Tag Archives: history
Changes
Adolf Hitler wasn’t born evil, he became evil. He didn’t always want to be a dictator. When they left him alone, he wanted to be a painter. Then World War I happened. He was drafted and assigned the job of litter-bearer, and spent the next several years searching among anguished and mutilated bodies for the …
Obey
“Historically, the most terrible things– war, genocide, and slavery– have resulted not from disobedience, but from obedience.” ~Howard Zinn
Chang and Eng
Excerpted from The Two, the biography of the original Siamese Twins, Chang and Eng Bunker, by Irving and Amy Wallace, ©1978: On another visit to Philadelphia, the fact that the twins were genuinely united saved them from a fine or jail. A spectator, shaking hands with Chang, squeezed his hand painfully hard. Immediately, Chang punched …
The Outward Sign Of Inward Grace
In this excerpt from Americans: A Book of Lives, ©1946, Hermann Hagedorn describes the business environment of Theodore Roosevelt’s America: To these men the rapid development of the country seemed a definite good in itself and became, indeed, a kind of religion, not superseding so much as fulfilling the Christian principles on which most of …
Lens
“Of all forms of slavery there is none that is so harmful and degrading as that form of slavery which tempts one human being to hate another by reason of his race or color. One man cannot hold another man down in the ditch without remaining down in the ditch with him.” ~Booker T. Washington …
Phonograph
In this excerpt from Americans: A Book of Lives ©1946. Hermann Hagedorn describes the moment Thomas Edison first tested his new invention to record and play back sounds: Three weeks after his interest had first been stirred, he (Thomas Edison) handed his chief mechanic a rough sketch of a queer-looking instrument, including a metal cylinder …
Special
If you could travel back in time and kill Hitler as an infant, would you? I’ve been asked that question before, and my answer is always “It wouldn’t matter.” The question presupposes that Hitler was a remarkable, irreplaceable human being, and I don’t think that’s accurate. I think he was an idiot. And in an …
Misguided
In this excerpt from Huey Long by T. Harry Williams, ©1969, Huey Long explains why he did not fight in the First World War: “I did not go into that war,” he proclaimed in the Senate. “I was within the draft age. I could have gone, except for my dependents. I did not go because …
A Horse
Excerpted from Huey Long by T. Harry Williams, ©1969: The story seems too good to be true– but people who should know swear that it is true. The first time that Huey P. Long campaigned in rural, Latin, Catholic south Louisiana, the local boss who had him in charge said at the beginning of the …
Two Gallons of Milk per Day
In 1930, actress Mary Astor contracted tuberculosis. In her autobiography My Story, she recounts how it was treated: The treatment was to be rest and sun; a glass of milk every half hour (eight quarts a day), mineral oil, complete bed rest, and sun on the roof. There were to be no visitors, only my …
Those who cannot remember the past…
Wendell Willkie was the Republican– yes, Republican— nominee for president in 1940: “In the money-mad period of the Twenties the heads of some of our corporations forgot their primary function– that of running a business enterprise in a way that would be sound for the worker, the consumer and the investor. Instead of attending to …
The cause of an incident
I bought Sammy Davis Jr.’s autobiography Yes I Can at a charity sale for $1, and it has far exceeded my expectations. I had no idea of the hell he went through on his way to becoming a headliner. In this excerpt he has just begun to have some success as an entertainer, but is …
