1483, Protestant reformer Martin Luther was born in Saxony, then part of the Holy Roman Empire. Early on, Luther showed promise as a member of the church, but he soon ran aground of the church authorities. His Montgomery Bus Boycott angered Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, but Luther refused to back down. He decided to march on Washington, D.C. There, he gave his famous “95 Theses” speech in front of the Lincoln Memorial. One year later, he won the Noble Peace Prize for his role in quelling the Peasant Revolt of 1524. As a result, Lutheranism took root in northern Europe, and even President Johnson took notice. Later in life, Luther spent his time translating the Bible into German and protesting the Vietnam War. Tragically, he was assassinated in Memphis, Saxony. While the FBI suspected him of Communism and he was no philosemite, Luther’s legacy lives on. President Carter posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congress made Reformation Day a U.S. federal holiday. Thus, at least once a year, we remember him.
1775, the United States Marine Corps was founded. The Second Continental Congress sent these Marines to fight the British in Nova Scotia but only commissioned them “to serve for and during the present war between Great Britain and the colonies.” (Yes, colonies. The Declaration of Independence hadn’t been signed yet.) But once the Revolutionary War ended, the Marines were disbanded along with the Navy. They weren’t re-established until 1798 by President Adams to fight the French off the coast of Haiti. A few years later under President Jefferson, the Marines fought pirates off the coast of North Africa, nearly capturing Tripoli. (That’s why Marines sing about “the shores of Tripoli” in their hymn.) The pirate prince was so impressed, he presented the commander of the Marines with a curved Mamluk sword. (That’s why the Marines all carry swords.) Since then, the Marines have fought in countries all over the world including China, Samoa, Nicaragua, Egypt, Iraq and Afghanistan. Each year, the Marines celebrate their birthday by eating cake and watching “A Few Good Men.” They can handle the truth.
1972, three men hijacked Southern Airways Flight 49. The 30 or so people on the plane planned to fly the 100 miles from Birmingham to Montgomery, Ala., but the hijackers would end up flying them over 4,000 miles. First, they landed in Jackson, Miss., and refueled. Then they flew to Detroit and demanded $10 million, but they had to land in Cleveland. There, the hijackers avoided sniper fire by threatening to detonate a grenade and refueled. They then flew to Toronto where they refused $500,000 from the FBI. Next, they flew south over Kentucky and Tennessee for awhile and threatened to crash the plane into a nuclear plant. In Chattanooga, the hijackers got their ransom along with 700 bulletproof vests and flew to Cuba. After the plane circled back over Florida, the FBI shot out two of its wheels, forcing it to land on a foam-covered runway in Havana. In an uncharacteristically diplomatic move, Cuba returned the plane, passengers and ransom to the United States and imprisoned the hijackers. A year later, American airports installed metal detectors.
2001, Apple released the first iPod. It held 5 GB of songs, putting “1,000 songs in your pocket.” It may be difficult to imagine, but back then the iPod’s scroll wheel wasn’t touch sensitive, and it didn’t connect with a USB cord. In fact, the screen was black and white! This Stone Age contraption cost $399 and was considered revolutionary anyway. By Apple’s estimation, most MP3 players at the time were either too bulky or too small to catch on. But the iPod was remarkably compact for its 5 GB capacity, employing a physically smaller hard drive than comparable players. Its name came from a freelance copywriter who thought the device’s functionality and design resembled the escape pods from “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Some guy from New Jersey had already trademarked iPod for Internet kiosks, but he sold the name to Apple. Subsequently, Apple has sold 300 million iPods. Having spawned the Mini, Shuffle, Nano and Touch, the original iPod became known as the Classic in its present, sixth generation. I won’t trade in my Zune until the seventh generation.
2007, King Juan Carlos of Spain chewed out Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, asking him “Por que no te callas?” For us gringos, that essentially means, “Why don’t you just shut up?” This all went down at the Ibero-American Summit in Santiago, Chile. Chavez kept interrupting the Spanish prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, accusing Zapatero’s predecessor of being a fascist. Zapatero, no big fan of his predecessor, defended him anyway. Saying something to the effect of, “At least he was democratically elected!” Chavez just kept interrupting, so the king of Spain leaned into his microphone and told Chavez to shut up. He even used the informal second person, as if dismissing Chavez as a child. Chavez didn’t really stop, and the king later left the meeting when the Nicaraguan president starting attacking Spain, too. The king’s words, however, stuck around. “Por que no te callas?” became an Internet meme, especially popular in the Spanish-speaking world. Chavez played the victim and used the phrase to galvanize support for himself, just as Kim Jong-Il used the keyboard cat to extol his own greatness.
