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October 16, 2019
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Amanda Foreman

Amanda Foreman is the author of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: Britain's Crucial Role in the American Civil War, one of The New York Times's 10 Best Books of 2011. She is the recipient of the Whitbread Award for Biography and the Fletcher Pratt Award for Civil War History.

Park of Ages

Park of Ages

Far more than just an urban retreat, Hyde Park is a living archive of British culture and history

by Amanda Foreman | Monday, June 10, 2013
Smarty Pants Podcast

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THIS WEEK’S ARCHIVE PICK

2nd Look

What Does Columbus Day Really Mean?

by William J. Connell

Whether you celebrate Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Discoverers’ Day, or Native Americans’ Day, historian William J. Connell observes that, in the end, this controversial civic holiday is just that: a holiday. In his essay “What Columbus Day Really Means,” Connell writes that President Benjamin Harrison created the holiday in 1892 to honor both Native Americans and the many immigrants who were only then arriving in the country. “It was to be a national holiday that was not about the Founding Fathers or the Civil War, but about the rest of American history,” Connell writes—a day for celebrating the country and all its people. Sounds to us like a pretty good reason to take the day off of work.