History | The Gad About Town

Today in History: March 9

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

Adam Smith’s book on economics and philosophy, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” or, more familiarly, “The Wealth of Nations,” was published by W. Strahan and T. Cadell in London 240 years ago today. It was an instant, influential, best-seller and began to be cited in taxation policy discussions within months and referenced by politicians in London and America within a year of publication. Here is my attempt from last year at explaining my understanding of economics and Adam Smith’s influence: “Higgling, Haggling, Swapping, Dickering.”

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Sixty-two years ago tonight, CBS broadcast “A Report on Senator Joseph McCarthy” on its half-hour “See It Now” news broadcast. Hosted by Edward R. Murrow, it was a close look at the Wisconsin Republican’s several year-long campaign against Communists that he had claimed had infiltrated our government and the armed forces. Murrow used video and film of McCarthy’s own speeches to show his many contradictions, obfuscations, and possible lies. McCarthy’s only replies to the show were personal and insulting against Murrow and did not address anything of substance. The McCarthy Era in its then-specific guise was ending; McCarthyism still exists. A clip (below the fold):
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Today in History: March 8

Posted on March 8, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

Shad vary, right enough. I thought of my own Olympic fish—two and half hours on the line at Lambertville. Had I not interfered, she would have gone up to the Little Beaver Kill, jumped that waterfall, jumped the Catskill divide, swum up the Hudson to Lake Champlain and down the Richelieu River to Montreal, gone up the Ottawa to Lake Nipissing and down the French River into Lake Huron and on across Superior and up the Pigeon River and on to the Lake of the Woods and Lake Winnipeg and Reindeer Lake and Lake Athabasca and the Great Slave Lake (doing the Methye Portage in a heavy rain) and down the Mackenzie to the Rat, and up the Rat to the Porcupine, and down the Porcupine to the Yukon River, and down the Yukon River to the Bering Sea. It’s a shame I ate her.—John McPhee, “The Founding Fish”

John McPhee is 85 today. As far as I am concerned, a single paragraph by John McPhee selected at random carries more lessons about and examples of graceful writing than almost every other journalist’s Complete Works. He still teaches his course, “Creative Non-Fiction,” at Princeton University.

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Today is International Women’s Day, an official holiday in many countries, mostly in Asia and Eastern Europe, but also in several African nations and in South America. It has been celebrated each year since 1909. “Pledge for Parity,” or #PledgeforParity, is the slogan for 2016’s celebration.
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Today in History: March 7

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Mark Aldrich

U.S. Patent Number 174,465 was awarded to Alexander Graham Bell 140 years ago today. It carried the mundane title, “Improvement in telegraphy,” but for all intents and purposes the patent is for the telephone, and so is one of the most noteworthy patents in history.

One key description describes the intent of the invention: Bell’s “improved” technology provides a new “method of, and apparatus for, transmitting vocal or other sounds telegraphically … by causing electrical undulations, similar in form to the vibrations of the air accompanying the said vocal or other sound.” On March 7, 1876, however, the intention was all Bell and his lab assistants had. He ha not developed an operational device. Three days later, on March 10, Bell’s assistant Thomas Watson heard his boss’ voice transmitted on the experimental apparatus in a legendary moment: “Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.”
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