Below are two historical events that changed american history forever and shaped the way the coutnry is today.

American Civil War
It has been said that the Civil War was the one event in American History most responsible for moulding and defining the American character. It touched the history of almost every American family in one way or another. Interest in the Civil War has never been greater than it is today. Whether one is standing among the heroes buried at the National Cemetery at Gettysburg, or among the "trench soldiers" buried at Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, or the gravesite of Pvt. B.F. Castell, of Company H of the 43rd Tennessee Infantry at the Municipal Cemetery at Vicksburg, Mississippi, the Civil War elicits a certain sadness, yet promise for the future, of personal tragedy, but yet of personal victory, and most of all, the beginning of the maturation of the most powerful nation in the world. Each of us who visit these great places stand in humility and gratitude to the sacrifices of those who not only fought and died in the war, but that of the mothers, wives, and daughters who endured the hardships of this great period of history.

Pearl Harbor
The 7 December 1941 Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor was one of the great defining moments in history. A single carefully-planned and well-executed stroke removed the United States Navy's battleship force as a possible threat to the Japanese Empire's southward expansion. America, unprepared and now considerably weakened, was abruptly brought into the Second World War as a full combatant.