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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
In Flanders fields the
poppies blow
Between the crosses, row
on row,
That mark our place; and
in the sky
The larks, still bravely
singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the
guns below.
We are the Dead. Short
days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw
sunset glow,
Loved and were loved,
and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with
the foe:
To you from failing
hands we throw
The torch; be yours to
hold it high.
If ye break faith with
us who die
We shall not sleep,
though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
~Lt Col John McCrae, MD
(Canadian Army)
News of the Month
In May 1868, General
John A Logan, the commander-in-chief of the Union veterans’ group known as the
Grand Army of the Republic, issued a decree that May 30 should become a
nationwide day of commemoration for the more than 620,000 soldiers killed in the
recently ended Civil War. On Decoration Day, as Logan dubbed it, Americans
should lay flowers and decorate the graves of the war dead “whose bodies now lie
in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land.” Logan probably
adapted the idea from earlier events in the South. Even before the war ended,
women’s groups across much of the South were gathering informally to decorate
the graves of Confederate dead. The Ladies Memorial Association of Columbus,
Georgia resolved to commemorate the fallen once a year - a decision that seems
to have influenced John Logan to follow suit, according to his wife.
Although the term
Memorial Day was used beginning in the 1880s, the holiday was officially known
as Decoration Day for more than a century until it was changed by federal law.
Four years later, the Uniform Monday Holiday Act of 1968 finally went into
effect, moving Memorial Day from its traditional observance on May 30
(regardless of the day of the week), to a set day - the last Monday in May. The
move has not been without controversy, though. Veterans groups, concerned that
Americans associate the holiday with the first long weekend of the summer and
not its intended purpose to honor the nation’s war dead, continue to lobby for a
return to the May 30 observances.
Despite the increasing
celebration of the holiday as a summer rite of passage, there are some formal
rituals still on the books: The American flag should be hung at half-staff until
noon on Memorial Day, and then raised to the top of the staff. And since 2000,
when the US Congress passed legislation, all Americans are encouraged to pause
for a National Moment of Remembrance at 3 pm local time.
Then and Now
May is Asian / Pacific American Heritage Month.
05/01/1898 -
Commodore George Dewey gave the command, "You may fire when you are ready,
Gridley," as an American naval force destroyed a Spanish fleet in Manila Bay
during the Spanish-American War.
05/01/1931 - New
York City dedicated the 102-story Empire State building.
05/01/1948 - The
People's Democratic Republic of Korea was proclaimed.
05/01/1960 - The
Soviet Union shot down an American U-2 reconnaissance plane near Sverdlovsk and
captured its pilot, Francis Gary Powers.
05/01/1971 -
Amtrak went into service.
05/01/2022 - May
Day
05/01/2022 - Law
Day
05/01/2022 -
Loyalty Day (signed into law by George Bush in 2002)
05/01/2022 -
Beltane (Northern Hemisphere) and Samhain (Southern Hemisphere) - Wicca, Celtic
05/02/1519 -
Leonardo Da Vinci died in France.
05/02/1670 -
England's King Charles II chartered the Hudson Bay Company.
05/02/1863 -
Confederate Gen. Stonewall Jackson’s men accidentally wounded him at
Chancellorsville VA. He died eight days later.
05/02/1936 -
Peter and the Wolf, by Sergei Prokofiev, had its world premier in Moscow.
05/02/2011 - US
Special Forces killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at his compound in
Abbottabad Pakistan.
05/02/2022 -
Brothers and Sisters Day
05/02/2022 -
Eid-al Fitr begins at sunset (Ramadan ends) – Muslim
05/03/1802 -
Washington DC was incorporated as a city.
05/03/1921 - West
Virginia imposed the first state sales tax. Wouldn't you love that distinction?
05/03/1979 -
Conservative Party leader Margaret Thatcher became Britain's first female Prime
Minister.
05/03/2003 -
President George W. Bush told reporters it was a matter of when - not if -
weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq.
05/04/1626 -
Dutch explorer Peter Minuit landed on present-day Manhattan Island.
05/04/1904 - The
US began building the Panama Canal.
05/04/1961 - A
group of Freedom Riders left Washington for New Orleans to challenge racial
segregation in interstate buses and bus terminals.
05/04/1970 - Ohio
National Guardsmen opened fire on anti-war protesters at Kent State University,
killing four students and wounding nine others.
05/04/2022 - Yom
Ha'atzmaut begins at sunset and ends tomorrow evening – Judaism
05/05/1816 - O
Solitude, John Keats' first published poem, appeared in The Examiner.
05/05/1862 -
Mexican forces loyal to Benito Juarez defeated French troops sent by Napoleon
III in the Battle of Puebla.
05/05/1925 -
Tennessee authorities arrested John Scopes for teaching Darwin's theory of
evolution.
05/05/2022 -
National Day of Prayer
05/05/2022 -
Cinco de Mayo
05/06/1935 - The
Works Progress Administration began operation.
05/06/1962 - In
the first test of its kind, the submerged submarine USS Ethan Allen fired
a Polaris missile armed with a nuclear warhead that detonated above the Pacific
Ocean.
05/06/2001 - Pope
John Paul II, during his visit to Syria, became the first pope to enter a mosque
as he called for brotherhood between Christians and Muslims.
05/06/2022 -
Visakha Puja (Buddha Day) – Buddhist
05/07/1847 - The
American Medical Association was founded in Philadelphia.
05/07/1939 -
Germany and Italy announced a military and political alliance known as the
Rome-Berlin Axis.
05/07/1945 -
Germany signed an unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Rheims,
France.
05/08/1541 -
Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto reached the Mississippi River.
05/08/1886 -
Atlanta pharmacist John Styth Pemberton invented the flavor syrup for Coca-Cola.
05/08/1945 -
President Truman announced in a radio address that WWII had ended in Europe.
05/08/1973 -
Militant American Indians who'd held the South Dakota hamlet of Wounded Knee for
ten weeks surrendered.
05/08/2022 - V-E
Day, commemorating the Allies' defeat of Nazi Germany in WWII.
05/08/2022 -
World Red Cross Day
05/08/2022 -
Mother’s Day
05/09/1960 - The
FDA approved a pill, Enovid, as safe for birth control use.
05/09/1961 - FCC
Chairman Newton Minow condemned television programming as a "vast wasteland" in
a speech to the National Association of Broadcasters.
05/10/1775 -
Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys captured the British fortress at
Ticonderoga NY.
05/10/1869 - A
golden spike was driven at Promontory, Utah marking the completion of the first
transcontinental railroad in the US.
05/10/1924 - J.
Edgar Hoover became FBI director.
05/11/1946 - The
first CARE packages arrived in Europe.
05/11/1949 - The
UN admitted Israel as the 59th member.
05/11/1973 -
Citing government misconduct, Judge William Byrne dismissed charges against
Daniel Ellsberg for his role in the Pentagon Papers.
05/11/1981 -
Reggae artist Bob Marley died.
05/12/1949 - The
Soviet Union announced an end to the Berlin Blockade.
05/12/1978 - The
Commerce Department said it would no longer give only female names to
hurricanes.
05/12/2022 -
Mangers pour divers loas – Vodún
05/13/1607 - The
English colony at Jamestown VA was settled.
05/13/1918 - The
first US airmail stamps, featuring a picture of an airplane, were introduced.
05/13/1958 -
Rocks thrown by anti-US demonstrators in Caracas Venezuela battered Vice
President Nixon's limousine.
05/13/1981 - A
Turkish assailant shot and seriously wounded Pope John Paul II in St. Peter's
Square.
05/14/1804 -
Lewis and Clark's expedition to explore the Louisiana Territory left St. Louis.
05/14/1904 - The
1st Olympic Games held in the US opened in St. Louis.
05/14/1942 - The
Women's Auxiliary Army Corps was established.
05/14/1948 - The
independent state of Israel was proclaimed in Tel Aviv.
05/14/1955 -
Representatives from eight Communist bloc countries, including the Soviet Union,
signed the Warsaw Pact in Poland.
05/14/1973 - The
US launched Skylab One, its first manned space station.
05/15/1602 -
English navigator Bartholomew Gosnold discovered Cape Cod.
05/15/1918 - US
airmail began service between Washington, Philadelphia and New York.
05/15/1940 -
Nylon stockings went on general sale for the first time in the US.
05/15/1972 -
George C. Wallace was shot and left paralyzed while campaigning in Laurel MD for
the Democratic presidential nomination.
05/15/2022 -
Peace Officers Memorial Day
05/16/1868 - The
Senate failed by one vote to convict President Andrew Johnson as it took its 1st
ballot on one of eleven articles.
05/16/1929 - The
first Academy Awards were presented during a banquet at the Hollywood Roosevelt
Hotel. The movie Wings won for Best Production. Emil Jannings won the
award for Best Actor. Janet Gaynor won the award for Best Actress.
05/16/1975
- Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of
Mount Everest.
05/16/1991 -
Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the US Congress.
05/17/1792 -
Brokers, meeting under a tree located on what is now Wall Street, founded the NY
Stock Exchange.
05/17/1875 - The
first Kentucky Derby ran ... the winner was Aristides.
05/17/1946 -
President Truman seized control of the nation's railroads, delaying a threatened
strike by engineers and trainmen.
05/17/1948 - The
Soviet Union recognized the new state of Israel.
05/17/1954 - The
Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
that racially segregated public schools are inherently unequal.
05/17/1973 - The
Senate opened its hearings into the Watergate scandal.
05/18/1980 -
Mount St. Helens in Washington exploded.
05/18/2022 -
Manger pour Gran'n Aloumandia – Vodún
05/18/2022 - Lag
B'omer begins at sunset and ends tomorrow evening –Judaism
05/19/1921 -
Congress passed the Emergency Quota Act, which established national quotas for
immigrants.
05/19/1958 - The
US and Canada formally established the North American Air Defense Command.
05/19/1967 - The
Soviet Union ratified a treaty with the US and Britain banning nuclear weapons
from outer space.
05/20/1927 -
Charles Lindbergh took off from Roosevelt Field in Long Island aboard the
Spirit of St. Louis.
05/20/1961 - A
white mob attacked a busload of Freedom Riders in Montgomery.
05/20/1969 -
Following one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War, US and South
Vietnamese forces captured Hamburger Hill.
05/20/2022 -
Endangered Species Day
05/20/2022 -
Simbi Blanc (through tomorrow) – Vodún
05/21/1832 - The
first Democratic National Convention got under way in Baltimore.
05/21/1881 -
Clara Barton founded the American Red Cross.
05/21/1991 - A
suicide bomber assassinated former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi during
national elections.
05/21/2022 -
Malcolm X Day
05/21/2022 -
Armed Forces Day
05/22/1761 - The
first life insurance policy in the US was issued in Philadelphia.
05/22/1947 - The
US Congress enacted the Truman Doctrine and appropriated military and economic
aid for Greece and Turkey.
05/22/2022 -
Biodiversity Day
05/23/1430 - The
Burgundians captured Joan of Arc and sold her to the English.
05/23/1934 - In
an ambush in Bienville Parish LA, police shot and killed bank robbers Bonnie
Parker and Clyde Barrow.
05/24/1830 - The
first passenger railroad in the US began service between Baltimore and Elliott's
Mills MD.
05/24/1844 -
Samuel FB Morse transmitted the message, "What hath God wrought!" from
Washington to Baltimore as he formally opened America's first telegraph line.
05/24/1883 - The
Brooklyn Bridge, linking Brooklyn and Manhattan, opened to traffic.
05/24/1962 -
Astronaut Scott Carpenter became the second American to orbit the earth as he
flew aboard Aurora 7.
05/24/2022 -
Declaration of the Bab – Baha'i
05/25/1787 - The
Constitutional Convention convened in Philadelphia after enough delegates had
shown up for a quorum.
05/25/1961 -
President Kennedy asked the nation to work toward putting a man on the moon by
the end of the decade.
05/25/1963 - The
Organization of African Unity began in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
05/26/1521 - The
Edict of Worms banned Martin Luther because of his religious beliefs and
writings.
05/26/1805 -
Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned king of Italy.
05/26/1978 - The
first legal casino in the eastern US opened in Atlantic City.
05/26/2022 -
Ascension of Jesus – Christian
05/27/1647 - The
first recorded American execution of a ‘witch’ took place in Massachusetts.
05/27/1933 - Walt
Disney's The Three Little Pigs was released.
05/27/1937 - The
Golden Gate Bridge connecting San Francisco and Marin County opened to the
public.
05/28/1863 - The
first black regiment from the North left Boston to fight in the Civil War.
05/28/1892 - The
Sierra Club organized in San Francisco.
05/29/1943 -
Norman Rockwell's portrait of Rosie the Riveter appeared on the cover of
The Saturday Evening Post.
05/29/1992 - The
Texas Lottery began operation with the scratch-off game Lone Star Millions.
05/29/2022 -
Ascension of Baha'u'llah – Baha’i
05/30/1431 - Joan
of Arc, condemned as a heretic, burned at the stake in Rouen, France.
05/30/1539 -
Spanish explorer Hernando De Soto landed in Florida.
05/30/1922 -
Chief Justice William Howard Taft dedicated the Lincoln Memorial in Washington
DC.
05/30/1971 - The
American space probe Mariner 9 blasted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida on
a journey to Mars.
05/30/2022 -
Memorial Day
05/31/1819 - Poet
Walt Whitman was born in West Hill NY.
05/31/1913 - The
17th amendment to the Constitution, providing for the popular election of US
senators, took effect.
05/31/1961 -
South Africa became an independent republic.
05/31/1977 - The
trans-Alaska oil pipeline began operation after three years in the making.
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
|
How ISIS’ Attacks Harm the Middle East
|
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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