Off The Publisher’s Desk – 10-13-2021
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What happened on Oct. 4, 1957?
I thought it would be a change of pace to look back on several dates in our history, that I will test your memory as to what happened on those dates.
October 4, 1957 is the start of the space race as the Soviet Union launches Sputnik I. In less than 12 years later, Neil Armstrong would utter these words, “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” as he stepped onto the surface of the moon.
John F. Kennedy’s 1966-word inaugural address of January 20, 1961, the first delivered to television audience in color, is considered one of the best presidential inaugural speeches in American history. He said the following, “And, so my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your Country.”
I will list a date and then tell you what happened on that date, and you can see if you remember what happened then. I will start with dates like September 11, 2001 or December 7, 1941 where we were attacked, dates you should never forget. Here are some of the dates that I thought were important, some I had to look at Safari for the right date. So here goes.
• 1455—Johannes Gutenberg publishes the first book using moveable type, which was a revolution in printing technology that made mass marketing in reading possible.
• October 11, 1492– Columbus discovers North America
• July 4, 1776—Declaration of Independence
• September 17, 1787—Establishment of the Constitution
• December 15, 1791—The first ten amendments (Bill of Rights) to the Constitution was ratified.
• December 30, 1803—Louisiana Purchase was finalized. For the sum of $27 million President Thomas Jefferson acquired 828,000 square miles of the western Mississippi basin from Napoleon.
• December 24, 1814—The treaty of Ghent, Belgium ending the War of 1812. Since that time the United States and Great Britain have been at peace.
• February 23, 1836—The Alamo under siege.
• May 29, 1848—Wisconsin admitted to the Union as the 30th State.
• April 9, 1865—Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrenders the 28,000 men of the Army of Northern Virginia to Union General U. S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, Virginia basically ending the Civil War.
• April 14, 1865—President Lincoln assassinated.
• December 29, 1890—Battle of Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
• October 14, 1912—Former President Teddy Roosevelt was shot during a speech in Milwaukee. That speech was at the end of day of campaigning through Wisconsin by train, which stopped in Glenwood City, Boyceville and Colfax.
• November 11, 1918—Armistice Day, the end of World War I, the war to end all wars. But the official end was not until June 28, 1919.
• August 18, 1920—The Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote.
• June 2, 1924—The U.S. Congress grants Native Americans citizenship.
• October 24, 1929—Known as “Black Thursday” when 12.8 million shares of stock were traded on Wall Street that started the Great Depression, which did not end until the Second World War started.
• December 5, 1933—Prohibition ends.
• August 6 and August 9, 1945—The United States drops Atom Bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ending World War II.
• April 11, 1951—President Harry Truman fires Five Star General of the Army Douglas MacArthur during the Korean War reestablishing civilian control over the military. Later MacArthur would tell Congress, “Old soldiers never die, they simply fade away.”
• June 9, 1956—President Dwight David Eisenhower signs into law the Inter-State Highway system, the biggest public works project in the world.
• November 22, 1963—President John F. Kennedy assassinated in Dallas, TX.
• July 10, 1971—An eighteen-year-old Glenwood City woman is the first eighteen-year-old to vote, ten days after the Twenty-Sixth Amendment was ratified.
• August 8, 1974—President Richard Nixon resigns over the Watergate Scandal. Gerald Ford takes the oath off office as the 38th President of the United States. He is the only person to serve as President that was not elected. He was appointed vice president after Vice President Spiro T. Agnew resigned after pleading No Contest to income tax evasion.
• June 12, 1987—“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” President Ronald Reagan’s address at the Brandenburg Gate.
That today’s history lesson, thanks for reading! ~Carlton