‘Bill Federer’ Archives
Christmas Day – Hoover, Eisenhower, Carter & Reagan
American Minute with Bill Federer President Hoover wrote in 1932: "Your CHRISTMAS Service held each year at the foot of a living tree which was alive at the time of the birth of Christ...should be continued as a further symbol of the unbroken chain of life leading back to this great moment in the spiritual life of mankind." President [...]
Truman and Christmas Eve; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer On Christmas eve, DECEMBER 24, 1492, Columbus' ship, the Santa Maria, ran aground on the island of Haiti. Columbus left 40 men and named the settlement la Navidad, promising to return the next year. He wrote that day to Spain's King and Queen: In all the world there can be no better or gentler people. Your [...]
Thomas Paine on The American Crisis
American Minute with Bill Federer After the Continental Army was driven out of New Jersey, an article titled "The American Crisis" was published in the Pennsylvania Journal, DECEMBER 23, 1776. Written by an aide-de-camp to General Nathanael Greene named Thomas Paine, General Washington ordered it read to the troops: "These are the times that [...]
Battle of the Bulge — American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer Battle of the Bulge- Nazis amassed three armies for an enormous attack against the Allies in the Ardennes Forest and soon surrounded the 101 Airborne Division in southern Belgium, demanding their surrender. U.S. General Anthony McAuliffe answered in one word: "Nuts." This response confused the Nazi commander, [...]
John Newton and Amazing Grace; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer "Amazing grace! How sweet the sound, That saved a wretch like me! I once was lost, but now am found, Was blind, but now I see." These were the words of John Newton, a former slave ship captain, who died DECEMBER 21, 1807. At age 11, his mother died and he went to sea with his father. He fell in love with [...]
The True Meaning of Christmas — American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer Ronald Reagan stated in his Christmas Address, DECEMBER 20, 1983: "Sometimes, in the hustle and bustle of holiday preparations we forget the true meaning of Christmas...the birth of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ...During this glorious festival let us renew our determination to follow His example." Franklin [...]
Charles Wesley: Hark the Herald Angels Sing; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was a carol written by Charles Wesley, born DECEMBER 18, 1707, at Epworth, England. The 18th child of Rev. Samuel and Susanna Wesley, he excelled in school and came to the attention of Garret Wesley, or Wellesley, a Member of Parliament with a large fortune in Daugan, [...]
Ludwig van Beethoven
American Minute with Bill Federer A peer of Mozart and Haydn, he started becoming deaf at age 28, yet incredibly wrote some of the world's most beautiful symphonies, concertos and sonatas. This was Ludwig van Beethoven, baptized DECEMBER 17, 1770, in Bonn, Germany. President Jimmy Carter noted while visiting Bonn, July 14, 1978: As the [...]
The Sons of Liberty, and the Boston Tea Party
American Minute with Bill Federer The Boston Tea Party took place DECEMBER 16, 1773, just three years after the Boston Massacre, where the British fired into a crowd, killing five. The British passed unbearable taxes: 1764 Sugar Act -taxing sugar, coffee, wine; 1765 Stamp Act -taxing newspapers, contracts, letters, playing cards and all [...]
The Bill of Rights — American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer Newly independent, the thirteen States were concerned their new government may become too powerful, as King George's was. They insisted handcuffs be place on the power of the Federal Government. We call these the First Ten Amendments or Bill of Rights, ratified DECEMBER 15, 1791. The First states: Congress [...]
George Washington: “Praise Be To God” — American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer He caught a chill riding horseback several hours in the snow while inspecting his Mount Vernon farm. The next morning it developed into acute laryngitis and the doctors were called in. Their response was to bleed him heavily four times, a process of cutting one's arm to let the "bad blood" out. They also had [...]
American Minute; Phillips Brooks
American Minute with Bill Federer Phillips Brooks was born DECEMBER 13, 1835. The bishop of the Episcopal Church in Massachusetts, Brooks is probably best remembered for a song he wrote two years after the Civil War, which goes: "O little town of Bethlehem! How still we see thee lie; Above thy deep and dreamless sleep, The silent stars go [...]
Alexander Solzhenitsyn: America Do Not Become Weak
American Minute with Bill Federer Alexander Solzhenitsyn was born in Russia, DECEMBER 11, 1918. He was arrested for writing a letter criticizing Joseph Stalin and spent eleven years in prisons and labor camps. He began writing and eventually received the Nobel Prize for Literature. Solzhenitsyn wrote: At the height of Stalin's terror in [...]
Slavery in Cuba, 1873; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer After slavery ended in the U.S., President Grant spoke to Congress, December 1, 1873, of "several thousand persons illegally held as slaves in Cuba...by the slaveholders of Havana, who are vainly striving to stay the march of ideas which has terminated slavery in Christendom, Cuba only excepted." Spain [...]
Fiddler on the Roof Tells Us of Restricted Freedom in Russia
American Minute with Bill Federer The Play, "Fiddler on the Roof," tells the story recounted by President Benjamin Harrison on DECEMBER 9, 1891: "This Government has found occasion to express...to the Government of the Czar its serious concern because of the harsh measures now being enforced against the Hebrews in Russia. By the revival of [...]
President Lincoln on Accepting Back Those who Rebelled
American Minute with Bill Federer On DECEMBER 8, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln announced his plan to accept back into the Union those who had been in the Confederacy. He wrote: "Whereas it is now desired by some persons heretofore engaged in said rebellion to resume their allegiance to the United States... Therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, [...]
The Day That Shall Live in Infamy!
American Minute with Bill Federer "DECEMBER 7, 1941- a date which will live in infamy- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan." Thus spoke President Franklin D. Roosevelt following the attack on Pearl Harbor by over 350 Japanese aircraft. Five American battleships [...]
Nicholas and the Nicene Creed
American Minute with Bill Federer Greek Orthodox history tells of Nicholas being born to a wealthy, elderly couple in what is now Turkey in the year 280 AD. When his parents died, he generously gave to the poor. Upon hearing a merchant had gone bankrupt and that creditors were planning on taking the merchant's daughters, Nicholas threw some [...]
Father Jacques Marquette; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer Father Jacques Marquette arrived in Quebec from France to be a missionary among the Indians. Governor Frontenac commissioned him to explore the unknown Mississippi River. In 1673, he traveled with explorer Louis Joliette by canoe from Lake Michigan, across Green Bay, up Fox River to the Wisconsin River and [...]
Thomas Jefferson and The Kaskaskia Indian Treaty; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer President Thomas Jefferson, author of the phrase "Separation of Church and State," asked Congress to ratify a treaty with the Kaskaskia Indians, which they did DECEMBER 3, 1803. Negotiated shortly after the Louisiana Purchase by future President William Henry Harrison, the Kaskaskia Indian Treaty stated: And [...]
Hernando Cortez and the 33 Year Old Conquistador: American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer A thirty-three year old conquistador landed in Mexico with five hundred men. He was shocked to find the Aztecs taking prisoners of the weaker tribes, ripping their hearts out atop temples, and in a frenzy eating their bodies. With help from other tribes, the conquistador fought the Aztecs, freed prisoners, [...]
The Kindergarten Congress
By Alan Caruba The Founders in their genius created a Constitution that was intended to slow down the process of legislation precisely because they wanted the new nation to avoid being destroyed by the passions and trends of the day. So what do we have today, a month away from the largest transfer of power in Congress since 1946? We have a [...]
President Lincoln, and the Emancipation Proclamation
American Minute with Bill Federer The Confederates won the Second Battle of Bull Run, crossed the Potomac River into Maryland and captured Harper’s Ferry. But the Confederate drive was halted at the Battle of Antietam, the bloodiest day of fighting in American history. In total, over a half million lost their lives in the Civil [...]
American Minute — Samuel Langhorne Clemens
American Minute with Bill Federer "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" was his first popular story, written while in San Francisco. He then sailed to the Holy Land and wrote Innocents Abroad. While on this trip, he saw the picture of his friend's sister, Olivia Langdon of Elmira, New York, and he fell in love. Immediately upon his [...]
C.S. Lewis, and All That We Call Human History; American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer His death went unnoticed, as he died the same day John F. Kennedy was shot, but his works are some of the most widely read in English literature. Originally an agnostic, he served in World War I and became a professor at Oxford and Cambridge. He credits his Catholic friend and fellow writer, J.R.R. Tolkien, [...]
A Need for Repentance
American Minute with Bill Federer Following the hated Stamp Act of 1765, the British committed the Boston Massacre in 1770, firing into a crowd, killing five. Colonists responded with the Boston Tea Party in 1773. In retaliation, the British blocked Boston Harbor in 1774 to starve the city into submission. The President of the Massachusetts [...]
The Balfour Declaration — American Minute
American Minute with Bill Federer During World War I, Britain was ineffective manufacturing explosives, until a breakthrough in synthesizing acetone was made by Jewish chemist Dr. Chaim Weizmann, who was born NOVEMBER 27, 1874. In gratitude, Britain issued the Balfour Declaration, establishing a Jewish homeland. President Woodrow Wilson wrote [...]
The First National Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789
American Minute with Bill Federer In order to thank God for the First Amendment, which was passed a week earlier by Congress, President George Washington issued the first National Thanksgiving Proclamation, 1789: "Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me 'to recommend to the People of the United States a day [...]
American Minute: John Knox and Glorifying God
American Minute with Bill Federer Sentenced as a galley slave on a French ship, he looked up as they sailed passed St. Andrews, Scotland, and said: "I see the steeple of that place where God first in public opened my mouth to glory; and I am fully persuaded...I shall not depart this life till my tongue shall glorify his godly name in the [...]
Franklin Pierce, and a Reverence for Religious Belief
American Minute with Bill Federer His only son, 11-year-old Bennie, was killed when their campaign train rolled off its tracks. This happened to 14th President Franklin Pierce, who was born NOVEMBER 23, 1804. Elected to Congress at age 29, Franklin Pierce was a Senator at 33. He resigned during the Mexican-American War, enlisted as a private [...]
