Daily Archives: July 23, 2021

Founded in 1921, the Chinese Communist Party has ruled the country since the Communist takeover in 1949, moving between harder and softer forms of authoritarianism. Today, in many ways, Chinese people live in the harshest climate since Maos death, as President Xi Jinping has cracked down on dissent, forced more than a million Uyghur people and other Muslim minorities into concentration camps in western China, and stripped Hong Kong of its autonomy. In a new book, From Rebel to Ruler: One Hundred Years of the Chinese Communist Party, Tony Saich, a professor of international affairs at Harvards Kennedy School of Government and a longtime China scholar, considers these developments in light of the history of the C.C.P. How, Saich wonders, did it transition from a revolutionary party to a ruling party, and what has allowed it to reach its current state under Xi?

I recently spoke by phone with Saich, who is also the director of the Kennedy Schools Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed the C.C.P.s complicated relationship to Marxism, why Xi Jinping embarked on a more authoritarian path for his country, and what the U.S.-China relationship may look like going forward.

You ask in the book, What holds the party together? and continue, A former secretary of Mao Zedong once told me that a communist party needs only two departments: organization and propaganda. Can you explain why that is and why those two departments have been so crucial to the success of the C.C.P.?

I think one of the strengths of the Communist Party when it has been functioning well is that its been a strong, unified, and coherent organization. That is certainly what Xi Jinping sees as a core element to drive forward his agenda and his policies, and that plays out through a number of ways. One, of course, is his control over key appointments and making sure those in important leadership positions are faithful to the current leadership. It is also underpinned by the coherent narrative that holds the Party and what are now ninety million Party members together, so that, in public at least, they can all tell the same story. That is run through its propaganda apparatus and through a whole network of Party schools, publications, and television programs which puts forward the Communist Party and all that is good about China and portrays different aspects of its history. Of course, the one thing that that person left off is the coercive apparatus. If you fall outside the realms of permissible, there is a strong coercive apparatus that will come down on you harshly.

What made you want to focus specifically on the C.C.P. in this book?

The Party is always there, but you cant always see it. And yet, citizens always know that there is a limit to what they can do that is bound by whatever the Party is deciding at a particular time. It is obviously the core institution in China at a political level. Even though there are a number of other political parties, theyre irrelevant in any genuine sense. So if you want to understand China, you need to understand the Party and its relationships with different aspects of society and the system.

And then looking at a trajectory of one hundred years, what in a way has been constant, and what has changed over that period of time? The first thing to know is that from its very founding, the leaders or the participants of that first Party Congress wanted to create a global order that would be more favorable to Chinas interest. Now, at that time, of course, it was being part of a global proletarian revolutiontheyll get rid of the rapacious landlords, kick out the capitalists, and get rid of the foreigners. In the nineteen-sixties, under Mao, it was promoting, again, proletarian revolution, supporting Maoist parties that were seeking to overthrow the state. Today, I think the same agenda is there, to shake the global ordernot necessarily overthrow it anymore but to shape it to benefit better Chinas interests.

Then the second thing to understand is ambivalence about the role of the private sector in the economy. Whereas the founders of the Party wanted to get rid of it entirely, the Partys been forced to embrace it in one way or another. The last thing, and this goes back to adaptability and flexibility, is that the Party has been successful by allowing localities to adapt central directives, to apply them in a way to their own particular circumstances.

In the book you call that micropolitics.

Yes, and I think thats what has been one of the key saving graces. And where the Party has been unsuccessful has been where ideological dictates have driven activities throughout the system, mostly before 1949 but also in obvious cases, such as the Great Leap Forward in the Cultural Revolution. We often have this sense that because its a communist party, because its a Leninist party, whatever Beijing says must go. The reality on the ground is much more complex than that. One of the classic phrases is The mountains are high and the emperor is far away. Another phrase that local officials often use is They have their policies and we have our countermeasures. And a lot of people, ordinary people and officials both, even in Beijing and Shanghai, I thinkonce the new regulation comes in, often their first reaction is O.K., how do we get around this?

Is the central party O.K. with this because they think its good? Or do they just know theres not too much they can do about it, and so they accept it?

Part of it is the latter. That they know they cant exert complete control over it, but different leaders have taken different approaches to this question. I think under Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, there was a sort of tacit acknowledgement that there had to be those escape valves and ways in which localities could take central directives and bend them to their own interests, as long as certain core things were not confronted directly. The C.C.P. makes it clear that there are certain key policies that you have to abide by. But I think its different under Xi Jinping. I think when he took power, in 2012, he looked around and thought it looked a mess. Corruption was growing in China. Society seemed to be pursuing its own interestslocal government seemed to be pursuing their own interests. And I think Xi and those around him thought that the only way to keep this train on the tracks was to reassert their centralized control and strengthen and boost and fortify and discipline the Party to push his policies forward.

You used the phrase Leninist in this conversation, and you use it in the book, too. My understanding is that youre using it not to talk about doctrinaire Marxism but the idea of a centralized decision-making apparatus. Is that correct?

Yes, thats correct. Im not talking about it as an ideological construct. Its an organizational structure, and some people use the phrase market Leninism to describe what you see in China today. I think thats an interesting description, because it means that there has to be a strong organized hierarchy at the core dictating policy and the political process. So even though much of Marxism is gone in terms of daily life and daily practice, the idea of the Leninist party has remained to the present day.

You write in the book, and here maybe youre using Leninism slightly differently, As belief in Marxism-Leninism declines as a source of its legitimacy, the CCP loses its power to explain development by relying on its supernatural ability to divine current and future trends. Instead, better-informed citizens begin to judge performance on more earthly criteria. Two key areas are managing the environment and the economy. So you are saying that Marxism really did matter to the Party for a long time and its loss means something.

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Reconsidering the History of the Chinese Communist Party - The New Yorker

CHARLESTON The following events happened on these dates in West Virginia history. To read more, go to e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia at http://www.wvencyclopedia.org.

July 25, 1864: A colony of eight Catholic nuns set out from Washington, D.C., and Frederick, Maryland, for Parkersburg. The sisters, who created a monastery there and named it DeSales Heights, ran a boarding school for young women for 75 years.

July 26, 1942: Camp Washington-Carver was dedicated and opened to the public. The camp, located at Clifftop, Fayette County, was the first 4-H camp for African-Americans in the country. The camps great chestnut lodge is the largest log structure in West Virginia.

July 27, 1896: Clark Kessinger was born near Charleston. He was among the most prolific and influential fiddlers of the 20th century, and one of West Virginias most important traditional musicians.

July 27, 1909: Coach Dyke Raese was born in Davis. He directed West Virginia University to its first major sports national championship, winning the 1942 National Invitation Tournament in basketball.

July 28, 1915: Frankie Yankovic was born in Davis, Tucker County. Yankovic did more to popularize polka music than any other performer.

July 29, 1873: Malcolm Malachi Mack Day was born. As sheriff of McDowell County, he claimed that God had called him to enforce Prohibition, even arresting an uncle and his own son.

July 29-31, 1915: Camp Good Luck, believed to be the worlds first 4-H club encampment, was held at Elkwater in southern Randolph County.

July 29, 1918: Novelist Mary Lee Settle was born in Charleston. Her literary reputation rests on the Beulah Quintet, a sequence of five historical novels spanning four centuries.

July 30, 1973: The Frederick Hotel in downtown Huntington closed to transient trade. After it was built in 1905, it was touted as the most elegant hotel between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

July 31, 1932: Actor Theodore Crawford Ted Cassidy was born in Pittsburgh but was raised in Philippi. He was best known for his role as Lurch on The Addams Family.

e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia is a project of the West Virginia Humanities Council. For more information, contact the West Virginia Humanities Council, 1310 Kanawha Blvd. E., Charleston, WV 25301; (304) 346-8500; or visit e-WV at http://www.wvencyclopedia.org.

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This week in history | | journal-news.net - Martinsburg Journal

It's a story they might recall in side-by-side rocking chairs 60 years from now. No matter the twists and turns ahead of them, there won't be many nights like Wednesday night for Amanda Chidester and Anissa Urtez, who were engaged to be married last fall.

With chants of "Chiddy Chiddy Bang Bang" drowning out the cicadas in Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium and with U.S. softball players pressing to get their bats going at the Tokyo Olympics, Chidester knocked a two-out single to right on a 1-2 pitch to score Haylie McCleney in the fifth inning of Team USA's 1-0 win over Canada.

It was all starter Monica Abbott would need. She pitched a complete-game one-hitter and struck out nine.

"Monica gave our offense confidence throughout the game by keeping Canada off the board," Chidester said. "She gave us a little bit more time to get our bats going."

Hours later, Urtez one-upped her fiance. The former standout at the University of Utah hit the first home run in Mexico softball history -- off none other than Japanese legend Yukiko Ueno.

And if that weren't enough, Urtez chased Ueno with an RBI single in the seventh that tied the game 2-2 and sent it into extra innings. Japan, however, would go on to score in the eighth to improve to 2-0.

"I can't wait for this beautiful journey together," Urtez wrote on Instagram in November when announcing her engagement to Chidester.

The journey continues Saturday (1:30 a.m. ET), when their paths will cross at Yokohama Baseball Stadium. Chidester and Urtez will be on opposite sides when Team USA (2-0) takes on Mexico (0-2) as round-robin play continues.

Read more:

Olympic softball -- Team USA's RBI and Mexico's first home run in history -- from one power couple! - ESPN

Below is a press release from the Mississippi Department of Archives & History:

On July 14, 2021, Timothy B. Smith presented "Notes on the Siege of Vicksburg" as part of the History Is Lunch series.

Smith is the author of the new book The Siege of Vicksburg: Climax of the Campaign to Open the Mississippi River, May 23July 4, 1863. That work draws on such primary documents as Union and Confederate official reports, soldiers diaries and letters, and newspaper accounts to produce a narrative of the operations including combat experiences of the soldiers in the trenches. The siege was unlike anything Grants Army of the Tennessee had attempted to that point; the strategy and tactics were complex, the engineers work brilliant, the day-to-day participation grueling, said Smith. I wanted to show the effect on all involved, from townspeople to the soldiers manning the fortifications.

The Siege of Vicksburg portrays a high-stakes moment in the course of the Civil War because both sides understood that the fate of the Mississippi River, the trans-Mississippi region, and perhaps the Confederacy itself were at stake. Smiths detailed command-level analysis extends from army to corps, brigades, and regiments and offers fresh insights on where each side held an advantage.

One key advantage was that the Federals had vast confidence in their commander while the Confederates showed no such assurance, whether it was Pemberton inside Vicksburg or Johnston outside, said Smith.

Retired Vicksburg National Military Park historian Terrence J. Winschel said Smiths talented pen details the siege with intimacy and clarity, and he chronicles the complex operations through the personal experiences of the men in blue and gray in a manner that is sure to captivate the reader. His work is smooth, comprehensive, insightful, and written with a passion that makes it a delight to read.

Timothy B. Smith is a veteran of the National Park Service and currently teaches history at the University of Tennessee at Martin. He earned his PhD from Mississippi State University in 2001 and is the author, editor, or co-editor of nineteen books, including The Union Assaults at Vicksburg: Grant Attacks Pemberton, May 1722, 1863; Champion Hill: Decisive Battle for Vicksburg; and Corinth 1862: Siege, Battle, Occupation.

History Is Lunch is sponsored by the John and Lucy Shackelford Charitable Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi. The weekly lecture series of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History explores different aspects of the state's past. The hour-long programs are held in the Craig H. Neilsen Auditorium of the Museum of Mississippi History and Mississippi Civil Rights Museum building at 222 North Street in Jackson.

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History Is Lunch: Timothy B. Smith, "Notes on the Siege of Vicksburg" - Scott County Times

Donors continue to bring nothing but good news to the University of California, Davis, setting giving records to achieve greater impact during a challenging and tragic year. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the university raised a historic amount in the last fiscal year: a record $269.4 million from 36,016 donors, with an all-time high of 63,650 gifts and pledges.

Our record-breaking fundraising year positions us to build a stronger, greater, more just university, Chancellor Gary S. May said. Thanks to our generous supporters and our resilient community, were one step closer to making the world a better place for all.

UC Davis has raised more than $1.3 billion from 102,156 donors during its current comprehensive campaign, and is ahead of schedule to reach the $2 billion goal. Expect Greater: From UC Davis, for the World is advancing workto prepare future leaders, sustain healthier communities and bring innovative solutions to today's most urgent challenges.

UC Davis Health led the 2020-21 fiscal year giving totals across the university, raising a record $71.4 million. Among the many gifts, a $4 million commitment from entrepreneur and philanthropist Daryl Geweke will establish two Daryl and Opal Geweke Endowed Chairs for Glaucoma one for research and one for care at the UC Davis Health Eye Center.

The Davis campuss top fundraisers include the School of Veterinary Medicine at $36.9 million, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at $30.4 million and College of Engineering at $20.2 million.The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art had its best fundraising year in history at $7 million.

One notable area of giving was to emergency relief. While the pandemic continues to burden the world, 2,234 donors have supported such funding at UC Davis, which now stands at $345,614. These funds help UC Davis Health experts set the standard for advanced research, testing and treatment, including more than 100,000 COVID-19 tests. Earlier this month, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities recognized UC Davis for these efforts with its first-ever Research Response to Community Crisis Award.

Whether they are one dollar or millions, gifts to UC Davis support areas that mean the most to donors and, in the process, offer students, faculty and the community opportunities to reach their goals.

I am so proud to be part of a community of donors who are giving back to the world more than ever before, said Darryl Goss 83, chair of the UC Davis Foundation Board. Our Expect Greater fundraising campaign has only amplified UC Davis strengths and shown the world that we are leaders in all disciplines.

A gift from Lois 85 and Darryl Goss for a new endowment is among the many notable contributions this year:

We are slowly but surely overcoming one of the most demanding times of our lives and this fundraising record is proof that were going in the right direction, said Shaun Keister, vice chancellor of Development and Alumni Relations and president of the UC Davis Foundation.

The shared generosity of our supporters and their trust in our vision is a dream combination for any university.

The dream is exhibited by impressive philanthropic numbers across the board, starting with the value of the UC Davis endowment, which reached $2.2 billion on May 31. Donors are the most important driving force, including the 54,000 who have given their first-ever gift to UC Davis during the comprehensive campaign.

One donor cohort that set a giving record in the 2020-21 fiscal year is UC Davis employees. Some 2,200 staff and faculty participated in Employee Giving Month in April, donating a total of 3,601 gifts amounting to $257,765 a 21% increase in participation and 28% increase in the number of gifts from 2019. Over the entire year, a record 3,199 employees gave $1.4 million.

Similarly, 1,300 athletics donors gave during what would have typically been UC Davis annual homecoming week, Oct. 12-18. They accepted the Champions Adapt Challenge, a weeklong fundraising effort to drive resources to Intercollegiate Athletics 25 varsity sports programs. Thanks to the generosity of family, friends, fans and alumni, the challenge generated $535,874 in new funding for Aggie sports teams.

Excerpt from:

The Greatest Fundraising Year in UC Davis History - UC Davis

A school-record six former Baylor student-athletes are in Tokyo for the 2020 Summer Olympics, as they begin this week (one year late due to the COVID-19 pandemic).

Trayvon Bromell (BSED 18, track & field), Brittney Griner (BSED 19, basketball) and John Peers (tennis) are each on Olympic rosters for the second time, while more recent Baylor track stars KC Lightfoot and Wil London (BSED 19) and former basketball all-American Ekpe Udoh (BSED 11) have made it to the Olympics for the first time. Theyre the latest in a long line of Baylor athletes who have represented the green and gold on the world stage, symbolically receiving the torch from Baylor Olympians who came before them, dating as far back as 1904 (the third modern Olympics).

Most fans are aware of the accomplishments of iconic sprinter Michael Johnson (BBA 91), whose four gold medals earned him a spot among historys all-time greats, and more recent stars like three-time gold medalist Jeremy Wariner. But did you know that legendary Baylor track and field coach Clyde Hart (BBA 56) coached athletes who won gold medals in six straight Olympics? Or that Baylors first-ever gold medal was won by basketball player Jack Robinson (BA 49) in 1948?

The following Bears have represented Baylor in the Olympics over the last century-plus, winning 11 Olympic gold medals:

1904 ST. LOUIS GAMES* C.M. King, track and field standing broad jump (silver)* King, track and field standing triple jump (silver)

1948 LONDON GAMES* Jack Robinson, basketball (gold)

1992 BARCELONA GAMES* Michael Johnson, track and field 200 m*Johnson, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (gold)

1996 ATLANTA GAMES* Johnson, track and field 200 m (gold)* Johnson, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (gold)

2000 SYDNEY GAMES* Johnson, track and field 400 m (gold)* Johnson, track and field 4 x 400 m relay*Barbara Petrahn, BBA 03, track and field 400 m (Hungary)

2004 ATHENS GAMES* Bayano Kamani, BBA 02, track and field 400 m (Panama)* Zsolt Szeglet, BSCS 04, MBA 06, track and field 400 m (Hungary)* Jared Theodorakos, BSED 04, baseball (Greece)* Jeremy Wariner, track and field 400 m(gold)* Wariner, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (gold)* Darold Williamson, BSED 11, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (gold)

2008 BEIJING GAMES* Kamani, track and field 400 m (Panama)* Petrahn, track and field 400 m (Hungary)* Wariner, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (gold)* Wariner, track and field 400 m (silver)* Reggie Witherspoon, BA 14, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (gold)

2012 LONDON GAMES* Wariner, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (qualified, but missed games due to injury)

2016 RIO GAMES* Trayvon Bromell, track and field 100 m* Bromell, track and field 4 x 100 m relay* Brittney Griner, basketball (gold)* John Peers, mens tennis doubles (Australia)* Leticia De Souza^, track and field 4 x 400 m relay (Brazil)

2020* TOKYO GAMES* Bromell, track & field 100 m* Griner, basketball* KC Lightfoot, track & field pole vault* Wil London, track & field 4 x 400 m relay* Peers, mens tennis doubles (Australia)* Ekpe Udoh, basketball (Nigeria)

The Baylor family can follow Bromell, Griner, Lightfoot, London, Peers and Udoh in their pursuit of the gold beginning with Friday nights Opening Ceremonies and continuing over the next two weeks.

Sic em, Baylor Olympians!

[^ De Souza competed in the 2016 Olympics shortly before she enrolled at Baylor.][* Held in 2021 due to 2020s COVID-19 pandemic]

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Baylor's history of Olympic excellence to continue in Tokyo - Baylor University

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) The bronze bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest - intended to honor the part he played in Tennessee history - has drawn the ire of protesters and legislators alike since it was placed at the Tennessee State Capitol over 40 years ago.

Forrest was a prominent general of the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He was also a first-era leader of the Ku Klux Klan from 1867 until 1869.

The bust has a long history leading up to Thursday's final vote to have it removed from the Tennessee State Capitol and placed at the Tennessee State Museum.

How to bust got to the CapitolThe first calls for the bust of Nathan Bedford Forrest came in 1973. Senate Joint Resolution 54 that year - from late Tennessee Senator Douglas Henry - called for the procurement of the bust, to be placed on display at the State Capitol.

On April 13, 1973, the resolution was approved.

Sculpted by Loura Jane Herndon Baxendale, the bust was installed at the Capitol on November 5, 1978. The installation was completed amid protests against the bust the same day.

In 2010, the bust was moved from its place outside the doors of the House of Representatives to the main corridor between the Senate and House chambers.

Officials call for the bust's removalFollowing the Charleston, S.C. mass shooting in June 2015, a number of Democrat and Republican lawmakers and public officials called for the removal of the Forrest bust. Supporting its removal were Representative Jim Cooper, then-Representative Bob Corker, then-Governor Bill Haslam and then-Senator Bob Corker.

While the 2015 discussions didn't make it far enough to have the bust removed, Haslam once again called for its removal in 2017, after violence broke out at the "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Va. It was at this time that Corker suggested moving the bust from the Capitol to the Tennessee State Museum.

On September 1, 2017, despite the calls to remove it, a state commission voted 7-5 to keep the bust at the Capitol. In December that same year, then-Representative, now-Senator Brenda Gilmore filed legislation to have the bust relocated to the Tennessee State Museum.

Protests against the bust have continued consistently since then. In December 2019, 43,000 virtual signatures calling for the removal of the bust were delivered to Governor Bill Lee's office.

The protests hit a fever pitch again in June 2020 after George Floyd's death. On July 9, 2020, the State Capitol Commission voted 9-2 to have the bust removed, along with the busts of along with busts of Admiral David Farragut and Admiral Albert Gleaves.

From the State Capitol Commission vote, the issue had to be taken up with the state's Historical Commission. The Historical Commission voted 25-1 to have the bust removed March 9.

The final vote to have the bust moved from the Capitol to the State Museum was made Thursday by Tennessee's State Building Commission, approving the removal of the bust 5-2. At the time of writing, it's unclear when the bust will be moved.

WTVF

Original post:

A look at the history of the Nathan Bedford Forrest bust at the Capitol - NewsChannel5.com

As Falcons fans, we have plenty of experience being simultaneously excited about something and dreading it with every fiber of our being. A new seven part documentary of sorts about Atlantas favorite deeply disappointing football team is another opportunity to exercise those twin impulses.

Dorktown Presents: The History of the Atlanta Falcons is going to be great. Its from SB Nations Jon Bois and Alex Rubenstein, who delivered the fantastic Dorktown Presents: The History of the Seattle Mariners last year. That documentary didnt carry the sheen of ESPNs big-budget documentaries, but it did manage to capture exactly the Mariners in all their weird, star-crossed glory, from their most intense ineptitude to their star-studded heights, which were not as high as you might expect given the talent on hand. If you havent seen it, you should check it out.

When Bois teased a new team-focused series of videos on Tuesday, I had exactly zero information to indicate that it would be the Falcons the duo would chronicle, but a gut feeling it would be. If you were going to dive into NFL teams with bizarre, sometimes wonderful, often tragic histories, youd probably focus on a small set of franchises that include the Lions, Browns, Vikings, Bills and our Falcons. Given this teams recent history and some games I really am getting tired of talking about, they felt like a logical choice for a series thats heavy on graphs, numbers and oddities. Here we are.

It goes without saying that the Falcons have provided plenty of material. A deeply lousy franchise throughout much of the first 30 years of their existence, Atlanta nevertheless hosted Hall of Famers, traded them and sometimes even let them walk in free agency. They had genuinely wonderful seasons that fell short, unbelievably terrible seasons featuring statistically unlikely things, and a lot of this is the first time this has happened in NFL history moments throughout. We love them dearly and were in the midst of preparing for what might be a middle-of-the-road season, but this video series will likely be a much more comprehensive reminder of the weird, dispiriting and thrilling ways this team has operated than youve gotten from things like our season snapshots and Forgotten Falcons series over the years.

Well see exactly when the series lands, but Ill encourage you all to check it out when it does, and well likely put together at least one writeup on it. Joe Ali and Kofie Yeboah from Secret Base will also be making appearances and theyre both gifted story tellers, and longtime SB Nation reporter and jaded, diehard Falcons fans Steven Godfrey (who you may remember from SB Nation Atlanta, if youve been around awhile) will also be contributing. Stay tuned for updates and subscribe to Secret Bases YouTube channel if you havent to this point.

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Secret Base to roll out 7 part Dorktown Presents: The History of the Atlanta Falcons series in August - The Falcoholic

The Olympic Games only come around every four years, but the tradition of the games dates back hundreds of years. For KU, the tradition of competing at the Olympics is rich, with 66 Olympians all-time, including 45 medals.

The first Olympian to hail from KU came in 1904, by the name of Ray Moultan. Moultan competed in track & field in the 60 meters, 100 meters and 200 meters, securing a bronze medal in the 60.

In 1952, the Jayhawks sent nine individuals to the XV Olympiad in Helsinki, Finland in 1952, including Phog Allen, Bill Lienhard, Bill Hougland, Charlie Hoag, Clyde Lovellette, Dean Kelly, John Keller, Robert Kenny and West Santee. Team USA went on to win gold in mens basketball, with seven Jayhawks coming home with the prestigious gold medal.

Most recently. Kyle Clemons won gold in the 4400 meter relay at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio De Janiero. The Jayhawks accounted for seven Olympic qualifiers in 2016.

This year, KU sends another impressive crop of athletes and coaches to the Olympic Games, including Mason Finley, Bryce Hoppel, Gleb Dudarev, Alexandra Emilianov, Christina Clemons, Stanley Redwine, Andy Kokhanovsky and Michael Whittlesey. Of them, Finley is the only repeat qualifier for the Olympic Games, also competing in 2016.

Follow along with the Jayhawks in the Olympics by visiting KUathletics.com and following along with exclusive coverage from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

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History of Jayhawks in the Olympic Games - Kansas Jayhawks

Seventy-five years ago today, at approximately 11:45 a.m. on July 22, 1946, a stolen delivery truck pulled up to the basement service entrance at the front of Jerusalems King David Hotel. Five terrorists from the Irgun Zvai Leumi a Jewish underground organization commonly known as the Irgun exited the vehicle and, disguised as Arab workers, carried seven large milk churns into La Regence, the hotels chic nightclub located in the basement. Each churn contained approximately 50 pounds of high explosive. Fifty-two minutes later the bombs detonated, killing 91 people and injuring 45.

In Norway, on this date 10 years ago, white supremacist Anders Behring Breivik detonated a vehicle bomb under Oslos government quarter, killing eight. He then proceeded to open fire at nearby Utya island, home to the Norwegian Labour Party youth wings summer camp, where he killed 69 people most of them children at short range. Before his attack, Breivik had released a 1,518-page manifesto, railing against multiculturalists and cultural Marxists.

Both the King David Hotel bombing and Breiviks attacks had profound global repercussions. The former helped convince Britain to leave Mandatory Palestine and sparked a new era of publicized terrorism, while the latter played a pioneering role in ushering in an international wave of far-right terrorism. This July 22, accordingly, provides an important reminder of the enduring impact of terrorism and the threat it poses, not just to civilians, but to societal stability and the political status quo. Governments should continue to prioritize counter-terrorism and remain prepared to enact measured responses to acts of political violence.

The King David Hotel Bombing and the Internationalization of Terrorism

Although Menachem Begin commander of the Irgun and a future Israeli prime minister would repeatedly claim that warnings were given to evacuate the King David Hotel, questions remain to this day whether they were ignored or never communicated to the proper authority. The Irguns attack has always been controversial because the facility was not an ordinary hotel, but served as the nerve center of Britains administration of Palestine. It housed Britains military headquarters and government secretariat in the territory, as well as the local offices of Britains intelligence and security services.

Begin made daring and dramatic acts of violence an integral and innovative part of the Irguns strategy. The goal was to attract international attention to Palestine and thereby publicize simultaneously the Zionists grievances against Britain and their claims for statehood. In an era long before the advent of 24-hour cable news and instantaneous satellite-transmitted broadcasts, the Irgun thus deliberately sought to appeal to a global audience far beyond the immediate confines of the local struggle, beyond even the ruling regimes own homeland. Like its nonviolent and less violent Zionist counterparts, the group sought to generate sympathy and marshal support among powerful allies such as the American Jewish community, U.S. representatives and senators, White House officials, as well as among delegates to the fledgling United Nations Organization. In this way, pressure would be applied on the British government to leave Palestine and allow the establishment of a Jewish state there.

The articulation of Begins strategy in his book The Revolt, first published in English in 1951, thus represented an important milestone in the evolution and internationalization of terrorism. Begins example appears to have resonated with other peoples struggling against Western colonial domination and continued occupation of their lands in the decade following World War II. The leader of the anti-British guerrilla campaign in Cyprus, Gen. George Grivas, adopted an identical strategy. The internationalization of Palestinian Arab terrorism that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s also consciously emulated the quest for international attention and recognition that the Irguns own terrorist campaign pioneered a quarter of a century earlier: It was a model that the Palestine Liberation Organization often cited.

The Brazilian revolutionary theorist Carlos Marighellas famous Minimanual of the Urban Guerrilla, which was essential reading for various left-wing terrorist organizations that arose both in Latin America and Western Europe during the 1960s and 1970s, similarly embraced Begins strategy of provoking the security forces in hopes of alienating the population from the authorities. Whether Marighella had ever consulted or read The Revolt is not known. What is indisputable is that he advocated the same strategy that the Irgun had pioneered over two decades before.

More recently, when U.S. military forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 they found a copy of The Revolt, along with other books about the Jewish struggle and the Irguns transformation from terrorist group pariah to a respectable political party, in the well-stocked library that al-Qaeda maintained at one of its training facilities in that country.

Anders Behring Breiviks Attacks and the Threat of White Supremacist Violence

Breivik, like Begin, sought an international audience. The manifesto he released prior to the attacks was written in English, and he openly termed his attack a marketing operation, designed to draw attention to his manifesto and the ideology it laid out. He also aimed to use his trial as a stage to the world he pled not guilty on account of self-defense, and sought to spread his views through the cameras gathered in the courtroom. He was convicted and sentenced to an extendable 21 years in prison Norways maximum sentence.

Breiviks assault marked the opening salvo in what would become a tsunami of far-right terrorism stretching from Christchurch in New Zealand to Pittsburgh and El Paso in the United States. Breiviks template, including his release of a manifesto and his targeting of multiple locations, has become a model emulated by far-right terrorists across borders and oceans, and he has been canonized as a saint among the far-right online fringe a badge of dishonor he shares with multiple other white supremacist killers. The deadliest far-right terrorist since Breivik, Christchurch gunman Brenton Tarrant, described Knight Justiciar Breivik as his true inspiration.

In Germany, another July 22 terrorist anniversary provides testament to Breiviks impact: In 2016, a far-right gunman who had featured Breivik in social media profile pictures opened fire in Munich, killing nine. The Bavarian Ministry of the Interior surmised, We can only assume, that [the gunman] purposefully selected the date.

The Counter-Terrorism Challenge: Preventing and Responding to Black Swan Events

The lasting legacies of the King David Hotel bombing and Breiviks attacks are due largely to their combination of death toll and marketing. Both were extremely deadly and both, quite deliberately, captured the worlds attention, in turn publicizing the attackers grievances and radicalizing others to the cause. But there was little else that would have helped us to predict why these two events had such immediate as well as long-lasting impacts.

Both represented black swan events, which are marked by their rarity, impact, and efforts to retrospectively explain them. As Nassim Nicholas Taleb who coined the term explains, A small number of Black Swans explains almost everything in our world, from the success of ideas and religions, to the dynamics of historical events, to elements of our own personal lives.

Some acts of terrorism fade into history, scarcely remembered outside the families of the victims others change the world. The bombing of the King David Hotel and Breiviks assault on Norway did the latter, catalyzing political upheavals and sparking new global trends. Both are important reminders that terrorism will always possess a powerful agenda-setting function and outsized capacity to drive political change. But, perhaps more concerningly, both are evidence that one never truly knows which terrorist incidents will spark the most long-lasting ramifications.

Counter-terrorism, accordingly, is not just a mission to save lives, but is essential to protecting political stability and societal predictability. This is why, at a time when many in America and elsewhere are anxious to close the book on the Global War on Terror, the need for continued vigilance remains vital. New challenges have arisen as older ones abate, and effectively countering terrorism will continue to be a preeminent concern of both domestic as well as international security in the 21st century. After the myriad intelligence failures of the past two decades, strengthening and improving the analytical and predictive capabilities of those agencies and departments charged with our protection will be critical. Better anticipating over-the-horizon threats and managing their outcomes can mitigate the black swan phenomenon that is terrorists stock and trade.

Terrorism analysts enjoy debating the question of whether terrorism is an existential threat. On its own, it is not. Instead, terrorisms impact is defined by the response of governments and citizens. Terrorism has prevailed in the past, but not because terrorists vanquished their foes with car bombs or assassinations, scholars Walter Laqueur and Christopher Wall write. They succeeded when government overreacted or when there was not a government to react, making a terrorist group the entity best positioned to govern and impose laws. In an ironic twist, less immediately damaging attacks than 9/11, including the Oslo attacks of July 22, 2011, may pose greater long-term threats to Western liberal democracy they force domestic audiences to pick sides, complicating cooperation and a nuanced government response, and slowly corroding democracies from within. Maintaining national cohesiveness when confronting individuals who seek to divide societies a goal that in a post-Trump, post-Jan. 6 world has become increasingly difficult is thus particularly vital.

Terrorists have always aspired to change the course of history. And through their calculated acts of violence they seek to have an asymmetrical, disproportionate impact on world events, government policies, and societal peace of mind. Both the bombing of the King David Hotel and Breiviks twin attacks upset the status quo and compelled the targeted governments to rethink their policies. In the Irguns case, the bombing contributed to the complex chain of events that 14 months later led the British government to announce that it was leaving Palestine and to wash its hands of attempting to navigate between Arab and Jewish claims for independence. The attack also sent a powerful message to aggrieved peoples elsewhere that terrorism could influence moribund Western colonial overlords in hitherto unimaginable ways. The Norwegian governments response to Breiviks attacks was far more measured: It implemented targeted changes across several ministries to better address the threat of white supremacist violence, and has avoided major follow-on incidents in the decade since.

Moreover, whereas the King David Hotel bombing marked the beginning of the end of British rule over Palestine and the failure of its security forces to contain, much less defeat, the terrorists, Breiviks attacks highlighted the need for a more comprehensive and holistic approach to counter-terrorism. That type of approach should view threats as more polymorphous than monolithic, and not specific to one region or religion. The fundamental message of both attacks is that effective counter-terrorism requires long-term engagement, patience, national and international unity against extremism, and a commitment to never react to single incidents with an emotional rather than a measured response. Counter-terrorism will thrive when governments and citizens think proactively rather than reactively about societal weaknesses and shortcomings, and do so together.

Counter-terrorism also remains an essential national security priority: The anniversary of the King David Hotel bombing and Breiviks attacks demonstrates the power of even less remembered terrorist acts to create profound and lasting effects.

Bruce Hoffman is the Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counter-terrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations and a professor at Georgetown University.

Jacob Ware is a research associate for counter-terrorism at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Image: Imperial War Museum

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July 22: A Pivotal Day in Terrorism History - War on the Rocks