Today's American Minute

How did January 1st become New Year's Day? and How is it connected to Leap Day?

January 01, 2025

As Rome expanded, it was difficult to sync the different calendars of conquered countries. Julius Caesar instituted one unified calendar, based on the Earth's orbit around the sun, 365 days, and a "leap" day every 4th year. Called the Julian Calendar, it was instituted January 1, 45 B.C.

Until We Meet Again - "I know Who holds the future and I know Who holds my hand"-A.B. Smith - American Minute with Bill Federer

December 31, 2024 • "The Captain's Daughter"; "I know Who holds the future and I know Who holds my hand"-A.B. Smith • "Until We Meet Again" & James T. Fields' The Atlantic Monthly

"But his little daughter whispered. As she took his icy hand, 'Isn't God upon the ocean, Just the same as on the land?'"

Carl Sandburg "I see America not in the setting sun ... (but) in the ... rising sun fresh from the ... creative hand of God" - American Minute with Bill Federer

December 30, 2024 • "When a nation goes down ... one condition may always be found; they forgot where they came from" - Carl Sandburg • Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet

Carl Sandburg said, 'I see America not in the setting sun of a black night of despair ... I see America in the crimson light of a rising sun fresh from the burning, creative hand of God.'"

Robert Frost, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet "Two Roads Diverge in the Woods ..." - American Minute with Bill Federer

December 28, 2024 • "Two Roads Diverge in the Woods ..."- Robert Frost • Four Time Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet - American Minute with Bill Federer

In a 1956 interview on station WQED, Pittsburgh, Robert Frost stated: "Ultimately, this is what you go before God for: You've had bad luck and good luck and all you really want in the end is mercy."

Panama Canal built by America at the cost of 100 lives per mile of 50-mile-wide Isthmus - American Minute with Bill Federer

December 28, 2024 • Panama Canal - cost over 100 American lives per mile of 50 mile wide Isthmus

Mark Twain wrote August 17, 1868: "The Panama railroad was an American project ... We took the train at Panama, clattered for two or three hours through a tangled wilderness of tropical vegetation, and discharged ourselves in Aspinwall (Colón). It is only forty-five miles ... it was a hard road to build. The tropical fevers slaughtered the laborers by wholesale. It is a popular saying, that every railroad tie from Panama to Aspinwall rests upon a corpse."