DATE=05-13-02

TYPE=English Feature

NUMBER=7-36289

TITLE=American Moments for 05-19-02 - 05-25-02

BYLINE=Ted Landphair

TELEPHONE=619-3515

DATELINE=Washington

EDITOR=Vicki Swaney

CONTENT=

Malcolm X 1925

(For Use 05/19)

NARR: On May 19th, 1925, Malcolm Little -- who would become known as the American black activist Malcolm X -- was born. At first Malcolm Little seemed headed for a life of petty crime; but in prison in the early 1950s, his life was changed, and his views on race relations were hardened, when he joined the black nationalist Nation of Islam and changed his name to Malcolm X. After he was released from prison, he became a close confidant of Elijah [Ee-LY-jah] Muhammad, who was the leader of the Chicago-based organization. For a time Malcolm X saw white culture in America as the enemy of black independence.

[BEGIN OPT]

TAPE: CUT ONE - MALCOLM X (:23)

"One of my reasons for going out on a limb (taking chances) as I have, is to try and make white people be shocked awake to some of their senses. Because if they don't awake, they're going to find out that this little Negro that they thought was passive has become a roaring, uncontrollable lion right at their doorstep -- not at their doorstep, inside their house -- in their bed, in their kitchen, in their attic, in their basement. And if you (whites) know that in time, you can do something about it."

[END OPT]

NARR: In the mid-1960s, Malcolm X softened his views on race following a trip to the Middle East, where he visited Mecca. Soon afterward, he split with Elijah Muhammad's Nation of Islam to establish his own mosque in the Harlem section of New York City. Malcolm X was shot and killed in New York in February 1965. Two members of the Nation of Islam were tried and convicted of the crime.

Jumping Frog Contest 1928

(For Use 05/19)

NARR: On May 19th, 1928, the residents of Angel's Camp, a former gold-mining settlement in California, held a frog-jumping contest to help celebrate the paving of their streets. The idea for the contest came from the humorous Mark Twain story, "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras (cal-uh-VAIR-us) County." The tale was set in Angel's Camp during the 1849 gold rush. The contest in 1928 was so popular that it became an annual event. Thousands of frogs are brought from around the world to take part, competing to make the long jumps. The strict rules of the contest provide for the safety of the frogs and state that the distance is measured from the starting point to the landing spot on the third jump.

"Lucky Lindy" Flies the Atlantic 1927

(For Use 05/20)

NARR: Seventy-five years ago today, on May 20th, 1927, the American aviator Charles Lindbergh took off from an airstrip near New York City for the first solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean. A few friends watched Lindbergh's plane, called the "Spirit of Saint Louis," lift off from the rutted, muddy runway. Thirty-three hours and thirty-nine minutes later, nearly one-hunderd-thousand people joyously greeted him at Le Bourget [lay boor-ZHAY] Airport near Paris. Charles Lindbergh's flight across the Atlantic electrified the world. The accomplishment made the once-unknown airmail pilot an international celebrity, whose views on the future of aviation were avidly sought by governments and corporations. The adoring American press nicknamed him "Lucky Lindy." [BEGIN OPT] Lindbergh addressed one aspect of aviation in a 1930 speech to an organization of commercial aviation executives:

TAPE: CUT TWO - CHARLES LINDBERGH (RUNS :22)

"Possibly the most important effect (of commercial aviation) will be on international relations. When measured in hours of flying time, the great distances of the Old World no longer exist. Nations and races are not separated by the traditional obstacles of earthbound travel. There are no inland cities of the air, and no natural obstructions to its commerce." [END OPT]

NARR: Charles Lindbergh later became an anti-war activist and a somewhat controversial figure, accused by some of supporting Nazi Germany and being anti-Semitic. But during World War Two, as a civilian, he flew combat missions in the Pacific against Japanese flyers, shooting down several planes. After the war, Lindbergh was a consultant to Pan American World Airways and a brigadier general in the U-S Air Force Reserve. He died of cancer in 1974, at age seventy-two.

Abraham Lincoln Nominated 1860

(For Use 05/20)

NARR: On May 20th, 1860, the new Republican political party nominated Illinois lawyer Abraham Lincoln as its presidential candidate for the election of 1860. The front-runner at the start of the convention was William H. Seward of New York. However he faced insurmountable obstacles at the party convention in Chicago. Conservatives feared his statements about the inevitability of a war over slavery and what Seward called a "higher law" than the Constitution. In an effort to find a candidate who could win in moderate states like Illinois and Pennsylvania, the Republicans nominated Abraham Lincoln for president and Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine for vice president. Lincoln campaigned -- successfully -- on the Republican platform that called for a ban on slavery in the U-S western territories, along with improved roads, a more efficient government and a railroad to the Pacific Coast.

Brooklyn Bridge 1883

(For use 05/21)

NARR: On May 21st, 1883, ceremonies that included marching bands and fireworks helped dedicate the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. At the time, the 283-meter-long span, built over the East River to connect Manhattan and Brooklyn, was the longest suspension bridge in the world. When the bridge was opened to the public, many people refused to use it, fearing it would collapse. The city recruited circus owner P-T Barnum to help instill confidence in the bridge. With his typical showman's flair, he led twenty-one elephants across the bridge, thus ending public concerns about its stability. [BEGIN OPT] The federal government designated the Brooklyn Bridge a national historic monument in 1964. [END OPT]

Fed. Court Orders U. of Alabama to Enroll Black Students 1963

(For Use 05/21)

NARR: On May 21st, 1963, a federal judge ordered the previously all-white University of Alabama to enroll two black students for the school's June term. The ruling was immediately condemned by Alabama's segregationist governor, George Wallace. Wallace said he would be present on the school's campus on June eleventh to personally bar the registration of black students. The next day a federal judge denied a request by university officials to postpone desegregation. The school's lawyers said local tension over desegregation would almost certainly provoke violence. In Washington, President John F. Kennedy urged the people of Alabama to obey the court order peacefully. [BEGIN OPT] He also stated that he would enforce the court order:

TAPE: CUT THREE - PRESIDENT KENNEDY (RUNS :08)

"This government will do whatever must be done to preserve order, to protect the lives of its citizens and to uphold the law of the land." [END OPT]

NARR: On June eleventh, Governor Wallace made a symbolic attempt to prevent the integration order from being carried out. He personally blocked the entrance of the university registrar's building. When President Kennedy federalized the state militia in Alabama to enforce the court order, Governor Wallace gave in and allowed the enrollment.

President Nixon in Moscow 1972

(For Use 05/22)

NARR: Thirty years ago today, on May 22nd, 1972, Richard Nixon became the first president of the United States to visit the Soviet Union. President and Mrs. Nixon were met at a Moscow airport by top Soviet officials. During the next nine days, President Nixon held meetings with Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev and President Nikolai Podgorny. The highlight of Nixon's visit was the signing of the agreement on U-S and Soviet space cooperation that led to the July 1975 ApolloSoyuz mission. Nixon and General Secretary Brezhnev also signed the first treaty to place limits on strategic weapons. [BEGIN OPT] At a banquet in Kiev on May 29, an optimistic President Nixon said he hoped future relations between the United States and Soviet Union would enable them to lead a world in peace.

TAPE: CUT FOUR - RICHARD NIXON (RUNS :19)

"We trust (the) new leadership to which our two countries, the Soviet Union and the United States, may contribute -- in which the world may have a period in which the tragedy of war will never again be visited upon this city or any other city like it in the world." [END OPT]

NARR: President Richard Nixon in May 1972, during his historic trip to what was then the Soviet Union.

First Train Robbery in the United States 1868

(For Use 05/22)

NARR: On May 22nd, 1868, a group of ruffians calling themselves the Reno Gang staged the first train robbery in the United States. The gang, led by brothers John and Simon Reno, waited for the train to stop for firewood and water at Marshfield, Indiana. The bandits tied up the train's crew, then uncoupled the passenger cars and took off with the engine and the baggage car at the front of the train. A posse from Marshfield found empty safes from the baggage car in a wooded area about thirty-two kilometers down the track. The contents of the safes, including gold coins, gold bars and currency worth more than eighty-thousand dollars, were gone. A few days later, four members of the gang were arrested on another charge. That night, vigilantes from Marshfield went to the jail demanding to know where the loot was buried. The vigilantes bound the sheriff and took gang members from their cells. The bandits were given a choice: reveal where the money was buried -- or die. They refused to tell, and one by one they were hanged. [BEGIN OPT] Local historians in southwestern Indiana believe that the gold is probably still in the area, hidden under the rich Indiana farmland. [END OPT]

Black Slaves Brought to America 1619

(For Use 05/23)

NARR: On May 23rd, 1619, a Dutch ship arrived at the Virginia colony, carrying what are believed to be the first black slaves to arrive in America. The twenty kidnapped Africans were sold at Jamestown, Virginia, to work on tobacco farms. By 1670, law and local customs defined Africans in the American colonies as slaves, unless they were proven to be otherwise. When the colonies declared independence from England in 1776, there were about five-hundred-thousand black slaves in the United States, most of them in the South. Cotton became the single most important crop of that region after Eli Whitney's invention of the "cotton gin" in 1793. With this machine a single slave could remove the seeds from up to twenty-three kilograms of cotton a day, many times more than before. This led to dramatic growth in the cotton industry -- and the increased use of slaves, in the southern United States. In the nineteenth century, slavery became a hotly contested issue in America, leading to the American Civil War of the 1860s, when southern states seceded from the Union rather than allow the federal government to abolish slavery. However, the South lost the war, and the slaves were freed.

Kit Carson 1868

(For Use 05/23)

NARR: His name was Christopher Carson, but the man who died at Fort Lyon in Colorado, on May 23rd, 1868, will always be remembered as "Kit" Carson. He was a legendary figure during the second half of his nearly sixty years [1809-1868]. Carson was a trapper, soldier, scout and pioneer of the Rocky Mountain and southwestern desert regions of the United States. One of the ablest of the mountain men, he guided army survey mapping trips along the Oregon Trail and into California. Carson helped Union forces defend the New Mexico territory during the American Civil War. His vast knowledge of American Indians was instrumental in helping to reduce strife between the tribes and the Americans who emigrated into the southwestern territories. [BEGIN OPT] One speaker at Kit Carson's funeral said that the "paths across the Rocky Mountains and western deserts were his trails, the dazzling skies of the old Southwest were his roof, and the unexplored, virgin America was his home." [END OPT]

Manhattan Sold for 24 Dollars 1626

(For Use 05/24)

NARR: On May 24th, 1626, Peter Minuit (PRN: MIN you it), a director of a Dutch company in America, purchased Manhattan Island from local Native Americans. The price has become legendary: goods valued at sixty Dutch guilders, or about twenty-four dollars. In 1626, the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam was composed of about 150 bark-covered huts, Fort Amsterdam, and two hundred Dutch colonists at the southern tip of the 57-square-kilometer Manhattan Island. As time went on, that island became the heart of New York City, which now is among the most valuable and densely populated land in the United States.

Anti-Saloon League 1893

(For Use 05/24)

NARR: On May 24th, 1893, the Anti-Saloon League of Ohio was established in a rural village near Columbus, the state capital. The organization included members of many Protestant churches and women's-rights groups. The Ohio league sought the prohibition of alcoholic drinks in the midwestern state. It was the league's position that saloons tempted some men into drinking alcoholic beverages, that drunkenness was a threat to law and order, and that it was a main cause of wife-beating. Though its membership was small, the Anti-Saloon League of Ohio's influence was substantial and led to the establishment of a national organization, the Anti-Saloon League of America. When the organization was unable to secure effective state laws to restrict alcoholic beverages, it joined with the more militant National Prohibition Party. In 1918, the coalition successfully lobbied Congress to approve a Constitutional amendment declaring national prohibition. [BEGIN OPT] The Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, prohibiting the sale, manufacture, import or transport of intoxicating drinks, was ratified in January 1919. However, the ban on alcoholic drinks proved widely unpopular and impossible to enforce. The Prohibition amendment was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933. [END OPT]

The Challenge to Go to the Moon 1961

(For Use 05/25)

NARR: On May 25th, 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked the U-S Congress to commit the United States to landing an American on the moon before 1970. President Kennedy said the project would strengthen defense efforts of the United States, build the nation's economy and promote the image of the United States around the world.

TAPE: CUT FIVE - PRESIDENT JOHN F. KENNEDY (RUNS :31)

"I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space, and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. But in a very real sense it will not be one man going to the moon -- it will be an entire nation."

NARR: President Kennedy's challenge was met eight years later on July 20th, 1969, when Apollo Eleven astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin landed on the lunar surface. During their nearly twenty-four hours on the moon, they planted an American flag, collected rock and soil samples, and took many photographs. Before they returned to the Apollo eleven command module for the trip back home, the astronauts set up equipment that would remain on the moon. It sent back information about seismic activity and other conditions, as well as the motions of the moon and the Earth and the precise distance between them.

U.S. Army Camels 1855

(For Use 05/25)

NARR: On May 25th, 1855, Congress approved the purchase of one-hundred camels for the United States Army. Secretary of War Jefferson Davis believed the camels would be helpful in carrying freight and mail across the deserts of the southwestern region of the United States. Secretary Davis told Congress that a healthy single-hump, dromedary camel could carry a load of up to 270 kilograms for about fifty kilometers a day. Although camels could carry more than mules could in the harsh desert climate, the Army abandoned the experiment because American animal keepers could not get accustomed to the strange behavior of the humped creatures. Some of the camels were sold to zoos and individuals, some were killed, and some were released or escaped into the wild. For some years after the end of the Army's effort, there were reports of wild camels roaming the southwestern deserts of the United States.

neb/tl/vo'hs