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Dear Reader, Love Geoff Armstrong


Dear Reader…

You are about to embark on an interesting journey: a voyage into the heart and soul of the most powerful country the world has ever known, but what you should know, before you start reading, is that based on simple logic, the United States shouldn’t exist at all, or if it managed to come into being, it should be unrecognizable.
Suppose, for example, the giant supercontinent we call Pangea, never experienced the massive continental fracture that severed the huge landmass now known as North America and sent it sailing off to the west where it was able to develop its own unique environment and eventually its own independent culture separate from the geography and cultures that would become Europe, Asia and Africa. However, one doesn’t have to travel back that far to uncover moments that profoundly and forever changed what America would become. Imagine America without George Washington. That nearly happened more than once. Early in his career, just before the constant antagonism between the British and French over control of North America broke out into the open conflict known as the French and Indian wars, while serving as a young colonial officer under the British, Washington and a force of about 1200 British soldiers and officers were ambushed while reconnoitering a French fort in the Ohio River Valley. As usual, the French and the Native American allies targeted the officers. At six-foot four and on horseback, Washington was a prime target. He was hit four times and two horses were shot out from under him. The musket balls penetrated his clothing, but not a single one touched him. Washington was the only mounted officer who survived the ambush. He managed to rally the surviving men and lead them to safety. Had he died that day the America we know would not exist and the entire history of North America, perhaps the world, would have been different.
What would America be if the Union had lost the Civil War? Looking back from our vantage point of more than 150 years, it can seem as if the outcome of that blood-soaked war was inevitable, but it all might have hinged on one seemingly small decision by one Confederate general at the Battle of Gettysburg. On the second day of that iconic battle, General Robert E. Lee sent an officer to tell General Richard Ewell to take control of a small hill and the adjacent high ground. Contemporary testimony says that Lee’s orders were more of a suggestion and Ewell, seeing that his men had been pushed to their physical limits, decided not to take the high ground. Before the day was out, Union forces occupied that vital high ground and had covered it with cannons and Union troops. Finally realizing its mistake, Lee launched a massive assault that will be remembered forever as “Pickett’s Charge”. The South lost 5000 men that day and a final chance to invade Washington. Imagine modern America if the Union capital had been taken by the Confederacy and Lincoln thrown into prison?
The story of the United States is packed with such moments and many even stranger, such as the tornado that struck Washington, DC during the War of 1812 just as the British tried to burn it.
Moments that Made America is a planned series of three books that tell the story of the United States by focusing on those pivotal turning points or tipping points that have defined and shaped America. The first book in the series, “Moments that Made America: From the Ice Age to the Alamois available now, the second book, Moments that Made America: From Civil War to Superpower” will be out in June this year. The final volume Moments that Made America: The American Century” will be out in the new year.

About the Author

Geoff Armstrong began his teaching career in 1965 after receiving a teaching diploma from McGill University’s Macdonald College. He earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Montreal’s Concordia University in 1967 where his major field of study was history. Armstrong credits writers such as Bruce Catton, and Thomas B. Costain, as well as the encouragement of his father who had little formal education, but a deep love of reading and of history, as the inspiration for his own life-long interest.

Throughout a 25-year teaching career he taught history at several grade levels and learned quickly that to reach the hearts of his students, history had to be made immediately and deeply relevant and accessible: that some event that took place centuries before those students were born had a direct and profound influence on every aspect their lives. He also learned that talking down or writing down to his students was a recipe for defeat. It is this awareness, shaped by a quarter century of teaching and countless questions by thousands of intelligent young people that has informed and shaped his writing.


You can visit his website at www.MomentsThatMadeAmerica.com.


About the Book:

From its geological birth during the breakup of the Pangaea supercontinent millions of years ago, through the nation-shaping key events that led to its political independence from the British superpower, and other crucial, sometimes miraculous events that worked to create the nation, Moments That Made America: From the Ice Age to the Alamo explores those defining moments, both tragic and inspirational that profoundly shaped the nation and its people - crucial turning points that worked inexorably to mold and make America. These pivotal "tipping" events formed America's geographical, sociological, political and historical landscape. Part 1 culminates with the discovery of gold in California and the role it played in fulfilling America’s dream of Manifest Destiny.

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