Michael Medved And The Nazi/Gay Issue

Ken AshfordHistory, Sex/Morality/Family ValuesLeave a Comment

Seriously stupid: Germany recently unveiled a memorial to what the press called “the Nazis’ long-ignored gay victims.” Across the road from Berlin’s monument to Jewish Holocaust victims, the new shrine features a pavilion-sized concrete slab with a window through which visitors view a video of two men kissing. Ok…. This commemoration follows a longstanding, misleading attempt to depict homosexuals as … Read More

Bobby We Hardly Knew Ye

Ken AshfordElection 2008, History1 Comment

40 years ago today (from the movie "Bobby"): Real footage: The funeral train: The L.A. Times has a nice rememberance page. Is history repeating itself? Through both violent tragedy and political intrigue, Election 1968 had been transformed from a hopeful opportunity to change the country into an ugly case study of how easy it is to snuff out idealism and … Read More

The Oldest Audio Recording Recently Discovered

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

The New York Times had a great piece yesterday on an 1860 phonautogram of the French folk song "Au Clair de la Lune" sung by an unknown Frenchman. Click here to hear it.  It’s mp3 format and lasts about 10 seconds.  It’s very scratchy; you can barely make out the song. It is the oldest known recording of a human … Read More

Mississippi Voting

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

With Obama’s huge win in Mississippi this week, Meteor Blades, a blogger at Daily Kos, remembers what he was doing 44 years ago in Mississippi — trying to get black voters registered.  It was the summer when three civil rights workers — James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — went missing, and whose bodies were later unearthed in the … Read More

15 Years Ago Today

Ken AshfordHistory, War on Terrorism/TortureLeave a Comment

I am republishing a portion from an earlier post (written in September 2006): February 26, 1993 I was a third-year law student at NYU in 1993.  As any third-year law student will tell you, a 3L’s focus in the second semester is not so much on completing law school and passing law school exams, but preparing for the impending bar … Read More

A Conversation Between Lee Harvey Oswald And Jack Ruby

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

An excerpt from the newly-discovered transcript: Lee: You said the boys in Chicago want to get rid of the Attorney General. Ruby: Yes, but it can’t be done … it would get the Feds into everything. Lee: There is a way to get rid of him without killing him. Ruby: How’s that? Lee: I can shoot his brother. … Ruby: … Read More

Forty Years Ago Today

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

On February 1, 1968, this famous photo was taken on a Saigon street.  Life Magazine places it in its list of "100 Photographs That Changed The World" and describes it this way: With North Vietnam’s Tet Offensive beginning, Nguyen Ngoc Loan, South Vietnam’s national police chief, was doing all he could to keep Viet Cong guerrillas from Saigon. As Loan … Read More

Sara Jane Moore Released From Prison

Ken AshfordHistory2 Comments

She’s out.  Sara, now 77, was one of the two women who tried to shoot President Ford on separate occasions in September 1975.  Moore tried it on September 22, 1975; Squeaky Fromme tried it earlier on September 5.  Fromme, a Charles Manson devotee (unlike Moore, who had her own reasons), is still in prison. Moore’s shot missed Ford of course.  … Read More

Bremer Freed

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

Arthur Bremer, the guy who attempted to assassin — but only paralyzed — then-racist (now dead) presidential candidate George Wallace back in 1972, had been released from prison: Under the conditions of his release, Bremer must stay away from any local, state, federal or foreign elected officials and any current candidates. …but he he is otherwise free to stalk and … Read More

King Tut: Butt Ugly

Ken AshfordHistoryLeave a Comment

Although King Tut’s tomb was discovered 85 years ago, they didn’t get around to unraveling the mummy and seeing the Boy King until a few days ago. Dude had a serious overbite. Here’s the link to the King Tut Exhibition’s webpage.