The Constitution went into effect 225 years ago today, March 4, 1789.
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
“With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”
Abraham Lincoln, March 4, 1865
“So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933
… was authorized as a national monument on this date in 1933. It became a national park in 1999.
Big enough to be overwhelming, still intimate enough to feel the pulse of time, Black Canyon of the Gunnison exposes you to some of the steepest cliffs, oldest rock, and craggiest spires in North America. With two million years to work, the Gunnison River, along with the forces of weathering, has sculpted this vertical wilderness of rock, water, and sky.
The Black Canyon stretches far beyond the 14 miles within the national park. Including the canyon within Curecanti National Recreation Area and Gunnison Gorge National Conservation Area, the total length is 53 miles.
… became the official national anthem of the United States on this date in 1931. You know what that means? For 155 years is was not the official national anthem. For just 83 years it has been. We could change it. It isn’t etched in granite.
The first (of four) verses:
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
Who wants a national anthem that glorifies war?
And another thing singers, it’s an anthem, not a ballad, not a salsa number, not a rap. It’s an anthem, “a solemn patriotic song officially adopted by a country as an expression of national identity.”
Alternative national anthem first verse:
O beautiful for spacious skies,
For amber waves of grain,
For purple mountain majesties
Above the fruited plain!
America! America!
God shed his grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood
From sea to shining sea!
Or, better yet:
This land is your land This land is my land
From California to the New York island;
From the red wood forest to the Gulf Stream waters
This land was made for you and Me.
As I was walking that ribbon of highway,
I saw above me that endless skyway:
I saw below me that golden valley:
This land was made for you and me.
I’ve roamed and rambled and I followed my footsteps
To the sparkling sands of her diamond deserts;
And all around me a voice was sounding:
This land was made for you and me.
When the sun came shining, and I was strolling,
And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling,
As the fog was lifting a voice was chanting:
This land was made for you and me.
As I went walking I saw a sign there
And on the sign it said “No Trespassing.”
But on the other side it didn’t say nothing,
That side was made for you and me.
In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people,
By the relief office I seen my people;
As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking
Is this land made for you and me?
Nobody living can ever stop me,
As I go walking that freedom highway;
Nobody living can ever make me turn back
This land was made for you and me.
… was established 165 years ago today. It is the fifth in seniority among cabinet departments after State, Treasury, Defense and Justice.
Interior manages more than 500 million acres of surface land, or about one-fifth of the area of the United States, including:
A few weeks ago I read Robert Hilburn’s biography of Johnny Cash, an interesting if somewhat longish and discouraging look at the Man in Black.
Today at Open Culture there was a link to the first episode of Cash’s music-variety show. The program from June 7, 1969, included guests Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell and Doug Kershaw. And the Carters, of course. Not a bad way to visit 45-year-old music history.
… was authorized by legislation on this date in 1899. It is the fifth oldest of the National Parks, after Yellowstone, Yosemite,, Sequoia, and General Grant (now Kings Canyon).
Mount Rainier National Park encompasses 235,625 acres on the west-side of the Cascade Range, and is located about 100 kilometers (50 miles) southeast of the Seattle-Tacoma metropolitan area. Mount Rainier National Park is approximately 97 percent wilderness and 3 percent National Historic Landmark District and receives approximately 2 million visitors per year.
At 14,410 feet, Mount Rainier is the most prominent peak in the Cascade Range. It dominates the landscape of a large part of western Washington State. The mountain stands nearly three miles higher than the lowlands to the west and one and one-half miles higher than the adjacent mountains. It is an active volcano that last erupted approximately 150 years ago. The park contains 25 named glaciers across 9 major watersheds, with 382 lakes and 470 rivers and streams and over 3,000 acres of other wetland types.
… was authorized on this date in 1889. It was designated Casa Grande Ruins National Monument in 1918.
For over a thousand years, prehistoric farmers inhabited much of the present-day state of Arizona. When the first Europeans arrived, all that remained of this ancient culture were the ruins of villages, irrigation canals and various artifacts. Among these ruins is the Casa Grande, or “Big House,” one of the largest and most mysterious prehistoric structures ever built in North America. Casa Grande Ruins, the nation’s first archeological preserve, protects the Casa Grande and other archeological sites within its boundaries. You are invited to see the Casa Grande and to hear the story of the ancient ones the Akimel O’otham call the Hohokam, “those who are gone.”
The Casa Grande was abandoned around 1450 C.E. Since the ancient Sonoran Desert people who built it left no written language behind, written historic accounts of the Casa Grande begin with the journal entries of Padre Eusebio Francisco Kino when he visited the ruins in 1694. In his description of the large ancient structure before him, he wrote the words “casa grande” (or “great house”) which are still used today.
. . .[S]everal influential Bostonians urged Massachusetts Senator George F. Hoar to present a petition before the U. S. Senate in 1889 requesting that the government take steps to repair and protect the ruins. Repair work began the following year, and in 1892, President Benjamin Harrison set aside one square mile of Arizona Territory surrounding the Casa Grande Ruins as the first prehistoric and cultural reserve established in the United States.
The cover was completed in 1932.
“A college class was told they had to write a short story in as few words as possible. The story must contain three components: (1) Religion, (2) Sexuality, and (3) Mystery. There was only one A paper in the entire class. In full: ‘Good God! I’m pregnant. I wonder who did it.’”
First posted here nine years ago today.
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Miles Davis began recording “Kind of Blue” on this date in 1959.
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It’s anniversary of the birth of Lou Reed (1942).
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Author Tom Wolfe is 83 today.
Author John Irving is 72 today.
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Dr. Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) was born 110 years ago today (1904). The Writer’s Almanac had good background in 2010. When Geisel/Seuss was awarded an honorary degree from Princeton in 1985, the entire graduating class stood and recited Green Eggs and Ham. At one time Green Eggs and Ham was the third largest selling book in the English language — ever. |
Ron Howard’s brother’s only brother is 60 today.
AN ACT to set apart a certain tract of land lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River as a public park.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the tract of land in the Territories of Montana and Wyoming, lying near the headwaters of the Yellowstone River . . . is hereby reserved and withdrawn from settlement, occupancy, or sale under the laws of the United States, and dedicated and set apart as a public park or pleasuring-ground for the benefit and enjoyment of the people; and all persons who shall locate or settle upon or occupy the same, or any part thereof, except as hereinafter provided, shall be considered trespassers and removed therefrom.
SEC 2. That said public park shall be under the exclusive control of the Secretary of the Interior, whose duty it shall be, as soon as practicable, to make and publish such rules and regulations as he may deem necessary or proper for the care and management of the same. Such regulations shall provide for the preservation, from injury or spoliation, of all timber, mineral deposits, natural curiosities, or wonders within said park, and their retention in their natural condition.
. . .
s / Ulysses S. Grant, March 1, 1872
“On March 1, 1692, Salem, Massachusetts authorities charged Sarah Goode, Sarah Osborne, and a slave woman, Tituba, with practicing witchcraft. The arrests inaugurated the infamous Salem Witch Trials of 1692. Over the following months, more than 150 men and women in and around Salem were jailed on sorcery charges. Nineteen people eventually hanged on Gallows Hill and an additional victim was pressed to death.”
The Library of Congress has more.
Ohio became the 17th state on this date in 1803.
Nebraska became the 37th state on this date in 1867.
At The Poor Man’s Math Blog a look at how much standard time varies from solar time.
“It turns out, there are many places where the sun rises and sets late in the day, like in Spain, but not a lot where it is very early (highlighted in red and green in the map, respectively).”
Very cool map.
On February 28, 1827, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad became the first U.S. railway chartered for commercial transportation of freight and passengers. Investors hoped a railroad would allow Baltimore, the second largest U.S. city at that time, to successfully compete with New York for western trade. New Yorkers were profiting from easy access to the Midwest via the Erie Canal.
Construction began at Baltimore harbor on July 4, 1828. Local dignitary Charles Carroll, last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, laid the first stone.
The initial line of track, a 13-mile stretch to Ellicott’s Mills (now Ellicott City), Maryland, opened in 1830. The Tom Thumb, a steam engine designed by Peter Cooper, negotiated the route well enough to convince skeptics that steam traction worked along steep, winding grades.
The railroad finally connected Baltimore to the Ohio River (at Wheeling) in 1852.
B&O was taken over by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway in the 1960s, later the Chessie System and now boringly called CSX Transportation.
In the modern U.S. Here & Now version of Monopoly, the B&O has been replaced with John F. Kennedy Airport.
“The sentence for attempted murder should be the same as for successful murder. Otherwise we’re just rewarding incompetence.”
Scott Adams quoting a commenter on his blog some years back.
It was 153 years ago today (1861) that Congress organized the Territory of Colorado and stole the Rio Grande headwaters, the San Luis Valley, nine fourteeners, a national park and a big chunk of plains from New Mexico. Colorado was given that part of New Mexico east of the Continental Divide between 37º (the current state line) and 38º (69 miles further north).
In the House version of the bill, the new territory was called Idaho. The Senate changed it to Colorado.
The good news is, two years later, New Mexico Territory gave up what is now Arizona.
So, lose some, win some.
Why is it that for more than 2,000 years February has had fewer days than the other eleven months? Why is it that in the first part of the year the odd numbered months have 31 days, but then without reason the eighth, tenth and twelfth months do? Why, if Augustus stole a day from February to add to his month (August, previously Sextilis), couldn’t we move it back?
It’s the anniversary of the birth of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807) and John Steinbeck (1902) and the 80th birthday of N. Scott Momaday.
Listen, my children, and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
“Paul Revere’s Ride”
********
And he rushed into the wigwam,
Saw the old Nokomis slowly
Rocking to and fro and moaning,
Saw his lovely Minnehaha
Lying dead and cold before him,
And his bursting heart within him
Uttered such a cry of anguish,
That the forest moaned and shuddered,
That the very stars in heaven
Shook and trembled with his anguish
Then he sat down, still and speechless,
On the bed of Minnehaha,
At the feet of Laughing Water,
At those willing feet, that never
More would lightly run to meet him,
Never more would lightly follow.
“The Song of Hiawatha”
“I’ll be ever’where—wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there. See?”
Tom Joad, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Momaday was presented with the National Medal of Arts in 2007.
The Navajo Ben Benally remembers a snow-filled day (from House Made of Dawn
And afterward, when you brought the sheep back, your grandfather had filled the barrel with snow and there was plenty of water again. But he took you to the trading post anyway, because you were little and had looked forward to it. There were people inside, a lot of them, because there was a big snow on the ground and they needed things and they wanted to stand around and smoke and talk about the weather. You were little and there was a lot to see, and all of it was new and beautiful: bright new buckets and tubs, saddles and ropes, hats and shirts and boots, a big glass case all filled with candy. Frazer was the trader’s name. He gave you a piece of hard red candy and laughed because you couldn’t make up your mind to take it at first, and you wanted it so much you didn’t know what to do. And he gave your grandfather some tobacco and brown paper. And when he had smoked, your grandfather talked to the trader for a long time and you didn’t know what they were saying and you just looked around at all the new and beautiful things. And after a while the trader put some things out on the counter, sacks of flour and sugar, a slab of salt pork, some canned goods, and a little bag full of the hard red candy. And your grandfather took off one of his rings and gave it to the trader. It was a small green stone, set carelessly in thin silver. It was new and it wasn’t worth very much, not all the trader gave for it anyway. And the trader opened one of the cans, a big can of whole tomatoes, and your grandfather sprinkled sugar on the tomatoes and the two of you ate them right there and drank bottles of sweet red soda pop. And it was getting late and you rode home in the sunset and the whole land was cold and white. And that night your grandfather hammered the strips of silver and told you stories in the firelight. And you were little and right there in the center of everything, the sacred mountains, the snow-covered mountains and the hills, the gullies and the flats, the sundown and the night, everything—where you were little, where you were and had to be.
Momaday was instrumental in the production of the PBS series The West, whose website includes biographical background.
“All I am doing is following what to me is the clear wording of the First Amendment that ‘Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.’ As I have said innumerable times before, I simply believe that ‘no law’ means no law.”
Justice Hugo Black, born on this date in 1886.
Academy Award winning actress Joanne Woodward is 84 years today. Miss Woodward won the best actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve (1957). She was nominated for best actress three other times.
Two-time Academy Award winning actress Elizabeth Taylor was born 82 years ago today. Miss Taylor won best actress Oscars for Butterfield 8 (1960) and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Taylor died in March 2011.
Ralph Nader is 80.
Abraham Lincoln, a one-term former congressman, spoke at the Cooper Union in New York City on this date in 1860. Many think Lincoln’s “Cooper Union Address” propelled him to the presidency.
American Rhetoric has the speech text, and the audio of a reading in 2004 by Sam Waterston.
Lincoln concluded:
Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored – contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man – such as a policy of “don’t care” on a question about which all true men do care – such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance – such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.
Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. Let us have faith that right makes might, and in that faith, let us, to the end, dare to do our duty as we understand it.
CBS news veteran Bob Schieffer is 77.
Karen Grassle, the mom on Little House on the Prairie, is 72.
Tea Leoni is 48.
John Foster Dulles was born on this date in 1888. Dulles was Secretary of State under Eisenhower from 1953 until April 1959. He is the person for whom Washington Dulles International Airport is named.
Enrico Caruso was born in Naples on this date in 1873. The tenor was the 18th of 21 children but the first to survive past infancy. Caruso was the first artist to sell a million copies of a recording — “Vesti la giubba” (1904).
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was born on this date in 1841. That’s Renoir’s “Beach Scene, Guernsey” (1883).
In 1999, San Francisco Chronicle readers ranked the 100 best non-fiction and fiction books of the 20th century written in, about, or by an author from the Western United States.
NewMexiKen has posted the top 10 from the lists several times — because the lists are interesting — but primarily to honor Wallace Stegner, who was born 105 years ago today.
Stegner is first in fiction, second in non-fiction; now that’s a writer.
TOP 10 FICTION
1. “Angle of Repose,” by Wallace Stegner
2. “The Grapes of Wrath,” by John Steinbeck
3. “Sometimes a Great Notion,” by Ken Kesey
4. “The Call of the Wild,” by Jack London
5. “The Big Sleep,” by Raymond Chandler
6. “Animal Dreams,” by Barbara Kingsolver
7. “Death Comes for the Archbishop,” by Willa Cather
8. “The Day of the Locust,” by Nathanael West
9. “Blood Meridian,” by Cormac McCarthy
10. “The Maltese Falcon,” by Dashiell Hammett
TOP 10 NON-FICTION
1. “Land of Little Rain,” Mary Austin
2. “Beyond the Hundredth Meridian,” Wallace Stegner
3. “Desert Solitaire,” Edward Abbey
4. “This House of Sky,” Ivan Doig
5. “Son of the Morning Star,” Evan S. Connell
6. Western trilogy, Bernard DeVoto
7. “Assembling California,” John McPhee
8. “My First Summer in the Sierra,” John Muir
9. “The White Album,” Joan Didion
10. “City of Quartz,” Mike Davis
