OCTOBER 1 — 1924 Happy Birthday Jimmy Carter; 1949 – NYT headlines: Mao Heads Peiping Regime; 2015 Tom Clancey dies; 1975 Thrilla in Manilla
OCTOBER 1
1924 – Happy BD Jimmy Carter.
…James Earl Carter Jr. was born October 1 1924 in Plains, GA; the only US President from Georgia. His parents were strict Baptists, and his dad owned a large and very prosperous peanut farm that survived the Great Depression. Jimmy’s fondest memories growing up include sitting with his dad listening to politics and baseball games on the radio. He graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD, where he studied nuclear physics, and shortly thereafter married Rosalynn Smith, who was also from Plains.
The Carters have three sons, Jack Chip and Jeff, and a daughter named Amy Lynn. His father passed away and Jimmy moved his family back to Plains to be with his mother and take over the farm. He entered state politics in 1962 as a staunch anti-segregationist. But the Democrat party of the old south rejected his views, so Jimmy softened his tone for the 1970 election for governor of Georgia, which he won. Jimmy Carter, this new young politician from the south, made the cover of Time magazine, emphasizing modest racial views, social policies, and efficiency in government.
In 1976 he ran for president with Walter Mondale as his running mate, and beat out Gerald Ford.
As president, Carter worked on long-range energy programs, expanded the national park system including protection of 103 million acres in Alaska, increased human and social services, created the Department of Education, strengthened the Social Security system, and appointed relatively high number of women and other minorities to government jobs. Jimmy’s kids went to public school. Little Amy Carter, now 9 years old, had a tree house on the White House grounds. For a school project, she labeled the trees their common and Latin names, and from there, President Carter officially kept them labelled. So if you ever visit the White House, check it out.
In foreign n affairs, at the Camp David Accords of 1978, he met with Egyptian president Anwar el-Saddat and Prime Minister of Israel Menechem Begin. This helped end war between Egypt and Israel. He succeeded in obtaining ratification of the Panama Canal treaties. There were serious setbacks, however. The soviet invasion of Afghanistan caused the suspension of plans for ratification of the SALT II nuclear limitation treaty with the Russians. The toughness of Cousin Hot’s leadership skills were questioned by many Americans, especially after the Iran Hostage Crisis. The seizure of hostages of the US embassy staff by radical Iranian students ruled the news during the last 14 months of the administration. Cousin Hot Carter’s inability to negotiate with the terrorists, not to mention a botched recovery mission, coupled with continuing inflation domestically, contributed to Carter’s crushing defeat in 1980, to Ronald Regan. The Iranian terrorists finally released the 52 Americans the same day Carter left office. Since then, the Peanut Farmer has supported the Habitat for Humanity, which builds homes for the poor.
Happy birthday, Jimmy.
Since the 1930,s Mao Zedong and his army attempted to control China through the teachings of Marxism.
In the early 1920s, the nationalist group Kuomintang led by Chian Kai-Sheck fought Zedong for control and forcedhim to retreat his Chinese communist army some 8,000 miles on foot; a journey that lasted over a year. The nationalists and communist held a cease fire during China’s war with Japan, but as soon as WWII was over they were battling it out, and the Chinese Commnits Party, or the CCP, would emerge victorious, and the very next day in 1949, the People’s Republic of China was created.
The Domino Effect, as President Eisenhauer would call it, had begun, and the USSR had a communist buddy in the east. But China wasn’t exactly on great terms with the USSR, as they had their own version of communism. There there were floods and famine and millions of Chinese dead, then throughout the 60s the Chinese had a cultural revolution, but this isn’t a Chinese history show, it’s an American history show, and in 19752 President Richard Nixeon met with Tse-Tong in an historic meeting in Beijing. He would be the first American president to ever to visit China in what he called “the week that changed the world,” and I get into this more in my Feb 21 ep.
For now, Zedong had defeated the nationalists, and now communism had taken over China, exactly what America did not want.
1992 – Bruce Vorhauer commits suicide. He invented the Today contraceptive sponge.
…He founded the VLI Corporation of Irvine, CA, left the company in 1987, got into debt, and was found dead in his car rubber hose running from the exhaust into the window, at his island mansion on Salmon Lake.
2015 – Tom Clancy dies.
…I’ve read at least two of his books off the top of my head. His website says 30 years ago Clancy was a Maryland insurance broker with a passion for naval history. Years before, he had been an English major at Baltimore’s Loyola College and had always dreamed of writing a novel. His first effort, The Hunt for Red October, sold quickly as a result of rave reviews, and then catapulted onto the New York Times bestseller list after President Reagan pronounced it the perfect yarn. From that day forward, Clancy established himself as an undisputed master at blending exceptional realism and authenticity, intricate plotting, and razor-sharp suspense.
1975 – The Thrilla in Manila. Muhammad Alia and Joe Frazier battle it out for the Heavyweight Championship of the World in the Philippines. Ali won when Frazier’s manager threw in the towel after the 14th round. The name from Ali’s love for rhyming and that the fight would be a killa and a thrilla and a chilla when I get that gorilla in manila.