Adele Brise, an immigrant from Belgium, had a deep devotion to prayer. As a child she and friends made a vow to enter religious life and devote their lives to the service of the Lord. But when she was in her 20s her family emigrated from Belgium to Wiscon

In January 1634 two ships, The Ark and The Dove landed on St. Clement Island in the Potomac River, within the new colony of Maryland. The two ships were built by George Calvert, the first Baron Baltimore, to help him establish a colony of his own in the A

During World War I, the Knights of Columbus did more than anyone else including the U.S. government to help soldiers serving overseas, or even in remote parts of the U.S. Through their huts the Caseys distributed stationery, gum, playing cards, ciga

Fr. Francis Sampson was the paratrooper padre. He parachuted into Normandy, behind enemy lines, on D-Day, June 6, 1944, along with more than 13,000 other Allied paratroopers. He also was directly involved in the episode that inspired Steven Spielbergs

St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, born two months premature and the youngest of 13 in northern Italy, overcame the odds time and again. She and her sisters of the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart of Jesus made a huge difference for Italian immigrants in the U.S

Edgar Allan Poe is one of the most important early American wrters. He is known for horror, the macabre, suspense, and other dark themes. Poe was important in the development of science fiction and he invented the detective novel. But what is less well-kn

Election Day, August 6, 1855, is known as Bloody Monday in Louisville, Kentucky. The Know Nothings used violence to try to keep Catholics from voting, and the violence turned into riots. By the end of the day 22 were confirmed dead, though the number of d

Jack Kerouac was born in 1922 in Lowell, Massachusetts to Catholic parents. When he was four his saintly elder brother, Gerard, died tragically. His mother became more devout, but his father abandoned the faith and drank heavily. This childhood trauma aff

Born just before the potato famine ravaged Ireland, John Boyle OReilly grew up in an Ireland still dominated by England. His father was a schoolmaster, so John and his siblings received an excellent education. He was very outgoing, made friends easily, a

Sts. Isaac Jogues, Rene Goupil, and John de Lalande were three of the eighte North American Martyrs. In Canada this group is known as the Canadian Martyrs. Rene Goupil was the first to be martyred, earning that crown in 1642 after teaching some Mohawk chi