Coming to America.

Murray, Isaac and Adelle Youman were the children of Jews who had fled Poland in the 1920s as pogroms swept the country.

They had settled in Finland, where the children were born, and the family found safety and prosperity there.

The children’s father had been a tailor in Poland, and in Finland, he became the wealthy owner of a factory which produced men’s clothing.

The family lived happily in a large apartment with two maids and the children were sent to private school.

But everything changed on November 30, 1939, when the Soviet Union invaded Finland.

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Using the new weapon.

It was an odd situation.

In the late 1930s, Britain, the US, Germany and Japan learned independently that special aluminum foil strips dropped during an aerial attack could jam the enemy’s radar, making it more difficult for the enemy’s artillery batteries to down attacking aircraft.

But when World War II began, neither side chose to use this technology, fearing that their enemy would find the foil strips, duplicate them, and then use them in their own aerial attacks.

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In name only.

During World War II, Britain needed more than a million tons of supplies each week to maintain its war-fighting capabilities and feed its civilian population.

And even more supplies would be needed later, to prepare for the D-Day invasion and the advance of Allied troops through Nazi-occupied Europe.

These supplies came from US manufacturers.

They were transported across the Northern Atlantic in large convoys of merchant ships.

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FBI Special Agent Richard M. Nixon?

It is April 1937.

Richard Nixon, age 24, will soon graduate from Duke Law School.

And, like most third-year law students, he is looking for a job.

So, Nixon submits an application to the FBI, the investigative arm of the Justice Department, for a job as a special agent.

Nixon interviews for the job in July 1937 and then undergoes a physical examination.

But then, he hears nothing further.

Ever.

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What might have been.

In the photograph, a young German officer holds a tattered pair of men’s trousers.

The right trouser leg is in ribbons which extend above the knee.

And the left leg is shorn off on one side.

These are the pants which Adolph Hitler wore to his staff meeting in East Prussia on July 20, 1944, when a bomb placed in a briefcase exploded beneath his conference table.

This day, eighty years ago, was like none other in the twentieth century for raising the question, ‘what might have been.’

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Parallels of attitude.

In November 1961 the Kennedy administration instituted Operation Mongoose, a multi-faceted, covert CIA operation to remove Cuban dictator Fidel Castro from power.

Castro had led an armed revolution two years earlier which had removed Cuba’s corrupt dictator, President Fulgencio Batista, from power.

Castro had portrayed himself initially as a champion of the poor who wanted to improve social conditions.

For many Cubans, Castro became a national hero.

But once in power, Castro instituted a communist dictatorship.

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An anxious time.

November 1862.

The shocking losses on both sides in the September battle in the farm fields of Antietam had previewed what was to come.

But, at the moment, the battle lines were little changed.

Lincoln was frustrated.

On November 5, he had relieved McClellan of his command of the Army of the Potomac after McClellan had refused press a hard-won advantage against Lee’s retreating forces.

But McClellan’s replacement, General Ambrose Burnside, will fare little better in the days ahead.

And Lincoln’s frustration will grow.

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Finding common ground.

They were the most unlikely of seat mates.

Lyndon Johnson, the former president, out of office just six months, and Spiro Agnew, the new Vice President.

They had come to Florida from opposite poles of the political universe to watch men take off for the Moon.

And they sat there, side by side, dressed in suits and ties in 85-degree sunshine, and ‘made nice’ for the cameras.

It happened 55 years ago.

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To end the darkness.

Camille Monet was sick.

And, despite everything, she continued to slip away.

Then an unexpected pregnancy sucked the last bits of life from her, and in 1879, she died.

She was 32.

The Monet family was living in the house of an art patron in the village of Vétheuil then.

Claude Monet could no longer afford Paris.

The impressionist style of painting, once so popular, which he himself had christened, had faded.

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The soundtrack of the war.

By 1939, Glenn Miller had become an American sensation.

Just about everybody recognized the sound of his trombone when they heard his theme song, “Moonlight Serenade.”

Miller’s band played in ballrooms all across the country and played live on the radio.

His records were best-sellers and he and his band were featured in two Hollywood movies.

It was a time when couples held each other while they danced.

In a troubled time, Miller’s songs were perfect.

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