InnerBrenner

On This Day: Vive le 14 juillet!

July 14, 2023July 31, 2023European HistoryLeave a Comment

July 14, 1789 is considered the beginning of the French Revolution. While civil unrest had been building since earlier in the year, the Fall of the Bastille on July 14 was the first victory of the French people over the monarchy. In 1880, the day was declared a national holiday and has been celebrated ever since.

The French Revolution was a class war. The Bourbon monarchy, who had ruled France since the 16^th century, was being led in 1789 by King Louis XVI. His government spent money excessively, leading to economic recession. The average person in France couldn’t afford to feed their family while the bourgeoisie dripped with extravagant wealth. While the common people made up 98% of the country’s population, they had only a minority representation in the government, leaving them unable to make any changes.

The French people became more and more outraged at their position until, on July 14, a mob moved toward the Bastille, a prison that held political dissidents. It was known that a stash of weapons and gunpowder was stored in the prison, and the mob determined to gain possession of it. The attackers fought off the guards and occupied the prison, releasing anyone who was held there. The French people eventually took the Bastille down to the ground, crushing what was seen as a symbol of the bourgeoisie’s oppression.

Today, the 14^th of July is la fête nationale and is celebrated much like the US’s 4^th of July. There are parades, fireworks, and festivals throughout the country as the people of France celebrate their historic fight for liberté, égalité, and fraternité.

Learn more here:

On This Day: Old Man Eloquent

July 11, 2023July 11, 2023US History, US RevolutionLeave a Comment

On July 11, 1767, John Quincy Adams was born. He was to become a senator, our nation’s sixth president, and a member of the House of Representatives. Though his ascension to the office of president was controversial, Adams is remembered for being well-spoken, intelligent, and independent.

Though there is much that is interesting about the life of John Quincy Adams, one of his most compelling stories is that of his path to the presidency. John Quincy Adams became president despite losing both the popular and electoral vote in the 1824 election. The 1824 election had four candidates: John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. When none of the candidates received a majority of the electoral college votes, the fate of the election fell into the hands of the House of Representatives, as outlined in the Twelfth Amendment. Only the three candidates with the largest number of electoral votes could be considered, knocking Clay from the race. Clay, who was not a fan of Jackson, threw his weight behind Adams, ensuring his election to the office of president. When, a few days later, Adams offered Clay the position of Secretary of State, Jackson and his constituents called the affair a “corrupt bargain.”

It has been suggested that this election is what lead to the strict adherence to a two-party system in the US. No party wanted to risk splitting their electoral college votes and losing an election like this again. It was perhaps also for this reason that the 1828 election between Adams and Jackson is considered one of the meanest campaigns in history. In any case, Adams did not win reelection but shortly after became the first US president to become a member of the House of Representatives after his term as president. He remained there for 17 years, earning himself the nickname “Old Man Eloquent.” In 1848, he suffered a stroke on the House floor and quite literally died serving his country.

Learn more here:

On This Day: What We’ll Do for Sugar

July 7, 2023July 11, 2023Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On July 7, 1898, President William McKinley signed the Newlands Resolution, which annexed the Hawaiian Islands to the United States. But what does the annexation of Hawaii have to do with sugar? As recently as 1980, 10% of the US’s sugar came from Hawaii. America’s need for sugar (and its desire for that sugar to be tariff-free) encouraged US businessmen and politicians to insert themselves into Hawaii’s native government so they could continue to grow on the island and ship sugar to the US, making themselves huge profits.

In 1885, David Kalākaua, King of Hawaii, signed a trade reciprocity agreement with the United States. This brought a wave of non-native sugar plantation owners to the island. They began to dominate the local politics of the day, forming a political party that opposed the king and many traditions of the Hawaiian culture. The group forced King Kalākaua to sign a new constitution that stripped him of his rights and gave a cabinet made up of US businessmen all the power.

When King Kalākaua’s sister, Queen Lili’uokalani succeeded him, she sought back the power that he had lost. In January 1893, as part of an illegal coup, a group of men with monetary interests in the sugar industry on the island overthrew the Queen’s government and imposed their own. The new government or “Committee of Safety,” as it was called, applied for annexation to the United States. President Grover Cleveland hired an investigator to look into the political happenings in Hawaii, who assured him all was above board. It was not.

It wasn’t until McKinley, who was pro-annexation, became president that the matter gained a majority vote in Congress and was signed into law. Of course, this annexation didn’t give Hawaii or Hawaiians the same rights of a state; it took 60 years of campaigning for them to earn the representation in the US government that they deserved. The lasting effects of the annexation are still seen today in the ongoing pursuit of the rights of indigenous people.

Learn more here:

Yellowstone/1923: Did Pres. Coolidge Really Have a Bear as a White House Pet?

July 5, 2023July 5, 202320th Century, US History, World HistoryLeave a Comment

It’s official, we are all obsessed with Yellowstone and all of the spin-offs including 1923. One scene in particular caught my eye, it’s when young Jack Dutton (Darren Mann) is reading the newspaper and shares a news item with his uncle, Jake Dutton (Harrison Ford) about Calvin Coolidge having a bear as a pet in the White House.

I assumed it was true, but wanted to verify, so I searched this particular event on The New York Times “TimesMachine” and confirmed that indeed, President Coolidge had a brown bear as a pet.

On Tuesday, October 23rd, according to the article, R.B. Pearson drove up to the White House with two brown bears in a cage from Chihuahua, Mexico. Mr. Pearson told President Coolidge that the larger of the two bears had been captured while it was in the process of killing a horse.

The description of Mr. Pearson is particularly entertaining, “(he)…wore his hair very long. He had on leather breeches tucked into top booths. His head was surmounted by a broad-brimmed sombrero.”

The bears were evidently a gift to Coolidge who agreed to accept only one (likely the smaller one), while the other bear was to be taken to the Bronx Zoo in New York. According to the article, Pearson captured the bears in the Mexican Sierras with his lariat (lasso) and had no regular home having “spent most of his life on the old Oregon Trail.”

I wish Jack Dutton would have read that portion of the article as he could have made a great comment about his grandparents also following the Oregon Trail (1883).

Coincidentally, Coolidge also had a famous pet raccoon named Rebecca. The Coolidge family received the raccoon to be cooked for Thanksgiving Dinner (yuck!) in 1926, but decided to keep it as a pet instead.

So, the bear story is true and we have added a raccoon, what other historical facts should we verify from the Yellowstone franchise?

https://www.nytimes.com/1923/10/23/archives/coolidge-has-bear-as-white-house-pet-old-plainsman-motors-3500.html?searchResultPosition=1

On This Day: July 4th Throughout History

July 4, 2023June 30, 2023Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

Did you know that the 4^th of July has only been a paid federal holiday since 1938? Even so, Americans have celebrated Independence Day since the first anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. In 1777, John Adams wrote that the “anniversary of American Independence, was celebrated . . . with a festivity and ceremony becoming the occasion” (1). Though the 4^th of July has been earmarked to celebrate America’s independence, the 4^th of July has seen many other significant moments throughout US history.

On July 4, 1876, Susan B. Anthony stood at the 4^th of July ceremony in Philadelphia and read the “Declaration of Rights of the Women of the United States.” The National Women’s Suffrage Association (NWSA) had requested the opportunity to speak at the ceremony and were swiftly denied. Despite this, several NWSA members, including Anthony, stormed the stage and read their declaration aloud, which outlined the injustice of women’s exclusion from rights such as voting and trial by a jury of one’s peers. The declaration ends by saying, “And now, at the close of a hundred years . . . we ask justice, we ask equality, we ask that all the civil and political rights that belong to citizens of the United States, be guaranteed to us and our daughters forever” (3).

On July 4, 1884, France presented the United States with the Statue of Liberty. After the presentation of the gift to Levi P. Morton, the United States’ Minister to France, the statue was disassembled and shipped to the US for reconstruction. It took about two years to finish building the pedestal and assembling the statue.

On July 4, 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act. This act gave American citizens the right to request to see records kept by federal agencies. Holding federal representatives accountable for their actions and increasing their transparency is an important part of our democracy.

On July 4, 1997, the NASA Pathfinder rover, Sojourner, landed on Mars. The rover spent its 83 days on Mars taking photos and other measurements that were sent back to Earth. The success of the mission paved the way for subsequent orbiters and rovers to visit Mars.

On This Day: “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote”

June 30, 2023June 30, 2023Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On June 30, 1971, then-President Richard Nixon issued the following statement: “Tonight, Ohio’s Legislature ratified the 26^th Amendment to the Constitution. This amendment guarantees the right of 18-year-old persons to vote in state and local, as well as federal, elections. It appears that 38 states have now ratified the Amendment that will now become part of the law of the land. The ratification of this amendment has been accomplished in the shortest time of any amendment in American history” (1).

Signed just a few days later, the 26^th Amendment to the United States Constitution reads: “The right of citizens of the United States who are eighteen years of age or older, to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of age” (2).

The push to lower the voting age began during WWII. In 1942, President Roosevelt lowered the draft age of young men from 21 to 18 years old. Americans pointed out that it seemed only right that a young man required to serve in his country’s army should also have the right to vote. The slogan “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote” became their cry. At the time, the proposal did not gain enough traction in Congress for passage, but when the Vietnam War came around, the idea was renewed. Congress aimed to lower the voting age as part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, but after its passage, President Nixon himself suggested that this new law would only be upheld if it was passed as a constitutional amendment. The amendment was quickly drafted and ratified.

On July 5, 1971, President Nixon signed the certified amendment with three 18-year-olds signing as witnesses (2). Upon its enactment, the US gained 11 million additional voters (3).

Mirroring the sentiments of the “Old Enough to Fight, Old Enough to Vote” crowd, there is a contingent of Americans today who would like to see the voting age lowered again, this time to 16. Opponents of this proposal suggest that 16 and 17-year-olds are too young to make mature decisions regarding politics. Arguments in favor suggest that as this group is most affected by gun violence in schools, they should have a say in how that violence is addressed by lawmakers. They also point out that in countries where the voting age is at 16, that group’s turnout is much higher than among 18-21-year-olds (4). What do you think? Should the voting age in the United States be lowered to 16 years old?

1. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/statement-about-ratification-the-26th-amendment-the-constitution

2. https://www.nixonlibrary.gov/news/26th-amendment#:~:text=Sentiment%20to%20lower%20the%20nation’s,21%20to%2018%20years%20old

3. https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1971/07/06/issue.html

4. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/02/opinion/sunday/voting-age-school-shootings.html

Learn more here:

https://www.rockthevote.org/explainers/the-26th-amendment-and-the-youth-vote/

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/amendments/amendment-xxvi/interpretations/161

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4020373/

June History Hits: The United Nations Charter

June 27, 2023June 30, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 26, 1945 in San Francisco, the United Nations Charter was signed. In the aftermath of the devastation caused by World War II, world leaders came together to establish an international organization committed to keeping the peace and protecting human rights.

After the second World War had ended, the leaders of countries around the world realized that the existing system of international relations was inadequate to prevent such catastrophic conflicts from taking place again. The world had witnessed horrors during the wars, including genocide and the use of nuclear weapons, which compelled nations to seek a new way to ensure that collective security would be prioritized over individual national interests.

Representatives from 50 countries gathered in San Francisco to draft and sign the United Nations Charter. The Charter established an organization that would serve as a forum for nations to resolve disputes peacefully. The United Nations Charter created several principles to guide the organization’s work.

The central goal is to maintain peace and security. The Charter encourages conflicts to be resolved peacefully and prohibits the use of force except in cases of self-defense or collective action authorized by the Security Council. The Charter upholds the sovereign equality of all member nations, but it recognizes the collective responsibility of nations to protect human rights. The Charter recognizes the worth of the individual and emphasizes social progress, equality, and the improvement of living conditions. The Charter also stresses the importance of international cooperation to address poverty, hunger, disease, and climate change.

According to the New York Times articles published on June 26, 1945 about the meeting, when the final text of the charter was approved, “an audience of more than 3,000 in the War Memorial Opera House jumped to its feet to cheer and applaud for a full minute” (Times Machine).

Over the years, the United Nations has addressed conflicts, including deploying peacekeeping missions to maintain stability worldwide, developing international human rights standards, creating Sustainable Development Goals to tackle pressing global issues such as poverty and inequality, and developing international law, including the prohibition of chemical weapons and the protection of the environment.

Despite its achievements, the United Nations faces ongoing challenges. Geopolitical tensions, resource constraints, and complex global issues demand renewed efforts to strengthen its effectiveness and adapt to evolving realities. Addressing climate change, gender equality, and socioeconomic inequality are among some of the most important tasks being addressed today.

Learn more here:

https://www.un.org/en/about-us/un-charter

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/united-nations-charter’

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1945/06/26/88249150.html?pageNumber=1

June History Hits: The Battle of Little Bighorn

June 23, 2023June 30, 2023Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On June 25, 1876, a legendary clash between the United States 7^th Calvary and Native American tribes led by Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse unfolded on the plains of Montana. Often romanticized and mythologized, the Battle of Little Bighorn, commonly known as Custer’s Last Stand, forever altered the course of relations between Native Americans and the US government.

The Battle of Little Bighorn occurred against the backdrop of rapid expansion of the United States into the western territories and the continued encroachment upon Native American lands. The discovery of gold in the Black Hills had ignited a gold rush, leading to a surge of settlers in the region who disregarded treaties made with the tribes already living there. This influx threatened the way of life for the tribes who relied on the buffalo herds that roamed the area.

Two iconic figures sit at the center of this conflict: General George Custer and Sitting Bull. Custer, an ambitious military leader, gained fame during the Civil War but sought to revive his tarnished reputation after a series of setbacks. Sitting Bull, a visionary Lakota leader, had earned the respect of his people for his resistance against settlers.

On June 25, Custer’s forces, about 700 men, encountered a gathering of Native American soldiers, about 2,500- 4,000 strong. Ignoring warnings and underestimating his adversaries, Custer divided his troops and attempted to surround the Native American encampment, but they were overwhelmed by the counterattack. Custer and all of his men were killed in what became known as Custer’s Last Stand. The exact sequence of events during the battle remain the subject of intense speculation and historical analysis.

News of Custer’s defeat sent shockwaves across the nation. Public opinion vilified the Native American tribes and demanded retribution. The US government responded with increased military campaigns, leading to the eventual confinement of the Plains Indians onto reservations. However, as time passed, the perception of Custer’s Last Stand began to change. Critics questioned Custer’s decision-making and his treatment of the tribes. The bravery displayed by the Native American warriors added a new perspective to the narrative, fostering a deeper understanding of their struggle against the relentless forces of “Manifest Destiny.”

The Battle of Little Bighorn serves as a reminder of the importance of understanding diverse perspectives, the consequences of unchecked expansion, and the necessity of honoring treaties and preserving cultural heritage.

Learn more here:

https://www.nps.gov/libi/learn/historyculture/battle-story.htm

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-the-battle-of-little-bighorn-was-won-63880188/

June History Hits: The Father of Existentialism

June 20, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 21, 1905, Jean-Paul Sartre, a towering figure in twentieth-century philosophy and literature, was born. His insights into human existence, freedom, and responsibility continue to challenge readers and thinkers to this day.

As a child, Sartre excelled academically and earned scholarships to prestigious institutions, the education from which allowed him to cultivate passions for philosophy and writing and be introduced to phenomenology, or the study of the consciousness as experienced from a first-person point of view. This shaped his philosophical perspective, leading him to reject the idea of predestination and assert that individuals create their own fate through their choices and actions.

One of Sartre’s most famous concepts is the idea of radical freedom. According to Sartre, humans are condemned to be free, meaning that we are fully responsible for our choices and their subsequent consequences. This type of freedom is both exhilarating and daunting, as it demands that individuals confront the weight of their decisions without the comfort of predetermined values or moral absolutes. Sartre’s existentialism also delves into what we call anguish, existential dread, or ennui, which arises from the realization of our freedom and attendant responsibility. Essentially, these are caused by the fear of making the wrong choices. However, Sartre also argued that embracing this feeling is key to living an authentic life.

Beyond his philosophy, Sartre was a prolific writer who penned plays, novels, and essays that explored his existential themes as they worked among human relationships. One of his most renowned works is the play “Huis clos” or “No Exit,” where he famously declared that “hell is other people.” In this play, Sartre addresses the complexities of human interactions and the consequences of our actions on others. Sartre was also a political advocate committed to social justice. He believed that intellectuals had a moral obligation to participate in public life and actively challenge oppressive structures.

Learn more here:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/No-Exit-play-by-Sartre

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sartre/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Jean-Paul-Sartre

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0621.html

Tereshkova and Ride: Pioneers in Space

June 16, 2023June 26, 2023UncategorizedLeave a Comment

On June 16, 1963 and June 18, 1983 respectively, Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride became the first woman and first American woman to enter space. Taking the leap into the cosmos 20 years apart, these two women left a profound impact on the history of space exploration.

Valentina Tereshkova hailed from a humble background and worked in a textile factory and was an amateur parachutist before her historic mission. Selected from a pool of hundreds of applicants, Tereshkova was chosen for her space mission for her physical fitness, technical aptitude, and unwavering determination. During her three-day Vostok 6 mission, Tereshkova orbited the Earth 48 times. Her journey shattered the notion that space travel was a male domain. She paved the way for future generations of female astronauts and inspired women to pursue careers in science and space exploration.

Two decades later, Sally Ride embarked on her own journey to the stars. Ride possessed an exceptional intellect and a passion for science. In 1978, she was among the first six women selected to join NASA’s astronaut corps. On June 18, 1983, aboard the Challenger space shuttle, Sally Ride became the first American woman to venture into space. Over the course of her missions, Ride spent 343 hours in space, contributed to vital scientific research, and demonstrated the capabilities of women in the demanding environment of space.

Both Valentina Tereshkova and Sally Ride dedicated their lives to advancing science and education and promoting gender equality. Tereshkova became a prominent figure in Soviet politics who championed women’s rights, supporting initiatives for gender equality in the workforce and advocating for increased opportunities for women in science and technology. After leaving NASA, Ride became a professor of physics and founded the organization Sally Ride Science, which aimed to inspire young girls and other underrepresented communities to pursue careers in STEM.

As Gloria Steinem said, these women allowed “millions of little girls [to] sit by their television sets and see they can be astronauts, heroes, explorers, and scientists.”

Learn more here:

https://airandspace.si.edu/people/historical-figure/valentina-tereshkova

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1963/06/17/89536619.html?pageNumber=8

https://www.nasa.gov/topics/history/features/ride_anniversary.html

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/06/19/242461.html?pageNumber=1

https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1983/06/19/242904.html?pageNumber=20