Author: Roger D. McGrath (Roger D. McGrath)

Every history textbook has a paragraph or more devoted to Crispus Attucks, who, besides being half black and half Indian and one of those killed in the Boston Massacre, was of little historical significance.  Nearly everything else said about him is a matter of speculation.  In these same textbooks there is no mention of Timothy...

The Oglala Sioux chief Red Cloud is generally portrayed as someone who chewed up the U.S. Army in battle after battle.  He was, in the words of one author, “the first and only Indian leader in the West to win a war with the United States.”  This conclusion is based on the Army’s decision to...

Nearly everyone knows that in 1927 Charles Lindbergh made the first nonstop solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean, lifting off from a field on Long Island and touching down in Paris 33 hours and 3,600 miles later.  He instantly became an American hero of proportions never before seen.  He was termed “Lucky Lindy,” but luck...

Take up the White Man’s burden— The savage wars of peace— Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease; And when your goal is nearest The end for others sought, Watch sloth and heathen Folly Bring all your hopes to nought. The havoc wreaked by the Haitian earthquake reminded me of Rudyard...

The first “paper & stick” model airplane I ever made was a Curtiss P-40 Warhawk.  I painted it in the color scheme of the famed Flying Tigers, including the shark’s mouth on the cowl and air scoop.  Mine was powered not by a 1040 horsepower V-12 Allison but by a rubber band that I wound...

A sequel to Dances With Wolves is reportedly scheduled for release in 2011.  Not only did Dances create a romantic American Indian who never existed, it reversed the roles of the Sioux and the Pawnee.  This kind of thing has been going on for hundreds of years, beginning with various European writers who, far removed...

I recently saw a video clip of a television talk-show host calling President Truman a war criminal for authorizing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I have heard others make similar comments.  During the late 1960’s it became almost de rigueur on college campuses for professors to argue that the bombs were unnecessary, that...

As the 20th century drew to a close lists of the century’s greatest figures in various fields of endeavor appeared regularly in newspapers and magazines.  Revealing that memories were short, the lists tended to be dominated by figures of recent vintage, especially in the sports world.  This is probably a consequence of the ephemeral nature...

Few Americans today know of Peleliu, a speck of an island in the southwest Pacific.  A part of the Palau group of the Caroline Islands, Peleliu is only six miles long and two miles wide.  It lies 550 miles due east of the Philippines in splendid isolation.  Covered with dense green vegetation and surrounded by...

Little did I know that when I entered junior high I would be confronting red-diaper babies.  These kids were intellectually sophisticated and well educated.  They told me many things that were contrary to my instincts.  Having little knowledge of the subjects they addressed so adroitly, I was at a loss to respond.  One of them...

Frank Gallop’s 1966 spoof recording, “The Ballad of Irving,” left most people laughing heartily.  (“He came from the old Bar Mitzvah spread, / With a 10-gallon yarmulke on his head. / He always followed his mother’s wishes. / Even on the range he used two sets of dishes.”)  What nearly no one knew then and...

Ed Ramsey never aspired to be a hero.  He was only 12 years old when his father committed suicide.  He was a natural-born hell-raiser; bootleg whiskey and fighting were his passions.  His mother thought the Oklahoma Military Academy might salvage him.  He loved horses and all things martial.  The academy had both. Ramsey thrived at...

I was recently visiting with an old Marine Corps buddy, Ralph Willis, at his home on California’s central coast.  At 86, he is one of the fortunate few who are still alive to describe their experiences fighting the Japanese in the Pacific during World War II.  Ralph put down some of his memories in My...

Before a new documentary series on World War II by Ken Burns even aired on PBS, there was controversy.  Mexican-American organizations complained that there was no episode that focused solely on their people.  Burns responded by adding a segment devoted to Mexican-Americans.  Nonetheless, the same groups complained that the additional material was not enough.  I...

Now that the youngest of our World War II veterans, with but a few exceptions, are in their 80’s, I fear that, as they die, memory of them will die also.  While teaching history in college for more than 30 years—15 of those at UCLA, where a single class could have more than 400 students—I...

For several years now, professional baseball has been pouring millions of dollars into developing black players.  Evidently, the number of black players, at least American blacks, has been in decline.  NASCAR is funding programs to develop black drivers after fielding complaints that the sport is too white.  Similarly, the NHL now has a “Diversity Program”...

By the 1950’s, professors at our universities were teaching American history, “warts and all.”  By the late 60’s, it was mostly warts.  Now, it is all warts, all the time. The Japanese have taken a different tack.  They have sanitized their history, especially their actions during World War II, and only in response to pressure...

Since at least the late 60’s, there has been an effort in academe and in Hollywood to make all cultures morally equivalent.  More recently, there has been an effort to make “indigenous cultures”—whatever that means—morally superior to Western civilization.  I was thinking of all this when I read an interview with Clint Eastwood that appeared...

It was America’s first naval battle of World War II, Japan’s first loss at sea in the war, the battle that saved Australia from a Japanese invasion, the greatest naval battle in Australian waters, the first carrier battle, and the first battle in which the opposing fleets never came within sight of each other or...

Nearly every celebration of Mexican heritage by Mexicans in the United States now features references to the Aztecs and some form of traditional Aztec dance, called La Danza Azteca.  This would be something like the Irish celebrating Oliver Cromwell and the Cromwellian confiscations and settlement—only worse.  Few Mexicans today, on either side of the border,...

In most history textbooks today, coverage of the war in the Pacific consists of a summary of the Battle of Midway, a brief mention of leapfrogging islands, and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  The Battle of Midway is almost invariably described as the “turning point” in the Pacific campaign that put the Japanese...

More than 20 years ago, I presented a paper on the Old West at an historical conference and was surprised to find that I upset several female professors in the audience.  I had not disparaged their frontier sisters.  Quite the opposite: I described how strong, courageous, enterprising, and successful were many of those pioneer women. ...

“Thou shalt not honor a white man,” says the first commandment of the politically correct—unless, of course, the white man in question is hastening the destruction of Western civilization or, perhaps, preserving the habitat of the pupfish.  A recent example of dishonoring an American hero occurred at the University of Washington, when a student senator,...

Whenever whites commit crimes against blacks, the dastardly deeds make headlines and are featured on nightly news programs.  The president wrings his hands and makes speeches about racism.  The Promise Keepers hug one another, cry, and confess to a newly minted transgression, the “sin of racism.”  Western Europeans look down their long noses at us. ...

In the early 1960’s, I was introduced to a fellow motorcycle rider by the name of Steve Foss. Before I could say anything, he quickly offered, “No relation to Joe Foss.” He had anticipated my question and that of nearly everyone he had met for years back. For most Americans back then, the name Foss...

“Japan didn’t fight wars of aggression.  Only China now says so,” declared Yuko Tojo, the granddaughter of Japan’s wartime prime minister, Gen. Hideki Tojo, in an interview with the Japan Times in late June.  Yuko was half right.  Although Japan fought several wars of aggression, only China seems to raise the issue today.  America dropped...

While teaching at UCLA, I heard a student ask one of my teaching assistants why the United States dropped The Bomb on Japan and not on Germany.  The T.A. immediately responded, “Another example of racist America.”  A doctoral student, he did not seem to know that Germany surrendered more than two months before we had...