Essay:Greatest Mysteries of American History

Here is a growing list of unsolved mysteries in American History:

1. Where did the American Indians come from?
2. Did the Vikings ever settle in North America and, if so, where and what happened to it?

• Not really a mystery: (a) Yes, briefly. (b) L'Anse-aux-Meadows, Newfoundland. (c) The settlement only lasted a few decades at most. All now well known from the historical record and half a century of archeology. Suggest you strike this from your list.

1. What happened to the Lost Colony?
2. Was Meriwether Lewis murdered?
3. Was the so-called corrupt bargain real and, if so, was there anything wrong with it?
4. Did President James Buchanan arrange the Dred Scott decision?
5. Could the South have possibly won the Civil War?
6. What caused the USS Maine to explode?
7. What caused the Great Depression?
8. What really caused the repeal of Prohibition?
9. Who was the lone dissent on the jury in the court martial of Billy Mitchell?
10. Did FDR have advance knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor?
11. Why did the U-2 spy plane crash-land in the Soviet Union?
12. Did a communist sympathizer in the U.S. government leak plans of the Bay of Pigs invasion to Castro?
13. What role did Justice William Brennan have in writing Roe v. Wade?
14. Where did President Ronald Reagan get the idea and impetus for proposing the Strategic Defense Initiative?

(add to list)