On April 12th, 1861, 150 years ago today, the first battle of the US Civil War was fought at Ft. Sumter, in Charleston, South Carolina. Southern states had been seceding from the union for months, but the US still maintained coastal forts. During the four months leading up to Lincoln’s Inauguration, the seceding states, one after another, seized federal forts, … Read More
50 Years Ago Today
Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to orbit the Earth. And here is a film called First Orbit. At one hour and 40 minutes long, it is a real time recreation of Yuri Gagarin's pioneering first orbit, shot entirely in space from on board the International Space Station. The film combines this new footage with Gagarin's original mission audio and … Read More
100 Years Ago Today
Triangle Shirtwaist Company fire, March 25, 1911, New York, New York. Good source material at Cornell's site. Important because it changed the way New York, and then the rest of the country, viewed labor. Ushered in a whole slew of laws relating to fire safety measures and conditions in factories. 146 died: Adler, Lizzie, 24 Altman, Anna, 16 Ardito, Annina, 25 … Read More
RIP, “We Can Do It” Lady
From WaPo: Geraldine Doyle, 86, who as a 17-year-old factory worker became the inspiration for a popular World War II recruitment poster that evoked female power and independence under the slogan "We Can Do It!," died Dec. 26 at a hospice in Lansing, Mich. Her daughter, Stephanie Gregg, said the cause of death was complications from severe arthritis. For millions … Read More
The Most Interesting Race In The Election
… is in Rhode Island. There's a proposition on the ballot this year to change the name of Rhode Island from "State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations" to simply "Rhode Island." The idea is that the appendage "Providence Plantations" is redolent of slavery and should go. That would be a shame of it did. The first and probably the most important … Read More
RIP Ted Sorenson
I didn't realize he died yesterday, but he did. He was the last of the Kennedy circle. He was Kennedy's speechwriter, so we can give him credit for "Ask not what your country can do for you…." (although, as classy speechwriters do, Sorenson never took credit for the line). He probably also ghost-wrote "Profiles in Courage", which won Kennedy the … Read More
Happy Birthday, John
John Lennon would be 70 today. Google's logo is appropriate. It's also clickable movie, so go here and click the Google logo.
World War One Officially Ends This Week
Took them a while, but Germany has finally finished paying off reparations for that nasty bit of business almost a century ago. Germany was forced to pay the reparations at the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 as compensation to the war-ravaged nations of Belgium and France and to pay the Allies some of the costs of waging what was then the bloodiest conflict in history, … Read More
Titanic Crash: Pilot Error?
Hmmmmm: The granddaughter of an officer aboard the ill-fated Titanic reveals that the ship's helmsman turned the vessel toward the iceberg instead of away because of a confusion over steering orders that applied differently to steam ship and sailing ships. Novelist Louise Patten, granddaughter of Titanic's Second Officer Charles Lightoller, says orders that applied to one steering system meant the exact opposite … Read More