VE Day 80 Years

The war in Europe ended 80 years ago, May 8, 1945. My dad was in the Pacific theater while some of his Strobel first-cousins served in Europe. His cousin Charles Strobel was killed in Italy in 1944. 

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Chicago Mayor Cermak

Born in what is now the Czech Republic on May 9, 1873, Anton Cermak was a Chicago politician who saw possibilities in bringing together German, Czech, Polish, Italian, Ukrainian, Jewish, and African American communities around Chicago into the Democratic party, breaking the dominance of the Irish Americans in city politics. By 1931 he had enough power and influence to gain the office of Chicago mayor. According to a Chicago Tribune article that I found, President Roosevelt got the idea for his "fireside chats" from Cermak's weekly radio talks. One indication of Cermak's influence is the fact that every Chicago mayor since his term has been Democratic. He did not serve long, however. In 1933, while standing with Roosevelt at a gathering in Miami, a gunman fatally wounded Cermak. Although there have been theories otherwise, the assassin likely meant to kill Roosevelt but at the crucial moment a bystander hit the gunman's arm with her purse. Cermak's son-in-law was Otto Kerner, who--before he went to prison for mail fraud--was Illinois governor in 1961-1968. Cermak Rd. (22nd St.) is a west-east street in Chicago.

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Kermit is 70!

Here's an 18-year-old Jim Henson on his own live-action and puppet sketch comedy series "Sam and Friends", which aired on the local station WRC-TV in Washington, D.C. The show debuted 70 years ago today, May 9, 1955, and ran until December 15, 1961. Therefore, the character Kermit also debuted 70 years ago today!  Initially he was an unspecified lizard-like creature and not yet a frog. 

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Anniversary of Finnegans Wake

James Joyce's final book, "Finnegans Wake", was published on May 4, 1939. The novel seems to be the dreams of the Earwicker family who live above a pub in Dublin. But Mr. Earwicker seems to have done something creepy and actionable, analogous in the dreams to the fall of Adam. But there is also some connection in the dreams to Christ's resurrection (as the titular Tim Finnegan, in the comic ballad, revived during his own wake). Joyce writes in a fluid, opaque, allusive, and polyglot language that seems to be replicating the way ideas, images, memories, and characters combine confusingly in our dreams. Joyce leaves it to the reader to sort it all out. The final, incomplete sentence connects to the incomplete first sentence, demonstrating the cyclical nature of history.

Colonial Interfaith Friendship

Here's a lovely story of interfaith friendship. Rabbi Raphael Hayyim Isaac Carregal, who died May 5, 1777, was a Palestinian rabbi, and the first rabbi known to have visited the colonies that became the United States. Once he settled in Newport, he became friends with Yale president Ezra Stiles, who wrote in his diary with love and admiration of the rabbi. Stiles didn't know much Hebrew and wanted to improve. Carregal helped him to the extent that they eventually wrote letters to each other in Hebrew about biblical and Jewish topics. Stiles visited him at the Newport synagogue and commissioned this portrait of the rabbi.

Pioneer of Travel Photography

Born April 27, 1815, Solomon Nunes Carvalho was an American Jew of Portuguese descent who was known as a painter, daguerreotypist, author, and inventor. Explorer John C. Frémont asked him to join his fifth Western expedition through Kansas, Colorado, and Utah (1853-1854) in search for a good transcontinental railroad route. Carvalho took nearly 300 photos on that arduous trip, many of which are unfortunately lost. But for his effort, Carvalho is considered a pioneer of travel photography. Since Frémont did not publish an account of this expedition, Carvalho published his own.

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Vietnam: Fifty Years

On April 30, 1975, North Vietnamese Army tanks moved through the gate of the Presidential Palace in Saigon, thus ending the war. The last few Americans still in South Vietnam were airlifted out of Saigon. 

 

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