History by Tom Madsen

By Tom Madsen In 1964, writer, producer and former World War II bombardier, Gene Roddenberry came up with an idea for a new television series. A futuristic, “celestial western” (as he called it) about a starship (note: not a spaceship) named the USS Enterprise, that would traverse around the galaxies to “seek out new life…

By Tom Madsen “If we can organize the Southern States for massive resistance to this order, I think that in time the rest of the country will realize that racial integration is not going to be accomplished in the South.” -West Virginia Representative and former Ku Klux Klan member Robert Byrd What U.S. Congressman (and…

Part Three: A Century of Violence, Protests and Turmoil with Hope on the Horizon By Tom Madsen “We are here this evening for serious business…. [W]e are American citizens and we are determined to apply our citizenship to the fullness of its meaning. We are here…because of our love for democracy, because of our deep-seated…

Part Two: The American Revolution, Compromises and the Growing Pain of Slavery By Tom Madsen “Slavery in an abomination and must be loudly proclaimed as such, but I own that I nor any other man has any immediate solution to the problem.” Thomas Jefferson – date unknown Thomas Jefferson characterized the contradiction of the American…

By Tom Madsen “One day a big ship stopped off the shore.” “A big boat was down at the edge of a bay.” “For innumerable Africans, the appearance of a strange ocean-going ship signaled the end of their lives as free people. Whether captured by European or African slave traders, or enslaved as prisoners during…

Part Eleven in a Series By Tom Madsen “To all to whom these Presents shall come, we the undersigned Delegates of the States affixed to our Names send greeting. Articles of Confederation and perpetual Union between the states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts-bay Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland,…

Part Ten in a Continuing Series By Tom Madsen “Resolved that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally…

By Tom Madsen “I love the whole Pet Sounds record. I got a full vision out of it in the studio […] It was a spiritual record. I wanted to … expand our horizons and do something that people would love …” -Brian Wilson On May 16, 1966, Capitol Records released the Beach Boys’ Pet…

Part Nine of a Continuing Series By Tom Madsen “Wherever your armies go, there we will go: you shall always find us by your side; and if providence calls us to sacrifice our lives on the field of battle, we will fall where you fall, and lay our bones by yours. We are determined never…