I remember the first time I saw a TV commercial featuring a black family. It was a Crest toothpaste commercial, set in a typical house in the suburbs, with an exasperated mother chasing a child who had left home without having brushed his teeth. Except the mother and child were black. Our family’s reaction was
Not only is this a new year, this is a new decade. Speaking of new decades, I’ve been surprised at the number of news articles revisiting the Year 2000 problem at the turn of the century, otherwise known as Y2K (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_2000_problem) . In case you don’t remember or are very young, as we approached the
Tomorrow is the start of another year, in fact, another decade. Since this is a good time to reflect upon our lives, not to mention a good excuse to party, many traditions have arisen over the millennia to stimulate our celebrations. If you’ve ever wondered how some of these traditions have originated, The Writer’s Almanac
Students at the middle school where I substitute teach have been studying A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This classic tale, first published December 19, 1843, captures the spirit of the season better than any other I have read and has been adapted for TV and cinema many times. But as someone trying to be
If you think women in our society have had a tough time gaining equal rights and opportunities, consider this: December 8, 1660 was one of the earliest known times a female actress actually appeared on the English stage. The performing theater goes back to ancient Greece. Of course there were plenty of female roles even
As a belated Veteran’s Day post, The Center For American War Letters at Chapman University in Orange, California is a manuscript collection of war letters from every American conflict. The Center’s Founding Director is Andrew Carroll, whose goal is preserve a million of these messages. If you have a letter pertaining to any armed conflict,
So much of history is personal. One fascinating source is letters from soldiers to their families. I’m currently reading Diary of a Dead Man, compiled by J. P. Ray, that contains the letters from a Union soldier during the Civil War who ultimately died at Andersonville Prison in Georgia. But what really got my attention
Fear can cause people to do strange things. Like imprisoning Jewish refugees with Nazi prisoners of war. Canada, 1940. The military transport SS Sobiesky arrives with a human cargo of both refugees and POWs. One of the former was Erwin Schild, a 20-year-old Jew who had fled Nazi-controlled Europe for the United Kingdom. But the
I have just learned that August 24, 1456 was the date the first Gutenberg Bible was bound and finished in Mainz, Germany. Contrary to popular belief, Johannes Gutenberg did not invent the printing press. Books had been printed in China and Korea on presses, but with wood and bronze type. Gutenberg’s innovation was a system
The subject of paying reparations for slavery has been raised periodically ever since the end of the Civil War. This was in the back of my mind when I recently read about a very unusual court case, Wood v. Ward, in which a former slave sued for reparations… and won. The details are pretty complicated.