"Celebrated as a Foundational Moment in Our History for Generations"

"White actors reenacted the baptism for decades: near the historic site itself, in the nearby city of San Clemente, in plays across Southern California and even on floats in everything from Veterans' Day marches to the 1957 Tournament of Roses Parade. These events served to replenish our self-conception of a California where the eternal good life was possible for anyone, if only they truly believed."

Gustavo Arrellano in the Los Angeles Times tells the story of La Cristianita.

"Truly Our First 'Civil War'"

"Taylor's not interested in a triumphalist account of the nation's origins; instead, his core arguments deliberately overturn the notion that the Revolution was fought for egalitarian, democratic principles. Most colonists, Taylor highlights, felt deeply attached to the British monarchy on the eve of the Revolution. There was no distinct American identity to speak of, and everywhere Britain's American colonists looked—north to French Canada, south to Spanish America—they saw settlers with virtually no political autonomy. Their king, meanwhile, granted them greater civil liberties than any other European ruler; for much of the 18^th century, British monarchs allowed elected Colonial assemblies to run their own affairs. But rather than inculcating a sense of independence, these Colonial assemblies only made American colonists cherish more deeply their status as 'free-born Englishmen.'
"So why, then, a war for independence?"

Eric Herschthal in Slate reviews Alan Taylor's American Revolutions: A Continental History, 1750-1804.

"A Participant in European Colonialism—or Even Genocide—Against Indigenous People"

"Some have suggested Francis may feel a kinship with Serra, who left a cushy academic position in Spain for a remote and often grueling posting, but the canonization seems odd from a pope who has made a point of apologizing for the church's 'many grave sins' against indigenous peoples. He's widely expected to address this dark history during the canonization today, but for many descendants of those Serra was sent to convert it will ring pretty hollow."

Joshua Keating in Slate discusses the elevation of Junipero Serra to sainthood.

Burning Like a Silver Flame

"Two hundred and fifty years ago, it was not so simple a task. And yet, in 1761 and 1769, hundreds of astronomers from more than a dozen nations stationed at more than 130 locations around the world turned their telescopes simultaneously to the sky to observe the transit of Venus. They did so—at great peril and against heavy odds in many cases—because they believed that the transit held the key to one of the most pressing quests of the age: the distance between Earth and the sun and, by extension, the size of the solar system."

Andrea Wulf in the Los Angeles Times recounts "first-ever truly global scientific project."

"A Tale of Greed, Legal Chaos, and Corrupt Business Practices"

"Just how these contests over land play into the Revolution is one of the most debated questions in American history. In 1909, historian Carl Becker argued that the American Revolution was not so much about home rule as 'who should rule at home.' The struggle for independence, in other words, centered less on exalted principles than on the quest for political and economic power by provincial elites. Popular among muckraking classes during the age of Robber Barons, this interpretation was hard to reconcile with a patriotic account of the nation's founding and eventually fell out of favor.
"So Randall is stuck between a rock and a hard place, interpretatively speaking. He wants to connect the Vermont insurrection to 'a greater cause,' to make it the first battle of the American Revolution. And perhaps it was. But if so, does it turn Allen and his Green Mountain Boys into patriots, as Randall would have it? Or does it turn the leaders of the Revolution into bandits, seizing an entire continent for personal gain and dressing the crime up with pretty words?"

François Furstenberg in Slate reviews Willard Sterne Randall's Ethan Allen: His Life and Times.