Arnold J. Toynbee, the most famous professional historian of the twentieth century, is widely quoted as having declared that History is just one damn thing after another. This book argues that history is not about things at all but is all about turning pointsthe decisions, acts, innovations, errors, ideas, successes, and failures on which the shape of a nations lifeour livesdepends. It presents the one hundred points at which Americas path decisively turned on its way to where we find ourselves today.
Columbus arrives in the New World
The first slaves arrive in America
Independence is declared
Female suffragists meet in Seneca Falls
Fort Sumter falls
A transcontinental railroad is completed
Edison lights his first electric lamp
FDR offers a New Deal
The B-29 Enola Gay drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima
Neil Armstrong sets foot on the moon
President Nixon creates the EPA
9/11, Obama, Sandy Hook, Russian election meddling, and the Age of Trump
These and many more are the crucial plot points in our grand national story, and bestselling historian Alan Axelrod presents them here.
