Killing England by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard

We celebrate July 4th as American Independence Day - it was that day in 1776 that the Declaration of Independence was approved by the Continental Congress but not signed until August 2, 1776. This was the beginning of the struggle for independence which didn't come to fruition until 7 years later after many battles with the British army and ended with the Treaty of Paris in 1783 negotiated by Benjamin Franklin, an American diplomat, who was living in France, along with John Adams and John Jay, U.S. Minister to Spain. Included in the treaty was an agreement that the fishermen of New England would have unlimited access to Canadian fishing waters.

I wonder if the outcome would have been different if King George III had been sane and not so incapacitated during his reign (he was often put in a straightjacket) and the British Parliament had been more stable. Perhaps then the American colonies could have been handled more diplomatically. 

Instead, revenue was raised by taxing paper and documents (Stamp Act 1765). Tariffs were introduced and the Tea Act of 1773 enforced. The colonists resented that they had no representation in parliament. Unrest led to a series of attacks (the Boston Massacre) and the colonists retaliated by dumping chests of tea into Boston Harbor which again led to more restricting acts by Parliament.

Bill O'Reilly's "The Killing Series" gives an in depth look into many historical moments and Killing England is another book packed with historical data and a view of both the American Revolution and the major participants.

The final battle was the Siege of Yorktown when American rebels, the Continental army, African American soldiers from the First Rhode Island Regiment and the French army (led by General Washington, Lieutenant Colonel Hamilton, and the Marquis de Lafayette) fought the British force of 9,000 British, loyalist and Hessian (German) soldiers led by Lord Cornwallis.

Some interesting facts:
The battles didn't only take place on American soil, but John Paul Jones spent the summer of 1779 attacking and capturing ships around the British coast.

Lieutenant  is a term meaning in lieu of (replacement if his senior officer became incapacitated)

After New York is recaptured, George Washington and General Jean-Baptise Rochambeau sign the British surrender documents. 8,000 British are taken as prisoners of war. On Evacuation Day (November 25, 1783) wealthy British loyalists leave for England, others are taken to Nova Scotia or the West Indies. Over 25,000 soldiers and loyalists leave New York.

February 27, 1782 the British Parliament issued a second resolution confirming the British offensive war in America is over.

British loyalists were treated badly from both sides of those fighting the war. The British considered all Americans as traitors and Banastre Tarleton killed both those opposing the British and many loyalists and their homes. Rather than taking prisoners, he slaughtered those he came across.

Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly

Like his book Killing Lincoln, in Killing Kennedy - The End of Camelot, Bill O'Reilly (together with Martin Dugard) paints an in depth picture of John F. Kennedy's short term as President of the United States and the events leading up to his death. In the beginning he points out that there were many similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy:

• Lincoln was first elected in 1860, Kennedy in 1960.
• Both were assassinated on a Friday, in the presence of their wives.
• Their successors were both southerners named Johnson who had served in the Senate.
• Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon Johnson in 1908.
• Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, while Kennedy was elected the the House in 1946.
• Both men suffered the death of children while in office.
• The assassin Booth shot inside a theater and fled into a storage facility, while the assassin Oswald shot from a storage facility and fled into a theater.

We all know the story of Kennedy's ill fated invasion of Cuba - The Bay of Pigs, his assassination and also the conspiracy theories, but Killing Kennedy gives the information in a well written book without supposition as to anything that isn't a fact. O'Reilly also shows the chain of events in Lee Harvey Oswald's life leading up to his job at the Texas School Book Depository where he was able to take a rifle wrapped in brown paper virtually unnoticed.

This was a choice for our book club and provoked a lot of discussion. Many of the members of our group remember, as small children, the sirens in Dallas or the excitement when the Kennedy entourage stayed in Fort Worth at The Hotel Texas the night before his tragic demise.

What is further chilling is the Afterword where many of the people who surrounded J.F.K. are noted and many of them also had turmoil in their lives and untimely deaths.

Killing Kennedy will be going on my list of favorite books of 2013.