A Time for Freedom - Hardcover

Cheney, Lynne

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1416909257 ISBN 13: 9781416909255

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2005

Synopsis

"No one can fully appreciate the great fortune we have to be Americans without knowing the events that brought us to where we are today."
-- Lynne Cheney

Did you know that John Adams thought we would celebrate America's birthday on the second of July? That ten generals went on to become president? That our country has had nine different capitals, including Trenton, New Jersey, and Annapolis, Maryland?
Bestselling author and historian Lynne Cheney takes readers through America's story of freedom in this timeline of key moments in our history along with historic quotatons by great Americans and little-known facts about our country. Starting with our nation's beginnings, A Time for Freedom places the great events and figures of our history into context and shows the expansion of freedom in America. Filled with fascinating information that creates a textured journey through our nation's story, A Time for Freedom is a book that every family will want to share.

About this title

About the Author:

Lynne Cheney’s most recent book is the New York Times bestseller, We the People: The Story of Our Constitution, illustrated by Greg Harlin. She is also the author of the New York Times bestsellers America: A Patriotic Primer, A Is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women, When Washington Crossed the Delaware: A Wintertime Story for Young Patriots, A Time for Freedom: What Happened When in America, and Our 50 States: A Family Adventure Across America, and has written a memoir, Blue Skies, No Fences. Mrs. Cheney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and former chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities. She lives in Washington, DC, with her husband, Vice President Richard B. Cheney.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Exerpt from A Time for Freedom

More than 13,000 years ago

Early migrants to America arrive from Asia, perhaps across the Bering Land Bridge or possibly even by boat. Over thousands of years they will be followed by others, who will travel across North, Central, and South America.

More than 2,500 years ago

The Adena people begin building ceremonial earth mounds in what is today the midwestern and south-eastern United States. Subsequent Indian cultures -- the Hopewell and the Mississippian -- will also build mounds, some very large.

THE LARGEST OF THE MOUNDS, PRESERVED ON THE SITE OF AN ANCIENT CITY CALLED CAHOKIA (NOW CAHOKIA MOUNDS STATE HISTORIC SITE IN ILLINOIS), ONCE HAD A MASSIVE BUILDING ATOP IT, PROBABLY A PALACE FOR THE PRINCIPAL RULER. A THOUSAND YEARS OLD, A HUNDRED FEET HIGH, AND BUILT ENTIRELY OF EARTH, THIS MOUND, CALLED MONKS MOUND, COVERS MORE THAN FOURTEEN ACRES.

More than 700 years ago

Anasazi Indians build cliff dwellings in the Mesa Verde region, in what is today southwestern Colorado.

500 years ago

Distinctive Indian cultures exist all across the area we now know as the United States. In the Northeast five Indian nations form the Iroquois Confederacy.

The number of Indians living in North America as the European age of exploration began is a matter of debate. According to a survey published in 1992, estimates in history textbooks range from two million to ten million.

1492

Under the sponsorship of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, Christopher Columbus and his crew sail three ships, the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, more than three thousand nautical miles across the Atlantic. Hoping to find the Indies, Columbus lands instead on an island in the Bahamas that he names San Salvador, or "Holy Savior."

"Tierra! Tierra!"

-- RODRIGO DE TRIANA, lookout aboard Columbus's ship the Pinta, upon seeing land

COLUMBUS MADE FOUR VOYAGES TO THE NEW WORLD, WHICH HE PERSISTED IN BELIEVING WAS THE INDIES. HE DIED IGNORANT OF HIS REAL ACCOMPLISHMENT.

"An age will come after many years when the ocean will loose the chains of things, and a huge land lie revealed."

-- a prophecy in Seneca's Medea, a play Columbus knew well

"This prophecy was fulfilled by my father the admiral, in the year 1492."

-- FERDINAND COLUMBUS, writing alongside the prophecy in his father's copy of Seneca

1497

John Cabot, sailing for Henry VII of England, reaches North America aboard a small ship, the Mathew. Almost a century will pass, but his voyage will become the basis for English claims in the New World.

JOHN CABOT, OR GIOVANNI CABOTO, WAS AN ITALIAN, LIKE CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, OR CRISTOFORO COLOMBO. CABOT, TOO, WAS SEEKING A SHORT ROUTE TO THE INDIES.

1507

Inspired by news of voyages taken by Florentine merchant Amerigo Vespucci, who traveled to the New World around the turn of the sixteenth century, mapmaker Martin Waldseemüller names the new land America.

WALDSEEMüLLER APPARENTLY HAD A CHANGE OF HEART ABOUT NAMING THE NEW WORLD AFTER VESPUCCI. IN A 1513 ATLAS HE CALLED THE NEW LAND TERRA INCOGNITA AND CREDITED COLUMBUS WITH ITS DISCOVERY. BUT BY THEN IT WAS TOO LATE, AND AMERICA IT WAS.

1513

Spanish exploration of mainland North America begins with Juan Ponce de León on the east coast of Florida. Among the others who will search for riches in the mainland are Hernando de Soto and Francisco Vásquez de Coronado.

"He also said that the lord of that country took his afternoon nap under a great tree on which were hung a great number of little golden bells, which put him to sleep as they swung in the air."

-- An account of what a Pawnee guide told Coronado about a country of fabulous wealth. The fabled land was never found, and the guide was killed.

THE CONQUISTADORES, WHO EXPLORED THE LAND THAT IS TODAY THE UNITED STATES, FOUND LITTLE GOLD. BUT HERNáN CORTéS, WHO CONQUERED THE AZTECS IN MEXICO IN 1521, AND FRANCISCO PIZARRO, WHO CONQUERED THE INCAS IN PERU IN THE 1530S, FOUND TONS OF PRECIOUS METAL TO SHIP BACK TO SPAIN.

1524

Sailing for the French, Italian explorer Giovanni da Verrazano explores the east coast of North America, including New York harbor, searching for a passage to the Indies.

1534

French explorer Jacques Cartier makes the first of three voyages to North America.

AUGUST 10 IS THE FEAST DAY OF SAINT LAWRENCE, A ROMAN MARTYR WHO WAS PUT ON A GRILL AND ROASTED ALIVE. WHEN CARTIER SAILED INTO A WELL-PROTECTED HARBOR ON AUGUST 10, 1535, HE NAMED IT AFTER THE SAINT, AND FROM THENCE CAME THE NAMES OF THE GULF, THE RIVER, AND THE MOUNTAIN RANGE.

1565

At the direction of Philip II of Spain, Gen. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés establishes the first permanent European settlement in North America: Saint Augustine in Florida.

"The general marched up to the cross, followed by all who accompanied him, and there they kneeled and embraced the cross."

-- CHAPLAIN FRANCISCO LóPEZ DE MENDOZA GRAJALES, describing General Menéndez in the founding ceremony

1585-87

Sir Walter Raleigh, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth of England, sponsors two efforts to establish an English settlement on Roanoke Island. Most of the first group of settlers return to England; the second group, composed of more than one hundred men, women, and children, disappears and becomes known as the lost colony.

"CROATOAN"

-- Word carved on a post at the lost colony, thought to indicate a nearby island to which settlers had gone. But they were never found.

JOHN WHITE, GOVERNOR OF THE SECOND GROUP ON ROANOKE ISLAND, SAILED TO ENGLAND SOON AFTER THE COLONY WAS ESTABLISHED TO GET SUPPLIES. CONFLICT BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SPAIN PREVENTED HIM FROM RETURNING FOR MORE THAN TWO YEARS. BY THEN THE COLONY, INCLUDING HIS DAUGHTER AND GRANDDAUGHTER, HAD DISAPPEARED.

1607

Three ships from England, the Susan Constant, the Discovery, and the Godspeed, enter Chesapeake Bay and sail up the James River. The passengers, some one hundred men, found Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in America.

"There was no talk, no hope, no work, but dig gold, wash gold, refine gold, load gold."

-- JOHN SMITH, a leader of the Jamestown settlement, who managed to convince the colonists that since there was no gold, they should plant crops

1608

Juan Martinez de Montoya, a Spanish conquistador, establishes a settlement at Santa Fe. In 1610, at the order of Philip III, Santa Fe will become the capital of the province of New Mexico.

1608

Samuel de Champlain sails up the Saint Lawrence River and founds Quebec.

1609

Henry Hudson, sailing for the Dutch, explores the river that will bear his name.

1612

John Rolfe plants tobacco seeds in Jamestown, starting the colonists on their way to a successful commercial venture. By 1630 Virginia will be exporting well over a million pounds of tobacco a year.

ROLFE'S 1614 MARRIAGE TO POCAHONTAS, DAUGHTER OF THE POWERFUL POWHATAN, BEGAN A TRUCE BETWEEN VIRGINIA SETTLERS AND INDIANS, BUT WARFARE BROKE OUT AGAIN IN 1622 WHEN AN INDIAN ATTACK LEFT NEARLY A THIRD OF THE COLONISTS IN VIRGINIA DEAD.

1619

The Virginia House of Burgesses, its members chosen by freemen in the colony, convenes at Jamestown and becomes the first elected assembly in America.

"The most convenient place we could find to sit in was the choir of the church.... But forasmuch as men's affairs do little prosper where God's service is neglected,...a prayer was said by Mr. Bucke, the minister, that it would please God to guide and sanctify all our proceedings."

-- JOHN PORY, secretary of the House of Burgesses

1619

Some twenty Africans, brought to Jamestown on a Dutch ship, are sold to colonists, most to work in tobacco fields.

1620

Pilgrims sail aboard the Mayflower from England to the New World, dropping anchor off Cape Cod. After forty-one men aboard the ship sign the Mayflower Compact, a plan for governance, the Pilgrims go ashore.

"Being thus arrived in a good harbor, and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees and blessed the God of Heaven who had brought them over the fast and furious ocean, and delivered them from all the perils and miseries thereof, again to set their feet on the firm and stable earth, their proper element."

-- WILLIAM BRADFORD, governor of Plymouth Colony

OF THE 102 MAYFLOWER PASSENGERS 52, OR 53 PERHAPS, WERE PROTESTANT DISSENTERS WHO WANTED TO SEPARATE FROM THE CHURCH OF ENGLAND. THE OTHERS, WHOM BRADFORD CALLED "STRANGERS," HAD NO APPARENT QUARREL WITH THE CHURCH. MEMBERS OF BOTH GROUPS WERE BRAVE, SUFFERED GREATLY, AND ARE COMMONLY CALLED PILGRIMS.

1621

The Pilgrims celebrate the autumn harvest, feasting on turkey, duck, and venison with Indians of the Wampanoag nation.

"Our harvest being gotten in,...many of the Indians [came] amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted."

-- EDWARD WINSLOW, a Mayflower passenger

1625

To protect their claim to lands they call New Netherland, the Dutch establish the settlement of New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island.

"They have purchased the Island Manhattes from the Indians for the value of 60 guilders."

-- PIETER SCHAGEN, Dutch West India Company official, 1626

...

About this edition

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1416909257
• ISBN 13: 9781416909255
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304