Daily Archives: January 9, 2021

Today in History

Today is Saturday, Jan. 9, the ninth day of 2021. There are 356 days left in the year.

Todays Highlight in History:

On Jan. 9, 2020, Chinese state media said a preliminary investigation into recent cases of viral pneumonia had identified the probable cause as a new type of coronavirus.

On this date:

In 1788, Connecticut became the fifth state to ratify the U.S. Constitution.

In 1793, Frenchman Jean Pierre Blanchard, using a hot-air balloon, flew from Philadelphia to Woodbury, New Jersey.

In 1861, Mississippi became the second state to secede from the Union, the same day the Star of the West, a merchant vessel bringing reinforcements and supplies to Federal troops at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, retreated because of artillery fire.

In 1913, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th president of the United States, was born in Yorba Linda, California.

In 1916, the World War I Battle of Gallipoli ended after eight months with an Ottoman Empire victory as Allied forces withdrew.

In 1945, during World War II, American forces began landing on the shores of Lingayen Gulf in the Philippines as the Battle of Luzon got underway, resulting in an Allied victory over Imperial Japanese forces.

In 1951, the United Nations headquarters in New York officially opened.

In 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in his State of the Union address to Congress, warned of the threat of Communist imperialism.

In 1987, the White House released a January 1986 memorandum prepared for President Ronald Reagan by Lt. Col. Oliver L. North showing a link between U.S. arms sales to Iran and the release of American hostages in Lebanon.

In 2003, U.N. weapons inspectors said there was no smoking gun to prove Iraq had nuclear, chemical or biological weapons but they demanded that Baghdad provide private access to scientists and fresh evidence to back its claim that it had destroyed its weapons of mass destruction.

In 2009, the Illinois House voted 114-1 to impeach Gov. Rod Blagojevich (blah-GOY-uh-vich), who defiantly insisted again that he had committed no crime. (The Illinois Senate unanimously voted to remove Blagojevich from office 20 days later.)

In 2015, French security forces shot and killed two al-Qaida-linked brothers suspected of carrying the rampage at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that had claimed 12 lives, the same day a gunman killed four people at a Paris kosher grocery store before being killed by police.

Ten years ago: Federal prosecutors brought charges against Jared Loughner, the man accused of attempting to assassinate Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., and killing six people at a political event in Tucson the day before. British movie director Peter Yates, who sent actor Steve McQueen screeching through the streets of San Francisco in a Ford Mustang in Bullitt, died in London at age 81.

Five years ago: French Jewish leaders and the nations prime minister, Manuel Valls, held a memorial ceremony for four people killed in a kosher market a year earlier by an attacker claiming ties to the Islamic State group. Actor Angus Scrimm, 89, the Tall Man in the Phantasm horror films, died in Tarzana, California.

One year ago: The Democratic-controlled House approved a resolution asserting that President Donald Trump must seek approval from Congress before engaging in further military action against Iran. At his first campaign rally of 2020, Trump told an Ohio crowd that he had served up American justice by ordering a drone strike to take out Irans top general.

Todays Birthdays: Actor K. Callan is 85. Folk singer Joan Baez is 80. Rock musician Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) is 77. Actor John Doman is 76. Singer David Johansen (aka Buster Poindexter) is 71. Singer Crystal Gayle is 70. Actor J.K. Simmons is 66. Actor Imelda Staunton is 65. Nobel Peace laureate Rigoberta Mench is 62. Rock musician Eric Erlandson is 58. Actor Joely Richardson is 56. Rock musician Carl Bell (Fuel) is 54. Actor David Costabile is 54. Rock singer Steve Harwell (Smash Mouth) is 54. Rock singer-musician Dave Matthews is 54. Actor-director Joey Lauren Adams is 53. Comedian/actor Deon Cole is 50. Actor Angela Bettis is 48. Actor Omari Hardwick is 47. Roots singer-songwriter Hayes Carll is 45. Singer A.J. McLean (Backstreet Boys) is 43. Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, is 39. Pop-rock musician Drew Brown (OneRepublic) is 37. Rock-soul singer Paolo Nutini is 34. Actor Nina Dobrev is 32. Actor Basil Eidenbenz is 28. Actor Kerris Dorsey is 23. Actor Tyree Brown is 17.

By The Associated Press

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Today in History - MyMotherLode.com

WHEN PRESIDENT-ELECT Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden move into the White House on January 20, what wines will they serve? Will they stick with the tried-and-true picks of their predecessors or select something more daringa sparkling wine from Texas or Vermont perhaps?

As Frederick J. Ryan, Jr., recounts in Wine and the White House: A History, some American presidents were more fond of the grape than others, but they all recognized wines important political role.

Although it was published last fall, Mr. Ryans 456-page opus seems even more relevant now as current White House staffers prepare to hand their successors the keys to the cellar. Until reading this book, Id never given much thought to the selection and service of wines by presidents and their staffersin fact, Id never given much thought to certain presidents, such as James Buchanan and Rutherford B. Hayes, at all. But thanks to Mr. Ryan I learned that the former liked wine so much he eventually drank himself into gout, while the latter liked wine so little he had to be all but forced to pull some corks. (His teetotaler wife was nicknamed Lemonade Lucy.)

President Harry S. Truman was apparently just as stingy with the juice. He served, its noted, a single glass of Champagne to guests before dinners, while during the meal the process of refilling the empty wineglasses was deliberately slow.

Wine is an excellent prism through which to consider past presidents and their accomplishments or misdeeds (or both). Take, for example, Richard M. Nixon. While the 37th president may have resigned in disgrace, he is also responsible for putting Schramsberg, the Napa Valley sparkling-wine producer, on the map when he served a 1969 Schramsberg Blanc de Blancs to Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in 1972 in a toast to the breakthrough in American-Chinese relations.

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Presidential Pours: A History of Wine in the White House - The Wall Street Journal

"When I think about the arc of our history, what Georgia did (on Tuesday) is its own message in the midst of a moment in which so many people are trying to divide our country, at a time we can least afford to be divided," Warnock told CNN's John Berman on Wednesday morning on "New Day," even before the assault on the US Capitol and multiracial democracy.

Warnock, who will be Georgia's first Black senator and the first Black Democrat to represent a Southern state in the Senate, has been the senior pastor of Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church since 2005.

More specifically, the senator-elect is the senior pastor of the same church where Martin Luther King Jr., arguably the most well-known face and voice of the civil rights movement, preached from 1960 until his assassination in 1968.

Since King's death, Ebenezer -- beloved as "America's Freedom Church" -- has retained its centrality in the fight for racial equality.

In addition, Ebenezer served as a kind of refuge following the shooting at the "Mother Emanuel" African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015.

Not to be ignored: the fact that Ossoff's triumph will make him Georgia's first Jewish senator.

That a Black man and a Jewish man, both from the Deep South, are about to go to Washington as senators recalls a similar alliance from the civil rights era.

Consider that historians estimate that up to half of the White students who participated in Freedom Summer -- the 1964 campaign to ramp up the number of registered Black voters in Mississippi -- were Jewish.

It was this particular kinship that Warnock echoed on Wednesday morning, as he fit himself and Ossoff into history.

"We now represent the state of Georgia. I think Abraham Joshua Heschel -- the rabbi who said when he marched with Dr. King, he felt like his legs were praying -- I think he and Dr. King are smiling in this moment," Warnock told CNN. "We hope to make them proud."

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How Warnock and Ossoff's victories evoked the history of the Black freedom struggle - CNN

The 2020-21 professional hockey season has already gone down in the history books for a number of reasons but thanks to the AHLs Toronto Marlies, at least one of those reasons will be a good thing.

The Marlies announced on Friday morning that they had hired former Womens Team Canada U18 equipment manager Steph Klein, who will become the first female equipment manager in mens North American pro hockey.

A native of Canada, Klein worked with the University of Waterloo as an equipment manager from 2011-2017, when she made the jump to China to work with the Vanke Rays in womens hockey. Since then, shes been working with Chinas National womens team at both the U18 and adult levels, and she already made history earlier this season when she became the first woman to work on the bench of a KHL game for Kunlun Red Star.

Now, shell get a chance to take the expertise that has cemented her so firmly in the hockey community overseas and show off what shes capable of for one of the most highly-followed minor league franchises.

Speaking of people getting a chance to show off what theyre capable of the CHLs Western Hockey League has confirmed that theyll do everything possible to honor a commitment to playing a season this year.

High level junior hockey, particularly in Canada, has taken a massive blow this year as the ongoing covid-19 pandemic has forced teams to delay or cancel their seasons out of safety concerns.

The Western Hockey League is committed to providing a season for WHL players, commented WHL Commissioner Ron Robison, per the leagues official release. This commitment ensures WHL players will receive the opportunity to compete at the highest level in the system and continue to pursue their hockey goals in the worlds finest development league for junior hockey players.

This likely closes the door for Bowen Byram to get an exception to play in the AHL this season.

Often we forget that sports are supposed to be fun. Thats something Chorley FC is helping to remind everyone this morning. On Saturday, the sixth-tier professional team defeated Derby - a team that is four divisions above them - in their FA Cup knockout match. The post-game celebration was something special. There was nothing other than pure and utter joy coming out of that locker room. Maybe a new win song for the Avs?

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Morning Flurries: WHL announcement and the Toronto Marlies make history - Mile High Hockey

It was on January 9, 1977 at 7:30am that Barron County Undersheriff Jerry Johnson reported a temperature of -60 degrees at his home on the north side of Cameron. It is known as the unofficial coldest temperature recorded anywhere in the state of Wisconsin. That's according to several articles from the Rice Lake Chronotype, including one from 2017 written by Dave Greschner.

That -60 degree temp is not considered official because it didn't pass the National Weather Service's strict guidelines on quality control. The other confirmed reports from the area were much 'warmer', closer to -40 and as cold as -50 further north near Stone Lake, which is about 15 miles east of Spooner. There were other local reports reported by Rice Lake Chronotype in the flat area east of Cameron in the Canton area of temperatures between -50 and -60, but there were only a handful of these reports.

Another issue according to the Rice Lake Chronotype was that the official thermometer at the old Rice Lake Airport near Moon Lake froze and broke. Greschner reported in 2017 that the airport manager in charge of relaying the weather conditions to the NWS, Carl Rindlisbacher, had no choice but to report -44 degrees as it was the last reading before the thermometer broke. Even though he wanted to believe the Undersheriff's report of -60, the official rules of reporting meant he had to report the low temperature as the lowest that he saw, which was -44.

Still, stories from that day show that the temperature was much colder than a "normal" burst of extremely cold arctic temperatures as there were reports of furnace oil gelling up, tires frozen with flat spots from where they were parked and riding bouncy as a result. That was, of course, for the cars that even managed to start.

Other temperature reports from that day in the map below are provided from the Twin Cities NWS office. It shows a low of -39 in Eau Claire, -44 near Amery, and other reports between -35 and -50 in northwestern Wisconsin.

The official record coldest temperature in the state of Wisconsin is -55 from 7 miles west of Couderay on February 4, 1996. While that's the official record, those that lived near Rice Lake and Cameron on January 9, 1977 will know what they lived through, and it's very real to them.

As for this meteorologist, I do believe the reading on Undersheriff Johnson's thermometer of -60. I'd like to run some tests and/or do some more research on some of those stories. I'd like to figure out what temperature would cause a tire of the 1970s to freeze in a flattened shape and the freeze point of the specific blend of heating oil used in that era. Maybe that'll be a good story to work on for next year on the 45th anniversary of this frigid, frigid day in history.

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On this date in history: -60 temperature reported in Cameron, WI - WQOW TV News 18

Written by Amber Nicole Alston, CNN

Few accessories have lived as complicated a life as the headscarf. The versatile fabric has been chosen by and impressed upon people for political, religious and practical purposes for centuries. It has been favored by revolutionaries and royalty alike. It can be either conservative or rebellious. Beyond its utilitarian origins as a source of protection from the elements, the headscarf remains at the center of contentious debate about women's rights, identity, power and class.

In recent history, conversations about the headscarf have often centered on its use in Islam and the prejudice Muslim women have faced.

In 2013, Nazma Khan founded World Hijab Day -- a day for both Muslim and non-Muslim women to experience wearing a headscarf. Celebrated on February 1, the initiative began in response to the bullying Khan, originally from Bangladesh, experienced growing up in the Bronx, New York. "In middle school, I was 'Batman' or 'ninja.' When I entered university after 9/11, I was called Osama bin laden or terrorist. It was awful," reads a statement on the World Hijab Day's website. "I figured the only way to end discrimination is if we ask our fellow sisters to experience hijab themselves."

German boxer Zeina Nassar has fought to wear the hijab in the ring. Credit: Tobias Schwarz/AFP/Getty Images

Throughout history, the headscarf has sat atop the heads of culture defining women -- and men -- from monarchs including Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II to the daring flappers of the 1920s. Ranging from patterned prints to luxe fabrics to simple sheaths, the fashion item is wrapped in centuries of interpretation.

"There's a reason why the (head)scarf has transcended time," said Lynn Roberts, vice president of advertising and public relations at fashion outfitter Echo Design Group, over the phone from New York City. "When you're wearing one, people pay attention."

Actress Elizabeth Taylor considered the headscarf a key piece for a woman's wardrobe. Credit: Stan Meagher/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The order of the day

The headscarf was born out of necessity, with wearers across Mesopotamian societies using linens to safeguard their heads from the rain and sun, as well as aid in sanitation.

Head coverings were first written into law around 13th Century BC, in an ancient Assyrian text that mandated that women, daughters and widows cover their heads as a sign of piety. Headscarves were forbidden to women of the lower classes and prostitutes. The consequences of wearing the scarf illegally were public humiliation or arrest.

"There is this underlying idea of having your head covered as a way of symbolizing being a respectable person," said fashion and textile historian Nancy Deihl of New York University in a phone interview. "The headscarf helps to control that."

The headscarf was popularized in the religions that emerged from the region, with early Christians and Jews covering their hair with veils according to their sacred texts.

A Greek Orthodox Christian woman attends Friday mass service in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Palestine, wearing a lace veil. Credit: Marco Di Lauro/Getty Images

"It is disgraceful for a wife to cut off her hair or shave her head, let her cover her head," reads 1 Corinthians 11:6-7 of the Bible. "For a man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but woman is the glory of man."

Conservative groups uphold the traditions, from Catholic nuns who wear the habit, to married Orthodox Jewish women who don the tichel (a type of headscarf) or sheitel (a wig). In Islam, the Quran's verses about modesty have been interpreted in different ways, with some regarding head covering as obligatory and others as a choice. Political systems, geography and ethnicity also play a crucial role in how and if women choose to cover their heads.

Orthodox Jewish women visit the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in 2012. Credit: Menahem Kahana/AFP/Getty Images

"In Saudi Arabia, for example covering was common for women before Islam," said Faegheh Shirazi, author of "The Veil Unveiled: The Hijab in Modern Culture." They were already covering as more of a practical answer to the harsh climate and intense heat."

A tool for resistance

In 1786, Louisiana legislators enacted the Tignon Laws, requiring Black and mixed-race women to wrap their heads in cloth.

"The law shows that there was a lot of anxiety around Black people styling their bodies. In reality, Black and mixed women had already been wrapping their hair as a marker of an identity separate from the mainstream," said Jonathan Michael Square, a scholar of fashion and visual culture in the African diaspora at Harvard University.

Several countries, including France, Germany and Austria, have limited women from wearing full-face coverings such as the niqab and burka in public spaces. Credit: Abdul Majeed/AFP/Getty Images

A Fashion fixture

As early as the 1910s French fashion houses were dreaming up designs that included colorful, embellished scarves on the head. Fashion plates for designs by French couturier Paul Poiret show headscarves in bold patterns, sometimes affixed with a centered jewel.

Madame Denise Poiret, wife of French fashion Designer Paul Poiret. Credit: AP

Following the Women's Suffrage movement, women began enjoying more freedom in their lifestyles and their fashion. They donned bobbed hairdos, participated in sports and fitness, and covered their hair while riding in new convertible automobiles, according to fashion historian Sarah C. Byrd. Hollywood starlets including Anna Mae Wong and Evelyn Brent were captured on and off the screen with sophisticated silk wraps or more bohemian scarves that were worn wide across their foreheads.

Silent film actress Anna May Wong was known for her taste in headscarves. Credit: Sasha/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Herms debuted its first scarf in 1937, with an elaborate woodblock design on imported Chinese silk. The item became a fixture in high society, worn by Queen Elizabeth II of England, American First Lady Jacqueline Lee Kennedy Onassis and Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco, the last of whom once famously used her Herms scarf to fashionably sling her injured arm.

World War II saw the return of the utilitarian headscarf, as women in the UK and US took up jobs in factories as men went off to fight.

"In Britain in particular, scarves were useful on two levels: promoting propaganda and moral messages, as well as helping women comply with the demands of working in a factory," said Deihl. "It embodied putting a good face forward and remaining appropriate despite being in the midst of war."

During World War II, the headscarf returned to its utilitarian origins as women took up new postings in factories. Credit: AP

In the 1960s, the headscarf became a go-to among political counterculture and experimental fashion movements, from geometric Mod styles to agragrian bohemian looks.

"In mainstream culture, some women wore them to protect their hairstyles -- think big bouffants or straightened, styles that took some time to do," explained Byrd. "For hippies, these could be simple printed cotton or more decorative imported textiles."

By the late '90s, headscarves were closely associated with hip hop and R&B. The paisley print bandana, long associated with urban gangs and cowboy culture, received a softer update with chart-toppers including Aaliyah, Jennifer Lopez and Destiny's Child sporting embellished versions in music videos and on red carpets.

In recent years, the headscarf has been part of a resurgence of '90s trends. Fashion houses including Louis Vuitton and Jacquemus have debuted head coverings with modern takes on classic patterns. Celebrities including Rihanna, Bella Hadid and Hailey Baldwin are fans of the style.

Jennifer Lopez famously wore a white bandana at the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000. Credit: George De Sota/Liaison/Getty Images

Headscarves have remained a staple because of their versatility and cultural longevity. When women cover their hair, they are continuing a centuries-long tradition with a polarizing history of strife, style and sensation.

"Hair wrapping has stood the test of time for a reason, because it works," said Maria Sotiriou, the founder of UK brand Silke London. "To call it a resurgence would be to say it was lost at some point -- instead I think there is now, more than ever, a sharing of knowledge between cultures."

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A brief history of the headscarf - CNN

A broken window in the aftermath of the pro-Trump violence at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 7, 2021.

Photo: Sputnik via AP Images

I am intimately familiar with violence, the kind that destroys everything, including your country. The kind of violencestemming from nationalist rhetoric that powerful people push in order to cling to power.

I was born in Bosnia when it was still a republic in Yugoslavia, and as a child in Sarajevo, I experienced the war that began in the early 1990s. When Donald Trump got elected, I tried to warn anyone who would listen about the dangers of nationalism. In response to my concerns, I heard that America is not the Balkans, that I was being excessively apocalyptic.

Yet as Trumps supporters chaoticallystormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, people suddenly turned to the Balkans. The scenes of violence in Washington D.C. reminded them of Yugoslavia, or the Balkans, or Bosnia, and occasionally the Middle East too. Anywhere but the United States. To these people, it was clear that the violence expressed by the rioters was not American, that it was a foreign phenomenon. Political violence is considered to be backwards, so its only natural to compare what happened to places we already considered as backwards: the Third World filled with its savagery.

I come from one of those places. I saw the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic instigate the ethno-nationalism that would lead to genocide in Bosnia, where many of my own family members would be killed. These past four years, Ive also seen it in Trump, as his desperate attempts to cling to power resulted in the further antagonization of the already marginalized. But I saw it prior to Trumps reign too, as a Muslim refugee who settled in the United States in the post-9/11 world.

Those of us who work in genocide education do so not out of a sense of catharsis but rather in an attempt to show to others, particularly those in the West who have led relatively safe and secure lives, that what happened to Bosnians in the 1990s or to the Jewish people in the 1940s can happen anywhere.

Yet I have come to realize that despite the scenes at the Capitol and all the violence that has broken out in this past year, with Trump supporting white nationalist militias, many Americans still truly believe that the kind of violence experienced by the other will somehow escape them. American exceptionalism, even when its falling apart right in front of your eyes, somehow remains prevalent.

What happened to Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s started with the rise of Serbian ultra-nationalism, and because it went unchecked, it deluged the country. The genocide did not happen suddenly, as genocides never do. Acts of violence, particularly the kind that are fueled by the rise of the far right and fascism, do not occur in a vacuum. It starts slow, but it explodes quickly. It can happen anywhere, and it can absolutely happen to anyone, including Americans. It is beyond time to shatter the sense of American exceptionalism.

History exists to teach us the lessons we sometimes wish to ignore. That is why its important for academics and journalists to draw parallels between far-right leaders who have incited violence, such as Trump and Milosevic. Nonetheless, where there are comparisons, there will be differences too. Trump is not an outlier in the United States but rather its strongest reflection of the flaws within.

A Bosnian woman and her mother mourn by the grave of their loved one at the cemetery for victims of the Srebrenica genocide in Potocari, Bosnia-Herzegovina, on July 11, 2020.

Photo: Damir Sagolj/Getty Images

America, just like myself, is intimately familiar with violence. Whether or not it chooses to accept this truth, violence is a part of this nations fabric. This is a country that justa century ago massacred Black civilians anddestroyed their homes in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Less than 55 years ago, this country was a place where segregation was law. We can reach back further too. Indeed, if you search for American violence on Google, you will get a Wikipedia page that includes an extensive list of incidents of civil unrest, far more than you will find in the Balkans.

I worry for America and that in its hopeless idealism to retain its exceptionalism, it will continue to ignore and deflect the issues that have plagued it for generations now.

It is easy to turn to the Balkans and convince yourselves that nationalist violence is a foreign concept that will not touch you. The violence we saw this past summer and the pandemonium of this weeks events show very clearly that no, America is not the Balkans. America is America, with its own brand of violence that stems from its own history, which is very much rooted in brutality, and the exceptionalism that allows most Americans to ignore the brutality.

This exceptionalism, which allows many Americans to convince themselves that national breakdown takes place in foreign lands only, will undoubtedly have grave consequences. If it continues, Americans will not be prepared to deal with the inevitable rise and power of fascism. As someone who saw firsthand what ignoring nationalism does to a people and a country and the horrors it leads to, I implore those who choose to believe in American exceptionalism: Confront the horrors of this countrys past. Only then will you have a standing chance of beating thetide of rising fascism.

Read more from the original source:

America Is Not Exceptional. It Has a History of Violence. - The Intercept