If you don’t know who Fred Hampton was, it’s probably not unintentional. It was on this date in 1969 that Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, two leaders of the Illinois Black Panthers, were killed by Chicago police officers during an early morning raid. Four other Black Panthers were seriously wounded. No police officers were shot. A …
Can Fred Hampton’s 1969 killing explain two contemporary movements? Read More »
Easter Sunday, March 23, 1913, is generally considered to mark the beginning of a five-day period during which the Ohio River and its major tributaries overflowed their banks, causing cataclysmic flooding across its entire watershed. When the local waters began to recede and Mississippi helped carry away floodwaters, more than a thousand people were dead. …
Sputnik moments On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first manned space satellite, Sputnik 1. Though then President Dwight Eisenhower knew well in advance of the impending event, his calculations as to the American public’s response to Sputnik proved greatly underestimated. The sense of vulnerability felt by a majority of Americans prompted a …
Products of their times In my own odd duck way, I’m enjoying reading two related classics on the economic factors that may or may not have influenced the construction of the U.S. Constitution. Initially intended as a bit of catching up on a famous book neglected only due to life’s other demands, my reading of …