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Quote of the Month
Labor Day celebrates the power of collective action in defense of the dignity of
work.
~EJ Dionne
Numbers of the Month
Labor Day, an annual
celebration of workers and their achievements, originated during one of American
labor history’s most dismal chapters. In the late 1800s, at the height of the
Industrial Revolution in the US, the average American worked 12-hour days and
7-day weeks in order to eke out a basic living. Despite restrictions in some
states, children as young as 5 or 6 toiled in mills, factories and mines across
the country, earning a fraction of their adult counterparts’ wages. People of
all ages, particularly the very poor and recent immigrants, often faced
extremely unsafe working conditions, with insufficient access to fresh air,
sanitary facilities and breaks.
As manufacturing
increasingly supplanted agriculture as the source of American employment, labor
unions, which had first appeared in the late 18th century, grew more prominent
and vocal. They began organizing strikes and rallies to protest poor conditions
and compel employers to renegotiate hours and pay. Many events turned violent
during this period. Others gave rise to longstanding traditions: On September 5,
1882, 10,000 workers took unpaid time off to march from City Hall to Union
Square in New York City, holding the first Labor Day parade in US history. The
idea of a workingmen’s holiday, celebrated on the first Monday in September,
caught on in other industrial centers across the country, and many states passed
legislation recognizing it. Congress did not legalize the holiday until 12 years
later.
Today, more and more
Americans are actively participating in the labor market. Our current
unemployment rate of 3.9% has dropped dramatically in recent years. More and
more of us are producing goods and services more efficiently. The US GDP
expanded by a near-record 4.2% in the second quarter of this year. The average
hourly employee’s productivity has increased 80% over the past four decades.
Unfortunately, economic disparities, long-term unemployment, wage stagnation,
inflation and other challenges remain problems in a US economy still struggling
to recover completely from the Great Recession. Many of us work longer and
harder than ever before - the average American now spends 47 hours per week on
the job - yet half of all workers make less than $520 a week, a figure that,
adjusted for inflation, matches the level of earnings 18 years ago. But there is
one thing of note this year, and it’s big: Some parts of the labor movement,
particularly at the rank-and-file level, seem to have reached their breaking
point. Because this year, they’ve started fighting back.
Then and Now
09/01/1864 - Atlanta
fell to Union forces.
09/01/1939 - WWII began
as Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
09/01/1942 - A federal
judge in Sacramento upheld the wartime detention of Japanese-Americans as well
as Japanese nationals.
09/01/1951 - The US,
Australia and New Zealand signed a mutual defense pact, ANZUS.
09/01/1961 - The Soviet
Union ended a moratorium on atomic testing with an aboveground nuclear explosion
in central Asia.
09/01/1998 - Federal
legislation made airbags mandatory.
09/02/1666 - The Great
Fire of London broke out claiming thousands of homes but only a few lives.
09/02/1789 - The US
Treasury Department was established.
09/02/1864 - Sherman
occupied Atlanta.
09/02/1901 - VP Theodore
Roosevelt offered the advice: Speak softly and carry a big stick.
09/02/1945 - Ho Chi Minh
declared Vietnam an independent republic.
09/02/1945 - Japan
formally surrendered in ceremonies aboard the USS Missouri, ending WWII.
09/02/1963 - Alabama
Governor George Wallace prevented the integration of Tuskegee High School by
encircling the building with state troopers.
09/02/1969 - The first
ATM opened for business.
09/02/1973 - JRR
Tolkien, the author of the best-selling fantasy novels The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings, died at the age of 81 in Bournemouth, England.
09/02/1998
- A UN court handed down the first international conviction for genocide,
finding Jean-Paul Akayesu, the former mayor of a small town in Rwanda, guilty of
nine counts,
09/02/2018 - Janmashtami
/ Krishna Jayanti (Birthday of Krishna) – Hinduism
09/03/1777 - The
American flag was flown in battle for the first time on this day in 1777, during
a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch's Bridge, Delaware.
09/03/1783 - The Treaty
of Paris between the US and Great Britain officially ended the Revolutionary
War.
09/03/1939 - Britain and
France declared war on Germany, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland.
09/03/1978 - The Roman
Catholic Church installed Pope John Paul I as its 264th pontiff.
09/03/2018 - Labor Day
09/04/476CE - The Western Roman Empire fell when Romulus Augustus, the last
emperor of the Western Roman Empire, was deposed by Odoacer, a German barbarian
who proclaimed himself king of Italy.
09/04/1781 - Spanish
settlers founded Los Angeles.
09/04/1886 - The last
American Indian warrior surrendered when Geronimo, the wiliest and most
dangerous Apache warrior of his time, finally surrendered in Skeleton Canyon,
Arizona.
09/04/1951 - President
Harry S. Truman's opening speech before a conference in San Francisco was
broadcast across the nation, marking the first time a television program was
broadcast from coast to coast. The speech focused on Truman's acceptance of a
treaty that officially ended America's post-World War II occupation of Japan.
09/04/1957 - Arkansas
Governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent nine black
students from entering Central High School in Little Rock.
09/05/1774 - In response
to the British Parliament's enactment of the Coercive Acts in the American
colonies, the first session of the Continental Congress convened at Carpenter's
Hall in Philadelphia. Fifty-six delegates from all of the colonies except
Georgia drafted a declaration of rights and grievances and elected Virginian
Peyton Randolph as the first president of Congress. Patrick Henry, George
Washington, John Adams and John Jay were among the delegates.
09/05/1793 - The Reign
of Terror began during the French Revolution as the National Convention
instituted harsh measures to repress counterrevolutionary activities.
09/05/1836 - The
Republic of Texas elected Sam Houston as president.
09/05/1877 - After his
victory at Little Bighorn, US Army forces led by Colonel Nelson Miles pursued
Crazy Horse and his followers. His tribe suffering from cold and starvation, on
May 6, 1877, Crazy Horse surrendered to General George Crook at the Red Cloud
Indian Agency in Nebraska. He was sent to Fort Robinson NE, where he was fatally
bayoneted on this date by a US soldier after resisting confinement in a
guardhouse.
09/05/1972 - Arab
guerrillas attacked the Israeli delegation at the Munich Olympic Games. They
killed eleven Israelis, five guerrillas and a police officer.
09/06/1941 - Germany
ordered Jews over the age of six in German-occupied areas to wear yellow Stars
of David.
09/06/1975 -
Czechoslovak tennis star Martina Navratilova, in NY for the US Open, requested
political asylum.
09/07/1901 - The Peace
of Beijing ended the Boxer Rebellion in China.
09/07/1940 - Nazi
Germany began its initial blitz on London during WWII.
09/07/1977 - The Panama
Canal treaties, calling for the US to eventually turn over control of the
waterway to Panama, were signed in Washington.
09/08/1664 - The Dutch
surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.
09/08/1900 - A hurricane
that killed about 6,000 people stuck Galveston TX.
09/08/1935 - Senator
Huey P. Long (The Kingfish) of Louisiana politics was shot and morally wounded.
He died two days later.
09/08/1952 - Ernest
Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea was first published.
09/08/1971 - The John F.
Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts opened in Washington DC with a
performance of Leonard Bernstein's Mass.
09/08/1974 - President
Ford granted an unconditional pardon to former President Nixon.
09/07/2018 - National
401(k) Day
09/09/1776 - The Second
Continental Congress made the term United States official, replacing
United Colonies.
09/09/1948 - The
People's Democratic Republic of Korea (North Korea) was created.
09/09/1957 - President
Eisenhower signed into law the first civil rights bill to pass Congress since
Reconstruction.
09/09/1976 - Communist
Chinese leader Mao Tse-tung died in Beijing at the age of 82.
09/09/2002 - Iraq
challenged the US to produce "one piece of evidence" that it was producing
weapons of mass destruction.
09/09/2018 -
Grandparents Day
09/09/2018 - Rosh
Hashanah begins at sunset and ends on the 11th at nightfall – Judaism
09/10/1608 - John Smith
became president of the Jamestown colony council in Virginia.
09/10/1846 - Elias Howe
received a patent for his sewing machine.
09/10/1939 - Canada
declared war on Nazi Germany.
09/10/1955 - Gunsmoke
premiered on CBS.
09/10/1963 - Twenty
black students entered Alabama public schools following a standoff between
federal authorities and Governor George Wallace.
09/10/1991 - The Senate
Judiciary Committee opened hearings on the nomination of Clarence Thomas to the
US Supreme Court.
09/10/2018 - Al-Hijra
(New Year) / Muharram begins at sunset and ends on 10/09 – Muslim
09/11/1962 - The Beatles
made their first record for EMI, Love Me Do and P.S. I Love You.
09/11/1973 - Chilean
President Salvador Allende died in a violent military coup.
09/11/1997 - Scots voted
to create their own Parliament after 290 years of union with England.
09/11/2001 - Terrorists
flew hijacked airliners into the World Trade towers in NYC and the Pentagon in
Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.
09/11/2018 - Patriot Day
09/11/2018 - Rastafarian
New Year's Day
09/12/1609 - English
explorer Henry Hudson sailed into the river that now bears his name.
09/12/1944 - During
WWII, US Army troops entered Germany for the first time near Trier.
09/12/2000 - Hillary
Rodham Clinton became the only First Lady to win an election as she claimed
victory in the NY Democratic Senate primary.
09/13/1943 - Chiang
Kai-shek became president of China.
09/13/1948 - Elected to
the US Senate, Republican Margaret Chase Smith of Maine became the first woman
to serve in both houses of Congress.
09/13/2018 - Ganesh
Chaturthi – Hinduism
09/14/1814 - On this
evening, Francis Scott Key stood onboard the ship Minden in Chesapeake
Bay and composed the lines known as The Star-Spangled Banner.
09/14/1940 - Congress
passed the Selective Service Act, providing for the first peacetime draft in US
history.
09/15/1821 - Costa Rica,
Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador proclaimed their independence
from Spain.
09/15/1935 - The
Nuremberg laws deprived German Jews of their citizenship and made the swastika
the official symbol of Nazi Germany.
09/15/1963 - A bomb went
off during Sunday services at the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham
killing four black girls.
09/15/2018 -
September 15 through
October 15 is National Hispanic Heritage Month.
09/16/1810 - Mexico
began its revolt against Spanish rule.
09/16/1919 - The
American Legion was incorporated by an act of Congress.
09/16/1940 - Sam Rayburn
of Texas became Speaker of the US House.
09/16/1940 - President
Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the Selective Training and Service Act which
set up the first peacetime military draft in US history.
09/16/2018 - Mexican
Independence Day
09/16/2018 - Mayflower
Day
09/17/1787 - A majority
of delegates attending the constitutional convention in Philadelphia completed
and signed the Constitution of the US.
09/17/1920 - The
American Professional Football Association, a precursor of the National Football
League, was formed in Canton OH.
09/17/1939 - The Soviet
Union invaded Poland, more than two weeks after Nazi Germany launched its
assault.
09/17/1978 - After
meeting at Camp David, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian
President Anwar Sadat signed a framework for a peace treaty.
09/17/2018 - Citizenship
Day and Constitution Day (Federal law now requires all schools receiving federal
funding to teach the Constitution on this day. Doesn’t that seem a little
contrary to the spirit of the Constitution?)
09/18/1850 - Congress
passed the Fugitive Slave Act which allowed slave owners to reclaim slaves who
had escaped to other states.
09/18/1970 - Jimmy
Hendrix died in London at age 27.
09/18/2018 - Yom Kippur
(Atonement) begins at sundown and ends tomorrow at nightfall – Judaism
09/19/1796 - President
Washington's farewell address was published.
09/19/1912 - When
feminist Rebecca West, 19, reviewed Marriage by HG Wells, 45, and called
him "the old maid among novelists," Wells asked to meet her. By the next spring,
they had embarked on what became a 10-year love affair.
09/19/1957 - The US
conducted its first underground nuclear test in the Nevada desert.
09/19/1986 - Federal
health officials announced that the experimental drug AZT would be made
available to thousands of AIDS patients.
09/19/2018 - Ashura
begins at sunset – Muslim
09/20/1519 - Portuguese
navigator Ferdinand Magellan set out from Spain on a voyage to find a western
passage to the Spice Islands in Indonesia.
09/20/2001 - President
George W. Bush gave an address to a joint session of Congress cautioning the
nation that there were "struggles ahead and dangers to face."
09/21/1792 - The French
National Convention voted to abolish the monarchy.
09/21/1897 - The New
York Sun ran its famous editorial that declared, "Yes, Virginia, there is a
Santa Claus."
09/21/1949 - The
People's Republic of China was established.
09/21/1970 - NFL
Monday Night Football made its debut on ABC.
09/21/1981 - The Senate
unanimously confirmed the nomination of Sandra Day O'Connor to become the first
female justice on the Supreme Court.
09/22/1776 - Nathan Hale
was hanged as a spy by the British during the Revolutionary War.
09/22/1862 - President
Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation which declared all
slaves in rebel states should be free as of January 1, 1863.
09/22/1949 - The Soviet
Union exploded its first atomic bomb.
09/22/1980 - The Persian
Gulf conflict between Iran and Iraq erupted into full-scale war.
09/23/1806 - The Lewis
and Clark expedition returned to St. Louis from the Pacific Northwest.
09/23/1846 - German
astronomer Johann Gottfried Galle discovered the planet Neptune.
09/23/1957 - A white mob
forced nine black students who had entered Little Rock Central High School in
Arkansas to withdraw.
09/23/2018 - First Day
of Autumn
09/23/2018 - Autumn
Equinox – Wicca, Celtic
09/23/2018 - Shubun no
Hi / Autumnal Equinox Day – Shinto
09/23/2018 - Anant
Chaturdashi – Hinduism
09/23/2018 - Sukkot
begins at sunset and ends on the 30th at nightfall – Judaism
09/24/1789 - Congress
passed the First Judiciary Act which provided for an Attorney General and a
Supreme Court.
09/24/2018 - Gold Star
Mother’s Day
09/25/1789 - The first
US Congress adopted 12 amendments to the Constitution and sent them to the
states for ratification. Ten of those amendments became the Bill of Rights.
09/25/1897 - Author
William Faulkner was born in New Albany MS.
09/25/1957 - With 300 US
Army troops standing guard, nine black children forced to withdraw from Central
High School in Little Rock, because of unruly white crowds, were escorted to
class.
09/25/1979 - Evita
opened on Broadway.
09/25/2018 - Roi Wangol,
Mousindi – Voudon
09/26/1789 - Thomas
Jefferson became America's first secretary of state.
09/26/1914 - The Federal
Trade Commission was established.
09/26/1950 - UN troops
recaptured the South Korean capital of Seoul from the North Koreans.
09/26/1960 - The first
televised debate between presidential candidates Richard Nixon and John Kennedy
took place in Chicago.
09/26/1962 - The
Beverly Hillbillies premiered on CBS.
09/26/1986 - William
Rehnquist became the 16th chief justice of the US.
09/27/1779 - John Adams
was named to negotiate the Revolutionary War's peace terms with Britain.
09/27/1954 - Tonight,
hosted by Steve Allen, debuted on NBC.
09/27/1964 - The Warren
Commission issued a report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone in
assassinating President Kennedy.
09/27/1996 -
Afghanistan's Taliban drove the government out of Kabul and captured the
capital.
09/27/2018 - Asalha Puja
(Dharma Day) – Buddhism
09/28/1066 - William the
Conqueror invaded England to claim the English throne.
09/28/1850 - The US Navy
abolished flogging as a form of punishment.
09/29/1542 - Portuguese
navigator Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo arrived at present-day San Diego.
09/29/1789 - The US War
Department established a regular army with several hundred men.
09/29/2018 - Manman
Aloumandia – Voudon
09/30/1791 - Mozart's
opera The Magic Flute premiered in Vienna.
09/30/1868 - The first
volume of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women was published.
09/30/1954 - The US Navy
commissioned the first atomic-powered vessel, the submarine Nautilus.
09/30/1962 - Black
student James Meredith succeeded on his fourth try in registering for classes at
the University of Mississippi.
09/30/2018 - Maitresse
Délai – Voudon
Online Resource Links
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 Iraq
|
Cracks in ISIS Are Becoming More Clear
|
How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East
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 - 2004: 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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