Showing posts with label 1940. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1940. Show all posts

Thursday, February 29, 2024

Leap Day

Pope Gregory XIII, 1502 – 1585

Which is notable mostly because it simply is. We only get them, and don't notice them much, every four years.  Other than teasing people born on the day and miscalculating their actual age, not much will occur.

The added day, of course, come about due to the calendar adjustment that went into effect with the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar in October 1582. The added day was to keep the calendar from getting increasingly inaccurate.  The entire Christian world didn't adopt the new calendar all at once, in part due to the Great Schism and the start of the Protestant Reformation, but over time, it's taken over nearly completely for the entire globe.  About the only remaining use of the prior Julian Calendar is in some parts of the Eastern Orthodox world for their liturgical calendar, and even that is no longer universally true.

Pope Gregory actually met with a lot of opposition to the new calendar, FWIW.  Members of the general public were really upset at first.  Spain, Portugal, Poland-Lithuania and the Italian states nonetheless adopted it nearly immediately.  France, some of the Dutch Republic, and the Catholic states of the Holy Roman Empire and Swiss Confederation did in 1587.

Denmark and Norway, then one state, and the rest of the Dutch Republic didn't fall into line until 1700-1701, by which time the Julian Calendar was seriously out of whack.  The UK didn't adopt it until 1752.  Sweden came around in 1753.

You would think a day as odd as Leap Day would be associated with some interesting customs, and it actually is, or more accurately was.  In Wyoming, there once was a custom of appointing a teenager to be Governor for the day, honorific of course.  I don't think that occurs anymore, but I guess we'll see today.  If this does occur, I have not taken note of it recently.   Wyoming Public Media reported it has having occured as recently as 1940, FWIW.

One political thing that does happen is the U.S. Presidential Election.  It's always in a Leap Year. . . so we get to enjoy one more extra day of campaigning.

A tradition in the English-speaking world is that women can propose to men on this day, which, in some versions of the custom, extends to the whole year. This tradition was surprisingly wide spread in societies speaking English, and is attributed by some to the Irish Saint, St. Brigid, who predates the Gregorian Calendar by quite some measure.   She died in 525.

Anyhow, supposedly she licensed women to propose to men every four years, which is likely just a story.

"Taking" a person, then, was a much more serious matter, even though it should be equally serious now.

Even when I was a kid, however, there remained the odd custom, apparently limited to English-speaking countries as noted, that in Leap Years girls could "ask out" a boy, it being implicit that otherwise that was a right/burden that fell to males.  It still, in fact, largely does.  This appears to have been the remnant of a custom in English-speaking countries, no doubt only lightly observed, that on Leap Day, this day, women could propose marriage to men, that also being a prerogative which then, and largely now, was reserved to men by custom.

Frankly, this is vaguely threatening.

How much of a deal this really was, I don't know, but it was enough of one that late in the 19th Century and early in the 20th Century it generated cartoons, not all of which were kind, and it generated cards, most of which were, although more than a few of them were somewhat aggressive. The cards suggest that women were using them, so in fact some women did avail themselves of the licensed role reversal and propose.

Less threatening.

As odd as this may seem now, it may have made some sense at the time.  Another thread we have in draft deals with the economics, in part, of marriage in the age, but things were, quite frankly, tighter.  As that thread reveals, a lot more men went through life unmarried than do now, and far more than we might suspect.  More than a little of that was probably economic hesitation.  For women, however, unlike men, being unmarried was a societal strike against them and often a personal lifelong disaster.  If they were waiting for a proposal, this was a societally licensed way to deliver it.



Whatever was going on with this, it seems to have flat out ended in its original form right about the era of the cards we see here.  What happened?


I don't know, but what I suspect is that World War One dramatically altered the marriage landscape.  Indeed, we dealt with this briefly in regard to Catherinettes;

In France, for St. Catherine's saint's day, the Catherinettes were out on the streets:




From John Blackwell's Twitter feed on the topic.

We noted this custom in 2020:

The day is also St. Catherine's Day,, the feast day for that saint, which at the time was still celebrated in France as a day for unmarried women who had obtained twenty-five years of age.  Such women were known as Catherinettes. Women in general were committed since the Middle Ages to the protection of St. Catherine and on this day large crowds of unmarried 25 year old women wearing hats to mark their 25th year would gather for a celebration of sorts, where well wishers would wish them a speedy end to their single status. The custom remained strong at least until the 1930s but has since died out.


This of course is from a different culture yet, the French, but it addresses the same topic, with the French taking it up annually, and more cheerfully it looks like.

This custom apparently has largely died, but interestingly milliners are trying to revive it, as it was associated with outlandish hats.  Having said that, French single women over 25 were still out on the streets with wild costumes and hats in honor of the day, whereas the somewhat maudlin English Leap Day cards don't seem to have made it past World War one.  It's hard not to draw that line in the case of the Leap Day cards.  1916 was a Leap Year, and then 1920.  By 1920 there were a lot of single women in English-speaking countries (and in France too) who were going to be single for life, the war having made that a fact.

Before we leave this topic, it's interesting to note that in Medieval Times, after the introduction of the Gregorian Calendar, in some European countries this was Bachelor's Day for the same reason. I.e., Bachelors were subject to proposals.  It actually was a matter of law in some countries.  In some places it became the custom for men of means to be required to buy any suitor whose proposal he turned down twelve pairs of gloves so that she could hide her embarrassment at not having an engagement ring.

While on this, FWIW, as we've noted before, while spinster status was regarded as a disaster earl in the 20th Century, what exactly constituted it is misunderstood. As we have noted in another thread:





That deals with the averages, of course.  Looking at my own grandparents, I think one set was married in their late 20s or early 30s, while another in their early 20s.  My parents were in their 30s.

Related Threads:

Of interest, I note that some other blogs we link into this site also noted Leap Day or Leap Year, with some noting the same items we noted above.

Leap Year



Shockingly young! Surprisingly old! Too young, too old! Well, nothing much actually changing at all. . . Marriage ages then. . . and now. . and what does it all mean?

Friday, April 28, 2023

Saturday, April 28, 1923. Measuring


The Saturday magazines were out.






The SS Deutschland was launched. The passenger ship of the Hamburg American line would go into Kreigsmarine service in 1940 as an accommodation ship.  In 1945 she was converted to a hospital ship but insufficient paint existed in order to paint her entirely white.  She was sunk in May 1945.

Wembley Stadium hosted its first event.

McGreen & Harris, 4/28/23

Williams ran a wordless classic.


Monday, March 6, 2023

Saturday, March 6, 1943. Fredendall out, Patton in. Rommel's swan song in North Africa. Freedom from Want. Stalin promotes himself while his Party praises him with B.S.

Wyomingite Maj. Gen. Lloyd Fredendall was relieved of his command of II Corps and replaced by Maj. Gen. George S. Patton.

Patton as a Lieutenant General

Patton, widely regarded as the premier American expert on armored warfare, was very quickly promoted to Lt. General.  Fredendall was assigned stateside duty.  His reputation never recovered after Kasserine Pass, and he did not return to Cheyenne in later years.  He died in 1963 in California, having retired from the Army in 1946.


Fredendall was twice appointed to West Point and twice dropped out.  Senator F. E. Warren was willing to appoint him a third time, but the Academy was unwilling to accept him.  He instead attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and thereafter entered the Army in 1907.  His trouble at West Point was with math, which ironically was also very problematic for the home educated George S. Patton.  His performance in World War One was excellent.

His home state has forgotten him.

The Battle of Medenine was fought in Tunisia.  It was a spoiling attack by the Afrika Korps which resulted in a costly defeat.  It was also Rommel's last command action in North Africa.


Things were going downhill for the Axis in North Africa quickly.


Freedom from Want appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.  It proved to be the most popular of the four freedom's illustrations, and is regarded as one of Rockwell's best.  The accompanying essay was by Phlipinno, immigrant Carlos Sampayan Bulosan.

I wonder to what extent we've forgotten this freedom?

Joseph Stalin, who put many into the want of starvation, promoted himself to the rank of Marshal of the Soviet Union.  Contemporaneously, the Soviet Communist Party proclaimed him "the greatest strategist of all times and all peoples".

M'eh.

Unfortunately, his adopted home has not forgotten him and has drawn the wrong conclusions about his leadership.  First siding with the Germans during World War Two, his miscalculation about what he could extract from them in order to join the war against the British Empire led to the Germans charging ahead with a war against the Soviet Union for which it was not prepared.  It took two years for the USSR to form a sufficient armed mob in order to counter to begin to throw the Germans back, which relied on, in spite of wanting to ignore it, massive Western Allied support.

The Battle of Blackett Strait was fought between the U.S. Navy and the Japanese Imperial Navy.

A small engagement, the Japanese lost 100% of their two destroyer force.


Wednesday, August 10, 2022

Mid Week at Work. Plastering a house.


"Mixing plaster for house, Chamisal, New Mexico. Occasionally a man helps with the hard work of mixing plaster but the women never allow the men to help with the actual plastering of the house."  1940.

Monday, January 10, 2022

Saturday January 10, 1942. Joe Louis joins the Army. Mickey Rooney gets married. . . for the first time. Ford starts building Jeeps.

 Boxer Joe Louis, who regained his heavyweight title the day prior, joined the U.S. Army.

Joe Louis sewing on Sergeant First Class stripes.

Louis was initially assigned to the cavalry, which came about due to a love of horsemanship.

As a slight aside, this really shows wartime conditions in that the recruiting station was open on a Saturday.

Mickey Rooney, age 21, married Ava Gardner, age 19.  It was the first of eight marriages for Rooney, three for Gardner, and would last only a year, mostly broken up due to Rooney's behavior, which included womanizing.  It's interesting, I suppose, in the context of Rooney, at that time, having a very youthful and childlike appearance, and having played rather innocent roles.  Gardner, at that time, was practically unknown.

Rooney, FWIW, would not enter the service until 1944.

Even while things were getting increasingly desperate in the Philippines, the Japanese presented their first surrender demand to the forces at Bataan on this day, the first US troop convoy departed Halifax, Nova Scotia, for Londonderry, Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland would be a major staging area and training area for US forces in the British Isles early in the American participation in the war.

German forces in the Soviet Union began to suffer general reversals in the face of the Soviet Winter Offensive and the weather.

The Ford Motor Company received a contract to manufacture Jeeps.


The history of Ford Jeeps is slightly complicated.  Willys had secured the contract to make 1/4 ton trucks for the services but production needs were obviously going to exceed what Willys Overland could produce.  Accordingly, a contract to produce the standardized Willlys pattern of Jeep issued to Ford. Ford would build 300,000 Jeeps during the war, whereas Willys made 363,000.

Willys, Ford and Bantam had all competed for the contract for the 1/4 ton truck prior to the war, with Ford having introduced a very light vehicle, just as Bantam had.

Ford "Pygmy" competition vehicle for the 1/4 ton truck.

Pre-production numbers were actually produced in some volume, although almost all of them were supplied to the British and the Soviets via lend lease.  Production of  the standardized Jeep has started the prior summer, but the vehicle was still brand new and no examples of it were overseas in spite of it being shown in movies in that role quite frequently.

Thursday, December 23, 2021

Tuesday, December 23, 1941. The Fall of Wake Island.

An American defeat, but an oddly inspiring one, occured today, as we earlier reported at Today In Wyoming's History: December 23

1941 American forces on Wake Island surrendered to the Japanese. 


The Battle of Wake Island would turn out to be a surprising American point of pride early in the war, in spite of the loss of the atoll.  It took on sort of an Alamo image during the war.

Wake had been a U.S. possession since 1899.  The presence of Polynesian Rats on the island proves that it had very early Micronesian contact, but it had no permanent population until 1935 when Pan American established a hotel station there for its Pacific flying boat route.  The Navy did not establish a permanent base there until 1941, so everything located on it in terms of military installations was new.

The Navy and Marine Corps put up a very determined fight on Wake, and at first the Japanese were unable to successfully land on it. It provided a rare example of shore batteries successfully engaging naval vessels.  Efforts by the Japanese to take the island commenced on December 8, but took until this day in order to be successful.  Efforts to relieve the island from Hawaii failed.

98 American prisoners, all civilians, were held on the island by the Japanese until 1943 when the Japanese murdered them.  Military prisoners were removed to POW camps.  By 1943 the island had been cut off and the Japanese garrison began to starve, actually driving one of the birds species located on the island into extinction.  3/4s of the Japanese garrison died due to starvation.  The island surrendered to a Marine Corps detachment that landed on September 4, 1945, having previously learned of Japan's surrender, and after reburying their murdered victims.  The truth of the murders soon came to light, and several Japanese officers committed suicide over the incident.

While a Japanese victory, it was an early example of what was wrong with Japanese strategic planning.  First of all, the Navy and Marine Corps put up a determined fight over the island, showing that American ground forces in particular were willing to hold ground until the bitter end, a lesson that probably wasn't really being learned at the time due to the next item we'll note.  Secondly, the Japanese took the island, but in the end, it proved to be easy to isolate and the Japanese garrison was essentially taken out of the war and made subject to starvation, something other garrisons on remote islands would also experience.

In really bad news at the time:

 Gen. Douglas MacArthur decides to withdraw to Bataan.

Japanese begin offensive against Rangoon, Burma. 

The 440-foot tanker Montebello was sunk off the California coast near Cambria by a Japanese submarine. The crew of 38 survived, and in 1996 it was found that the 4.1 million gallon cargo of crude oil appeared intact. 

British troops capture Benghazi, Libya.

A conference of industry and labor officials agrees that there would be no strikes or lockouts in war industries while World War II continued.

The first C47 Skytrain entered US military service.




Lots of the civilian variants, the DC3, were already in military service, but it wasn't until this date that the first example of the dedicated military version was delivered.  The civilian airliner had been introduced in 1935.

Over 10,000 C47s were built, or over 16,000 if the Li-2 Soviet produced version is considered, and amazingly they remain in service with the Columbian, El Salvadorian and South African air forces.  They were preeminently important as an Allied cargo plane during the Second World War, and they were used by every Allied power including the Soviet Union, which built 6,000 of them under license in addition to the ones that were supplied to the USSR via lend lease, making the Soviet Union the second-largest producer of the aircraft.

The role of the C47 in Allied airpower could hardly be understated.  It and the DC3 are one of the greatest aircraft ever produced.  Some DC3s remain in commercial use today (I've seen one in United Airlines colors as late as 2004) and they're actually being remanufactured as the Basler BT-67 for current use.

Monday, October 25, 2021

Tuesday, October 25, 1921. Comings and Goings.


Bat Masterson in 1911.

On this day in 1921, Bartholemew William Barclay "Bat" Masterson, of OK Corral fame, died at age 67.  He'd been working as a columnist there since 1902.

Like a lot of frontier lawmen, Masterson had a few run-ins with the law as well as enforcing it.  He was born in Quebec to an Irish Canadian family and had served in most of the classic frontier roles in the West before becoming well known due to the events in Tombstone.   His family moved to the United States while he was a child, and he grew up on a series of farms before becoming a buffalo hunter and Army scout.  He was at the famous battle of Adobe Walls in 1874.  He became a lawman in 1876 and after his famous career in Arizona he occupied that position in Colorado.  He  moved to Denver in 1882 where he was involved in various scrapes and then to New York in 1902.

Masterson was an acknowledged expert on boxing and became a columnist in New York, a position he occupied for the remainder of his life.

Masterson provides an interesting example of how we tend to compartmentalize figures by their historical period.  He was a classic Frontier figure, but lived well beyond the Frontier's close and, no doubt to himself, seemed to always be living in the present even while depictions of the gunfight would continue to be famous all through his own life.  He was outlived, FWIW, by Wyatt Earp, who died in 1929.


King Michael I of Romania was born.  He was Romania's last king, having became a king as a child due to his father abdicating following his inability to reconcile an illicit relationship with his status as king and renouncing his rights upon his own father's death in 1925.  He lost that title in 1930 when parties dissatisfied with the regency reestablished his father as monarch, but he became king again in  September 1940 when a military coup led by Ion Antonescue returned him to the position of king and removed his father.  He was 18 at the time.

He would be king when Romania declared war on the Soviet Union in 1941, but would lead the coup against the military government in 1944, combining with pro Allied officers who also no doubt saw the handwriting of the results of the war on the wall.  He was removed from power in 1948 and died in 2017, by which time he was once again allowed to live part of the year in Romania.



A terrible Categroy Six hurricane hit Tampa Florida. The storm had previously hit Cuba with minimal damage, but Florida was not so lucky.



The government issued a report on the work of government hunters/trappers.



While I know the current thing is to think, "oh, how awful that the Federal Government did that", if I'd been alive then, the life of a government hunter would have appealed to me.  Having said that, you could still homestead in 1921, and likely that would have appealed to me more.


Mrs. Ed Chambers and Mrs. Sid Hatchfield on this day in 1921.

Hatchfield had been the sheriff of Matewan County, West Viriginia and was murdered on August 1, 1921, along with his friend Chambers.  The killings were probably connected with labor problems in the mining industry.  Mrs. Chambers and Mrs. Hatchfield must have been in Washington on this date in some capacity connected with the murders of their husbands.

Saturday, May 15, 2021

May 15, 1941. The Belgian Counsel General (presumably in Jerusalem) and others gathering for the King of Belgium's birthday, surely. . .

this was the last time in human history, i.e., the 1940s, when people could gather in these costumes ant not feel patently ridiculous.

I exempt, for this question, the couple of religious depicted in the photo.

Wednesday, January 27, 2021

January 27, 1941. Storm Warnings.

 

U.S. Ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew.

TOKYO, January 27, 1941-6 p.m. [Received January 27-6: 38 a.m.]  125. A member of the Embassy was told by my ------- colleague that from many quarters, including a Japanese one, he had heard that a surprise mass attack on Pearl Harbor was planned by the Japanese military forces, in case of "trouble"between Japan and the United States; that the attack would involve the use of all the Japanese military facilities. My colleague said that he was prompted to pass this on because it had come to him from many sources, although the plan seemed fantastic.  GREW

On the same day, French government officials and teachers were required to swear a loyalty oath to Marshal Petain.  More on that here:  

Today in World War II History—January 27, 1941

More on what was going on in World War Two can be found here:

Day 515 January 27, 1941

Wednesday, January 20, 2021

January 20. 1941. The Third Inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Today In Wyoming's History: January 20

January 20

1941.  Third inauguration of Franklin D. Roosevelt.



Men in New Bedford, Massachusetts, were photographed going to work in a textile mill, when the US had such things.


Benito Mussolini consented to German troops having transit through his country.  Italy was already proving itself not up to the conditions of the Second World War and was being beaten in North Africa and in Greece.  Once the senior partner in the Axis, it was now rapidly becoming a liability.

Life magazine featured a soldier of the new 10th Mountain Division in winter gear on its cover.

More on what was going on, on this day in 1941 in World War Two.



Friday, January 8, 2021

January 8, 1941. Death of Lord Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts.


January 8, 1941 date stamped on reverse.

Lord Robert-Baden Powell, 1st Baron Baden Powell, died on this day in 1941 in Kenya.  He was 83 years old at the time.


Baden Powell was a British cavalryman who founded the international "Scouting Movement" and who lived to see it rise to enormous popularity during the "Muscular Christianity" era. Creation of the movement was a result of his experiences in the Boer War in which he admired the scouting skills of troops raised in the region and those recruited or otherwise from North America.  

First issue of Scouting for Boys, 1908.


At the time of the movements founding Baden Powell, the son of a professor who was also an Anglican Priest who died when he was three  years old, had already served a long and distinguished military career, but its for the creation of Scouting that he is principally remembered.  The movement became enormously successful almost immediately and from its inception until some time into the 1960s it was a very significant youth organization for boys.

Illustration by Baden Powell form the Wolf Cub Handbook, 1916.

Baden Powell was also instrumental in the formation of the companion groups for girls, but he likely would have been  horrified by later developments in Scouting, including the scandals associated with the Boy Scouts USA in later years and the co-ed nature of the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts today.  Indeed, there's a lot of say for his original vision of the organization over its current form which sought to bring bushcraft to youth who were losing it and which was an outwardly Christian organization.

Lady Olave Baden Powell, widow of Robert Baden Powell.

Married late in life, he left a widow 36 years his junior and three children, ages 8, 6 and 4.

The RAF bombed Naples.  Thai forces advanced against Vichy French forces near Siem Reap.

Other events in World War Two, including Canada's decision not to enlist Japanese Canadian citizens into its armed forces, can be read here:

Today in World War II History—January 8, 1941

And also here:

Day 496 January 8, 1941


On this day, this old building in Morristown, New Jersey, was photographed.


And more employees of banks and trust companies were as well.



Tuesday, January 5, 2021

January 5, 1941. The death of Amy Johnson.

 


Amy Johnson.

Pioneering aviatrix Amy Johnson died on this day in the service of the British Transport Auxiliary, the British air ferrying service that was created in order to allow civilian pilots, including women, preform this service during war time.

She was flying an Airspeed Oxford in poor weather when it went off course and is generally believed to have run out of fuel.  She bailed out over the Thames Estuary and was sighted descending by vessels of the Royal Navy, which went to help.  She was sighted in the water in heavy seas and the commander of one of the vessels, Lt. Cmdr Walter Fletcher went over the side to rescue her but was unable to, soon becoming unconscious himself.  He died a few days later.  Her body was not recovered.  

Her loss remains controversial in the UK.  In 1999 a crewman of a wartime anti aircraft batter claimed his gun had shot her down when she had failed to reply to an identification signal and that the crew had believed they had shot down an enemy aircraft until they read of her death the following day, at which time an officer ordered them not to speak of the event.  That's possible, but in my view unlikely as the claim of a hit would have been made at the time and likely records of it might still remain.

And a crewman of the ship that was nearest to her claimed many years later that she was sucked into the ship's screw which killed her, although the crewman did not witness it.  Given the way that ships generally work and the depth of the screws, that's also quite unlikely.

In any event, two heroes, Johnson and Fletcher, who lost their lives that day.

More on events of this day including the Commonwealth victory in Bardia.

Today in World War II History—January 5, 1941

Day 493 January 5, 1941

Saturday, January 2, 2021

January 2, 1941. The work of 1941 commences.

Americans went to work on the first day of work for the New Year.  Always a joyous occasion.  The Bookkeeping department of Manufacturer's Trust in New York on this day in 1941.

Dublin in neutral Ireland was bombed by the Luftwaffe.  It'd be bombed again the next night.

Cardiff in Wales was also bombed, this being the second and worse day of the Cardiff Blitz.  Both events are not unrelated in that, in the context of 1941, air forces had a difficult time bombing accurately by night, and largely did not.  In that context, it was possible for the Luftwaffe bombing crews to miss their marks by a large distance and, as this demonstrates, end up bombing a neutral city.

Today in World War II History—January 2, 1941

The Andrew Sisters released Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, one of their signature songs.

This song is strongly associated, of course, with World War Two, but at the time of its release, the United States was not at war.  Rather, large numbers of men were in the service in training, having been drafted in anticipation of the war, or being in called up National Guard units.

The US announced its plan to build Liberty Ships as part of our war effort while we were not yet at war.


An enormous number of them would come to be made, and manufacturing time was reduced to such an extent that they were manufactured in twenty-four days or less.  Part of their innovation was to use welds, rather than rivets, in their construction.

Only four remain.

Elsewhere on this day during World War Two:

Day 490 January 2, 1941

Thursday, December 31, 2020

Time is a lot shorter than we imagine.

In looking at the old newspapers I sometimes put up here, I saw in a local paper that the building that I work in was sold this past week. . . 100 years ago.  It made the front page as it was one of the few "skyscraper" buildings in town at the time.  Maybe the only one.

That is, news of that sale hit the front page on December 31, 1920.   The building was 103 years old at the time. The new owner soon changed the name of the building to what it is today.

Yesterday I had a man in the office who was 93 years old. He asked about some details of the building and lawyers who had practiced in it in the past.  We spoke about the sidewalk out front and that some odds and ends.  He noted that out in front, on the street, "there were probably horses back then".  

No doubt there were some.

He was ten years old when this building was 13 years old. That struck me at the time.

The building was built in 1917 and first occupied in 1918.  I don't know when he first saw it, but it would have been in its early history.  That's stuck with me.  I can recall things easily back when I was ten.  He may have recalled this building when it was only a little over 20 years old, maybe even earlier than that.

For that matter, I recall this building being here, and my father having business in it, over 40 years ago, maybe 50 years ago, when the building was less than 50 years of age itself.

I've worked in the building for 30 years.  It was 73 years old when I started working here.  The man I was talking to was 63 then.  My father would have been 59, two years older than I am now.  He died at age 62.

Time just gets away from us.

The last dialogue from True Grit.

Wednesday, December 30, 2020

December 30, 1940. The Freeway

 The Arroyo Seco Parkway, California's first freeway, opened.


I don't know what I think of this event.  It was no doubt necessary, but it also was an early sign that California was becoming congested.

It's hard to admire in any sense what California has become, and there's a lesson in that for everyone.

More on that here:

Today in World War II History—December 30, 1940

And on the war:

Day 487 December 30, 1940