This, a day when history meets popular phrases.
July 7, throughout our past.
“Better late than never?”
I think this is not always the case. We can go back to the year 1456 for proof of this. A retrial verdict acquitted Joan of Arc of heresy. This came 25 years after her death when she was burned at the stake. There’s no taking that one back.
“Hang in there.”
Sometimes, we don’t feel like hanging in there. This was probably true in 1865. That’s when Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold, and George Atzerodt were executed. They were hung for their role in the conspiracy to assassinate US President Abraham Lincoln.
“It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
Okay, this one fits exactly. In 1928, sliced bread sold for the first time by the Chillicothe Baking Company, Missouri. They used the machine invented by Otto Frederick Rohwedder. This was truly a momentous event. A lot of great, great things have happened since then, all of which have been compared to that first day of sliced bread.
“I don’t give a damn.”
Or maybe someone did. For in 1930, the construction began on Boulder (Hoover) Dam. The dam is located in the Black Canyon of the Colorado River. This, on the border between Nevada and Arizona. It was constructed between 1931 and 1936 during the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover was the one giving the push its construction. So yes, he gave a dam.
“A real page-turner.”
A different kind of Paige occurred in 1948. The Cleveland Indians shocked everyone by signing a 42-year-old pitcher on their squad, in the way of veteran Negro Leagues pitcher Satchel Paige. And what a pitcher he was.
“With all due respect.”
In 1965, Otis Redding records “Respect” and we’ve all been singing it since.
All of this on July 7ths of the past.
If we are smart, we’ll respect history too. If nothing else, in learning from our mistakes.
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We would like to live as we once lived, but history will not permit it.
— John F. Kennedy
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History, despite its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again.
— Maya Angelou
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I let the American people down.
— Richard M. Nixon
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