Turning Three

The Maundy Monday Newsletter - This Week in History February 19 - February 25.

It’s President’s Day 2024, which means Okay History is turning three!

Okay History began as a series of educational rants on Facebook during the 2020 presidential election. I wrote like I was famed historian Heather Cox Richardson, except no one asked me anything, and I’m not a scholar.

But history has always been a subject I have taken from a young age. I was especially interested in learning about the presidents. The best way I knew how to do that was to rank them. This became an ongoing progression - in junior high, I ranked the top five. By high school, I had expanded to the top ten.

As an adult having adult conversations in the nation’s capital, chats of how I would rank presidents became something I was known for to a small group of colleagues. When you live in a town where politics is a gladiator sport, knowing how a particular president thought or acted makes you feel like an expert at something when surrounded by experts.

In 2021, I decided to create Okay History. By 2022, I moved the site entirely to the Substack platform.

I’m so thankful to all the friends, family, and strangers who support my work by subscribing. I just reached my 300^th subscriber, and my twice-weekly essays are opened at around a 40% rate, which blows my mind. I’m probably the most humble person you would know, and these stats drastically increase my humility, as you can tell by my sharing this information.

This is the 220 essay/lesson I have published. I ranked the presidents. Then I ranked the states, and last year, I ranked the amendments to the Constitution. I never developed a cohesive set of criteria for any of my rankings, which is the first question I am asked when I explain Okay History in its most basic terms. As we progress with ranking the presidential elections, that criteria thought process will stay the same.  

Finally, I love learning. I also love writing. The amount of discipline to stay on deadline that I have created has helped me become a better learner and more gooder writer. One day, I will get an editor, and then, like the underwear gnomes, OKH will take over the world.

Thanks for being here for the past three years. Let’s keep it going.

Okay, let's highlight what else happened this week. Here's what I got:

1. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government has more power than individual states on February 20, 1809. Pennsylvania passed a law nullifying a ruling by an appeals court concerning prizes won during the Revolutionary War. In the United States vs. Peters, The Supreme Court ruled against this practice, and Chief Justice John Marshall told the states to quote get outta here with that nonsense unquote. We see the states constantly challenging their ability to override the federal government. It’s a bit annoying.

2. Spain ceded Florida to the United States on February 22, 1819. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams negotiated the deal that didn’t cost the United States a dime while securing a ton of beachfront property. Andrew Jackson was named Military Governor, setting the two up for a hotly contested presidential election in 1824. No one asked what the Native Tribes thought about the deal between two countries who didn’t really own it.

3. Mohammad Ali became heavyweight boxing champion on February 25, 1964. Ali would knock out Sonny Liston in Miami Beach, the first of his three times wearing the belt. His mamma called him Cassius, but the world called him the Greatest.

I hope Okay History has been a place of education, humor, and reflection. But if there is one thing I wish readers take away from Okay History, it is to motivate us to learn more about our rich, complex, and inspiring history.  OKH could be your gateway drug to explore the talents of proper historians whose abilities to research, understand, and then share the stories of how the United States can be a fulfilling experience that could lead to becoming a better citizen.

That’s why I do this twice a week, sometimes more. I want to be a better citizen. Remember, this is about me. OKH is My Great Humility Project.

The countdown to the first vacation of 2024 continues to march onward! Anonymous and I leave this week to spend time on our secluded island. We are going with friends this time, which will be especially fun. Never go anywhere with people you don’t like, I always say.

Don’t worry. I have put a few essays in the hopper for this week and next so you won’t miss a thing.

Have a great next ten days, and I will be back online at the beginning of March.

Okay,

Chris

Blue is very excited for us to leave.