AMERICAN PURPOSE
Fifty Years Ago: A Landmark Day in Economic History
by Michael Mandelbaum
August 13, 2021

Some dates live in the American collective memory: July 4, 1776, when representatives of the thirteen British colonies in North America declared their independence from the mother country; December 7, 1941—“a day that will live in infamy,” as Franklin Roosevelt called it—when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor in Hawaii; and September 11, 2001, when the United States suffered the worst terrorist attacks in its history. August 15, 1971—fifty years ago this coming Sunday—does not have the same status, yet what took place on that day was, in its own way, as consequential for the United States and the world as were the events on those other, epochal dates. READ MORE