Assess0. The United States . Guest well, thanks for having me. Thats a wonderful by broad question to open with and challengen weeing. We are living a moment of crisis, lard to deny. Weve been through a spring dominated by Public Health crisis that with us. Were facing now also so el crisis that is as old as our country, the struggle for racial equality and for human equality. But then also is very much of this moment, and forces us to confront challenges in our society that had trouble with in recent years. This is a time that makes us wonder how strong our institutions will perform to be, how well rise to a challenge like this. Think you cant help but see it as a team of crisis but because it as time of testing its also a time to think about what americas strengths are, walt we are good at and how we can bill on that to address the enormous problems. Host how did we get here . Guest well, thats an awful complicated question. Our country has always tried to strike a balance between th
Challenges our society has had trouble with in recent years this is a time that makes us wonder how strong institutions will be how we rise to a challenge like this but because at the time of testing but also think of americas strength what we are good i had as a country and to address the enormous problems. Host how did we get here . Thats a complicated question. Our country has always tried to strike a balance between the dignity and quality of the individual on one hand and some strength of community on the other our society in the past halfcentury has emphasized the individual, liberty, freedom, dy that has brought some enormous advantages and benefits but there is another side to the coin that can look like fragmentation and isolation and alienation and loneliness and we have seen all that and era marked by a crises to the financial crisis to a pandemic that forces us to look to the sources of our strength and ways to drive us to the history and politics is not always good at doin
Joining us my name is gavin and the director of programs exhibitions and partnerships for the National Historic society. I would like to extend a special welcome to anyone who might be attending a Virtual Program for the first time. Considering the size of our virtual crowd in the geographic diversity of the people who signed up, im sure there are some people who are in for the first time. If youre not familiar with nhs we are the oldest Historical Society in america. Founded in 1791 and have been an independent Nonprofit Institution dedicated to collecting, preserving, publishing and sharing our nation and States History the past 229 years. In these days of social distancing we are taking to hosting Virtual Events we have Online Events for every week through july. Next week we will be hosting a virtual tour the tour is titled misled and a look at historic a a these include mimic houses suspicious ain a marker that denotes the side of the famous vikings bar if youd like to join the tou
Host author and also, was september 1, 1939 a surprise . Spirit. Guest a surprise to everyone but nazi germany. The day hitler marched into poland and it was a surprise attack. I think most of the world expected but hoped it would not happen but it did. And that really it launched world war ii. Host was poland prepare . Guest it thought it was but it wasnt. Nazi germany was the mightiest military up to that point. Poland has a sizable army, small air force and navy. It is basically a poor country. It did not have the financial wherewithal that germany did. It did thing it could hold off germany for a while but the germans went right over them. Host you say it wasnt really a surprise. Was the rest of your preparing for war at this point . They suspected war was coming. Was countries hoped it wouldnt happen. At least half were neutral. Some prepared for war to a certain extent. But none were ready for what was about to happen. They all hope somehow something would happen to prevent germa
Costume and architecture and in music. I grew up with the belief that the sun never sets on the british empire. I collected stamps from all over the british empire. All americans knew george washington, john jay, sam adams, all the Founding Fathers were english men. Alexander hamilton was a scott born in the caribbean. As they came, so did settlers from germany, austria, hungary, polands, swiss, russians, chinese and all the countries came to the melting pot of america over the past 400 years since the founding of jamestown in 1607. My parents took me to the new york worlds fair in 1940 just seven years old to see many of the countrys exhibitions and among them, for the first time i saw magna carta at the british exhibition. The 1215 lincoln cathedral magna carta. On my first visit to britain as a serving officer in dwrupt states army, in 1957 i was returning to america to be discharged after serving in korea, my tour of duty completed, my first day in london, i went to the British Mus