On July Fourth, a friend of mine who has lived in many countries issued a timely reminder on Facebook.

“I would like to challenge everyone to speak to your children about the positive aspects of our country,” she wrote, noting the controversial election year. “We can improve to be sure, but our children need to see us appreciating this great country.”

Little could she know how prescient her words would be.

The nation of France has bestowed one of its highest military decorations—the Legion of Honor—on a 91-year-old American, a World War II veteran who, as a B-17 crewman, flew 30 bombing missions over occupied France in preparation for the Allied invasion.

James Facos, who lives in Montpelier, Vt., said he was startled after opening his mail last week and finding a certificate from French President François Hollande naming him as a chevalier—a knight—in France’s Legion of Honor.

Auschwitz survivor Eliezar “Elie” Wiesel, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, died Saturday at age 87. The Yad Vashiem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem announced Wiesel’s death in a tweet Saturday afternoon. No other details were immediately available.

Are we able to celebrate Independence Day because the two men in charge of King George III’s war against the Colonies were England’s most notorious heterosexual adulterer and its most notorious homosexual?

Stephanie Czech Rader did important undercover espionage work during the years immediately after WWII in Soviet-dominated Poland. She took significant risks. But for decades, no one knew she had worked for the organization that predated the CIA.

Last week, Rader finally received the medal denied her 70 years before.

When death beckoned 78-year-old Andrew Jackson in 1845, he was physically worn out but spiritually enlivened. On May 29 he told visitors, “Sirs, I am in the hands of a merciful God. I have full confidence in His goodness and mercy. … The Bible is true. … Upon that sacred volume I rest my hope for eternal salvation, through the merits and blood of our blessed Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”

When Winston Churchill traveled to Normandy the week after the Allies invaded its shores, his security was nowhere as certain as his determination to go. 

Two German panzer divisions pounded British positions just inland, and Hitler wasn’t giving in easily: He dispatched his 15th Army to Normandy, vowing the Americans and Brits would never liberate Europe. 

Through the lens of history we forget how uncertain the war’s outcome was, even after the successful landings of D-Day. Churchill, a few months away from his 70th birthday, would go anyway.