History
The Man Who Gave ‘Google’ Its Name
By Ken Zurski
In the early half of the 20th century, shortly after World War I ended, mathematician Edward Kasner, a professor at Columbia University, devised the concept of showing the common features of whole numbers, no matter how large. As an example, he came up with the number one followed by a hundred zeros.
Writing out such a large number was ridiculous of course, and at the time formal names didn’t exist for numbers larger than a trillion.
But he needed a name.
So he asked his nine-year-old nephew Milton to intervene. During a causal stroll in New Jersey’s Palisades Woods, Edward wondered if Milton could come up with one. “Googol” was the boy’s answer. So Milton’s silly sounding recommendation became “Googolplex,” or one followed by a googol zeros. Kasner began using the name in his classes.
Flash forward more than 70 years in 1995 when two Stanford University students Larry Page and Sergey Brin began collaborating on a search engine they originally called BackRub. The project began to attract investors and bandwidth grew. But they needed a new name, something catchier, something they could easily register online.
Google was chosen as the common spelling of Googol which, thanks to Kasner, was as close to an infinite number as possible.
“We picked the name “Google” because our goal is to make huge quantities of information available to everyone,” Page later recalled.
When they presented the name however, math traditionalists balked. “You idiots, you spelled it [Googol] wrong!” one chastised. But Google.com was available and Googol.com was not. Besides, Page said, “It sounds cool and [still] has only six letters.”
According to an official statement Google’s corporate website (yes, there is one): “The name “Google” reflects Larry and Sergey’s mission to organize a seemingly infinite amount of information on the web.”
Simple enough. But what about young Milton? How did the word “Googol” pop into his head? Speculation runs rampant here. A great niece of Dr. Kasner, Denise Sirotta, claims her father Edwin, Milton’s younger brother, should get some credit since he claimed the siblings came up with the name together. “He was asked for a word with a sound that had lots of O’s in it,” she said.
Another observation seems to make more sense especially in the imaginative mind of a toddler. Caroline Birenbaum, another great-niece of Dr. Kasner’s, speculates the word was inspired by a comic-strip character named Barney Google, who debuted in 1919. She says Dr. Kasner, liked cartoons.
“He may have tweaked the spelling to avoid any trademark issues,” she claims.
Barney Google was an American comic strip created by Billy DeBeck, that originally appeared on the sports pages. Google had big “banjo” eyes, a mustache, a large bulbous nose, and wore a tuxedo-type suit. He was an “avid sportsman and N’er do well” involved with some of the more contentious contests like poker, prize fights and horse racing. Google’s bow-legged horse “Spark Plug” was introduced in 1922, and nicknamed “Sparky.” The horse was a nag who rarely raced, but when he did it became a big media event. Millions of readers bought in.
A popular song was introduced, a foxtrot, titled “Barney Google and Spark Plug”
Barney Google—with the goo, goo, googly eyes,
Barney Google—bet his horse would win the prize;
When the horses ran that day,
Spark Plug ran the other way!
Barney Google—with the goo-goo-googly eyes!
In 1934, another character named Snuffy Smith joined the fray and Barney Google and Spark Plug were phased out.
So Google, the word itself, was in the public consciousnesses long before the giant search engine came along. Still, Kasner had no idea that it would become so popular in the next century.
So where did his inspiration for the seemingly infinite number come from?
Kasner, who never married, cited a description of unrequited love. In a divorce case, he explained, a woman called the commitment she had for her husband as “a million billion billion times and eight times around the world.” Kaisner was struck by the expansive description. “It was the largest number ever conceived of,” he said. So he set out to immortalize it.
And his little nephew inspired a name.
Googolplex!
The ‘If I Live…’ Promise: A Lusitania Survivor Story
By Ken Zurski
In May of 1915, New York wine importer George A. Kessler was on the deck of the British ocean liner RMS Lusitania watching the crew go through its daily lifeboat drills when he had an idea.
Known as “The Champagne King,” Kessler was sailing to the United Kingdom from New York on business and despite the threat of a German submarine attack in open waters, had no reservations about traveling.
After witnessing the crew drills, however, Kessler went to the captain and asked if there should be drills for the passengers as well. Perhaps, Kessler suggested, each person be assigned a lifeboat, just in case.
The captain graciously said he was not authorized to do such a thing.
Later, hosting a party in his stateroom, Kessler’s concerns were met with indifference. “That is the captain’s decision,” others told him.
Two days later, on May 7, the Lusitania was at the bottom of the sea, befallen by a German torpedo. More than thousand people perished.
Kessler was not one. He survived by reaching a lifeboat. “We tried bailing and balancing, “Kessler recalled, “but the boat would tilt and turn and finally capsized again.”
Kessler made a promise to himself, vowing that if he lived through the ordeal he would help others injured in war.
A promise he would keep.
Later in the hospital recovering, Kessler met a disabled British newspaperman who opened a center for soldiers with eye injuries. Inspired, Kessler sought out a person he knew could help.
Her name was Helen Keller.
Together they founded the Permanent Blind Relief War Fund, an organization which still exists today.
(Sources: Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larsen; Lusitania: An Epic Tragedy by Diana Preston; various internet sites)
P.T. Barnum’s Home Was Everything You Might Imagine It To Be
By Ken Zurski
Even though the redesign of the Royal Pavilion in Brighton, England in the early 19th century was the vision of its benefactor, Prince Regent, the future King George IV, the finished product, a mixture of many styles and influences, was the work of architect John Nash.
Nash’s design suited the future King, but hardly anyone else. “A masterpiece of bad taste” was one icy reception, while another described it as a “mad house.” Even Queen Victoria, wife of King William IV, King George’s successor, was unmoved calling it “odd” then demeaning its purpose. “Most of the rooms are low and I can see a morsel of the sea from one of my sitting windows,” she bemoaned, refusing to spend much time there.
Born in London in 1752, Nash earned a reputation for designing houses, castles really, for the wealthy. Eventually, his work caught the eye of the prince and in 1806 Nash became his personal architect. The re-imagining of the Royal Pavilion, originally called the Carlton House, was their partnership. Between 1815 and 1822, Nash added flourishing touches like the special dome features and another elaborate wing. The biting condemnations quickly followed.
But attitudes toward the Royal Pavilion would change.
In 1841, a rail line made it more accessible. Now more people could come and roam the grounds and enjoy the scenic location for themselves. And to the British commoner it was a work of art. Unfortunately the man who endured the constant jabs about his work from his peers, never lived long enough to see it appreciated. In 1835, shortly before the Pavilion became a popular tourist attraction, Nash died at the age of 83.
Nearly a decade after his death, Nash would be vindicated again when the Royal Pavilion was paid the ultimate compliment by an American and a visionary in his own right who not only admired the uniqueness of the building, he sought to copy it too.
In 1848 a mansion went up in the scenic countryside of Connecticut that looked oddly out of place for its location. Not only was it very large, occupying 17 acres of land, but the building itself with its exotic Indian influenced architecture looked like something you might spot in far off Mumbai or New Dehli, not Fairfield, near Bridgeport, Connecticut’s largest city.
All this was the creation of one man who commissioned the building of the mansion as a “permanent residence” for his family. His name was Phineas Taylor Barnum, better known as P.T. Barnum.
Barnum called his new home the Iranistan.
Barnum’s inspiration for Iranistan was Nash’s Royal Pavilion, a place he visited while doing a tour of England with his star attraction at the time, the 25-inch tall man known as Tom Thumb. Unlike others, Barnum was greatly pleased by what he saw. “It was the only specimen of oriental architecture in England,and had not been introduced into America,” he wrote.
Barnum hired a New York architect named Leopold Eidlitz to design it with the stipulation that he hold nothing back in terms of style and decorative elements. “The whole was finally completed to my satisfaction,” Barnum expressed, and on November 14, 1848, he held a house warming party for “a thousand guests.”
The invitees found a casual but garish palace to explore. Outside there was a circular carriage way , a fountain, urns and a decorative facade that was filled with symmetrically placed arched openings and numerous decks and porches. Topping the building were onion-shaped domes and minarets.
Inside, there was a circular divan under the dome, a large library adorned in Asian landscapes on its walls and elaborate stained glass windows that filled the rooms with colorful light. The grand ballroom sported a shiny wood floor with an inscription, “Love God and be Merry,” words Barnum used often.
“Elegant and appropriate furniture was made expressly for every room in the house,” Barnum would later write. “The stables, conservatories and out-buildings were perfect in their kind. There was a profusion of trees set out on the grounds. The whole was built and established literally ‘regardless of expense,’ for I had no desire even to ascertain the entire cost.”
In addition to the design, Barnum filled his home with animals of all kinds, as he did at his popular American Museum in New York City. Roaming the grounds of Iranistan were mandarin ducks, silver peasants, a cow named Bessie, and a pig named Prince Albert. The biggest attraction was Iranistan’s largest resident, an unnamed bull elephant. This, of course, was all by design. Barnum felt the addition of the animals, especially the elephant was good promotion for the museum. “When entertaining the public, it is best to have an elephant,” Barnum would later explain. It all started at his home.
But it wouldn’t last. Late on December 17, 1857, only nine years after it was built, the Iranistan was gone. Barnum, who was refurnishing the mansion at the time got the news the next morning by telegram while staying at the Astor House in New York. The building caught fire, he was told. It was a total loss.
The papers were consoling, but skeptical. Barnum’s good fortunes had recently taken a turn for the worse. It all started when Barnum sought to create a “perfect”town in Connecticut that he would call East Bridgeport. He convinced a large business, the Jerome Clock Company, to move their factory there in the hopes of bringing more people and jobs. The clock company agreed to relocate but first needed help to pay down a debt of $100,000 . Barnum loaned them the money, but was tricked into signing more cash notes. Soon he was responsible for a half million dollars of the companies debt and creditors were demanding money. Barnum was forced to go into bankruptcy and lost a fortune.
Many of his friends supported his plight with sympathy, loans and gifts, but others reveled in his misfortune. To his detractors, Barnum’s latest predicament – more like a humiliation – was subject to ridicule. “Here is a terrible illustration of where the practice of humbug will lead,” proclaimed the New York Herald.
The Chicago Tribune’s headline was even more biting. “The deceiver is duped,” it read.
In the midst of all this turmoil, Barnum lost his beloved Iranistan.
Initially, no cause of the fire was given. “It is supposed to have been set on fire,” was one newspaper dispatch, not mincing words, but refusing to elaborate. Later, it was suspected a construction worker dropped a lighted pipe. Barnum had recently moved some of the more expense furniture out of the Iransitan during the renovation and claimed he would soon return. His insurance money was far less then the initial cost of $150,000. “My beautiful Iranistan is gone,” Barnum would write in his autobiography
Barnum recovered financially after going on another successful tour of England with Tom Thumb. Upon his return he set out to build another home, again in Fairfield, called Lindencroft, that in its design was spacious, but far less extravagant than the Iranistan. “All the taste that money can could do was fairly lavished upon Lindencroft so that when all was finished it was not only a complete house in all respects, but a perfect home.” Barnum wrote his memoirs.
The biggest disappointment, however, was for the riders on a train line that would pass by the Iranistan grounds everyday. Not only was the impressive building gone, but they missed seeing the elephant, roaming the yard, helping plow the fields, and giving them all a thrill by raising its trunk and bobbing its head in a friendly gesture.
(Sources” The Great and Only Barnum by Candace Fleming; P.T. Barnum: The Legend and the Man by A.H. Saxon; various internet sites)
Dying For King, Country and Cloves
By Ken Zurski
In 1517, King Charles I of Spain, who had just assumed the throne at the tender age of eighteen, was approached by Ferdinand Magellan, a Portuguese explorer who came to the young King after being rejected by his own country. Magellan made Charles an offer. Let him sail around the world and in the process find a direct route to Indonesia and the Spice Islands, once successfully navigated by Christopher Columbus.
Charles found Magellan’s plan intriguing.
Columbus’s four voyages for Spain, among other revelations, claimed new lands and precious spices like cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves which grew in abundance on the elusive islands. If Magellan could find a way to get the spices back to Charles, Spain would reap the rewards and rule the spice trade.
Charles wholeheartedly approved the voyage and ordered five ships and a crew of nearly 300 men.
In 1519, Magellan set sail from Seville.
Four years later, limping back to port, only one ship named Victoria returned. Every other ship was lost including most of the men. Even Magellan was gone, hacked to death on April 27, 1521 after a fierce battle with a native tribe.
Despite this, the King was pleased.
The tragic news of the lost ships and crew was irrelevant. The Victoria came back with a cargo of 381 sacks of cloves, the most coveted of all spices. “No cloves are grown in the world except the five mountains of those five islands,” explained the ship’s diarist.
Charles questioned the returning men on claims of a mutiny and other charges of debauchery, but it didn’t matter.
He paid the royal stipends to survivors, basked in his clove treasure, and set in motion plans to put another crew back en route to the islands.
Otto Boetticher and the Role of Baseball Among Civil War POWs
By Ken Zurski
In 1861, when the Civil War broke out, Otto Boetticher left his job as a commercial artist to join the 68th New York Volunteers. Shortly after enlisting, Boetticher, who was born in Germany and came to the U.S around 1850, was captured and sent to a prison camp in Salisbury, North Carolina. He wasn’t there very long. Thanks to a prisoner swap and after only a few months in captivity, he was set free.
Before leaving, however, Boetticher, did a drawing of a prisoner game of baseball.
Yes, baseball.
The game itself was not new, in fact bat-and-ball type games were popping up throughout the country in the early part of the 19th century, especially in New York, said to be the birthplace of baseball. Then came the war. The game of baseball shifted to the battlefront instead. “Each regiment had its share of disease and desertion; each had it’s ball-players turned soldiers,” remembered George T Stevens, of the 77th Regiment, New York Volunteers. Union soldiers, Stevens remembers, would play a good “game of nines” to help pass the time.
Boetticher’s drawing, released in 1864, was hardly the perception of prison camps at the time. In it, the players look healthy, even happy. The spectators are just as engaged. Lively conversations are taking place around the makeshift diamond. There are no guards, no guns, no torture, no death.
“Despite the bleak realities of imprisonment,there is a sense of ease and contentment in the image, conveyed in part by pleasures of the game, the glowing sky and sunlight, and the well-ordered composition,” one assessment of the drawing goes.
Boettchler’s lighthearted look at prisoner life wasn’t his fault. The harsh reality of the POW camps would come later with the woeful Libby and Andersonville among others. That’s when prisoner population grew by thousands and unsanitary and overcrowded conditions led to widespread starvation and sickness. Early on, however, the captured soldier would bide time and wait for his name to be called. Why not play a spirited game of baseball?
Boetticher’s print may have been from a July 4th game, when prisoners were allowed to celebrate the nation’s holiday, as one prisoner described, with “music, sack and foot races and baseball.” But if weather permitted and “for those who like it and are able,” baseball was played everyday.
Two months after leaving Salisbury, Boetticher mustered back into the Northern Army as a captain and in 1865 became a Lieutenant Colonel. Not much of his life after the war was documented.
The print remains his legacy.
Some might think his depiction of prison life is more of a deception. But prisoner recollections support the claim that despite the animosity between them, a game of baseball was good fun for both sides.
“I have never seen more smiles today on their oblong faces,” William Crosley a Union sergeant in Company C wrote describing Confederate captors watching a match at Salisbury. “For they have been the most doleful looking set of men I ever saw.”
Play ball!
FDR Was a ‘Dying Man’ When Reelected for a Fourth Term in 1944.
By Ken Zurski
On February 7, 1951, the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution was ratified that set a two-term limit on the President of the United States. It states: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”
Until then, although a handful of past presidents had tried, none had served more than two terms, a limitation the nation’s first president George Washington had advised others to follow. But at the time, there were no restrictions. So in 1940, the nation’s 32nd president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who had served two terms, broke new ground when he ran and was re-elected to a third term in office.
It wouldn’t end there.
But the next time Roosevelt ran it would be under far more grave conditions.
Roosevelt suffered from polio which limited his mobility, but in 1944 his appearance seemed to worsen. He looked feeble and weak; his eyes were often red and swollen; and his movements were slow and calculated. The American people heard rumors and speculation about the health of the incumbent, who was vying for an unprecedented fourth term in office, but no one was quite sure how bad his heath was.
So in March of 1944, nine months before the election, the White House announced a report by Roosevelt’s personal physician at the time, the surgeon general of the U.S. Navy, Dr. Ross McIntire, that claimed the 62-year-old Roosevelt was looking “tired and haggard” due to the stress and strain of the war years and nothing more.
“In my opinion,” McIntire added, “Roosevelt is in excellent condition for a man of his age.”
Behind the scenes, there were more pressing concerns. Dr. Frank Howard Lahey, a respected surgeon known for opening a multi-specialty group practice in Boston, was brought in for a consultation. Lahey’s connection with the Navy’s consulting board is what led him to the White House.
After a careful examination, Lahey informed Roosevelt that he was in advanced stages of cardiac failure and should not seek a fourth term. He even went so far as to warn Roosevelt that if he did win reelection, he would likely die in office. Roosevelt listened but did not follow Lahey’s advice. He felt it was his duty to continue.
The voting public agreed. Roosevelt, a Democrat, beat Republican challenger Thomas Dewey in what can be considered even by today’s standard as an overwhelming victory.
The voters, however, had no idea – at least not officially – that they had elected back into office a man who was living on borrowed time.
On April 12, 1945, less than three months after being sworn in for the fourth time, Roosevelt died.
The president’s death took most Americans by surprise. That’s because shortly after Roosevelt was reelected, McIntire went public again and helped quell the public fears by proclaiming FDR was fine.
Anything worse, he implied, would be “unexpected.”
Roosevelt Dies. Death Unexpected, the headlines blared, echoing McIntire’s previous sentiments.
But an inquiring press wanted to know. As soon as Vice President Harry Truman was sworn in, questions were asked: How sick was the president? And if so, why didn’t the voting public know the truth about Roosevelt’s health?
In hindsight, Dr. Lahey’s report seemed to be the most truthful and forewarning. But information between a doctor and client is private. The White House only asked Lahey to consult the president. Whether the details were released was up to Roosevelt and his staff. Lehay himself could have spoke up, but chose to remain silent and honor the patient-doctor confidentiality agreement.
The report was concealed and only came to light six decades later.
The Out of This World Voice of Loulie Jean Norman
By Ken Zurski
Singer Loulie Jean Norman may not be a household name, but her voice is an unmistakable part of television history. More on that in a moment. First a little background.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama in 1913, Norman soon discovered a knack for singing. She was uniquely talented as a coloratura soprano, a vocal range most commonly suited for opera. Unlike counterparts like stage star Maria Callas, however, Norman took her gift to radio instead.
It was the 1930’s, and radio was just starting to emerge as an entertainment force. Norman was in her twenties at the time. Her voice and beauty were being noticed. So she moved from Birmingham to New York City to jump start her career. Modeling jobs paid the bills at first, but singing was her passion.
She eventually got bit parts in singing ensembles on several musical variety shows including one with Bing Crosby who would signal her out several times for her solo passages. Norman provided studio background vocals to hitmakers like Sam Cooke, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme and Elvis Presley. On TV, she appeared on the Dinah Shore Show, with Dean Martin, and as a back-up on Carol Burnett’s popular variety program.
“When you sang,” a colleague once told Norman, “it was the angels [voice].”
But her most influential and unaccredited contribution is truly out of this world.
In 1964, when television producer Gene Roddenberry introduced a new space serial he asked a friend Jerry Goldsmith to write the theme music. Goldsmith was too busy but enlisted fellow composer and collaborator Alexander Courage, who was said to be no fan of the science fiction genre, but drew inspiration from a song he heard on the radio titled “Beyond the Blue Horizon, ” which was featured in the 1930 movie “Monte Carlo” and sung by actress Jeannette McDonald, a soprano.
Courage wrote the theme for Star Trek the TV series.
Roddenberry heard the music and for reasons some explain were financially motivated, wrote lyrics for the tune. “Hey, I have to get some money somewhere,” Roddenberry reportedly said. “I’m sure not going to get it out of the profits of Star Trek.”
In 1999, Snopes.com confirmed there were Star Trek lyrics and debunked the theory that they (unearthed here) were ever used in the TV show’s theme.
Beyond
The rim of the star-light
My love
Is wand’ring in star-flight
I know
He’ll find in star-clustered reaches
Love,
Strange love a star woman teaches.
I know
His journey ends never
His star trek
Will go on forever.
But tell him
While he wanders his starry sea
Remember, remember me.
Courage was surprised – and perhaps, a bit offended – by Roddenberry’s lyrical contribution. He had included a voice in his recording, but no words. In the end, as Snopes reported, the lyrics were never used.
The choice of a singer was another matter. Courage picked someone similar to MacDonald, who ironically died the year the theme was written. It was Loulie Jean Norman. At the time, Norman was known for her studio work. Plus, she wasn’t a big enough star to turn down such an offer. Norman had the range Courage needed to make the tune work.
Star Trek: The Original Series ran for three seasons and 79 episodes. In the third and final year, despite a growing fan base, Roddenberry was hopelessly fighting low ratings, high production costs, and threats from the network to cancel.
He reportedly couldn’t pay Norman her royalty cut that year.
So after the second season, the theme was re-recording without the vocals.
Norman continued to do studio work, mostly backing vocals for songs like The Tokens version of The Lion Sleeps Tonight. The papers called Norman “the invisible soprano” for the work behind the scenes. “You’ve heard the voice, even if you’ve never heard the name.”
Even though fame eluded her, Norman acknowledged she would have been uncomfortable with it. “The reason why I didn’t care about being a star is because I saw what happened to stars,” she said in 1995. “I was close enough to see that they were not very happy.”
Norman died in August of 2005 at the age of 92.
Her obituary mentioned that unrecognized role.
“A voice heard around the world,” it read, “in the wordless, Star Trek theme.
UNREMEMBERED STRUCTURE: The Ford Rotunda
By Ken Zurski
In 1933, at the Chicago’s World’s Fair, among the many distinctive features that lined the city’s lakefront property was a uniquely shaped building, circular in design, with a top that resembled ”a granulated cluster of internally meshed gears.”
The Ford Rotunda, as it was called, was the brainchild of company founder Henry Ford and architect Albert Kahn, who designed the building specifically for the Ford Motor Co.’s contribution to the Fair.
The Fair’s theme was technology, which inspired the tagline: “A Century of Progress,” and since planes, trains and automobiles were a large part of the Fair’s showcase exhibits, Ford fit right in.
The 12-story Ford Rotunda had a long wing extending off the base, thousands of multi-colored exterior lights, and in the open-aired middle, a spotlight that shot skyward and could be seen for miles. Inside was the large rotunda, with moving parts and displays, including a photographic mural of a Ford plant and a 20-foot high globe.
In 1934, when the Fair closed, Ford had the building dismantled and moved to Dearborn, Michigan near the site of the Rogue plant company headquarters.
“The reconstructed rotunda is expected to relieve the congestion,” the papers noted, referencing the attendance numbers at the Fair.
On May 4, 1936, the Rotunda opened its doors again. To celebrate Ford’s 50th anniversary, in 1953, the Rotunda went through another transformation. A geodesic roof was constructed over the open center. This allowed for more varied and seasonal exhibits, including the Christmas Fantasy, which combined Ford cars with holiday-themed displays. The Christmas tree and doll displays were especially popular.
The Christmas Fantasy drew so many people that the Ford Rotunda became one of the most famous and frequented buildings in the nation. It quickly surpassed more established tourist attractions like the Statue of Liberty and the Washington Monument in the number of visitors attending each year.
That is until November 9, 1962.
On that day a kettle of hot tar used for winter sealing was left unattended and the Rotunda’s roof caught fire. Thankfully, everyone got out safely and only one worker was slightly injured. But the building didn’t stand a chance.
It was gone in less than two hours.
Ford decided not to rebuild.
The Masterfully Coordinated Order to Clear the Skies on 9/11
By Ken Zurski
In Simon Winchester’s book The Men Who United the States, the author begins a chapter titled “And Then We Looked Up,” by giving a personal account of driving up the Sierra Nevada near California’s Donner Pass and seeing nothing but the overhead blue of a mostly clear early Autumn day.
Something struck him odd, however.
“Normally there were at least a few contrails lacing the sky,” Winchester explains.
This would have been noticeable Winchester points out because of the number of transcontinental jets usually waiting to land in Oakland or San Francisco, a couple hundred miles away. But on this crisp, clear Tuesday morning. Nothing. “No contrails whatsoever,” Winchester writes.
Winchester’s observation is understandable given the date: September 11, 2001.
The skies were empty of jets, because the skies across the entire country were emptied of jets.
How that happened is the basis of Winchester’s chapter and it starts with one man in particular, Ben Sliney, the operations manager at the Air Traffic Control Systems Command Center in Virginia.
On September 11, 2001, at approximately 9:45am EDT, Sliney on his own initiative – and through the collective advice of an experienced staff – gave an order he knew well, but never thought he would ever implement: SCATANA.
SCATANA is an acronym, of course, and stands for Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids. It’s a military and legal enforcement that within its power requires all commercial aircraft to land immediately at the airport closest to where they happened to be. It also required all airports to forbid any flights from taking off. A nationwide Ground Stop, as it is more commonly called.
In essence, it cleared the skies of contrails.
Such a command is rarely ordered in a lifetime and to hear it broadcast over the radio must have given each and every pilot pause. “This is not a drill” was repeated each time the directive was announced.
This is not a drill! This is not a drill!
Within minutes the nearly 5,000 commercial flights in the air began diverting to the nearest and safest place to land. “It was obeyed, masterfully,” Winchester writes, adding, “Every pilot appeared to cooperate; none of significance appeared to balk.” The total compliance is even more impressive given the assumption that most of the pilots had no idea why the order was given.
Since it was confirmed that hijacked planes were used like bombs to attack the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon and a third plane likely destined for anther location fell from the sky over Pennsylvania, each and every aircraft was regarded as a potential threat. “A weapon of vast power that could be unleashed at any of a score of targets,” Winchester writes.
Within an hour and half after Sliney had sent the signal, every plane was down – and safely. The intent of SCATANA had been achieved. All but military fighter jets and for a time, Air Force One,remained in American skies.
This likely didn’t sit well with the plane’s passengers who were bound for areas like Oregon or New York and suddenly found themselves on the ground at Lincoln, Nebraska, or somewhere else far from their original destination. Millions were certainly inconvenienced. Once they were in sight line of a television set, however, attitudes likely changed.
Three days later, the jets were back flying again as the country tried to recover and get back to some semblance of normality.
The man at the center of it all, Ben Sliney, seemed to take his role in stride.
In the book, Winchester doesn’t get into Sliney’s life story, only the significance of his actions that day. Sliney in his 50’s at the time was a 25-year vet of the FAA and knew his stuff. He had held various positions in air traffic control supervision before becoming the operations manager for the nation’s top air traffic control hub. It was a job he had worked hard to achieve.
On Tuesday, September 11, 2001 Sliney was in his first full day at that position.
That day he gave the unprecedented order. SCATANA: This is not a drill! This is not a drill!
And the skies cleared.
The Alarming and Defining Divorce Rate of 1915
By Ken Zurski
In 1915, the United States of America held the dubious distinction of having the highest divorce rate in the world. Comparatively, by today’s standard, the rate was relatively low at 10-percent, but at the time it was considered alarming. So much so that changes were made to help save the institution of marriage.
Why 1915? The book Victorian America explains that divorces increased fifteen-fold at the start of the 20th century and in 1915 reached a peak (the first time the percentage number hit double digits). But there were other reasons why that year in particular was significant. It was perhaps the last year before the world changed in a way in which everything shifted, both socially and culturally.
A war was on overseas and 1915 began with hope that US boys could stay out of the fray in Europe. Attitudes changed however in May of that year when the British ocean liner Lusitania was befallen by a German U-boat torpedo. Americans were among the victims. President Wilson heard the war cries, but still waited. In April 1917, as more American merchant ships were taken out by the Germans, he commissioned Congress to declare war.
Although the US was only in the “war to end all wars” a short time, it still had a significant impact on the nation’s sensibilities. The women’s rights movement had been underway for more than decade but gained footing after the war. Women found a role and acceptance by replacing enlisted men in manufacturing jobs and working in munitions factories. This only emboldened their resolve. In 1919, the 19th amendment was passed giving women the right to vote.
The Roaring 20’s was next.
So one can argue that 1915 was the last conventional year before America and the world changed as a whole. For statisticians, it’s also a good spot in the historical timeline to make a point. And so that year, 1915, according to statistics, was the year more marriages began ending in divorce. It keep going up from there.
So why? Well that’s tricky and more difficult to pinpoint. Until then, getting a divorce was a process, often embarrassing and difficult for women who were dependent on a man to leave.
Getting married, however, now that was easy.
Men’s attitude especially towards sex usually led them to ask for their ladies hand in marriage sooner than later. “The moment you taste the happiness of the marriage union, you will curse yourself a fool, that you lived so long without it,” one frisky male suitor wrote to another in the late 1800’s. He wasn’t talking about chess pie.
It’s not that couples weren’t having premarital sex, but negative sentiments by more morally conscious women were hard to change and oftentimes carried down through generations. In many instances, out of necessity, women married men they did not love or find attractive. Some women abstained from sex due to fear. Once married, the desire was even less.
So just as quickly as marriages began, the physical relationship was strained. This led to more drinking and straying. So divorce became a tool that was fueled both by the liberation of women as much as it was the chauvinism of men.
According to Victorian America in 1915, “one out of every seven marriages ended in divorce in the nation at large.” And in some larger cities like San Francisco, one in four.
To counter this disturbing trend, marriage legislation was passed that raised the age of consent and called for stricter requirements to prohibit certain types of common-law, polygamous, even interracial marriages. Many states also strengthened rules for divorce by requiring longer stay of residence before petitioning for divorce and stricter guidelines by which a couple could legally be granted one. In most cases something criminal or abusive needed to be proven. Only two states, New Mexico and Oklahoma, allowed a divorce simply on the grounds of incompatibility.
In addition, separate courts were established to help families cope with problems that often led to a rift in marriage, including unfaithfulness, desertion, spousal or child abuse and alcoholism.
All this seemed to help keep marriages together, but due to the number of immigrants flooding the country and the increase in population, marriages in general increased and the number of divorces nationally remained high.
Today, due to the addition of annulments, property divisions and child custody laws, the divorce rate hovers around or just below 50-percent.
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