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This Day in World History
On 28 June 1919, in the famous Hall of Mirrors of the French palace at Versailles, more than a thousand dignitaries and members of the press gathered to take part in and see the signing of the treaty that spelled out the peace terms after World War I. American President Woodrow Wilson, British Prime Minister Lloyd George, and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau were the among the leaders in attendance.
On April 4, 1864, Abraham Lincoln made a shocking admission about his presidency during the Civil War. “I claim not to have controlled events,” he wrote in a letter, “but confess plainly that events have controlled me.” Lincoln’s words carry an invaluable lesson for wartime presidents. Author Andrew J. Polsky believes when commanders-in-chief do try to control wartime events, more often than not they fail utterly. He examines Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama, showing how each gravely overestimated his power as commander-in-chief.
This Day in World History
On 26 June 1948, after three months of Communist rulers blocking the delivery of supplies to the American, British, and French zones of West Berlin, the western powers struck back with a bold response. American and British planes stepped up their process of flying supplies to West Berlin to an around the clock operation and the Berlin Airlift was on.
By Andrew J. Polsky
John A. Nagl, a noted commentator on military affairs, blurs many lines in his effort to claim success for counterinsurgency tactics in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. For example, he correctly observes that in Iraq in 2007 both the counterinsurgency (COIN) methods employed during the American troop surge and the Sunni Awakening helped reverse the tide of violence. Yet he quickly brushes past the impact of the latter when he asserts “[t]he surge changed the war in Iraq dramatically.”
By Troy Bickham
As North America begins to mark the bicentennial of the War of 1812, it is worth taking a brief moment to reflect on those who opposed the war altogether. Reasons for opposing the war were as diverse as justifications for it. Ideology, religious belief, opportunism, apathy, and pragmatism all played roles. Unlike Europeans caught up in the Napoleonic Wars ravaging that continent, the vast majority of free males in North America had — whether by right of law or the by the fact that military service was easy to avoid — choice of whether or not to participate.
Dr. Fredrick C. Harris is Professor of Political Science and Director of the Center on African-American Politics and Society (CAAPS) at Columbia University. He is the author of several books, including his latest, The Price of the Ticket: Barack Obama and the Rise and Decline of Black Politics. In it, he argues that the election of Obama exacted a heavy cost on black politics. In short, Harris argues that Obama became the first African American President by denying that he was the candidate of African Americans, thereby downplaying many of the social justice issues that have traditionally been a part of black political movements. In this interview, Harris discusses his findings with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
By Susan J. Matt
Lately, loneliness has been attributed to our digital technologies, but its real, root cause is our mobile individualism. America’s mobility rates have declined over the last few decades, but we still move more than most other industrialized peoples. This longstanding pattern in American life means that our social networks are often disrupted, leaving us uprooted and alone. While Americans have long struggled to connect with each other, the contemporary generation faces particular challenges.
By Franklin E. Zimring
For the past two decades New Yorkers have been the beneficiaries of the ‘argest and longest sustained drop in street crime ever experienced by a big city in the developed world. In less than a generation, rates of several common crimes that inspire public fear — homicide, robbery and burglary — dropped by more than 80 percent. By 2009 the homicide rate was lower than it had been in I961. The risk of being robbed was less than one sixth of its 1990 level, and the risk of car theft had declined to one sixteenth.
By Amanda Kay McVety
On 5 June, the US Senate began discussing its draft of the 2012 farm bill. The final bill will govern American farm and food policy for the next five years, and quite a bit of attention is being paid to proposed changes in the funding of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (food stamps) and environmental sustainability programs. But more than America’s health is at stake because the bill will affect farmers and families around the globe. What happens here matters there. Government subsidies to “farmers” (often actually massive agribusinesses) in the world’s wealthiest nations make life harder for everyone in the world’s poorest.
This Day in World History
Early in the morning of 11 June 2001, Timothy McVeigh was executed for planning and carrying out the worst terrorist attack in United States history to date: the bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City in April 1995. Eleven children in an-office daycare center were among the 168 people killed in the blast. Five hundred more people were wounded.
On 5 June 1851, the abolitionist journal National Era began running a serial by the wife of a professor at Bowdoin College. A deeply religious and well-educated white woman, Harriet Beecher Stowe was an ardent opponent of slavery. As she wrote to the journal editor, Gamaliel Bailey: “I feel now that the time is come when even a woman or a child who can speak a word for freedom and humanity is bound to speak… I hope every woman who can write will not be silent.” The work, eventually titled Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Or Life Among the Lowly, became a national sensation.
Scholar Paul Fussell passed away on Wednesday at the age of 88. He was Donald T. Regan Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of several works, including three with Oxford University Press: The Great War and Modern Memory, Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War, and Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars. Named one of the twentieth century’s 100 Best Non-Fiction Books by the Modern Library, The Great War and Modern Memory was the winner of the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
This Day in World History
On May 24, 1883, the Brooklyn Bridge opened to great fanfare. With schoolchildren and workers enjoying a rare holiday, thousands flocked from Brooklyn and Manhattan to attend the dedication, led by President Chester Arthur and New York Governor Grover Cleveland. The crowd cheered as Emily Roebling — wife of the chief engineer and an integral figure in its construction — became the first person to cross. That night, fireworks illuminated the sky.
By Andrew J. Polsky
Several weeks ago, when asked about his policy on Afghanistan, Republican presidential-nominee-in-waiting Mitt Romney said he would wait until he had spoken to his military commanders before deciding on a timetable to withdraw American troops. A recent report by David E. Sanger in the New York Times makes clear the striking difference in approach between Romney and President Barack Obama. Obama decided last year that he would conclude his Afghan troop surge in September 2012 and hold fast to his withdrawal timetable without conferring with General David H. Petraeus.
By Thomas Kessner
He came as it were from nowhere, setting out on May 20, 1927 on a journey. The non-stop New York to Paris flight was a dream of many great aviators, and they had failed — many of them tragically — to achieve it. Six, all with sterling war records, had died or disappeared trying. The prevailing theory of the experts was to put together a crew of three or four, build a big plane to withstand the stresses and turbulence of the transatlantic flight, strap on as many engines as you can, and fill the fuel tanks to the brim.
A comparison of the Peale and Simpson portraits reveals curious similarities. Yarrow is wearing the same style knit cap in both, although the stripes are in different colors. The collar and buttons of his jacket are the same. He has a white shirt and red waistcoat in both paintings, but his jacket is unbuttoned in the Simpson to show more of the waistcoat. Even the pose, forehead wrinkles, and whiskers are the same in the two paintings. Yarrow looks significantly older in the Simpson painting, although he was in fact only three years older. Whether the difference stems from Peale’s desire to produce a flattering image or from some illness that caused Yarrow’s appearance to age rapidly is not known.