Democratic Central - Front Page

August 8, 1988 -- First night game at Wrigley Field

cvllelaw — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

The Chicago Cubs have played at Wrigley Field in Chicago since 1916. But even after every other baseball diamond in the major leagues had lights and played night games, Wrigley Field remained a sunlight-only, day-games-only park until August 8, 1988. The Cubs had been run almost like a hobby by the Wrigley family, but when the Tribune Company bought the Cubs, they were interested in the Cubs strictly as a business. The new owners started talking about putting in lights, and began stirring debate on the matter. One of P.K. Wrigley's stated reasons for not installing lights was that it would upset the neighborhood, and the initial negative reaction to the Tribune Company's intentions validated P.K.'s prediction.

Resistance to the installation of lights was not limited to those who lived nearby and opposed the lights on the practical grounds of bothersome brightness or the noise and crowds from night games. Many Cubs fans who lived outside Wrigleyville opposed the idea simply due to the fact that the Cubs' stance as the last team to resist night baseball was a point of pride, as it was seen as a vestige of baseball's heritage as a pastoral game, played in natural sunlight. Some Cubs fans also had fond associations with Gabby Hartnett's famous "Homer in the Gloaming," in which Hartnett hit a crucial home run in the bottom of the ninth of a game on the verge of being called for darkness, helping the Cubs to win the 1938 pennant.

The City of Chicago had passed an ordinance banning night events at Wrigley Field, due to its presence in the residential Lakeview neighborhood, so Tribune was unable to install lights unless the ordinance was repealed. They compromised by scheduling a significant number of 3:00 starts, which typically carried games into the evening but did not require lights for games that completed within three hours or so.

This debate continued for several years, and became more intense as the Cubs returned to competitiveness during the early 1980s. When the Cubs won the National League Eastern Division title in 1984, then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn announced that the Cubs would lose home field advantage should they advance to the World Series (home field advantage alternated between the champions of the National League and American League until 2003), since by this time nearly all World Series games were played at night in the Eastern and Central time zones. After winning their two scheduled home (day) games in the National League Championship Series, the Cubs lost all three games in San Diego, so Kuhn's threat became moot. But the following year, new commissioner Peter Ueberroth announced that because Wrigley Field had no lights, the Cubs would have to play all future postseason games at another ballpark, likely Comiskey Park, Soldier Field, or possibly even St. Louis' Busch Stadium, or Milwaukee County Stadium. The Cubs fell out of contention for the next several years, however, and the possibility of playing post-season "home" games in other cities did not arise.

The Cubs, under team president Dallas Green, quickly changed the issue from "lights or no lights" to "Wrigley Field or move out of town." With typical bluntness, Green said, "if there are no lights in Wrigley Field, there will be no Wrigley Field." Green seriously considered shuttering Wrigley and playing at Comiskey Park as tenants of the White Sox for a year, in hopes that the neighborhood would feel the loss of revenue and back down. The Cubs also explored moving to several suburban locations. There was even talk of a drastic move which would have involved selling the stadium to local college DePaul University, who would likely tear down Wrigley Field to host its indoor sports or convert it to a full-time football stadium in hopes of returning football to the campus. The Cubs would then likely build a new ballpark near the Rosemont Horizon (now the Allstate Arena, where DePaul plays its home games currently) in suburban Rosemont.

In the fall of 1987, Chicago mayor Harold Washington proposed a compromise ordinance to the Chicago City Council providing for the Cubs to install lights but play a limited night schedule. Washington died a week after the compromise was proposed, but the city eventually approved a compromise in February 1988 under interim mayor Eugene Sawyer. Major League Baseball responded by awarding the Cubs the 1990 All-Star Game.

The first major league night game at Wrigley was attempted on August 8 against the Philadelphia Phillies, but was rained out after 3 1/2 innings.

August 7, 1794 -- Washington invokes martial law to put down Whiskey Rebellion

cvllelaw — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

The Whiskey Rebellion was a popular uprising that had its beginnings in 1791 and culminated in an insurrection in 1794 in Washington, Pennsylvania, in the Monongahela Valley. The rebellion occurred shortly after the Articles of Confederation had been replaced by a stronger federal government under the United States Constitution in 1789.

The new federal government, at the urging of the first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, assumed the states' debt from the American Revolutionary War. In 1791 Hamilton convinced Congress to approve taxes on distilled spirits and carriages. Hamilton's principal reason for the tax was that he wanted to pay down the national debt, but he justified the tax "more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue." But most importantly, Hamilton "wanted the tax imposed to advance and secure the power of the new federal government."

The tax was designed so smaller distillers would pay by the gallon, while larger distillers (who could produce in volume) could take advantage of a flat fee. The net result was to affect smaller producers more than larger ones. George Washington was one such large producer of whiskey. Large producers were assessed a tax ranging from 7 to 18 cents per gallon. But Western settlers were short of cash to begin with, and because they were so far from markets and because there were no good roads, they really could not sell their excess grain as grain; as a result, when people in western Pennsylvania, or in the Shenandoah Valley, had a good crop, they would ferment the grain and make relatively portable distilled spirits. Because it didn't go bad over time, whiskey was often used among western farmers as a medium of exchange or as a barter good.

The tax on whiskey was bitterly and fiercely opposed among the farmers who lived on the frontier from the day it was passed. Western farmers considered it to be both unfair and discriminatory. Many protest meetings were held, and a situation arose which was reminiscent of the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 before the American Revolution.

From Pennsylvania to Georgia, the western counties engaged in a campaign of harassment of the federal tax collectors. "Whiskey Boys" also made violent protests in Maryland, Virginia, and North and South Carolina.

By the summer of 1794, tensions reached a fevered pitch all along the western frontier as the settlers' primary marketable commodity was threatened by the federal taxation measures. Finally, the civil protests became an armed rebellion. The first shots were fired at the Oliver Miller Homestead in present day South Park Township, Pennsylvania, about ten miles south of Pittsburgh. As word of the rebellion spread across the frontier, a whole series of loosely organized resistance measures were taken, including robbing the mail, stopping court proceedings, and the threat of an assault on Pittsburgh. One group, disguised as women, assaulted a tax collector, cropped his hair, coated him with tar and feathers, and stole his horse.

George Washington and Alexander Hamilton, remembering Shays' Rebellion from just eight years before, decided to make Pennsylvania a testing ground for federal authority. Washington ordered federal marshals to serve court orders requiring the tax protesters to appear in federal district court. On August 7, 1794, Washington invoked Martial Law to summon the militias of Pennsylvania, Virginia and several states. The rebel force they sought was likewise composed of Pennsylvanians, Virginians, and possibly men from other states.

The militia force of 12,950 men was organized, roughly the size of the entire army in the Revolutionary War. Under the personal command of Washington, Hamilton and Revolutionary War hero General Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee, the army assembled in Harrisburg and marched into western Pennsylvania (to what is now Monongahela) in October of 1794. The rebels "could never be found," according to Jefferson, but the militia expended considerable effort rounding up 20 prisoners, clearly demonstrating Federalist authority in the national government. The men were imprisoned, where one died, while two, including Philip Vigol (later spelled Philip Wigal), were convicted of treason and sentenced to death by hanging. Washington, however, pardoned them on the grounds that one was a "simpleton," and the other, "insane."

In January, 1796, 26 men were fined from five to fifteen shillings each.

"Tom the Tinker" assumed the leadership of the Whiskey Rebellion in the early 1790s. He came about after it was decided that to merely attack tax collectors or those who rented offices and lodging to tax collectors wasn't enough; pressure needed to be applied to those who had registered their stills and were paying the tax. In essence, Tom the Tinker illuminated the point that compliance with the law was as contemptible an action as collecting the whiskey tax. William Hogeland, in his book The Whiskey Rebellion: George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, and the Frontier Rebels Who Challenged America's Newfound Sovereignty, described Tom the Tinker's actions:

You might find a note posted on a tree outside your house, requiring you to publish in the Gazette your hatred of the whiskey tax and your commitment to the cause; otherwise, the note promised, your still would be mended. Tom had a wicked sense of humor and a literary bent: "mended" meant shot full of holes or burned. Tom published on his own too, rousing his followers to action, telling the Gazette's editor in cover notes to run the messages or suffer the consequences.

Groups formed calling themselves Tom the Tinker's Men. They assured Tom the Tinker's threats were carried out. Some believe John Holcroft, a leading member of the Mingo Creek Association and veteran of Shays' Rebellion, was Tom the Tinker, or perhaps the author of the letters attributed to Tom, but this has never been proven. It is not known whether Tom was an actual individual or a character created by the leading members of the Whiskey Rebellion to serve as their leader, much like Ned Ludd's role as leader of the Luddites. Hogeland takes issue with the notion that "Tom the Tinker" was a pseudonym or nom de guerre for one of the other participants in the rebellion, saying, "Tom wasn't an alias for a person. He was the stark fact that loyal opposition to the resistance was disallowed. Tom was Mingo Creek personified."

The Whiskey Rebellion, and its quashing, were important because the whole affair showed that the new United States Constitution gave the federal government the power to use military force to exert authority over the nation's citizens, and that it was wiling to do so. It was also one of only two times that a sitting President personally commanded the military in the field. (The other was after President James Madison fled the British occupation of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812.)

The military suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion set a precedent that U.S. citizens who wished to change the law had to do so peacefully through constitutional means; otherwise, the government would meet any threats to disturb the status quo with force.

The suppression of the Whiskey Rebellion also had the unintended consequences of encouraging small whiskey producers in Kentucky and Tennessee, which remained outside the sphere of Federal control for many more years. In these frontier areas, they also found good corn-growing country as well as limestone-filtered water and therefore began making whiskey from corn; this corn whiskey developed into bourbon. Additionally, the rebellion and its suppression helped turn people away from the Federalist Party and toward the Democratic-Republican Party. This is shown in the 1794 Philadelphia congressional election, in which upstart Democratic Republican John Swanwick won a stunning victory over incumbent Federalist Thomas Fitzsimons, carrying 7 of 12 districts and 57% of the vote.

The hated whiskey tax was repealed in 1803, having been largely unenforceable outside of Western Pennsylvania, and even there never having been collected with much success.

August 6, 2001 -- Bush warned of bin Laden's plans to attack

cvllelaw — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US was the President's Daily Brief, given to President George Bush on August 6, 2001. The President's Daily Brief (PDB) is a brief of important classified information on national security collected by various U.S. intelligence agencies given to the president and a select group of senior officials. The brief warned of terrorism threats from Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda just a month before the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The PDB was declassified and approved for release on April 10, 2004, for the 9/11 Commission, and later reported on in the 9/11 Commission Report. The Report stated in Chapter 8 ("The System was Blinking Red"), Section 1 ("The Summer of Threat"):

Because the amount of reporting is so voluminous, only a select fraction can be chosen for briefing the president and senior officials. During 2001, Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet was briefed regularly regarding threats and other operational information relating to Usama Bin Ladin. He in turn met daily with President Bush, who was briefed by the CIA through what is known as the President's Daily Brief (PDB). Each PDB consists of a series of six to eight relatively short articles or briefs covering a broad array of topics; CIA staff decides which subjects are the most important on any given day. There were more than 40 intelligence articles in the PDBs from January 20 to September 10, 2001, that related to Bin Ladin. The PDB is considered highly sensitive and is distributed to only a handful of high-level officials...
During the spring and summer of 2001, President Bush had on several occasions asked his briefers whether any of the threats pointed to the United States. Reflecting on these questions, the CIA decided to write a briefing article summarizing its understanding of this danger. Two CIA analysts involved in preparing this briefing article believed it represented an opportunity to communicate their view that the threat of a Bin Ladin attack in the United States remained both current and serious. The result was an article in the August 6 Presidential Daily Brief titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US." It was the 36th PDB item briefed so far that year that related to Bin Ladin or al Qaeda, and the first devoted to the possibility of an attack in the United States.
The President told us the August 6 report was historical in nature. President Bush said the article told him that al Qaeda was dangerous, which he said he had known since he had become President. The President said Bin Ladin had long been talking about his desire to attack America. He recalled some operational data on the FBI, and remembered thinking it was heartening that 70 investigations were under way. As best he could recollect, Rice had mentioned that the Yemenis' surveillance of a federal building in New York had been looked into in May and June, but there was no actionable intelligence.
He did not recall discussing the August 6 report with the Attorney General or whether Rice had done so. He said that if his advisers had told him there was a cell in the United States, they would have moved to take care of it. That never happened.
Although the following day's SEIB repeated the title of this PDB, it did not contain the reference to hijackings, the alert in New York, the alleged casing of buildings in New York, the threat phoned in to the embassy, or the fact that the FBI had approximately 70 ongoing bin Ladin-related investigations. No CSG or other NSC meeting was held to discuss the possible threat of a strike in the United States as a result of this report.
The following is the text of an item from the Presidential Daily Brief received by President George W. Bush on August 6, 2001. Redacted material is indicated by brackets.

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US
Clandestine, foreign government, and media reports indicate Bin Ladin since 1997 has wanted to conduct terrorist attacks in the US. Bin Ladin implied in US television interviews in 1997 and 1998 that his followers would follow the example of World Trade Center bomber Ramzi Yousef and "bring the fighting to America."
After US missile strikes on his base in Afghanistan in 1998, Bin Ladin told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington, according to a [--] service.
An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [--] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike.
The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Ladin's first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US. Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation. Ressam also said that in 1998 Abu Zubaydah was planning his own US attack.
Ressam says Bin Ladin was aware of the Los Angeles operation.
Although Bin Ladin has not succeeded, his attacks against the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 demonstrate that he prepares operations years in advance and is not deterred by setbacks. Bin Ladin associates surveilled our Embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam as early as 1993, and some members of the Nairobi cell planning the bombings were arrested and deported in 1997.
Al-Qa'ida members--including some who are US citizens--have resided in or traveled to the US for years, and the group apparently maintains a support structure that could aid attacks. Two al-Qua' da members found guilty in the conspiracy to bomb our embassies in East Africa were US citizens, and a senior EIJ member lived in California in the mid-1990s.
A clandestine source said in 1998 that a Bin Ladin cell in New York was recruiting Muslim-American youth for attacks.
We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that from a [--] service in 1998 saying that Bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft to gain the release of "Blind Shaykh" 'Umar 'Abd al-Rahman and other US-held extremists.
Nevertheless, FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives.
Late in the month, a foreign service reported that Abu Zubaydah was considering mounting terrorist attacks in the United States, after postponing possible operations in Europe. No targets, timing, or method of attack were provided.
We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford, Texas, on August 17 and participated in PDB briefings of the President between August 31 (after the President had returned to Washington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President of the domestic threat during this period.
Most of the intelligence community recognized in the summer of 2001 that the number and severity of threat reports were unprecedented. Many officials told us that they knew something terrible was planned, and they were desperate to stop it. Despite their large number, the threats received contained few specifics regarding time, place, method, or target. Most suggested that attacks were planned against targets overseas; others indicated threats against unspecified "U.S. interests." We cannot say for certain whether these reports, as dramatic as they were, related to the 9/11 attacks.

At the Eurocrypt conference of cryptographers in May 2004 in Interlaken, Switzerland, experts determined with high confidence that the redacted word in the sentence "An Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ) operative told an [redacted] service at the same time that Bin Ladin was planning to exploit the operative's access to the US to mount a terrorist strike" was "Egyptian."

Some arguments have focused on clear warnings in this letter, specifically that:

* the title was Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US
* a large attack was planned
* the attack would be on United States soil
* target cities of attacks included New York City and Washington, D.C.
* the World Trade Center bombing was explicitly mentioned
* hijacked plane missions were anticipated
* people living in, or traveling to, the United States were involved
* recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York was witnessed.

However, those arguing that warnings were not clear will note that:

* specific buildings were unknown
* specific dates were unknown
* specific airlines, flights, or planes were unknown
* the World Trade Center was mentioned in the context of following a 1993 example, not as a definite future target
* plane hijacking was mentioned in the context of freeing Sheikh Rahman, implying a hostage situation, not using the planes themselves as missiles.
* the Bin Laden supporters in the U.S. were thought to be planning attacks with explosives, as in all previous bombings by Al-Qaida
* the use of planes as missiles, while discussed before, had not been attempted by Al-Qaida

Possibly new revelations include the belief that Bin Laden operatives were trying to recruit young U.S. nationals for their operations, the statement by the White House that attempts at future attacks were expected (based on past attacks), and that Washington, D.C., and New York were specifically mentioned.

While specific hijacking times, and dates, and targets were unknown, critics charge that the administration did not take possible actions such as increased airport screening, and reinforcing cockpit doors, that may have minimized the lethality of the September 11 attacks, or even prevented them. The administration and its defenders respond that the memo did not give any new information about the threat that would warrant taking additional measures, since the fact that Bin Laden and other terrorists had wanted to strike inside the United States had been well-known for over 20 years.

From the redacted copy released, it is hard to draw any broader conclusions.

Although it is fashionable for folks of my political persuasion to blame 9/11 of President Bush for failing to heed the warnings in the August 6 PDB, the real problem of the failure of the intelligence community actually happened at a lower level.

There are two crucial data points that, put together with the information in the August 6 PDB, should have prompted an intelligence analyst to add 2 + 2 + 2 to get 6.

The first of these crucial bits of data was the tale of Air France flight 8969. On December 24, 1994, the Armed Islamic Group had hijacked an Airbus in Algiers. It was flown to Marseilles, where the hijackers demanded they receive nearly 27 tons of fuel, considerably more than the 9 needed to make the five hundred mile flight to Paris. Intelligence reports suggested that the hijackers intended to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris, or blow it up over the city; a maximum fuel load would make the Airbus into a flying bomb. The plan was thwarted by military intervention on the ground in Marseilles, but any intelligence analyst following this abortive attempt would look at it and ask himself, "What lessons will the terrorists take away from this?" He'd come up with a few thoughts:

** Next time, we need to make sure that the plane has enough fuel on board -- no refueling.
** Next time, let's have our own pilots.

The Armed Islamic Group was known to have ties to Al-Qaida deputy commander Ayman al-Zawahiri, who had his fingers in just about all of the jihadist movements in the 1990's. Al-Zawahiri was involved with the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (EIJ), referred to in the Report. So if an intelligence analyst was concerned about Al-Qaida attacking the U.S., the notion of attacking with fully gassed-up airplanes should certainly have been one of the possibilities considered.

The second crucial bit of data was the information about the Arabs who were coming to the United States to take classes in how to fly jetliners. The Minneapolis FBI office knew that one of them was Zacarias Moussaoui, who was known to international law enforcement as being suspected of involvement in preparations for the Air France flight 8969 hijacking. FBI agent Colleen Rowley knew this, and tried to pass the information up the line, but FBI headquarters did nothing with the information.

Where I fault President Bush is for being incurious.

If a leader lets his subordinates know that he will ask questions, that he will be actively thinking about what he is being given, then the subordinates are more likely to give him information. George Tenet has testified to Congress that he gave the President all the information that he knew, but he didn't really have any good information on what kinds of things Al-Qaida might be thinking of doing. It is hard to know how much he was pushing his people to come up with some operative theories.

Suppose that when President Bush got the August 6 PDB, he had said to George Tenet, "How do you think that Al-Qaida is planning to attack us?" And then he got Tenet's "Damned if I know, Mr. President," which would be followed by, "I'd like to have lunch with you and your top intelligence analyst on Al-Qaida, to pick that person's brain." Or "What kinds of things have been tried by Islamist terrorists that we think they might try to improve on?" Just asking some questions could have prompted the CIA leadership to ask them of their underlings, who may have actually known the answers.

It all comes down to this -- intelligence matters, both the CIA kind and the between-the-ears kind.

August 5, 1864 -- Battle of Mobile Bay

cvllelaw — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

The Battle of Mobile Bay was a naval battle fought on August 5, 1864, during the American Civil War.

One of the keys to the Union strategy was the blockade of Southern ports. The South did not have the industrial capacity of the North, and there were many industrial products that could only be obtained from Great Britain or France, in trade for Southern cotton. So early on, the Union adopted the "Anaconda" strategy -- to surround the South and to squeeze it.

The North captured New Orleans and the outlet of the Chesapeake Bay early in the war, and tried to shut down Wilmington, Charleston, Savannah, Pensacola, Mobile, and many smaller ports as well. By 1864, there were only two major ports still held by the South -- Savannah, Georgia, and Mobile, Alabama.

Admiral David Farragut commanded the Union fleet off the shore of Mobile. The mouth of Mobile Bay was defended by two Confederate forts, Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines, and by a torpedo field (in modern terms, naval mines) that created a single narrow channel for blockade runners to enter and exit the Bay.

The biggest challenge for Farragut was entering the bay. With eighteen vessels, he had much more firepower than the Confederate fleet of four. Farragut had 14 wooden ships and four ironclads based on the design of the USS Monitor. The ironclads were essential because Mobile was home base for the Confederate's giant ironclad CSS Tennessee, and the wooden ships would have been no match for the Tennessee. The Union fleet suffered the first major loss when the USS Tecumseh, one of the ironclads, was critically damaged by an exploding torpedo after it wandered into the field. The Tecumseh sank in three minutes; of its 114 men, only 21 survived. The rest went down with the ship. Under fire from both the Confederate fleet and Fort Morgan, Farragut had to choose between retreating or risking the minefield. It was then that he gave his famous order, most often rendered as "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!"

Farragut took his flagship through the minefield safely, followed by the rest of the fleet. When the Union fleet reached the bay, they defeated the Confederate flotilla. The Confederate fleet then surrendered. The battle took about a half an hour.

In fact, most historically careful sources give Farragut's command -- to Captain Drayton, sailing Farragut's flagship, the USS Hartford, and to James Edward "Fighting Jim" Jouett, commanding the USS Metacomet -- as "Damn the torpedoes! Four bells! Captain Drayton go ahead! Jouett full speed!" Jouett was the grandson of Virginia's Jack Jouett, whose ride through the woods in June, 1781, had saved Thomas Jefferson and the Virginia legislature.

Over the next three weeks, a combined operation by the Navy and one Army division captured the forts defending the bay. Although the city of Mobile remained in Confederate hands, the last blockade-running port on the Gulf Coast east of the Mississippi was shut down.

Coming at a time when the 1864 Presidential election was heating up, and at a time when Lincoln's war was increasingly seen as an unwinnable mess, it was important to the election to have some important victories. The capture of Mobile and the capture and destruction of Atlanta later in the month gave Lincoln the victories that he needed to persuade the electorate that the war needed to be seen through to victory. Savannah was finally captured by Sherman, by land, on December 22, 1864.

August 4, 1944 -- Anne Frank discovered and captured

cvllelaw — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

Annelies Marie "Anne" Frank was born on June 12, 1929 in Frankfurt am Main, in Germany. She was the second daughter of Otto Heinrich Frank and Edith Hollander. She had an older sister, Margot.

The Franks were Reform Jews and lived in an assimilated community of Jewish and non-Jewish citizens, where the children grew up with Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish friends. They were not very observant, but they were nonetheless known as Jews.

On March 13, 1933, elections were held in Frankfurt for the municipal council, and Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party won. Anti-Semitic demonstrations occurred almost immediately, and the Franks decided to move to Amsterdam. The Franks were among about 300,000 Jews who fled Germany between 1933 and 1939.

For her thirteenth birthday on June 12, 1942, Anne received a book which she had shown her father in a shop window a few days earlier. Although it was an autograph book, bound with red-and-white plaid cloth and with a small lock on the front, Anne decided she would use it as a diary, and began writing in it almost immediately. While many of her early entries relate the mundane aspects of her life, she also discusses some of the changes that had taken place in The Netherlands since the German occupation. In her entry dated June 20, 1942, she lists many of the restrictions that had been placed upon the lives of the Dutch Jewish population, and also notes her sorrow at the death of her grandmother earlier in the year.

In July 1942, Margot Frank received a call-up notice from the Zentralstelle f?r j?dische Auswanderung (Central Office for Jewish Emigration) ordering her to report for relocation to a work camp. Anne was told by her father that the family would go into hiding in rooms above and behind the offices of Opekta, the company where he worked. The offices were on the Prinsengracht, a street along one of Amsterdam's canals. Some of Otto Frank's most trusted employees would help them. The call-up notice forced them to relocate several weeks earlier than they had planned.

On the morning of Monday, July 6, 1942, the family moved into the hiding place. Their apartment was left in a state of disarray to create the impression that they had left suddenly, and Otto Frank left a note that hinted they were going to Switzerland. The need for secrecy forced them to leave behind Anne's cat, Moortje. As Jews were not allowed to use public transport, they walked several kilometers from their home, with each of them wearing several layers of clothing as they did not dare to be seen carrying luggage. The Achterhuis (a Dutch word denoting the rear part of a house, translated as the "Secret Annex" in English editions of the diary) was a three-story space entered from a landing above the offices of Otto's company. Two small rooms, with an adjoining bathroom and toilet, were on the first level, and above that a larger open room, with a small room beside it. From this smaller room, a ladder led to the attic. The door to the Achterhuis was later covered by a bookcase to ensure it remained undiscovered. The main building, situated a block from the Westerkerk, was nondescript, old and typical of buildings in the western quarters of Amsterdam.

Victor Kugler, Johannes Kleiman, Miep Gies, and Bep Voskuijl were the only employees who knew of the people in hiding, and with Gies' husband Jan Gies and Voskuijl's father Johannes Hendrik Voskuijl, they were the Franks' "helpers" for the duration of their confinement. They provided the only contact between the outside world and the occupants of the house, and they kept them informed of war news and political developments. They attended to all of their needs, ensured their safety and supplied them with food -- a task that grew more difficult with the passage of time. Anne wrote of their dedication and of their efforts to boost morale within the household during the most dangerous of times. All were aware that if caught they could face the death penalty for sheltering Jews.

In late July, the Franks were joined by the van Pels family: Hermann, Auguste, and 16-year-old Peter, and then in November by Fritz Pfeffer, a dentist and friend of the family. Anne wrote of her pleasure at having new people to talk to, but tensions quickly developed within the group forced to live in such confined conditions. After sharing her room with Pfeffer, she found him to be insufferable and resented his intrusion, and she clashed with Auguste van Pels, whom she regarded as foolish. She regarded Hermann van Pels and Fritz Pfeffer as selfish, particularly in regards to the amount of food they consumed. Some time later, after first dismissing Peter van Pels, she recognized a kinship with him and the two entered a romance. She received her first kiss from him, but her infatuation with him began to wane as she questioned whether her feelings for him were genuine, or resulted from their shared confinement. Anne Frank formed a close bond with each of the helpers and Otto Frank later recalled that she had anticipated their daily visits with impatient enthusiasm. He observed that Anne's closest friendship was with Bep Voskuijl, "the young typist... the two of them often stood whispering in the corner".

In her writing, Anne Frank examined her relationships with the members of her family, and the strong differences in each of their personalities. She considered herself to be closest emotionally to her father, who later commented, "I got on better with Anne than with Margot, who was more attached to her mother. The reason for that may have been that Margot rarely showed her feelings and didn't need as much support because she didn't suffer from mood swings as much as Anne did". Anne and Margot formed a closer relationship than had existed before they went into hiding, although Anne sometimes expressed jealousy towards Margot, particularly when members of the household criticized Anne for lacking Margot's gentle and placid nature. As Anne began to mature, the sisters were able to confide in each other. In her entry of January 12, 1944, Anne wrote, "Margot's much nicer.... She's not nearly so catty these days and is becoming a real friend. She no longer thinks of me as a little baby who doesn't count".

Anne frequently wrote of her difficult relationship with her mother. On November 7, 1942 she described her "contempt" for her mother and her inability to "confront her with her carelessness, her sarcasm and her hard-heartedness", before concluding, "She's not a mother to me". Later, as she revised her diary, Anne felt ashamed of her harsh attitude, writing "Anne, is it really you who mentioned hate, oh Anne, how could you?" She came to understand that their differences resulted from misunderstandings that were as much her fault as her mother's, and saw that she had added unnecessarily to her mother's suffering. With this realization, Anne began to treat her mother with a degree of tolerance and respect.

Margot and Anne each hoped to return to school as soon as they were able and continued with their studies. Margot took a short hand course by correspondence in Bep Voskuijl's name and received high marks. She also kept a diary, however it is believed to be lost. Most of Anne's time was spent reading and studying, and she regularly wrote and edited her diary entries. In addition to providing a narrative of events as they occurred, she wrote about her feelings, beliefs and ambitions, subjects she felt she could not discuss with anyone. As her confidence in her writing grew, and as she began to mature, she wrote of more abstract subjects such as her belief in God, and how she defined human nature. She continued writing regularly until her final entry of August 1, 1944.

On the morning of August 4, 1944, the Achterhuis was stormed by the German Security Police (Grune Polizei) following a tip-off from an informer who was never identified. The Franks, van Pelses and Pfeffer were taken to the Gestapo headquarters where they were interrogated and held overnight. On August 5, they were transferred to the Huis van Bewaring (House of Detention), an overcrowded prison on the Weteringschans. Two days later they were transported to Westerbork. Ostensibly a transit camp, by this time more than 100,000 Jews had passed through it. Having been arrested in hiding, they were considered criminals and were sent to the Punishment Barracks for hard labor.

Victor Kugler and Johannes Kleiman were arrested and jailed at the penal camp for enemies of the regime at Amersfoort. Kleiman was released after seven weeks, but Kugler was held in various work camps until the war's end. Miep Gies and Bep Voskuijl were questioned and threatened by the Security Police but were not detained. They returned to the Achterhuis the following day, and found Anne's papers strewn on the floor. They collected them, as well as several family photograph albums, and Gies resolved to return them to Anne after the war. On August 7, 1944, Gies attempted to facilitate the release of the prisoners by confronting Silberbauer and offering him money to intervene, but he refused.

On September 3, the group was deported on what would be the last transport from Westerbork to the Auschwitz concentration camp, and arrived after a three-day journey. In the chaos that marked the unloading of the trains, the men were forcibly separated from the women and children, and Otto Frank was wrenched from his family. Of the 1019 passengers, 549 -- including all children younger than fifteen -- were sent directly to the gas chambers. Anne had turned fifteen three months earlier and was one of the youngest people to be spared from her transport.

With the other females not selected for immediate death, Anne was forced to strip naked to be disinfected, had her head shaved and was tattooed with an identifying number on her arm. By day, the women were used as slave labor and Anne was forced to haul rocks and dig rolls of sod; by night, they were crammed into overcrowded barracks. Witnesses later testified that Anne became withdrawn and tearful when she saw children being led to the gas chambers, though other witnesses reported that more often she displayed strength and courage, and that her gregarious and confident nature allowed her to obtain extra bread rations for Edith, Margot and herself. Disease was rampant and before long, Anne's skin became badly infected by scabies. She and Margot were moved into an infirmary, which was in a state of constant darkness, and infested with rats and mice. Edith Frank stopped eating, saving every morsel of food for her daughters and passing her rations to them, through a hole she made at the bottom of the infirmary wall.

On October 28, selections began for women to be relocated to Bergen-Belsen. More than 8,000 women, including Anne and Margot Frank and Auguste van Pels, were transported, but Edith Frank was left behind and later died from starvation. Tents were erected at Bergen-Belsen to accommodate the influx of prisoners, and as the population rose, the death toll due to disease increased rapidly. Anne was briefly reunited with two friends, Hanneli Goslar and Nanette Blitz, who were confined in another section of the camp. Goslar and Blitz both survived the war and later discussed the brief conversations that they had conducted with Anne through a fence. Blitz described her as bald, emaciated and shivering and Goslar noted that Auguste van Pels was with Anne and Margot Frank, and was caring for Margot who was severely ill. Neither of them actually saw Margot; she was too weak to leave her bunk. Anne told both Blitz and Goslar that she believed her parents were dead, and for that reason did not wish to live any longer. Goslar later estimated that their meetings had taken place in late January or early February, 1945.

In March 1945, a typhus epidemic spread through the camp and killed approximately 17,000 prisoners. Witnesses later testified that Margot fell from her bunk in her weakened state and was killed by the shock, and that a few days later Anne died. They stated that this occurred a few weeks before the camp was liberated by British troops on April 15, 1945. After liberation, the camp was burned in an effort to prevent further spread of disease, and Anne and Margot were buried in a mass grave, the exact whereabouts of which is unknown.

After the war, it was estimated that of the 107,000 Jews deported from the Netherlands between 1942 and 1944, only 5,000 survived. It was also estimated that up to 30,000 Jews remained in The Netherlands, with many people aided by the Dutch underground. Approximately two-thirds of these people survived the war.

Otto Frank survived his internment in Auschwitz. After the war ended he returned to Amsterdam where he was sheltered by Jan and Miep Gies, as he attempted to locate his family. He learned that Edith had died at Auschwitz, but he still hoped that he could find his daughters. After several weeks, he discovered that Margot and Anne had also died.

In July 1945, after the Red Cross confirmed the deaths of Anne and Margot, Miep Gies gave Otto Frank the diary, along with a bundle of loose notes that she had saved, in the hope that she could have returned them to Anne. In his memoir he described the painful process of reading the diary, recognizing the events described and recalling that he had already heard some of the more amusing episodes read aloud by his daughter. He also noted that he saw for the first time the more private side of his daughter, and those sections of the diary she had not discussed with anyone, noting, "For me it was a revelation... I had no idea of the depth of her thoughts and feelings...She had kept all these feelings to herself". Moved by her repeated wish to be an author, he began to consider having it published.

Anne's diary began as a private expression of her thoughts and she wrote several times that she would never allow anyone to read it. She candidly described her life, her family and companions, and their situation, while beginning to recognize her ambition to write fiction for publication. In March 1944, she heard a radio broadcast by Gerrit Bolkestein-a member of the Dutch government in exile-who said that when the war ended, he would create a public record of the Dutch people's oppression under German occupation. He mentioned the publication of letters and diaries, and Anne decided to submit her work when the time came. She began editing her writing, removing sections and rewriting others, with the view to publication. Her original notebook was supplemented by additional notebooks and loose-leaf sheets of paper. She created pseudonyms for the members of the household and the helpers. The van Pels family became Hermann, Petronella, and Peter van Daan, and Fritz Pfeffer became Albert D?ssell. In this edited version, she also addressed each entry to "Kitty," a fictional character in Cissy van Marxveldt's Joop ter Heul novels that Anne enjoyed reading. Otto Frank used her original diary, known as "version A", and her edited version, known as "version B", to produce the first version for publication. He removed certain passages, most notably those in which Anne is critical of her parents (especially her mother), and sections that discussed Anne's growing sexuality. Although he restored the true identities of his own family, he retained all of the other pseudonyms.

Otto Frank gave the diary to the historian Annie Romein-Verschoor, who tried unsuccessfully to have it published. She then gave it to her husband Jan Romein, who wrote an article about it, titled "Kinderstem" ("A Child's Voice"), published in the newspaper Het Parool on April 3, 1946. He wrote that the diary "stammered out in a child's voice, embodies all the hideousness of fascism, more so than all the evidence at Nuremberg put together." His article attracted attention from publishers, and the diary was published in The Netherlands in 1947, followed by a second run in 1950.

It was first published in Germany and France in 1950, and after being rejected by several publishers, was first published in the United Kingdom in 1952. The first American edition was published in 1952 under the title Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl and was positively reviewed. It was successful in France, Germany and the United States, but in the United Kingdom it failed to attract an audience and by 1953 was out of print. Its most noteworthy success was in Japan where it received critical acclaim and sold more than 100,000 copies in its first edition. In Japan, Anne Frank quickly became identified as an important cultural figure who represented the destruction of youth during the war.

A play based upon the diary, by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, premiered in New York City on October 5, 1955, and later won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. It was followed by the 1959 movie The Diary of Anne Frank, which was a critical and commercial success. The biographer, Melissa M?ller, later wrote that the dramatization had "contributed greatly to the romanticizing, sentimentalizing and universalizing of Anne's story." Over the years the popularity of the diary grew, and in many schools, particularly in the United States, it was included as part of the curriculum, introducing Anne Frank to new generations of readers.

Cornelis Suijk -- a former director of the Anne Frank Foundation and president of the U.S. Center for Holocaust Education Foundation -- announced in 1999 that he had in his possession five pages that had been removed by Otto Frank from the diary prior to publication; Suijk claimed that Otto Frank gave these pages to him shortly before his death in 1980. The missing diary entries contain critical remarks by Anne Frank about her parents' strained marriage, and discusses Anne's lack of affection for her mother. Some controversy ensued when Suijk claimed publishing rights over the five pages and intended to sell them to raise money for his U.S. Foundation. The Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, the formal owner of the manuscript, demanded the pages to be handed over. In 2000, the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science agreed to donate $300,000 to Suijk's foundation, and the pages were returned in 2001. Since then, they have been included in new editions of the diary.

In her introduction to the diary's first American edition, Eleanor Roosevelt described it as "one of the wisest and most moving commentaries on war and its impact on human beings that I have ever read". John F. Kennedy discussed Anne Frank in a 1961 speech, and said, "Of all the multitudes who throughout history have spoken for human dignity in times of great suffering and loss, no voice is more compelling than that of Anne Frank." In the same year, the Soviet writer Ilya Ehrenburg wrote of her: "one voice speaks for six million-the voice not of a sage or a poet but of an ordinary little girl."

As Anne Frank's stature as both a writer and humanist has grown, she has been discussed specifically as a symbol of the Holocaust and more broadly as a representative of persecution. Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her acceptance speech for an Elie Wiesel Humanitarian Award in 1994, read from Anne Frank's diary and spoke of her "awakening us to the folly of indifference and the terrible toll it takes on our young," which Clinton related to contemporary events in Sarajevo, Somalia and Rwanda. After receiving a humanitarian award from the Anne Frank Foundation in 1994, Nelson Mandela addressed a crowd in Johannesburg, saying he had read Anne Frank's diary while in prison and "derived much encouragement from it." He likened her struggle against Nazism to his struggle against apartheid, drawing a parallel between the two philosophies with the comment "because these beliefs are patently false, and because they were, and will always be, challenged by the likes of Anne Frank, they are bound to fail." Also in 1994, Vaclav Havel said that "Anne Frank's legacy is very much alive and it can address us fully" in relation to the political and social changes occurring at the time in former Eastern Bloc countries.

Otto Frank spent the remainder of his life as custodian of his daughter's legacy, saying, "It's a strange role. In the normal family relationship, it is the child of the famous parent who has the honor and the burden of continuing the task. In my case the role is reversed." He also recalled his publisher explaining why he thought the diary has been so widely read, with the comment "he said that the diary encompasses so many areas of life that each reader can find something that moves him personally". Simon Wiesenthal later expressed a similar opinion when he said that Anne Frank's diary had raised more widespread awareness of the Holocaust than had been achieved during the Nuremberg Trials, because "people identified with this child. This was the impact of the Holocaust, this was a family like my family, like your family and so you could understand this."

In June 1999, Time magazine published a special edition titled "TIME 100: Heroes & Icons of the 20th century". Anne Frank was selected as one of the "Heroes & Icons", and the writer, Roger Rosenblatt, described her legacy with the comment:

The passions the book ignites suggest that everyone owns Anne Frank, that she has risen above the Holocaust, Judaism, girlhood and even goodness and become a totemic figure of the modern world-the moral individual mind beset by the machinery of destruction, insisting on the right to live and question and hope for the future of human beings.

He also notes that while her courage and pragmatism are admired, it is her ability to analyze herself and the quality of her writing that are the key components of her appeal. He writes, "The reason for her immortality was basically literary. She was an extraordinarily good writer, for any age, and the quality of her work seemed a direct result of a ruthlessly honest disposition."

On May 3, 1957, a group of citizens, including Otto Frank, established the Anne Frank Stichting in an effort to rescue the Prinsengracht building from demolition and to make it accessible to the public. The Anne Frank House opened on May 3, 1960. It consists of the Opekta warehouse and offices and the Achterhuis, all unfurnished so that visitors can walk freely through the rooms. Some personal relics of the former occupants remain, such as movie star photographs glued by Anne to a wall, a section of wallpaper on which Otto Frank marked the height of his growing daughters, and a map on the wall where he recorded the advance of the Allied Forces. From the small room which was once home to Peter van Pels, a walkway connects the building to its neighbors, also bought by the Foundation. These other buildings are used to house the diary, as well as changing exhibits that chronicle different aspects of the Holocaust and more contemporary examinations of racial intolerance in various parts of the world. It has become one of Amsterdam's main tourist attractions, and in 2005 received a record 965,000 visitors.

I keep my ideals, because in spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart.
-- Anne Frank

Today's news stories

cvllelaw — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:16:00 GMT

More good loans are in trouble now -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...
and a slo-mo financial crisis can really hurt too -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

New Hampshire Senate race is representative of the tilt nationally -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Wind power is already coming to Nebraska -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Gitmo just doesn't feel like Nuremberg on the war crimes scale -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

McCain is continuing with the Hillary playbook -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...

Obama wants full voting rights for Michigan and Florida delegations -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...

After Obama said he would favor a compromise on drilling, McCain says he would too -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...
while the NYT castigates both parties in the Senate for failing to compromise -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Obama leads narrowly -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
while Virginia is legitimately up for grabs -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
while the Virginia GOP is trying to suppress the vote -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Riverside Church in New York picks Virginian to be its next senior minister -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...

Jody Wagner resigns as Secretary of Finance, presumably to run for LG -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...

Civil disobedience and coal-fired power plants -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...

McCain ran an "Obama doesn't belong on the currency" ad in June

cvllelaw — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 02:22:04 GMT

You wonder what prompted Barack Obama to mockingly say, "I don't look like the guys that are on the dollar bills?"

It turns out that in June, the McCain campaign ran a web ad that mocked Obama's presumptuousness for using a seal that was a change from the Presidential seal that said "Obama for America," and then went on to ask, "What else would he change?" And they suggested his face on the Statue of Liberty, on Mt. Rushmore, and on the $100 bill. And then they said, in essence, "Damn. That boy is uppity," closing with the line -- "Change you can Photoshop."

I bet that's what prompted Obama's comment.

Today's news stories

cvllelaw — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 19:15:06 GMT

McCain, the analog candidate; who cares? -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

The race about race -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...
Obama's difficult path on race preferences -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Obama agrees to 3 debates with McCain -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Bayh to be announced on Wednesday? -- http://www.howeypolitics.com/2...

The presidential race as Pride and Prejudice, acted out --
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Congress's electronic voting bill would do more harm than good -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Defeat your opponents, then hire them -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Obama campaign too insular, too Chicago-based -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Bill Clinton going back to his charity work -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

It's not McCain; it's the GOP -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Eric Shinseki showed how to criticize a boss -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Maybe the problem is NOT global warming -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
Prostitute shortage blamed on global warming? -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Albemarle County zoning hurting business growth -- http://www.dailyprogress.com/c...

McCain vetting Cantor for VP -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...
while opinion is split on Kaine as VP -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...
and Jeff Schapiro snarks about Kaine -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...

Buckingham opens 1908 time capsule -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...

August 3, 1936 -- Jesse Owens wins first Olympic gold

cvllelaw — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 12:00:00 GMT

James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics: in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the long jump, and as part of the 4x100 meter relay team.

Jesse Owens was born in Alabama in 1913. When Owens was nine, his father moved to Cleveland, Ohio. He was given the name "Jesse" by a teacher in Cleveland who did not understand his country accent when the young boy said he was called J.C.

Owens attended the Ohio State University only after employment was found for his father, ensuring the family could be supported. He was affectionately known as the "Buckeye Bullet" and won a record eight individual NCAA championships, four each in 1935 and 1936.

In 1936 Owens arrived in Berlin to compete for the United States in the Summer Olympics. Adolf Hitler was using the games to show the world a resurgent Nazi Germany. He and other government officials had high hopes that German athletes would dominate the games with victories to demonstrate their concepts of "Aryan racial superiority".

Owens surprised many by winning four gold medals: On August 3, 1936 he won the 100m sprint, defeating Ralph Metcalfe; on August 4, the long jump (later crediting friendly and helpful advice from German competitor Luz Long); on August 5, the 200m sprint; and, after he was added to the 4 x 100 m relay team, his fourth on August 9 (a performance not equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics).

On the first day, Hitler shook hands only with the German victors and then left the stadium. Olympic committee officials then insisted Hitler greet each and every medalist or none at all. Hitler opted for the latter and skipped all further medal presentations. On reports that Hitler had deliberately avoided acknowledging his victories, and had refused to shake his hand, Owens recounted:

When I passed the Chancellor he arose, waved his hand at me, and I waved back at him. I think the writers showed bad taste in criticizing the man of the hour in Germany. ... Hitler didn't snub me-it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn't even send me a telegram.

Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor bestowed any honors by Presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt or Harry S Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower acknowledged Owens' accomplishments, naming him an "Ambassador of Sports."

Owens was cheered enthusiastically by 110,000 people in Berlin's Olympic Stadium and later ordinary Germans sought his autograph when they saw him in the streets. Owens was allowed to travel with and stay in the same hotels as whites, an irony at the time given that blacks in the United States were denied equal rights. After a New York ticker-tape parade in his honor, Owens had to ride the freight elevator to attend his own reception at the Waldorf-Astoria.

After the games had finished, Owens was invited, along with the rest of the team, to compete in Sweden. However he decided to capitalize on his success by returning to the United States to take up some of the lucrative commercial offers he was receiving. American athletic officials were furious and withdrew his amateur status, ending his career immediately. Owens was livid: "A fellow desires something for himself," he said.

With no sporting appearances to bolster his profile, the lucrative offers never quite materialized. Instead he was forced to try to make a living as a sports promoter, essentially an entertainer. He would give local sprinters a ten or twenty yard start and beat them in the 100 yard dash. He also challenged and defeated racehorses although as he revealed later, the trick was to race a high-strung thoroughbred horse that would be frightened by the starter's shotgun and give him a bad jump.

He soon found himself running a dry-cleaning business and then even working as a gas station attendant. He eventually filed for bankruptcy but, even then, his problems were not over and in 1966 he was successfully prosecuted for tax evasion. At rock bottom, the rehabilitation began and he started work as a U.S. 'goodwill ambassador'. Owens traveled the world and spoke to companies like the Ford Motor Company and the United States Olympic Committee.

Jesse Owens was inducted to the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 1970. He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1976 by Gerald Ford and (posthumously) the Congressional Gold Medal by George H. W. Bush on March 28, 1990. In 1984, a street in Berlin was renamed for him, and the Jesse Owens Realschule/Oberschule (a secondary school) is in Berlin-Lichtenberg. His hometown in Alabama dedicated a park in his honor in 1996, at the same time the Olympic Torch came through the community, 60 years after his Olympic triumph. In 2001, The Ohio State University dedicated The Jesse Owens Memorial Stadium for track and field events.

A pack-a-day smoker for 35 years, Owens died of lung cancer at age 66 in Tucson, Arizona in 1980.

Today's news stories

cvllelaw — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 13:56:06 GMT

McCain is accusing Obama of "Running While Black" -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...
and accuses Obama of "playing the race card" -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
and Obama is treading lightly here -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...
http://blog.washingtonpost.com...
Partisans on both sides look at the ads and race as an issue -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
McCain sees the "Obama=Britney" ad as "having fun" -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...
and launches a new "Obama is The One" ad on the web -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...

But more people seem worried about the economy -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Perriello gets major boost from DCCC -- http://www.delmarvanow.com/app...
Perriello campaigns with Grisham in Martinsville -- http://www.dailyprogress.com/c...
While Virgil Goode is ticked at The Daily Show -- http://www.dailyprogress.com/c...

Kaine misses Smith Mountain Lake event with broken helicopter -- http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/...
but he made it to Chincoteague for the Pony Swim -- http://www.delmarvanow.com/app...

Jody Wagner resigns as Finance Secretary, probably to run for LG --http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/news.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-08-02-0113.html

Cillizza on the battleground states -- http://blog.washingtonpost.com...

Congress adjourns without action on energy bill -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
And House Republicans stage a bizarre protest -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
and http://blog.washingtonpost.com...

While Obama says he could accept more drilling as a part of a package fix -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/...

Update on "culture of corruption" in Congress -- http://blog.washingtonpost.com...

A country music song for McCain -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...

Bush 41 coming out of the shadows -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

The candidates go to Florida -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Judge seems skeptical of ACLU's arguments about allowing protests closer to Denver Convention -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

Time to get serious about fuel economy -- http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08...

DCCC Chair warns against complacency -- http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes...
Buckingham Supervisor Joe Chambers gets 4 days in jail, not for DUI -- http://www.dailyprogress.com/c...