Today in History: Star Wars Day

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Today is Star Wars Day. May the 4th be with you.

* * * *
Peter Minuit arrived in New Netherland on behalf of the Dutch West India Company 390 years ago today. He became Director of New Netherland (governor, essentially), and is famous for purchasing the rights to what is now the island of Manhattan from the Lenape peoples for what is believed to be 60 guilders (which would have been the equivalent of $1000 at the time, or around $10,000 now).

In 1846, an historian named John Romeyn Brodhead calculated that 60 guilders was worth about $23, which was incorrect but so poetic that the idea stuck and became a myth of early America: that Peter Minuit bought Manhattan for $23 in cheap trinkets from the Native Americans. The comic flip-side to this myth is the ironic speculation that the Canarsees were willing to accept any merchandise for the island as they did not control it, the Wappinger people did, and the Canarsees were content with keeping this fact to themselves.
Read More

Not Abandoned: #FreeShawkan

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

August 14, 2013, was 994 days ago. On that date, Mahmoud Abu Zeid was arrested in Egypt. He is a photojournalist who was arrested while being a photographer. Four times since December of last year, his first court hearing has been postponed; the next attempt at a hearing will come on May 10.

Under Egyptian law, there is a two-year cap on pre-trial detention; 994 days is longer than two years.

You may very well have seen some of his work in recent years, as his photographs have appeared in Time magazine, in periodicals throughout Europe, and they have been distributed by Corbis, a major syndicate. (One photo is reprinted below the fold.) Mahmoud, who publishes under the name “Shawkan,” photographed everyday life in Egypt as well as breaking news stories like the protests in Tahrir Square and the trial of former president Hosni Mubarak.

Today is World Press Freedom Day, an annual commemoration established by the United Nations in December 1993. It celebrates the vital importance of a free press around the world, of the importance of the freedom of expression. What I write here is not important, but the fact that I can hit the “Publish” button in a few moments and send this into the world, that fact is.
Read More

Today in History: May 3

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

The New York Yankees beat the St. Louis Browns 14-5 at Yankee Stadium 80 years ago today. In left field for the Yankees was Joe DiMaggio, making his major league debut. He went three-for-six.

About 50 years later, Joe DiMaggio took a seat behind a card table on a stage in the school auditorium in Albany, NY; a line of autograph collectors assembled on the right side, at the three-step stairs that are on both sides of a school stage; they had paid some eight dollars or so a pop to bring a piece of paper (purchased there as well) up onto the stage, where they would have their few moments with the Yankee Clipper.

Those on the single-file line were to make their way across the stage and down the opposite side where the lucky purchasers of a shared moment with “The Great DiMaggio” would file back down onto the sales floor. A bizarre graduation of sorts: before an encounter with Joe DiMaggio in person and then diploma’ed for life. My friend and I, both of us too poor to afford the extra money for the autograph and shared moment, considered it luck enough to be in the same space as DiMaggio. Or so we told ourselves.
Read More