Thomas Clap, Yale's First President.

Born June 26, 1703, Thomas Clap was a Congregational minister and academic. There are no surviving portraits of him. Clap (or Clapp) became the fifth rector and, when the title was changed to president, he became Yale’s first president. During his term (1740-1766), he introduced curriculum in science, mathematics, and contemporary philosophical topics in addition to the traditional theological courses. He began to move Yale's focus from the training of Congregational clergy to a broader program. He built the first orrery for the science department, authorized the construction of Connecticut Hall---now the oldest surviving campus structure--and saw to it that his friend Benjamin Franklin obtained an honorary degree. Unfortunately, politics and religion, and Clap's authoritarian personality, filled his final years as president with controversy. When I last visited New Haven, in November, I found his and his wife's monuments in the Grove Street Cemetery. Here is also a transcript of his epitaph, in Belden's "Sketches of Yale College" (1843), and the title page of a sermon that Clapp's successor preached. 

"New Coke" Anniversary

"New Coke" was introduced on April 23, 1985. We lived in Charlottesville at the time. The uproar was in the news for a few weeks. I tried the drink.  It was sweeter, like Pepsi, without that little sharpness that's characteristic of Coke.

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St. Anselm of Canterbury

Today is the feast day (and death anniversary) of St Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 - 1109). He was the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1093-1109, during which he defended the church in the Investiture Controversy. He is known for his "ontological argument" for the existence of God---God is "that than which nothing greater can be thought." He is also known for his work, "Cur Deus Homo" ("Why Did God Become Human?") in which he argued a "legal" definition of Christ's atonement--that Christ's death paid the penalty that human sin incurred against God's righteousness. Still another legacy of his writings is the idea that religious faith, by its very nature, seeks deeper understanding ("fides quaerens intellectum"), a concept that Karl Barth used as a framework for his "Church Dogmatics" ... The stuff you remember from school, even though you can’t remember where you put your phone, LOL 

 

Happy birthday, Lisa Frank

 SO many happy memories of my daughter's school years!  Happy birthday to businesswoman Lisa Frank, born in 1955! Her company produced products that were REALLY popular among young girls during the 1980s and 1990s: school supplies, toys, and stickers of animals and unicorns, rendered in neon and rainbow colors.

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Happy birthday, John Muir

Naturalist-writer John Muir was born on this day in 1838! He helped found the Sierra Club and influenced the establishment of what became the US Forest Service, and he was involved in establishing Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Sequoia, and other areas as National Parks. Unfortunately he also wrote racist things, which the Sierra Club has lately addressed in evaluating his legacy. I have Muir's book "A Thousand-Mile Walk to the Gulf," which describes his walk from Indianapolis down into Florida in 1867. He comments on how nature was slowly on the rebound following the environmental damage caused by the Civil War.

 

Anniversary of San Jacinto

My cousins in Texas pointed out that today is the anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto. On April 21, 1836, the Texan Army led by General Sam Houston defeated the Mexican Army led by General Antonio López de Santa Anna. The battle, near the San Jacinto River, lasted only 18 minutes. Santa Anna was captured April 22 and, three weeks later, signed the peace treaty that removed the Mexican Army from the region. Thus ended the Texas Revolution. The Republic of Texas had already declared its independence on March 2. The U.S. recognized the new republic, though Mexico did not. This is a longish article but it provides interesting historical context.

https://www.thealamo.org/remember/battle-and-revolution/san-jacinto?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR10ZfNAiS4TmV-l3wTdFebJ92v-HyNzVSdNHjpocFtbKx6LK3V9ZXCJ82E_aem_AarWoxJz4v9Yug_eQUmIDW5cKSqyZ7fPEYlSP1eILvWqq6DmL65la9UyMm_trysx76SeMzQmKn-c6VLq8WImxVcR

Les Deux Magots

Something on Facebook this evening reminded me of the time Beth and I ate at the famous Les Deux Magots in Paris in 2019. Fun to pretend to have literary and artistic fame, LOL. 

Schumann's Symphonies

 A wonderful set that I purchased in Vienna a few years ago. Schumann's four symphonies make a wonderful "landscape" to traverse.  I discovered #1 as I was driving on U.S. 89 in northern Arizona years ago. 

Paul Klee, "Red Balloon"

Paul Klee, "Red Balloon" (1922)

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Happy birthday, Sainte-Hilaire!

Born April 15, 1772, Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire was a French naturalist who theorized an underlying unity of organismal design, and the possibility of species transmutation in time. Developing on the ideas of his colleague Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Saint-Hilaire gathered evidence in embryology, amassing evidence for his claims through research in comparative anatomy, and paleontology. His ideas anticipated the evo-devo evolutionary concept. 

Bart Giamatti

A. Bartlett Giamatti was born on this day in 1938. He was Yale University's president in 1978-1986 and then National League Baseball president and later Commissioner of Major League Baseball, during which he negotiated Pete Rose's withdrawal from baseball. The actor Paul Giamatti is his son--such a great actor! During a Yale festival of some sort in the early 1980s, I noticed Pres. Giamatti and took his picture while he was chatting with the mayor of New Haven.

50th Anniversary of the 1974 Super Outbreak

On April 3-4, 1974, there was a "super outbreak" of 148 tornados across the Midwest, 20 of them in Indiana and 26 in Kentucky. When we lived in Louisville in the 90s, folks still occasionally talked about the destruction there. I've a friend from Xenia, OH, where the death toll was high. This map can be enlarged at https://www.weather.gov/iln/19740403 Back in the '90s, I did some writing for the Kentucky Council of Churches. One of my interviewees talked about how Kentucky churches worked together to minister to tornado victims.