Poll: Which 20th century American President was the most responsible for starting a war?

The poll has closed for the question, "Which 20th century American President was the most responsible for starting a war?" Thanks to all who participated by voting.

George H.W. Bush was the leading vote getter with 41% for the Persian Gulf War. President Kennedy was second with 29% for the Vietnam War. President Clinton was third with 12% for the Kosovo War. Truman polled 9% for the Korean War and Wilson got 6% for World War One.

I could only place five Presidents on the poll. As such, I left FDR off. I hardly think he started World War Two so I think this was a good choice. I am going to get off the war theme and try a different sort of poll question next.

From Johnson To McKinley: A Presidential Timeline in Multimedia

From Johnson To McKinley: A Presidential Timeline in Multimedia. This site has a nice Post Civil War timeline. Nine Presidents are covered and each has his own page. There are essays mixed with pictures and cartoons. It is a nicely put together resource.

This is part of a larger site called the Authentic History Center. The site notes that it is, "comprised of artifacts and sounds from American popular culture. It was created to teach that the everyday objects in society have authentic historical value and reflect the social consciousness of the era that produced them. Authentic also means conforming to fact, and therefore worthy of trust, reliance, or belief."

Good Web Directories and the American Presidency

Do you want to browse the Web looking for good and free resources on the American Presidency? Of course, you can always start right here at the American Presidents Blog! However, there is another ready source for good spam free presidential results.

There are several human built directories that have extensive collections of presidential sites selected. As real people and not computer algorithms determine if sites should be included, the results tend to be good. The glory days of Web directories are gone but they can still be mined and enjoyed.

Here are three to check out:

Joeant - Small but well selected list of sites on American Presidents.

Yahoo! - Larger and well populated with tons of subcategories.

Open Directory Project - The ODP is not what it used to be. That is probably because people rarely use directories anymore. However, the category on Presidents is huge and has a lot of good content listed.

Have fun.

The Kent State Shootings and the Boston Massacre: Parallels?

I was happy to watch the first two episodes of John Adams on HBO Sunday night. This was some great TV! I really liked how John Adams was portrayed.

The first episode deals with the Boston Massacre. It was an incident involving the deaths of five civilians at the hands of British troops on March 5, 1770. John Adams made an unpopular but principled choice to defend the British soldiers. Despite great odds, he was able to get the soldiers acquitted. This episode of the HBO series shows how difficult this was for the future American President.

As I watched, I was reminded of the Kent State shootings of 1970. On May 4th of that year, four students were killed by Ohio National Guard soldiers. In both the Boston Massacre and the Kent State shootings, a crowd of civilians were engaged in violent protest. Soldiers were outnumbered and the crowds were throwing items at the soldiers. In each case, there are reports that members of the crowd were taunting for the soldiers to shoot.

In both cases, shots were fired resulting in death. Both the American revolutionaries of the 18th century and the anti-war opposition of the 20th century used the shootings to make a case against the government. However, with all honesty, it is hard to blame the soldiers in each incident. It is understandable why the shootings occurred even if they could have been avoided.

This parallel had not occurred to me before watching this new series on HBO. I expect more great things from this show. John Adams lived an interesting life and this show is proving equally interesting.