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.
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Ninety Percent Mental
Yogi was a Big Leaguer and an American Leaguer, but he was no Ivy-Leaguer.
Constitution Day
This was the end of one historic deliberation, but it was the beginning of another.
The American Dream
In the course of human events, the American people have many times fallen beneath the…
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.