Dates and Events in History
Obama’s Bio
CNN had two interesting features last night; one on McCain and the other on Obama. I am not sure if I learned many new things about Obama but this was the first time I saw his life laid out in a chronological order. It is both impressive and scary. Underneath his friendly demeanor is a man who goes to almost any length not just to win but to undermine his opponents. Based on that CNN show and Biography.com I have put together a timeline of his life including how he won (or lost) each of his elections. I think this gives a look into his life and what we might expect from him in the future. To help, I have included his age after the year and key political events in his life are in red.
August 1961 – Born to Ann Dunham and Barack Obama
1963 – (2) Parents separated and later divorced
1965 – (4) Ann Dunham marries Lolo Soeturo
1965 – (4) Moves to Jakarta Indonesia with mother and step-father
1966 – (5) Attends Catholic school and then a public Indonesian school
1971 – (10) Obama sent back to Hawaii to live with grandparents and received a scholarship to an exclusive private school
aprox. 1976-1979 (15-18) Uses alcohol, marijuana and cocaine
1979 – (18) – Graduates high school. Goes to Occidental College in LA
1981 – (20) Transfers to Columbia University in NY
1983 – (22) Graduates from college with a degree in political science
1983 – (22) Takes a job with Business International Corp in NY
1985 – (24) Moves to Chicago to be a community organizer. Joined Trinity Church
1988 – (27) Attends Harvard Law school. He is first black editor of Harvard Law Review
1991 – (30) Graduates magna cum laude.
1991 – (30) Moves to Chicago. Works as a civil rights lawyer (where he meets Rezco), heads Project Vote where he has the most successful voter registration drive in Chicago’s history and teaches at University of Law School
1002 – (31) Barack and Michele are married by Reverend Wright
1995 – (34) Writes autobiography Dreams of My Father
1996 – (35) Runs for State Senate against favored incumbent. Found invalid names on opponents nominating petition and knocked the incumbent off the ballet, as well as all three other candidates.
1997 – 2005 – (36 - 41) Illinois State Senator
2000 – (39) Decides to run for Congress against four term incumbent Bobby Rush. Race became personal and nasty. Rush beat him by nearly 2:1.
2000 - (39) Tries to network with leaders at 2000 DNC Convention but not even allowed on the floor.
2000 – (39) Told by many that politics is people not just policies. So he began to cultivate a network including Rev. Wright and Illinois State Senate President
2001-2003 – (40-43) In the Senate, Barack starts to have more bills with his name on them. But he also votes “present” 129 times and wouldn’t commit on controversial votes.
2002 – (41) Begins to run for Senate. Gives speeches opposing the war.
2003-2004 (42-43) In the US Senate race there are unsubstantiated scandals which force both the Republican candidate and the favored Democratic candidate to leave the race. Barack is now the Democratic candidate against a last minute replacement for the Republican candidate – Alan Keyes.
2004 – (43) Gives the keynote speech at Democratic Convention. He then wins the Senate race by a landslide.
2005 – (44) Freshman Senator but with high recognition due to speech yet “like most Senate Freshmen, legislature record is thin”.
2006 – (45) Obama joined partisan group, including McCain to write an Immigration Bill, bill but when it got to the floor he distanced himself from it and voted for amendments favored by labor groups. Bill died in Senate. “Critics said Obama put partisan politics above bipartisan reform.”
2006 – (45) Write second book Audacity of Hope
2007 – (46) Announces candidacy for President
June 8, Another Big Day at hypocrisy.com and Wikipedia
Per the biggest wiki in the world, we know that June 8, in the leap year 2008 and other leap years is the 160 day in the Gregorian Calendar. In other years it is the 159 day.
On this date in 1861 Tennessee seceded from the Union. For other events on June 8 per The Wiki, click here.
Another Big Day at hypocrisy.com.
New York Times Agrees to Capital “N” in Negro on June 7, 1930
Some sources say that the New York Times officially agreed to capitalize the “N” in the word negro on June 7, 1930.
Before that happened it was a subject of debate for up to a century. Some writers of the eras chose to use negro while others choose to use Negro.
In 1903, a writer for the New York Times advocated for the capital “N”.
Discussions included scientific opinions and grammatical opinions but it’s likely political reasons ultimately weighed heavily, tipping the scale to any contrary considerations be they scientific or grammatical and the use of Negro rather than negro became more commonplace.
It is one of many chapters in the label name game for all over the world, resolving political, ethnic and basic human considerations. That will probably continue around the world and in the United States.
“HISTORY OF THE MOON ” FOR JULY 20, 1969
INTERESTING BITS OF HISTORY SHOW UP
SOMETIMES WHEN I CHECK THE MAILBOX.
MAKE THAT THE EMAIL INBOX. TRUE OR NOT,
THIS SHORT READ IS WORTH A CHUCKLE:
ON JULY 20, 1969, AS COMMANDER OF
THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE, NEIL
ARMSTRONG WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET
FOOT ON THE MOON.
HIS FIRST WORDS AFTER STEPPING ON THE MOON, "THAT'S ONE SMALL
STEP FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND," WERE TELEVISED TO
EARTH AND HEARD BY MILLIONS.
BUT JUST BEFORE HE REENTERED THE LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK
"GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY."
MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGHT IT WAS A CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME RIVAL
SOVIET COSMONAUT.
HOWEVER, UPON CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY IN EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR
AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAMS.
OVER THE YEARS MANY PEOPLE QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TO WHAT THE "GOOD
LUCK, MR. GORSKY... STATEMENT MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.
ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY , FLORIDA , WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS
FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION TO
ARMSTRONG. THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED.
MR. AND MRS. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD ANSWER
THE QUESTION.
IN 1938 WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A SMALL MIDWEST TOWN, HE WAS PLAYING
BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE BACKYARD.
HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL, WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOR'S YARD BY THE
BEDROOM WINDOWS.
HIS NEIGHBORS WERE MR. AND MRS. GORSKY.
AS HE LEANED DOWN TO PICK UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS. GORSKY
SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY.
"SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU'LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS
ON THE MOON!"Hard to believe statistics from June 6, 1944 D-Day Normandy Invasion
June 6, 1944 D-Day NORMANDY INVASION involved:
1 million allies and 700,000
Germans;
8.000 artillery pieces;
2,546 ALLIED bombers and 1,731 fighters opposed 820 German Bombers and fighters;
24 warships and 35 merchant ships were sunk;
127 allied planes were shot down;
3,500 gliders were in the air behind towing planes;
100 glider pilots died;
D-Day casualties were:
2.700 British;
946 Canadians;
6,603 Americas:
Between 4,000 and 9.000 Germans;
Plus 12,000 airmen were killed and 200 war planes lost in April and May in preparations for D-Day.
By the time the Battle of Normandy ended 425,000 Allies and Germans were killed or wounded.
Today in 77 Normandy cemeteries remain 77.866 Germans; 9,386 Americans; 17,769 British; 5,002 Canadians and 650 Poles.
Came and went
I think there will come a time when China’s ready to talk about the incident 19 years ago, which around these parts doesn’t need a name. But it certainly isn’t this year: June 4 came and went, and not a murmur about it from anyone on TVs or newspapers.
Every year when the calendar flips to June, the day hangs right there, above everyone’s brows, ready to dive back into everyone’s conscience. It makes you wonder: how long, exactly, does the government believe it can keep the topic off limits? At some point, some brave soul will speak out, and all the emotions pent up over these last two decades will spill forth in ecstatic relief. Maybe? Will it be containable, then?
From around the blogosphere:
- Peking Duck: a very moderate post.
- Found in China: “The people who were assembled in Tiananmen Square on this day in 1989 formed a cross section of Chinese society.”
- Time China Blog: “But to other Chinese, including many of the younger writers he lambastes… there’s no doubt that the Tiananmen protests do seem an awfully long time ago, practically ancient history.”
- Blogging for China: a poem.
- The China Beat (links within).
- Bokane: a picture.
Worldwide Mischief Report
Israel can no longer deter Iran, because Iran’s leaders “don’t care about their own citizens,” former Israel Defense Minister Dr. Ephraim Sneh told a gathering of pro-Israel supporters in Washington on Tuesday. Drawing an analogy from the second Lebanon war in the summer of 2006, Sneh reminded his audience that “half the civilian Israeli casualties were Arabs, Israeli Arabs.”
Iran believes the US is impotent because of political changes without the will to oppose it. Even if McCain is elected the US Congress will force America into irrelevance.
Western intelligence sources said Iranian and Syrian military commanders have been meeting in Teheran to discuss proposals to jointly procure air defense, rockets and other systems from Moscow. The sources said both Damascus and Teheran, which signed a defense cooperation agreement in 2006, have examined such systems as the S-300PMU-2 air defense system and the Iskander-E long-range rocket by Russia. “Iran has already decided on purchasing new air defense systems from Moscow,” an intelligence source said. “The question appears to be whether Syria wants these weapons as well.”
The International Institute of Strategic Studies (ISS) reports that an Iranian nuclear weapon would prompt Teheran’s neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia, to acquire similar systems. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has briefed its members on Iran’s blueprint of a nuclear warhead admitting Iran is building a nuke.
Sophisticated Chinese- and Russian-origin weapons are showing up with Middle East insurgency groups – like Hamas The weapons include the (Rocket Propelled Grenade) RPG-29N, a portable anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade launcher that could be mounted on an aircraft.
The U.S. intelligence community has not detected a specific threat by Al Qaida in Libya. But a State Department report said the community has assessed that the Al Qaida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb was seeking to form operational and sleeper cells in Libya. “The potential for an attack against U.S. interests by the newly-merged AQIM-LIFG entity constitutes the most serious terrorist threat to U.S. interests and personnel in Libya,” the report said.
The report, titled “Libya 2008 Crime & Safety Report,” asserted that Al Qaida has merged with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, which was classified as a foreign terrorist organization in 1995. The newly-merged group, announced in September 2007, was believed to have been preparing to target the Western presence in Libya, particularly crude oil fields.
“U.S. Embassy Tripoli reminds all Americans to maintain a high level of vigilance with regard to their personal security and to remain aware of local developments,” the report said.
Over the last few years, Libya expanded its police and security presence in an effort to prevent Al Qaida strikes. At the same time, the police remain ill-equipped to respond to or investigate the sharp rise in street crime.
“The Libyan police and security services do not maintain crime statistics for individual neighborhoods,” the report said. “It is very difficult to obtain an accurate assessment of the overall level of crime occurring within Tripoli. While precise statistics are unavailable, residential burglary is the most common crime reported to the Regional Security Office by expatriates.”
The State Department has urged Americans in Libya to “maintain a strong security posture; be aware of their surroundings; avoid crowds and demonstrations; maintain a low profile; and vary times and routes for all required travel.”
“The embassy is unaware of any acts of violence perpetrated against American interests, public or private, in Libya; however, because of its historical experience, there is a lingering xenophobia in Libya that periodically manifests itself in violent ways,” the report said. “The government of Libya has demonstrated a willingness to condone demonstrations against foreign entities.”