. >> roger, we copy. >> 205 at 20,100. james: historian james michener in an address to congress says, there are moments in history when challenges occur of such a compelling nature that to miss them is to miss the whole meaning of an epic. space is such a challenge. ♪ >> i am james michener. for most of my working years on this planet, i've been chronicling the rise and fall of human systems. if there is one thing i'm convinced of from years of studying history, it's that enemies do not destroy nations, time and the loss of will brings them down. to see that this does not happen to this nation of ours, the united states cannot retreat from the challenge of our age. each era of human history progresses to a point at which it is eligible to wrestle with the great problem of that period . for the ancient greeks, it was the organization of society. for the medievalists, the spelling out of their relationship to god. for the men of the 15th and centuries, the mastery of the 16th oceans. and for us, it is the determination of

we'll start with rogers who's calling from great neck, new york roger. good morning. good morning. how are you feeling? go ahead roger. yeah. hi. um, i have a question very interesting question. in 1898 the us with teddy roosevelt in the 17th are volunteer of new york. got rid of the spaniards and mckinley sent the the you know, the rough riders in and everybody into cuba to get rid of the spaniards. why didn't why didn't eisenhower's kennedy? why didn't they send the us military in? i was reading a thing about the bay of pigs on usa today in las vegas, nevada and most generals at the time to cia was not supposed to go in and do military operations the us military the dod was supposed to go into cuba. get rid of castro. yes. both eisenhower and kennedy were unwilling to commit at least openly us military forces to the overthrow of the castro regime one of the great concerns was to maintain good relations with the rest of latin america latin america. latin american people saw the united states as overbearing they didn't like them on road doctrine. they didn't like to be in america's

roger, good morning. >> good morning. how are you? >> great, roger. >> just fine. >> yeah, i. i have a question, an interesting question. in 1898, the u.s. with teddy roosevelt -- 17th volunteer in new york got rid of the spaniards and mckinley sent the rough riders and and everybody into cuba to get rid of the spaniards. why didn't eisenhower -- why didn't kennedy -- why didn't dickson, the u.s. military -- i was reading this thing about the bay of pigs on usa today in las vegas, nevada. most generals at the time -- the cia was not supposed to go in and do military operations. the u.s. military, was supposed to go into cuba to get rid of castro. >> yes. both eisenhower and kennedy were unwilling to commit, at least openly. u.s. military forces to the overthrow of the castro regime. one of the great concerns was to maintain good relations with the rest of latin america. latin america, latin american people saw the united states as overbearing. they did not like the maduro doctrine. they did not like to be in america's backyard. so good foreign policy reasons, it was ruled out

host: go ahead, roger. caller: i have an interesting question. in 1898, the u.s. with teddy roosevelt got rid of the spaniards and mckinley sent the rough riders in and everybody into cuba to get rid of the spaniards. why didn't eisenhower, why didn't kennedy, why didn't they send the u.s. military in. i was reading a thing about the bay of pigs on "usa today" and most generals at a time, the cia was not supposed to go in and do military operations. the u.s. military, the dod, was supposed to go into cuba to get rid of castro. nicholas: yes. both eisenhower and kennedy were unwilling to commit, at least openly, u.s. military forces to the overthrow of the castro regime. one of the great concerns was to maintain good relations with the rest of latin america. latin america, latin american people, saw that united states as overbearing, they did not like them on the munroe doctrine. they did not like to be in america to backyard. for good foreign policy reasons, it was ruled out that we would have the u.s. military openly go against the castro regime. now, kennedy con

well, i used to want to be the commissioner of the nfl, but i told roger goodell, i said, when i was struggling with the iranians and russians every day your job looked pretty good. but, actually, from northern california, it doesn't look so good anymore. and these days -- and i have to say it. these days, being a university professor at stanford university, where the stanford cardinal are having quite a special season, you know -- come on, you know what those special seasons are like. you've had plenty of them. let us have one. that's really the greatest job in the world. >> thank you madam secretary. >> thank you. >> that was fun. [ applause ] >>> weeknights this month we're featuring american history tv programs as a preview of what's available every weekend on cspan3. tonight we took at the cherokee nation. in the 1830s, under president andrew jackson, the cherokees were forcibly removed from their lands in the southeastern u.s. in what became known as the trail of tears. oklahoma university law professor lindsey robertson, discusses the decisions issued by the u.s. supreme court

a small bird is called satchem, the englishman roger williams later observed, because of its prince-like courage and command over greater birds that a man shall often see this small bird pursue and vanquish and put to flight far bigger birds than itself. as they would soon discover, he was the consummate small bird. because what he would do is, rather than look to the pilgrims who did many things not to necessarily ingratiate themselves with the local population in those first desperate months, he would say, wait a minute, perhaps an alliance with this small group of englishpeople could provide my people with a kind of parity relative to the narragansetts. and he would forge an alliance. there are other factors at work. remember squanto? when i learned about squanto, he was the generous interpreter who took the pilgrims by the hand and taught them out to plant corn. turns out he had an agenda of his own from the very beginning. he was born right here, he was abducted by an english explorer, made his way back to europe and would eventually end up in london where he learned the english lan

last week you guys were reading roger's about exceptionalism. and one of the versions of exceptionalism is a clean break. so the past is the past. this is something totally new. here you get this sense of a clean break. this sense in which the moment they stepped ashore, everything was set in place. and all that could be done then is for it to grow. or for it to mature or spread. so you get this -- through scenes of gloom and misery, the pilgrims showed the way to an asylum for those who would go to the wilderness for the purity of religion or the liberty of conscious. just think about -- we read reagan's farewell address at the beginning, right, how many echoes of reagan's farewell address are already built into this language. this is 1834. in the history of the world, many pages are devoted to commemorate the heroes who have besieged cities, subdued provinces, or overthrown empires. in the eye of reason and truth, a colony is better offering than a victory. the citizens of the united states should cherish the memory of those who founded a stat