About 15 years ago, while driving on a highway just north of Palm Beach, I asked Ed Glaeser, the noted urban economist, if we were in that mythical place economists call "the featureless plane." I thought it was funny; I don't recall if Ed was amused, annoyed, or indifferent. That story came to mind as I …
Topic: Historical Figures & Events
Delving into the people and events that shaped history
WWJFDD? That is, what would John Foster Dulles do? That question occurred to me as I thought about today's #stampoftheday (number 232 if you're counting) - a 4-cent stamp picturing Dulles that was issued on December 6, 1960. In many ways, Dulles now is a largely forgotten figure. But in the mid-20th century, he was seminal figure, …
"Isn't it queer: there are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before; like the larks in this country, that have been singing the same five notes over for thousands of years." This striking observation comes from "Oh Pioneers," a 1913 novel by …
Like most people of my generation, I learned that Eli Whitney, who invented the cotton gin (and who is featured on today's #stampoftheday, was one of America's "Great Men." What I didn't understand or know then is that Whitney's legacy is, to say the least, mixed. Whitney, who was born on December 8, 1765, was honored …
Sometimes a thin stamp contains layers of meaning. Today's #stampoftheday, a 3-cent stamp issued on December 9. 1948 that pictures Joel Chandler Harris, is one of those stamps. Before I started writing this post, I didn't know who Harris was. But it turns out I am indirectly familiar with his work because Harris, who was born …
"What does labor want," asked Samuel Gomers, who is pictured on today's #stampoftheday. "We want more school houses and less jails; more books and less arsenals; more learning and less vice; more constant work and less crime; more leisure and less greed; more justice and less revenge; in fact, more of the opportunities to cultivate …
We've all been there. Asked to say meaningful and appropriate remarks at some important occasion, we blow it. Maybe we went on too long. Maybe we said something we shouldn't have. Maybe we were expressing some unresolved anger. Or maybe we were deliberately expressing our hostility. If it's any solace, Mark Twain has been there as …
"Electricity! Yeah, you can all thank me," Ben Franklin would have sung in "Hamilton" if his song hadn't been cut. As a result, we don't associate Franklin with a song whose lyrics included, "Do you know who the f-k I am? I am "I am Poor-Richard's-Almanack-writing Benjamin "f-king" Franklin." Instead, we still think of him …
If, like me, you played too much Monopoly when you were young, you already know the man pictured on today's #stampoftheday because Andrew W. Mellon supposedly was the model for the white-mustached man in a black top hat and tails who is an integral part of the game's logo. A banker, industrialists, art collector, and philanthropist …