It was almost exactly 52 years ago, on March 8, 1965, that the first American combat battalions came ashore at Da Nang, South Vietnam.

“Breaking rocks in the hot sun / I fought the law and the law won.”

‘In the small hours of one morning,” Fanny Stevenson recalled, “I was awakened by cries of horror from Louis” — the author Robert Louis Stevenson. Thinking he was having a nightmare, she woke him up. “Why did you wake me?” he said angrily. “I was dreaming a fine bogey tale.”

America is living through a kind of Trumpian Genesis: seven days of high-speed political creation. In the beginning Trump created heaven (for his supporters) and hell (for the mainstream media).

President Donald J Trump’s favourite Twitter hashtag is #MAGA, which of course stands for “Make America great again”.

Imagine if George Washington’s farewell address had been followed a day later — rather than 172 years later — by Richard Nixon’s first press conference as president-elect.

The three words you are least likely to hear from an academic are “I was wrong”. My profession makes a virtue of consistency to the extent that always being wrong is considered superior to just occasionally changing your mind.

“The press takes Trump literally, but not seriously. Voters take him seriously, but not literally.” This, by Salena Zito, was the smartest thing written about the 2016 election and deserves a place in every dictionary of quotations.

“The business of America is business,” said President Calvin Coolidge. “What is good for General Motors is good for the country and vice versa,” said Charles “Engine Charlie” Wilson, President Dwight Eisenhower’s defence secretary.