Roundup: Talking About History
This is where we excerpt articles about history that appear in the media. Among the subjects included on this page are: anniversaries of historical events, legacies of presidents, cutting-edge research, and historical disputes.
SOURCE: Frontpagemag.com and Jewishpress.com (3-30-09)
[Jason Maoz is the senior editor of The Jewish Press. Jason Maoz can be reached at jmaoz@jewishpress.com.]
Much has been written in recent weeks of the Obama administration's possible tilt toward a more evenhanded U.S. Middle East policy. Contrary to popular perception, however, if such a change were indeed implemented, it would constitute not so much a new and revolutionary approach as it would an old and reactionary one.
It would, in fact, be several giant steps backward to the approach pursued by the U.S. for the first decade and a half of Israel's existence, never more faithfully than during the eight-year tenure of Dwight Eisenhower, who died 40 years ago on March 28 at the age of 78.
Everyone, as the popular slogan went, liked Ike - everyone, that is, but the majority of American Jews, who in the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956 overwhelmingly preferred his Democratic opponent,...
Much has been written in recent weeks of the Obama administration's possible tilt toward a more evenhanded U.S. Middle East policy. Contrary to popular perception, however, if such a change were indeed implemented, it would constitute not so much a new and revolutionary approach as it would an old and reactionary one.
It would, in fact, be several giant steps backward to the approach pursued by the U.S. for the first decade and a half of Israel's existence, never more faithfully than during the eight-year tenure of Dwight Eisenhower, who died 40 years ago on March 28 at the age of 78.
Everyone, as the popular slogan went, liked Ike - everyone, that is, but the majority of American Jews, who in the presidential elections of 1952 and 1956 overwhelmingly preferred his Democratic opponent,...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - 19:12
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SOURCE: History Today (4-1-09)
We all think we know Henry VIII (r. 1509-47) and all there is to know about him. The Holbein portraits, the profusion of television dramas and films, the novels and histories set in his world make him ubiquitous. A whole set of clichés, truisms and fallacies accompany that famous silhouette. As a character, the king both repulses and fascinates us. His vast girth, larger than life persona, grandeur, pomp, arrogance and appetites make us strangely proud of this hyper-masculine, fabled monarch.
Yet much of what we think we know about Henry VIII is just that – fable. We think of him in stereotypes. In 2007, in her column in The Observer, Victoria Coren wrote with heavy sarcasm: ‘If you type “wife-killing” into Google, the first listing is a reference to Henry VIII, of wife-killing notoriety. Oh, that Henry VIII.’ Popular perceptions of Henry VIII, according to focus groups consulted by the market research agency BDRC for Historic Royal Palaces, are that he was a fat guy who had six...
Monday, March 30, 2009 - 21:55
SOURCE: TheDailyBeast.com (3-30-09)
[Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.]
Nothing better illustrates the tenacity of the political right in America than the attention it has won for its claims that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal made the Great Depression of the 1930s worse. Despite heavy political losses, the right soldiers on, maintaining if not building support for bigger battles it expects to come.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page has provided the principal venue for the claims FDR’s programs failed. But today, the Council on Foreign Relations has put together an all-day conference in New York asking its audience to take a “second...
Nothing better illustrates the tenacity of the political right in America than the attention it has won for its claims that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal made the Great Depression of the 1930s worse. Despite heavy political losses, the right soldiers on, maintaining if not building support for bigger battles it expects to come.
The Wall Street Journal editorial page has provided the principal venue for the claims FDR’s programs failed. But today, the Council on Foreign Relations has put together an all-day conference in New York asking its audience to take a “second...
Monday, March 30, 2009 - 20:31
SOURCE: NYT blog (3-29-09)
[Errol Morris is a filmmaker whose movie "The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara" won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2004.]
The soldier’s body was found near the center of Gettysburg with no identification — no regimental numbers on his cap, no corps badge on his jacket, no letters, no diary. Nothing save for an ambrotype (an early type of photograph popular in the late 1850’s and 1860’s) of three small children clutched in his hand. Within a few days the ambrotype came into the possession of Benjamin Schriver, a tavern keeper in the small town of Graeffenburg, about 13 miles west of Gettysburg. The details of how Schriver came into possession of the ambrotype have been lost to history. But the rest of the story survives, a story in which this photograph of three small children was used for both good and wicked purposes. First, the good.
Four men on their way to Gettysburg were forced to stop at Schriver’...
The soldier’s body was found near the center of Gettysburg with no identification — no regimental numbers on his cap, no corps badge on his jacket, no letters, no diary. Nothing save for an ambrotype (an early type of photograph popular in the late 1850’s and 1860’s) of three small children clutched in his hand. Within a few days the ambrotype came into the possession of Benjamin Schriver, a tavern keeper in the small town of Graeffenburg, about 13 miles west of Gettysburg. The details of how Schriver came into possession of the ambrotype have been lost to history. But the rest of the story survives, a story in which this photograph of three small children was used for both good and wicked purposes. First, the good.
Four men on their way to Gettysburg were forced to stop at Schriver’...
Monday, March 30, 2009 - 14:24
SOURCE: Telegraph (UK) (3-29-09)
[Will Kinmount writes for the Telegraph.]
The more you read about David Starkey and his latest subject, Henry VIII, the more you start to wonder: are they related? Is there some kind of morphic resonance between biographer and subject? Could reincarnation be at work here? Because in so many ways, David Starkey could actually be Henry VIII.
Consider the similarities. While researching his new book and Channel 4 TV series on the Tudor king – all neatly timed to coincide with next month's 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the English throne aged just 17 – Starkey uncovered documents showing the so-called "virtuous prince" had effectively been raised by women.
"It's the most important thing I learned," he explains. "He wasn't like a typical royal prince at all, not masculinised, not sent away. He was close to his mother, physically brought up with his sisters in a household dominated by women until he's well into...
The more you read about David Starkey and his latest subject, Henry VIII, the more you start to wonder: are they related? Is there some kind of morphic resonance between biographer and subject? Could reincarnation be at work here? Because in so many ways, David Starkey could actually be Henry VIII.
Consider the similarities. While researching his new book and Channel 4 TV series on the Tudor king – all neatly timed to coincide with next month's 500th anniversary of Henry VIII's accession to the English throne aged just 17 – Starkey uncovered documents showing the so-called "virtuous prince" had effectively been raised by women.
"It's the most important thing I learned," he explains. "He wasn't like a typical royal prince at all, not masculinised, not sent away. He was close to his mother, physically brought up with his sisters in a household dominated by women until he's well into...
Sunday, March 29, 2009 - 12:17
SOURCE: WaPo (3-26-09)
James Mann got interested in writing about Ronald Reagan when he discovered that, while Reagan was president, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld used to sneak off to undisclosed locations to prepare for Armageddon.
A longtime Los Angeles Times reporter, Mann left the paper in 2001 to write books full time. First up was "Rise of the Vulcans," a historical portrait of President George W. Bush's foreign policy team. Mann spent a couple of years asking Washington notables what they knew about Cheney, Rumsfeld and his other subjects.
"One guy said, 'Oh, well, I took part in these exercises with this guy,' " Mann recalls. "It took a while to find out what the exercises were."
It turned out, as Mann revealed in "Vulcans," that Cheney and Rumsfeld were part of a highly classified program "nowhere authorized in the U.S. Constitution or federal law." It was designed "to keep the federal government running...
A longtime Los Angeles Times reporter, Mann left the paper in 2001 to write books full time. First up was "Rise of the Vulcans," a historical portrait of President George W. Bush's foreign policy team. Mann spent a couple of years asking Washington notables what they knew about Cheney, Rumsfeld and his other subjects.
"One guy said, 'Oh, well, I took part in these exercises with this guy,' " Mann recalls. "It took a while to find out what the exercises were."
It turned out, as Mann revealed in "Vulcans," that Cheney and Rumsfeld were part of a highly classified program "nowhere authorized in the U.S. Constitution or federal law." It was designed "to keep the federal government running...
Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 20:44
SOURCE: Daniel Pipes website/Jerusalem Post (3-26-09)
Palestinians have so loudly and for so long (nearly a century) rejected Zionism that Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini, Yasir Arafat, and Hamas may appear to command unanimous Palestinian support.
But no: polling research finds that a substantial minority of Palestinians, about 20 percent, is ready to live side-by-side with a sovereign Jewish state. Although this minority has never been in charge and its voice has always been buried under rejectionist bluster, Hillel Cohen of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has uncovered its surprisingly crucial role in history.
He explores this subject in the pre-state period in Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917–1948 (translated by Haim Watzman, University of...
Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 11:51
SOURCE: WSJ (3-26-09)
[Ms. Sadat, a fellow at the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland, is the author of "A Woman of Egypt" (Simon and Schuster, 1987) and "My Hope for Peace" (Free Press, 2009).]
Thirty years ago today, Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Camp David Peace Accords. It was a culmination of a journey Anwar Sadat, my husband, began in October 1970 following the sudden death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Within hours of Nasser's funeral, my husband asked the U.S. ambassador to tell President Richard Nixon that Egypt was ready for peace.
There was no response, since at the time Egypt was a defeated nation having lost the Sinai Desert to Israel in the 1967 war. But Egypt's victory in the October War of 1973 put Sadat in a position to restart his mission for peace.
On Nov. 9, 1977, in an address to the Egyptian Parliament, my husband announced his intention to make peace...
Thirty years ago today, Anwar Sadat, Menachem Begin and Jimmy Carter signed the Camp David Peace Accords. It was a culmination of a journey Anwar Sadat, my husband, began in October 1970 following the sudden death of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Within hours of Nasser's funeral, my husband asked the U.S. ambassador to tell President Richard Nixon that Egypt was ready for peace.
There was no response, since at the time Egypt was a defeated nation having lost the Sinai Desert to Israel in the 1967 war. But Egypt's victory in the October War of 1973 put Sadat in a position to restart his mission for peace.
On Nov. 9, 1977, in an address to the Egyptian Parliament, my husband announced his intention to make peace...
Thursday, March 26, 2009 - 08:39
SOURCE: American Spectator (3-24-09)
[Jeffrey Lord is a former Reagan White House political director and author.]
It was a historic tidal wave of rejection. Symbolized by, of all things, housewives boycotting supermarkets. And the active participation of seven future presidents of the United States.
The 1966 "off year" or congressional elections should also serve as a political warning to the Obama White House as it pursues its strategy of pumping trillions of taxpayer dollars into the economy.
Only two years earlier, Lyndon Johnson had swept to a landslide victory promising a "Great Society" and a "war on poverty" funded by a massive infusion of taxpayer dollars. Intoxicated Democrats looked to an unlimited future of high tax, big spending, big government. Billions (then a big sum) were gushing out of Washington for everything from poverty programs to education, health care, the environment, transportation, consumer protection, and the arts and...
It was a historic tidal wave of rejection. Symbolized by, of all things, housewives boycotting supermarkets. And the active participation of seven future presidents of the United States.
The 1966 "off year" or congressional elections should also serve as a political warning to the Obama White House as it pursues its strategy of pumping trillions of taxpayer dollars into the economy.
Only two years earlier, Lyndon Johnson had swept to a landslide victory promising a "Great Society" and a "war on poverty" funded by a massive infusion of taxpayer dollars. Intoxicated Democrats looked to an unlimited future of high tax, big spending, big government. Billions (then a big sum) were gushing out of Washington for everything from poverty programs to education, health care, the environment, transportation, consumer protection, and the arts and...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 07:04
SOURCE: AHA Blog (3-23-09)
Beginning with International Women’s Day in 1911, progressing to Women’s History Week in 1981, and expanding to an entire month in 1987, Women’s History Month, celebrated every March, has come quite a ways over the last century.
Compiled below is a list of a good number of web sites that highlight some of history’s most extraordinary women and give insight to their fight for gender equality.
General Interest
Women’s History Month, a collaborative site by the Library of Congress, National Archives and Records Administration, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Gallery of Art, National Park Service, Smithsonian Institution and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, can be used as a directory to other major sites spotlighting Women’s History Month. For instance, learn about the First Women’s Rights Convention in 1848 at the...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009 - 01:15
SOURCE: Time Magazine (3-20-09)
As the tanks rolled into Iraq in March, 2003, Marine Colonel Matthew Bogdanos and his counterterrorism team followed right behind. Tasked with investigating battle-related criminal activity, the team was soon redirected to Iraq's National Museum when news broke that priceless artifacts were being looted. They camped out in the museum for the remainder of his tour of duty, tallying the artifacts stolen and hunting down the thieves. It was, perhaps, serendipity or kismet, that Bogdanos, who holds advanced degrees in law and classics from Columbia University, would be present to take on the task of recovering some of the world's greatest stolen treasures. In his book Thieves of Baghdad, Bogdanos describes the looting, and the ongoing investigation, with passion, erudition and candor. TIME sat down with Bogdanos on the eve of the sixth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq war. (Watch the interview with Bogdanos.)
Let's chat first about the reopening of the Iraqi museum recently...
Monday, March 23, 2009 - 19:40
SOURCE: http://www.culturekiosque.com (3-23-09)
[Peter Kupfer is a former editor on the National / Foreign desk at The San Francisco Chronicle. His freelance articles on the arts, travel and technology have appeared in The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, Asian Art News and other publications. He last wrote on The Other Half: The Life of Jacob Riis and the World of Immigrant America for Culturekiosque.com]
At a moment in history when both Wall Street and the newspaper industry are undergoing upheavals that threaten their very survival, Richard Tofel’s new biography of pioneering financial journalist Barney Kilgore could hardly have been better timed. Restless Genius (St. Martin's Press, 288 pages) tells the story of how Kilgore transformed The Wall Street Journal from a lackluster, near bankrupt trade publication into one of the most powerful and prosperous newspapers in America. Along the way, he introduced a number of innovations, on both the editorial and business sides of The Journal , that have had a...
At a moment in history when both Wall Street and the newspaper industry are undergoing upheavals that threaten their very survival, Richard Tofel’s new biography of pioneering financial journalist Barney Kilgore could hardly have been better timed. Restless Genius (St. Martin's Press, 288 pages) tells the story of how Kilgore transformed The Wall Street Journal from a lackluster, near bankrupt trade publication into one of the most powerful and prosperous newspapers in America. Along the way, he introduced a number of innovations, on both the editorial and business sides of The Journal , that have had a...
Monday, March 23, 2009 - 14:21
SOURCE: Weekly Standard (3-16-09)
[Andrew Ferguson, a senior editor at THE WEEKLY STANDARD, is the author of Land of Lincoln: Adventures in Abe's America.]
Mario Cuomo has written one book (Why Lincoln Matters) and edited another (Lincoln on Democracy) dedicated to the proposition that Abraham Lincoln is a lot like Mario Cuomo. But he recently revised his view. Lincoln is actually a lot like Barack Obama. Cuomo listed the similarities in an op-ed that appeared in Newsday on Inauguration Day.
"Obama, like Lincoln, rejects rigid ideology in policymaking," Cuomo wrote. Both presidents declared their preference for "common sense" and "pragmatism," in stark contrast to those presidents who have declared their opposition to common sense and pragmatism. Accordingly, Cuomo went on, "Obama . . . like Lincoln, will not hesitate to call for substantial governmental assistance in the effort to right the Ship of State."
"...
Mario Cuomo has written one book (Why Lincoln Matters) and edited another (Lincoln on Democracy) dedicated to the proposition that Abraham Lincoln is a lot like Mario Cuomo. But he recently revised his view. Lincoln is actually a lot like Barack Obama. Cuomo listed the similarities in an op-ed that appeared in Newsday on Inauguration Day.
"Obama, like Lincoln, rejects rigid ideology in policymaking," Cuomo wrote. Both presidents declared their preference for "common sense" and "pragmatism," in stark contrast to those presidents who have declared their opposition to common sense and pragmatism. Accordingly, Cuomo went on, "Obama . . . like Lincoln, will not hesitate to call for substantial governmental assistance in the effort to right the Ship of State."
"...
Monday, March 23, 2009 - 11:54
SOURCE: LAT (3-22-09)
[Susan Jacoby is the author, most recently, of "Alger Hiss and the Battle for History."]
Fifty-eight years ago today, Alger Hiss -- the defendant in an emblematic Cold War prosecution once called "the trial of the century" -- began serving a federal prison sentence for perjury. Until his death in 1996, Hiss maintained that he had never been a Communist or a spy and had been framed by the U.S. government.
When I told my 86-year-old mother that I was writing about the long intellectual controversy over the Hiss case, her response was, "You'll have to explain why anyone under 80 would still care about that." ...
It is impossible, in a short article, to evaluate all of the doorstop-weight books that have been written about Hiss and Chambers over the last 50 years, but after reading most of them, I have concluded that Hiss was guilty of perjury and am 95% certain that he did pass on government documents.
And...
Fifty-eight years ago today, Alger Hiss -- the defendant in an emblematic Cold War prosecution once called "the trial of the century" -- began serving a federal prison sentence for perjury. Until his death in 1996, Hiss maintained that he had never been a Communist or a spy and had been framed by the U.S. government.
When I told my 86-year-old mother that I was writing about the long intellectual controversy over the Hiss case, her response was, "You'll have to explain why anyone under 80 would still care about that." ...
It is impossible, in a short article, to evaluate all of the doorstop-weight books that have been written about Hiss and Chambers over the last 50 years, but after reading most of them, I have concluded that Hiss was guilty of perjury and am 95% certain that he did pass on government documents.
And...
Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 19:17
SOURCE: http://www.middle-east-online.com (3-21-09)
The Israel-Palestine conflict has generated a plethora of literature ranging from personal accounts to precise recordings of abuses and misuses of power, policies and human rights, and from historical surveys to a host of solutions and counter solutions for ending the occupation and/or achieving ‘peace’. In this library of anguish relatively few works provide a theoretical framework for understanding the overall processes of Israeli domination over Palestinians and their land. The focus tends to be experiential, on what was or is or should be done, on what is endured rather than on the underlying structure, the deeper meanings of oppression.
Neve Gordon’s [new book] Israel’s Occupation is therefore a welcome contribution to the field. First of all it is immensely readable, providing a clear, comprehensible theoretical framework as well as tracing the development of the Occupation from its beginnings as an ostensibly temporary ‘benign and enlightened’ military-...
Neve Gordon’s [new book] Israel’s Occupation is therefore a welcome contribution to the field. First of all it is immensely readable, providing a clear, comprehensible theoretical framework as well as tracing the development of the Occupation from its beginnings as an ostensibly temporary ‘benign and enlightened’ military-...
Sunday, March 22, 2009 - 18:59
SOURCE: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (3-11-09)
Bikini Atoll, a small necklace of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is a miraculous place. Unfortunately, the only people who can truly understand how beautiful it is are those who have been there. In January, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Bikini Atoll local government submitted an 83-page application to UNESCO to make Bikini a world heritage site. The application seeks to ensure that humanity will remember for all time the devastation unleashed by the most powerful weapons ever produced and the sacrifice of the Bikinians who once lived there.
As UNESCO reviews Bikini Atoll's application, it must consider what these small coconut-tree-laden coral and sand islands have given to humanity. The allure of Bikini, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is not just a function of the atoll's rich nuclear history and dazzling physical beauty. Despite 23 nuclear and thermonuclear explosions that have rocked Bikini's shores, 60-years without human...
As UNESCO reviews Bikini Atoll's application, it must consider what these small coconut-tree-laden coral and sand islands have given to humanity. The allure of Bikini, part of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, is not just a function of the atoll's rich nuclear history and dazzling physical beauty. Despite 23 nuclear and thermonuclear explosions that have rocked Bikini's shores, 60-years without human...
Friday, March 20, 2009 - 18:59
SOURCE: Newsweek (3-19-09)
[PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGIONS, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO’S DIVINITY SCHOOL. Doniger’s research and teaching center on Hinduism and mythology. Her courses in Hinduism cover mythology, literature, law, gender and ecology.]
For years, some Hindus have argued that the 16th century mosque called the Babri Masjid (after the Mughal emperor Babur) was built over a temple commemorating the birthplace of Rama (an avatar of the god Vishnu) in Ayodhya (the city where, according to the ancient poem called the Ramayana, Rama was born), though there is no evidence whatsoever that there has been ever a temple on that spot or that Rama was born there.
On December 6, 1992, as the police stood by and watched, leaders of the right-wing Hindu party called the BJP whipped a crowd of 200,000 into a frenzy. Shouting "Death to the Muslims!" the mob attacked Babur's mosque with sledgehammers. In the riots that followed, over a thousand people lost their lives, and many...
For years, some Hindus have argued that the 16th century mosque called the Babri Masjid (after the Mughal emperor Babur) was built over a temple commemorating the birthplace of Rama (an avatar of the god Vishnu) in Ayodhya (the city where, according to the ancient poem called the Ramayana, Rama was born), though there is no evidence whatsoever that there has been ever a temple on that spot or that Rama was born there.
On December 6, 1992, as the police stood by and watched, leaders of the right-wing Hindu party called the BJP whipped a crowd of 200,000 into a frenzy. Shouting "Death to the Muslims!" the mob attacked Babur's mosque with sledgehammers. In the riots that followed, over a thousand people lost their lives, and many...
Friday, March 20, 2009 - 15:18
SOURCE: City Journal (winter issue; accessed 3-19-09) (3-19-09)
We New Yorkers imagine our city’s history begins in earnest with the Gilded Age and the Great Migration that brought many of our forebears sailing under the Statue of Liberty’s torch to supercharge a nascent metropolis with a jolt of new energy. But this summer, when a handful of square-bearded, antique-garbed Pennsylvania German Baptists jacked a yellow clapboard house up over a Harlem church and wheeled it around the corner to a new site in St. Nicholas Park, we recalled that more than a century earlier Gotham took center stage as the nation’s first capital. For the house belonged to Alexander Hamilton—not only one of the greatest Founding Fathers but the one who stamped the infant republic forever with the unique spirit of New York City.
The other Founders were Americans of a century’s standing, who fought the Revolution to defend liberties their families had claimed for generations. Washington and Jefferson, landed grandees, descended from seventeenth-century...
The other Founders were Americans of a century’s standing, who fought the Revolution to defend liberties their families had claimed for generations. Washington and Jefferson, landed grandees, descended from seventeenth-century...
Friday, March 20, 2009 - 14:08
SOURCE: WSJ (3-19-09)
[Mr. Bittlingmayer is professor of finance at the University of Kansas. Mr. Hazlett is professor of law and economics at George Mason University.]
The Obama administration's opening policy sprint -- massive deficits and bailouts, with sweeping health-care and education reform, plus cap and trade to come -- has been likened by the president himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous first 100 days.
But FDR did not launch his New Deal with a program that roiled financial markets. On the contrary, his first step was to stem the banking panic with a national bank holiday (many states had already imposed their own). He closed troubled institutions, injected capital into the healthy ones, and reassured Americans that their deposits would be safe.
His approach met with quick success. The New York Stock Exchange, closed during the bank holiday, opened up 15% on March 15. By July 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 93% above its close on March 3, the day...
The Obama administration's opening policy sprint -- massive deficits and bailouts, with sweeping health-care and education reform, plus cap and trade to come -- has been likened by the president himself to Franklin D. Roosevelt's famous first 100 days.
But FDR did not launch his New Deal with a program that roiled financial markets. On the contrary, his first step was to stem the banking panic with a national bank holiday (many states had already imposed their own). He closed troubled institutions, injected capital into the healthy ones, and reassured Americans that their deposits would be safe.
His approach met with quick success. The New York Stock Exchange, closed during the bank holiday, opened up 15% on March 15. By July 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was 93% above its close on March 3, the day...
Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 18:16
SOURCE: Daily Mail (UK) (3-19-09)
[Max Hastings is a former editor of the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard.]
Anniversaries are mingled festivals and wakes. In family life, we enjoy celebrating children's birthdays, and learn progressively to dislike our own.
As for national history, nowadays we make little of events that once echoed proudly through every schoolroom and church in the land.
There was October 21, Trafalgar Day in 1805, and June 18, the day of Waterloo in 1815. Today, such dates command blank looks from almost every teenager.
Shakespeare was quite wrong when he made Henry V tell his army on the morning of Agincourt: 'Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by/ From this day to the ending of the world/ But we in it shall be remembered.'
How many people today know October 25 is St Crispin's Day?
But there is another St Crispin's Day - or rather, another victory in which British arms played a great and noble part, much...
Anniversaries are mingled festivals and wakes. In family life, we enjoy celebrating children's birthdays, and learn progressively to dislike our own.
As for national history, nowadays we make little of events that once echoed proudly through every schoolroom and church in the land.
There was October 21, Trafalgar Day in 1805, and June 18, the day of Waterloo in 1815. Today, such dates command blank looks from almost every teenager.
Shakespeare was quite wrong when he made Henry V tell his army on the morning of Agincourt: 'Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by/ From this day to the ending of the world/ But we in it shall be remembered.'
How many people today know October 25 is St Crispin's Day?
But there is another St Crispin's Day - or rather, another victory in which British arms played a great and noble part, much...
Thursday, March 19, 2009 - 08:33
