What Happened Today

In 1967, it appeared that hardline Communist government of Antonin Novotny would rule Czechoslovakia as long as Novotny wanted. Then economic downturns and unpopular political actions made people dissastisfied with the government, and the Slovak leader Alexander Dubcek became Secretary of the Communist Party in January of 1968. More importantly, Dubcek's willingness to limit censorship, open up political participation, and pursue economic reforms led to the Prague Spring. The Prague Spring was a large scale reform movement, which sought to modernize and democratice Communism rather than overthrow it. That still made Leonid Brezhnev, Premier of the Soviet Union, quite nervous, so he led the other Warsaw Pact countries in an invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of 1968. This effectively ended the Prague Spring and would directly lead to the removal of Alexander Dubcek from power.

Topsy the Elephant was a female Asian elephant who had been performing in circuses, but got a reputation as a "bad elephant" and so her owners decided to euthanize her. They also decided to make a public spectacle of hanging her at their amusement park at Coney Island in Brooklyn. After a large outcry, the owners of Luna Park agreed to make it an electrocution done only for ticketed guests and the media, including cameramen from the Edison Manufacturing Company. The whole event seems somehow other, or like it could not have happened in the same universe that modern people live in. Yet it is precisely these sort of macabre mass spectacles that reveal the most about the early 20th century, rather than the accounts of battles, elections, or trade negotiations.

For 250 years, Japan was shut off from foreigners, ruled by the Tokugawa shogunate, and revered the Emperor as a figurehead and symbol. That all changed in the mid-19th century, when the Emperor Meiji declared that the authority and powers of the shogun now belonged to him. This was largely accomplished through minor lords who wished to Westernize and modernize Japan against the Tokugawa shogun's policies, especially the Satsuma and the Chosu. Really, the teenaged, recently crowned Emperor was simply a vessel for these changes, but he embraced it wholeheartedly and took his own authority. After a civil war and negotiations with the Tokugawa power structure, the Emperor Meiji was able to take all of the powers accumulated by the shogunate under his own authority.

For nearly 800 years, the Christian kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula were fighting the Muslim invaders that held much of the land in modern day Spain and Portugal. This all changed in 1492, when armies of the Catholic Monarchs, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, finally took the city of Granada, the last Muslim-ruled area of Spain. This was in some ways a foregone conclusion, as the unification of Ferdinand and Isabella's kingdoms meant that the Christian kingdoms were prosecuting a war for nearly a decade to slowly chip away the lands controlled by Muslim rulers. By 1491, Boabdil, the last Emir of Granada, knew that his time was up and negotiated a treaty to give up Granada. Nonetheless, the final reconquest of Spain by Christian armies changed the world, leading to the Spanish Inquisition, the voyage of Christopher Columbus, and a New World Empire for Spain.

Reginald Fessenden was a long term electrical and radio researcher, so when he transmitted a radio broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1906, it wasn't all that surprising. Yet he was the very first person to send out a radio broadcast featuring music and clear audio when he played a phonograph of a Handel piece, performed two hymns on a violin, and read a Bible verse. Most people at the time thought his particular form of broadcasting radio was a complete waste of time, so his transmission was also a technological breakthrough based on years of work by Fessenden. More importantly, Fessenden's broadcast would set a template for future uses of radio by making it about something more than reports, news, or weather forecasts.

When the USS Pueblo, an American naval spy ship, was captured by North Korean vessels in January 1968, officials in Washington were unsure precisely what to do. The crew was all unharmed, but now a Communist nation had spy equipment. Almost immediately, it became apparent that the crew would be returned if the US agreed to apologize for spying and promised to never spy on North Korea again. Meanwhile, the crew of the Pueblo was being tortured and the negotiations between the governments were a confusing, circular mess. The crew decided to occasionally play along with their captors, but used prepared statements and photo opportunities to mock the North Korean government right under their noses. Finally, eleven months after its capture, the crew was released into South Korea. That did very little to sort out what actually went on with the capture of the Pueblo.

In 1894, Alfred Dreyfus was simply a junior artillery officer in the General Staff of the French Army. Then, he was accused of being the person responsible for passing secrets onto the German military attache in Paris. In a quick, closed military tribunal, Dreyfus was easily convicted of treason and sentenced to life imprisonment on Devil's Island in French Guiana. The fact that Dreyfus was Jewish inflamed the anti-Semitic French press, and his Alsatian background meant he was fluent in German. Yet his family began working to prove his innocence, helping a new investigation to finger the real culprit, Major Ferdinand Walsy Esterhaszy. Esterhaszy began to be protected by military leadership, which only heightened tensions among Parisian society. The novelist Emile Zola would explode the case once Esterhaszy was acquitted and went into self-imposed and well-funded exile. Zola's actions, along with the agitation of Parisian intellectuals, caused Dreyfus to face a new trial, where he was once again convicted. The entire case, known as the Dreyfus Affair, had become so problematic, a pardon was offered Alfred Dreyfus in 1899. By 1906, he would be fully exonerated and his commission was reinstated.

The Plymouth Colony began in the middle of winter in New England, after a poorly prepared trip and with limited supplies that was supposed to land much further south of where it actually did. The Mayflower had been wandering around the Cape Cod area for over a month before its passengers settled on Plymouth. Plymouth had a few advantages, as it was easily defended and on already cleared land because it was the site of a recently abandoned village. The people who settled Plymouth Colony were ardent separatists, English Christians who sought a separation from the Church of England. After they could not find refuge in Holland, they decided to go to America. This plan was almost disastrous, as over half the settlers died within six months. They managed to persevere, though, largely because Native Americans decided to help out.

In late 1924, Adolf Hitler was a former soldier, right wing agitator, and prisoner most well known for leading his National Socialist party in a disastrous coup attempt. In November of 1923, Hitler attempted, with his paramilitary the Sturmabteilung, or SA, to take over the Bavarian government by interrupting a speech at a beer hall. Instead, he was arrested and put on trial for high treason, receiving a sentence of five years. Adolf Hitler, in the eyes of 1924 Germany, could not have been seen as much of a threat. He was already, in many ways, a failure, and the Weimar Republic was actually becoming a successful state. Instead, the Nazis were easily able to keep the party going with their leader in captivity. Hitler himself met with his associates while in prison, and he was able to write his biography/ideological guide Mein Kampf. Therefore, when he was released after serving nine months of a five year sentence, Hitler actually could set himself on a path to boosting the Nazi Party, taking power in Germany, and building towards World War II and the Holocaust.

The Eighteenth Amendment officially banned the sale and manufacture of intoxicating liquors, and more strikingly came about quite quickly. The measure sped through Congress in a matter of months, from August to December of 1917. In a radical measure, the language of the Amendment said it was required to be passed within seven years, or it could not be ratified. This made the drama around its ratification by the states a little more intriguing. On the other hand, the political landscape was ripe for such actions. Under the leadership of Wayne Wheeler, the Anti-Saloon League had mobilized around the single issue of prohibition. The Anti-Saloon League was the politically engaged part of the longstanding temperance movement, and had so mobilized temperance activists that Wheeler could guarantee anyone opposing Prohibition would be voted out of office. Many people also were not bothered because they thought there would only be prohibition of liquor, not beer, wine, or cider. So the Eighteenth Amendment sped through the states and came into being by 1920.