America’s quarter-millennium: fireworks over the fragility

The rockets’ red glare lit up Washington on July 4th 2026 with unusual ambition. Organisers promised—and duly delivered—what they called the largest pyrotechnic display in history: some 850,000 shells bursting above the National Mall after a weather-delayed presidential speech. A…

From Cotton Fields to Rocket City

Two centuries ago, Alabama was a raw, restless frontier on the edge of the young American republic. In the 1820s, shortly after achieving statehood in 1819, it was a land of fertile river valleys and dense forests, drawing ambitious settlers…