by Owen J. Hurd
LOOSE ENDS
The post-Watergate lives of the Watergate burglars (aka the Plumbers) range from the prosaic to the fantastical. They all served prison time. One became a real estate broker, another a building inspector. James McCord wrote a book about his role in Watergate and also owned a solar energy company in Fort Collins, Colorado. In one of the more creative conspiracy theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Plumber Frank Sturgis was implicated along with E. Howard Hunt, who planned the Watergate break-in with fellow former CIA operative G. Gordon Liddy. Hunt wrote more than fifty novels. Of all the Plumbers, Liddy served the longest prison term (four and a half years) before President Jimmy Carter commuted his sentence in 1977. Liddy also made the most money, subsequently became a bestselling author, actor, college lecturer, and conservative radio host. The only one of the Plumbers to receive a pardon, thanks again to President Reagan, was Eugenio Martinez.
Several of the key members in Nixon’s cabinet found God during or after their prison terms. Jeb Magruder was ordained a Presbyterian minister in the 1980s. In 1988 the mayor of Columbus, Ohio, named Magruder to a commission on values and ethics. Since then Magruder has been arrested three times, on charges of disorderly conduct, drunk driving, and reckless operation of a vehicle. Former special counsel to Nixon, Charles Colson, who once advocated beating antiwar protesters and firebombing the Brookings Institute, founded a nonprofit organization called Prison Fellowship, which provides spiritual sustenance to prisoners and works for prison reform. President George W. Bush presented Colson with the Presidential Citizens Medal in 2008. After his release from prison, former White House chief of staff Bob Haldeman pursued a variety of business interests. His real estate holdings included eight Sizzler franchise restaurants in Florida. He died in 1993 at age sixty-seven.
On September 8, 1974, Nixon’s replacement in the Oval Office, President Gerald Ford, granted “a full, free, and absolute pardon unto Richard Nixon for all offenses against the United States which he, Richard Nixon, has committed or may have committed or taken part in during the period from January 20, 1969, through August 9, 1974.” Nixon spent the next twenty years trying to salvage his reputation, writing ten books and earning praise for his involvement in reestablishing foreign relations with China and the Soviet Union. He suffered a stroke and died on April 22, 1994.
Frank Wills, the Watergate security guard who discovered the break-in and called the police, quit shortly after the scandal received publicity, feeling that he didn’t get the due amount of recognition or recompense. Though Wills did play himself in the movie All the President’s Men, he had difficulty maintaining a job in the years after. Wills was arrested for shoplifting in 1983 and died destitute in 2000.
Further Reading
In this book I’ve provided you with the end of the stories. For the rest of the stories, check out the sources listed here.
CHAPTER ONE
Columbus
Boyle, David. Toward the Setting Sun: Columbus, Cabot, Vespucci, and the Race for America. New York: Walker, 2008.
Dyson, John. Columbus: For Gold, God, and Glory. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Loewen, James W. Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong. New York: Touchstone, 2007.
Markham, Clements R., ed. The Journal of Christopher Columbus (During His First Voyage, 1492–93). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The Northern Voyages, AD 500–1600. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European Discovery of America: The Southern Voyages, AD 1492–1616. New York: Oxford University Press, 1974.
Hudson
Hunter, Douglas. Half Moon: Henry Hudson and the Voyage That Redrew the Map of the New World. New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2009.
Mancall, Peter C. Fatal Journey: The Final Expedition of Henry Hudson. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
Cook
Beaglehole, J. C. The Life of Captain James Cook. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1974.
Dugard, Martin. Farther Than Any Man: The Rise and Fall of Captain James Cook. New York: Pocket Books, 2001.
Hough, Richard. The Last Voyage of Captain James Cook. New York: Morrow, 1979.
Lawlor, Laurie. Magnificent Voyage: An American Adventurer on Captain James Cook’s Final Expedition. New York: Holiday House, 2002.
Thomas, Nicholas. Cook: The Extraordinary Voyages of Captain James Cook. New York: Walker, 2003.
CHAPTER TWO
John Smith and Pocahontas
Barbour, Philip, ed. The Complete Works of Captain John Smith. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.
Mossiker, Frances. Pocahontas: The Life and the Legend. New York: Da Capo Press, 1996.
Price, David A. Love and Hate in Jamestown: John Smith, Pocahontas, and the Heart of a New Nation. New York: Knopf, 2003.
First Thanksgiving
Hodgson, Godfrey. A Great and Godly Adventure: The Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving. New York: PublicAffairs, 2006.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War. New York: Viking, 2006.
Salem Witch Trials
Francis, Richard. Judge Sewall’s Apology: The Salem Witch Trials and the Forming of an American Conscience. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
Hill, Frances. The Salem Witch Trial Reader. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2000.
Roach, Marilynne K. The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-to-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege. New York: Cooper Square Press, 2002.
CHAPTER THREE
Paul Revere
Forbes, Esther. Paul Revere and the World He Lived In. New York: Mariner Books, 1999.
Hackett, David Fischer. Paul Revere’s Ride. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Declaration of Independence
Cappon, Lester J., ed. The Adams-Jefferson Letters: The Complete Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and Abigail and John Adams. 2 vols. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1959.
Chadwick, Bruce. I Am Murdered: George Wythe, Thomas Jefferson, and the Killing That Shocked a New Nation. Hoboken: Wiley, 2009.
Jenkins, Charles Francis. Button Gwinnett: Signer of the Declaration of Independence. Garden City and New York: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1926.
Kiernan, Denise, and Joseph D’Agnese. Signing Their Lives Away: The Fame and Misfortune of the Men Who Signed the Declaration of Independence. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2009.
CHAPTER FOUR
Lewis and Clark
Ambrose, Stephen E. Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996.
Brandt, Anthony, ed. The Journals of Lewis and Clark. Washington, DC: National Geographic Adventure Classics, 2002.
Jones, Landon Y. William Clark and the Shaping of the West. New York: Hill & Wang, 2004.
Morris, Larry E. The Fate of the Corps: What Became of the Lewis and Clark Explorers after the Expedition. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004.
Custer
Barnett, Louise. Touched by Fire: The Life, Death, and Mythic Afterlife of George Armstrong Custer. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1996.
Leckie, Shirley A. Elizabeth Bacon Custer and the Making of a Myth. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993.
Utley, Robert M. The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1993.
Warren, Louis S. Buffalo Bill’s America: William Cody and the Wild West Show. New York: Knopf, 2005.
CHAPTER FIVE
Edgar Allan Poe
Quinn, Arthur Hobson. Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998.
Silverman, Kenneth. Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-Ending Remembrance. New York: Harper Perennial, 1992.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mellow, James R. Nathaniel Hawthorne in His Times. Boston: Houghton M
ifflin, 1980.
Turner, Arlin. Nathaniel Hawthorne: A Biography. New York: Oxford University Press, 1980.
Wineapple, Brenda. Hawthorne: A Life. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Herman Melville
Delbanco, Andrew. Melville: His World and Work. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Parker, Hershel, ed. The Recognition of Herman Melville: Selected Criticism since 1846. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1967.
Philbrick, Nathaniel. In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex. New York: Viking, 2000.
Robertson-Lorant, Laurie. Melville: A Biography. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996.
CHAPTER SIX
Harriet Tubman
Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine Books, 2004.
Sernett, Milton C. Harriet Tubman: Myth, Memory, and History. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
John Brown
Renehan, Edward J. Jr. The Secret Six: The True Tale of the Men Who Conspired with John Brown. New York: Crown, 1995.
Reynolds, David S. John Brown, Abolitionist: The Man Who Killed Slavery, Sparked the Civil War, and Seeded Civil Rights. New York: Knopf, 2005.
Abraham Lincoln
Goodwin, Doris Kearns. Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Swanson, James. Manhunt: The Twelve-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer. New York: Harper Perennial, 2006.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Chicago Fire
Bales, Richard F. The Great Chicago Fire and the Myth of Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002.
Gess, Denise, and William Lutz. Firestorm at Peshtigo: A Town, Its People, and the Deadliest Fire in American History. New York: Holt, 2002.
Sawislak, Karen. Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871–74. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.
Johnstown Flood
Gallagher, Jim. The Johnstown Flood. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2000.
McCullough, David. The Johnstown Flood: The Incredible Story behind One of the Most Devastating “Natural” Disasters America Has Ever Known. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987.
San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
Fradkin, Philip L. The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906: How San Francisco Nearly Destroyed Itself. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Winchester, Simon. A Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906. New York: HarperCollins, 2005.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Billy the Kid and Pat Garrett
Gardner, Mark Lee, To Hell on a Fast Horse: Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and the Epic Chase to Justice in the Old West. New York: William Morrow, 2010.
Nolan, Frederick, ed. Pat F. Garrett’s The Authentic Life of Billy, The Kid. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000.
Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Guinn, Jeff. The Last Gunfight: The Real Story of the Shootout at the O.K. Corral—And How It Changed the American West. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.
Marks, Paula Mitchell. And Die in the West: The Story of the O.K. Corral Gunfight. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.
The James Brothers
Stiles, T. J. Jesse James: Last Rebel of the Civil War. New York: Knopf, 2002.
Yeatman, Ted P. Frank and Jesse James: The Story Behind the Legend. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2000.
CHAPTER NINE
Samuel B. Morse
Howe, Daniel Walker. What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Silverman, Kenneth. Lightning Man: The Accursed Life of Samuel F. B. Morse. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Alexander Graham Bell
Mackay, James. Alexander Graham Bell: A Life. New York: Wiley, 1997.
Shulman, Seth. The Telephone Gambit: Chasing Alexander Graham Bell’s Secret. New York: Norton, 2008.
The Wright Brothers
Burton, Walt, and Owen Findsen. The Wright Brothers Legacy: Orville and Wilbur Wright and Their Aeroplanes. New York: Abrams, 2003.
Crouch, Tom D., and Peter Jakab. The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2003.
Howard, Fred. Wilbur and Orville: A Biography of the Wright Brothers. New York: Knopf, 1987.
CHAPTER TEN
Al Capone
Eig, Jonathan. Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010.
Helmer, William J., and Arthur J. Bilek. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre: The Untold Story of the Gangland Bloodbath That Brought down Al Capone. Nashville: Cumberland House, 2004.
Eliot Ness
Heimel, Paul W. Eliot Ness: The Real Story. Coudersport, PA: Knox Books, 1997.
Nickel, Steven. Torso: The Story of Eliot Ness and the Search for a Psychopathatic Killer. Winston-Salem, NC: Blair, 1989.
John Dillinger
Gentry, Curt. J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. New York: Norton, 1991.
Purvis, Alston. The Vendetta: FBI Hero Melvin Purvis’s War against Crime, and J. Edgar Hoover’s War against Him. New York: Public Affairs, 2005.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jesse Owens
Bachrach, Susan D. The Nazi Olympics: Berlin 1936. Boston: Little, Brown, 2000.
Baker, William J. Jesse Owens: An American Life. New York: The Free Press, 1986.
Schaap, Jeremy. Triumph: The Untold Story of Jesse Owens and Hitler’s Olympics. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007.
Lou Gehrig
Eig, Jonathan. Luckiest Man: The Life and Death of Lou Gehrig. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Robinson, Ray. Iron Horse: Lou Gehrig in His Times. New York: Norton, 1990.
Jackie Robinson
Long, Michael G., ed. First Class Citizenship: The Civil Rights Letters of Jackie Robinson. New York: Times Books, 2007.
Rampersad, Arnold. Jackie Robinson: A Biography. New York: Knopf, 1997.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Pearl Harbor
Prange, Gordon. At Dawn We Slept: The Untold Story of Pearl Harbor. New York: Penguin, 2001.
Van Der Vat, Dan. Pearl Harbor: The Day of Infamy—An Illustrated History. New York: Basic, 2001.
Iwo Jima
Bradley, James. Flags of Our Fathers. New York: Bantam Books, 2000.
Buell, Hal. Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue: Iwo Jima and the Photograph That Captured America. New York: Berkley Caliber, 2006.
Atomic Bomb
Bird, Kai, and Martin Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer. New York: Vintage Books, 2006.
Weller, George. First into Nagasaki: The Censored Eyewitness Dispatches on Post-Atomic Japan and Its Prisoners of War. New York: Crown, 2006.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Hollywood Ten
McGilligan, Patrick, and Paul Buhle. Tender Comrades: A Backstory of the Hollywood Blacklist. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Navasky, Victor S. Naming Names. New York: Hill & Wang, 2003.
Douglas MacArthur and Harry Truman
Algeo, Matthew. Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2009.
James, D. Clayton. The Years of MacArthur. Vol. 3: Triumph and Disaster, 1945–1964. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1985.
McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
Perret, Geoffrey. Old Soldiers Never Die: The Life of Douglas MacArthur. Holbrook, MA: Adams Media, 1996.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rosa Parks
Brinkley, Douglas. Rosa Parks. New York: Viking, 2000.
Williams, Donnie. The Thunder of Angels: The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the People Who Broke the Back of Jim Crow. Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2006.
James Meredith
Doyle, William. An American Insurrection: The Battle of
Oxford, Mississippi, 1962. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
Lambert, Frank. The Battle of Ole Miss: Civil Rights v. States’ Rights. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Watergate
Bernstein, Carl, and Bob Woodward. All the President’s Men. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974.
Felt, W. Mark. The FBI Pyramid: From the Inside. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1979.
Woodward, Bob. The Secret Man: The Story of Watergate’s Deep Throat. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
Index
AAU. See American Athletic Union
Abernathy, Ralph, 222
Abolitionists, 83–84
Adams, John, 33, 41, 42–43, 130
Adams, John Quincy, 41, 43
Adams, Sam, 34
African Americans, 30–31, 166, 186. See also Civil rights movement; Owens, Jesse; Robinson, Jackie; Slaves and slavery
Age of Discovery
Columbus and, 1–8
Cook and, 11–16
Hudson and, 8–11
Age of Exploration, 17
Agnew, Spiro, 180
Ahern, Michael, 97
Alcott, Louisa May, 58
Alden, John, 28
Allan, John, 63
All the President’s Men (Woodward and Bernstein), 231, 232, 237
ALS. See Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amazon River, 8
America