Sunday, April 1, 1945. Operation Iceberg.

US troops, ultimately to include members of the Marine Corps and the U.S. Army, landed on Okinawa in Operation Iceberg.  The initial landing of 50,000 men saw little resistance.

The Red Army took Sopron, Hungaria.

The Battle of Kassel began between the U.S. Army's 80th Division and German defenders.

British commandos began Operation Roast in an effort to push the Germans across the Po and out of Italy.

Hitler moved his headquarters to the Führerbunker..

The hospital ship Awa Maru was sunk in a case of mistaken identity by the USS Queenfish leading to the loss of 2003 of its 2004 passengers and crew.

And this wild communications item was introduced.

Visie-Talkie, 1945

Last edition:

Saturday, March 31, 1945. Liberated.

Labels: boats and ships, British Army, Chinese National Army, French Army, Imperial Japanese Navy, Nationalist Chinese Army, Okinawa, Red Army, Slavery, U.S. Navy, Upper Silesian Offensive, World War Two

Tuesday, January 28, 1975. Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, premiered.

Japan and the Soviet Union signed an agreement for a joint venture of drilling for oil on Sakhalin Island in which Japan was to receive "a significant discount on half of the pumped oil" for ten years in exchange for funding the project.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 23, 1975. Failed tariff.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Economics, Gerald Ford, Petroleum, Taxes, television

Thursday, January 23, 1975. Failed tariff.

President Ford imposed a $3.00/bbl fee on imported oil, which was phased in such that it started with $1.00/bbl on February 1.

The courts determined that the President lacked such executive power.

I'm not sure what the goal of that tariff was.  Perhaps to try to boost domestic oil production, which was a huge concern at the time.

The policy comedy Barney Miller premiered on television.  It was truly a great example of 1970s situation comedy.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 22, 1975: Mercury Bobcat goes public

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Automobiles, Diplomacy, NASA, Weapons

Friday, January 3, 1975. The Jackson-Vanik Amendment

The Jackson-Vanik amendment was signed into law.  The amendment was to the Trade Act of 1974 and impacted countries with non market (socialist) countries which restricted freedom of Jewish emigration and other human rights.  It stated:

(a) Actions of nonmarket economy countries making them ineligible for normal trade relations, programs of credits, credit guarantees, or investment guarantees, or commercial agreements To assure the continued dedication of the United States to fundamental human rights, and notwithstanding any other provision of law, on or after January 3, 1975, products from any nonmarket economy country shall not be eligible to receive nondiscriminatory treatment (normal trade relations), such country shall not participate in any program of the Government of the United States which extends credits or credit guarantees or investment guarantees, directly or indirectly, and the President of the United States shall not conclude any commercial agreement with any such country, during the period beginning with the date on which the President determines that such country -

(1) denies its citizens the right or opportunity to emigrate;

(2) imposes more than a nominal tax on emigration or on the visas or other documents required for emigration, for any purpose or cause whatsoever; or

(3) imposes more than a nominal tax, levy, fine, fee, or other charge on any citizen as a consequence of the desire of such citizen to emigrate to the country of his choice,

and ending on the date on which the President determines that such country is no longer in violation of paragraph (1), (2), or (3).

The Soviet Union would retaliate by increasing military aid to North Vietnam.

250 square miles of the Grand Canyon National Monument was deeded back to the Havasupai people, while enlarging the part by 687,000 acres.

Danica McKellar, who became famous as  child and then teenage actress for her role in The Wonder Years, was born. The series was set in the years 1968 to 1973 and ran from 1988 to 1993.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 1, 1975. Cutting off Phnom Penh.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cambodia, Cambodian Civil War, Khemr Rouge, law, United Kingdom, Watergate

Tuesday, December 31, 1974. Americans get to own gold again.

Depression era restrictions on the private ownership of gold in the US were removed.

The prohibition, as well as government price setting of Gold, had come into effect in 1933.

South African Kugerrands and Canadian gold coins immediately became very popular as a hedge against inflation.

France ended its state monopoly on television.

Catfish Hunter signed with the Yankees, becoming baseball's highest paid player at that point.

Last edition:

Monday, December 16, 1974. Safe Drinking Water.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1928, 1970s, 1974, 1974 at the movies, ANZUK, Australia, Burkina Faso, Growing up in the 1970s, It was because of the Vietnam War, law, Mali, Movies, New Zealand, United Kingdom, Upper Volta, Weapons

Sunday, October 2, 1774. Passing a resolution.

Congress passed a resolution requesting the preparation of an address to the Crown for the redress of grievances.

And it wasn't even Festivus.

Last edition:

Tuesday, September 27, 1774. Economic rebellion.

Labels: 1770s, 1774, American Revolution, Colonial North America, Economics, First Continental Congress, Massachetts

Sunday, September 27, 1964. The Warren Report issued.

The government issued the Warren Report concluding that Lee Harvey Oswald had acted alone and that Kennedy had been inadequately protected during his November 22, 1963, visit to Dallas.

US troops rescued sixty Vietnamese hostages and seized the main camp of Montagnard rebels operating at Buon Sar Pa.

The Beach Boys appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Last edition:

Saturday, September 26, 1964. Gilligan's Island

Labels: 1960s, 1964, actors and actresses, Communism, Congo, Growing up in the 1960s, Growing up in the 1970s, South Vietnam, television, Television is stupid

Saturday, September 26, 1964. Gilligan's Island

Gilligan's Island premiered on CBS.

Bob Denver, who had previously been portrayed as a beatnik, played the title role.  He'd been previously known for The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis.  All of the actors in the short run series ended up typecast, in cluding the talented Alan Hale, Jr.

UPI critic Rick Dubrow commented:  "It is impossible that a more inept, moronic or humorless show has ever appeared on the home tube."

As a kid, I'd often watch the show, already in syndication, when I got home from school.

Rebels in the Congo rounded up of all foreigners trapped in Stanleyville and Paulis.

The "High National Council" was installed to function as the legislature for South Vietnam.

Last edition:

Friday, September 25, 1964. Gomer Pyle, USMC.

Labels: 1960s, 1964, El Paso Texas, Lyndon B. Johnson, Mozambique, Oklahoma, Portuguese Mozambique, television, Texas, United States Marine Corps, Vietnam War

Friday, September 25, 1964. Gomer Pyle, USMC.

Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. premiered on CBS.

Somehow, Pvt. Pyle managed never to be deployed to Vietnam, and seemingly, with the exception of one single episode I can think of, remain in the Pre Vietnam War era entirely.

President Johnson and Mexican President López Mateos shook hands on the International Bridge at El Paso.  Later that day President Johnson flew to Oklahoma for the dedication of the new Eufaula Dam and spoke about the Vietnam War, stating: "There are those that say you ought to go north and drop bombs, to try to wipe out the supply lines, and they think that would escalate the war. We don't want our American boys to do the fighting for Asian boys."

FRELIMO (Frente de Libertação de Moçambique) launched the Mozambican War of Independence.

Last edition:

Blog Mirror: Kodak Instamatic Cameras, 1964

Labels: 1960s, 1964, Blog Mirror, Cameras, technology

Giving up on the weekend news shows.

I've always really liked them.  Meet The Press and This Week respectively.

But recently, it's become almost pointless to listen to them.

The political guests tend to be complete hacks.  Any GOP guest is going to support anything Trump says, or refuse to answer while stating something else. The Democrats aren't much better. And now the panels are the same way.  The Republican panelist won't say anything critical of the GOP, nor will the Democratic panelist say anything critical of the Democrats.

Sic transit Gloria Mundi.

Well, maybe I'll try Face The Nation.  It seemed to be holding up better.

Thursday, May 9, 1974. Probable cause.

The House Judiciary Committee opened hearings on whether there was probable cause for a vote of the full House on impeaching Richard Nixon.   The first 20 minutes, the open session, was televised.

The committee had 21 Democrats on it and 17 Republicans, back when there were real Republicans.

A 6.5 magnitude earthquake killed 30 people near Tokyo.

Last prior edition:

Monday, April 29, 1974. Transcribing tapes.

1970s, 1974, American Terrorist Organizations, Richard Nixon, Watergate

Friday, March 8, 1974. Exit Brady Bunch

The iconic 1970s television show The Brady Bunch aired for the last time.  It first aired in 1970.

Marcia, Marcia Marcia. . . 

Maureen McCormick, perhaps the most recalled character of the series, as Marcia.

Last prior:

March 6, 1974. Tout-nucléaire

The Agrarian's Lament: Agrarian of the Week: The Victory Garden.

The Agrarian's Lament: Agrarian of the Week: The Victory Garden.: 

Agrarian of the Week: The Victory Garden.

The television show, not the World War Two institution from which it takes its name.

Somewhat quirky and odd, the long-running show commenced in 1979 and was hosted by the late James Underwood Crockett originally.  I recall it from the Roger Swain era, however, which apparently from the mid 1980s to 2002, which surprises me as I recall watching it with my father, and not thereafter.  He died in the early 1990s.  Swain, with a huge red beard and suspenders was ahead of his time in the hipster movement, held a PhD in biology, so he knew his stuff.  It apparently ceased production in 2010.

One interesting thing I'll note is the name, The Victory Garden, which takes its name from the gardens people were urged to plant in World War One and World War Two to counter food shortages.  While both wars were obviously horrific, this aspect of the home front remains fondly remembered, and therefore the name is familiar.

Canadian World War One Victory Garden poster.

Blog Mirror: Sunday, February 9, 1964: The Beatles On "The Ed Sullivan Show"

 From Uncle Mike's:

February 9, 1964: The Beatles On "The Ed Sullivan Show"

I wonder if my parents watched it?

My mother was more of a music fan than my father.  My father's record collection consisted a few albums he had bought after, I'm pretty sure, my parents bought a very large and heavy combination radio and stereo set.  It's a massively substantial piece of furniture.  The records he purchased were all of military marches.  Nothing else.

My mother had a pretty extensive set of 45 rpm records, or singles as they were called, which weren't really singles but which had one song each on each side.  I should commit more of them to digital.  They included a lot of Elvis Pressley, and some jazz, and some odds and ends.  She later bought some albums that were from the 60s, but they were people like Tom Jones.  

Musically, FWIW, I can recall The Lawrence Welk Show being a weekly staple in the house.  I can barely recall The Ed Sullivan Show playing from time to time, which must mean that my father watched it on rare occasion.  It ran until 1971.

The 1964 Winter Olympics closed in Innsbruck.

Two random items. Andy Griffith and Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift

On "X", fka "Twitter" a man who was the father to a large family of daughters (it was either 7 or 9), and who is very conservative, posted an item expressing relief for Taylor Swift.

His points were really good.

Populist right commentators are all up in arms about Swift right now, for reasons that are darned near impossible to discern.  It seems to stem from her expressing support for Democratic candidates in the past, including Joe Biden in 2016.  Well, guess what, she has a right to do that.  You have a right to ignore it. 

She also expressed support for abortion being legal.  I feel it should be illegal.  That doesn't mean she's part of a double secret left wing conspiracy.

But, and here's the thing, there are real reasons to admire her, or at least her presentation, and the father in question pointed it out.  He'd endured taking his daughters to Miley Cyrus, Ariana Grande, "Lady Gaga" etc., and found them disturbing.

Indeed, they are.

Miley Cyrus went from a child actress to being a freakish figure posed nude on a ball, looking like she was a meth addict who was working in a strip club.  Ariana Grande has at least one song that's out right graphic about illicit sex.  Lady Gaga has made a career out of being freakish, until she couldn't any longer, and like Madonna is another woman who was the product of Catholic Schools who took to songs that are abhorrent in terms of Christian, let alone Catholic, morals.

Swift, in contrast, can only be criticized a bit for dressing semi provocatively on stage, but only somewhat so. Off-stage, she's always very modestly dressed.  Indeed, she's a throwback, with her ruby red lipstick and classic nearly 1940s appearance.

And in terms of relationships, it's noted that she's dating a football player.

Now, we don't know what their private lives are like, but they're admirably keeping them private.  It's hard to know what Swift's views are on most issues.  And we really don't need to.  But in their visible relationship, made visible to us only because of media fascination, they're quite proper.  As the poster noted, the football star is "courting" her.

It's not that there's nothing to see here.  There's nothing to see here which any conservative in their right mind wouldn't have an absolute freak out about.  They're behaving exactly the way in public that supposedly Christian conservatives want dating couples to do.  No piercings, no weird tattoos, no scanty clothing.

Which would all suggest all the angst is about something else, and what that is probably about is the secret knowledge that huge numbers of real conservatives can't stand Donald Trump and won't vote for him.

The Andy Griffith Show

I was at lunch two days ago at a local Chinese restaurant, and across the way an all adult family was discussing the plot of the prior night's Andy Griffith Show rerun.  It struck me that that may not have happened since the 1960s.

It's interesting. 

The Andy Griffith Show went off the air before the Great Rural Purge in Television, but not my much.  It ran from 1960 to 1968.  It was consistently focused on the rural South, and it felt like it depicted the 1950s, which it never did, save for the fact that what we think of as the 60s really started in about 1955 and ran to about 1964.  Indeed, while the show was in tune with the times in 1960, it really wasn't in 1968.

But that in tune with the times is what strikes me here.  The family was speaking of it as if it was a currently running show, not like it was something from 60 years ago.  That suggests that in some ways people have groped their way back in the dark to idealizing the world as it was depicted then, rural, lower middle class, devoid of an obsession with sex (although it does show up subtly in the show from time to time), and divorce a rarity.

Now, the world wasn't prefect in 1960 by any means.  But the show didn't pretend to depict a perfect world, only one that was sort of a mirror on the world view of its watchers.  To some degree, that world view had returned.

Epilog

The Taylor Swift story also appears on the most recent entries for City Father and Uncle Mike's Musings, both of which are linked in on this site.

Friday, January 18, 1974. Disengagement.

Israel and Egypt signed the Israel-Egypt Disengagement Treaty of 1974.

It stated:

A.  Egypt and Israel will scrupulously observe the cease-fire on land, sea, and air called for by the UN Security Council and will refrain from the time of the signing of this document from all military or para-military actions against each other.

B. The military forces of Egypt and Israel will be separated in accordance with the following principles:

1. All Egyptian forces on the east side of the Canal will be deployed west of the line designated as Line A on the attached map. All Israeli forces, including those west of the Suez Canal and the Bitter Lakes, will be deployed east of the line designated as Line B on the attached map.

2. The area between the Egyptian and Israeli lines will be a zone of disengagement in which the United Nations Emergency Force (UNEF) will be stationed. The UNEF will continue to consist of units from countries that are not permanent members of the Security Council.

3. The area between the Egyptian line and the Suez Canal will be limited in armament and forces.

4. The area between the Israeli line (Line B on the attached map) and the line designated as Line C on the attached map, which runs along the western base of the mountains where the Gidi and Mitla Passes are located, will be limited in armament and forces.

5. The limitations referred to in paragraphs 3 and 4 will be inspected by UNEF. Existing procedures of the UNEF, including the attaching of Egyptian and Israeli liaison officers to UNEF, will be continued.

6. Air forces of the two sides will be permitted to operate up to their respective lines without interference from the other side.

C. The detailed implementation of the disengagement of forces will be worked out by military representatives of Egypt and Israel, who will agree on the stages of this process. These representatives will meet no later than 48 hours after the signature of this agreement at Kilometre 101 under the aegis of the United Nations for this purpose. They will complete this task within five days. Disengagement will begin within 48 hours after the completion of the work of the military representatives and in no event later than seven days after the signature of this agreement. The process of disengagement will be completed not later than 40 days after it begins.

D. This agreement is not regarded by Egypt and Israel as a final peace agreement. It constitutes a first step toward a final, just and durable peace according to the provisions of Security Council Resolution 338 and within the framework of the Geneva Conference.

For Egypt: For Israel:

General Abdul Gani al Garnasy Lt. Gen. David Elazar, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army

The Six Million Dollar Man premiered on television. 

Tuesday, January 15, 1974. Happy Days.

Happy Days, the legendary sitcom, appeared to mixed reviews.

1974 Happy Days cast.

Clearly riffing off of 1950s nostalgia, less than 20 years after the end of the decade, the show had more or less been laid a path to success by the recent film American Graffiti, which also featured Ron Howard portraying a major character.  Even before that, however, nostalgia had seen the rise of the rise of the band Sha Na Na which appeared in 1969 in sufficient time in which to appear at Woodstock.

American Graffiti, as we've noted here before, actually takes place in 1962, not the 1950s, but its not recalled that way.  Howard, for his part, had grown up on television as Opie in The Andy Griffith Show, which had run from 1960 to 1968, but which is also commonly thought as taking place in the 1950s, even though there's no effort whatsoever to suggest that in the show, and contemporary audiences would not have taken it that way.

As the name of Happy Days implied, the American public, troubled by the news of the ear, or perhaps of the entire 1960s, conceived of the 50s as "happy days", irrespective of what they had actually been.  The series would run for a decade.  During that time, it had a pretty substantial impact on the pop culture of the era.  My family didn't regularly watch it, probably as they'd all lived through the 50s and weren't nostalgic about it, but I can recall the revival of 1950s rock and roll it caused. And at the junior high I was attending, there were dances called "sock hops", which was a revival of a term strongly associated with the 1950s.

College shock hop, 1948.  Sock hops were called that as students took off their shoes to dance on gym floors.

I was too shy to attend them.

On the same day, a panel of experts testified that the 18.5 minute gap in the now infamous Nixon tape conversation with H. R. Halderman of June 20, 1972, was made by serial erasures.

In Indonesia, a visit by Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka turned into a riot featuring an attack, oddly, on Chinese Indonesians.

The disappointing Comet Kohoutek made its closest pass by Earth.  I recall going outside to look for it and, like thousands of others, being disappointed by not really being able to see much in spite of predictions to the contrary.

John Wayne visited Harvard at the invitation of The Harvard Lampoon to debate students on his all but forgotten film, McQ.  He traveled to Harvard Square in an armored personnel carrier from Ft. Devens.  Native Americans interrupted his travels to protest events at Wounded Knee.  Wayne ignored a question about supporting the Hollywood blacklist.

All of which shows why people were nostalgic about the 1950s.

Saturday, January 12, 1974. How revolutions begin.

The Ethiopian Revolution began with the mutiny of the Negele Borana garrison over bad food and a lack of water.

They sized Lt. Gen. Deresse Dubale, Emperor Haile Selassie's envoy, and forced him to survive on the same fare they had for a week.

Gasoline rationing commenced in the Netherlands.

Television started operation in Tanzania.

Saturday, December 29, 1923. The dawn of television.

Russian-born engineer Vladimir K. Zworykin filed for a patent on his Television System, which would evolve into television.  He was employed by Westinghouse at the time, having immigrated to the U.S. during the Russian Civil War.  He died in 1982, living to an undetermined age in his early 90s.

Television advertisement from 1939.

Zworykin wasn't the only individual working on televised images, and his system wasn't the only one that was around.  A system by a rival inventor,  John Logie Baird, would be the first one on the market, coming at an amazingly early 1928, with the first television station, WRGB, then W2XB, broadcasting from the General Electric facility in Schenectady, NY.  For various reason, however, television didn't really take off until after World War Two, with the 1950s really seeing an explosion in its use.  Even at that, however, many households did not have televisions until the 1960s.  I can recall the first television our family had, which must have been acquired in the mid 1960s.  My mother bought it as a gift for my father, but had as an additional motive the hope that he'd spend more evenings at home rather than stop by to visit his mother, who lived a couple of blocks away.  Indeed, my father took to television (my mother never did), and her hopes were realized.

Test pattern from when local television stations quit broadcasting at night, and reappeared in the morning, with this image.  I can recall this appearing on our television early in the morning when my father first turned it on.

That experience really shows one of the frankly negative aspects of what would prove to be a groundbreaking technology.  Prior to television, while radio had arrived, there was still a great deal of "make your own entertainment" and the visiting of friends and relatives in the evenings.  Television helped end all that, which proved to be a radical shift in long held societal patterns.  Interestingly, television itself has never portrayed that change, and continues to depict life in large part as it had been before its arrival.  You don't see television programs in which people sit around and watch television.

As we've noted here before, early television was all locally broadcast, from locally owned stations.  Indeed, the FCC strictly regulated this latter aspect of television, which of course broadcast over the public airways.  Cable made major inroads, however, not television and a near deregulation of the industry has mean that it now broadcasts over multiple channels, in multiple ways, 24 hours a day, with local ownership often not existing.

Televisions ultimately became so common that by the early 2000s, most American households contained three of them.  The number is now down to 2.5, reflecting the advance of computers, which has cut into television use.  

All in all, while undoubtedly there are other opinions, television has been enormously corrosive and detrimental to society.

Germany agreed to pay France's and Belgium's expenses for occupying the Ruhr.  The UK objected to the French collecting taxes on a British owned mined in the region.

The SS Mutlah disappeared in the Mediterranean with all of its 40 hands lost.

The Mexican Federal Army was advancing towards Vera Cruz, the rebels having been routed. . . and industrial school girls were on the warpath.

The Saturday magazines were out.

Wednesday, October 24, 1973. War Powers.

President Nixon vetoed the War Powers Act.  His veto was overridden on November 7.

A second ceasefire between Egypt and Israel went into effect in the Yom Kippur War.  By this point in the war Egyptian gains had been more than reversed.

At the same time, the Soviet Union threatened to deploy its troops to aid Syria, giving a warning to the US to that effect. As a result, the U.S. went to Defcon 3

Kojak premiered.

The day was the first UN World Development Information Day, which coincided with United Nations Day.