It may feel as though we are in one of the most tumultuous times in our history what with a continuing pandemic, an embarrassing withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the assault last year on the Capitol - to name just a few. But perhaps not! To ponder why, we will travel back through almost 240 years of American history and revisit several occasions that Ambassador Untermeyer contend were worse – indeed, far worse – than anything we face today. Yet the United States surmounted many and became a better nation. He will consider slavery, Jim Crow segregation, labor strife, anti-Catholicism, the assassinations and urban unrest of 1968, and more. Untermeyer points out both the perils and benefits arising from the fact Americans don’t know (or quickly move on from) their own history. And he has some concrete recommendations how we can make our times better.