OCTOBER 27 — 1858 Happy Birthday Teddy Roosevelt; 1925 Happy Birthday Albert Medwin (1st CMOS chip); 2012 Neon Building Opens in Vegas; 1916 Happy Birthday Prof. Winckler (sprites)
OCTOBER 27
1858– Happy birthday #26, Teddy “Old Rough and Ready” “Bullmoose” Roosevelt.
…Born in New York City in 1858, Teedie, as he was called as a youngster, was a sickly child with asthma, but starting pumping iron in the gym as a teenager. In December1886, while enrolled in Harvard, he met Alice Hathaway Lee in London and married her soon after. He headed the Rough Rider Regiment during the Spanish-American War, serving as Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley where he led a charge at San Juan, going Beast mode.
His wife and mother passed away on the same day, in the same house. Teddy wrote many books, and he was so struck with sorrow when writing his auto-biography never mentioned Alice. In fact he was so grief-stricken, he nearly spent the rest of his life cattle-ranching in the Badlands of the Dakotas. But his old girlfriend Edith Crow came back into his life. Actually as children they watched the Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession from his grandfather’s window together, and now they were secretly married.
Back in NYC, Theodore ran unsuccessfully as mayor of New York, but his luck changed in 1898when he won the election of Governor of New York. His progressive policies led him into trouble with Tom Platt and other high ranking state party members, and they needed to silence Rough Rider Roosevelt. So they accepted him as the Republican candidate for Vice President on under President William McKinley. After all, the Vice Presidency is a thankless job, and no one in the state party leadership expected McKinley to die in office. I mean, who woulda seen that coming? Some deranged psycho anarchist named Leon Czolgosz took him out. After McKinley was assassinated, Rough Rider became the youngest President at age 42.
He took the oath of office without laying his hand on the Bible, the second President to do so besides John Quincy Adams. According to whitehouse.gov, He brought new excitement and power to the Presidency, as he vigorously led Congress and the American public toward progressive reforms and a strong foreign policy. Good ol’ whitehouse.gov. Here’s how it went down.
Domestically, as president Rough Rider established the Square Deal, which focused on the three C’s: conservation of natural resources, control of corporations, and consumer protection, guaranteeing justice to all involved between capital and labor, and specials favors to nobody? Teddy the Lion didn’t stop there. He enforced the Sherman Anti-Trust Laws against the Northern Securities Company, which was a railroad company formed by James Hill, E.H. Harriman and J.P. Morgan. T.R. would be pushed around by no one, and he made that crystal clear. In addition, we can thank TR for setting aside 200 million acres of natural land for preservation, which was five times all his predecessors combined.
Is it any wonder that he won the 1904 Presidential nomination in a landslide. In 1905, he walked his niece, Eleanor Roosevelt, down the aisle to marry a young Franklin Roosevelt, who was his fifth cousin removed. Speaking of family affairs, Martin Van Buren was his fifth cousin removed. TR was the first to invite an African American to dinner that would be Booker T. Washington.
Bullmoose Roosevelt was the first to call the White House, the White House. Previously it was called the President’s House or the Executive Mansion. He was the first president to study martial arts, specifically, jujitsu, since an injury kept him from his first love, boxing. Also in presidential firsts, he was the first to own a car, purple Columbia Electric Victoria, the first to fly in an airplane, which was a Wright Bros. bi-plane, and the first to be submerged in a submarine. The state of Oklahoma was admitted to the Union during his administration. On a hunting trip in 1902, Teddy refused to shoot an injured bear. This act of mercy was illustrated in cartoons in many newspapers. Morris Michtom, later president of the Ideal Toy Company, had a toy bear that needed a name. He asked Teddy to borrow his name, and TR agreed. Thus, the Teddy Bear we have to this day. Speaking of animals while living in the White House, TR and his family had a garter snake, guinea pig, and two dogs named Pete and Sailor Boy.
In foreign policy, Rough Rider Roosevelt liked to quote a famous proverb, “speak softly, and carry a big stick.” This big stick of his would use the Monroe Doctrine to shake away European nations from collecting owed debts in Latin America with a naval blockade, ensuring the Europeans would get their money, and that my friends, began the United States police power over the western hemisphere. . Also in Latin America, Theodore used his big stick and naval blockade to help Panama secede from Columbia, thereby ensuring the construction of the Panama Canal, which would create a shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. He’s the first president to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for assisting to end the war between Russia and Japan. Although, if the two fought it out, that would of course changed the events leading to ensuing World Wars. After all, how WAS he to know his son-in-law and cousin Franklin Roosevelt was would untangle that mess. Finally, in the spirit of his predecessors William McKinley’s foreign policy, the Rough Rider showed the US as a world power by sending the Great White Fleet on a goodwill tour around the world.
Upon leaving the Presidency in 1909, Roosevelt threw his support behind his close friend William Howard Taft, who succeeded him, and went on an African safari and toured Europe. But when he got back, he was frustrated to find that Taft’s policies leaned to the conservative side instead of the progressive side, and thus jumped back into politics, creating the Progressive, or Bullmoose Party. He would run in 1912 for Presidency on this ticket, and while campaigning was shot in the chest and yet continued his speech for another hour and a half before seeing a doctor. If I had to listen to an hour and a half speech I’d probably shoot myself. By now WWI was starting to break out in Europe, and Teddy lost the election to Woodrow Wilson. Give him credit; Bullmoose’s Progressive party won 88 electoral votes, making it the most successful third party in American history which stands to this day.
Theodore Roosevelt died peacefully in his sleep in Long Island, NY, on Jan. 6, 1919, at the age of 60 from a weak heart. “A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.” “I do not like the hardness of the heart, but neither do I like softness of the head.”
“Nine-tenths of wisdom is being wise in time.”
In geek news
1925 – Happy birthday Albert Medwin. He came up with the first CMOS chip. Now, unless you’re over 40 AND an IT person for a living you probably don’t know what that is. But for those of us who do, we say, thanks Albert! In other patent news, 1925 – Fred Waller patents the water ski. Hit it! He called them Dolphin Aqua Skis. They were made of kiln-dried mahogany.
1916 Happy Birthday Professor John Randolph Winckler. He discovered spites!
A sprite is an electromagnetic discharge in the upper atmosphere above a lightning storm . They’re really cool to watch if you just youtube sprite electric discharge. On July 6 1989 at the University of Minnesota, Professor Winckler was testing a low-level TV camera for an upcoming rocket launch, when he came across these glorious sprites above the thunderclouds.
2012 – the Neon Building opens in Vegas.
Because I can’t even say the word Vegas without a smile coming to my face. This is where you would go if you wanted to see the old Nevada signs from the Old West days. Well maybe not that Old Westie, but according to Nevada locals, business owners and city officials , those signs are historic. The Young Electric Sign Company held onto these famous pieces after LCD and LED lights started replacing the classic neon signs.
Some of those neon signs have been up since the 1920s. But when deterioration began to take its toll, more than 150 signs, such as the Golden Nugget and Silver Slipper were moved to the Boneyard, inside the Neon Museum. Right there in the Freemont street experience, Class, for extra credit, is sure to check out the Hacienda Horse!
2004 – Red Sox win the World Series for the first time since 1918
1956 –A front page article in Billboard magazine says that the US Army will give Elvis Presley a GI haircut, much to the dismay of his fans.
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