Perhaps it is because I have been a teacher since 1995, and history and government are the courses I most often teach, but I always look for teachable moments. Some of these will be from current events about which my students will already know. Others will be from the past. Having been born in 1946, I have lived through and sometimes participated in a number of important events of the 2nd half of the last century, most notably coming to Washington DC on August 28, 1963, but also having had one conversation with Alexander Kerensky, having my head patted by Babe Ruth months before he died, and - as a child of an upper middle class family in a comfortable NY suburb who attended an elite college, who between Upper East Side bars and some time in the Village of the late 1960s and who lives in our national capital area - have had occasion to know a number of people whose fame and/or notoriety mean my students already know their names.
But sometimes I prefer to connect them with more important events. And for that I often look at various sites that remind us of events of the day, even if not important enough for their anniversaries to be featured in news coverage by the main stream media, as would be 11/22 and 9/11 and 12/7.
For other events I often check a number of sites, most often that of Scope Systems although sometimes I will cross check their dates with other sites to ensure accuracy.
Let's take a look at what one can find for one day.
Here is some of what I found for today, August 1:
Birthdays:
10 -BC- Claudius 4th Roman emperor (41-54 AD)
126 Publius Helvius Pertinax Roman emperor (193 AD)
1744 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck believed in inheritance of acquired traits
1770 William Clark Charlottsville VA, 2nd lt of Lewis & Clark Expedition
1779 Francis Scott Key composer (Star-Spangled Banner)
1815 Richard Henry Dana spent 2 years before mast
1819 Herman Melville US, author (Moby Dick, Billy Budd)
1895 Benjamin E Mays 1st black president of Atlanta Board of Education
1899 William Steinberg Cologne, conductor (Boston Symph-1969-71)
1920 Sammy Lee US, platform diver (Olympic-gold-1948, 52)
1921 Jack Kramer Las Vegas, tennis star (Wimbeldon 1947)
1930 Geoffrey Holder dancer/actor (Annie, The Wiz)
1933 Dom DeLuise Bkln NY, comedian, actor (End, Cannonball Run, Fatso)
1936 Yves Saint-Laurent fashion designer (Opium, Obsession)
1937 Alfonse D'Amato Brooklyn NY, (Sen-R-NY 1980- )
1942 Jerry Garcia SF, rocker (Grateful Dead-Uncle Joe's Band)
1973 Tempestt Bledsoe Chicago, actress (Vanessa-Cosby Show)
Some I remember encountering in my own studies. Others in interesting ways: I look at the first entry in that list and I remember reading the Robert Graves' "I Claudius" later made into the fabulous tv series starring Derek Jacobi in the title role (and my first encounter with Patrick Steward who played Sejanus). I don't remember Sammy Lee as a diver, but as a coach of other divers. I look at that list and for people of my generation the important personage to remember would be Jerry Garcia, even as I myself was not a DeadHead.
Or perhaps it would be remembering those who passed on this date, usually a far shorter list than the births. Here are few from today:
1975 Julian "Cannonball" Alderly sax player, dies of a stroke
1983 Peter Arne actor, bludgeon to death in London at 62
1988 John Cardinal Dearden US cardinal, dies at 80
1988 Trindad Silva of Hill St Blues, dies at 38 in an auto accident
For me as one whose life has been more dominated by music than any other art form, Adderly always has been a significant figure. Here is a live performance of the piece I most associated with him:
And then there are the events of the day, sometimes very significant, although one has to check if those were the dates then on the Julian Calendar or what the dates would be today - one needs to remember for example that when George Washington was born the date was February 11, but in 1752 England switched to the Gregorian Calendar and 11 days disappeared. Here are a few of the events of today as listed:
1619 1st black Americans (20) land at Jamestown, Virginia
1716 1st sculling race (London Bridge to Chelsea)
1774 Priestly discovers oxygen
1790 1st US census (population of 3,939,214)
1794 Whiskey Rebellion begins
1831 London Bridge opens
1834 Slavery abolished in British empire
1861 Brazil recognizes Confederacy
1863 Cavalry action near Brandy Station-End of Gettysburg Campaign
1873 SF's 1st cable car begins service
1876 Colorado becomes 38th state
1914 Germany declares war on Russia in WW I
1936 Adolph Hitler opens Berlin Olympic Games
1936 Benjamin E Mays named president of Morehouse College
1943 Race riot in Harlem NYC
1944 Adam Clayton Powell elected 1st black congressman from East
1950 1st Major League baseball player to fight in Korea (Curt Simmons)
1950 American Bowling Congress ends all-white-males rule
1953 Northern Rhodesia becomes part of Federation of Rhodesia & Nyasaland
1957 1st coml building heated by Sun (Albuquerque NM)
1958 1st class postage up to $0.04 (had been $0.03 for 26 years)
1960 Chubby Checker releases "The Twist"
1963 The Beatles Book is sold out on its 1st day of sale
1964 Beatles' "Hard Day's Night, A," single goes #1 & stays #1 for 2 weeks
1966 Charles Whitman climbs U of Texas tower & shoots 12 dead
1970 Willie Stargell (Pirates) ties record of 5 extra base hits in a game
1971 CBS presents Masterpiece Theatre's 6 Wives of Henry VIII
1971 George Harrison's concert for Bangladesh takes place in NYC
1972 1st article exposing Wategate scandal (Bernstein-Woodward)
1975 Helsinki Pact guaranteeing boundaries, rights signed by 35 nations
1976 Liz Taylor's 6th divorce (re-divorces Richard Burton)
1978 Pete Rose goes hitless, ends his 44 game hitting streak (ties NL)
1981 MTV premiers at 12:01 AM
1982 Greg Louganis, US becomes 1st diver to score 700 (752.67) in 11 dives
1991 Actress Hedy Lamarr, 77, arrested for shoplifting in Florida
Sometimes the events connect with one another, or with births/deaths. Thus we see that on his birthday Benjamin Mays began his tenure at Morehouse, a position for which he became famous. Sammy Lee coached Greg Louganis.
We can see famous sports events - the opening of the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the end of Pete Rose's hitting streak.
There are events from popular culture - another divorce from Liz Taylor, the beginning of MTV, two events for the Beatles, the sadness of a former famous actress arrested for a petty crime.
Some will, to those who remember them, bring back strong memories. I remember Charles Whitman on the tower, something that had additional impact because of the President at the time, LBJ, was from Texas, himself from not that far from Austin, and there were connections with his administration among those shot. For me this was the first mass shooting I clearly remember.
As a teacher of government and history, the beginning of the Washington Post coverage of Watergate was significant. I did not see the first few stories, but within a week I remember obtaining out of town copies of the paper in order to follow what Woodward and Bernstein were writing.
One day.
Any day of the year.
One can find a similar combination of important - and perhaps sometimes ironic - things that could be remembered or commemorated.
Go to the site.
Pick a day - perhaps your birthday - with whom do you share it (in my case, May 23, among others Joan Collins and Jewel)? Or perhaps an anniversary (ours is December 29 - includes the births of Charles Goodyear, Andrew Johnson, and Billy Mitchell; the death of Thomas a Beckett; and events as diverse as the admission of Texas to the US, the Wounded Knee Massacre, and Vaclav Havel becoming President of Czechoslovakia).
We live in overlapping cycles of time - hours of the day, days of the week, dates of the month/year. Whether or not history repeats itself - or it rhymes - it certainly influences what we encounter today.
I think remembering can be good, even if for some occasions it can be sad.
Our memories may be different. Thus I remember not only the death of JFK and how I heard about it and what I was doing that day (playing a soccer game my freshman year of college) but that two famous authors died, their passing almost ignored in the coverage of the assassination. Aldous Huxley was an author whose work I devoured my junior and senior years of high school. CS Lewis was an author I got to know much more in my late twenties, when I began a serious religious wandering that started in the Anglican tradition.
Today is one day in a month of 31, one day in a year of 365, one in thousands of each of our lives.
What does this day mean? What meaning is there in this day in the past, whether of our own lives and memories or of the broader spectrum of human history?
Just a few thoughts from a perhaps soon to be former teacher if I don't get a job for the Fall!
Peace.