Native Americans are an integral part of American history, culture and character. Contributions and accomplishments of Native Americans permeate and impact many facets of American life, including art, music, literature, agriculture, spirituality and medicine. In the face of overwhelming adversity, Native Americans and their culture remain a vital component of the American experience.

National American Indian Heritage Month, designated as the month of November beginning in 1990, not only pays tribute to Native Americans’ historical and contemporary achievements and revolutionary role in the development of American culture and society, but recognizes the evolution of the Native American experience and the significance of preserving Native traditions and heritage.

Our SIRS Knowledge Source (SKS) Spotlight of the Month honors Native Americans and promotes cultural understanding in the following articles and online research tool destinations:

ARTICLES

1. Promises, Promises: Indian Health Care’s Victims

2. 24 Charged in Crackdown on Native American Artifact Looting

3. Nothing Shy About This Guy

4. Robert J. Conley Tells Cherokee Stories

5. For Tribes, Economic Need is Colliding With Tradition

6. An Indigenous Perspective on the Fairness Doctrine

WEB SITE

American Indian Heritage Month

QUOTE

“One of the very early proponents of an American Indian Day was Arthur C. Parker, a Seneca Indian, who was the director of the Museum of Arts and Science in Rochester, New York. He persuaded the Boy Scouts of America to set aside a day for the ‘First Americans’ and for three years they adopted such a day. In 1915, the annual Congress of the American Indian Association meeting in Lawrence, Kansas, formally approved a plan concerning American Indian Day… What started at the turn of the century as an effort to gain a day of recognition for the significant contributions the first Americans made to the establishment and growth of the United States has resulted in a whole month being designated for that purpose.”
“U.S. Honors Contributions of American Indians, Alaska Natives,” America.gov Press Release, Nov. 3, 2008

Featured Online Database: American Indian History Online

Perfect for National American Indian Heritage Month, American Indian History Online offers fast access to more than 15,000 years of culture and history through event and topic entries, biographies, images and videos, maps and charts, legends, primary sources, and timeline entries. This award-winning database allows for an interactive, multifaceted look at the indigenous peoples
of North and South America. The invaluable “Tribes and Culture Areas” section is easy to browse with a helpful tabbed list of tribes, representing more than 600 Native American groups, and a browse-by-culture-area feature.

On November 11, readers can celebrate Veterans Day with one of several history books that reassess battles where American service members fought and died. Try one of these downloadable audio books:

The First Heroes: The Extraordinary Story of the Doolittle Raid – America’s First World War II Victory by Craig Nelson and Raymond Todd.

Immediately after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt sought to restore the honor of the United States with a dramatic act of vengeance: a retaliatory bombing raid on Tokyo itself. At his bidding, a squadron of scarcely trained army fliers, led by the famous daredevil Jimmy Doolittle, set forth on what everyone regarded as a suicide mission. Their extraordinary success led directly to what every historian now believes was the turning point in the war against Japan, and helped convince the nation and the world that the Allies might eventually triumph.

Into the Rising Sun by Patrick K. O’Donnell

Patrick K. O’Donnell has made a career of uncovering the hidden history of World War II by tracking down and interviewing its most elite troops: the Rangers, Airborne, Marines, and First Special Service Force, forerunners to Americas’s Special Forces.

Retribution The battle for Japan 1944-45 by Max Hastings

In his critically acclaimed Armageddon , Hastings detailed the last twelve months of the struggle for Germany. Here, in what can be considered a companion volume, he covers the horrific story of the war against Japan.

The Ghost Mountain Boys Their Epic March and the Terrifying Battle for New Guinea–the Forgotten War of the South Pacific by James Campbell.

Lying due north of Australia, New Guinea is among the world’s largest islands. In 1942, when World War II exploded onto its shores, it was an inhospitable, cursorily mapped, disease-ridden land of dense jungle, towering mountain peaks, deep valleys, and fetid swamps. Coveted by the Japanese for its strategic position, New Guinea became the site of one of the South Pacific’s most savage campaigns. Despite their lack of jungle training, the 32nd Division’s Ghost Mountain Boys were assigned the most grueling mission of the entire Pacific campaign: to march 130 miles over the rugged Owen Stanley Mountains and to protect the right flank of the Australian army as they fought to push the Japanese back to the village of Buna on New Guinea’s north coast.

Flags  of Our Fathers by James Bradley

In this unforgettable chronicle of perhaps the most famous moment in American military history, James Bradley has captured the glory, the triumph, the heartbreak, and the legacy of the six men who raised the flag at Iwo Jima. Here is the true story behind the immortal photograph that has come to symbolize the courage and indomitable will of America.

November 8 – Michaelmas

November 11 – Veterans Day

November 18 – Morocco Independence Day

Early November to late January – Winter Festival of Lights

First Saturday in November – Sadie Hawkins Day

Fourth Thursday in November – Thanksgiving

November – December – Monkey Party

This week: Journalism

Need help? Try Credo Reference

1. What name was given to the scandal exposed in 1972 by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein concerning improper practices by Republican aides of President Richard Nixon?

2. What is an “advertorial”?

3. In journalism, which month of the year is traditionally viewed as the “silly season”?

4. What is the world’s largest and most-used search engine?

5. Which phrase, defined by Chambers 21st Century Dictionary as “someone, especially in politics, who tries to influence public opinion by putting a favourable bias on information presented to the public or to the media”, entered British political vocabulary during the late 1980s?

6. Which television network was formed in 1990 by the merger of Rupert Murdoch’s Sky Television and its rival British Satellite Broadcasting?

7. In using computers and the internet, what does “HTML” stand for?

8. In 1957, the BBC news programme “Panorama” ran an April fool spoof about which food growing on trees?

9. According to John Reith, the first Director General of the BBC, what are the three fundamental purposes of broadcasting?

10. What was the surname of the agony aunt whose “Dear Ann” column was appearing in 1,200 newspapers around the world by 1993?

Find the answers here.

Image: “Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, full-length, dressed as the Yellow Kid, each pushing against opposite sides of a pillar of wooden blocks that spells WAR.” Find it on Credo Reference