Yesterday In History

A day that will live in infamy. That's what Franklin Roosevelt called it. I tend to remember Pearl Harbor Day primarily because of a rather tasteless joke that my father used to tell. Don't ask me to relate the details, since it was long ago and it was an inside joke for which I cannot remember the punch line. But I do remember the date, and it continues to live in infamy. Historically speaking, of course, December seventh is a pretty full day even without the whole sneak attack thing: In 1917, the The U.S. declared war on Austria-Hungary to more fully involve them in the war to end all wars, unless you count all the wars that have taken place since. On this date in 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the US Constitution. It was in 1930 that W1XAV in Boston, Massachusetts broadcast video from the CBS radio orchestra program, The Fox Trappers. The broadcast also included the first television commercial in the United States, an advertisement for I.J. Fox Furriers, who sponsored the radio show. TV Funnyman Ted Knight, God Rest His Soul, was born on this day in 1923, and twenty-six years later along came the enigmatic Tom Waits. On this date in 1970 the contraption that was Rube Goldberg came to a screeching halt, sixty-eight years after the man who was instrumental in the downfall of Boss Tweed, Thomas Nast, put down his pen for the last time.
Is December seventh any more infamous than December sixth? Yesterday in history, the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified, banning slavery. Meredith Hunter was killed by the Hells Angels during a The Rolling Stones's concert at the Altamont Speedway in California, putting a great big period on the sentence that was the Summer of Love. A hundred years and a day ago, a coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia kills three hundred sixty-two workers. That doesn't quite stack up to Pearl Harbor numbers, but it doesn't seem insignificant.
I guess when we're judging infamy, we go by body count. How sadly and quaintly American of us.