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Milestones
- Thread starter admihoek
- Start date
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Booker T. Washington got two stamps, one in 1940 and the other in 1956 (featuring the cabin in which he was born). Douglass got his stamp in 1967. The next Ford-class super aircraft carrier is to be named after Doris Miller, who as a mess steward aboard West Virginia at Pearl Harbor was awarded the Navy Cross for valor by Admiral Nimitz (supposedly Miller shot down four Japanese planes). Miller went down with an escort carrier later in the war. He also got a stamp a few years ago. So there is some hope for recognition for black contributions to AMERICAN history--I don't like the term "black history" or "Afro-American history" or "Asian-American history" or "women's history".Booker T was the "acceptable" black for white Americans to see on a stamp in 1940. He was largely an appeaser. Frederick Douglass, among others, would have been a better choice.
This denial of AA history continues even today as the Harriet Tubman $20 bill is delayed. And white Americans wonder why black Americans "still seem so angry."
Harriet Tubman $20 bill no longer coming in 2020: Mnuchin says redesign postponed
The redesign of the $20 bill featuring Harriet Tubman will no longer be unveiled in 2020, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Wednesday.www.cnbc.com
I agree the Tubman decision is unfortunate, especially given Andrew Jackson's role in the dispossession of American Indians. One can't argue Jackson was of no value to the country--he certainly has a lot to his credit. But he also did a lot we should be ashamed of (and was in addition a slave holder).
No black person, or of any non-white colour, has appeared on any British banknote, English, Scottish or NI. There've been calls to name one of the C19 emergency hospitals after Mary Seacole, the Jamaican nurse (her father was a Scot) who set up a hospital in the Crimea during the war when Florence Nightingale was also at work there. There's a statue of her outside St Thomas's Hospital, where our PM was back on his feet today, albeit briefly.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Today is Good Friday. When looking at Easter dates, one can see regularly appear series of eleven years cyclicity. So does Good Friday. Twenty two years ago, on April 10th, the Good Friday agreement ended the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland. A peace that is holding quite well, but unfortunately is threatened by other, more recent 'troubles'.
True, thanks for reminding us of that, Loxuru. I don't think we have any active members from Northern Ireland, but it's close to where I am, what happens there does have implications for my region, and I've a great liking for the province and its people, of both/all communities. Brexit, whatever the pros and cons for Britain, is certainly a very serious rupture, however the (no hard?) border emerges, and the breakdown of trust between the power-sharing parties (and frankly the sheer clumsiness, incompetence and lack of political skill on both sides) has set things back, the old bunker mentality has returned, trouble-makers on both sides are stirring things ... but 22 years of peace and reasonable prosperity, and a generation that has grown up in that atmosphere, have made a great difference, only tiny minorities seriously contemplate going back to the old days of conflict.
As for fixing the date of Easter, the 19 versus 84 year cycles, the Quartodecimans, embolisms, Dionysius Exiguus, the Synod of Whitby ... don't get me started!
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Well, it's all gravity's fault. The earth's orbit and the moon's can't really be used to regularize anything--hence leap seconds and super moons and blue moons and ice ages and the competition between Sirius and Polaris for the role of "pole star". I guess we could curse the sun, but we could just set a date and stick to it, and put a lot of religious experts who make official proclamations out of work. In a few short millenia the moon will be too far out to cause full solar eclipses. This will be a problem for everyone, including the New Agers. Maybe the second coming will happen before then, and we won't need to worry about it. But I'm not optimistic.True, thanks for reminding us of that, Loxuru. I don't think we have any active members from Northern Ireland, but it's close to where I am, what happens there does have implications for my region, and I've a great liking for the province and its people, of both/all communities. Brexit, whatever the pros and cons for Britain, is certainly a very serious rupture, however the (no hard?) border emerges, and the breakdown of trust between the power-sharing parties (and frankly the sheer clumsiness, incompetence and lack of political skill on both sides) has set things back, the old bunker mentality has returned, trouble-makers on both sides are stirring things ... but 22 years of peace and reasonable prosperity, and a generation that has grown up in that atmosphere, have made a great difference, only tiny minorities seriously contemplate going back to the old days of conflict.
As for fixing the date of Easter, the 19 versus 84 year cycles, the Quartodecimans, embolisms, Dionysius Exiguus, the Synod of Whitby ... don't get me started!
We have to worry about a magnetic field reversal too. Somebody sure screwed up and didn't plan ahead.
The funny thing about Ireland is that in the Irish Republic the Catholic Church is on the ropes, and I don't the the "C of E" is holding up all that much better in the UK. So it's more about tribalism than religion any more. Isn't the Irish PM Vanaker a hindu? (He just lost an election, but he's still not a traditional pol no matter what his religion is.)
Leo Varadkar. Son of an Indian doctor and an Irish nurse.
He's a qualified doctor himself, and has re-registered so he can play his part in fighting coronavirus
Coronavirus: Leo Varadkar to work as doctor during pandemic
The Irish PM rejoined the medical register last month to help out during the coronavirus crisis.
www.bbc.co.uk
Well, in a sense it always has been. Certainly the Republic has changed dramatically, in many ways the North has lagged behind.
It's important to grasp that it's always been a three-way conflict -
Catholics, historically the rural poor
Protestants in the sense of (mainly) Calvinist Presbyterian Ulster Scots,
going back to the 17th century Plantations and the backbone of the Loyal Orange Order,
and Anglo-Irish, Anglican = Episcopalian = Church of Ireland, the old 'establishment'
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
On this day in 1925, The Great Gatsby was published. "F. Scott Fitzgerald's Latest a Dud," ran a headline in the New York World, but the tale of Roaring Twenties love and money became an American classic.
Praefectus Praetorio
R.I.P. Brother of the Quill
@windar , I'm glad to see you noted the milestone. I've often thought your writings have a bit of Fitzgerald in them (Scotty to his friends - his full name was Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald). Just as @Barbaria1 exhibits some of the sexual morals of Zelda.
windar
Teller of Tales
I'm speechless at being mentioned in such company (and I'm rarely speechless). I may have to have a drink or two or three or four to celebrate as Scotty would have.
You could take that as a complement if you wanted to, Barb...What?
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Wasn't Francis Scott Key involved in a murder at some point?
windar
Teller of Tales
If he had been, Stan Goldman and Barbara Moore's ancestors would have busted him! OK, Stan's ancestors were in Russia at the time...
Key's son, Francis Barton Key II, was shot and killed by a New York Congressman, Daniel Sickles, when he discovered that Key was screwing his wife. Sickles was acquitted in the first case in the US of the temporary insanity defense and went on to become a General in the Civil War.
Key's family was very prominent in Maryland. His sister married Chief Justice Roger Taney, who wrote the decision in the Dred Scott case, which decided that black people had no rights in the US, a case which was a major contributor to the onset of the Civil War.
F Scott Fitzgerald was a cousin of Key's and the famed geneticist Thomas Hunt Morgan was a descendant.
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
There was always a lot of domestic opposition to World War I in America. The casualties were so bad (relatively) that the War Department didn't release all the figures until 1926. It is no surprise that with Americans seeing little benefit from the war effort (and all the loans) they were unwilling to support the League of Nations or become more active in world affairs. This attitude extended to World War II as well, which is why it took the Pearl Harbor attack and Hitler's pointless declaration of war on the United States to get the US into the war. Roosevelt knew how important it was to stop Hitler, and a lot of people were on board with that, but a significant number of voters wanted to stay out. It was certainly short-sighted, but understandable. One can certainly look at European history as a series of power games and opportunistic wars--that's an oversimplification, but it isn't irrational.
Frank Petrexa
Tribune
Dan Sickles was a political general in the Civil War, and lost a leg. The bone was saved and is on display somewhere. As ambassador to Spain after the war, he had an affair with a woman in the royal family (princess or queen, I forget) and almost got the US into a war with Spain with an inflammatory dispatch. Sickles was a real character. (Actually, I am remembering now that Key himself wasn't involved in the murder, but he did get involved in some civil unrest related to race, if I recall. That's the thing with American history--action-packed and in your face. Europeans aren't any better, but at least they tend to be more discrete and give some lip service to "it's not done".)
windar
Teller of Tales
There were a lot of "political generals' on the Union side, like McClellan, Winfield Scott, etc. who almost managed to lose despite the huge advantage the Union held in population and industrial might. Fortunately there were Grant (who only became a politician later) and Sherman.
The guy didn't learn from experience, I guess
RacingRodent
Consul
There were a lot of "political generals' on the Union side, like McClellan, Winfield Scott, etc. who almost managed to lose despite the huge advantage the Union held in population and industrial might. Fortunately there were Grant (who only became a politician later) and Sherman.
The guy didn't learn from experience, I guess
Er Winfield Scott? Old Fuss and Feathers Anaconda plan basically laid out the strategy by which the Union eventually won the Civil War. If it had been followed rigorously from the start likely a shorter conflict with fewer casualties. Not surprising as he was one of the few experienced officers on either side and one of the even fewer with a big picture view of the situation.
McClellan is a more nuanced picture. He did a lot to put the main Union field army into a condition to fight and had a fairly sound grasp of broad strategy (unlike Lincoln, a great president but no general) however fairly or unfairly there will always be questions as to his skills as a battlefield commander. His vaulting ambition was also detrimental.
I agree there were plenty of political generals but those two names really are not in that league.
Naraku
Draconarius
50 years ago (April 11, 1970), Apollo 13 launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 14:13:00 EST. The mission was almost aborted about two minutes later when a problem occurred in the second stage causing an engine to shut down, however, Ground Control compensated and the mission proceeded. Two days later, astronaut Jim Lovell uttered the words: "Houston, we've had a problem." - contrary to what everyone thinks, he did not say "We have..." - thus beginning the Apollo 13 drama. After the first landing almost a year earlier, the public had gotten a bit blase' about moon missions. That changed when the announcement of the disaster was made, and the world watched and waited until the capsule splashed down successfully on the 17th. Given how much effort and ingenuity was needed to bring the three man crew back alive, the mission could be considered NASA's second greatest achievement.
www.space.com
https://www.cnet.com/news/relive-nasa-apollo-13-disaster-right-now-on-its-50th-anniversary/
en.wikipedia.org
Apollo 13: Facts About NASA's Near-Disaster
Apollo 13 was NASA's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface.
www.space.com
Apollo 13 - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
Obviously "we've had a problem" is one of the most famous phrases in the history of manned space flight. And one of the most misquoted.50 years ago (April 11, 1970), Apollo 13 launched from the Kennedy Space Center at 14:13:00 EST. The mission was almost aborted about two minutes later when a problem occurred in the second stage causing an engine to shut down, however, Ground Control compensated and the mission proceeded. Two days later, astronaut Jim Lovell uttered the words: "Houston, we've had a problem." - contrary to what everyone thinks, he did not say "We have..." - thus beginning the Apollo 13 drama. After the first landing almost a year earlier, the public had gotten a bit blase' about moon missions. That changed when the announcement of the disaster was made, and the world watched and waited until the capsule splashed down successfully on the 17th. Given how much effort and ingenuity was needed to bring the three man crew back alive, the mission could be considered NASA's second greatest achievement.
https://www.cnet.com/news/relive-nasa-apollo-13-disaster-right-now-on-its-50th-anniversary/Apollo 13: Facts About NASA's Near-Disaster
Apollo 13 was NASA's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface.
Apollo 13 - Wikipedia
Actually, they have been spoken twice, first by Command Module Pilot Jack Swigert : "Okay, Houston, we've had a problem here!" About half a minute later, Lovell confirmed it with nearly similar wordings : "Houston we've had a problem! We've had a main bus B undervolt". Thereby reporting the first sign of a developing problem, of the Command Module's electrical supply system failing.
The remaining of the flight consisted of working out, in a race against time, improvised solutions for emergency scenarios that had never been anticipated before. Without doubt, the safe return of Apollo 13 is NASA's greatest achievement ever indeed.
Loxuru
Graf von Kreuzigung
On April 12th 1945, this day 75 years ago, President F. D. Roosevelt, 32th president of the USA, suddenly died in his private retreat in Georgia, by a intracerebral hemorrhage.
Elected for an unprecedented fourth term a few months earlier, Roosevelt is remembered for his New Deal policy during the Great Depression, and as a war leader after the US entered the war in 1941.
The news of Roosevelt’s death made German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, believe that the chances of war would now turn. He had consulted astrologists (!), who had predicted a reversal of fortune for Germany in the second half of April 1945. Goebbels gave Hitler hope, referring to the events following the death of Empress Elisabeth of Russia in 1762. It was the Seven Years War, and Prussia’s situation was desperate. Elisabeth’s successor Peter I, made a separate peace with Prussia, allowing the country to turn away defeat. Goebbels had the vain hope that a comparable scenario would repeat itself, with the death of Roosevelt. Which did not.
Elected for an unprecedented fourth term a few months earlier, Roosevelt is remembered for his New Deal policy during the Great Depression, and as a war leader after the US entered the war in 1941.
The news of Roosevelt’s death made German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, believe that the chances of war would now turn. He had consulted astrologists (!), who had predicted a reversal of fortune for Germany in the second half of April 1945. Goebbels gave Hitler hope, referring to the events following the death of Empress Elisabeth of Russia in 1762. It was the Seven Years War, and Prussia’s situation was desperate. Elisabeth’s successor Peter I, made a separate peace with Prussia, allowing the country to turn away defeat. Goebbels had the vain hope that a comparable scenario would repeat itself, with the death of Roosevelt. Which did not.