Blogs > May 12, 2008

May 12, 2008

May 12, 2008

CAMPAIGN 2008 WATCH:

PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN 2008 WATCH:

  • Primary Season Election Results - NYT

  • Allan Lichtman: Obama shifts sights to McCain and the general election - Christian Science Monitor, 5-12-08

  • Julian Zelizer on"What went wrong for Clinton?":"The Obama campaign was strategically shrewd. They saw how the caucus system worked and they saw how this proportional voting system worked, where they could lose (a state) and still win delegates.... If you took away the caucuses, she would have won. It's very puzzling." - AFP, 5-9-08

HNN STATS THIS WEEK:

HNN STATS THIS WEEK:

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY:

THIS WEEK IN HISTORY:

    On This Day in History....

  • 05-12-1870 - Manitoba became a province of Canada.

  • 05-12-1932 - The body of Charles and Anne Lindbergh's kidnapped baby was found.

  • 05-12-1937 - Britain's King George VI was crowned at Westminster Abbey in London.

  • 05-12-1949 - The Soviet blockade that prompted the Berlin airlift was ended.

  • 05-12-1970 - Harry A. Blackmun was confirmed as a Supreme Court justice.

  • 05-12-2002 - Former president Jimmy Carter became the first U.S. president (in or out of office) to visit Fidel Castro's Cuba.

  • 05-13-1568 - Mary Queen of Scots was defeated at the Battle of Langside and immediately fled to North England.

  • 05-13-1846 - The United States formally declared war on Mexico after several days of fighting.

  • 05-13-1938 - Louis Armstrong and his orchestra recorded the New Orleans's jazz classic, When the Saints Go Marching In, on Decca Records.

  • 05-13-1940 - Winston Churchill gave his first speech as prime minister:"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat."

  • 05-13-1981 - Pope John Paul II was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Agca as he drove through a crowd in St. Peter's Square, Rome.

  • 05-14-1796 - Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccine to 8-year-old James Phipps.

  • 05-14-1804 - The Lewis and Clark expedition set out from St. Louis.

  • 05-14-1904 - The Olympic Games were held in the United States for the first time, in St. Louis, Missouri.

  • 05-14-1948 - British rule in Palestine came to an end as The Jewish National Council proclaimed the State of Israel. Within hours, Israel was under attack from Arab forces.

  • 05-14-1955 - The Warsaw Pact was signed by the Soviet Union and seven other Communist bloc countries. It finally dissolved in 1991.

  • 05-14-1973 - Skylab, the United States' first space station, was launched into orbit.

  • 05-15-1862 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture was created by an act of Congress.

  • 05-15-1911 - The Standard Oil Company, headed by John D. Rockefeller, was ordered dissolved by the Supreme Court, under the Sherman Antitrust Act.

  • 05-15-1918 - The first air mail route in the U.S. was established between New York and Washington, DC, with a stop at Philadelphia.

  • 05-15-1972 - Alabama Governor George Wallace was shot and crippled as he campaigned for the presidency.

  • 05-15-1988 - The Soviet Union began to withdraw its estimated 115,000 troops from Afghanistan.

  • 05-16-1770 - Marie Antoinette married the future King Louis XVI of France.

  • 05-16-1868 - The first ballot on one of 11 articles of impeachment in the U.S. Senate failed to convict President Andrew Johnson.

  • 05-16-1929 - The first Academy Awards were given on this night. The term, Oscars, was not used to describe the statuettes given to actors and actresses until 1931.

  • 05-16-1991 - Queen Elizabeth II became the first British monarch to address the United States Congress.

  • 05-16-1997 - President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire ended 32 years of autocratic rule when rebel forces led by Laurent Kabila expelled him from the country.

  • 05-17-1792 - The New York Stock Exchange was established when a group of 24 brokers and merchants met by a tree on what is now Wall Street and signed the Buttonwood Agreement.

  • 05-17-1875 - The first Kentucky Derby was held at Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Kentucky.

  • 05-17-1954 - The Supreme Court ruled unanimously against segregation in schools in Brown v. Board of Education.

  • 05-17-1973 - Televised Watergate hearings opened, headed by North Carolina senator Sam Ervin.

  • 05-17-1987 - An Iraqi warplane attacked the U.S.S. Stark in the Persian Gulf, killing 37 American sailors and wounding 62.

  • 05-17-1997 - Laurent Kabila declared himself president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

IN THE NEWS:

IN THE NEWS:

REVIEWED AND FIRST CHAPTERS:

REVIEWED AND FIRST CHAPTERS:

  • Rick Perlstein: Bring Us Apart NIXONLAND The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. - NYT, 5-11-08

  • Rick Perlstein: NIXONLAND The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America, First Chapter - NYT, 5-11-08

  • Up Front, Rick Perlstein: NIXONLAND The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America - NYT, 5-11-08

  • Cokie Roberts: AMERICAN HISTORY Power Behind the Throne Cokie Roberts describes a time when women in high places practiced dinner-table diplomacy LADIES OF LIBERTY The Women Who Shaped Our Nation - WaPo, 5-11-08

  • Cokie Roberts: LADIES OF LIBERTY The Women Who Shaped Our Nation, First Chapter - WaPo, 5-11-08

  • Alan Taylor: Historian roasts journalist Richard Kluger for mistakes in a new book Seizing Destiny: How America Grew from Sea to Shining Sea - Alan Taylor in the New Republic, 5-7-08

  • Jonathan Spence: Highlighted by NYT editors as serious China scholar - NYT Book Review, 5-4-08

OP-EDs:

OP-EDs:

BLOGS:

BLOGS:

PROFILED:

PROFILED:

INTERVIEWS:

INTERVIEWS:

FEATURES:

FEATURES:

QUOTED:

QUOTED:

  • Doug Wead, a former aide to President George H.W. Bush and author of a book on presidents' kin on"Bush's Daughter Says 'I Do' at Ranch":"I know the president and I know the family and I think they pulled it off. What I mean when I say 'pulled it off' is that they were successful in keeping it a private event." - AP, 5-11-08

  • Sean Wilentz on"Bob Dylan's 'girl on the album cover' paints a portrait of folk revival years":"People will always identify Suze as the girl on the album cover, and she's lived with this since 1963, but that's not the reason to read her book. She evokes a time and place out of which a good deal of contemporary American culture sprang. It was a time of great freedom, when people were figuring out what they want to be, but freedom is scary." - LAT, 5-9-08

  • Margaret MacMillan on Things not to learn from history:"It's a funny thing. In many ways, people know less and less about the past. But the political leaders say, 'History tells us we must do this.' So we really do need a good understanding of history to know that Iraq is not exactly like Germany in the 1930s." - Source: Toronto Star (5-3-08)

HONORED / AWARDED / APPOINTED:

HONORED, AWARDED, APPOINTED:

SPOTTED:

SPOTTED:

CALENDAR:

CALENDAR:

  • May 21, 2008: The Appalachian Pathways Luncheon Series turns to politics with a May 21 luncheon program presented by Appalachian State University history professor Dr. Karl Campbell who will discuss his book"Senator Sam Ervin: The Last of the Founding Fathers." - Appalachian State University, NC, 5-2-08

  • May-September 2008: Elizabeth Brand Monroe, Deborah A. Lee, Lectures Showcase Leesburg's History for 250th Anniversary - WaPo, 1-18-08

  • David Zabecki: Hooks up with Stephen Ambrose Tours / Zabecki will lead the 14-day tour to visit historic World War II sites in Gdansk, Krakow, Warsaw and Berlin from May 16-30, 2008.- Press Release--Stephen Ambrose Tours, 1-10-08

ON TV:

    ON TV: History Listings This Week

  • C-Span2, BookTV: History Panel Discussion on the political career of Melvin Laird with Dale Van Atta, author of"With Honor," Jeremi Suri, author of"Henry Kissinger and the American Century," and George Herring author of"America's Longest War" Authors: George Herring; Jeremi Suri; Dale Van Atta - Sunday, May 11 @ 4:00pm ET - C-Span2, BookTV

  • C-Span2, BookTV: History Douglass and Lincoln: How a Revolutionary Black Leader and a Reluctant Liberator Struggled to End Slavery and Save the Union Authors: Paul Kendrick; Stephen Kendrick - Monday, May 12 @ 4:00am ET - C-Span2, BookTV

  • C-Span2, BookTV: History Summits: Six Meetings That Shaped the Twentieth Century Author: David Reynolds - Monday, May 12 @ 11:00am ET - C-Span2, BookTV

  • History Channel:"Tougher In Alaska :Gold Mining," Sunday, May 11, @ 8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Clash of the Cavemen," Sunday, May 11, @ 8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Modern Marvels :Engineering Disasters," Monday, May 12, @ 2pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Cities Of The Underworld :Prophecies from Below," Monday, May 12, @ 9pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Targeted :Osama bin Laden," Tuesday, May 13, @ 2pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:" Declassified :The Taliban," Tuesday, May 13, @ 4pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Rome: Engineering an Empire," Wednesday, May 14, @ 2pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Egypt: Engineering an Empire," Wednesday, May 14, @ 4pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"MonsterQuest :America's Loch Ness Monster," Wednesday, May 14, @ 9pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Deep Sea Detectives :Loch Ness: Great Monster Mystery," Wednesday, May 14, @ 11pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"The Plague," Thursday, May 15, @ 2pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Ancient Discoveries :Ancient Computer?," Thursday, May 15, @ 4pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Ancient Discoveries :Galen, Doctor to the Gladiators," Thursday, May 15, @ 5pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Ancient Discoveries :Heron of Alexandria," Thursday, May 15, @ 6pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"History's Mysteries :Ship of Gold," Thursday, May 15, @ 7pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Ancient Discoveries :Ancient New York," Thursday, May 15, @ 8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"History's Mysteries :Devil's Island: Hell on Earth," Thursday, May 15, @ 11pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"The Samurai," Friday, May 16, @ 2pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Comanche Warriors," Friday, May 16, @ 4pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Clash of the Cavemen," Saturday, May 17, @ 8pm ET/PT

  • History Channel:"Last Days on Earth," Saturday, May 17, @ 8pm ET/PT

SELLING BIG (NYT):

SELLING BIG (NYT):

  • Cokie Roberts: LADIES OF LIBERTY #6 -- (4 weeks on list)- 5-18-08

  • Kenneth C. Davis: AMERICA'S HIDDEN HISTORY #13 -- (1 week on list)- 5-18-08

  • Jonah Goldberg: LIBERAL FASCISM #35 - 5-18-08

FUTURE RELEASES:

FUTURE RELEASES:

  • Scott McClellan: What Happened, May 12, 2008

  • William F. Buckley, Jr.: Flying High: Remembering Barry Goldwater, May 12, 2008

  • John Lukacs: Blood, Toil, Tears, and Sweat: The Dire Warning: Churchill's First Speech as Prime Minister, May 12, 2008

  • Peter Clarke: The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire: Churchill, Roosevelt, and the Birth of the Pax Americana, May 13, 2008

  • Thurston Clarke: Last Campaign, May 27, 2008

  • John S. Eisenhower: Zachary Taylor: The 12th President, 1849-1850, May 27, 2008

  • Paul Finkelman (Editor): Congress and the Emergence of Sectionalism: From the Missouri Compromise to the Age of Jackson, May 28, 2008

  • Shane O'Sullivan: Who Killed Bobby?, June 3, 2008

  • Gil Troy: Leading from the Center, June 9, 2008

DEPARTED:

DEPARTED:

  • D. T. Whiteside: Historian of mathematics whose prodigious work on Newton's papers astonished the scholarly world (Obit.) - Independent (UK), 5-3-08


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