Category Archives: History

This article is part of a series by The Vicksburg Post, in partnership with the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerce, featuring each of the nominees for teacher of the year honors.

Michelle Fisackerly works to reinvent how she teaches her students history with other outlets. Fisackerly, a teacher at River City Early College, said she helps her students understand history by providing real experiences.

It makes teaching so much easier when you give your students something tangible to see and hear, Fisackerly said.

Fisaskerly is a finalist for the Vicksburg-Warren County Chamber of Commerces Educator of the Year award. The chamber will select and announce one elementary and one secondary teacher of the year at the chamber luncheon in February. The winner of each award will receive $1,000 from Ameristar Casino and the runner-up for each award will receive $500 from Mutual Credit Union.

Fisackerly began teaching in 2002 as a 5th-grade math teacher and 7th-grade science teacher at West Bolivar Middle School in Rosedale, Miss. In 2006, she began teaching at Vicksburg High School in U.S. history, world history, world geography, economics, and government. Starting in 2016, Fisaskerly began teaching at River City Early College for world history, U.S. history and leadership. She is also the sponsor of the Gaming Club and National Honor Society.

In 2001, Fisackerly received a Bachelor of Science in Education for elementary education at Delta State University. Then, in 2004, she received a Master of Education in social science education from Delta State University.

Showing them a virtual tour, having a special guest speaker or taking a field trip could flip a switch for them, Fiaskerly said in regard to her teaching strategy.

As stated in her Educator of the Year application, she builds these tangible connections by visiting the Civil Rights Museum during the days the Civil Rights Activists are giving tours, or meeting Silas House, author of Eli the Great, and having the chance to ask questions about the book.

It allows students to have an Aha moment, and they then can understand the topic so much better, she said.

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TEACHER OF THE YEAR: Michelle Fisackerly reimagines the process of teaching History - The Vicksburg Post - Vicksburg Post

On March 25,1965, at the conclusion of the brutally consequential march from Selma to Montgomery, Martin Luther King,Jr., delivered a speech titled Our God Is Marching On! He spoke to a crowd of twenty-five thousand people on the grounds of the Alabama state capitol, in view of the office window of the segregationist governor George Wallace. The address is not among Kings best-known, but it is among the most revelatory. King argued that, in the decade since the bus boycotts in that city, a new movement had emerged and an older order was starting to fall away. Referring to the historian C.Vann Woodwards book The Strange Career of Jim Crow, King said that racial segregation had begun not simply as an expression of white supremacy but as a political stratagem employed by the emerging Bourbon interests in the South to keep the southern masses divided and southern labor the cheapest in the land. The so-called split-labor-market theory held that, by creating a hyper-exploited class of Black people, white lites could hold down the wages of white workers. And so racism didnt just injure Black people, its immediate object; it took a toll on white laborers, too.

The Montgomery speech is notable because it presages the interracial populism that became an increasingly prominent part of Kings thinking and organizing in his remaining years; its notable, too, because it highlights the extent to which his thought had always been informed by a study of American history. In his I Have a Dream speech, he had mentioned the ideas of interposition and nullification, which he attributed to Wallace, but which implicitly harked back to JohnC.Calhouns efforts to protect slavery. Kings final book, Where Do We Go from Here? (1967), rooted an argument for a universal basic income and general economic redistribution in the Homestead policies of the mid-nineteenth century. To an underappreciated extent, he related the nations contemporary concerns to a genealogy of past ones.

Such historical continuities stand to be lost in the mainstream American understanding. Legislation recently passed in eight statesa list that may expandseeks to restrict what students can be taught about our past, segregating laudatory and thereby permissible subjects in American history from a Jim Crow section in which the nations deepest shortcomings are hidden from view. These efforts come at a fraught moment. Last week, when President Joe Biden spoke to the nation from National Statuary Hall on the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, he pointed out that the riot brought the Confederate flag into the halls of Congressa violation that had not occurred even during the Civil War.

The substance as well as the symbols of a divided era have been infiltrating our political spaces. In state after state, new laws are being written not to protect the vote but to deny it, not only to suppress the vote but to subvert it, the President observed. Kings speech at the Alabama capitol, it should be recalled, was given amid a fight for a voting-rights law. Stripping the right to vote from Black Southerners, King noted, laid the groundwork for laws that further disadvantaged poor people across racial lines. Then as now, Southern legislatures justified limiting the franchise with specious claims about electoral malfeasance.

The Selma campaign was marked by the particular brutality unleashed on the marchers; voting-rights activists (including the late representative John Lewis) were bludgeoned, and some were even killed. White Southerners who participated in this violence understood themselves to be acting defensively; the marchers, they believed, were the aggressors, whose actions left them no choice but to turn to violence. That sentiment will be familiar to anyone who has been observing recent events. A survey from the fall found that large numbers of Americans think the nations democracy is in trouble, but that the preponderance of those who consider it to be under major threat are Republicansthe party whose President incited the attack on the Capitol in the first place. Given the prevalence of disinformation and propaganda on social media and cable news, electoral mistrust among conservatives, and thus the prospect of democracy derailed by its defenders, is not a surprising development. But it is a deeply disquieting one.

President Bidens speech was an attempt to correct a false narrative taking hold on the right. The President criticized Donald Trump (without naming him) for creating a web of lies about the 2020 election. The word truth was used sixteen times. Yet purveyors of disinformation win simply by forcing their subjects to address their lies in public. Indeed, previous attempts to correct Trump-fuelled lies, not least Barack Obamas showing his birth certificate, in 2011, have not proved an effective remedy. And aggregated lies can congeal into a counterfeit history of their ownthe old Southern myths of the Lost Cause flutter the Confederate flags of today. As the Smithsonian curators Jon Grinspan and Peter Manseau argued in a chilling Times piece last week, it is not far-fetched to consider that Statuary Hall might one day feature a marble likeness of the QAnon Shaman, who, with his headdress of horns and fur, helped galvanize the January6th mob. A statue of Jefferson Davis, after all, has resided there since 1931.

This holiday honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., sees a nation embroiled in conflicts that would have looked numbingly familiar to him. As school curricula and online discourse threaten to narrow our understanding of both past and future, its more important than ever to take stock of our history and its consequences, as King did in his speech more than half a century ago. In Montgomery, the civil-rights leader spoke of the intransigent optimism that had led activists to fight for change, in the face of skepticism about what could actually be achieved. President Biden struck a similar note in his Statuary Hall speech. For those who believe in democracy, he said, anything is possibleanything. This is true, as the events of both March25,1965, and January6,2021, established. Anything is possible right now, and that is as much cause for hope as it is for grave concern.

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Martin Luther King, Jr.,s History Lessons - The New Yorker

This week in history as reported by The Summit County Journal the week of Jan. 7, 1922:

A rich strike of silver ore that should assay about 1,700 ounces of silver to the ton was made at Kokomo this week on the Silver Queen Mine, operated by the Kokomo-Recen Mining and Dredging Corp.

The high-grade streak was encountered on a lower level of the property in a corresponding position in the vein with a rich streak that was taken out in the upper level. The Silver Queen has been a steady operator in the Kokomo district since it was leased to the new corporation.

Summit County Commissioner Henry A. Recen is one of the important stockholders of the new corporation, as is also his brother Albert Recen.

The ski course on Shock Hill has been put in fine shape, and many of the ski enthusiasts have already taken advantage of the last heavy fall of snow.

Much work had been done on this course the past year, and this winter should prove the fact that this new course will equal any in the district.

On Jan. 1, a change in the revenue law took off the war tax on all admissions of 10 cents and under. This will allow the Eclipse Theatre to reduce the admission of children under 12 to 10 cents.

There is no change in adult admission taxes, so the theater will make all adult admission 25 cents in the future, or 30 cents including the war tax.

An exceptional program will be offered to patrons Sunday. One of Goldwyns special productions, titled The Stronger Vow, will be shown, with Geraldine Farrar as the lead.

The swimming pool at the auditorium was formally opened to the public Tuesday evening. This was mens night, and it likely will be very popular as there were 28 eager swimmers in attendance.

Some of those who attended were not as apt as others, but all were willing to learn. From the enthusiasm shown, they will soon become very adept at this sport.

Thermometers registering around 30 below zero were not uncommon this week. On both Thursday and Friday nights, temperatures ranged from 24 to 30 degrees below zero.

On Thursday night a stiff breeze was blowing, making it appear to be much colder than last evening, which was quiet.

Compared with other counties in the state, Summit held its own position. For gold sent to the mint, it ranked second in the state, only being surpassed by San Miguel County, the production from this county being from large mills, treating enormous tonnages from low-grade mines.

Summit Countys production for last year was all from mines that were working only on a small scale and mostly from leasers. Large producers such as the Wellington Mine made no shipments during the year. The large gold production recorded at the mint came mainly from the regular shipments of gold bricks by the dredging companies, who managed to keep working most of the year.

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This week in history Jan. 7, 1922: More skiing and mining, less money spent at the movies - Summit Daily

TV star, and Yonkers resident, Morey Amsterdam, right, on the Dick Van Dyke Show

By Mary Hoar, President Emerita, Yonkers Historical Society, recipient of the 2004 Key to History, President Untermyer Performing Arts Council

Monday, January 10thJanuary 10, 1938: The frantic barking of Doc, an English Spaniel owned by Reverend William Hicks of St. Andrews Episcopal Church, saved not only the clergymans life, but his wife! Doc, sleeping in the kitchen, started barking frantically about 1 am. When Hicks went down to see what the problem was, he found flames and fumes pouring out of the refrigerator, with the wall behind the appliance ablaze!

January 10, 1944: Nepperhan Avenues Corporal Leo Biegay, a mechanic in the First Army Field Artillery, was bombed with propaganda pamphlets while serving overseas. He sent samples to his sister Mrs. Lewis Morrison so she would have an idea of what the Germans were trying to say. The five pamphlets made some interesting statements, such as Although you had victories in France, your leaders know you will be slaughtered in Germany and still send you forward, You are dying for Britain, and your leaders are already involving you in a Third World War. Biegay told his sister no one took them seriously.

Tuesday, January 11thJanuary 11, 1938: NYS Supreme Court Justice Marsh Taylor declared Francis Heafy to be the legally elected City Clerk, succeeding William McCabe. Democrat McCabe had refused to acknowledge Mr. Heafys election by the new Republican majority on the Common Council.

January 11, 1955: The Yonkers General Hospital Womens Auxiliary inaugurated a new service; they photographed each newborn! Of course, copies of the photographs, taken for identification and record purposes, were given to the babies parents.

Wednesday, January 12thJanuary 12, 1943: Two thousand-eight hundred-fifty helmets finally arrived for the Yonkers civilian protection forces; this was four months after the Yonkers War Council was told they were on the way.

January 12, 1950: Yonkers held its second water holiday, dubbed Thirstday Thursday, to try to cut down and conserve our dwindling water supply. Our city was very successful and matched the success reached Dry Friday, the first water holiday shortly before Christmas.

Thursday January 13thJanuary 13, 1938: Mayor Joseph Loehr vetoed the city budget passed by the Republican majority in the Common Council, stating the were deliberately endangering the life, health and property of Yonkers citizens by cutting more than $800,000 out of his 1938 city budget. He then summoned the Aldermen to a special session at 11 am on January 15th, stating a default now exists with respect to the adoption of an annual estimate required by Section 75 of the Second Class Cities Law; it had been more than 90 days since Loehr sent the budget to the Council. Republicans claimed Loehr did not have veto power on a budget estimate. Especially in question were raises granted to city workers the mayor had included in his budget.

Friday, January 14th:January 14, 1911: Well known Yonkers baseball star Dave Fultz was signed to a second year as Coach of the Columbia University Baseball Team. During Fultzs first year at Columbia, the team had its best season in more than ten years.

January 14, 1931: Supreme Court Justice Joseph Morschauser announced he would inspect the flume built by the City of Yonkers to change the course of the Nepperhan River. Former Mayor Wallin asked for an injunction on behalf of Peenes Wharf Corporation; the company alleged $150,000 damage was done to their waterfront holdings. According to the filing, debris from the flume blocked one side of the companys dock.

January 14, 1952: Pianist Toba Brill of Edgecliff Terrace performed at Carnegie Hall with the National Orchestral Association. A child prodigy, she made her debut at Town Hall at the age of 14.

Saturday, January 15thJanuary 15, 1938: Assured by lawyers Mayor Loehr had exceeded his legal power by vetoing the Common Councils slashed 1938 budget, the seven Republican Alderman on the Common Council did not attend the special session called by the Mayor. It was expected the GOP coup would end up in court to force adoption of the original budget. Because of the unpassed budget, 2,000 city employees received their first 1938 paychecks with the raises Republicans cut out of their revised budget.

January 15, 1953: Television, radio and stage star and Yonkers resident Morey Amsterdam appeared at the Commanders Dinner of the Second Battalion, Auxiliary Police Corps, held at the American Legions Bregano Post on Crescent Place.

January 15, 1955: Otis Elevator Companys President L. A. Petersen held a meeting for all employees and their wives at Brandts Theater on South Broadway. He discussed the conditions management needed to keeping operations in Yonkers. Although claiming no decision to move had been made, he clearly stated the company could not remain in Yonkers unless costs were cut, while dangling the possibility of a mid-Western plant as the alternative.

Sunday, January 16thJanuary 16, 1915: After Vaudeville comedian Gus Williams of Waring Place met with his New York booking agent, he sent his sister-in-law a telegraph from theGetty SquareTrain Station, asking her to tend his wife Emma. After leaving the telegraph office Williams pulled out a pistol and shot himself. There was no suicide note, leaving family and friends to speculate why he ended his life; they assumed health issues and career concerns might be the reason. Besides being a nationally known entertainer, he had served in the Civil War, was active in the GAR Kitching Post No. 60, and frequently performed at Yonkers organization fundraisers.

January 16, 1947: Sixteen-year-old Doris Wish was installed as Secretary of the Treasury of the worlds smallest republic, the George Junior Republic. The first youth community in the country, it was established by William George in 1909; it had a constitution, legislative body and judiciary. Still in existence, George Junior Republic now is focused on helping at-risk youth become responsible, well-adjusted and successful adults.

Questions or comments? Email YonkersHistory1646@gmail.com.For information on the Yonkers Historical Society, Sherwood House and upcoming events, please visit our website http://www.yonkershistoricalsociety.org, call 914-961-8940 or email yhsociety@aol.com.

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On This Day in Yonkers History... - Yonkers Times

Since the first theatre performance in Chicago in 1834, the Chicago theatre community has experienced various obstacles from auditorium fires to the cancellation of in-person performances due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Among all of these challenges, something has remained constantthe community. Stuart Hecht, a professor in Boston Colleges theatre department, believes theatre is about community, and nowhere, he claims, is this more apparent than in Chicago.

One question I had is simply why is it that theres 300 theaters in Chicago, Hecht said.

Now, he knows the answer.

It has to do with the demographics and has to do with the way of life and values of the community and habits that were formed with money and ambition and boosterism in the city, he said.

In the 1970s, approximately 140 years after the emergence of theatre in Chicago, Hecht began studying this vibrant past, present, and future community.

Hecht grew up playing the trumpet and piano without the intention of pursuing a passion in theatre. Hecht said his interest in theatre began quite accidentally, as he joined his high schools theatre group on a whim after a close friend in high school started acting.

After graduating from high school, Hecht attended the University of Michigan. But, he did not begin his undergraduate career with theatre on his radar.

Originally, I was going to be a psychologist, but, you know, I took a psych class my freshman year, and I went, Oh God no, he said.

Hecht then thought he would become an attorney and began studying American history. It was through the girlfriend of one of his RAswho was the president of the University of Michigans student theatre groupand a stumbling across of the English departments drama major that theatre once again ended up on his agenda. He then abandoned the idea of attending law school, and after receiving his bachelors degree in 1977, he pursued a Ph.D. in theatre at Northwestern University, one of the top graduate schools for studying theatre in the U.S., he said.

At Northwestern, Hecht dove headfirst into the Ph.D. program. At the same time, he became a volunteer on the artistic staff at Goodman Theatre and soon began teaching part-time at Loyola University Chicago. Hecht earned his doctorate degree in 1983, but when the university cut his funding for teaching soon after, he knew it was time for a change.

And I said, you know, What do I really want to do? Well, I want to teach, Hetch said. So, I put myself on the job market. There was actually a job in Boston, and I thought, Wow, thats really cool, and it was at this place called Boston College.

When Hecht began working at BC in 1986, the theatre major was part of the English department, and it had few students and faculty. Not only did the school want a theatre professor, Hecht said, they needed someone to build a theatre program.

It was hard, but thrilling, he said.

In 1992, Hecht became the founding chair of the theatre department, and later that year, the theatre department officially became its own department. Hecht held his position as chair for 13 years and stepped down in 2005. During his time as chair, with the help of a few dedicated colleagues, he built the program from the ground up. When he started the department, it had three faculty members, three classes, and around 33 total majors, he said. By his last year as chair, there were over 146 majors, and the department now boasts seven full-time faculty members and offers over 25 classes. Hecht attributes this shift to his directing class which, at the time, united BCs two opposing theatre clubsthe Dramatics Society and Contemporary Theatre.

After two semesters [in the class], they really knew what they were doing directorally, Hecht said. They had all the skills and knowledge and analytical abilities. Both kids from the DG [the Dramatics Society] and CTG [Contemporary Theatre] were in my class and, instead of looking at each other in terms of which group are you in, [there was a shift to] the material itself and that solved everything.

Despite the joy Hecht found in this work, he said he stepped down in 2005 because he had little time to focus on his own research. Although he continued to teach at BC, Hecht was then able to work on other projects.

He became editor-in-chief of the New England Theatre Journala position he still holds almost 25 years laterand published his book Transposing Broadway: Jews, Assimilation, and the American Musical in 2011. But he was far from done. Hecht had stayed involved in the Chicago theatre scene throughout his career, continuing to write, research, and contribute to conferences and panels.

Four years ago, after a panel about Chicago theatre, Hecht and two colleagues began to compile essays on the history of theatre in the city. Their work recently culminated in Hechts latest publicationMakeshift Chicago Stages: A Century of Theater and Performance, which was published by the Northwestern University Press in 2021. In the book, Hecht, along with Megan E. Geigner from Northwestern University, Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud from Seattle University, and a host of other theatre historians who contributed essays, details the stories of where theatre was practiced and performed throughout the cityoften makeshift places, including parks, taverns, living rooms, and storefronts. In doing so, Makeshift Chicago Stages puts a spotlight on the racial dynamics, neighborhood distribution, and atypical locations that influenced the aesthetic and practice of Chicagos art scene over the last century.

Hecht highlighted three key aspects of the story this collection of essays tells.

First, Hecht said it talks about the power of theatre in bringing people together.

Its the story of a community that has found true theatrea vehicle both for entertainment and for the examination and exploration of often difficult social issues, he said.

Next, he said the book broadens these ideas to the arts as a whole having the ability to initiate social change.

Its the story of a community that has often struggled with issues of boundary and racism and statusin some ways brutally, he said. And yet we find many instances of using the arts for purposes of boundary crossing and finding commonality of experience and concerns.

And finally, its about the writers, he said.

Megan, Jasmine, and I represent different generations and different cultural backgrounds, Hecht said.

Yet, the three had a shared vision, and their different viewpoints come together to make the book all the more compelling, he said.

Just as artists throughout history would collaborate, the three editors emulated a similar process in creating the book. Hecht describes in the book how all different types of artists, from actors to dancers to sculptors, have worked together to improve their art, and he said he was honored when, near the end of the book, his co-authors pointed to his own ideas.

[There] really is that notion of people in different disciplines, you know, and the poet writes a poem about the painter who then paints [them] in turn, Hecht said. Were doing this too. We were all sitting around together, comparing notes and each of our experiences and backgrounds, and learning from each other. I really do think I learned so much from them.

Geigner, one of Hechts co-editors and prior mentees, shares a similar sentiment.

It was really collaborative, and it was very supportive, but we also really challenged each other, Geigner said. Everybody was engaged in it on the same level and cared about it in the same way.

Geigner expressed her admiration for Hecht, who has been her teacher, colleague, co-author, friend, and fan.

Hes such a nice guyhes kind of unassuming, he wants to help everybody outthat I think people forget what a giant in the field he is, Geigner said. He is the original Chicago theatre historian of our generation. It was such a boon for Jasmine and I to have Stuart working with us because he kind of legitimized the project in some ways. He didnt always have the time to write [about all his experiences], so I think people forget that he has this deep knowledge.

The introduction that Hecht wrote for the book focuses on surviving fires and the history of coming back that has long been a theme in Chicago theatre history. Because the book was in the writing process during the onset of COVID-19, Northwestern University Press turned to the authors with a request that they include current events in their book, Hecht said. So, the three added sections on the pandemic, the #MeToo movement, and other social issues affecting the worldand the success of Chicago theatretoday.

One notion Hecht made in the book is that Chicago theatre has been resilient in the past while enduring obstacles, and that might be the best indicator for its future re-emergence, he said.

[Its about] looking closer and seeing that theres recurring themes over time, Hecht said. Thats the pointthat we learn from the past and can see the patterns leading up to the present. And maybe even have, hopefully, some glimpse of the future.

Hecht carries a similar notion outside of his work, as he believes the arts can help young people with various issues, such as mental health, he said.

I believe [in] the power of the arts in general, and theater in particular, to address and help heal so many of those troubling, impersonal dynamics, Hecht said. It has to do with a group of people in a large room, together, without distractions, sharing, observing, participating in a performance experience, where they can laugh as one or gasp as one and then go off and talk together after each without judgment and considering not only that you dont have to be perfect, but nobody is. And thats our shared humanity, and thats our strength.

In addition to his other work, Hecht has now directed more than 20 productions at BC, supervised 70 student productions, and overseen 50 independent student projects.

Not only is he doing this work where hes doing all this research and hes writing it up and hes mentoring young scholars, but hes also making the community at [the] Boston College theatre department what it is and directing shows and working with undergraduate students who have dreams of being actors and designers and directors, and mentoring them too, Geigner said. So I think that makes him a really important figure for you all at Boston College, even beyond the kudos for writing this important scholarship.

Featured Graphic by Annie Corrigan / Heights Editor

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Hecht Spotlights Chicago Theatre's History in New Book - The Heights - The Heights

A horrifying apartment fire in the Bronx left 19 dead, including nine children, on Sunday, with dozens more injured.

Mayor Eric Adams said Sunday's blaze was the city's worst fire disaster since the infamous Happy Land arson in 1990, and the initial death toll confirms it will be recorded among the city's deadliest fires ever.

This is a look at some of the worst New York City fires of the last few decades.

A 58-year-old woman, her 7-month-old granddaughter, a mother and her 2- and 7-year-old daughters were among the 13 people who died when afast-moving fire caused by a child playing with a stove engulfed their Bronx apartment buildingin a matter of minutes just days after Christmas in 2017.

Authorities said the flames broke out on the first floor of the building and quickly spread up through the five-story, 25-unit structure. Authorities said Friday that asmall child playing with a stove in his first-floor kitchen appears to have sparked the blaze, which was the city's deadliest residential fire in decades.

UNITED STATES - MARCH 08: Firefighters tend to victims of three-alarm fire in apartment blaze at 1022 Woddycreast Ave., near W. 165th St. in High Bridge, the Bronx. The fire killed eight children and seriously injured 14 other people. (Photo by Ken Murray/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

A fire believed to have been caused by a space heater kills 10 people, most of them children, wiping out at least one entire family.

At the time, it was the city's deadliest fire since the Happyland disaster.

In this 1990 file photo, news crews report on an arson fire at the Happy Land social club in which 87 people perished, in the Bronx borough of New York. March 25, 2015, marks the quarter-century anniversary of what was then the biggest mass murder in modern U.S. history. (AP Photo)

On March 25, 1990, a Cuban refugee named Julio Gonzalez tried to win back the woman who had spurned him.

Gonzalez entered the Happy Land social club in the Bronx, which was humming with people mostly immigrants partying and dancing. His former live-in girlfriend, Lydia Feliciano, was checking coats, and they had a virulent argument. Gonzalez was thrown out.

In a rage, he returned just after 3 a.m., splashing gasoline on Happy Land's only guest exit and lighting two matches. Then he pulled down the metal front gate.

Within minutes, 87 people were dead.

UNITED STATES - OCTOBER 24: Firemen carry bodies after Club Puerto Rican fire. (Photo by Thomas Monaster/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)

25 people are killed in an arson fire at the Puerto Rican Social Club in the Bronx. Authorities later said the fire was set by an angry clubgoer's spouse.

New York, N.Y.: Overview of New York City firemen standing waiting on October 18, 1966 as the search for victims continued in a fire and building collapse on Broadway between 22nd and 23rd Street in Manhattan. The disaster killed 12 firemen, 7 of them from Long Island. (Photo by Marvin Sussman/Newsday RM via Getty Images)

Some 12 FDNY firefighters are killed after a floor collapse while battling a blaze in Manhattan in Oct. 1966. It remained the deadliest day in the FDNY's history until the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

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NYC Apartment Fire One of Worst in History - NBC New York

Issued on: 09/01/2022 - 10:44Modified: 09/01/2022 - 10:42

Poznan (Poland) (AFP) Curators combing through a vast historic archive of Freemasonry in Europe amassed by the Nazis in their wartime anti-Masonic purge say they believe there are still secrets to be unearthed.

From insight into women's Masonic lodges to the musical scores used in closed ceremonies, the trove -- housed in an old university library in western Poland -- has already shed light on a little known history.

But more work remains to be done to fully examine all the 80,000 items that date from the 17th century to the pre-World War II period.

"It is one of the biggest Masonic archives in Europe," said curator Iuliana Grazynska, who has just started working on dozens of boxes of papers within it that have not yet been properly categorised.

"It still holds mysteries," she told AFP, of the collection which curators began going through decades ago and is held at the UAM library in the city of Poznan.

Initially tolerated by the Nazis, Freemasons became the subject of regime conspiracy theories in the 1930s, seen as liberal intellectuals whose secretive circles could become centres of opposition.

Lodges were broken up and their members imprisoned and killed both in Germany and elsewhere as Nazi troops advanced during WWII.

The collection was put together under the orders of top Nazi henchman and SS chief Heinrich Himmler and is composed of many smaller archives from European Masonic lodges that were seized by the Nazis.

It is seen by researchers as a precious repository of the history of the day-to-day activities of lodges across Europe, ranging from the menus for celebrations to educational texts.

- 'Mine of information' -

Fine prints, copies of speeches and membership lists of Masonic lodges in Germany and beyond feature in the archive. Some documents still bear Nazi stamps.

"The Nazis hated the Freemasons," Andrzej Karpowicz, who managed the collection for three decades, told AFP.

Nazi ideology, he said, was inherently "anti-Masonic" because of its anti-intellectual, anti-elite tendencies.

The library puts some select items on show, including the first edition of the earliest Masonic constitution written in 1723, six years after the first lodge was created in England.

"It's one of our proudest possessions," Grazynska said.

The oldest documents in the collection are prints from the 17th century relating to the Rosicrucians -- an esoteric spiritual movement seen as a precursor to the Freemasons whose symbol was a crucifix with a rose at its centre.

During the war as Allied bombing intensified, the collection was moved from Germany for safekeeping and broken up into three parts -- two were taken to what is now Poland and one to the Czech Republic.

The section left in the town of Slawa Slaska in Poland was seized by Polish authorities in 1945, while the others were taken by the Red Army.

In 1959, the Polish Masonic collection was formally established as an archive and curators began studying it -- at that time, Freemasonry was banned in the country under Communism.

The collection is open to researchers and other visitors, who have included representatives of German Masonic lodges wanting to recover their pre-war history.

It is "a mine of information in which you can dig at will," said Karpowicz.

2022 AFP

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Archive amassed by Nazis sheds light on Masonic history - FRANCE 24

For the last five years, its been a tradition at Greenville ISDs New Horizons High School to ring a large antique bell that sits prominently in its foyer whenever a student completes their requirements for graduation.

When the student being recognized dons their red graduation cap and gown and rings the bell, its a signal to the rest of the student body and staff to step outside the classroom and join in the celebration, which is sort of a mini personal graduation ceremony.

Once they ring that bell, theyre ready to go out and do the best they can and accelerate, said New Horizons Principal Mark Loya. It just gives them so much to look forward to and know theyre celebrated.

It means so much to them and so much to us, Loya said.

This school year so far, 14 seniors have had the bell rung in their honor, but the history of the 600-pound antique bell is something of a mystery with only bits of its past being known.

The bell was relocated from Greenville High School (where it was only occasionally used for decoration and never rung) to New Horizons in spring 2017 at the request of Greenville native and active resident Pud Kearns, who is the niece of the man who originally donated the bell to GISD in the 1940s.

My uncle, Jack Horton, was a scrounger from the time he was a child, Kearns said. There are unique characteristics that come with being a Horton hoarding wait, lets call it collecting odd things and turning them into interesting things.

We certainly have a quirkiness, a sense of creativity, Kearns added.

During one of his scrounging expeditions while he was still a high school student himself, Horton discovered four large, old bells at a scrap yard and bought two of them for 1 cent per pound.

He managed to get somebody to help haul them home, Kearns related. He brought them home and said to my grandmother, Im going back for the other two.' Then, my grandmother said, "Not on your life! Two, thats it. Were stopping at two.

Horton then donated the bell to Greenville High School. Over the intervening decades, the bell traveled around the high school campus, from the metal shop to a display case, then it was covered in tinsel to be used as a Christmas decoration, and then decorated in school colors for Homecoming, but it never rang.

Years later, while serving on the New Horizons Advisory Committee, Kearns thought of the bell when then-principal Chip Gregory recalled the movie, Its a Wonderful Life, and the well known line, Every time a bell rings, and angel gets his wings, and thought it would be a nice gesture to mark the graduations of NHHS students in a similar way.

After that meeting, Kearns worked at getting the bell moved from Greenville High School to New Horizons.

I called Heath JarvisGreenville High School principal at the timeand I said, This is Pud. I want my bell back. I want it to go to New Horizons, Kearns said.

The bell arrived at New Horizons that afternoon.

This is where it was supposed to be, Kearns said. When the first graduate rang the bell that spring, I was crying I was so proud.

This bell has waited 80 years to ring. Literally, it had never rung to speak of, and now it has a purpose.

In the years since its been a tradition for each New Horizons graduate to ring the ball, it has become a major part of the campus culture of community spirit and cooperation, as they seek to support students and families who choose the school for a variety of reasons.

For example, New Horizons smaller class sizes can be beneficial for high school-aged students who are new to Greenville ISD and who are just beginning to learn English.

Similarly, the smaller student-to-teacher ratio can work well for students in need of credit recovery, who have, for whatever reason, fallen behind in satisfying their graduation requirements and need to catch up.

The more self-paced aspect of New Horizons has also attracted a few students who wish to graduate early.

Whatever their reason for choosing New Horizons, completion is always a

I knew I was going to ring it one day, and it just made me feel really good, said Arriana Aportella, who was the 13th student to complete their graduation requirements this year. Now Im going to study to be a flight attendant and travel and see the world.

I want to see whats out there and meet new people, Aportella added. But, Ill never forget this, and I was surprised by how heavy the bell was and how loud it was in my ears. It was a big deal for me.

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Used to celebrate graduations, New Horizons bell has rich history - Herald-Banner

Harold Beal loved few things more than perching on a stool while he ran trains for folks who stopped by his Jonesport home to see his elaborate and intricately detailed model railroad display.

The Maine Central Railroad cars wended their way over bridges and through tunnels, from the West Quoddy Head Lighthouse to the western mountains. They traveled past paper mills, downtown streetscapes, and tiny replicas of author Stephen Kings Bangor home and the tidy blue house where Beal and his wife, Helen, spent 20 years building their diorama of Down East Maine.

He loved to see the expression on their face when theyd come through the door, Helen Beal said of her husband, who died in 2012 at age 75. A lot of people would almost holler. Some people would say Oh my word and I cant believe this. The expression on their faces, most of the time it was a big smile.

The model railroad display is believed to be one of the largest in Maine built in HO scale (which is 1:87, or 3.5 mm to 1 foot), but it has not been on public display for the last few years. That will change when it is moved to the Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport, which will construct a new building for the display of the coupleshundreds of buildings and more than 400 train cars and engines.

The acquisition is a unique one for the 82-year-old museum, which specializes in preserving and restoring trolley cars. The fact that it is happening at all is attributed to the unique bond of rail enthusiasts and a bold move by the museum to ask for financial help to make the move possible.

A BENEFACTOR STEPS IN

The Wyss Foundation, a private charitable foundation based in Washington D.C. dedicated to empowering communities and strengthening connections to the land, will give the museum an estimated $2.6 million to pay for the new building, relocating the model railroad and 10 years of operating costs. It is the largest gift the museum has ever received.

The unlikely connection to the Wyss Foundation came through Hansjrg Wyss, a Swiss billionaire businessman who started the foundation and lives in Wyoming. Years ago, he was driving through Maine on his way to Canada and stopped to visit the railroad display after spotting a sign near the Beal home.

Like many visitors, Wyss was wowed by the layout and became friendly with the Beals.

Harold Buz Beal was born and raised in Jonesport, then served 26 years in the Coast Guard. After retiring as a chief boatswains mate, he went to work at Dexter Shoe Co., where he met Helen. Both came from railroad families: Her father and two brothers worked for Bangor and Aroostook Railroad; his grandfather worked on the Canadian Pacific Railway.

We sure had train blood in us, said Helen Beal, who will turn 88 next month.

After they settled back in Jonesport, the Beals decided to try their hand at building a model railroad layout together. He had built one at age 12 and she had wanted one since she was a child. They recruited his nephew, Harry Fish, to help with the wiring. But Harold Beal didnt like how their first try turned out and scrapped it.

BUILDING DOWNEAST MAINE

They started over again, and Helen Beal said she never imagined their model would grow to fill anoutbuilding next to their home on the outskirts of the Washington County fishing village. They spent countless hours together in their den constructing small buildings from basswood, modeling many after post offices and train stations that Harold photographed in Bangor, Jonesport, Machias and other towns in Down East Maine. He painted the interior walls of the outbuilding with landscapes to complement the train display.

Helen Beal said she didnt think people would be that interested in their model, but they opened their doors anyway. They put up signs near their home and their display was later featured in magazines and visitor guides. Each summer they were open, 75 to 80 people would stop by to watch Harold Beal run the trains. Visitors filled three guestbooks with their signatures and pinned their hometowns on a world map hung on the wall.

Oh dear Lord, weve had visitors even from Africa, Germany, Russia, all over the place, she said. They never charged admission, but accepted donations to help cover the cost of heating the building.

Helen Beal continued to run the trains for visitors for a few summers after her husband died, but she wanted to find a new permanent home for the display so it would be preserved for others to enjoy. The family tried to find a museum or club that could take the model railroad, but at 40 feet by 50 feet it was too big for any of the organizations to handle.

Thats when Wyss, who had stayed in touch with Helen Beal, stepped in to help and told a fellow rail enthusiast about the situation. Years before, his friend had commissioned the Seashore Trolley Museum to build a replica of a trolley car for his estate in Florida. He suggested Wyss reach out to the museum.

ITS NOT JUST ABOUT THE TRAINS

Like those other groups, the Seashore Trolley Museum didnt have enough available space to display the model railroad the museum is already short of space for its current collection. But the museums leaders were intrigued by the possibility of bringing in the Beals display. They spent months researching how they could move the layout while keeping it mostly intact, and what type of structure they would need to house such an artifact.

It was quite an opportunity, said Jim Schantz, the museums president and CEO. We think it adds another major attraction to the museum. People come to see and ride full-scale trolleys. We think people find model railroads really interesting, especially one like this with a great deal of accuracy put into the Maine features.

Herb Fremin, an architect and friend of the museum, designed a building to display the model train that includes a workshop, conference room, retail shop and a mezzanine viewing gallery that could be used for community programs. He also spent time figuring out how to adapt the model to meet local building codes and make sure the facility would comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The museum has since hired a construction manager, Steve Berg, to navigate the construction process.

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A model railroad full of Down East history is heading down the tracks to southern Maine - Press Herald

So high have the stakes been set by Russia over the future security architecture of Europe, and so imminent is the threat of war in Ukraine, that the three separate meetings arranged between Russia and the west this week are drawing comparison with some of the great western-Russian exchanges of the past, from Yalta in 1945 to Paris in 1960, over the future of Berlin, and Reykjavk in 1986.

Vladimir Putin, with his keen sense of his place in Russian history, would probably revel in these comparisons. Indeed, the very scheduling of the three meetings a bilateral security meeting with the US on Monday, a rare meeting of the Nato-Russian Council on Wednesday and an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) meeting on Ukraine on Thursday is seen by some as a mistake.

Franoise Thom, a historian of Russia based at the Sorbonne, said: There is nothing more dangerous than these summit exchanges, which, whatever one may say, inevitably feed into Russian ruling elites either paranoia or delusions of grandeur and intoxication with power. If the west is firm, the Kremlin concludes that it wants to destroy Russia; if the west offers concessions, the Kremlin concludes that it is weak and pressure should be increased.

Very often the best policy with Russia is that of silence and distance: do nothing, say nothing and stand your ground. Clinging to dialogue at all costs, especially when Moscow keeps us at gunpoint like a madman holding a hostage, only shows our weakness and encourages the Kremlin to escalate.

But Joe Biden has clearly taken the view that with allied self-discipline and unity, the risks of being seen to be rewarding Putin are outweighed by the need for dialogue, and diplomatic reconnaissance.

Not to talk would be to feed the Russian narrative that the west is not prepared even to listen. Besides, it is billed as a dialogue, not a negotiation, officials say.

The specific agenda of each meeting next week is subtly different, and while the west will want the discussion to focus on the sovereignty of Ukraine, and missile placement, Russia will want a response to its threefold formal demands set out last month in draft treaties: the withdrawal of US nuclear weapons from Europe, the removal of Nato forces close to Russian borders, and the legal permanent renunciation of Nato membership for Ukraine and Georgia, as part of a commitment to end Natos enlargement.

One way or another, these have been the permanent demands of the Russian political elite for the past 20 years. Putins demands bear comparison with Dmitry Medvedevs largely ignored European security treaty proposal in 2009, but this time the demands are being presented in a more peremptory fashion. Indeed, some western officials fear they have been packaged to be rejected.

In Ukraine there is concern that dialogue with Russia on the future security architecture of Europe, under threat of blackmail and without a formal presence of the EU bloc, will be taken as vindication by Putin. From Putins perspective, he has already made progress, and can make more. Russian thinktanks such as IMEMO are claiming, for instance, that the meeting shows the ice has already broken.

It is the bread and butter of diplomacy to judge whether to parley as Churchill put it with an adversary either in the open or through a back channel, or instead to sit tight and wait. Never is that judgment more acute than in the case of Russia.

The cold war US diplomat George Kennans contention was that Moscow is a special case. It saw security only in [a] patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of [the] rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it. He said the Soviet Union under Stalin was a master at distorting bromide American offers of dialogue, for example over the future of Berlin in April 1949, into a full-scale offer to redraw the map of Europe. The solution was patience and containment.

Henry Kissinger for a period was to argue that the state department was populated by naive men who believed well-constructed argument could persuade Russia. The whole idea of signing treaties with Russia was to misunderstand the mentality. Russia, it was said, operated by probing for weaknesses, by kicking all the doors and seeing which fell off their hinges.

Alexander Cadogan, the UK Foreign Offices wartime permanent secretary, made a similar point in his diaries about asymmetry in talking to Russia: Everything favours the evildoer. Any honest government fights (in peacetime) with two hands tied behind its back. The brilliant blatancy of the Russians is something that we can admire but cannot emulate. It gives them a great advantage.

By contrast, most politicians instinct is often to parley, or seek a reset or trust personal charm. Churchill once said all the worlds problems could be solved if only he could meet Joseph Stalin once a week. John F Kennedy argued it was better to meet at the summit than at the brink, something the US attempted more regularly after the shock of the Cuban missile crisis. Famously at the 1986 Reykjavk conference a personal rapport between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev led them to the brink of abandoning nuclear weapons. George Shultz, the US secretary of state, recalled that in advance there was a unique sense of uncertainty in the air Nothing seemed predictable. Gorbachevs surprise plan, nearly taken up by Reagan, showed the value of dialogue, even if Margaret Thatcher later confided her despair with Reagan to Robin Butler, her cabinet secretary: He knows nothing, Robin.

Reagans successor, George HW Bush, promised no more chaotic Reykjavks, but at a summit in Malta in 1989, the first meeting since the fall of the Berlin Wall, he too was captured by Gorbachevs sense of history unfolding (the United States and the USSR are doomed to cooperate for a long time) and by his plea that we have to abandon the images of an enemy. In reality, Gorbachev was betrayed at a dinner the next evening in Brussels where Bush gave Chancellor Kohl the green light for Germanys unification, opening the long argument about the terms of Natos expansion eastwards, starting with East Germany.

With Gorbachev crushed by events, the Bill and Boris show ensued. Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, tasked with integrating Russia into the international system, met face to face 18 times, often clashing about Nato expansion, leading Yeltsin to describe a cold peace. The apogee may have been the summit in Birmingham in 1998, when relations were so intimate they exchanged their respective confidential briefing cards. That relationship probably collapsed in a phone call of uncontrolled fury over the Nato bombing of Serbia a year later. It showed that when fundamental interests conflict, as they did over Nato, personal relations take you only so far.

Thereafter the era of two men sitting alone to solve the world was over. Barack Obama signed a new strategic arms control treaty, Start, in April 2010 with Medvedev, but the return of Putin to the presidency in 2012 saw the reset fizzle out.

In essence the dispute about the wisdom of dialogue comes down to whether Russia is seen to be driven by insecurity or imperial expansionism. In policy terms that meant choosing between an emphasis on arms control or Nato expansion.

But there is also a professional diplomats aversion to unstructured large-scale gatherings, whether they involve Russia or not. Harold Nicolson, after a long diplomatic career, argued in the Commons in 1935: It is a terrible mistake to conduct negotiations between foreign ministers international negotiations were best left to the professionals. Diplomacy is not the art of conversation. It is the art of the exchange of documents in a carefully considered and precise form and in such a way that they cannot be repudiated later Diplomacy by conference is a mistake.

The worry for the professional diplomat is that in the emotion of the moment, resolve dissipates and pre-set red lines are rubbed out, and allies betrayed.

With the Biden administration, the expectation is this weeks discussions will be far more structured, predictable and scripted. In theory, since neither of the principals Biden and Putin will be present in Geneva, there should be no rush of blood to the head by men of goodwill, but instead a staking out of familiar positions.

The US messaging, bolstered by the UK, has been carefully framed, and seems well coordinated with Europe. Expansion of Nato was inherent in the Nato-Russia Founding Act signed by Boris Yeltsin in 1997. No country can determine another countrys foreign alliances, as Russia agreed in the Helsinki Final Act 1975, and again in the Budapest memorandum in 1994. In the words of Sauli Niinist, the Finnish president, in his striking new year address: Spheres of interest do not belong to the 2020s. The sovereign equality of all states is the basic principle that everyone should respect.

But the test, according to Evelyn Farkas, a former US deputy assistant secretary of defence for Russia, will be whether Putin sees this weeks talks as a piece of political theatre, a moment to issue an ultimatum, or whether he sanctions Russia getting into the weeds, and starts to negotiate. Few hold out much hope for the latter.

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Is it good to talk? A history of the wests summits with Russia - The Guardian