It’s Armistice Day, November 11th, in thenation's capital. It is a brisk day at Arlington National Cemetery. Dignitaries stand silently on the third anniversaryof the ending of World War I, watching as a single white casket is lowered into a marbledtomb. In attendance is President Calvin Coolidge,former President Woodrow Wilson, Supreme Court Justice (as well as former President) WilliamHoward Taft, Chief Plenty Coups, and hundreds of dedicated United States servicemen. As the casket settles on its final restingplace in the tomb, upon a thin layer of French soil, three salvos are fired. A bugler plays taps and, with the final note,comes a 21 gun salute. The smoke clears and eyes dry as the UnknownSoldier from World War I is laid to rest; the first unknown soldier to be officiallyhonored in this manner in American history. The United States’ allies in World War I,France and Britain, were the first countries to practice the concept of burying an “unknownsoldier.” World W...
They say you used to be able to ski through the canals. I wasn’t alive then, granted. So I’ve never actually seen it. But all the old people say so. Things were different before they starting dredging. In 1842, in a country just a few years awayfrom declaring itself Canada, colonist David McCall received a Crown Patent for a small island in the middle of the St. Clair river, just a stone’s throw from the Michigan border. After arriving on North America’s shoresa few hundred years before, his people had spread unwanted across the back of the continent, upending any native groups rooted in their way. At times they spread deliberately, at timesby accident, but no matter how they got there, their influence soon spanned coast to coast. McCall happened to be one of the ones that was spread deliberately. What was once a fertile deer hunting groundfor the local indigenous tribes would now be a farmstead for an ambitious British implant. A European seed in American soil. Through him,...