It was interesting to hear yesterday that John Tyler, the 10th president, has grandchildren that are still living! A man who was born during the lifetime of George Washington, Tyler had children late, when he was well into his 60's, and one of his sons had children when he was in his 70's, those children being born sometime in the 1920's or so. It just goes to show how short a period the United States has been a country really, and how few generations connect us to our past, which can seem like ancient history.
So much of that past is connected to Great Britain, the country with which we struggled in an armed revolution, but to which we owe so much of our heritage. For example, "Hail to the Chief," the march used to announce the president's arrival, was adapted from verses written by a Scotsman, Sir Walter Scott, and the music was composed by an Englishman, John Sanderson. Despite armed revolution, we enjoy today what has been described as a "special relationship" with our cousins "across the pond".
Join us on our visits to the British Isles by taking our Ireland & Scotland tour, our London extension, or our new London, Paris & Rome Tour. We can jointly celebrate the independence of being American and the historic ties that bind us together as English-speaking nations. Without those ties to a storied, hard-fought past, we could not today say, "Hail to the Chief! We salute him one and all."
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