Stories That
Shaped a Nation

On June 14, 1777, Congress described the American flag in three lines — naming no designer and fixing no arrangement of its stars. The woman remembered for making it left no proof she did; the man who likely designed it was denied his fee.

On June 7, 1776, a Virginian rose in Philadelphia and said out loud what no colony had yet dared put to a vote: that the thirteen colonies were, and of right ought to be, free and independent States. The Declaration everyone remembers was the answer. This was the question.

Six months after Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy was outnumbered, outgunned, and reading Japan’s mail. In four days off a speck of coral in the Pacific, a handful of dive bombers reversed the course of a war — in about five minutes.

He bought a first-class ticket, sat down in the wrong car on purpose, and told the conductor he was a colored man. The arrest was the plan. What it set in motion was fifty-eight years of “separate but equal” — and, eventually, the argument that brought it down.

He was 43 when he took the oath. He was 46 when he was killed. In between, he faced down nuclear war, sent Americans to the moon, and asked a generation to give something back. Fifty years later, the question he asked has not expired.

Built during the Great Depression over four years across a notoriously difficult strait, the Golden Gate Bridge opened on May 27, 1937 — and immediately became the symbol of American ambition made concrete.

Begun in 1990, completed in 2003 — three billion base pairs sequenced for $2.7 billion. The data went into the public domain. The questions it opened are still being answered.

ARPANET sent its first message on October 29, 1969: “lo” — the system crashed before it finished “login.” The network was funded by the Pentagon to survive a nuclear war.

At 1:20 a.m. on June 28, 1969, plainclothes officers raided the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street. The patrons fought back. Six nights of protest followed.

On July 20, 1969, at 4:17 p.m. EDT, Apollo 11 landed in the Sea of Tranquility. The race that put a flag there began with a Cold War deficit and ended with one footprint.

A. Philip Randolph called for it in 1941; Bayard Rustin organized it in 1963. Two hundred and fifty thousand people gathered on August 28. King delivered his speech that afternoon.

On May 17, 1954, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that “separate but equal” had no place in public schools. Linda Brown was in third grade. Implementation took decades.