and now he's ready. his name is john glenn. ♪ astronaut john glenn of new concord, ohio, lieutenant colonel, united states marine corps. married, father of two teenaged children. glenn has been a pilot over half of his 40 years. has flown in two wars. and as a veteran test pilot who five years earlier established a transcontinental flight record as the first man to average super sonic speeds across america. he volunteered for space flight. he is one of seven astronauts selected for project mercky the man and space program directed by the national aeronautics and

space administration. >> three, two, one, launch. >> roggic, backup clock is -- roger, back up clock is started. 0102101, objection again 78, 100 amps, 27. >> to john glenn, now belonged

an awesome panorama, the world curbing beneath him just as it was filmed during an earlier mercury cap actual. >> i could see the world turn around just a couple of hundred yards behind me. it was beautiful. >> home is the voyager. behind, a journey of 81,000 miles, through three days and three nights n just four hours and 56 minutes. at 3:04 p.m. eastern standard time friendship 7 comes to of the aboard the united states destroyer noah and john glenn returns to the people of earth. a change of clothes, a breath of cool air, a short debriefing, then glenn leaves the noah, heading for aircraft carrier

randolph under the golden splendor of his fourth sunset of the day. ♪ >> announcer: you are watching american history tv on cspan 3 every weekend during congressional breaks and on holidays, too. follow us on twitter. like us on facebook. and find our programs and schedule on our website, cspan.org/history. on every day of the year except december 25th, thousands of tourists from the united states and around the world take a short boat ride from either lower manhattan or new jersey to visit the statue of liberty and ellis island. up next, american history tv visited the national historic landmark to learn the story

behind the gift from france which was unveiled on october 28th, 1886. >> for this man, it was his dream to become rich and famous. unfortunately, neither of those things happened for him. but if he were alive today, i think he would be very proud, because although he is not famous, his work of art certainly is. this is going to take some time, no computers, no cell phones back in 1865. he's finally able to make his first visit to the united states in the early 1870s. he enters the mouth of the new york harbor. and he see this is abandoned island, fort wood built for the war of 1812. there wasn't a lot going on on the island that day, but it was a real busy day in the harbor. and he had a vision of the statue atop a pedestal where it can be viewed from miles and miles around. it was a vision that never left him.

he has a grasp of the bigger picture, and the major way he accomplished this was his use of symbolism. he is a classical trained artist. we begin with the torch. once again, his name for the statue was liberty enlightening the world. the torch represents enlightenment for the entire world. we come down. she is wearing a crown. she is a goddess of liberty. the goddess of libertas. there are seven rays on this crown. this represents the seven seas and the seven continents. once again, the world. we come down, in her left arm is the tablet with the all important date of july 4th, 1776, the signing of our declaration of independence the start of our democracy. the tablet is in the shape of a keystone n. classical architecture, keystones are at

the top of arches. they hold the arches together. this is the artist telling us it's going to be democracy that is going to hold the world together. at the bottom of her feet are shackles. her right foot is striding forward. she is breaking she is shackles. she is leaving the old ways behind. she is striding towards the new ways. this represents liberation. she is moving forward. she is not facing new jersey. she's not facing new york city. she's walking forward bringing these ideals of freedom, hope, liberty, change, walking forward and welcoming the rest of the world. the idea of liberty does not stand still. it moves forward. it changes. it evolves. ♪

♪ >> the presidential inauguration of donald trump is friday, january 209:. cspan will have live coverage of all the day's events and ceremonies. watch live on cspan and cspan.org, and listen live on the free cspan radio app. president franklin d. roosevelt declared a national day of prayer for january 1st 1942 following the japanese attack on pearl harbor. he and winston churchill worshipped together that day. american history tv visited kris church in alexandria, virginia to hear the story.

>> we're here in alexandria christchurch in virginia. with me is the director of the church. the story that i will describe today for me is a lesson in leadership from perhaps the greatest leaders of the 20th century. president franklin d. roosevelt and prime minister winston churchill. these are men who were willing to commit their countries to a long, bloody conflict in the name of freedom to support the freedom and independence of their own homelands but to support freedom and democracy for other people around the world. they combined that with a deep humility. they believed that our countries had to be worthy spiritually and morally of the victory they were asking god to grant us.

so on january 1st, 1942, president roosevelt and mrs. roosevelt came here to christchurch with prime minister winston churchill, ward halifax, the british ambassador, and lady halifax and others in their party to commemorate what roosevelt had called for, the national day of prayer. and they played for three things. they prayed for strength in the coming conflict. they prayed for a just peace. and above all, they prayed for forgiveness of our national -- of our national since so that we would be worthy of the victory they were asking god to grant us. and that combination of the willingness to commit to military power in the name of

fraimd freedom and also the hue himity to know that we can't prevail with military strength alone is really the trait of these two great leaders that i think has lessons for us today. churchill had crossed the atlantic for the second time. this was a very dangerous crossing. the atlantic was infested with u boats that were taking a tremendous toll on allied shipping. he came here in the previous august of 1941. he met roosevelt secretly off the coast of new foundland. and even though america was not yet in the war at that time they discussed war aims, and they agreed on what became the atlantic charter. and the freedoms that we wanted for the world if the democracies prevailed. churchill came back a few days. he landed in virginia a few days before christmas, 1941. and he and roosevelt and their

combined military staffs conferred on strategy for the war. america was in the war by this time. it was just a couple of weeks after pearl harbor. and there was a lot to discuss. we had the same goals, but there were tremendous questions about allegation of supplies and material and men to europe for pacific or north africa. and so they had a lot of work to do. but roosevelt and churchill got along famously. after christmas, churchill took a special train to canada, gave a famous speech to the canadian parliament in ottawa. he came back on the overnight train on new year's eve. and the next morning he gets off at union station, goes to the white house where roosevelt had arranged for him and mrs. roosevelt and their party to come here to christchurch for the commemoration of the national day of prayer. churchill's granddaughter,

sealian sandies, wrote a book about churchill's travels. and she said it would be hard to find a more evocative setting for this service because this was the home of george washington. it's a beautiful setting and a sacred space. and so they sat here in the washington family pew, and the service was special at many levels. the church was packed. a lot of secret service were in the church. troops in steel helmets with bandettes ringed the church. they sang four hymns. one of which was the battle hymn of the republic. churchill had never heard this hymn before and director reports that as he sang it, tears were streaming down his face unashamedly at the beauty of it. in fact, churchill picked that

to be one of the hymns at his own funeral years later which he said was in honor of his american mother. the service was not about non-violence. it was about the war, and winning the war. and above all, it was a service of humility and asking god to forgive america's since. this is roosevelt's goal. he had in his proclamation for the national day of prayer, had described that goal for the day. and so that's what they did. and the director at the time, the reverend edward wells, was known for his anti-isolationist views. and he gave a very powerful sermon that was very fitting for the day. and this surmon was reprinted in magazines and newspapers around the country, excerpts of it.

and it was actually put into the congressional record. we'll read excerpts from that. >> from pardon, power, and peace by the reverend wells. our president has appointed this first day of 1942 as a day of prayer, of asking forgiveness for our shortcomings of the past, of cons krags to the tasks of the present, of asking god's help in days to come. we are to pray for three gifts from god, pardon, power, and peace. pardon for past shortcomings, power for the present task of achieving victory, and peace, enduring peace, by god's help in days to come. he continues, by far, our greatest sin as a nation is the sin of international,

irresponsibility. we want our country and our people to have power and prestige, pleasures and possessions, but we balk at the international responsibility which those privileges impose. thanks to the foresight of our president, we are not entirely unprepared in a military way for this war. but spiritually, we are in bad shape. pearl harbor resulted in a new national unity based on resentment. but that is not enough. we must have a deep spiritual unity that will make us ready, even eager, to sacrifice our material goods and when necessary even life itself for the moral prince pells for which this war is being fought.

>> i think it's important to recall the historic and emotional setting for this service. this was the winter of disaster, it came to be known as. not only was pearl harbor attacked. there was carnage in the north atlantic, great britain had held on by the skin of its teeth. the japanese were conquering bases, american and british and dutch bases throughout the far west, throughout east asia. and the german army had reached the gates of moscow. and if they had succeeded in taking the soviet union out of the war, it it would have taken a tremendous counter-weight to hitler and the german army out of europe, which would have been very bad news. on top of it,ic mag it even more poignant for roosevelt and churchill, when churchill came the first time, in that august off the coast of new foundland,

he arranged a very bright but solemn anglican service on the deck of hms prince of wales. roosevelt and churchill were both anglicans. roosevelt belonged to the episcopal church, churchill, the church of england. the episcopal church had split off from the church of england after the revolution but the litd you aregy and the hymns are very similar. so they had this very emotional service, uplifting service on the deck of prince of wales that august. well, not only were all of these bases falling, and not only was the carnage in the north atlantic continuing, but hms prince of wales itself had been sunk just three days after pearl harbor. it was the first time that airpower alone had sunk a

capital battle ship on the open ocean. and over 300 of the same men that roosevelt and churchill had worshipped with that august had died when that ship went down. so it was a time of tremendous stress. but the faith that was exhibited that day was -- was remarkable. and i'm sure it had a lot to do with the moralee and unity that america and the british people had throughout the war. it's very interesting the way that the service was handled by the church itself. the secret service had asked there not be publicity about the visit in advance. so the vestery, and director, the vestery is the board of trustees. they delegated a group of men to go out in the predawn hours of that sunday morning with special passes. so we actually have one of these in the church archives. and people could present this

and be admitted to the church. i think no more than 220 parishioners were admitted. the rest were secret service. and so it was -- these people were called modern day paul refuse ears by the dailey press that covered this event. so it was so it was a major -- a major day for the church and alexandria. word did get out. and the -- the streets were lined with citizens as well as soldiers. after the service, the leaders went down to mount vernon. and churchill laid a wreath at the tomb of george and mrs. washington. that itself was a symbol of reconciliation from the revolutionary war. but it was remarkable that during the service the director

wells asked the congregation to sing the battle hymn of the republic because of the unification during the time after that war. they needed all of us to come together. they left mount vernon in the cold rain. they came back to washington. they stopped at the lincoln memorial and went back to the white house where churchill was staying. and that evening, they were joined by the ambassadors of the soviet union and china to sign the first declaration of the united nations. and churchill was amazed that his friend, franklin roosevelt, had persuaded the soviet ambassador to sign a document that called for treemd of religion. and he jokingly said to roosevelt afterwards if you lose re-election in 1944, i'll ask the king to make you the arch bish off of can't bury. of course that never happened. the so the relationship between those two men is famous.

they met many times. but i feel in a way that this this special service they had at the beginning of our involvement in the war, calling for god's forgiveness and for his blessing really set a tone for angelo american relations. i think the important thing for us today is to really remember and understand what that kind of relationship looked like. you had presidents who were willing to do their duty. they knew what they were asking their countries to do in terms of sacrifice. but they understood it had to be done at the same time they had the humility to understand that it was not entirely in their lands, it was not purely a question of military and economic strength. it was also a matter of spiritual and moral strength. and so they humbly asked god that day to bless our countries and make us worthy of the

victory we were asking god to give us. on april 20th of this year, treasury secretary jack lieu announced that abolitionist harriet tubman will replace andrew jackson on the front of the $20 bill. the final concept drawing will be unveiled in 2020. next a panel of scholars discusses the historical significance of the decision and an array of reactions to the announce men. this each is part of the association of the study of african-american life and history annual meeting conference. it's about an hour and 40 minutes. >> today's panel has to do with harriet tubman and harriet tubman's -- the decision of april 20th, 2016, to put tubman on the $20 bill.