Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 4, 1993 TAG: 9301010152
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICK HOROWITZ SPECIAL TO THE ROANOKE TIMES & WORLD-NEWS
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
MILESTONES MAJOR AND MINOR OF 1993
DEPRESSED? Of course you're depressed. The holidays are behind you, and so is all that celebrating.There was plenty to celebrate in '92, you're thinking; all those centennials and bicentennials and even (the guy with the boats, remember?) quincentennials. And now it's all gone, vanished.
Snap out of it.
For 1993 is a brand new year with a whole new assortment of major - and not so major - milestones. Sing "Happy Birthday" to "Happy Birthday," for instance - it celebrates a big anniversary in 1993. Or send out a Christmas card to mark the very first Christmas card - ditto.
A royal Frenchman loses his head; a French woman takes off her clothes. Turns out the earth isn't the center of the universe. On the other hand, we get Cracker Jack, Thomas Jefferson and the Ferris Wheel. And the guy with the boats, still doing his trans-Atlantic thing.
Every one of them, and plenty more, available in '93 for your reminiscing pleasure.
No Dan, no Dave - and yet . . .
Let's go very low, back to 93 - just plain 93. The famous former governor of Britain, one Caius Iulius Agricola, breathed his last that year. Nineteen hundred years later, and he'd have been the perfect celebrity soft-drink endorser. Timing is everything.
Admit it: You didn't even know there was a Britain back in 93, did you? There was, and in 93, they might have been celebrating the 50th anniversary of "Londinium," which the Romans founded back in 43. You know Londinium, right? Where Dianium and Fergium hang out? Exactly.
Let's long-jump ahead to 393. That's when the last of the original Olympic Games was held. The next year, Emperor Theodosius banned them; seems the "amateur" competition had turned into a professional circus. Shocking! . . .
In 1193 - 800 years ago - Britain started importing indigo and brazilwood from India to use as dyes, while in 1393, the Holy Roman Emperor Wenceslas had the cleric John of Nepomuk tortured and drowned in the River Moldau for refusing to spill the beans about the empress' confessions. But John gets the last laugh: He'll later be canonized and become the patron saint of Bohemia.
In 1443, the painter Stefan Lochner came forth with his famous "Madonna with Violets," not to be confused with the equally famous "Madonna with Mylar."
The Sun, the Earth, a good cup of French roast . . .
"In fourteen hundred and ninety-three, Columbus sailed the deep blue sea . . . again."
Christopher Columbus - intrepid explorer, despoiler of civilizations, future star of the silver screen - returned to Spain from his first big journey across the Atlantic.
"So far," he reported, he has "found no human monstrosities, as many expected." The show-and-tell for Isabella does, however, include "Indians," parrots, some gold, and Europe's first pineapples.
Good enough for Isabella, who sends Columbus off on "Seasick II: The Sequel."
This time, he's got 17 ships and 1,200 men, including six priests to try to convert the natives.
But progress is coming. In 1543, Nicolaus Copernicus publishes De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium. The Polish astronomer, who wouldn't allow his work to be released until he was on his deathbed, defies Church doctrine and argues that Ptolemy had it wrong all this time, that the Earth revolves around the sun and not the other way around. The very same year, the Church publishes a list of banned books. Has to be a coincidence.
By comparison, 1593 is a quiet year. William Shakespeare cranks out one big comedy, "The Taming of the Shrew," and one big tragedy, "Titus Andronicus."
Izaak Walton, The British biographer and angler, is born. Another British writer, Christopher Marlowe, doesn't fare quite as well: He's killed in a tavern brawl, not the last playwright to come to grief in a bar.
Fifty years later - 1643 - and coffee drinking becomes popular in Paris. The other big news from France that year: Louis XIII dies, and is succeeded by his 5-year-old son, Louis XIV - who'll keep the top spot for 72 years!
Nothing could be finer than to cut up Carolina . . .
In 1693 one Carolina starts to become two, as a deputy governor is put in charge of everything north and east of "Cape Faire." (The formal division, north and south, won't come until 1712.) And in Virginia, the Rev. James Blair obtains a royal charter for a college, to be called William and Mary, which will prepare students for the ministry. Blair tells the Lord of the Treasury that more souls will be saved because of the new school.
Says the Lord, "Souls? Damn your souls! Make tobacco!"
Heads Roll. Dogs Fly.
In 1743 - a quarter-millennium ago - Thomas Jefferson, who gives the world the Declaration of Independence, the University of Virginia and Bill Clinton's middle name, is born.
Ready for another bicentennial? In France, 1793 is the best of times and the worst of times, depending on which end of the guillotine you're on. The Revolution gives way to the Reign of Terror; Louis XVI is executed, as are Marie Antoinette and thousands of others. France declares war on everybody - England, Holland, Spain. . . .
The latest bunch in charge abolishes worship of God, adopts the decimal system, and proclaims a new Revolutionary Calendar: 12 30-day months, every tenth day a holiday, and five extra days to make it all come out even.
In the midst of all this, the Marquis de Sade publishes a novel, La philosophie dans le boudoir, or, roughly translated, "Fun With Stick and Chain."
And in the United States, important eyes turn toward the European war. Alexander Hamilton favors the British. Jefferson favors the French. President Washington hears both men out and . . . issues a Proclamation of Neutrality.
The president is busy attending to other matters, witnessing, for instance, the first free flight of a balloon in America - a helium-filled bag carrying Jean-Pierre Blanchard and a dog to a height of 5,812 feet. In years to come, presidents watching gas bags will be common, but this is a first. The
future is now
In 1843 - 150 years ago - soldier, adventurer and future presidential candidate John Fremont, guided by Kit Carson, explored Colorado and the Rocky Mountains on his way to California. He was surveying an overland route to Oregon, hoping to strengthen U.S. claims to the Oregon territory. A thousand pioneers leave Independence, Mo., for Oregon, too, beginning the "Great Emigration" west.
The town of Terminus, Ga. - named in 1837 to identify the end point of the Western and Atlantic Railroad - is renamed Marthasville in 1843, after Martha Thomson, the daughter of ex-Gov. Wilson Lumpkin. Two years later, it will be re-renamed again: Atlanta.
Two things that happen in England that year go over much better.
London museum director Henry Cole sent out the world's first Christmas cards. He's designed a three-panel card that says, "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year." (Snoopy hadn't been invented yet.)
Charles Dickens got into the holiday spirit himself, writing "A Christmas Carol."
In the year of 1893, Chicago is the place to be. The World's Columbian Exposition, officially dedicated there in 1892, actually opens for business. The world's first Ferris Wheel debuts - 250 feet in diameter, with 36 passenger cars each seating 40 people. The cost? A dizzying $300,000.
You can visit one of the world's first self-service restaurants at the fair - "cafeterias," they're called. And caramel maker Milton Snavely Hershey sees some intriguing chocolate-making machinery there in 1893, has it shipped to his plant in Lancaster, Pa., and starts tinkering.
Another confection - peanuts, popcorn and molasses - makes its first, highly popular appearance at the fair that year, too. Three years later, a salesman will bite down on the stuff and exclaim, "That's a cracker jack!" The name sticks. (So does the molasses.)
Elsewhere? American Bell branch managers in Boston and New York make the first long-distance call in 1893. And bicycle maker Charles Duryea and his brother Frank drive their prototype for America's first practical gasoline-powered automobile through the streets of Springfield, Mass.
The Duryeas don't run down any basketball players; they're probably still indoors with James Naismith, who'd invented the game in Springfield two years earlier. In 1893, Naismith's wooden baskets are replaced by wire baskets with a hole in the bottom.
In Paris, a different kind of sport: the world's first striptease. The woman in question - an artist's model - is fined 100 francs for her artistry. The ruling provokes a student riot in the Latin Quarter.
On a different note? Kentucky kindergarten teacher Mildred Hill composes a song in 1893: "Good Morning to All." Robert H. Coleman publishes the song, adding a second verse of his own - "Happy birthday to you," it begins. The song becomes a nationwide hit.
And then, before lyrics can get any more insipid, Cole Porter is born.
Seems like only yesterday
"Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." Don't you know there's a war on?
It's 1943, the year the tide of battle turns. At the Casablanca Conference, the Allies demand the "unconditional surrender" of Germany, Italy and Japan, and FDR says to Churchill, "Winnie, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
The Japanese are driven from Guadalcanal, the Russians encircle and capture the German army near Stalingrad, the Allies land in Sicily.
Big movies of 1943 include "Girl Crazy" (with Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland); "For Whom the Bell Tolls" (Gary Cooper and Ingrid Bergman); "Cabin in the Sky" (Ethel Waters, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson and Lena Horne); and "Watch on the Rhine" (Bette Davis and Paul Lukas).
"Oklahoma!" takes Broadway by storm in 1943, while another new arrival, for the homebound crowd, takes longer to catch on: Scrabble.
There's more. Duke Ellington gives his first Carnegie Hall concert. Jackson Pollock has his first one-man show. And sculptor Henry Moore creates his "Madonna and Child." In this one, Madonna . . .
Never mind.
Enough to keep you busy? Start celebrating.