Roundup: Talking About History

June 24, 2004

State Department Releases Revised Version of 2003 "Patterns of Global Terrorism"

From the Federal News Service (June 22, 2004): HEADLINE: SPECIAL STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING PARTICIPANTS: SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL; COFER BLACK, COORDINATOR FOR COUNTERTERRORISM; JOHN BRENNAN, DIRECTOR OF THE TERRORISM THREAT INTEGRATION CENTER SEC. POWELL: Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry I'm a few minutes late.... I'm here today to brief you on the corrections that we have made to our"Patterns of Global Terrorism" report for 200

June 24, 2004

Historians Disappointed in Court's Sealing of Helmut Kohl's 'Secret Police' Files

From the Wall Street Journal (June 24 2004): A federal court ruled Wednesday that files compiled by the East German secret police on former Chancellor Helmut Kohl must remain largely sealed, handing Kohl a boost in a years-long legal battle. Kohl has long argued that wiretaps used by the Stasi to spy on him were illegally obtained and that he deserves protection from damage to his"human dignity." He took the case to the Federal Administrative Court after a Berlin court ruled l

June 24, 2004

James McPherson Talks About the New York Times's Coverage of the Civil War

From NPR’s ‘Fresh Air’ (June 22 2004): TERRY GROSS, host: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross. On April 15th, 1861, the (technical difficulties). With the start of the Civil War, newspapers became more important than ever. A new book called"The Most Fearful Ordeal" collects The New York Times' newspaper coverage of that war. It not only gives us an idea of how the battles were described in their own time, it shows the state of journalism in that year (technical difficul

June 23, 2004

New-York Historical Society Broadens Mission, Stirs Debate

From the New York Times (June 23 2004): The New-York Historical Society, with a newly hired president and a conservative financier emerging as a board power, is shifting its focus from the city to more national concerns, stirring the objections of some historians and staff members. Reflecting its new direction, the society has canceled an exhibition marking the centennial of Times Square and scaled back o

June 23, 2004

Terry Eastland: Independent Counsel Law Was Bad Idea

Terry Eastland, in the Weekly Standard (June 23 2004): Bill Clinton's book release is giving him more chances to take shots at the man who spent five years investigating him, Kenneth Starr. Starr resigned in 1999. That same year the independent counsel law, under whose authority he worked, was allowed to expire. Whatever you may think about the charges that Starr was asked to probe, or

June 22, 2004

The Ku Klux Klan

From the Daily Telegraph (Sydney, Australia) June 23, 2004: Like a scene from a nightmare, horsemen dressed in long white sheets and conical hats launched a reign of terror in the southern states of the US in the years immediately after the Civil War. To newly emancipated slaves, the night riders represented the ghosts of Confederate dead, risen from their battlefield graves to take up arms again. From its early, primitive beginnings, few groups have generated such fascina

June 22, 2004

Was Utah the First Home of the Aztecs?

From the San Diego Union Tribune (June 22 2004): The mythical homeland of Mexico's Aztecs – an island known as Aztlan – has eluded historians for centuries, and the quest to find it has become shrouded in political spin and scholarly speculation. Like the lost Atlantis and Camelot, Aztlan may or may not have existed, but fervent believers have sought it from the desert of Utah to a mangro

June 22, 2004

Baltimore's Little-Known Immigration History

From the Washington Post (June 18 2004): NOT EVERY immigrant coming to America sailed past the Statue of Liberty. For many Europeans making the voyage in the 18th and 19th centuries, coming to America meant landing in or near Fell's Point in Baltimore. But that city's role in"the peopling of America" is not widely known, says immigration historian Melanie Shell-Weiss. So the Baltimore Immigr

June 22, 2004

A 'Treasure-House' of Computer History in Minneapolis

Graeme Philipson, The Age (Melbourne) June 22 2004: Computer history is carefully stored at a US university. I am writing this in the reading room of the Charles Babbage Institute at the University of Minnesota, perched above the Mississippi River in the suburbs of Minneapolis. The institute, founded in 1977, is one of the few organisations in the world devoted to the history of the computer industry and information technology. Over the past 25 years the institute has co

June 22, 2004

Remembering Ancient Greece's Contributions

Troy Lennon, in the Courier Mail (Queensland, Australia) June 22 2004: When people think of Greece they often think of the ancient civilisation that built the Parthenon, created many of the sciences and established the original Olympic Games. There are many reminders of the age when Greece was possibly the most advanced civilisation on Earth. It was at the height of Ancient Greek civilisation that we saw some of the first serious attempts to understand science and the world without

June 21, 2004

Toture Policy Was Far Different in Vietnam

John Stuart Blackton, in the Washington Post (June 21 2004): The Justice Department has advised the White House that President Bush (and those who follow his orders) may contravene treaties, U.S. law and international law under the broad doctrine of"necessity." This advice contrasts sharply with that of an earlier White House, under Lyndon Johnson, during the Vietnam War. In that war, the

June 21, 2004

How Does Mediaeval History Relate to Today's Terrorism?

From the Straits Times (Singapore) June 21 2004: The battle of ideas is a major front in the war on terrorism. Images on Arab satellite television vie with sound-bites on United States cable news. But at a deeper level, the battle is also over history. Addressing US Air Force graduates on June 2, US President George W. Bush recalled a historic message received by Allied soldiers during World War II. US General Dwight Eisenhower's Great Crusade speech had rallied Allied forces

June 20, 2004

A History of Cursing

From the Wall Street Journal (June 16 2004): No one can prove whether our earliest ancestors swore, but it's dang likely. Linguists have traced some of Americans' favorite four-letter words to the 11th century. Over the next 600 years, many other profane terms were incorporated into the lower-class vernacular of most languages. By 1785, an English scholar, Captain Francis Grose, had enough material to assemble a Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. According to Grose,"fusty lugg

June 20, 2004

Presidential Reunions

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 20, 2004): Of all the stirring images from this month's farewell and funeral for Ronald Reagan, none may be more enduring than this: five presidents, bent into church pews, in prayer for one of their own. The death of a president is always a poignant moment. It is the rare time in our civic life when remembrance trumps recrimination, when reflection and reconciliation prevail. It is a reminder, too, of the special burden of the presidency

June 20, 2004

Gettysburg: What If Gen. Stuart, Lee's Scout, Had Arrived in Time for the First Day of Battle?

From the Washington Post (June 20, 2004): Historians have often cited the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863, as the turning point of the Civil War. Historians and history buffs remain perplexed by this question: What if Gen. Robert E. Lee's chief scout, Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, and his 4,500 cavalrymen had arrived on time for the first day of battle, rather than tired and on the afternoon of the second day? Would Stuart's presence have assured a Confederate victory? The st

June 20, 2004

Centuries-Old Knowledge of Church Sex Abuse

From the Los Angeles Times (June 20 2004): Facing an estimated 800 sexual-abuse lawsuits in California, Roman Catholic officials have argued that the church learned only in recent years that it had a widespread problem with priests molesting children. A report in February by the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for example, said Cardinal Roger M. Mahony and other bishops didn't realize until 1985 that sexual abuse by clergy was"more than a matter of tragic but isolated incidents."

June 20, 2004

The Return of King Arthur

From the Washington Post (June 20 2004): Love and lust, friendship and betrayal, action and romance, heroes and villains, right and might -- all are parts of the legend of King Arthur. And the History Channel adds the element of mystery as it tries to determine the truth behind the legend in"Quest for King Arthur." The special debuts on Sunday at 9 p.m. and is narrated by Patrick Stewart. Was the legend ever true? Were the heroes ever real? These are just two of the ma

June 20, 2004

The Agnew Archives

From the Washington Post (June 20 2004): Spiro T. Agnew's monkey skin cape haunts its keepers. A gift to the vice president of the United States from the president of Kenya in 1971, the cape now rests folded in a long yellow box at the University of Maryland archives, along with an unusual assortment of other objects from Agnew's political life. There's a painting of Agnew that archivists refer to as"beaver teeth," because of the woody hue the artist chose for his subj

June 20, 2004

New Slave Diary

From the New York Times (June 20 2004): In the summer of 2002, an elderly woman named Gladys Watt walked into the Historical Society in Greenwich, Conn., with a weathered leather-bound notebook. The notebook had belonged to her neighbor, Lydia Turnage Connolly, who died in 1984 at the age of 99. When Mrs. Connolly moved into a nursing home in the early 1980's, she asked her friend to keep her things.

June 19, 2004

What Class of '94 Learned from Reagan

Newt Gingrich, in the Weekly Standard (June 28 2004): RONALD REAGAN'S legacy as a party builder has gotten short shrift. The Republicans were able to win a majority in the House in 1994 for the first time in 40 years, and then keep that majority in 1996 for the first time since 1928, because we were close students of Reagan. When House Republicans stood on the Capitol steps in 1994 and annou