ebooks The Idyll of the White Lotus by Mabel Collins in History

Description

On December 26; 1941; Secret Service Agent Harry E. Neal stood on a platform at Washington's Union Station; watching a train chug off into the dark and feeling at once relieved and inexorably anxious. These were dire times: as Hitler's armies plowed across Europe; seizing or destroying the Continent's historic artifacts at will; Japan bristled to the East. The Axis was rapidly closing in. So FDR set about hiding the country's valuables. On the train speeding away from Neal sat four plain-wrapped cases containing the documentary history of American democracy: the Declaration of Independence; the Constitution; the Gettysburg Address; and more; guarded by a battery of agents and bound for safekeeping in the nation's most impenetrable hiding place.American Treasures charts the little-known journeys of these American crown jewels. From the risky and audacious adoption of the Declaration of Independence in 1776 to our modern Fourth of July celebrations; American Treasures shows how the ideas captured in these documents underscore the nation's strengths and hopes; and embody its fundamental values of liberty and equality. Stephen Puleo weaves in exciting stories of freedom under fire - from the Declaration and Constitution smuggled out of Washington days before the British burned the capital in 1814; to their covert relocation during WWII - crafting a sweeping history of a nation united to preserve its definition of democracy.