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HISTORY: unwrapped – March 2007

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March 30, 2007 – The Pro-Life Feminist

Feminists embrace Susan B. Anthony for her role in the women’s rights movement during the 19th century. She published The Revolution, a journal that promoted women’s and African American’s right to suffrage. What is often not know is that Anthony wrote about abortion: “No matter what the motive, love of ease, or a desire to save from suffering the unborn innocent, the woman is awfully guilty who commits the deed.” Another article called abortion “child murder.” She fought to overturn cruel custody decisions where a baby could be taken from the mother if the child’s father died before its birth. Miss Anthony’s writings are a testimony to her respect for the unborn. Today’s feminists do not want us to know that one of their beloved icons upheld the sanctity of life.

March 29, 2007 – The Bee-Keeping Clergyman

Lorenzo Langstroth’s childhood curiosity of observing insects stayed with him as an adult. The Yale graduate, minister, and teacher took up beekeeping as a distraction from his bouts of depression. The beekeeping industry was revolutionized by Langstroth’s moveable frame beehive. Honeycombs could now be removed without enraging the bees. This new method also permitted the beekeeper to observe the health of his bees. Langstroth discovered that hives could be stacked one on top of the other, which turned beekeeping and honey production into a full-scale industry. His book on bee management, published in 1853, is still in use today. “The Father of American Beekeeping” is best remembered for improvements that resulted from keen observation skills of God’s intricate and fascinating creation.

March 28, 2007 – The Forgotten History of Superman

The history of Superman has a number of twists and turns. The Superman character was conceived by Jerry Siegel in 1933. Along with his friend Joe Schuster, the two seventeen-year-olds from Cleveland, Ohio, developed the character in comic strip form. The Superman storyline is said to be an amalgamation of Voltaire’s 1752 tale Micromegas, about a visitor from another world, elements of comic hero Doc Savage, Philip Wylie’s 1930 Gladiator novel, and even the biblical story of Moses being placed in a basket to be saved from sure destruction. Of course, there are messianic overtones. Kal-El, the only son of Jor-El, is sent to a world in need of salvation.

El is the Hebrew word for “God.” That would make Kal-El the son of Jor-El, the son of El or the son of God. I’m just thinking out loud. Did these two Jewish teenagers self-consciously model their superhero after biblical ideals of the transcendent becoming immanent? Siegel described Superman as “a character like Samson, Hercules and all the strong men I ever heard of rolled into one.”

Siegel and Schuster were paid $130 for all the rights to the comic and character. For years, they sued DC (Detective Comics) to participate in the financial windfall of their beloved character, but with no success. It wasn’t until the first Superman movie came out that Siegel and Schuster were able to strike a deal with DC. They took their plight to the press. It was bad publicity that forced DC to sit down with the originators of Superman, who were nearly 60 years old, to reach a financial settlement.

March 27, 2007 – The Big Pox

The smallpox virus had its greatest impact on the Indian populations in what is now Central and South America. Some historians have theorized that “it was not Cortez’ soldiers but smallpox that conquered the kingdom of the Aztecs in Mexico in 1520.” While this might be an exaggeration, smallpox certainly took its toll. It’s no wonder that the “Aztecs couldn’t believe that such a disease could be considered small and called it the `big pox.’“

The psychological impact of smallpox was also great. Between 1518 and 1531 nearly one-third of the total Indian population died of smallpox while the Spanish remained mysteriously unaffected. The Indians interpreted this to mean that their gods had failed them. In a deeply religious and superstitious society this assessment undermined the will to resist and made it possible for the Spanish to conquer what was left of the well-established pagan Aztec population.

Smallpox was followed by waves of measles, influenza, and typhus. “By the end of the sixteenth century, it is estimated that up to 90 percent of the indigenous populations had died in the successive waves of disease, and the Spanish began importing slaves to meet the labor demands created by catastrophic disease mortality.” The Aztecs contributed to their own demise through human sacrifice. As many as fifty thousand people a year were sacrificed “as a gourmet source of protein for its privileged elites.” But, that’s another story for another time.

March 26, 2007 – The “Mick” and the Gospel

Baseball great Mickey Mantle played hard both on and off the field. The belief that he would die young like his father may have led to Mantle’s failure to take care of himself. In the early 1990s, Mantle entered a clinic to combat alcoholism. Several years later, he was hospitalized for cancer. The former New York Yankees slugger had admitted years earlier that there was a void in his life. He had heard the gospel message many times from Christian friends. While in the hospital near the end of his life, he came to Christ while listening to a testimonial tape by NBA Hall of Famer Pete Maravich. A few weeks before his death, Mantle shared with a close friend that he “now trusted Christ as his Lord and Savior.”

March 23, 2007 – The Detroit of the South

“In 1921, automotive tycoon Henry Ford, accompanied by Thomas Edison, came to Muscle Shoals with a vision of transforming this area into a metropolis. ‘I will employ one million workers at Muscle Shoals and I will build a city 75 miles long at Muscle Shoals,’ stated Mr. Ford.  The instant rumors of Ford’s plan hit the streets, real estate speculators began buying up land and parceling it out in 25 foot lots and putting in sidewalks and street lights. People from all over the United States bought lots, sight unseen, during this time. Mr. Ford’s offer to buy Wilson Dam for $5 million was turned down by Congress. (The initial cost of the construction of the dam was $46.5 million.)  Instead, Congress, under the influence of Senator George Norris of Nebraska, later formed the Tennessee Valley Authority to develop the dam as well as the entire river valley.  Senator Norris felt strongly that the public, rather than private companies, should receive the benefits from the government’s investments in Muscle Shoals. Although Ford’s plans did not turn Muscle Shoals into a huge city, it did lay the foundation for the city of Muscle Shoals.” Congress missed out on a great opportunity. While the quad-city area (Muscle Shoals-Sheffield-Florence-Tuscumbia) of northwest Alabama is picturesque and a great place to visit and live, it has (mostly) been bypassed by industry, as has much of Alabama, although this is beginning to change. Ford’s venture would have more than paid for the cost of Wilson Dam in jobs, production, and tax revenue. The enterprise would have transformed the South by bringing industrial diversity to a part of the country almost exclusively supported by agriculture.

Muscle Shoals is much more famous, although most people don’t know it, for being a music Mecca. The city was immortalized in song by Lynyrd Skynyrd in “Sweet Home Alabama” with the line “Now Muscle Shoals has got the Swampers.” It’s hard to believe, if you’ve ever driven through the city, that Little Richard, Wilson Pickett, Clarence Carter, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Joe Cocker, Paul Simon, Traffic, Rod Stewart, Bob Seger, and others recorded there. Songs like “Take A Letter Maria,” “High Time We Went,” “When a Man Loves a Woman,” “Respect Yourself,” “Kodachrome,” “Loves Me Like A Rock,” “Land of a 1000 Dances,” “Old Time Rock And Roll,” and “Sailing” were recorded at the Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. It’s hard to imagine Mick Jagger and the rest of the Rolling Stones hanging out anywhere in the Quad-City area. The biggest tourist attraction is the home of Helen Keller down the road a piece in Tuscumbia, and it’s not much to see.

Detroit may be the automobile capital of the world with its distinctive “Motown (Motor Town) Sound,” but this tiny Alabama enclave that missed out on being the Detroit of the South set its mark in the music business as the “Hit Recording Capital of the World.”

March 22, 2007 – An Infidel Experiment

…was the title of an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch of May 2, 1885, written about the city Liberal, Missouri. Creating “a town without a church, where unbelievers could bring up their children without religious training,” and where Christians were not allowed was the objective for founding Liberal in 1880. A “good, godless” city founded on “trustworthy” atheistic ideals reaped only corruption. The reporter of the article had witnessed drunkenness, common use of swearing by young and old, lack of respect for parents, infidelity, and immorality. Abortion was so widespread that doctors spent much of their practice trying to save women from its consequences. In only 5 years, the majority of Liberal’s citizens had become disenchanted with doing business with the devil.

March 21, 2007 – Saviors from Space

Science fiction movies have always done well at the box office. Probably the most noteworthy is The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951), adapted from the 1940 short story "Farewell to the Master" written by Harry Bates. Like so many movies of the era, their storylines were often set against the backdrop of the Cold War. The Day the Earth Stood Still is no exception. But there is another element that is often missed by moviegoers. There's a great deal of religion mixed in. Probably the most overt example can be found in the Star Wars movies and its use of the Force. George Lucas admitted that he "put the Force into the movie in order to try to awaken a certain kind of spirituality in young people. . . . I think there is a God. What that God is and what we know about God, I'm not sure." There's a more subtle expression of religion in The Day the Earth Stood Still in addition to Klaatu's stated belief in "the Almighty Spirit":

Scriptwriter Edmund H. North transformed the alien emissary Klaatu into a Christ-figure, implying that extra-terrestrials would be the true saviors of mankind. He did this in a subtle manner, having Klaatu adopt the earth name Carpenter and through the alien’s death and resurrection.

North considered it his "private little joke" hoping "the Christ comparison would be subliminal." So the next time you sit down to watch Michael Rennie, Patricia Neal, and Billy Gray, who played "Bud" in Father Knows Best, see how many New Testament, Christ-like allusions you can find in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

March 20, 2007 – Fact or Myth?

After Marco Polo returned home from his extensive tour of the East, he enlisted in the Venetian army in Venice’s battle against Genoa in 1298. During a sea battle, he was captured and imprisoned in Genoa, Italy. While Marco was serving time, he did not waste time. Instead, he collaborated with another prisoner, a scribe named Rusticiano of Pisa, to write the story of his travels in the East. The book was an immediate hit, but it was also discredited by some who claimed that it was full of lies. Marco Polo had written a million tall tales, they said, and that is how the book became known in Italian as Il Milione (“The Million”). Despite the outlandish descriptions of his adventures, later travelers confirmed many of Polo's stories about a "salt-water lake" (the Caspian Sea), strange fat-tailed sheep, the Order of Assassins in Persia, the burning of "black stones" (coal), tattooing, the rhinoceros, and the crocodile. It is surprising that Marco Polo did not mention the Great Wall of China, but China's a large country.

March 19, 2007 – The Great White Hurricane

Weather forecasters couldn’t have been more wrong with their prediction of fair weather. A legendary blizzard struck the northeastern United States in March of 1888.  The blizzard paralyzed the East Coast. Telegraph and telephone wires snapped, isolating New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Washington for days. Two hundred ships were grounded, and at least one hundred seamen died. Fire stations were immobilized, and property loss from fire alone was estimated at $25 million. More than 400 deaths were reported. The snowstorm took everyone by surprise. The days leading up to the storm were unseasonably mild for that time of year. The temperatures were in the 40s and 50s when torrential rains turned to snow. Temperatures plunged and roaring winds continued for 36 hours. Forty and fifty inches of snow fell in some states and winds up to 48 miles per hour caused 50 foot high snowdrifts.  The resulting transportation crisis led to the creation of the New York subway in 1900. It was so cold that many unprepared people froze to death. Teachers and children lost their lives trying to get home in the blinding storm. Dead animals were found strewn over the landscape the next day. It took days to dig out from under the storm’s deadly white blanket, causing many to realize that preparation in advance of a disaster was necessary. 

March 16, 2007 – A City in Ruins

Yerba Buena was a tiny village of sand dunes and small oaks populated with fleas that tormented the few people who lived there. The Gold Rush transformed the sleepy town into the booming city of San Francisco. This cosmopolitan center was jolted awake on the morning of April 18, 1906 as an earthquake hit the city. People were in bed as buildings were leveled and streets rose and fell. Fires broke out, causing more destruction than the earthquake. Four square miles of the city was destroyed by fire and the death toll was 4,000. This was not the first time San Francisco had survived a disaster. The city had burned to the ground six times previously. The mythical bird that is reborn from its ashes, the Phoenix, was adopted as the city’s symbol. Did San Francisco survive only to fall victim to a future earthquake? Only time will tell.

March 15, 2007 – Coin Clipping for Fun and Profit

Exchanging one commodity or service for another commodity or service is called bartering. As long as you needed what the other person had, bartering was a good way to do business. But if you needed something your neighbor had and he didn’t need what you had, you would have to find someone who needed what you had and wanted what the other man had so an exchange could be made. Over time, you can see how complicated bartering could get. One way to fix the logistic problems associated with bartering was to find a commodity that everyone valued and use it as a medium of exchange for everything else. This was most often gold and silver. But how would you know if the gold piece of one trader was as pure as the gold piece of another trader? Gold had to be weighed and certified by an assayer to insure its purity. Assayers were not always around when you needed one.

As time went on, someone had the grand idea of standardizing coinage and stamping it with an image that would be nearly impossible to duplicate. Since gold was a soft metal, it was easy to fabricate, strike, and identify. A simple bite or scratch would identify it as gold. But when there’s a way to make a buck without doing much work, someone will find a way to cheat the system. Since gold coins had smooth edges, it didn’t take much effort to clip just a little gold off the edges while keeping the coin relatively intact. The coin remained virtually the same, but with a few shavings off the edge that no one would notice. If this was done to several coins, a coin clipper would have enough extra gold to exchange for coinage while still being able to hold on to his original coins. This is inflation in action: An increase in the money supply without an actual increase in real money. There had to be a better way to stop coin clipping.

Antoine Boucher, a French machinist, devised a way to stamp coins with raised borders around its circumference and “milled” grooves around the outside edge. If you got a smooth-edged coin, you knew it had been clipped. England struck its first coins with milled edges in 1553, but the process proved costly and was abandoned. People went right back to clipping. In time, putting milled edges on coins became cost effective. This didn’t stop everybody from clipping and putting new edges on the coins. Oliver Cromwell proposed engraving mottoes around the edge of the coins. When this didn’t stop the pilfering, he had coins struck with this message: “The Penalty for Clipping Coins Is Death.” Today, no one bothers with clipping coins since they are no longer made of gold and silver. Even so, the edges of dimes, quarters, half-dollars, and dollar coins still retain the milled edge. It’s all for decoration. You’ve probably noticed that pennies and nickels have smooth edges. Clipping these coins was not worth the trouble because the metals were so cheap. The penny and dime are so close in size that a blind person might find it difficult to distinguish them. The milled edge on the dime gives its value away.

March 14, 2007 – The Courageous French Admiral

The surrender of the British at Yorktown was a shock and a huge loss for the greatest military power in the world. The improbability of the events leading up to the surrender seems miraculous and much credit goes to the intervention of a French admiral. George Washington later told Congress how much he was indebted to Count de Grasse (duh grƏs) and the French fleet. De Grasse was in the West Indies when he received word that the Americans and French had agreed to launch a joint attack on New York. The admiral exceeded his orders and took his entire fleet to the Chesapeake. The British believed that the focus was on New York, but Washington changed his objective to Cornwallis in Virginia. With the French fleet in place, an attack was launched. America defeated Cornwallis thanks to the courageous decision of the French admiral.

March 13, 2007 – It's Never Too Late

Harland Sanders was born September 9, 1890. He began franchising his chicken business in the early 1950s—at the age of 65—using money that he received from Social Security! When he was 40, Sanders began cooking for hungry travelers who stopped at his service station in Corbin, Kentucky. He didn’t own a restaurant then, but he served people on his own dining table in the living quarters of his service station. As more people started coming just for food, he moved across the street to a motel and restaurant that seated 142 people. Over the next nine years, he perfected his “secret blend of 11 herbs and spices” and the basic cooking technique that is still used today. He was made a “Colonel” by Governor Ruby Laffoon in 1935 in recognition of his contributions to the state’s cuisine. In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, Sanders auctioned off his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 monthly Social Security checks. He was so convinced that his fried chicken was superior to anything on the market that he devoted himself to the chicken franchising business.

He traveled across the country by car going to restaurants, cooking batches of chicken for restaurant owners and their employees. If the owners liked what they saw and tasted, he entered into a handshake agreement on a deal that would pay him a nickel for each chicken the restaurant sold. By 1964, Colonel Sanders had more than 600 franchised outlets for his chicken in the United States and Canada. That year, he sold his interest in the United States company for $2 million to a group of investors. In 1971, the franchise was sold for $285 million. KFC was acquired in October 1986 from RJR Nabisco, Inc. by PepsiCo, Inc., for approximately $840 million. KFC is now part of the world's largest restaurant company—Yum! Brands—with nearly 32,500 units in more than 100 countries and territories around the world. And to think that it all started with some chicken, “11 herbs and spices,” a cooker, a $105 Social Security check, and a man who did not know the word “retire.”

March 12, 2007 – Carnegie's Golden Goose

Before Andrew Carnegie earned his millions in steel, he made his first fortune through investments—and never used a penny of his own money. Twelve-year-old Andrew took a factory job for $1.20 a week shortly after his poverty-stricken family arrived in America from Scotland in 1848. Four years later, he went to work for Tom Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad who taught young Andrew the art of investing. Carnegie learned how to use dividends from stock to make payments against loans. When the loans were paid off, the dividends were his. He would use this system repeatedly to build his assets and income without having to invest his own capital. Though Carnegie would go on to amass a staggering fortune in the steel business, he would always remember his very first monthly dividend of $10. Carnegie gave away much of his vast fortune, funding libraries and museums.

March 9, 2007 – The Tree that Ate Roger Williams

Roger Williams (1603–1683), founder of the Rhode Island colony, believed that the Church of England had not gone far enough in reforming itself. To the colonists of Massachusetts Bay, Williams's preaching sounded a lot like what European Anabaptists had preached in the sixteenth century—separation and purity no matter what the cost. As a result, the fragile colony of Massachusetts feared that an uprising similar to the one in the German city-state of Münster in 1534 could take place in New England if Williams’s views spread among more radical groups.

The General Court ordered Williams to leave the colony within six weeks and return to England. Because it was winter, he was allowed to remain in the colony until spring. Before the authorities could send him packing back to England, Williams left the jurisdiction of Massachusetts Bay with twenty supporters. They headed for Narragansett Bay, forty miles south of the Massachusetts colony. There Williams established a settlement, naming it Providence Plantation “in a sense of God's merciful providence unto me in my distress.”

Upon his death, Williams was buried on the family farm where apple trees were growing. Many years later, the Rhode Island Historical Society decided to exhume his body for a more honoring burial. When the grave was opened, Williams was gone. It seems that a “root of an apple tree had penetrated the head of the coffin and had followed down Williams’ spine, dividing into a fork at the legs. The tree had absorbed the chemicals of the decaying body and had transmuted them into its wood and fruit. The apples, in turn, had been eaten by people, quite unconscious of the fact that they were indirectly taking into their systems part of the long-dead Williams.”

March 8, 2007 – The July Fourth Connection

John Adams, our second president, and Thomas Jefferson, our third, both died on the same day. These two former presidents died on July 4, 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Both Jefferson and Adams along with Benjamin Franklin were on the committee that helped draft the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson and Adams, who had worked together in the cause of independence, became bitter political enemies. They differed on nearly every issue and became opponents in the presidential race of 1800 where Jefferson defeated Adams who was running for a second term. The two men reconciled their differences during retirement and became close friends. These two Founding Fathers died within a few hours of each other on this day 180 years ago.

March 7, 2007 – Radio to the Rescue

During a very dense fog, the British ship East Goodwin collided with a British steamer. The steamer misjudged the tide and accidentally rammed the East Goodwin causing heavy damage. Fortunately, the sea was calm and the damaged ship was able to keep afloat. The steamer remained alongside the East Goodwin until a distress call was sent across the water by wireless radio. It was one of the first uses of radio since its invention just months earlier by the Italian physicist Guglielmo Marconi.

The Italian government was not interested in Marconi’s ideas of wireless communication when presented to them in 1896. Marconi believed he would have more success in England where some of his relatives resided. He filed his first patent for a system for telegraphy shortly after arriving in England and in 1897, formed the world’s first radio company.

Although lifeboats were not needed to rescue the East Goodwin crew and passengers, the wireless link with the shore made it possible for the rescue ship to set out much more quickly than would otherwise have been the case. The significance of what happened did not escape the people involved at the time. A system was now in place that enabled a vessel in distress to quickly call for help.

March 6, 2007 – Kate to the Rescue

In July of 1881, heavy rains in Iowa had caused creeks and rivers to rise. From the house, 15-year-old Kate Shelley heard the timbers of the bridge crack and then the horrible crash as the train engine fell into the creek. Kate had to get help for the survivors and stop the passenger train that would soon be arriving. Crossing the Des Moines River Bridge to reach the depot would be difficult, as there was no walkway. With a lantern in one hand, Kate, who could not swim, crawled across while the flood waters raged below. She reached the depot, and a telegram was sent to the oncoming train, and the two surviving men were rescued. Kate received a gold medal, two barrels of flour, a carload of coal, and a lifetime railway pass for her lifesaving effort.

March 5, 2007 – The Man Behind the Mask

Lon Chaney was the son of deaf mute parents and learned from childhood to communicate through pantomime, sign language and facial expression. Little did he know that the skits he reenacted mimicking the towns people would one day help him start a career entertaining people, which would last nearly forty years and make him the world’s most popular box office attraction. Silent movies were made for Chaney. He started out singing and dancing in touring musical shows but it was silent films where his genius for makeup and pantomime made its mark. His bizarre characterizations often portrayed villains or physically disabled or deformed characters. By 1922, Chaney was being billed as The Man of A Thousand Faces.  His roles as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the Opera (1925) made him a superstar. MGM offered the actor a contract where he became the studio's most popular male star. Chaney was a fine actor dedicated to his craft and remains a mysteriously enduring star even today.

March 2, 2007 – Delicious and Refreshing

Mention the name of Dr. John Stith Pemberton, and the majority of people would shrug their shoulders. But it was Dr. Pemberton, an Atlanta pharmacist, who carried his new concoction in a jug down the street to Jacob’s Pharmacy for a taste testing at the soda fountain. The syrup was declared “excellent” and sold for five cents a glass. Carbonated water was added to the new syrup producing a drink that was “Delicious and Refreshing,” a theme that continues to this day.

Dr. Pemberton’s partner and bookkeeper suggested the name “Coca-Cola,” and soon the beverage was being advertised in the newspaper. The first year’s sales averaged about nine drinks a day. Dr. Pemberton had no idea of the potential of his creation. He eventually sold his business, with the remaining interest in his tasty drink being purchased by Asa Candler. Atlantan Candler had fine business sense and ended up with complete control of Coca-Cola. Under his direction, Coca-Cola became the most recognized product around the world.

March 1, 2007 – A Family of Spies

Benedict Arnold’s treasonous acts against America during the War of Independence should not be viewed any less harshly, but his second wife, Peggy, probably was not the innocent woman she claimed to be. Peggy Arnold may have been providing secrets to the British even before her husband decided to become a turncoat. Socialite Peggy Shippen was 18 and from a wealthy Philadelphia family when she married Benedict, a widower of 37. Marrying into the Shippen family gave Benedict Arnold the social status he seemed to so desperately need. Arnold also was continually in debt from living beyond his means. He and Peggy enjoyed the good life and spent more money than Arnold made. Arnold’s motives were personal not political when he made the decision to work with the British. His greedy desire for more money and his wife’s encouragement were behind a decision Arnold probably later regretted. His resentment with Congress, who slighted Arnold and promoted men of lesser rank, added to his discontentment. New evidence suggests that Peggy Arnold always hated the American cause and actively promoted her husband’s plan to switch allegiance. The Arnold’s went into exile in England, where they were generally scorned and unrewarded.