Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force: You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you.
The day is not formally listed by law as a day to fly the U.S. flag. Citizens may fly the flag on any day. Many veterans’ groups urge flying the flag today, especially in honor of the thousands who gave their lives in the invasion.
On the Allied side, 29,000 U.S. soldiers, 5,000 Canadian soldiers, 11,000 United Kingdom soldiers, died between June 6 and August 25, 1944, the formal end of the battle. France lost more than 12,000 civilians in the fight for freedom, too.
Photo: Assault landing One of the first waves at Omaha Beach as photographed by Robert F. Sargent. The U.S. Coast Guard caption identifies the unit as Company E, 16th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
This is just the 39th anniversary of RFK’s death. Next year, 2008, will be the 40th, and will again feature an election in which the war-crippled lame duck president must be succeeded, and the early fields in both parties do not excite the incumbent party’s masses much.
But 1968 was a uniquely terrible year — we hope it was unique. One serious question is just how depressing will it be to hear the “40-years out” stories on the Pueblo crisis, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s death, the riots, RFK’s death, the convention riots, the money-and-morale-and-morality sapping war (Vietnam, not Iraq — we hope), etc., etc.
And so Mr. Booth’s close is a potent challenge: To rededicate ourselves to the hopes we felt in the first half of 1968, to see the implementation of those hopes now, two generations later — despite the cynicism that wells up whenever we see anyone touted as a great hope of needed change in the country’s direction, or whenever great hopes are dashed to pieces, as they have been in Iraq.
And every June 5th I stop for a few moments and remember how I believed in what America could be once – try to get some of that belief back – and, to use an old Boomer chestnut, “keep on keeping on.”
And I ask Bobby to forgive me – and my generation – for failing to pick up his torch….
Royal typewriter, 1919.
Source: Emory Adams, The New Knowledge Library (Chicago: The S. A. Mullikin Company, 1919)
This image is licensed for educational use by FCIT. All images retrieved June 5, 2007, from http://etc.usf.edu/, specific images’ sites listed separately.
There you go: Legal clip art, properly attributed (though not necessarily properly footnoted — that’s another topic). How can you get more licensed clip art? See below the fold.
The Juneteenth edition of Fiesta de Tejas! could use a few more posts about Texas history, Texas culture, Texas food, Texas travel, Texas dinosaurs, Texas wildflowers, Texasmusic (heck, we’re in the middle of the Kerrville Folk Festival, aren’t we?), and other things Texas. Nominations are due today, for publication Saturday, June 2. You may submit posts here.
Memorial Day, traditionally observed on May 30, now observed the last Monday in May, is a day to honor fallen veterans of wars. Traditionally, family members visit the cemetery where loved ones are interred and leave flowers on the grave.
On Memorial Day itself, flags on poles or masts should be flown at half-staff from sunrise to noon. At noon, flags should be raised to full-staff position.
When posting a flag at half-staff, the flag should be raised to the full-staff position first, with vigor, then slowly lowered to half-staff; when retiring a flag posted at half-staff, it should be raised to the full staff position first, with vigor, and then be slowly lowered.
The story is that a poor farm kid in England Scotland saves a rich kid from drowning, and the rich family offers to pay for college for the poor kid. The poor kid goes to college, and later makes a great discovery, and that discovery later saves the life of a member of the rich family, who goes on to save the world.
Churchill in Tunisia, 1943, visiting New Zealand’s 2nd Division, with Bernard Freyberg, known as Tiny
In various forms I’ve seen this story, that a member of the Churchill family, or Winston Churchill himself, was saved by a member of the Fleming family, or Sir Alexander Fleming himself (the discoverer of penicillin). Then, years later Churchill has a deadly infection, but his life is saved by Fleming’s discovery.
The story apparently originated in Worship Programs for Juniors, by Alice A. Bays and Elizabeth Jones Oakberg, published ca. 1950 by an American religious house, in a chapter entitled “The Power of Kindness.”
Today is the 300th birthday of Linnaeus, aka Carl Linnaeus, Carolus Linnaeus, Carl von Linné, Carl Linné, etc. etc. Oh, heck, just call him Carl. Happy birthday, Carl!
Our U.S. history texts these days mention the clippers, but little more. This wonderful chunk of history, showing great invention in the capture of wind power, and great romance of the sea, falls by the wayside.
Were a teacher so inclined, she might introduce some of that romance and admiration of invention with a bit more than two minutes spent on clipper ships.
Progress in transportation, particularly in speed, makes a solid unit of study in 8th and 11th grade history in Texas, fitting neatly in the advances in technology and how such advances push history along. Particularly with the defense of the America‘s Cup this year putting a spotlight on speed sailing and sailing history, there should be a lot of supplemental material to provide good lesson plan hooks to make a day’s diversion into clipper ships well worth the time.
Did you hear how Mad Jack saved “Old Ironsides” too,
From the scrapheap of flagships too old to renew,
At sixty-five years he inspected each shroud,
And promised the Navy he’d make her stand proud.
He collected the finest ship-riggers around,
From Boston, New Bedford, and Old Portsmouth Town,
He rigged her and jigged her and made her stand tall,
Then he sailed her around the world once and for all.
Ballad of Mad Jack by Steve Romanoff, performed by Schooner Fare, 1981
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
It’s a delightful story I’ve heard dozens of times, and retold a few times myself: Abraham Lincoln faced with some thorny issue that could be settled by a twist of language, or a slight abuse of power, asks his questioner how many legs would a dog have, if we called the dog’s tail, a leg. “Five,” the questioner responds confident in his mathematical ability to do simple addition.
Sunrise at the Lincoln Memorial. National Park Service photo.
“No,” Lincoln says. “Calling a dog’s tail a leg, doesn’t make it a leg.”
But there is always the doubt: Is the story accurate? Is this just another of the dozens of quotes that are misattributed to Lincoln in order to lend credence to them?
Citations get lost on the internet. Not only do people send copies of e-mails to everyone on their list, not only is there spam beyond all measure, but good stuff gets stripped of attribution. Someone sends you a good poem, or a genuinely funny story — and if you want more of the same, you’re completely at sea about where to look. Author? That information got stripped away several forwardings earlier.
“Must be Lincoln, Einstein, or Jefferson,” some wag says, and the piece is misattributed ever after.
A fellow posted this interesting film on YouTube — The Civil War in Four Minutes. One second of the film equals one week of the war. It’s a fascinating pictorial map presentation, with a lot of information packed into 240 seconds.
Who did it? Are there others like it? How do we get the rights for classroom use?
YouTube can be likened to grave robbers who invade Egyptian royal tombs — they bring important material to light, but the context is lost, and perhaps the meaning.
Update, June 15, 2007: Every YouTube version of the video has been pulled — probably a copyright thing. In the interim, I’ve checked with the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum to see if it is available. One person said there is discussion for making it available in the next two years. Ain’t that the way? Why not strike while the iron is hot and sell it now? Somebody, please wake me if it’s ever released.
European Union rules require member states to do something about indoor air pollution. European states are banning smoking in public places. Gone soon will be days when we can joke about Britons and their Player’s cigarettes, or the French and their Galois habits.
Every once in a while as I recount the great Tobacco/Health Wars, my kids remind me that they never saw a cigarette commercial on television. Once, we caught a showing of past ads, and I was truck nostalgic by Fred Flintstone’s testimony for Winston cigarettes — the kids gasped: “Fred Flintstone used to smoke!”
Everybody smoked, once upon a time, it seemed. 1940s and 1950s magazines have ads in which doctors and athletes claim cigarette smoking is either unharmful, sheer pleasure, or even health promoting. Got a cigarette cough? Switch to menthol cigarettes! Mouth burns? Try a filter cigarette.
Today, kids wonder why Virginia did so well selling tobacco to Britain — who in their right mind would have smoked? they ask.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Connections can get a bit out of hand, no?
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 