In September 2009, not long after Senator Ted Kennedy had died, 91-year old Senator Robert Byrd, who had been quite ill, spoke on the Senate floor about his late colleague. "Not very ago, I picked up a book of poetry which Ted Kennedy had given to me in July 1996," said the ailing Byrd, who had …
Topic: Historical Figures & Events
Delving into the people and events that shaped history
What do Robert Louis Stevenson, Sally Rand's Nude Ranch, monkeys racing tiny automobiles, Diego Rivera, and Indiana Jones, all have in common? The answer is that they are all connected to the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, which opened on February 18, 1939 on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay. The start of that event was …
In the 1970s, when people travelled and airlines served something resembling real food, my mother decided that the silverware used by Braniff Airlines looked almost exactly like her silverware at home. So when she had a choice, she flew Braniff (which stopped flying in 1982). And when she "deplaned," Braniff silverware from her meal and …
John Glenn, the first American (and third person) to orbit the earth, wasn't my favorite astronaut in the mid 1960s. That honor belonged to the lesser known Wally Schirra, who was the fifth American and ninth person to orbit the earth. And that's why the gerbil I accidentally killed was named Wally, not John. Glenn and …
Although I'm 63 and not yet eligible for the COVID vaccine, I've been watching as people I know have started getting the vaccine. The roll-out, of course, hasn't been handled well and even if it were, the demand is much greater than the current supply. So, like many others, I am waiting and hoping, not …
Like many people in the "before time," I had my share of difficult airplane trips. I waited for hours in Reagan National Airport one June Friday when summer thunderstorms delayed all the flights to Boston. I once spent the better part of frustrating snowy winter day at Logan Airport trying, unsuccessfully, to get to a funeral …
I remember seeing a headline about a break-in at a place called Watergate and wondering what that was about. It was June 1972; I was 15 years old; and I had taken a job selling newspapers room to room in Overlook Hospital in Summit. I was probably looking at the New York Times, which was …
As we approach the one-year anniversary of the COVID lockdown, I've been recalling moments and events from last February and early March, a time knew about COVID but didn't yet know just how much it was going to upend my life, the lives of everyone I know, and the lives of everyone else. Tonight, I've been …
In 1949, my father received a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from Cooper Union. Seventy years later, we found his lab reports and tests in the boxes of papers, photos, and ephemera that we had put in storage in 2013. To be clear: this meant that my parents had taken those papers with them on six …