Tag Archive for ‘don’t know much about’
Don’t Know Much About® Lyndon B. Johnson
All I have I would have given gladly not to be standing here today. Lyndon B. Johnson, in his first address as President to a joint session of Congress (November 27, 1963) The 36th President, Lyndon B. Johnson, was born on this date in 1908, in a small farmhouse near Stonewall, Texas on the Pedernales [...]
Don’t Know Much About® the 19th Amendment
It took 144 years after Independence. But on August 26, 1920–90 years ago– the “other half” of the country got their rights. The 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the vote, was declared in effect on this date by the Secretary of State. The Amendment had actually been ratified earlier in the month when [...]
Don’t Know Much About® Alfred Hitchcock
Somehow I think Alfred Hitchcock might enjoy knowing his birthday falls on Friday the 13th this year. As a child of the 50s and 60s, I think Alfred Hitchcock’s television series –more than his movies– had a tremendous impact on my sensibilities. Only later did I come to fully appreciate his movie masterpieces. Here’s a [...]
TODAY IN HISTORY: The “Negro Riots” in Watts
It started with a “DWB”– “driving while black.” On August 11, 1965, an all-too-frequent stop of a young black man exploded into one of the worst urban riots in American history. Where: Watts was a rundown district of shabby houses built near the highway approaching Los Angeles International Airport. Ninety-eight percent black, Watts was stewing [...]
Of “Mosques,” Memorials and Burning Convents
In polite society, one supposedly never discusses religion or politics. In America, it seems we can rarely separate the two. The latest fracas over faith in the public square involves the plans for Cordoba House, an Islamic Center, including a “mosque,” to be built two blocks from Ground Zero. Proposed to bridge the differences between [...]
TODAY IN HISTORY: Don’t Know Much About® Tocqueville in America
Happy Birthday, Monsieur Tocqueville (born July 29, 1805; died April 16, 1859) Observing a Choctaw tribe—the old, the sick, the wounded, and newborns among them—forced to cross an ice-choked Mississippi River during the harsh winter, Alexis de Tocqueville once wrote, “In the whole scene, there was an air of destruction, something which betrayed a final [...]
TODAY IN HISTORY: A Very Significant Amendment
I know. The mere mention of Constitutional Amendments automatically sends most of us for the snooze button. But this one is different. On July 28, 1868, the 14th Amendment to the Constitution was declared in effect. On July 9, 1868, the state of South Carolina ratified the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, providing the [...]
Don’t Know Much About® “Papa”
Ernest Hemingway, the larger-than-life American novelist, was born on July 21 in Oak Park, Illinois in 1899. They called him “Papa.” One of America’s most successful and admired novelists, Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) once compared his bare-bones style to an iceberg: “There is seven-eighths of it under water for every part that shows.” Beneath Hemingway’s famously [...]
