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My postings have been spotty over the last couple of weeks due to medical problems. I appreciate your understanding while I am recovering.
I will be posting less detailed articles except for especially important events. For the next few months, I have started a oral history project. Parts of that history will be posted here.
Thank you for your understanding.
Gerald Boerner
Introductory Comments:
There were a number of significant international and domestic events that are associated with this day. We will emphasize one international and three domestic events in this post. The major international event occurred in the mid-20th century India after the partitioning of the former British Colony of India, the Crown of the British Empire, into a Muslim country, Pakistan, and a traditional Indian (Hindu) one. In fact, Pakistan started out as a divided country — East Pakistan (Bangladesh) and West Pakistan. When the country was partitioned under U.N. supervision starting in 1948, a great deal of turmoil and interracial conflict occurred. If a family’s home was in the wrong religious section, the family was forced to yield their homes and move to the other country. This happened both ways — Muslims left the new India for one of the sections of Pakistan and the Hindus left the new Pakistan for India. Much conflict flared on the roads as both groups, upset at leaving their homes, attacked those of the other religion along the roads. It was a mess. In 1950, Rajendra Prasad was elected as the first president of the new Indian state. He faced the task of bringing the new transplants into a very structured, caste-defined society. He was able to accomplish this pretty successfully to bring modern, post-colonial India into the family of nations.
There were also two less attention-grabbing, but historically-important events on this day in the international scope. In 1788, a small convoy of ships landed in Sydney Harbor in Australia under the oversight of Captain Arthur Phillips. His entourage included several ships that carried 700 British prisoners who would be house in a new penal colony in New South Wales; Australia was considered to be an optimal location for housing difficult prisoners due to its isolated location and difficulty in returning to the U.K. This day continues to be celebrated as “Australia Day” down under in commemoration of this initial landing of British citizens.
A second international event to be considered occurred in 1970 when a Navy pilot, Lt. Everett Alvarez, Jr., was shot down over North Vietnam during the bombing campaign against Hanoi and Haiphong harbor. Alvarez was put into a North Vietnamese Prisoner of War camp, becoming the first POW captured over North Vietnam. He would remain a POW for over 2000 days before being released after the signing of the Paris Peace Accords.
On the domestic front, with a tie-in to the international scene, was the recognition of the heroism of a regular soldier, Audie Murphy, for his feats during World War II in Europe. Murphy was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1945 for his defense of the men of his unit against a strong force of German infantry supported by five tanks. Audie Murphy became the the most decorated soldier from World War II. He fought in the Operation Torch landings in North Africa, the landings on the beaches of Anzio in Italy, and in the southern campaign in France. It was in the latter he exhibited his heroic behavior in the face of an overwhelming enemy in defense of the other men in his unit. Murphy also fought in the Korean War. After his wartime feats, he starred in movies among other activities.
On this day we also saw the premiere of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical, The Phantom of the Opera, opened in the Majestic Theater on Broadway. I remember watching the performance of this play in Los Angeles with awe of the staging, songs, and performance of the actors. The original production, in 1988, starred the vocal talents of Sarah Brightman (one of my favorite songstresses) and Michael Crawford as the Phantom. I went away from it totally overwhelmed, as I’m sure that the original Broadway crowds did at its opening. It has been performed on Broadway nearly 10,000 times, becoming the longest-running play in Broadway history. Believe me, it deserves all the honors that it has received. I still love to listen to the CDs of the cast of that original ensemble and never tire of it — it lifts up one’s soul!
Also on this day, we saw the appointment of Dr. Janet G. Travell as the personal physician by John F. Kennedy in 1961. After JFKs assassination, Travell stayed on as the personal physician for Lyndon Johnson during his tenure as President. Finally, on a downbeat note, this was the day in 1998 on which President Bill Clinton denied having an affair with former White House intern, Monica Lewinsky, at a White House press conference. His denial statement, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” was much discussed when he posed the question, at a later time, “What is Sex?” That was not a highlight of the U.S. Presidency!
Well, that sort of sums things up on this day. As you will see on the timeline of the events on this day, there were some other events associated with this day, but we’ve used up our space for this post. All in all, today bore witness to many notable events that played themselves out on the pages of history. To fully understand them, one needs to read and learn more about the context of these happenings to fully appreciate their importance since the events of today really represent the veritable “tip of the iceberg.” Come back again to catch a small window on the events of another day!
We now will proceed to examine some of the events that are associated with day in history... GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 1513 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/a/audie_murphy.html ]
“And freedom is what America means to the world.”
— Audie Murphy
“They were singing in French, but the melody was freedom and any American could understand that.”
— Audie Murphy
“I Knew why I felt at home. The spirit of freedom was hovering over that play yard as it did all over France at that time. A country was free again.”
— Audie Murphy
“I’m glad that it didn’t take as long to get Shepard off the ground as it’s taken this series. I’d begun to think the Congo would be ahead of us in the space race before Whispering Smith ever got on the air.”
— Audie Murphy
“The true meaning of America, you ask? It’s in a Texas rodeo, in a policeman’s badge, in the sound of laughing children, in a political rally, in a newspaper… In all these things, and many more, you’ll find America. In all these things, you’ll find freedom. And freedom is what America means to the world. And to me.”
— Audie Murphy
Introductory Comments:
This was a good day for events. As we look back on the events falling on this day, we note two major international and three domestic events of consequence. On the international scene, this was the day in 1533 when King Henry VIII of England married his second wife, Anne Boleyn, who was already pregnant with their daughter who would become Queen Elizabeth I upon her father’s death. Three years later, Anne Boleyn would suffer the same fate of Henry’s first wife — she would lose her head in the Tower of England. Henry VIII was desperately seeking a male heir which none of his wives was able to provide him. Under Elizabeth I, England would become a world power. The Pax Britannica was just around the corner!
More recently, this day witnessed the ascension of General Idi Amin to power in Uganda after a military coup in 1971. Amin would become a harsh dictator and rule this central African country with an iron hand for the next eight years. During his tenure, he would support terrorism that would include the detention of the 248 passengers by Palestinian and German terrorist who where aboard a hijacked Air France flight at Entebbe Airport in 1975. These hostages were freed during a daring raid by Israeli Special Forces in 90 minutes. Ultimately, he was removed from his position by Ugandan rebels and Tanzanian troops in 1979 to end his oppressive reign.
The minor international event was the staging of a futuristic, science fiction play, “Rossum’s Universal Robots,” by Czech playwright Karel Capek in 1921. The primary significance of this play, beyond its dramatic value, was the foreshadowing the actual events 58 years later on an assembly line at the Ford Motor Company’s plant in Flat Rock, Michigan, when a worker was killed by an industrial robot.
On the domestic front, this day witnessed the arrival in New Jersey of Ms. Nellie Bly (Elizabeth Jane Cochrane) after her circumnavigation of the world in 72 days in 1890. This trip was patterned after the voyage of Phileas Fogg in Jules Verne’s science fiction classic, Around the World in 80 Days that was published in 1873. While traversing the globe Ms. Bly, a journalist for the New York World newspaper whose publisher was the famed Joseph Pulitzer of the Journalism Prize fame, visited the famed Jules Verne in his home in Amiens, France. She wrote update reports for the paper. She gained her job by going undercover to expose the abuses of the mental hospitals of the day; she became a patient for one week before being rescued from the abusive environment. Through this story, she pioneered the field investigative reporting in a world dominated by male reporters. Her exposé led to the reform of the mental hospital system in New York City and eventually across the nation. She was a real hero!
A few years later, in 1915, Alexander Graham Bell initiated the first transcontinental telephone call to his assistant, Thomas Watson, in San Francisco. President Woodrow Wilson, in Washington, D.C., and AT&T President, Theodore Vail, in Atlanta also participated in this test of the system. The expansion of this system of communication would continue the process of shrinking the nation that was begun by the pony express, transcontinental telegraph, overland Butterfield Mail Stage, and the transcontinental railroad of the second half of the 19th century. It would remain to the decade of the 1960s for it to take the next step in the globalize this communication via satellite relays.
Another event that served to shrink the world was the establishment, in 1959, of the first transcontinental passenger airline jet service. American airlines put the Boeing 707 into transcontinental, nonstop service. Air travel now became the preferred mode of travel since it eliminated the multiple stops (for refueling) that made transcontinental travel by air a trying ordeal. The prop-driven Convair 990s and the Lockheed Electras were used to service regional routes. This was the prelude to the ending of passenger service by rail and transoceanic travel via steamships. The airplane would indeed shrink the world. We are now moving into the era of the super jumbo jets like the Airbus 380 and the Boeing 777 which will carry larger passenger loads over larger distances with less noise and more passenger comfort. It would seem that the future is now!
The minor event of the day was the airing, in 1937, of the first broadcast episode of the soap opera, The Guiding Light. This program started out on the radio and transitioned to television in the early 1950s. It became the longest-running dramatic broadcast in history until its cancellation in 2009.
So, today was highlighted by the international tyranny of monarchs and dictators as well as the shrinking of the nation and world by communication and transportation technologies. We are indeed living in a world that is characterized by instant communication and facilitated travel. We are fast approaching of a true world community.
We now will proceed to examine some of the events that are associated with this day in history... GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 1527 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/n/nellie_bly.html ]
“Could I pass a week in the insane ward at Blackwell’s Island? I said I could and I would. And I did.”
— Nellie Bly
“I always made a point of telling the doctors I was sane, and asking to be released, but the more I endeavored to assure them of my sanity, the more they doubted it.”
— Nellie Bly
“I had, toward the last, been shut off from all visitors, and so when the lawyer, Peter A. Hendricks, came and told me that friends of mine were willing to take charge of me if I would rather be with them than in the asylum, I was only too glad to give my consent.”
— Nellie Bly
“I always had a desire to know asylum life more thoroughly – a desire to be convinced that the most helpless of God’s creatures, the insane, were cared for kindly and properly.”
— Nellie Bly
“In our short walks we passed the kitchen where food was prepared for the nurses and doctors. There we got glimpses of melons and grapes and all kinds of fruits, beautiful white bread and nice meats, and the hungry feeling would be increased tenfold.”
— Nellie Bly
Introductory Comments:
Today in History features one major international and three major domestic events. The international event was the discovery, in 1972, an Imperial Japanese soldier, Sgt. Shoichi Yokoi, in a jungle cave on the island of Guam. Our U.S. Marines took the island of Guam during the summer of 1944 after a hard fought battle during the Pacific island-hopping campaign on our way to the home islands of Japan during World War II. These Japanese soldiers were known for their tenacity, hard fighting, and resistance to surrendering to the American troops. Sgt. Yokoi was found living in a cave using weapons and tools that he had crafted himself during this period of time.
On the domestic front, the major event associated with this day in history took place in a small town in the Sierra Nevada foothills, Coloma, California, in 1848. While building a sawmill for John A. Sutter, the contractor, James W. Marshall, discovered flakes of gold in the American River. Why is this event so important? It triggered one of the biggest migrations to the west coast of our country into the former Mexican territory of (Alta) California. This event, the California Gold Rush of 1848; these “Forty-Niners,” flocked to the gold fields seeking their fortunes. They came via almost every possible mode of transportation — by steamship, wagon train, horseback, and even by foot. They traveled through Indian territory or around the treacherous cape of South America. But most failed to make their fortunes and many died as a result of the elements or lawlessness of the boom towns built at the gold fields and then abandoned to the elements when the gold ran out to become another ghost town. Who were the winners? The merchants who sold supplies to these hopeful miners and to the new cities of Sacramento and San Francisco. The population of the territory swelled, the former Mexican inhabitants were replaced by the new settlers, and the territory finally became the 31st state in 1850.
On a sadder note, this day in 1956 witnessed the acquittal of the two men accused of kidnapping and murdering of an African American teenager visiting Mississippi from the Chicago area in 1955. This teen, Emmett Till, was accused of flirting with a white woman working in her husband’s store. They took him from the home of the relatives that he was visiting, transported him into the woods, and murdered him after torturing him as punishment for “not knowing his place.” Till was the victim of the cultural differences between the North (Chicago area) and the South (rural Mississippi) during the waning days of the reign of Jim Crow. The men, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were accused of the crime and brought to trial. He was tried in Mississippi by an all-white jury who readily acquitted them of the crime. Only through extensive activity by civil rights activists did the facts arise; these men confessed to the crimes in a Look Magazine interview, but due to double jeopardy limitations they could not be retried using the confession. But this incident was an early skirmish in the Civil Rights Movement that reached its fruition in the 1960s under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Yesterday, we shared the famous Apple Computer commercial at the Super Bowl in 1984 that introduced the Macintosh Computer. Today saw the first opportunity of the people of America to purchase this cute little computer with its 128K of memory, 9” black and white high-resolution screen, a mouse (pointing device) and preinstalled software for word processing (MacWrite) and graphics (MacPaint). This computer was the first wide-distribution computer to use a Graphic User Interface (GUI) and was relatively expensive, especially compared to the IBM-PC. It was the darling of the creative and artistic types then and has continued to be to this day. It sold like hotcakes and started the phenomenon that is Apple. These computers blossomed and remains innovative as do its “little brothers,” the iPod, iPhone, and the iPad. They all reflected the free-thinking of their developer, Steve Jobs.
On the lighter side, several important events that were not as earthshaking but probably impacted more people than the above events occurred on this day. A school teacher, Christian K. Nelson, received a patent on this day in 1922 for combining a block of ice cream and chocolate coating into the iconic snack food, the Eskimo Pie ice cream bar. In 1935, a small brewing company in Virginia was the first to package their beer and ale in the first beer cans. And, an inventor, Percy Spencer, who lacked even a grammar school education, received a patent for the microwave oven in 1950. These small items have been helpful to more people than any of the other events discussed above.
We now will proceed to examine some of the events that are associated with day in history... GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 1416 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/macintosh.html ]
“I think the Macintosh proves that everyone can have a bitmapped display.”
— Bill Joy
“My first Macintosh was a 128k machine which I upgraded to 512k the minute it became possible.”
— Buffy Sainte-Marie
“Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs founded Apple Inc, which set the computing world on its ear with the Macintosh in 1984.”
— Kevin Mitnick
“The Macintosh having shipped, his next agenda was to turn the rest of Apple into the Mac group. He had perceived the rest of Apple wasn’t as creative or motivated as the Mac team, and what you need to take over the company are managers, not innovators or technical people.”
— Andy Hertzfeld
“Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don’t have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don’t have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh.”
— Steve Jobs
Introductory Comments:
This was a day on which a number of significant events are noteworthy, especially on the international scene. On this day in 1968, the USS Pueblo and her crew were captured by the North Koreans when the ship navigated out of international waters. The crew would be held captive for eleven months before being released. Why was this such an important event? The USS Pueblo was an intelligence ship and carried sophisticated surveillance equipment that would be useful to our possible future enemies.
But the more important international event on this day in 1973 was the announcement by President Richard Nixon of the peace accord negotiated by our National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and North Vietnamese negotiator Le Doc Tho. The Paris Peace Accords set the conditions for a cease fire between the two countries, the withdrawal of American troops, and the release of the American POWs. These accords were formally signed on January 27th. The Vietnam War had generated a deal of dissent among the draft-aged college population.
On the home front, this day was marked by some relatively minor events and a couple of blockbuster events. The first of the blockbusters was the induction of that great African American, multi-sport star, Jackie Robinson, into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1962 (Cooperstown, Ohio). Robinson was a multisport athlete at UCLA and then played in the Negro Leagues down South; the major leagues were still segregated. But in 1947, Branch Rickey, the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers, signed Robinson to a contract to play for the Major League team — he broke the “color” barrier. During his early years on the team, he was showered by jeers, racial slurs, and discriminatory treatment, but he “turned the other cheek” and let his play speak for him. And what a speech that was! He was outstanding and opened the way for other Blacks, Hispanics, and other minority players to enter the major leagues. His induction into the Hall of Fame was another barrier that he broke; all previous “negroes” were in a separate Hall of Fame for the Negro Leagues. Robinson was inducted on the first try by a unanimous vote in 1962, the first year that he was eligible. He was a real “man’s man”!
The other blockbuster event that occurred on this day was a miniseries that aired on ABC-TV for eight days starting this day in 1977. What miniseries was this? ROOTS, the story of an African who was captured by a slaving tribe in his native West African homeland, sold to white slavers, surviving the ocean voyage to the American South where he would be sold into the degradation of slavery on a southern plantation. The story was based on the book, Roots, by Alex Haley and purportedly represents his family’s experience in America through a slave, Kunta Kinte, played by the unknown Black actor, LeVar Burton (who would later star in Star Trek, The Next Generation.) The nation would be captivated for the next week and would come face-to-face with the horrors of slavery. This was a breakthrough a major cultural barrier and a basis for cultural understanding. Who can forget the baby held by his father and lifted up to the sky in dedication (baptism, if you will). This miniseries, I believe, brought a whole new sense of pride and hope for a past as well as a future to new generations of Blacks.
A critical event occurred during the legislative flurry of LBJ’s Great Society was the passage of Twenty-Fourth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution in 1964. This amendment barred the imposition of poll taxes and other barriers used to keep African Americans from voting in Federal Elections. The major impact of this amendment was upon southern states where it was used to prevent the poor and African American populations from voting and thus upsetting the status quo.
And the final major event of this day was Elizabeth Blackwell becoming the first female in the United States to receive a medical doctorate in 1849. After being rejected by the major medical schools, she was admitted to Geneva Medical College in Geneva, New York; she would provide medical services to the troops during the Civil War and opened the way for the women of later years to become physicians, not just nurses or midwives.
Of much less consequence were several other event that are associated with this day. The first permanent bridge spanning the Mississippi River in Minnesota was opened in 1855. The Wham-O Toy Company produced and sold a new concept in toys, the “Pluto Platter,” or Frisbie, patterned after the pie tins used by the Frisbie Pie Company; the game based on this toy was a rage amongst university students.
We now will proceed to examine some of the events that are associated with day in history... GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 1361 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/jackie_robinson.html ]
“Above anything else, I hate to lose.”
— Jackie Robinson
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.”
— Jackie Robinson
“There’s not an American in this country free until every one of us is free.”
— Jackie Robinson
“Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion you’re wasting your life.”
— Jackie Robinson
“I’m not concerned with your liking or disliking me… All I ask is that you respect me as a human being.”
— Jackie Robinson
“The way I figured it, I was even with baseball and baseball with me. The game had done much for me, and I had done much for it.”
— Jackie Robinson
Introductory Comments:
Today’s events are a very mixed group of happenings. A significant international event was the death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Ireland who died in 1901. She ruled the British Empire for 63 years. After her beloved husband, Albert, died, she mourned for his for the rest of her life. During her lifetime, she witnessed the development of many technologies, including steam power, the industrial revolution, invention of photography, and the British Empire included about 25% of the countries around the world. Also we witnessed the introduction of a very innovative computer, the Apple Macintosh, in a commercial during the Super Bowl by Steve Jobs and company in 1984. During the World War II era, we witnessed the initial splitting of the uranium atom by the Columbia University (New York) Cyclotron in 1939 and the landing of Allied forces on Anzio Beach (Italy) in 1944.
This day was also marked by some significant events for women. It was on this day in 1973 that the Supreme Court handed down its blockbuster decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortions for the women of this country. It is also the day that witnessed the unanimous confirmation of former U.N. Ambassador Madeleine Albright as the first woman Secretary of State in 1997 during President Clinton’s term in office. On a less positive note, this day witnessed mathematics professor Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, agreed to a plea deal that put him in prison without parole. So today was quite memorable.
We now will proceed to examine some of the events that are associated with day in history… GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 759 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/q/queen_victoria.html ]
“Being married gives one one’s position like nothing else can.”
— Queen Victoria
“Being pregnant is an occupational hazard of being a wife.”
— Queen Victoria
“The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone in checking this mad, wicked folly of ‘Women’s Rights’. It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot contain herself.”
— Queen Victoria
“I would venture to warn against too great intimacy with artists as it is very seductive and a little dangerous.”
— Queen Victoria
“For a man to strike any women is most brutal, and I, as well as everyone else, think this far worse than any attempt to shoot, which, wicked as it is, is at least more comprehensible and more courageous.”
— Queen Victoria
Introductory Comments:
This day witnessed a couple of major international events and several noteworthy events in this country. Internationally, this was the day in 1791 when King Louis XVI met the “Widow Maker”, the guillotine, in the Place de la Révolution and lost his head, literally, during the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. It was also on this day in 1911 that Prince Albert I of Monaco hosted the first Monte Carlo Automobile Rally, not to be confused with the Gran Prix of Monaco. This rally was a competition that was designed to demonstrate the current status of the automobiles available at that time; both events are sponsored by the same organization and continue to this day, although the Rally is not an annual event.
In this country, we saw Jimmy Carter, on his second day in office as President of these United States, pardon, in 1977, those men who were considered “draft dodgers” because they either failed to register for the draft or they fled to Canada to escape military service during the Vietnam War. In 1979, the Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl over the Dallas Cowboys; it was the Steelers’ third Super Bowl win.
Of much more importance, this was the day that Alger Hiss, the Soviet spy in our Department of State, was convicted of perjury regarding his testimony about his activities to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1950. This was one of the successes of the “commie hunters” in both the House and the Senate during that early period of the Cold War. This is also the day, in 1954, that First Lady Mamie Eisenhower christened the USS Nautilus. The Nautilus was the world’s first nuclear-powered ship. Its nuclear power allowed it to remain submerged for longer periods of time than other diesel-powered submarines. This ability allowed the Nautilus to become the first ship to reach the North Pole UNDERWATER! The harnessing of nuclear power would have continuing ramifications on our society, both in terms of the generation of electricity for our cities and factories, but also to create a threat in the hands of unfriendly third-world counties and terrorist groups. The events of this day has left many lasting imprints upon our American society.
We now will proceed to examine some of the events that are associated with day in history... GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 944 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/nuclear_power.html ]
“All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk.”
— Ronald Reagan
“As a nuclear power – as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon – the United States has a moral responsibility to act.”
— Barack Obama
“If we are to meet the growing electricity demand in the United States without significantly increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, we must maintain a diverse supply of electricity, and nuclear power must be part of that mix.”
— Judy Biggert
“India, in particular, is looking to develop nuclear power for domestic, commercial use, and we should work with them. This is a good deal for both countries.”
— Bobby Jindal
“All of the information that we were getting up to that time from the NRC people, from our people who knew something about nuclear power, was that the breach of the core was not a likelihood to happen.”
— William Scranton
Introductory Comments:
This day has seen numerous notable events since the mid-1930s. Why? The 20th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution changed inauguration day for the President from March 4th to January 20th. Therefore, all the Presidential Inaugurations since that time have occurred on this day. The revised date of the Inauguration started with the Second Inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, which is notable only because of this change of date.
President Harry S. Truman was inaugurated on this day in 1949 after defeating John Dewey in an election that pointed out the shortcoming with political polling techniques. But Truman’s Inauguration was noteworthy for another reason; this was the first inauguration that was broadcast live for that new media device, the television. While only a limited number of families owned TV sets at that time, this would be the first opportunity to watch the inauguration from one’s own living room.
The 1961 inauguration of a new President, John F. Kennedy, would be noteworthy for several reasons. In the first place, it was a first for this country; JFK would be the first Roman Catholic President and he would also be the youngest man to occupy the Oval Office. But JFKs inauguration was significant for his speech so eloquently delivered after his swearing in ceremony. In that speech he included the now-famous words: “ask not what your country can do for you — as what you can do for your country.”
More to the point, the 1981 inauguration of Ronald Reagan was significant for several reasons. Not only did it find a former Hollywood actor becoming President, but it followed a hard-fought election campaign with Jimmy Carter, the sitting President. And one of the biggest issues was due to a foreign power: Iran. In 1979, radical Islamic fundamentalist students occupied the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and 52 American citizens were held hostage. As of inauguration day, this hostage crisis had lasted 444 days. But after Ronald Reagan had been sworn in as the new President and before he finished his Inauguration Speech, the 52 hostages were released by Iran. Apparently, the Iranian government did not want to face the conservative new President.
This day also marked the day almost a decade later, when the British hostage negotiator, Terry Waite, was taken hostage in Biruit in 1987. He would spend most of his confinement in solitary until his release in 1991. It would appear that hostage-taking would become a key element of the Islamic militants over the next couple of decades.
Almost lost in this set of significant events is the appointment of John Marshall was appointed by Thomas Jefferson to the post of Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1801, He would be the second Chief Justice of that court in the young history of this country. And, oh yes, this was the day in 1892 that would see the first basketball game played in the YMCA gym in Springfield, Massachusetts.
So, has this day been eventful? You bet it was and it has been filled with events of significance since the founding of this country. It has seen us move from a primarily rural, agrarian society (yes, I know that these terms are redundant!) to today’s primarily urban, commercial society. I use the term commercial advisedly. By and large, we are now less of an industrial or manufacturing society than a service-based, commercial one. Most of our manufacturing jobs have been shipped “off-shore” to countries like India, Indonesia, Korea, and China. Let us hope that our society can remain strong and educated so that our innovation and creativity can once again put us into the forefront of the industrial world.
But now it is time to jump into our brief overview of the events of today, January 20th… GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 1159 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/hostages.html ]
“In fact, this is a blackmail of the terrorists at the expense of the suffering of the hostages.”
— Alberto Fujimori
“You must avoid giving hostages to fortune, like getting an expensive wife, an expensive house, and a style of living that never lets you aford [sic] the time to take the chance to write what you wish.”
— Irwin Shaw
“If people are informed they will do the right thing. It’s when they are not informed that they become hostages to prejudice.”
— Charlayne Hunter-Gault
“He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.”
— Francis Bacon
“Freeing hostages is like putting up a stage set, which you do with the captors, agreeing on each piece as you slowly put it together; then you leave an exit through which both the captor and the captive can walk with sincerity and dignity.”
— Terry Waite
Commentary:
On the world stage, men have been the leaders. This is not because they have been the best or even the best prepared for the tasks of running a country or business. This reflects the laws and privileges of the white male in Western society. Women were treated as property, with no rights of their own except for those bestowed on their husbands; women were the wives, mistresses, and courtesans of the men in their lives. While there were some notable exceptions, such as monarchs like Queen Elizabeth I of England, Queen Victoria of England, Queen Isabella of Spain, and Catherine the Great of Russia, women were not permitted to take their rightful place in Western society.
In America, women started their crusade for equality and the vote from the mid-19th century. The Seneca (New York) Conference held in 1848 was a good first step in this process; powerful rights crusaders like Frederick Douglass intervened on the part of women’s rights as well as those of slaves. But women in the U.S. would not gain the vote until the passage of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920. Women since that time have served in the Congress and Statehouses, but none have been elected or even nominated for the Presidency of these United States. The situation was different in other countries.
It took the small country Sri Lanka (Ceylon) to have the first female leader of a country. Sirimaro Bandananaike became Prime minister in 1960. In neighboring India, the third Prime Minister was Indira Gandhi who took office in 1966. And it would be 1969 before Golda Meir started the first of her four terms as Prime Minister of Israel. But it would be at least two decades later before Margaret Thatcher became Prime Minister of Great Britain in the 1990s. Angela Merkel would not become the Chancellor of Germany until 2005. We must view these pioneers with great respect and admiration.
Hopefully, this signals a time when women have their own identities and do not need to live in the shadow of a man. As I was doing research on women photographers in the 19th century, they were hard to find. Most of them ran the studios, developed the film, and ran the business. But it was the husband’s name that was on the prints and the studio. Yes, some were recognized on their own, but except for Julia Margaret Cameron of Britain, most of the women who had their name associated with their photography were either not married or Lesbians. Anyway, let’s hope that women can and will take their rightful place in society, not hidden behind (or “under”) a man.
Let get on with our exploration of the life and leadership of India’s Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi… GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 4579 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/i/indira_gandhi.html ]
“Anger is never without an argument, but seldom with a good one.”
— Indira Gandhi
“Forgiveness is a virtue of the brave.”
— Indira Gandhi
“If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying. If I die a violent death, as some fear and a few are plotting, I know that the violence will be in the thought and the action of the assassins, not in my dying.”
— Indira Gandhi
Introductory Comments:
Today has been associated with major athletic events, entertainment figures and political figures. It is a day on which several noteworthy events occurred that had an noticeable effect of our present times. Who today would think of watching a film of a press conference? Who would think of a world without women heads of state? Ours is a time of speed and immediacy and the events of this day foreshadowed these times.
As far as the athletic events are concerned, today saw the first bicycle race, Le Tour de France (the Tour de France) in 1903. It is also the day that saw the oldest athletic rivalry start, Brown University vs. Harvard University in Ice Hockey; Brown won that first contest in 1898 by a score of 6-0. More recently, the shot made by a Notre Dame guard went in with less than 30 seconds to go in a game against the John Wooden-led UCLA Bruins; this was the first loss for the Bruins in 88 games, an NCAA Division 1 record.
On this day we also saw Lucille Ball deliver her first son live on TV on the “I Love Lucy” show in 1953. It is also the day that the Hollywood actor, director, industrialist, and aviator, Howard Hughes, set the cross country speed record, covering the distance from Los Angeles to New York City averaging 322 miles per hour in 1937. This broke the previous record set by the famed Aviator, Charles Lindbergh.
This was also the day on which the 18th century Statesman and Orator, Daniel Webster, was born in 1782. He had a significant impact on American politics in the mid-1800s. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower held the first Presidential Press Conference on live TV; it was also filmed as a precaution of something going wrong. Finally, this day saw the naming Indira Gandhi to be the Prime Minister of India; she was the first woman to hold that position. This is a significant range of events that have had impact on several areas of our lives.
It is interesting looking at the origin of bicycle racing in 1903 in France. Interesting not because it was novel, which it was not, but interesting because of the motivation behind it. The French newspaper, L’Auto, created the Tour de France in order to sell more newspapers. This race would course through most regions of France, which would catch the fancy of Frenchmen everywhere. And once this interest was captured, it was hoped that they would continue to buy the paper to follow the progress of the race. This race is still an exciting and captivating event for us because it represents an extreme, multi-faceted challenge to the cyclists. While the Olympics occur only once every four years, the Tour de France is an annual event.
The selection of Indira Gandhi to be India’s Prime Minister in 1966 marked a milestone for women in that country of poverty. While India obtained its independence from British rule in 1948, it went through an upheaval while carrying out the partitioning of the country to move the Muslims to the Pakistan state and the Hindus to India. Much conflict arose during this process which has continued to the present day. Gandhi was well-prepared for the task, being the daughter of the former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and related to Mahatma Gandhi who was instrumental in obtaining independence for his beloved India. She successfully led the country until she was assassinated by Sikh bodyguards in 1984.
So let’s get on with our overview of the events of January 19th… GLB
These Introductory Comments are copyrighted:
Copyright©2012 — Gerald Boerner — All Rights Reserved[ 1146 Words ]
[ http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/i/indira_gandhi.html ]
“People tend to forget their duties but remember their rights.”
— Indira Gandhi
“One must beware of ministers who can do nothing without money, and those who want to do everything with money.”
— Indira Gandhi
“You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose.”
— Indira Gandhi
“There exists no politician in India daring enough to attempt to explain to the masses that cows can be eaten.”
— Indira Gandhi
“There are two kinds of people, those who do the work and those who take the credit. Try to be in the first group; there is less competition there.”
— Indira Gandhi
