For generations, Americans have marked their common life through a shared calendar of civic memory—dates that call to mind the events, figures, and principles that bind the nation together across time. Yet in an age of fragmentation, those markers risk fading into abstraction or neglect. This series proposes to restore them as a living tradition: a set of evergreen essays, published annually on their appointed dates, each one recalling what is worth knowing, preserving, and passing on.
Topics
The Great Seal
On July 4, 1776, the same day the Continental Congress declared American independence, it appointed a committee to design a seal for the new United States.
One More for Chesty
His Marines knew that he would ask no more of them than he was willing to put forth himself, and that was everything he had.
How Sleep the Brave
It is hard in easy going times to imagine what it could mean to face such an extremity: a mother forced to contemplate fleeing with her four children, pursued by hostile armies.
John Wayne
“John Wayne is the United States of America. He is what they believe America to be.”
Posts
Known But to God
For the millions of Americans who visit The Tomb each year, the Changing of the Guard offers profound moral and political instruction.
I Kiss the Ground
You see in Capra’s films his lifelong love for the American common man. I “didn’t think he was common,” Capra said. “I thought he was the hope of the world."
American Moses
This story appears annually at tomklingenstein.com on April 23, in commemoration of 250 years—and counting—of American independence.
Paul Revere’s Ride
When Longfellow published “Paul Revere’s Ride,” few Americans remained who had a living memory of the American Revolution.
We Are All Americans
By the morning of April 9, Lee had concluded that “there is nothing left me to do but to go and see General Grant, and I would rather die a thousand deaths.”