QUARANTINE BLOG # 333

February 26, 2021

Today is our regularly end of the month feature about “this day in history.”

On February 1, 1884, the first portion of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), considered the most comprehensive and accurate dictionary of the English language, was published.  Today, the OED is the definitive authority on the meaning, pronunciation and history of over half a million English words.  The first edition took over 40 years to complete – at over 400,000 words and phrases in 10 volumes.  Today’s version, the second edition, comprises 21,728 pages in 20 volumes. 

On February 2, 1943, the last German troops in the Soviet city of Stalingrad surrender to the Red Army, ending one of the pivotal battles of World War II.   On August 23, 1942, Adolf Hitler ordered the Sixth Army to take Stalingrad, an obstacle to Nazi control of the  Caucasian oil wells.  On November 19, 1942, the Soviets launched a counteroffensive which the German command gravely underestimated.  Total Axis casualties are believed to have been more than 800,000 dead, wounded, missing, or captured.  Soviet forces are estimated to have suffered 1,100,000 casualties, and approximately 40,000 civilians died.

On February 3, 1966, the Soviet Union accomplished the first controlled landing on the moon, when the unmanned spacecraft Luna 9 touched down on the Ocean of Storms. After its soft landing, the circular capsule opened like a flower, deploying its antennas, and began transmitting photographs and television images back to Earth. 

In Montgomery, Alabama, on February 4, 1861, delegates from South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana convened to establish the Confederate States of America.  On December 20, South Carolina seceded, and within 6 weeks, 5 more states had followed.  By April 9, 1865, 620,00 soldiers from both sides were dead.

African American civil rights leader Medgar Evers was gunned down in the driveway of his Jackson, Mississippi, home on June 12, 1963, while his wife, Myrlie, and the couple’s three small children were inside.  Over 30 years later, on February 5, 1994, white supremacist Byron De La Beckwith was convicted of the murder.

On February 7, 1964, Pan Am Yankee Clipper flight 101 from London Heathrow landed at JFK Airport, and “Beatlemania” arrived.  It was the first visit to the United States by the Beatles, who had just scored their first No. 1 U.S. hit six days before with “I Want to Hold Your Hand.”  Two days later the Fab Four performed their hit live on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Shirley Temple Black, a child star of the 1930s, died on February 10, 2014, at age 85.  The plucky, curly-haired performer sang, danced and acted in dozens of films, and as an adult, gave up making movies and served as a U.S. diplomat.  With America in the midst of the Great Depression, Temple’s sunny optimism lifted the spirits of movie audiences and helped make her the nation’s top box-office draw.  President Franklin Roosevelt once proclaimed, “As long as our country has Shirley Temple, we will be all right.”

Whitney Houston, one of the world’s top-selling singers from the mid-1980s to late 1990s, was found dead in her bathtub on February 11, 2012.  The 48-year-old pop diva, known for her soaring voice and beauty, won a total of six Grammy Awards and 22 American Music Awards, more than any other female performer.  “I Will Always Love You,” written and originally recorded by Dolly Parton, has been acclaimed by critics as Houston’s “signature song.”

“The audience packed a house that could have been sold out at twice the size,” wrote New York Times critic Olin Downes on February 13, 1924.  A young man named George Gershwin, then known only as a composer of Broadway songs, seated himself at the piano to accompany the orchestra in the performance of a brand new piece of his own composition, called “Rhapsody in Blue.”  Gershwin pieced “Rhapsody In Blue” together in 5 weeks, leaving his own piano part to be improvised during the world premiere.  It is regarded as one of the most important American musical works of the 20th century.

Austrian ski racer Hermann Maier made one of the most dramatic crashes in skiing history when he catapulted 30 feet in the air, landed on his helmet and rammed through two safety fences at an estimated 80 miles per hour on February 13, 1998. Amazingly, Maier suffered just minor injuries and walked away from the crash. Several days later, he won gold medals in the giant slalom and super-G events.

Under the rule of Claudius the Cruel, all marriages and engagements were banned in Rome. A priest named Valentine defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.  When Valentine’s actions were discovered he was arrested, condemned to be beaten to death with clubs, and to have his head cut off.  The sentence was carried out on February 14, 270.

English archaeologist Howard Carter was convinced there was at least one undiscovered tomb in the Valley of the Kings – that of the little known Tutankhamen.  Carter searched for five years without success. Then in November 1922, Carter’s team found steps hidden in the debris near the entrance of another tomb. It was virtually intact with its treasures untouched after more than 3,000 years.  On February 16, 1923,  Carter opened the door to the last chamber.  Inside lay a sarcophagus with three coffins nested inside one another. The last coffin, made of solid gold, contained the mummified body of King Tut.

On February 17, 1972, the 15,007,034th Volkswagen Beetle came off the assembly line, and broke a world car production record held by the Ford Motor Company’s iconic Model T.  In 1933, Adolf Hitler charged Austrian engineer Ferdinand Porsche with designing the Volkswagen, or “people’s car.”  In the 1950s, the Volkswagen arrived in the U.S., where the initial reception was tepid, but a 1959 advertising campaign won over consumers, and VW became the top-selling auto import in the U.S.  After more than 60 years and over 21 million vehicles produced, the last original Beetle rolled off the line in Puebla, Mexico, on July 30, 2003.

On February 18, 1885, Mark Twain published The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as a sequel to his earlier book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  The new novel focused on the institution of slavery and other aspects of life in the antebellum South.  Shortly after its release, Huckleberry Finn was banned by a Concord, Massachusetts, library which called it “tawdry, coarse, and ignorant.”  In the 1950s, the book came under fire from African American groups for being racist in its portrayal of Black characters, despite the fact that it was seen by many as a strong criticism of racism and slavery.  No less a judge than Ernest Hemingway famously declared that the book marked the beginning of American literature: “There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

U.S. Marines invaded Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945.  The barren Pacific island was guarded by Japanese artillery, but to American military minds, it was prime real estate on which to build airfields to launch bombing raids against Japan, only 660 miles away.  The capture of Mount Suribachi, the highest point of the island and bastion of the Japanese defense, took four more days and many more casualties.  War photographer Joe Rosenthal captured the iconic moment when Marines raised the American flag. 

On February 20, 1962, John Glenn was launched into space aboard the Friendship 7 spacecraft on the first orbital flight by an American astronaut.  Glenn was preceded in space by two Americans, Alan B. Shepard Jr. and Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom, and two Soviets, Yuri A. Gagarin and Gherman S. Titov.

In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeated the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team in the “Miracle on Ice.”  The setting was the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York.  On February 22, 1980, the Soviet squad, previously regarded as the finest in the world, fell to the youthful American team 4-3.  Two days later, the Americans defeated Finland 4-2 to clinch the gold medal.

On February 25, 1964, 22-year-old Cassius Clay shocked the odds-makers by dethroning world heavyweight boxing champ Sonny Liston in a seventh-round technical knockout. The dreaded Liston, who had twice demolished former champ Floyd Patterson in one round, was an 8-to-1 favorite. Clay predicted victory, boasting that he would “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

The first and last Grammy for Best Disco Recording was awarded on February 27, 1980, to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive.”  A seldom mentioned disco footnote is the July 12, 1979, Disco Demolition Night at the Chicago White Sox’s Comiskey Park.  In between games of a double header, a crate of disco records was blown up at second base, fans stormed the field which was so damaged that the second game couldn’t be played, and the Sox forfeited to the Detroit Tigers.

On February 29, 1940, Gone with the Wind was honored with eight Oscars by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.  The most momentous award that night went to Hattie McDaniel for her portrayal of “Mammy,” a housemaid and former slave.  McDaniel, who won the Best Supporting Actress Academy Award, was the first African American actress or actor ever to be honored with an Oscar.

**   The Day of Decision

“In those days Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan; and as soon as he came up out of the water he saw the heavens being riven asunder and the Spirit coming down upon him, as a dove might come down; and there came a voice from heaven, ‘You are my beloved Son; I am well pleased with you.’” (Mark 1:9-11 – Barclay)

John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance, meant for those who were sorry for their sins and who wished to express their determination to have done with them.  What did such a baptism have to do with Jesus, the sinless one? 

To every man there comes the unreturning decisive moment.  As Shakespeare saw it: “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their lives is bound in shallows and in miseries” (Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3).  For Jesus his baptism was that moment of decision.  For thirty years he had stayed in Nazareth.  Faithfully he had done his day’s work and discharged his duties to his home.  Conscious that there was a coming time for him to go out, he saw the emergence of John as God’s sign.

At that time the Holy Spirit descended upon him as a dove might descend.  The simile is not chosen by accident. The dove is the symbol of gentleness.  Both Matthew and Luke tell us of the preaching of John – a message of the axe laid to the root of the tree, of the terrible sifting, of the consuming fire.  But from the very beginning the preaching of Jesus is a message of love and grace.

For you and I, that moment of high tide, that unreturning decisive moment, is when we respond to that love and grace, and say an eternal “Yes” to God the Son.

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