History Articles
HISTORY OF ROSH HASHANAH
Rosh Hashanah marks the beginning of the Jewish new year, which starts tomorrow according to the Jewish calendar; tomorrow begins at sundown tonight. “Rosh” is Hebrew for “head,” and Rosh Hashanah refers to the head of the year on the 1st day of Tishri, the seventh month of the Jewish ecclesiastical calendar. It marks the beginning of the civil year.
Judaism employs a solar/lunar calendar system, in which the lunar reckoning is predominant. The first in the cycle of months is Nissan (which has nothing to do with the automobile manufacturer), the month in which Passover occurs. However, solar years are reckoned to begin at Rosh Hashanah.
The new year is heralded with the blowing of the shofar or ram’s horn by the “baal t’kiah” (meaning master of the shofar-blast), during prayers and 100 blasts throughout the day. You’ve heard the story of Joshua leading the Jewish people to march around Jericho, blowing their trumpets so that the “walls came a-tumbling down” (Joshua 6:4-5)? That’s the shofar.
Heroes USA 2001 stamp. Image: Smithsonian National Postal Museum
HISTORY OF PATRIOT DAY: 9/11 Twenty-five Years Ago
Podcast
On 9/11, September 11, 2001, twenty-five years ago, more Americans were killed on American soil in one day than in any attack since Pearl Harbor in 1941. A series of terrorist airplane hijacking attacks occurred in New York City, Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon… and the world changed. As the events of December 7, 1941, led to war, so too did the events of September 11, 2001.
Flight paths on September 11, 2001. Image: Britannica
The memories of this one day in history were captured in the hearts of millions of Americans and people worldwide.
Some of these memories are preserved in the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City, which opened a decade and a half ago on the 10th anniversary of the attacks.
Americans were united against a common external enemy over two decades ago. Everyone identified with the citizens of New York, and FDNY caps and T-shirts became popular, and people said, “We’re all New Yorkers.” For one brief shining moment, we were unified as a community. A week later, I was speaking in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and people cheered… not for what I was saying, but merely because I was an American.
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Star Trek 60. Image: Trek Central
HISTORY OF STAR TREK
Star Trek premiered on NBC TV on September 8, 1966… 60 years ago. It is my favorite television show; I was glued to the TV for the first episode and every one after that. It had a significant influence on my choice of a career in technology.
The show presented an optimistic vision of the future, where the challenges of poverty and hunger had already been addressed. However, many other issues – relevant to the ’60s – were depicted as still being wrestled with centuries later. The Original Series showed a utopian view of science fiction that differed somewhat from the current dystopian Sci-Fi TV and movies. The franchise continues to create new shows, as I’ll describe below.
Sack of Rome by the Visigoths led by Alaric I in 410, during the reign of Emperor Honorius. (Image credit: PHAS / Contributor via Getty Images)
HISTORY OF THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
On September 4, AD 476, Odoacer captured the city of Ravenna and deposed Emperor Romulus Augustulus, marking the Fall of the Roman Empire.
What do we mean by the Fall of the Roman Empire?
First, what do we mean by the Roman Empire?
This part of the statement needs clarification first. When we say Roman Empire, we’re really only talking about the “Western Roman Empire.”
Was there another Roman Empire?
Well… kind of.
Labor Day stamp, Sept 3rd, 1956. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF LABOR DAY
Labor Day is the day we celebrate the process our mothers went through to deliver us at birth. Sorry, wrong holiday; Labor Day in the U.S. is the day we celebrate the achievements of the American labor movement.
Because Labor Day is always observed on the first Monday in September, the date varies depending on which day of the week the month begins. This year, it falls on September 7, the latest possible date for the holiday.
While it is still disputed whether Peter J. McGuire, the general secretary of the Brotherhood of Carpenters, first proposed the holiday or Matthew Maguire, a machinist and secretary of the Central Labor Union in New York — observances of the holiday go back over 140 years in the U.S.
When did it begin, what is the backstory, how is it observed, is there a dress code, what is the value of labor?
Welcome September. Image by DALL-E 3
HISTORY OF SEPTEMBER
You may have noticed that September sounds like the Latin word for seven. And you’d be perceptive — septem is the Latin word for seven, and this month used to be the seventh month of the ancient Roman calendar.
This Latin numbering continues through the year’s remaining months, as highlighted below: octo/eight, novem/nine, decem/ten.
Martin Luther King Jr. delivered the speech at the 1963 Washington, D.C., Civil Rights March. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF I HAVE A DREAM SPEECH
Today, 63 years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. It continues to echo down the halls of history more than six decades later.
On August 28, 1963, he delivered his speech at the March on Washington, at the height of the Civil Rights movement. Over a quarter of a million supporters gathered at the Mall in Washington, D.C., where King delivered his public speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, looking over the Reflecting Pool.
President John F. Kennedy had proposed new civil rights legislation earlier that year, in June, and this march was to demonstrate support for its passage. The march was remarkable because it was one of the first such demonstrations of that size to receive extensive television coverage.
A century earlier, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 had declared millions of slaves free, but it applied only to Confederate territory outside Union control, so its promise depended on the Union winning the Civil War that was then underway.
Did Martin Luther King Jr. intend to share his dream at the Civil Rights March? Was he the only scheduled speaker? (more…)
Augustine of Hippo, by Sandro Botticelli, 1480. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF ST. AUGUSTINE
The Feast of Saint Augustine is celebrated on August 28, the date of his death in 430 A.D. Augustine is considered the most influential bishop in history; he is the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, and several cities and dioceses worldwide.
Most of what we know about him is from his writings:
- Confessions (397 A.D.) is an autobiography written in the form of a prayer to God about his spiritual struggles.
- Retractions (428 A.D.) is Augustine’s late-life review of his own writings, in which he revisited and corrected earlier works.
Who was this man beloved by Roman Catholics for his writing on ecclesiology (the Church) and by Protestants for his writings on soteriology (salvation)?
1912 Ohio Woman Suffrage Headquarters. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF THE 19TH AMENDMENT: WOMEN’S RIGHT TO VOTE
Over a hundred years ago, on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was adopted.
This prohibited the federal and state governments from denying citizens of the United States the right to vote on the basis of sex. Effectively, this meant that the right to vote could no longer be denied to women.
The text, in part, read:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
For over 70 years before that, the women’s movement had been pressing for the legal right of women to vote, going back to the 1848 women’s rights Seneca Falls Convention, “a convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women.” Two years later, the National Women’s Rights Convention in 1850 saw suffrage, the right to vote, as an essential part of the movement.
Clipper ship for California ad. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF THE CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH
On August 19, 1848, the New York Herald reported news of the California Gold Rush along the American East Coast.
It was not new news to those further West, as the gold rush had started in January and was publicized in San Francisco in March.
However, the New York Herald was then the most popular and profitable newspaper in the US. By the dawn of the American Civil War, the newspaper claimed a circulation of 84,000 copies and called itself “the most widely circulated journal in the world.” In any event, the news of the gold rush reached a much larger audience than before and spread the gold fever much wider.
What was the result of this news on San Francisco, the gold miners, and California itself?
Woodstock promotional poster, designed by Arnold Skolnick. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF WOODSTOCK
August 15 marks the anniversary of the “3 Days of Peace & Music” held in 1969 at Max Yasgur‘s 600-acre dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the village of Woodstock.
This outdoor music event, despite thunderstorms, gave voice to the counterculture youth generation of its time. A documentary film followed it in 1970, and a top-selling soundtrack album was released.
I’d like to share with you what it was like to be at the Woodstock Rock Festival – the music, the crowds “half a million strong,” the rain, the muddy roads, the traffic jams, the counterculture vibe, the media coverage, the movie film crew, the atmosphere, the awareness of its own importance, the sense of history in the making:
Infinity symbol. Image: Wikipedia
HISTORY OF INFINITY DAY: AUGUST 8
Infinity Day, also known as Universal & International Infinity Day, is a commemoration held on the 8th day of the 8th month of each year to celebrate and promote Philosophy and Philosophizing for the ordinary person.