US History – Sharing History

The Madoff Scheme

July 3, 2024July 6, 2024US HistoryLeave a Comment

On June 29, 2009, Federal Judge Denny Chin sentenced Bernard (Bernie) L. Madoff to 150 years in prison for the orchestration of history’s largest Ponzi scheme. Over about 20 years, Madoff had swindled approximately $65 billion from almost 41,000 people.

After working on Wall Street and serving for three years as the NASDAQ director, Bernie Madoff began working hard to secure investments to Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities. As in a classic Ponzi scheme, Madoff set up a group of initial investors and promised them huge returns on their money. He then recruited a second group of investors and used their money to pay the first group. This went on and on to the tune of $65 billion of investments. A Ponzi scheme usually collapses when the number of investors is depleted or, as in the case of Madoff’s scheme, the economy takes a turn and many investors try to pull their money at once.

Interestingly enough, a private fraud investigator, Harry Markopolos had tried for years to convince the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate Madoff’s fund. However, they, and many of the banks and accounting firms working for Madoff reported no fraud. In 2008, with the U.S. in an economic recession, investors began pulling their money from the fund faster than Madoff could replace it. In December of that year, Madoff was arrested by federal agents and placed on house arrest. In March 2009, Madoff was charged with several counts of fraud, money laundering, and theft. He pled guilty on all charges. Several of Madoff’s victims spoke at his trial of the tens of thousands who lost retirement accounts, college funds, and charitable donations. At its conclusion, Judge Chin stated that Madoff’s acts were “extraordinarily evil,” and sentenced him to the 150-year maximum imprisonment. With Madoff aged 71 at his trial, this sentence was largely symbolic.

To date, the Justice Department has recovered and distributed about $4 billion to those affected by Madoff’s scheme. This accounts for about 6% of the total funds lost. In 2021, Madoff died of natural causes while still incarcerated.

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WNBA: The Beginnings

June 21, 2024June 22, 2024US HistoryLeave a Comment

On June 21, 1997, two WNBA teams took the court at the Forum in Los Angeles. That day, the L.A. Sparks and the New York Liberty would face off in the inaugural game of the WNBA, launching a league that has provided entertainment, encouraged young girls to participate in sports, and taken a stand against a number of social issues.

In 1997, the NBA created the WNBA, the women’s counterpart to the NBA league. Eight teams were created, all owned by the NBA, in cities that already hosted NBA teams. These eight teams included the Charlotte Sting, the Cleveland Rockers, the Houston Comets, the New York Liberty, the Los Angeles Sparks, the Phoenix Mercury, the Sacramento Monarchs, and the Utah Starzz. The first game of the league brought together the teams from the two largest cities: New York and L.A. Approximately 15,000 people gathered at the Forum on June 21, 1997 to see the two teams face off.

By 2002, the NBA allowed for the franchising of team ownership. Today, the WNBA has 12 teams in two conferences across the country. Today, the average WNBA game draws about 1.2 million viewers. However, despite the continually rising popularity of women’s basketball, it is estimated that women’s sports overall only receives about 15% of airtime on major networks. As recently as last year, ESPN did not place the NCAA Women’s Championship in a primetime slot. The WNBA also receives just a tiny sliver of the marketing power given to the NBA. The WNBA has also highlighted the gender pay gap. In 2024, the WNBA’s number one draft pick, Caitlin Clark, who plays for Indiana Fever, was given a contract for approximately $338,000 over four years. The NBA number one draft pick was given a contract for $55.2 million over four years.

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“O Captain! My Captain!”

June 4, 2024June 15, 202419th Century, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On May 31, 1819, in Long Island, New York, Walt Whitman was born to parents Louisa Van Velsor and Walter Whitman. Considered one of the great American poets, Whitman was famous for deviating from the traditional forms of poetry and writing with a cadence that was more accessible to the average person. His work, dealing largely with themes of nature, growth, and individuality, has been widely anthologized in the centuries since his death.

Walt Whitman grew up in Brooklyn, New York, where he attended public school before becoming a printer. He worked as a journalist and editor for The Brooklyn Daily Eagle until he was let go due to his political beliefs. Whitman was a member of the Free Soil Party, which, prior to the Civil War, opposed the expansion of slavery into the western territories. Their slogan was, “free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men.” During these years, Whitman dabbled in poetry, publishing a few verses in magazines, with little recognition.

In 1855, Whitman had collected enough poems to publish his first book, Leaves of Grass. Due to lack of interest, Whitman was forced to fund the venture himself. Its first recognition came from famous author Ralph Waldo Emerson who said that Leaves of Grass was “the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom” written thus far in America. Whitman declared in the preface of the first edition: “Here are the roughs and beards and space and reuggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves.”

During the Civil War, Whitman attempted to work for the government in the Department of the Interior, but he was let go because his poetry was seen as indecent. He continued to write, publishing a collection of poems inspired by the war: Drum-Taps. Whitman also composed a series of poems extolling President Abraham Lincoln. In fact, probably his most well-known poem (due to its being featured in a classic film), was inspired by the president. It reads:

“O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done,

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won . . .”

Other of Whitman’s works, including “I Sing the Body Electric,” “I Hear America Singing,” and “Song of Myself,” were the inspiration for many an American poet throughout history.

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Run for the Roses

May 17, 2024June 15, 202419th Century, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On May 17, 1875, the first ever Kentucky Derby was held in Louisville, Kentucky. In the almost 150 years since, the race has been held annually on the first Saturday in May in the same spot. Each year, 20 three-year-old horses race 1.25 miles in hopes of having the coveted blanket of roses laid over their backs. About 150.000 people attend the Kentucky Derby in person each year, and in 2024, approximately 700,000 people viewed the derby online.

The history of the derby started with Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr. Meriwether was the grandson of famed explorer William Clark and named after his expeditionary partner, Meriwether Lewis. By 1872, Meriwether Lewis Clark Jr. was living in Louisville. That year, he decided to travel to Europe where he attended horse races and met track owners and jockeys. He decided to open a jockey club in Louisville and bring horse racing to Kentucky. In 1874, he borrowed land from his uncles, John and Henry Churchill (for whom the track is now named Churchill Downs), to build a track. The next year, on May 17, 1875, the first Kentucky Derby was held. Jockey Oliver Lewis won the first derby on his horse Aristides. By 1895, attendance at the event had become so great, Clark built the iconic double-spired grandstand.

Over the last century, the Kentucky Derby has become not only the most famous horse race in the United States but also a famed cultural event. There are traditional foods served, including the mint julep made from Kentucky bourbon, and over-the-top fashion statements made, including the wearing of elaborate fascinators.

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“The Lesson of Kent State”

May 3, 2024May 2, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On May 4, 1970, four Kent State University students were shot and killed by members of the Ohio National Guard during an anti-war protest. Enraged by U.S. involvement in Vietnam, thousands of students in Kent, Ohio, took to the grassy spaces of their university to voice their discontent. Today, similar protests are occurring the country over. Students at 35+ universities have been arrested for their involvement in pro-Palestinian rallies. Some politicians are calling for National Guard deployment to quell these protests. The events at Kent State 54 years ago are an example of why such a move might end in tragedy.

In the spring of 1970, Nixon sat in the Oval Office. He had run his campaign promising to withdraw U.S. troops from the increasingly unpopular Vietnam War. Instead, on April 30, 1970, he took to the airwaves to announce that the U.S. would be invading Cambodia in an attempt to undermine the Viet Kong. The next day, May 1, protests and anti-war rallies cropped up at universities all over the country. At Kent State University, about 500 students gathered. That night, as students gathered at the downtown bars, the anti-war sentiment turned into rioting, with students lighting trashcans on fire and breaking store windows. At this, the mayor, Leroy Satrom, became nervous about further violence and contacted Ohio Governor James Rhodes looking for help.

The next day, May 2, protestors on Kent State campus set fire to the ROTC building, which burned to the ground. At this, Rhodes, who was, at the time, seeking the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate, deployed the Ohio National Guard. He said, in a press conference on the subject: “We’ve seen here at the city of Kent, especially, probably the most vicious form of campus-oriented violence yet perpetrated by dissident groups and their allies in the state of Ohio . . . we’re going to use every part of the law enforcement of Ohio to drive them out of Kent.” Nixon referred to the protestors as, “these bums, you know, blowing up the campuses.” The National Guard arrived in Kent on May 3 where protestors blocking roads were met with tear gas.

On May 4, around 3,000 students gathered on Kent State campus to protest. The National Guard members there launched tear gas and then advanced on the group with bayoneted rifles. As they pushed the students away, some students began throwing rocks at the guardsmen. It was said then that a small group of guardsmen appeared to huddle and discuss something. This was later referred to by those who believed the guardsmen had conspired to fire on the protestors. The guardsmen began to retreat back the way they came, when at 12:24 p.m., 28 of them turned and fired toward the protestors. Jeffrey Miller and Allison Krause, both protestors, were shot and killed. William Schroeder and Sandra Scheuer, who were walking by on their way to class, were also shot and killed. Nine other students were shot and injured, including Dean Kahler, who was paralyzed by his injuries. The aftermath of the shooting was memorialized in a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo taken by John Filo, a student photographer. Faculty marshals were able to diffuse the situation and prevent further bloodshed after the initial shooting.

In the years that followed, the details of the shooting were litigated at length. Three students were convicted for their parts in the burning of the ROTC building. A federal court found that the guardsmen were not at fault for the shooting, though that decision was overturned in an appeals court, and a settlement awarded about 650,000 to the victims and their families. Nixon created a Commission on Campus Unrest to investigate the situation. Their report recognized that some student protestors committed criminal acts, however; “The indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable . . . The Kent State tragedy must mark the last time, that, as a matter of course, loaded rifles are issued to guardsmen confronting student demonstrators.”

In an editorial in the Washington Post, Brian VanDeMark, author of Kent State: An American Tragedy, writes of today’s university protests: “University officials, not state authorities and armed troops, possess the knowledge and insight best suited to dealing with these constitutionally protected expressions of dissent. The goal of university and college administrators should be to guarantee the safety of all students while fostering civil engagement over passionately held views. This is the lesson of Kent State University.”

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Smith-Connally and Montgomery Ward

April 26, 2024April 25, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On April 25, 1944, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9438. The order directed the Secretary of Commerce to seize control of one of the nation’s most prosperous retail businesses: Montgomery Ward. This controversial step was a prime example of the federal government’s use of the Smith-Connally Act during World War II.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States’ subsequent entry to the war, President Roosevelt called for a “no-strike pledge” to ensure manufacturing efforts essential to the war effort would continue running. Despite the pledge, instances of strikes increased as the war demanded more production, which meant longer hours and price increases for working-class Americans. In 1943, the United Mines Workers of America went on strike, posing an immediate threat to war production. Roosevelt responded by issuing an executive order allowing the government to seize production themselves. Roosevelt also signed legislation making it illegal to interrupt essential war production through strikes. Moving one step further, two Congress members, Senator Connally and Representative Smith passed a bill (the Smith-Connally Act) giving the president power to seize production of any company that was seen as important to the war effort in any way. This was not a popular bill, even with the president. Roosevelt vetoed it when it came across his desk, arguing that the bill would increase tensions between management and workers. The veto was overturned by Congress.

In 1944, trouble started with Montgomery Ward, a retail company second only to Sears Roebuck in mail-order sales. The company’s CEO, Sewell L. Avery, who was no great fan of the president, refused to comply with agreements made with the United Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union. Avery was reprimanded and ordered to comply by the National War Labor Board, as Montgomery Ward supplied parts used in military aircraft and agricultural machinery. Avery refused, claiming that Montgomery Ward’s business was mostly not war related, though the company had certainly taken advantage of grants of priority status from the War Production Board, giving them access to materials that were difficult to source during wartime. Finally, in April 1944, Roosevelt issued an executive order to seize Montgomery Ward’s Chicago facilities. Sewell refused to stand down and had to be carried from the building by members of the National Guard, resulting in an iconic photo (be sure to look it up; it doesn’t disappoint). The move was not popular. A Gallup poll showed that 60% of Americans thought the seizure was a mistake and an instance of government overreach. The government yielded control two weeks later.

In December that year, Montgomery Ward was seized by the federal government for a second time for the same reason. In a statement given by Roosevelt about the seizure, he said, “The Government of the United States cannot and will not tolerate any interference with war production in this critical hour . . . Strikes in wartime cannot be condoned, whether they are strikes by workers against their employers or strikes by employers against their Government.” The government held control of the company until the war ended the next year.

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Lost and Found Series: Four-Year-Old Boy Lost in Coney Island in 1967

April 11, 2024April 11, 20241960s, US HistoryLeave a Comment

Nearly 60 years ago on the Fourth of July, four-year-old George D’Angelo, Jr. became separated from his parents while celebrating near West 12th Street at Coney Island in New York.

As reported by the New York Times, a massive search was undertaken including both police and federal agents as they sought to find young George. The search went on through the night and into the next day when a call came into an emergency line claiming that George was alive and well in the apartment of a Brooklyn woman some 25 blocks away.

When police arrived at the address provided by the caller, they found a 54-year-old woman, her 26-year-old daughter and young George in flowered pajamas. George’s first words to the police were, “I want my mommy.”

Apparently the woman, Elizabeth Bermudez, found George wandering in the streets and led him back to her apartment where she took care of him until her daughter came for a visit the next day.

After questioning, it was confirmed that Mrs. Bermudez did try to reach out to two different police officers on the street while she led George back to her apartment, but was told to call the station. She then became “confused” and took George home to wait for her daughter who did not arrive until the next day.

When her daughter encountered the strange child in her mother’s apartment, she immediately asked him if he was “Georgie,” having heard about his disappearance on the news.

What is remarkable about this story is not only that George was recovered, but also that his parents, Elaine and George D’Angelo, did not wish to press charges against Mrs. Bermudez.

“I’m glad that she did not hurt him and that she kept him safe,” Elaine D’Angelo told the NYT. George D’Angelo Sr. echoed his wife’s sentiments, however, he added “I’m just hoping that they take care of her and give her some help so that she won’t do this thing again to someone else’s child.”

This story would have likely been very different had it happened today. How do you think it would have turned out?

Sources: The New York Times Archives

The Beginning of the End of the Civil War

April 9, 2024May 7, 202419th Century, Civil War, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On April 9, 1865, General Robert E. Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia. Despite Lee’s surrender, the fighting dragged on for months. However, the surrender at Appomattox was not only a huge loss for the Confederate Army but the beginning of the collapse of the Confederate government.

On March 25, 1865, General Lee’s army attacked Fort Stedman in Petersburg, Virginia. On April 1, the Union Army responded by attacking the Confederate troops at Five Forks. During the retreat from battle, the Union Army was able to surround the Confederates. In addition to this difficult tactical situation, the Confederate Army was also out of supplies. They moved west toward the Appomattox railroad station, where supplies should have arrived; however, the Union Army arrived first and captured the supply trains. With this, General Lee found himself in a difficult situation. On April 7, amid discontent and desertions, Lee received a letter from General Grant requesting his surrender. Grant wrote: it is “my duty to shift from myself the responsibility of any further effusion of blood by asking of you the surrender of that portion of the Confederate States army known as the Army of Northern Virginia.” Lee did not agree.

On April 9, the Union Army surrounded Lee’s men, forcing Lee to order a retreat across the Appomattox River. By the afternoon, Lee sent a message to Grant, agreeing to meet at the home of Wilmer McLean, local resident. The terms of the surrender were generous, allowing all Confederate soldiers and officers to retain their horses and weapons so long as they peacefully returned home. The terms also said that Confederate officers would not be prosecuted. These surrender terms were used again and again as the war ended. Following Lee and Grant’s meeting, Lee and almost 30,000 soldiers returned home. The war was officially declared over on August 20, 1866.

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Tennessee Williams and the American Gothic

March 26, 2024April 2, 2024US HistoryLeave a Comment

On March 26, 1911, Tennessee Williams, née Thomas Williams, was born in Columbus, Mississippi. Williams would go on to become one of the most celebrated American playwrights in history, penning such southern gothic classics as The Glass Menagerie, A Streetcar Named Desire, and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. During his lifetime, Williams’s work was met with intense criticism from those who thought the subjects of his play were inappropriate for public consumption. The legacy of Tennessee Williams, however, is built upon his ability to poetically portray the range of human emotions and the tragic events that cause them.

Tennessee Williams remembered his childhood in Mississippi as idyllic. He spent those years being doted on by his grandparents and enjoying the space and freedom of living in a rural town. At age seven, his father, a traveling salesman, moved the family to St. Louis. This upheaval was difficult on Williams, and in reading his anthology, we see Williams look to the South as the inspiration and setting for many of his stories. His distaste for his life in St. Louis was the catalyst for his art. He began writing because, as he said, he “found life unsatisfactory.” He spent the next decades of his life moving around the country and writing. He moved several times for his father’s job, including to New Orleans, which provided him with the setting for two of his most famous plays. He attended three different universities, finally earning his degree in dramatic writing from the University of Iowa in 1938.

Williams’s first play that made it big was The Glass Menagerie, which made its way to Broadway. This was followed shortly by A Streetcar Named Desire, Camino Real, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Sweet Bird of Youth, and The Night of the Iguana, most of which featured on stage and on television. All of Williams’s plays addressed topics that would have been considered taboo for the time, including cannibalism, violence, lobotomy, and homosexuality. While Williams claimed his works were not autobiographical, readers can’t help but see the distant father, the overbearing mother, and the fragile sister depicted in many of his works as commentary on his personal relationships. Williams also wrote often about themes such as desire and sexuality, the difficulty of being an outcast, and the facades put on to cover the darkness of humanity. His works have become classics of the American Gothic for his poetic treatment of these themes.

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The Vaccine that Eradicated Polio

February 23, 2024February 22, 2024Uncategorized, US HistoryLeave a Comment

On February 23, 1954, the first injections of the polio vaccine were given to a group of children at Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh. The vaccine, created by Dr. Jonas Salk, has virtually eradicated polio worldwide over the last 70 years. In 1952, two years before the vaccine was introduced, the U.S. alone had an outbreak of over 58,000 polio cases, which killed 3,000 and paralyzed 21,000 Americans, mostly children. In 2021, only two cases of polio were recorded worldwide.

Polio, or poliomyelitis, is an extremely contagious virus that causes muscle deterioration and paralysis. In the early 20^th century, polio ran rampant around the world, posing great risk to school-age children, especially. Many who survived the disease were paralyzed, some even saw paralysis of the muscles needed to breathe, leaving them to live inside a large metal tube called an iron lung. In 1921, future U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio, which left him paralyzed. While president in the 1940s, President Roosevelt founded an organization called March of Dimes that aimed to raise money to research a cure for polio. It was this organization that hired Dr. Jonas Salk to do research on the disease.

Salk’s research led him to a vaccine that built immunity to polio without actually infecting the patient with the disease. He tested it first on his own family before it was used to inoculate millions of children in the U.S. and Canada. In 1957, annual polio cases in the U.S. had dropped from 58,000 to 5,600. By 1961, there were 161 cases. The polio vaccine had about 90% efficacity against the poliomyelitis virus. Salk knew that with universal vaccination, polio could be completely eliminated from the world. In order to ensure that the vaccine would be available to everyone, Salk did not patent the vaccine nor did he collect money from the production. When asked about who owned the patent, he famously said, “Well, the people, I would say. There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?”

Polio is one of many diseases that has been virtually eradicated thanks to the science of vaccines, including smallpox, measles, and diptheria. Unfortunately, we are seeing a resurgence of many of these diseases in the U.S. as anti-intellectualism rises, misinformation abounds, and parents refuse to vaccinate their children.

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