10 DAYS THAT UNEXPECTEDLY CHAN

A companion book to The History Channel® specialseries of ten one-hour documentaries

10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America pinpoints pivotaldays that transformed our nation. For the series and the book, TheHistory Channel challenged a panel of leading historians, includingauthor Steven M. Gillon, to come up with some less well-known buthistorically significant events that triggered change in America.Together, the days they chose tell a story about the greatdemocratic ideals upon which our country was built.

You won’t find July 4, 1776, for instance, or the attack on FortSumter that ignited the Civil War, or the day Neil Armstrong setfoot on the moon. But January 25, 1787, is here. On that day, theragtag men of Shays’ Rebellion attacked the federal arsenal inSpringfield, Massachusetts, and set the new nation on the path to astrong central government. January 24, 1848, is also on the list.That’s when a carpenter named John Marshall spotted a fewglittering flakes of gold in a California riverbed. The discoveryprofoundly altered the American dream. Here, too, is the day thatnoted pacifist Albert Einstein unwittingly advocated the creationof the Manhattan Project, thus setting in motion a terrible chainof events.

Re-creating each event with vivid immediacy, accessibility, andhistorical accuracy, 10 Days That Unexpectedly ChangedAmerica comes together as a history of our country, from thefirst colonists’ contact with Native Americans to the 1960s. It isa snapshot of our country as we were, are, and will be.