What Happened Today

When Samuel Morse sent a message from Washington, DC to Baltimore along his telegraph line, this was not the first telegraph sent in America. It wasn't even the first telegraph that used the system developed by Morse and Alfred Vail. It was the first telegraph on a newly inaugurated long distance line, which is why Morse felt it was important enough to inaugurate with the Biblical quote "What hath God wrought." Morse was a painter by trade who became interested in instant communication when his wife died in 1825, and he got little notice. The genius of Morse's system was its simplicity, especially as compared to other telegraphic systems, as he used one current that would have pulses sent along it in a simplified code. Morse also was able to develop a system of relays that boosted the system across distances, making the telegraph something that could have widespread use. Morse's invention became the telegraphy system used in America and most of Europe, excluding Britain. Morse's own personal issues would come to the fore, despite his success, as he sought to protect his patent. Still, he inaugurated a communications revolution.

There were few more notorious and wanted outlaws in 1934 than Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, which says alot. Once they were being tracked it was inevitable they would be killed, either by law enforcement in a shootout or in the electric chair. Although they developed a more romantic reputation posthumously, the basic facts about Bonnie and Clyde were that they were very young, extremely violent, and prolifically criminal. The M.O. of their gang was to rob stores and steal cars, then cross state lines to get away and be able to go on another crime spree. After a shootout with cops in Joplin, Missouri, Bonnie and Clyde became famous because of recovered photographs, poetry written by Bonnie, and photographs taken by the gang. In a subsequent shootout, Clyde's brother Buck would be mortally wounded, and in the next shootout, Buck and his wife Blanche would be captured. On returning to Texas, associate W.D. Jones was caught by police, and turned on Bonnie and Clyde. Now they had a final crime spree, killing multiple law enforcement officers. Finally, while visiting the family of gang member Henry Methvin in Louisiana, Bonnie and Clyde were shot by the posse led by former Texas Ranger Frank Hamer.

The actual event was, at a basic level, quite simple. After an accusation of host desecration, the Jewish community of Brussels was attacked, with some Jews being burned at the stake and the community being expelled. Yet the Brussels Massacre, or as it was most commonly known before World War II, the Miracle of the Sacrament, says more about historical antisemitism and the nature of historical memory. In the fourteenth century, Jews were heavily persecuted, and the claim that Jews would seek to stab communion hosts in their synagogue on Good Friday was not uncommon, even if it was perhaps a fanciful idea. The very idea of "host desecration" also played into the role of the Catholic faith in Europe. When Protestantism came about in the sixteenth century, the prominence of Catholic ideas in the "Miracle of the Sacrament" made it become an even more popular story in Brussels. This bizarre event was now key to the Catholic identity in Brussels, celebrating their antisemitism against rising Protestantism. The only reason the cult of the Blessed Sacrament of the Miracle went away was a reevaluation after the Holocaust.

As a prelude to the American Civil War, the territory of Kansas was engaged in an armed conflict between pro-slavery and anti-slavery men. The entire era is referred to as "Bleeding Kansas," and it was sparked by the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide if they would be free or slave states by popular vote. This made large numbers of armed settlers descend upon Kansas. After a series of small conflicts and political maneuverings, including two territorial governments, real violence began when a group of 800 pro-slavery fighters attacked and destroyed the town of Lawrence, the anti-slavery capital. The residents of Lawrence largely let the posse, led by their official county sheriff, Samuel Jones, destroy most buildings, including the impressive Free State Hotel. Only one person died, a pro-slavery fighter who was crushed under rubble. The country thought this level of violence was shocking. Yet more violence continued in Kansas after the Sack of Lawrence, which would only escalate and then be eclipsed by the violence of the Civil War.

In 1992, Colorado's voters approved a new amendment to the state constitution, which specifically forbid any governments in the state to create laws which banned discrimination against gay, lesbian, or individuals. Unsurprisingly, it was challenged in the courts, and also unsurprisingly, it was taken all the way to the Supreme Court, in the case of Romer v. Evans. There, the justices ruled by a 6-3 vote that the Amendment violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy largely avoided ruling on gay rights as much as he addressed the fact that the amendment was worded strangely and sought to single out gay people specifically for an indeterminate range of actions. He said it did not even come close to needing the standard of strict scrutiny because it was hard to see its practical effect. On the other side, Justice Antonin Scalia argued that the law could stand because the Constitution says nothing about rights for gay, lesbian, or bisexual people. Thus, Romer v. Evans highligted the increasing divide on the Supreme Court and in American jurisprudence in the 1990s.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was in the City Jail in Birmingham, Alabama during the Birmingham Campaign to fight segregation because he violated a court injunction brought by Director of Public Safety Eugene "Bull" Connor. While in jail, he saw an open letter in a newspaper from eight clergymembers urging leaders of the Civil Rights Movement to seek to end segregation in the courts and through negotiation. So King wrote a letter back, describing not only why resistance had to happen but also the full injustice of segregation. By reflecting on notable theologians and the nature of unjust laws, King laid out a case for being an extremist in the cause of justice. He also promised that the South would remember its real heroes in the future. In that respect, the future cam quickly. King's initial letter, written in the margins of newspapers and on multiple notepads, was then assembled by his associates. Initially, the New York Times Magazine sought to publish the finished version, but then backed out. The first publication would be in excerpts and without permission by the New York Post Sunday Magazine. At that point, it was well on its way to becoming one of King's most famous works.

In 1926, Aimee Semple McPherson was one of the most famous people in Los Angeles, as an evangelist and radio personality. Then she went missing after swimming off Venice Beach, making Aimee Semple McPherson and her whereabouts a national story. No one knew where she was, reported sightings were numerous, and stories of her running away with a former employee named Kenneth Ormiston became more common. Then five weeks later, McPherson showed up in the desert near Agua Prieta, Mexico, near the Arizona border. She had a wild story of kidnapping and travails in the Mexican desert by a random group of people. The Los Angeles County District Attorney, Asa Keyes, began an investigation into the circumstances of McPherson's kidnapping. Kenneth Ormiston was reported to have been with a mystery woman at a cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea, which people supposed was Aimee Semple McPherson. Nothing like that was ever proven. So McPherson was charged with obstruction of justice. After a few months, Keyes gave up any investigation into the matter.

The Topeka schools in the 1950s were segregated by race only at the elementary level, and they largely featured similar resources, facilities, and support at black and white schools. A group of parents still tried to challenge the segregation policy at the behest of the NAACP. Eventually, their case would reach the Supreme Court of the United States, along with five other cases regarding segregation in public education. Initially, the Supreme Court seemed to be mostly in favor of ruling segregation illegal, overruling the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson decision that said "separeate but equal" accommodations based on race was legal. Yet it took the death of Chief Justice Fred Vinson to really transform the decision into a landmark, because it meant the appointment of California Governor Earl Warren as Chief Justice. Warren sought not only to make the Brown decision one that overturned segregation, but to make the decision unanimous. In making the decision unanimous, Warren was able to say that segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, leading to a host of Civil Rights Cases.

Often military coup d'etats require the military to forcibly take control of the government with some large measure of violence. When the officers of the South Korean Army organized a coup d'etat in 1961, they were actually able to take power fairly effortlessly. Largely, this was due to the ineffectiveness of the civilian government of the short-lived Second Korean Republican and a desire to see some new leadership in the country. Also, Park Chung-Hee, a general who was in charge of the defense of Seoul, had unified a wide range of officers inside the Korean Army behind his plans for a coup. Taking action after a warning a mutiny had taken place, when most of Korea had woken up on the morning of May 16, 1961, the military had taken over most government buildings and broadcast a message explaining their actions. Rather peaceably, Park and his associates were able to form a new military government. By 1963, Park Chung-Hee would win an election as President of South Korea, a position he would hold until his assassination in 1979.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Japan was fairly beset by conspiracies, assassinations, and attempted coup d'etats. Largely, these were undertaken by military officers who sought a "Showa restoration," a new granting of power to the Emperor that would elevate the military over the elements of liberal democracy in Japan. Only once did such an attempt manage to kill a Prime Minister, when on May 15th, 1932, Inukai Tsuyoshi was killed by twenty young naval officers in his own residence. The plot was still relatively unsuccessful, as the attempt sought to kill the American film star Charlie Chaplin as well while he was visiting the Prime Minister. Instead, he was at a sumo match. The plot also did not actually overthrow the structure of the Japanese government. Yet people throughout Japan largely supported the plotters, with a large petition asking for clemency. No one was executed for killing the Prime Minister, and the more radical nationalist elements of the Japanese military continued to increase its influence. Although more plots would occur and were unsuccessful, by 1936 the Emperor finally did assert his authority over the government with the aide of the military.