The 1910s

The 1920s

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1950s

The 1960s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

Slavery and the making of America

Take a nostalgic trip down memory lane from your own childhood:

Now that the Twentieth Century has drawn to a close, let us sit back and savor our memories of the events that shaped our world.  Or shaped our country.  Or didn't shape much of anything.  And of course, at least half of these probably won't really be memories to most of you unless you're a Centenarian or something.  But don't let that stop you.  Just pause for a moment with me here, won't you, and reflect on these Days Gone By. At the end of the last Century, Rome had long since fallen.  The Dark Ages were drawing to a close and the Medieval Period was . . . no, wait, that's the end of the last Millennium, not the end of the last Century, isn't it?  Ahem.  At the end of the Nineteenth Century, the automobile had just been invented.  Disinfection was still a new medical technique, and anesthesia was limited to circus side shows.  Human beings had never flown in heavier-than-air machines, unless you count gliding, which aviation historians apparently don't.  The term "computer" referred to a profession, not a machine.  Or at least that's what somebody told me, and it sounded like a good story so I'm reprinting it here.  In fact, all of my alleged historical facts pretty much belong in the hearsay category.  I ain't a historian.  I don't need to be.  All I need to do is publish false information on a webpage and everybody will send me e-mail correcting it, won't you?  Ah, the beauty of modern technology. (Actually, I didn't lavish nearly as much attention on this page as I did on That Wacky Millennium!.  This page only covers 1/9 as much history, after all.) And if there's a favorite Historical Event of yours that happened in this century but that I left out (no, your first date does not count), send it to rogermw@ix.netcom.com and I may or may not get around to reading it. 1901 – The Nineteenth Century officially ends and the Twentieth Century begins. Unfortunately, everybody did all their partying in 1900 and never bothered to ask a ca 1903 – Wilbur and Orville Wright's biplane, christened with the thoroughly original name "The Flyer", takes off from a field in Kitty Hawk and stays airborn for 12 seconds.  It is not the first powered heavier-than-air machine to sustain flight for any length of time, though.  The Wright Brothers' biggest contribution to aviation comes several years later with the invention of the aileron.  Those wacky bicycle mechanics! 1908 – Henry Ford begins cranking out Model Ts, reducing the price of cars drastically by dumbing down the job of the auto assembly worker.  This causes traffic jams and suburbia.  Meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs win their last World Series.  That wacky Fred Merkle! 1909 – Hans Geiger (of Geiger-Müller Counter fame) and E. Marsden shoot some helium at some gold, causing Ernst Rutherford to discover that atoms have a nucleus.  This leads to the Nuclear Generation, whose members manage to mispronounce it as "nuke-you-lar".  That wacky alpha particle scattering! 1912 – Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslett fall madly in love aboard a sinking Royal Mail Steamer Titanic, killing over a thousand passengers.  It was sad when the great ship went down.  Those wacky lifeboats! 1913 – Federal Reserve Act and Income Tax Constitutional Amendment enacted.  Many conspiracy theories follow.  Those wacky Bavarian international banker freemason illuminatists! 1914-1918 – World War I happens.  Record-breaking numbers of people die.  Those wacky trench diggers! 1916 – U.S. Supreme court (in the Brushaber Case) says the Income Tax Amendment didn't really amend the Constitution, it just clarified it by classifying an income tax as an indirect or excise tax.  Ha ha.  Those wacky justices! 1917 – Russia and a few of its neighbors become the first test case for Marx's theories.  Unfortunately, some of the variables from the control group infect the sample and skew the results.  Then Stalin comes in and really skews the results.  Those wacky communists! 1918 – Britain and France blame World War I on Germany, and require them to pay a hillion jillion Deutschmarks in reparations; Germany accomplishes this by printing a hillion 1-jillion-Deutschmark bills.  Ethanol is banned throughout the United States thanks to, of all things, a Constitutional amendment.  The Boston Red Sox win their last World Series of the millennium.  That wacky Harry Frazee! 1920 – 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is ratified, allowing all female U.S. citizens to vote.  Unfortunately, they screw up their first chance big-time by electing Warren G. Harding president.  Those wacky suffragettes! 1925 – John Logie Baird, a Scotsman, invents the first working television.  It sends 30 piddling scan lines worth of picture to a rotating motorized display unit, which can't even display a proper shade of white.  And if it isn't Scottish, it's crrrrrrap.  That wacky collection of way too many moving parts! 1927 – Philo T. Farnsworth (yes, that's his real name) invents real television.  This paves the way for the later invention of the TV Dinner, the Couch Potato, and Joanie Loves Chachi.  That wacky cathode ray tube! 1928 – Alexander Fleming, another Scotsman, accidentally leaves one of his Petri dishes exposed to the air, and it gets infected with bread mold.  When he noticed that the area around the mold was bacteria-free, he proclaimed, "Ach, cap'n, the engines canna take it any more!"  Just kidding; he actually proclaimed, "There can be only one!" and decapitated Sean Connery with his claymore.  This led to the development of penicillin.  That wacky fungal defense-mechanism secretion! That very same year – Otto Frederick Rohwedder invents sliced bread.  It's the best thing since itself.  That wacky Wonder Bread®! 1929 – U.S. Television video standard approved by the F.C.C., which will eventually require (yich) NTSC to be backward-compatible with it.  Stock prices across the entire New York Stock Exchange take a nosedive.  This sets off a minor recession in the U.S..  Those wacky stockbrokers! 1931 – U.S. economy is in recovery from the minor recession set off by the Stock Market Crash in 1929.  Those wacky wage earners! 1932 – The world-wide recession finally hits the United States.  The U.S. enters the Great Depression.  In a brilliant political maneuver, presidential candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt blames the depression on the Stock Market Crash of 1929, which as we all know was entirely Herbert Hoover's fault.  No one bothers to correct Mr. Roosevelt.  Those wacky Democrats! 1933 – Ethanol is un-banned in the U.S. thanks to another Constitutional amendment.  Edwin Howard Armstrong invents Frequency Modulation; his boss, Lee DeForest, eventually drives him to suicide.  Acting on emergency power authority granted to him by the U.S. Congress, newly elected U.S. president Roosevelt institutes the "new deal" in which he outlaws private ownership of gold.  That wacky Gold Standard! 1934 – Now that private ownership of gold is illegal in the U.S., Roosevelt re-defines the U.S. "dollar" from 25.8 grains of 900-fine gold to 15.375 grains of 900-fine gold, and starts paying off the 20 billion dollar federal debt in these new smaller "dollars".  That wacky national debt! 1935 – As if a Great Depression wasn't bad enough, the destructive farming practices used in the midwest finally catch up with them, and formerly arable land becomes a great big Dust Bowl.  This causes Steinbeck to engineer a new strain of wrathful grapes.  That wacky nitrate depletion! 1938 – Realizing that the British Air Force secretly under construction is not yet big enough to challenge Nazi Germany, Neville Chamberlain lets the Nazis invade North Czeckoslovakia, giving some wimpy public excuse about "peace in our time".  This buys Britain time to build more airplanes but gets Chamberlain kicked out of office.  His successor burps at Lady Astor a lot.  That wacky Appeasement policy! 1939-1945 – World War II happens.  Five times as many people die as in World War I, but you'd never know it from the movies that come out of this war.  As a result of the length of the war, the rate of technological innovation takes on a lightning-paced life of its own that continues through to the next Millennium.  Those wacky Nazis! 1941 – Howard Florey (an Australian) and Ernst Chain (a British guy) discover that the Penicillium chrysogenum fungus can be grown in huge vats.  Armed with this invaluable bread-mold knowledge, they invent a way to mass-produce penicillin.  Penicillin makes good for, oh, 30 or 40 years, before penicillin-resistant strains of disease-causing bacteria begin to show up.  That wacky natural selection process! 1945 – First nuclear bomb tested in New Mexico.  Second and third nuclear bombs tested in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  Those wacky fissionables! 1947 – India stops being a British colony, thanks to Ben Kingsley's Oscar®-winning performance.  That wacky doctrine of non-cooperation! 1948 – Stalin blockades West Berlin in order to draw attention away from his attempts to acquire U.S. nuclear secrets.  He buys the final pieces of the puzzle from J. Robert Oppenheimer, for $500 and a free dinner.  Meanwhile, Bell Labs invents the Transistor, paving the way for cheap computers, portable stereo amplifiers, and the Tamagachi.  Those wacky doped silicon substrates! 1949 – The Soviet Union, also known as The Bad Guys, detonates its first nuclear device.  The Cold War begins.  That wacky military-industrial complex! 1950 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg become the first big-time victims of the U.S. Red Scare, thanks to Jell-O® brand gelatin dessert.  Meanwhile, Alan Turing, arguably the world's first computer scientist, having broken the Nazi's secret code to help Great Britain win the second world war, is jailed in Great Britain for being a homosexual.  Those wacky homophobes! 1950-1953 – The Korean War happens.  Lots of people die.  Both sides end up exactly where they started.  That wacky 38th parallel! 1954 – Building on Einstein's lesser-known theory of stimulated emissions, Charles Townes invents the first laser (called a "maser" because its emissions lay in the microwave spectrum).  Those wacky population inversions! That very same year – Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson opens up the first Shakey's Pizza Parlor, which became the first restaurant chain to sell modern American pizza as we know it.  That wacky crust spinner! 1955 – Disneyland opens, on the same day that Roger M. Wilcox, author of this esteemed webpage, will be born 10 years later.  That wacky Buena Vista! 1957 – The U.S. enters a minor recession, causing the VW Bug to catch on.  The Soviet Union places a beach-ball-sized artificial satellite in low Earth orbit, resulting in the formation of the NASA and ESA bureaucracies.  The U.S. Ford Motor Company introduces four mid-priced makes of cars produced by their new Edsel division.  Those wacky marketing blunders! 1958 – The U.S. completely fails to catch up with the Soviet space program, because space exploration is "supposed to be peaceful" and Werner von Braun used to be a military man.  The notion of "rocket science" as being a difficult subject is coined into the English-speaking imagination.  It is a dark day for us all.  Those wacky Keplerian orbital elements! 1961 – The first human being in space, Yuri Gagarin, also makes (on the same flight) one almost-complete orbit of the Earth.  Is that cool, or what?  Those wacky Soviet-employed German scientists! 1963 – The U.S. becomes probably the last country on earth to go off the Gold Standard.  U.S. President John F. Kennedy gets assassinated, from the Grassy Knoll, by Space Aliens under mind-control from Elvis who are working with the Bavarian Illuminati to get Jackie Kennedy pregnant with Bigfoot's love-child.  That wacky Warren Commission! 1965 – Roger M. Wilcox, author of this esteemed webpage, is born.  U.S. dimes and quarters stop being made out of silver, thus ending the era of U.S. specie money.  (U.S. half dollar coins are still made partially out of silver through 1970, but most of their bulk is now taken up by a thick layer of copper.)  Disney releases That Darn Cat!.  (It's not much of a movie, but its title epitomizes Disney live-action movie making.)  Malcom X gets assassinated for not being a black separatist anymore.  That wacky Nation of Islam! 1966 – The original Star Trek TV series makes its debut on NBC.  It will eventually get cancelled, gain an underground cult following, spring back to life as a long drawn-out motion picture, and snowball into the biggest franchise in the history of Paramount.  All while completely missing the profound implications of half the magic-technology it proposes (and forgetting about 9/10 of this technology when it's convenient for the plot).  That wacky Great Bird! 1968 – Another Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., both get assassinated.  In protest to this, youngsters grow their hair long, burn their draft cards, and listen to songs with subversive lyrics like "Picture yourself on a train in a station."  Those wacky hippies! 1969 – Woodstock happens.  The U.S. goes off the Silver Standard.  Neil Armstrong, and some other guy nobody ever remembers, walks on the moon; his first words after touching the lunar surface are "The dust is really fine, almost like a powder."  Those wacky NASA astronauts! 1970 – Astronauts Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton, and Kevin Bacon lead a star-studded special effects extravaganza when their oxygen tank explodes en route to the moon.  Private ownership of gold is re-legalized in the United States.  Those wacky gold futures contracts! 1971 – In response to new U.S. emission control laws, the catalytic converter appears on nearly every new car, choking off engine horsepower and reducing fuel efficiency.  Auto manufacturers could have built multiple ignition engines instead, but nooooooo.  Those wacky incompletely-combusted hydrocarbons! That very same year – E. Gary Gygax publishes a little 3-part supplement to the Chainmail! medieval wargaming system called "Dungeons & Dragons."  That wacky +5 holy vorpal defender frost-brand flame-tongue dragon-slayer luckblade of wounding, dancing, sharpness, thunderbolts, speed, quickness, life stealing, nine-lives stealing, and final word! 1972 – The last human beings set foot on the moon.  That wacky geologist astronaut! 1973 – The U.S. Supreme Court declares that laws prohibiting abortion during the first 3 months of pregnancy are in violation of the Constitution's 4th amendment.  That wacky Operation Rescue! 1974 – Richard Milhous Nixon becomes the first U.S. president to resign from office.  Gerald Ford becomes the first U.S. president to get there without ever having won an election.  Those wacky Watergate burglars! 1975 – Ebola makes its show-stopping world premiere in Zaire, killing 90% of the people it infects.  Those wacky viruses! 1976 – The movie Logan's Run is released.  It's almost nothing like the book, but is good in its own way, as is evidenced by The Highly Unofficial Logan's Run FAQ.  That wacky William F. Nolan! 1977 – Star Wars is released, reshaping the face of high-budget cinema forever.  Those wacky imperial stormtroopers! 1979 – Susan B. Anthony is immortalized by putting her image on a U.S. dollar coin so badly designed that it stops being minted almost immediately.  The older, large coin dollars with Eisenhower's picture on them are not re-introduced.  That wacky undecagon! 1981 – IBM introduces a microcomputer based on an Intel CPU designed to be source-compatible with 8080 assembly language; this so-called "Personal Computer" eventually takes over the world.  Perhaps the least intelligent U.S. president in this millennium is inaugurated into office, and as a result the U.S. Congress accelerates federal Deficit Spending to a level unheard of since the end of the second world war.  That wacky national debt! 1982 – U.S. one-cent pieces stop being made out of copper.  If you make a deep scratch in one, you'll see a definitely non-copper-looking metal underneath, which is cheap zinc.  No U.S. coin is worth anywhere near its face value any more.  Those wacky tokens! 1984 – The Macintosh, the only serious rival to the PC architecture, sputters onto the scene; it borrows some ideas from Xerox PARC and eventually leads to MS Windows.  The U.S. Center for Disease Control announces that a newly-isolated virus called H.I.V. is the cause of AIDS.  Unfortunately, the arrogance behind their assertion fuels doubts and results in a kind of AIDS underground, most prominently exemplified by Peter Duesberg, which spends years asserting that HIV is not the cause of AIDS.  Those wacky T-cells! 1985 – "New Coke" appears, at about the same time the old radioactive water problems at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant are cleaned up.  (Coincidence?  Read the book!)  Those wacky Edsel-like marketing blunders! 1986 – Experimenters at the Soviet nuclear power plant in Chernobyl take all the control rods out of the reactor, making it go boom.  NASA plays catch-up with the Soviet space program in terms of body count; the last thing to go through Christa McAuliffe's mind is a heat-resistant tile (rim-shot).  Those wacky solid rocket booster rubber sealant rings! 1989 – The walls separating Federal Germany from Communist Germany come down.  The bricks are carefully preserved, though, so as to make nice souvenirs for people who want to shell out good money to own a broken brick.  Meanwhile, students on protest in Tianenmen Square get run over by tanks.  Those wacky most-favored-nation trading partners! 1991 – The U.S. and a few measly nations wage a lopsided war against Iraq.  Lots of people die.  The Soviet Union dissolves after a failed coup attempt, officially ending the Cold War.  (The military-industrial complex and the NASA bureaucracy that grew up because of the Cold War, however, do not end.)  Now freed from Communism, the Russians suffer a severe economic depression and blame it all on women.  Those wacky Russkies! 1992 – Dan Quayle misspells "potato" in front of a news camera crew.  And that's all any U.S. voter will ever remember about him from that moment onward.  Quayle may be stupid, but voters are stupider.  The 2-hour pilot episode of Babylon 5 premieres.  That wacky JMS! 1998 – The Useless Pages chooses That Wacky Millen[n]ium! as its Useless Site of the Week for the week of March 15th.  Those wacky Ides of March! 1999 – U.S. President Bill Clinton repeats Andrew Johnson's performance on the impeachment floor.  Then, on September 13th, Moonbase Alpha gets thrown into deep space by a nuclear lunar explosion.  That wacky Commander Koenig! 2000 – The last year of the 20th Century.  And the Second Millennium.  Once again, the Book of Revelation fails to come true, despite widespread predictions that it would.  (Never mind the fact that the Book of Revelation doesn't mention any specific dates.  That has never kept anyone from leaping to the unjustified conclusion that the End Is Near.)  The world does not come to an end, unless you count those few pieces of software out there that break when the year ends in "00", and the lack of popular acceptance of the new Sacagewia dollar coin in the U.S..  Those wacky doomsayers!   CREDIT TO   Roger M. Wilcox.  Among the many social changes wrought by modern communications, perhaps none is so striking as our new found ability to learn about and react to violence. In an earlier age, cities, countries, and even civilizations could be swallowed up in bloodshed without other parts of the world even knowing about it.Today, tragedies in the farthest corner of the globe are comprehensively reported and widely discussed. The system of attention and concern begins with the news media, which instantly bring us details of worldwide strife, but it doesn’t end there. The world now has a vast network of scholars, academic centers, and think tanks specializing in war, genocide, and repression. In addition, many government agencies and international bodies keep records on terrorism, refugees, and military forces. Information on violence is made available to everyone through an extensive publishing system that generates vast quantities of books, reports, and Web pages. The Library of Congress catalog, for example, already contains fifty-one entries on the Rwanda genocide, an episode that occurred just six years ago in an obscure corner of the world. Another illustration of the intensity of modern record keeping is a recent book on the “troubles” of Northern Ireland that lists the names and circumstances of death of all 3,637 victims of the political infighting since 1970 Today, tragedies in the farthest corner of the globe are comprehensively reported and widely discussed. The system of attention and concern begins with the news media, which instantly bring us details of worldwide strife, but it doesn’t end there. The world now has a vast network of scholars, academic centers, and think tanks specializing in war, genocide, and repression. In addition, many government agencies and international bodies keep records on terrorism, refugees, and military forces. Information on violence is made available to everyone through an extensive publishing system that generates vast quantities of books, reports, and Web pages. The Library of Congress catalog, for example, already contains fifty-one entries on the Rwanda genocide, an episode that occurred just six years ago in an obscure corner of the world. Another illustration of the intensity of modern record keeping is a recent book on the “troubles” of Northern Ireland that lists the names and circumstances of death of all 3,637 victims of the political infighting since 1970 The Berlin Wall was erected in the dead of night and for 28 years kept East Germans from fleeing to the West. Its destruction, which was nearly as instantaneous as its creation, was celebrated around the world. At the end of World War II, the Allied powers divided conquered Germany into four zones, each occupied by either the United States, Great Britain, France, or the Soviet Union (as agreed at the Potsdam Conference). The same was done with Germany's capital city, Berlin. As the relationship between the Soviet Union and the other three Allied powers quickly disintegrated, the cooperative atmosphere of the occupation of Germany turned competitive and aggressive. Although an eventual reunification of Germany had been intended, the new relationship between the Allied powers turned Germany into West versus East, democracy versus Communism. In 1949, this new organization of Germany became official when the three zones occupied by the United States, Great Britain, and France combined to form West Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany). The zone occupied by the Soviet Union quickly followed by forming East Germany (the German Democratic Republic). This same division into West and East occurred in Berlin. Since the city of Berlin had been situated entirely within the Soviet zone of occupation, West Berlin became an island of democracy within Communist East Germany. Within a short period of time after the war, living conditions in West Germany and East Germany became distinctly different. With the help and support of its occupying powers, West Germany set up a capitalist society and experienced such a rapid growth of their economy that it became known as the "economic miracle." With hard work, individuals living in West Germany were able to live well, buy gadgets and appliances, and to travel as they wished. Nearly the opposite was true in East Germany. Since the Soviet Union had viewed their zone as a spoil of war, the Soviets pilfered factory equipment and other valuable assets from their zone and shipped them back to the Soviet Union. When East Germany became its own country, it was under the direct influence of the Soviet Union and thus a Communist society was established. In East Germany, the economy dragged and individual freedoms were severely restricted. By the late 1950s, many people living in East Germany wanted out. No longer able to stand the repressive living conditions of East Germany, they would pack up their bags and head to West Berlin. Although some of them would be stopped on their way, hundreds of thousands of others made it across the border. Once across, these refugees were housed in warehouses and then flown to West Germany. Many of those who escaped were young, trained professionals. By the early 1960s, East Germany was rapidly losing both its labour force and its population. Having already lost 2.5 million people by 1961, East Germany desperately needed to stop this mass exodus. The obvious leak was the easy access East Germans had to West Berlin. With the support of the Soviet Union, there had been several attempts to simply take over West Berlin in order to eliminate this exit point. Although the Soviet Union even threatened the United States with the use of nuclear weapons over this issue, the United States and other Western countries were committed to defending West Berlin. Desperate to keep its citizens, East Germany decided to build a wall to prevent them from crossing the border. Amelia Earhart endures in the American consciousness as one of the world's most celebrated aviators. Amelia remains a symbol of the power and perseverance of American women, and the adventurous spirit so essential to the American persona. Born in Atchison, Kansas on July 24, 1897, the daughter of a railroad attorney, she spent her childhood in various towns, including Atchison and Kansas City, Kansas and Des Moines, Iowa. At age 19, Amelia attended Ogontz School near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Two years later, after visiting her sister, Muriel, in Toronto, Canada, Amelia felt compelled to leave school. Taking a course in Red Cross First Aid, Amelia enlisting as a nurse's aide at Spadina Military Hospital in Toronto, Canada, tending to wounded soldiers during World War I. The following year, Amelia enrolled as a premedical student at Columbia University in New York. Shortly thereafter, Amelia's parents insisted she move to California where they were living. Learning to fly in California, she took up aviation as a hobby, taking odd jobs to pay for her flying lessons. In 1922, with the financial help of her sister, Muriel, and her mother, Amy Otis Earhart, she purchased her first airplane, a Kinner Airster. Following her parent's divorce, Amelia moved back east where she was employed as a social worker in Denison House, in Boston, Massachusetts. It was there she was selected to be the first female passenger on a transatlantic flight, in 1928, by her future husband, the publisher, George Palmer Putnam. George had already published several writings by Charles Lindbergh, and he saw Amelia's flight as a bestselling story for his publishing house. With pilot Wilmer Stultz and mechanic Lou Gordon, Amelia flew from Newfoundland to Wales aboard the trimotor plane Friendship . Amelia's daring and courage were acclaimed around the world. Upon the flight's completion, Amelia wrote the book 20 Hours - 40 Minutes . In 1931, Amelia married George, but continued her aviation career under her maiden name. Amelia and George formed a successful partnership. George organized Amelia's flights and public appearances, and arranged for her to endorse a line of flight luggage and sports clothes. George also published two of her books, The Fun of It , and Last Flight . After a series of record-making flights, she became the first woman to make a solo transatlantic flight in 1932. That same year, Amelia developed flying clothes for the Ninety-Nines. Her first creation was a flying suit with loose trousers, a zipper top and big pockets. Vogue advertised it with a two-page photo spread. Then, she began designing her own line of clothes "for the woman who lives actively." She dressed according to the occasion whether it was flying or an elegant affair. She was most conscious of the image she projected. Several New York garment manufacturers made an exclusive Amelia Earhart line of clothes which were marketed in 30 cities, with one exclusive store in each city, such as Macy's in New York and Marshall Field's in Chicago. Amelia made great strides in opening the new field of aviation to women. In 1935, Amelia became the first person to fly from Hawaii to the American mainland. By doing so, Amelia became not only the first person to solo anywhere in the Pacific, but also the first person to solo both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Also in 1935, Amelia joined the faculty of Purdue University as a female career consultant. It was the purchase of a Lockheed Electra, through Purdue University, that enabled Amelia to fulfill her dream -- circumnavigating the globe by air. In June 1937, Amelia embarked upon the first around-the-world flight at the equator. On July 2, after completing nearly two-thirds of her historic flight -- over 22,000 miles -- Amelia vanished along with her navigator Frederick Noonan. They took off from Lae, New Guinea, bound for tiny Howland Island in the vast Pacific Ocean. The distance from Lae to Howland was about equal to a transcontinental flight across the U.S. A great naval, air and land search failed to locate Amelia, Noonan, or the aircraft, and it was assumed they were lost at sea. To this day, their fate is the subject of unending speculation. Some theorized the pair ran out of fuel looking for Howland Island, and had to ditch in the Pacific. Others thought they may have crash landed on another small island. Some speculated they were captured by the Japanese, accused of espionage, then held as bargaining chips in the event war erupted between the U.S. and Japan. The white youth of today have begun to react to the fact that the American Way of Life is a fossil of history. What do they care if their old baldheaded and crew-cut elders don't dig their caveman mops? They couldn't care less about the old, stiff-assed honkies who don't like their new dances: Frog, Monkey, Jerk, Swim, Watusi. All they know is that it feels good to swing to way-out body-rhythms instead of dragging across the dance floor like zombies to the dead beat of mind-smothered Mickey Mouse music. I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg. I wouldn't wish the eighties on anyone, it was the time when all that was rotten bubbled to the surface. If you were not at the receiving end of this mayhem you could be unaware of it. It was possible to live through the decade preoccupied by the mortgage and the pence you saved on your income tax. It was also possible for those of us who saw what was happening to turn our eyes in a different direction; but what, in another decade, had been a trip to the clap clinic was now a trip to the mortuary. I wouldn't wish the eighties on anyone, it was the time when all that was rotten bubbled to the surface. If you were not at the receiving end of this mayhem you could be unaware of it. It was possible to live through the decade preoccupied by the mortgage and the pence you saved on your income tax. It was also possible for those of us who saw what was happening to turn our eyes in a different direction; but what, in another decade, had been a trip to the clap clinic was now a trip to the mortuary.I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg.. We were that generation called silent, but we were silent neither, as some thought, because we shared the period's official optimism nor, as others thought, because we feared its official repression. We were silent because the exhilaration of social action seemed to many of us just one more way of escaping the personal, of masking for a while that dread of the meaningless which was man's fate..I confidently predict the collapse of capitalism and the beginning of history. Something will go wrong in the machinery that converts money into money, the banking system will collapse totally, and we will be left having to barter to stay alive. Those who can dig in their garden will have a better chance than the rest. I'll be all right; I've got a few veg. I wouldn't wish the eighties on anyone, it was the time when all that was rotten bubbled to the surface. If you were not at the receiving end of this mayhem you could be unaware of it. It was possible to live through the decade preoccupied by the mortgage and the pence you saved on your income tax. It was also possible for those of us who saw what was happening to turn our eyes in a different direction; but what, in another decade, had been a trip to the clap clinic was now a trip to the mortuary. The massive arms race of the 19th century finally culminated in a war which involved every powerful nation in the world: World War I - 1914 1918 (1914 1918). This war drastically changed the way war was fought, as new inventions such as machine guns, tanks, chemical weapons, and grenades created stalemates on the battlefield and millions of troops were killed with little progress made on either side. After more than four years of horrifying trench warfare in western Europe, and 20 million dead, those powers who had formed the Triple Entente (France, Britain, and Russia, later replaced by the United States and joined by Italy) emerged victorious over the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire). In addition to annexing much of the colonial possessions of the vanquished states, the Triple Entente exacted punitive restitution payments from their former foes, plunging Germany in particular into economic depression. The Russian Empire was plunged into revolution during the conflict and transitioned into the first ever communist state, and the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires were dismantled at the war's conclusion. World War I - 1914 1918 brought about the end of the royal and imperial ages of Europe and established the United States as a major world military power. Broadway, as the name implies, is a wide avenue in New York City. While New York has several other Broadways, in the context of the city it usually refers to the Manhattan street. It is the oldest north-south main thoroughfare in the city, dating to the first New Amsterdam settlement. The name Broadway is an English translation of the Dutch name, Breede weg. A stretch of Broadway is famous as the pinnacle of the American theater industry. Broadway originated as a Native American trail, called the Wickquasgeck Trail, which was carved into the brush land of Manhattan. This trail originally snaked through swamps and rocks along the length of Manhattan Island. Upon the arrival of the Dutch, the trail soon became the main road through the island from New Amsterdam at the southern tip. The Dutch explorer and entrepreneur David de Vries gives the first mention of it in his journal for the year 1642 ("the Wickquasgeck Road over which the Indians passed daily"). The Dutch named the road "Heerestraat". In the 18th century Broadway ended at the town commons north of Wall Street, where Eastern Post Road continued through the East Side and Bloomingdale Road the west side of the island. In the late 19th century the widened and paved part of Bloomingdale Road north of Columbus Circle was called "The Boulevard" but at the end of the century the whole old road (the Bloomingdale Road and what was previously called Broadway) was renamed to Broadway There are many places where you can go to have a great time but none of these will provide you hours of magic like Broadway. Now even though we have all at one time or another seen musical shows and plays on Broadway there must have been a time when Broadway was just a dream. To really know the Broadway history you may have to look in various places. You can however be assured that you will find rich facts which will make visiting this period in time quite fascinating. You will find out the time when Broadway was first created and the various plays which have been shown. You can find out the ways in which Broadway has managed to withstand the advances of technology. While you are looking through Broadway history you might also want to see the various plays which have help to keep the history of this place alive. Now even though this part of the Broadway history can be quite fascinating you should look at the different aspects of producing a show. This will illustrate just how well a place like Broadway has the capability of keeping audiences coming. One of the facts that you will find in the Broadway history files is the fact that Broadway has been around to help people understand and get involved in various national crisis issues. While the media dominates the mainstream of today’s entertainment there is still a place for Broadway entertainment. The many wonderful plays and musical shows that you will see are a testament to the popularity of Broadway. One tiny note which should be mentioned is that despite its popularity Broadway has never been able to regain the popularity that it enjoyed in the The 1920s. Even so you can still see many great plays which have been produced by a number of talented people. These people are ones like Oscar Hammerstein, George Gershwin, Richard Rodgers, and Cole Porter to name a few. 1920 Electric hand iron goes on sale in London. The tommy-gun is patented by John T Thompson. First ice cream on a stick is sold by Harry Burt at his Good Humour Bar. Swiss psychiatrist Hermann Rorschach devises "inkblot test." Caesar salad was invented in Tijuana, Mexico in the 1920s by Caesar Gardini. 1921 Johnson & Johnson launches the band-aid bandage. Avus Autobahn in Berlin is the first motorway. Californian medical student John Larson invents the polygraph (lie detector). Philo Farnsworth realized an idea for TV.1922 Husband-and-wife team De witt Wallace and Lila Acheson launch Reader's Digest. British Egyptologist Howard Carter discovers the tomb of Tutankamun, pharaoh 1316-1322BC. The snowmobile is built by 15-year old Joseph Bombardier in Quebec. The police car, called a bandit-chaser, is launched in Denver, Colorado, using a Cadilac engine.1923 Swiss John Harwood invents the self-winding watch. Jacob Schick patents the electric shaver. 16mm home movie camera is launched by Kodak. Frank Epperson invents the popsicle when he leaves his lemonade mix on a windowsill overnight.1924 First round-the-world flight. First Winter Olympics at Chamonix, Switzerland. Columbia Pictures and MGM founded. Spindryer launched by Kleenex. Caesar Cardini, owner of "Caesar's Palace" in New York invents Caesar salad. After World War II, most of the European-colonized world in Africa and Asia gained independence in a process of decolonization. (Most Latin American countries had gained their independence in the 19th century.) This, and the drain of the two world wars, caused Europe, which had been the pre-eminent continent for centuries, to lose much of its power. On the other hand, the world wars drew the United States into taking a position of major influence over world affairs. American culture spread around the world with the advent of Hollywood, Broadway, rock and roll, pop music, fast food, big-box stores, and the hip-hop lifestyle. After the Soviet Union collapsed under internal pressure in 1991, a ripple effect led to the dismantling of communist states across eastern Europe and their rocky transitions into market economies. By the end of the century, the United States was the undisputed economic, military, and cultural powerhouse of the world. It was allied with a still-powerful Europe, meaning that the West dominated the world at the end of the century as it had at its beginning. The Women's Royal Naval Service (WRNS; popularly and officially known as the Wrens) was the women's branch of the Royal Navy. Members included cooks, clerks, wireless telegraphists, and electricians, and a small number of air mechanics during the Second World War. It was formed in 1917 during the First World War, and by the end of the war had 5,500 members, 500 of them officers. It was disbanded in 1919. It was revived in 1939 at the beginning the Second World War, with an expanded list of allowable activities, including flying transport planes. At its peak in 1944 it had 75,000 people. During the war there were 100 deaths. One of the slogans used in recruiting posters was "Join the Wrens -- free a man for the fleet." It remained in existence after the war and was finally integrated into the regular Royal Navy in 1993. Women sailors are however still known as wrens in naval slang. Before 1993, all women in the Royal Navy were members of the WRNS except nurses, who joined (and still join) Queen Alexandra's Royal Naval Nursing Service, and medical and dental officers, who were commissioned directly into the Royal Navy, held RN ranks, and wore WRNS uniform with gold RN insignia. As the century began, Paris was the artistic capital of the world, where both French and foreign writers, composers and visual artists gathered. By the end of the century, the focal point of culture had moved to the United States, especially New York City and Los Angeles. Movies, music and the media had a major influence on fashion and trends in all aspects of life. As many movies and music originate from the United States, American culture spread rapidly over the world. After gaining political rights in the United States and much of Europe in the first part of the century, and with the advent of new birth control techniques women became more independent throughout the century. In classical music, composition branched out into many completely new domains, including dodecaphony, aleatoric and chance music, and minimalism. Electronic musical instruments were developed as well, vastly broadening the scope of sounds available to composers and performers. The jazz and rock and roll genres developed in the United States, and quickly became the dominant forms of popular music. Many other genres of pop music were born in the latter half of the century, such as heavy metal, punk, alternative rock, house, dance, reggae, soul, rap and hip-hop. 1957 USSR launches the Sputnik satellite into space. The EEC, European Economic Community, founded. The Medical Research Council links lung cancer with smoking. BMW launches the three-wheel Isetta 1958 Yves Saint Laurent holds his first fashion show in Paris. Danish toymakers Ole and Godtfred Kirk Christiansen launches Lego. Bill and Mark Richards of California invents the skateboard. Australian David Warren invents the black box flight recorder. NASA founded. Jack Kilby from Texas and Robert Noyce from California invents the integrated circuit at the same time! However, their idea is not new - Briton GW Dummer had suggested such a design in 1952. 1959 First pictures of dark side of the moon by Luna III. Fidel Castro takes power in Cuba. Alec Issigonis's Morris Mini is launched. Haloid launches the first copier, the "Xerox 914," able to reproduce documents at the press of a button. Briton Christopher Cockerell launches the hovercraft. Ermal Cleon Fraze invents the easy-open can. First Daytona 500 takes place, won by Lee Petty in an Oldsmobile. The Beatles form. Barbie doll debuts, after she started life years earlier as Lilli. 1960 US submarine Triton makes the first round the world undersea voyage. Two hackers from MIT create the first computer video game, Spacewar. "Ben Hur" is awarded 10 Oscars. Largest earthquake recorded in Chili. 1961 Yuri Gagarin the first man in space. A coup, backed by the CIA and President John F Kennedy, fails at the Bay of Pigs in Cuba. Russia starts building the Berlin Wall. Alan B. Shephard Jr is the first American in space. Bob Dylan plays his first gig, in New York. World Wildlife Fund founded. Weight Watchers founded by 97kg (214 lb) Jean Nidetch. 1962 The Beatles debut with "Love me do". John Glenn becomes first American to orbit earth in space. Dow Corp invent silicone breast implants. Ivan Sutherland demonstrates Sketchpad, the first programme to use windows, icons, and a light pen. In "the Cuban crisis," Khrushchev removes Russian nuclear missiles from Cuba, but only after Kennedy agrees to remove US missiles from Turkey. History gets a bad rap in school. Many of us have memories of history class being taught by rote memorization of facts and dates and names with little or no application to our daily lives. No wonder its considered boring and dull. Any time we are expected to simply recite and repeat bare data for the sole purpose of passing a test, that information is unlikely to have any lasting change or effect on our lives. In order to use the valuable lessons that history can teach us, it needs to be presented to children (and adults!) in a way that brings it alive and connects to our present day way of life. History has many valuable lessons for us that can spur us on to greater achievement and accomplishments, but only if we can find a way to teach it to our children in a way that will get them excited and revved up. If a child is taught that the great discoveries and milestones in our history shaped our culture and our world, and that these discoveries were made by ordinary people JUST LIKE THEM, they can be inspired to go and achieve huge milestones and accomplishments of their own. If a child learns the history of the civil rights movement, in a way that shows and creates empathy for the very real feelings of the people that lived and still do live with such terrible injustice and intolerance, cruelty and ignorance, she can learn to find ways to end the rest of the racism in America. The lives of leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr. are taught in history classes, but usually not to the depth that can create real change. If a child could be shown the creation of prejudice by a class-based society when he is seven, eight or nine years old, before he has been exposed to a lifetime of bigotry, he could readily accept the faulty thinking involved and prevent it from passing on to his generation. ? If a child learns the truth of wars like Vietnam he could learn that war really doesn't solve a thing. Although we salve our egos with noble causes like ending Communism, ending slavery, ending terroristic rule, most wars are caused by power, hatred, and greed. If a child learns that these are really the reasons that thousands and thousands of soldiers and civilians die, he might learn to live a life free of these crippling, deadly emotions. If all of our children in third, fourth and fifth grade could learn to live without a need for power, a hatred of others and a greed that drives him to do unthinkable things, how might that change our world in 25 years? Radio Free Europe begins beaming world news to listeners behind the Iron Curtain from an operations base at Munich. Gen. Lucius D. Clay has helped start the organization and is chairman of the board; he asks for private contributions to help fund its broadcasts, but nearly all of its support comes from the CIA. Pacifica Radio has its beginnings in the FM station KPFA that goes on the air at Berkeley, Calif., April 15. Kansas City-born pacifist Lewis Hill, 29, spent the war in a camp for conscientious objectors; moved from Washington, D.C., to the Bay Area 3 years ago; and pioneers in listener-sponsored radio, with on-air pledge drives in place of commercial sponsors to free it from dependence on advertisers who might object to some of its views. The station is housed in a Victorian house, where on-air hosts must sometimes speak over the sound of bathroom plumbing noises By late 1961, the Viet Cong had won control of virtually half of South Vietnam with little local opposition. The United States increased its military and economic aid to combat the Communist threat and at the same time put pressure on President Diem for democratic reforms. In Apr., 1961, Diem was reelected president, but many voters boycotted the election. Resentment against the government was dramatized by the Buddhist crisis, which erupted in May, 1963, as a result of government persecution. A number of self-immolations by Buddhist monks followed. Large antigovernment demonstrations provoked police shootings, mass arrests, and more repressive government measures. These actions, along with the increasing loss of territory to the Viet Cong, prompted Diem's own military commanders to resort to a coup (Nov. 1, 1963), in which Diem and his brother, Ngo Dinh Nhu (who headed the secret police), were murdered. A period of great political instability followed, with frequent changes in government, mounting disorders, and continued religious unrest (both Buddhist and Catholic). THEODORE ROOSEVELT 1901-1909 With the assassination of President McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, not quite 43, became the youngest President in the Nation's history. He brought new excitement and power to the Presidency, as he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy. He took the view that the President as a "steward of the people" should take whatever action necessary for the public good unless expressly forbidden by law or the Constitution." I did not usurp power," he wrote, "but I did greatly broaden the use of executive power." Roosevelt's youth differed sharply from that of the log cabin Presidents. He was born in New York City in 1858 into a wealthy family, but he too struggled--against ill health--and in his triumph became an advocate of the strenuous life. In 1884 his first wife, Alice Lee Roosevelt, and his mother died on the same day. Roosevelt spent much of the next two years on his ranch in the Badlands of Dakota Territory. There he mastered his sorrow as he lived in the saddle, driving cattle, hunting big game--he even captured an outlaw. On a visit to London, he married Edith Carow in December 1886. During the Spanish-American War, Roosevelt was lieutenant colonel of the Rough Rider Regiment, which he led on a charge at the battle of San Juan. He was one of the most conspicuous heroes of the war. Boss Tom Platt, needing a hero to draw attention away from scandals in New York State, accepted Roosevelt as the Republican candidate for Governor in 1898. Roosevelt won and served with distinction. As President, Roosevelt held the ideal that the Government should be the great arbiter of the conflicting economic forces in the Nation, especially between capital and labor, guaranteeing justice to each and dispensing favours to none. Back then most of the clothes for families were made by the family mom.  Soon they were fitted and made by tailors, though.  By the end of this decade almost everyone was buying already made clothes.  The kinds of clothes that a woman would wear were usually skirts that came down to the ground.  Even if she was doing "unladylike" things, such as farming or bicycling.  Another thing that they wore were high, buttoned shoes.  Another popular type of clothes for a woman was whale bone corsets, and hats with festive plumage and decorations.  The men's suits were almost always dark and heavy.  In the summer, out in the country a man might wear white flannel, but back then there was no such thing as a "summer weight suit".  The shirts had high collars and detachable cuffs for easier washing.  Almost every man wore a hat.  Farmers wore straw hats, rich people wore silk hats, and middle-class men wore derbies.  So, as you can see the dress code back then was strict. 1920-1929 British reinforcements arrive in Ireland May 15 to support His Majesty's forces against attacks by Sinn Fein political militants who continue resistance to British regulars and to the new "Black and Tans"—Royal Irish Constabulary recruits whose khaki tunics and trousers and dark green caps are almost black. Nicknamed after a familiar breed of Irish hound, the Black and Tans have been helping the British suppress Irish nationalists since March and take reprisals for nationalist acts of terrorism (see 1919). They arrest Countess Markievicz September 26 and hold her in Mountjoy Jail. Two agitators for Irish independence die in an English prison after fasting for 75 days in a protest demonstration. Cork Lord Mayor Terence James MacSwiney, 41, collapses on the 15th day, physicians are unable to save him, and his death in October produces widespread rioting. The rebels shoot 14 British spies November 21, the Black and Tans retaliate that afternoon by firing at random during a football match at Croke Park, killing 12 women and men (including one of the players) and wounding 60. The countess is court-martialed December 2 and 3 on charges that she organized the Fianna in 1909. The Government of Ireland Act passed by Parliament December 23 gives Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland the right to elect separate parliaments of their own with each to retain representatives in the British Parliament at London The U.S. population reaches 105.7 million. Urban residents total 54 million, up from 1.4 million in 1840, and for the first time exceed rural residents (51.5 million), but one in every three Americans still lives on a farm, a proportion that will drop in the next 50 years to one in 22. The world population reaches 1.86 billion. A new French legal ruling classes contraception with abortion and makes anything having to do with birth control illegal. The action is designed to compensate for the population loss experienced in the Great War. Severe fines and prison sentences are ordered for anyone who administers or receives an abortion, but the law will be widely flouted. The number of illegal abortions will climb to an estimated 500,000 per year within 50 years, with bungled abortions causing an estimated 500 deaths per year. "Any Protestant woman in her senses would object to marrying a Roman Catholic," writes Marie Stopes October 18 in a letter to an Irish Catholic. "They prohibit the use of proper hygienic Birth Control methods preferring that a woman's health should be entirely ruined and that she should bring forth feeble, dying, or imbecile infants rather than that proper hygienic methods should be used." 1940-1949 "We have evidence that in recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR," President Truman announces September 23. A specially modified U.S. B-29 flying off Siberia's Kamchatka Peninsula has picked up traces of microscopic particles that contained disintegrating nuclei, and scientists have determined that the invisible grains of matter caught in the plane's sniffer were part of a highly radioactive, eastward-drifting cloud produced by a device exploded August 29 in a desert about 100 miles south of Semipalatinsk. Physicist Igor V. Kurchatov, now 47, has headed the Soviet team that developed the Soviet bomb (see 1945); his team includes chiefly Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, 28, who won a doctorate at age 26, and 1925 German Nobel laureate Gustav Hertz, 62, whose uncle Heinrich Hertz pioneered the wireless in 1887. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reacts to news of the Soviet nuclear explosion by advancing the hands of its "Doomsday Clock" from 7 minutes before midnight to 3 minutes 1960-1969 Four black college freshmen stage a sit-in February 1 at a whites-only F. W. Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College freshmen David Richmond, Joseph McNeil, Franklin McCain, and Ezell Blair Jr. occupy stools at the lunch counter, a white waitress refuses to take their order; white counter manager Clarence L. Harris, 55, gives orders that no other action be taken; and the youths sit for more than an hour before Harris closes for the day. Within 2 days 80 students have joined the protest, and by week's end some 200 men and women are spelling each other at the counter, refusing to be provoked by white youths who come in from outlying areas to incite violence. Some Bennett College students, including government president Gloria E. Brown, 21, participate in passive protest against discrimination, and Brown will later say, "I was scared. We knew what could happen to us. We knew it was a time when we were being watched very, very carefully." The sit-in spreads within 2 weeks to 11 cities in Alabama, Virginia, and three other states. The Congress of Racial Equality and NAACP call for a nationwide boycott of F. W. Woolworth in March. Atlanta civil rights activist Ruby (née Rubye) Doris Smith, 18, is arrested with others after a student lunch-counter sit-in protesting Jim Crow laws. She and three others (the "Rockville Four") refuse to be released on bail, preferring to serve jail sentences that will draw attention to their cause. Ella Baker quits the SCLC to work in a YWCA regional student office, using it to recruit backers and student members of a new organization. Support groups for Greensboro's sit-in demonstrators organize at 21 northern schools, including Harvard, Yale, Princeton, the University of Chicago, City College of New York, and the University of California, Berkeley. A race riot at Biloxi, Miss., April 25 is the worst in the state's history; it ends only after eight blacks and two whites have been shot dead. Popular songs: "Yellow Submarine," "Nowhere Man," and "Eleanor Rigby" by John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles (who give their last public concert August 29 in San Francisco's Candlestick Park); "Sunshine Superman" and "Mellow Yellow" by Scottish rock singer Donovan Leitch; Aftermath (album) by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones includes the single "Paint It Black"; "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago" by the British rock group the Yardbirds (Keith Reif, 33; Eric Clapton [originally Eric Patrick Clapp], 31; Chris Dreja, 29; Jim McCarty, 33; Jeff Beck, 32; and Jimmy Page, 32); "If I Were a Carpenter" by Tim Hardin; "Scarborough Fair—Canticle" by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel; "Alice's Restaurant" by folksinger Arlo Guthrie, 20, who has written the song of social protest to promote a Stockbridge, Mass., eating establishment/commune run by Alice and Ray Brock, two of his former schoolteachers, in an abandoned church; "Monday, Monday" and "California Dreamin'" by South Carolina-born singer-songwriter John E. A. Phillips, 30, of The Mamas and The Papas (Phillips, Arlington, Va.-born Cass Elliott [originally Ellen Naomi Cohen], 22, Dennis Doherty, 24, Holly Michelle Gilham, 22); Jefferson Airplane Takes Off (album) by the Jefferson Airplane (Chicago-born singer Grace Slick [née Wing], 22, guitarist-banjoist Paul Kantner, 24, bass guitarist Jack Casady, 22, guitarist Jorma Kankonen 25, drummer Spencer Dryden, 23), a rock group that has been playing at San Francisco's Fillmore Auditorium; "Summer in the City" by New York-born rock-folk singer-songwriter John B. Sebastian, 22, Mark Sebastian, and Joe Butler of the Lovin' Spoonful; "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" by Oklahoma-born songwriter Lee Hazelwood, 36, who has written it for Nancy Sinatra; "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" by Italian composer Pietro Donaggio, English lyrics by British TV producer Vicki Wickham (who has adapted the Italian lyrics of Vittorio Pollavigini); "Guantanamero" by Pete Seeger and Hector Angulo, lyrics from a poem by the 19th-century Cuban patriot José Martí; Reflections in a Crystal Wind (album) by Richard and Mimi Fariña; "The Ballad of the Green Berets" by Carlsbad, N.M.-born singer-songwriter Barry Sadler, 26, who has served as a U.S. Special Forces medic in Vietnam; "Winchester Cathedral" by English songwriter Geoffrey Stephen; "Alfie" by Burt Bacharach, lyrics by Hal David (title song for film); "Georgy Girl" by Tom Springfield, lyrics by English actor-singer Jim Dale, 31 (title song for film); "Born Free" by John Barry, lyrics by Don Black (title song for film); "Strangers in the Night" by Bert Kaempfert, lyrics by Eddie Snyder (for the film A Man Could Get Killed); "Happy Together" by Alan Lee Gordon and Garry Bonner; "Good Vibrations" by Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys; "Society's Child" by New York songwriter-singer Janis Ian (Janis Eddy Fink), 15, is about a white girl and a black boy; More than a New Discovery (album) by New York singer-songwriter Laura Nyro (originally Nigro), 19, includes "Wedding Bell Blues," "When I Die," and "Stoney End" that will be hits for The Fifth Dimension and Blood Sweat and Tears (both rock groups) and for Barbra Streisand; "Don't Come Home a-Drinkin'" by Loretta Lynn; "If Teardrops Were Silver" by Jean Shepard; North Dakota country singer Lynn Anderson, 18, records "Ride, Ride, Ride" by her mother, Liz, 36, and joins Lawrence Welk's weekly TV show that will keep her on the air until 1968. The electric guitar gains prominence in England, where Seattle-born rock musician Johnny Allen "Jimi" Hendrix, 23, begins to exploit the full potential of the relatively new instrument. Hendrix uses imagination, virtuosity, invention, and sexual pantomime in his stage appearances. 1980-1989 U.S. personal bankruptcies jump to 367,000, up from 209,500 last year. A new federal bankruptcy law that went into effect October 1, 1979, enables individuals to protect much more of their property against seizure by creditors. Some 36 million Americans receive monthly Social Security checks, 26 million Medicare benefits, 22 million Medicaid benefits, 18 million food stamps, 15 million veterans' benefits, 11 million Aid to Families with Dependent Children funds; millions of students receive federal scholarship aid; 27 million children benefit from school lunch programs, and most of these categories overlap. Ronald Reagan promises to reduce the size of government. A U.S. recession in the second quarter cuts real output by 9.9 percent; double-digit inflation continues, fueling opposition to President Carter. Ronald Reagan campaigns on what his running mate George H. W. Bush has called "voodoo economics" (based on supply-side ideology) during the primary elections, but Bush drops his opposition at the Republican Convention. The U.S. economy is on the rise again by fall, but prices have risen 12.4 percent by year's end as compared to 13.3 percent last year; some countries have triple-digit inflation. British unemployment rises above 2 million for the first time since 1935 (when the workforce was one-third smaller) as recession depresses the economies of many countries. Unemployment reaches nearly 2.5 million by year's end, up from 800,000 early in 1975, and industrial production falls 5 percent as the government's monetarist policies try to stem a new burst of inflation, which again climbs above 20 percent, double the rate when Thatcher took office. West Germany has a currency deficit of $14.2 billion, up from $5.4 billion last year (there was a surplus of nearly $9 billion in 1978) as energy costs climb, interest rates rise, and consumer spending eases. Imports grow more costly as the mark falls 15 percent in relation to the U.S. dollar. Popular songs: "Wind Beneath My Wings" by Hollywood songwriters Larry Henley and Jeff Silbar; Tender Love (album) by Indianapolis-born rhythm & blues songwriter-crooner Babyface (Kenneth Edmonds), 30, includes the singles "It's No Crime" and "Whip Appeal" Don't Be Cruel (album) and "My Prerogative" by Bobby Brown; "Oh Mercy" by Bob Dylan; Hangin' Tough (album) by New Kids on the Block (a quintet from Boston); Forever Your Girl (album) by former Los Angeles Lakers cheerleader Paula Abdul, 26, whose well-choreographed music video singles "Straight Up" and "Cold Hearted" help her debut album sell more than 11 million copies worldwide (her 1990 income, mostly from endorsements for Reebok and Diet Coke, will be $23 million); The Raw and the Cooked (album) by Fine Young Cannibals; The Traveling Wilburys (album) by The Traveling Wilburys; Let Me Tell You about Love (album) by Carl Perkins, now 57; Girl You Know It's True (album) by Milli Vanilli; "Look Away" by the rock band Chicago; Nick of Time (album) by Bonnie Raitt includes her own song "The Road's My Middle Name" as well as John Hiatt's "Thing Called Love" and Bonnie Hayes's "Have a Heart" (Raitt has quit drinking and calls it her "first sober album"); Flowers in the Dirt (album) by Paul McCartney includes "Figure of Eight" and "We Got Married"; State of the Heart (album) by Mary-Chapin Carpenter includes "How Do," "Never Had It So Good," "Something of a Dream," and the video favorite "This Shirt;" Fear of a Black Planet (album) by the 7-year-old Long Island rap group Public Enemy (Chuck D [originally Carlton Ridehour], 29; Flavor Flav [originally William Jonathan Drayton, Jr.,], 30; Professor Griff [Richard Griffin], 29; Terminator X [Norman Rogers], 23) includes the single "Fight the Power;" All Hail the Queen (album) by Newark, N.J.-born rap artist Queen Latifah (Dana Elaine Owens), 18. 1905 Jan 2, Sir Michael Tippett, British composer, was born in London. His childhood was divided among England, France and Italy. His work included the oratorio Jan 9, (Old Style calendar) On what would become known as "Bloody Sunday," Russian Orthodox Father George Gapon led a procession in St. Petersburg of some 200,000 who were marching on the Winter Palace to present their grievances to Czar Nicholas. Troops on the scene panicked, firing into the crowd and killing hundreds, thus igniting the Revolution of 1905. Across Russia, government officials were attacked, peasants seized private estates and workers’ strikes virtually paralyzed the economy. In St. Petersburg, a council (soviet) of workers’ delegates threatened to take over the government.  Nicholas consented to the adoption of a constitution and election of a parliament (Duma). The first Duma met in 1906. Jan 25, Largest diamond, Cullinan (3106 carets), was found in South Africa. Feb 8, A cyclone hit Tahiti and adjacent islands killing some 10,000 people. Apr 19, Tom Hopkinson, British writer, was born. May 28, A Japanese fleet under Adm. Heihachiro Togo defeated a Russian fleet under Adm. Zinovi Petrovich Rozhestvensky in the Battle of Tsushima. The Russian fleet lost 22 ships out of 38 to the Japanese in the Battle of Tsushima Straits. In 2002 Constantine Pleshakov authored "The Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima." Jun 7, Norway declared independence from Sweden. Their union had been in effect in since 1814 Jun 29, Archibald Wright “Moonlight” Graham (1876-1965) of the New York Giants played for two innings in right field in his only professional baseball game on this day and was promptly forgotten until 1989 when the movie “Field of Dreams” was released. “Moonlight” never got to bat, instead he was left on deck, a late substitute in a lopsided 11-1 win. Graham completed his medical degree from the University of Maryland in 1908. He obtained his license the following year and began practicing medicine in Chisholm, Minnesota. Jan 1, Kim Philby was born. He became a ringleader of a group of upper crust Englishmen who entered public service or, in many cases, the British Secret Service, then spied for the Soviets. Philby got away and spent his last years in Moscow. Feb 6, Eva Braun, mistress (Adolph Hitler), was born. 1936 Jan 14, American explorer Lincoln Ellsworth and Canadian pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon were rescued by the research ship Discovery II. The pair had made the first flight across Antarctica, 2,300 miles from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea, landed when their plane's engine faltered, and waited in the previously constructed shelter at Little America for a month to be picked up. After his earlier attempts to cross Antarctica failed, Ellsworth set out with Hollick-Kenyon in the monoplane Polar Star and succeeded. Part of the area that Ellsworth and Hollick-Kenyon flew over in 1935 has been named the Ellsworth Highlands. 1943 Jan 9, Soviet planes dropped leaflets on the surrounded Germans in Stalingrad requesting their surrender with humane terms. The Germans refused. 1943 Jan 14, Roosevelt, Churchill, and DeGaulle met at Casablanca, Morocco, to discuss the direction of the war. The Casablanca Conference, a pivotal 10-day meeting during WWII between U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, determined unconditional surrender would be the only basis of negotiations with the Axis. Roosevelt and Churchill also pledged maximum aid to the Soviet Union and China in the war 1966        Jan 1, Simon & Garfunkel's "Sounds of Silence" reached #1. 1966        Jan 10, In Mississippi Vernon Dahmer, a revered civil rights leader, was killed in a firebombing. In 1998 Klansmen Sam Bowers (1924-2006), Deavours Nix  and Charles Noble  were arrested for the murder. 8 men in 2 cars loaded with shotguns and 12 gallons of gasoline attacked Dahmer’s home. Billy Roy Pitts participated and later testified how Bowers had called meetings and presided over the planning of the bombing. Bowers was convicted in his 5th trial and sentenced to life in prison where he died. 1966        Jan 12, "Batman" with Adam West & Burt Ward premiered on ABC TV. 1966        Jan 31, U.S. planes resumed bombing of North Vietnam after a 37-day pause. 1966        Feb 1, Nicholas Piantanida, set a balloon flight record & died during the descent. 1966        Feb 3, The Soviet probe Luna 9 became the first manmade object to make a soft landing on the moon. 1966        Feb 4, Gilbert H. Grosvenor , president National Geographic Society, died. 1966        Feb 9, Sophie Tucker  Russian-US singer, actress (My Yiddish Mama), died. 1966        Feb 10, Protester David Miller was convicted of burning his draft card. 1966        Feb 12, The South Vietnamese won two big battles in the Mekong Delta. In Vietnam's Mekong Delta, Navy SEALs were the military's eyes and ears, providing vital intelligence on enemy operations. 1966        Feb 16, The World Council of Churches being held in Geneva, urged immediate peace in Vietnam. Vietnam was the war that five presidents "owned"--and yet no president "owned." 1986          Jan 1, Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy threatened to retaliate if attacked as the United States built its strength in the Mediterranean . 1986        Jan 2, Bill Veeck  former baseball owner, died in Chicago. He is remembered for his well-publicized stunts and promotional gimmicks, including an exploding scoreboard and a midget pinch-hitter. 1986        Jan 4, Christopher Isherwood, British born author, died of prostate cancer in Santa Monica, Ca. He was best know for his 1935 semi-autobiographical "The Berlin Stories," which was the basis for the 1966 musical Cabaret and made into a 1972 film. His life-partner was painter Don Bachardy. His "Diaries: Volume II, 1939-1960" were published in 1997. In 2005 Peter Parker authored “Isherwood: A Life Revealed.” 1986        Jan 6, In Johannesburg, South Africa, Impala Platinum fired 20,000 black mine workers. 1986        Jan 7, US president Reagan proclaimed economic sanctions against Libya. 1986        Jan 12, Space shuttle Columbia blasted off with a crew that included the first Hispanic-American in space, Dr. Franklin R. Chang-Diaz. 1986        Jan 13, In Guatemala just before turning over power to Pres. Cerezo, Gen. Humberto Mejia Victores issued a blanket self-amnesty for acts committed during the 3-year rule of the military government. 1986        Jan 14, Donna Reed (b.1921), actress (Donna Reed Show, Dallas), died of cancer in Beverly Hills, Ca., at age 64. 1986        Jan 14, In Guatemala, Vinicio Cerezo (b.1942) began serving as president. 1986        Jan 17, President Reagan approved a finding that authorized the sale of weapons to Iran through third parties 1986        Jan 20, The United States observed the first federal holiday in honor of slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. 1986        Jan 20, Britain and France announced plans to build the Channel Tunnel. 1986        Jan 22, The body of Yvonne Coleman  was found in a park in Inglewood, California. In 2008 DNA evidence linked Michael Hughes , already in jail for 4 other murders, to her murder and 3 others. 1999  Jan 31, In Florida the Denver Broncos, led by quarterback John Elway, beat the Atlanta Falcons 34-19 in Super Bowl XXXIII. There were 127.5 million viewers for Fox Broadcasting. 1999  Jan 31, Scientists from the University of Alabama at Birmingham reported that the AIDS virus originated from a subspecies of chimpanzee in western Africa and that it jumped to humans in the last 50 years. 1999  Jan 31, Kofi Annan called on large corporations to enact and uphold standards of conduct for themselves and sub-contractors for investments and operations in poor countries. 1999  Jan 31, From Azerbaijan it was reported that Vafa Gulkuzade, chief foreign affairs advisor, had asserted that the country needed a military protector. He said Turkish or American military bases would be welcomed. 1999  Jan, The US Catholic Family Radio Network began broadcasting in response to programming dominated by evangelical Protestants. The death of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in a small clash in South-east Bolivia is somewhat ironic. A man hailed as the master guerrilla strategist of the Cuban revolution has met his death at the hands of the ill considered troops of a Bolivian dictatorship. In his 1960 guerrilla manual, Guevara wrote: "Given suitable operating terrain, land hunger, enemy injustices, etc., a hard core of thirty to fifty men is, in my opinion, enough to initiate armed revolutions in any Latin- American country." Born in 1928 in Rosario, Argentina, Guevara opted early for a life of adventure and took up sport in an effort to overcome his enduring asthma. His father - who told me In July in Buenos Aires that he had no idea of his son's whereabouts - found that they were both independently involved in anti-Peron conspiracies in the early 1950s. By then Guevara had already qualified as a doctor and had travelled through Chile and Peru and had been thrown out of Colombia and Venezuela for his political activism. Sought refuge Forced to flee from Argentina by Peron's secret police, Guevara was compromised in a revolt in La Paz, Bolivia, and moved to Guatemala, which was then being governed by the Popular Front President, Arbenz Guzman. He took refuge in the Argentine Embassy when the CIA-sponsored coup by Castillo Armas overthrew Arbenz and the experience undoubtedly ripened his anti-Americanism. In Mexico City he was introduced to Fidel Castro through Castro's brother, Raul. On December 2, 1956, Guevara landed with Castro's expedition on the shores of Batista's Cuba and the happiest period of his life commenced. Starting simply as the party's doctor, he gradually became its ideologist, tactician, and Castro's indispensable lieutenant. He was the strategist of the battle of Santa Clara, which precipitated Batista's flight, and was put in charge of the fortress of Havana after its capture. Later he was named Chief of Education in the Revolutionary Army and in November, 1959, he became President of the National Bank and subsequently Minister of Industry. Among his books are "Guerrilla Warfare" (1960), accepted as a classic, and " Passages of Revolutionary War" (1963) which contains his personal impressions of the Sierra Maestra. In his writing he concentrated on the moral requirements of a revolutionary and hoped that Cuba would see the dawn of a "new man" such as was dreamt of in 1917. Rumours of disagreements with Castro grew. After months of mystery Castro announced that Guevara, who was known to have a garibaldian yearning to liberate the entire Latin American land mass, had resigned Cuban citizenship and left for "a new field of battle in the struggle against imperialism". Like an elusive Pimpernel Guevara was thereafter reported anywhere from the Congo to Santo Domingo via Vietnam. His presence with the Bolivian guerrillas was affirmed by Regis Debray and first denied then affirmed by the Bolivian Government. He had written his own epitaph: " Wherever death may surprise us, let it be welcome, provided that this our battle cry may have reached some receptive ear and another hand may be extended to wield our weapons." Theodore Roosevelt (October 27, 1858–January 6, 1919) was born in New York into one of the old Dutch families which had settled in America in the seventeenth century. At eighteen he entered Harvard College and spent four years there, dividing his time between books and sport and excelling at both. After leaving Harvard he studied in Germany for almost a year and then immediately entered politics. He was elected to the Assembly of New York State, holding office for three years and distinguishing himself as an ardent reformer. In 1884, because of ill health and the death of his wife, Roosevelt abandoned his political work for some time. He invested part of the fortune he had inherited from his father in a cattle ranch in the Badlands of Dakota Territory, expecting to remain in the West for many years. He became a passionate hunter, especially of big game, and an ardent believer in the wild outdoor life which brought him health and strength. In 1886 Roosevelt returned to New York, married again, and once more plunged into politics. President Harrison, after his election in 1889, appointed Roosevelt as a member of the Civil Service Commission of which he later became president. This office he retained until 1895 when he undertook the direction of the Police Department of New York City. In 1897 he joined President McKinley's administration as assistant secretary of the Navy. While in this office he actively prepared for the Cuban War, which he saw was coming, and when it broke out in 1898, went to Cuba as lieutenant colonel of a regiment of volunteer cavalry, which he himself had raised among the hunters and cowboys of the West. He won great fame as leader of these «Rough-Riders», whose story he told in one of his most popular books. Elected governor of the state of New York in 1898, he invested his two-year administration with the vigorous and businesslike characteristics which were his hallmark. He would have sought re-election in 1900, since much of his work was only half done, had the Republicans not chosen him as their candidate for the second office of the Union. He held the vice-presidency for less than a year, succeeding to the presidency after the assassination of President McKinley on September 14, 1901. In 1904 Roosevelt was elected to a full term as president. Rock and roll (also known as rock 'n' roll is a form of music that evolved in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to the rest of the world. Classic rock and roll is played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit. In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the mid to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a boogie woogie blues rhythm with an accentuated back beat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum. The massive popularity and eventual worldwide view of rock and roll gave it an unprecedented social impact. Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and in the new medium of television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It later spawned the various sub-genres of what is now called simply 'rock music'. The immediate origins of rock and roll lie in the late The 1940s and early The 1950s through a mixing of the genres of blues, country, R&B, folk and gospel music. Alan Freed, a disc jockey based in Cleveland, Ohio is generally credited with first using the phrase rock and roll in 1951, though the phrase was in constant use at time in lyrics of R&B songs of the time. The phrase rocking and rolling has its origins in slang for dancing or having sex. Many early rock and roll hits were re-writes of earlier R&B or blues songs. Black music was still taboo on radio stations, so producers and artists began making white versions of black music. In 1955, Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock became the first rock and roll song to top the charts. The song became one of the biggest hits in history, and hordes of teenagers began flocking to hear Haley and his band The Comets. Blues would continue to inspire rock for decades with great acts like Cream, The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin drawing their inspiration from musicians like Robert Johnson and Skip James. Rock and Roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes and language. It also appeared at a time when racial tensions were coming to a head in the United States, the music contributed to the civil rights movement as both black and white teenagers followed the music. It was a fresh sound which spawned fresh ideas and approaches which paved the way for the swinging sixties. Adventures of Captain Marvel (1941) is a twelve-chapter film serial directed by John English and William Witney for Republic Pictures, adapted from the popular Captain Marvel comic book character then appearing in Fawcett Comics publications. It starred Tom Tyler (who also played The Phantom) in the title role of Captain Marvel and Frank Coghlan, Jr. as his alter ego, Billy Batson. This serial was the twenty-first of the sixty-six serials produced by Republic and their first comic book adaptation (not counting comic strips such as Dick Tracy). Spy Smasher, also based on a Fawcett character, would follow in 1942. This serial was the first film adaptation of a comic book superhero. That claim would have gone to the previous serial, Mysterious Doctor Satan, which was intended to have been a Superman serial until National Comics (now DC Comics) pulled out of negotiations. National Comics unsuccessfully attempted to sue Republic for producing a Captain Marvel serial At the start of the period, Britain was the world's most powerful nation. However, its economy was ruined by World War I, and its empire began to shrink, producing a growing power vacuum in Europe. Fascism, a movement which grew out of post-war angst and accelerated by the Great Depression of the 1930s, gained momentum in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s, finally culminating in World War II (1939 1945), sparked off by Nazi Germany's aggressive expansion at the expense of its neighbours. Meanwhile, Japan had rapidly industrialized and transformed itself into an aggressive and technologically-advanced industrial power. Its aggressive expansion into eastern Asia and the Pacific Ocean brought the United States into World War II. Germany was defeated after pushed by the Soviet Union to the east and the D-Day invasion of the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Free France from the west. The war was ended with the dropping of two devastating atomic bombs on Japan. Japan has since transitioned into one of the most pacifistic countries on the planet, building a powerful economy based on consumer goods and trade. Germany was divided between the western powers and the Soviet Union; all areas recaptured by the Soviet Union (East Germany and eastward) were essentially transitioned into Soviet puppet states under communist rule. Meanwhile, western Europe was revitalized by the American Marshall Plan and made a quick economic recovery, becoming major allies of the United States under capitalist economies and free governments. The largest and most devastating war ever fought, World War II - 1939 1945 claimed the lives of about 60 million people. When the conflict ended in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as the two most powerful nations, and while they had been allies in the war, they soon became hostile to one other as the competing ideologies of capitalism and communism occupied Europe, divided by the Iron Curtain and the dreaded Berlin Wall. The military alliances headed by these nations (NATO in North America and western Europe; the Warsaw Pact in eastern Europe) were prepared to wage total war with each other throughout the Cold War (1947 1991). The period was marked by a new arms race, and nuclear weapons, the most devastating ones yet to have been developed, were produced in their tens of thousands, sufficient to end most life on the planet had they ever been used. This is believed by some historians to have staved off an inevitable war between the two, as neither could win if their full nuclear arsenals were unleashed upon each other. This was known as mutually assured destruction (MAD). Although the Soviet Union and the United States never directly entered conflict with each other, several proxy wars, such as the Korean War (1950 1953) and the Vietnam War (1957 1975) were waged to contain the spread of Communism. After decades of struggle by the women's suffrage movement, all western countries gave women the right to vote. Rising nationalism and increasing national awareness were among the many causes of World War I (1914–1918), the first of two wars to involve many major world powers including Germany, France, Italy, Japan, Russia/USSR, the United States and the British Empire. World War I led to the creation of many new countries, especially in Eastern Europe. At the time it was said by many to be the "war to end all wars". Warfare in the early 20th Century (1914–1918)Clockwise from top: front line Trenches, a British Mark I Tank crossing a trench, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the battle of the Dardanelles, a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. Warfare in the early 20th Century (1914–1918) Clockwise from top: front line Trenches, a British Mark I Tank crossing a trench, the Royal Navy battleship HMS Irresistible sinking after striking a mine at the battle of the Dardanelles, a Vickers machine gun crew with gas masks, and German Albatros D.III biplanes. A violent civil war broke out in Spain in 1936 when General Francisco Franco rebelled against the Second Spanish Republic. Many consider this war as a testing battleground for World War II as the fascist armies bombed some Spanish territories. The economic and political aftermath of World War I and the Great Depression in the 1930s led to the rise of fascism and nazism in Europe, and subsequently to World War II (1939–1945). This war also involved Asia and the Pacific, in the form of Japanese aggression against China and the United States. Civilians also suffered greatly in World War II, due to the aerial bombing of cities on both sides, and the German genocide of the Jews and others, known as the Holocaust. In 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed with nuclear weapons. During World War I, in Russia the Bolshevik putsch took over the Russian Revolution of 1917, precipitating the founding of the Soviet Union and the rise of communism. After the Soviet Union's involvement in World War II, communism became a major force in global politics, notably in Eastern Europe, China, Indochina and Cuba, where communist parties gained near-absolute power. This led to the Cold War and proxy wars with the West, including wars in Korea (1950–1953) and Vietnam (1957–1975). The Soviet authorities caused the deaths of millions of their own citizens in order to eliminate domestic opposition. More than 18 million people passed through the Gulag, with a further 6 million being exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union. The civil rights movement in the United States and the movement against apartheid in South Africa challenged racial segregation in those countries. The two world wars led to efforts to increase international cooperation, notably through the founding of the League of Nations after World War I, and its successor, the United Nations, after World War II. The creation of Israel, a Jewish state in the Middle East, by the British Mandate of Palestine fueled many regional conflicts. These were also influenced by the vast oil fields in many of the other countries of the mostly Arab region. The end of colonialism led to the independence of many African and Asian countries. During the Cold War, many of these aligned with the United States, the USSR, or China for defense. The Great Chinese Famine was a direct cause of the death of tens of millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962. It is thought to be the largest famine in human history. The revolutions of 1989 released Eastern and Central Europe from Soviet supremacy. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia dissolved, the latter violently over several years, into successor states, many rife with ethnic nationalism. After a long period of civil wars and conflicts with European powers, China's last imperial dynasty ended in 1912. The resulting republic was replaced, after yet another civil war, by a communist People's Republic in 1949. At the end of the century, though still ruled by a communist party, China's economic system had transformed almost completely to capitalism. European integration began in earnest in the 1950s, and eventually led to the European Union, a political and economic union that comprised 15 countries at the end of the century. 1925 Red double-decker buses enter service in London. In-flight movie offered by German airline. Walter P Chrysler founded vehicle company. Frisbee is invented - by Yale students, using empty plates used to hold pies from the Frisbie Baking Company. 1926 Marion B Skaggs founded Safeway food stores. Scottish engineer John Logie Baird demonstrates a machine that transmits movie pictures using radio technology, calling it a "televisor", based on a 1884 idea by German Paul Nipkow. (But the mechanical TV system is beaten to general use by Philo Farnsworth's design of 1928.) 1927 25-year old Charles Lindbergh flies non-stop from New York to Paris in Spirit of St Louis. The Jazz Singer, starring Al Jolson, is the first talkie movie. The first words were: "Wait a minute! You ain't heard nothing' yet!" First transatlantic phone call - at $75 for 3 minutes, half the cost of a car. 1928 Scottish biologist Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin. Philo Fransworth has a working model for TV. TV sets go on sales in the US for $75. Harry Ramsden opens the first chip shop in Bradford, England. First Bubble Gum, Fleer's Dubble Bubble, goes on sale in the US. JW Horton and WA Morrison invent the quartz crystal clock. 1929 US engineer Paul Galvin invents the car radio. Enzo Ferrari launches his company. Colour television pictures is transmitted in New York. Kelloggs launches Rice Krispies. Popey debuts in the Thimble Theatre strip by Elzie Segar. New York Stock Exchange crash on "Black Thursday" 24 October. 1950 Otis invents the passenger lift. Charles Schultz launches "Peanuts". Mr Potato Head debuts. Diners Club issues the first credit card. Korean war erupts. Danish doctor Christian Hamburger performs the first sex change operation on New Yorker George Jargensen, who becomes Christine Jargensen. Yoshuito Nakamats invents the floppy disc (but it is introduced by IBM only in 1970). 1951 First Miss World contest is held at the Lyceum theatre in London, won by Miss Sweden. John Paul Getty becomes the richest man. Zenith Radio Corp introduces cable television. Chrysler introduces power steering. First space flight by living creatures when US sends 4 monkeys into the stratosphere. Remington Rand launches the first commercially available computer, the Univac 1. 1952 M&R Labs introduce the first coffee creamer, "Pream". Kirsch launches the first diet soft drink, "No-Cal Ginger Ale". Car safety belts introduced. BOAC starts first jet passenger service. Sony invents pocket-sized transistor radio. Ian Fleming's James Bond debuts in novel "Casino Royale". 1953 US physiologist Ancel Keys suggests link between heart disease and high fat diet. Dr James Watson discovers the structure of DNA. Playboy magazine is launched. Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay reach summit of Mount Everest. Baron Bich launches Bic ballpoint in France. Queen Elizabeth II crowned. 1954 Oxford student Roger Bannister breaks the 4-minute mile. Elvis Presley debuts with "That's all right, Mamma." Racial segregation in US schools banned. Nuclear power station begins production in Obninsk, USSR. First mass-produced computer by IBM, installing 120 "650's". Ray Kroc start McDonalds. 1955 Guinness Book of Records is published. Clean Air Act is passed in Britain. Walt Disney opens Disneyland in Anaheim, California. 1956 CIA launches the U-2 spy plane. Swiss Georges de Metral perfects Velcro. John Bachus and his IBM team invent FORTRAN, the first high-level programming language. The early twenties when we drank wood alcohol and every day in every way grew better and better, and there was a first abortive shortening of the skirts, and girls all looked alike in sweater dresses, and people you didn't want to know said Yes, we have no bananas, and it seemed only a question of a few years before the older people would step aside and let the world be run by those who saw things as they were -- and it all seems rosy and romantic to us who were young then, because we will never feel quite so intensely about our surroundings any more. Never before has a civilization reached such a degree of a contempt for life; never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live Never before has a civilization reached such a degree of a contempt for life; never before has a generation, drowned in mortification, felt such a rage to live Infantilism is possibly the hallmark of our generation. Due to continuing industrialization and expanding trade, many significant changes of the 20th century were, directly or indirectly, economic and technological in nature. Inventions such as the light bulb, the automobile, and the telephone in the late 1800s, followed by supertankers, airliners, motorways, radio, television, antibiotics, frozen food, computers and microcomputers, the Internet, and mobile telephones affected the quality of life for great numbers. Economic development was the force behind vast changes in everyday life, to a degree which was unprecedented in human history. Still, the gulf between the world's rich and poor grew much wider than it had ever been in the past. While increasing industrialization and world trade had helped great numbers out of at least abject poverty by the century's end, the poorer half of the world population — three billion people — lived on the purchasing power of two U.S. dollars or less per day If a child learns the history of Marie Curie what might that lead to? When Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered radium, it eventually led to an effective treatment for many types of cancer. Their work and subsequently Madame Curie's own death from aplastic anemia, almost certainly from overexposure to radiation, also led to the discovery that too much radioactive exposure is fatal. We now live in a world where nuclear radiation is a global threat. If a child can learn about chemistry and Marie Curie, then she can learn how to counteract any bio-terrorism or nuclear attack and save millions from certain death and devastation. If a child learns the story of George Washington Carver or the history of agriculture, she will learn that the introduction of agriculture was instrumental in civilizations being able to evolve from hunter-gatherers who were constantly on the move in order to feed themselves to becoming more stable and settle in one place. Furthermore, developments in agriculture, allowed individuals and families to produce enough food to feed the entire community, freeing up others to perform other tasks that led to further growth and expansion. They will learn that innovations in agriculture changed the entire economic dynamic of the American south as reliance on cotton was lessened. By learning about crop rotation and hybridization, then she will grow up knowing that there are new techniques and hybrids waiting to be developed and she may finally find a way to feed the starving children of the world. ? If a child learns about the reality of the Holocaust and the murder of six million Jews, as well as millions of other Europeans who were determined to be less than desirable by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi followers and their rampage of hatred across Europe, he can become the political statesman that finds a way to end the genocide that still takes place in this world in many places such as Darfur and Rwanda. The fact that genocide still takes place in our world after the unthinkable horrors of the Holocaust is a tragic outcome of what happens when we refuse to learn from history. But it will be a child who has found a passion for history who becomes the individual who finally finds a way to end this kind of calamity and prevent it from being allowed to continue or begin again. Robert Kennedy once said, “Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total; of all those acts will be written the history of this generation.” We cannot change our history, nor should we want to. We can learn from it, grow from it and become better because of it. The history of this next generation is waiting to be written….Equip them with the skills to make it a memorable one. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy, a United States Senator and brother of assassinated President John F. Kennedy, took place shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968 in Los Angeles, California. Robert F. Kennedy was killed during celebrations of his successful campaign in the Californian primary elections while seeking the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. The perpetrator was a twenty-four year old Palestinian immigrant named Sirhan Sirhan, who remains incarcerated for this crime as of 2009 The shooting was recorded on audio tape by a freelance newspaper reporter, while the aftermath was captured on film. Kennedy's body lay in repose at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for two days before a funeral mass was held on June 8. His body was interred near his brother John at Arlington National Cemetery. His death prompted the protection of presidential candidates by the United States Secret Service. Hubert Humphrey went on to win the Democratic nomination for the presidency, but ultimately lost the election to Richard Nixon. 1910-1919 Britain's Edward VII dies at Buckingham Palace May 6 at age 68 after a 9-year reign of peace and prosperity. He is succeeded by his 44-year-old second son, who will reign until 1936 as George V with help from his wife, Mary, nearly 44 herself. She will be credited with helping the bluff king adapt to changing conditions and make himself popular with the people, although he will never be as popular as she. Montenegro proclaims herself an independent Balkan kingdom August 28, and Prince Nicholas, who obtained recognition of his country's independence in the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, receives the title king by a vote of the national legislature. Now 69, he will reign until 1919 as Nicholas I. The Portuguese monarchy founded in 1143 by Afonso Henriquez ends October 4 in a revolution at Lisbon after a 2-year reign by Manoel II. He flees to England (where he will live as a country gentleman until his death in 1932) and a republic is proclaimed with a provisional government headed by scholar-writer Teofilo Braga, 67. A coalition of rebellious U.S. congressmen led by George W. (William) Norris, 48, (R. Neb.) and Champ (originally James Beauchamp) Clark, 60, (D. Ky.) curtails the powers of Speaker Joseph (Gurney) "Uncle Joe" Cannon, 73, (R. Ill.) and excludes him from the House Rules Committee March 19. The congressmen establish a system of seniority that will control committee chairmanships for decades, Clark will be speaker of the House from 1911 to 1919, and Norris will serve in the Senate from 1912 to 1942. 1930-1939 A civil disobedience campaign against British rule in India begins March 12 . The All-India Trade Congress has empowered Mohandas K. Gandhi to begin the demonstrations (poet Rabindranath Tagore has called Gandhi Mahatma, meaning great-souled, or sage, and that honorific has been commonly used for the past decade). Ashramites have left the Sarbamanti ashram outside Ahmedabad and march 240 miles to the beach at Dandi, on the Gujurat Coast of the Arabian Sea, where Gandhi breaks the law as a gesture of defiance against the British monopoly by picking up a handful of salt crystallized by the evaporation of seawater. It is illegal to manufacture or sell salt except under license from the raj, and Gandhi exhorts his fellow Indians to follow his example. British forces are unable to deal with a protest on such a large scale. The British release agitator Gandhi from prison April 5 and allow him to recuperate just outside Bombay. Britain's prime minister Ramsay MacDonald convenes a Round Table Conference on Indian affairs at Westminister in November, but neither Gandhi nor any other member of the Congress is able to attend and little or nothing is accomplished 1950-1959 Physicist Klaus Fuchs is found guilty March 1 of having given British atomic secrets to Soviet agents. Attorney General Lord Shawcross of Nuremberg trials fame has prosecuted Fuchs, whom the British hired to do nuclear research in 1941, knowing he was a communist; he was a member of the team that developed the atomic bomb beginning in 1943, his work at Alamagordo and Los Alamos, N.M., made him privy to the bomb's design, construction, components, and detonating devices, and he will serve 9 years in a British prison. His U.S. accomplice, Harry Gold, gets 30 years. Communist North Korean armored columns clank across the border into the Republic of South Korea June 25, beginning a 3-year Korean War that will involve 16 nations against the communists. Josef Stalin rejected Kim Il Sung's request for assistance last year, but he saw that the United States did not come to Chiang Kai-shek's aid against Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung) and has construed a statement made in January by U.S. Secretary of State Dean Acheson to mean that the United States would not go to war in support of South Korea; he has supplied his client state with planes, tanks, and other military weapons, UN Secretary-General Trygve Lie urges UN members to support South Korea June 27, and President Truman that day orders U.S. air and sea forces to "give the Korean government troops cover and support." He has resisted sending ground troops to the peninsula, but Seoul falls to the North Koreans June 28. Gen. MacArthur visits Korea June 29 and resolves not only to drive the communists back but also to unite Korea. He takes command of UN forces July 9. 1970-1979 Norman Borlaug says in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech at Stockholm December 10 that only population control can win the battle against world hunger. The world's population reaches 3.63 billion, up from just over 3 billion in 1960, with 1.13 billion in South Asia, 929.9 million in East Asia (including Japan), 462.1 million in Europe, 344.4 million in Africa, 283.3 million in Latin America, 227.6 million in North America, 19.4 million in Oceania. The USSR has only 9 urban centers with populations of 1 million or more versus 35 such urban centers in the United States. Only 8.5 percent of the Soviet population is in these large urban centers versus 41.5 percent of the U.S. population. Soviet census figures show that Muslim populations in the Uzbek S.S.R., the Tadjik S.S.R., and other Muslim republics have increased by roughly 50 percent since the 1959 census but that the number of Great Russians in these republics has declined. Ethnic Russians remain the largest single national group within the USSR, they are roughly three times as numerous as the Ukrainians, but they will become a minority by 1976. Population in the Soviet Union reaches 242.6 million, in the People's Republic of China 760 million, in India 550 million, in the United States 205 million. The United States has 85 people per square mile, the PRC 305, India 655, Japan 1,083. Egypt's population has been growing at the rate of 1 million per year, and some 35 million people are crowded into the Nile valley and delta. A 50-pound bomb planted by Irish Republican Army terrorists explodes August 27 on the fishing boat of Lord Mountbatten off the coast of County Sligo, killing the 79-year-old cousin of Elizabeth II with his 14-year-old grandson and a 15-year-old passenger. Four others aboard the Shadow V are seriously hurt (one dies the next day), and an IRA ambush 35 miles south of Belfast kills 18 British soldiers. A leading Conservative MP has been killed by the IRA outside the House of Commons March 30 and the violence continues. A bomb of a different sort explodes in Parliament November 15 when art historian Sir Anthony Blunt, 72, is revealed to have been a Soviet spy. Blunt confessed to treason in 1964 and was given immunity from prosecution and permitted to remain curator to the queen. He is stripped of his knighthood. French statesman Jean Monnet dies at his country home outside Paris March 6 at age 90, having laid the groundwork for the European Community. U.S.-educated German political leader Petra (Karin) Kelly, 32, quits the Social Democratic Party in protest against its policies toward nuclear defense, health, and women. Stepdaughter of a U.S. Army colonel, Kelly joins with some friends to found the Green Party, whose anti-nuclear, pro- environmental views will attract many followers (see 1983). Former Hungarian premier Ferenc Nagy dies of a heart attack at Washington, D.C., June 12 at age 75; former Czech president Ludvík Svoboda at Prague September 20 at age 83. Washington breaks ties with Taiwan as of January 1 and establishes diplomatic relations with Beijing (see 1978). Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping accepts a New Year's invitation to the U.S. Embassy at Beijing and flies to the United States later in the month, becoming the first Chinese leader to visit America (in addition to seeing President Carter at Washington, he tours the NASA Space Center at Houston, tries out a flight simulator, and attends a Texas rodeo), but he cracks down on dissenters upon his return. Beijing advises Moscow April 3 that China will not renew her 1950 treaty of friendship, due to expire in 1980. Moscow replies April 4 that the decision was taken "contrary to the will and interests of the Chinese people." The Taiwan Relations Act signed into law by President Carter April 10 is the only domestic U.S. law governing relations with a foreign nation. 1990-1999 Margaret Hilda Roberts Thatcher, best known worldwide as the "Iron Lady", was Prime Minister from 1979 to 1990. She was the most powerful woman in the industrialized world.Mrs Thatcher does not herself as a feminist. Thatcher was reflected Prime Minister in the 1980s and she was an active anti-communist leader.Her economical philosophy provided a model for many countries as Hungary, Czech Republic, Mauritius, Botswana, El Salvador, Chile and Cyprus. Under her leadership, the UK´s economy witnessed the most rapid growth in the 1980s.Ironically, she has not made campaigns for women´s rights, but she is an advocate for the ecology.Europe has produced many leaders, but none as Margaret Thatcher...  Britain's prime minister Margaret Thatcher is forced out after 11½ years in office, the longest ministry of the century. She is succeeded November 27 by her chancellor of the exchequer and hand-picked successor John Major, 47-year-old son of a circus acrobat. The youngest prime minister thus far in this century, he will prove inadequate. Iraqi forces invade Kuwait August 2 after Kuwait refuses demands by President Saddam Hussein that she pay compensation for allegedly drilling oil on Iraqi territory, cede disputed land, reduce oil output, and raise prices. Kuwait has rebuffed Iraqi demands that she forgive $15 billion in loans extended during the Iraq-Iran war. The Bush administration has told Saddam Hussein that it has no treaty obligation to defend Kuwait and would not take sides (Saddam has interpreted remarks by U.S. ambassador to Iraq April Gillespie that Washington would not oppose him), but Washington, Moscow, Tokyo, London, Teheran, and Beijing unite in denouncing his move and the United Nations Security Council votes 13 to 0 August 6 to impose economic sanctions (Yemen and Cuba abstain). Iraq masses troops on the border of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh agrees to receive U.S. ground and air forces. President Bush says Iraq's aggression "will not stand" and dispatches forces to Saudi Arabia August 7, risking his presidency. Iraq annexes Kuwait August 8 and proceeds to loot the country; Egypt, Syria, Morocco, and nine other Arab states vote August 10 to oppose Iraq with military force; Saddam Hussein calls for a "holy war" against Westerners and Zionists, gaining wide popular support among Arabs; he holds more than 10,000 foreigners hostage beginning August 18 but permits women and children to leave August 29 and releases all the others by early December as the standoff continues. Kuwait's billionaire emir Sheik Jaber al-Ahmed al-Sabah, 64, has narrowly escaped capture and fled to Saudi Arabia; he addresses the United Nations General Assembly September 27, urging it to stand by the sanctions it has imposed. His relatives have acted swiftly to keep Kuwaiti funds abroad out of Saddam Hussein's hands. Bush ups the ante November 8 (2 days after the elections), committing far more U.S. forces to "Operation Desert Shield," but popular opposition grows to launching any offensive action. Former French president François Mitterand dies January 8 at age 79 of prostate cancer, which was diagnosed before he took office in 1981 but has never interfered with his duties. President Jacques Chirac brings France back into NATO, and the nation pays homage to the 55,000 who died in 8 years of war in Indochina with a modest memorial unveiled at Fréjus, near Toulon, December 19, the 50th anniversary of the outbreak of hostilities in Indochina. The Irish Republican Army ends a 17-month self-imposed cease-fire February 9 by exploding a bomb in East London, killing two people, injuring 140, and causing $100 million in property damage. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams says he is saddened by the blast but declines to condemn it, calling on Prime Minister Major to help him consolidate the sectarian peace process. Another bomb explodes June 15, this time in downtown Manchester, injuring more than 200, and further violence follows (see 1997; Good Friday accord, 1998). Italian economist Romano Prodi, 56, heads a new government that takes office May 18 and will continue until October 1998 Russia's voters reelect Boris N. Yeltsin, now 65, in a July 3 runoff race against Communist Party leader Gennadi A. Zyuganov, 51, despite falling industrial production, a growing poverty rate, soaring death rates, and anxieties about Yeltsin's health. Retired general Aleksandr I. Lebed, 46, has opposed the war in Chechnya but swings his support to Yeltsin, who wins 55 percent of the popular vote to Zyuganov's 40 percent, becoming the first democratically elected head of state in Russia's 1,000-year history. Chechen separatist Shamil Basayev leads 1,500 men and boys into Grozny from three directions before dawn August 6 and in less than 2 weeks has routed the Russians from the capital, which they have held since January of last year. While numerically far superior, the Russian Army is ill-trained, rarely paid, poorly equipped, and commanded by corrupt officers. Gen. Lebed negotiates a peace accord in August, he says September 3 that about 85,000 have been killed and some 240,000 wounded in the 21-month Chechnya conflict, Yeltsin dismisses Lebed October 17 following reports that the national security chief is plotting a coup, Yeltsin survives open-heart surgery a few weeks later, announces in November that all Russian troops will be withdrawn from Chechnya, and resumes his presidential duties December 24. Britain gets a U.S.-style Bill of Rights October 2 as the Labour government enforces a new Human Rights Act incorporating a European Convention on Human Rights into British civil law. Britain signed the convention in 1953 but there was little public enthusiasm for it and many right-wing elements feared that it would give too much power to criminals, homosexuals, minorities, and women at the expense of government authority; Scotland has incorporated the convention into her laws earlier in the year, it now becomes part of English and Welsh law, but aside from absolute bans on slavery and torture most of the rights in the convention are qualified or limited in some way. Jan 7, Singer Marian Anderson made her debut with the Metropolitan Opera in New York, in Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera." She was the first black singer to perform there. 1955  Jan 18, Kevin Costner, actor (Dances With Wolves), was born in LA, Calif. 1955  Feb 8, John Grisham, writer (Client, Firm, Pelican Brief), was born 1955  Feb 17, Britain announced its ability to make hydrogen bombs. 1955  Mar 3, A truck driver from Tupelo, Ms., made his first-ever TV appearance on this night. Elvis Aron Presley was featured on "Louisiana Hayride". This prompted promoters to send Elvis to New York City to audition for Arthur Godfrey’s immensely popular and career-making "Talent Scouts" program. Talent coordinators and Godfrey are said to have passed on Elvis appearing on the show. Not much later, he was tossed out of the Grand Ole Opry as well, and told to "go back to driving a truck." In a little over a year, however, the nation was caught up in Presley-mania which continues even today. 1955   Mar 11, Alexander Fleming (73), English bacteriologist (penicillin), died. 1955   Mar 24, The Tennessee Williams play "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" opened on Broadway with Barbara Bel Geddes as Maggie, Ben Gazzara as Brick and Burl Ives as Big Daddy. Paul Newman won Gazzara’s role for the 1958 film. 1955  Apr 12, The Salk Vaccine was declared safe and effective. Salk vaccine shots for polio began to be given out to school kids. The March of Dimes accomplished its mission within 20 years. Research led by Dr. Jonas Salk and supported by funds (those marching little dimes) raised annually by thousands of volunteers, resulted in the announcement that the Salk polio vaccine was "safe, potent and effective." The foundation also supported the research that led to the Sabin oral vaccine, another safe, effective polio preventative discovered by Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Following the victory over infantile paralysis, the March of Dimes turned its attention to conquering the largest killer and crippler of children: the mental and physical problems that are present at birth. Some 100 million people were given the vaccine during the 1950s and 1960s which was later found to be contaminated with the SV40 simian virus, a possible carcinogen. 1955   Apr 18, Albert Einstein (76), physicist, died in Princeton New Jersey. Dr. Thomas Harvey, chief pathologist at Princeton Hospital, performed Albert Einstein’s autopsy. He removed the brain and took it home.  In 2000 Michael Paterniti authored "Driving Mr. Albert: A Trip Across America with Einstein’s Brain." In 1999 it was reported that Einstein’s inferior parietal lobe was larger than normal. In 2000 Amir D. Aczel published "God's Equation: Einstein, Relativity, and the Expanding Universe." [see Apr 15] In 1983 Abraham Pais (d.2000 at 81) authored "Subtle Is the Lord: The Science and the Life of Albert Einstein." In 2000 Dennis Overbye authored "Einstein In Love," on Einstein’s 1st marriage with Mileva Maric. In 2002 Fred Jerome authored "The Einstein File: J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret War Against the World’s Most Famous Scientist." In 2007 Walter Isaacson authored “Einstein: His Life and Universe;” Jurgen Neffe authored “Einstein: A Biography;” and Jozsef Illy edited “Albert Meets America,” a chronicle of Einstein’s first visit to the US (1921) on a fundraising tour with Zionist leader Chaim Weizman. Apr 1,  The first weather satellite, TIROS 1, was launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla. May 9, The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the pill Enovid as safe for birth control use. The pill was made by G.D. Searle and Company of Chicago. It was commissioned by Margaret Sanger and funded by heiress Katharine McCormick. In 2001 Carl Djerassi authored "This Man’s Pill: Reflections on the 50th Birthday of the Pill." Djerassi synthesized a key hormone in the pill in Mexico City in 1951. 1973  Jan 1, The European Union (EU) admitted Britain, Ireland and Denmark even though they made chocolate containing a small percentage of vegetable fat. 1973  Jan 2, The United States admitted the accidental bombing of a Hanoi hospital. 1973  Jan 3, The Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) got out of the baseball business this day by selling the New York Yankees to a 12-man syndicate headed by George Steinbrenner III for $10 million. 1973  Jan 6, “You’re So Vain” by  Carly Simon peaked in the top 10 singles. 1973  Jan 8, The trial of Watergate burglars began in Washington, DC. In 2006 Andreas Killen authored “1973 Nervous Breakdown: Watergate, Warhol and the Birth of Post-Sixties America.” 1973  Jan 8, Secret peace talks between the US and North Vietnam resumed near Paris. 1973  Jan 9, All remaining differences were resolved between Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. President Thieu, once again threatened by Nixon with a total cut-off of American aid to South Vietnam, now unwillingly accepts the peace agreement, which still allows North Vietnamese troops to remain in South Vietnam. Thieu labels the terms "tantamount to surrender" for South Vietnam. 1973  Jan 10, An empty liquefied natural gas (LNG) tank in Bloomfield on Staten Island exploded and 40 workers were killed. 1973  Jan 11, Owners of American League baseball teams voted to adopt the designated-hitter rule on a trial basis. 1973  Jan 11, The Dow Jones Industrials hit a peak of 1051.70. The market then began a 24 month decline of 46%. 1973  Jan 12, Yasir Arafat was re-elected as head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization. 1973  Jan 13, In Bernardsville, N.J., Rabbit Wells (21) was shot a killed by a local patrolman. In 1998 William Loizeaux authored "The Shooting of Rabbit Wells: An American Tragedy." 1973  Jan 15, Gene Shalit (b.1932) replaced Joe Garagiola on the Today Show panel. 1973  Jan 15, President Nixon announced the suspension of all U.S. offensive action in North Vietnam, citing progress in peace negotiations. 1973  Jan 15, Four of six remaining Watergate defendants pleaded guilty. 1973  Jan 15, Pope Paul VI had an audience with Golda Meir at Vatican. 1973  Jan 16, NBC presented the 440th and final showing of "Bonanza." Alfred Hitchcock, destined to make sublime film thrillers, was born in London at the end of the Victorian era. He was the youngest child of an East End family whose father ran a poulterer's and greengrocer's business and whose mother came of Irish stock. The family was Catholic. Hitchcock loved his mother dearly and took after her in her quiet constancy . He grew up an independent youth given to attending films and plays on his own. He also read widely, including works by Dickens, Poe, Flaubert, Wilde, Chesterton, and Buchan. With training in electrical engineering and draughtsmanship acquired at night school while working for a cable company, at age 20 he joined the London studios of Famous Players-Lasky, already affiliated with Paramount Pictures. In these early years he worked under two top directors. The first was an American, George Fitzmaurice, noted for the holistic way he conceived a picture, including its sets and costumes. The other director was Graham Cutts. Cutts' vitality was reflected in both the subject-matter of his films – often emphasising theatrical spectacle – and their mise en scène invoking a sadomasochism of “the look” . Cutts' influence is obvious in the opening scenes of Hitchcock's first feature, The Pleasure Garden (1925), set in and around a London music hall. But in fact the film was shot in Germany. For a year both men were employed there as part of a deal by producer Michael Balcon of Gainsborough Pictures. Hitchcock seized the chance to observe F.W. Murnau on the set of The Last Laugh (1924). Afterwards, he would describe Murnau's film as an almost perfect example of “pure cinema” – visual storytelling employing a minimum of title-cards. No less crucial to Hitchcock's later development was his marriage in 1926 to his assistant Alma Reville. By all accounts, including that of the Hitchcocks' only child, Patricia (born 1928), the couple always remained devoted to each other. Alma made an ideal working collaborator. An experienced film editor and scripter, for 50 years she served as unofficial consultant on her husband's pictures, and could be his severest critic. The marriage, though affectionate, was hardly a grand passion. By Hitchcock's admission, he led a celibate lifestyle full of sublimations, foremost among which was his work but which included travel, gourmandising at exclusive restaurants, attending both wrestling matches and symphony concerts at the Albert Hall, and collecting first editions and original works of art. A persistent theme of his films is the battle of the sexes. It's tempting to speculate how much he drew on his own marriage. One hears that the diminutive Alma more than stood up to the often grossly overweight Alfred – being described as “peppery” and given to “bossing” her husband. Hitchcock's Blackmail (1929) was promoted as Britain's first full-length talkie (though that claim is still disputed). Then, in the mid-1930s, the director gained an international reputation with a series of brisk and audacious “chase” thrillers for Gaumont-British, including The 39 Steps (1935) and The Lady Vanishes (1938). In turn, Rebecca (1940) launched his American career. That film began Hitchcock's systematic emphasis on “the subjective” (much of the film is ostensibly told from the point of view of one character) and thus, I would argue, immeasurably deepened his capacity to bring audiences out of the cold, to engage us at a fundamental level. Such Hitchcock masterpieces as Rear Window, Vertigo, and Psycho all owe a debt to Rebecca. Now, a key to Hitchcock's work is suitably psychological – “I like stories with lots of psychology”, he once confirmed – and is the key to be pursued here. To gay actor/screenwriter Rodney Ackland (Number Seventeen) he confided: “You know, if I hadn't met Alma at the right time, I could have become a poof.”  There's no reason to doubt it. The facts bear him out. In particular, biographer Donald Spoto reports that the youthful Hitchcock read Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891) “several times”; Wilde's “decadent” novel may be the single most important literary influence on the director's work. It was, after all, written by an Irishman, who converted to Catholicism on his deathbed, and it reads like an iconoclastic thriller. Hitchcock's astute “everything's perverted in a different way” probably derives from it. (Another of his favourite sayings, “Each man kills the thing he loves”, is classic Wilde.) To understand the importance of Dorian Gray to such pivotal films as The Lodger, Murder!, Rope, Vertigo, and Psycho, we must traverse some surprising territory, but it may bring us to the heart of “the Hitchcock paradox”. 1992  Jan 9, President Bush declared his trade visit to Japan a success, saying Japanese officials had agreed to increase imports of American cars, auto parts, computers and other goods. However, U.S. auto executives travelled with Bush sounded less enthusiastic. 1992  Jan 10, President Bush returned home from his grueling 12-day journey to Australia, Singapore, South Korea and Japan, boasting of "dramatic progress" on trade issues. 1992  Jan 10, In Algeria an army coup cancelled elections that were running strongly in favor of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). France supported the move which led to a bloody struggle between the Algerian army and Algerian fundamentalist (Armed Islamic Group, GIA) guerillas that by 1995 claimed nearly 40,000 lives and numerous bomb attacks in France. 1992  Jan 11, The president of Algeria (Chadli Bendjedid) resigned, two weeks after Muslim fundamentalists had defeated his ruling party in legislative elections. 1992  Jan 12, The Washington Redskins won the NFC championship, defeating the Detroit Lions 41 to 10; the Buffalo Bills won the AFC title, beating the Denver Broncos 10 to 7. 1992  Jan 12, HAL, the Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer, from the 1968 Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick movie and book, “became operational” at the HAL plant in Urbana, Illinois. [1997 article claimed 1/12/97 as birthdate] The book "HAL’s Legacy: 2001’s Computer as Dream and Reality" was published in 1997 by MIT Press. The birthday in the movie was 1/12/92. 1992 Jan 12, One day after the surprise resignation of Algeria's president, Chadli Bendjedid, the army-backed Algerian government canceled parliamentary elections to prevent fundamentalist Muslims from winning power. 1992  Jan 13, US serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer in a pretrial hearing pleaded guilty but insane in fifteen of the seventeen murders he confessed to committing. 1992  Jan 13, Israeli, Palestinian and Jordanian negotiators began talks in Washington on Palestinian autonomy. 1992  Jan 13, Japan apologized for forcing tens of thousands of Korean women to serve as sex slaves for Japanese soldiers during World War II. 1992  Jan 14, Historic Mideast peace talks continued in Washington, with Israel and Jordan holding their first-ever formal negotiations, and the Israelis continuing exchanges with Palestinian representatives. 1992  Jan 15, The Yugoslav federation, founded in 1918, effectively collapsed as the European Community recognized the republics of Croatia and Slovenia. 1992  Jan 16, Officials of the government of El Salvador and rebel leaders signed a pact in Mexico City ending 12 years of civil war that had left at least 75,000 people dead. 1992  Jan 17, President Bush laid a wreath at the crypt of Martin Luther King Jr. in Atlanta. 1992  Jan 17, IBM announced a nearly $5B loss for 1991. 1992  Jan 17, Eight Protestant laborers were killed in an IRA bombing in Northern Ireland. 1992  Jan 18, The Hollywood Foreign Press Association presented its Golden Globe awards, considered a forerunner of the Academy Awards; no clear favourite emerged as the Walt Disney animated film "Beauty and the Beast," "Bugsy," "JFK" and "The Prince of Tides" were honoured. 1999        Jan 2, In Chicago about 22 inches of snow fell on the city and across the northern Midwest. In Detroit some 4,000 travelers were stranded in planes on the tarmac for as long as 9 hours. 1999        Jan 2, Rolf Liebermann, Swiss composer, died in Paris. He led the Hamburg Opera from 1959-1972 and the Paris Opera from 1973-1980. His work included "Eleonore 40/45," "Penelope," "L'Ecole des Femmes" and "La Foret." 1999        Jan 2, In Angola rebel forces shot down a UN plane with 8  people shortly after takeoff from Huambo; there were no survivors. The plane was later found with bullets in the tail section and the flight recorders removed. 1999        Jan 2, In Egypt police arrested 71 suspected Muslim militants over the last 3 days on suspicion of plotting to kill senior government officials. 1999        Jan 2, In the Philippines rebels lobbed a grenade into a crowd watching firemen fight a fire on Jolo Island and at least 10 people were killed and 74 injured. The Abu Sayyaf guerrillas were believed to be responsible. 1999        Jan 3, The Mars Polar Lander was launched. Landing was scheduled for Dec 3 with probes designed to burrow 3 feet into the Mars surface. 1999        Jan 3, Chicagoans dug out from their biggest snowstorm in more than 30 years. 1999        Jan 3, In Wyoming Cindy Thompson Dixon  was found dead near a road about 5 miles north of Laramie. She was reported to have frozen to death after leaving a bar. She was the mother of Russell Henderson (21), who was waiting in jail for trial in the death of Matthew Shepard. Henderson pleaded guilty to murder in 1999 to avoid a trial and possible death sentence. He was sentenced to 2 consecutive life terms without eligibility for parole. 1999        Jan 3, In NYC Andrew Goldstein  pushed Kendra Webdale  into the path of an oncoming train at Manhattan's 23rd St. and Broadway station. Goldstein, a schizophrenic who refused to take his anti-psychotic medicine, was later convicted for 2nd degree murder. This led to "Kendra's Law,"  which allows violent patients to be medicated by force.

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