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Welcome!
Although this site has been created primarily for my
students, everyone is welcome. In these pages you'll find many sources of information.
The Online Resources section below has numerous
links that are of current interest. For more links to material on just about any
topic you're looking for, use the E-Links button above. Linked off of that
page are pages containing hundreds of links to sites covering a number of topics.
Visit often ... I update frequently! Hope
you enjoy the site!
Quote of the Month
Because, underneath all
of this is the real truth we have been avoiding: climate change isn’t an “issue”
to add to the list of things to worry about, next to health care and taxes. It
is a civilization wake-up call. A powerful message - spoken in the language of
fires, floods, droughts and extinctions - telling us that we need an entirely
new economic model and a new way of sharing this planet. Telling us that we need
to evolve.
~Naomi
Klein
News of the Month
The steady rise in
global surface temperatures is largely attributed to human-caused greenhouse gas
emissions. With rising temperatures, the world’s ice has been melting and sea
levels have been rising. As a result, barring major interventions, sooner or
later thousands of coastal communities around the world will become
uninhabitable.
With the ice in
Greenland and Antarctica melting at record rates, scientists currently estimate
sea levels could rise 2-7 feet by the end of the century, with some estimates
even higher. Antarctica has about 90% of all ice in the world, enough to raise
global sea levels by 200 feet, in theory. This kind of catastrophic sea level
rise is just one of many potential disaster scenarios caused by climate change.
Change on such a large
scale is incremental and can seem quite distant, but any solution to the problem
would need to be implemented relatively soon. Already, for many areas in the US,
recurring flooding is inevitable and the problem is imminent.
The Union of Concerned
Scientists in June 2018 released a report identifying US coastal communities
expected to face chronic and disruptive flooding before the end of the century,
in particular the coastal communities in which at least 10% of habitable land is
expected to experience chronic flooding by 2060. Places are ranked by the number
of residents that live in parts of the community expected to be regularly
flooded by 2060. In many of these communities, more than one-third of the
current population lives in areas expected to be regularly flooded by 2060.
Chronic, disruptive
flooding was defined as 10% or more of a community’s usable land flooding 26
times a year, or every other week. Most of the 90 communities that experience
such flooding already are in Louisiana and Maryland, where land subsidence has
intensified the effects of sea-level rise. Life has already been altered in
those places, where flood advisories are normal and residents have learned to
avoid low-lying streets. For perspective, the report notes that Miami Beach,
considered Ground Zero for sea-level rise, has not reached the 10% threshold,
even as it experiences high-tide flooding and has invested more than $400
million to rebuild the city’s storm sewers. Likewise, flooding in Annapolis,
Maryland, home to the US Naval Academy, is not expected to reach the 10%
threshold, although key parts of the city, including the academy campus and
downtown, now flood 40 times a year. But over time, disruptive flooding will
spread.
Other factors, such as
the possibility that global climate change could increase the prevalence and
intensity of severe weather events such as hurricanes, could make actual
outcomes in these cities even more dire. There are already places in the US
where weather appears to be getting worse because of climate change. By the end
of the century, chronic flooding will be occurring from Maine to Texas and along
parts of the West Coast. Options are limited. All are costly, whether adapting
to a watery future with seawalls and other barriers, or retreating and finding a
new place to call home.
Across US coastal
cities, more than 300,000 homes worth a combined $117.5 billion are likely to be
at risk of chronic tidal flooding within 30 years, according to UCS analysis and
projections. By the end of the century, that total could rise to 2.4 million
homes and more than $1 trillion in property damage - and those estimates are
based only on existing homes. The regular inundation these cities face in the
near future could make the worst floods in American history seem tame by
comparison.
The study examined three
scenarios: a low scenario that assumes carbon emissions decline dramatically and
global warming is limited to 2 degree Celsius; an intermediate scenario, which
projects carbon emissions peaking at mid-century, resulting in four feet of
sea-level rise globally; and a high scenario, which occurs toward 2100, with
polar ice melting fast enough to produce about 6.5 feet of sea-level rise.
Scientists consider the high scenario to be increasingly plausible, the study
notes, as the melting of ice sheets accelerates. There is time enough to prevent
some of the flooding but for hundreds of other communities - including the small
towns that dot Maryland’s Eastern Shore, as well as Savannah, Georgia, New
Orleans and Miami - it may already be too late.
Then and Now
June is LGBT Pride
Month, in commemoration of the Stonewall riots.
06/01/1813 -
Capt. James Lawrence, commander of the US frigate Chesapeake, said "Don't
give up the ship" during a losing battle with a British frigate.
06/01/1958 -
Charles de Gaulle became premier of France.
06/01/1967 - The
Beatles released their album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
06/02/1924 -
Congress granted US citizenship to all American Indians.06/02/1953 - Queen
Elizabeth II was crowned queen of Britain after the death of her father, King
George VI.
06/02/1966 - The
US space probe Surveyor 1 landed on the moon and began transmitting
detailed photographs of the lunar surface.
06/02/1987 -
President Reagan announced the nomination of economist Alan Greenspan to succeed
Paul Volcker as chairman of the Fed.
06/03/1621 - The
Dutch West India Company received a charter for New Netherlands, now known as
New York.
06/03/1888 -
Ernest Lawrence Thayer's poem Casey at the Bat was first published in the
San Francisco Daily Examiner.
06/03/1965 -
Astronaut Edward White became the first American to walk in space during the
flight of Gemini 4.
06/03/1989 -
Iran's spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, died.
06/04/1892 - The
Sierra Club incorporated in San Francisco.
06/04/1937 -
Oklahoma City grocer Sylvan Goldman invented and patented the world's first
grocery cart with wheels.
06/04/1939 - The
SS St. Louis, carrying more than 900 Jewish refugees from Germany, was
turned away from the Florida coast.
06/04/1942 - The
WWII Battle of Midway began.
06/04/1947 - The
House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the Taft-Hartley Act.
06/04/1947 - The
classic film Miracle on 34th Street opened. It received a B rating as
"morally objectionable" because Maureen O'Hara is shown in a sympathetic light
as a divorcee.
06/05/1794 -
Congress passed the Neutrality Act, which prohibited Americans from enlisting in
the service of a foreign power.
06/05/1917 -
About 10 million American men began registering for the draft in WWI.
06/05/1933 - The
US went off the gold standard.
06/05/1947 - In a
speech at Harvard, Secretary of State George Marshall outlined an aid program
for Europe, later called the Marshall Plan.
06/05/1967 - War
erupted in the Mideast as Israel raided Egyptian military targets. Syria, Jordan
and Iraq entered the conflict.
06/05/1968 -
Sirhan Bishara Sirhan assassinated Senator Robert Kennedy who had just claimed
victory in California's Democratic presidential primary.
06/05/1981 - The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that five men in Los Angeles
had come down with a rare kind of pneumonia. They were the first recognized
cases of AIDS.
06/06/1844 - The
Young Men's Christian Association began in London.
06/06/1933 - The
first drive-in movie theater opened in Camden NJ.
06/06/1934 - The
Securities and Exchange Commission was established.
06/06/1944 - The
WWII D-Day Invasion of Europe took place as Allied forces stormed the beaches of
Normandy.
06/06/1966 -
Black activist James Meredith was shot and wounded as he walked along a
Mississippi highway to encourage black voter registration.
06/06/2001 -
Democrats formally assumed control of the US Senate after James Jeffords switch
from the Republican Party to an independent.
06/06/2021 -
D-Day
06/07/1776 -
Richard Henry Lee of Virginia proposed to the Continental Congress a resolution
calling for a Declaration of Independence.
06/07/1917 -
Gwendolyn Brooks, who became the first African-American to win the Pulitzer
Prize in 1950 (for Annie Allen), was born in Topeka KS.
06/07/2021 -
Boone Day
06/08/0632 - The
prophet Mohammed died.
06/08/1867 - Mark
Twain embarked on a journey through Europe to the Holy Land that served as his
inspiration for The Innocents Abroad.
06/08/1967 -
Israeli forces raided the Liberty, a Navy ship stationed in the
Mediterranean, killing 34 US servicemen. Israel called it a tragic mistake.
06/08/1982 -
President Reagan became the first American president to address a joint session
of the British Parliament.
06/09/68CE -
Roman Emperor Nero committed suicide.
06/10/1935 -
Alcoholics Anonymous began in Akron OH.
06/10/1943 -
Lasalo Biro of Hungary invented the ball point pen.
06/11/1776 - The
Continental Congress formed a committee to draft a Declaration of
Independence from Britain.
06/11/1966 -
Janis Joplin sang onstage with Big Brother and the Holding Company for the first
time at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco.
06/11/2001 -
Oklahoma executed the Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, by injection.
06/12/1776 -
Virginia's colonial legislature became the first to adopt a Bill of Rights.
06/12/1898 -
Philippine Nationalists declared independence from Spain.
06/12/1929 - Anne
Frank was born in Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany.
06/12/1963 - An
unknown assailant fatally shot civil rights leader Medgar Evers, field secretary
for the NAACP, in front of his home in Jackson, MI. In 1994, a jury convicted
Byron De La Beckwith of murdering Evers and sentenced him to life in prison. He
died in 2001.
06/12/1967 - The
US Supreme Court struck down state laws prohibiting interracial marriages.
06/12/1987 -
President Reagan, during a visit to a still divided Berlin, publicly demanded
that Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev "Tear down this wall!"
06/13/1888 -
Congress created the Department of Labor.
06/13/1900 -
China's Boxer Rebellion, targeting foreigners and Chinese Christians, erupted
into full-scale violence.
06/13/1966 - The
Supreme Court issued its landmark Miranda decision, ruling that police
must inform criminal suspects of their constitutional rights prior to
questioning.
06/13/1967 -
President Johnson nominated Solicitor-General Thurgood Marshall to become the
first black justice on the US Supreme Court.
06/13/1971 -
The New York Times began publishing the Pentagon Papers, a secret
study of America's involvement in Vietnam.
06/14/1775 - The
US Army began.
06/14/1777 - The
Continental Congress in Philadelphia adopted the Stars and Stripes as the
national flag.
06/14/1922 -
Warren G. Hardin became the first president heard on radio when Baltimore
station WEAR broadcast his speech.
06/14/1943 - The
Supreme Court ruled school children could not be forced to salute the flag of
the US if doing so conflicted with their religious beliefs.
06/14/1954 -
President Eisenhower signed an order adding the words "under God" to the
Pledge of Allegiance.
06/14/2021 - Flag
Day
06/15/1215 - King
John put his seal to the Magna Carta (the Great Charter) at Runnymede,
England, granting his barons more liberty.
06/15/1520 - Pope
Leo X threatened to excommunicate Martin Luther if he did not recant his
religious beliefs.
06/15/1775 - The
Second Continental Congress voted unanimously to appoint George Washington head
of the Continental Army.
06/15/1844 -
Charles Goodyear received a patent for his process to strengthen rubber.
06/15/1864 -
Secretary of War Edwin Stanton signed an order establishing a military burial
ground, which became Arlington National Cemetery.
06/15/1994 -
Israel and the Vatican established full diplomatic relations.
06/16/1858 - In a
speech in Springfield, Senate candidate Abraham Lincoln said the slavery issue
had to be resolved. He declared, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."
06/16/1903 - Ford
Motor Company incorporated.
06/16/1963 - The
world's first female space traveler, Valentina Tereshkova, launched into orbit
by the Soviet Union aboard Vostok Six.
06/17/1775 - The
Revolutionary War Battle of Bunker Hill took place near Boston. (The battle
actually occurred on Breed's Hill.)
06/17/1856 - The
Republican Party begin its first convention in Philadelphia.
06/17/1885 - The
Statue of Liberty arrived in NYC.
06/17/1928 -
Amelia Earhart was the first woman to embark on a trans-Atlantic flight when she
journeyed from Newfoundland to Wales.
06/17/1963 - The
Supreme Court struck down rules requiring the recitation of the Lord's Prayer
or reading of Biblical verses in public schools.
06/17/1972 - Five
men were arrested carrying eavesdropping equipment in the Watergate office
building, headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. The arrest led to
Nixon’s resignation and the conviction of several White House staffers.
06/17/2021 -
Bunker Hill Day
06/18/1746 -
Samuel Johnson accepted an offer of £1,575 from a group of London booksellers
for the projected 40,000-word Johnson Dictionary.
06/18/1793 -
Marie Antoinette went to the guillotine.
06/18/1812 - The
US declared war against Britain.
06/18/1815 -
Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated at Waterloo.
06/18/1873 - The
government fined Susan B. Anthony $100 for attempting to vote in the 1872
election. The fine was never paid.
06/18/1980 -
The Blues Brothers premiered in NYC.
06/18/1983 -
Sally Ride became the first American woman in space when the space shuttle
Challenger blasted off.
06/19/1856 -
English colonists sailed from Roanoke Island NC after failing to establish
England's first permanent settlement in America.
06/19/1862 - The
US territories outlawed slavery.
06/19/1910 - The
first Father's Day took place in Spokane WA.
06/19/1917 -
During WWI, King George V ordered the British royal family to dispense with
German titles and surnames and took the name "Windsor."
06/19/1934 - The
government created the Federal Communications Commission.
06/19/1953 - The
US government executed Julius and Ethel Rosenberg at NY's Sing Sing Prison for
conspiring to pass US atomic secrets to the Soviet Union.
06/19/1964 -
Congress approved the Civil Rights Act of 1964 after an 83-day filibuster.
06/19/2021 -
Juneteenth … a holiday celebrating the emancipation of US slaves. Originating in
Galveston TX, it is now celebrated annually on the 19th of June throughout the
US, with varying official recognition. It is commemorated on the anniversary
date of the June 19, 1865 announcement by Union Army General Gordon Granger,
proclaiming freedom from slavery in Texas.
06/20/1837 -
Queen Victoria took the British crown following the death of her uncle, King
William IV.
06/20/1893 - A
jury found Lizzie Borden innocent of the ax murders of her father and
stepmother.
06/20/1963 - The
US and Soviet Union signed an agreement to set up a "hot line" between the two
superpowers.
06/20/2021 -
First day of summer
06/20/2021 -
Summer Solstice – Wicca, Celtic
06/20/2021 -
Father's Day
06/21/1788 - The
US Constitution went into effect as New Hampshire became the ninth state to
ratify it.
06/22/1870 -
Congress created the Department of Justice.
06/22/1944 -
President Franklin Roosevelt signed the GI Bill of Rights.
06/22/1970 -
President Nixon signed a measure lowering the voting age to 18.
06/23/1868 -
Christopher Latham Sholes received a patent for his invention, the Type-Writer.
06/23/1947 -
Congress overrode President Truman's veto of the Taft-Hartley Act.
06/23/1969 - Earl
Warren swore in Warren Burger as Chief Justice of the US.
06/24/1314 -
Scottish forces under King Robert I defeated the English in the Battle of
Bannockburn.
06/24/2021 - St.
Jean’s Day – Vodun
06/25/1876 -
Sioux and Cheyenne Indians wiped out General George Custer and his men in the
Battle of the Little Bighorn in Montana.
06/25/1950 - War
broke out in Korea as forces from the communist North invaded the South.
06/26/1900 - A
commission that included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly
disease yellow fever.
06/26/1945 -
Fifty countries signed the charter of the United Nations in San Francisco.
06/26/1963 -
President John Kennedy visited West Berlin, where he made his famous declaration
"I am a Berliner."
06/26/1974 - The
very first UPC code scanned product hit the market ... Wrigley's Chewing Gum.
06/27/1880 -
Helen Keller was born in Tuscumbia, Alabama. She was deaf, blind and mute from
the age of 19 months as a result of scarlet fever.
06/27/1893 - The
New York stock market crashed.
06/27/1950 -
President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean conflict
following a call from the UN for member nations to help South Korea repel an
invasion from the North.
06/27/1969 -
Patrons at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York's Greenwich Village, clashed
with police in an incident considered the birth of the gay rights movement.
06/27/1980 -
President Carter signed legislation reviving draft registration.
06/28/1778 -
Molly Pitcher, aka Mary Ludwig Hays, carried water to American soldiers at the
Revolutionary War Battle of Monmouth NJ.
06/28/1914 - A
Serb nationalist assassinated Austrian Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife,
Sofia, in Sarajevo ... the event triggering World War I.
06/28/1919 -
Major Powers signed the Treaty of Versailles in France, ending WWI.
06/28/1950 -
North Korean forces captured Seoul, South Korea.
06/28/1951 - A TV
version of the radio program Amos and Andy premiered on CBS. While
criticized for racial stereotyping, it was the first network TV series to
feature an all-black cast.
06/28/1978 - The
Supreme Court ordered UC-Davis Medical School to admit Allan Bakke, a white man
who had argued he was a victim of reverse racial discrimination.
06/28/1996 - The
Citadel voted to admit women, ending a 153-year-old men-only policy at the SC
military school.
06/28/2021 -
World War I Day (The Treaty of Versailles was signed on this date in 1919.)
06/28/2021 -
M'Guine Sauveur table servie pour maitresse Erzulie, maitresse Tenaisse,
maitresse Mambo – Vodun
06/29/1776 -
Patrick Henry became governor of the new state of Virginia.
06/29/1946 -
British authorities arrested more than 2700 Jews in Palestine in an attempt to
stamp out alleged terrorism.
06/29/1967 -
Israel removed barricades separating the Old City from the Israeli sector, thus
re-unifying Jerusalem.
06/29/1972 - The
Supreme Court ruled the death penalty, as then implemented, could constitute
cruel and unusual punishment.
06/29/1992 - A
divided Supreme Court ruled that women have a constitutional right to abortion.
06/30/1936 -
Margaret Mitchell published Gone with the Wind in NY.
06/30/1952 - The
popular soap opera The Guiding Light made its TV debut on CBS.
06/30/1971 - Ohio
became the 38th state to approve and thus ratify the 26th Amendment to the
Constitution, lowering the minimum voting age to 18.
Online Resource Links
How Wobbly Is Our Democracy?
What ISIS Really Wants: The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths.
It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is
a key agent of the coming apocalypse. Here’s what that means for its strategy
and for how to stop it |
ISIS
Claims Responsibility, Calling Paris Attacks First of the Storm |
Syria Iraq: The Islamic State Militant Group
| Isis:
The Inside Story |
Frontline: The Rise of ISIS |
Council on Foreign Relations: A Primer on ISIS
|
Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear
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How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East
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Timeline: the Rise, Spread and Fall of the Islamic State
What it’s like to live on $2 a day in the United States (PDF)
Check out
Today's Front Pages. Each day, you can see the front pages of more than 800
newspapers from around the world in their original, unedited form.
Whether or not you noticed, the earth's population passed 7 billion a while back.
You might enjoy NPR's wonderful video,
Visualizing How a Population Grows to 7 Billion.
Check out the St. Louis Fed's presentation
The Financial Crisis: What Happened?. The original video is no longer available
but you can view the power point presentation.
Want to take a survey but not sure how many responses to collect? This
Survey Calculator gives you the number for any given population size and desired
confidence level. A reverse calculator lets you enter characteristics of an existing
survey and gives the confidence interval (±X%) to apply to the results. The Survey
System site, sponsored by a survey software company, also gives clear explanations
of statistical significance, survey design and related concepts. Also check out
20 Questions a Journalist (and You, too!) Should Ask About Poll Results.
PBS's
30 Second Candidate allows you to view more political ads than you ever knew
existed. Choose the Historical Timeline link to see how political ads have changed
over the years. Start with the infamous
Daisy Ad that Lyndon Johnson used against Barry Goldwater. Click on Watch
Johnson ads. Then click on either the QuickTime link or the Real Video link
next to Daisy.
Check out
Political Compass. The site does a good job of explaining political ideologies
(although with definitions different from those I use) and gives you a chance to
discover your own political philosophy.
Law Library of Congress: North Korea: Collection of links to websites on North
Korean government, politics and law. Includes legal guides, country studies and
links to constitutions and branches of government (where available).
Council on Foreign Relations: North Korea: Background, articles and opinion
pieces about North Korea government and politics. Many of the articles focus on
North Korea's nuclear program. From the Council on Foreign Relations, "an independent
membership organization and a nonpartisan think tank and publisher."
State of the Union (SOTU): The site uses an interactive timeline to provide
a visual representation of prominent words in presidential State of the Union addresses
by displaying significant words as "determined by comparing how frequently the word
occurs in the document to how frequently it appears throughout the entire body of
SOTU addresses." The Appendices section describes the statistical methods
used. Also includes the full text of addresses.
Small Town Papers: This site provides access
to scanned images of recent issues of dozens of small town newspapers from throughout
the United States. Newspapers are updated periodically, 2-3 weeks after publication.
The site also includes a searchable archive (of articles, photos and advertisements),
which covers different periods for each paper, some as far back as the 1890s. Access
to the archives requires free registration.
This website serves as a centralized location to learn about the
Congressional Research Service and search for CRS
reports that have been released to the public by members of Congress. (CRS Reports
do not become public until a member of Congress releases the report.) Features a
searchable database with more than 8,000 reports, a list of recently released reports,
other collections of CRS reports and a FAQ about CRS.
Stem Cell Research: See the official NIH resource for
Stem Cell Research. In 2005, NOVA aired an overview of
The Stem Cell Issue.
Instances of the Use of United States Armed Forces Abroad, 1798 - 2020: This report lists hundreds of instances in which the United States has used its
armed forces abroad in situations of military conflict or potential conflict or
for other than normal peacetime purposes. It was compiled in part from various older
lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough survey of past US military ventures
abroad, without reference to the magnitude of the given instance noted.
Government
Product Recalls
Homeland Security Knowledge
Base
If you're worried about retirement, try some of the following sites.
IRS Tax Information for Retirement Plans
Social Security Retirement Planner
Retirement Planning Resources from Smart Money
Keeping the Shi'ites Straight Based on the opinion
that no story has been more confusing for the Western news media to cover in postwar
Iraq than the politics of the country's Shi'ite majority, this article provides
a basic outline of Shi'ite religious history. Discusses the Sadr family (Muhammad
Baqir as-Sadr, Ayatollah Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, and Muqtada as-Sadr), Muhammad
Baqir al-Hakim and other figures.
This commercial site presents brief information about dozens of
Black Inventors from the United States. Some entries
include portraits and images. Also includes a searchable timeline covering 1721-1988.
Does not include bibliographic information.
Annenberg Political Fact Check: This site describes
itself as a nonpartisan, nonprofit, consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce
the level of deception and confusion in US politics. The site provides original
articles, with summaries and sources, analyzing factual accuracy in TV ads, debates,
speeches, interviews and news releases. Searchable. From the Annenberg Public Policy
Center of the University of Pennsylvania.
White House Tapes: The President Calling: Three
of America's most compelling presidents -- Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon -- bugged
their White House offices and tapped their telephones. In this documentary project,
American Radio Works eavesdrops on presidential telephone calls to hear how each
man used one-on-one politics to shape history. Includes audio, a transcript of the
documentary and background information on each president and the tapes.
The State of State and Local Finances: New studies afford a state-by-state
or city-by-city analysis of fiscal well being.
The Year of Living Dangerously: While leaders in a growing number of states
appear to believe they're serving the public good by squeezing government dry, there's
little question that minimizing management carries a host of dangers that directly
affect the lives of citizens.
Government Debt by Country Map: Shows countries' general government gross
debt as a percentage of GDP in 2012.
First Amendment Library: Provides info on Supreme
Court First Amendment jurisprudence, including rulings, arguments, briefs,
historical material, commentary and press coverage.
Community Service
If you need a presentation or workshop for your group,
use this
Community link
or the link at the top of the page.
The link will take you to a list of the topics I currently have available.
To schedule a date or for more information, feel free to contact me at
dramyglenn@gmail.com
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