MOVIE REVIEW: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

On my Culture Vulture blog I’ve written a movie review without plot spoilers of Star Trek Into Darkness, read it here. This is currently the #1 movie in America. Bottom line: I loved it. If possible it’s better, if not as inventive as the previous movie in the reboot released in May 2009 and reviewed by me here. I’d call it the most enjoyable movie so far this year, though I may be biased as I’ve been watching Star Trek since the summer previews in 1966 and I’ve seen this movie twice in the opening weekend.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

MAY 4

For those keeping track, another geek holiday is May 4, or May the Forth taken from the benediction “May the Force be with you” made famous in the Star Wars film series. This pun intended holiday seems to have first been celebrated in Toronto, Canada in 2011. However, the use of this phrase predates this going back to the day in 1979 when Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman prime minister was elected. The Conservative party took out a newspaper ad in the London Evening news on May 4  that said “May the Fourth be with you, Maggie. Congratulations.

Now that Disney owns the Star Wars franchise, there will be a large celebration at WaltDisney World’s Hollywood Studios this year.

In equally mock seriousness IGN reports that the galactic Empire, in opposition to the Force-wielding Rebel Alliance, has started a campaign to ban May the Forth celebrations.

How will you observe May the Forth?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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CINCO DE MAYO

Cinco de Mayo is frequently regarded as the Mexican equivalent of the United States 4th of July. This is incorrect. In actuality, it is the equivalent of the “5th of May” in the Spanish language. Another misconception is that this has something to do with Mayonnaise. That too is a bum spread, as the condiment had its origin with the French, who will come into our story later. Nor does it have to do with County Mayo in Ireland, though we’ll make sure the Irish get into this story at some point. Rather, the “Battle of Cinco de Mayo” or specifically the Battle of Puebla, occurred on May 5, 1862.

Background: President Benito Juarez, who had been Zapotec Indian minister of Justice in Juan Alvarez‘ cabinet in the 1850′s, entered Mexico City on January 11, 1861 and promptly expelled the Spanish minister, the papal legate, and members of the episcopate. Additionally, he took steps to enforce the decrees of 1859, dis-endowing and disestablishing the church. He could not have known then that almost a century later, “antidisestablishmentarianism” would become the longest word in the English dictionary. Although Juarez was recognized by the United States and had received both moral and military aid from the US, there were over $80,000,000 in debts at that time to Europe alone. The Mexican Congress in July 17, 1861 decreed the suspension for 2 years of interest payments on the external national debt, and 3 months later a convention occurred between Great Britain, France, and Spain calling for joint intervention in Mexico.

As European forces advanced, and particularly French troops, their advance was checked at Puebla on May 5, 1862. The Mexican forces under the command of Texas-born General Ignacio Zaragosa managed to defeat a larger and better equipped French force.

However, the next year Napoleon III of France sent almost five times as many troops to Mexico to take over and install a puppet ruler, his relative the Archduke Maximillian of Austria, though he was defeated four years later.

Many believe that Cinco de Mayo is universally celebrated in Mexico as a day of independence. This is wrong on two counts. First, the call for Mexican independence, the Grito de Dolores, was made by Miguel Hidalgo at the town of Dolores on September 16, 1810, though it was not recognized by the Spanish viceroy until 1821. Secondly, because it is not a federal holiday, Cinco de Mayo is not widely celebrated in Mexico, except in Puebla, the largest city in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Elsewhere in Mexico it is observed with eating, drinking, and dancing. In the United States, however, it is widely recognized along the border states that have significant Mexican-American populations, especially in California, to celebrate Hispanic pride and culture, not unlike Irish-Americans do on St. Patrick’s Day.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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MAY DAY

May Day is many things to many people. Etymologically, it is a homophone (same sounding word) for the international call for help. It is a corruption of the French imperative “M’aidez” meaning “Help me!” As a holiday it is claimed by many. It is known in the pagan world as Beltane, a fertility celebration, one of the four high holidays in the pagan calendar, Samhain on October 31 is another. Beltane is the day of fire commemorating Bel or Belenos, the Celtic sun god. Indeed, in the modern Irish language, Bealtaine is the name for the month of May. The early Anglo-Saxons began their celebration on the eve before, feasting the end of winter and the first planting. It was a time of revelry and abandon — note the song from the musical Camelot “It’s May, it’s May, the lusty month of May” — with the selection of a May Queen and the ribbons of the Maypole. But this day’s celebration of the revival of vegetation goes back to the Roman practice of visiting the grotto of Egena. The people of ancient Rome honored Flora, the goddess of flowers and springtime.

In 1886 it was co-opted as an international workers day to celebrate the 8-hour workday movement, following national strikes in the US and Canada. Later, the French declared May 1 the International Working Men’s Association holiday in 1889. Some countries consider May Day a bank holiday. This “Labor Day” is on one of the non-holy days in the calendar.

Occasionally, May 1st also marks the National Day of Prayer in the U.S. This day of non-sectarian prayer is observed on different days usually around the beginning of May and goes back to 1775 when the first day of prayer was declared when the Continental Congress “designated a time for prayer in forming a new nation.” President Lincoln proclaimed a day of “humiliation, fasting, and prayer” in 1863. In 1952, a joint resolution by Congress, signed by President Truman, declared an annual, national day of prayer. In 1988, the law was amended and signed by President Reagan, permanently setting the day as the first Thursday of every May.

A pagan festival, a labor day, or a day of prayer. May Day is many things to many people.

How will you observe May Day?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF THE LIBERATION OF DACHAU

On April 29, 1945… 68 years ago, toward the end of World War II the Allies captured and liberated Dachau. My father, Staff Sergeant John Petro was one of the liberators. It was one of the few stories from The War that my father told me in full.

Dachau was the first “concentration camp,” originally established in March 1933 near Munich, Germany. At first Dachau held only political prisoners, but over time, more and more groups were imprisoned there. Unlike Auschwitz, it was not a “death camp” but instead was a prison camp for slave labor. Nevertheless, tens of thousands died at Dachau from starvation, maltreatment, and disease. After the liberation, General Eisenhower reported, “Our forces liberated and mopped up the infamous concentration camp at Dachau. Approximately 32,000 prisoners were liberated; 300 SS camp guards were quickly neutralized.” Indeed, the month after it was liberated over 4,000 prisoners dies of disease.

Dachau was the prototype, the first of its kind, and the SS had a training camp next door. They first trained at Dachau and then went to work at one of the 3,000 Nazi camps across Europe.

My father’s story was featured on HBO‘s website when they originally promoted their miniseries “Band of Brothers” for Episode 9 “Why We Fight” on the liberation of the concentration camp.

You can read the full story at http://www.billpetro.com/johnpetro

When I visited Dachau a decade ago I mentioned to those who work at the museum that my father had been among the liberators. Everyone of them asked me the same question: “Do you have pictures?”

I pointed them to the website above and the pictures my father brought back. There have been almost 60,000 visitors to the website. I used to get phone calls from old soldiers who served with him, who took leave with him in Paris, fought next to him at the Battle of the Bulge, or were with him in Austria at the end of the War. But not any more. WWII veterans are dying at a rate of 750 a day.

Bill Petro, son of John Petro
http://www.billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF EARTH DAY

April 22 is called Earth Day because it both commemorates and celebrates the observance of the anniversary of our discovery of planet Earth. At this time by all accounts, there is general agreement that Earth is far superior to the place from which we came, as we shall recount below.

Recently, however, there has been increased concern regarding our displacement of the original aboriginal inhabitants, as is often the case with more “enlightened” conquerors, which is how we like to think of ourselves.

The indigenous population, a kind of Eukaryota or more specifically Archaeplastida, is known in the vernacular as plants. You cannot have missed the increased coverage in the media on all things “green.” Of course, the Irish were the first to capitalize on this theme, but now everyone seems to have jumped on the bandwagon, with everything from green vehicles to green computing.

Even Google is gaining ground in going green, gathering gajillions of Gmail guests giddy with great gobs of gleefully garnered gigabytes of storage.

Increased recognition of this under-represented previous population of our planet, sometimes persecuted almost to the point of extinction — when was the last time you saw a chocolate bush? — has brought greater attention to rampant plantocide: witness for example that in Kansas whole fields of corn continue to be slaughtered.

Hence, this year there is special attention paid to underprivileged plants, with the motto:

“Take A Plant To Lunch…But Don’t Eat It.”

Instead, responsible Earth people might consider an alternative. One could chose instead animals, which already have the good sense to be made of meat. And they are higher in protein, like chocolate, one of the other four food groups.

So, in celebration, let’s respect our plant brethren. They’re often at least as intelligent as some people you know: have you ever noticed how a sunflower tracks the movement of the sun? Think about it. They’re also quiet and, while generally not good conversationalists, are better behaved than many human children.

Of course, this is with the exception of fungi, the so-called “trailer trash” of the plant kingdom, which have been disowned for phylogenic reasons, not to mention their being “photosynthetically challenged.” Some of these heterotrophs have, through remedial education, found a home in breweries and Italian cuisine.

Nevertheless, plants, as you’ll recall, are one of the reasons we came to Earth. Some of the other reasons include:

• Location: it’s right here. Look just below your feet.

• Memorable: it’s shaped like the AT&T logo.

• Spherical: which makes it convenient for those “round the world” trips and has a much more pleasing shape than where we came from. Did you ever wonder why we called the previous generation “squares?” Think about it.

• Great restaurants: and great atmosphere, unlike, for example, the Moon which has great restaurants but no atmosphere.

• Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere: so crucial for those of us who breathe, and better than methane in so many ways.

• Gravity: which is set at a convenient “one-g,” quite handy for keeping everything in its place.

• Neighbors: generally far enough away that they don’t bother us much, and those who do are generally more intelligent than average, needing to understand things like calculus, tachyons, and three-phase cyclotronic nuclear-fissionable uranium isotope molecular reconstructors for trans-dimensional physics.

I don’t know about you, but I’m planning on spending the rest of my life right here on Earth. I have other plans thereafter.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood Earthling
www.billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF APRIL 19

Many of my Facebook friends have asked me to write an article on the History of April 19th. Why? What important things have happened historically on this date in history? There are many, here are just three:

• Reformation – 1529

On April 19, at the Second Diet of Speyer the first use of the term Protestant occurred. What was the context? Back in the First Diet of Speyer, Germany in 1526, followers of Martin Luther in Germany and Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland understood that the Roman Church would permit the toleration of Lutheran and Swiss Reformed versions of worship, essentially suspending the impact of the Edict of Worms, which back in 1521 had declared Luther to be an outlaw and banned the reading or possession of his writings. (He had already been religiously excommunicated by the Pope the previous year in 1520.) German Princes understood now that cujus regio, ejus religio — literally “Whose realm, his religion” or roughly “the religion of the Prince is the religion of is territory.” This meant that if a Prince followed Luther, so too could his people. However, if the First Diet suspended the Edict of Worms, the Second Diet reinstated it, or more particularly excluded toleration for Lutherans, Zwinglians or Anabaptists. A group of German Princes formally filed a legal “protest” and were called Protestants.

• Revolution – 1775

April 19 two centuries later saw the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, also known as the War of Independence. The event that triggered this was The Battles of Lexington and Concord. Across four small towns in Middlesex County, Massachusetts (modern day Arlington and Cambridge) the first armed conflicts of the War occurred, following the the rapid warning system and the ride of Paul Revere, and the engagement of the Sons of Liberty, resulting in the death of perhaps 103 Americans.

Ralph Waldo Emerson, in his Concord Hymn recounts this episode of history with the words “the shot heard ’round the world.” What is perhaps less well known is that it was his own grandfather, the Reverend William Emerson, an ordinary country preacher, who played a role in the story. The month before, on March 13 he had preached a sermon to the Concord militia of the “approaching storm of war and bloodshed” calling them to “real service” based on moral and spiritual resolve trusting on God’s power to uphold them. He said:

“For my part, the more I reflect upon the movements of the British nation… the more satisfied I am that our military preparation here for our own defense is… justified in the eyes of the impartial world. Nay, for should we neglect to defend ourselves by military preparation, we could never answer it to God and to our own consciences…”

• Reflection

Two centuries later, for me April 19 is the date I celebrate the birthday of my twin sister. She claims that she’s an only child, but I recall that she was born at a young age to get an early start in life. She was born in a hospital, so she could be close to our mother.

Why is April 19 important to you?

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

FOURSQUARE DAY

In the history of holidays, we see new holidays each year. Some are beautiful, some are nerdy. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to decide which one this is. One of the recent events for the cognoscenti, for those “in the know,” for the hipper-than-thou, is Foursquare Day. For the tragically hip Twitterati it’s at @4sqday and its hash tag is #4sqDay. There is even 4sqday.com.

Why April 16?

Four squared is 4 x 4=16, so 4 / 16 or is April 16, 2010 — which was the inaugural date for this eponymous holiday.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg proclaimed Saturday, April 16, 2011, “Foursquare Day.” New York joins over a dozen other cities that have already officially recognized the Foursquare fan-created social media day.

What is Foursquare?

Foursquare is a social networking system that uses location based services to permit people to “check-in” at various locations around the world: restaurants, cafes, stores, parks, museums, clubs, even churches. People have used it to check-in 3.5 billion times so far. You can “add” locations if they don’t yet exist in the Foursquare service. As you check-in to a location more frequently, you can earn “badges” to impress your friends and neighbors. With a high enough rank, you can become “Mayor” of a location. The proprietor of said establishment may offer special perks for the Mayor.

The service has expanded to offering “Explore” which recommends nearby venues showing you places to eat, top sites and attractions.

How do you start?

After signing up for an account at foursquare.com, you can connect with your contacts from Gmail, Facebook or Twitter. You can add “tips” for what people might do at these locations, or “to-dos” for yourself. After you “check in” you can publish your location to the social “presence” services like Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr.

Brands are starting to use Foursquare to promote their name and generate buzz. Companies are using Foursquare to connect with their customers, and Foursquare has published APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that permit developers to integrate with their applications.

What’s the objective?

If you use Foursquare to check-in at more places, and at the same place more frequently, than other users — you might generate the highest amount of points in your area and earn special badges for specific kinds of check-ins. Example: a user who checks into 20 different pizza places can earn the coveted “Pizzaiolo” badge, or the “Swarm” badge for checking into a Foursquare venue with at least 50 other users, like airports. Others will be shooting for the special badge pictured to the right.

What happens on this holiday?

It will be celebrated in over 100 major cities, including Seoul, Budapest, Kuala Lumpur, Dublin, Pune, Atlanta, Istanbul, Kalamazoo, Seattle, Victoria, Sydney and Tampa. Some call it the first “global social media holiday.” Hyperbole aside…

If you have the Foursquare app on your smartphone — iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry — your GPS chip  determines your location by Global Positioning so you too can participate in this holiday. The latest news is on the Foursquare Day blog or Facebook page.

What’s the origin of this holiday?

It started in 2010 with an idea by a Foursquare user in Tampa Bay, Florida named Nate Bonilla-Warford. An optometrist by training, Nate floated the idea on Foursquare’s online forum, being amused by simple number relationships like squares and primes. You’re probably aware of holidays like Pi Day on March 14 (3.14), or Star Wars Day on May 4, “May the Force (May the 4th) be with you.”

What’s unique about Foursquare?

While most social networking sites have “presence” systems, where you can set your status, or “what you’re doing,” and many have location based services, like Yelp, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter — Foursquare rolls all this into a “game,” a competition between friends, a way of connecting with them and seeing their social (and local) trends.

Caveat:

Foursquare tells people where you are. If you connect it to your Twitter or Facebook account it tells more people, depending on your security settings on those accounts. By implication, it also suggests where you’re not — like at home, for example. If public visibility of your location or non-location presents a privacy or security risk for you, perhaps you might reconsider getting in this game.

So, where will you be on 4 /16? Here’s where I’ve been: foursquare.com/billpetro

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF THE MARATHON

Today in Boston, Massachusetts is the running of the Boston Marathon the oldest and longest running (no pun intended) annual marathon event, at least in the Western World. It began in 1897, the year following the reintroduction of the marathon competition in the first modern Olympics in 1896. This large event typically features over 27,000 participants and is one of more than 800 marathons held each year worldwide. It is held annually on Patriots’ Day which used to be fixed on April 19, but is now the third Monday in April.

The race begins in Hopkinton, Massachusetts where buses drop off the runners in front of the world headquarters of EMC Corporation, and the traffic nearby gets congested. The course winds east toward Boston, about a “marathon’s distance” away or 26.22 miles where it ends at Copley Square. Traditionally, the Boston Red Sox baseball team holds a game at Fenway Park to coincide with the race finishing the last mile in front of Kenmore Square.

Originally the word Marathon comes from the legendary run of Pheidippides, a Greek soldier who ran from Marathon to Athens in ancient Greece. The story goes that he ran all the way between these two cities without stopping until he arrived at the Senate where he proclaimed “We have won” against the Persians and then fell from a heart attack and died. The 1st century historian Plutarch first records in writing this story quoting a lost work. In the late 19th century Robert Browning immortalized the runner in his poem “Pheidippides” cementing the story into popular historic legend.

Traditionally the word Marathon has become synonymous with a long endurance race in contrast to a shorter sprint race. The Marathon was a popular feature in the ancient Olympics and even the Apostle Paul seems to have been aware of it — King Herod the Great sponsored the Olympic games of 12 B.C. — and St. Paul was perhaps alluding to the Olympics when he wrote to the church in Corinth:

Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly.

1 Corinthians 9:24-25

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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HISTORY OF THE CIVIL WAR

152 years ago, on April 12 1861, the first formal hostilities of the American Civil War occurred when Confederate troops attacked the military installation at Fort Sumter in South Carolina. The Fort, located in Charleston harbor was a coastal fortification built after the War of 1812 as part of the U.S. coastal fortification system. Over 30 years in the building, it still was not finished when the first attack rang out in 1861. By this time South Carolina had already declared it’s secession from the Union over 4 months earlier. Repeated requests by the state for the federal soldiers to evacuate had been ignored. One last request on April 11 was declined, and nearby Fort Johnson opened fire on Fort Sumter. For 34 continuous hours Confederate batteries fired upon Fort Sumter starting, it is reported, at 4:30 AM.

The next day, on April 13, Fort Sumter surrendered. No soldier in the Fort died during the battle, though one Confederate soldier later died of a wound from a misfired cannon. Escalation of hostilities accelerated with President Lincoln calling for a volunteer army as four additional Southern states declared their secession.

This war developed a number of “firsts” that would play out in later wars to follow. Trench warfare, developed by General Sherman in Georgia would be seen in the fields of battle of World War I. Hand crank operated rapid-fire guns, like the Coffee Mill Gun and the Gatling Gun — presaging machine gun warfare in WWI — allowed rapid shooting that could devastate an advancing line of soldiers. The use of electrified technologies like railroad trains, telegraph, mines — as well as highly mechanized approaches like torpedoes, ironclad ships and aerial observation made their debut during this War Between the States, or as it was called in the South the “War of Northern Aggression.”

But the the most startling fact of this war, and perhaps the least appreciated, is that it was the deadliest of all the wars American had fought before, or since. 620,000 soldiers as well as unknown civilian deaths occurred between 1861 and 1865. Why so many? Because casualties on both sides were counted as American deaths. In the North one tenth of the adult male population under 45 died. But in the south it was almost a third of the white males. The Reconstruction period would last well over a decade.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
www.billpetro.com

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