History & Comment for April 9, 2025

A look at historical and current events on this day, comment and humor so dry it would make a camel thirsty. 

Transcript

This is History and Comment for Wednesday the 9th of April 2025.

French Explorer Robert de La Salle completes his exploration of the Lower Mississippi River.   He and his entourage,  had spent several years and expeditions around the great lakes and the land of Illinois.  In February of 1682, they reach the Mississippi River having paddled down the Illinois. On this day they reaches the Gulf of Mexico and claim the entire Mississippi River Valley for France.   While it will change hands a couple of times, this is the basis for the later Louisiana Purchase 123 years later. 

I was intrigued by this trip when in College one of the community programs featured a teacher from the Chicago area who had lead a party of high school students in recreating la Salles voyage in exacting detail.   I can no longer remember the school but the teachers name was Reid Lewis.   

King George, ratifies the Treaty of Paris on this day in 1784,  almost four months after the US Congress had passed it.   This officially ended the American Revolution. Of course the delay was due to slow transit times across the Atlantic Ocean.    Something we have forgotten in this day of near instant communications to most points on the globe.      

160 years ago, this afternoon Robert E. Lee sits down with Ulysses Grant and effectively ends the American Civil War.   Lee commanded the largest of the Confederate Armies.   The terms were quite generous for the soldiers and officers of the Confederacy.   While Grant had been hard on the point of unconditional surrender, when the time came he was quite magnanimous.   I do not recall ever reading if he and President Lincoln had discussed the point. But certainly he had knowledge of Lincoln’s second Inaugural Address which pointed in that direction.    

The discussion of how kids today are taught history or if they even touch on the subject is troubling.   There are some high points that need to be discussed  The causes of the American Revolution, The causes of the Civil War and the affect it had on American Government.    America’s place as a world power, the two World Wars and various others.  The debate between Central Governments and Freedom of the People.  i.e. Communism and a Free Market.   Those are all points that every High School Student should be able to articulate.      We do not need to memorize a long list of dates and battles.   But the overarching concepts.    Dates are only important to put events in a proper order.   

The major points from the Civil War are:

1)     There had been a debate almost since the founding of the country if the Federal Government had the right to limit the spread of slavery.  This is related to the debate during the Founding of the Country if we would have a strong Federal Government or Strong State Governments.

2)     People saw themselves as Citizens of their State, more than of the United States. This was very key.   

3)     There was a great divide between the North and South in terms of industrialization and every day culture. The North was more industrial and the South more rural and agrarian. The North had a larger population.   Based on this point the South had almost no chance of winning. 

4)     The North almost lost interesting in the bloodletting.  Lincoln was a master politician. 

5)     The Emancipation Proclamation was a political ploy to keep the North in the war.

6)     Thanks to Mr. Charles Darwin, there was serious debate if the African was a lower race.       

7)     Lincoln saw the benefit to keeping the Union together.      At all cost American could not become a number of regional Nations. 

8)     If the South had won, there would not have been just two Countries. There were already factions in the North watching and planning to breakoff from the Yankee East and form a third country.    If Lincoln had failed America would have looked much like Europe with a number of small countries. Each with their bias and alignments.  It would have been a hotbed of regionalism. 

9)     The Civil War might have been the worst way to end Slavery.  

10)                         The Reconstruction Period was very poorly administered.

If you understand and can discuss those ten points you have a pretty good understanding of the American Civil War.   The only other point might be a discussion of the extent of the bloodletting.   Nearly every Southern Home was affected directly or at least closely and many in the North.   But the affect was far greater in the South.  

The film Bonhoeffer has been making the rounds of late.  It is an interesting historical story.  On this day in 1945, Dietrich in executed by the Nazis, just days before the Riech fell.  There was serious decent to the regime, but it had to be covert as those in power were ruthless. And we might add seriously warped.

Actor Dennis Quaid is 71 today.   I recall Quaid in the film Breaking Away.    While it is showing its age in many ways.  It has to be a local favorite and did quite well in the awards category.    In the film the locals are known as cutters for stonecutters.   That term was made up for the film.  Once source suggest the actual name was stonies. That was dropped as suggesting a weed connection.      Joy and I enjoyed the film and often quoted lines driving down Walnut Street.    I objected as there is a portion of the local population that was not connected to the stone quarries.   That is where my family fell,  hers in fact did work in the industry.   

The first seven astronauts are announced by NASA in 1959. They will be the players for the Mercury Project.  The space program was planned in three phases.  The first was Mercury and was to prove the concept of manned space flight.   The Second was Gemini, to develop the rendezvous procedures and expand out ability to fly in space.  Apollo was a full-blown work up to the moon landings.   Of the Original 7 astronauts,   Only Wally Schirra flew on all three programs.  Alan Sheppard had to sit out Gemini, due to a medical issue, but was the only Mercury astronauts to walk on the moon.  Gus Grissom was schedule to fly on all three programs but was killed in the Apollo 1 fire. 

Baghdad falls to American forces in 2003.  

We like to think that the Billboard charts measure what is popular music and what is not.    The chart in Question is the Hot 100, which is a weekly poll of the number of records sold.  It is further broken down into the Top 40 and Top 10.   There are other charts for Country music and Adult Contemporary.  

The Hot 100 does not always capture what is considered popular.   Recently we recounted how one week the Beatles had ten songs on the Hot 100, five in the top ten.   But the chart is fickle.     Bruce Springsteen and Creedance Clearwater Revival have never had a No 1 song.  CCR is the king of second place with more number 2s without reaching number 1 place.   Between 1968 and 1972 they reached the Top 10, nine times.   Always a maid and never the bride.   The Boss has a much less stellar chart record.  Only the 1985 song Dancing in the Dark reached number two, his highest charting song.  The next level were three at number 5, which includes Hungry Hearts and Glory Days.    Blinded by the Light which he wrote did not chart for him in 1973, then the British group Manfred Mann made it a number one in the US three years later. 

Journey is another example. Widely recognizeable for a long list of songs. Open Arms was their highest charting song at No 2.   Whose Crying Now reached No 4, the rest barely broke the top 10 as singles.   REO Speedwagon only put four songs in the Top 10.  

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