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Gerald D. Swick
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What is Great History?Great History's mission is to provide information on a broad range of historical topics, presented in an engaging, easy-to-digest style, and to help readers see how events and trends of history affect or parallel our own times. |
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Jacqueline, there is a part one to the Zenobia article, and it is now linked to this one vice-versa. You’ll find it below Haley’s last paragraph.
Commented on the post Dateline 270 A.D., Part II: Zenobia, Palmyra’s Warrior Queen on the blog Great History.Or to put it another way, Richard, when History gives a quiz on the lessons it has taught, the answers are always multiple choice.
Commented on the post The Past as Prologue? on the blog Great History.Five minutes after this was published, one of our editors nailed me good with a prank. I’m glad to see we haven’t lost all our ability to pull good April Fool jokes, Brent.
Commented on the post What Happened to April Fool's Day? on the blog Great History.Fascinating story, Frank. Thanks for sharing it.
Commented on the post Fritz Bayerlein: A German General with Brains and Moral Courage (Part II) on the blog Great History.There’s long been a division between “formal” and “informal” writing, and English teachers have struggled to convey that to students since long before any of us were born. However,it’s only been a little over a century since English spellings were standardized.
The Feb. 4, 1882, Wheeling (West Virginia) Intelligencer repeated a plea it had made earlier for all newspapers in the state to standardize spellings, saying, “First reform the newspaper spelling, and next will follow a school book … Thus, gradually, the English language will conform its letters to their true relation to sound.” The Chicago Tribune was among other newspapers championing the cause. The publication of the Oxford English Dictionary finally accomplished it. And that was a blessing to society, as anyone knows who’s tried to decipher the free-form spellings found in pre-20th century writings.
The English language, which is screwy enough to begin with because it is a 60 percent Germanic language on which a Latin rule base was imposed (a lot like Microsoft’s early attempts to overlay the Windows format on a DOS base, for those who remember how frustrating that was), will always be evolving. That is true, and perhaps one day U B GR8 2 will be considered formal English.
But for now, outside of instant messaging, it communicates a message the writer doesn’t intend: I 2 stpid & lazy to lrn 2 rite gud.
Commented on the post Y U Shuldnt H8 Txting on the blog Great History.Peter, check out the book Visions from a Foxhole: A Rifleman in Patton’s Ghost Corps, by William A. Foley, Jr. He went on to a career as a “war artist.” The book is one of my keepers because of its gritty portrayal of the life of an infantryman in the winter of ‘44-45. It is definitely not for anyone who wants to cling to sanitized versions of the war.
Commented on the post Art and Ammunition: Sketching D-Day on the blog Great History.One of my mottoes is, “Frightened people do stupid things.” That does not bode well for anyone if North Korea’s government sees its control slipping away. Of course, the same motto applies to Western negotiations with the dog that is peeing on the carpet. Great analogy, Frank.
Commented on the post North Korea: Peeing Blood on the Carpet on the blog Great History.Very good article, Peter. Your points are well-taken. I’ve seen too many school projects that seem to focus more on entertaining the students than on real learning. Properly handled, this approach could do both. I hope everyone who reads this will let their schoolteacher friends know about it.
Commented on the post Learning History Through Art on the blog Great History.Very good article, Peter. Your points are well-taken. I’ve seen too many school projects that seem to focus more on entertaining the students than on real learning. Properly handled, this approach could do both. I hope everyone who reads this will let their schoolteacher friends know about it.
Commented on the post Learning History Through Art on the blog Great History.Hi, Jack.
Here are two Napoleonic organizations you might look into:
International Napoleonic Society
http://www.napoleonicsociety.com/
Napoleonic Historical Society
Commented on the post National Constitution Center in Philadelphia Hosts Napoleon Exhibition on the blog Great History.http://www.napoleonichistoricalsociety.com/
You know, when you describe Moby Dick’s chapters that way, it sounds a lot like Cold Mountain. After reading that “Civil War novel” I now know the name of ever #$(@! plant on that mountain, but I still don’t know why I had to wade through the biology lesson. Melville at least may have had an excuse – if I remember correctly, Moby Dick was originally published in serial form in a boy’s adventure magazine. Melville was probably getting paid by the word.
Commented on the post Move Over, Melville on the blog Great History.A fellow from La Feria, Texas, near Harlingen, once told me he and his brother learned to be taxidermists during the Great Depression. And, he added, “People might not have had enough money for food, but they found ways to pay their taxidermy bill.” Thanks for sharing your dad’s memories.
Commented on the post Recollections from Depression Era Brownwood, Texas on the blog Great History.Ah, drive-ins. My parents never owned a car, so I didn’t get to experience drive-ins until I got my own car and license, but I still have fond memories of them. My recollection of some of the movies is a bit vague on details, though, for some odd reason . . .
Commented on the post The Restaurant, Playground, Pony Ride, Passion Pit, Swap Meet, Movie Theater – History of Drive-Ins, PART I on the blog Great History.I had to research motorcycles when I was writing about unarmored vehicles for ABC-CLIO’s World War II encyclopedia, Jay, and I discovered a couple of interesting tidbits. The Harley WLA, a military version of its V-twin WL, is regarded as the best motorcycle of that war, from any nation. It was used in every theater. Even the Japanese rode a Harley knock-off, the Type 37, which was developed from a Harley license the Rikuo Nainen Company got in 1935.
Harley can’t be said to have brought the Allies victory, but the war brought victory to Harley. The company got so many government contracts that it totally eclipsed Indian, its chief competitor (no pun intended for once). The two had been about equal in popularity before the war.
Commented on the post The Road to Sturgis on a Harley-Davidison on the blog Great History.About 10 years ago I interviewed a hospital administrator who said something I’ve never forgotten: “We are the first society in history to invent more health care than we can afford.”
Interesting points about the efficiency of Medicare and the Veterans Admin, Paul. Could you leave a comment on sources for that, for those of us who’d like to read more? Thanks.
Commented on the post The Battle over Health Care is the Gettysburg of Our Raging War on the blog Great History.Fascinating information, Martin. The propaganda campaign was quite effective in supporting the war effort – bond drives were very successful, men volunteered in droves for the war – but it also reinforced mob mentality. People were tarred and feathered for disagreeing with the war. I recall reading years ago that one man was lynched because he had a German surname. The town of Kaiser, Texas, changed its name to Pershing. Propaganda is always necessary to create support for the terrible costs of war, but it also always results in punishment by association.
Commented on the post The Four-Minute Men: American Propaganda in World War I on the blog Great History.Interesting how often conventional wisdom is accepted without reviewing hard data. (Everyone who still believes the Union cavalry was armed with repeaters at Gettysburg raise your hand.) Polish fighter planes enjoyed a good reputation in the 1930s and, based on your data, Frank, apparently their pilots were top-notch, too.
One note on the fighter planes that escaped to Romania: Only 30-some P.11 types were deemed by the Romanians to have any combat value, according to “Rumanian Air Force: The Prime Decade, 1938 – 1947,” by Denes Bernad (squadron/signal publications, 1999).
Commented on the post Deadly Eagles: The Polish Air Force in 1939 on the blog Great History.Some years back I read somewhere that Picasso and Stein were on a street when trucks painted in camouflage passed them. Supposedly, Picasso grabbed Stein’s arm and said something like, “Look! That is Cubism. We did that!”
Commented on the post Gertrude Stein Writes Matisse, Picasso on the blog Great History.The August/September 2009 issue of Military History magazine had an article on “Indomitable Afghanistan” by Steven Tanner that looked at the many failed attempts to subdue the country. In short, it is easy to invade, impossible (so far) to conquer. Invaders are like police responding to a domestic disturbance call – the members of a family that don’t really like each other all that much suddenly unite to beat up on the intruding cops. “Central government” is an oxymoron in Afghanistan’s tribal culture. In the current war there, perhaps the most important question is, “What conditions will define when victory has been achieved?” The answers to that should define the allied war/pacification strategy.
Commented on the post The History of War in Afghanistan on the blog Great History.Frank, you’re right that Big Tobacco’s biggest sin was its misinformation campaign, but as you noted in your last couple paragraphs, that’s what cell phone manufacturers and providers need to be wary of. It may be that this will never become an issue, but if it does, boy howdy, there could be class actions suits that dwarf those against BT.
Commented on the post Cell Phones, the New Tobacco on the blog Great History.Martin, I can’t speak for certain about chewing tobacco, but I suspect it was popularized in the Southern U.S. Chewing tobacco was believed to protect against pinworms. Some years ago I interviewed a 114-year-old man in Dixie who was still chewing tobacco because when he was about 7, Dr. George Rogers Clark Todd – Abraham Lincoln’s irascible brother-in-law – told the boy’s father to teach him to chew tobacco so he wouldn’t get pinworms.
Commented on the post Cell Phones, the New Tobacco on the blog Great History.We also tend to forget how popular “Il Duce” was with Italian-Americans and Italian immigrants, until Italy joined Germany and Japan in declaring war on America. There is a 1930s street scene in Historic Photos of Pittsburgh (Turner Publishing, 2008) that shows a restaurant called Il Duce.
Commented on the post The Importance of Being Mussolini on the blog Great History.A new online exhibit of original documents from the exhibition “John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legecy,” which is on display through March 25, 2010 at the New York Historical Society in New York City.
NYHS and the Gilder Lehrman Institute organized the exhibition.
The online John Brown collection can be viewed at www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/online/johnbrown
Commented on the post John Brown: Martyr or Terrorist? on the blog Great History.A new online exhibit of original documents from the exhibition “John Brown: The Abolitionist and His Legecy,” which is on display through March 25, 2010 at the New York Historical Society in New York City.
NYHS and the Gilder Lehrman Institute organized the exhibition.
The online John Brown collection can be viewed at www.gilderlehrman.org/collection/online/johnbrown
Commented on the post John Brown: Martyr or Terrorist? on the blog Great History.Nicely written, Martin. Vandalia was another once-upon-a-state story. I’m surprised the salaries were only in animal skins; whiskey was accepted payment for everything from groceries to newspaper subscriptions in those days. But maybe the Franklinites figured giving whiskey to politicians was carrying coal to Newcastle. Thanks for a good laugh within a well-written article.
Commented on the post Franklin: The Almost State on the blog Great History.I haven’t done much research into the proposed state of Vandalia, Martin, but from what I’ve read I gather it was to be a 14th colony west of the Blue Ridge and extending into and beyond the Ohio Valley. Its captial was to be at Point Pleasant in what is now West Virginia, where the Big Kanawha flows into the Ohio. Benjamin Franklin was involved in organizing the Great Ohio Company, aka the Vandalia Company; other investors/promoters were highly placed or respected Englishmen and English colonists in America like Franklin. It was proposed in 1768 but died when the Revolution of ‘76 broke out.
Commented on the post Franklin: The Almost State on the blog Great History.Tracey,
This reminded me of being at the Origins game convention back around ‘85 with my then-fiance. She stopped to look at a war game set in the Ancient World. The game designer knew me because I sold advertising to him, and – in front of her – he said, “She could probably play this, Gerald. It doesn’t require too much math.” Apart from the ignorance of that statement, the irony was that one of her math instructors in graduate school had tried very hard to convince her to switch from linguistics to mathematics for her Master’s because she was so good at math – which is basically another form of linguistics. For some odd reason, she didn’t buy the game. She did, however, frequently kick my butt in war games . . . even those that required math.
Commented on the post McKellar and Hypatia Prove the Theorem that Girls Can Do Math on the blog Great History.A Jan. 26 news story about two cables sent by Karl W. Eikenberry, ambassador to Afghanistan, shed additional light on the debate about sending more troops there. Eikenberry was previously the Commander of the Combined Forces Command – Afghanistan. Let’s just say he wasn’t in agreement about the need to send more troops, so the president had one general asking for additional troops and a retired general cautioning against sending them. Yeah, I can see where that might have led to some serious review and discussion before making a decision.
The news story is at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/world/asia/26strategy.html?pagewanted=1&th&emc=th
Commented on the post America Betrayed President Bush (from Big Government) on the blog Great History.It’s ironic that a great deal of opposition to mandatory public education existed in the U.S. around the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, especially in the South where education had developed along lines closer to what you describe for Europe. Newspaper editorials of the time talk about babes being torn from their mother’s breast and forced into government institutions. Underage factory workers lied if asked their ages in order to keep earning money for their families, but mandatory education laws did increase the number of educated Americans. Though most high schools were indeed based in cities and larger towns, every state had hundreds of school districts (which had to be consolidated during the Great Depression). You make a good point about World War II’s educated American soldiers, Frank, but I wonder if increased access to education also helped prepare the U.S. for World War I.
Commented on the post Warfighting's Silver Bullet on the blog Great History.One other point should be made here: Texas and California largely control the content of textbooks used by ALL states. Because of the size and population of those two states, textbook publishers cater – or pander – to them because of the shear volume of textbooks sold there.
The Texas textbook selection hearings, which are open to the public, always drew groups from both the left and the right when I lived in Austin, and textbook publishers were in a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t situation. One side wanted X put in, the other wanted it left out and vice-versa.
The left has indeed had a strong influence on education in America (and Europe). The tests used as part of the No Child Left Behind program (no pun on “left” intended) have a pervasive theme that it is selfish and bad to want to win a competition, for example. But re-writing history to make witch-hunting Sen. Joe McCarthy a hero instead of a man who willingly destroyed careers and lives for his personal political gain, as the Texas Board wants to do according to some accounts I’ve read, is not the way to deal with this. Re-writing history to fit any political agenda is never a good idea.
Commented on the post Texas Education and Political Correctness on the blog Great History.One other point should be made here: Texas and California largely control the content of textbooks used by ALL states. Because of the size and population of those two states, textbook publishers cater – or pander – to them because of the shear volume of textbooks sold there.
The Texas textbook selection hearings, which are open to the public, always drew groups from both the left and the right when I lived in Austin, and textbook publishers were in a damned-if-we-do, damned-if-we-don’t situation. One side wanted X put in, the other wanted it left out and vice-versa.
The left has indeed had a strong influence on education in America (and Europe). The tests used as part of the No Child Left Behind program (no pun on “left” intended) have a pervasive theme that it is selfish and bad to want to win a competition, for example. But re-writing history to make witch-hunting Sen. Joe McCarthy a hero instead of a man who willingly destroyed careers and lives for his personal political gain, as the Texas Board wants to do according to some accounts I’ve read, is not the way to deal with this. Re-writing history to fit any political agenda is never a good idea.
Commented on the post Texas Education and Political Correctness on the blog Great History.Catch-22. We have to have the logistics support to supply our tech-intensive military, and because we pay our all-volunteer service members more than many civilians in third-world nations make, our mere presence is going to flood such societies with undreamed-of wealth. That isn’t a complaint about how much we pay service personnel – no amount could be considered enough – it’s a recognition that, like the European settlers arriving in the Americas upset local power balances and trade, anywhere our troops deploy outside of industrialized nations, we’re going to unbalance the economy. A much bigger question, in terms of our ability to continue to defend our national interests is, how long will we be able to afford to deploy troops if each one costs a million dollars?
A hospital administrator once told me, “We are the first society in history to have invented more health care than we can afford.” Are we in that same situation with defense? There are a lot more questions than answers.
Commented on the post Flushing Money In Afghanistan on the blog Great History.For what it’s worth, ArmchairGeneral.com has been running an opinion poll this week asking if the Greek crisis will break up the EU. Consistently all week, 70% of respondents have said “Probably not” or “No.” Today, the number of “Yes” votes is up but still running at 11%, as is the “Probably” option.
Wanna bet the old “What’s a Grecian urn?” joke we told in high school is going to resurface with a twist?
Commented on the post Why Care About Greece? on the blog Great History.For what it’s worth, ArmchairGeneral.com has been running an opinion poll this week asking if the Greek crisis will break up the EU. Consistently all week, 70% of respondents have said “Probably not” or “No.” Today, the number of “Yes” votes is up but still running at 11%, as is the “Probably” option.
Wanna bet the old “What’s a Grecian urn?” joke we told in high school is going to resurface with a twist?
Commented on the post Why Care About Greece? on the blog Great History.Interesting that Ill Wind used the premise that bio-agents eat ALL the oil, Brian. That same scenario was in James Kahn’s World Enough and Time, which was published back in the early ’80s. It appears to be a fantasy novel but about a fourth of the way into it you discover it is science fiction; it’s also one of my all-time favorite books of any kind. But the fact that at least two SF novels have hypothesized the end of industry and life-as-we-know it because of microbes chowing down on petroleum pate is a trifle unnerving. There is a nasty tendency for science fiction to become reality. As just one example, i remember a story in Best SF of 1967 in which the characters used computers to work from their homes and send what they were working on to their employers via the phone lines. It was a ridiculous-sounding concept at the time . . .
Commented on the post New Oil Separator Technology To Be Used in Gulf on the blog Great History.Frank, I had the same reaction listening to Durante’s song, which provided background music for this home movie. The entire thing – film and music – is very touching; the friend who sent it to me said she cried while watching it. Her father was a veteran of the Pacific. Most of us have seen photos and footage from VJ Day in New York. I’ve seen photos of the paper-strewn streets in other cities following their spontaneous celebrations, but I don’t think I had ever seen anything from Hawaii – where the war began for the U.S.
Commented on the post VJ Day in Hawaii 1945 - A Short Film on the blog Great History.