freedom in Vietnam, in private his views of American service-members were another story, despite having served himself in the Navy during World War II.

Above: Nixon and the troops Nixon frequently talked to Henry Kissinger, his Secretary of State and National Security Adviser over the phone. Kissinger secretly had their conversations tape recorded and transcripts written up immediately for him to use in his memoirs later. Out of these confidential conversations comes a wealth of insight into Nixon’s true views, as revealed to one of his closest confidants.

According to one transcript, Kissinger raised subject of the number of American soldiers dying in Vietnam to which Nixon replied dismissively, “Oh screw ‘em.” He didn’t have much respect for the civilians dying either apparently, complaining to Kissinger in another conversation, “You’re so goddamned concerned about civilians and I don’t give a damn. I don’t care.”

Although he’s most remembered for “discovering” the Americas, land on which native peoples had been living for thousands of years, Christopher Columbus was also a slave trader.

After Columbus found what he thought was the eastern edge of India on his first voyage, he found the natives he encountered “ought to make good and skilled servants” according to his diaries. He also at first expressed an eagerness to bring religion to the natives, saying “I think they can very easily be made Christians, for they seem to have no religion.”

Above: Columbus “discovers” the New World However, when Columbus realized that he couldn’t use people he converted as slaves (at the time, Christians couldn’t be used as slaves according to Spanish law), he decided not to convert them after all so he could use and sell them as slaves.

On the contrary, Columbus didn’t just not let religion get in the way of his profiting off slavery: he actually believed God embraced his slave business. On his third voyage, Columbus wrote during his return to Hispaniola in 1498, “From here one might send, in the name of the Holy Trinity, as many slaves as could be sold…”

When word of Columbus’ torture sessions and brutal rule over “the new world” made it back to Spain, the explorer was hauled back to Spain in chains to serve in prison. Despite all this however, he’s still celebrated each year in much of the United States on Columbus Day, October 12.

Although they were officially still at war, many British and German soldiers disobeyed orders and had their own impromptu truce on Christmas 1914. The two groups of soldiers, who had for months been cooped up in their respective trenches in the freezing cold, climbed up on the battlefield without their weapons, and met each other.

The Germans and British sang carols together, exchanged small gifts, drank, and even engaged in games of soccer (football).

Above: A photo of British and German forces posing together on Christmas, 1914. Soldiers from both sides also used the opportunity to collect their dead who lay strewn on the battlefield and bury them.

The truce occurred after then-Pope Benedict XV had called for one earlier that year. But higher-ups on both sides disagreed with his suggestion, and opposed the truce.

British commander Gen. Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien had this to say of the truce: “To finish this war quickly, we must keep up the fighting spirit and do all we can to discourage friendly intercourse.” Similarly, said one young corporal Adolf Hitler of the German army, “Such things should not happen in wartime. Have you Germans no sense of honor left at all? ”

Such official outrage didn’t stop the troops in future years however when smaller truces occurred, though commanders ordered artillery strikes be carried out on Christmas Eve in hopes that it would stop opposing soldiers from getting to know each other.

Long before Ronald Reagan was the governor of California or the 40th president of the United States, he made money posing in cigarette advertisements.

Although his modeling relationship with the tobacco industry dates to at least the 1930s when he was a radio sportscaster, business picked up after he became a well known Hollywood actor, and he continued to model for them.

The amount of money he earned by making tobacco “cool” is unknown.

Above: Mmm, mild. What is known is that Reagan mostly did his posing for The Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, which was later through a series of lawsuits revealed to be covering up the true health effects of smoking through their deceptive advertisements.

Ironically, though he was paid to make smoking cool, Reagan did not smoke himself. Below are a few ads featuring the then-future president.

An early 1932 ad from his career as a radio sportscaster features Reagan endorsing Kentucky Winner cigarettes and Kentucky Club pipe tobacco.

In this 1948 ad featured in Life Magazine, Reagan proclaimed, “My cigarette is the mild cigarette… That’s why Chesterfield is my favorite.”

1952 saw this ad featuring Reagan and another box of his “favorite” Chesterfield cigarettes.

For whatever reason, presidents are often known by their middle initial. John F. Kennedy, George W. Bush, Harry S. Truman.

Although Truman is commonly referred to with his middle initial (”S”), the 34th president actually didn’t have a middle name– just an initial.

All his life, people were confused about the mysterious “S” that Truman used as his middle name. The Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court even screwed up his inaugural oath, reading “I, Harry Shipp Truman…” to which Truman responded curtly, “I, Harry S Truman…”

Above: Harry S, about to sign his name on a piece of legislation Multiple theories surrounded his middle name, often times invented by political enemies. One theory went that Truman’s middle name was Solomon, which his rivals said meant he was secretly Jewish. Another theory claimed that in order to become a Freemason, he had to have a middle name so he adopted the initial S.

After encountering name-related confusion all his life, Truman finally explained in his autobiography that since his parents wanted to name him in honor of two different relatives both of whose names started with the letter S, they decided to compromise and just give him the middle name “S” instead of picking one over the other. Truman wrote:

“I was named for… Harrison Young. I was given the diminutive Harry and, so that I could have two intials in my given name, the letter S was added. My Grandfather Truman’s name was Anderson Shippe Truman and my Grandfather Young’s name was Solomon Young, so I received the S for both of them.”

Here is how Truman signed his name:

Although it’s hard to believe now, in 1898 a group of white supremacists seized power of the municipal government in Wilmington, North Carolina following a bloody coup d’etat.

The incident, which followed reconstruction in the South after the Civil War, is the only time in American history that any form of US government has been overthrown. Back then, Democrats were a party of conservative racists who hated big government, and Republicans were anti-bigotry liberals who thought the government should do more to enforce equality among blacks and whites (particularly in the South).

Above: Supremacists pose with their guns for a photo in front of a building destroyed during the riot they instigated. Just after an election which swept the Democrats into power in the North Carolina state legislature, an emboldened mob of white supremacists overtook the City Hall of Wilmington, which was the largest city in the state at the time.

Supremacists killed dozens of people, and forced the sitting Republican mayor and his administration (as well as several members of city council) to resign, virtually if not literally at gunpoint. After the supremacists had usurped power, they put in place mob leader and former confederate soldier Alfred Moore Waddell, who had previously served in the US House of Representatives.

Waddell stayed mayor for six years, before retiring at age 72. Eventually, elections and retirements replaced the other coup leaders who ran Wilmington, and none were ever brought to justice for their illegal seizure of power. The incident is rarely taught about in North Carolina schools.

Believe it or not, there was a time when the White House was partially-powered by solar panels! But that didn’t last, as they were taken down only a few years after they were installed (despite being in perfect working order).

During the energy crisis of the late 1970s, then-president Jimmy Carter called on Americans to conserve power and to prove that he wasn’t just all talk, he had an expansive row of solar panels installed on the roof of the West Wing in 1977.

Above: Carter’s solar panels In order to encourage other Americans to consider using clean energy sources, Carter also put in place tax benefits for those who did. “No one can ever embargo the sun or interrupt its delivery to us,” Carter proclaimed at the installation ceremony for his panels.

So, if the panels worked fine, where aren’t they still there?

Above: Carter shows off his new solar panels at the installation ceremony in 1977.

In 1986 when the price of energy was temporarily cheaper and Americans’ minds were less focused on environmental issues, President Reagan ordered the panels removed from the White House roof. Reagan, who didn’t think much of solar energy, also allowed the tax credit Carter had instated to lapse.

Above: A larger photograph shows the size of the panels and their proximity to the rest of the White House.

Then came “a clear, calculated campaign by the [Department of Energy] in the years of the Reagan administration to crush the solar energy program of the federal government” according to Denis Hayes, an expert on solar energy who worked for the government at the time. According to another expert involved in Carter’s original solar panel installation, Reagan’s Administration “felt that the equipment was just a joke… and he had it taken down.”

The panels, which had served to heat water at the White House, were eventually used by Unity College for the same purpose where they continued to work perfectly for more than a decade.

In 2002, the National Park Service quietly installed a small number of solar panels on a maintenance building they manage on White House grounds, marking a semi-return to the use of solar power. The Bush Administration did not publicize the installations, which reportedly now heat the White House pool.

Although there is a common misconception that African Americans only held elected office federally since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, a number of blacks were elected to national office from Southern states during the 1870s as reconstruction took place.

However, when reconstruction from slavery was halted due to the compromise of 1877 (which effectively allowed the stoppage of minority voting rights in the south), the growing stream of blacks elected to office virtually ground to a halt.

“The First Colored Senator and Representatives,” 1872. Up to the date of this writing, there has only been one African American to serve as a US Senator in the 21st Century: Barack Obama.

During the entirety of the 20th Century, there were just two black senators: Carol Mosely Braun (D-IL) and Edward Brooke (R-MA).

The 19th Century also saw two African Americans elected to the Senate, both from Mississippi where blacks made up a majority of the population, during the brief reconstruction era before they became restricted from voting by repressive and unconstitutional Jim Crow laws.

21 African Americans served in the US House of Representatives during the period immediately after the Civil War, and 98 have served post-reconstruction.

Reflecting the political reversal of the Democratic and Republican parties over time, all African Americans who served in Congress during reconstruction were Republicans (like Abraham Lincoln and other liberal abolitionists of their day), whereas all but three or 99% of post-reconstruction black members of Congress have been Democrats.