Category: History

In St. Louis Today, Harry Levins writes:

As a general rule, newspapers stop running anniversary stories after 50 years.

The thinking holds that past 50 years, few readers even remember the event, much less took part in it. Past a half-century, journalists cede the field to historians.

World War II was an exception. Because that war dragged on for so long (45 months) and because it put so many Americans in uniform (16 million, or more than 10 percent of the population), it imprinted itself in the American soul, as only the Civil War had before it.

Both WWII and the Civil War involved the entire nation over a long stretch of time. And although nobody alive in America today remembers Shiloh or Gettysburg, enough Americans remember WWII to nudge newspapers away from the 50-year rule.

Thanks in part to the emotions stirred by Tom Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation” and to the movie “Saving Pvt. Ryan,” newspapers in the 1990s ran 60th-anniversary stories on the big WWII battles.

But that attention to WWII is fading fast, as is the generation that fought the war.

Come next June 6, some elderly reader will call the paper to grouse that his paper makes absolutely no mention of the fact that it’s the 63rd anniversary of the day in 1944 that Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower led the D-Day landings in Normandy.

Chances are that the grumpy reader will be making his complaint to an editor who was born after President Dwight D. Eisenhower left the White House in 1961.

I find the more I study the world today, the more I like history.

Here’s one that has me stumped, though. There is another famous Poe other than Edgar Allan, and his name was Aaron Poe. He was known as a ‘famous’ indian fighter in the midwest in the 1800’s, but he seems to be virtually unknown now. I’ve been trying to track him without any success.

Does anyone have any background on Aaron Poe, the ‘famous Indian fighter’?

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I love history. Not necessarily the big stories: the world wars, and tales of kings and queens and daring do. No, I like the stories of people who do acts of normalcy that end up creating waves that ripple from small to large to larger until an ocean of change sweeps across the age and the land; leaving the debris of old ways, fractured customs tumbled about like the broken pieces of concrete that are left when the Mississippi swells its banks.

Did you know that the first formalized woman’s suffrage movement in the US originated in Missouri? That Missouri was the last state to be admitted to the Union as a slave state, but the first state to free slaves, even before the 13th Amendment was passed? That the first woman lawyer practiced law in this state? Her name was M. Lemma Barkeloo. She was also the first woman lawyer to participate on a case in Federal court.

The James gang plied its nefarious trade in Missouri; the Pony Express started here, as did most treks west. The first steel bridge was created here, the first steamboat race ended here.

The worst earthquake in history, in terms of strength and potential damage, as well as sheer impact on the geology of the area happened here. Luckily it was before all these red brick buildings were built.

The first woman to sue to be allowed to vote was Virginia Minor here in 1872.

On October 15, 1872, Virginia Minor tried to register to vote in the upcoming election, but was refused by St. Louis’ sixth district registrar, Reese Happersett. Happersett refused to register Minor because she was female, thus provoking a civil suit brought by Virginia and her lawyer husband, Francis Minor. Minor’s action was part of a nationwide pattern of civil disobedience, in which hundreds of women across the country attempted to vote. Susan B. Anthony led a small delegation of women to the polls in Rochester, New York, and was successful in casting her vote for Ulysses S. Grant. Three weeks later, however, on Thanksgiving Day, Anthony was arrested on the charge of voting fraud. Anthony was a celebrity who was used by the judicial system as an example and a warning to all women in the United States. When Anthony’s case came to trial early in 1873, the judge had written his opinion before the trial started, and directed the jury to find a guilty verdict. Anthony was ordered to pay a fine of $100, which she refused to do.

The list goes on an on. In terms of sheer social upheaval, Missouri is literally the epicenter of change in our history.

It’s the little facts I like. The ones that make great stories. The best possible event that can happen to a history buff like me is discovering a historical fact that has the potential to be a great story, and to realize that no one has told it yet. No, not even Wikipedia.

My Dad served during World War II. He was in the 82nd Airborne as a paratrooper, and was injured twice while on duty. Through merit and field promotions, he achieved the rank of Captain by war’s end.

During the war, he took flying lessons in Seattle. While he was out on a solo flight, he strayed too close to another plane and almost crashed both of them. He was ordered to land immediately. When he did so, he was informed that he almost ran his plane into the aircraft carrying Eleanor Roosevelt. Needless to say, his flying lessons were cut short.

My Dad did not make history. He is not mentioned in a history of World War II. If he had crashed Roosevelt, he would have made history; luckily he didn’t.

Now, if there was a time when a person was writing an anecdotal history of WWII, then my Dad might make history–his story would add color and nuance to the events of life that surround this war. But his role in the war, and his efforts, important as they were, cannot be seen as a pivotal events. He didn’t, in his individual actions, make history.

That’s how we need to view ‘history’ in Wikipedia–not as an opportunity to be all inclusive; but as an opportunity to be accurate. With this attempt to ‘rewrite’ the history of podcasting, I’m not attempting to be exhaustive in who gets covered; I’m trying to be accurate about what’s covered.

What are the key elements in podcasting without which it would not be as we know it today? Who are the key players who helped create, control, and define it? What are the key events that brought us to this point in time, even if said events weren’t directly related to podcasting? Every entry should be part of an answer to one of these questions. In the end, we should have an entry that everyone can agree is ‘accurate’, and, hopefully, neutral.

Then we can leave the anecdotal information–the fun stories, the chest thumping, the memories, and the expressions of gratitude and admiration–to our own weblogs, articles, books, and podcasts, whichever you prefer.

Or we can tell our daughters over tea one day, about the time when…