Category: history

Posted in American History, history, Politics, Uncategorized

This Day In History

Posted on by sokorra

I looked up what important things happened today in history (other then it being my cousin’s birthday) and some pretty interesting things came up on the Google Search.  I took most of this information from History.com and the New York Times “On This Day” feature.

Washington

On February 4, 1789  George Washington was unanimously elected by the electoral College.  He’s the only president to do so.

Also, on this day 6 years earlier Britain formally acknowledged they were done with the Revolutionary War.

Confederate Congress

In 1861, The Confederate Congress (a provisional one anyway) opened for business, thus starting

 

Snow White

One of Disney’s most known films (probably because its one of the firsts) is released on this day in 1938

Yalta Conference

(1945)Basically this is the photo op picture we always see when talking about the end of WWII and they show us that picture of Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin sitting out on the Lawn as if they are talking about the latest football game rather then what to do in the last months of the war.  It did however start to show that the Alliance was not as strong as it could have been, and the cracks that caused the ‘Cold War’ formed.

Palestine

Yasir Arafat helps found the Palestine Liberation Organization in 1969.

Patty Hearst

I don’t really know much about what happened here, but Patty Hearst may be one of the most famous kidnapped women in American history.  Today’s the anniversary of her kidnapping in 1974, so 41 years ago.  She eventually served a prison sentence for her involvement with the Symbionese LIberation Army’s activities.  She was pardoned in 2001 by President Clinton.

Yugoslavia

Its no more as of February 4, 2003.  Its now several different countries.

For more events, try this page.

Posted in American History, history, space history

In Memoriam: The Columbia STS-107

Posted on by sokorra

 

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The STS-107 Patch

 

On February 1, 2003 (13 years ago Monday), the space shuttle Columbia  mission STS-107, disintegrated in the atmosphere over Texas and Lousiana.  Seven people died, and it caused a two year downtime for the Shuttle program while ships were reassessed and refitted to be safer; similar to what happened after the fire on Apollo 1.

Continue reading “In Memoriam: The Columbia STS-107” →

Posted in history, writing

The “Wikithrall” effect

Posted on by sokorra

Wiki-thrall is a term my sister and I came up with for those times when you go on wikipedia to look for one thing, and then an hour later you are still there, sometimes not even on a subject anywhere related to your original topic.  Once such case, I was researching the bird “Wren” because I decided to call the species that were to be the big bads in my Stargate Atlantis fanfic that and wanted to see if there was anything of the actual animal that might be good to use.  At least I started there.  Somehow by the end of the day I landed on the history of Pepsi.  Still not sure how I got there.

Sometimes its just by clicking links on the page. This happens alot when I’m looking up people.  You see a highlighted association, so you check that person out.  And suddenly you are reading about a Rock star who once wrote a song about a cousin of a friend of a cousin of the original person you were researching.

I love learning, so its not necessarily a bad thing.  However I do think sometimes it hinders when you are actually doing research with a purpose, like when I was doing research for a paper on German artist Anselm Kiefer.   I was doing topic research on Norse mythology, for which his painting was based, and ended up learning about Norse deities that were not even involved with the story at hand.  Of course it probably didn’t help that Thor had just come out on DVD at the time so I was intrigued by the differences between the comics and the actual mythology.

Today I was trying to show my father an article on the actor Armie Hammer, who is in a movie I liked and made my father watch last night, The Man From Uncle.  However I ended up on the page of his Great-Grandfather which lead to learning some interesting history.

Its not a good example of Wikithrall, but it reminded me of that, and I started wondering if other people had names for it, or what interesting paths led them to new information.

Posted in general, history

This Day in History

Posted on by sokorra
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This is supposed to be for Linux’ birthday, but I like penguins so there. Source: Pixabay

Today was my birthday, and I was interested in finding out what actually was happening in the world the day I was born.  So a quick google brought me to the New York Times website which apparently has summery pages on various days of the past.

Things that happened the day I was born

  • Reagan made Americans disappointed when he decided to bring sanctions against Libya. Needless to say, many of our Allies and Libya’s allies were not happy either.
  • Reagan wanted to sell government loans to private collectors to make government smaller. To be honest I’m not sure how this works in making government smaller other then saving paper.
  • An antiviral substance called Interferon seems to work against the Common cold.  WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS?!?  I looked it up and all I got was that later betaseron was developed from it and that is used to treat MS. Wait, a more specific google search turned up a 1985 paper detailing a study using the substance.  Basically it can reduce the cold, but it causes more blood in your mucus and doesn’t seem to keep others from getting it from you.
  • Gorbachev introduces a unemployment program because modernizing Russia’s economy means a temporary increase in unemployment.
  • A group of Jewish slave laborers win a settlement against German munitions factories that used their labor.
  • Unemployment was down to 6.8, the lowest in 5 years in the United States. (Current unemployment is 5.5, so we are doing much better now)
  • Kodak stops selling their answer to Polaroid after loosing a case.  Although I couldn’t find out if January 9th was the day they stopped producing it or the day they were taken to trial.

And I found a video with the top 40 songs for January 9th.  Oddly enoguh I only knew about 3 of the songs.  But at least I knew the #1 song the day I was born.  Pet Shop Boys’ West End Girls.

 

Posted in American History, history

Mr. Washington, I presume.

Posted on by sokorra

So as I said in my last post, I’ve made an attempt to start reading books about Presidents so I can say I know something they did while President besides be President.  I decided to start in order, because I might as well.  (A legitimate “because of reasons” responce).

So we start with George Washington, our first president.  Or rather our first president once we got the right constitution in order.

George Washington is a pretty well known President.  Its hard to forget the name of the guy who basically had to set up the office himself.  I found a book available through Kindle Unlimited and started to read, to see if I could learn anything different about our President.

It wasn’t exactly the most enlightening book I ever read as far as a bio went, but I got some new impressions.  Basically George Washington’s reasons for joining in the revolution had some tints of ego (the British Military wouldn’t accept him as an officer because he was American born.) and really all he wanted to do was settle down on his farm and make money.

What was interesting was his involvement in Western Pennsylvania.  He actually owned land in the Ohio River Valley, and wanted to build a canal into Virginia, this controlling the shipping of the area.  Smart Idea that never went anywhere (sadly for Washington).

But basically he would go home, set it to rights again and be happily ordering people to farm for him when Congress would whine and bring him back in again.

All Washington wanted was a break.  I think he probably hated congress as much as we do now.

Maybe I should have chosen a different book, and I’m sure that the following presidential summaries will be better if only because I’ll write them sooner after I read the book.

In summery

  • Washington wanted to join the British Army but they wouldn’t let him be an officer because he was American Born.
  • He basically designed the office of the Presidency because no one had been there before.
  • He hated the ideas of political parties, but Jefferson and Hamilton couldn’t let us have nice things
  • All he wanted to do was hang out with his wife and look after his properties in the quiet of Virginia.
Posted in Art, bookit, general, history, writing

Resolutions & Goals

Posted on by sokorra
new-years-day-1054594_640
Source: Pixabay

Every New Years, a popular tradition is to make a set of resolutions for the coming year. And its almost a tradition to fail at keeping them too.

This year I’ve decided I’m not making resolutions.  I’m making goals.  While its not really all that different, when you say “Goal” that puts less stress on meeting it while still being a motivator.  It also allows you to be more flexible.  If a goal needs altered, it feels less like a failure.

My goals for 2016 are as follows.

  • Write on this blog every day.
  • Write on 750words every day.  For those who don’t know, 750 words is a website that is dedicated to keeping people writing by setting a daily goal of 750 words.  You go on there and you get points for keeping up with your writing.  It also gives you statistics on the mood of what you wrote, how many pauses and breaks you took (basically any break in typing over 3 minutes) and various other data.  Its a good tool if you have trouble getting yourself writing.  Its also a good place for brainstorming because it saves all your entries for the month, so you can go back and see what you wrote when you just sat down and wrote for 30 minutes or so.
  • Revitalize my graphic design portfolio.  Revitalize my love for graphic design.  Start an Etsy store and start earning income for what I went to college for.
  • Get a new day job.  My current job gives me too much stress for not enough money to pay all my bills.
  • Read 52 books. My friends and I have a yearly project where we try to read at least 50 books in a year.  I decided to make it 52 this year as there are 52 weeks in the year.  As I have only once made it to 50, we shall see if this was a good idea or not.  The basic premise is that I will read books available in (e)print  (ie Fanfiction doesn’t really count, sadly) on their own (so book on short stories is one book, you can’t count it by story).  Also it needs to be primarily reading, so math text books don’t count either.

    It will effect this blog as I will do a review/end notes for each book I read this year.  I will also keep a page listing all my books for the year along with links to their review/commentary post.  This will be tagged/categorized as bookit  (Does anyone else remember that program?  I hope it still exists.)

  • Read a book on each president so I know one thing about each of them other then they were President at some point.  So far I’ve only done Washington, and of course I know all the presidents Post Reagan.  I might make this a running post of mine.  Perhaps that is tomorrow’s Post topic – What I learned about Washington.
  • Draw each day.
  • Finish an original novel.  Also finish a couple of my fandom related projects.  Get my WIP list down to under 10 (its at 30+ right now)
  • Learn to drive.

 

I don’t know how many of these goals I will manage to achieve, but I felt that writing them all down on a post might give me more motivation to keep it.  After all, I told everyone I would do it, didn’t I?

So here’s me keeping at least one of my goals for the day.  Now to just do my 750 words writing and start reading Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines  by Ruth Wheeler which is an old novel.  The copyright inside my copy reads 1934.

Posted in food, general, history, Uncategorized

Ancestry & Tradition

Posted on by sokorra

As an American it is difficult to find oneself connected to any particular tradition.  I know some of my friends who have parents or grandparents who are recent immigrants have a stronger connection to their past then I do.  My family has been here for awhile.  And there are so many groups of people mixed in there its hard to really connect to any of them.

My last name is German. However, the most recent member of my family to not live in the US was actually Greek, so does that make me more German or Greek?  And do I actually have any traditions or family recipes that come from those links?

My family also contains people from Ireland, Wales, Scotland, England (yep, we have the UK down. Definitely Anglo), Poland, and apparently a French Jew although I never had that one particularly explained.

I suppose when I think about it, I identify as “American” first  (for that is what I am) and if I have to go into something connecting my family history I go for German-Irish.   There is alot of Irish in my family, but that is not unusual for someone living in the US.  And like I said, my last name is German.

The tradition my family has of eating pork and sauerkraut for New Years is believed to be a German tradition, so I suppose there is that.  Although apparently in the US it seems to be more of a Pennsylvanian tradition then one held country wide.

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Sausage, Sauerkraut, and Potatoes. Source: pixabay

Sometimes I feel odd, not having that connection any tradition or what feels like culture.  I know that there are probably many things I do that are uniquely American in nature, and someone from another country might observe that as my ‘culture’.  But sometimes I just feel like I should be more knowledgeable about the places my family came from.

Although I once read on a website that my family comes from a part of Germany that keeps switching hands with the Danes so…maybe I’m Danish too.