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HISTORY: unwrapped – March 2008

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March 31, 2008 - From Slave to Missionary

A revival on the Princeton College campus in 1815 changed the life of young Betsey Stockton, servant of the college president, Ashbel Green. As she matured in the faith, Betsey longed for missionary work but realized that an unmarried black woman had little chance of realizing such a goal. Betsey was treated with affection in the Greene household, where she was included in family prayers and homeschooled by Dr. Greene. Soon after her conversion, Betsey had the opportunity to join a missionary team going to Hawaii. She became the first documented single woman missionary sent beyond the borders of the United States. Betsey taught in the school she organized for lower class children on the islands. After returning to the States, Betsey established schools for Native Americans and black children, inspiring others to become involved in ministry at home and abroad.

March 28, 2008 - Jefferson's Secretary

When President Thomas Jefferson needed a private secretary who could be trusted completely, he chose Captain Meriwether Lewis. Jefferson did not choose Lewis for his secretarial skills. The president had a dream of exploring the land that lay beyond the Mississippi River. Nine years earlier, he had attempted an exploration, and Meriwether Lewis had begged to join. Jefferson refused, thinking Lewis was too young. That expedition was abandoned. Now that he was president, Jefferson was determined to send explorers west, and he hinted to Lewis of his plan. Lewis was prepared to ask a friend, Lieutenant William Clark to join him if the president’s dream became a reality. The Lewis and Clark Expedition would cover 3,700 miles and include lands that would eventually become eleven states.

March 27, 2008 – God's Mountain Man

In 1822, 23-year-old Jedediah Smith set out for the Northwest Territory with a rifle and a Bible. He achieved what no white man had done before—he traveled the entire length of America’s Pacific coast. Smith and his party explored the far side of the Rocky Mountains. Not even a grizzly could stop Smith. With his skull laid bare and one of his ears torn from his head, Smith focused on Psalm 23 until he could give directions on how to stitch his gaping wounds to one of his men. Smith began to prepare his invaluable journals and maps for publication, but he was killed by Indians before their completion. His journals, letters, and maps disappeared, and his contributions to exploration did not come to light until the mid 1960s. This remarkable hero deserves to be restored to the first rank of American explorers.

March 26, 2008 – Pirates of Charleston!

Pirates are not just storybook figures. During the early 1700s, there were plenty of them around, attacking ships and stealing their cargo. Many pirates lived in the islands off North Carolina and openly sold their captured goods in port cities like Charleston. The local authorities either were too scared to arrest them or were bribed into protecting these thieving men. The most notorious pirate was an Englishman named Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. This pirate was a rough one. He would enter battle with bits of smoldering rope tied to strands of his beard, creating the ghastly effect that his body was on fire. Blackbeard was not afraid of hand to hand combat. He captured ships, held passengers hostage, and demanded hefty ransom payments. Blackbeard later bought a house and settled down in North Carolina. The governor even granted Blackbeard an official pardon for his raid on Charleston, even though he continued his life of piracy. Blackbeard's career ended when Virginia’s governor launched two ships on a secret campaign to capture the notorious pirate. Blackbeard was cornered, but he defended himself valiantly, receiving over twenty major wounds before succumbing. The Virginians returned home victorious, proudly displaying Blackbeard's head from their mast.

March 25, 2008 – Will The Real Columbus Please Stand Up?

Theories of the national heritage of Columbus abound. Columbus has been called an Islamic merchant from North Africa, a Jewish convert to Christianity, an Englishman, Portuguese, Corsican, a Spaniard, a French pirate named Coullon, a black from Africa, and even an American Indian who had stumbled across the ocean and wanted to return home. The best supported theory is that he was Italian, from the city of Genoa. As famous as Columbus is today, no one painted his portrait during his lifetime. Although we do not know exactly what Columbus looked like, some of his contemporaries described him as “A man of good size and appearance, taller than most . . . eyes lively and other features of the face in good proportion, the hair chestnut brown, and the face somewhat ruddy.” Columbus might have remained a footnote in history if Washington Irving, the author of “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” and “Rip Van Winkle,” had not published a three-volume biography (1828–1831) of the “Admiral of the Ocean Sea” as a later biographer described him. Although Irving established Columbus’ rightful place in history, he also told a few fibs about the explorer, the most egregious being the claim that Columbus wanted to prove the Earth was round when everyone believed it was flat. The truth is, all the scientists and cartographers in the fifteenth century believed the Earth was round. The dispute was how big around the Earth was. On this point, Columbus was wrong and his critics right. Columbus charted his way to the Indies partly using an ancient map of the world drawn by a Greek astronomer, Claudius Ptolemy. Ptolemy had drawn his map in the second century, and although he accounted for the world being round, he made the major mistake of leaving out a huge land mass that he did not know was there: today’s North and South America.

March 24, 2008 – The Hessians are Coming

The tale of the 1951 University of San Francisco football team, the Dons, has long been overlooked. This undefeated nationally ranked team was denied a bowl bid because it wouldn’t leave two black teammates at home. But to the athletes’ credit, camaraderie and brotherhood as much as a stand against racism were more important than playing in the Orange Bowl that year. Nine players from that team would make it to the NFL, including one of the black players, who also would be inducted into the Football Hall of Fame. The other black player became the NFL’s first African-American official. The athletes from the 1951 San Francisco team and their spouses were provided an all-expense paid trip to the 2008 Fiesta Bowl where they were honored during a halftime tribute. For these men, brotherhood was more important than a missed bowl game.

March 21, 2008 – The Hessians are Coming

Many of the 29,000 involuntary volunteers hired out to the British by German princes and sent to America to fight in the War for Independence were described as spendthrifts, loose livers, drunkards, arguers, restless people, political troublemakers, not more than sixty years old and of fair health and stature. Students on their way to university and young men plowing the fields were abducted and forced to serve as well. One young man, a theological student, was “recruited” amid his many protestations while on his way to Paris. The mixed rabble and honest young men were forced to serve in a far off country whose citizens viewed them as soldiers who fought only for money. No one was safe from the grip of the seller of souls. The troops were called Hessians due to the treaty made between Britain and the mercenary German princes, one of them being from Hesse. The Hessians pay went to the German princes. Thousands of the soldiers stayed in America after the war and became, in the end, citizens of the country they were sent to destroy.

March 20, 2008 – The Successful Storyteller

The man, who co-founded Walt Disney Productions, arrived in California with $40 in his pocket and an unfinished cartoon in his suitcase. Walt Disney developed his love for drawing as a child while living on a farm. When his family moved to Chicago, he took art courses at night. At 16, Disney joined the Red Cross during World War II and drove an ambulance covered with his imaginative characters. While working for art studios, Disney learned animation and film techniques and read books on anatomy and mechanics. After arriving in Los Angeles, Disney started his own art studio, and his brother Roy oversaw the finances. The company that would become known for Mickey Mouse and animated hits like Pinnochio and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs was on the way to making its mark in the entertainment industry.

March 19, 2008 – The Second Josiah

During the reign of Henry III’s young son, Edward VI (1547–1553), England made long strides toward Protestantism. Protestant tutors were put in charge of Edward’s education, and at an early age Edward became familiar with the works of John Calvin and those of the Strasbourg Reformer Martin Bucer. At Edward’s coronation, Thomas Cranmer (1489–1556) referred to him as the second Josiah, as a king who would restore England to the true religion. (It was under Josiah’s reign in Judah that the “book of the law” was found in the temple—2 Kings 22). Under Edward’s leadership, a number of important changes took place: religious services were conducted in English; the Catholic Mass was abolished; clergy were permitted to marry; and English Bibles were freely printed. Not everyone was happy with these changes, however. Henry’s brand of Catholicism was still very popular, as future Reformers soon discovered. Edward, sickly and frail from birth with chronic tuberculosis, reigned for only six years. On July 6, 1553, the young king died, praying, “My Lord and God, save this realm from popery, and maintain it in true religion.” He was sixteen.

Aristotle’s views on science, politics, and ethics had a profound effect on the way Europeans constructed their worldview. The Bible was often read through the lens of Aristotle’s writings. When the structure of the universe was being considered, the church adopted Aristotle’s geocentric—earth-centered—cosmology. The church’s battle with Galileo was a philosophical clash over whether Aristotle was right or wrong on this topic. As it turned out, Aristotle was wrong. Earth revolves around the Sun. In addition to cosmology, Aristotle’s views on ethical matters were also adopted by the church. This is certainly the case when the topic of slavery is considered. He wrote that “the lower sort are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be under the rule of a master. For he who participates in rational principles enough to apprehend, but not to have, such a principle is a slave by nature. Whereas the lower animals cannot even apprehend a principle; they obey their instincts. And indeed the use made of slaves and of tame animals is not very different; for both with their bodies minister to the needs of life. . . . It is clear, then, that some men are by nature free, and others slaves, and for these latter slavery is both expedient and right.” Aristotle’s views on slavery contributed to harsh working conditions among the indigenous people of the Caribbean and Central and South America.

There was a time when wrestling was serious business, deadly serious. Prior to modern Olympic wrestling, combatants often wrestled to the death. Milo of Kroton understood the risks and decided to come out a winner. Born in southern Italy, where Greece had many colonies, Milo won the boys’ wrestling contest in 540 B.C. At more than 40 years old, he continued to wrestle and win titles. In order to gain the advantage over his opponents, he knew that he had to gain weight and strength. There were no Gold’s Gyms, mail order physical fitness programs, barbell companies, or steroids. Weight training—progressive resistance exercise—was not even conceptualized at the time. Even so, Milo understood the principle and applied it in a novel way. Legend has it that he would train in the off years by carrying a newborn calf on his back every day until the Olympics took place. By the time the games were held, he was carrying a four-year-old cow on his back the length of the stadium. The principle is simple. As the calf gained weight, Milo progressively got stronger with each day’s workout. The example of Milo translated into a business venture in the twentieth century with the founding of the Milo Barbell Company in 1902, the first barbell manufacturer in the United States that applied the Milo principle to adjustable barbells. The company was eventually purchased by Bob Hoffman in 1935. Hoffman turned the company into the international fitness conglomerate The York Barbell Company. The principle of steady and incremental persistence over time is a great lesson, but once the goal is achieved, some forget what life was like at the start While the Bible says “power is perfected in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9), Milo let his strength go to his head. Thinking himself to be the mythical Hercules, Milo was wandering through the forest when he found an old tree trunk with wedges inserted into it. The strongman saw this as an opportunity to test his strength. Milo placed his hands into the cleft of the trunk and tried to split apart the wood. All he succeeded in doing was loosening the wedges. When they fell out, the trunk closed on his hands, trapping him. According to legend, he fell prey to wild beasts. The Bible sums up the end of Milo’s life: “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before stumbling” (Prov. 16:18).

Now to the title of this article. There really was a boy named Sue. Sue Hicks, the City Attorney of Dayton, Tennessee, was the person who arrested John Scopes in the famous Scopes “Monkey Trial” of 1925 that pitted the state of Tennessee against the ACLU and the teaching of evolution in public schools. Maybe Shel (Sheldon) Silverstein got the inspiration for “ A Boy Named Sue” from his own life. His parents called him “Shelly.”

March 13, 2008 – America's Greatest Mind


Jonathan Edwards (1703 – 1758) is best remembered for his masterful sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” In addition to his achievements as a pastor, Edwards was a father to eight daughters and three sons, missionary to the Housatonic Indians, revivalist, philosopher, and accomplished scientist. From a very early age, Jonathan was mesmerized by the beauty and order of God’s world. In fact, he was especially fond of studying spiders. So much so that his accurate observations have been preserved and are acknowledged in the scientific community today. Even more remarkable is that these observations were made when he was a boy with no tools, training or body of knowledge with which to compare and test his findings. In his childhood work, “Of Insects,” Jonathan wrote “Multitudes of time I have beheld with wonderment and pleasure the spiders marching in the air from one tree to another… their little shining webs and Glistening Strings of a Great Length and at such a height as that one would think they were tack’d to the Sky by one end were it not that they were moving and floating.” As a young man, Jonathan wrote seventy resolutions. One of these resolutions was, “To live with all my might, while I do live.” That he did. Blessed with a brilliant mind, Jonathan Edwards used his brief 55 years to advance the Kingdom of Christ. Many believe Jonathan Edwards was the greatest mind in American history.

March 12, 2008 – Georgia on His Mind

General James Oglethorpe (1696–1785) conceived a plan to provide a refuge for persecuted Protestants of Europe. On June 9, 1732, he was granted a charter by George II to establish a new colony. Oglethorpe named his colony Georgia. He was motivated primarily from strong Christian principles, which are evident in his denouncement of slavery. In London, in 1734, he praised Georgia for its anti-slavery policy:

Slavery, the misfortune, if not the dishonor, of other plantations, is absolutely proscribed. Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those of our species as our wealth and possessions. . . . The name of slavery is here unheard, and every inhabitant is free from unchosen masters and oppression. . . . Slavery is against the gospel as well as the fundamental law of England. We refused, as trustees, to make a law permitting such a horrid crime. But, Oglethorpe’s words were not heeded. The “horrid crime” of slavery was soon introduced to Georgia. “In 1750 the law prohibiting slavery was repealed and Georgia became a slave-worked plantation colony like its neighbor, South Carolina.”

In keeping with the original charter which gave the colonists of Georgia “a liberty of conscience” to worship God, the 1777 Constitution retains its essential religious character. Article VI states that “The representatives shall be chosen out of the residents in each county . . . and they shall be of the Protestant religion.” Article LVI declares that “All persons whatever shall have the free exercise of their religion; provided it be not repugnant to the peace and safety of he State.” Like many of the state constitutions, the Georgia constitution prohibited clergymen from holding seats in the legislature.

March 11, 2008 – For the Love of Peanuts

It is a mystery as to why no one has ever done a full-length film of George Washington Carver. The story of this great scientist is extraordinary. He was born in 1864 in Missouri on the farm of an elderly white couple, Moses and Susan Carver. While yet an infant, George and his mother were kidnapped by Confederate night-raiders. Moses tried to locate George and his mother after the war, but he was only able to find George and traded a horse to get him back. After enduring resistance in securing an education in a segregated world, Carver entered Simpson College in Iowa. He studied piano and art since the college offered no science classes. He transferred to another college and earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture. Carver became the first black faculty member of Iowa College.

Carver served as Director of Agriculture at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama where his teaching career established him as a world class scientist. Carver remained on the faculty until his death. He gained fame but no fortune in the development of multiple uses for ordinary and everyday foods like the peanut and sweet potato. His work attracted Franklin Roosevelt, Henry Ford, and Thomas Edison. While George Washington Carver was deeply attracted to his scientific work, it was his devotion to Jesus Christ that sets him apart from many in the scientific field.

March 10, 2008 – The First Modern World Series

In an attempt to end a bitter rivalry, the National League and the American League came together in a post-season championship. In 1903, the Boston Americans and the Pittsburgh Pirates competed in the first official World Series. The Pirates of the veteran National League and Boston, representing the American League, met in a best-of-nine series. The Pirates had just won their third consecutive pennant. The Americans were still trying to establish themselves as a worthy competitor. After 4 games, Pittsburgh led the series 3 games to 1. Boston’s veteran Cy Young took the mound in game 5, and Pittsburgh never knew what hit them. Even with the help of National Batting League champion Honus Wagner, Pittsburgh never regained dominance. The Boston Americans, now called the Boston Red Sox, became the first champion of the First American League vs. National League World Series.

March 7, 2008 – The Gentle Professor

The most famous scientist of the 20th century, Albert Einstein, was born in Germany in 1879. Einstein didn’t talk until he was three, but the precocious boy taught himself Euclidean geometry at twelve. He detested dull education and often cut classes to study physics or play his violin. His professors turned him down for a teaching position. Instead he worked as tutor, substitute teacher, and an examiner in the Swiss patent office. Einstein earned a doctorate and published three theoretical papers that would change the way scientists regarded light and motion. Like Sir Isaac Newton, Einstein believed in a universe ordered by God. When Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, Einstein accepted a position at Princeton University. At Princeton, Einstein became a beloved and familiar figure who was often seen taking walks and checking out the kitchen gadgets at Woolworth’s.  His rumpled appearance and finger-in-the-light-socket hair often caused visitors to the university to mistake him for a bum. Always approachable, Einstein, whose brilliance rocked the scientific community, was not above helping a young neighbor with his math homework.

March 6, 2008 – A Barefoot Ethiopian Conquers Rome

In 1936, the Roman dictator Benito Mussolini conquered Ethiopia, and Abebe Bikila conquered Rome 24 years later. Bikila was born August 7, 1932, the same day the Marathon was run in the 1932 Los Angeles Olympic Games. In 1960, Bikila would win the gold medal for Ethiopia in his first Olympic Marathon. As a last minute replacement to the 1960 Olympic team, Bikila was unable to find a comfortable pair of running shoes. His coaches decided that he should run the hard-surfaced 26-mile course in his bare feet. Bikila ran in record time and became the first African to win an Olympic gold medal. He won again in the 1964 Olympics, this time wearing shoes. Bikila died at 41 of complications resulting from a car accident that had left him a paraplegic. A national day of mourning was proclaimed to honor the humble Ethiopian who had gained victory for them in Rome.

March 5, 2008 – Artist of Faith

Mention the name Michelangelo and frescoes of the Bible’s creation story on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel come to mind. Three million people a year flock to the Vatican to gaze at the famous masterpieces. The frescoes are a magnificent example of how a Christian artist interpreted Scripture through his art. Though it is one of the most studied and well known works of art, the Sistine Chapel is one of the least understood. It has become a temple to art, but Michelangelo intended it to be a place to worship God. In his later years, the artist concentrated on the free and priceless gift of salvation entirely dependent on God’s grace. Michelangelo emphasized God’s grace through his art, which was in contrast to the prevailing system of gaining salvation through indulgences and good works.

March 4, 2008 – 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 3, 2008 –The Vaulting Vicar

Bob Richards, affectionately known as the “Vaulting Vicar” because he was an ordained minister, won two Olympic gold medals in the pole vault (1952 and 1956), the first and only person to do so. Richards was the second man to clear 15 feet. That doesn’t seem like much when you consider that today’s pole vault record is over 20 feet. Richards did it with a steel pole. Steel, unlike fiberglass, does not bend and therefore does not have the catapult effect of fiberglass. Getting over the bar was the major concern of every vaulter, but landing was especially hazardous. Unlike today’s massive pits that vaulters can fall into as they drop on their back, pits in Richards’ day were saw dust. A vaulter had to land on his feet or risk serious injury. Richards was the first athlete to appear on a Wheaties box in 1958. Richards ran for president in 1984 backed by the Populist Party.

Richards had two sons who also were outstanding pole vaulters. Brandon broke the national high school record in 1985 (18’ 2”) that stood until 1999.