American Minute

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In exchange for 60 guilders of brass buttons, scarlet cloth and trade goods, Manhattan Island was purchased from the Manhattan Indian tribe on MAY 6, 1626, by Peter Minuit, Dutch Governor of the New Netherlands Province. Naming the Island New Amsterdam, it was later taken over by the British and renamed New York City. The colony's original Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, June 1, 1629, stated: "Patroons and colonists shall in particular, and in the speediest manner, endeavor to find out ways and means whereby they may support a Minister and Schoolmaster, that thus the service of God and zeal for religion may not grow cool and be neglected among them, and they shall, for the first, procure a Comforter of the sick there." In 1665, the Colonial Legislature of New York stated: "Whereas, The public worship of God is much discredited for want of...able ministers to instruct the people in the true religion, it is ordered that a church shall be built in each parish capable of holding 200 persons; that ministers of every church shall preach every Sunday, and pray for the king, queen, the Duke of York, and the royal family....Sunday is not to be profaned."

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World War II ended in Europe on MAY 7, 1945, when German emissaries met at General Dwight Eisenhower's Headquarters, a schoolhouse in Reims, France, and signed an unconditional surrender. The War in Europe lasted five and half years, costing millions of lives. After the war, Eisenhower was elected the 34th President by the largest number of votes in history. In remarks broadcast from the White House as part of The American Legion "Back-to-God" Program, February 7, 1954, President Eisenhower stated: "As a former soldier, I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth-that there are no atheists in the foxholes. They know that in time of test and trial, we instinctively turn to God for new courage... Whatever our individual church, whatever our personal creed, our common faith in God is a common bond among us." At the next year's "Back-to-God" Program, February 20, 1955, Eisenhower stated: "Without God, there could be no American form of Government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Being is the first-the most basic-expression of Americanism."

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The 33rd U.S. President was born MAY 8, 1884. He was captain of a field artillery battery in France during World War I, a county judge, a U.S. Senator, and Vice-President under Franklin Roosevelt. He ended World War II by dropping the atomic bomb. His name was Harry S Truman. To the Federal Council of Churches, March 6, 1946, President Truman said: "We have just come though a decade in which the forces of evil in various parts of the world have been lined up in a bitter fight to banish from the face of the earth both of these ideals-religion and democracy...The right of every human being...to worship God in his own way, the right to fix his own relationship to his fellow men and to his Creator-these again have been saved for mankind." Truman continued: "Let us determine to carry on in a spirit of tolerance, and understanding for all men and for all nations-in the spirit of God and religious unity." President Truman told the Attorney General's Conference, 1950: "The fundamental basis of this nation's laws was given to Moses on the Mount. The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings...of Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we emphasize that enough these days."

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Mothers' Day was held in Boston in 1872 at the suggestion of Julia Ward Howe, writer of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." But it was Anna Jarvis, daughter of a Methodist minister in Grafton, West Virginia, who made it a national event. During the Civil War, Anna's mother organized Mothers' Day Work Clubs to care for wounded soldiers, both Union and Confederate, raised money for medicine, inspected bottled milk, improved sanitation and hired women to care for families where mothers suffered from tuberculosis. In her honor, Anna Jarvis persuaded her church to set aside the 2nd Sunday in May, the anniversary of her mother's death, as a day to appreciate all mothers. Encouraged by the reception, Anna organized it in Philadelphia, then began a letter-writing campaign to ministers, businessmen and politicians to establish a national Mothers' Day. In response, on MAY 9, 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed the first National Mothers' Day as a "public expression of...love and reverence for the mothers of our country." In his Mother's Day Proclamation, 1986, President Ronald Reagan said: "A Jewish saying sums it up: 'God could not be everywhere-so He created mothers.'"

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A surprise attack before dawn on MAY 10, 1775, gave America one of its first victories of the Revolutionary War. Ethan Allen, who commanded the Green Mountain Boys of Vermont, captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain without the loss of a man by overrunning the stronghold in the early morning while the British were sleeping. Allen, whose statue is now placed in the U.S. Capitol's Statuary Hall, demanded immediate surrendered. The bewildered British captain asked in whose name such a request was being made. Ethan Allen responded: "In the Name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." Incredibly, 50 cannons were moved from Fort Ticonderoga to a position overlooking Boston Harbor, forcing the British ships to depart. On May 31, 1775, just three weeks after the victory of Fort Ticonderoga, Harvard President Samuel Langdon addressed the Massachusetts Provincial Congress: "If God be for us, who can be against us?..May our land be purged from all its sins! Then the Lord will be our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble, and we will have no reason to be afraid, though thousands of enemies set themselves against us."

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The son of a rabbi, he was born MAY 11, 1888. At 4-years-old, he immigrated with his family from Russia to New York. Falling in love with America, he served as a U.S. infantry sergeant in World War I. He wrote some of the nation's most popular songs, including: "Alexander's Ragtime Band," "White Christmas" and "God Bless America," the royalties of which he gave to the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. Who was he? Irving Berlin, who in 1945 received the Army's Medal of Merit from President Truman, in 1955 he received the Congressional Gold Medal from President Eisenhower, and in 1977 he received the Freedom Medal from President Ford. On October 12, 2001, Congressman Mike Castle of Delaware stated: "In the aftermath of September 11...Republicans and Democrats burst into that song of the same name by Irving Berlin on the steps of the U.S. Capitol...It was a slogan for peace." Irving Berlin wrote: "God Bless America, Land that I Love, Stand Beside Her, and Guide Her, Through the Night, with the Light From Above, From the Mountains, to the Prairies, To the Oceans White with Foam, God Bless America, My Home Sweet Home, God Bless America, My Home Sweet Home!"

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MAY 12, 1502, Christopher Columbus began his last voyage. Afflicted by Caribbean hurricanes, Columbus recorded seven months later: "The tempest arose and wearied me so that I knew not where to turn, my old wound opened up, and for 9 days I was lost without hope of life; eyes never beheld the sea so angry and covered with foam. The wind not only prevented our progress, but offered no opportunity to run behind any headland for shelter; hence we were forced to keep out in this bloody ocean, seething like a pot on a hot fire. The people were so worn out that they longed for death." Columbus' son, Ferdinand recorded on December 13, 1502, how a waterspout passed between the ships; "the which had they not dissolved by reciting the Gospel according to St. John, it would have swamped whatever it struck...for it draws water up to the clouds in a column thicker than a waterbutt, twisting it about like a whirlwind." Columbus' biographer, Samuel Eliot Morrison described: "It was the Admiral who exorcised the waterspout. From his Bible he read of that famous tempest off Capernaum, concluding, 'Fear not, it is I!' Then clasping the Bible in his left hand, with drawn sword he traced a cross in the sky and a circle around his whole fleet."

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The first settlers to establish a permanent English settlement in the New World landed in Jamestown, Virginia, MAY 13, 1607. Many of the 100 colonists sent out by the London Company died of hunger, malaria, exposure or were killed by Indians. When their minister died, they wrote: "1607. To the glory of God and in memory of the Reverend Robert Hunt, Presbyter, appointed by the Church of England. Minister of the Colony which established the English Church and English Civilization at Jamestown...His people, members of the Colony, left this testimony concerning him. He was an honest, religious and courageous Divine. He preferred the Service of God in so good a voyage to every thought of ease at home. He endured every privation, yet none ever heard him repine. During his life our factions were ofte healed, and our greatest extremities so comforted that they seemed easy in comparison with what we endured after his memorable death. We all received from him the Holy Communion together, as a pledge of reconciliation, for we all loved him for his exceeding goodness." Concluding their tribute to Rev. Robert Hunt, the first Virginia settlers wrote: "He planted the first Protestant Church in America and laid down his life in the foundation of America."

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Midnight, MAY 14, 1948, the State of Israel came into being and was immediately recognized by the United States and the Soviet Union. A homeland for the thousands of Jews who were persecuted and displaced during World War II, Israel was attacked the next day by the Transjordanian Army, the Arab Legion, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon and Iraq. Against all odds, Israel survived. In November of 1948, President Harry S. Truman wrote to Dr. Chaim Weizmann, the first president of Israel: "I want to tell you how happy and impressed I have been at the remarkable progress made by the new State of Israel." In 1968, President Johnson stated: "America and Israel have a common love of human freedom and a democratic way of life...Through the centuries, through dispersion and through very grievous trials, your forefathers clung to their Jewish identity and their ties with the land of Israel. The prophet Isaiah foretold - 'And He shall set up an ensign for the nations and He shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from all the four corners of the earth.'" President Johnson concluded: "History knows no more moving example of persistence against the cruelest odds."

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Army Day, Navy Day and Air Force Day were combined in 1949 to be Armed Forces Day, celebrated the 3rd Saturday of May. Army Day formerly was the date the US entered World War I, Navy Day was President Theodore Roosevelt's birthday and Air Force Day was the day the War Department established a division of aeronautics. On Armed Forces Day, MAY 15, 1995, Secretary of Defense William Perry said: "In World War II, the United States Armed Forces helped defeat the forces of aggression and oppression on two sides of the globe...In the Cold War, we faced down the global Soviet threat. Today, our forces stand guard, at home and abroad, against a range of potential threats." Secretary Perry continued: "On Armed Forces Day, the nation says thank you to our men and women in uniform, their families, and the communities that support them...Daniel Webster said, 'God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it.'" U.S. Army Chaplain Father William Thomas Cummings, who was among those captured by the Japanese at Bataan, Philippines, and died when the prisoner "hell ship" he was on was hit with a torpedo, said in a battlefield sermon: "There are no atheists in the foxholes."

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Seward's Folly is what Alaska was called when it was first purchased from Russia, as it was thought to be of no value. Only when it was discovered to be rich in natural resources was appreciation shown to Secretary of State William Seward, who was born MAY 16, 1801. Serving under Abraham Lincoln, he was wounded by an accomplice of John Wilkes Booth the same night Lincoln was shot. Seward stated: "I do not believe human society...ever has attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intelligence, virtue, security, liberty, or happiness without the Holy Scriptures; even the whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible." As the vice-president of the American Bible Society, 1836, William Seward stated: "I know not how long a republican government can flourish among a great people who have not the Bible; the experiment has never been tried; but this I do know: that the existing government of this country never could have had existence but for the Bible." Seward concluded: "And, further, I...believe that if at every decade of years a copy of the Bible could be found in every family in the land its republican institutions would be perpetuated."

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The first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court was the president of the American Bible Society. Who was he? John Jay, who died MAY 17, 1829. A member of the Continental Congress, even serving as its president, John Jay signed the Treaty of Paris with Franklin and Adams, ending the Revolutionary War. He helped ratify the Constitution by writing the Federalist Papers with Madison and Hamilton. In 1777, Jay stated to an Ulster County Grand Jury: "The Americans are the first people whom Heaven has favoured with an opportunity of...choosing the forms of government under which they should live." To the New York Convention, December 23, 1776, John Jay said: "When you have done all things, then rely upon the good Providence of Almighty God for success, in full confidence that without his blessings, all our efforts will inevitably fail...The holy gospels are yet to be preached to these western regions, and we have the highest reason to believe that the Almighty will not suffer slavery and the gospel to go hand in hand. It cannot, it will not be." On May 17, 1829, as he was dying, John Jay was asked if he had any last words for his children. He replied: "They have the Book."

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On MAY 18, 1920, in a small town in Poland, Karol Wojtyla was born. A chemical worker during World War II, he risked punishment by Communists for being ordained a priest. In 1967, he was Archbishop of Krakow, and in 1978, he became Pope John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope since 1522. Leader of one billion Catholics, he spoke eight languages and traveled a million miles in 170 countries, more than any other pope. In 1981, he survived an assassination attempt by a Muslim Turk, whom he forgave during a prison visit. The most recognized person in the world, Pope John Paul II met with Presidents Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush. He helped end communism in Europe. Having the third longest papal term in history, he died April 2, 2005. President Bush ordered flags flown half staff. In 1993, greeted by President Clinton in Denver, Pope John Paul said: "The inalienable dignity of every human being and the rights which flow from that dignity-in the first place the right to life and the defense of life-are at the heart of the church's message." Pope John Paul ended: "In spite of divisions among Christians, 'all those justified by faith through baptism are incorporated into Christ...brothers and sisters in the Lord.'"

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The invincible Spanish Armada set sail MAY 19, 1588, to conquer England. Queen Elizabeth relied on Sir Francis Drake and his smaller, faster vessels. Drake ingeniously floated burning ships at night into the anchored Spanish fleet, dispersing them in a panic. Aided by gale force winds half of Spain's Armada was eventually wrecked. Had England lost, there would have been no Pilgrims, no New England, and no United States. In 1776, Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations: "The Spaniards, by virtue of the first discovery, claimed all America as their own, and...such was...the terror of their name, that the greater part of the other nations of Europe were afraid to establish themselves in any other part of that great continent...But...the defeat...of their Invincible Armada...put it out of their power to obstruct any longer the settlements of the other European nations. In the course of the 17th century...English, French, Dutch, Danes, and Swedes...attempted to make some settlements in the new world." A coin minted in Holland in 1588 had engraved on one side Spanish ships sinking and on the other side men kneeling under the inscription "Man Proposeth, God Disposeth."

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MAY 20, 1927, at 7:52am, one of the greatest feats in aviation began as 25-year old Charles A. Lindbergh left Roosevelt Field in Long Island, New York, in his silver monoplane named "The Spirit of St. Louis." Thirty-three and a half hours later he landed in Paris, completing the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. Lindbergh was decorated by the president of France, the King of England, and President Calvin Coolidge. The son of a Congressman, he was a test pilot for a St. Louis firm, performed feats of barnstorming and became an Air Service Reserve cadet, flying mail routes to Chicago. At the Institute of Aeronautical Sciences, February 1, 1954, Charles Lindbergh stated: "It was not the outer granduer of the Roman but the inner simplicity of the Christian that lived through the ages." On the Bicentennial of Air and Space Flight, February 7, 1983, President Ronald Reagan said: "We Americans have always been at our best when we've faced challenge... Whether...Daniel Boone or Charles Lindbergh...I've always believed that mankind is capable of greatness...But it depends on us. God gave angels wings. He gave mankind dreams. And with His help, there's no limit to what can be accomplished."