On this day...can you hear me now? Thank you QUEEN!

Can't imagine life without those bluetooth ear buds? Or how about those fond memories of a rotary dial? Some of us may even still be carrying around memories of telephone numbers that actually started with two letter...UN4-something or other comes to mind as I remember my grandmother's phone number when I was a child.

Well, if any of the above matters to you, then take a moment today to honor a significant piece of American innovative history and the man who catapulted us into the age of communication - Alexander Graham Bell and in making the first voice transmission. The date of this ever historic event was June 3, 1875.

Oddly enough  another significant event happened on June 3rd and one which would help catapult our nation into another era like no other, this time however the year was  1889 - on this day 122 years ago the very first long distance electric power transmission was completed. A power line that ran 14 miles from a generator in Williamette Falls to downtown Portland, Oregon - that first long distance energy route powered 55 street lights.

Had it not been for the creativity and determination of the inventors in the mid to late 1800's I probably would not be sitting here typing this all out for you  - nor would I be able to inform you of one other significant June 3rd event - one that owes their own appreciation to those creative minds of the inventors of over a century ago..

This next June 3 event occurred in  1976- our country's bicentennial year - and ironically the hat is tipped to a group of British men better known as Queen. Yes, ladies and gentlemen June 3rd is the anniversary of the all time favorite ...first head banging song....going Gold - Bohemian Rhapsody!!

And thank you Queen for having an official You Tube channel and allowing for imbedding this video with out the worry of copyright infringement!

On this day ....Ladies - it's a witch hunt

Many women today are outspoken and considered independent - while there may be some in today's society who still frown on that, it is no longer considered a mark of the devil to the vast majority of the population. Many credit this somewhat newly found freedom known as equal rights with the dedication of those before through the suffrage movement  However a deeper look into history will show the movement started long before the late 1800's and when women paid the price for being independent and moving forward against the grain.

One such woman was Bridget Bishop. Bridget was the recipient of many whispers of rumor during the time she lived in Salem, Massachusetts in the late 1600's.  Twice widowed and on her third marriage, Bridget at the age of approximately 60 years old would become the first victim to be sentenced to the gallows for witchcraft during the Salem Witch Trials. Her day in the Puritan court and sentence came swiftly...all on the same day, June 2 1692 -

She, however, was not the first to be accused, but considering she is what many say was an easy target, she became the first example to be made in what is now known as a sad and tragic time in this land's history. 

What made her an easy target? She dared to be different. Rather than blending into the Puritan community she stood out like a blooming rose in winter, and would often wear a red bodice - a social no no. She befriended others who did not abide by the rules of the Puritan ways by hosting parties where "those" people attended and drank...sometimes gambled.  She kept unreasonable hours being up late and sleeping in.

 Looking back and applying what we know today, it's easy to see that she was considered by those in control and power as someone who needed to be dealt with, even if it meant trumped up charges. 

From Salem Witch Trial records: 

(Bishop) I am no witch
(The court)      Why if you have not wrote in the book, yet tell me how far you  have gone? Have you not to do with familiar Spirits?
(Bishop)    I have no familiarity with the devil.
(The court)     How is it then, that your appearance doth hurt these?
 (Bishop)   I am innocent.
 (The Court)   Why you seem to act witchcraft before us, by the motion of your body, which seems to have influence upon the afflicted.
 (Bishop)    I know nothing of it. I am innocent to a Witch. I know not what a Witch is
 (The Court)    How do you know then that you are not a witch
 (Bishop)    I do not know what you say.
 (The Court)    How can you know, you are no Witch, & yet not know what a  Witch is.
 (Bishop)    I am clear: if I were any such person you should know it.
(The Court)     You may threaten, but you can do no more than you are per-
mitted .
(Bishop)   I am innocent of a witch.
(The Court)     What do you say of those murders you are charged with?
 (Bishop)   I hope, I am not guilty of Murder 


Bridget was put to death just 8 days later on June 10, 1692. The example had now been set.

Across the ocean....


Attitudes on women and their rights had not changed much in two hundred years since, but women stood up and spoke out as the suffrage movement took hold and the campaign blossomed in the states as well as other parts of the world.

On this day...June 2... in  1884  Admiral Frederick Maxse of Eastbourne sent a pamphlet advocating against the movement to  Millicent Garrett Fawcett, a leader and activist in the British suffrage movement.  In the correspondence was a message which conveyed the majority of women who ask for the vote are Liberal, but the majority of those who would get it are Conservative. He further suggested that there would be civil war if women were enfranchised.  Naturally such comments did not dissuade Fawcett from moving forward in the movement.

Today...

While eventually women in the states and Europe won the right to vote as well as some other basic rights - the  movement continues on...such as noted in an article which appears today, June 2, 2011,  on the France 24  website - the article and video clip speaks to the recent struggle in Saudi  Arabia where women are fighting for the right to drive a car.

According to the article an internet consultant, Manal Al-Sharif was arrested just two weeks ago for defying a ban on women drivers. She was released from custody just earlier this week and after issuing a statement saying she would abandon a campaign asking women to take part in a drive on June 17, 2011.

While we may never know what happened to her while in custody - we do know, through reports, others are leading the cause and will continue with the movement...despite what history may one day look back at and refer to as yet another witch hunt against those who dared to question.

On this day....tragic irony

Louis Dembitz Brandeis made history as being the first Jewish American to be confirmed to the United State Supreme Court. The nomination came from then President Wilson who wrote:

I cannot speak too highly of his impartial, impersonal, orderly, and constructive mind, his rare analytical powers, his deep human sympathy, his profound acquaintance with the historical roots of our institutions and insight into their spirit, or of the many evidences he has given of being imbued, to the very heart, with our American ideals of justice and equality of opportunity; of his knowledge of modern economic conditions and of the way they bear upon the masses of the people, or of his genius in getting persons to unite in common and harmonious action and look with frank and kindly eyes into each other's minds, who had before been heated antagonists.

In the same year, 1916, a man who would become the world's foe penned the following piece of poetry:

In a Thicket of the Forest at Artois

 English translation

It was in a thicket in the Artois Wood.
Deep in the trees, on blood-soaked ground,
A wounded German warrior lay stretched
And his cries rang out in the night.
In vain ... no echo answered his plea ...
Will he bleed to death like a beast
Shot in the gut, that dies alone?

Then suddenly ...
Heavy steps approach from right and left
He hears them stamp on the forest floor ...
And new hope springs in his soul.
And now from the left ...
And now from both sides ...
Two men approach his dark resting place
A German, and a Frenchman.
And each watches the other with distrustful glance,
And threateningly they aim their weapons.
The German warrior asks: "What are you doing here?"
"I was touched by his desperate calls for help."

"He's your enemy!"
"He’s a man who is suffering."

And both lowered their weapons without a word.
Then entwined their hands together
And with muscles tensed, carefully lifted
The wounded warrior, as if on a stretcher,
And carried him through the woods
Till they came to the German outposts.
"Now it’s done. He’ll get good care."
And the Frenchman turns back toward the woods.
But the German grasps for his hand,
Looks, moved, into sorrow-dimmed eyes
And says to him with earnest foreboding:

"I don’t know what fate holds for us,
Which inscrutably rules in the stars.
Perhaps I shall fall, a victim of your bullet.
Perhaps mine will fell you on the sand —
For the fortune of battle is unpredictable.
But however it may be, and whatever may come:
We lived these sacred hours,
When human found himself in human ...
And now, farewell! And God be with you!"
                                                    Adolf Hitler 1916

Fast forward to the year of 1942 - June 1st of that year - the 26th anniversary of Louis Dembitz Brandeis being confirmed to the Supreme Court - 26 years after the above piece of poetry was written - An underground newspaper in Warsaw exposed a truth that many had rumored about - The Liberty Brigade documented in their report about the gassing....the murder...the extermination... of tens of thousands of Jews at Chelmno - a death camp. 

The story was more than a report on rumors that many knew were actually fact - it came to the world's attention via the voice of a young Jewish male -, Emanuel Ringelblum. Emmanuel had escaped from the Chelmno death camp - an escape that happened  after he was  forced to bury the bodies of others Jews and after those lifeless remains had been thrown out of the gas vans. 

**one other little tidbit - it is rumored that in 1916 ...the same year he wrote that poem, Hitler lost a testicle due to an injury suffered from war.