Prof. Boerner's Explorations

    
Introductory Comments:

Today we will focus primarily on domestic events since we don’t have any “earthshaking” events on the international scene identified. The closest we come to such an event centers upon a group of recording artists who gave their time and voices to create the blockbuster song “We are the World” that appeared in 1985. This recording was created to raise money for the relief of the people of Africa who were suffering from a terrible famine. The song was written by Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie and was produced by the Emmy-winning Quincy Jones. The sales from this song raised $60 million for the cause.

On the domestic front, we have three significant events. In recent history we have witnessed first-hand the explosion shortly after clearing the launch pad of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. This event sent shutters through our bodies in a fashion similar to that that most of us did as we watched Neil Armstrong take those first steps on the moon in 1969. But this time, the reaction was not from the joyful sharing of an event of great import for all mankind, it came from the realization that the entire Challenger crew perished in the explosion. In just a few seconds, we saw the lift-off of the shuttle from the launch pad followed by a puff of white smoke that could be seen when the shuttle broke apart, with different large chunks going in different directions.

At the time, I was working for a school district and witnessed the event “real time,” not on video tape on the evening news. All educators were thrilled by the fact that one of our own, a high school teacher from New England, Christa McAuliffe, was travelling into space. She would be the first civilian to make such a voyage. She was prepared to carry out a number of educational experiments during her time in space and was being followed by schools across the country. But the voice of the TV commentator soon informed us that something terrible had happened a few seconds after launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Then we witnessed the debris from the shuttle fall from the sky. With that debris were the bodies of the seven shuttle astronauts. There was no escape. This incident resulted in a suspension of future shuttle flights until the cause of the accident had been determined and remedied. And it turned out that the cause was due to the failure of an O-Ring that cost just a few dollars. After this tragedy, both the equipment checks before launch and the launch procedures themselves were changed. A major cause of the O-Ring failure was the launch in the early morning hours in freezing weather. Ice had been an ever-present hazard to all launches from Cape Canaveral over the years; each crew breathed a sigh of relief when their vehicle had cleared the launch tower. Procedures were instituted that prevented launch until ice would no longer be a hazard.

Other significant events on this day have been a bit more upbeat. In 1861, at the start of the Civil War, Julia Ward Howe wrote a song that was initially sung in churches across the North. This song, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” then began to be sung by Union troops as they marched into their battles. It is an uplifting song that I learned in elementary school. It had a catchy tune, uplifting words, and I remember singing it proudly. If you have not done so recently, check out the words to this song; it will raise your spirit and put you into a positive frame of mind. (See the video below for the song’s history.)

The final event of the day was an advance in the quest for equality for minorities. In 1916, Louis Brandeis, a Jew, was nominated as a Supreme Court Justice by President Woodrow Wilson. Brandeis was known as the “People’s Attorney” because of his defense of equal treatment of minority groups. This nomination and its eventual confirmation by the U.S. Senate transpired in the days prior to the entry of the United States into World War I. While a Justice, Brandeis continued to write opinions championing the cause of equal treatment of all men, not just the rich or corporations.

It is interesting to note that this confirmation of a Jew to the highest court of our land occurred just twenty years before the beginning of the Nazi persecution of the Jewish people in Germany. As we discussed yesterday, Hitler’s “Final Solution to the Jewish Problem” resulted in the creation of extermination camps to carry out the genocide against the Jews. While the persecution started with the deprivation of Jews of their property rights, it continued into Kristalnacht and then the creation of Jewish ghettos in Eastern Europe. With men like Brandeis watching out for the rights of all Americans, we have avoided that type of persecution for most groups in the 20th century.

On a minor, but inspiring note we find that the Head Football Coach of the Green Bay Packers NFL team was given a contract extension in 1959. This event is not important for its overt contract extension, but to focus our attention upon Vince Lombardi, a man who has provided inspiration to not only his players, but athletes throughout the sports world have benefitted from his inspiring sayings. Men like Lombardi are essential to the maturing of young men and women into good citizens and displaying good sportsmanship.

We need to view the events of this day in a spirit of good sportsmanship, emphasizing the equality of all peoples of our country, and the need to nurture young people to good citizenship and patriotism. We need to put aside the feelings of being better than others and foster a spirit of positive adoption of understanding and cooperation among all groups within our country. This spirit of inclusiveness can avoid the branding of individual or cultures negatively. I have been bothered by the blaming all Muslims for the events of 911 and the destruction of the Twin Towers. Those events were the work of individual radical groups of terrorists, not be Muslims. Yes, I know that there are major cultural differences between our two world views, but understanding I think is a more desirable quest than reacting with hostility. We don’t have to accept their religion or philosophy of life, but we do need to understand their culture and world-view to help prevent such terrorist acts in the future.

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

[ 1692 Words ]
    

    
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 ]