312, Constantine said he saw a cross in a dream. This event is critical to the history of Christianity — but really. At this time, Constantine was vying for control of the Western Roman Empire. He just had to win a battle to prove himself. The night before this battle, Constantine had a vision. Different Roman historians have different accounts of what exactly Constantine saw, but he probably saw a cross and heard something to the effect of “In this sign you shall conquer.” Wanting to conquer, Constantine put crosses on the shields of all his men and ended up winning the battle. He marched into Rome a couple days later to much fanfare. And while he wasn’t necessarily a Christian yet, a year later he issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christian worship. This marked a major turning point for Christianity. It paved the way for Christianity to dominate Europe and tied politics and military conquest to faith. Starting with Constantine, Europeans were more or less automatically Christians. Take that for what you will.
1682, Philadelphia was founded. There were Dutch, Swedes and even Finns in the area before this date. Quaker William Penn then received a royal charter from Charles II to establish the colony of Pennsylvania. Once he got to the New World, he paid the Native Americans for the land anyway — because that’s the kind of guy he was. A literate man, Penn named the city in Greek as the “City of Brotherly Love.” (Critics of the city call it the “City of Brotherly Shove.”) As a Quaker, Penn knew the worst of religious persecution. Indeed, the Quakers were 17th century punching bags. So, Penn established his –Sylvania as a tolerant colony. Correlation is not causation, but Philadelphia flourished. It became the home of that quintessential American, Benjamin Franklin. It hosted both Continental Congresses and the Constitutional Convention. It now hosts a sizeable hipster population and is the basis for the shameless comedy, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.” (Danny DeVito is a modern-day Ben Franklin.)
1728, Captain James Cook was born. Born in a small town in Iowa, Cook was an impetuous young boy. He was always joyriding old cars and getting into bar fights. Then, one day, on a sort of a dare, he joined Star Fleet. That’s because the British recognized his skill in charting Newfoundland. He made it to San Francisco and finagled his way into captaining the “Enterprise” despite Spock’s initial best efforts to oppose him. While captain, he explored eastern Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii, but failed to establish a relationship with that chick from “Avatar.” When he got to Hawaii, the Hawaiians killed and, allegedly, ate him. I read a book about the history of Hawaii called “Unfamiliar Fishes,” in which the author mentions a British friend of hers who refuses to eat pineapple in protest of the Hawaiians’ murder of Captain Cook. While I respect that arbitrary dedication and think Captain Cook deserved better treatment from both the Hawaiians and Romulans, pineapple, and Dole Whip especially, are much better than Cook could ever be.
1904, the first section of the New York City Subway opened. I only know this is significant because I watched a seven-volume documentary on New York titled, appropriately, “New York: A Documentary Film.” I know you’re not going to watch all seven volumes, but they’re available in Payson if you just want to brush up on some American history viz. New York City. Anyway, the subway. Believe it or not, this was not a publicly funded project; a private company constructed and ran the whole thing. Once established, the subway system subsidized urban expansion. Unlike most subway systems, New York’s charges a flat rate for all rides. Not charging for distance meant that people could finally move out of Manhattan and still commute to work. (That’s a good thing, because it’s prohibitively expensive to live in Manhattan today.) As you might expect, the New York City Subway is pretty busy, but Tokyo, Moscow and Seoul have busier systems. Nevertheless, New York’s system gave over a billion rides last year, bringing it one step closer to McDonald’s 99 billion figure.
2004, the Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the first time since 1918. The movie “Moneyball” attributes this victory to the strategy of choosing players based solely on statistics, specifically their ability to earn runs. Evidently, the Oakland A’s pioneered this theory, but the Boston Red Sox adopted it and enjoyed this World Series win. Besides being one of the few modern-day references in “Lost” (season three, episode two), the Red Sox victory broke a historic losing streak for the Red Sox. The story goes that Babe Ruth cursed the Red Sox when they traded him to the Yankees in 1920, beginning the 86-year-long “Curse of the Bambino” only broken by this victory. Similarly cursed teams include the Chicago White Sox and the Chicago Cubs. The Chicago White Sox won the World Series the following year in 2005 to break their 88-year curse, but the Cubs have yet to win. Their last championship came 103 years ago in 1908. That makes the Cubs the biggest losers in baseball, even bigger losers than the Boston Red Sox.
