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History Unwrapped – October 2005

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Many Protestant Christians observe Reformation Day on the last Sunday of October in honor of those men who helped reform the Church during the 16th century. Martin Luther, a Roman Catholic, dealt a symbolic blow that began the Reformation when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the castle church at Wittenberg, Germany on October 31, 1517. The document contained an attack on papal abuses and on the sale of indulgences by church officials. The common people did not have access to the Bible, so the clergy used fear to motivate them to pay money to the church so their sins would be forgiven. These abuses greatly disturbed Luther. But he saw the Reformation as something far more important than a revolt against ecclesiastical abuses. He saw it as a fight for the gospel. Luther, himself, had recently come to realize through his study of the New Testament that we can never earn God’s love or forgiveness. Salvation depends on grace alone through faith, and it is totally a gift from God. This truth swept through Europe and transformed the nations.

The founding of America was greatly influenced by settlers who brought with them a faith shaped through the Reformation that had occurred years before. They brought a Protestant Christian heritage that was begun by men willing to be burned at the stake rather than deny the truth of the gospel. That Reformation started almost 500 years ago has influenced our nation’s documents, state constitutions, and laws. We owe much to those Reformers of long ago who were used by God to return truth to the land.

Halloween began over 2,000 years ago in the British Isles. It was a night when Celtic tribes communed with the spirits of their dead ancestors. When the Romans conquered the Celts, the Catholic church assimilated the celebration into Christian versions. The term Halloween means All Hallows Eve, also called All Saints’ Day or All Souls’ Day, which was observed on November 1. The Christian feast, celebrated by Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans, honored all the saints, known and unknown. The celebration of Halloween disappeared in Puritan New England, but other regions in America celebrated All Saints’ Day. Halloween became a uniform American celebration in the mid-19th century, when famine drove thousands of Irish to America. They brought the October 31st celebration with them.

The Irish also brought the Jack-O’-Lantern to America. The legendary Jack was turned away from the gates of Heaven because he was a stingy, mean drunkard. Desperate for a resting place, he went to the Devil who also turned him away but tossed Jack a lighted coal from the fire of Hell to light his way. Irish children carved turnips and potatoes to light the night on Halloween. When the Irish came to America, they discovered that pumpkins made even better lanterns.

A study of the historical record reveals that religion played a major role in the development of public school curriculum. “Textbooks referred to God without embarrassment, and public schools considered one of their major tasks to be the development of character through the teaching of religion. The New England Primer opened with religious admonitions followed by the Lord’s Prayer, the Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, and the names of the books of the Bible.” William Holmes McGuffey’s Eclectic Readers was the most widely used textbook series in public schools from 1836 to 1920. The Readers stressed religion and its relationship to morality without the courts protesting that the use of religion in schools was somehow constitutionally objectionable. The world back then was a world where no one questioned the truths of the Bible or their relevance to everyday contact. Competing textbooks contained varying amounts of biblical material as well.

Since the 19th century, secularists have been gradually chipping away at the historical record, denying the impact Christianity has had on the development of the moral character of the United States. Publishers fear special interest groups that scrutinize material for any infraction of political correctness. Instead of trying to placate every group, it is simply easier to delete questionable material. Sadly, children today are not receiving the same education as students of a hundred years ago.

Education is at the center of a Marxist worldview. The State is the educator, the new parent. The process for change begins with the children. Let the reprogramming begin. In his Principles of Communism (1847), Friedrich Engels advocated the “education of all children, as soon as they are old enough to dispense with maternal care, in national institutions and at the charge of the nation.” To make it easier for parents to make the decision to turn the education of their children over to the State, they were offered “free education for all children in public schools” as well as food, clothing and school supplies.” The State would assume all costs. Does any of this sound familiar?!

These policies would drastically change the family and social structure of the nation. The functions of separate households were transferred to society. Mothers were encouraged to enter the work force. This allowed the State to care for the children in “educational institutions of all kinds.” History was rewritten to serve the interests of the State. Nazisim, socialism, and humanism follow similar paths in order to change society. Most Americans have turned the education of their children over to the State. Perhaps parents need to rethink who should be educating their children.

George Francis Train was an eccentric, a writer, and flamboyant self-made millionaire who referred to himself as the “Champion Crank of America.” His travels led him to Europe where he introduced the horse-drawn street tram in the 1860s. Train loved publicity and was obsessed with speed and was drawn to struggles for freedom. Jules Verne may have modeled Around the World in 80 Days on a trip Train made in 1870. During this journey, Train became caught up in a revolution in France and barely avoided a firing squad. He repeated his round-the-world trip in 1890. Departing from Tacoma, Washington, he returned there 67 days later. He repeated this round-the-world trip again in 1892, setting a record of 60 days. In both 1864 and in 1872 Train ran for president becoming a political rarity: a losing candidate who made a profit by charging admission to his political speeches as he barnstormed the country. In his later years, Train sat on park benches in New York City’s Central Park handing out dimes and refusing to speak to anyone but children and animals, a stark contrast to the man who, in earlier years, had enjoyed an exciting fast-paced life.

Hillary Clinton would not be the first woman to run as a presidential candidate if she is chosen as the Democrat Party’s standard bearer in 2008. Victoria Claflin-Woodhull was the presidential candidate for the Equal Rights Party in 1872. Prior to her candidacy, Victoria had earned a living by telling fortunes, selling patent medicines, and performing a spiritualist act with her sister. Victoria and her sister became Wall Street’s first female stockbrokers with the backing of their friend Cornelius Vanderbilt. The money they made enabled them to start a weekly political journal. They spoke out for free love, women’s reproductive rights (“Every woman knows that if she were free, she would never bear an unwished-for child, nor think of murdering one before its birth.”), divorce, legalized prostitution, and women’s voting rights. Woodhull was also the first person to publish The Communist Manifesto in English.

Woodhull addressed the National Woman Suffrage Association with words that became her campaign theme “We mean treason; we mean secession…we will [overthrow] this bogus Republic.” Even suffragette Susan B. Anthony was shocked by many of Woodhull’s extreme ideas. On Election Day, Woodhull and her sister were in jail, charged with sending obscene literature through the mail. They were eventually acquitted but the charges along with reports about her sordid personal life did not help Woodhull at the polls. The nation was spared.

Scottish-born Alexander Fleming was the seventh of eight children. His family worked an 800-acre farm in a remote, rural part of Scotland. When Fleming was fourteen, he moved to London where an older brother practiced medicine. He completed school and worked for a shipping firm but it did not hold much interest for him. Receiving an inheritance from the death of his uncle, Fleming decided to study medicine. He had his choice of medical schools and chose St. Mary’s because he had played water polo against them. His switch to bacteriology was even more surprising. If he took a position as a surgeon, he would have to leave St. Mary's. The captain of the St. Mary's rifle club was desperate to improve his team. Knowing that Fleming was a great shot, he did all he could to keep him at St. Mary's. He convinced Fleming to join his department and to join the rifle club. Fleming would stay at St. Mary's for the rest of his career.

In 1928, Fleming noticed something funny as he was cleaning a stack of Petri dishes where he had been growing bacteria. It was not unusual to see mold growing but all around the mold on one of the dishes, the staph bacteria had been killed. Fleming discovered that the mold was from the penicillin family. His findings caused little interest and it wasn’t until World War II that interest was revitalized. In 1945, Fleming, along with two chemists who continued his work, was awarded the Nobel Prize.

In 1831, the French social philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville landed in America to observe the new nation and her institutions. Tocqueville’s work was published as Democracy in America. It was “the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written.” His observations are revealing and worthy of study.

The sects that exist in the United States are innumerable. They all differ in respect to the worship which is due the Creator; but they all agree in respect to the duties which are due from man to man. Each sect adores the Deity in its own peculiar manner, but all sects preach the same moral law in the name of God…Christian morality is everywhere the same…There is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.

Two-hundred years after John Winthrop’s sermon aboard the Arabella, Tocqueville continued to find in America “an ostensible respect for Christian morality and virtue.”

The phonograph and the motion-picture projector were only a few of Thomas Alva Edison's more than 1,000 inventions. Edison was one of the greatest inventors and industrial leaders in history and became known as the “Wizard of Menlo Park” named after the town in New Jersey where he created the first industrial research laboratory in 1876. Edison’s schooling got off to a late start due to childhood illnesses. Edison’s mind often wandered, causing his teacher to call him “addled.” His mother, a former teacher herself, happily took over the job of teaching her son. She encouraged him to read and experiment. With only three months of formal education, Edison obtained 1,093 patents, the most issued to any individual. He believed in hard work, sometimes working twenty hours a day. Edison is most remembered for the invention of the incandescent light bulb. In tribute to this important American, electric lights in the United States were dimmed for one minute on October 21, 1931, a few days after his death.

Mother Goose rhymes have always served as a form of social and political protest, commentary, and criticism. “Sing a Song for Sixpence” was based on an 1820 conspiracy involving 24 men who plotted to murder the entire British Cabinet at dinner one night. When they were discovered, many of them divulged the names of the others in the hope of saving themselves—hence “the birds began to sing.” Acts of Parliament restricted public meetings. Since taking action against any literature was considered seditious, there was an increase in seemingly innocent poems with hidden meanings. “Ring Around the Rosy” refers to the Great Plague of the 1600s. Symptoms included a rosy red rash in the shape of a circle on the skin. People believed that the plague was transmitted by its bad smell, so pockets were filled with sweet smelling herbs or flowers to prevent the disease from spreading. The term “ashes, ashes” refers to the burning of the dead bodies. So the next time you read to your child from Mother Goose, you may be reading much more than entertaining poetry.

It’s been sung at the funerals of Winston Churchill, Robert F. Kennedy, and Ronald Reagan. It has brought crowds to their feet at football game half-time shows. Its rousing version has been a repertory standard of concert choirs. But the hymn’s lyrics, whose chorus every red-blooded American can sing, were written by a leftist nineteenth-century woman. Julia Ward Howe wrote a poem, which was published in the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1862. The words were put to music and became the song of the Union army during the Civil War. Her hymn’s lyrics show that Howe had the ability to hate that liberals quickly condemn in conservatives. Howe’s hymn of hate, stirred by the passions of the Civil War became the best known song of the Union army. Read the words and keep in mind that they were written by a woman who was an early proponent of liberation theology, which believes that sin is social, salvation is freedom from structures of oppression, and redemption is by warfare.

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.

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.

Between the American Revolution and the Civil War many individuals experimented with submarine technology, including American Robert Fulton, an innovator and promoter of the steam engine. In 1800, Fulton completed his version of a submarine, Nautilus. Fulton's design introduced elements that may be found in modern submarines, such as adjustable diving planes for easy vertical maneuvering underwater, a dual system of propulsion, and a compressed air system that allowed the crew about four hours of underwater travel.

As naval surface ships continued to develop throughout the nineteenth century, submarines were still considered experimental and unsafe for the U.S. Navy. However, during the Civil War, both Union and Confederate forces experimented with submarines. One such experiment was H.L. Hunley named for its financier Horace L. Hunley. His boat sank twice in training missions killing 11 crew members, including Hunley himself. Despite these tragedies, Hunley was called to battle on February 17, 1864. The Hunley rammed the Union war ship USS Housatonic and sunk the ship by detonating a torpedo. Unfortunately, the Hunley also sank to the bottom of Charleston Harbor. Nevertheless, the H.L. Hunley became the first submarine to engage and sink a warship.

David Bushnell, a young inventor from Connecticut, designed the first American submarine before the Revolutionary War. He designed and built a one-man submersible vessel that he called Turtle, because it resembled two large tortoise shells joined together. Bushnell's Turtle featured a hand-cranked screw-like oar that moved the boat forward and back underwater, air pipes that brought fresh air into the boat, ballast tanks that took on water to dive and emptied to ascend, and a primitive torpedo to attack enemy ships.

Encouraged by George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, Bushnell adapted his vessel to use against the British during the war. Turtle was sent to New York harbor in September 1776 to surprise the British ships blockading the city. Turtle's pilot Ezra Lee crept up on HMS Asia and attempted to attach explosives to the side of the wooden ship, but failed to do so before losing control of the boat. Lee escaped, and tried again one month later without success. Despite Turtle's failures, Bushnell proved that a boat could be used for underwater surprise attacks

October 10, 2005 – The Accidental Entertainers

If you’re looking for a sweet, peaceful tale to help you drift off to slumberland, don’t choose one of the stories from Grimm’s Fairy Tales. The stories collected by Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm in the 1800s often paint a cruel life as many generations of central Europeans knew it. In collecting and writing down the Germanic folktales, the brothers were attempting to preserve a part of German history. They had no idea that their stories would entertain so many future generations. Grimm’s Fairy Tales contains over 209 stories including “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Hansel and Gretel,” and “Rapunzel.”  

When the brothers saw the delight their tales gave young readers, they along with editors began tweaking their stories. The tales became sweeter and moral, but the heart of the stories was never removed. Jakob and Wilhelm studied the law and held university positions. But they will always be remembered for the tales that have produced a few goose bumps in all of us.

The dam above Toccoa Falls, Georgia was an old earthen embankment built in 1887 to contain a 55-acre lake about ninety miles northeast of Atlanta. Below the dam, Toccoa Creek plunged 186 feet in an uninterrupted drop, to emerge from a canyon beside a Christian and Missionary Alliance College that sprawled across 100 beautiful acres. . When the dam was inspected on November 5th, all appeared normal. In the wee hours of the morning, on November 6, 1977, the dam broke. Within minutes, a wall of water, traveling at 120 miles an hour, smashed into the campus taking 39 lives. Survivors sang and prayed while sitting naked and muddy above the receding waters. Some thanked God in the moment of terror, remembering his command to give thanks in everything.

At the hospital, one survivor comforted others even after learning that her own three daughters had died. When asked how she could be so strong, she replied, “We gave our girls to God long ago, even before they were born. He’s just taken them now.” After the disaster, a reporter asked one of the professors how he would vindicate God to the students after the disaster. "The question has never even come up," replied the theologian. Most of the students believed that God was in charge of their lives--not themselves. Many who would not let a tragic disaster destroy the hope that was in them have seen the Bible college double in size and its student body nearly triple. God has blessed their unwavering faith and the college that honors Him.

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 begun 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. 

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.

John Newton went to sea at the age of 11 and was forced to enlist on a British man-of-war seven years later. He was captured after deserting the intolerable conditions and exchanged to the crew of a slave ship. He began reading a book he found on board—Imitation of Christ—which began to sow the seeds of conversion. Newton eventually gave his life to Christ during a storm which threatened the ship. For the rest of his life he observed May 10, 1748, as the day of his conversion. He was promoted to captain of a slave ship traveling between North Africa and England. Slave ships left England empty and anchored off the African coast. Tribal chiefs would deliver men and women captured in raids and wars to the buyers, who would select the finest specimens. Then the captives would be loaded aboard ship, packed in like sardines below deck and chained to prevent suicides. Those that survived the voyage to the New World were traded for molasses and sugar to make rum, which the ships would take back to England. Then the ships were off to Africa to begin their miserable trade all over again. It took six years for the inhuman aspects of the business to force Newton to leave the sea for good.

Newton studied for the ministry and used the last 43 years of his life to preach the gospel. He wrote over 200 hymns, with “Amazing Grace,” “Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” and “How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds,” being several of his most loved and sung works.  At 82, Newton said, "My memory is nearly gone, but I remember two things, that I am a great sinner, and that Christ is a great Savior.” Newton truly understood God’s amazing grace, for he had experienced it first hand.

When President Warren G. Harding died unexpectedly of heart disease on August 2, 1923, Vice-President Calvin Coolidge was sworn in as President of the United States. Before long, rumors began to spread that Harding had been poisoned, either by his own hand or by that of his vindictive wife. Within a year, a less sinister but equally bizarre poisoning rumor would attach itself to a tragic death in the Coolidge family as well.

Coolidge's two sons set out to play tennis on the White House tennis court. 16-year-old Calvin Jr. wore tennis shoes but no socks. Young Calvin's sockless exertions raised a blister on one of his toes, which soon became infected. The modern antibiotics that would quickly clear up such an infection today did not exist in 1924. By the time White House physicians were summoned to treat Calvin Jr., it was too late — he died of pathogenic blood poisoning a week later. Before long, a rumor began circulating that Calvin Jr.'s death was caused by the dye from his black socks entering his bloodstream through a cut and poisoning him. The public knew that whatever killed Calvin had something to do with a wound on his foot and blood poisoning, so perhaps the sock rumor got started because it seemed like a logical explanation to those who were not privy to the details of his injury. The rumor certainly seemed plausible because some of the coloring agents commonly used back then to give socks their color did often cause serious inflammations when the unabsorbed chemicals came into contact with a wearer’s skin.