This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part II. Italia irredenta—“unredeemed Italy”—was the name Italian nationalists gave to those lands where Italians lived but that as yet were not part of Italy. The most important of these territories were Trentino in the Alps, the Italian Tyrol, and Trieste, a port city northeast of Italy—all of which, in the early 1900s, were under Austrian rule. That Austria still held these territories was a source of great annoyance to

This text comes from our book, The American Venture. For over 50 years following Cabot’s last voyage, England ignored the New World. What is called the Reformation was dividing Europe into hostile religious camps, Catholic and Protestant, and England was soon drawn into the fray. When Pope Clement VII refused to annul his marriage to Catharine of Aragon (daughter to Fernando and Isabel), King Henry VIII (Henry VII’s son) proclaimed the Church of England independent of the pap

This text comes from our book, From Sea to Shining Sea. Benedict Arnold, a merchant of New Haven, Connecticut, wanted to do great things for the colonial cause and his own reputation. But by the end of the Revolution, he did grave harm to the colonials, and his return to England as a Tory has earned him forever the name of traitor and turncoat. It all began when Arnold, in search of glory, set his sights on the strongest British fort in North America—Fort Ticonderoga, on the

This text comes from our book, The American Venture. Despite the fervor of the “War Hawks” (as those who had pushed for war with Great Britain were called), the American army and navy were not prepared for war. Great Britain’s navy had more than 100 ships; the United States, only five frigates. Great Britain’s army was also much larger than America’s and better trained. In America’s favor, however, Great Britain’s army and navy were both engaged in war with Napoleon in Europe

This text comes from our book, Light to the Nations, Part II . Like all Europeans, Catholics in the 1840s were divided on how to meet the challenges of their time. The Church in Western Europe was in many ways still in a state of shock because of the French Revolution and its aftermath. It was hard for Catholics, bishops and popes included, to understand fully all that had happened. Thus, when they considered what needed to be done to bring Europe back to the Faith, Catholics

This text comes from our book, The American Venture . The 1950s was a time when European colonies in Africa and Asia were loosening themselves from their European masters to form their own independent states. While in some places this was done peacefully, insurgent violence beset other regions—such as French Indochina in East Asia, where, in 1954, Communist Vietnamese rebels defeated French forces at Dien Bien Phu. Winning its independence, Vietnam was divided into two states